ITALIAN SOCIAL REPUBLIC

The 'Italian Social Republic' (''Repubblica Sociale Italiana'' or RSI) was a Nazi client state led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini. The RSI exercised official sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the German Army to maintain control. The state was informally known as the 'Salò Republic' (''Repubblica di Salò'') because the RSI's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mussolini) was headquartered in Salò, a small town on Lake Garda. The Italian Social Republic was the second and last incarnation of a Fascist Italian state.

Contents

The context of RSI's creation

History of the RSI

RSI Military formations

Army

Air Force

Navy

Paramilitaries

List of RSI Ministers

Legacy in post-war Italian politics

See also

Miscellaneous

External links

References

The context of RSI's creation

On July 24 1943, after the Allied landings in Sicily, the Grand Fascist Council, on a motion by its chairman, Dino Grandi, voted a motion of no confidence in Mussolini. The next day, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini from office and ordered him arrested. The new government, under Marshal Pietro Badoglio, began secret negotiations with the Allied powers and made preparation for the unconditional surrender of Italy. These surrender talks implied a commitment from Badoglio not only to leave the Axis alliance but also to have Italy declare war on Germany.
While the Germans formally recognised the new status quo in Italian politics, they quickly intervened by sending some of the best Wehrmacht units to Italy. This was done both to resist new Allied advances and to face the predictably imminent defection of Italy. While Badoglio still swore loyalty to Germany and the Axis, Italian government emissaries had already signed the armistice in Allied-occupied Sicily (in Cassibile) on 3 September.
On 8 September, the truth finally came out and Badoglio announced Italy's surrender. Adolf Hitler and his staff, long aware of the betrayal, acted immediately by ordering German troops to seize control of northern and central Italy. The Germans disarmed the stunned Italian troops and took over all of the Italian Army's materials and equipment.
Just four days later, on 12 September, a daring German paratrooper action in the mountains of Abruzzo, led by Otto Skorzeny and called ''Unternehmen Eiche'' (or "Operation Oak"), succeeded in liberating Mussolini and forcing him back into power. While in captivity, the new Italian government had moved Mussolini from place to place in order to frustrate any would-be rescuers. Finally, the Germans determined that he was at the Campo Imperatore Hotel at Gran Sasso. After being liberated, Mussolini was safely flown to Bavaria. His liberation made it possible for a new, German-dependent Fascist Italian state to be created.

History of the RSI

On 23 September 1943, Mussolini declared that the coup d'état had been defeated. He further declared that his government was continuing as a republic, with himself as "leader". The authorities of Mussolini's new republic mounted a repression campaign against any opposition. Notably, in the Verona trial, they prosecuted all present and absent Fascist leaders who had backed Grandi to depose Mussolini. (Grandi himself had had the foresight to flee Italy for Franco's Spain shortly after Mussolini was overthrown.) Fearing possible civil unrest and uneasy over the proximity of Rome to the Allied lines, the Germans advised against Mussolini's return there following his liberation. Mussolini therefore established his capital in the Villa Feltrinelli at Salò on Lake Garda, midway between Milan and Venice. (Thus giving the RSI its nickname of the "Salò Republic.") He thus began trying to assemble the organs of State from among the handful of former Fascist officials who had remained loyal to him.

Soon after its establishment, the Republic was forced to cede Trieste, Istria, and South Tyrol to Germany. During the existence of the Italian Social Republic, Mussolini, whose government had banned trade unions and strikes, began to make increasingly populist appeals to the working class. He claimed to regret many of the decisions he made in supporting the interests of big business in the past. He promised a new beginning if the Italian people would be willing to grant him a second chance.
While Mussolini contended in public that he was in control of the RSI, he admitted to visitors in private that this state was a largely irrelevant and ineffective puppet of the German forces. Indeed, Mussolini was little more than the gauleiter of Lombardy. The RSI was mainly used for repression purposes against the Italian partisans and the Jews. In addition, Hitler forced the new regime to take revenge against Badoglio's supporters and any other Fascists, no matter who they were, accused of betrayal. On 11 January 1944, Mussolini's own son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano was executed.
Ezra Pound, the expatriate American poet, played a role in the cultural and propaganda activities of the RSI, for which he was later persecuted and confined, following the war, to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the mentally ill in Washington, DC.
Around 25 April 1945, Mussolini's republic came to an end. This day is known as ''Liberation Day''. On this day a general partisan uprising and the (Western) Allied spring offensive managed largely to oust the Germans from Italy. The Italian Social Republic had existed for slightly more than one and a half years.
On 28 April, Mussolini, his mistress (Clara Petacci), several RSI ministers, and some other Fascist hangers-on were caught attempting to flee. Most of the captives were shot at Dongo by Italian partisans. Fifteen of the bodies were taken to a square in the center of Milan and hung unceremoniously up-side down in front of a gas station.

