The Duce, it was said, could recite cantos of Dante from memory. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts Viva lItalia! He referred to the Mediterranean Sea, as the Romans had, as Mare Nostrumour sea. He reminded Italians of their imperial destiny and revived the old stiff-armed Roman salute. Los Angeles Times Urbano Lazzaro, 81; Resistance Fighter Captured Mussolini. Italy soon used its military might to invade Greece, but the campaign was unsuccessful and unpopular at home. 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. The death of Benito Mussolini in Lombardy. What was Benito Mussolinis personal life like? WebDuring the Second World War, there was one man who was idolised and best friends with Adolf Hitler. Benito Mussolini was the creator of fascism. 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 The documentary went on to claim that the later shootings at the Villa Belmonte were subsequently staged as part of the "cover up". He called himself the Duce, from the old Latin word dux (chief or boss). 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. 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. No more posturing now: this was the real thing, when all that hard work and money he had lavished on the Italian military would bear fruit and show the world that he had created a new kind of Italian: a warrior as of old. 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. These have included Luigi Longo and Sandro Pertini who subsequently became general secretary of the Italian Communist Party and President of Italy respectively. [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". [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]. The partisans, led by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro, recognised one of the fascists, but not Mussolini at this stage. The Italian masses greeted Mussolini's death without regret. Some of these same folk had probably chanted Duce! While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Il Duce allied himself with fellow fascist Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II, but his outdated Italian military was badly outclassed. One of the new regime's primary goals was to win military glory for Italy, to restore Italy to the grandeur of ancient times. He was still 80 miles away from the main British position at Mersa Matruh! A restless child, Mussolini was disobedient, unruly, and aggressive. Despite Italy becoming the first ally of the Fhrer, this fact was downplayed when they surrendered to the Allies at the end of 1943. There it stayed for eleven years, until Italian Prime Minister Adone Zoli turned over the bones to Mussolinis widow. After this look at Benito Mussolinis death, read about Gabriele DAnnunzio, the Italian writer who inspired Mussolinis rise to fascism. He was the youngest to ever hold the office and now had a wider audience for his speeches, policies, and worldview than ever before. The test was inconclusive. [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. As for Benito Mussolinis death, that story wasnt over yet. [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. Joseph Stalins death in March 1953 ended his long and brutal reign as leader of the Soviet Union. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters. It was here that he learned Germany had begun negotiations for Mussolinis surrender, which sent him into a fearful rage. Il Duce tried to wear a Nazi helmet and coat as a disguise in the convoy, but he was instantly recognized. In fact, Mussolinis decision to join Hitlers war led Italy into an unprecedented series of military disasters. 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. Benito Mussolini, pictured before his brutal death. The country was battered, and it was, many thought, all Il Duces fault. When 30,000 Fascist troops did indeed enter the capital calling for revolution, it wasnt long before Italys reigning leaders had no choice but to cede power to the Fascists. The photo of Mussolini's final fate documents a full day of fury acted out on the reviled leader. This included Leccisi himself, who was now a neo-fascist party deputy. [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. 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. [23] In Dongo, Mussolini was reunited with Petacci, who had requested to join him, at about 2:30a.m. on 28 April. In it, he outlined the major political philosophies of nationalism and militarism and violent extremism that would direct his later life. They made the Germans hand over all the Italians in exchange for allowing the Germans to proceed. However, fewer accounts exist of Operation Flashpoint, Ninth US Armys assault crossing of the Rhine, which began on March 24. [56], On 30 April, an autopsy was carried out on Mussolini at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan. They took the bodies to the local morgue, where a U.S. Army photographer captured the macabre remains of Mussolini and Petacci. Italian partisans took his body to Milan and exposed it before an angry crowd. However, the reason given by those involved in hanging Mussolini and the others in this way was to protect the bodies from the mob. While working for various labour organizations in Switzerland, Benito Mussolini made a name for himself as a charismatic personality and a consummate rhetorician. The man who once boasted that he was going to restore the glories of ancient Rome, wrote the Times, "is now a corpse in a public square in Milan, with a howling mob cursing and kicking and spitting on his remains. Indeed, the scene was grisly: the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci dangling upside down by their heels in front of a gas station in Milans Piazzale Loreto. However, just because Mussolinis death was now over, doesnt mean the story was. Mussolinis road to Milan was a long one, filled with strange twists and turns. [69] Over a period of sixteen weeks it was moved from place to place the hiding places included a villa, a monastery and a convent while the authorities searched for it. Hitler, for one, heard the news on the radio and vowed to not have his corpse desecrated in the same fashion as Mussolinis. Spitting on the corpses. On Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini's body was located and dug up by a young fascist, Domenico Leccisi, and two friends. He had a party behind him, of course, the Fascists, and he could call on squads of tough guys in blackshirt uniform (Camicie Nere) to beat down his opponents. American razor blades, it was said, were inadequate to cut his tough beard. 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. Ivanoe Bonomi, the prime minister, later denied that this was said with his government's authority or approval. 