Benito Mussolini: The Brutal Dictator Who Became Hitler's Idol

Benito Mussolini, a brutal dictator whose violent path to power set the template for the rise of Nazi Germany. For Hitler, Mussolini was very much an idol. He helped forge an evil alliance that unleashed death and destruction across Europe and betrayed his own people. It was a kind of blood coming like a rain and they started to shoot everywhere. How did Benito Mussolini go from fascist radical to partner in global terror? Most people from my generation don't understand how over 70 years ago a small group of Nazis could start a war that killed 60 million people. I want to find out and to help me I'm going to use playing cards. Today they're used by both the military and law enforcement to help identify their targets. But nobody has ever put together a pack of cards for the most notorious group of killers in history. Working with experts I want to know where each of these Nazis rank in the hierarchy of evil. My name is James Ellis. This is Hitler's Most Wanted. Hitler was in Mussolini's shadow for effectively 11 years. What did he learn from Mussolini in terms of a blueprint for taking power? Hitler would have come to power without Mussolini. But in important ways Mussolini was the model for what fascism was and for how a movement like Hitler's could take power. And he was a fascist dictator. He was a serious brutal dictator who committed many atrocities in his own right. Yes, I think this is really important because even though he wasn't a Nazi he was a fascist. Guy, why would two dictators want to work together and effectively interact almost as friends? The answer is simple. It's realpolitik. They needed each other in order to build up what became the Axis. They needed to provide a kind of bulwark against what they saw as these decaying nations, the democracies. When two alpha males come together, even in a partnership, inevitably there's going to be some conflict. So a particularly interesting question is who was actually in charge? Given that he wasn't a Nazi, how do we evaluate his importance to this period of history? For that you've got to go to Italy. I'm starting my journey in Pradapio, a small village in central Italy where Benito Mussolini was born. This is Mussolini's childhood home. Since his death more than 70 years ago, this building has become a sort of monument to his legacy. I couldn't help but notice you doing the fascist salute back there. What do you think of Mussolini? Why? Because he was a fascist dictator and he dragged this country into the Second World War. So you think that he was forced into his alliance with Hitler? I'm struggling to come to terms with what just happened. We're outside the house that Mussolini was born in and a couple of guys openly did the fascist salute. And then after speaking to them more about it, they then expressed admiration for Mussolini. Instead of renouncing him, Mussolini's hometown has become a sort of shrine to his memory. People tend to think about memories if it's a video camera where there's an accurate play-by-play representation of all past events. But this isn't the way that memory works. People have a tendency to shift their memories to adapt the narrative that they would like to tell. Some people here are even cashing in on a shifted memory of Mussolini. Do you get a lot of people who come in and buy this type of stuff? Yeah, you do. Are they people who are just tourists in the area or are they supporters of Mussolini? See, so I can't ask her any questions. Got a few items. First of all, a T-shirt with Mussolini's face on it. Next, I got some Mussolini head-shaped pasta. But then finally, I managed to buy this there. It's a swastika armband. A little part of me can understand why that store would exist, but it is really disturbing to see them selling Nazi paraphernalia in that store. It's a troubling situation. To understand how we got here, you have to go back to Italy at the end of the First World War. Italy ended the war as a victor, but the Treaty of Versailles didn't give Italy the territories it felt it deserved, leaving many Italians feeling betrayed and angry. Adding to the bitterness, the Italian economy was floundering, unemployment was high and strikes were constant. Enter Benito Mussolini, a war veteran himself. Mussolini began attracting followers with his belief that brute force was the only way to reclaim Italy's deserved glory. Mussolini regarded liberal democracy as degenerate, doomed to failure, and that it needed to be replaced by an ideology based on action, where a strong leader could take charge and get the country going in the direction that he wanted it to go in. In March 1919, Mussolini formed the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, a paramilitary group that embraced fascist ideology. A fascist is someone who believes in the supremacy of the state, who believes that nationalism is far more important than the rights of the individual. Mussolini's new group attracted many unemployed war veterans. He organised them into armed squads known as Blackshirts and set them loose on Rome. The Blackshirts were engaging in street violence and in attacking property and newspapers of socialists and other political opponents. Mussolini's Blackshirts swiftly grew in number to more than 150,000 strong. By 1921, the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III dissolved