Count Ciano is dead (1-11-44)

The Pittsburgh Press (January 10, 1944)

London hears: Ciano killed fleeing Italy

Frontier reports death; sentenced, Nazis say

ciano
Count Ciano

London, England (UP) –
Count Galeazzo Ciano, 40-year-old son-in-law of Benito Mussolini, was sentenced to death for high treason by an Axis tribunal today, and reports from the Italian frontier said that the swaggering Blackshirt leader had been shot and probably killed in an attempt to escape his captors.

The German DNB News Agency said that Count Ciano and 18 other former members of the Fascist Grand Council who voted to overthrow Mussolini last July were tried and convicted by a special tribunal sitting in Verona, in northern Italy.

All were condemned to death with the exception of Tullio Ciannetti, former Minister of Corporations, who was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment.

Thirteen of the death sentences were passed in absentia. DNB acknowledged that only Ciano and four other “traitors” had been arrested and brought to trial – among them the 77-year-old Marshal Emilio de Bono, one-time leader of the Italian armies that invaded Ethiopia.

A United Press dispatch from Berne, Switzerland, quoted persistent reports from the Italian frontier late today that Ciano had fled his prison in Verona over the weekend and tried to escape across the border into Switzerland.

German patrols launched a manhunt along the frontier and caught the former Italian Foreign Minister. In the ensuing scuffle, these reports said Count Ciano was shot and probably killed.

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Holy moly! Didn’t see that coming. But why wouldn’t the nazis keep them under the puppet government as uh… puppets? Wouldn’t the shootings only inspire uprisings and resistance movements in Northern Italy?

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The Pittsburgh Press (January 11, 1944)

Nazi firing squad kills Count Ciano

Mussolini’s son-in-law executed 24 hours after trial

ciano
Count Ciano

London, England (UP) –
Count Galeazzo Ciano, the swaggering Blackshirt who married Benito Mussolini’s daughter and helped create his Fascist empire, died before a firing squad in Verona today as a traitor to Il Duce and Fascism.

Ciano was brought before his Axis executors shortly before 9:00 a.m. CET and shot less than 24 hours after a tribunal had found him guilty of treason.

The German DNB News Agency announced the death of Count Ciano in an official bulletin which disclosed that four other prominent Blackshirts had died with him – Marshal Emilio de Bono (77-year-old veteran of the Fascist March on Rome and leader of Italy’s inglorious campaigns in Eritrea, Libya and Ethiopia), Giovanni Marinelli, Carlo Pareschi and Luciano Gottardi.

All were members of the Fascist Grand Council and voted last July to depose Mussolini as dictator of Italy.

The 40-year-old Ciano’s Blackshirt career began more than 22 years ago when he joined the “castor oil” March on Rome. His star ascended with his marriage to Mussolini’s red-haired daughter Edda, and his appointment to the post of Foreign Minister in 1936. It waned last February when he was removed from that post and named envoy to the Vatican.

Of the 19 members of the Fascist Grand Council that unseated Mussolini, 13 had escaped from the Axis part of Italy and were condemned in absentia, and former Minister of Corporations Tullio Cianetti received a 30-year prison sentence, possibly because he testified against his fellow Blackshirts.

Swiss reports yesterday said that Ciano had been shot in an attempt to escape across the frontier, but this was apparently erroneous.

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