The Italian Social Republic (, ; RSI), known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy (; SNRI), but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò (, ), was a German puppet state with limited diplomatic recognition that was created during the latter part of World War II.
It was a collaborationist regime in German-occupied Italy, established after the German invasion of Italy in September 1943 and disbanded with the surrender of Axis troops in Italy in May 1945. The German occupation triggered widespread national resistance against it and the Italian Social Republic during the liberation of Italy and the Italian civil war. Meanwhile, the Allied-liberated portion of Italy was informally known as the Kingdom of the South.
The Italian Social Republic was the second and last incarnation of the Italian Fascist state, led by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his reformed Republican Fascist Party. The newly founded state declared Rome its capital but the de facto capital was Salò (hence the colloquial name of the state), a small town on Lake Garda, near Brescia, where Mussolini and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were headquartered. The Italian Social Republic nominally exercised sovereignty in Northern and Central Italy, but was largely dependent on German troops to maintain control.
In July 1943, after the Allies had pushed Italy out of North Africa and subsequently invaded Sicily, the Grand Council of Fascism—with the support of King Victor Emmanuel III—overthrew and arrested Mussolini. The new government began secret peace negotiations with the Allied powers but when the Armistice of Cassibile was announced on 8 September, Nazi Germany was prepared and quickly intervened. German troops seized control of the northern half of Italy, freed Mussolini, and brought him to the German-occupied area to establish a satellite regime. The Italian Social Republic was proclaimed on 23 September 1943. Although the RSI claimed sovereignty over all of Italy and its colonies, its de facto jurisdiction only extended to a vastly reduced portion of the country.Susan Zuccotti. The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival. University of Nebraska Press paperback edition. University of Nebraska Press, 1996. P. 148. The RSI received diplomatic recognition only from the Axis powers and their satellite states. Finland and Vichy France, although in the German orbit, did not recognize it. Unofficial relations were maintained with Argentina, Portugal, Spain, and, through commercial agents, Switzerland. Vatican City did not recognize the RSI.
Around 25 April 1945, 19 months after its founding, the RSI collapsed. In Italy, the day is known as Liberation Day (festa della liberazione). On that day, a general partisan uprising, alongside the efforts of Allied forces during their final offensive in Italy, managed to oust the Germans and the remaining RSI forces from Italy almost entirely. Mussolini was captured and killed by Italian partisans on 28 April as he and an entourage attempted to flee. The RSI Minister of Defense, Rodolfo Graziani, surrendered what was left of the Italian Social Republic on 1 May, one day after the German forces in Italy capitulated.
Context of its creation
On 24 July 1943, after the Allied landings in Sicily, on a motion by Dino Grandi, the Grand Council of Fascism voted a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Mussolini's authority had been undermined by a series of military defeats from the start of Italy's entry into the war during June 1940, including the bombing of Rome, the loss of the African colonies in the East African and North African campaigns, the defeat of the Italian Army in Russia and the Allied invasion of Sicily.
The next day, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini from office, ordered him arrested, and appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio as new prime minister. By this time, the monarchy, a number of Fascist government members, and the general Italian population had grown tired of the futile war effort which had driven Italy into subordination to and subjugation by Nazi Germany. The failed war effort left Mussolini humiliated at home and abroad as a "sawdust Caesar". The new government began secret negotiations with the Allied powers and made preparations for the capitulation of Italy. These surrender talks implied a commitment from Badoglio to leave the Axis alliance.
While the Germans formally recognised the new status quo in Italian politics, they intervened by sending some of the best units of the Wehrmacht to Italy. This was done both to resist new Allied advances and to face the predictably imminent defection of Italy. While Badoglio continued to swear loyalty to Germany and the Axis powers, Italian government emissaries prepared to sign an armistice at Cassibile in Allied-occupied Sicily, which was finalized on 3 September.
On 8 September, Badoglio announced Italy's armistice with the Allies (although termed an "armistice", its terms made it akin to an unconditional surrender). German Führer Adolf Hitler and his staff, long aware of the negotiations, acted immediately by ordering German troops to seize control of Northern and Central Italy. The Germans quickly occupied Italy, disarmed the Italian troops and took over all of the Italian Army's materials and equipment, meeting only limited resistance. The Italian armed forces were not given clear orders to resist the Germans after the armistice and so resistance to the German takeover was scattered and of little effect. King Victor Emmanuel made no effort to rally resistance to the Germans, instead fleeing with his retinue to the safety of the Allied lines. On 10 September 1943, after two days of battle between the Wehrmacht and the remnants of the Royal Italian Army, Rome fell to the Germans.
