Okay, first of all: if anyone is interested in a more in-depth analysis of the topic, I'd suggest checking out the work of the German historian Rolf Steininger. He wrote a few books about the topic and while most of it is rather scientific and in-depth, the paperback edition of "Südtirol. Vom Ersten Weltkrieg bis zur Gegenwart." gives a really good, objective and easily understandable overview of the topic. AFAIK it's only available in German, but he does quote quite a lot of Italian historians in his book, if anyone wants to read about this topic in Italian. Unfortunately, I don't have the book at hand, so I can't give the quotes right now.
Before I go on about the history of South Tyrol and it's relation to Italy, I have to make one thing clear: I'm South Tyrolean myself, so the events I'm going to talk about are part of my history. It was my family that suffered from a lot of those things, it's the land I live in and so this is a rather "emotional" topic for me. I will try to be as objective as possible, but please understand from where this account comes from. Any parts that are my own views and anecdotes about the topic will be bolded and italicized.
Now, let's start with the beginning, shall we?
The First World War
Before the First World War, there was only one Tyrol, consisting of the modern day Austrian Bundesland of Tirol (and Vorarlberg, but I'm going to skip them from now on as they are irrelevant for our topic) as well as the Italian provinces Bolzano-Alto Adige/Bozen-Südtirol and Trentino/Trient.
The largest part of it was majorily German-speaking since the last thousand years, with only the Trentino being predominantly Italian-speaking.
Fun Fact: Before the Germanization of the land in around 700, it was sparsely populated by romanized Celts, the so called "Rätoromanen". They cohabitated peacefully with their new Germanic neighbors, but slowly dwindled in their numbers. They still exist today, in the form of the "Ladinians" who live in a few valleys on both sides of the border between South Tyrol and Trentino. Even today, they still speak a Romance language that comes from Latin.
The fact that there was large Italian minority inside the Austrian Empire has always been a source of friction between Austria and Italy and even though the Kingdom of Italy was allied to Austria and Germany before WW1 (the so-called "Dreibund"), Italian irredentists always dreamed of liberating their countryman that still lived in Austria.
With the growing tensions between the European nations and the looming danger of a global war on the horizon in 1914, the Italian elites thought that the time had come to fulfill their goal. As neither Austria nor Germany had consulted with their Italian ally before they declared war on Serbia, Italy thought their alliance forfeit and did not take part in the ensuing war – at first.
Of course, Italy would not stay neutral in the war. Partially because of the growing popularity of irrdentism (propagated by intellectuals like Filippo Tommaso Mattini) and partially because of the promises made to Italy by the Entente, Italy declared war against their former ally.
At first, the idea was that the Italian army would soon overrun the undefended southern border of Austria (most regular Austrian troops were fighting the Russians in Galizia) and claim an easy victory, but this was not the case. The people of Tyrol rose up in defense against the aggressors and soon those that were too young or to old to fight in the regular army stopped the Italian attack in it's tracks. This event was followed by a year-long battle in the alpine mountains – from the deepest valley to the highest mountaintops. At times, the Austrian army drove back the Italians and almost conquered Venice, but in the end, they were fought back by the remaining Italian troops as well as their newly arrived French and British allies and the front line pretty much stayed the same during the whole war.
In 1918, after a long and futile war, Austria was torn apart by it's internal problems. It's armies on the southern front tried to negotiate an armistice with Italy, but seeing that the Austrian army was in the process of dissolving, the Italians didn't agree to this armistice and took advantage of the crumbling Austrian army. Even today, many believe that the Italians agreed to the armistice but simply didn't respect it, overrunning the unprepared Austrians, thereby creating the myth of the "undefeated Austrian army", similar to the "Dolchstoßlegende" in Germany.
At the end of 1918, the Italian army had wrestled control of much of Tyrol from the Austrians with the intent to fully annex the southern part of it, up to the watershed at the Brenner pass – and thereby they annexed a considerable part of German-speaking Tyrol...
Interwar Period I – The Rise of Fascism
Understandably, the German-speaking people of Tyrol had a lot of concerns and outright fears about their future under Italian rule. Many a family was situated at both sides of the new border and contact between them was cut by the occupants of Tyrol. Eduard Reut-Nicolussi, South Tyrolean sitting member of new, recently created Austrian parliament expressed those fears in the parliament meeting that ratified the Treaty of St-Germain:
"Against this treaty, we have – with every fiber of our hearts, in grief and anger – only a no! An eternal, irrevocable no! (applause from the parliament) Now a desperate war will begin in South Tyrol, a war for each farmhouse, for each city house, for each vineyard. A war that will be fought with every tool of the mind and all means of politics. A desperate war because it will be thought by a quarter million Germans against 40 million Italians – a truly lopsided war."
Fun fact: after that, he – along with the other parliamentarians from South Tyrol, was disbanded from his position. He ended his last speech, saying that: "one day another member of parliament from South Tyrol will stand at my exact spot and proclaim it's return to Austria." We still waitin', doe.
