In 1940, Mussolini took his country into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany but soon was met with military failure. Capture and Execution of Mussolini Mussolini spent his last 7 days in power in Milan, which was the site of his rise to power. 11 ratings. They were apprehended near the village of Dongo. During this time, the Nazi war machine was slowing down and Allied forces were making their … DVD. No autopsy was carried out on Petacci. Last Days of Mussolini (Italian: Mussolini: Ultimo atto) is a 1974 Italian historical drama film co-written and directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Rod Steiger, Franco Nero and Lisa Gastoni. Although his account most probably is built around the facts, it was certainly embellished. 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. [32][33], Differences also exist with the account given by others involved, including Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle. 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. The bodies were beaten, shot at, and hit with hammers. [1] Comparisons have been made with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories,[10] and it has been described as the Italian equivalent of that speculation. In his last days, Mussolini, the tyrant, was in the grip of anger, shame, and depression. Last Days of Mussolini: | | | Mussolini: ultimo atto| -Last Days of Mussolini- ... World Heritage Encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most definitive collection ever assembled. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}45°58′53″N 9°12′13″E / 45.98126°N 9.2035°E / 45.98126; 9.2035 The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. [34], In a book he wrote in the 1970s, Audisio argued that the decision to execute Mussolini taken at the meeting in Dongo of the partisan leaders on 28 April constituted a valid judgment of a tribunal under Article 15 of the CNLAI's ordinance on the Constitution of Courts of War. Once the Italian government recovered Mussolini’s corpse, it kept its whereabouts secret for more than a decade. [30] The vehicle pulled up at the entrance of the Villa Belmonte on a narrow road known as via XXIV maggio and Mussolini and Petacci were told to get out and stand by the villa's wall. Aside from Mussolini and Petacci, sixteen of the most prominent of them would be summarily shot in Dongo the following day and a further ten would be killed over two successive nights. This film shows the dictator in his last days, troubled, even conscience-ridden, but still the unmistakably arrogant figure of days gone by. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. According to Bellini delle Stelle no other discussion or formalities concerning the decision to execute them took place.[34]. Mussolini stormed out of the palace and fled Milan with his 33-year-old mistress, Clara Petacci, in the 1939 Alfa Romeo sport car he had bought as a gift for his girlfriend. [52] 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. 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. As the Soviets closed in on Berlin, Hitler received news of Mussolini’s death. Last Days of Mussolini is similar to these films: Esterina, The Wicked (1991 film), San Babila-8 P.M. and more. [45], At about 2:00 p.m., the American military authorities, who had arrived in the city, ordered that the bodies be taken down and delivered to the city morgue for autopsies to be carried out. They hurled invectives and vegetables at the dictator’s corpse before kicking, beating and spitting upon it. [25][27], In the afternoon, he, with other partisans, including Aldo Lampredi and Michele Moretti, drove to the De Maria family's farmhouse to collect Mussolini and Petacci. [19], 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. However, to reflect this lack of governmental or judicial authority, sources on the subject have used the term with quotation marks. [38] Eventually, in August, the body (with a leg missing) was tracked down to the Certosa di Pavia, a monastery not far from Milan. 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. Audisio gave a different account. [4] By 1944, the "Salò Republic", as it came to be called, was threatened not only by the Allies advancing from the south but also internally by Italian anti-fascist partisans, in a brutal conflict that was to become known as the Italian civil war. [62], They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. How one of the most vile dictators of the twentieth century met his end. Movie & TV guides. There, eight months earlier, fascists acting under orders from Hitler’s SS publicly displayed the bodies of 15 executed partisans. [9] With the CLNAI's assumption of control in Milan and the German army in northern Italy about to surrender, Mussolini fled the city on 25 April and attempted to escape north to Switzerland.[9][10]. [20][21][22], It was largely confirmed by an account provided by Aldo Lampredi[23] 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. [12] Lazzaro later said that: His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. Mussolini donned a German Luftwaffe helmet and overcoat, but the disguise did little to save him when partisans stopped the convoy at the lakeside town of Dongo on April 27. [5], 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. Jump to: General, Art, Business, Computing, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Religion, Science, Slang, Sports, Tech, Phrases We found one dictionary with English definitions that includes the word last days of mussolini: Click on the first link on a line below to go directly to a page where "last days of mussolini… [57], 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". Rod Steiger (Actor), Henry Fonda (Actor), Carlo Lizzani (Director) & 0 more. In Predappio, a march takes place between the centre of town and the cemetery. The generally accepted version of events[note 1] is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan who used the nom de guerre of "Colonel Valerio". Mussolini flees, pursued by his lover Claretta Petacci, and manages to get to the northern village of Dongo. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. However, the reason given by those involved in hanging Mussolini and the others in this way was to protect the bodies from the mob. In September 1943, Nazi paratroopers staged a daring commando raid that rescued Mussolini from the Apennine Mountain ski resort where he was being detained. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. A US army cameraman took photographs of the bodies for publication, including one with Mussolini and Petacci positioned in a macabre pose as though they were arm-in-arm. As the title not so subtly implies, the film follows the last four days of the life of Benito Mussolini (played incredibly by Rod Steiger of A Fistful Of Dynamite) in April of 1945. She also said that she herself had heard the shots and that she "looked at the clock, it was almost 11". One woman, deciding Mussolini wasn’t dead enough for her, emptied a pistol into the dictator’s body and shouted, “Five shots for my five assassinated sons!” The crowd then strung the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci and other fascists by their feet from the girders of a gasoline station in a corner of the square. Its location was hardly a secret, however, and anti-fascists made regular pilgrimages to the cemetery to desecrate his grave until Mussolini made a resurrection of sorts on Easter Sunday 1946 when Domenico Leccisi and fellow fascists dug up Il Duce’s body, washed it in a nearby fountain and pushed it in a wheelbarrow to a getaway car. At the beginning of World War II, Mussolini made the famous statement: “If I … Fearing that the Nazis would again try to liberate the dictator, the partisans hid the pair in a remote farmhouse for the night. By April 25, 1945, however, the Third Reich was quickly losing its grip on northern Italy. [38][39], In the evening of 28 April, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed fascists were loaded onto a van and trucked south to Milan. Now, the familiarity of his distinctive shaved head and granite jaw, even in disguise, did him in. [18] 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. [3] Later that year, he 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 Salò near Lake Garda. Petacci were arrested by the authorities who then kept it hidden for blood... That he had ordered Mussolini 's widow, Rachele, well Outside of respectively! 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