Evolution Of Evil E09: Benito Mussolini | Full Documentary

there was something almost magical that would suck people into his thinking in effect kind of hypnotized but behind all benito mussolini's bluster and posturing lies a dark heart of violence and brutality adolf hitler looks at mussolini as someone who is providing a blueprint as to how to destroy the old order this is the story of il ducey the boss and how his love of italy inspires an epic rise to power but whose devotion to inflicting fear ultimately brings his country to its knees [Music] this by the end of april 1945 allied forces have liberated almost all of italy from nazi occupation an occupation no italian ever wanted by lake coma close to the swiss border a large german ss convoy is heading [Music] north when a small patrol of italian partisans stop them at a makeshift roadblock the nazis in the lead jeep demand to be led but just as they're about to let the germans pass one of the men notices something strange [Music] at the back of the vehicle a man in nazi uniform is trying not to be noticed on closer inspection they realize who it is he stopped at the roadblock and although he's doing his best wearing a uniform to actually disguise himself he's of course instantly recognized and so is his lover at the time clara badach benito mussolini italy's fascist dictator is arrested immediately it's the final fall from grace for a man who held his country under an evil spell for over two decades [Music] mussolini's evolution begins in 1883 in the village of pradapio in the romania region of northeastern italy where he is born into a family fallen on hard times the grandfather had to sell the family land and i think somewhere in mussolini's seoul was the desire to reclaim family success like so many in romania he is raised in a family of radical socialists who are often jailed for their political beliefs father is a blacksmith who spends more time womanizing and drinking than working at the anvil leaving the family little money to survive mussolini grew up with a really strong resentment of people who had more than he had he knew he was much smarter than anyone else that he met and yet he wasn't the beneficiary of privileges [Music] fueled by his family's sense of injustice young benito is arrogant volatile and a bully [Music] as a boy mussolini was a rebel he was intolerant and very clear awesome relationships with his peers were often violent in games with friends he hates to lose and often fights dirty to resolve disputes [Music] in a fight with a rival he used a knife and injured the other boy very seriously they expel him telling his parents he is beyond their control but there is also a warm loyal side to young benito these will be key to his rise to power his brother and sister adore him [Music] he's a dreamer who recites poetry and literature mussolini was a great stage director of his own life he had a lot of charisma and charm [Music] from a young age he rehearses making speeches he practiced early on sort of posing and and and came to believe i think his own theatrical image by the age of 18 the future dictator of italy is a flamboyant attractive young man and like his father a passionate socialist [Music] women are drawn to him like a magnet but his volatile side keeps erupting he was crazy for women he had the highly sexual personality so any woman young or old to him was just an object to be prayed upon [Music] throughout his life mussolini beds hundreds of women often violently mussolini i think tended to engage in the sort of sex that um is best described as nasty brutish and short rather than be ashamed of beating and raping women in later writings he boasts about it he was an egotist as a result some of his behavior was strange this strangeness got him known as the madman of pradapio and the madmen of romania romania in 1903 he avoids national service by escaping to switzerland where he's arrested for advocating a violent revolution his mother dies shortly afterwards and he goes completely off the rails the greatest love of his life was his mother in true italian style she died when he was only 22 and for him this was an extremely dark day which he would remember for the rest of his life [Music] when his father remarries mussolini takes an unhealthy interest in his new stepsister sixteen-year-old raquel his father fears benito will bring shame to the family by starting a relationship some might think incestuous however he will have her no matter said that if this girl cannot be mine i will shoot myself and he made the gesture to do just that the whole thing though was just an act and at that time he had no intention of killing himself [Music] in 1910 benito and raquel start to live together but mussolini is sex mad and soon abandons his stepsister and marries another woman ida dalsa [Music] they have a son together benedino little benito it's not long before he grows tired of his new family and leaves them too at this stage there is no sign that mussolini the violent womanizing socialist can turn into one of history's most evil dictators [Music] but cataclysmic world events are about to change everything 1914 world war one erupts across europe at first italy stays neutral but many argue they should fight for a share of the spoils as an active socialist benito mussolini initially supports his nation's neutrality [Music] by now he has moved to milan and found a flair for journalism stoked by his childhood love of literature still in his twenties he is made editor of italy's biggest selling socialist newspaper avanti avanti gave him that platform from which he could influence the political direction of the party itself he was a fierce supporter of revolution in italy but then he starts to think that the war could be the spark to transform the country even start a revolution if