From Uncle Mike:
April 28-30, 1945: The Ends of the Dictators
Mike is covering two fateful days ine one post, April 28, when Mussolini was executed by Italian Partisans, and April 30, when Hitler killed himself. In both instances they took a "significant other" with them, in Mussolini's case, that being his current mistress, Clara Petacci, age 33.
Mussolini and Petacci had been caught trying to cross into Switzerland by partisans, who executed them the following day. They were shot, and then their bodies hung upside down.
Mussolini had been the first of the fascist dictators to hold power. There had always been opposition to the one time socialist turned fascist, but armed Italian opposition only came about after the Allies had landed on Italian territory. As with France, whose resistance swelled as it became obvious that the Allies would land, Italian opposition was heavily dominated by the far left, but there were other elements in it as well. Mussolini, as already noted, had once been a member of the far left as well, and it's probable, frankly, that amongst those who watched and cheered his death were those who had once cheered him.
Often missed, Nicola Bombacci, Alessandro Pavolini and Achille Starace were also executed at the same time. Nicola Bombacci was an Italian Marxist revolutionary and later a fascist politician. The others were prominent fascists.
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