In April 1945, just before the Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini and his mistress
Clara Petacci were caught by Italian Communist partisans. It is unclear whether his objective was to attempt to cross the Swiss border or to go to the Valtellina; if it were the latter, he left the city without the thousands of supporters gathered in Milan intended to be his escort to the last stand in the Alps. Both Mussolini and Petacci were summarily executed. Later their corpses were hung upside down in a petrol station at Loreto Square in Milan.
