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According to this theory, which originates in a book by the eminent historian Renzo De Felice, the father of Fascism was not shot by Italian partisans but by the British secret services.
The reason was that Churchill had conducted an intimate correspondence with Il Duce before and during the war, and was worried that if he were captured and put on trial he could make some highly embarrassing disclosures.Apparently Churchill had, among other things, tried to persuade Italy to stay out of the war by offering the Fascists sovereignty over Dalmatia, the Dodecanese Islands and other territories as a reward.If you think that sounds extraordinary, just wait. The hottest items of the Churchill-Mussolini correspondence were contained in a black bag that Mussolini was carrying at the time he was killed, with his mistress and his closest intimates, by Lake Como on 28 April 1945, but somehow went astray in the confusion of the moment.So determined was Churchill to recover the documents that he visited northern Italy in 1945 and 1946 to look for them, claiming to be holidaying with his easel and paints.The Italian intellectual establishment has reacted with a mixture of stupor and scepticism about such disclosures but since they seem to come from Professor De Felice, it has felt obliged to take them seriously. Forget Hitler’s diaries Forget the Watergate tapes. If you’re looking for historical sensation, try Italy, where a bombshell theory about the death of Mussolini is enthralling and outraging some of the country’s finest scholars. General Aideed, proclaimed “interim president” by his supporters in June, has not instituted sharia in any territory he controls.Kismayo, his likely next target, is ruled by General Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan, known as “the butcher of Hargeisa” for his merciless pounding of that northern town.. Aid workers based in the town say rival militiamen have clashed on a number of occasions recently, but it was generally regarded as relatively peaceful.The town’s clan elders agreed in March to institute sharia (Islamic law) there. Resistance crumbled fast as General Aideed’s men opened up with heavy machine-guns, anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, the sources said.

Travellers arriving in Mogadishu from Baidoa said at least 10 people were killed or wounded.Baidoa, devastated by the 1992 famine, was reported calm yesterday as General Aideed’s men set up checkpoints. However, 17 expatriate aid workers seized in the offensive were said to be safe. The General’s men were also said to be holding a number of Somali aid workers.According to relief workers in Nairobi, the general led a column which included 30 “technicals” – pick-up trucks mounted with heavy weapons – from his south Mogadishu stronghold to Baidoa, some 150 miles away, in the middle of the night.The militiamen then blew up an ammunition dump at Baidoa airport before attacking the town, ruled by feuding sub-clans. He gave General Aideed 24 hours to withdraw his forces from the inland town and warned him that he would be responsible for the ensuing “catastrophe” if he tried to extend his control beyond southern Mogadishu.
Details of the Aideed onslaught on Baidoa were flimsy, as his militiamen ripped out radio equipment. As his 600-strong militia force celebrated Sunday’s victory in Baidoa, General Aideed’s main rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, threatened to declare “all-out war”. Mogadishu (AFP) – The Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed has vastly extended his power base with the capture of Baidoa at the weekend, and observers predicted yesterday he would move on to the southern port city of Kismayo, raising the prospect of renewed civil war. “The party does not need a would-be Machiavelli, but a conceptual thinker, who could formulate the social democratic answer to the problems of our time, not foreseen by the party’s founding fathers.” Such a thinker, the paper noted, is nowhere to be seen..

The left-of-centre Frankfurter Rundschau noted that the wave of resignations indicated the “deep melancholy” in the party.Despite Mr Schroder’s strictures, the SPD is more “modern” than the British Labour Party Partnership with industry is taken for granted in Germany. Mr Schroder has an excellent relationship with senior industrialists (including Volkswagen, based in Lower Saxony), such as Mr Blair can only dream of.None the less, the SPD finds itself limping along – failing to take advantage of the government’s failures and always seeming one step behind.The Suddeutsche Zeitung was scathing yesterday. It is still uncertain whether Mr Schroder could put together the pieces any better than Mr Scharping has managed to do.The latest opinion polls leave the SPD scrabbling around at about 32 per cent – 4 per cent less than last October.Commentators on left and right agree that the SPD’s problem is bigger than merely the problem of Mr Scharping. But, above all, the party itself is the loser from the disputes. A savage portrait in Der Spiegel magazine, describing a recent Scharping roadshow, was headlined “Wave, Rudolf!” – a reference to the fact that Mr Scharping’s spokesman had to prompt the SPD leader on his every move.Opinion polls suggest that twice as many voters believe that Mr Schroder could dislodge Mr Kohl as believe that Mr Scharping can get rid of the colossus who has ruled Germany for 13 years.

But they are united in their belief that the party is in a mess.Mr Scharping’s inability to communicate means he has little credit in the political bank. There has been a wave of high-level resignations in recent days. Those who have given up their posts – including Karsten Voigt, foreign affairs spokesman – do not necessarily have any great love for Mr Schroder. Mr Schroder, prime minister of Germany’s north-western region, Lower Saxony, and party economic spokesman, told Die Woche: “It’s no longer a matter of social democratic or conservative economic policies, but of modern or un-modern policies.”Mr Scharping retorted: “Anybody who sees things like that can no longer be responsible for Social Democratic economic policy.” He duly sacked Mr Schroder.But the sacking, earlier this month, only served to unleash yet more chaos within the SPD.

Even allowing for differences between the French and British legal systems, his chances of a fair hearing if detained look slim. The accuracy of the information, or where it came from, has hardly been challenged.. STEVE CRAWSHAW

Bonn
If Tony Blair wishes to sleep peacefully at night, then perhaps he should not look too closely at the crisis now engulfing Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the SPD. The country’s main opposition party is tearing itself apart in a frenzy of self-criticism, following its humiliating failure to unseat Helmut Kohl’s coalition in elections last October.At the beginning of last year the SPD regarded victory in last year’s elections as a certainty.