Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
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Benito Mussolini became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history at age 39 in 1922. He led a fascist regime until 1943, allied with Nazi Germany, and was executed by Communists in 1945. His body was hung by its feet in Milan.
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Benito Mussolini — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born in Predappio, Emilia-Romagna, Italy on July 29, 1883. His father Alessandro was a socialist blacksmith, and his mother Rosa Maltoni was a Catholic schoolteacher. This mix of socialism and Catholicism shaped his early worldview. He qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901, following his mother’s profession.
Mussolini first gained prominence as a socialist journalist. He broke with the Socialists over World War I and founded the Fascist movement. On October 31, 1922, after the March on Rome, he became Prime Minister at age 39, the youngest in Italian history. He formed the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936 and signed the Pact of Steel in 1939. He entered World War II on June 10, 1940, sending forces to invade France, Greece, and the Soviet Union. His military campaigns required German bailouts in 1941 and 1943.
Mussolini married Rachele Guidi in 1915; they had five children: Bruno, Edda, Vittorio, Anna Maria, and Romano. He also had a son, Benito Albino Dalser, from a previous relationship. His daughter Edda married Galeazzo Ciano, whom Mussolini later had executed under German pressure in January 1944. His granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini became a politician.
Mussolini’s fascist regime served as a model for Adolf Hitler’s economic and political policies in Germany. Despite his defeat, he is still celebrated by neo-fascists in Italy; his tomb in Predappio attracts thousands of visitors annually. He is most remembered as the founder of Italian Fascism and a key Axis leader during World War II.
Browse the complete filmography of Benito Mussolini — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Benito Mussolini's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
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A wall of memorable lines from Benito Mussolini — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Fascism Should More Properly Be Called Corporatism, Since It Is the Marriage of Government and Corporate Power.
Keep Your Heart a Desert.
People Are Like Women, They Go with the Winning Man.
I Only Need a Few Thousand Dead so That I Can Sit at the Peace Conference as a Man Who Has Fought.
The Racial Manifesto Could Have Been Avoided. It Dealt with the Scientific Abstruseness of a Few Teachers and Journalists, a Conscientious German Essay Translated into Bad Italian. It Is Far from What I Have Said, Written and Signed on the Subject. I Suggest That You Consult the Old Issues of Il Popolo D’Italia. for This Reason I Am Far from Accepting Rosenberg’s Myth.
No One, Friendly or Hostile, Could Understand the Modern World Without Taking Fascism into Account.
Go to the Fuhrer at Once, and Tell Him That Whatever Happens, I Will Be at His Side, but That I Request a Twenty Four Hour Delay Before Hostilities Begin. in the Meantime, I Will Study What Can Be Done to Solve the Problem.
It Is Not the Regime That Has Betrayed the Monarchy, It Is the Monarchy That Has Betrayed the Regime. When a Monarchy Fails in Its Duties, It Loses Every Reason for Being … the State We Want to Establish Will Be National and Social in the Highest Sense of the Word; That Is, It Will Be Fascist, Thus Returning to Our Origins.
After the Defeat I Will Be Covered Furiously in Spit but Then They Will Come to Clean Me with Veneration.
I Agree with You Entirely. I Don’t Believe a Bit in the Stupid Anti Semitic Theory. I Am Carrying Out My Policy Entirely for Political Reasons.
Fascism Has Now Acquired Throughout the World That Universally Which Belongs to All Doctrines Which by Achieving Self Expression Represent a Moment in the History of Human Thought.
The Liberal State Is Destined to Perish. All the Political Experiments of Our Day Are Anti Liberal.
I Am and Shall Remain a Socialist and My Convictions Will Never Change! They Are Bred into My Very Bones.
All Within the State, Nothing Outside the State, Nothing Against the State.
There Has Never Been Antisemitism in Italy.
There Was a Period in Which I Had 14 Women and I’d Take Three or Four Every Evening, One After the Other … That Gives You an Idea of My Sexuality.
Death Has Become a Friend Who No Longer Frightens Me. Death Is a Gift from God to Those Who Have Suffered Too Much.
I Should Be Pleased, I Suppose, That Hitler Has Carried Out a Revolution on Our Lines. but They Are Germans. so They Will End by Ruining Our Idea.
Race? It Is a Feeling, Not a Reality. Ninety Five per Cent, at Least. Nothing Will Ever Make Me Believe That Biologically Pure Races Can Be Shown to Exist Today … National Pride Has No Need of the Delirium of Race.