so italy must be part of it in april 1915 he's arrested for organizing pro-war demonstrations but the socialists and avanti don't share his views he is expelled from the party and resigns from the newspaper to get back at them he starts a publication of his own he wants a platform for his ideas and so he gets together money from various sources he sets up a newspaper called popular italia the people of italy on the 24th of may 1915 mussolini gets his wish as italy finally joins the conflict having argued so passionately for war now he can fight in it when italy declares war in the spring of 1915 he volunteers he gets wounded in an accident with a mortar and there are photographs among crutches after that he goes back to his job as a newspaper editor while recovering he writes editorials on his sick bed and an idea starts to take form he began thinking that perhaps the route to a revolution in italy might be to organize the veterans of the war after they came home mussolini referred to them as the aristocracy of the trenches sure enough when the war ends in 1918 italy is in a miserable state and ripe for change despite being on the winning side the country has gained almost nothing in the peace settlement communists and socialists are causing trouble on italian streets calling for a revolution like russia's by now mussolini has completely turned his back on the left he wants to forge his own path one based on the glory of italy and its roman past mussolini had become more and more in love with his own country and dreaming about running it and thinking about how he could make it a great power he decides to put his ideas into action he calls for a radical new movement to be formed one which he will lead by the force of his personality even though he seems to be kind of this warm guy and and people saw him sometimes as almost empathic it's a veneer it's a facade and he knew that that warmth you know that he seemed to give off was manipulating in itself mussolini appeals to disillusioned war veterans who share both his anger with the old liberal parliamentary system and his fear of a communist takeover they believe that extreme nationalism and a one-party state are what will make italy great again and they adopt to the roman axe the fascia as their symbol they call themselves fascists many of them wear the black shirt of the aditi italy's fearsome commando unit the fascist black shirts the street fighters believed that political debates voting all of the trappings of democracy were either foolish or weak or a fraud if you wanted something you took it [Music] and mussolini's thugs are armed to the teeth fascists were very often led by demobilized junior officers and they had access to weapons often they kept weapons themselves from the war they had revolvers but um they also had more exotic weapons the manganello the heavy club was one of their characteristic weapons but knuckle dusters um sometimes even weird instruments i mean there's one fascist group for example that beat up his enemies using sticks of dried cod mussolini becomes their leader and they call him il duchy the boss he organizes his fascists into fighting units instructing them to beat and humiliate his opponents [Music] the units would attack the socialist leaders capture them tie fascist slogans around them make them look ridiculous force them to bring powerful laxatives making them soil themselves to destroy their public images mocked them and took pictures which then appeared in the newspapers [Applause] mussolini's fascist movement takes off going from 20 000 to almost 200 000 members in just a few months while his thugs battle communists in the streets mussolini tries to broaden his power base the fascist movement becomes the fascist party and in 1921 he is elected to parliament campaigning reveals his supreme skill throughout his career with one masterful speech the duchess can turn crowds into screaming adoring hordes he had the ability to move people to control their emotions to get them to listen to him that he was eloquent and he was persuasive there was something almost magical that would suck people into his thinking you have these gigantic crowds shouting because he in effect kind of hypnotized them in 1922 as italy descends further into chaos mussolini seizes the moment through the power of his oratory he's going to mobilize enough fascists onto the streets to try to force the state to hand him power he urges his supporters to march on rome but their leader isn't amongst them behind the scenes the master of propaganda is working away he saw it as a kind of an act he was staging what looked like a revolution but at the same time secretly assuring the army leadership and the monarchy that this was only play acting mussolini later claims hundreds of thousands joined the march in reality only 16 000 bedraggled mainly unarmed marchers show up the police and the army turn a blind eye it was an untypically wet october they drowned whilst waiting they didn't know what to do no orders were coming mussolini was nowhere to be seen he's actually in milan he's really sitting beside the telephone waiting for other politicians to ream up and say you want to be minister of this or would you like to be perhaps prime minister terrified of a revolution italy's head of state king victor emanuel iii calls on mussolini to lead a new coalition government through his ability to stir up the mob the boss has bluffed and bullied his way to power it's the beginning of italy's descent into hell while mussolini attempts to be statesmanlike his black shirts are still on the streets causing mayhem violence has been his way of life and now with power in his grasp he has the means to inflict it on anyone who stands in his way socialist politician giacomo matayoti is making threats to expose the fascists violent