parliament amidst the growing violence and chaos. As part of the anti-socialist National Blocs, Mussolini's Fasci of Combat won 35 seats in the next election, setting the stage for a change in leadership. In 1922, Mussolini leads this famous march on Rome in an attempt to literally seize power. Forget doing it the democratic way, let's just march on Rome and let's get it done. So when fascists descended on Rome, the king of Italy, in an attempt to maintain order and avoid declaring martial law, actually dismissed the government and asked Mussolini to form a new government, in effect allowing Mussolini to seize power for himself. Now, there's someone watching this and seeing it as a kind of model way in which he too might seize power, and that of course is Adolf Hitler. The idea that Mussolini had created a new Rome, had created something new out of a democratic order that Hitler also regarded as degenerate and decadent, deeply impressed Hitler. When Hitler visited Rome in May of 1938, Mussolini welcomed him with an enormous spectacle. So Christian, you're taking me to the Roma Ostienza train station. The Roma Ostienza train station is a really important monument in the history of the relationship of Mussolini and Hitler. Right. Historian and author Christian Gerschl is an expert on the alliance between Mussolini and Hitler. It is a huge monument. Wow, it is, isn't it? Look at it. The building was put up for Hitler's arrival in May 1938 when Hitler came on his only state visit to Italy. The idea was to show the strength and power of fascist Italy to the Nazis, that fascism in Italy would be the strongest ally for Hitler and the Nazis. Well, let's have a closer look at the building then. Look at this. This mosaic is a very strong reference to the Roman Empire. This was a theme that ran throughout Hitler's visit in May 1938 and it left a profound impression on Hitler and the Nazis. The idea that fascist Italy would be as strong as ancient Rome made Hitler and the Nazis believe that fascist Italy would be and should be Germany's ally. It's an alliance that makes a lot of sense when you look at the goals of Hitler and Mussolini as leaders and the goals of fascism and Nazism as movements. Mussolini needed Hitler, as fascist Italy had become a bit isolated internationally. For Hitler, there weren't really obvious choices among European powers for a military alliance. Let's go inside. Let's have a look. So what were Hitler's impressions of Mussolini when he came here? Extremely positive, because for Hitler, Mussolini was very much an idol. Hitler believed that Mussolini, as the first fascist dictator in Europe, was someone who had reached power through a two-fold strategy. One, to use political violence against political opponents, beating up, killing, murdering, torturing political opponents. The second part of the fascist strategy of power was the attempt to play by the rules of parliamentary politics. So it was like Mussolini had created a playbook of how to come to power, that you use political violence when it's necessary, but you also play by the rules as well. It was this fascist template for securing power that greatly inspired the Nazi rise to power, that facilitated the Nazi rise to power. The alliance between Mussolini and Hitler would have devastating consequences the world over and change the face of Italy forever. You have nine columns, nine being the number of letters in Mussolini's last name. Wow, you can still see his name on it. I'm on a mission to find out where Benito Mussolini ranks in Hitler's hierarchy of evil. I've come to Rome to learn about Mussolini's grand plans for Italy alongside author and historian Christian Gerschl. So where are you taking me, Christian? I'm taking you now to the so-called Palace of Roman Civilization. The building is one of the most famous architectural legacies of Italian fascism. Wow, I mean, it's a very imposing building, but when I look at it, I sort of feel that I'm looking at a square version of the Colosseum. This building was part of a grander scheme to build a new neighbourhood in Rome called the E.U.R. neighbourhood, E.U.R. being the Italian abbreviation for the World Exposition that was scheduled to be held in Italy, again to show off the strength and power of fascist Italy. The closer you get to it, you really sort of feel the size of it, how imposing it is, and sort of plays into that idea of trying to make you as an individual feel insignificant. What is striking about the architecture of this building is you have nine columns, nine being the number of letters in Mussolini's last name, and six columns, six being the number of letters in Mussolini's first name. Wow, so they sort of subtly signed his name into this building. It could well be an urban myth, but several commentators have pointed this out. And what does the inscription at the top say? A quotation from Mussolini that celebrates Italy, in this case, as a people of poets, of artists, of heroes. Not only a great military power, also a great artistic, cultural, intellectual power. The message of this palace is to reinforce the notion that fascist Italy stood in the footsteps of ancient Rome. Both Mussolini and Hitler were hearkening back to either a historical or mythical past, a time of supposed greatness of civilization. For Hitler, you have a mythic Germanic past and the idea of an Aryan civilization that was superior to all