The flamboyant Benito Mussolini on horseback
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, the creator of fascism and one of the notable makers of twentieth century history lived a life full of drama and controversy. At a meeting in Trento, the bull-necked Mussolini standing in a room jampacked with Catholic faithfuls challenged God to strike him dead within five minutes inorder to prove his existence. The entire room held its breath to witness what was to befall this blasphemous fascist architect who was later to become the leader of the fascist state Italy.
After the five minutes had elapsed, Mussolini proudly declared: "Time is up, God does not exist". But this did not go down well with a lot of people and a riot broke out. Mussolini even won the heart of Ida Dalser, a rich beautician who was part of the shocked audience. She was extremely impressesed by Mussolini's charisma and immediately fell for the flamboyant fascist leader. Dalser became Mussolini's first wife and bore him a child. But she soon fell out of favour when Mussolini became the leader of Italy and was executed together with her child on Mussolini's orders.
One of history's great orators, Mussolini is known to have proclaimed himself an atheist and on several occasions he shocked his audience by calling upon God to strike him dead if at all he existed. He despised Christianity as a mental illness whose victims value cowardice. He even belittled Jesus Christ as an ignorant Jew and a pigmy. Although he reconciled with Pope Pius XI in 1932 but he continued making anti-clerical remarks in later years. He even refered to himself as an outright disbeliever and considered Islam better than Christianity. By the order of his party, pronouns refering to him had to be capitalised like those refering to God.
The tough-talking fascist leader led Italy into the Second World War on the side of the Axis but he never lived up to his billing. He was dismissed and arrested by disgruntled Italians in 1943 and the Italian government signed an armstice on 3rd September the same year. Mussolini was rescued from prison by Nazi paratroopers after spending two months in captivity on 12th September 1943. From that time he ceased to be the flamboyant Mussolini of the 1920s and even wanted to retire from politics. Adolf Hitler forced him to back to the helm of Italian politics where in the long run he became Hitler's puppet. In actual fact his puppet government survived through Hitler's backing and interference in Italian politics.
Mussolini was finally captured in April 1945 by Italian partisans while trying to escape to Switzerland. He was shot dead together with Clara Petacci, his mistress, and several officials of his party near lake Como. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hanged upside down on meat hooks for public viewing. The bodies were spat upon, stone and subjected to all sorts of ridicule before being burried in unmarked graves. In 1946 Mussolins's body was stolen by Neo-Fascists who wanted to give him a proper burial but the new Italian government recovered it later.
For ten years the Italian government did not know what to do with Mussolini's body. Mussolini was finaly given a proper burial in 1957. His remains were re-interred at Predappio in Romagna, his birth place. Today, a large marble bust of himself sits above his tomb. Although, he was basically irreligious throughout his life, Benito Mussolini was given a Catholic funeral in 1957. May be long at last he had seen that God exists.
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