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
Benito Mussolini rebel against anyone for this. Where the Italian flag flew, the Italian flag will return. And where it has not been lowered, now that I am here, no one will have it lowered. I have said these things to the "Führer". For about a year and a half, Mussolini lived in Gargnano on Lake Garda in Lombardy. Although he insisted in public that he was in full control, he knew that he was little more than a puppet ruler under the protection of his German liberators—for all intents and purposes, the "Gauleiter" of Lombardy. After yielding to pressures from Hitler