Ettore Muti - in World War II

In World War II

Upon his return, Muti was awarded the PNF Party Secretary position replacing Achille Starace. He was awarded this position based on the intervention of his friend Galeazzo Ciano. However, Muti disliked this inactive duty, and profited from the outbreak of the war to return in the military. As a Lieutenant Colonel, Muti participated during the Italian invasion of France, during the long-range bombing of Haifa and Bahrein, and during the Battle of Britain. However, his hasty departure from his Party Secretary position made him lose the friendship of both Ciano and Mussolini.

In 1943, Muti joined the military intelligence service. On July 25, the day of the pro-Allied coup d'état in the Grand Council of Fascism, Muti was in Spain, trying to obtain the radar of a United States aircraft that had crashed on neutral territory. He returned to Rome on July 27, and remained in his private villa. On the night of August 23-24, a group of Carabinieri entered his residence and placed him under arrest. They all left through a pine forest surrounding the area, and the following moments are still mysterious. The official communiqué stated:

Following an investigation into major irregularities in the administration of a state-associated entity, during which the implication of the ex-secretary of the dissolved fascist party, Ettore Muti, has become apparent, the Carabinieri military corps proceeded in Muti's arrest at Fregene, near Fiumicino (then part of the comune of Rome), on the night of August 23-24. As they led him to their barracks, the escort was shot at with several rounds from the forest. In the momentary disturbance, he attempted to run away, but, after being shot at and wounded by the Carabinieri, he died.

The major irregularities mentioned were never clarified, nor were the identities of shooters in the forest. In the dramatic gunfight, Muti was the only one hit: his cap displayed two holes, one in the back of the head, the other in front. Other circumstances point as well towards a political execution, with Ettore Muti as the first victim in the violence that engulfed Italy for the next two years. Pietro Badoglio, the leader who had deposed Mussolini, defined Muti as "a menace" in a letter he had previously sent to the head of the local police: it is likely that Muti was informed about the role of Badoglio in the catastrophic Italian defeat of Caporetto, a role that Badoglio in the years after World War I had tried to hide.

After his death, Muti became the main hero of Italian fascist regime (revived in northern Italy with help from Nazi Germany, as the Italian Social Republic). His name was given to an autonomous Police Legion stationed in Milan and to one of the most feared Black Brigades units.