others. For Mussolini, this is very clearly the Roman Empire. Aligning himself with the glories of ancient Rome allowed Mussolini to fuel the cult of personality spreading across Italy. The cult of personality occurs when a country uses mass media, propaganda, demonstrations, advertisements, to try to create a godlike, or almost superpower, omnipotent image of the leader. I want to learn more about Mussolini's obsession with ancient Rome. Whereabouts are you taking me? I'm taking you here to the, what we now know today as the Olympic Stadium. And the best person to ask is historian Richard Bowen. To see a complex that was built in the 1930s. So you're having an obelisk here. Wow, you can still see his name on it. Yes. And his name is so openly displayed on this obelisk in front of this building, today in Rome. Yes, it is a little strange, but this is how it is, if you like. This is part of the history of the city, rightly or wrongly, and it's still on display today. So what exactly is this site? And what did Mussolini intend it to be when it was being built? So this was a site that was taken up by Mussolini and made into a huge sporting area to show off the importance of the regime and also, in some shape or form or another, the new architectural plans that Mussolini had for Rome. Build these big, wide boulevards and create these new sort of like architectural projects that in some shape or form or another evoke the past of ancient Rome, but are also at the same time modern in their own outlook as well. So I notice here we have fascist symbols on the ground. We have a lot of the fascist rods over here. We have the M for Mussolini interlaced with the fascist rods over here. And then we also have a map of Rome, so we get bits and pieces of it. We get bits and pieces of ancient Rome here, which the modern day Italy is going to evoke. We can see the fascist eagle over there. So a lot of the fascist symbols were dug up, if you like, there from the time of ancient Rome. Even the actual fascist symbol itself is something from the ancient Roman period. Yes, it literally means a bundle. So the idea of the fascism would be a unified kind of like guild of people working together. What was Mussolini hoping to achieve with all this fascist symbolism? Well, a greater sense of unity and the idea of a nation state. Mussolini inherited a nation that was still very much regional in its outlook. I would even argue that even today parts of Italy are still regional in its outlook rather than nationalistic. So one way he was able to try to sort of like create this idea of a nation state was to use a lot of this ancient symbolism. So he was using Italy's ancient past as a kind of unifying force. Definitely, yes. I find that incredible that thousands of people will come through here to watch a football game, to watch another major sporting event, and they're walking right over all of this fascist imagery that Mussolini placed here. Mussolini's plans to create a new Roman empire were wildly ambitious. And soon they would plunge his country into chaos. The clock is set on the precise time of the first air raid over the city of Rome. That's incredible. In my quest to find out where Benito Mussolini ranks in Hitler's hierarchy of evil, I've come to explore Mussolini's villa in Rome. So we're leaving the main floor and heading directly under the house? Yes, we are reaching the basement of the house. So this bunker was built for Mussolini. Francesca Paino is a guide with the organisation Rome Underground. This is actually an air raid shelter that was arranged in 1941. Oh, wow. This room is actually under the dancing room of the main house. Why did he have this bunker built? Because Mussolini and his family, they were living here in Villa Tullonia in the main house called Casino Nobile. This underground shelter was designed to allow Mussolini to continue his rule in Rome as Europe erupted in war. In September of 1939, Hitler's invasion of Poland started World War II. Only months earlier, Hitler and Mussolini had signed the Pact of Steel, a mutual agreement to support each other in times of conflict. The war has started. Now, who's meant to join in? According to the Pact of Steel, Mussolini. What does he do? Nothing. Hitler was furious. But Mussolini had his reasons. It's because his military is basically hopelessly undermanned. It doesn't have enough weaponry and material. He's realistic enough to know, clever enough to know, that even if he does declare war, there's not a lot he can do. Less than a year into the war, however, Hitler's armies were sweeping across Europe, and Mussolini reconsidered his decision to abstain. Of course, by May 1940, Hitler's doing incredibly well. He's overrunning the Low Countries, he's going into France, and Mussolini thinks, hang on, I want to be part of this action, I want to have a slice of the pie. So if I join Hitler, I can get all sorts of territories in southern France and who knows elsewhere. It soon became clear, however, that Mussolini would not prove to be an effective ally to Hitler. Italian forces failed miserably in North and East Africa and Greece. Again and again, Hitler's armies were called out to help Mussolini's struggling forces. So what else can you tell me about the shelter? I mean, what are some of the features, what's it equipped with? First of all, the anti-gas doors. So here, we have an anti-gas door, and they were