On March 20, 1945, Mussolini landed on the islet of Trimelone, in front of Brenzone sul Garda from a motorboat which immediately left.

Waiting for him, in total solitude, Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last remaining journalists in Salò. Days earlier the Duce had said to him:

«If one day I send you to say that I want to see you, without any other indication, it is understood that the appointment is on the island of Trimelone, at nine. Come alone, absolutely alone » .

The two men began to talk without anyone being able to hear them. It was the Duce’s last interview.

Fossani published it in 1952 with the title ‘ Soliloquio ‘ (in fact, in the published text, it is only the Duce speaking), a Roman publisher republished it with the title: ‘ Latinity: Mussolini confesses himself to the stars .’

Years later the text was included in the collection of Mussolini’s writings edited by Marcello Veneziani (Vol. XVIII. Political Testament) but these publications are difficult to find.

Fortunately, a lover of the history of Garda, Livio Parisi, has republished, at his own expense, an integral extract, in an out-of-commerce edition (Livio Parisi (edited by). Under the stars on the island of Trimelone . Venetians).

The Soliloquy is of exceptional interest. There are clear premonitions, historical analyzes often spot on, flashes on the emotions of a man who knows he is at the end of his days.

The published text jumps from post to branch, as if Ivanoe, after some time, was trying to remember the Duce’s phrases and words as accurately as possible, but paying the price for the loss of the logical thread.

Without claiming to be exhaustive, a brief account is given here, reassembled by topic, with some comments. The words in quotation marks and in italics are textual words of Mussolini as reported by Ivanoe Fossani.

It begins like this, in perfect Mussolini’s style: «Ah! I was sick, I’m sick, I’m sick of the constant surveillance. For years, at every step, I find a face that spies on me. With the excuse of protection, I am forced to let others know what I do » .
Mussolini managed to escape the control of the SS for a short time, he is pleased with it and uses it to take stock of his public life with his journalist friend Ivanoe.

“There are two troubles with power: having to deal with all sorts of idiots and being controlled even in intimate matters. It is a golden prison. The guards bow as you pass but keep you in their possession. Hitler took on the task of acting as a shield for me against the Italian ‘traitors’, but in the meantime my actions and my words are reported to him every day. Even when I receive the Germans they wiretap me. I know for sure. Protection is a legal way to carry out espionage ”.

The Duce seems to refer, among other things, to the secret meetings he had with Claretta Petacci in the Torre San Marco in Gardone, a love nest that had belonged to D’Annunzio. In November 1944 his wife Rachele knew it, no one knows by whom, and made the famous outburst at Claretta.

Then the reflections on his political experience begin: “I did not create fascism: I took it from the unconscious of the Italians. If it had not been so they would not have followed me all for twenty years, I mean everyone, because a small minority, even microscopic, cannot have any weight. The gestures, rituals and uniforms introduced into the life of the nation were accused to me as a personal mania of grandeur. Personally, they would have left me indifferent if I hadn’t been sure to please the picturesque sense of the Italians…

The spirit of the Italians is extremely mutable. When I am no longer there, I am sure that historians and psychologists will wonder how a man could have dragged along a people like the Italian one for twenty years. If I hadn’t done anything else, this masterpiece would be enough not to be buried in oblivion. Others will be able to dominate with iron and fire,but not with consent as I did ».

This is a rather surprising reasoning: ‘I have done nothing but follow the sense of the picturesque of the masses’. The utterances, which today appear so ridiculous to us, were not in his strings. He did it only to please the crowds. There is also a certain contempt for the Italian people of which Mussolini seems to have an Anglo-Saxon conception, so to speak: human weathervanes, all spaghetti and mandolins, a take on the Italians which is also present in other parts of the text. The plebiscitary consensus, however, was there, despite the numerous distinctions at the end of the war, and an adequate explanation has not yet been provided.

