Benito Mussolini Executed (1945)

Sat Apr 28, 1945

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On this day in 1945, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini was summarily executed, likely by communist partisan Walter Audisio, and then his corpse was hung upside down in the Piazzale Loreto, where it was beaten and shot by angry crowds.

Benito Mussolini (1883 - 1945) was the founder and leader of the National Fascist Party who inspired numerous fascist leaders, such as Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, and António de Oliveira Salazar, ruling Italy as “Il Duce” since 1925.

Mussolini’s grip on power had begun slipping as the Allies pressed into Italian territory during World War II. On April 25th, 1945, Mussolini attempted to flee Milan for Switzerland after the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia (Committee of National Liberation for Northern Italy) seized control of the city. Two days later, Mussolini, along with other fascist leaders, were arrested traveling in a German convoy near the village of Dongo.

Accounts vary on how exactly Mussolini was killed, but the most commonly accepted version of the events suggest communist partisan Walter Audisio was the person who pulled the trigger. Following World War II, Audisio would be elected to serve in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

In any case, the evening of April 28th, 1945, the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress, and other executed fascists were loaded onto a van and dumped in Piazzale Loreto, a town square where fifteen partisans had previously been executed by fascists and their bodies left on public display.