Chapter 107 Mussolini hangs in the street

In the evening of April 28, 1945, two mud-stained corpses hung upside down from a metal pillar at a gas station in a square in Milan.These two are Mussolini and his mistress Betaci.They and some other fascist leaders were shot by guerrillas on the lawn in front of Villa Berumonti.The invincible Italian fascism finally came to an end. Mussolini, born in Predapio, Italy on July 29, 1883, worked as a journalist in his early years.After World War I, the terrorist and dictatorial fascist party first appeared in Italy, and Mussolini was the leader of the fascist party and the initiator of fascism. In 1919, the armed "combat regiment" organized by the bourgeois right-wing and reactionary soldiers was the predecessor of the Fascist Party, and it officially became the Fascist Party in 1921. The original text of "fascist" comes from the Latin word "bunch of sticks", which refers to the sign stick of the ancient Roman consul to express authority.Later, the word "fascist" was used exclusively as a synonym for dictatorship.

In 1922, Mussolini and his followers launched a "March into Rome" coup, forcing the king to let him form a cabinet, thereby seizing power. In 1928 he forcibly ended parliamentary government, calling himself "Head of Government".During his rule, other political parties were declared illegal internally, making Italy a fascist "total state", carrying out crazy military expansion and preparations for war, and massacred people.It advocates chauvinism and racism to the outside world, and pursues a policy of aggressive war. In the 1930s, Germany and Japan successively established fascist dictatorships, and the threat of fascism became increasingly serious. Mussolini successively launched a war of aggression against Ethiopia, armed intervention in Spain and occupation of Albania. In 1937, he joined the "Anti-Comintern Pact" between Germany and Japan and became a member of the Fascist Axis.Also involved in the Munich conspiracy to invade Czechoslovakia. In 1940, he followed the German fascists and declared war on France.Mussolini was one of the main war criminals of this war.

At the beginning of the summer of 1943, the Allied forces successfully landed in Sicily, and the counter-offensive started in mainland Italy.Under the attack of anti-fascist forces at home and abroad, Mussolini's dictatorship was already in a precarious state.The Allied forces won victories in the Soviet-German battlefield, North Africa and Sicily, which made the disintegration of the fascist Axis a foregone conclusion. Mussolini rebelled, and a group of officers and politicians, including his son-in-law, launched a coup and drove him out of the country. He stepped down and put him under house arrest in a small hotel on the top of Gran Sasso, 120 kilometers northeast of Rome.In order to prevent the German fascists from coming to the rescue, the Italian side specially selected this small hotel built on the highest peak of the Apennines.

The day after Mussolini was arrested, Italian radio broadcast the news of his "resignation". On July 25, after the news spread from Rome to Berlin, Hitler was very disturbed, and immediately held a meeting, and finally decided to take all measures to rescue Mussolini, occupy Rome, and do everything possible to support the collapsed Italian Fascist Party.If the Badoglio government signed an armistice with the allies, further plans must be drawn up to capture the Italian fleet, occupy fortresses throughout Italy, and deter Italian garrisons in the Balkans and the Aegean.In order to use Mussolini's remaining power in Italy to last the war to the end, Hitler decided to send a special force to rescue him in the so-called "world's highest prison".The captain of the special forces was Skolzeny who was born in Austria. Before leaving, Hitler specially summoned him and asked that Mussolini must be rescued. On September 12, 12 gliders flew over Gran Sasso.With the help of pro-German Italian officers, the Special Forces managed to disarm the Italian defenders.Knowing that he was free again, Mussolini couldn't help sighing: "I know my friend Hitler will not abandon me."

Just three days later, that is, on September 15, Hitler instructed Mussolini to form a new government in the small city of Salo in northern Italy, and named the country the "Italian Social Republic". Solini has been dependent on others, has lost the capital to be equal to Hitler and can bargain, and has become a puppet of Nazi Germany in Italy. Immediately after Mussolini regained power, he began to severely punish those who had ousted him in the summer. At the beginning of 1944, six arrested "rebels", including his son-in-law Ciano, were put on trial, and his daughter's pleading failed to rescue Ciano.In the end, of the six rebels, except for one who survived because he initially withdrew his vote for his resignation, the remaining five were all executed.