Then the Duce self-absolves his own political history:

“My dictatorship was much lighter than certain democracies in which plutocracies reign. Fascism had more deaths than its opponents and on 25 July there were no more than 30 people in confinement. I have not suppressed any freedom, except the license that disturbs, corrupts and affects the nervous system of society.

With Fascism, workers got eight hours, high wages, work continuity, welfare benefits, annual leave, after-work trips, special magistracies while his more delicate children were sent to the mountain or marine colonies. When it is stated that we are the white guard of the bourgeoisie, the most shameless of lies is affirmed. I have defended, and I affirm it with full conscience, the progress of workers more than was allowed by the unhappy situation of Italian capital,which is not, we must never forget, neither the American nor the English one …

All dictators have slaughtered their enemies. I am the only one to be in the passive: three thousand dead against a few hundred. I believe I have ennobled the dictatorship …

The people of work are infinitely superior to all the false prophets who claim to represent them … That is why I have been and am a socialist …

We fight to impose a higher social justice. Others fight to maintain caste and class privileges. We are the proletarian nations rising up against the plutocrats. The absurdity of artificially provoked famines cannot last. They denounce the sensational insufficiency of the system ».

These are words that leave no doubt: the true fascism is the social one, the one that is on the side of the workers who have benefited greatly from it. And, as a dictator, I have been too good. Or at least this was what the Duce thought he was and had done. The support, historically verified, of a certain bourgeoisie in an anti-communist function had not been, for him, relevant.

One of the reasons that justified the enthusiastic support of most Italians, however, was that many things said were true, starting from eight hours, from the certainty of work, from schools and from maritime colonies.

But whose fault is it that fascism has failed? The diagnosis is crystal clear:

«Among the main causes of the collapse of fascism, I place the deaf and relentless struggle of certain industrial and financial groups, which in their mad selfishness feared and hated fascism as the worst enemy of their inhuman interests. And it was the other similar groups scattered around the world who staged an obscure riot and press with all their means on their respective governments the day when, tired of seeing the sweat of Italians exploited excessively with customs duties and with the Pythagorean game of monetary exchange , I started the regime of autarchy. The humble people of work love me and have always loved me ».

Some phrases limp but it is clear that the mortal enemy is identified in the Anglo-Saxon big globalist capital, both industrial and financial. Industrial because the growth of Italy as an autonomous regional power was not tolerated, financial because Italian finance was largely public and independent from international potentates. It is overlooked that the regime of autarchy was imposed and certainly not chosen by Italy.

At this point, intriguing geopolitical considerations begin: «England too will discount its selfishness. It will end up losing its colonial empire and will become a simple bridge between America and continental Europe ”.

A prophecy of impressive accuracy……

The following analysis is only partially known, namely that he had tried in every way an agreement with England and France but had been refused. Only when there was nothing more to do was he linked to Germany:

“If England, instead of sending St George’s cavalry to create weeds and incurable hatreds, had fused Europe into a bloc of ideals and interests, our position would have been unassailable. It did not understand that the hour of small and often petty special interests has passed and that national problems have become continental.

Before making the Pact of Steel [with Germany and Japan], I tried all ways to find an agreement with the other party. I gave Tunis to France forever as the first sign of harmony. I had asked for the security of bread for my people but this too was denied me.

England didn’t take us. It wanted our neutrality and our ports at its disposal and all this, that is, the mortgage of the future and our dignity, for a miserable plate of lentils. When I saw there was nothing to do,I am connected with Germany …

British politics are diabolical. The Americans will notice this when they look into European politics. The moment they are engaged in the inevitable deadly duel with Russia, they will either yield to England’s slip knot or England will ally with Russia.

It is true that the Duce often held a policy of the two ovens and that, up until the Munich agreements, it was seen, even internationally, as a guarantee of world-wide reasonableness, but this reveals a certain contradiction with what was said previously.

