Summary

The Italian Social Republic (RSI), also known as the Republic of Salò, was a collaborationist regime of Nazi Germany that existed between September 1943 and April 1945, wanted by Adolf Hitler and led by Benito Mussolini, in order to rule part of the Italian territories militarily controlled by the Germans after the Cassibile armistice.

The CSR was mainly recognized only by the countries allied to the Axis, had no official legal-constitutional framework and is considered a puppet state by much of the historiography as well as by the prevailing doctrine in international law; however, some historians and jurists have attributed some degree of sovereignty to it. Mussolini himself, however, was aware that the Germans regarded his regime as a puppet state. The current Italian legal system does not recognize it as having any legitimacy; in fact, in the Luogotenenziale Legislative Decree No. 249 of October 5, 1944 on the "Organization of Legislation in the Liberated Territories" it is referred to as the "self-styled government of the Italian Social Republic."

The legal-institutional structuring of the CSR was to be left to a constituent assembly, as called for by the PFR congress (Nov. 14-16, 1943). A "social republic" was to have been established in line with the programmatic principles, beginning with the "socialization of enterprises," outlined in the document known as the Verona Manifesto and approved during the congress work. However, Mussolini preferred to postpone the convening of the Constituent Assembly until after the war, limiting himself to having the Council of Ministers on November 24 approve the name of the RSI.

At the Council of Ministers on December 16, 1943, a complete draft of a possible constitution of the CSR was presented.

The Anglo-American advance in the spring of 1945 and the insurrection of April 25, 1945 brought about the end of the CSR, which officially ceased to exist with the surrender of Caserta on April 29, 1945 (operational since May 2) signed by the Allies with the German Southwest Command also on behalf of the military corps of the Fascist state since the latter was not recognized by the Allies as valid and autonomous.

Ideological-legal-economic foundations of the Italian Social Republic were fascism, national socialism, republicanism, socialization, co-management, corporatism and anti-Semitism.

The creation of an Italian Fascist state led by Mussolini was announced by him on September 18, 1943 through Radio Munich. Three days earlier the Reich's unofficial agency, the DNB, had announced that Mussolini was "once again assuming the supreme leadership of Fascism in Italy" by issuing the Duce's first five order sheets.

On September 23 the new Mussolini government was formed at the German embassy in Rome in the absence of the latter, still in Germany. At this stage the expression "Republican Fascist State of Italy" is used. On September 27, the government announced that "the operation of the new Republican Fascist State is begun."

On September 28 in its first Council of Ministers at the Rocca delle Caminate, near Forli, the designation "National Republican State" was used. The first Official Gazette not to bear the monarchical insignia and headings was the one published on October 19. On Oct. 20, the guardasigilli minister orders "that the denomination 'Kingdom of Italy' in acts and documents and in all headings relating to this Ministry and the Offices dependent on it, be replaced by the denomination: 'National Republican State of Italy.'"

At the third Council of Ministers on Oct. 27 Mussolini announced "the preparation of the Great Constituent Assembly, which will lay the solid foundations of the Italian Social Republic," yet the state did not change its name. On Nov. 17, the Verona Manifesto approved by the PFR outlines the creation of a "Social Republic." On Nov. 24, the Fourth Council of Ministers resolves that "the national republican state shall take the definitive name 'Italian Social Republic'" as of Dec. 1, 1943.

The RSI was soon also known as the "Republic of Salò," named after the town on Lake Garda that was the headquarters of the Ministry of Popular Culture with press and foreign agencies, so that most official dispatches bore the heading "Salò comunica...," or "Salò informa" or "Salò dice."

Origins

During World War II, after the U.S. landings in Sicily and the now believed inexorable defeat of Italy, solutions were sought at many levels to get out of the crisis. On July 25, 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism, the constitutional body and political directorate of the PNF, with its Order of the Day Grandi had invited Mussolini

In approving the agenda there had been the vote, if not decisive at least very significant, of Galeazzo Ciano, former foreign minister and son-in-law of the Duce, and Dino Grandi, an important politician and diplomat who had represented the prestige of Fascist Italy in the world.

On the afternoon of that same July 25, Mussolini had been received by the King at his residence in the Villa Savoia. After a brief interview, which had ended with a request for his resignation as head of the government, Mussolini was arrested and taken by Red Cross ambulance to the barracks of the Carabinieri Cadet Legion on Via Legnano in Rome-Prati, where he was imprisoned for three nights before being transferred elsewhere.

Not at his residence in Rocca delle Caminate, as he had hoped. On July 28 he was embarked in Gaeta on the corvette Persephone and transferred first to Ventotene, then to the island of Ponza and, from August 7, with the corvette Pantera, to the island of La Maddalena. Finally from August 28 to the foot of the Gran Sasso, and then up on September 3 to Campo Imperatore where he remained, controlled by 250 Carabinieri and Public Security guards, until his liberation by a division of German paratroopers.

In Mussolini's place, the King had appointed Pietro Badoglio, who immediately quelled the popular euphoria that had arisen at the news of the fall of the head of Fascism and extinguished hopes for peace with the famous radio proclamation characterized by the commitment, "The war continues." After lengthy negotiations, the Cassibile armistice with the Allies (already signed on September 3) was proclaimed on September 8. A general disbandment ensued, during which the royal family fled Rome along with Badoglio, taking refuge in Brindisi. The authorities and leaders of the state, including the general staff of the armed forces, dismembered, disappeared, went unaccounted for, while German troops took control of the country following a precise plan organized months earlier (Operation Achse). The peninsula remained divided in two, occupied by Allied forces in the south and German forces in the central north, with Rome held by the Germans until June 4, 1944.

From Gran Sasso to Lake Garda, via Germany

The birth of a Fascist government in German-occupied Italy had already been secretly planned (Operation Achse) by the top leadership in Berlin before Mussolini's liberation: a government with Alessandro Pavolini, Vittorio Mussolini and Roberto Farinacci - exiles in Germany after July 25 - was initially considered, but none of the three seemed to give sufficient guarantees to Germany, while Farinacci refused any assignment. The possibility of entrusting the governorship to Giuseppe Tassinari then arose. Mussolini's release solved the problem.

The liberation of Mussolini had been meticulously organized by the Germans, on Hitler's direct orders, and was carried out on September 12 by selected troops led by Kurt Student, Harald-Otto Mors and Major Otto Skorzeny, who, after taking possession of the premises and freeing the prisoner, took him to Munich. Here Mussolini discussed the situation in northern Italy in a series of talks (lasting two days) with Hitler of which no minutes have survived. Initially depressed and uncertain, Mussolini was convinced by Hitler, who seems to have threatened to reduce Italy "worse than Poland," and agreed to set up a Fascist government in the north.

