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
Legacy of the Roman Empire note that she was not the heiress of the Byzantine throne, her brother Andreas, who in fact was). Being the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of in Russia as succeeding the Eastern Roman Empire as the rightful rulers of the Orthodox Christian world. There were also competing Bulgarian, Wallachian and Ottoman claims for legal succession of the Roman Empire, Mehmet II "the Conqueror" claiming the title "Kayser-i Rûm", meaning Caesar of Rome. In the early 20th century, the Italian fascists under their "Duce" Benito Mussolini dreamed of a new Roman Empire as an Italian one, encompassing