All language subtitles for The.Dictators.Playbook.Series.1.Part.3.Benito.Mussolini.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

[man yelling a chant]

[all chant]

(all, in German)
Heil! Sieg heil!

(male narrator) Europe 2018.

From the Austria to Sweden,

Hungary to Greece,

ultranationalism
is on the rise.

[man yells]

(narrator)
Fueled by xenophobia
and a promise

to fight for the rights
of white Europeans,

Extremist groups are emerging
from the fringes

and onto the public stage.

It's a jarring sight.

But the world
has been here before.

The ideologies
that drive these groups

can be traced back
almost 100 years

to one man...

Italy's Benito Mussolini

[cheering & chanting]
Il Duce! Il Duce!

Mussolini has been dismissed
as a buffoon,

a small-time tyrant who ruled

in the shadow of Hitler
and Stalin.

But he was no one's disciple.

We heard for years that Hitler
taught Mussolini

everything he knew--
in fact, it's the opposite.

(narrator)
Years before the Third Reich,
Mussolini was the architect

of a movement that would plunge
the continent into darkness.

He called it fascism.

[cheering & chanting]

(man) Il Duce! Il Duce!

From undermining judges,
to indoctrinating children,

Mussolini pioneered tactics

that other dictators would use
to seize power.

Mussolini absolutely
wrote the blueprint

for how to destroy a democracy.

(narrator)
How did this son of a blacksmith

come to write key chapters
of the dictator's playbook

and turn himself
into a modern Caesar?

(woman)
Dictatorships have had
an incredible impact

in the past century.

These dictators ended up
learning from one another.

(man)
They're all different but
many use the same tactics.

(woman) The use of terror.
(man) Propaganda.

(woman) Control the elites.
Create an enemy.

Cult of personality.
(man) Use violence--

These are tools that dictators
use to stay in power.

(man)

(narrator)
Benito Mussolini is born in 1883

in the northern Italian
village of Predappio.

Like many Italians,

his family lives
in almost abject poverty.

His father works hard
as a blacksmith

but making ends meet
is difficult.

Much of Italy remains
an almost feudal society.

While it has
a limited democracy,

most of the power rests with
the king and his ministers.

The majority of the population
is rural and poor.

Under these difficult
conditions,

Mussolini grows
into a violent child.

(Matthew Feldman)
There were elements
of his personality,

that we could already see
at a pretty young age,

including a kind of attraction
towards violence.

I mean, this guy's expelled
at the age of 11

for knifing a fellow classmate.

Something that he does
again and again.

He keeps getting in trouble for
knifing people.

(narrator)
As he becomes a young man,
much of his anger

is directed at the backward
nature of his country.

As millions of his
countrymen abandon Italy

to seek a better life abroad,

Mussolini becomes determined to

change his country for the
better, but he's not sure how.

Even though he wasn't religious
himself, he saw himself,

very similar to Hitler,
as a man of providence.

Someone almost divinely
appointed

to heal Italy's rifts.

(narrator)
Like his father before him,

he is drawn to
an extreme form of socialism.

It calls for
a violent revolution

that will strip the rich
of their wealth

and share it with the poor.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat) Mussolini had
a rebellious, hothead temper.

He wanted an overthrow of
everything, he was a disrupter.

(Matthew Feldman)
This is a violent man willing
to use violent means, either

politically, or personally,
right from the start.

(narrator)
His violent nature brings him

into frequent conflict
with the law.

July 1903.

After moving to nearby
Switzerland,

Mussolini is arrested
for allegedly

trying to incite a revolution.

He's deported back to Italy.

(Matthew Feldman)
I think it's interesting that
he's in and out of prison a lot,

so by the time
that he's 20 years old.

He's come back and lived
a pretty rough existence,

hiding from the police,
on trial in a number of cases.

(narrator)
But Mussolini's more
than just a troublemaker.

From a young age he's
a gifted writer,

and as he hones his craft,
he discovers

how language can be a tool
for shaping a nation.

In time he makes
a name for himself

as a prominent
socialist journalist.

(Marla Stone) His skill as a
journalist was absolutely
central.

He knew what to play up.

He knew how to play on people's
fears,

he knew how to play
on people's dreams,

(narrator)
In 1912, Mussolini is hired
as editor of Avanti!,

Italy's leading socialist paper.

Under his leadership,
circulation doubles.

He should be
on top of the world.

