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| Milano Centrale |
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| Palazzo Venezia |
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Where Mussolini's corpse was hung |
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| Memoriale Shoah Milano: Interior of transport car |
Milano Centrale, Track 21,
and the Death of Italian Fascism
By RICHARD CARREÑO
[WC News Service]
MILAN -- Rome, some 650 kilometres south of here, is usually associated with Benito Mussolini, Italy's bloody mid-20th century strongman whose Fascist reign spanned 22 years, from 1922 to his downfall in 1944. No wonder. As one of the capitals of the of three World War II Axis powers, along with Berlin and Tokyo, Rome was almost a made-for-TV movie set for the blustering, jaw-jutting, barrel-chested dictator. Amid the splendour of Roman artefacts -- and, prophetically, many of the ancient empire's ruins as well -- Mussolini perfected his strutting, cock-of-walk style. Overlooking the Piazza Venezia from a palazzo of the same name, Mussolini would harangue adoring, even rapturous crowds for hours with bombast, vitriol, and nativist racism.
Adoring? Rapturous? Lest we forget.
As in the case with Austria, many 21st century observers like to portray the populace of Italy -- like that of Nazi-Austria -- as the unwilling dupes of their Fascist regimes and tyrant 'leaders', the Fuhrer in Germany and Il Duce in this country. Germany was conquered by the Allies; Italy, liberated, goes the narrative.
Yes, segments of Italian populace, in the wake of an advancing Allied thrust, did rise up against him. And, yes, never was such the case among Germans, who retained their loyalty -- if not exactly their faith -- in Adolf Hitler to the very end.
For Italian Fascist Black Shirts, Milan was a hold-out. It was also the principal site in the north where the rise of Italian Fascism was incubated, its terror enforced, and, where, at long last, it perished. Even literally. Mussolini himself and his mistress Clara Petacci, who had fled together to loyalist Milan in the war's waning days, were both finally executed by a Communist partisan in Mezzegra, a town nearby here.