Final Days Images

The Italian partisan who claimed to have shot him.The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of, when he was summarily executed by an in the small village of in. The generally accepted version of events is that was shot by, a communist partisan who used the of 'Colonel Valerio'.

The Last Days of Michael Jackson Frail, deep in debt and addicted to drugs, he was consumed by a single dream: to blow people’s minds with the greatest concerts ever.

However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his killer, have been subjects of continuing confusion, dispute and controversy in Italy.In 1940, Mussolini took his country into on the side of but soon was met with military failure. By the autumn of 1943, he was reduced to being the leader of and was faced with the advance from the south and an increasingly violent internal conflict with the partisans. In April 1945, with the Allies breaking through the last German defences in northern Italy and a general uprising of the partisans taking hold in the cities, Mussolini's situation became untenable. On 25 April he fled, where he had been based, and tried to escape to the Swiss border.

He and his mistress, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of on. Mussolini and Petacci were shot the following afternoon, two days before.The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. The bodies were beaten, shot at, and hit with hammers. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. Eventually, in 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his home town of.

His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies.In the post-war years, the 'official' version of Mussolini's death has been questioned in Italy (but, generally, not internationally) in a way that has drawn comparison with the. Journalists, politicians and historians, doubting the veracity of Audisio's account, have put forward a wide variety of theories and speculation as to how Mussolini died and who was responsible. At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer. These have included and who subsequently became general secretary of the and respectively. Several writers believe that Mussolini's death was part of a British special forces operation. The aim was supposedly to retrieve compromising 'secret agreements' and correspondence with that Mussolini had allegedly been carrying when he was captured. However, the 'official' explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative.

Mussolini's route (pink line) around after fleeing MilanOn 27 April 1945, Mussolini and his mistress, together with other fascist leaders, were travelling in a German convoy near the village of on the north western shore of. A group of local communist partisans led by and attacked the convoy and forced it to halt.

The partisans recognised one Italian fascist leader in the convoy, but not Mussolini at this stage, and made the Germans hand over all the Italians in exchange for allowing the Germans to proceed. Eventually Mussolini was discovered slumped in one of the convoy vehicles. Lazzaro later said that:His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. I read utter exhaustion, but not fear. Mussolini seemed completely lacking in will, spiritually dead.The partisans arrested Mussolini and took him to Dongo, where he spent part of the night in the local barracks. In Dongo, Mussolini was reunited with Petacci, who had requested to join him, at about 2:30 a.m. In all, over fifty fascist leaders and their families were found in the convoy and arrested by the partisans.

Aside from Mussolini and Petacci, sixteen of the most prominent of them would be in Dongo the following day and a further ten would be killed over two successive nights. Mussolini's mistress, was captured and executed with him.Fighting was still going on in the area around Dongo. Fearing that Mussolini and Petacci might be rescued by fascist supporters, the partisans drove them, in the middle of the night, to a nearby farm of a peasant family named De Maria; they believed this would be a safe place to hold them. Mussolini and Petacci spent the rest of the night and most of the following day there.On the evening of Mussolini's capture, the partisan leader in northern Italy, announced on Radio Milano:The head of this association of delinquents, Mussolini, while yellow with rancour and fear and trying to cross the Swiss frontier, has been arrested.

He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honour for this man. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog. Order to execute Differing accounts exist of who made the decision that Mussolini should be summarily executed., the Secretary-General of the, claimed that he had ordered Mussolini's execution prior to his capture. Togliatti said he had done so by a radio message on 26 April 1945 with the words: 'Only one thing is needed to decide that they Mussolini and the other fascist leaders must pay with their lives: the question of their identity'. He also claimed that he had given the order as deputy prime minister of the government in Rome and as leader of the Communist Party., the prime minister, later denied that this was said with his government's authority or approval.

