Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Bombs & Blackshirts
Milan hadn't yet recovered from its WWI losses when influenza struck in 1918, and the
economy faltered. Benito Mussolini's political career began in Milan, swiftly moving from
words to direct action at the hands of his paramilitary Blackshirts. His promises of strength
and national unity had broad appeal and by 1922 he was prime minister (many turned a
blind eye to his rapid assumption of absolute power until 1938, when at Hilter's behest, he
introduced anti-Semitic 'race laws'). The city's Fascist monuments include San Siro,
Stazione Centrale, the Triennale, Palazzo dell Arengario and the massive Armani shop on
Via Manzotti.
During WWII, the Allied forces destroyed over a quarter of the city, leaving La Scala
and the Palazzo Reale in ruins. The Italian Resistance and anti-Fascist trade unions para-
lysed Milan with strikes and demonstrations in 1943. Italy surrendered to Allied forces on
8 September, but two weeks later Mussolini declared a new Fascist republic in Salò on
Lake Garda, forcing a long, bloody fight against the Allies and a civil guerrilla war. The
partisans prevailed in 1945 and Brescia earned a Gold Medal for its brave resistance
against the Fascists.
Mussolini was captured near Como as he tried to escape to the border. He was executed
along with his mistress, their bodies brought to Milan and displayed at a petrol station.
Journalist Rossana Rossanda recalled, 'I saw the bodies, Mussolini, Clara Petacci and the
others, strung up by their feet in Piazzale Loreto. In front of them there thronged a furious
mass of people, women shouting, men white-faced with indignation, screaming out their
anger and their impotence: justice had been done by somebody else, on their behalf. There
was some derision, but mostly rage. I turned away; it was a necessary ritual, perhaps, but
terrible.'
Claudia Cardinale starred in the 1984 film
Claretta
about the racy life and tragic end of Clara Petacci, Mus-
solini's lover. Given the chance to flee when they were captured, she instead tried in vain to shield Il Duce
from the partisan execution squad's bullets.