On September 15, the first directives were issued from Munich to reorganize the Fascist Party, which in the meantime was spontaneously reconstituting itself after its dissolution under the weight of the events of the Armistice, and the MVSN, which had partly remained armed. Picking up on the program of the 1919 Italian Fasci di combattimento, harking back to Mazzini and emphasizing republican and socialist origins and content, Mussolini proclaimed on September 17 through Radio Monaco (a broadcaster picked up in much of northern Italy) the forthcoming establishment of the new Fascist state. This would be formalized on the 23rd by installing the first meeting of the Government of the Italian Social Republic in Rome.

An embassy of the RSI in Germany was established in November: Filippo Anfuso was appointed ambassador, who presented his credentials to Hitler on the 13th. The Reich reciprocated by sending Rudolf Rahn, former ambassador to Rome before the armistice, to Salò, who presented himself to Mussolini on December 11, the anniversary of the signing of the Tripartite Pact. The headquarters of the institutional bodies, ministries and armed forces of the CSR were distributed throughout northern Italy.

The Salò district, home to some of the major government offices, was not only of great scenic beauty, but was also strategically very important: in addition to its proximity to arms factories (e.g., Gardone Val Trompia, where Beretta and other smaller factories were based) and steel industries, it boasted proximity to Milan and the German frontier, and, in addition to being sheltered by the Alpine arc, was equidistant from France and the Adriatic.

Moreover, in 1943 the A4 Turin-Trieste freeway had been built only between Turin and Brescia, and therefore one of the fastest road connections between Milan and the Brenner Pass was the State Road 237 of the Val Caffaro, which passed only a few kilometers from Salò, and winding through rather stark mountain valleys was difficult for military aircraft of the time to attack. Salò was therefore in the heart of the last part of Italy still able to carry out production and thus capable of creating goods that could be sold, albeit at under price and only to Germany.

The Fall

The fall of the Italian Social Republic occurred in three moments:

By 1944 the Anglo-Americans had succeeded in overcoming the lines of resistance along the peninsula, and only the Gothic Line stood in the way of the conquest of northern Italy. What was left of the republican state established on September 28, 1943 at Rocca delle Caminate di Meldola, pierced by bombing, guerrilla warfare, rationing, requisitioning and sabotage, was increasingly in trouble. A last attempt at symbolic desperate resistance was planned with the "Republican Alpine Redoubt," but the insubstantiality of the forces that were supposed to support such resistance scuppered the project.

The political end of the CSR took place on the evening of April 25, 1945 in the headquarters of the Milan Prefecture. Decisive factors were the German defeat on April 21 in Bologna following the Allied spring offensive and Mussolini's decision not to defend Milan, added to the failure of surrender agreements through moderate members of the Socialist Party or, in extremis, through the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster.

After transferring governmental powers to the Minister of Justice and disengaging everyone from loyalty to the RSI, Mussolini left for Como, unarmed and with intent to escape, probably to Switzerland, where he had already attempted to shelter both his family and his mistress Clara Petacci (Claretta). Partisans stopped him in a German truck, dressed as a German army corporal.

Confirming his willingness to escape are statements in Silvio Bertoldi's book I tedeschi in Italia about SS Lieutenant Fritz Birzer, who had received orders directly from Berlin in mid-April 1945 not to lose sight of Mussolini. Birzer asserted that more and better could have been done to avoid the Duce's capture; particularly because in the last hours of freedom both the Fascist hierarchs and Birzer's small squad were joined by the 200 or so men of the Fallmeyer Battalion (named after its commander), in organized retreat and powerfully armed toward Germany.

The Duce demanded to reach the Italo-Swiss border by disengaging from Fritz Birzer, who reached it in a rocambolic and almost grotesque manner, given the safeguarding functions he was supposed to exercise over Mussolini. Once captured, he was executed on April 28 in Giulino. The next day Mussolini was taken to Milan along with the executed men on the Dongo lakefront and hung upside down from the canopy of a gas station near the site where the Piazzale Loreto massacre had been carried out on August 10, 1944, which had seen the shooting by the Nazi-Fascists of 15 partisans and antifascists left exposed with ridicule and for intimidation throughout the day.

At 2:00 p.m. of the same April 29, 1945, the Armed Forces of the RSI were definitively defeated according to the Hague and Geneva Conventions because, after a commitment signed by Graziani for a military surrender on the same conditions imposed on the Germans, they had explicitly been included in a document with international validity, which went down in History as the Surrender of Caserta. Said document was pertaining to the capitulation of the German Southwest Command and that of the SS und Polizei in Italy (for the rear) and set after three days, at 2 p.m. on May 2, the cessation of hostilities over the entire territory under their jurisdiction.

With the end of the Social Republic, negotiations began for the peace treaty to be signed in Paris on February 10, 1947, which would see the final loss of Istria as well as the payment of substantial reparations to the victorious countries. However, because of the separate peace of September 8, 1943, Italy was able to avoid being partitioned into occupation zones (like Germany) as well as having its executive powers handed over to the U.S. military (like Japan).

At the end of the war, a settling of accounts took place with the fascists, some of whom, in addition to having participated in various capacities in the oppression of the regime's 20-year period and

To put an end to this climate of violence, the Minister of Grace and Justice of the provisional government of the CLN, Palmiro Togliatti, decided on an amnesty for common and political offenses, including those of collaborationism with the enemy and related offenses, as well as conspiracy to murder.

While claiming the entire territory of the Kingdom, the RSI extended only over the provinces not subject to the Allied advance and direct German occupation. Initially its administrative activities extended as far as the provinces of Latium and Abruzzo, gradually retreating further and further north as the Anglo-American armies advanced. In the north, moreover, the Germans established two "Zones of Operations" comprising territories that had been parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: the provinces of Trent, Bolzano and Belluno (Pre-Alps Zone of Operations) and the provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pula, Rijeka and Ljubljana (Adriatic Littoral Zone of Operations), respectively subject to the German Gauleiters of Tyrol and Carinthia, de facto though not legally governed by the Third Reich, except for Carniola, which was subject to a special regime. The exclave of Campione d'Italia was included in the Republic for only a few months before being liberated thanks to a popular uprising supported by the Carabinieri.

CSR Government

The Italian Social Republic had a de facto government, that is, an executive that operated in the absence of a constitution, which although drafted was never discussed and approved.

This body, while appearing to possess all the prerogatives essential to be considered sovereign (legislative power, authority over the territory, exclusivity of currency and availability of armed forces) exercised them de facto, but not de jure. Benito Mussolini was - albeit never proclaimed - Head of the Republic (this is how the Verona Manifesto defined the figure of the head of state, while in the aforementioned draft Constitution he is referred to as "Duce of the Republic"), head of the government and foreign minister. The Republican Fascist Party (PFR) was headed by Alessandro Pavolini. Heir to what remained in the north of the MVSN, the Carabinieri and the Police of Italian Africa, the Republican National Guard (GNR) was created with judicial and military police duties, placed under the command of Renato Ricci.

