MSVN- "Milizia Volontaria
Sicurezza Nazionale", Comparison to Italian Regular Army and German SS
The
ANNOTICO Report
On an
Italian American Online Bulletin Board an Inquiry was made about the
difference between the Italian Regular Army and the Italian MVSN ("Milizia
Volontaria Sicurezza Nazionale") during it's existence, from 1923-1943.
Also a request was made about any similarities and differences between
MVSN and the German SS.
Dr.
Giorgio Iraci is a (Retired Neuro Surgeon), of
submitted
the very informative response that follows.
Dr. Iraci
states:
" If
you use "Google.it" and insert "Milizia Volontaria Sicurezza
Nazionale", you find 907 links for it. A reading knowledge of Italian is
required, as all of them are in our language.
"Google.com" is
NOT very helpful. Besides, I've long found been that what appears in the
international press about
4. www.erasmo.it/liberale/testi/634.htm -
11k
What I can
tell personally about MVSN comes from remote personal memories: I was born in
1929 and in 1943, when the fascist rйgime fell, I was pushing on 14
years. My earliest visual memories of it go back as far as, approximately,
1934. One senior member of my family was a member of it. I still
keep, under mothballs, the gray-green uniform, along with other various items
used through the years by members of the family, since WW-1- including my
navy-blue one.
I can
still remember platoons and companies of the MVSN parading, at a running pace
(imitation of the "passo bersaglieresco"), during the military and
party parades during the rйgime. These guys, who might have been fit in
the first half of their 20's, when they were enrolled in the MVSN, would have
acquired with the years little round tummies and other rotundities, which
didn't go along very well with the running pace and, matter of fact, made it -
along with the panting - more than a little ridiculous.
The MVSN
was, formally, instituted by royal decree #31 of
Actually,
the MVSN was the state's "regularization" and official
regimentation of the "Fascist Militia" made up by the
"squadristi" of the "squadre d'azione", who eventually made
up the fascist masses who made the March on Roma. The "squadristi"
were often more loyal to their local chieftain than to Mussolini... see, as a
typical example, those of
The
official functions of the MVSN were defined as "in the service of
God, Country and under the orders of the chief of government [note: this was BM
himself - no specific mention is made, in the formula of the oath, of the head
of state, i.e. the king, as it it used to be for all other services] to
help the police force and the royal army, to preserve
internal order and to keep the [Italian] citizens in the ranks for the defense
of Italian interests in the world."
The
uniform of the MVSN was regulation issue army grey-green, and I still keep,
under mothballs, the one of that senior member of my family, not out of
nostalgia, but together with the military apparel used in the family (including
my navy-blue uniform). The difference was that the shirt, instead of also being
gray-green, was black. When "Er Puzzone" addressed the nation from
that balcony of Palazzo Venezia and bellowed "camicie nere della
rivoluzione...", it was the MVSN he was addressing.
Being
labelled as a "voluntary" corps, it was technically possible to send
it out of the country to fight on foreign soil: this is what happened, for
instance, in the Spanish Civil War.
One added
function of the MVSN was to provide physical security and protection for the
"duce". The MVSN lasted until it was dissolved by authority,
together with the national fascist party, with the downfall of the rйgime
on
It was not
formed again with the advent of the puppet "Repubblica Sociale
Italiana" a.k.a. "Repubblica di Salт" under German
occupation (Oct 1943-Apr 1945), with its "republican fascist party", one
reason being that many of its former members refused to adhere to it. This
earned them being marked by the Germans on lists for deportation to
concentrarion camps.
The senior
member of my family was in one of those lists, but fortunately we were warned
(by the communist resistance) and had the time to send him into hiding - nor
did anybody come to our house looking for him.
The SS
(Schutzstaffel: Guard Detachment) had humble beginnings, as a protection unit
for the NSDAP leadership as "Sturmtrupp Adolf Hitler", a body of
guards for Hitler's physical protection. This had been entrusted, up to then,
to Ernst Roehm's SA (Sturmabteilung: the brown shirts) in a
detachment called Stabswache (HQ Guard) but, notoriously,
Hitler
eventually came to disliking Roehm, who had grown to be as powerful as Hitler
was (by 1930, there were more brownshirts than regular army men; in the summer
of 1934, there were 4.5 MLN armed and equipped brownshirts, many more than the
regular German army, limited by the Versailles treaty to 100,000 men).
Through
the "good offices" of Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler (the SS
head since 1929), "the night of the long knives" ensued, with the
elimination of Roehm and of all SA high brass, which put an end to the
organization. The killings were done by the SS, under the command of Himmler,
Sepp Dietrich. and Rheinhardt Heydrych The SA organization formally
remained, but lost all its power.
Eventually,
with the several changes brought with time on the German secret polices
and services, the members of SS, indoctrinated with the nazi creed, came to
police the nation, by means of the GeStaPo (Geheime Staats Polizei; Secret
State Police) and of the SD (Sichereits Dienst; Security Service: the Nazi
Party's own such service). The latter merged in 1939 into the RHSA
(Reichsichereitshauptamt) with the Gestapo and the Kripo (Kriminal Polizei).
So, both
MVSN and SS apparently had the same origin: that of a security service for the
personal safety of the great leader. But the similarity seems to end here.
There is no story (at least, it doesn't result to me) about atrocities, such as
perpetrated by the SS, committed by the MVSN: no arrests in the middle of the
night, no breaking down of apartment doors with hobnailed boots, no terror. I
stand ready to correction if anybody can send me documented examples to the
contrary. here is no record of individuals such as Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann,
Dietrich for the MVSN. I remember some unconfirmed and undocumented doubts
about its behaviour in occupied
The SS had
political and administrative jobs, and were divided in 12 administrations.
Towards the end, they had set up a rather impressive industrial empire, based
on the free labour provided by the internees in the concentration camps which
they formed the guards of. The famed
Both
organization had fighting units: the MVSN sent them to Spain (as said before),
to the Russian front, and to Northern Africa, where they let themselves get
massacred, together with the paratroopers of the "Folgore" division
and the crews of the "Ariete" armoured division fighting as infantry
(there simply were no more tanks) to cover the precipitous retreat of Rommel's
Afrika Korps.
The SS had
their fighting units, the "Waffen-SS" units, which towards the war's
end had include 38 full strength divisions for more than 2300,000 men:
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering division (both armoured), Totenkopf
(Dead's Head) Division (mechanized, then armoured); also,
"Grenadierdivisionen", light infantry divisions, etc. It's been estimated
that, towards the end of the war, the total strength of the SS (all branches:
fighting, political, administration) was of more than 912,000.
Each
Waffen-SS Division was a powerful unit, in comparison with which the MVSN had
no comparison. Its fighting units were at battalion strength- I don't
know, either, that units of the MVSN established for themselves such a
reputation as the SS ones.
From the
beginning to the end, the SS had as their supreme leader
("SS-Reichmarschall") Heinrich Himmler, born 1910, dead (suicide) in
1945.
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The
information above was derived from: William Shirer, "The Rise and Fall of
the Third Reich", other books regarding those times, in my possession;
from the Net (by "googling.com" for info regarding Germany and
the SS; and "googling it" for info regarding the MVSN); from my
encyclopedia (Italian, but modern and with extensive coverage of things
foreign); from the writings of a British writer, Len Deighton, author mostly of
fiction but also of well-documented historical research,
"Blitzkrieg-from the rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk", and
"Fighter - The Story of the Battle of Britain"; finally, from
personal memories, such as I can summon them, then a young boy.
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