Democracy Is Talking Itself to Death. the People Do Not Know What They Want; They Do Not Know What Is the Best for Them. There Is Too Much Foolishness, Too Much Lost Motion. I Have Stopped the Talk and the Nonsense. I Am a Man of Action. Democracy Is Beautiful in Theory; in Practice It Is a Fallacy. You in America Will See That Some Day.
I Am Not Here to Renounce Even a Square Meter of State Territory. We Will Go Back to War for This. and We Will Rebel Against Anyone for This. Where the Italian Flag Flew, the Italian Flag Will Return. and Where It Has Not Been Lowered, Now That I Am Here, No One Will Have It Lowered. I Have Said These Things to the Führer.
We Do Not Argue with Those Who Disagree with Us, We Destroy Them.
We Declare War Against Socialism, Not Because It Is Socialism, but Because It Has Opposed Nationalism … We Intend to Be an Active Minority, Attract the Proletariat Away from the Official Socialist Party. but If the Middle Class Thinks That We Are Going to Be Their Lightning Rods, They Are Mistaken.
It Is the State Which Educates Its Citizens in Civic Virtue, Gives Them a Consciousness of Their Mission and Welds Them into Unity.
Democracy Is a Kingless Regime Infested by Many Kings Who Are Sometimes More Exclusive, Tyrannical and Destructive Than One, Even If He Be a Tyrant.
Fascist Education Is Moral, Physical, Social, and Military: It Aims to Create a Complete and Harmoniously Developed Human, a Fascist One According to Our Views.
The Definition of Fascism Is the Marriage of Corporation and State.
If Relativism Signifies Contempt for Fixed Categories and Those Who Claim to Be the Bearers of Objective Immortal Truth, Then There Is Nothing More Relativistic Than Fascist Attitudes and Activity. from the Fact That All Ideologies Are of Equal Value, We Fascists Conclude That We Have the Right to Create Our Own Ideology and to Enforce It with All the Energy of Which We Are Capable.
The History of Saints Is Mainly the History of Insane People.
It Is Better to Live One Day as a Lion Than 100 Years as a Sheep.
A Nation of Spaghetti Eaters Cannot Restore Roman Civilization!
Every Anarchist Is a Baffled Dictator.
We Have Buried the Putrid Corpse of Liberty.
Fascism Should More Appropriately Be Called Corporatism Because It Is a Merger of State and Corporate Power.
Let Us Have a Dagger Between Our Teeth, a Bomb in Our Hand, and an Infinite Scorn in Our Hearts.
We Become Strongest, I Feel, When We Have No Friends Upon Whom to Lean, or to Look for Moral Guidance.
The Function of a Citizen and a Soldier Are Inseparable.
Fascism, the More It Considers and Observes the Future and the Development of Humanity, Quite Apart from Political Considerations of the Moment, Believes Neither in the Possibility nor the Utility of Perpetual Peace.
The Truth Is That Men Are Tired of Liberty.
Little-known facts about Benito Mussolini — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
In April 1945, just before Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were caught by Italian Communist partisans. It is unclear whether his objective was to cross the Swiss border or go to the Valtellina. Both were summarily executed and their corpses hung upside down at a petrol station in Loreto Square, Milan.
In the early years of his rule he was sympathetic to the Zionist movement, meeting cordially with Chaim Weizmann. After reading Mein Kampf, he knew Hitler despised Italians. In 1938, under German pressure, he enacted minor anti-Jewish laws that largely went unenforced. Only after the German invasion in 1943 did deportations begin.
He joined Adolf Hitler in declaring war on the United States on December 11, 1941.
His party had many Jewish members, including Aldo Finzi, Renzo Ravenna, Margherita Sarfatti, Ettore Ovazza, and Guido Jung. Mussolini refused to deport Jews to Nazi death camps, saving thousands of lives.
He had been a heavy smoker until about age 40, after which he became a militant anti-smoker.
He annexed Albania in April 1939.
Many German commanders resented propping up Mussolini during World War II; a German prewar study suggested Italy remain neutral.
He sought to delay a major war until at least the end of 1942, and the Pact of Steel required both parties not to go to war without each other’s support until 1943.
From the March on Rome in 1922 to the Ethiopian War in 1935, Mussolini was highly esteemed globally, especially in the United States. American attitudes cooled during Italy’s subjugation of Ethiopia from 1935 to 1936.
He laid the first stone of Rome’s Cinecittà Studio on January 29, 1936.
