Mussolini made history and left images that have remained in memory. He is known - stocky, in dialogue with his people, commanding. One can picture him - bald, bare-chested on the beach, exuding energy and willpower. Then came the end in Milan in 1945: the desecrated corpse, hung at a gas station, mocked and ridiculed, chased from history by the anti-fascist fury along with his dead lover. Hans Woller tells the life of Mussolini, who invented the totalitarian mass dictatorship and became Hitler's most important ally, in an unvarnished and vivid manner.