However, the "official" explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". WebThe 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.The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist Indeed, the human corpses now looked like meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. Facing pressure on the home front due to increasingly stressful wartime conditions and rebelliousness from within his own ranks, Benito Mussolini was removed from office by the king and the Grand Council in July of 1943. [8], Over the week following his arrival in Milan, and with the military situation deteriorating, Mussolini vacillated between a number of options including making a last stand in the Valtellina, a valley in the Italian Alps (the so-called Ridotto Alpino Repubblicano), fleeing to Switzerland, or attempting to negotiate a peaceful handover to the partisan leadership, the CLNAI,[note 2] or to the Allies. ] It was the birth cry of fascism. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Finally, in December, a British force under General Richard OConnor attacked Graziani at Sidi Barrani. By 1945, Germany was Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, after apparently suffering a stroke but some suspect that he was actually poisoned. [82], Some, including most persistently the fascist journalist Giorgio Pisan, have claimed that Mussolini and Petacci were shot earlier in the day near the De Maria farmhouse and that the execution at Giulino de Mezzegra was staged with corpses. 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. 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. Stories circulated in Italy to reinforce the image. On April 25, 1945, Benito Mussolini agreed to meet with anti-Fascist partisans in the palace of Milan. [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. Mussolini led Italy, alright: he led it straight into disaster. The military had cut out a portion of his brain to test for syphilis. However, just because Mussolinis death was now over, doesnt mean the story was. [30], Although several conflicting versions and theories of how Mussolini and Petacci died were put forward after the war, the account of Walter Audisio, or at least its essential components, remains the most credible and is sometimes referred to in Italy as the "official" version. Another few miles and Mussolini would have been free. In the end, the once-free citizen now had no choice but to follow the regimes slogan: Credere, Obbedire, CombattereBelieve, obey, fight to defend the state!, It was in the realm of foreign policy that Mussolini eventually met his doom. The truth is now unmistakably clear. 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. She also said that she herself had heard the shots and that she "looked at the clock, it was almost 11". A fitting end to a wretched life, the New York Times declared, and there were few, either inside or outside of Italy, who disagreed. [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. His father was a blacksmith. He took his mistress, Clara Petacci, and fled north where the pair joined a German convoy headed to the Swiss border. [35][40][41] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed. [35][36] Audisio used the nom de guerre of "Colonnello Valerio" during his mission. Benito Mussolini with sons Mussolini was hailed as a genius and a superman by public figures worldwide. Additionally, it was better placed for an escape to the Swiss border. World War II began later that year in September. In any event, on 27 April, he joined a Luftwaffe column travelling in convoy and retreating northwards to Germany.[22]. 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 But arresting Il Duce was no longer a viable course of action. By the spring of 1945, the war in Europe was over and Italy was broken. The treaty that Hitler hated even more than the Treaty of Versailles and one of the most important treaties you have probably never heard of. Forces loyal to the Italian king arrested Mussolini and imprisoned him. [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]. [29], He also claimed that he had given the order as deputy prime minister of the government in Rome and as leader of the Communist Party. 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. [23] Lazzaro later said that: His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. The corpse turned up four months later in a monastery near Milan. 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. 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. The south was in ruins as Allied troops advanced. This reign of terror came to a head on Aug. 13, 1944. I read utter exhaustion, but not fear Mussolini seemed completely lacking in will, spiritually dead. Upon concluding Marx was correct on revolution following the war he began to make moves to become a dictator and enact widespread change. Even worse, Great Britain now sent forces to Greece to oppose him. The Week How Did Italys Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini Die? Known For: Mussolini was a fascist dictator who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. In the aftermath of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, US II Corps passed to the command of General Harold Alexanders 18th Army Group. He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. These lands, he said, were Italia irredentaunredeemed Italy.. 2. String them up! A cadre of 10 men unceremoniously dumped 18 bodies out of the back. And Il Duce was also beginning to realize that Italys military was woefully under-classed. [46][note 4], During his dictatorship, representations of Mussolini's bodyfor example pictures of him engaged in physical labour either bare-chested or half-nakedformed a central part of fascist propaganda. The illusions of the new Roman Empire and Mussolinis ambition of creating a state that would encircle the Mediterranean, calling it Mare Nostrum, were shattered when poorly equipped and led Italian army started suffering defeat after defeat News photos regularly showed him in a position of command, riding on horseback, flying an airplane, or driving a high-performance race car. The convoy included a number of other Italian fascist leaders. His father was a blacksmith who wrote part-time as a socialist journalist, and his mother was a staunchly Catholic schoolteacher. But how exactly did Mussolini die? In the post-war years, the "official"[note 1] version of Mussolini's death has been questioned in Italy (but, generally, not internationally) in a manner that has drawn comparison with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. Without Hitlers military intervention, a coup surely would have toppled Mussolini in 1941. [53] After a while, the bodies were hung by their feet from the metal girder framework of a half-built Standard Oil service station. At the same time, however, he was gaining a reputation as a young man of strange magnetism and remarkable rhetorical talents. [note 5] The tomb is decorated with fascist symbols and contains a large marble head of Mussolini. He was still 80 miles away from the main British position at Mersa Matruh! 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. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. On October 25, 1922, a day after his rally in Naples, Mussolini appointed four party leaders to lead members into the nations capital. Mussolini had developed a cult-like following and instant recognizability over the past 25 years due to his face being plastered all over propaganda nationwide and now it had come back to haunt him. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Zoli, who also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, Rachele, was reliant on the far right to support him in Parliament. One man grabbed Mussolinis body by the armpits so the crowd could see it. [29] Longo subsequently gave a different story: he said that when he and Fermo Solari[it], a member of the Action Party (which was part of the CLNAI), heard the news of Mussolini's capture they immediately agreed that he should be summarily executed and Longo gave the order for it to be carried out. A maddened crowd howling epithets of hatred and derision. A macabre autopsy photo of Benito Mussolini and his mistress in a Milan morgue. She buried her husband properly at his family crypt in Predappio. Spitting on the corpses. Wikimedia CommonsThe farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. 3. Consequenses For the Mussolini Regime. 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. But Mussolini intended to intimidate the government into submission. They were those of Mussolini, the Petaccis, and the 15 suspected Fascists. 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. By April 1945 as Mussolini sensed the defeat of the Germans, he planned to escape to Switzerland with his mistress. His views were so extreme that the Socialist Party even kicked him out and he resigned from their newspaper. [75], Until 1947, Audisio's involvement was kept a secret, and in the earliest descriptions of the events (in a series of articles in the Communist Party newspaper L'Unit in late 1945) the person who carried out the shootings was only referred to as "Colonnello Valerio". Early life Furthermore, he had had a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy; he was also known to have disliked Audisio personally. How Did Benito Mussolini Die? Hed declared war against the rest of the world with only Germany to back him up. ]]>*/ 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. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator. info@nationalww2museum.org In February 1929 he signed a Concordat with the Vatican, the Lateran Treaty, which brought to an end the hostility between the Church and the Italian government that dated back to 1870, when the Italian state had seized the Papal States. They lived in two crowded rooms on the second floor of a small, decrepit palazzo; and, because Mussolinis father spent much of his time discussing politics in taverns and most of his money on his mistress, the meals that his three children ate were often meagre. Aside from Mussolini and Petacci, sixteen of the most prominent of them would be summarily shot in Dongo the following day and a further ten would be killed over two successive nights. One version is that he was executed by firing squad on the 28th of April, 1945, shot by soldiers firing several bullets. First it was bombing raids on Italian cities, which possessed only rudimentary antiaircraft defenses. [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. Now, Mussolini was in deep. 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