Five years after the Ethiopian invasion, Benito Mussolini watched from the sidelines as Hitler invaded France. Benito Mussolinis fascist regime was often depicted as inept and ridiculed for its comic appearances. His father was an ardent socialist who worked part-time as a journalist for leftist publications. Surrendered Italy would experience twenty more months of high intensity combata war that devastated countryside, cities, and civilian population alike. Mussolinis mouth was agape. All of those propaganda posters and photos had now truly come back to haunt him. If they couldn't, they submitted to binding government arbitration. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Upon concluding Marx was correct on revolution following the war he began to make moves to become a dictator and enact widespread change. But of course, almost all of this was mythologicalunreal! Repeatedly, he called for a day of vengeance. He needed more than just fiery speeches and violent rhetoric. [6] Although each of these accounts vary in detail, they are consistent on the main facts. From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians, he once said. Not only did they fail to conquer tiny Greece, the Greeks counterattacked, drove the Italians back across the Albanian border, and for a time threatened to destroy Mussolinis army altogether. On 29 April 1945, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci and the other executed Fascists were loaded into a van and moved south to Milan. Eventually, in 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his home town of Predappio. 2. He was also intelligent, and he passed his final examinations without difficulty. The death of Benito Mussolini on April 28, 1945 was characterized A fitting end to a wretched life, by The New York Times. Some historians go as far as claiming that this marked the start of World War II. Learn More. The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. In his 20s, he ran a series of newspapers that amounted to propaganda sheets for his increasingly extreme political views. [56], On 30 April, an autopsy was carried out on Mussolini at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan. Il Duce allied himself with fellow fascist Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II, but his outdated Italian military was badly outclassed. Still, he voraciously read the works of great European philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Georges Sorel, Benedict de Spinoza, Peter Kropotkin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Karl Marx. By 1945, Germany was The fascist dictatorship in Italy differed from the one in Nazi Germany or Stalins Russia. [35][39][42] He called himself the Duce, from the old Latin word dux (chief or boss). The military had cut out a portion of his brain to test for syphilis. [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. That still isnt the end of the story of Mussolinis death. Then, they took to beating and kicking it. A note left behind said the Fascist Party would no longer tolerate the cannibal slurs made by human dregs organized in the Communist Party.. 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. 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. And Il Duce was also beginning to realize that Italys military was woefully under-classed. He obtained a teaching diploma and for a time worked as a schoolmaster but soon realized that he was totally unsuited for such work. The south was in ruins as Allied troops advanced. [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. American razor blades, it was said, were inadequate to cut his tough beard. In June 1940, with German armies running riot all over Europe, the Duce decided to strike. [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. A restless child, Mussolini was disobedient, unruly, and aggressive. 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. Benito Mussolini was the less dominant half of the Rome-Berlin axis, formalized by the 1939 Pact of Steel between Adolf Hitler and himself. (Forward!), whose circulation he soon doubled; and as its antimilitarist, antinationalist, and anti-imperialist editor, he thunderously opposed Italys intervention in World War I. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator, and the word fascism comes from the far-right movement he led in Italy. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Consequenses For the Mussolini Regime. Soon, however, he changed his mind about intervention. The Duce, many said, made the trains run on time.. During World War I, he renounced socialism and adopted fascism. But how exactly did Mussolini die? He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible byBank of America. Despite Italy becoming the first ally of the Fhrer, this fact was downplayed when they surrendered to the Allies at the end of 1943. Fearing that Mussolini and Petacci might be rescued by fascist supporters, the partisans drove them, in the middle of the night, to a nearby farm of a peasant family named De Maria; they believed this would be a safe place to hold them. [35][40][41] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed. Growing closeness to Hitler was a kind of fatal embrace for Mussolini. A Tale of Two Lebanons: Stuck Between Hezbollah and a Republic. More than once he was arrested and imprisoned. Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were "aim at my heart". 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. 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. Two days into their trek, they were identified by a group of partisans, which was probably inevitable. Then, take a look at photos from fascist Italy that provide a chilling look at life during Mussolinis reign. Inside The Mysterious Death Of The 'Godfather Of Soul', How Did Joseph Stalin Die? The man who had once strutted across the world stage now dangling by his heels, next to his mistress. His neighbors, even Great Powers like France and Britain, took both Mussolinis new force and his constant warlike posturing very seriously, indeed. First it was bombing raids on Italian cities, which possessed only rudimentary antiaircraft defenses. The tomb has become a neo-fascist place of pilgrimage. The documentary included an interview with Dorina Mazzola who said that her mother had seen the shooting. Finally, the pair were buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery. Even in death, his mouth couldnt be shut. [13][20] At 8p.m. he headed north toward Lake Como. At one time, he had been one of the most celebrated statesmen in the world. [72], The anniversary of Mussolini's death on 28 April has become one of three dates neo-fascist supporters mark with major rallies. According to Lonati, he and "John" went to the De Maria farmhouse in the morning of 28 April and killed Mussolini and Petacci at about 11:00a.m.[82][87] In 2004, the Italian state television channel, RAI, broadcast a documentary, co-produced by Tompkins, in which the theory was put forward. The Matteotti crisis shook Mussolini, but he managed to maintain his hold on power. There were differences in Lampredi's account and that of Audisio. One woman felt Il Duce wasnt dead enough. Hegel, Karl Kautsky, and Georges Sorel, picking out what appealed to him and discarding the rest, forming no coherent political philosophy of his own yet impressing his companions as a potential revolutionary of uncommon personality and striking presence. 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. 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. WebIn 1924 Mussolinis henchmen kidnapped and murdered the Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, who had become one of fascisms most effective critics in parliament. Benito Mussolini served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 1922 to 1943, and his death marked the end of a brutal era in Italian history. The whole world quickly learned about Mussolinis death even Adolf Hitler, isolated in his Fuhrerbunker. The farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. In any event, on 27 April, he joined a Luftwaffe column travelling in convoy and retreating northwards to Germany.[22]. It worked, and Mussolini was appointed prime minister that same year. Mussolini had promised his people Roman glory, but his megalomania had overcome his common sense, 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. WebMussolini - Key takeaways. Los Angeles Times Urbano Lazzaro, 81; Resistance Fighter Captured Mussolini. Fearing another rescue attempt of Mussolini by the Nazis, partisans whisked Mussolini and Petacci away to a remote farmhouse. Angry crowds strung up his corpse, spat on it, stoned it, and otherwise desecrated it before finally laying it to rest. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our heartsViva lItalia! On Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini's body was located and dug up by a young fascist, Domenico Leccisi, and two friends. Another few miles and Mussolini would have been free. With German SS soldiers looking on, Mussolinis men opened fire and killed them. Indeed, the human corpses now looked like meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. He would have five childrenthree boys and two girlsby another wife, Rachele Guidi. People got ropes, tied them to the feet of the corpses, and strung them upside-down from the iron girders of a gas station. Audisio replied that she had been Mussolini's adviser, had inspired his policies and was "just as responsible as he is". 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. Rachele Mussolini recalled that Il Duces excruciating silence hit her the hardest when the couple found out about Brunos accident. No!. 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. [51], Their bodies were left in a heap, and by 9:00a.m. a considerable crowd had gathered. 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