In the early hours of 25 July 1943, after a late afternoon and night of discussion, the Grand Council of Fascism (the regime's highest body of constitutional importance, which had not met for four years) approved by a large majority (19 votes against 7 , an abstention and a hierarch who did not participate in the vote) the agenda Grandi who, in practice distrusted Benito Mussolini, since he asked for "the immediate restoration of all state functions" and the invitation to the Duce to ask the king "so that he may want, for the honor and the salvation of the country, to assume effective command of the armed forces of land, sea and air, according to article 5 of the Statute of the Kingdom, those supreme decision-making initiatives that our institutions attribute to him".
Dino Grandi and the indictment against the Duce
Dino Grandi, then president of the Chamber of fascism and corporations, was one of the main hierarchs of the fascist regime, a close collaborator of Mussolini for more than 20 years. Considered more of a right-wing conservative than a fascist, he saw fascism as an ephemeral phenomenon, confined to Mussolini's life span. An expert diplomat, he had been foreign minister and ambassador to the United Kingdom: firm enemy of Germany, with a large circle of friends in theestablishment British (he was a personal friend of Winston Churchill).
Grandi is said to have agreed the previous day the ''conspiracy'' against Mussolini, in a meeting with the ruler. But the operation was so dangerous that Grandi showed up at the meeting armed with a pistol. It was he who carried out the indictment against the Duce, also going back to the mistakes made in involving Italy in the world war.
Allied landing in Sicily
He had a decisive influence in the fall of the regime the Allied landing in Sicily. The Italian troops failed - as Mussolini had said - to stop the enemy army "on the water's edge".. In a few weeks it was understood that the island was now lost. This prompted part of the fascist establishment to seek a way out with the support of Vittorio Emanuele III, reaching a separate peace with the Allies as soon as possible. Dino Grandi's initiative was successful. The 28 members of the Grand Council were called to vote by roll call by the party secretary.
The agenda Great
Voting on Grandi's agenda concluded with:
- 19 votes in favor: Emilio De Bono (quadrumvir), Cesare Maria De Vecchi (quadrumvir), the same presenter Dino Grandi (president of the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations), Alfredo De Marsico (Minister of Justice), Giacomo Acerbo (Minister of Finance) , Carlo Pareschi (Minister of Agriculture and Forestry), Tullio Cianetti (Minister of Corporations), Giuseppe Bastianini (Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs), Umberto Albini (Undersecretary for the Interior), Luigi Federzoni (President of the Italian Academy), Giovanni Balella (President of the Confederation of Industrialists), Luciano Gottardi (President of the Confederation of Industrial Workers), Annio Bignardi (President of the Confederation of Agricultural Workers), Alberto de' Stefani, Edmondo Rossoni, Giuseppe Bottai, Giovanni Marinelli, Dino Alfieri, Galeazzo Ciano (son-in-law of the Duce);
- 8 votes against: Carlo Scorza (Secretary of the PNF), Carlo Alberto Biggini (Minister of National Education), Gaetano Polverelli (Minister of Popular Culture), Antonino Tringali Casanuova (President of the Special Tribunal), Ettore Frattari (President of the Farmers Confederation) , Enzo Galbiati (Chief of Staff of the MVSN), Roberto Farinacci, Guido Buffarini Guidi;
- 1 abstention: Giacomo Suardo (President of the Senate of the Kingdom).
After the approval of Grandi's agenda, Mussolini (who had followed the debate and replicated it as if it were physically tested) deemed it useless to put the other motions to the vote and adjourned the session. At 2:40 on July 25, those present left the hall.
Mussolini from the King: Fascism fell in one night
The same day Benito Mussolini asked for an audience with the King Vittorio Emanuele III who granted it to him for 17 in the afternoon. When the Duce arrived (with the hope of regaining trust), the Sovereign informed him that he had Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed head of government and had him arrested by a team of Carabinieri who removed Mussolini, from a secondary exit of the Quirinale, in a military ambulance.
Fascism fell overnight. The Duce was later confined on the Gran Sasso from where he was freed and taken to Germany by a commando of German soldiers. Then, as is known, the Germans militarily occupied the Peninsula taking on their own the conduct of the conflict, while Mussolini was used by Hitler to found the Italian Social Republic (RSI), the puppet state which continued the war alongside and under the direction of the Germans.
From 8 to 10 January 1944 it took place in Verona, then under the jurisdiction of the RSI, the trial against six hierarchs who had voted for the OdG Grandi and therefore contributed to discouraging Mussolini: Emilio De Bono, Luciano Gottardi, Galeazzo Ciano, Carlo Pareschi, Giovanni Marinelli and Tullio Cianetti.
The trial ended with five death sentences for Ciano, Marinelli, Gottardi, De Bono and Pareschi and a thirty-year sentence for Cianetti (who saved his skin for having retracted his adherence to the Grandi agenda the following day).
The sentence of the five convicts present was carried out on the morning of January 11, 1944.
