Inside Mussolini's Wine Cellar That Become a Secret Air Raid Bunker
A telephone inside the secret bunker of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini that was built between 1942 and 1943. (All photos: Remo Casilli/Reuters)
A World War II air raid shelter built by the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini opened to the public for the first time October 31.
The converted wine cellar, 10 feet beneath Villa Torlonia, his private villa in Rome, included a series of bunkers that were built under the Italian capital to provide shelter for bureaucrats and party leaders, Reuters reports.
The 180-foot-long bunker has a double set of steel, gas-proof doors, and an air filtering system that could provide oxygen for 15 people for 3-6 hours. Inside the shelter were gas masks and helmets tucked in cubbyholes at the end of a corridor
A passageway inside the former wine cellar/air raid bunker.
The entrance is located in the garden about 400 feet away from Mussolini’s former living quarters and had three different escape routes: by the theatre, in a shaft by the tennis court and underneath a pond.
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The bunker has been reopened to mark the 70th anniversary of Rome’s liberation from fascism. Bought by the city of Rome in 1977 it was made into a museum, but the buildings and grounds were in poor shape, so restoration work began in the 1990s. Groups such as the website Bunker di Roma campaigned the city to make it a tourist site.
Helmets and gas masks from the days of World War II.
The bunkers have not been entered since the end of the war, according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Mussolini ordered its construction in 1940, but the bunkers weren’t much use. By the time Allied bombings hit the Italian capital Mussolini had been toppled by his own private council on Sept. 8, 1943.
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A bathroom found inside the bunker.
Mussolini was leader of the Italian fascist movement from 1923 to 1943.
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