Discover the obscure history of the key figure in the creation of Fascism
On April 28, 1945, Benito Mussolini, one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism, died in Mezzegra, Italy. The death of fascist Benito Mussolini took place on April 28.
Born on July 29, 1883, in the city of Dovia di Predappio, in Emilia-Romagna, the name Benito was a tribute to the revolutionary Benito Juarez. Mussolini, like his father, also an alcoholic, became a socialist and later a Marxist.
His mother, Rosa Maltoni, was a primary school teacher and the family's main source of support.
At 11 years of age, Benito stabbed a schoolmate and threw paint at his teacher. But despite this, he continued his studies and qualified as a primary school teacher in 1901.
In 1902 he went to Switzerland to avoid military service, but he did not find any job and in addition to being arrested for “vagrancy”, he ended up being deported to Italy, where he completed his mandatory military service.
After leaving military service, he got a job at a newspaper in the city of Trento – at the time under Austro-Hungarian rule – in 1908, where he wrote a novel called The Cardinal's Mistress.
He married Rachele Guidi and in 1910 their first daughter, Edda, was born. In 1916, Vittorio was born, in 1918 Bruno, in 1927 Romano and in 1929, Anna Maria.
Wounded in combat
When he began his career as a journalist and politician, he firmly propagated Italian socialism, for which reason he wrote several articles in the left-wing newspaper Avanti, of which he was editor-in-chief. In 1914, he was in charge of the newspaper Popolo d'Itália, where he defended an Italian intervention in favor of the allies and opposing Germany.
With the expulsion of the Italian Socialist Party, he joined the army, as soon as Italy entered the First World War. He reached the rank of sergeant, and was injured in combat by a grenade.
In 1919, he created the Fasci Italiani di Combatimento, an organization that would give rise to the Fascist Party. Based on a theoretically socialist political philosophy, it attracted discontented military personnel and a large part of the population, thereby increasing the party's membership and size.
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After great political and social disturbances – a period in which he achieved great popularity – he became head of the party.
Elected deputy in Milan in 1921, he promoted reprisal actions led by his militias, the “Black Shirts” against leftists and strikers.
The march on Rome, a propagandist coup
In 1922, alongside Bianchi, De Vecchi, De Bono and Italo Balbo, he organized the march on Roma, a propagandist coup. Even Mussolini was not present. However, the fact convinced King Víctor Emanuel III to entrust him with the government. Appointed prime minister in October 1922, he gained full powers in the Chamber, progressively removed all parliamentary opposition and exercised a true dictatorship from 1925 onwards, calling himself Duce – conductor. This campaign had support from the bourgeoisie and the Church.
In 1929, needing the support of the Church and Catholics, he ended the Roman Question – a disagreement between the popes and the Italian State – by signing the Concordat of Saint John Lateran with Pius XI. This treaty agreed on the creation of the Vatican State, the pope received monetary compensation for territorial losses, religious education became mandatory in Italian schools, Catholicism became the official religion of Italy and it became illegal for priests to be employed in public positions. leave the cassock.
Second World War
In 1935, he occupied Abyssinia – now Ethiopia – destroying the support of France and England, which were his political allies. This military campaign caused the deaths of 500 thousand people among Africans, and around 5 thousand deaths among Italians. Chemical weapons were used against the local population, a fact that was not reported in the Italian press, under Mussolini's control.
Since then, he allied himself with Adolf Hitler, with whom he would sign several treaties. In 1936, he signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Japan, by which the Three countries formed a political-military alliance that would consequently drag the world into World War II.
He invaded Albania in 1938 and sent several detachments that fought alongside Franco's troops during the Spanish Civil War. Then, they attacked Greece – but they were repelled and completely expelled in 8 days of battle.
With the beginning of the Second World War, he fought for the Axis and, after several defeats, despite German military support, he was removed from power and arrested in 1943.
He was freed by German SS paratroopers in Gran Sasso on September 12, 1943 in an admirable rescue action, led by Otto Skorzeny, known as Operation Eiche – OAK.
The death
Once free, he founded the Italian Social Republic – known as the Republic of Salò – in Northern Italy, but was soon arrested again by Italian Resistance guerrillas, according to newspapers at the time. On April 28, 1945, together with his companion, Clara Petacci, Mussolini was assassinated by members of the resistance.
In an act typical of medieval times, his body and that of his wife were exposed to public execration for several days, hanging upside down in a public square in Milan.
Therefore, there is no clarity as to who was responsible for the shots that killed Mussolini and his wife.
Michele Moretti, the last survivor of the anti-fascist guerrilla group that killed the dictator, died in 1995. Moretti, who during the guerrilla era used the code name “Pietro”, kept the secret until the end about who actually shot Benito Mussolini and his wife.
Some Italian historians say that Moretti himself killed both. Others claim that the person who fired the shots, from a “Pietro” machine gun, was another partisan, Walter Audisio. However, in concrete terms we only know that the action was the responsibility of the Italian Resistance.
References:
The People of Italy: the newspaper that changed history
The birth of the Fasci di Combattimento
October 28, 1922, the march on Rome: what happened in those days?
The Republic of Salò
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