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. The farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. He began adult life as a staunch socialist opposed to the war in the footsteps of his father. This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible byBank of America. Wikimedia CommonsA macabre autopsy photo of Benito Mussolini and his mistress in a Milan morgue. WebMussolini - Key takeaways. Virtually every land on earth has a creator figure, a father of his country: Charlemagne for the French, Peter the Great for the Russians, George Washington for the Americans. His views were so extreme that the Socialist Party even kicked him out and he resigned from their newspaper. Mussolini went to fight in the war. His neighbors, even Great Powers like France and Britain, took both Mussolinis new force and his constant warlike posturing very seriously, indeed. But when considering a man of Benito Mussolinis character type, who regularly consumed approximately 98% of the oxygen in the room in order to fuel his ego and oratory style, it was an absolute necessity. Il Duce tried to wear a Nazi helmet and coat as a disguise in the convoy, but he was instantly recognized. He was still 80 miles away from the main British position at Mersa Matruh! In fact, Mussolinis decision to join Hitlers war led Italy into an unprecedented series of military disasters. Benito Mussolinis reaction to Brunos death Family close to Benito Mussolini reported that the dictator was heartbroken at the loss of his second son. The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. (Forward!), whose circulation he soon doubled; and as its antimilitarist, antinationalist, and anti-imperialist editor, he thunderously opposed Italys intervention in World War I. Updates? No!. Photographs and videos taken on that day have preserved this historic event forever. [note 5] The tomb is decorated with fascist symbols and contains a large marble head of Mussolini. He had one child with his first wife, Ida Dalser, but would eventually abandon them and seek to hide them from the public eye. Cursing. In 1994 Bruno Lonati, a former partisan leader, published a book in which he claimed that he had shot Mussolini and he was accompanied on his mission by a British army officer called "John", who shot Petacci. Audisio said he read out a sentence of death, whereas Lampredi omitted this. Without Hitlers military intervention, a coup surely would have toppled Mussolini in 1941. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. 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. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters. Order was restored to Italian economic life, and old days of strikes and factory occupations were ended. On October 25, 1922, a day after his rally in Naples, Mussolini appointed four party leaders to lead members into the nations capital. It worked, and Mussolini was appointed prime minister that same year. Faces of European History: Fact or Fiction? 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. [20], In any event, Longo instructed a communist partisan of the General Command, Walter Audisio, to go immediately to Dongo to carry out the order. Upon concluding Marx was correct on revolution following the war he began to make moves to become a dictator and enact widespread change. William DeLong is a freelance wordsmith. Another few miles and Mussolini would have been free. Ia menjabat sebagai Perdana Menteri Italia pada periode 1922-1943 dan bersahabat dengan Adolf Hitler selama Perang Dunia II untuk menopang kepemimpinannya. During a period of freedom in 1909, he fell in love with 16-year-old Rachele Guidi, the younger of the two daughters of his fathers widowed mistress; she went to live with him in a damp, cramped apartment in Forl and later married him. 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. Mussolini needed a strong military to back up his dictatorship. A strongman who had seized power in Italy in 1922, then in the midst of its post-World War I troubles, he had restored order, ended partisan squabbling, and built Italy up into a respected military power. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our heartsViva lItalia! WebHow Benito Mussolini Died In the meantime, Il Duce and his mistress had risen late. Benito Mussolinis fascist regime was often depicted as inept and ridiculed for its comic appearances. [29], A senior communist in Milan, Luigi Longo, said that the order came from the General Command of the partisan military units "in application of a CLNAI decision". They made the Germans hand over all the Italians in exchange for allowing the Germans to proceed. Learn More. By 1945, Germany was WebAnswer (1 of 6): Benito Mussolini was captured along with several of this top ranking officers while he was trying to flee to Switzerland, along with his lover and a certain amount of money and precious items. [17][18] That evening,[19] with the German army in northern Italy about to surrender and the CLNAI taking control of Milan, Mussolini decided to flee the city. Much has been made in the historical record of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany in early March of 1945. Mussolini and Petacci were executed the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). As panic spread in their ranks, OConnor now launched a frontal assault by 7th Armoured Division, the famed Desert Rats. Graziani's entire army was routed, sent into headlong retreat across the desert, pursued, caught, and destroyed at Beda Fomm in February 1941. One battleship was sunk and two more disabled, neutralizing the Italian surface navy for the rest of the war. Born July 29, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was intelligent and inquisitive from an early age. [1] Following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Mussolini was deposed and put under arrest; Italy then signed the Armistice of Cassibile with the Allies in the following September. [13][20] At 8p.m. he headed north toward Lake Como. [74], Outside of Italy, Audisio's version of how Mussolini was executed has largely been accepted and is uncontroversial. He resigned from Avanti! [29] According to Leo Valiani, the Action Party representative on the CLNAI, the decision to execute Mussolini was taken on the night of 27/28 April by a group acting on behalf of the CLNAI comprising himself, Sandro Pertini, and the communists Emilio Sereni and Luigi Longo. 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. 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. Joseph Stalins death in March 1953 ended his long and brutal reign as leader of the Soviet Union. His father was a blacksmith. This included Leccisi himself, who was now a neo-fascist party deputy. 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. [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. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honour for this man. Togliatti said he had done so by a radio message on 26 April 1945 with the words: Only one thing is needed to decide that they [Mussolini and the other fascist leaders] must pay with their lives: the question of their identity. 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. [2], Shortly after the Armistice, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces, and Hitler installed him as leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state set up in northern Italy and based at the town of Sal near Lake Garda. He also claimed that Mussolini was inadvertently wounded earlier in the day when Petacci tried to grab the gun of one of the partisans, who killed Petacci and Michele Moretti then shot dead Mussolini. 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. A restless child, Mussolini was disobedient, unruly, and aggressive. Enter Rachele Mussolini or Donna Rachele, as she became known to the world. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator, and the word fascism comes from the far-right movement he led in Italy. A simple slogan summed it up: Il DUCE, the Italian people were told, ha sempre ragione! (The Duce is always right!). The military had cut out a portion of his brain to test for syphilis. His father was a blacksmith who wrote part-time as a socialist journalist, and his mother was a staunchly Catholic schoolteacher. The list of those who wrecked their homeland is shorter. Mussolini was killed two days before Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide. After the defeat of the Italian Army in Russia, Mussolini was removed as head of state and imprisoned. 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. What were Benito Mussolinis political beliefs? So successful was this paper that in 1912 he was appointed editor of the official Socialist newspaper, Avanti! Mussolini then took matters into his own hands. The Week How Did Italys Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini Die? She fired five shots into his head at close range; one bullet for each son she lost in Mussolinis failed war. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. ", "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. [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]. It is said that the correspondence included offers from Churchill of peace and territorial concessions in exchange for Mussolini persuading Hitler to join the western Allies in an alliance against the Soviet Union. These have included Luigi Longo and Sandro Pertini who subsequently became general secretary of the Italian Communist Party and President of Italy respectively. These groups began waging campaigns of terrorism and intimidation against Italys leftist institutions at his behest. The former led to Mussolinis overthrow and imprisonment; the latter to the surrender of Italy, even though German troops soon occupied the entire country and carried on the fight against the Allies from Italian soil. Support the continuing educational mission of The National WWII Museum by shopping our Museum Store book selection here. In 1996, a previously unpublished private account written in 1972 by Aldo Lampredi for the Communist Party's archives, appeared in L'Unit. 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