The night of 9 July 1943, Italy.
Allied forces land in Sicily, opening a new front in Europe and bringing the war directly to Italian soil.
Within weeks, the Fascist regime begins to collapse.
Benito Mussolini, who has ruled Italy for more than 20 years, is removed from power by order of King Victor Emmanuel III and placed under arrest.
However, he is soon rescued by German commandos and transported to northern Italy, where he is installed as the head of a new Fascist state under German control.
Now, as the war enters its final phase and the last remnant of power is crumbling, Mussolini is once again on the run, trying to escape the fate that is closing in on him.
At his side is a young woman who remains loyal to him until the very end, sharing his rise, his power, his secrets, and his final downfall.
Her name is Clara Petacci.
Clara Petacci was born on 28 February 1912 in Rome, then part of the Kingdom of Italy, into an influential and wealthy family.
Her father, Francesco Petacci, studied medicine and opened his own practice in Rome.
He married the ambitious Giuseppina Persichetti, a relative of Pope Pius XI, and later became the Pope’s personal physician.
Clara, whom everyone called Claretta, grew up with two siblings.
Her older brother studied medicine but later turned to business, while her younger sister became an actress.
Clara attended prestigious schools for girls from wealthy families.
She was talented in music and the visual arts, wrote poems, and considered a career as a painter or actress.
On 30 October 1922, Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy after the March on Rome, when Fascist supporters forced the government to hand him authority.
He soon established a dictatorship, suppressing political opposition, controlling the press, and promoting aggressive nationalism.
His regime emphasized loyalty to the state, militarization of society, and expansionist ambitions aimed at restoring Italy’s power and influence in Europe and beyond.
The Petacci family supported the new regime, and for the young Clara, it was Mussolini himself who became the centre of fascination.
He called himself “Il Duce,” a title derived from Latin meaning leader.
To her, he became both an idol and a distant, almost mythical figure.
When an assassination attempt was carried out against Mussolini in April 1926, the 14-year-old Clara reacted with intense emotion.
In her diary, she wrote: “Oh, Duce, why could I not be there with you? I would have strangled that murderous woman.
” Around this time, she also began writing him letters filled with admiration and devotion.
In 1932, at the age of 20, under pressure from her parents, Clara became engaged to an Italian Air Force officer, Riccardo Federici.
Before the marriage could take place, however, an event occurred that would completely change the course of her life.
One warm day in April 1932, the Petacci family set out on a trip to the seaside town of Ostia in their newly purchased convertible.
As they drove along the road, a passing car caught Clara’s attention.
It was an open Alfa Romeo, one she immediately recognized from magazines.
It belonged to Benito Mussolini.
Overcome with excitement, she stood up and began waving her hat, shouting, “Duce, Duce!” She had just seen her idol.
The Petacci family followed the car, but around the next turn, they found it pulled over at the roadside.
It was there, for the first time, that Clara Petacci came face to face with Benito Mussolini, a man she believed was loved and admired by all of Italy.
She was only 20 years old.
He was 48.
Only a few days after their first meeting, Mussolini invited Clara Petacci to see him again, and it was likely that their relationship became intimate almost immediately.
The affair lasted only a few months.
Mussolini, who maintained relationships with multiple women while also being married to Rachele Mussolini, with whom he had five children, soon ended it.
According to recollections of his personal attendant, women were brought to him daily, and Mussolini took pride in the number of his lovers.
The Italian dictator persuaded Clara to go through with her engagement and marry her fiancé.
Clara married Riccardo Federici in June 1934, and the newlyweds moved into a service apartment near an airfield north of Rome.
It was a quiet and unfulfilling marriage.
Clara, however, could not forget Mussolini.
At this point, her ambitious mother, Giuseppina Petacci, took action.
She purchased a large villa in Rome, located directly opposite Villa Torlonia, Mussolini’s residence, and offered Clara a room there whenever she wished to take a break from her husband.
Giuseppina Petacci also arranged a private meeting with Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia.
What was said during the meeting remains unknown.
Soon afterward, Clara’s husband was abruptly sent to Tokyo as a military attaché.
The decision took immediate effect and he did not even have time to say goodbye to his wife.
Clara did not mourn his departure.
On the contrary, she was relieved that he did not expect her to accompany him.
She did not know who had arranged his transfer.
In 1936, after two years apart, Clara’s relationship with Mussolini resumed while her husband was stationed on the other side of the world.
From that moment on, she gained a privileged position.
Clara Petacci became Mussolini’s principal and permanent concubine, the only woman granted bodyguards, a driver, and access to his private apartment in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome.
Over the following years, she was constantly at his side.
They met almost daily, and Mussolini called her every day, both to maintain control and to reinforce her sense of importance.
