Why was Benito Mussolini’s body displayed in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto in 1945?

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People walk and shop inside the ornate Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy, with its glass-domed roof, decorative mosaics, and luxury store entrances. — Milan Shoppers in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan.

In April 1945, after Benito Mussolini was captured and executed by Communist partisans while attempting to flee to Switzerland, his body—along with those of several other Fascist ministers and leaders—was transported to Milan.12

The bodies were displayed in the Piazzale Loreto, where they were hung by their feet at a service station. This public display served as a symbolic end to the dictator’s regime and the World War II conflict in Italy, drawing huge, jubilant crowds who celebrated the fall of the Fascist government. The event marked the culmination of the Resistance movement's efforts to liberate the country from both German occupation and the Italian Social Republic, a puppet regime Mussolini had led in the north.123