what happened that day? – Corriere.it

It was April 25, 1945. Two protagonists of the history of Italy, irreducible enemies, crossed paths on the stairs of the archbishopric of Milan. What came down was Benito Mussolini, now at the end of its political and human parable. He went up the stairs instead Sandro Pertini, the socialist leader who in 1978 would be elected president of the Italian Republic: he would later report that the Duce at that moment appeared very emaciated, pale, unrecognizable, he was no longer the bold man in the photographs. He was close to the end of the dictator who had oppressed Italy for twenty years. But how did it get to that fleeting encounter?

If for the partisans April 25 was the day of the general insurrection, on that same date Benito Mussolini saw the illusion of playing some last card on the political level fade. A week earlier the Duce had left Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano (Brescia), his residence during the period of the Italian Social Republic (RSI), to move to the prefecture of Milan. He was a man on the edge. While the Anglo-American troops advanced in the Po valley, pressing the retreating Germans, his residual hope was to enter into negotiations with the forces of the Resistance relying on the mediation of the archbishop, Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster.

In the afternoon of April 25, while the partisans were taking possession of the city after having proclaimed the general strike, a fascist delegation, led by Mussolini, met one of the Upper Italy National Liberation Committee (Clnai) at the archbishopric of Milan. In addition to Schuster, in the guise of the landlord, Mussolini, his undersecretary Francesco Maria Barracu, the ministers of the Interior Paolo Zerbino and of the War Rodolfo Graziani were present for the RSI, while for the anti-fascist side General Raffaele participated in the meeting Cadorna (military leader of the Resistance), the Christian Democrat Achille Marazza, the shareholder Riccardo Lombardi, the liberal Giustino Arpesani.

It soon became clear that there was no margin for real negotiation, as the ultimate request of the CLNAI was unconditional surrender. Furthermore, during the discussion, the news surfaced that the Germans had in turn initiated underground contacts with the partisans, without consulting the RSI authorities: moreover, for months General Karl Wolff, head of the SS in our country, had been negotiating in Switzerland with the American secret services. They always treated us like servants and in the end they betrayed us! exclaimed Mussolini, angry at the Nazis. You then leave the meeting, saying he’d be back within the hour with an answer. It was then, as he went out onto the stairs, that he found himself facing Pertini, who had arrived late for the meeting.

The head of the CSR was disoriented, he didn’t know what to do. There was the hypothesis – advocated by the secretary of the Republican Fascist Party Alessandro Pavolini – of taking refuge with the last loyalists in Valtellina, to engage in a final battle and fall fighting. The prospect of taking refuge in Switzerland was less scenic and heroic: even if the Bern authorities had made it clear that they did not want to grant asylum to the fascist hierarchs, it might perhaps have been possible to enter Swiss territory illegally. Around eight in the evening on April 25, Mussolini left for Como with his entourage, including his mistress Clara Petacci and an SS escort under the command of Second Lieutenant Fritz Birzer. When he left the prefecture, his last live photo was taken.

In the Como city, the night between 25 and 26 April was characterized by the most absolute uncertainty. Who suggested returning to Milan, who wanted to take refuge in Como. The proposals to reach Valtellina or Switzerland remained standing. Mussolini in the morning left for Menaggio, on the western shore of Lake Como, where he held a meeting with the hierarchs in tow. Then he went to a barracks of the border militia, a former hotel in the locality of Grandola. Maybe he wanted to try to cross the Swiss border, but the area was garrisoned by the partisans. After all, his wife Rachele had been rejected, with their children Romano and Anna Maria, on the Chiasso border. Then the dictator returned to Menaggio.

On 27 April, the Duce joined a German anti-aircraft column heading north. Between the localities of Musso and Dongo il the procession was blocked by the partisans of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade. After a brief shooting, the resistants, under the command of Pier Bellini delle Stelle, agreed with the Nazis: they would let them pass, in exchange for handing over all the fascists who were with them. In the square of Dongo the convoy was inspected. Mussolini had hidden in a truckwearing a German coat and helmet, but was discovered by the Garibaldian Giuseppe Negri and arrested together with the other Italians.

L’armistice signed by Italy of 1943 it provided for the dictator to be handed over to the Allies, but the partisans were of a different opinion: a decree of the CLNAI had established the death penalty for the main leaders of the RSI. When he received the news of thearrest of the Duke on the evening of 27 April, the insurrectionary committee of Milan, made up of Pertini, Leo Valiani (shareholder), Emilio Sereni and Luigi Longo (communists), charged Walter Audisio and Aldo Lampredi, partisans of the PCI, to go and seize Mussolini and execute him. The Duce spent the last night of his life with Clara Petacci, who had been allowed to follow him. They slept under guard in Bonzanigo, in the municipality of Tremezzina, with a family the partisans trusted. The following day, after animated discussions with the local resisters, Audisio and Lampredi arrived here. on theexecution of Mussolini many different versions have circulated, but the most accredited reports that the dictator and his lover were killed by machine gun shots in Giulino di Mezzegra, next to the gate of Villa Belmonte, at 4.10 pm on 28 April 1945.