On arriving in the city in the early hours of 29 April, they were dumped on the ground in the Piazzale Loreto, a suburban square near the main railway station. The event usually attracts supporters in the thousands and includes speeches, songs and people giving the fascist salute. The death of Benito Mussolini on April 28, 1945 was characterized A fitting end to a wretched life, by The New York Times. The country was battered, and it was, many thought, all Il Duces fault. [32], Audisio and Lampredi left Milan for Dongo early on the morning of 28 April 1945 to carry out the orders Audisio had been given by Longo. [76] The discrepancies and obvious exaggerations, coupled with the belief that the Communist Party had selected him to claim responsibility for their own political purposes, led some in Italy to believe that his story was wholly or largely untrue.[76]. [67] Ian Kershaw notes that while it is uncertain whether Hitler was told the details of Mussolini's death: if he did learn of the full gory tale, it could have done no more than confirm his anxiety to take his own life before it was too late, and to prevent his body from being seized by his enemies. It was the same square where, a year earlier, Mussolinis men had gunned down 15 anti-Fascists in a brutal execution. The whereabouts of the body was kept a secret, even from Mussolini's family. How Did James Brown Die? The Duce, many said, made the trains run on time.. Faces of European History: Fact or Fiction? The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. Fifteen partisans had been shot there in August 1944 in retaliation for partisan attacks and Allied bombing raids, and their bodies had then been left on public display. [72], The re-interment in the Mussolini family crypt in Predappio was carried out on 1 September 1957, with supporters present giving the fascist salute. It was never anything more than a German satellite state, and it did German bidding, rounding up and shooting anyone associated with the thriving anti-Axis partisan movement. Lets take a look at the circumstances that led to his demise. Forces loyal to the Italian king arrested Mussolini and imprisoned him. [48] Eventually, in August, the body (with a leg missing) was tracked down to the Certosa di Pavia, a monastery not far from Milan. It worked, and Mussolini was appointed prime minister that same year. And like his mother, he was arrested and locked away in a mental hospital, where he died in July 1942 at the age of 27. A third son, Bruno, was killed in an air accident while flying a Piaggio [75] Comparisons have been made with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories,[20] and it has been described as the Italian equivalent of that speculation. Benito Mussolini, second from left, hanging upside-down in Milans public square. [68], After his death and the display of his corpse in Milan, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave in the Musocco cemetery, to the north of the city. Fascists dug up Il Duces body on Easter Sunday of 1946. She fired five shots into his head at close range; one bullet for each son she lost in Mussolinis failed war. [35][39][42] Members of the Fascist government and the gerarchi[note 3] of fascism who are guilty of suppressing constitutional guarantees, destroying popular liberties, creating the Fascist regime, compromising and betraying the fate of the country, and leading it to the present catastrophe are to be punished with the penalty of death, and in less serious instances life imprisonment. and was expelled from the Socialist Party. By the spring of 1945, the war in Europe was over and Italy was broken. Fearing another rescue attempt of Mussolini by the Nazis, partisans whisked Mussolini and Petacci away to a remote farmhouse. On Oct. 29, 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini prime minister. Benito Mussolini, in full Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, byname Il Duce (Italian: The Leader), (born July 29, 1883, Predappio, Italydied April 28, 1945, near Dongo), Italian prime minister (192243) and the first of 20th-century Europes fascist dictators. While these blackshirt squads cropped up all over northern Italy setting fire to government buildings, killing opponents by the hundreds Mussolini himself called for a general workers strike in 1922, as well as a march on Rome. His father was a blacksmith. [10][11][12] As the German forces retreated, the CLNAI declared a general uprising in the main northern cities. The abolition of unions and the loss of the strike weapon were devastating blows to Italian labor, from which management clearly benefited. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [5], On 18 April 1945, Mussolini left Gargnano, a village near Sal where he had been residing, and moved, with his entire government, to Milan and based himself in the city's prefecture. [81][88] Commenting on the RAI television documentary in 2004, Christopher Woods, researcher for the official history of the SOE, dismissed these claims saying that "it's just love of conspiracy-making". [55], At about 2:00p.m. on 29 April, the recently arrived American military authorities ordered that the bodies be taken down and delivered to the city morgue for autopsies to be carried out. At the same time, the corporative structure allowed the Mussolini regime to direct the nation's economic life and make decisions about production and distribution that were normally in the hands of the industrialists. /*-->*/ [50][51] The choice of location was deliberate. Also Known As: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini. For all these reasons it was seen as significant that he largely confirmed Audisio's account. Audisio gave a different account. These politics included the themes of racial superiority, xenophobia, and imperialism that defined his actions as a dictator. The truth is now unmistakably clear. By the autumn of 1943, he was reduced to being the leader of a