However, as it turned out, the Italian occupation was much, much more benign than anyone had expected. Sure, all communication and transport between South Tyrol and the rest of Austria was cut, but all in all, the Italian soldiers proved to be civil and law-abiding. The Italian King Victor Emmanuell III. even personally promised to tread the South Tyroleans with respect as long as they were his loyal subjects. The military governor of the occupied lands (whose name escapes me at the moment) was a very liberal person for that time and made sure that the King's intents were carried out.
So for the first few years under Italian occupation things were generally good and safe. But as I mentioned earlier, many Italian intellectuals had pretty radical and nationalistic ideas, and soon they – together with a few other elements of society – created the fascist movement. It goes without saying that those fascist weren't really keen on having Germans living in "their" land. Unfortunately, the Italian state was rather weak after the war and had little to put up against this internal threat. Soon, fascists openly acted against the state, it's institution - and in South Tyrol against the German-speaking inhabitants.
Of course, this movement wasn't confined to South Tyrol as we probably all know. But in a certain sense, South Tyrol was the battlefield on which the fascists tested the crimes they would commit in the rest of Italy. For example, high-ranking members of the fascist party of Trentino demanded the mayor of Meran (a South Tyrolean city) to close the German schools and re-open them as Italian ones. After the (German) mayor declined to do so, the fascists stormed the municipal building and the schools and forcefully fulfilled their demands. Benito Mussolini later claimed that this incident was a textbook example of the fascist methods.
The rising fascist violence found its first peak during the so-called "Bozner Blutsonntag" (Bloody Sunday of Bozen) in late April 1921: the traditional spring fair of Bozen happened at the same day at which there was a plebiscite about an Anschluss to Germany in Austria. The fascists saw this as a provocation and brought almost 300 of their thugs to the city (with the help of national railway; as if I needed another reason to hate TrenItalia) which were joined by a hundred fascist from Bozen. Together, they attacked the attendees of the spring fair with pistols, grenades and bats, injuring dozens of people and killing the first victim of Italian Fascism in South Tyrol: the teacher Franz Innerhofer died in an attempt to rescue a young boy.
(Franz Innerhofer, first victim of fascist terror in South Tyrol)
As if this attack on innocents wasn't enough, the Italian Army (who knew of the attack beforehand) didn't do anything to prevent it and even escorted the attackers back to the train station. The Italian prime minister of that time ordered the immediate detainment of the attackers, but only two of them were caught. Mussolini immediately threatened the government that he and two thousand of his thugs would march on Bozen and free their comrades with force if they wouldn't be released immediately. The fact that the government accepted this demands shows how weak it already was at this point.
One of Mussolini's most important lackey in South Tyrolean was Ettore Tolomei (cursed be his name). Born in Trentino, he was a "intellectual" who did everything in his power to prove that South Tyrol was and has always been Italian. The newspaper he published was one of the biggest proponents of forceful Italianization – and the fact that this paper superficial seemed to be a scientific publication made it believable to many Italians. I could go on about this... person, but I purposely don't do so. He doesn't deserve to be talked about more than is necessary. His whole life had a single goal: to destroy my people, my culture, my family. He wanted to eradicate us, but yet, we are still here and he isn't. In a certain sense, his whole, pitiful life has been a failure – a fact that I gladly laugh at.
Fun fact: if there ever has been a single person that is hated by a whole people, than it's this... individual. Every German-speaking South Tyrolean hates him. He is, after all, called the "Gravedigger of South Tyrol". I can't say what I personally think about him, as this is certainly against the forum rules, but I think it's a pity that his grave is guarded by Italian policemen even today. Well, guess that comes when you're buried amidst people you wanted to wipe from the face of the Earth.
In any case, the tensions were growing – the fascist thugs slowly became an important political factor in Italy, backed by industrials and intellectuals. Soon, the fascist overthrew the Italian government and installed a dictatorship under their leader Benito Mussolini...
Interwar Period II: Fascistic Boogaloo
With the threat of extinction becoming a real possibilities for the German-speaking South Tyroleans, they looked for help in those dire times. They did found help – albeit questionable one – on the other side of the Brenner: there a certain Austrian had made himself Führer of Germany and worked hard to unite Germany with Austria. Because Hitler promised to liberate all Germans from foreign occupation and unite them in a single state, many South Tyrolean saw a liberator in him.
This was especially true as the fascists did all they could to undermine and ultimately destroy the German minority in “their” country. One of the methods they used was a guided immigration by Italians, hoping that they would one day outnumber the German-speaking South Tyroleans. This immigration was mostly aimed towards Bozen/Bolzano, where the fascists build a large industrial zone to provide jobs for the new Italian immigrants from other provinces.
Fun fact: this is also the reason that Italians in South Tyrol don't speak a specific dialect, while the Italians in Trentino do.
What is often overlooked though is the fact that the newly arriving Italian immigrants were basically screwed over too. They were promised a new and better live in a newly conquered province, but they weren't told that this province was inhabited by people that hated them and didn't even speak their language.
