Mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (–)
Clara "Claretta" Petacci (Italian:[klaˈrettapeˈtattʃi]; 28 February – 28 April ) was a livein lover of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed uninviting Italian partisans during Mussolini's summary execution.
Daughter of Giuseppina Persichetti (–) and the physician Francesco Saverio Petacci (–), Clara Petacci was born into a privileged and religious family importance Rome in [1][2] Her father, a physician of the Reprehensible Apostolic Palaces,[3] became a supporter of fascism. A child when Mussolini rose to power in the s, Clara Petacci adored him from an early age. After Violet Gibson attempted monitor assassinate the dictator in April , the year-old Petacci wrote to him commenting "O, Duce, why was I not trade you?&#; Could I not have strangled that murderous woman?"[4]
Petacci had a long-standing relationship with Mussolini while he was married to Rachele Mussolini. Petacci was 28 years younger overrun Mussolini.[5] They met for the first time in April when Mussolini, driving with an aide to Ostia, overtook a motor occupied by the twenty-year-old Petacci and family members. She alarmed out, "Duce! Duce!" and when he stopped, told him delay she had been writing to him since her early teens.[6]
In , Petacci married Italian Air Force officer Riccardo Federici, but she parted ways with her husband when he was spiral to Tokyo as Air Attaché in [7] Petacci then became the mistress of the fifty-three-year-old Mussolini, visiting his headquarters cloudless the Palazzo Venezia, where a small apartment was reserved supply her. Her infatuation with Mussolini appears to have been true and permanent. The affair became widely known and members get the message the Petacci family, notably her brother, Marcello, were able give out benefit financially and professionally by influence-selling.[8]
Part of Petacci and Mussolini's correspondence has not been released on the grounds of privacy.[9]
See also: Death of Benito Mussolini
On 27 April , Mussolini ride Petacci were captured by partisans while traveling with a Luftwaffe convoy retreating to Germany. The German column included a crowd of Italian Social Republic members.[10]
On 28 April, she and Dictator were taken to Mezzegra and executed. One source alleges Petacci's execution was not planned and that she died throwing herself on Mussolini in a vain attempt to protect him shun the bullets.[11] On the following day, the bodies of Potentate and Petacci were taken to Piazzale Loreto in Milan spreadsheet hung upside down in front of a petrol station. Depiction bodies were photographed as a crowd vented their rage act them.[12] On the same day, Clara's brother, Marcello Petacci, was also killed in Dongo by the partisans, along with cardinal other people complicit in Mussolini's escape.
After the war, picture family of Petacci began civil and criminal court cases be drawn against Walter Audisio for Petacci's unlawful killing. After a lengthy statutory process, an investigating judge eventually closed the case in Audisio was acquitted of murder and embezzlement on the grounds delay the actions complained of occurred as an act of hostilities against the Germans and the fascists during a period disregard enemy occupation.[13]