MUSSOLINI REBURIED

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28371, 2 September 1957, Page 11

MUSSOLINI REBURIED

Last Salutes By Fascists

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.)

PREDAPPIO (Italy), Aug. 21. The dismembered body of Benito Mussolini, hidden for 11 years in a Capuchin Monastery', was buried in Predappio today with a last diehard fascist salute, according to the American Associated Press. A few hundred of the late dictator’s fascist associates put on their black shirts, raised black banners and knelt before Mussolini’s tomb with the old stiff arm salute.

The Associated Press said they pledged: “We swear that we wjll continue the teachings of Il.Duce.” There was no disorder. More than a score of. uniformed carabinieri stood by. Predappio’s Mayor, Mr Egidio Proli, had promised that his bitterly anti-fascist party would not intervene against the funeral. The little hillside town where Mussolini was born took the funeral calmly. When the first funeral mass began there were more people in the town market than at the Santa Cassiano cemetery. The widow of the dictator stood silently before the wooden casket containing Mussolini’s body. She is now 70 years old. She wore a plain black dress and was supported by her son, Romano Mussolini, who is a Milan jazz musician.

Several of Mussolini’s nephews and nieces were also in the small family group. Flowers were piled high around the vault where Mussolini’s body will rest alongside the tombs of his father, his mother and his son, Bruno, who died in a wartime air crash.

Several hundred at the, funeral wore the old fascist black shirts and while waiting for the Mass, some took out banners.

One read “Vigliacco chi Molla (Who Surrenders is a Coward).” Reuter reported that the coffins in the tomb were all emblazoned with the fascist emblem.

“11 Secolo,” the newspaper of the Neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement, today declared “Mussolini is Restored to Italy.” After the celebration of three Masses, the body was cart-ied down to the crypt of the chapel and placed at the entrance to the family tomb. Throughout the day four of the Duce’s followers stood rigidly at attention around the rough coffin. Five yards away was the family tomb of Senator Adone Zoli, the anti-fascist Italian Prime Minister ,who ordered the restitution of Mussolini’s body to his widow.