He's a crusading journalist for
one of Italy's leading papers.

But his faith in socialism
is wavering.

it seems to be
moving too slowly

for the man of action.

He's exposed to a new movement

that celebrates speed,
power, and violence.

Its followers call themselves
futurists,

and their ideas will contribute
to the rise of fascism.

(Marla Stone)
Futurism was an artistic,
cultural, intellectual movement

founded in 1909 by a group
of Italian artists.

They wanted an art
and culture of speed,

of movement, of technology.

(narrator)
The futurists celebrate action,

adventure, violence, and its
ultimate expression-- war.

[loud explosions]

Before World War 1, many people
welcomed the idea of war

without knowing how awful
it would be,

of course, as a kind of
cleansing force

for the decadence
that ruled in society.

There was a famous quote from
one of the futurist manifestos,

"War is the hygiene
of the world."

(narrator)
August 1914.

The futurists rejoice

as the carnage
of World War I begins.

Mussolini calls for Italy
to enter the conflict.

But the socialists oppose
the war, knowing that

the working class on both sides
will do the fighting.

They kick Mussolini
out of the party.

For the young agitator,
it's a turning point.

He leaves his position
as editor of Avanti!,

the Italian socialist paper,
and he founds

what will be the fascist
newspaper, "Il Popolo d'Italia."

(narrator)
Bankrolled by
wealthy industrialists

who favor joining the battle,

Mussolini uses its pages
to beat the drum for war.

[loud explosions]

In 1915,
Italy enters the Great War

on the side of Britain,
France, and Russia.

Now Mussolini must do
more than write about war.

He is drafted
and joins the fight himself.

On the battlefield he witnesses
the power of nationalism

and learns how it can motivate
men into action.

If it can lead men to storm a
machine-gun nest, he reasons

it can power a revolution.

I think he realizes that
the power of nationalism

is something that is

a massive building block
for a political party.

(narrator)
In February of 1917,

Mussolini is wounded
and returns to Milan.

There he begins to create
a new political ideology

that builds on the nationalism
he experienced in the trenches.

He calls it fascism.

It's hard to overestimate
how revolutionary it was.

It was a new political system.

Fascism takes certain things
from the left, like revolution,

but marries them with

a nationalist, imperialist
doctrine

and it makes an amalgam
of something new.

(narrator)
Fascism celebrates
military might,

extreme devotion to country,

and the superiority of
the Italian people.

It is also built around
a promise--

to restore Italy to
the grandeur of ancient Rome.

Even the name "fascism" is an
attempt to link the movement

with Italy's glorious past.

The name comes from "Fasce,"

the Latin word
for the bundle of rods

that symbolized authority and
power in the age of Caesar.

He played on the idea

that he was going to
make Italy great again.

Italy, really since the time
of the Roman Empire,

had been beaten up
in the international sphere.

He talked about things like
Italians are seen by the world

as spaghetti-eaters
and mandolin players.

Italians are going to be
warriors.

And he was going to create
a fascist new man.

(narrator)
At the age of 35,

the rebel has
finally found his cause.

Through speeches,
through his newspaper,

Mussolini spreads
the new ideology.

His ideas find fertile ground
among his fellow soldiers.

(Marla Stone)
So they come home from the war

with this memory of
great violence.

They have shell shock or what
we would today call PTSD.

Mussolini brings together
all these discontents.

(narrator)
In Milan, and then
throughout the north,

he gathers a core group
of true believers.

They call themselves
"Blackshirts."

They model their uniform
on that of the Arditi,

the elite Italian brigade
of the First World War.

(Matthew Feldman)
Mussolini hosts
a meeting of futurists

and war veterans
on the 23rd of March,

it's a meeting of kind of
strange characters, 50 of whom

decide they're going to form
the first fascist movement.

(narrator)
Less than a month later,

they send a message
to Italy's socialists.

A Fascist squad demolishes
the offices of Avanti!,

the newspaper Mussolini
once led.

Four people are killed.

If you needed one word
to define fascism

in its early years-- violence.

A kind of tactical violence
is really at the core.

(narrator)
Mussolini has a gang,

but he wants an army.

To build one, he uses an
essential tool of dictatorship.

One of the important tools
for any dictatorship

is to create an enemy.

They need to have
some sort of enemy

that they can use
as a scapegoat,

as a unifying force

to galvanize the public and
the elites behind their rule.