Mussolini spoke to her about everything.
Clara recorded their conversations in great detail, ignoring his repeated requests not to write them down.
Her notes did not focus on her own emotions, but on Mussolini himself, his behaviour, his thoughts, and his private life.
Clara struggled with jealousy as Mussolini continued to see other women, and she found it difficult to accept this.
On the night of 12 March 1938, as the geopolitical situation in Europe began to change, Mussolini tried to calm her jealousy.
His effort was successful.
She later wrote: “We made love as never before, until his heart hurt.
And then we did it again.
Then he fell asleep, exhausted and happy.
” The next day, Germany formally annexed Austria in the event known as the Anschluss.
In September 1938, after returning from the Munich Conference, where European powers allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia with a significant ethnic German majority, Mussolini spoke to Clara with admiration for Adolf Hitler.
He told her: “The Führer is very sympathetic.
Hitler is, at heart, an emotional man.
When he saw me, he had tears in his eyes.
He liked me very much.
” The Petacci family benefited significantly from their connection to Mussolini.
Clara’s mother founded a charitable organisation to support poor women, with Clara as its public face.
However, only a small portion of funds reached those in need.
Most of the money remained within the Petacci family.
Clara’s brother Marcello, a skilled businessman, and Mussolini’s secretary helped manage these arrangements.
The Second World War started on 1 September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
During the war, Italian forces fought alongside German troops in North Africa, the Balkans, and on the Eastern Front.
These campaigns brought suffering rather than success.
Equipment was poor, leadership was often ineffective, and defeats soon followed one another.
Italian soldiers endured hunger, cold, and heavy losses and at home, civilians faced shortages, bombings, and growing doubt about their role in the global conflict.
As the Axis position weakened, faith in the regime eroded, and resentment toward Germany increased.
On 25 July 1943, after Allied troops landed in Sicily at the beginning of the month, Mussolini was removed from power by order of the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III and placed under arrest.
A new government under Marshal Pietro Badoglio sought a way out of the war and in September 1943, Italy signed an armistice with the Allies.
The announcement brought chaos instead of peace as Nazi Germany reacted immediately with Operation Achse, a rapid military takeover of central and northern Italy.
Italian units were disarmed, soldiers were captured, and German forces seized Rome and other major cities.
Mussolini was rescued from his imprisonment by German commandos and installed as head of the Italian Social Republic in the north, a puppet state entirely dependent on German power and military.
As Allied forces advanced and German control began to collapse, the Petacci family, including Clara, fled to northern Italy.
By early 1945, as defeat became inevitable, Mussolini offered Clara the chance to escape to neutral Spain, a country whose regime had been supported by Fascist Italy during the Spanish Civil War.
However, she refused to leave him.
Even in these final months, they remained in contact.
Clara lived in the town of Merano, while Mussolini stayed near Lake Garda.
They met whenever possible, often travelling halfway to see each other.
By the spring of 1945, Mussolini understood that the Italian Social Republic would not survive.
He fled to Milan, where German forces were already preparing to withdraw.
Accompanied by Clara, he joined a convoy of vehicles heading north toward Lake Como and the Swiss border.
At one point, he attached himself to a German unit, hoping to reach the city of Innsbruck under their protection.
When the convoy was stopped by Italian partisans, the Germans were allowed to continue, while the Italians were separated and held back.
Mussolini put on a German uniform and attempted to pass unnoticed.
Near the town of Dongo, the vehicles were searched.
Mussolini was recognized and arrested.
The order was clear.
There would be no trial.
On 28 April 1945, the 61-year-old Benito Mussolini and the 33-year-old Clara Petacci were taken to the village of Giulino di Mezzegra and shot.
It is believed that Clara’s death had not been planned, and that she threw herself in front of Mussolini in a final attempt to protect him.
On the following day, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci and 17 other fascists including Clara’s brother Marcello were dumped on the ground in the old Piazzale Loreto – a square in Milan, to insult and physically abuse.
They were then hung upside down by their feet from the canopy of a petrol station and stoned from below by civilians.
Thousands of people had gathered in the square that day.
When one passerby saw Clara Petacci’s body hanging upside down by her feet, he reportedly said: “One thing you can say for her: She did have nice legs.
” Whether Clara remained with Mussolini out of love, obsession, fear of losing her privileged position, or a combination of all three remains debated.
What is certain is that her relationship with the dictator transformed the fortunes of the Petacci family and tied their future completely to the survival of the Fascist regime.
Clara followed Mussolini with a devotion that bordered on fanaticism — a loyalty that, in the end, may even have surpassed his own.
As Mussolini searched desperately for escape in the final days of the war, Clara chose voluntarily to remain at his side and share his fate.