On October 13, 1943, it was announced that a Constituent Assembly was to be convened, which was to draft a Constitutional Charter in which sovereignty would be vested in the people. After the first national assembly of the PFR, held in Verona on November 14, 1943, this announcement was canceled by Mussolini, having decided to convene said Constituent Assembly when the war was over. On December 20, 1943, the Council of Ministers of the Italian Social Republic decided to overprint stamps with effigy of Victor Emmanuel III for use in its territories. Only at the end of 1944 would a series with specially illustrated vignettes be issued.

Ideology

Ideological-legal-economic foundations of the Italian Social Republic were fascism, national socialism, republicanism, socialization of the economy, co-management, corporatism and anti-Semitism.

At the Council of Ministers meeting on Dec. 16, 1943, in addition to the presentation of a complete constitutional draft, the programmatic (mostly theoretical) and ideological lines of the new state were drawn:

Political parties

The main law enforcement force was the Republican National Guard (GNR) and the Black Brigades, flanked by other units, including German ones. Most infamous was the Charity gang (officially the Special Services Department), which was notable for its heinous repression, constant use of torture, and attempts to corrupt even flankers and partisans themselves by infiltrating partisan bands.

Fascist persecution of Jews, formalized with the racial laws of 1938, worsened further after the establishment of the Italian Social Republic. Indeed, the Verona Manifesto stipulated in Article 7 that: "Those belonging to the Jewish race are foreigners. During this war they belong to enemy nationalities."

The creation of the Italian Social Republic under direct German tutelage was the beginning of the hunt for the Jew on Italian soil as well, to which departments and armed bands of the RSI actively contributed. Sometimes the motive was monetary rewards " being aware that the Germans paid a certain sum for each Jew delivered into their hands, there were elements of the Black Brigades, of the Italian SS, of the various police forces infesting the north, ready to devote themselves to this hunt with all possible élan...." According to Liliana Picciotto Fargion, it appears that of the total number of Italian Jews deported, 35.49% were captured by Italian officials or soldiers of the Italian Social Republic, 4.44% by Germans and Italians together, and 35.49% by Germans alone (the figure is unknown for 32.99% of those arrested).

The main roundups carried out in the CSR were:

On November 30, 1943, Police Order No. 5 was issued by Buffarini Guidi, according to which Jews were to be sent to special concentration camps. On January 4, 1944 Jews were deprived of their right to possession. Soon after, the first confiscation decrees began to be issued, which already amounted to 6,768 by the following March 12 (Jews were also seized orthopedic limbs, medicine, shoe brushes and used socks. Meanwhile, the deportations began, carried out by the Nazis with the help and complicity of the RSI as noted above. Guido Buffarini Guidi granted the Germans the use of the Fossoli camp, which had been active since 1942, and preferred to ignore the opening of the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp, which, although located in the Litorale adriatico Zone of Operations, was still a de iure part of the Italian Social Republic.

With the appointment of Giovanni Preziosi in March 1944 as the top official in charge of the Directorate for Demography and Race, there was a further tightening of anti-Jewish persecution. New, even more vexatious provisions were issued, supported by Alessandro Pavolini and endorsed by Mussolini. Preziosi also attempted, in May 1944, to wrest from the Duce consent to a bill that provided that all those who could not prove the purity of their "Aryan" lineage since 1800 should not be considered of Italian blood. The ridicule inherent in such a proposal prompted Buffarini Guidi to intervene with Mussolini, who initially did not sign. " However, as usual, Mussolini will choose a compromise situation: the law is modified but passes."

Jews taken prisoner by the regime were first interned in provincial collection camps, and then concentrated in the Fossoli camp, from which the German police organized convoys to the extermination camps. Michele Sarfatti, a historian of Jewish descent, noted that "it is true that the convoys are organized by the German police, but this one can do so because the Italian one transfers the Jews to Fossoli. And we are in the absence of any order blocking the transfer from the provincial camps to Fossoli. Hence the belief that there was an explicit or tacit agreement between the Social Republic and the Third Reich," and that "Government, big industries, Holy See knew since the summer of '42 what was happening. They might not have known about Auschwitz, but about the mass slaughters they did."

The numbers of Italians of the Jewish religion deported until the fall of the CSR, when compared to the total size of the Israelite community present in Italy (consisting of 47,825 in 1931, of whom 8,713 were foreign Jews), are high and represent a fourth or fifth part of the total. According to reliable sources, there were 8,451 deportees, of whom only 980 returned; however, 292 Jews killed in Italy must be added to those who disappeared in the concentration and extermination camps. A total of 7,763 Italian Jews were murdered by the Nazi-Fascists.

International Relations

The Italian Social Republic was recognized by eight Axis states and their allies; of course it was immediately recognized by Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire then by the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Ante Pavelić's Independent State of Croatia, Jozef Tiso's Slovak Republic, and only under German pressure also by the Kingdom of Hungary on September 27, 1943 although official recognition was backdated. Manchuku did not recognize the Italian Social Republic until June 1, 1944, and in addition there were also unofficial relations with Switzerland through the Swiss consul in Milan and the RSI commercial agent in Bern.

In total, the CSR was recognized by Germany, Japan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Republic of Nanking, Manchuku, and Thailand, i.e., countries allied to the Axis powers or with Axis troops present within them. Finland and Vichy France, while sailing in the Nazi orbit, did not recognize it. Unofficial relations were maintained with Argentina, Portugal, Spain and, through commercial agents, even Switzerland. Vatican City did not recognize the CSR.

CSR as puppet state

The problem of the nature of the Italian Social Republic as a puppet in the hands of the German occupier was posed by Benito Mussolini himself - using that very term - as early as October 1943, in a memo drafted exactly one month after the armistice was announced:

That memo included a personal appeal to Adolf Hitler in which Mussolini stated that "It is up to the Führer to decide, on this occasion, whether the Italians will be able to voluntarily make their contribution to the formation of the new Europe or will forever have to be an enemy people." After about a month had elapsed, and the appeal remained unanswered, according to Giovanni Dolfin, the Duce's secretary, Mussolini thus expressed himself with regard to the Germans: "It is perfectly useless for these people to insist on calling us allies! It is preferable that they throw off, once and for all, the mask and tell us that we are an occupied people and territory like all the others!"