If we look at the raw numbers, we'll see that in 1910, there were 2,9% Italians living in South Tyrol. 1921 there were already 10% and at its peak in 1961/71 every third inhabitant of South Tyrol was Italian. Since then the numbers have dwindled a little and today roughly a quarter of South Tyroleans are Italians.
Fun fact: each inhabitant of the province of South Tyrol has to declare himself to either be part of the German, Italian or Ladin language group. You can declare yourself to be part of whatever group you want, no matter what your mother tongue is, it's purely self-identification. However, this is a rather important thing, as the resulting numbers are used in distributing (for example) politic offices amongst the language groups. So if 25% of South Tyroleans are Italians, 25% of the members of Parliament have to be Italian. It's called “ethnischer Proporz” and a rather important law.
Fun fact: I just realized that those fun facts aren't really funny at all...
Other examples of fascistic suppression include replacing the elected mayors with Italian officials (called podestá) and of course, erecting a large monument in the middle of South Tyrol's capital Bozen – the Siegesdenkmal/Monumento alla Vittoria/Victory monument. Even to this day, its a source of friction and confrontation between Italians and Germans, mostly because of the following inscription on it:
which translates roughly to:
Fun fact: If you visit the provincial tribunal in Bozen, you'll find a large marble relief from which Mussolini looks down on you. Placed under him is his credo: “Credere, combattare, obediere” - “Believe, fight, follow”. Just let that sink in: we have a giant marble picture of Mussolini on our provincial tribunal. Because fascism is dead in Italy... Well, AFAIK they did cover it up with some curtain, but there are still other fascist monuments on display all over South Tyrol.
Fun fact: there were plans to rename the monument of victory to “monument of peace”, but the population of Bozen was against that...
There are so much more examples of fascistic oppression, almost to many to list them all. But some of the better ones are:
Whole books were written on that time period, but I want to go with our little stroll through history, as the most dire times were yet to come...
Interwar Period III – The Option Agreement
Remember when I talked about how many South Tyroleans saw Hitler as their liberator? Turns out that they were wrong. Even thought Hitler and Mussolini weren't best buddies at first, Mussolini's shenanigans soon made him rather unpopular amongst the democratic governments in Europe and so his only option was to ally with the (in his eyes) “upstart” Hitler.
But while the Wehrmacht troops that reached the Brenner pass after occupying Austria were greeted as heroes by the local populace, Hitler soon ensure his new ally that the border between the Reich and Italy wouldn't change – which was a big derail from his earlier talk about “uniting all Germans in a single state”. Many of the earlier Nazis and German right-wing extremists felt betrayed by this act, as did the people of South Tyrol. In the end, we were sacrificed to uphold an alliance.
Still, the German-speaking South Tyroleans were still a thorn in the side for both Hitler and Mussolini, so they made an agreement: the so called option.
Between 1939 and 1943, the people of South Tyrol were forced to decide to either emigrate to the Reich or stay in their ancestral homeland and become fully Italianized. It is hard to describe just how awful both of those options were, but let's try to elaborate on the consequences a bit.
If one would opt for Germany, he had to leave behind his ancestral home where his forefathers lived since hundreds of year. Instead, he would be used as a Germanic settler in the newly conquered east, placed in a house just recently conquered from innocent Poles or Ukrainians (another idea for a new settlement for South Tyroleans was Burgundy). But unfortunately, those places weren't already conquered by that time. So until they were, one would be placed in barracks and refuge camps in Germany, without a place to truly call home. Not to mention that everyone who opted for Germany got the German citizenship (and lost his Italian one) so he had to fight in the Wehrmacht. Quite a few friends of mine have grandfathers who still rot in Stalingrad...
The other option – to stay in South Tyrol – would mean that one would forfeit any hope for being able to stay German. One's language, culture, history and future would be replaced with something else. One could have stayed in his homeland, but at the cost of not being who one is.
Even though 85% of the people of South Tyrol opted for Germany, there was a large divide between them and the people who wanted to stay (or simply couldn't move away). To give a short overview of this divide, here are some impression from the leaflets, from the so-called “Dableiber” (who choose to stay in South Tyrol) and from the “Optanten” (who choose to emigrate to Germany):
Dableiber
“South Tyrol and Galicia! Is there a bigger difference? You will live in huts from which the Polish occupants where driven away. Between hostile people you will be placed, hated by them until they'll drive you away, as soon as the wheel of fortunes turns again.”
“The more Germans stay in their homeland, the bigger is the moral power that we have, the easier it will be to keep our rights!
Optanten:
“Whoever chooses Italy, publicly denounces his German heritage”
“Never will one be happy with this lie when he sees his children becoming Italians”
And to bring in a bit of art into this dry historic recapitulation, let's read two poems: one from a Dableiber, one from an Optant
(I tried to translate them to English, but they loose just too much by doing so...)
