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 expected to resign, and when the dictator laid down his "imperium", so would the magister equitum. In theory, the magister equitum was commander of the cavalry, but he was not limited to that role. The dictator and magister equitum did not always take the field together; in some instances the magister equitum was assigned the defense of the city while the dictator took an army into the field, while on other occasions the dictator remained at Rome to see to some important duty, and entrusted the magister equitum with an army in the field. The magister equitum was necessarily subordinate