190 - Mussolini's Last 10 Days

In this episode, I am joined by Ian Buruma to talk about life in Berlin during the Second World War. Rather than focusing on the regime at the top or the battles fought far from the city, we look at how ordinary people experienced daily life as war, repression, bombing, and fear ...  Show more

In April 1945, as the Third Reich collapsed around him, Adolf Hitler died in the Führerbunker in Berlin. It is one of the most famous deaths in modern history and yet, in many ways, one of the least securely witnessed. There was no public body, no official announcement at the mom ...  Show more

Exactly a century after the 1922 March on Rome which brought fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to power, the far-right party Brothers of Italy have been voted into government.Fratelli d'Italia (FDL), which has its roots in Italy’s post-war Neo-fascist social movement, is lead by ...  Show more

September 1943, and German troops have just landed in gliders to rescue Benito Mussolini from the mountain resort where he was being held. “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not desert me,” he said later. But Mussolini died before the end of the war, shot and then strung up ...

The Battle for Italy in 1943 proved to be one of the bloodiest and most brutal episodes of the Second World War. Following hot on the heels of their recent victory in Sicily, the Allies crossed the Straits of Messina and entered Italy in September, to fight their way up the Itali ...  Show more

What do we know about the people who shared the surname Mussolini with the Italian fascist dictator?

Edda Mussolini may have been Benito’s daughter, but she was also the wife of a convicted traitor, an unwilling mother and a hard-drinking socialite.