A senior communist in Milan, said that the order came from the General Command of the partisan military units 'in application of a CLNAI decision'. Longo subsequently gave a different story: he said that when he and Fermo Solari, a member of the (which was part of the CLNAI), heard the news of Mussolini's capture they immediately agreed that he should be summarily executed and Longo gave the order for it to be carried out. ( left) and at a congress after the war.According to, the Action Party representative on the CLNAI, the decision to execute Mussolini was taken on the night of 27/28 April by a group acting on behalf of the CLNAI comprising himself, Sandro Pertini, and the communists Emilio Sereni and Luigi Longo. The CLNAI subsequently announced, on the day after his death, that Mussolini had been executed on its orders.In any event, Longo instructed a communist partisan of the General Command, to go immediately to Dongo to carry out the order. According to Longo, he did so with the words 'go and shoot him'. Longo asked another partisan, Aldo Lampredi, to go as well because, according to Lampredi, Longo thought Audisio was 'impudent, too inflexible and rash'. The entrance to the Villa Belmonte.

A black cross in the wall marks the site of execution. Execution Although several conflicting versions and theories of how Mussolini and Petacci died were put forward after the war, the account of Walter Audisio, or at least its essential components, remains the most credible and is sometimes referred to in Italy as the 'official' version.It was largely confirmed by an account provided by Aldo Lampredi and the 'classical' narrative of the story was set out in books written in the 1960s by Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro, and the journalist Franco Bandini. Although each of these accounts vary in detail, they are consistent on the main facts.Audisio and Lampredi left Milan for Dongo early on the morning of 28 April to carry out the orders Audisio had been given by Longo. On arrival in Dongo, they met Bellini delle Stelle, who was the local partisan commander, to arrange for Mussolini to be handed over to them. Audisio used the of 'Colonnello Valerio' during his mission.

Michele Moretti's French-made submachine gun, said to have been used by Walter Audisio to shoot Benito Mussolini In the afternoon, he, with other partisans, including Aldo Lampredi and Michele Moretti, drove to the De Maria family's farmhouse to collect Mussolini and Petacci. After they were picked up, they drove a short distance to the village of. The vehicle pulled up at the entrance of the Villa Belmonte on a narrow road known as via XXIV maggio and Mussolini and Petacci were told to get out and stand by the villa's wall. Audisio then shot them at 4:10 p.m. With a borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed.There were differences in Lampredi's account and that of Audisio. Audisio presented Mussolini as acting in a cowardly manner immediately prior to his death whereas Lampredi did not. Audisio said he read out a sentence of death, whereas Lampredi omitted this.

Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were 'aim at my heart'. In Audisio's account, Mussolini said nothing immediately prior to or during the execution.Differences also exist with the account given by others involved, including Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle. According to the latter, when he met Audisio in Dongo, Audisio asked for a list of the fascist prisoners that had been captured the previous day and marked Mussolini's and Petacci's names for execution. Bellini delle Stelle said he challenged Audisio as to why Petacci should be executed.

Audisio replied that she had been Mussolini's adviser, had inspired his policies and was 'just as responsible as he is'. According to Bellini delle Stelle no other discussion or formalities concerning the decision to execute them took place. Audisio gave a different account.

He claimed that on 28 April he convened a 'war tribunal' in Dongo comprising Lampredi, Bellini delle Stelle, Michele Moretti and Lazzaro with himself as president. The tribunal condemned Mussolini and Petacci to death. There were no objections to any of the proposed executions. Urbano Lazzaro later denied that such a tribunal had been convened and said:I was convinced Mussolini deserved death. But there should have been a trial according to law. Chop suey recipe. It was very barbarous.In a book he wrote in the 1970s, Audisio argued that the decision to execute Mussolini taken at the meeting in Dongo of the partisan leaders on 28 April constituted a valid judgment of a tribunal under Article 15 of the CNLAI's ordinance on the Constitution of Courts of War.

However, the lack of a judge or a Commissario di Guerra (required by the ordinance to be present) casts doubt on this assertion. Subsequent events During his dictatorship, representations of Mussolini's body — for example pictures of him engaged in physical labour either bare-chested or half-naked — formed a central part of fascist propaganda. His body remained a potent symbol after his death, causing it to be either revered by supporters or treated with contempt and disrespect by opponents, and assuming a broader political significance.

Piazzale Loreto. The corpse of Mussolini ( second from left) next to Petacci ( middle) and other executed fascists in, Milan, 1945In the evening of 28 April, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed fascists were loaded onto a van and trucked south to Milan. On arriving in the city in the early hours of 29 April, they were dumped on the ground in the, a suburban square near the. The choice of location was deliberate.