Additionally, there is this film available on YouTube who gives an amazing insight into that time:
Unfortunately, I guess it will be pretty hard to understand – most of the film is in heavily dialectal German with parts of it being in Italian. There seem to be some German/Italian subtitles though, so if anyone of you want to give it a shot – and I highly encourage that – do it, the film is a marvel!
But back to our history lecture:
The “Dableiber” were mostly compromised of clerics and religious people who hated the Nazis with a passion and were lead by the so-called “Andreas-Hofer-Bund” - which would later become the SVP (more on that later).
The “Optanten” on the other hand ranged from hardcore nationalists to regular people who wanted to stay what they are. They were however lead by the VKS – the “Völkischer Kampfring Südtirols” the South Tyrolean offshot of the NSDAP in all but the name.
Fun fact: as soon as the VKS found out about Hitler's plan for the Option agreement, they sent him a letter telling him that they would follow every order of their Führer, but not this one. I guess it's quite telling when Nazis rather deny obedience to Hitler than to leave their homes. Well, in the end the still conformed to his orders, but anyway...
But even though 85% of the German-speaking people in South Tyrol opted for Germany, only a small fraction of them actually did emigrate. One problem was... well there was a pretty big war going on, so the problem of the South Tyroleans became rather unimportant. On the other hand, the Italian government didn't expect such overwhelming odds against them and purposely tried to hinder or halt the emigration before the country would be depopulated. Many of those that left came back however after the war. I guess I don't need to tell that their lives weren't really that good: they were denounced as Nazis by those that stayed, their property had already been sold to Italians and they had lost both their Italian and German citizenship, becoming stateless persons. It took a long while before they were truly rehabilitated.
The option finally came to end in 1943, when the Wehrmacht occupied northern Italy. While officially, South Tyrol stayed part of the Republic of Saló (Hitler's puppet state in Northern Italy after the Italians overthrew Mussolini), both South Tyrol and a few neighboring provinces were reorganized into the “Operationszone Alpenvorland” and put under German civil governance, thereby becoming de-facto part of the Reich. Finally, Tyrol was reunited, though under the worst circumstances possible...
The Flames of War
Even though Hitler betrayed the people of South Tyrol, most of them still welcomed the Wehrmacht as they occupied the province. Now, finally everything could get better, right? At least that is what many still thought. In some areas, the German government did indeed roll back many fascistic atrocities: German was again allowed to be spoken in public and in schools, the mayor were again elected and German names were restored. However, Germany also made sure to bring its own brand of terror to our little land: contingents of the SS, both from Old Germany and formed by locals, made sure to work on the "Endlösung" and many South Tyrolean Jews were deported to concentration camps.
And with the Germans came bombing runs by the allies. Because being terrorized by both fascists and Nazis wasn't enough already...
Sad fact: my grandmother is still heavily traumatized by witnessing a bombing run when she was still a child. I've never seen more fear in the eyes of a human being than when she told me about it.
Fun fact: An American bomber pilot crashed near the village in which I grew up. He was rescued by the inhabitants and brought back to health. The rock on which he rested after a long walk is still named after him.
Two years after the German occupation, the war ended and fortunately, South Tyrol was spared from destruction. But as soon as the Nazis left, the fascists came back – under a new name this time...
Clearing up the rubble – After the war
After the war, during the Paris Peace treaties, South Tyrol become a source of headache for the big players again. In the beginning, the Allies wanted to give South Tyrol back to Austria, but at that time, it wasn't completely out of the question that Austria would fall under the sway of the USSR. And therefore it was decided that South Tyrol would stay with Italy to deny the Soviets control of the important mountain passes in such a case. It is quite sad but ironic that in the end, Italy was much closer to ending up in the communist camp than Austria ever was.
To solve the problem however, the government of Italy and Austria agreed that South Tyrol would stay with Italy, but get an autonomy. In addition, the so-called “Gruber-De-Gaspari-Agreement” ensured that the German-speakers in South Tyrol would be able to keep their culture and language. Austria was named as South Tyrols “protection force” - a function which Austria fulfills to this day.
However, Italy didn't really care about this agreement that much. South Tyrol did get it's autonomy, but it was fused together with the neighboring province of Trentino and in the newly created region, Italians outnumbered Germans by a large margin, therefore making the autonomy obsolete. In addition, Italy proceeded with guiding Italian immigrants to South Tyrol in an attempt to outnumber the German-speakers there. This was largely done by influencing the Italian economy, providing benefits for companies that settled in the industrial zone of Bozen.
And while Austria was busy with becoming an independent state again, the problems of the South Tyroleans were again forgotten...
The eagle cries for help – The bombing attacks of the 1960's
It was in this climate of helplessness, where German-speakers were marginalized both politically and economically, the despair of the the people of South Tyrol grew. Most political position, as well as subsidized housing for example, was given to Italians. German-speakers were second-class citizens in their own home.
