Italian Social Republic (RSI)

Italian Social Republic stamps, available online at Io Collezionista. The Italian Social Republic (RSI), or Republic of Salo, was the name of the puppet regime installed by Nazi Germany immediately after Benito Mussolini was freed from his prison on the Gran Sasso, an escape carried out by German paratroopers in what was known as Operation Oak, on 12 September 1943. In theory the RSI was to administer the whole Kingdom of Italy, but in practice its jurisdiction covered only the regions occupied neither by the Germans nor by the Allies, and as the latter advanced from south to north the territory under RSI control shrank rapidly within a few years. The Republic of Salo ceased to exist in April 1945.