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. Then, the final indignity: the posthumous desecration. However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his executioner, have been subjects of continuing dispute and controversy in Italy. Setelah Jerman menyerah di Italia pada 1945, Benito Mussolini [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. [44] Urbano Lazzaro later denied that such a tribunal had been convened and said: I was convinced Mussolini deserved death but there should have been a trial according to law. 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. Fascists dug up Il Duces body on Easter Sunday of 1946. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. 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. This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible byBank of America. Indeed, the human corpses now looked like meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. This generally accepted version is often termed the "official version", nevertheless. A woman stepping forward and pumping five bullets into his bodyfor my five dead sons, she said. To the hooks, like pigs!. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. 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! The farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. Corrections? [69][70], The authorities then arranged for the body to be hidden at a Capuchin monastery in the small town of Cerro Maggiore where it remained for the next eleven years. Mussolinis mouth was agape. 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. Undoubtedly, however, the German military was bigger, better equipped, and had better leaders. The story might well have ended here, but in September 1943 the Germans staged a daring commando raid on Mussolinis prisonactually the Hotel Campo Imperatore on the Gran Sasso massif. But just like that, Mussolinis violent life had come to a violent end. Also Known As: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini. No!. When the Allies touched down in Sicily in 1943, Mussolinis own government arrested him. Support the continuing educational mission of The National WWII Museum by shopping our Museum Store book selection here. Order was restored to Italian economic life, and old days of strikes and factory occupations were ended. In late 1935, his forces invaded Ethiopia and, after a brief war ending with Italys victory, declared the country an Italian colony. His views were so extreme that the Socialist Party even kicked him out and he resigned from their newspaper. Unlike traditional dictatorships, which demanded passive obedience, Mussolinis total state demanded constant involvement, even enthusiasm, for the regime. Fairly or unfairly, the Italian military has come to be synonymous with wartime ineptitude. But of course, almost all of this was mythologicalunreal! 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. The Matteotti crisis shook Mussolini, but he managed to maintain his hold on power. 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. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. [82], The theory has been criticised for lacking any serious evidence, particularly on the existence of the correspondence with Churchill. WebBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio in northern central Italy. Mussolini sold the invasion to the Italian people as a method to get jobs to [44], In a book he wrote in the 1970s, Audisio argued that the decision to execute Mussolini taken at the meeting in Dongo of the partisan leaders on 28 April constituted a valid judgment of a tribunal under Article 15 of the CNLAI's ordinance on the Constitution of Courts of War. Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, after apparently suffering a stroke but some suspect that he was actually poisoned. This reign of terror came to a head on Aug. 13, 1944. Upon concluding Marx was correct on revolution following the war he began to make moves to become a dictator and enact widespread change. On 25 April he fled Milan, where he had been based, and headed towards the Swiss border. The military had cut out a portion of his brain to test for syphilis. [20][86] Journalist Peter Tompkins claimed to have established that "John" was Robert Maccarrone, a British SOE agent who had Sicilian ancestry. He declared war on France and Britain in June 1940. [23], The partisans arrested Mussolini and took him to Dongo, where he spent part of the night in the local barracks. Mussolinis politics took a turn to the right midway through World War I, when he became a proponent for the war effort. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germany, circa June 1940. Zoli, who also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, Rachele, was reliant on the far right to support him in Parliament. Audisio presented Mussolini as acting in a cowardly manner immediately prior to his death whereas Lampredi did not. It was during this period, and after, that the nationalist and anti-Bolshevik strands of thought that would characterize his later politics began to emerge. That still wasnt enough. The man who had once strutted across the world stage now dangling by his heels, next to his mistress. As a post-script, in 1966 Mussolini's brain tissue samples, taken at the autopsy, were returned to his widow by, Newspaper articles, journals and websites, John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, "Historic figures: Benito Mussolini (18831945)", "Urbano Lazzaro, The partisan who arrested Mussolini", "Mussolini killed 'on Churchill's orders by British agents', "Winston Churchill 'ordered assassination of Mussolini to protect compromising letters', "Did the Brutal Death of Mussolini Contribute to Hitler's Suicide? Yes, there were achievements of a sort. The Concordat was a popular move in Catholic Italy, and a plebiscite in May gave Mussolini 98% of the vote. Repeatedly, he called for a day of vengeance. From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians, he once said. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Mussolini, Jewish Virtual Library - Biography of Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Biography of Benito Mussolini, The National WWII Museum - Death of the Duce, Benito Mussolini, History Learning Site - Biography of Benito Mussolini, Benito Mussolini - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Benito Mussolini - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). But arresting Il Duce was no longer a viable course of action. Movie footage of what happened appears to confirm that to be the case. Although his account most probably is built around the facts, it was certainly embellished. Even in death, his mouth couldnt be shut. 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. 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