usually in couples, so there is another anti-gas door on the other side. And they opened on the two sides, so this was the best way to prevent the gas enter into the room. And the second thing is the air filtration system, because the gas is the worst thing in these cases. And then I see there's a desk here. We are here because probably Mussolini worked while he was waiting here in the air raid shelter. Right, so he could continue working, whatever he was doing up in the main house, he could bring down here and continue that. Did he ever use this particular bunker? So this bunker was built in 1941, and the first air raid over Rome was in 1943, so we should say that he didn't use during the air raids, but he probably used when there were alarms, alarms that did not end up with an air raid over the city of Rome. So if there had been alarms, it would have been likely that he would have come down from the house and taken shelter in here in preparation in case Allied aircraft suddenly appeared over Rome and started dropping bombs. Is there a significance to the time that's set on that clock? The clock is set on 11.13, which is the precise time of the first air raid over the city of Rome on the 19th of July, 1943. So this is just to remember that time because it was a very bad moment for the city of Rome. As more and more Allied bombs fell on the capital, Mussolini struggled to maintain power. Mussolini's having a far tougher time controlling his own country, his own territory than Hitler does. What's the reason for that? Well, actually, Italy has always been a pretty fractured country. It hasn't really existed as a country for a very long time, and even today in Italy, there are vast differences between the North and the South. They almost regard themselves as separate nations. For Mussolini, trying to hold that all together while also trying to carry out wars is a very difficult thing to do. By 1943, the Axis powers were losing control of the war. The Allies are doing incredibly well in North Africa. The Italians and the Germans are retreating, and we're also going to get the landings by the Allies on Sicily. The invasion of Sicily. 2,000 ships bringing great armies of battle-hardened British, Americans and Canadians. Suddenly, the Allies are now on Italian Axis soil. This is a major moment in the war. As the Allies closed in, work on Mussolini's bunker continued deeper underground. Where are you taking me now? So now we are going into the proper bunker. It's a tunnel that was built in 1942. Certainly a lot deeper underground. Yeah, yeah, here we are about six metres under the floor of the house. Six metres underground. This bunker was made actually of this tunnel. So you can see that something is missing. The doors are missing. The air filtration system is missing in this bunker. And then these two rooms on the two sides, we don't know what they were used for because this bunker is unfinished. It was never completed. Mussolini's bomb shelter was never finished because by July of 1943 the Italian people saw only one way to extract Italy from the war and avoid escalating crisis. In 1943, Mussolini is removed from power by the Italian king. There is still a check and a balance on his dictatorial powers. There isn't the same thing in Germany and that's one of the reasons why Hitler, of course, will stay on right to his dying day. So Mussolini in 43, the king says, right, we've had enough of you. The people have had enough of you. Time you went. Once again, Hitler had to come to Mussolini's rescue. Even though Hitler essentially regards Mussolini as almost a sort of bit of a buffoon, he still feels a loyalty to his former fascist bedmate, if you like. Mussolini is incarcerated in this mountaintop hotel and actually there's this tiny little airplane. German pilots feed Mussolini to Hitler's secret headquarters and a discarded Duce greets the man who gave him the kiss of death. It's a great coup for the Germans to prove that they can actually snatch Mussolini from right under the Italians' noses. So it's a great coup for Hitler and the world goes, wow, but actually it's changed nothing. It was rumoured that Mussolini was dead, but these pictures show him as still much too much alive. Mussolini is then installed and controlled north of Italy. You know, he's now become a kind of puppet dictator. He's just another one of these kind of satellite fascist leaders with no real power of his own. The rescue saved Mussolini, but plunged Italy into chaos. The king and military leaders fled south. The Germans marched in and took over Rome. Nazi oppression in Italy was brutal. On March 23rd, 1944, the Italian people struck back. The Fuhrer wanted, for every German soldier killed, 50 Italians to be killed. There was a tremendous... My journey to discover where Benito Mussolini ranks in Hitler's hierarchy of evil has brought me to this narrow street in Rome to meet with Mino Carbone, an expert on the history of the Italian resistance. In September of 1943, the Nazis had begun an oppressive occupation of Rome. So it was a very brutal Nazi occupation. Brutal, brutal occupation. There was a curfew. The food was impossible. They didn't find food. It was the black market. A piece of butter cost 10,000 more than the regular price. Wow. So it was terrible. It was a situation which was horrible. The Nazi was terrible. There were plenty of Italians who really didn't care