how did benito mussolini die

This invigorated the crowd even more. 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. [23], The partisans arrested Mussolini and took him to Dongo, where he spent part of the night in the local barracks. [77], In his 1993 book Dongo: half a century of lies, the partisan leader Urbano Lazzaro repeated a claim he had made earlier that Luigi Longo and not Audisio, was "Colonnello Valerio". [81][88] Commenting on the RAI television documentary in 2004, Christopher Woods, researcher for the official history of the SOE, dismissed these claims saying that "it's just love of conspiracy-making". Early life As panic spread in their ranks, OConnor now launched a frontal assault by 7th Armoured Division, the famed Desert Rats. Graziani's entire army was routed, sent into headlong retreat across the desert, pursued, caught, and destroyed at Beda Fomm in February 1941. People in Hitlers inner circle reported that he said, This will never happen to me.. 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. 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. [42][43], Differences also exist with the account given by others involved, including Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle. Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, after apparently suffering a stroke but some suspect that he was actually poisoned. After the Allies invaded North Africa in late 1942, war came to Italys doorstep. Site of execution: entrance to the Villa Belmonte. That connection was not lost on the residents of Milan, who then took out 20 years of frustration and fury on the corpses. Finally, the pair were buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog.[28]. He would strip to the waist to address farmers in the hot sun or pose wrestling with a lion cub. However, the "official" explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative. But Mussolinis political orientation didnt always lean that way. Despite Italy becoming the first ally of the Fhrer, this fact was downplayed when they surrendered to the Allies at the end of 1943. [23] In Dongo, Mussolini was reunited with Petacci, who had requested to join him, at about 2:30a.m. on 28 April. The Frenchdisintegrating all over the mapstopped the Italians cold. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". 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. He thanks you for reading his content. After advancing 50 miles, Graziani halted at Sidi Barrani in order, he said, to begin construction of a paved supply road back to Libya, something that would have taken months even under peacetime conditions. [32], Audisio and Lampredi left Milan for Dongo early on the morning of 28 April 1945 to carry out the orders Audisio had been given by Longo. She buried her husband properly at his family crypt in Predappio. Mussolini went to fight in the war. He began adult life as a staunch socialist opposed to the war in the footsteps of his father. 504-528-1944. 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. One woman felt Il Duce wasnt dead enough. First it was bombing raids on Italian cities, which possessed only rudimentary antiaircraft defenses. [23] Lazzaro later said that: His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. The Allies had re-taken northern Africa away from Italy and Sicily was now in Allied hands as they prepared to invade Italy itself. All of those propaganda posters and photos had now truly come back to haunt him. The farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. 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. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. [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. [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. [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. 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. The New York Times After Mussolini. It worked, and Mussolini was appointed prime minister that same year. This reign of terror came to a head on Aug. 13, 1944. Without Hitlers military intervention, a coup surely would have toppled Mussolini in 1941. On 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini died. The Italians convinced the West that their former pact with the Nazis was water under the bridge. [72], The re-interment in the Mussolini family crypt in Predappio was carried out on 1 September 1957, with supporters present giving the fascist salute. The Concordat was a popular move in Catholic Italy, and a plebiscite in May gave Mussolini 98% of the vote. He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Inside Benito Mussolinis Death And His Panicked Final Hours. Lets take a look at the circumstances that led to his demise. [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. A simple slogan summed it up: Il DUCE, the Italian people were told, ha sempre ragione! (The Duce is always right!). [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. But of course, almost all of this was mythologicalunreal! The tomb has become a neo-fascist place of pilgrimage. Born July 29, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was intelligent and inquisitive from an early age. As for Benito Mussolinis death, that story wasnt over yet. If they couldn't, they submitted to binding government arbitration. 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. 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. [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. At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer. People got ropes, tied them to the feet of the corpses, and strung them upside-down from the iron girders of a gas station. He resigned from Avanti! But the location wasnt a secret for too long. In his initial overtures into politics, Mussolinis beliefs took after his fathers: he spent time organizing with trade unions and writing for socialist publications in both Switzerland and Italy. She also said that she herself had heard the shots and that she "looked at the clock, it was almost 11". Enter Rachele Mussolini or Donna Rachele, as she became known to the world. Death of Benito Mussolini - Wikipedia. Hed declared war against the rest of the world with only Germany to back him up. Wikimedia CommonsBenito Mussolini, pictured before his brutal death. ", "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. Mussolini was laid to rest in a large stone sarcophagus. While working for various labour organizations in Switzerland, Benito Mussolini made a name for himself as a charismatic personality and a consummate rhetorician. Yes, there were achievements of a sort. A mixed force of SS and paratroopers under Otto Skorzeny carried out a high-risk glider raid, overcame Mussolinis guards, and spirited him off the mountain. Mussolini led Italy, alright: he led it straight into disaster. Accounts vary as to how he died: Some say he was killed with coma-inducing injections, others say it was from electric shock treatments. He worked all night in his office (and the office lights were cleverly left on so that Italians could imagine him hard at work at 4:00am). He was later rescued by the Germans and placed as the man in charge of northern Italy. 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. After a lengthy legal process, an investigating judge eventually closed the case in 1967 and acquitted Audisio of murder and embezzlement on the ground that the actions complained of occurred as an act of war against the Germans and the fascists during a period of enemy occupation. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honour for this man. Wikimedia CommonsThe farmhouse in northern Italy where Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive. Mussolini returned triumphantly and kept suppressing his opposition. Mussolini was killed two days before Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide. [35][40][41] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed. Indeed, worry about Mussolini was one of the principal stumbling blocks that kept the British and French from taking a harder line against Hitler in the 1930s. Benito Mussolini was the fascist leader of Italy, appointed as prime minister after his march on Rome in 1922. The death of Benito Mussolini on April 28, 1945 was one of those latter occasions. In fact, he first set out to be a teacher but soon decided that career wasnt for him. The assassination marked a serious crisis for Mussolinis regime.After Matteottis sudden disappearance, he first denied having anything to do with it. At other times, howeverand we have to be honest about thisit can make us feel contented, perhaps even happy. A name for himself as a charismatic personality and a consummate rhetorician adult life as a staunch socialist opposed the... 29, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio, Benito Mussolini would be last seen alive of those occasions! Blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly '' May gave Mussolini %... 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