Word: duces
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...Germans set the stage with care. For a week they plugged the new "Republican Fascism." Then, when Joe Goebbels' men judged the temper right, they played a muffled recording of the Duce's voice, followed by the crashing notes of Giovinezza and brisk translations in all important languages. Said Mussolini in his supervised 15-minute comeback...
...Members of the armed SS Guards and Secret Security Service, aided by . . . parachute troops, today carried out an undertaking for the liberation of the Duce, imprisoned by a clique of traitors. The coup was a success...
...next day the Nazi propaganda mill ground thrilling details: how the loyal Führer "himself prepared the plan for freeing his friend"; how Italian guards had orders to shoot the ex-Duce if anyone tried to free him; how "SS Commandos," despite those orders, whisked off their man "without a scratch"; how grateful Mussolini had movingly phoned the Führer after his release. The Berlin claim fitted into Adolf Hitler's unfolding scheme for Italy under Nazi control. That scheme called for a puppet Fascist regime, set up in Mussolini's name but probably under direction...
...persistent rumor had a modicum of truth, the ex-Duce in his present physical condition could only be a figurehead. London's Daily Mail described him last week as "a spent force, prematurely aged, a pathetic, humbled, fearful figure." A report, allegedly from the Italian underground, said he was suffering from an intense nervous breakdown, apparently aggravated by old stomach ulcers. His skin had turned grey, his facial muscles sagged and sometimes his nervous fits were so violent that he had to be treated with morphine...
Bern relayed a story that the Germans may have found Benito Mussolini in the Braschi Fortress outside Rome. The Daily Mail said that the ex-Duce had been trans ported to the Ponza Islands, a volcanic cluster in the Tyrrhenian Sea between Ostia and Naples. War Correspondent John Steinbeck had a similar story. He had gone with an Allied landing party to Ventotene Island, one of the Ponza group. Said Correspondent Steinbeck: he had missed Benito Mussolini by less than twelve hours. "I talked with a number of inhabitants. They said Mussolini assured them he would return to power...