Fall Of Fascist Leader Benito Mussolini Celebrated By State Department Employee Two Days After Dictator Was Disposed

BENITO MUSSOLINI, the fascist dictator of Italy, was voted out of power by his own Grand Council on July 25, 1943, and was arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who told the dictator the war was lost.

Mussolini and his party of fascists consolidated power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. The Allied invasion of Sicily made Mussolini lose the support of the population and members of his own party. After the king agreed to an armistice with the allies on September 12, 1943, Mussolini was rescued from captivity by German paratroopers.  Hitler, after meeting with Mussolini, put Mussolini in charge of a puppet regime in northern Italy, causing a Civil War. In late April 1945, Mussolini and his mistress tried to flee to Switzerland but both were captured by Italian communists partisans and summarily executed on April 28, 1945.

2 pp, ALS, 8 x 10 1/4, July 27 [1943], on Department of State Special Division stationary, written by “Gil” G.G. Blake, an employee of the State Department, two days after Mussolini had been overthrown.  Blake wrote to Edwin D. Thatcher of Brooklyn, celebrating the overthrow of the dictator as well as what it meant for the rest of the world. [The war would drag on for two more years.]

Blake writes at the top “July 27th (Second Day of the Non-Fascist Era)”

In part, “...You can imagine how excited we have been over the recent political developments in Italy. It is very difficult to know what really is happening there and only time will tell, but one thing seems to be sure ‘Fascism (and all its works) is finished, finite, etc. and I cannot tell you what it means to realize that! I believe it is the beginning of the end for all such systems and can you imagine how Adolf is feeling at this moment! 

Excellent condition. Original mailing envelope included.

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