how did benito mussolini diehow did benito mussolini die

At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer. Benito Mussolini was Europes first 20th-century fascist dictator, and the word fascism comes from the far-right movement he led in Italy. All of those propaganda posters and photos had now truly come back to haunt him. One of the new regime's primary goals was to win military glory for Italy, to restore Italy to the grandeur of ancient times. She added, it was as if he had turned to stone. He advocated violence as a way to effect change, particularly when it came to the advancement of trade unions and safety for workers. William DeLong is a freelance wordsmith. The south was in ruins as Allied troops advanced. And Il Duce was also beginning to realize that Italys military was woefully under-classed. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). However, the "official" explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative. Fast Facts: Benito Mussolini. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. At least this way, Mussolini believed, he could live out his days in exile. 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. Mussolini was laid to rest in a large stone sarcophagus. Repeatedly, he called for a day of vengeance. Italy soon used its military might to invade Greece, but the campaign was unsuccessful and unpopular at home. [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. He would strip to the waist to address farmers in the hot sun or pose wrestling with a lion cub. Still not satisfied, partisans rounded up 15 suspected Fascists and executed them in the same fashion. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. But arresting Il Duce was no longer a viable course of action. 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. A detailed structure of fascist rule existed on paper, with a Grand Council to which the government was supposed to report and a Chamber of Deputies which made law, but in fact Italy was Mussolini's personal playground, and his own power nearly absolute. by Adnan Nasser L April 3, 2023. German forces initially decided there would be no rescue before soon changing their minds. More than once he was arrested and imprisoned. [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. The assassination marked a serious crisis for Mussolinis regime.After Matteottis sudden disappearance, he first denied having anything to do with it. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts Viva lItalia! [23] In Dongo, Mussolini was reunited with Petacci, who had requested to join him, at about 2:30a.m. on 28 April. Because the teachers at the village school could not control him, he was sent to board with the strict Salesian order at Faenza, where he proved himself more troublesome than ever, stabbing a fellow pupil with a penknife and attacking one of the Salesians who had attempted to beat him. His father was a blacksmith. 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. The Week How Did Italys Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini Die? I read utter exhaustion, but not fear Mussolini seemed completely lacking in will, spiritually dead. 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. By 1925 Mussolini had dismantled Italys democratic institutions and assumed his role as dictator, adopting the title Il Duce (The Leader). 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. 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? [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. Mussolini abandoning the Prefecture in Milan on 25 April 1945 (believed to be the last photograph of him alive). Los Angeles Times Urbano Lazzaro, 81; Resistance Fighter Captured Mussolini. In general, it was this loss of freedom that best describes the bargain the Italian people had made with Mussolini. Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were "aim at my heart". 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! They took the bodies to the local morgue, where a U.S. Army photographer captured the macabre remains of Mussolini and Petacci. [Long live Italy! 1. Mussolinis booking file following his arrest by the police on 19 June 1903, Bern, Switzerland. [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. Learn More. [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. [75] Comparisons have been made with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories,[20] and it has been described as the Italian equivalent of that speculation. 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 Life in Mussolinis Italy. By the autumn of 1943, he was reduced to being the leader of a German puppet state in northern Italy and was faced with the Allied advance from the south and an increasingly violent internal conflict with the partisans. His neighbors, even Great Powers like France and Britain, took both Mussolinis new force and his constant warlike posturing very seriously, indeed. From that moment onward, partisans called this place the Square of the Fifteen Martyrs.. 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. [35][36] Audisio used the nom de guerre of "Colonnello Valerio" during his mission. Wikimedia CommonsBenito Mussolini, pictured before his brutal death. 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). [82], They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. [20][75] At least 12 different individuals have been identified at various times as being responsible for carrying out the shooting. Fairly or unfairly, the Italian military has come to be synonymous with wartime ineptitude. WebThe death of Benito Mussolini on April 28, 1945 was characterized A fitting end to a wretched life, by The New York Times. Order was restored to Italian economic life, and old days of strikes and factory occupations were ended. Corrections? The next morning, the partisans ordered the pair to stand against a brick wall near the entrance of Villa Belmonte, near Italys Lake Como and a firing squad shot the couple down in a barrage of gunfire. Benito Mussolini lies dead in Milans Piazza Loroto with his mistress, Clara Petacci. 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. He thanks you for reading his content. On 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini died. The whereabouts of the body was kept a secret, even from Mussolini's family. [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. [75], Audisio was first named in a series of articles in the newspaper Il Tempo in March 1947 and the Communist Party subsequently confirmed Audisio's involvement. [89][90] The first to put this forward was Franco Bandini in 1978. On April 25, 1945, Benito Mussolini agreed to meet with anti-Fascist partisans in the palace of Milan. 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. Death of Benito Mussolini - Wikipedia. In any event, on 27 April, he joined a Luftwaffe column travelling in convoy and retreating northwards to Germany.[22]. On Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini's body was located and dug up by a young fascist, Domenico Leccisi, and two friends. And to understand why Mussolinis death and its aftermath were so brutal, we must first understand the brutality that fueled his life and reign. German commandos crash-landed gliders into the side of the mountain behind the hotel before freeing Mussolini and airlifting him back to Munich, where he could confer with Hitler. Backed by increasing numbers of supporters and strongarm paramilitary squads dressed in black, the Fascist leader calling himself Il Duce soon became known for fiery speeches fueled by his ever more violent political worldview. 