tactics so he needs to be silenced a unit of black shirts assaults mattiardi who suffers a heart attack and is buried in a shallow grave just outside rome when he realized that his own personal bodyguards had murdered this socialist member of parliament he tried to cover it up when mattiotti's body is recovered mussolini denies any involvement and the murder does its job political opponents are terrorized into silence [Music] with italy cowed into submission he can fulfill his dream of a second roman empire spanning the globe with himself as the new emperor just like somebody else a few hundred miles away he receives a request asking for a signed photograph from an admirer in germany mussolini refuses he doesn't consider the letter writer important that will soon change because the letter is from the man who will devastate both his life and that of his country adolf hitler in 1925 the duchess declares italy a dictatorship all political parties are closed down except for fascists mussolini was completely anti-democratic in his political model there was no role for any kind of opposition [Music] with italy under his complete command mussolini can indulge his greatest passion showmanship fascism was characterized by the cult of the leader and muslim played up to this in a very big way and was always posing for the cameras he had remarkable staring eyes everything was done to present him as a kind of nietzsche type superman a man who was virile who was athletic was great sportsman who had a great torso and he had no qualms about stripping to the waist and showing off his as you could see it is his manly torso [Music] it really is impossible to imagine adolf hitler taking off his shirt and exhibiting himself whereas mussolini does get photographed bringing in the harvest he's a massage politician mussolini becomes a role model for every would-be dictator of the 20th century and beyond [Music] at first italy prospers under fascism a massive scheme of public works dramatically reduces unemployment mussolini reaches an almost divine status at home and abroad churchill hails him as a genius fdr says he is deeply impressed by him quality imagine a public mussolini the public image of him outside of italy was completely positive because from the outside it was a country of rebels and mussolini had made it home india defeated the bolshevik threat he had made the trains run on time and had united and divided but controlling his own country isn't enough for the duchy one of the terms that sums italy up very well i think is the idea that it was the least of the great powers that it was bottom of the of the first division and you can find mussolini himself using that football metaphor he is particularly jealous of the great colonial empires of britain and france [Applause] at the ambition to restore the roman empire he wanted to send his fascist legions to where the roman legions had gone before including into libya and north africa italy had controlled libya since 1911 but after the first world war libyan tribesmen rise up against their imperial masters mussolini orders a brutal policy of pacification he orders his generals to exterminate any opposition to lock them in concentration camps the italian policy in libya was a story of utter brutality up there with the worst moments of european colonialism one hundred thousand libyan tribesmen are rounded up and forced to march across the desert most die on the journey the majority are women children and the elderly and for political leaders there's an even worse punishment there was a saying among the libyan arabs he went to rome but he never got to rome he was thrown out of the plane a couple of miles outside of the village they eradicated these people and took the leader omar al-mukhtar and hanged him in front of 20 000 libyans in total around half of libya's population are wiped out by mussolini's crazed delusions of a new roman empire but the rest of the world pays little attention to what's happening in north africa apart from the newly elected chancellor of germany in 1934 adolf hitler finally gets to meet the man he wrote to eight years earlier mussolini remains unimpressed and describes him as a silly little clown adolf hitler looks at mussolini as someone who is providing a blueprint as to how to destroy the old order hitler learns from mussolini and he has a deep affection for him that goes beyond just admiration it's idolization of mussolini [Music] at first it's hitler who apes his great hero copying the fascist salute and many of the duchess ideas mussolini relishes his superiority at the beginning of their relationship he thinks he can bully hitler too in a move that will inspire the nazis he spends billions expanding the military his plan is to widen his empire so he sends his forces to a country that had embarrassed italy in a colonial defeat 40 years earlier in the autumn of 1935 over half a million italian troops invade ethiopia in a savage act of revenge woodsy turns to ethiopia in part because that has long been an object of italian imperial ambitions [Music] it is the largest colonial army ever put into the field and the war becomes one of the 20th century's most one-sided conflicts mussolini wanted to create a kind of copy of south africa in ethiopia in other words to turn the ethiopian population into what amounted to slaves or serfs and create a massive immigrant population of italians who would practice a kind of apartheid but they did so with such violence such cruelty such ruthlessness there was a massive revolt in the center of the country this was one of the most brutal campaigns ever waged by colonial power ethiopia had virtually no air force and italian planes could simply fly over ethiopian villages or ethiopian armed forces and do whatever they'd like to them and the duchy instructs his