(Dan Slater) There's really
no better way

to get a dictator in a position
where he will be unchallenged

than if people believe he
is actually protecting them,

protecting their country
from ruination

at the hands of neighbors,

internal enemies
who they do not trust.

(narrator)
Mussolini did not have to look
far to find the ideal enemy.

Two years earlier
in October 1917,

Vladimir Lenin's Communist
Revolution created

a political earthquake that was
felt around the world.

For many it was seen
as the end of capitalism,

the end of private property,
the end of God.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Communism terrified people,

for the real changes
it could bring--

emancipation of workers,
destruction of capital.

(narrator)
Following the end of the war,

inflation and unemployment
soar throughout Italy,

and communism's appeal
begins to spread.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
There was a sense of emergency
after World War I in Italy.

The communist party had
just been founded

on the heel
of the Russian Revolution.

The socialist party
was mushrooming.

Worker's rights were leading to
occupations at the factories,

there was a situation
some called a civil war.

(narrator)
In 1920, some 2 million
Italian workers

participate
in more than 2000 strikes.

Factories are closed,
manufacturing stops.

Italy's democratically
elected government

seems powerless
to stop the chaos.

Just 8 years earlier,
all Italian males

were given the vote,

but the experiment with
democracy isn't working.

(Marla Stone)
There was almost a consensus
in Europe that democracy

is not necessarily
the best form of government.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Democracy to some was
uninspiring.

It was fat old men
discussing things in parliament

and never getting anything done.

Compromise and collaboration
didn't seem to be the way

to respond
to situations of crisis.

(narrator)
Italy appears
on the brink of revolution.

And Mussolini claims
the fascists

are the only ones
who can stop it.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat) One thing that
strongmen really know how to do

is become the prophets of doom.

And this is counterintuitive
for politicians.

You wouldn't think someone would
go up in front of his people

and say you're all doomed,
like negative politics.

But what strongmen do,
and Mussolini was the first

to really specialize
in doing this, he said

everything is cracking,
everything is going downhill.

But I will reverse
the degeneration,

and I am your savior.

(narrator)
Mussolini writes
an appeal to the nation,

calling on every soldier

to join the fight
against the communists.

He takes his message
to the streets,

holding rallies,
giving speeches.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Mussolini really knew
how to speak

to the psychological
worry of communism.

He pathologized communism.

He talked about the rats
coming from the east

that brought a contagion
with them.

(narrator)
Mussolini's warnings attract
allies to the fascist cause.

Industrialists and landowners
offer financial support.

(Marla Stone)
Fascism appealed to them.

Fascism said we're going
to stand up for you.

This is a revolutionary
situation, your interests

are threatened, we're going to
bring law and order.

(narrator)
The ranks of Blackshirts swell

as more men answer the call
to stop the Red Wave.

To make good on his promise
to help end the crisis,

Mussolini turns to another
tactic of the dictator.

Most dictators use violence
and force

to eliminate dissent from
within the regime,

and to threaten the opposition
from rising up against them.

However, Mussolini
used force and violence

in a completely different way.

The fascists glorified
the use of violence,

they were very clear
they were also

going to use violence to attain
the goals of the state,

no matter what the cost.

(narrator)
Soon the fascist mob
is unleashed on the socialists.

They go into cities and towns

and they physically destroy
union halls,

they murder,
and beat up socialist leaders.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Of course, this violence was
very traumatizing

because it was at a local level.

People would have
their homes burned,

they would be assaulted
in the street.

(narrator)
As the strikes come to an end,
Mussolini claims

that the fascists have
helped restore order.

His next move marks
a major shift in strategy.

He helps create a fascist
political party

and prepares to run
in the upcoming elections.

(Matthew Feldman) I think one of
the contradictions we see is

that this is a person of
revolutionary temperament

from the start, but who's
willing to compromise

and work within the system
when he needs to.

(narrator)
May 15, 1921.

Mussolini and a handful
of fascists

are elected to Parliament.

Now fascism is more
than an ideology.

It is a political force.

But it's clear that Mussolini

has no intention of playing
by democracy's rules.

(Matt Feldman)
By and large fascists
hated democracy even if

they accepted they had to work
within some of its strictures.

They saw liberalism
as old-fashioned,

and something that really
belonged to the 19th century.

The 20th century was meant
for men of action.

(narrator)
Just 18 months
after being elected,

Mussolini and a core group
of fascists hatch a plan

to undermine Italy's democracy
from within.

