ABSTRACT
On September 23, 1943, Mussolini became the new head of the Fascist collaborationist government: the Italian Social Republic. Over the next two years, Italy was torn apart not only by the global war being waged between the armies of the Allies, Germans, and Japanese, but also by an internal civil war among the Italians. When the conflict ended in April 1945, the lingering climate of civil war gave rise to summary trials and mass killings. For Republican Fascists, the years following World War II saw the reopening of a wound never completely healed because of the type of violence distinctive to civil war. Many did not recognize the Italian Republic and regarded themselves as “exiles” at home. For them the real Italy, the true homeland, continued to be the Fascist one that ceased to exist in April 1945. The survivors have thus chosen to continue to live the “values” of Republican Fascism, including through commemorations of the war years.