A large demonstration organized by the Südtiroler Volkspartei (South Tyrolean People's Party – the name doesn't sound as communist in German...), the successor of the Andreas-Hofer-Bund that organized the Dableiber during the Option, demanded Italy to stop with its subversion of the Gruber-De-Gaspari agreement and wanted to secede the province of South Tyrol from the province of Trentino (“Los von Trient”/”Away from Trentino” was their motto). Not that Italy really cared about this – it practically just ignored this demonstration, which became an important point in the history of South Tyrol.
And it was at this time that a small group of people decided to something against this. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much they actually COULD do, so the resorted to violence. There was some talk about an armed insurrection or a guerrilla war going on (and some people even had contacts Algerian rebels that fought against the French at that time), but in the end, the newly formed “Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol”/”South Tyrolean Liberation Comitee” decided on bombing attacks against electrical pylons – the symbol of the forced industrialization and Italianization of South Tyrol.
The attacks of the BAS – who always tried to respect human lives – finally peaked in June 1961, in the so-called “Night of Fire”. During that night, bombing attacks were carried out against 37 electrical pylons simultaneously, paralyzing a large part of the industry in Northern Italy by taking out the power supply. Other, smaller groups carried out similar attacks, but both them as well as the BAS were soon taken out by the Italian Intelligence Service and police.
Fun fact: this first generation of attackers were held in high esteem by the local people, who even gave them a cute nickname – Bumser/”Boomers”.
The BAS was led by a man named Sepp Kerschbaumer – an unknown merchant from a small village in South Tyrol. He, along with 150 other members of the BAS, were imprisoned in Verona, while others fled the country and still can't return to their homes even today. Many of the imprisoned were tortured and two of them even died due to it. This fact soon radicalized the situation and soon, new attacks were carried out.
(Sepp Kerschbaumer, leader of the BAS)
This time around however, the attacks purposely targeted human lives, especially Italian ones. This second generation of attackers were largely supported by Nazis and members of the Intelligence service from Germany and Austria. Fortunately, this second generation – which were terrorists for all intents and purpose – soon lost the support of the local people. Fortunately, violence was no longer necessary, as the problem again became part of international diplomacy...
Diplomatic relations – the problem finally solved?
Because of those outbreaks of violence – and because the Staatsvertrag was finally a done deal – Austria again brought the problem South Tyrol to the international table. This time the Austrian Foreign Minister even went all the way to the UNO to finally find a solution for the problem. Because of this international attention, Italy was more or less forced to finally adhere to the Gruber-De-Gaspari agreement.
1961 a commission was instituted that should decide which actions Italy had to take to finally fulfill their part of the agreement. This commission negotiated until 1969, when it finally agreed on a plan of action (“Operationskalender”) that Italy had to go through in the next years. Both the SVP as the representative of the South Tyrolean people as well as the Austrian government agreed to this plan of action and in 1971 it was ratified by the Italian parliament. After a long and tragic history, it seemed that the problem had finally been solved. Well, Italy took a bit (~20 years) longer than it had initially promised, but in 1992 the governments of Italy and Austria (with the agreement of the South Tyrolean politicians) officially considered the problem solved.
Today, South Tyrol has a large and still expanding autonomy inside the Italian state, so all is well. Still, there are many problems, though they are largely emotional ones – for now. In the last years there were always attacks from Italian politicians against this autonomy and only recently an openly fascistic individual was elected into the city council of Bozen. We German-speakers of South Tyrol finally live in peace with our Italian neighbors, but in my humble opinion, friction is still there. But as this was a short recollection of the HISTORY of South Tyrol, I'm going to refrain from talking about the FUTURE...
Before I go on about the history of South Tyrol and it's relation to Italy, I have to make one thing clear: I'm South Tyrolean myself, so the events I'm going to talk about are part of my history. It was my family that suffered from a lot of those things, it's the land I live in and so this is a rather "emotional" topic for me. I will try to be as objective as possible, but please understand from where this account comes from. Any parts that are my own views and anecdotes about the topic will be bolded and italicized.
Now, let's start with the beginning, shall we?
The First World War
Before the First World War, there was only one Tyrol, consisting of the modern day Austrian Bundesland of Tirol (and Vorarlberg, but I'm going to skip them from now on as they are irrelevant for our topic) as well as the Italian provinces Bolzano-Alto Adige/Bozen-Südtirol and Trentino/Trient.
The largest part of it was majorily German-speaking since the last thousand years, with only the Trentino being predominantly Italian-speaking.
Fun Fact: Before the Germanization of the land in around 700, it was sparsely populated by romanized Celts, the so called "Rätoromanen". They cohabitated peacefully with their new Germanic neighbors, but slowly dwindled in their numbers. They still exist today, in the form of the "Ladinians" who live in a few valleys on both sides of the border between South Tyrol and Trentino. Even today, they still speak a Romance language that comes from Latin.
