WW 081Photo album of a senior Italian officers (2nd lieutenant to captain from the uniform) funeral in Northern Italy during the Social Republica period. 21 photos. M
Price: $320.00
Note: The Italian Social Republic, (in Italian, Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI) was a puppet state of Nazi Germany during the later part of World War II (from 1943 until 1945). It was the second and last incarnation of the Fascist Italian state and it was led by Duce Benito Mussolini and his reformed Republican Fascist Party. The state declared Rome as its capital, but was de facto centered on Salò, a small town on Lake Garda, near Brescia, where Mussolini and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headquartered.
WW 081 The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern and central Italy, but was largely dependent on German troops to maintain control. In July 1943, after the Allied forces had pushed Italy out of North Africa and subsequently invaded Sicily, the Grand Fascist Council, with the support of King Victor Emmanuel III, had overthrown and arrested Mussolini. The new government began secret peace negotiations with the Allied powers. When an armistice was announced in September, Germany was prepared and quickly intervened. Germany seized control of the northern half of Italy, freed Mussolini and brought him to the German-occupied area to establish a satellite regime. The RSI was proclaimed on 23 September 1943. Although the RSI claimed most of the lands of Italy as rightfully belonging to it, it held political control over a vastly reduced portion of Italy. The RSI only received diplomatic recognition from Germany, Japan and their puppet states.
