| Piazza Quindici Martiri | |
 The square in 2012 | |
| Location | Milan, Italy |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 45°29′11″N9°12′58″E / 45.48645°N 9.21615°E Coordinates: 45°29′11″N9°12′58″E / 45.48645°N 9.21615°E |
| Other | |
| Known for | Mussolini's corpse on 29 April 1945 |
Piazzale Loreto is a major city square in Milan, Italy.
The name Loreto is also used in a wider sense to refer to the district surrounding the square, which is part of the Zone 2 administrative division, in the northeastern part of the city. The name "Loreto" derives from an old sanctuary that used to be there and that was dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto (a town in the province of Ancona).
The Milan metro Loreto station on line 1 is located partially underneath the square; it is an important transfer station with line 2. The tracks and platforms of this latter line are located, however, underneath nearby Piazza Argentina.
The square, on 10 August 1944, was the scene of the public execution by the German occupation authorities of 15 Milanese civilians handpicked by Theo Saevecke, head of the Gestapo in Milan, as a reprisal for a partisan attack on a German military convoy. The executed were left on display for a number of days. [1] The event became known as the "massacre of piazzale Loreto" and the executed as "martyrs of piazzale Loreto." In the aftermath of that event, Mussolini is said to have prophetically remarked "for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly". [2] The square, for a time, had been renamed Piazza Quindici Martiri in honour of the executed. [3] [4]
Subsequently, Piazzale Loreto was the scene of one of the best-known events in the modern history of Italy, namely the public display of Benito Mussolini's corpse on 29 April 1945. The day before, Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci and some other high-ranking Fascists had been captured and shot by partisans in Giulino, near Lake Como. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down from the roof of an Esso petrol station in the square, located between Corso Buenos Aires and Viale Andrea Doria.
On 29 April 1945, fascist party gerarca Achille Starace, who had been living in Milan, was recognized and arrested by government forces. He was turned over to the partisans who tried him and sentenced him to the death penalty. He was taken to the square and shown the body of Mussolini, which he saluted before being executed himself. The body of Starace was subsequently strung up next to Mussolini's. The bodies were photographed as the crowd vented their rage upon them. [5] The display of the bodies took place in the same spot where they had displayed the fifteen Milanese civilians whom they had killed in retaliation against partisan activity.
After the war, the design of the square was changed to accommodate increasing road traffic in the city.
Clara Petacci, known as Claretta Petacci, was a mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed during Mussolini's execution by Italian partisans.
Alessandro Pavolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist, notable for his involvement in the Italian fascism government, during World War II, and also for his cruelty against the opponents of fascism.
The Italian resistance movement is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy from 1943 to 1945. As an anti-fascist movement and organisation, La Resistenza opposed Nazi Germany, as well as Nazi Germany's Italian puppet state regime, the Italian Social Republic, which was created by the Germans following the Nazi German invasion and military occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS from September 1943 until April 1945.
Achille Starace was a prominent leader of Fascist Italy before and during World War II.
The Italian Civil War was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during World War II between Italian Fascists and Italian partisans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-Belligerent Army.
Walter Audisio was an Italian partisan and communist politician, also known by his nom de guerreColonel Valerio.
Nicola Bombacci was an Italian Marxist revolutionary and later a fascist politician. He began in the Italian Socialist Party as an opponent of the reformist wing and became a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy in 1921, sitting on the fifteen-man Central Committee. During the latter part of his life, particularly during the Second World War, Bombacci allied with Benito Mussolini and the Italian Social Republic against the Allied invasion of Italy. He met his death after being shot by communist partisans and his body was subsequently strung up in Piazzale Loreto.
The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his executioner, have been subjects of continuing dispute and controversy in Italy.
Tigrino Sabatini, was a communist and a leader of the Italian Resistance, executed for his activities as a zone-commander of the Movimento Comunista d'Italia, also known as Bandiera Rossa.
The Memoriale della Shoah is a Holocaust memorial at the Milano Centrale railway station commemorating the Jewish prisoners deported from there during the Holocaust in Italy. Jewish prisoners from the San Vittore Prison, Milan, were taken from there to a secret underground platform, Platform 21, to be loaded on freight cars and taken on Holocaust trains to extermination camps, either directly or via other transit camps. Twenty trains and up to 1,200 Jewish prisoners left Milan in this fashion to be murdered, predominantly at Auschwitz.
Marcello Cesare Augusto Petacci was an Italian surgeon and businessman, the brother of actress Maria Petacci and of dictator Benito Mussolini's lover Clara Petacci.
The Valtellina Redoubt or, officially, in Italian: Ridotto Alpino Repubblicano or RAR, was the intended final stronghold or redoubt of the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini at the end of World War II in Europe. It was to be based in the Valtellina, a valley in the Italian Alps, which had the natural protection afforded by the surrounding mountains as well as the possibility of re-using fortifications built in the area for World War I. The idea was initially proposed in September 1944 by Alessandro Pavolini, one of the fascist leaders, who saw it as the place for the regime to make a "heroic" last stand which would inspire a future fascist revolution.
Luigi Gatti was an Italian Fascist politician and civil servant, who served as prefect of Treviso and Milan during the Italian Social Republic as well as the last private secretary of Benito Mussolini.
Francesco Maria Barracu was an Italian Fascist politician and soldier, Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Social Republic.
Augusto Liverani, also known as Agostino Liverani was an Italian Fascist politician, Minister of Communications of the Italian Social Republic.
Mario Nudi was an Italian soldier and police officer, the last commander of Benito Mussolini's personal bodyguard.
Paolo Porta was an Italian Fascist politician.
Ernesto Daquanno was an Italian journalist during the Fascist regime, the last director of Agenzia Stefani, Italy’s main press agency.
Francesco Colombo was an Italian Fascist soldier and policeman, founder and leader of the Legione Autonoma Mobile "Ettore Muti", an anti-partisan unit of the Italian Social Republic infamous for its atrocities.
Piazzale Loreto massacre was a Nazi-fascist massacre that took place in Italy, on 10 August 1944 in Piazzale Loreto in Milan, during the World War II.