Mussolini's pessimistic reading was later confirmed not only by the frequent "reprisals" (actually war crimes) carried out by the Germans against the Italian civilian population and its property, including mass killings - including women and children - and the burning down of entire localities, not to mention the systematic looting of the country (from the theft of the gold reserves of the Bank of Italy to the transport to Germany of raw materials and industrial machinery needed for the war effort, or their destruction when they could not be transported, along with that of infrastructure when an advance of the Allied front was feared), but from the same analyses by Italian and German authorities.

Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, the highest military authority of the Italian Social Republic, wrote in the summer of 1944 to Mussolini:

This orientation was on the other hand confirmed in substance by top Nazi figures, such as Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who explained to Martin Bormann in August 1944:

Again, in December 1944 Mussolini wrote to the German political ambassador-plenipotentiary to the RSI, Rudolf Rahn to denounce brutal roundups conducted by the Germans with summary killings even of women and burning of population centers:

In the second half of January 1945, only three months before the end of the Italian Social Republic, the council of ministers approved a document calling attention to German prevarications that humiliated the republican government:

According to Mimmo Franzinelli, the abdication of elementary prerogatives for a sovereign state to which the CSR was forced by the Germanic occupier was made evident, showing "the insignificance of the republican government." Thus, the Italian Social Republic is regarded by most historians and jurists as a puppet state enslaved to Nazi Germany, which had wanted its creation and militarily occupied its entire territory, completely replacing the fascist authorities in the government of the provinces of Bolzano Trent and Belluno, which were united in the Operations Zone of the Pre-Alps (Operationszone Alpenvorland - OZAV), and in those of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pula, Rijeka and Ljubljana, which formed instead the Operations Zone of the Adriatic Coast (Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland - OZAK).

In addition, all regions unilaterally declared by the German military authorities to be "zones of operation," i.e., areas close to the front and its rear, for depths of up to tens of kilometers, were de facto removed from the administration of the republican fascist authorities (or this was at any rate reduced in effect and effectiveness). In such areas martial law imposed by the German military was directly in force, and as the front moved northward from September 1943 to the spring of 1945, this situation affected practically all of central Italy, as far as the southern part of Romagna. In any case, the entire administration of the RSI was entirely under German control: according to Lutz Klinkhammer, "a dense network of German offices controlled the fascist administration of the Salò republic at both the national and provincial levels."

Benito Mussolini himself, for the duration of his presence in the RSI, and until his capture by partisans at Lake Como, was always guarded by a large SS "escort" especially dedicated to "protecting" him, who checked his every movement and "filtered" all his visitors. By Hitler's express will, Mussolini was even imposed a personal German doctor who prescribed a special diet and treated him with drug therapies of his exclusive choice. However, the nature of the CSR and its degree of dependence on the German "invading ally," resulting in a debate about Fascist responsibilities in conducting the "war on civilians," is the subject of diverse opinions in historiography.

Since the announcement of its founding on September 17, 1943 from Radio Munich, Mussolini attempted to present the Italian Social Republic to public opinion as the legitimate successor to the Italian state. In this endeavor he was favored by the Germans, who, while aiming to strip the Fascists of all authority over occupied Italy, were aware that they had to give the RSI a semblance of self-government for propaganda reasons. Hitler's own choice to place Mussolini at the head of the new state was fully part of this strategy. The Germans also intended to make the CSR appear to be a sovereign state in order to show that the Axis had survived the armistice of the Kingdom of Italy, and to this end they worked, with partial success, to obtain diplomatic recognition of the Fascist republic with other states.

Satisfying such propaganda needs involved granting the CSR allied status, a prospect that worried Joseph Goebbels, who wrote in his diary five days before the Radio Munich announcement:

According to Renzo De Felice, Mussolini's presence at the helm of the CSR actually succeeded in granting it some margins of autonomy from the Germans, such that its definition as a puppet state was "misleading."

Revisionist analyses similar, in some ways, to those also expressed by De Felice are criticized by, among others, Mimmo Franzinelli who argues, "The impotence of the Salò authorities in the face of the repeated violence committed by the Germanic ally against the populations raises fundamental questions about the real ability of the Mussolinian government to interpose, as a function of moderating violence . "Necessary Republic" to alleviate civilian suffering? From a factual examination, the Italian Social Republic appears--on the major underlying issues--not already necessary, but rather insignificant or even legitimizing with respect to the Germanic military presence in Italy."

Modern German historiography has subjected this qualification to critical scrutiny. According to Lutz Klinkhammer, the Fascists were "neither few nor powerless," "neither was their state merely a puppet," and their responsibilities would be compounded precisely by being "neither ghosts nor puppets or mere servants of the Germans." The German historian also believes that Italian historiography is "influenced by a somewhat contradictory view of Salò fascism. In fact, on the one hand the fascism of the years 1943-45 was demonized because of its potential for repression, on the other hand in linguistic usage it was even minimized. This minimization is expressed in terms such as "the republicans," "puppet state," and "farce state" generally used in leftist historiography in regard to the Salò fascists."

The CSR was actually a German protectorate, exploited by the Nazis to legalize some of their annexations and to obtain cheap labor.

Intended by the Third Reich as an apparatus to administer the occupied territories of northern and central Italy, the RSI state was in fact a bureaucratic structure with no real autonomous power, which was actually held by the Germans. Through the operation of a puppet state, the Germans could thus collect occupation expenses, set in October 1943 at 7 billion liras, later increased to 10 billion (Dec. 17, 1943) and finally to 17 billion.

The entire apparatus of the Republic of Salò was in fact controlled by the German military, mindful of the "betrayal" the Italians had consummated with the September 8 armistice. Control was exercised not only over the direction of the war and military affairs, but often also over the administration of the Republic. Indeed, the military authorities themselves could also have civilian functions. Thus " a vast network of authorities having military but also civilian competencies was stretched out by the Germans in the Italy they controlled...."

The Social Republic was not allowed to bring back soldiers interned by the Germans following September 8, but only to recruit volunteers from among them for the establishment of Army divisions to be trained in Germany. In Italy, Fascist volunteerism and the militarization of existing organizations provided the CSR with numerically substantial armed forces (a total of between 500 and 800,000 men and women under arms), but these were employed, sometimes even against their wishes, mainly in operations of repression, extermination and reprisal against partisans and populations accused of offering them support.

Units of the 10th Mas still participated in the fighting against the Allies at Anzio and Nettuno, in Tuscany, on the Karst front and on the Senio; German-trained divisions fought on the Garfagnana front (Monterosa and Italy) and on the French front (Littorio and Monterosa). Individual divisions were incorporated into large German units, while in the rear Italian engineer battalions were used by the Germanic commands for the construction of defensive works, for the rehabilitation of communication routes damaged by the enemy air offensive and sabotage, and as combat corps. Marginal contributions to military operations against the Allies were made by the thin navy of the National Republican Navy and the flying units of the National Republican Air Force; more intense was the use of anti-aircraft units, framed in the German FlaK, and paratroopers, on the French and Lazio fronts. The bulk of the Republican Armed Forces was employed mainly as territorial garrison and coast guard.

