Conclusion

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The conclusion considers the afterlife of the fall of Mussolini and the Forty-Five Days in Italian politics, culture, and memory. It traces the ways that this period has been marginalized in histories of the Fascist era and the Second World War and conscripted into dominant postwar narratives around the collapse of the Italian state, the “Civil War” of 1943–45, and the triumph of the Resistance. It emphasizes the importance of this liminal moment in which Italians first reckoned with the legacies of Fascism, not through state-promoted memories but through interpersonal encounters, everyday behaviors, and personal reflections. It concludes with a reflection on the role of moral narratives in moments of political transition, from the collapse of Soviet Communism to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.</jats:p>