Do not open until 2025: Mussolini 'hid secret diaries in Italian hillside ... but ordered them sealed for 80 years'



Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini hid a set of secret diaries in an Italian hillside and ordered them not to be opened until 2025, the son of the man who buried them has revealed.

Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until he was executed by partisans in 1945, has long been rumoured to have kept diaries which could detail the extent of his relationship with wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

There is even a theory among some Italian historians that he was executed as part of an MI6 plot to spare Britain embarrassment from revealing the truth about his closeness to Churchill.

Secrets: Benito Mussolini is thought to have written about Churchill in his diaries



Today, Rocco Della Morte, son of Guglielmo Della Morte, a wartime Italian consul in Berlin - said that in April 1945 his father met in Milan with Mussolini who gave him a locked suitcase.

Mr Della Morte, who comes from Fiumicello, close to England boss Fabio Capello's hometown of Pieris in north east Italy, said the suitcase was filled with diaries and other documents.

He said: ‘My father told me that he was called to Milan in April 1945 by Mussolini and given a suitcase. He was then told by Il Duce (Mussolini) that it should not be opened until 2025.

‘The case had the initials BM on it and was closed with a padlock. My father assumed that it was diaries and documents and not money because he was told by Mussolini not to open it for 80 years.’

Mr Della Morte said that the suitcase was buried in a valley close to the village of Campodolcino, a short distance from Italy's border with Switzerland, 100 miles from Milan.

He added: ‘Even after the war an attempt was made on my father's life - it may well have been connected to the suitcase, which he told me about in 1954 when I turned 18.

‘My father asked me to keep it secret and not to open the case until 2025 but I am now 74 years old and there are another 15 years to go. I don't know if I will reach 2025 that's why I am telling this story now.

‘Over the years I have always checked up on the suitcase, which is inside a zinc box for preservation, and it is still there in the Spluga Valley, just a few kilometers from the Swiss border.

‘Although I feel obligated to respect the promise made by my father, I've already made an arrangement for the opening of the suitcase and the publication of its contents.’

Mussolini historian Mariano Vigano, based in Rome, said: ‘They may well be genuine but until they are examined we should be very careful, prudence must prevail until they are verified.

‘There have been claims in the past regrading Mussolini diaries but none have so far proved genuine.

‘In the 1950's Mussolini's son Vittorio said that his father had given his diaries to the Japanese ambassador.

‘They were the smuggled out of Italy to Switzerland and from there we have three possibilities that they were destroyed when Japan surrendered to the Allies.

‘That they were smuggled again onto Japan and are kept in the archives in Tokyo or that they were taken to the Vatican's Secret Archive and given to Pope Pius XII and his papers will not be opened until 2028.’

Three years ago Italian senator Marcello Dell Utri claimed to have found Mussolini diaries from 1935 to 1939 but these were later proved to be forgeries.

The most famous case of forged diaries was in 1983 when a German magazine and the Sunday Times published excerpts of what it claimed were Hitler's Diaries but these were also later found to be forged.

Professor Christopher Duggan, a Mussolini expert based at Reading University, said: ‘It's very possible that documents and diaries could have been handed over to someone at the time.



‘In April 1945 there was a lot of material floating around Italy and it was being picked up soldiers as souvenirs.



‘There was chaos and all sorts of paperwork was being gathered up to try and make a deal with the Allies.



‘If true it would be interesting to see if within this suitcase there is perhaps any correspondence with Winston Churchill.



‘In 1940 Churchill was very keen for Mussolini not to enter the war and there may have been all sorts of promises and offers made.



‘This has in turn led to speculation especially among Italian historians and researchers that Mussolini may have been killed by British intelligence to prevent any potential embarrassment.



‘But as with the very famous Hitler Diaries of the early 1980's they would have to be properly examined to make sure they were not forgeries.



‘On the face of it it does seem possible but I would like to know why he is only coming forward know to reveal this. It's a long time to keep something potentially very important so secret.’