RSI Military formations

Army

Smaller units like the Black Brigades and the Decima Flottiglia MAS fought for the RSI during its entire existence. The Germans were satisfied if these units were able to participate in anti-partisan activities. While definitely a mixed bag of good and (very) bad, some of these units far surpassed all expectations.

On 16 October 1943, the Rastenburg Protocol was signed with Nazi Germany and the RSI was allowed to raise division-sized military formations. This protocol allowed Marshal Rodolfo Graziani to raise four RSI divisions totalling 52,000 men. In July 1944, the first of these divisions completed training and was sent to the front.
During the winter of 1944-1945, armed Italians were on both sides of the Gothic Line. On the Allied side were four Italian groups of volunteers from the old Italian army. These Italian volunteers were equipped and trained by the British. On the Axis side were four RSI divisions. Three of the RSI divisions, the 2nd Italian "Littorio" Infantry Division, the 3rd Italian "San Marco" Marine Division, and the 4th Italian "Monte Rosa" Alpine Division, were allocated to the LXXXXVII "Liguria" Army under and were placed to guard the western flank of the Gothic Line facing France. The fourth RSI division, the 1st Italian "Italia" Infantry Division, was attached to the German 14th Army in a sector of the Apennine Mountains thought least likely to be attacked.^[1]
On 26 December 1944, several size-able RSI military units, including elements of the 4th Italian "Monte Rosa" Alpine Division and the 3rd Italian "San Marco" Marine Division, participated in Operation Winter Storm. This was a combined German and Italian offensive against the 92nd Infantry Division. The battle was fought in the Apennines. While limited in scale, this was a successful offensive and the RSI units did their part.
In February 1945, the 92nd Infantry Division again came up against RSI units. This time it was Bersaglieri of the 1st Italian "Italia" Infantry Division. The Italians successfully halted the US division's advance.
The RSI Minister of Defense, Rodolfo Graziani, was even able to say that he commanded an entire Army. This was the Italo-German Army Group Liguria.
On 29 April, Graziani surrendered and was present at Caserta when a representative of German General Heinrich von Vietinghoff-Steel signed the unconditional instrument of surrender for all Axis forces in Italy. But, possibly as a sign of the low esteem in which the Allies held the RSI, Graziani's signature was not required at Caserta. ^[2] The surrender was to take effect on 2 May. Graziani ordered the RSI forces under his command to lay down their arms on 1 May.

Air Force

The National Republican Air Force (''Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana'' or ANR) was the air force of Italian Social Republic and also the air unit of National Republican Army in World War II. Its tactical organization was: 3 Fighter Groups, 1 Air Torpedo Bomber Group, 1 Bomber Group and other Transport and minor units. The ANR worked closely with German Luftwaffe in Northern Italy even if the Germans tried, unsuccessfully, to disband the ANR forcing its pilots to enlist in the Luftwaffe. In 1944, after the withdrawal of all German fighter units in the attempt to stop the increased Allied offensive on the German mainland, ANR fighter groups were left alone and heavily outnumbered, to face the massive Allied air offensive over Northern Italy. In the operation time of 1944 and 1945 the ANR managed to shoot down 262 Allied aircraft with the loss of 158 in action.^{[3] [4] [5]}

Navy

Very little of the Regia Marina chose to side with the RSI. The RSI's Navy (''Marina Nazionale Repubblicana'') only reached a twentieth the size of the co-belligerent Italian fleet.^[6] The RSI Navy included the following craft: Four Motor Torpedo Boats (also known as Torpedo Armed Motorboats or ''Motoscafo Armato Silurante'' or MAS), two anti-submarine vessels, and various other light vessels. There were also five midget submarines stationed in northern Italy and five midget submarines stationed in Romania on the Black Sea. The five submarines stationed in northern Italy all chose to join the RSI Navy. Because of maintenance payment issues, only four of the submarines in Romania were returned to the RSI.
Troops of the Decima Flottiglia MAS fought primarily as an army unit of the RSI.