If the mortal enemy was Anglo-Saxon globalist capital, why should England have ever supported Italy and its autonomy? The analysis assumes that England might have had a different policy from that of big business, which really seems like a somewhat childish expectation.

British politics was, and always had been in Europe, divide and rule. England knew that it did not have the strength to dominate the European nations, not even individually taken, and therefore had always tried to divide them, to set them against each other, for centuries. Now Mussolini was asking her for a blow: to abandon her secular politics to take charge of a kind of United Europe together with Germany. That it was a utopian vision is the least that can be said.

But, in any case, in these considerations, there is the lucid forecast of what would happen after the war: the attempt to create a United Europe to put it on the same level as the United States and Russia, uniting Germany, France, Italy together. and England.

A laudable attempt but which proved to be difficult to achieve. And that, today in 2019, with England’s exit from the Union, is to be considered definitively over.

In fact, today England, having lost its colonial empire and the failed project of European union, is only an appendage of the United States, as the Duce had clearly foreseen more than 70 years ago.

If England had listened to the Duce, that is, had taken on the task of creating a common Europe with Germany, Italy and France since the 1930s, would the world have been different? Yes of course. But he would have had to renounce his empire first, his privileges, his usual strategy for a completely hypothetical and most likely bankruptcy enterprise, as it later turned out. The world didn’t work like that.

But the considerations on the future are not finished: «Now the Allies seem willing to destroy Germany but who will stop Russia? Russia is in Berlin before the others and once it is in possession of Central Europe I don’t see who can get it out of the way ».
In fact, this has been the case for nearly 50 years.

«The peace treaties? The secret weapons? The treaties always dictate the strongest and the secret of one cannot prevent the secret of another. If the same mistake were made for Japan, China would parade in front of a Bolshevik marshal. And what would India do? What would the other Dominions do? What would it be of the whole world? Is it possible that America and England do not see such a great danger? Do they have the Russian army in their hands? Have the mine ready to detonate under the Kremlin? “ .

Other than prophecy, this is a photograph of what happened in the following decades. Not only is the clarity with which the Cold War is described and the main secret weapon, the atomic bomb, impressive. Yes, Amerca got there first but ‘the secret of one cannot prevent the secret of another’ and Russia had arrived shortly after.

The final victory of Mao against the nationalists in China, after the destruction of Japan, was also successful, as was done with Germany. But the vision of the current world is also clear, where America and England, now in decline, no longer have the control of a multipolar world, with Russia, China and India now on the same level as America and Europe.

After that a cold analysis begins on why the war was lost. We may never know if things went as Mussolini describes them but the likelihood is high. The war is lost due to the errors of the Germans who did not follow his suggestions. But let’s listen to his cutting words.

“Anyone who says I was wrong has a duty to show how they could have done better. I am always ready to admit my mistakes. I never thought I was infallible. Even in this war I was wrong but less than the others (sic!).

The Germans did not listen to me and did wrong. Hitler, who is the only one who sincerely respects me, did not want to immediately bring, as I intended, the center of the war to the Mediterranean. He took Malta and Gibraltar, we would be masters of our sea and Spain, Turkey and Egypt would come with us, Africa would come under our control and Ethiopia would not fall. Furthermore, we would have kept the air threat away thousands of kilometers ».

In fact, the Duce had thought of attacking Malta even before the start of the war, ever since the sanctions on Ethiopia, given that the Italian fleet was stronger than the English one stationed in the Mediterranean. He was dissuaded not only by Hitler but also by his generals. The dream of dominating the Mediterranean, however, with an Italian army that did not understand to tame even Greece alone, must have made the Germans think that there was no need to embark on unrealistic adventures.

“I was against the attack on Russia. In place of the Fuhrer I would have let myself be attacked and I would have remained on the defensive. I would have used the moral advantage of being betrayed and the material advantage of wearing down the enemy. Hitler fell into the trap of Stalin who is the smartest and most skilled statesman in the world because he has only one direction ».

