Mussolini’s DEATH
Mussolini’s Final Hours, APRIL 28, 1945 By Christopher Klein PRINT CITE Facebook Twitter Google After a failed attempt to flee Italy with his mistress, Benito Mussolini was executed on April 28, 1945. On the 70th anniversary of the Italian dictator’s death, read about his final hours, the desecration of his corpse in a public square and his body’s strange journey in the ensuing years. By April 25, 1945, Benito Mussolini’s dream of re-creating the Roman Empire, much like the crumbling Roman Forum itself, lay in ruins. With the Allies closing in from the south and anti-fascist partisans rising up to seize city after city in northern Italy, Mussolini’s power base was quickly evaporating. The 61-year-old Italian dictator who sought to become a modern-day Julius Caesar had first risen to power more than two decades earlier when he became prime minister in 1922. “Il Duce” allied himself with fellow fascist Adolf Hitler and Nazi Ge...