The territorial integrity of the CSR was not respected by the Germans. On September 10, 1943, in a secret order signed within hours of Mussolini's liberation, Hitler granted the Gauleiters of Tyrol and Carinthia to annex many provinces in the Triveneto to their respective Reichsgau. With the liberation of Mussolini and the proclamation of the CSR, Hitler did not go back on his decision, but legitimized it with the establishment of the two Operation Zones of the Pre-Alps (provinces of Trent, Bolzano and Belluno) and the Adriatic Coast (provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pula, Rijeka, Ljubljana), officially with military motives, but in practice administered by German civilian officials who received directly from the Führer "the basic directions for their activities." A decision that served Germany to leave open the question of borders with Italy, to be redrawn when the war was eventually won

In the days following Sept. 8, 1943, Pavelić's Croatia invaded Dalmatia, but Hitler did not also grant it possession of Rijeka and Zadar, which were subject to German military command (the former under OZAK). Similarly, the Boka Kotorska Straits were subject to German military command, while Albania - dynastically united since 1939 with Italy through the crown of the House of Savoy - was declared "independent." The Dodecanese remained under nominal Italian sovereignty, although subject to German military command. For the Autonomous Province of Ljubljana (Provinz Laibach), gauleiter Rainer even prevented the installation - albeit only formal - of the Italian head-province (equivalent to prefect) appointed by Mussolini.

During the Nazi occupation, numerous works of art, such as paintings and sculptures, were stolen from their Italian locations and transferred to Germany: for this purpose Hermann Göring established a special Nazi military corps called Kunstschutz (artistic protection).

Judicial legislation resumed that which prevailed in the Kingdom of Italy, partly because the main provisions on the subject had already been reformed during the 20-year period (the new Criminal and Criminal Procedure Code came into force in 1930-'31). The pre-trial process continued to be used.

A new special court for the defense of the state was also established, which would be responsible for some revenge trials.

Processes of revenge

Once the CSR was established, Fascist authorities wanted to prosecute those who had been the "traitors" of the July 25, 1943 Great Council meeting and senior military officers who had resisted carrying out particular orders.

Thus were instructed both a trial for those who had voted for Mussolini's resignation (known as the Verona Trial, which lasted from January 8 to 10, 1944) and a trial of four admirals who had resisted the Germans and for siding with the Allies (the so-called Admirals' Trial, which lasted only one day on May 22, 1944).

These were in both cases essentially mock trials and carried out in wide violation of the rules of law, although there was no lack of peculiarities that made them from the final judgment somewhat less predictable. Investigating judge of both trials was Vincenzo Cersosimo.

Finance and currency

Professor Giampietro Domenico Pellegrini, a teacher of constitutional law at the University of Naples, was appointed minister of finance in the new Fascist government. His main task throughout his tenure would be to defend the coffers of the new state from German claims and find a solution to the situation that the behavior of the occupying Nazi troops had created.

Weapons in hand, Herbert Kappler's SS had robbed the reserves of the Bank of Italy in Rome on October 16, 1943, making a haul of about three billion lire (two billion in gold and one billion in hard currency) and transferring it all to Milan. To this sum had to be added many millions more, taken from other public and private banks. The economy was in danger of disaster for inflation-related reasons, due to the occupation currency, a kind of waste paper called Reichskredit Kassenscheine, the counterpart of the Am-Lire. These maneuvers were compounded by German demands that the new republic "pay" for the war that Germany had been waging in its stead since the Armistice was signed.

From the first days after its establishment, the CSR government was concerned with firmly regaining control of the economy, in order to safeguard the purchasing power of the currency and avoid inflationary phenomena. The newly installed Finance Minister Giampietro Domenico Pellegrini had to deal with a serious problem. The Germans, in the days immediately following September 8, had put occupation marks into circulation. This could have triggered inflationary processes, so the problem had to be quickly solved: on October 25, 1943, the monetary agreement between Germany and the RSI was concluded, under which the occupation marks no longer had any value and were therefore withdrawn. On April 2, 1944, the City of Milan, led by Podesta Piero Parini, in order to restore the exhausted municipal coffers, launched a subscription for a public loan called "City of Milan" but, still remembered in Milan as the "Parini loan." The established sum of 1 billion liras was quickly covered by popular support and the City of Milan collected 1,056,000,000 liras.

The total expenses of the Italian Social Republic, as stated by Pellegrini himself in the article L'Oro di Salò can be broken down as follows:

As can be seen, due to the very large war expenses (contributions paid to the German army and expenses for repairs of damage caused by indiscriminate bombing of cities) the income statement closed with a liability of about 300 billion liras. Only recourse to extraordinary operations, largely loans obtained from both private banks and the central bank (money was, in practice, printed), prevented financial collapse.

The socialization of enterprises

In the CSR there was to be, according to Benito Mussolini's intentions, a transformation of the economic organizational structure from a capitalist-type system, the one found in 1922, to one of an organic, corporate and participatory type. In the Verona Manifesto (the text of which was drafted by Angelo Tarchi, Alessandro Pavolini, Nicola Bombacci, and Manlio Sargenti, under Benito Mussolini's supervision) there were a number of calls for the socialization of enterprises, which included workers' participation in company decisions and profits, nationalization and state management of strategic companies for the nation (including Fiat), the right to work and the right to home ownership. With such measures Mussolini hoped to garner support among the masses.

The maneuver to enforce socialization had its starting point in the decree appointing engineer Angelo Tarchi as minister of Corporate Economy. Tarchi would have wanted his offices in Milan, as General Hans Leyers (superintendent of Italian industrial production for the Third Reich's Ministry of Armaments) had them, but he was sent to Bergamo. By January 11, 1944, the summary program of socialization was ready. Other documents followed, the most important of which was a decree (Decree-Law on Socialization) passed on February 12, 1944, in forty-five articles, which defined more precisely the desired new form of the CSR economy, in which the following institutions would be fundamental:

Aware that such a decree might arouse the apprehensions of the Germans, the Duce took care to appease them even before it was passed. Addressing Rudolph Rahn, he said:

Three weeks later began the workers' strikes (March 1, 1944) that paralyzed war production in northern Italy, making the workers clearly understand which political forces and (anti-fascist) parties represented them. As a well-known Fascist trade union leader wrote a few months later to Mussolini, "The masses repudiate receiving anything from us In short, the masses say that all the evil we have done to the Italian people since 1940 exceeds the great good bestowed on them in the previous twenty years and awaits from Comrade Togliatti, who today pontificates in Rome in the name of Stalin, the creation of a new country...." The main strike leaders were deported to Germany.

