Die Afrikaanse Protestantse Akademie Biblioteek

Includes bibliographical references (page 192).

"The killing of Benito Mussolini and the public orgy in the Piazzale Loreto, Milan, which followed, remains one of the most gruesome episodes of World War Two. It was an act reminiscent of the bloodsports of Ancient Rome. That Mussolini deserved no better fate, that his execution was a fortuitous means of avoiding the ritual killing which would surely have followed a war crimes trial, is a viable viewpoint. Yet the event remains what it surely was? a brutal and bloody act of mob vengeance. The tragedy of Sunday, April 29, 1945, when thousands of Milanese were caught up in the horror of the Piazzale Loreto has been the subject of many books but what has always seemed to me to be far more intriguing is the sequence of events which led up to that moment. And in this book, I have attempted to retrace those events through the eyes, minds and feelings of the people who took part in them and who survived to tell of them"--Page 9.