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During the 1930s Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and German leader Adolf Hitler built strong fascist regimes in their countries. In 1936 they formed a military alliance. After Hitler invaded France in the spring of 1940, Mussolini abandoned his country’s policy of neutrality. In this June 1940 speech delivered from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, Mussolini announces Italy’s entrance into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany, against Great Britain and France.