Once again they rely
on the threat of violence.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
He believed that change

can only come
through violent struggle,

not through elections,
not through the pace

of normal societal,
cultural change.

Change had to come in

a wrenching, violent way,
through insurrection.

(narrator)
October, 1922...

30,000 Blackshirts
march on Rome, seizing

key government offices and
train stations along the way.

Mussolini demands
that King Victor Emmanuel

name him Prime Minister,
the key position in parliament.

While Italy is a democracy,

the king still has the power
to name the prime minister.

If the king doesn't comply with
Mussolini's wishes, he's told

the fascist horde will storm
the capitol and take power.

But Mussolini is playing
a dangerous game.

The king also commands the army
and the national police force.

With one order
he could crush

Mussolini and his movement.

But the king and his
key ministers hesitate.

They were fearful
of civil war.

They were fearful of anarchy

and perhaps as socialist
uprising as well.

(narrator)
For two days,
Rome braces for civil war.

Now, the march on Rome
is very interesting

as an example of the
psychological warfare.

There were
only 30,000 Blackshirts

in a nation of over 40 million

with an army and a police
who were loyal to the king.

Mussolini really posed himself
as a man of order,

a strong man, who would be able
to tame this unruly country.

(narrator)
But in the end,
the king buckles

and offers Mussolini
the jackpot--

the office of Prime Minister.

[cheers & applause]

Many people, the king included,

were not only afraid
of the left,

they were tired of all
of the upheaval in general.

(Matthew Feldman)
They thought, well,
our politics are so broken,

maybe this man can fix it.

So there was a sense of doing
a deal with the devil, really.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
The way that Mussolini
actually got power in 1922 is

a cautionary tale for the rest
of the 20th century and today.

Many people supported him

because they thought
they could contain him.

They thought he was a hothead,

and they could invite him
into government,

even as prime minister,
and then he would calm down.

And this proved to be
fatally wrong.

(narrator)
Just days after taking office

Mussolini addresses
the government.

He gives one of the most extreme
speeches in Italy's history

in the first meeting
of the chamber of deputies,

that's the 16th
of November, 1922.

(narrator)
Speaking to the elected
representatives

for the first time, Mussolini
makes his objective clear--

obey me or be dissolved.

(Matthew Feldman)
Some of the other
fascist deputies

start turning up
in military regalia,

start bringing revolvers
into the chamber of deputies.

(narrator)
Mussolini's got the top job,

but real power in the government

goes to the political party
with the most seats.

The fascists hold
just a handful;

Mussolini is determined
to change that.

April 6, 1924, election day.

Fascist thugs are posted

outside polling stations
throughout the country.

Their instructions--
grab the first man

to exit the polling booth

and beat him for not voting
for the fascists.

It doesn't matter
who he did vote for.

The beaten man will be a warning
for for those waiting to vote.

Through violence, intimidation
and vote-rigging,

the fascists win 65%
of the seats in parliament.

The victory gives them
a clear majority

and seemingly
overwhelming power.

[cheering & chanting]

But fierce opposition in
parliament remains.

Giacomo Matteotti, a leading
left-wing politician,

calls for the election
to be nullified.

He condemns Mussolini
and accuses him

of corruption and intimidation.

(Matthew Feldman)
Matteotti was a brave leader,
and he was somebody

that had been assaulted a
number of times by the fascists,

but he refused to give up, and
he was the person who stood up

and said in 1924 that the 6th
of April election was invalid

because of fascist fraud
and violence, and that was

something that Mussolini
took as a personal slight.

He refused to give in
or be bought off,

and I think that made him
a threat to Mussolini.

Matteotti knew that what he was
doing was very dangerous.

Many anti-fascists had been
beaten up and killed,

not at the level of Matteotti,
but Matteotti didn't care.

He was as brave as they come.

(narrator)
Once again, the problem
will be solved with violence.

Shortly after
denouncing Mussolini,

Matteotti is kidnapped
by a group of armed fascists.

He is never seen alive again.

Two months later,
his body is found

in a culvert outside Rome.

While there's no proof,

many believe that Mussolini is
behind the murder.

As he's gained more power,
Mussolini has grown more brazen.

But this time
he may have gone too far.

January, 1925.

Outrage over the murder of
Giacomo Matteotti is spreading.

The assassination of Matteotti
and the public outcry

was the biggest crises he had
ever faced.

