Claretta petacci cause of death update

After they captured and killed him, his body was subjected to a strange journey that lasted for more than a decade. By April 25, , Mussolini's dream of re-creating the Roman Empire , much like the crumbling Roman Forum itself, lay in ruins. The 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 In September , Nazi paratroopers staged a daring commando raid that rescued Mussolini from the Apennine Mountain ski resort where he was being detained.

Mussolini death

Hitler installed Mussolini as the figurehead of the Social Republic of Italy known informally as the Republic of Salo , a Nazi puppet state in German-occupied northern Italy. By April 25, , however, the Third Reich was quickly losing its grip on northern Italy. There, a furious Mussolini learned that, unbeknownst to him, the Nazis had begun negotiations for an unconditional surrender.

Mussolini stormed out of the palace and fled Milan with his year-old mistress, Clara Petacci, in the Alfa Romeo sports car he had bought as a gift for his girlfriend.

Benito mussolini and clara hanging

The following day, the pair joined a convoy of fellow fascists and German soldiers heading north toward Lake Como and the border with Switzerland. Mussolini donned a German Luftwaffe helmet and overcoat, but the disguise did little to save him when partisans stopped the convoy at the lakeside town of Dongo on April For 20 years, Mussolini had built a cult of personality with his image emblazoned on posters and newspapers.

Now, the familiarity of his distinctive shaved head and granite jaw, even in disguise, did him in. The partisans seized Mussolini and Petacci. Fearing that the Nazis would again try to liberate the dictator, the partisans hid the pair in a remote farmhouse for the night. The following day, Mussolini and Petacci were removed from the house and driven to the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra on the shores of Lake Como.

They were ordered to stand in front of a stone wall at the entrance to Villa Belmonte where both were executed by machine gun fire. The identity of the triggerman remains a point of contention, but it was likely communist partisan commander Walter Audisio.