Fifteen partisans had been shot there in August 1944 in retaliation for partisan attacks and Allied bombing raids, and their bodies had then been left on public display. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked 'for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly'.Their bodies were left in a heap, and by 9:00 a.m.

A considerable crowd had gathered. The corpses were pelted with vegetables, spat at, urinated on, shot at and kicked; Mussolini's face was disfigured by beatings. An American eyewitness described the crowd as 'sinister, depraved, out of control'. After a while, the bodies were hoisted up on to the metal girder framework of a half-built service station, and hung upside down on. This mode of hanging had been used in northern Italy since medieval times to stress the 'infamy' of the hanged. However, the reason given by those involved in hanging Mussolini and the others in this way was to protect the bodies from the mob. Movie footage of what happened appears to confirm that to be the case.

Morgue and autopsy. The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci photographed by a US army cameraman in the Milan city morgue.At about 2:00 p.m., the American military authorities, who had arrived in the city, ordered that the bodies be taken down and delivered to the city morgue for autopsies to be carried out.

A US army cameraman took photographs of the bodies for publication, including one with Mussolini and Petacci positioned in a macabre pose as though they were arm-in-arm.On 30 April, an autopsy was carried out on Mussolini at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan. One version of the subsequent report indicated that he had been shot with nine bullets, while another version specified seven bullets. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. The calibres of the bullets were not identified. Samples of Mussolini's brain were taken and sent to America for analysis.

The intention was to prove the hypothesis that had caused insanity in him, but nothing resulted from the analysis; no evidence of syphilis was found on his body either. No autopsy was carried out on Petacci. Interment and theft of corpse After his death and the display of his corpse in Milan, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery, to the north of the city. On 1946, Mussolini's body was located and dug up by a young fascist, and two friends.

Over a period of sixteen weeks it was moved from place to place — the hiding places included a villa, a monastery and a convent — while the authorities searched for it. Eventually, in August, the body (with a leg missing) was tracked down to the, a monastery not far from Milan. Two friars were charged with assisting Leccisi to hide the body.The authorities then arranged for the body to be hidden at a monastery in the small town of where it remained for the next eleven years. The whereabouts of the body was kept a secret, even from Mussolini's family. This remained the position until May 1957, when the newly appointed Prime Minister, agreed to Mussolini's re-interment at his place of birth in in.

Zoli was reliant on the far right (including Leccisi himself, who was now a party ) to support him in. He also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, well. Tomb and anniversary of death. Mussolini's tomb in his family crypt,The re-interment in the Mussolini family crypt in Predappio was carried out on 1 September 1957, with supporters present giving the. Mussolini was laid to rest in a large stone.

The tomb is decorated with fascist symbols and contains a large marble head of Mussolini. In front of the tomb is a register for visitors paying their respects to sign. The tomb has become a neo-fascist place of pilgrimage. The numbers signing the tomb's register range from dozens to hundreds per day, with thousands signing on certain anniversaries; almost all the comments left are supportive of Mussolini.The anniversary of Mussolini's death on 28 April has become one of three dates neo-fascist supporters mark with major rallies. In Predappio, a march takes place between the centre of town and the cemetery.

The event usually attracts supporters in the thousands and includes speeches, songs and people giving the fascist salute. Post-war controversy Outside of Italy, Audisio's version of how Mussolini was executed has largely been accepted and is uncontroversial. However, within Italy, the subject has been a matter of extensive debate and dispute since the late 1940s to the present and a variety of theories of how Mussolini died has proliferated. At least 12 different individuals have been identified at various times as being responsible for carrying out the shooting. Comparisons have been made with the, and it has been described as the Italian equivalent of that speculation.