Even veterans who had been
with him since 1919,

start turning in
their party cards.

(narrator)
Mussolini must act quickly.

But instead of denying his
involvement in the killing,

he does something extraordinary.

Mussolini declares
I alone assume

political, moral
and historical responsibility

for all that has happened.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Most politicians
wouldn't want to be

associated so openly with
a political assassination.

But fascism is
built on violence,

it had come to power
on violence, and it was time

for Mussolini to boast that he
was above the law as well.

(narrator)
To remove any doubt
as to who's in charge,

he adopts the name Il Duce,

Latin for leader.

[chanting "Il Duce"]

In parliament,
Mussolini openly declares

the beginning
of his dictatorship.

He moves to undermine
a cornerstone

of any democratic society--

an independent
judicial system.

He removes the two judges

leading the investigation
into the murder.

Then, In July of 1925,

he announces an amnesty for
the men accused of the crime.

Matteotti's killers are
released.

[crowd chanting "Il Duce"]

(narrator)
Over the next two years,

Mussolini systematically guts

Italy's remaining
democratic institutions.

He tightens censorship
of the press,

banning any negative coverage.

Fascist squads attack stores
that sell dissenting papers.

(Matthew Feldman) Even though
some of the mainstream press

like the Corriere della Sera had

hundreds of thousands
in circulation,

they were no longer really
allowed to report the news.

They were allowed to report on
how great Mussolini was.

(narrator)
To ferret out potential enemies,

Mussolini oversees the creation

of a network
of secret police.

(Marla Stone)
Fascist Italy was
a police state.

The police had incredible power
to arrest and detain people,

to send them
into internal exile,

and that included
all political dissidents

or people who might seem to be
political dissidents,

people who told the wrong kind
of joke in the trattoria.

(narrator)
But Mussolini doesn't rule
through intimidation alone.

To increase his support, he
adopts several new polices.

(Marla Stone)
In the wake of the great
depression the regime began

a program of massive public
works-- road building,

town building,
public education,

they sent nurses
into the countryside

to teach infant hygiene
to poor mothers.

(narrator)
These policies help make him

wildly popular
with many Italians.

1929...

Just 10 years after the birth
of his fascist movement,

Mussolini is in almost
complete control of Italy.

Now, to ensure the devotion

of the next generation
of Italians,

he uses another tactic

(narrator)
Dictators often use
indoctrination

to create unwavering devotion
to the leader

and justify the harshness
of the regime.

(Natasha Ezrow)
You see that dictatorship

very early on would start to
indoctrinate the public.

It would happen during
people's impressionable years

when people were most likely to
absorb this kind of information

and internalize it
and really believe it.

It was about convincing people
that there was no other way,

there was no alternative, that
this was the only type

of rule that could satisfy
the needs of the nation.

(narrator)
In the schools,
old textbooks are replaced

with pro-fascist versions.

Even the cover
of an exercise book

is an opportunity
to promote his rule.

Mussolini proclaims:
"At every hour of every day,

I can tell you on which page

of which book each schoolchild
in Italy is studying."

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Mussolini played
an intimate role

in crafting
fascism's message.

Not only because he was
a journalist, but because

he understood the mechanisms
of mass indoctrination.

His slogans that he came up with
for every occasion

circulated
not only in textbooks,

but they were carved
into buildings,

they were even on shirts, they
were sometimes on furniture,

they were everywhere
along with his own image.

(Marla Stone)
There was actually
something called

the "Fascist Ten Commandments,"
that by the mid '30s,

school children and even college
students had to memorize.

And one of the Fascist Ten
Commandments was,

"Mussolini is always right."

(narrator)
Piero Signorelli
was born in 1925.

The only Italy he knew was
Mussolini's Italy.

[Piero speaks Italian]

[chanting in Italian]

[band plays
in bright marching rhythm]

Making young people committed,
even fanatical fascists,

was at the core
of fascist ideology.

The cult of youth was something
central to fascism.

[man counts cadence
for the exercise]

(narrator)
To further tighten his hold over
the public, Mussolini will

pioneer another essential tactic
of dictatorship.

(Natasha Ezrow)
Dictators like to build
personality cults

because it enables them to rule

without always having
to resort to force.

It enables them to mesmerize
the public,

to ensure that
the public adores them.

And to prevent threats
from opponents.

