In the mid-1930s, after 15 years in power, Mussolini remained unsatisfied by his success. He grew increasingly radical and was driven by a single obsession to turn Italians into “new men” and Italy into a warrior nation. In 1938, after having beaten the Left in the 1920s, then the Ethiopians in the mid-1930s, he defined a new enemy: The Jews. He allied himself with Hitler who, he believed, would help him rebuild a new empire on the shores of the Mediterranean. But Italy was no longer ready to follow him. Italy fought the Second World War alongside Nazi Germany, resulting in a long series of disillusionments for Il Duce, as he watched his dreams crumble. In July 1943, he was deposed by former supporters and locked up on the King of Italy’s orders. He was saved by Hitler and withdrew to the north of the country, happy to answer to the Fuhrer and head up a puppet regime whose atrocities became more and more brutal. In April 1945, he was executed along with his mistress by the Italian Resistance in Milan, strung up by their feet from lampposts before the baying crowds. The legend of Mussolini, a man so many Italians had loved, now hung in tatters.
Documentary : Mussolini, the First Fascist
Directed by : Serge de Sampigny
Production: Histodoc
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