When World War II began in September 1939, he was humiliatingly obliged to remain neutral due to military unpreparedness. He entered the war on June 10, 1940, sending forces to invade France and Greece.
He sent an Italian force to join the invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941, though not requested by Hitler.
He entered World War II primarily to hit back at France. Soviet propaganda thereafter portrayed Nazism and fascism as identical ideologies.
Encouraged by Hitler, he provided military support to Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
He formed the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936, joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1937, and signed the Pact of Steel in 1939.
Originally he was not close to Hitler; he publicly ridiculed Hitler’s view of a Germanic people and threatened war in 1934 if Germany invaded Austria.
Italian harbors imported materials for the German war effort from 1939 to 1940. The UK and France considered a preemptive strike on Italian forces in Libya to force Italy into the war early.
In December 1943 he told a journalist he regretted adopting the Manifesto of Race in 1938.
The Italian entry into World War II immediately began the North African Campaign, the Battle of the Mediterranean, and the Siege of Malta.
On June 11, 1940, he sent the Regia Aeronautica to attack French bases in Tunisia, North Africa, and on Corsica, as well as British installations on Malta.
During the Munich Conference he pretended to be impartial, but worked behind the scenes to concede the Sudetenland to Germany.
Although he opposed the unification of Austria with Germany in 1934, he later publicly supported the Anschluss in March 1938.
After Italy entered the war, German pressure led to the internment of Jewish refugees in Campagna. However, he was not consulted about deportations from Rome in autumn 1943.
During the 1930s he was praised by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the latter calling him the greatest living legislator.
He did not want to lead the Italian Social Republic, telling Hitler he was ill and wanted to retire. Hitler threatened to destroy Italian cities if he refused.
He met Adolf Hitler for the first time on June 14, 1934, during Hitler’s first state visit to Italy.
The dictator Napaloni in the 1940 film The Great Dictator is based on Mussolini, and Nehemiah Persoff’s Little Bonaparte in the 1959 film Some Like It Hot does an impression of him, as does Vittorio Caprioli in the 1960 film Zazie in the Metro.
Even after the Manifesto of Race in July 1938, Mussolini made contradictory public statements about race.
He was critical of Hitler’s belief in eugenics and Aryan supremacy, describing it as a pity that Germans were descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.
He was frequently ill and depressed in the first half of 1943, losing support even among loyalists. When the Allies would not negotiate, his followers decided the regime needed new leadership.
He reluctantly agreed to lead the Italian Social Republic to limit German atrocities against civilians.
His grave continues to be visited by thousands of admirers and neo-fascists every year in the 21st century.
After Italy invaded Ethiopia, Mussolini abolished slavery, freeing nearly half a million slaves in April 1936.
He was imperfectly fluent in English, French, and German, speaking them with a heavy accent.
Under German pressure, he had his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano executed in January 1944, a decision he greatly regretted.
He was fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, governing constitutionally as Prime Minister until dropping democratic pretense in 1925.
On October 31, 1922, at age 39, he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until Matteo Renzi in 2014.
He is the grandfather of Alessandra Mussolini.
His fascist state provided a model for Hitler’s later economic and political policies in Germany.
He qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901, following his mother’s profession.
He coined the term fascism from the fasci carried by magistrates in ancient Rome, reflecting intellectual debt to socialism.
He sent the Italian Air Corps to Belgium in September 1940 to participate in the Blitz against the UK from October 1940 to April 1941.
While Hitler had no interest in overseas colonies, Mussolini intended to build an Italian empire in North Africa and the Mediterranean.
In 1937 Muslim leaders in Libya presented him with the Sword of Islam, and Fascist propaganda pronounced him Protector of Islam.
He had to be bailed out by the Germans in France in June 1940, in North Africa in February 1941, and in the Balkans in April 1941. Hitler later blamed the delay of Operation Barbarossa on Mussolini, though the late thaw was the actual cause.
Considerable support in Italy for entering the war in June 1940 waned by summer 1942 as the tide turned against the Axis.
Unlike Hitler in modern Germany, Mussolini is still widely celebrated in Italy, with many fascist monuments remaining.
The still-neutral Mussolini offered to broker a negotiated end to the war on May 26, 1940, but the British government rejected the offer on May 29.
When Hitler learned that Mussolini had formally declared war rather than launch a surprise attack on the British fleet, he said, This must be the last declaration of war in history!. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941.
When Hitler ascended to power, Mussolini publicly praised him while privately criticizing the Nazis as boring and unrefined.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Benito Mussolini.
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