Italian Resistance Movement - Capture and Execution of Mussolini

Capture and Execution of Mussolini

On the morning of 27 April 1945 Umberto (nom de guerre "Partisan Bill") a Partisan of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade (Communists) was checking lorries at Dongo on Lake Como carrying retreating German Troops to the Swiss border. He became suspicious of a man in the fifth truck. His unit had been warned that Mussolini was attempting to flee the country. There was an agreement with the Partisans the convoy would be given safe passage providing no Italians were being concealed among the retreating German soldiers. A German soldier explained the man was a drunken colleague, but Lazzaro remained unconvinced.

Lazzaro called out to the man, who twice ignored his shouts. Climbing into the truck he went up to the man and said "Cavaliere Benito Mussolini"—the man's reaction was a physical jolt. The man was Benito Mussolini (Il Duce). The political commissar of the unit was called in—the official partisan version of events thereafter is the decision to have Mussolini executed was taken by a small group including the leaders of the three main 'branches' of the Resistance. One of the representatives of the Communist Garibaldi Brigade was its Commander, Luigi Longo,(born Fubine 1900, died Rome 1980) who would later become a Member of the Italian Parliament and Leader (Secretary) of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. Earlier in the Spanish Civil War, Longo as Inspector General of the International Brigade had fought against Franco.

The task of carrying out the execution of Mussolini was given to 'Colonel Valerio', conventionally identified as a Garibaldi Communist, Walter Audisio. However, Lazzaro in his 1962 book about the incident clearly states that the 'Colonel Valerio' the one he saw in Dongo was not Walter Audisio, but Luigi Longo. The identification of such a senior figure personally organising a summary execution was politically explosive. This didn't later stop Lazzaro from further contradicting the official partisan version that Mussolini and his mistress (Clara Petacci) had been killed the following day the 28th at 4.10pm at the gates of a villa at Giulino di Mezzegra overlooking the lake. He stated they were killed the same day the 27th at 12.30pm when Petacci tried to grab a gun from one of the resistance fighters who were escorting them to Milan for a public execution. Shots were fired and Mussolini was hit "they finished him off on the spot and then shot Clara Petacci for causing the accident".

Many of the corpses, including those of Mussolini and Petacci, were later taken to Milan and hung up-side down in Piazzale Loreto, a square not far from the Milano Centrale railway station; the square was chosen because it had been the site of a massacre of anti-Fascists by Fascist militia under German orders the previous year. Fifteen Fascists were exhibited in the square; this number had significance seeing as 15 anti-Fascists had been displayed in the square in 1944.

The Fascists executed in Dongo included: Benito Mussolini (Il Duce), Francesco Barracu (Undersecretary in cabinet office), Fernando Mezzasoma (Ministry of Popular Culture – Propaganda), Nicola Bombacci (a personal friend of Mussolini), Luigi Gatti (Mussolini's private secretary), Augusto Liverani (Minister of Communications), Alessandro Pavolini (ex-Ministry of Popular Culture), Paolo Zerbino (Minister of Interior), Ruggero Romano (Minister of Public Works), Paolo Porta (Head of Fascist Party in Lombardy), Goffredo Coppola (Rector of the Bologna University), Ernesto Daquanno (Director of Stefani press agency), Mario Nudi (President of Fascist Agriculture Association), Colonel Vito Casalinuovo (Mussolini's adjutant), Pietro Calistri (Air Force pilot), Idreno Utimperghe (a participant in the March on Rome and leader of a Black Brigade, and Clara Petacci (Mussolini's mistress).

Achille Starace (Secretary of Fascist Party 1931–1939) was arrested and executed earlier in Milan. He was one of the fifteen Fascists exhibited in the square.

Marcello Petacci (Clara Petacci's brother) was captured with the others. But, rather than being executed in Dongo, he was shot trying to escape.

Shortly after World War II it was said the modern Republic of Italy was founded on the collective achievements of the Partisan leaders, whose political allegiance was mixed and sometimes caused friction. It shouldn't therefore be surprising that credible differing versions of these events were widely promoted then for politically expedient reasons.