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. Then, in September, an Italian army of 130,000 men under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani invaded Egypt from the Italian colony of Libya. After Lampredi's account was published, most, but not all, commentators were convinced of its veracity. [26], Fighting was still going on in the area around Dongo. That connection was not lost on the residents of Milan, who then took out 20 years of frustration and fury on the corpses. They were those of Mussolini, the Petaccis, and the 15 suspected Fascists. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. In fact, there has never been a determination by any governmental or judicial authority of a particular version of events. [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". Indeed, the human corpses now looked like meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. Zoli, who also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, Rachele, was reliant on the far right to support him in Parliament. Despite Italy becoming the first ally of the Fhrer, this fact was downplayed when they surrendered to the Allies at the end of 1943. On Oct. 29, 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini prime minister. Wikimedia CommonsAdolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germany, circa June 1940. The truth is now unmistakably clear. 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. So successful was this paper that in 1912 he was appointed editor of the official Socialist newspaper, Avanti! Early life The corpses were pelted with vegetables, spat at, urinated on, shot at and kicked; Mussolini's face was disfigured by beatings. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honour for this man. [56], On 30 April, an autopsy was carried out on Mussolini at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our heartsViva lItalia! 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. Even worse, Great Britain now sent forces to Greece to oppose him. Mussolini named the fasci di combattimentoparamilitary groups which were largely under his control and from which his movement derived its own name, fascismoafter the Latin word fasces, which was the bundle of wooden sticks topped with an axe-head that ancient Roman authority figures attendants would carry to distinguish their rank. A group of local communist partisans led by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle. [52][53] Allied forces began arriving in the city during the course of the morning and an American eyewitness described the crowd as "sinister, depraved, out of control". After the defeat of the Italian Army in Russia, Mussolini was removed as head of state and imprisoned. Italian partisans took his body to Milan and exposed it before an angry crowd. It was even forbidden to publish a picture of him smiling or to print the word DUCE in anything but uppercase letters. He was still 80 miles away from the main British position at Mersa Matruh! [35][40][41] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed. This was taken after the mob desecrated their bodies. During World War I, he renounced socialism and adopted fascism. [55], At about 2:00p.m. on 29 April, the recently arrived American military authorities ordered that the bodies be taken down and delivered to the city morgue for autopsies to be carried out. Hed declared war against the rest of the world with only Germany to back him up. [4], Slowly fighting their way up the Italian Peninsula, the Allies took Rome and then Florence in the summer of 1944 and later that year they began advancing into northern Italy. 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. [53] After a while, the bodies were hung by their feet from the metal girder framework of a half-built Standard Oil service station. Unlike traditional dictatorships, which demanded passive obedience, Mussolinis total state demanded constant involvement, even enthusiasm, for the regime. Mussolini went to fight in the war. For some time after his return little was heard of him. To the hooks, like pigs!. German troops worked alongside the blackshirts to maintain order. For all these reasons it was seen as significant that he largely confirmed Audisio's account. [31][32][33], It was largely confirmed by an account provided by Aldo Lampredi[34] and the "classical" narrative of the story was set out in books written in the 1960s by Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro, and the journalist Franco Bandini (it). The numbers signing the tomb's register range from dozens to hundreds per day, with thousands signing on certain anniversaries; almost all the comments left are supportive of Mussolini. In late 1914, with World War I newly underway, he founded a newspaper called The People of Italy. [59], On the afternoon of 29 April, Adolf Hitler learned of Mussolini's execution, although it is unknown how much of the detail was communicated to him. [78][79][80], There have been several claims that Britain's wartime covert operations unit, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), was responsible for Mussolini's death, and that it may have even been ordered by the British prime minister, Winston Churchill. [45] However, the lack of a judge or a Commissario di Guerra (required by the ordinance to be present) casts doubt on this assertion. Higher! It was alongside his longtime mistress, Clara Petacci, that he died, however. His views were so extreme that the Socialist Party even kicked him out and he resigned from their newspaper. Some journalists, politicians and historians, doubting the veracity of Audisio's account, have advanced a wide variety of theories and speculation as to how Mussolini died and who was responsible. 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. Furthermore, he had had a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy; he was also known to have disliked Audisio personally. Then, take a look at photos from fascist Italy that provide a chilling look at life during Mussolinis reign. [48][49], In the evening of 28 April, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed fascists were loaded onto a van and transported south to Milan. [note 5] The tomb is decorated with fascist symbols and contains a large marble head of Mussolini. Growing closeness to Hitler was a kind of fatal embrace for Mussolini. At the age of 19, a short, pale young man with a powerful jaw and enormous, dark, piercing eyes, he left Italy for Switzerland with a nickel medallion of Karl Marx in his otherwise empty pockets. A third son, Bruno, was killed in an air accident while flying a Piaggio Poorly trained and outfitted, these men would likely have lost a battle with Italys army. [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. Updates? Thus Mussolini could only watch, align himself with Hitler fully, and declare war against Germanys enemies. According to History.com, the man who put himself on a pedestal for a country to adore and fear was buried in the anonymity of an unmarked grave. [42][43], Differences also exist with the account given by others involved, including Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle. 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 Benito Mussolinis fascist regime was often depicted as inept and ridiculed for its comic appearances. [CDATA[/* > 3. But just like that, Mussolinis violent life had come to a violent end. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". 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. As an adult, Benito Mussolini would have two wives and many mistresses. By the spring of 1945, the war in Europe was over and Italy was broken. 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