With the advantagemoral to be the attacked one can do little but it is true that Russia has never ventured deeply into the heart of Europe of her own free will. Perhaps Stalin would not have been able to make the Russians swallow 25 million dead from a war of pure aggression. Yes, attacking Russia was, again in hindsight, very reckless. However Mussolini was convinced that the clash with Russia was inevitable, that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was destined to be violated by one of the two signatories, but that it was better to defend oneself than to attack. The appreciation of Stalin, the smartest of all, is interesting.

“I was sure of American intervention, because America’s historical and economic development demanded it. Victorious, America leaps to the head of the world, surpassing its ancient dominatrix… »

It seems an impeccable consideration of modern geopolitics à la Brzezinski. If Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened it would have had to be invented because America’s historical and economic development demanded it. The American half-century began here and the Duce had seen it clearly.

‘The Germans have spread their forces, and also our forces, over too wide an arc. England had to be invaded and not too concerned with minor harassment. It could. Instead Hitler was afraid of Russia which, in the attack, thousands of kilometers away from the bases of reference, would not have represented an alarming threat. He did not understand that either we won like this or the war would be lost, because the time factor was to our disadvantage. England standing up meant the foothold for America’s entry into the field… ”

We don’t really know how much Mussolini had insisted with Hitler to attack England [not Soviet Russia]. Here too, with hindsight, the sentence is convincing because time was against the forces of the Axis. But the others knew it too.

“But the real truth is that Hitler, regardless of the Russian giant’s defense force, still intact, had a sacred respect for England and did not want to humiliate her, in the hope of having her ally in the settlement of Europe. The peace offers made to her after Dunkirk were such as to satisfy not only the interests of the British but also their pride.

Hitler is tough, sometimes ferocious, yet he has sentimental abandonments that leave you amazed. Hess has neither betrayed nor succumbed to the whims of the nerves. He went to England on a mission that had the look of hysteria. The English leaders, who have all the nerves of that old Churchill lion, have understood and played on psychology ».

There is no doubt that if Russia had stayed out of the war things would have been different. And there is no doubt that if England had accepted the peace negotiations, things would have turned out differently here too. But it didn’t happen.

Intriguing is the concept that the war was lost due to Hitler’s inferiority complex towards the British and not due to factors of pure geopolitical force.

But, if this had been his thought even before the events, why had Mussolini done nothing to avoid certain defeat and had slavishly followed the German ally? Was it perhaps because his armies were made of paper mache and therefore had no authority and no autonomy? In those conditions, giving enlightened advice to the German ally, after the fool with Greece, was perhaps a bit ridiculous and Mussolini, resigned, seems to know it.

It is historically documented that Hitler warned him that he had invaded Russia after all but this could have been a good reason to stay out of it.

Very interesting is the confirmation that Hess’s mysterious mission in England was an attempt to launch peace negotiations.

But here we are at the most shocking revelation of the Soliloquy:

«But I could have won the war just the same if I had been less sensitive to human respect. If I had been a dictator as the ignoble foreign penmen liked to call me, souls lost in the hands of the forgers of history, and as I often reproached myself for not being, I would have forced Marconi, perhaps with torture, to hand me over his discovery, the greatest of this century. When I told the world that if Italy had been forced to take up arms it would have surprised by its inventive genius, I wasn’t bluffing. I have never bluffed. I have often upped the ante, but have never gambled blindly on the luck card. Where I did not have the strength I had political certainty …

Upon completion, an ambassador told me that I had challenged England with a two of clubs. The same ambassador, after the talk of ‘amazing weapons’, went to Ciano to say that if I had really owned those weapons I would have been careful not to let it be known. Instead I was saying it to curb the stimuli for war, of this damned war, which I felt approaching with the soft step of the criminals.

If that diplomat had been with me to witness Marconi’s experiments he would have been stunned. On the road to Ostia, in Acilia, Marconi stopped the engines of cars, motorcycles and trucks. Nobody seemed to be aware of the sudden breakdown and they could only leave when the great inventor wanted it.

