Mussolini Death: What Happened to Mussolini’s Body After His Death?

By Jivika On Nov 2, 2022

Mussolini, born Benito Amilcare Andrea on July 29, 1883, in Predappio, Italy, and dying on April 28, 1945 in the countryside near Dongo, was the first of Europe’s fascist dictators of the 20th century and the prime minister of Italy from 1922 to 1943.

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Analysis of Benito Mussolini’s Rise to Power

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, born on July 29, 1883, in Dovia di Predappio, was a bright and inquisitive child. In fact, he first planned on becoming a teacher before realising that wasn’t his calling. Not deterred, he devoured the works of such notable European thinkers as Immanuel Kant, Georges Sorel, Benedict de Spinoza, Peter Kropotkin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Karl Marx.

Starting in his early twenties, he published a string of periodicals that were little more than mouthpieces for his increasingly radical ideology. When it came to the improvement of labour unions and worker protections, he encouraged the use of violence as a means to that end.

This kind of incitement to violence landed the young writer and radical in jail multiple times, including for his role in a violent workers’ strike in Switzerland in 1903. Because of the severe nature of his opinions, the Socialist Party expelled him and he resigned as editor of their newspaper.

In response, Mussolini took matters into his own hands. After the United States and Germany had already declared war on each other in late 1914, he launched a journal called The People of Italy. There, he lays out the political tenets of nationalism, militarism, and violent extremism that will shape his later work and outlook.

We are all Italians and nothing but Italians from now on, he once declared. Now that iron has met iron, our hearts can only scream: Viva Italia! “[Viva Italia!]”

A Cause of Death for Benito Mussolini?

In the spring of 1945, Italy capitulated and the war in Europe ended. As the Allies advanced, the south collapsed into chaos. Many Italians felt that Il Duce was to blame for their country’s plight.

However, it was no longer possible to simply arrest Il Duce. Italy was unwilling to take any further risks with its own future, even if Hitler was trapped in Berlin and encircled by Allied forces.

Benito Mussolini met with anti-Fascist partisans in Milan’s palace on April 25, 1945. Here he discovered that Germany had initiated talks for Mussolini’s capitulation, and his terrifying fury was fully unleashed.

He ran away to the north with his mistress Clara Petacci, joining a German convoy bound for the Swiss border. To Mussolini, this was the best option for spending the rest of his life in exile.

In this case, he was completely incorrect. As the caravan moved along, Il Duce attempted to blend in by donning a Nazi helmet and coat. It was easy to recognise him by his bald head, square jaw, and intense dark eyes. Over the course of the preceding quarter century, Mussolini’s face had been plastered on propaganda posters across the country, earning him a cult-like following and making him instantly recognisable to the general populace.

Partisans hid Mussolini and Petacci in a farmhouse after they learned the Nazis were planning another rescue effort. Partisans shot the couple dead the following morning after ordering them to stand against a stone wall at the entrance to Villa Belmonte near Italy’s Lake Como. Mussolini’s final words were “No! No!”

The Swiss border is so near to the vacation town of Como that Mussolini was almost there. Mussolini may have escaped had they gone just a little further.

What Happened to Mussolini’s Body After His Death

As darkness fell in Milan’s Square of the Fifteen Martyrs the evening after Benito Mussolini’s assassination, a cargo truck sped in. Ten men worked together to throw 18 bodies out the rear. They belonged to Mussolini, the Petaccis, and the other 15 alleged Fascists.

It was the same square where 15 anti-Fascists had been brutally executed by Mussolini’s soldiers the previous year. Milanese citizens didn’t miss the link, and they vented 20 years’ worth of pent-up rage and frustration on the bodies.

Garbage vegetables were thrown at the dictator’s body. They eventually began punching and kicking it. An individual female felt that Il Duce wasn’t properly dead. At close range, she unleashed five bullets into his skull, one for each of her sons who had been killed in Mussolini’s war.

The reaction of the crowd was boosted even further by this. So that the throng could witness what had happened, one man grasped Mussolini’s body under the arms. However, that was still not enough. The bodies were hung upside down from the petrol station’s iron girders by means of ropes that were attached to the victims’ feet.

The spectators chanted, “Higher!” Higher! We have no visibility! Stake them to the crossbeams! Go swinishly and squealily to the hooks!

The human bodies indeed resemble butchered cuts of meat. Mussolini stared with an open jaw. His mouth wouldn’t be silenced even in death. Clara’s eyes were fixed unseeingly ahead of her.

Hitler Committed Suicide With His Mistress After Benito Mussolini’s Death

Fast word travelled of Benito Mussolini’s passing. After hearing the news on the radio, Hitler pledged that his body would not be treated with the same disrespect as Mussolini’s had been. Some of Hitler’s closest associates claimed he vowed, “This would never happen to me.”

I do not intend to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle planned by the Jews for the enjoyment of their hysterical masses,” Hitler said in his hastily penned last will and testament. A few days after Mussolini’s death, on May 1, Hitler committed suicide with his mistress. As Soviet forces moved in, members of his inner circle incinerated his body.

Benito Mussolini’s demise, however, was far from complete. Both American military and a Catholic cardinal showed up in the afternoon of the day the bodies were desecrated. They brought Mussolini and Petacci’s corpses to the local morgue, where a photographer from the United States Army snapped a few photos of the grisly scene.

The American Military Sent Mussolini’s Relatives a Sample of His Brain

At last, the couple was laid to rest in a Milan cemetery, although their burial is unmarked.

There wasn’t much of a period of secrecy, though. On Easter Sunday, 1946, Fascists unearthed Il Duce’s corpse. The communist party’s “cannibal slurs produced by human dregs organised in the party” were deemed intolerable by the Fascist Party, according to a message left behind.

It took four months, but the body was eventually discovered in a convent close to Milan. For eleven years, it remained there till Italian Prime Minister Adone Zoli returned the remains to Mussolini’s wife. The couple had a dignified burial for their spouse at the Predappio family crypt.

The mystery surrounding Mussolini’s demise continues even after this. The United States military sent Mussolini’s family a piece of his brain in 1966. In order to check for syphilis, the military removed a piece of his brain. The results of the exam were not clear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Was Behind Benito Mussolini’s Murder?

A communist partisan named Walter Audisio is widely believed to have shot Mussolini. However, since the war’s end, there has been persistent debate and disagreement in Italy concerning the specifics of Mussolini’s killing, including who carried it ou

How Many People Died With Mussolini?

The government of Italy never ordered its armed forces to put down Mussolini’s rebellion. Between 1920 and 1922, fascist armed squads roamed the country, destroying property and killing an estimated 2,000 political opponents, with little to no action from the police or the military.