bombers to fight dirty he wanted this campaign to be over quickly and by the end of the year he said we just simply got to use poison gas on a large scale we just got to get this war finished swiftly in defiance of the league of nations mussolini drops mustard gas on ethiopia something even hitler refuses to deploy emperor haile selassie desperately appeals to the league of nations to intervene but they just look the other way mussolini's invasion of ethiopia leaves the lion of judah's impoverished nation devastated the ethiopian historians think that the death toll during the war is somewhere above 350 000 people so it's a massive death toll the ethiopian war was really the beginning of the second world war mussini knew full well that invading ethiopia he was breaking the league of nations it was going to give a green light to hitler hitler could now see that you could act in defiance of league nations and get away with it the bond between mussolini and hitler grows tighter than ever in league with the nazis the ducey sends troops to aid franco's fascists fighting the spanish civil war both countries got involved in the spanish civil war from 3639 and the verdict was completely different germany fought a very very successful campaign italy the italians were defeated in guadalajara in a very traumatic event again and the comparison between the two was traumatic for mussolini the spanish campaign is the first sign the nazi war machine is better equipped for conflict than his military but the duchess ignores all advice however mussolini's philandering has come back to haunt him the first wife he abandoned ida dalsa and their son little benito have been causing him problems [Music] mussolini subsequently married raquel his stepsister but eida keeps surfacing tarnishing his image layla she wanted him all for herself and so caused several scenes with raquel mussolini found this situation intolerable as it risked putting him in a bad light the fascist dictator's ruthless side reveals itself again as he declares eder to be mad and has her locked up he decided that this woman should be completely removed from view another put in a psychiatric hospital in 1937 ida dalsa is allegedly beaten and dies of a brain hemorrhage in the asylum a few years later he orders his own son little bonito to be murdered by lethal injection he is just 26. the ducey thinks his ruthlessness makes him untouchable september the 27th 1937 with his personal affairs now in order mussolini is invited to germany and hitler pulls out all the stops to impress his idol he is absolutely astounded by the progress that germany has made during those few years he is uh blown over by the show of military might and order he realizes that the balance of power has tipped already decisively towards hitler as a man obsessed with showmanship and military mind hitler presses all of mussolini's buttons the duchess becomes enthralled the silly little clown is now the ringmaster [Applause] whisney comes back from his visit to germany with a sense that really you know the future lies with germany he's really impressed by by the nazis [Music] it's not just hitler's armies that win mussolini over he is becoming captivated by his ideas too he sees the persecution of jews in germany as a model for the introduction of his own anti-jewish laws one of the greatest blots on mussolini's reputation were the anti-semitic decrees of november 1938 until the 1930s jews and catholics had lived relatively peaceably side by side in italy but now just like germany jews are stripped of citizenship and barred from holding official jobs [Music] marriage between italians and jews is declared illegal italian racism is defined from 1938 onwards is increasingly in terms of italy being defined in spiritual terms as a racial community at the root of italian spiritual identity is catholicism and therefore the jews cannot be part of the italian spiritual community mussolini certainly plays a major role in the introduction of the anti-semitic legislation and then in its continued expansion italian anti-semitism remains essentially discriminatory rather than genocidal the italians aren't then until then imagining that they're going to kill their jews they're imagining that they're going to separate them from the rest of the population fascist and nazi ideology converge a military alliance the pact of steel is signed between italy and germany with it mussolini's and his people's fate are sealed september the 1st 1939 hitler invades poland two days later britain and france declare war on germany at first mussolini is unsure which way the war will go and tries to play the long game but when hitler conquers france he is convinced there can be only one winner on june 10 1940 he throws in his lot with the nazis he's certain now hitler is unstoppable and by following him he can fulfill his own imperial dreams he couldn't be more wrong he's been sucked into a conflict italy cannot fight italy is decidedly unprepared for a modern world war its economy remains the weakest of the competing great powers all the advice that mussolini gets in in the spring anyway of 1940 is be careful look we really can't do this [Music] as hitler's armies rampage through northern europe against all his generals advice mussolini instructs his forces to begin their own separate invasions without telling hitler he decides to go for the balkans in a big way and plans are drawn up for invasion of greece which is assumed would be fairly over fairly quickly [Music] for all mussolini's success in ethiopia the invasion of greece is a disaster the italian army is defeated and immediately retreat [Music] the nazis are forced to rescue their weaker ally and occupy greece on june the 22nd 1941 hitler independently attacks the soviet union but mussolini insists italian troops have to