(narrator)
Mussolini styles himself not
merely as a man of the people

but as the one and only leader
of the nation

[Piero speaks Italian]

(Matthew Feldman)
The way in which Mussolini
shaped his own image,

cultivated foreigners
to see him as really,

one of the great Caesars
in the modern era,

was core to the way that
Mussolini saw himself,

but also the way in which he
represented the new Italy.

(narrator)
To strengthen his bond
with the nation,

Mussolini perfects the art of
connecting with the crowd.

[speaking Italian]

[extremely loud cheering]

(Matthew Feldman)
Mussolini could be
a very powerful speaker;

bombastic, chest stuck out,
shouting to crowds.

this idea of speaking to
thousands upon thousands

of people at these oceanic
assemblies,

that was something
that Mussolini had perfected.

[loud cheering]

(narrator)
Realizing he cannot be in front
of every Italian visually,

he finds a revolutionary means
to connect

with the entire
Italian public-- radio.

[Mussolini speaks in Italian]

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Under the Mussolini the radio

became one of the primary
sources of propaganda.

[Mussolini speaks on radio
in Italian]

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
And so people would gather
together to listen to the Duce.

[Mussolini speaks
on the radio in Italian]

Listening to the radio together

becomes a kind of cohesive
moment of social interaction.

Just like going to the movies.

(narrator)
Mussolini's actions quickly find

admirers outside Italy as well.

One in particular has
taken keen notice

of his meteoric rise to power.

January 30th, 1933.

Adolf Hitler takes control

of Germany's democratically
elected government.

He does it by using

many of the same tactics
pioneered by Mussolini.

Hitler's private army of "Brown
shirts," the mass rallies,

even the Nazi salute-- all can
be traced back to Mussolini.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
We heard for years

that Hitler taught Mussolini
everything he knew.

In fact, it's the opposite.

Hitler came to power
after Mussolini

had already been there
for 11 years.

[loud cheering]

People like Hitler
were hugely influenced by him,

so the March on Rome is
something that Hitler sees

as a gesture to copy
from Mussolini's playbook.

(narrator)
But despite his best efforts,

by the mid-1930s
Mussolini is facing problems

that propaganda and
indoctrination can't solve.

The economy is struggling,

unemployment is growing,

and discontent is
starting to spread.

To help regain control,

Mussolini turns to another
key tactic.

(Natasha Ezrow)
Dictators often want to go to
war because it's a distraction.

It's a way of uniting everybody

under some sort of
nationalist banner.

It's a way of distracting
from just terrible policies,

or from poor performance.

It's a way of preventing
the opposition

from ever challenging
the dictatorship,

because to do so they'd be
viewed as being disloyal.

Mussolini was so keen
to go to war,

because he wanted to unite
the public under one banner,

under one nationalist agenda.

(narrator)
He tells his people
that the time to fulfill

the central promise of fascism
has come.

It is time to build an empire.

[cheering]

But in 1935, that isn't easy.

Over the last 100 years,
western powers

have colonized most
of the developing world.

Now, only a handful of
independent nations are left;

one is Ethiopia,

A nation Italy
had tried to conquer

at the turn of the last century.

The Ethiopia question is
a difficult one.

He's certainly trying
to create an empire,

but remember that Ethiopia
only 40 years before

had defeated the Italian Army
in Adwa, in 1896.

So some of this was
about reclaiming

what he perceived to be lost
honor in Italy in 1935.

[Mussolini speaks in Italian]

[extremely loud cheering]

(narrator)
Nearly half a million
Italian soldiers

are dispatched to Africa.

On October 3, 1935,

Italian forces invade Ethiopia.

[loud explosions]

Although hopelessly outgunned,

the Ethiopians put up
a fierce resistance.

Anticipating
a quick military victory,

Mussolini instead
has his nose bloodied.

(Marla Stone) I think there was
a fantasy

when Mussolini began the war

that it would be a quick,
short war, and it wasn't.

So they turn to a tactic

of total war
once they met resistance.

They turn to chemical weapons,

which had been banned
after the First World War.

[loud whistling & explosion]

(narrator)
Mussolini orders his generals
to burn Ethiopian villages

and to use poison gas
on civilians.

More than 300 tons
of deadly mustard gas

is deployed
against civilian targets.

We're talking about air attacks
against Red Cross trucks,

poison gas.

Really breaking all manner
of Geneva conventions.

(narrator)
While the international
community condemns his methods,

it does nothing
to stop the carnage.