for having German jackboots, you know, clacking their way down Italian and Roman streets. On March 23, 1944, the Italians struck back. So what happened here? They want to give to the Roman people a kind of wake-up, wake-up call. Please, wake up. We can help the Allies. We can get rid of the Nazis. This group made of students, they were students, they decided to attack this group which was terrible. It was about 18 kilos of TNT. Imagine, there were 156 soldiers marching. They were going up. As soon as they arrived at the Palazzo Titone, there was the blast. One of the strongest ever. All the city was on a tremble. There was a kind of tremble everywhere. And the first lines were completely decapitated, were completely tremendous. There was a kind of blood coming like a rain. And the back lines were normal. And they started to shoot everywhere because they thought there was a bomb coming from the top. Nobody understood. Nobody understood that. You see the bullet splashes over there. Nobody understood where that bomb came out. And the 32 of them died immediately. Of course, when Hitler finds out about this, he goes absolutely crazy. There's no other word for it. And the Fuhrer wanted, for every German soldier killed, 50 Italians to be killed. There was a tremendous, 50, 5-0, 50. For every one German. For the 50 Italians. Eventually, Hitler's talked down from that simply because of the practicalities of the situation. The local Gestapo are ordered to go around Rome's prisons and round up anybody they can find to execute and carry out these reprisals, which are now going to be carried out at a ratio of 10 to 1. They go to prisons and they find lots of young men. Some are in prison for very, very minor offenses. I mean, literally just kind of shoplifting and burglary. And they take them to the Adiatine cave. I've come to the Adiatine caves on the outskirts of the city to learn the next part of the story. Lieutenant-Colonel, I'm James. Very nice to meet you. Lieutenant-Colonel Francesco Sardone is the director of this memorial site. I know this was the site of a brutal massacre. What exactly happened here? The Germans shot five at a time. And with five SS men nearby, they were taken to this place. They were brought into the cave and practically made to kneel. And every German shot the convict who was nearby with two gunshots. One behind his head and one in front of his face so that death was guaranteed. And once he was killed, he was left on the spot. The situation was that whoever arrived here, the convict who arrived here had to kneel in front of his comrades and find death in this way, in a psychological and very hard way. How did people find out what happened here? For the Germans, it was essential for them not to find the bodies. So they thought of crushing with dynamite all this part that we see. It was a difficult finding. They did not take into account that around here, in those days, there were many shepherds and there were also brothers of a nearby convent who heard all these shouts, all these shots and all this movement. Subsequently, when the Municipality of Rome and the Americans searched the place where this murder could have been committed, the American army was able to find exactly where this murder had been committed. How did people react? It was a horrible thing to know the massacre that had happened and the reason why it had happened. The Italian people then wanted very strongly, but especially the relatives of the victims wanted very strongly that in this place where they killed exactly 335 people, they built a memory of what had happened. The Roman people see it as a symbol of the resistance of the time, a symbol of the demand for freedom of the time. The people did not have to wait long to be free. Three months after the massacre, in June 1944, Allied forces entered the city. With the Germans in headlong retreat, the Yanks of the Fifth Army entered Rome in triumph. The liberators were acclaimed with ecstatic fervour. Rome is the first great capital to be freed from the enemy. By April of 1945, it was clear the Allies would win the war. Mussolini decided to flee. Mussolini, with his mistress, Clara Patacci, wants to escape to Switzerland. He thinks that maybe he's going to find safe haven there. So when he's in a village called Dongo, near Lake Como, actually he's captured by Italian fighters. This does not end well for Mussolini and Clara Patacci because they are shot. Dead in the streets of Milan lies the body of Benito Mussolini, first of the dictators and the first to go. His body was then taken to Milan along with Clara Patacci's Two days after Mussolini died, Hitler committed suicide. The following week, Germany surrendered. The fascist alliance between Germany and Italy was finished. But Mussolini's story was not over yet. This is very creepy. To complete my journey to understand Mussolini's story, I've come back to Predapio, his hometown. This is where Benito lies buried. Like many places in town, it's become a pilgrimage site. This place is considered so sacred, you're not allowed to speak out loud in here. What's really curious is that Mussolini is venerated and commemorated in Italy in the way that Hitler simply is not in Germany. Why is this? Well, I don't think it's because Mussolini's legacy is beneficial in any way. I think it's because Mussolini has become soul-searching and acknowledgment of fascist excesses