29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Italian) The new Italian Social Republic was founded on 23 September 1943 under dictator Benito Mussolini. On 2 October 1943, Heinrich Himmler and Gottlob Berger devised the "Programm zur Aufstellung der italienischen Milizeinheiten durch die Waffen-SS" ("Program for the deployment of Italian militia forces by the Waffen-SS") which was approved by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In October 1943, 15,000 volunteers started training at Truppenübungsplatz Münsingen, but 9,000 of them were unsuitable and released for training in police units, the Black Brigades or for labor. On 23 November 1943, 13 Miliz-Battalions pledged their loyalty before being moved to "SS-Ausbildungsstab Italien". The
British Fascists King should salute them from the balcony but the requests were rejected and the parade did not take place. The progress towards fascism did not however come quick enough for Arnold Leese who in 1928 split from the group, which he denounced as "conservatism with knobs on" to establish his own Imperial Fascist League (IFL), a much more hard-line group that emphasised anti-Semitism. Before long however the British Fascists began to advocate a more authoritarian government in which the monarch would take a leading role in government as well as advocating the establishment of a Benito Mussolini style corporate state,