The experiment was repeated on the Anzio road, with the same results. In Orbetello, two radio-controlled devices were set on fire at a height of over two thousand meters.

Marconi had discovered the ‘death ray’ and had perfected it so that it could be used with moderate ease and at a relatively modest expense. With the ‘death ray’ he would have gone to the ends of the earth in three months.

When I spoke I was sure of what I was saying.

Except that Marconi, who had recently become extremely religious, had a humanitarian scruple and asked the Pope for advice, and the Pope advised him against revealing such a deadly blanket.

Marconi, very upset, came to tell me about his case of conscience and the papal audience. I was amazed.

I told him that the discovery could be made by others, too, and then used against us, against his people, therefore; that I would not have used any moral violence on him, preferring that he solve his case of conscience alone, sure that his deep feelings of Italianness would have the upper hand.

A few days later Marconi returned and on his face the signs of a tremendous inner struggle between the two feelings, religious and patriotic, were evident.

To cheer him up I assured him that the ‘beam’ would not be used except as an extreme solution.

The great scientist staggered away. I still had faith that I could gradually convince him of the absurdity of his position. In fact, the scientist cannot be responsible for the misuse that can be made of his invention.

Instead Marconi died suddenly, perhaps of a broken heart.

From that moment on I feared that my star would begin to go out. “

Had Marconi invented a weapon that could have changed the outcome of the war? Said thus, it would seem a statement of a madman, of a man now out of his mind. Perhaps the reporter had misunderstood, or had invented something.

But things are not that simple. Those who frequented Mussolini in the last few days reported that they never stopped complaining about the Marconi weapon ( Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini , BUR. 1981 ).

Then there is the independent testimony of Rachele Mussolini who confirms everything, in a memoir of hers published decades later ( Rachele Mussolini. Private Mussolini . Rusconi.1980 ).

And there are also an infinite quantity of ‘pizzini’ of the secret services of the time, both Italian and non-Italian, which cited Marconi’s Death Ray with great concern ( Marc Raboy. Marconi, the man who networked the world . Oxford University Press . 2016 ).

No, Ivanoe Fossani hadn’t misunderstood. This is what Mussolini really said in his final days. And the thing is sensational.

Finally, the prediction of his end:

«When the wind of fortune changes, the masses change the direction of their sails.

But the wind of luck is very changeable and changes for everyone. Today’s judgment doesn’t matter.

The one of tomorrow is what will count, with dormant passions, with established comparisons.

Twenty years of fascism — no one will be able to erase them from the history of Italy.

I have no illusions about my fate. They will not try me because from being accused I would become public accuser.

They will probably kill me and then say that I committed suicide, overcome by remorse.

But those who fear death have lived too much » .

Correct predictions — apart from the fact that the anger he had aroused did not lead to a soft exit from the scene, such as a fake suicide, but only a public revenge, the most striking possible.

Anyone wishing to read the complete edition of the Duce’s last interview can refer to: Livio Parisi (edited by). Under the stars on the island of Trimelone . Ed. Out of commerce. 2015, preface by Marcello Veneziani.

Commendatore Livio Parisi is now the owner of the restaurant ‘Osteria del Pescatore’ in Castelletto di Brenzone, a municipality of which he was also mayor. His wife Rosy cooks the best fish from the lake that is known. Anyone interested in asking Livio for one of the last copies of the booklet would do well to make a preventive visit to his restaurant. He will not regret it.

It is certainly amazing that, in Italy in 2020, the availability of such an important historical document as Mussolini’s last interview is entrusted only to the willing initiative of a private individual and to the small contribution of this blog.

For those wishing to investigate the ‘Ray of Death’ and the role of Marconi see: Maurizio Agostini, La Terra canta in C – The secret weapon by Guglielmo Marconi . 2019 .

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