Both the Italian entrepreneurs and the Germanic occupiers saw socialization as a type of regulation that could have nefarious consequences for industrial production in general and war production in particular. General Leyers took care to reassure the owners of "protected firms"  : " the socialization law is not currently in force...If you in the future observe any tendency toward socialization in any of your firms do not hesitate to inform me personally." By February 1945, the implementation of the socialization legislation was still almost completely inoperative, but it continued to worry the Italian business community. Angelo Tarchi reported to Mussolini the reactions of Italian industrialists to the socialization proposal, which they said would cripple manufacturing activity.

The National Republican Army (with the Republican National Guard and the Black Brigades) depended, formally, on the CSR government, " although, in operational employment they are in fact subordinate to German military commands...." The Italian SS depended on General Wolff, while commander Junio Valerio Borghese's 10th MAS constituted a real personal army.

National Republican Army

According to surveys by the Historical Office of the General Staff of the Italian Army during 1943-1945, the Army of the Social Republic numbered 558,000 personnel.

At the top of the military organization of the CSR stood the Ministry of National Defense, which, from January 6, 1944, was called the Ministry of the Armed Forces. It was headed by former Italian Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, who in turn appointed General Gastone Gambara as Chief of the General Staff. Working with the minister were an undersecretary for the Army, one for the National Republican Navy and one for the National Republican Air Force, for each of which there was also a chief of staff.

At the hierarchical level, the armed forces were under the Head of State who in peacetime exercised command through the Minister of Defense, in wartime through the Chief of the General Staff.

Most of the actions carried out by these units were directed against the partisan movement: the German commanders, disinclined to trust the Italian military after the events of September 8, preferred to avoid involving them in the fighting at the front, and were persuaded to use them only in the quieter moments and sectors of the Gothic Line. This attitude contributed to further depressing the morale of those, especially young conscripts, who had responded to Graziani's proclamation moved by a sincere desire to defend the soil of their homeland, seeing themselves instead largely forced into the counterguerrilla actions perpetrated against Italian villages and populations.

Despite the claims of Fascist propaganda, which wanted to pass off Operation Wintergewitter as a kind of Italian Ardennes offensive, the battle was of at least limited proportions, both in terms of the results achieved (making a U.S. regimental battle group fall back) and the size of the units engaged (three German and three RSI battalions, plus artillery support). By December 31, the front would again stabilize on its starting positions, without any major strategic or tactical changes.

Finally, there were units that fought outside the borders: in France, Germany, the Soviet Union, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Dodecanese. The casualties in Italy from this army were about 13,000 soldiers and 2,500 civilians. POWs were sent by the Allies mainly to the concentration camp in Hereford, Texas.

The National Republican Air Force.

The establishment of an air force for the nascent fascist republic is generally traced back to the appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Botto as undersecretary for aeronautics on Sept. 23, 1943, during the meeting of the RSI council of ministers.

Botto took office at the Ministry of Aeronautics on October 1 and was confronted with a very entangled situation, the causes of which lay in the lack of German connections and initiatives: the commander of Luftflotte 2, Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, had already begun rounding up Regia Aeronautica personnel to enlist in the Luftwaffe. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, in turn, had appointed Lieutenant Colonel Tito Falconi as "inspector of the Italian fighter," with the task of getting the said fighter in fighting condition. What is more, Richtofen had appointed a commander for the Italian air force in the person of General Müller.

Amid mutual misunderstandings, distances and differences of view, the establishment of the Republican Air Force had to wait for Hitler's personal authorization in November, after Botto's official protests had moved up the entire German hierarchical ladder. Thus, in January 1944, the formation of the units began: one group for each specialty (fighters, on Macchi C.205V Veltros, aerosilurants, on Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79s and transports) with a complementary squadron. All, for operations, depended on the German commands. In April an additional fighter group was formed, on Fiat G.55 Centaur.

In June of that year, the transition to German Messerschmitt Bf-109G-6 aircraft, which were to arm the new 3rd Group as well, began; this fighter expansion was due both to the Luftwaffe's increasing disengagement from the southern sector and to the good results initially achieved, but these soon ended and the rate of losses began to quickly outnumber the number of shootdowns achieved.

Overall in the period between Jan. 3, 1944, and April 19, 1945, the 1st group recorded 113 sure victories and 45 probable victories in the course of 46 fights. The 2nd group, which came on line in April 1944, as of April 1945 recorded as many as 114 sure and 48 probable victories over the course of 48 fights. The air force of the CSR, which also included anti-aircraft artillery and paratroopers, consisted of three Fighter Groups (which countered enemy aviation superiority as far as possible), the Faggioni torpedo bomber group, and two airborne groups.

The "Buscaglia-Faggioni" Torpedo Group, commanded by Carlo Faggioni, had worse results, suffering heavy losses while attacking the Allied fleet supporting the Anzio beachhead. Despite the numerous ships hit (according to official bulletins), the group's operational life was rather stingy with recognition: the only torpedo hit after so much effort was the one that damaged a British steamer, struck north of Benghazi, during the period when the unit operated from bases located in Greece, and a steamer off Rimini on January 5, 1945. Of note after Faggioni's death was the raid, which the group made against the stronghold of Gibraltar, led by new commander Marino Marini. As for the transport group (to which a second was added), it was used by the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front and then disbanded in the summer of 1944.

The other divisions, in essence, also suffered the same fate at the same time: in those months relations between the military leadership of the RSI and the Germans had deteriorated considerably, partly because of the diminishing achievements of the Republican Air Force divisions, whose vehicles and pilots were suffering excessive attrition. Von Richtofen, who was to further reduce the German air presence in Italy, thought of solving the issue by disbanding the RSI units and replacing them with a kind of "Italian air legion," structured along the lines of the German Fliegerkorps, whose commander would be Air Brigadier General Tessari (who would thus leave the position of undersecretary he held after Botto's dismissal), flanked by a Germanic General Staff that would allow the Luftwaffe to maintain its control over air warfare activities in Italy.

The usual internal rivalries and misunderstandings caused the plan to stall, leaving the CSR effectively without aviation until September, when the process was able to be put back on track. From October until January 1945, when the 1st group returned from training in Germany, the 2nd was the only fighter unit available to counter Allied action. But the arrival of the new unit changed little in the overall situation, which saw the CSR fighters suffering increasing losses.

The last flying missions were carried out on April 19, when the two groups intercepted bombers and scouts, probably U.S.: one of the scouts was shot down, at the cost of a fighter; as for the clash with the bombers, this was disastrous and the CSR planes, caught by surprise by the reaction of the escort, suffered five losses without obtaining any shoot-downs. In the following days, unable to make takeoffs due to lack of fuel and subjected to continuous attacks by partisans, the units destroyed flight equipment and surrendered.