The fact that there was large Italian minority inside the Austrian Empire has always been a source of friction between Austria and Italy and even though the Kingdom of Italy was allied to Austria and Germany before WW1 (the so-called "Dreibund"), Italian irredentists always dreamed of liberating their countryman that still lived in Austria.
With the growing tensions between the European nations and the looming danger of a global war on the horizon in 1914, the Italian elites thought that the time had come to fulfill their goal. As neither Austria nor Germany had consulted with their Italian ally before they declared war on Serbia, Italy thought their alliance forfeit and did not take part in the ensuing war – at first.
Of course, Italy would not stay neutral in the war. Partially because of the growing popularity of irrdentism (propagated by intellectuals like Filippo Tommaso Mattini) and partially because of the promises made to Italy by the Entente, Italy declared war against their former ally.
At first, the idea was that the Italian army would soon overrun the undefended southern border of Austria (most regular Austrian troops were fighting the Russians in Galizia) and claim an easy victory, but this was not the case. The people of Tyrol rose up in defense against the aggressors and soon those that were too young or to old to fight in the regular army stopped the Italian attack in it's tracks. This event was followed by a year-long battle in the alpine mountains – from the deepest valley to the highest mountaintops. At times, the Austrian army drove back the Italians and almost conquered Venice, but in the end, they were fought back by the remaining Italian troops as well as their newly arrived French and British allies and the front line pretty much stayed the same during the whole war.
In 1918, after a long and futile war, Austria was torn apart by it's internal problems. It's armies on the southern front tried to negotiate an armistice with Italy, but seeing that the Austrian army was in the process of dissolving, the Italians didn't agree to this armistice and took advantage of the crumbling Austrian army. Even today, many believe that the Italians agreed to the armistice but simply didn't respect it, overrunning the unprepared Austrians, thereby creating the myth of the "undefeated Austrian army", similar to the "Dolchstoßlegende" in Germany.
At the end of 1918, the Italian army had wrestled control of much of Tyrol from the Austrians with the intent to fully annex the southern part of it, up to the watershed at the Brenner pass – and thereby they annexed a considerable part of German-speaking Tyrol...
Interwar Period I – The Rise of Fascism
Understandably, the German-speaking people of Tyrol had a lot of concerns and outright fears about their future under Italian rule. Many a family was situated at both sides of the new border and contact between them was cut by the occupants of Tyrol. Eduard Reut-Nicolussi, South Tyrolean sitting member of new, recently created Austrian parliament expressed those fears in the parliament meeting that ratified the Treaty of St-Germain:
"Against this treaty, we have – with every fiber of our hearts, in grief and anger – only a no! An eternal, irrevocable no! (applause from the parliament) Now a desperate war will begin in South Tyrol, a war for each farmhouse, for each city house, for each vineyard. A war that will be fought with every tool of the mind and all means of politics. A desperate war because it will be thought by a quarter million Germans against 40 million Italians – a truly lopsided war."
Fun fact: after that, he – along with the other parliamentarians from South Tyrol, was disbanded from his position. He ended his last speech, saying that: "one day another member of parliament from South Tyrol will stand at my exact spot and proclaim it's return to Austria." We still waitin', doe.
However, as it turned out, the Italian occupation was much, much more benign than anyone had expected. Sure, all communication and transport between South Tyrol and the rest of Austria was cut, but all in all, the Italian soldiers proved to be civil and law-abiding. The Italian King Victor Emmanuell III. even personally promised to tread the South Tyroleans with respect as long as they were his loyal subjects. The military governor of the occupied lands (whose name escapes me at the moment) was a very liberal person for that time and made sure that the King's intents were carried out.
So for the first few years under Italian occupation things were generally good and safe. But as I mentioned earlier, many Italian intellectuals had pretty radical and nationalistic ideas, and soon they – together with a few other elements of society – created the fascist movement. It goes without saying that those fascist weren't really keen on having Germans living in "their" land. Unfortunately, the Italian state was rather weak after the war and had little to put up against this internal threat. Soon, fascists openly acted against the state, it's institution - and in South Tyrol against the German-speaking inhabitants.
Of course, this movement wasn't confined to South Tyrol as we probably all know. But in a certain sense, South Tyrol was the battlefield on which the fascists tested the crimes they would commit in the rest of Italy. For example, high-ranking members of the fascist party of Trentino demanded the mayor of Meran (a South Tyrolean city) to close the German schools and re-open them as Italian ones. After the (German) mayor declined to do so, the fascists stormed the municipal building and the schools and forcefully fulfilled their demands. Benito Mussolini later claimed that this incident was a textbook example of the fascist methods.
The rising fascist violence found its first peak during the so-called "Bozner Blutsonntag" (Bloody Sunday of Bozen) in late April 1921: the traditional spring fair of Bozen happened at the same day at which there was a plebiscite about an Anschluss to Germany in Austria. The fascists saw this as a provocation and brought almost 300 of their thugs to the city (with the help of national railway; as if I needed another reason to hate TrenItalia) which were joined by a hundred fascist from Bozen. Together, they attacked the attendees of the spring fair with pistols, grenades and bats, injuring dozens of people and killing the first victim of Italian Fascism in South Tyrol: the teacher Franz Innerhofer died in an attempt to rescue a young boy.