(The armistice meant that the Germans were forced to take over Italy's occupation zones in France, Greece and Yugoslavia. It also triggered the Dodecanese campaign where Germany and the Allies fought for control of the Italian Islands of the Aegean.)
The new Italian government had moved Mussolini from place to place while he was in captivity in an attempt to foil any attempts at rescue. Despite this, the Germans eventually pinpointed Mussolini at the Hotel Campo Imperatore at Gran Sasso. On 12 September, Mussolini was freed by the Germans in Operation Eiche (directed by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny) in the mountains of Abruzzo. After being freed, Mussolini was flown to Bavaria. Gathering what support he still had among the Italian population, his liberation made it possible for a new German-dependent Fascist Italian state to be created.
Foreign relations Establishment by Nazi Germany
Three days following his rescue in the Gran Sasso raid, Mussolini was taken to Germany for a meeting with Hitler in Rastenburg at his headquarters in East Prussia. While Mussolini was in poor health and wanted to retire, Hitler wanted him to return to Italy and start a new Fascist state under the protection of the Wehrmacht. Mussolini balked; he was tired of the responsibilities of the war and unwilling to retake power. Hitler told him the alternative would be a German military administration that would treat Italy no differently from other occupied countries. Hitler also threatened to destroy Milan, Genoa and Turin unless Mussolini agreed to set up a revived Fascist government. Reluctantly, Mussolini agreed to Hitler's demands.
Mussolini returned to Italy and settled in Milan, from where on 15 September he announced the creation of the Republican Fascist Party and, three days later, the resumption of the war alongside Germany and Japan. The Duce immediately announced the formation of a new republican cabinet, although they actually came from a list chosen and appointed by Hitler himself. The Italian Social Republic was proclaimed on 23 September, with Mussolini as both chief of state and prime minister. The RSI claimed Rome as its capital, but the de facto capital became the small town of Salò on Lake Garda, midway between Milan and Venice, where Mussolini resided along with the foreign office of the RSI. While Rome itself was still under Axis control at the time, given the city's proximity to Allied lines and the threat of civil unrest, neither the Germans nor Mussolini himself wanted him to return to Rome.De Grand, Alexander J., Italian fascism: its origins & development, 3d edition (illustrated), Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, Year: 2000, , p. 131
On 18 September, Mussolini made his first public address to the Italian people since his rescue, in which he commended the loyalty of Hitler as an ally while condemning Victor Emmanuel for betraying Italian Fascism. He declared: "It is not the regime that has betrayed the monarchy, it is the monarchy that has betrayed the regime". He also formally repudiated his previous support of the monarchy, saying: "When a monarchy fails in its duties, it loses every reason for being...The state we want to establish will be national and social in the highest sense of the word; that is, it will be Fascist, thus returning to our origins".
From the start, the Italian Social Republic was little more than a puppet state dependent entirely upon Germany and a rump state for the Fascists who were still loyal to Mussolini. Mussolini himself knew this; even as he stated in public that he was in full control of the RSI, he was well aware that he was little more than the Gauleiter of Lombardy. The SS kept Mussolini under what amounted to house arrest; it monitored his communications and controlled his travel. Mussolini later said that he would have preferred being sent to a concentration camp to the manner that the SS treated him. Real power rested with German General Plenipotentiary Rudolf Rahn and SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, the commander of the German occupying forces in Italy.
The RSI had no constitution or organized economy, and its financing was dependent entirely on funding from Berlin. German forces themselves had little respect for Mussolini's failed fascism, and considered the regime merely as a tool for maintaining order, such as repressing the Italian partisans.. This work was also carried out by the infamous Pietro Koch and the Banda Koch on Germany's behalf.
The RSI took revenge against the 19 members who had voted against Mussolini on the Grand Council with the Verona trial (processo di Verona) which handed down a death sentence to all of the accused but one. Only six of the 19 were in RSI custody (Giovanni Marinelli, Carlo Pareschi, Luciano Gottardi, Tullio Cianetti, Emilio De Bono and Mussolini's own son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano). With the exception of Tullio Cianetti, who received a life sentence, they were all executed on 11 January 1944 in the fort of San Procolo in Verona.Ray Moseley, Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce, p. 77
Territorial losses