The National Republican Navy

The formation of a new navy was a much slower and more difficult task than the albeit troubled affair of establishing the other two arms.

The first and biggest problem on the way was that of finding the vessels: the heavy and most of the light ships, in compliance with the armistice clauses, had set sail for Valletta's Grand Harbour to surrender themselves to the Allies; the vessels that had been abandoned in Italian ports had undergone the now customary sabotage operation by the crews so that German troops could not take possession of them.

Siding with the new republic were Commander Grossi, who had authority over the submarines at the BETASOM (Bordeaux) base, and Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, commander of the Xª MAS. The case of the Xª MAS under Borghese's command deserves a separate discussion, as he had made almost private arrangements with the Kriegsmarine high commands and, although he and his unit belonged to what had been the Regia Marina, they did not intend to become part of the organization chart of the future RSI navy, keeping a safe distance, at least in the initial phase, from political involvement.

The undersecretary for the navy, frigate captain Ferruccio Ferrini, appointed on October 26, immediately attempted to incorporate the "Decima" directly into his armed force (as a subordinate weapon), but with little success and triggering dangerous incidents that almost drove Prince Borghese's "maroons" to armed insurrection against the government (this was, moreover, one of the reasons for the success and popularity of the Flotilla, which only by relying on the image of the commander and his political "independence" was able to gather an impressive number of volunteer enlistments and grew, expanding also to land activities, until it became a kind of autonomous army). These events, combined with the scarcity of naval equipment left in fascist hands, led the German commands to entrench themselves in positions of distrust and non-cooperation. Ferrini's replacement by Giuseppe Sparzani (already chief of staff) dissolved German reluctance about the establishment of the new naval weapon, which in any case would take place on the condition of placing the naval units of the RSI under German control.

The Salò navy, in addition to the naval services area commands (which constituted its territorial organization), had provided for the establishment of naval commands for the employment of military units: one for surface units, one for submarines, and finally one for anti-submarine units. The last was the only one that actually functioned; the submarines for the second were mainly used to transport spies and agents across Allied lines; the first was never established as there would be no ships to assign to it. The only ships that saw limited use were two cruisers that were used as anti-aircraft ships moored in the port of Trieste.

It should be remembered that Italy, when by then the fate of the conflict was turning for the worst, decided to equip the Regia Marina with two aircraft carriers, the Aquila and the Sparviero, thus remedying a serious strategic deficiency. On the date of the armistice, the two ships were still under construction in the Muggiano (SP) shipyards, thus in territory controlled by the Axis forces, but they were never completed due to the unfolding of wartime events. To prevent it from being sunk by the Germans at the entrance to the harbor, blocking it, the unfinished Aquila was sunk by Regia Marina raiders before the end of hostilities.

The Republican National Guard

The Republican National Guard was created by the Duce's Legislative Decree No. 913 of Dec. 8, 1943 - XXII E.F. "Establishment of the "Republican National Guard,"" published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale d'Italia No. 131 of June 5, 1944. By the subsequent Decree of the Duce No. 921 of December 18, 1943 - XXII E.F. "Ordering and Functioning of the Republican National Guard," published in the Official Gazette of Italy No. 166 of July 18, 1944, the organization and functioning were fixed. The National Republican Guard by Legislative Decree of the Duce No. 469 of August 14, 1944 - XXII E.F. "Passage of the G.N.R. into the National Republican Army" became part of the National Republican Army.

The Black Brigades

The Black Brigades were the last armed creation of the Republic. The idea of a politicized, party-based "fascist army" had always been one of the workhorses of the secretary of the Republican Fascist Party Alessandro Pavolini, who had proposed the establishment of a corps with these characteristics since early '44, but had achieved very little: his "voluntary enlistment center," in which fascists not yet under arms were supposed to present themselves en masse, remained deserted: in about three months, only 10 percent of the enlisted, about 47,000 out of 480,000, answered the call. The Republican National Guard was always short of both men and means.

Pavolini managed, however, to take advantage of two opportunities that came his way one after the other: the Allied occupation of Rome in June, and the assassination attempt on Hitler in July. Mussolini, shaken by these events, relented and issued a decree (published in the Gazzetta on August 3) to establish the Black Shirts Auxiliary Corps. The new corps, subject to military discipline and the Military Penal Code of War, was made up of all members of the Republican Fascist Party between the ages of eighteen and sixty who were not members of the Armed Forces, organized into Action Squads; the Party secretary had to transform the Party leadership into a staff office of the Black Shirts Auxiliary Corps of Action Squads; the Federations were transformed into Brigades of the Auxiliary Corps, whose command was entrusted to local political leaders. The decree, in a nutshell, as the text read, meant that "the political-military structure of the Party was transformed into an exclusively military-type body."

It was Pavolini who coined the name "Black Brigades," by which he wanted to express their opposition to the partisan Resistance formations linked to the leftist parties, "Garibaldi Brigades," "Justice and Freedom Brigades," and "Matteotti Brigades." Being secretary of the Party and thus commander of the Brigades, it fell to him to choose his collaborators: Puccio Pucci, a CONI official, was his closest aide, and the first chief of staff was Consul Giovanni Battista Raggio. Their attempt to resurrect the squadrism of the early days (but on a larger scale) did not prove very effective: of the 100,000 men Pavolini had planned, about 20,000 were formally procured, and of these only 4,000 were combatants, that is, really operational militiamen. They were framed in the so-called mobile Black Brigades, which would turn out to be the only units of this militia to fight against the partisans.

For weapons and means of transportation, the Mobile Brigades depended on the German military, which was initially more than happy to rely on Republican fascists for anti-partisan exploits, and especially for "dirty work," such as setting villages on fire, passing women and children to arms and carrying out deportations, kidnappings, torture and summary executions. To the typical crimes of counter-guerrilla actions were added those typical of units that had enlisted all sorts of elements, even including more than one criminal: Republican National Guard reports list numerous cases of looting, theft, robbery, illegal arrests, and violence to property and persons.

The indiscipline and the gratuitous and uncoordinated violence manifested by the Brigades are data ascertained by the German commanders themselves, who lost their initial - albeit lukewarm - enthusiasm for their institution by recording how the Brigades were incapable of coordinating with Wehrmacht units and did not obey orders (their violence was such that, in the areas in which they operated, by popular reaction the partisans increased in numbers. The SS commander-in-chief in Italy, General Karl Wolff, perhaps to avoid a further aggravation of the problem (but also because he was about to take steps for separate talks with the Allies and wanted to make a gesture of "détente"), decided to put the mobile Black Brigades out of action, drying up their supply channels.