May 5, 1936...

after 7 months
of bitter fighting,

Mussolini declares victory
in the name of fascism.

He proudly announces the birth
of a new Roman Empire.

[Mussolini speaks in Italian]

[extremely loud cheering]

(narrator)
The dictator gets his empire,
but the cost is high.

More than 1,000 Italian soldiers
are killed or wounded,

and the fighting claims
the lives

of more than 400,000 Ethiopians.

While Mussolini's invasion
is denounced by the world,

it is applauded
by Adolf Hitler.

Emboldened by Mussolini's
brazen act, and the fact

that the western democracies
did nothing to stop it,

Hitler launches his own bid
to forge an empire.

March 13th, 1938,

Hitler's forces annex
nearby Austria,

followed by Czechoslovakia
just 12 months later.

Then on September 1, 1939,

Adolf Hitler invades Poland,
triggering World War II.

It is a move that will have
titanic consequences

for Mussolini...
and the entire world.

Mussolini really believes that
the Nazi's are going to be

on the winning side
and there's going to be

a Nazi-fascist new order
in Europe.

And he sees how quickly the
German blitzkrieg is working.

(narrator)
Mussolini sees opportunity.

He's long dreamed
of making Italy

the supreme power
in the Mediterranean,

and the war gives him the chance
to make it a reality.

But his generals warn Mussolini

that his army is
in no shape for war.

The Ethiopian campaign gutted
the treasury

and many soldiers now lack
proper uniforms,

let alone modern weapons.

So there are concerns
in the fascist hierarchy

about the preparation
of the Italian military.

There are people
in the fascist hierarchy

who don't want to fight the war
on the side of the Nazis.

There's a real split.

[Mussolini speaks in Italian]

[loud cheering]

[extremely loud cheering]

(narrator)
June, 1940, Mussolini declares
war on Britain and France.

Intent on controlling
the Mediterranean,

he launches
a 2-front war--

His troops swarm into Egypt
to seize the Suez canal.

Then they strike at Greece.

But the Greek Army pushes back,

and soon has the Italians
on the defensive.

As his generals predicted,

Italy is woefully unprepared

for battle against
fully-equipped adversaries.

More than 150,000 Italians

are killed or wounded
in the fighting.

And it's even worse
in North Africa.

In October 1942, the Italian
forces are all but wiped out.

(Matthew Feldman)
They keep getting
defeated in the war, they're

defeated in Greece, they're
defeated in North Africa,

and so the military might
of Italy

is seen very quickly
to be a straw man,

(narrator)
But the worst is
still to come...

July 10, 1943...

After pushing Hitler
and Mussolini's forces

out of north Africa, the Allies
launch an invasion of Italy.

150,000 Allied troops storm
the island of Sicily.

Tired of Mussolini and his wars,

many of his own people welcome
the invaders as liberators.

Il Duce all but vanishes
from the public eye.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
Mussolini, who was omnipresent
for all these decades,

he disappears from public life.

He doesn't make as many radio
addresses,

he's not seen in public,

perhaps it's not safe for him
to come out anymore.

(narrator)
Furious with his bungling
of the war,

top ranking military officials
and fascists

meet with the King
to plan Il Duce's downfall.

There was a realization that
Italy was lost.

That Italy's power wasn't
anywhere near

what the propaganda said it was,

and I think that once the
Fascist Council of Deputies

realized that the war was
imminently

reaching Italian shores, that it
was all over for Mussolini.

(narrator)
Unaware of the planned coup,
Mussolini is invited

to meet with
the Fascist Grand Council,

his top ranking advisors.

They take a vote on whether
Mussolini should

continue to rule,
Mussolini loses the vote,

I think he was absolutely
shocked.

I think he couldn't have
imagined that.

(narrator)
Without the support
of the military,

he is powerless
to stop the plot.

The elites turned on Mussolini

because he was running
the country into the ground.

The war effort was going really
really poorly, and he was

making mistake after mistake
after mistake.

(Marla Stone)
The king has him
put under house arrest,

and then sent to a military
hospital in Gran Sasso.

(narrator)
Mussolini is kept under guard
high atop a mountain,

but he is not utterly abandoned.

He has one ally left,
and he's a big one.

On Sept 9, Hitler learns
that the Allies

have launched an invasion
of the Italian mainland.

He sends several divisions of
soldiers into Italy

to guard the southern approaches
to Germany.