Reception of Audisio's version Until 1947, Audisio's involvement was kept a secret, and in the earliest descriptions of the events (in a series of articles in the Communist Party newspaper in late 1945) the person who carried out the shootings was only referred to as 'Colonnello Valerio'. 1945, indicating a bullet hole near the entrance to the Villa Belmonte.In his 1993 book Dongo: half a century of lies, the partisan leader Urbano Lazzaro repeated a claim he had made earlier that Luigi Longo and not Audisio, was 'Colonnello Valerio'. He also claimed that Mussolini was inadvertently wounded earlier in the day when Petacci tried to grab the gun of one of the partisans, who killed Petacci and Michele Moretti then shot dead Mussolini. The 'British hypothesis' There have been several claims that Britain's wartime covert operations unit, the (SOE), was responsible for Mussolini's death, and that it may have even been ordered by the British prime minister,.

Allegedly, it was part of a 'cover up' to retrieve 'secret agreements' and compromising correspondence between the two men, which Mussolini was carrying when he was captured by partisans. It is said that the correspondence included offers from Churchill of peace and territorial concessions in exchange for Mussolini persuading Hitler to join the western Allies in an alliance against the. Proponents of this theory have included historians such as and and journalists including and Luciano Garibaldi; however, the theory has been dismissed by many. In 1940In 1994 Bruno Lonati, a former partisan leader, published a book in which he claimed that he had shot Mussolini and he was accompanied on his mission by a British army officer called 'John', who shot Petacci. Journalist Peter Tompkins claimed to have established that 'John' was Robert Maccarrone, a British SOE agent who had Sicilian ancestry.

Skateparks near me maryland. With over 100 alone, more and even some, this should be the first stop on any skateboarding road trip.

According to Lonati, he and 'John' went to the De Maria farmhouse in the morning of 28 April and killed Mussolini and Petacci at about 11:00 a.m. In 2004, the Italian state television channel, broadcast a documentary, co-produced by Tompkins, in which the theory was put forward.

Lonati was interviewed for the documentary and claimed that when he arrived at the farmhouse:Petacci was sitting on the bed and Mussolini was standing. 'John' took me outside and told me his orders were to eliminate them both, because Petacci knew many things. I said I could not shoot Petacci, so John said he would shoot her himself, while making it quite clear that Mussolini however, had to be killed by an Italian.They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. The documentary included an interview with Dorina Mazzola who said that her mother had seen the shooting. She also said that she herself had heard the shots and that she 'looked at the clock, it was almost 11'. The documentary went on to claim that the later shootings at the Villa Belmonte were subsequently staged as part of the 'cover up'.The theory has been criticised for lacking any serious evidence, particularly on the existence of the correspondence with Churchill. Commenting on the RAI television documentary in 2004, Christopher Woods, researcher for the official history of the SOE, dismissed these claims saying that 'it's just love of conspiracy-making'.

Other 'earlier death' theories. The De Maria farmhouse, c. 1945Some, including most persistently the fascist journalist, have claimed that Mussolini and Petacci were shot earlier in the day near the De Maria farmhouse and that the execution at Giulino de Mezzegra was staged with corpses. The first to put this forward was Franco Bandini in 1978.

Other theories Other theories have been published, including allegations that not only, subsequently leader of the Communist Party in post-war Italy, but also, a future President of Italy, carried out the shootings. Others have claimed that Mussolini (or Mussolini and Petacci together) committed suicide with cyanide capsules. In fact, there has never been a determination by any governmental or judicial authority of a particular version of events. This generally accepted version is often termed the 'official version', nevertheless. However, to reflect this lack of governmental or judicial authority, sources on the subject have used the term with quotation marks.

See, p. 275. The Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia (National Liberation Committee for Upper Italy) was the collective political-military leadership of the main partisan groups operating in northern Italy.

It comprised representatives of the five main anti-fascist political parties: the, the, the, the and the. Each party controlled a partisan force, the largest being the Communists followed by the Action Party. The CLNAI was established in January 1944 to co-ordinate the activities of these partisan groups, but soon claimed to be the legitimate political authority in northern Italy.

Although initially resistant, the Allies eventually recognised this claim and left the maintenance of public order in the liberated areas to the CLNAI. In March 1945 the CLNAI had 80,000 partisans under its control and this had risen to 250,000 by the end of April 1945. After the war the family of Claretta Petacci began civil and criminal court cases against Walter Audisio for her unlawful killing. After a lengthy legal process, an investigating judge eventually closed the case in 1967 and acquitted Audisio of murder and embezzlement on the ground that the actions complained of occurred as an act of war against the Germans and the fascists during a period of enemy occupation.