Women's auxiliary service

The Women's Auxiliary Service was a military corps composed solely of women. A total of more than 6,000 women, from all walks of life and from all parts of Italy, applied for enlistment. The corps was established by Ministerial Decree No. 447 of April 18, 1944. It was Mussolini himself who considered the creation of such a special corps as the auxiliary important.

Salaries for the auxiliaries ranged from 700 liras for clerical personnel to 350 liras for fatigue personnel. The corps was also given important and risky tasks, such as real sabotage operations. In the Republican Correspondence of August 15, 1944, the Duce extolled the fighting ardor of twenty-five Fascist franche tiratrici of Florence against the Anglo-American invaders, and described the surprise of the Reuters agency and the British newspaper The Daily Mirror expressed by Curzio Malaparte.

Wards not undivided

After September 8, 1943, many officers tried to reorganize the stragglers, forming small units that remained generally autonomous in the nascent CSR.

CSR Special Services.

Several organizations were organized to prepare volunteers for sabotage and intelligence missions in Allied-controlled territories. These were naturally very risky missions, and several volunteers were captured and shot or sentenced to prison terms.

The flag of the Italian Social Republic

The National Republican State, born on September 23, 1943 had a de facto flag in the Italian Tricolor, which was used until November 30, 1943. On December 1, 1943, the national flag and the combat flag for the Armed Forces of the new state called the Italian Social Republic were made official. The combat flag of the Armed Forces of the Italian Social Republic was changed on May 6, 1944.

The national flag was lowered permanently on April 25, 1945, with the dissolution from the oath for military and civilians, as the last act of Benito Mussolini's government, while the combat flag was lowered officially on May 3, 1945, with the Surrender of Caserta, really on May 17, 1945, when hostilities ceased by surrendering the last fighting unit of the Italian Social Republic, the Naval Artillery Section, dependent on the Naval Artillery Company of the Atlantic Marine Infantry Unit, at Saint Nazaire, a naval base for German submarines on the Loire estuary (other alternative placement was the Atlantic Wall Fortress "Gironde Mündung Süd" at Pointe de Grave on the Gironde estuary (France).

The silver eagle was the traditional symbol of the ancient Roman republic (while the golden eagle was of the Roman empire). The golden fascio littorio is an ancient Roman symbol that was chosen by Mussolini as the official emblem of fascism. It was intended to represent the unity of Italians (the bundle of rods held together), freedom, and authority understood as legal power (originally the fascio littorio was used as an insignia by magistrates who had the imperium, that is, having the power to preside over trials, judge cases, and issue sentences).

The national flag of the Italian Social Republic was formalized by three public acts:

The combat flags of the Armed Forces of the Italian Social Republic were made official by three public acts:

The coat of arms of the Italian Social Republic

The coat of arms was based on the flag of Italy, the tricolor of green, white, and red, but with the colors reversed (within the white central band of the coat of arms was inserted a fascio littorio, the symbol of the Republican Fascist Party (the whole was surmounted by a monocephalous eagle with spread wings. Both symbols were taken from Ancient Rome: the lictor fasces were in fact displayed by the personal guards of consuls first and emperors later; the eagle was the symbol of many legions.

The term "republican," had been coined on April 15, 1793 by Vittorio Alfieri in a letter to Mario Bianchi, to define with derogatory intent all supporters of the republic during the French Revolution:

It was first used in reference to leaders, members of the army, supporters and militants of the Italian Social Republic in 1943 by Umberto Calosso in a Radio London broadcast.Following the birth of the Italian Social Republic, the term "repubblichino" became widely entrenched in historiography and publicity in Italy, partly to avoid confusion with "republican" in reference to the new state form of post-war Italy. The diminutive ending was naturally aimed at serving as a derogatory nuance.

Adherents of the Italian Social Republic, proclaimed by the Fascists following the transfer from Rome to Brindisi of King Victor Emmanuel III, supreme head of the Italian Armed Forces, and his son, the future King Umberto II, used the adjective "republican" instead (e.g., in the official names of the new Fascist Party and the military corps of the CSR).

However, this term was not new in the Italian political arena, which even during the war was used by the Italian Republican Party, a movement of Risorgimento origin that had joined the anti-fascist front and aimed to abolish the monarchy in Italy by establishing a democratic republic. Antifascists, especially those from republican positions (such as communists, socialists and shareholders), who had meanwhile created the National Liberation Committee in the "Southern Kingdom," refused to call the collaborationist political regime established in the North "republican."

Historian Luigi Ganapini, author in 1999 of the study La repubblica delle camicie nere (The Republic of the Blackshirts), said he deliberately avoided the use of the term "repubblichini" in his essay, believing that "history is not made with an insult." Historian Sergio Luzzatto, to identify the period under consideration, used the adjective "saloino" (in his essay Il corpo del duce), which properly designates the inhabitants of Salò, the de facto capital of the RSI.

Sources

1. Italian Social Republic
2. Repubblica Sociale Italiana
3. ^ Il governatore italiano, ammiraglio Inigo Campioni, rimase in carica fino al 18 settembre, quando fu deportato dai tedeschi, per non aver aderito alla RSI. A Rodi rimase il vicegovernatore Iginio Ugo Faralli, che mantenne un profilo nettamente apolitico. Il vero potere era in mano tedesca, con i generali Ulrich Kleemann (1943-1944) e Otto Wagener (1944-1945).
4. Conrad F. Latour: Südtirol und die Achse Berlin–Rom 1938–1945, S. 118 (online).
5. Gianluca Falanga: Mussolinis Vorposten in Hitlers Reich: Italiens Politik in Berlin 1933–1945, S. 229 (online).
6. Giorgio Candeloro: Storia dell’Italia moderna. La seconda guerra mondiale – Il crollo del fascismo – La resistenza 1939–1945. Band 10, Feltrinelli, Mailand 2002, ISBN 88-07-80805-6, S. 243.
7. Giacomo De Marzi, I canti di Salò, Fratelli Frilli, 2005.
8. A. James Gregor, The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, New York: NY, The Free Press, 1969, p. 307
9. Howard McGaw Smyth, "The Armistice of Cassibile", Military Affairs 12:1 (1948), 12–35.
10. 6,0 6,1 6,2 Dr Susan Zuccotti, Furio Colombo. The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival. University of Nebraska Press paperback edition. University of Nebraska Press, 1996. P. 148.
11. 8,0 8,1 1932-, Moseley, Ray, (1 Ιανουαρίου 2004). Mussolini : the last 600 days of il Duce. Taylor Trade Pub. ISBN 1589790952. 53848402.
12. ^ Both OZAV and OZAK were still formally part of the RSI. But the two regions were put under direct German military administration.
13. ^ Renzo De Felice, Breve storia del fascismo, Milano, Mondadori (Collana oscar storia), 2002, pp. 120–121.