be involved mussolini looked at hitler with admiration but also hate hate because hitler had become the master and mussolini had become simply an ally and moreover a secondary ally in the russian campaign mussolini insisted on sending italian troops which hitler didn't want because of their leaders desperation to please his master around thirty thousand italians are killed on the eastern front and another 50 000 die in captivity in 1942 news filters through of further defeats to the british in north africa the war is becoming a humiliation for italy mussolini's unstable personality emerges again with violent mood swings and erratic behavior [Music] when mussolini had aligned himself with hitler he developed this kind of manic depressive kind of behavior going from one extreme to another he takes refuge in his arrogance and self-obsession he believes that he can do no wrong he's a great believer his own intuition he says to his son-in-law at one stage i am the most intelligent animal that's ever existed [Music] but his bluster seems absurd given the tragedy about to engulf his people in 1943 italy is losing the war and mussolini becomes seriously ill with an ulcer that's plagued him throughout his life his grip on the country is loosening and the writing is on the wall for his regime the allies are bombing the entire peninsula and have invaded sicily air raids on italian cities take a huge toll both in terms of material damage but also on the morale of italian people there are increasing food shortages rationing comes in in a major way and people are getting increasingly desperate despite the suffering of his people the duchy is too proud to surrender his character begins to change he becomes more isolated he won't listen to anyone's advice unable to accept any blame mussolini casts around for scapegoats he began to use propaganda in an effort to blame the war on the jews he started to blame his generals and when disaster really struck he accused the italian people of not being control of their own dreams and objectives it was always somebody else's fault italians who had once been frightened into submission even his own political allies now turn on their leader mussolini's son-in-law count leads a vote on the grand council to remove him from office and end the war the king places him under house arrest he is confined under armed guard he thought that he was finished he wanted to dedicate himself to his family but if mussolini thinks he can spend the rest of his days in relative peace hitler has other plans [Applause] in one of the most daring rescues of the war he dispatches gliders to where mussolini is being held in the mountains without a shot being fired he is rescued and installed as head of a new puppet regime in the north of italy the republic of salon under nazi control [Music] the reversal of roles is now complete mussolini the once powerful leader who wrote the book on leading by intimidation is now utterly subservient to hitler [Music] he now served nearly as a puppet in a way just repeating the words hitler had already he tells him he must send what jews remain in italy to auschwitz six thousand are sent to the gas chambers making his regime complicit in the worst crime in history next hitler orders mussolini to execute the members of his government who had conspired to have him removed including his own son-in-law count jan isolated and hated by his people reviled by his own family his love of the nazis and a new roman empire brings him close to the end russolini confessed to being finished to being a walking corpse the italian population cursed the war and cursed mussolini in this period he was a broken man responsible for an italian catastrophe even worse it's all been for nothing little by little the nazis are driven out of italy the duchy tries to escape with one of his many mistresses claretta patachi but the game is up orders come through that muslim should be executed before the allies get their hands on him that it should be the italian people who make judgment over him [Music] mussolini and claretta patachi's bodies are driven to the piezale loretto in milan [Music] there the italian people shattered by a war only their leader wanted display their feelings mussolini's corpse was battered spat upon his head was kicked in and the bodies were tied around the ankles and then hoisted up so that the corpses hung upside down today there is a small minority in italy who admire mussolini and long for another fascist age when the trains run on time i think italians have still not come to terms with mussolini he still has a certain appeal to young people they are looking for direction and seem as a role model with clear ideas his ideas may have been clear but all they brought was a massacre fascists choose to forget mussolini led his country into a senseless war they were hopelessly unprepared for they forget he had become hitler's lap dog they forget he was personally responsible for the deaths of around a million people in italy and africa and participated in the holocaust a high price to pay for trains that run on time you

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Keywords: Evolution of Evil Mussolini, Evolution of Evil Benito Mussolini, Evolution of Evil Benito Mussolini Documentary, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Full Documentary, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Evolution of Evil, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Evil, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Dictator, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Biograohy, Evolution of Evil Benito Mussolini Evolution of Evil, Evolution of Evil Benito Mussolini History, Evolution of Evil Mussolini Italy Documentary

Id: 3ssKbcEWhcI

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Fri May 25 2018