Mussolini rebrands Fascism as ‘República Socialista Italiana’ (RSI); however, the boilerplate signage is quickly engulfed by a duplicitous German plan to prevent it from building a strong army and to divert IMIs to armaments production.
With what’s left of the army dedicated to Fascism, Mussolini tows the German line. The Nazi’s ‘Final Solution’ is enforced in Greece and Italy. The King and Badoglio high-tail out of Rome, powerless to stop the civil bloodletting. Disease empties German concentration camps of Russian POWs; IMIs deprived of International Red Cross assistance move in. Italian Communists are ascendant and form the backbone of the ‘Resistance’. Women become the target of Allied propaganda urging activism to end the war. Michele is assigned to Junkers Werke Dessau; others are spread throughout Germany and occupied territories. Franz Vogel is forced at gunpoint to join the Waffen SS. Chetniks and Tito partisans vie for Allied recognition but act with impunity in genocidal killings. The war turns; Italians are vengefully massacred at Treuenbrietzen. The Vogels must move to Austria. The Allies target Dessau; IMIs become caught in the crossfire. Amedeo Usai provides eyewitness accounts of the bombings and eventual repatriation to Italy. Franz is sent to a Siberian Gulag as a reparation down payment to Russia. The controversy of the Italia North-South divide continues to contemporary times; the effect the war had is analysed from a broader international perspective