and brutality in the same way as Germany's had to. The almost total buy-in in German society to Nazism and the resulting unconditional surrender and occupation forced a reckoning with what had happened and what people were complicit in. That reckoning didn't happen in Italy. Holy s***, this is very creepy. Not everyone here remembers Mussolini in the way he is remembered. So you won this award for your anti-fascist work. Yes. Including Giorgio Frassonetti, the mayor. It's a small plaque that is very important because it represents the contradiction of Pradapio. Here is the room where Mussolini lived, the head of fascism. And today, the mayor of Pradapio who received an award from the Austrian government as anti-fascist of the year in 2016. We are against fascism. We are against totalitarianism. We don't want that to happen again. This message comes from the room where Mussolini slept with even more strength and value. So I noticed you have the fascist emblem on your desk. How do you feel about that? I'm not afraid and I'm not interested because it's history. It's not about the future. It's about the past. A difficult and uncomfortable that is complicated to manage but it's something that has passed. The room of the most important assembly of Pradapio is the room of the municipal council. As you can see, they have been scratched by the symbols of fascism. This chair tells two stories. The first story is the one who put the fascist emblem. The second story is the one who took it off. Why is it so important to understand what happened here in this place? We can't allow totalitarianism, fascism and nationalism to return. My journey through Italy has really opened my eyes to Mussolini's legacy. In Italy, in Hitler's most wanted. Frankly, I find it highly disturbing that Mussolini is still venerated in Italy today. My mission to Italy has given me new insight into the rise of the fascist alliance between Mussolini and Hitler. It's also revealed how Mussolini enthusiastically joined Hitler in war and unleashed massive destruction across Europe. Now, using our unique system I'm going to take you to one of Hitler's most wanted. The place that I went to that had the biggest impact on me was Pradapio, which is Mussolini's hometown. There is what I can only describe as a fascist tourism trade going on there. Anthony, why is Mussolini revered by many Italians today? Partly has to do with the persistent myth of the good Italian fascist and the bad Nazi. But it does also point to things like Mussolini supposedly breaking the hold of mafia in certain territories or the famous line of making the trains run on time. And in this fog of nostalgia that tends to override the actual realities of brutal fascist dictatorship. I agree with you, Anthony. Frankly, I find it highly disturbing that Mussolini is still venerated in Italy today. I think it also tells us that Italy and the South are almost completely separate countries. And I think what Mussolini represents to a lot of Italians is a kind of coming together in this very troubling nation. He did seize it by the scruff of the neck, held it together for quite a long time. To add to that, it's interesting that Mussolini's remains are in a tomb in an elaborate family crypt, yet Hitler's remains have been unceremoniously disposed of. Mussolini might have actually benefited from being in Hitler's shadow because of the terrible things that Hitler did. Mussolini might appear to be the lesser evil. And I wonder if Hitler didn't exist, if Mussolini would not be quite as revered as he is today. I think you're exactly right. Adherence of the cult of Mussolini can hide behind Hitler's atrocities. He elevated fascism to great heights in Europe through a brutal and murderous regime. All that, combined with his alliance with Hitler, places Mussolini in the Nazi hierarchy of evil. And the fact that he wasn't a Nazi, whether he deserves to be in here at all. Guy, what are your thoughts? Well, you're right, of course. He's not officially a Nazi, so therefore he shouldn't necessarily be in the deck. But let's face facts. He is a major fascist leader. He committed enormous atrocities, murdered political opponents who used poison gas, slaughtered entire villages in order to promote fascist ideology. That's got to be very high. I'm going to put him at five. Anthony? Guy, I agree with your reasoning, but not your conclusion. Mussolini is absolutely central to the history of fascism. But in terms of his influence on the Nazi regime, well, Hitler would have come to power without Mussolini. The Holocaust would have happened without Mussolini. Hitler did launch World War II and I largely agree with Anthony. I think if we were rating him on a hierarchy of overall evil, I'd rank him very high, possibly as high as Guy. But in terms of his ranking in Hitler's hierarchy of evil, he just doesn't seem as central a figure to the regime. I'm going to put him very similar. I'm going to put him number 30. Interesting. So both of you are pretty much on the same page there, but Guy, you're very different from the regime. He is the jack of diamonds. I see Benito Mussolini as someone who was a clear role model and a big inspiration for Hitler. He went into an alliance with Hitler that dragged his country into the Second World War and brought suffering to the Italian people. Even though he was not a Nazi, he deserves a place in Hitler's most wanted.