(Franz Innerhofer, first victim of fascist terror in South Tyrol)
As if this attack on innocents wasn't enough, the Italian Army (who knew of the attack beforehand) didn't do anything to prevent it and even escorted the attackers back to the train station. The Italian prime minister of that time ordered the immediate detainment of the attackers, but only two of them were caught. Mussolini immediately threatened the government that he and two thousand of his thugs would march on Bozen and free their comrades with force if they wouldn't be released immediately. The fact that the government accepted this demands shows how weak it already was at this point.
One of Mussolini's most important lackey in South Tyrolean was Ettore Tolomei (cursed be his name). Born in Trentino, he was a "intellectual" who did everything in his power to prove that South Tyrol was and has always been Italian. The newspaper he published was one of the biggest proponents of forceful Italianization – and the fact that this paper superficial seemed to be a scientific publication made it believable to many Italians. I could go on about this... person, but I purposely don't do so. He doesn't deserve to be talked about more than is necessary. His whole life had a single goal: to destroy my people, my culture, my family. He wanted to eradicate us, but yet, we are still here and he isn't. In a certain sense, his whole, pitiful life has been a failure – a fact that I gladly laugh at.
Fun fact: if there ever has been a single person that is hated by a whole people, than it's this... individual. Every German-speaking South Tyrolean hates him. He is, after all, called the "Gravedigger of South Tyrol". I can't say what I personally think about him, as this is certainly against the forum rules, but I think it's a pity that his grave is guarded by Italian policemen even today. Well, guess that comes when you're buried amidst people you wanted to wipe from the face of the Earth.
In any case, the tensions were growing – the fascist thugs slowly became an important political factor in Italy, backed by industrials and intellectuals. Soon, the fascist overthrew the Italian government and installed a dictatorship under their leader Benito Mussolini...
Interwar Period II: Fascistic Boogaloo
With the threat of extinction becoming a real possibilities for the German-speaking South Tyroleans, they looked for help in those dire times. They did found help – albeit questionable one – on the other side of the Brenner: there a certain Austrian had made himself Führer of Germany and worked hard to unite Germany with Austria. Because Hitler promised to liberate all Germans from foreign occupation and unite them in a single state, many South Tyrolean saw a liberator in him.
This was especially true as the fascists did all they could to undermine and ultimately destroy the German minority in “their” country. One of the methods they used was a guided immigration by Italians, hoping that they would one day outnumber the German-speaking South Tyroleans. This immigration was mostly aimed towards Bozen/Bolzano, where the fascists build a large industrial zone to provide jobs for the new Italian immigrants from other provinces.
Fun fact: this is also the reason that Italians in South Tyrol don't speak a specific dialect, while the Italians in Trentino do.
What is often overlooked though is the fact that the newly arriving Italian immigrants were basically screwed over too. They were promised a new and better live in a newly conquered province, but they weren't told that this province was inhabited by people that hated them and didn't even speak their language.
If we look at the raw numbers, we'll see that in 1910, there were 2,9% Italians living in South Tyrol. 1921 there were already 10% and at its peak in 1961/71 every third inhabitant of South Tyrol was Italian. Since then the numbers have dwindled a little and today roughly a quarter of South Tyroleans are Italians.
Fun fact: each inhabitant of the province of South Tyrol has to declare himself to either be part of the German, Italian or Ladin language group. You can declare yourself to be part of whatever group you want, no matter what your mother tongue is, it's purely self-identification. However, this is a rather important thing, as the resulting numbers are used in distributing (for example) politic offices amongst the language groups. So if 25% of South Tyroleans are Italians, 25% of the members of Parliament have to be Italian. It's called “ethnischer Proporz” and a rather important law.
Fun fact: I just realized that those fun facts aren't really funny at all...
Other examples of fascistic suppression include replacing the elected mayors with Italian officials (called podestá) and of course, erecting a large monument in the middle of South Tyrol's capital Bozen – the Siegesdenkmal/Monumento alla Vittoria/Victory monument. Even to this day, its a source of friction and confrontation between Italians and Germans, mostly because of the following inscription on it:
which translates roughly to:
Fun fact: If you visit the provincial tribunal in Bozen, you'll find a large marble relief from which Mussolini looks down on you. Placed under him is his credo: “Credere, combattare, obediere” - “Believe, fight, follow”. Just let that sink in: we have a giant marble picture of Mussolini on our provincial tribunal. Because fascism is dead in Italy... Well, AFAIK they did cover it up with some curtain, but there are still other fascist monuments on display all over South Tyrol.
Fun fact: there were plans to rename the monument of victory to “monument of peace”, but the population of Bozen was against that...
