Row over Mussolini's Nazi army opens old wounds | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

January 11, 2006

The soldiers of Benito Mussolini's Nazi puppet republic should be accorded the same status as wartime resistance fighters and regular combatants, the Italian government will argue in a bill to be placed before parliament today.
The bill would recognise the 200,000 soldiers of the Italian Social Republic as "military combatants", but would make no difference to the state benefits enjoyed by several thousand of the former members still alive.

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