From that moment onward, partisans called this place the Square of the Fifteen Martyrs.. 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. This generally accepted version is often termed the "official version", nevertheless. Undoubtedly, however, the German military was bigger, better equipped, and had better leaders. Mussolini went to fight in the war. Whatever the case, his family was told that he died in the war. Audisio himself did not speak publicly about it until he published his account in a series of five articles in L'Unit later that month (and repeated in a book that Audisio later wrote which was published in 1975, two years after his death). This included Leccisi himself, who was now a neo-fascist party deputy. 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. Then, they took to beating and kicking it. See. 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. American razor blades, it was said, were inadequate to cut his tough beard. Faces of European History: Fact or Fiction? Audisio gave a different account. Robert Citino, PhD, is the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian in the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. Hitler, for one, heard the news on the radio and vowed to not have his corpse desecrated in the same fashion as Mussolinis. [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. 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. This invigorated the crowd even more. To be sure, Italy paid a steep price for Mussolini. [20][86] Journalist Peter Tompkins claimed to have established that "John" was Robert Maccarrone, a British SOE agent who had Sicilian ancestry. One version of the subsequent report indicated that he had been shot with nine bullets, while another version specified seven bullets. First it was bombing raids on Italian cities, which possessed only rudimentary antiaircraft defenses. [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. British war plans in the 1930s, in fact, flirted with abandoning the entire Mediterranean to Mussolini in the event of a conflict, so worried were the British that they could not resist his attacks. They took the bodies to the local morgue, where a U.S. Army photographer captured the macabre remains of Mussolini and Petacci. In Predappio, a march takes place between the centre of town and the cemetery. Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were "aim at my heart". Wikimedia CommonsBenito Mussolini, second from left, hanging upside-down in Milans public square. [82], They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. 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. [89][90] The first to put this forward was Franco Bandini in 1978. 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. 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. Containing both labor and management, their task was to negotiate labor settlements. info@nationalww2museum.org Mussolini was the first child of the local blacksmith. When Alexander took command on February 20, 1943, one of his first tasks was to assess II Corps combat readiness after its setbacks during its early engagements around Kasserine Pass. In 1935, Mussolini used a border dispute between Abyssinia and neighboring Somaliland as a public excuse to invade the country. In the aftermath of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, US II Corps passed to the command of General Harold Alexanders 18th Army Group. [Long live Italy!]. The Week How Did Italys Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini Die? Though he tried to flee the country dressed as a German officer, Mussolini was killed, desecrated, and strung up at a gas station in Milan. WebIn all, a dozen people died, but after the march the Fascists inflated that death toll to a whopping and false 3,000 to make their struggle appear all the more heroic. At the same time, however, he was gaining a reputation as a young man of strange magnetism and remarkable rhetorical talents. Financed by the French government and Italian industrialists, both of whom favoured war against Austria, he assumed the editorship of Il Popolo dItalia (The People of Italy), in which he unequivocally stated his new philosophy: From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians. For some time after his return little was heard of him. There were differences in Lampredi's account and that of Audisio. Mussolini needed a strong military to back up his dictatorship. The next month, in November 1940, the Italian fleet was caught at anchor at Taranto by British torpedo bombers. 2. What were Benito Mussolinis political beliefs? In later years he expressed pride in his humble origins and often spoke of himself as a man of the people. The Mussolini family was, in fact, less humble than he claimedhis father, a part-time socialist journalist as well as a blacksmith, was the son of a lieutenant in the National Guard, and his mother was a schoolteacherbut the Mussolinis were certainly poor. All of those propaganda posters and photos had now truly come back to haunt him. But while Mussolini died in 1945, the ideas he put a name on did not. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. That connection was not lost on the residents of Milan, who then took out 20 years of frustration and fury on the corpses. Benito Mussolini was the fascist leader of Italy, appointed as prime minister after his march on Rome in 1922. 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. For all these reasons it was seen as significant that he largely confirmed Audisio's account. Known For: Mussolini was a fascist dictator who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. That still isnt the end of the story of Mussolinis death. While working for various labour organizations in Switzerland, Benito Mussolini made a name for himself as a charismatic personality and a consummate rhetorician. These have included Luigi Longo and Sandro Pertini who subsequently became general secretary of the Italian Communist Party and President of Italy respectively. One woman felt Il Duce wasnt dead enough. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germany, circa June 1940. [62] The following day, Hitler killed himself in Berlin, shortly before the city fell to the Red Army. It was alongside his longtime mistress, Clara Petacci, that he died, however. In 1966, the U.S. military turned over a slice of Mussolinis brain to his family. In the afternoon of 25 April,[16] Cardinal Schuster hosted peace negotiations at his residence between Mussolini and representatives of the CLNAI, which were unsuccessful. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for neo-fascists and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies. He thanks you for reading his content. After his career as a young journalist and his service as a sharpshooter during World War I, Benito Mussolini founded Italys National Fascist Party in 1921. Upon Mussolinis death, the final words he uttered were No! Audisio replied that she had been Mussolini's adviser, had inspired his policies and was "just as responsible as he is". A fitting end to a wretched life, the New York Times declared, and there were few, either inside or outside of Italy, who disagreed. On the evening of Mussolini's capture, Sandro Pertini, the Socialist partisan leader in northern Italy, announced on Radio Milano: The head of this association of delinquents, Mussolini, while yellow with rancour and fear and trying to cross the Swiss frontier, has been arrested. 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. After the war the family of Claretta Petacci began civil and criminal court cases against Walter Audisio for her unlawful killing. [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. On April 25, 1945, Benito Mussolini agreed to meet with anti-Fascist partisans in the palace of Milan. 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. Italian fascism was a right-wing nationalist ideology that many, including Hitler, considered the big brother of Nazism. Mussolinis own Milan newspaper office was barricaded with huge rolls of newsprint paper and barbed wire and guarded by a curious mix of Fascists, police, and Army troops. The country was battered, and it was, many thought, all Il Duces fault. Author of. Palmiro Togliatti, the Secretary-General of the Communist Party, claimed that he had ordered Mussolini's execution prior to his capture. Another few miles and Mussolini would have been free. Even in death, his mouth couldnt be shut. Learn about Benito Mussolini, his rise to power, and role in World War II. ", "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. [65] Alan Bullock said that news of Mussolini's fate had presumably increased Hitler's determination to avoid capture[66] and William L. Shirer thought that knowledge of the events surrounding Mussolini's death may have strengthened Hitler's resolve not to risk his downfall being turned into a public humiliation. 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. [21], By some accounts, on 26 April, Mussolini, now joined by his mistress Claretta Petacci, made several failed attempts to cross the border into Switzerland. When the Allies touched down in Sicily in 1943, Mussolinis own government arrested him. On 27 April 1945, Benito Mussolin i and his mistress Clara Petacci , together with other fascist leaders, were travelling in a German convoy near the village of Dongo on the north western shore of Lake Como. 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. [71] This remained the position until May 1957, when the newly appointed Prime Minister, Adone Zoli, agreed to Mussolini's re-interment at his place of birth in Predappio, in Romagna. It was here that he learned Germany had begun negotiations for Mussolinis surrender, which sent him into a fearful rage. 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