Et Tu, Brute?: The Assassination of Benito Mussolini

******

From the May 30th, 1936 afternoon edition of the Detroit Free Press:

TWELVE DEAD, EIGHT WOUNDED IN FIREBOMB ATTACK AT GERMAN EMBASSY IN ROME: HITLER DENOUNCES BOMBING AS “CRIME AGANST HUMANITY”

ITALO BALBO CONVICTED OF TREASON

From Fallen Caesar:

Right up to the moment of his execution by an OVRA firing squad, Italo Balbo kept right on protesting his innocence, denying that he had any intention of instigating a rebellion against the Badoglio government. Although the official Fascist line was that Balbo was lying to try and save his own skin, most of the hard evidence found in the Italian government’s archives since the end of the Second World War indicates Balbo was in fact telling the truth and he was made a scapegoat for the Fascist regime’s failure to prevent Vittorio Francesco from assassinating Benito Mussolini....Balbo had tried in vain several times to alert his comrades in the government to Francesco’s plot to kill the Duce only to have his warnings dismissed again and again. After the assassination Badoglio and his deputies in the new government were so embarrassed by their failure to heed Balbo’s alarms that they chose to put him to death on false treason charges rather than admit their responsibility for not doing more to prevent Mussolini’s murder...

From the May 31st, 1936 afternoon edition of the Washington Star:

BALDWIN MISSION TO GERMANY ENDS IN FAILURE

British Prime Minister Due Back In London Tonight; Voices Fear War In Europe May Be Inevitable

From a BBC Radio newscast on the morning of June 1st, 1936:

Austria’s foreign minister is departing Vienna later today for Berlin in hopes of convincing the German government to resume discussions with Great Britain on the Italian crisis...

From the afternoon edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that same day:

STATE DEPARTMENT RECOMMENDS AGAINST TRAVEL TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY

Advisory Cites Current Political Unrest As Danger To American Tourists

From the June 2nd, 1936 morning edition of the Boston Globe:

AUSTRIA’S FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS HITLER AT BERCHTESGARTEN; AUSTRIAN NAZIS CALL FOR UNION WITH GERMANY

From Fallen Caesar:

While the Austrian foreign minister sought reassurances from Hitler that Germany would not use the Italian crisis as a pretext for invading and occupying Austria, the Austrian Nazi Party marched through the streets of Vienna and Salzburg demanding anschluss, or union, with the Third Reich. Whether these demonstrations were being orchestrated by Berlin or being made of the Nazis’ own volition is still a matter of some dispute; however, it is abundantly clear that Hitler and his chief Austrian supporter at the time, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, were keen to encourage the demonstrators in their agitation against the Schuschnigg government....

From the June 4th, 1936 morning edition of the New York Post:

NAZI THUGS RIOT IN VIENNA 35 Dead, As Many Others Injured As Brown Shirt Mobs Attack Anti-Hitler Rally

From an NBC Radio newscast that evening:

The halls of Congress rang with shouts of approval and cries of indignation as today the Senate continued to debate President Roosevelt’s proposal to extend military aid to the Badoglio government in Italy. Isolationist senators assert that the measure is a pretext for getting the United States into a European war...

From the June 7th, 1936 Manchester Guardian:

BALDWIN CONDEMNS VIENNA RIOTERS Prime Minister Tells House of Commons “Violence Will Not Be Tolerated”; Berlin Denies Any Link To Riots

From the June 8th, 1936 afternoon edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

JEWISH GROUPS CALL FOR BOYCOTT OF GERMAN GOODS Vienna Riots, General Persecution of German Jews Cited As Primary Motives For Boycott Demand

From the June 10th, 1936 morning edition of the Chicago Tribune:

SEYSS-INQUART ARRESTED Austrian Nazi Chief Accused Of Fomenting Vienna Unrest

From the 2001 BBC documentary Case Black:The Nazi Occupation Of Austria:

For Hitler the rioting in Vienna and Seyss-Inquart’s arrest represented the perfect chance to bring about Anschluss-- union --between Germany and Austria. His pledges to Austria’s foreign minister that Berlin would not exploit the unrest on Austrian soil was, like all of his other guarantees, hardly worth the paper they were printed on; from the moment that the German embassy in Rome was attacked the Führer had made up his mind to invade and occupy Austria as a prelude to a future Wehrmacht push into Italy. The occupation was to be code-named Case Black....

From a Fox Movietone newsreel released June 13th, 1936:

Nazi treachery casts a dark cloud over Europe as Hitler’s armies invade Austria! The Wehrmacht, aided by craven Austrian Nazi collaborators, sweeps aside the Austrians’ border defenses and marches toward Vienna with only token opposition standing in their way! The skies above Salzburg are made dim by endless waves of Nazi bombers streaming overhead....

From the June 15th, 1936 morning edition of the New York Times:

AUSTRIAN NAZIS IN CONTROL IN VIENNA; SEYSS-INQUART RELEASED, DECLARED NEW CHANCELLOR

To Be Continued

Please Comment In The Discussion Forum

Sitemetre