Gramsci. On the other hand, Benito Mussolini largely subsidized the automotive industry, in order to provide vehicles to the army. Turin was then a target of Allied strategic bombing during World War II, being heavily damaged in its industrial areas by the air raids. The Allied campaign in Italy, that started from the South, slowly moved northwards in the following two years, so leaving northern regions occupied by Germans and collaborationist forces. Turin was not captured by the Allies until the end of Spring Offensive of 1945, and by when the vanguard of the armored reconnaissance units of Brazilian Expeditionary Force reached the city, it was already freed by the Italian Partisans, that had began revolting against the Germans on 25 April 1945. Days later, troops from the U.S. Army's 1st Armored and 92nd Infantry Divisions came to substitute the Brazilian ones.
In the postwar years, Turin was rapidly rebuilt. The city's automotive industry played a pivotal role in the Italian economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, attracting to the city hundred of thousands of immigrants, particularly from rural southern regions of Italy. The population soon reached 1 million in 1960 and peaked at almost 1.2 million in 1971. The exceptional growth gained to the city the nickname of "Automobile Capital of Italy" or "Detroit of Italy" (Turin is twinned with Detroit since 1998). In the 1970s and 1980s, the oil and automotive industry crisis severely hit the city, and its population began to sharply decline, losing more than one-fourth of its total in 30 years. The long population decline of the city has begun to reverse itself only in recent years, as the population grew from 865,000 to slightly over 900,000 by the end of the century
