44th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht) and the 44th towards the Brenner pass. Divisional units of the 44th Infantry Division began arriving in Innsbruck, Austria on 27 July, and by the month's end it was on the border at the Brenner pass. Its admission into Italy proper, however, now became a matter of political debate between the higher political and military establishments of Italy and Germany. The new Italian leadership did not want more German units to enter the country as that would enable the Germans to take control. However, they were not ready to openly oppose the Germans at this time and they could not
Brenner Pass in 268 AD, but they were stopped in November of that year at the Battle of Lake Benacus. The Romans kept control over the mountain pass until their end of the empire, in the 5th century. During the High Middle Ages, Brenner Pass was a part of the important "Via Imperii", an imperial road linking the Kingdom of Germany north of the Alps with the Italian March of Verona. In the carolingian "Divisio Regnorum" of 806 the Brenner region is called "per alpes Noricas", the transit through the Noric Alps. Since the 12th century, Brenner Pass was controlled by the