Paramilitaries

The fall of the fascist regime in Italy and the disbandment of the MVSN saw the establishment of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (GNR), and the emergence of the ''brigate nere'' or Black Brigades. The 40 Black Brigades consisted of former MVSN, former Carabinieri, former soldiers, and others still loyal to the fascist cause. Alongside with their Nazi and ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) counterparts, the Black Brigades committed many atrocities in their fight against the Italian resistance movement and political enemies.

List of RSI Ministers

The following is a list of RSI ministers. For a variety of reasons many ministers did not live past the end of World War II.

★ Head of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs - Benito Mussolini (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Defence - Rodolfo Graziani from 1943 to 1945

★ Ministers of the Interior - Guido Buffarini Guidi (shot by partisans on 10 July 1945) from 1943 to 1945, Paolo Zerbino (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) for 1945

★ Ministers of Justice - Antonino Tringali-Casanova (died of natural causes on 30 October, 1943) for 1943, Pietro Pisenti from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Finance - Domenico Pellegrini Giampietro from 1943-1945

★ Ministers of Industrial Production - Silvio Gai for 1943, Angelo Tarchi from 1943-1945

★ Minister of Public Works - Ruggero Romano (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Communications - Augusto Liverani (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Labour - Giuseppe Spinelli for 1945

★ Minister of National Education - Carlo Alberto Biggini (died of natural causes on 19 November 1945) from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Popular Culture - Fernando Mezzasoma (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) from 1943 to 1945

★ Minister of Agriculture - Edoardo Moroni from 1943 to 1945

★ Leader of the Republican Fascist Party - Alessandro Pavolini (shot by partisans on 28 April 1945) from 1943 to 1945

Legacy in post-war Italian politics

Most prominent figures of post-war Italian far right politics (parliamentary or extraparliamentary) were in some way associated with the experience of the RSI. Among them were Pino Romualdi, Rodolfo Graziani, Junio Valerio Borghese and Giorgio Almirante.
Today, a significant number of far right organizations in Italy, notably the Fiamma Tricolore party, still explicitly take inspiration for their social and political platform from the RSI experience. The RSI is usually seen as the example of what Fascism should have been. As a sign of this legacy, Fiamma Tricolore, for example, guarantees free membership for ex-RSI military.^[7] A communique from the Rome section of the Fiamma said:

[Fiamma Tricolore] is a movement born to closely approximate the ideals of the Social Republic and its fighters. We would surely have fought on the side of this Republic, if only fate had allowed us to have been born during those years.
And we would have surely fought to win, because for us the political synthesis originating from the thought of Benito Mussolini is for us the only political, economic, and spiritual system able to bring about the freedom and social justice that are today denied to Italians and all other world populations. [...][We] relaunch our battle for a better tomorrow, embodying the ideals of the Black Shirts of Alessandro Pavolini.

(Maurizio Boccacci^[8])

See also

★ Military history of Italy during World War II

★ Allied invasion of Italy - 1943

★ Italian Campaign (World War II) - 1943/45

★ Operation Wintergewitter (Winter Storm) - Italian Front - 1944

★ Gothic Line - 1944/45

★ "Monte Rosa" Division

★ Blackshirts (MVSN)

★ Black Brigades

★ Decima Flottiglia MAS

★ Resistance during World War II

★ Italian resistance movement

★ Birth of the Italian Republic

★ Regia Aeronautica

★ Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana

Miscellaneous

★ Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1976 film ''Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma'' was set in the Republic of Salò, and partly meant as an allegory of it.

External links

★ Axis History Factbook - Italy

★ Comando Supremo

★ Historical flags of Italy

★ War flag of Italian Social Republic

References

1. Blaxland, p243
2. ''The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan'', Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
3. Italian Air Forces 1943-1945 - The Aviazone Nazionale Repubblicana by Richard J. Caruana, 1989 Modelaid International Publication
4. Aircraft of the Aces 34 Apostolo: Italian Aces of World War 2
5. http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_drago.htm
6. Page 100, "The Armed Forces of World War II", Andrew Mollo, ISBN 0-517-54478-4
7. http://www.fiammatricolore.net/fiamma/tesseramento.asp
8. http://www.fiammaroma.info