Benito Mussolini Mussolini was rescued from captivity in the Gran Sasso raid by German paratroopers and "Waffen-SS" commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors. Adolf Hitler, after meeting with the rescued former dictator, then put Mussolini in charge of a puppet regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (, RSI), informally known as the "Salò Republic". In late April 1945, in the wake of near total defeat, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but both were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed by firing squad on 28 April 1945 near Lake Como. His body was
Roman dictator of corruption. The dictator's lieutenant was the magister equitum, or "master of the horse". He would be nominated by the dictator immediately upon his own appointment, and unless the "senatus consultum" specified the name of the person to be appointed, the dictator was free to choose whomever he wished. It was customary for the dictator to nominate a magister equitum even if he were appointed for a non-military reason. Before the time of Caesar, the only dictator who refused to nominate a magister equitum was Marcus Fabius Buteo in 216 BC, and he strenuously objected to his own nomination, because