German puppet state in northern Italy and was faced with the Allied advance from the south and an increasingly violent internal conflict with the partisans. And Il Duce was also beginning to realize that Italys military was woefully under-classed. He called himself the Duce, from the old Latin word dux (chief or boss). But arresting Il Duce was no longer a viable course of action. The New York Times MUSSOLINI ON ISLE TORE OFF HIS SHIRT; But The Ousted Dictator As A Prisoner On Ponza Soon Wearied Of Tragic Role. Upon concluding Marx was correct on revolution following the war he began to make moves to become a dictator and enact widespread change. Inside The Murky Death Of The Soviet Dictator, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. WebBenito Mussolini , , Politiker, Italien, 1925-1943/45 Diktator Italiens, Die Leichen Mussolinis und seiner letzten, Begleiter auf dem Piazzale Loreto View of the cenotaph of Arnaldo and Sandro Mussolini, in which it is believed the coffin with the remains of KOMPAS.com - Benito Mussolini adalah seorang politisi yang dikenal sebagai diktator fasis Italia antara 1925-1945. Wikimedia CommonsThe farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. After returning to Italy, he amassed a large following while working as an editor for the socialist magazine Avanti!. MUSSOLINI WAS EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL. Yes, there were achievements of a sort. Benito Mussolini lies dead in Milans Piazza Loroto with his mistress, Clara Petacci. The next day, their captors brought the pair to the small town of Giulino de Mezzegra on the shores of Lake Como and executed them in a hail of machine gun fire. WebHow Benito Mussolini Died In the meantime, Il Duce and his mistress had risen late. The convoy included a number of other Italian fascist leaders. [13][20] At 8p.m. he headed north toward Lake Como. [35][40][41] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed. One version is that he was executed by firing squad on the 28th of April, 1945, shot by soldiers firing several bullets. [53] After a while, the bodies were hung by their feet from the metal girder framework of a half-built Standard Oil service station. 3. [75] However, within Italy, the subject has been a matter of extensive debate and dispute since the late 1940s to the present and a variety of theories of how Mussolini died has proliferated. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters. He claimed that on 28 April he convened a "war tribunal" in Dongo comprising Lampredi, Bellini delle Stelle, Michele Moretti and Lazzaro with himself as president. He declared war on France and Britain in June 1940. No autopsy was carried out on Petacci. Audisio presented Mussolini as acting in a cowardly manner immediately prior to his death whereas Lampredi did not. Italy soon used its military might to invade Greece, but the campaign was unsuccessful and unpopular at home. [26], Fighting was still going on in the area around Dongo. In the early morning, an end-run round the Italian southern flank by the 4th Indian Division achieved total surprise, catching the Italians in their beds. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator. Site of execution: entrance to the Villa Belmonte. In his 20s, he ran a series of newspapers that amounted to propaganda sheets for his increasingly extreme political views. The Fhrer convinced Il Duce to set up a Fascist state in northern Italy where it all began with Milan as its headquarters. In this case, its hard to argue with the New York Times: a fitting end to a wretched life.. After Lampredi's account was published, most, but not all, commentators were convinced of its veracity. However, the "official" explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative. [35][36] On arrival in Dongo, they met Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle, who was the local partisan commander, to arrange for Mussolini to be handed over to them. [81][82] Proponents of this theory have included historians such as Renzo De Felice[83] and Pierre Milza[84] and journalists including Peter Tompkins[82] and Luciano Garibaldi[it];[85] however, the theory has been dismissed by many.[81][82][83]. But how exactly did Mussolini die? Learn More. Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, Operation FLAX, April 1943: Severing the German, General William H. Simpsons Ninth US Army and the Crossing of the Rhine, Black Volunteer Infantry Platoons in World War II, Kasserine Pass: German Offensive, American Victory, Gallantry against Great Odds: LTC George Marshall and Operation RESERVIST, Prelude to Liberation: Genesis of American Amphibious Assault in the ETO. Claras brother, Marcello Petacci, was also shot dead while swimming in Lake Como, trying to escape. In June 1940, he took the country into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Wikimedia CommonsBenito Mussolini, pictured before his brutal death. [82], They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. Born July 29, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was intelligent and inquisitive from an early age. At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer. Mussolini had been Italy's fascist leader since 1922, first as prime minister and, following his seizure of dictatorial powers in 1925, with the title Il Duce. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Finally, in December, a British force under General Richard OConnor attacked Graziani at Sidi Barrani. Some writers believe that Mussolini's death was part of a British special forces operation, with the supposed aim of retrieving compromising "secret agreements" and correspondence with Winston Churchill that Mussolini had allegedly been carrying when he was captured. This was taken after the mob desecrated their bodies. Il Duces days had been numbered. Joseph Stalins death in March 1953 ended his long and brutal reign as leader of the Soviet Union. WebBenito Mussolini began his political life as a committed socialist. And that brings us back to where we started: that ill-fated gas station in the Piazzale Loreto. