Mussolini Hanged: Fascism's Bloody End in Italy
Communist partisan leader Walter Audisio, using the nom de guerre Colonnello Valerio, executed Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci by firing squad at the gates of Villa Belmonte in Giulino di Mezzegra on April 28, 1945. The circumstances remain disputed: some accounts say Audisio's machine gun jammed and a comrade finished the job. Mussolini's body was trucked to Milan along with fifteen other executed fascist leaders and hung upside down from the roof of an Esso gas station at Piazzale Loreto. The spectacle served as both vengeance and political statement. American forces recovered the bodies and buried Mussolini in an unmarked grave. His remains were stolen by fascist sympathizers in 1946, recovered, and eventually returned to his family in 1957.
April 28, 1945
81 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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