On this day: the executions of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci | In Times Gone By…

Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and Clara Petacci, his mistress, were executed by partisans in the northern Italian village of Giulino di Mezzegra on the 28th of April, 1945. Belie…

Source: On this day: the executions of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci | In Times Gone By…

Death of a Playboy | toritto

Originally posted on toritto.

She wasn’t a teen beauty but she had a personality to make up for it.

She was bold and confident. She looked directly into men’s eyes when she spoke with them. She was one of the first women in Italy to drive a car, wear make-up and trousers, skimpy bathing attire at the shore.

She was very different from most of the women of her country and her era and for this reason men found her enchanting. And she was old enough to date.

Her father was a very prominent man, well known and feared. He was determined to keep a close eye on her. He ordered his security to monitor her activities and to report on her relationships directly to him. Whenever she began seeing someone he considered “unsuitable” he would bring an end to the affair. What made it worse was that she liked to flirt which could hurt her father’s position.

He decided she should get married. She was first engaged to Pier Francesco Orsi Mangelli, the young son of an industrialist nobleman. The couple seemed happy at first but it was soon apparent to both they were not…

via Death of a Playboy | toritto.

10 Anti-Nazi David Lowe Cartoons | Made From History

Originally from New Zealand, David Low (1891-1963) was a political cartoonist who worked for many years in the United Kingdom. He is known for his satirical work in the Evening Standard, especially his depictions of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin, but also for his criticism of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of Appeasement toward Hitler.

Low’s work for the Standard during the 1930s and 40s caught the ire of the Nazis, resulting in…

Source: 10 Anti-Nazi David Lowe Cartoons | Made From History

The anti-Nazi gangster: ‘Bugsy’ Siegel and the plot to assassinate Göring | History Today

Originally posted on History Today.

Göring and Mussolini in September 1937.

In the 1991 film Bugsy, Warren Beatty portrayed Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel as a man with an obsession, not only to build a fabulous resort casino in Las Vegas, but also to murder the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. In one scene a swaggering Siegel tells his paramour, Virginia Hill, that he must do so because ‘the whole world is being destroyed by Hitler and Mussolini’. In a later exchange with his life-long friend, Meyer Lansky, Siegel explains, with stunning hubris: ‘Mussolini and Hitler have to be stopped. They’re trying to knock off every Jew on earth. If I don’t do something about it, who will?’ Siegel is frustrated when, later in the film, the Italian people have eliminated their dictator and deprived him of the opportunity.

The juxtaposition of Siegel plotting the deaths of the leaders of the Axis powers, while also imagining and constructing the Flamingo Hotel would, in reality, have been impossible, since his involvement with the hotel project did not begin until 1946 when both dictators were already dead. Nonetheless, Bugsy offered a variation on this oft-told tale about Siegel going to Italy with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso, seeking to persuade Mussolini to purchase a new explosive, the development of which Siegel and di Frasso were financing. According to the seemingly improbable narrative, Siegel and di Frasso encountered Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels at di Frasso’s spectacular Roman home, Villa Madama. Hating Nazis and their treatment of Jews and angered that Mussolini had removed him and di Frasso from the villa so the German leaders could stay there, Siegel wanted to kill them both. Di Frasso, however, persuaded him not to do anything so rash, fearing the repercussions for her husband, the Count Carlo Dentice di Frasso. Remarkably, there is a good deal of evidence in support of much of this seemingly…

via The anti-Nazi gangster: ‘Bugsy’ Siegel and the plot to assassinate Göring | History Today.

The Diary of Count Ciano

The Müscleheaded Blog

December 7, 1941 was a monumental date in American history…

…..the day the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor.

But, by that time, World War II had already been raging for over 2 years in Europe,

…. and had been being waged on a diplomatic front way before that.

Diplomacy has always been a critical factor on the world stage,

and never more so than in the time period between 1935 and 1945.

Very few diaries reflect the monumental events of that era as clearly and insightfully as those of the Italian Count Galeazzo Ciano,

— Mussolini’s Foreign Minister during most of WW II.

” Victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan ”
Count Galeazzo Ciano

Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was the Italian Foreign Minister from 1936 to 1943 under Benito Mussolini, and was responsible for negotiating Italy’s part in the so-called “Pact of Steel” — the 1935 Italian-German Alliance agreement.

He was also the…

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