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. Author of. This was taken after the mob desecrated their bodies. Then, the final indignity: the posthumous desecration. Allegedly, it was part of a "cover up" to retrieve "secret agreements" and compromising correspondence between the two men, which Mussolini was carrying when he was captured by partisans. But arresting Il Duce was no longer a viable course of action. Finally, the pair were buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery. People began hurling rotten vegetables at the dictators corpse. Mussolini had come incredibly close to reaching Switzerland; the resort town of Como literally shares a border with it. According to History.com, the man who put himself on a pedestal for a country to adore and fear was buried in the anonymity of an unmarked grave. Furthermore, he had had a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy; he was also known to have disliked Audisio personally. A woman stepping forward and pumping five bullets into his bodyfor my five dead sons, she said. On April 28, 1945, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. Rachele Mussolini recalled that Il Duces excruciating silence hit her the hardest when the couple found out about Brunos accident. Los Angeles Times Urbano Lazzaro, 81; Resistance Fighter Captured Mussolini. With the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy bringing a final collapse of the German army's Gothic Line in April, total defeat for the Sal Republic and its German protectors was imminent. Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were "aim at my heart". Fairly or unfairly, the Italian military has come to be synonymous with wartime ineptitude. Accounts vary as to how he died: Some say he was killed with coma-inducing injections, others say it was from electric shock treatments. Order was restored to Italian economic life, and old days of strikes and factory occupations were ended. Mussolini spoke incessantly about recreating the Roman Empire. Benito Mussolini was the less dominant half of the Rome-Berlin axis, formalized by the 1939 Pact of Steel between Adolf Hitler and himself. Movie footage of what happened appears to confirm that to be the case. Cursing. On April 25th, he, his paramour Petacci, a small convoy of bitter-enders, and a handful of German guards left Milan and headed north towards Lake Como on the Swiss border. But Mussolini intended to intimidate the government into submission. As for Benito Mussolinis death, that story wasnt over yet. Enter Rachele Mussolini or Donna Rachele, as she became known to the world. ", "Mussolini's brain 'stolen for sale on eBay', Fabrizio Ciano, 3rd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_of_Benito_Mussolini&oldid=1149485213, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Italian-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 April 2023, at 14:55. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator, and the word fascism comes from the far-right movement he led in Italy. Nonetheless, the sentiments were real, and in Mussolinis case, utterly deserved. Two days into their trek, they were identified by a group of partisans, which was probably inevitable. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog.[28]. Soon after the marriage, Mussolini was imprisoned for the fifth time; but by then Comrade Mussolini had become recognized as one of the most gifted and dangerous of Italys younger socialists. Hed declared war against the rest of the world with only Germany to back him up. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [52][53] Allied forces began arriving in the city during the course of the morning and an American eyewitness described the crowd as "sinister, depraved, out of control". Here are 13 facts about one of the darkest political figures of the 20th century. The stagnant economy received a great deal of attention, with a number of well-publicized public works projects to create jobs, including a huge effort to drain the Pontine Marshes outside of Rome. That connection was not lost on the residents of Milan, who then took out 20 years of frustration and fury on the corpses. Support the continuing educational mission of The National WWII Museum by shopping our Museum Store book selection here. Setelah Jerman menyerah di Italia pada 1945, Benito Mussolini At other times, howeverand we have to be honest about thisit can make us feel contented, perhaps even happy. Even worse, Great Britain now sent forces to Greece to oppose him. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The campaign in North Africa began with a daring Anglo-American commando raid code-named Operation RESERVIST. He was expelled and sent to the Giosu Carducci School at Forlimpopoli, from which he was also expelled after assaulting yet another pupil with his penknife. The Allied victory against the Axis was a long journeyone that actually took much longer than the war itself. The two were executed in 1943 by Italian partisans as they tried to escape to Switzerland, and their bodies were hung upside down in Milan. He worked all night in his office (and the office lights were cleverly left on so that Italians could imagine him hard at work at 4:00am). This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible byBank of America. Updates? According to the latter, when he met Audisio in Dongo, Audisio asked for a list of the fascist prisoners that had been captured the previous day and marked Mussolini's and Petacci's names for execution. Angry crowds strung up his corpse, spat on it, stoned it, and otherwise desecrated it before finally laying it to rest. The death of the gassed Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini took place on April 28, 1945, in the last days of World War II in Europe, when he was executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. In the afternoon of the desecration of the corpses, both American troops arrived and a Catholic cardinal arrived. [60] However, Hugh Trevor-Roper believed that this was improbable as it was unlikely that the details would have been reported to Hitler and, in any event, he had already decided on his course of action. On 25 April he fled Milan, where he had been based, and headed towards the Swiss border. [91], Other theories have been published, including allegations that not only Luigi Longo, subsequently leader of the Communist Party in post-war Italy, but also Sandro Pertini, a future President of Italy, carried out the shootings. Learn about Benito Mussolini, his rise to power, and role in World War II. Please select which sections you would like to print: Alternate titles: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, Il Duce, Professor of Modern Italian History, Department of Italian, University College London, London, England. They were those of Mussolini, the Petaccis, and the 15 suspected Fascists. The night after Benito Mussolinis death, a cargo truck roared into Milans Square of the Fifteen Martyrs. With Allied armies driving north into the Lombard plain and with well-armed partisan bands active everywhere, Mussolini tried to make a run for it. The Allies had re-taken northern Africa away from Italy and Sicily was now in Allied hands as they prepared to invade Italy itself. That still isnt the end of the story of Mussolinis death. [28] The CLNAI subsequently announced, on the day after his death, that Mussolini had been executed on its orders. WebMussolini was survived by his wife, Rachele Mussolini, two sons, Vittorio and Romano Mussolini, and his daughters Edda (the widow of Count Ciano) and Anna Maria. The tomb has become a neo-fascist place of pilgrimage. What were Benito Mussolinis political beliefs? American razor blades, it was said, were inadequate to cut his tough beard. Mussolini sold the invasion to the Italian people as a method to get jobs to Whatever you call him, Mussolini cut an incredible public figure in the 1930s: strutting on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in comic opera style in front of 100,000s of people chanting Duce! Among those who had him ousted and arrested was his own son-in-law Gian Galeazo Ciano. [37] Other versions of the story were also published, including, in the 1960s, two books setting out the "classical" account of the story: Dongo, la fine di Mussolini by Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle and Le ultime 95 ore di Mussolini by Franco Bandini. Some journalists, politicians and historians, doubting the veracity of Audisio's account, have advanced a wide variety of theories and speculation as to how Mussolini died and who was responsible. One version of the subsequent report indicated that he had been shot with nine bullets, while another version specified seven bullets. Lampredi was undoubtedly an eyewitness and, because he prepared his narrative for the private records of the Communist Party and not for publication it was perceived that he had no motivation other than to tell the truth. Italian partisans took his body to Milan and exposed it before an angry crowd. And if you failed to look enthusiastic enough or failed to conform in any number of ways, there was an all-seeing secret police force, called the OVRA, lurking in the background, arresting, beating, and killing opponents of the regime. [13] It also issued a decree establishing popular courts, which included in its provisions what, in practice, would constitute a death sentence for Mussolini:[14]. Italian fascism was a right-wing nationalist ideology that many, including Hitler, considered the big brother of Nazism. Zoli, who also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, Rachele, was reliant on the far right to support him in Parliament. Fighting the Allies during the North African campaign of 1942-1943, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommels Afrika Korps (DAK) was resupplied by a concerted air and sea lift effort. He was a bully at school and moody at home. A fitting end to a wretched life, the New York Times declared, and there were few, either inside or outside of Italy, who disagreed. 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 His claims extended to all lands inhabited by Italians, for example in the French districts of Nice, Savoy and Corsica, or the South Tyrol in Austria. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". The tee-totaling, vegetarian Hitler had a quiet last lunch, shook hands with the remaining staff, and that afternoon committed suicide with his wife on a couch in his private sitting room. Mussolini named the fasci di combattimentoparamilitary groups which were largely under his control and from which his movement derived its own name, fascismoafter the Latin word fasces, which was the bundle of wooden sticks topped with an axe-head that ancient Roman authority figures attendants would carry to distinguish their rank. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our heartsViva lItalia! Inside The Mysterious Death Of The 'Godfather Of Soul', How Did Joseph Stalin Die? [35][36] Audisio used the nom de guerre of "Colonnello Valerio" during his mission. Upon Mussolinis death, the final words he uttered were No! The test was inconclusive. ] It was the birth cry of fascism. In his final will, scrawled on a piece of paper, Hitler said, I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses. On May 1, mere days after Mussolinis death, Hitler killed himself and his mistress. WebMussolini - Key takeaways. A simple slogan summed it up: Il DUCE, the Italian people were told, ha sempre ragione! (The Duce is always right!). Mussolinis road to Milan was a long one, filled with strange twists and turns. The military had cut out a portion of his brain to test for syphilis.
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