The Italian town of Salo on the shores of Lake Garda, a short-lived Fascist Republic during World War II, has revoked Mussolini’s honorary dictatorship, local authorities said Thursday.
Salo was from 1943 to 1945 a last-ditch, Nazi-backed puppet regime under Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
The town had granted the honorary citizenship to Mussolini years earlier, on May 23, 1924, while he was still in power in Rome.
The council voted to revoke the honour at a meeting Wednesday, after town official Evoli Tiberio put forward the motion, saying it was a just way to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.
“There is no space for the ideas represented by Mussolini’s honorary citizenship in the Italy or Salo of today”, said 29-year-old Salo Mayor Francesco Cagnini.
But he said: “We are not deleting this page of our history, as dramatic as it may be”.
He also said he wanted to make sure it was “better known to students, citizens and tourists”.
Hundreds of Italian municipalities gave honorary citizenship to Mussolini before the Second World War, and dozens have revoked it since.
