Benito Mussolini

Qualified as an elementary schoolmaster. His mother, Rosa, was a school teacher. (1901)

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born in Predappio, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He was the son of Alessandro Mussolini, a socialist, and Rosa Maltoni, a devout Catholic schoolteacher. In 1915, Mussolini married Donna Rachele Guidi. Together, they had five children.

On October 31, 1922, at the age of 39, Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy.

During the 1930s he was praised by both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the latter even going so far as to refer to him as "the greatest living legislator.".

Originally he was not close to Adolf Hitler. He publicly ridiculed Hitler's view of a Germanic people, and even threatened to go to war with Germany in 1934 if it invaded Austria.

Laid the first stone of Rome's Cinecittà Studio (29th January 1936).

In 1937 Muslim leaders in Libya presented him with the "Sword of Islam", while Fascist propaganda pronounced him as the "Protector of Islam.".

In the early years of his rule he was sympathetic to the Zionist movement and even hosted a cordial meeting with Chaim Weizmann. Having read "Mein Kampf", he knew that Adolf Hitler despised Italians along with other non-Germanic groups. In 1938, under intense pressure from Hitler, Mussolini enacted relatively minor discriminatory anti-Jewish laws, and even those went largely unenforced. Only in late 1943, after the Germans had invaded northern and central Italy and reduced Mussolini to a puppet, did deportations of Jews begin. The Germans did not inform Mussolini when they began deporting Jews.

Italian harbors were used to import materials for the German war effort from 1939-40. The UK and France were certain that Mussolini would enter World War II on Germany's side, and considered launching a pre-emptive strike on Italian forces in Libya to force Italy into the war before it was ready.

When World War II began in September 1939 he was humiliatingly obliged to remain neutral, despite having signed the Pact of Steel, due to Italy being militarily unprepared. He entered the war on the side of the Axis on 10 June 1940, and sent forces to join the invasion of France. He invaded Greece in the autumn.

Sent an Italian force to join the invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941, even though this had not been requested by Adolf Hitler.

He sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least the end of 1942, and for this reason the Pact of Steel determined that neither Germany nor Italy should go to war without the other's support until 1943.

He was removed from power and placed under arrest by order of King Victor Emmanuel III in July 1943, but two months later was rescued by the Germans and installed as the puppet leader of a German client state, the Italian Social Republic.

Under intense German pressure he had his son-in-law, Italian diplomat Galeazzo Ciano, executed in January 1944. Mussolini admitted he greatly regretted allowing the execution.

In April 1945, just before the Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were caught by Italian Communist partisans as he tried to cross the border into Switzerland. Both were summarily executed. Later their bodies were hung, upside down, in a gas station at Loreto Square in Milan.

Portrayed by George C. Scott in Mussolini: The Untold Story (1985), Rod Steiger in The Last 4 Days (1974) and Lion of the Desert (1980), Antonio Banderas in Il Giovane Mussolini (1993), Enzo G. Castellari in The Winds of War (1983) and Bob Hoskins in Mussolini and I (1985).