As a post-script, in 1966 Mussolini's brain tissue samples, taken at the autopsy, were returned to his widow by in Washington DC, where they had been stored since 1945. She placed the samples in a box in the tomb, leading the historian to comment that 'finally, after nineteen years after his execution, Benito Mussolini's mortal and restless remains were back in one place, and in more or less one piece'. In 2009, it was reported that samples of Mussolini's brain and blood, stolen at the time of the autopsy, were offered for sale on for 15,000 euros. EBay removed the listing shortly after it had been posted and no one had been able to bid.

The hospital authorities said that all samples from the autopsy were destroyed in 1947.References.

Bourdain was in France to film an episode for Parts Unknown.Bourdain and Ripert had separate rooms at Le Chambard hotel and had dined together many mornings and nights at its Winstub restaurant, one of its waiters, Maxime Voinson, told. On Thursday night, hours before his body was found, Bourdain did not show up for dinner.' Ripert thought it was strange,' Voinson said. 'We thought it was strange. Bourdain knew the chef, Monsieur Nasti; he knew the kitchen.

Maybe he went out and ate somewhere else, we said, but we didn't think much of it.' On Friday morning, Bourdain didn't show up for breakfast.' His friend was waiting at breakfast, and waiting and waiting,' Voinson said.Hotel staff told the New York Times that Ripert tried to reach Bourdain on his cell phone, and that a receptionist then went to Bourdain's room, where he was found hanging in the bathroom. The hotel staff then called the local gendarmerie, whose officers arrived quickly and sealed Bourdain's hotel room. The newspaper said his body was taken out the backdoor to a morgue in Colmar, the nearest city. Four days before his death, he dined at French chef Julien Schroeder at his restaurant in Colmar. He ate a Choucroute Garnie dish, which contained sauerkraut, sausages and roasted ham.Bourdain's last Instagram post is a photo of the meal, which he described as a 'light lunch.'

'He was always very cool and very agreeable,' Schroeder told CNN. 'You wouldn't have seen a problem. We had a chance to do a photo with them. There was no problem. They were very down to earth no fuss.

We were very surprised when we heard the news.' 'When they were shooting their segment, there was a table with two Americans,' he continued. 'They didn't even look at their menu. They said we're going to eat the same thing as Mr. Bourdain,' Schroeder said. In late May, Bourdain filmed a Parts Unknown episode in Hong Kong. It aired on June 3.

His girlfriend Asia Argento directed it, while cinematographer Christopher Doyle also worked on it.' It was the most intensely satisfying experience of my professional life and a show that I am giddily, ecstatically proud of,' Bourdain wrote in 's May 30 issue.

'I plan to get a Du Kefeng tattoo, in the original Mandarin, as soon as possible. As you might have guessed, I already have an Asia Argento tattoo.' On May 30, Argento posted on a photo of Bourdain sitting on a ferry as they traveled to Kowloon. It was her last public photo of her beau before he died.

During their time in Hong Kong, Bourdain dined at and filmed a Parts Unknown segment at the Happy Paradise restaurant.Chef May Chow posted a photo of the two on on the day of his death, writing, 'To know that you were going to shoot our restaurant, felt like winning a lottery or a dream manifested. To meet you and to instantly know you are exactly how I thought you would be.

A hero exploring the truth through food and travel.' Karen Reynolds, director of CNN PR and Bourdain's longtime publicist the show, told that Bourdain acted 'giddy' when she worked with him last week.' He was effusive and happy about the Hong Kong episode—that was all he could talk about weeks leading up to it, how it was like a high water mark for him,' she said. 'He was so happy. I didn't talk to him this week but all I know was he was so happy last week. I mean giddy. He was texting me and emailing me, which he doesn't normally do, about publicity for episodes, but he was like, 'This is a high water mark, this is the best thing I've ever done.' 'He was so excited to be working with Christopher Doyle,' she said.

'I saw nothing that would indicate what happened like why this would happen. We're just floored.

A complete shock.'