Then Hitler launches one of the
most daring rescues of the war.

He sends an elite squad
of commandos

to free Mussolini from
a mountaintop prison.

After landing their gliders,

they surprise
Mussolini's captors

and rescue him
without firing a shot.

After Mussolini's rescued
by these SS Troops,

he arrives at Hitler's
headquarters

and the first thing he says
allegedly is,

I'm here to receive my orders,

and I think that that very
clearly

delineates the relationship,
the changed relationship,

between Hitler and Mussolini.

The pupil was
no longer the tutor,

and Mussolini had
no cards to play

Hitler installs Mussolini
as the leader

of the large swath of territory
now under German control.

The once-great dictator
is now Hitler's puppet.

And as the Allies
continue to push north,

Mussolini can only make
a pretense of authority.

But Mussolini's time as Hitler's
pawn is short-lived.

As the Allies advance
from the south,

and anti-fascist partisans
take control

of villages to the north,
his puppet state collapses.

Mussolini and Clara Petacci,

his mistress
for the last 10 years,

must flee or be captured.

(Matthew Feldman)
This was a broken man.

He thinks about going
to Switzerland.

He thinks about
giving himself up,

either to the allies
or the partisans, ultimately

they decide on trying
to kind of sneak into Austria.

(narrator)
April 28th, 1945.

With the German army now in
retreat, Mussolini and Petacci

make a desperate run
for the Austrian border.

Their truck is stopped
near Lake Como.

Although he is disguised
as a soldier,

the most familiar face in Italy
does not go unnoticed.

Ultimately caught
by a group of partisans

who recognizes Mussolini
in an overcoat

and Austrian military uniform,

(narrator)
The partisans set up
an impromptu court.

And after finding Mussolini
guilty of treason,

they condemn him to death
by firing squad.

Mussolini's corpse is then
brought to Milan,

and placed in front
of a jeering mob.

(Matthew Feldman)
The body of Mussolini,

Clara Petacci, and a number
of the other leaders,

the real extremists,
the real hard core,

are hung up
in a Milanese petrol station

for the mob to laugh at.

(Marla Stone)
And they hung him upside down
because in Ancient Rome,

traitors were hung upside down.

His body was left there
for a number of days

until some American GI's
showed up in a jeep

and cut the bodies down.

(narrator)
Almost 25 years after it began,

Mussolini's fascist revolution

has reached its bloody
conclusion.

In the aftermath of the war,
the Italian people

turn their back on
his ideology of violence

and create a democratic republic
that is now its 7th decade.

But Mussolini
has not been forgotten.

Almost 70 years
after his downfall,

his home village of Predappio

is a destination
for neo-fascist pilgrims.

(Marla Stone)
There are people in Italy

who really look back on
the fascist period fondly

as a time of law and order,
as a time of national grandeur,

as a time when things worked.

For many Italians it was a
period of of Italian greatness

in which Italy had
respect in the world.

[men chanting]

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat) Fascism
has come back

into having an attraction for
people because in some ways

we're going through a moment

that is not dissimilar
to post-World War I.

There's a lot of
economic anxiety.

There's worries above all
about demographic shifts,

there are worries
about mobile populations.

In this case, immigrants
are the new enemy.

(Matthew Feldman)
People are starting to remember

the way Mussolini tried to make
Italy great again.

Forgetting all the horrors that
had befallen Italy,

both as a result of his rule,
and immediately thereafter.

(Ruth Ben-Ghiat)
We forget Mussolini
at our peril today

because many of the signs and
symptoms of fascism are back.

The desire for a strongman,
the rising racism,

the need for scapegoats, the

disaffection with traditional
forms of government--

all of this is coming back,

and we need to remember
the lesson of the strongman

which is tyranny and hatred.

Next time on
"The Dictator's Playbook."

Noriega's a dictator,
Noriega's a drug trafficker,

Noriega is repressing freedoms.

A gangster in a military
uniform.

(Mariam Mufti)
Noriega was a double agent,
he was exchanging information

between the U.S. intelligence,
the Cuban intelligence.

He played
a very high-stakes game

He defied the U.S. government.

(Pres. George H.W. Bush)
In Panama, we will not let
American's lives

be put at risk
by a dictator down there.

[orchestra plays in minor tones]

(man) To order "The Dictator's
Playbook" on DVD,

visit shopPBS.org

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available

on Amazon Prime Video.

[synthesizer fanfare]