There are so much more examples of fascistic oppression, almost to many to list them all. But some of the better ones are:
- South Tyroleans were forbidden to speak German in public (which included schools), the only fact that the German language (and with it our culture) survived was because some brave individuals taught German in secret, the so-called “Katakombenschulen”/”catacomb schools”
- The name “Tyrol” was forbidden
- South Tyroleans had to adopt Italian names, so if you were called “Josef Rabensteiner” since birth, you'd now be “Giuseppe Pietrocorvo”. Deal with it. This change was also retroactive, so the names on tombstones were replaced too
- Of course, South Tyroleans were forced to serve in the Italian army, even though at that time most of them couldn't speak a single word in Italian
Whole books were written on that time period, but I want to go with our little stroll through history, as the most dire times were yet to come...
Interwar Period III – The Option Agreement
Remember when I talked about how many South Tyroleans saw Hitler as their liberator? Turns out that they were wrong. Even thought Hitler and Mussolini weren't best buddies at first, Mussolini's shenanigans soon made him rather unpopular amongst the democratic governments in Europe and so his only option was to ally with the (in his eyes) “upstart” Hitler.
But while the Wehrmacht troops that reached the Brenner pass after occupying Austria were greeted as heroes by the local populace, Hitler soon ensure his new ally that the border between the Reich and Italy wouldn't change – which was a big derail from his earlier talk about “uniting all Germans in a single state”. Many of the earlier Nazis and German right-wing extremists felt betrayed by this act, as did the people of South Tyrol. In the end, we were sacrificed to uphold an alliance.
Still, the German-speaking South Tyroleans were still a thorn in the side for both Hitler and Mussolini, so they made an agreement: the so called option.
Between 1939 and 1943, the people of South Tyrol were forced to decide to either emigrate to the Reich or stay in their ancestral homeland and become fully Italianized. It is hard to describe just how awful both of those options were, but let's try to elaborate on the consequences a bit.
If one would opt for Germany, he had to leave behind his ancestral home where his forefathers lived since hundreds of year. Instead, he would be used as a Germanic settler in the newly conquered east, placed in a house just recently conquered from innocent Poles or Ukrainians (another idea for a new settlement for South Tyroleans was Burgundy). But unfortunately, those places weren't already conquered by that time. So until they were, one would be placed in barracks and refuge camps in Germany, without a place to truly call home. Not to mention that everyone who opted for Germany got the German citizenship (and lost his Italian one) so he had to fight in the Wehrmacht. Quite a few friends of mine have grandfathers who still rot in Stalingrad...
The other option – to stay in South Tyrol – would mean that one would forfeit any hope for being able to stay German. One's language, culture, history and future would be replaced with something else. One could have stayed in his homeland, but at the cost of not being who one is.
Even though 85% of the people of South Tyrol opted for Germany, there was a large divide between them and the people who wanted to stay (or simply couldn't move away). To give a short overview of this divide, here are some impression from the leaflets, from the so-called “Dableiber” (who choose to stay in South Tyrol) and from the “Optanten” (who choose to emigrate to Germany):
Dableiber
“South Tyrol and Galicia! Is there a bigger difference? You will live in huts from which the Polish occupants where driven away. Between hostile people you will be placed, hated by them until they'll drive you away, as soon as the wheel of fortunes turns again.”
“The more Germans stay in their homeland, the bigger is the moral power that we have, the easier it will be to keep our rights!
Optanten:
“Whoever chooses Italy, publicly denounces his German heritage”
“Never will one be happy with this lie when he sees his children becoming Italians”
And to bring in a bit of art into this dry historic recapitulation, let's read two poems: one from a Dableiber, one from an Optant
Dableiber
Am Erker blühet wie immer
Die leuchtende „Brennende Lieb“
Die Treue zur Heimat war stärker,
Wie jauchzen wir, dass sie uns blieb.
O blühe und leuchte Du Blume -
Ein Zeichen der Treue Du bist!
Und künde, dass Glaube und Heimat
Das Höchste für uns ist.
---
Optant
So reißet vom sonnigen Erker
Die letzte brennende Lieb;
Die Treue zu Deutschland war stärker,
Das heiligste, was uns blieb.
Wir nehmen sie mit im Herzen,
Für andere dereinst Symbol;
Sie stille des Heimweh Schmerzen:
Leb wohl, du mein Südtirol!
---
Am Erker blühet wie immer
Die leuchtende „Brennende Lieb“
Die Treue zur Heimat war stärker,
Wie jauchzen wir, dass sie uns blieb.
O blühe und leuchte Du Blume -
Ein Zeichen der Treue Du bist!
Und künde, dass Glaube und Heimat
Das Höchste für uns ist.
---
Optant
So reißet vom sonnigen Erker
Die letzte brennende Lieb;
Die Treue zu Deutschland war stärker,
Das heiligste, was uns blieb.
Wir nehmen sie mit im Herzen,
Für andere dereinst Symbol;
Sie stille des Heimweh Schmerzen:
Leb wohl, du mein Südtirol!
---
(I tried to translate them to English, but they loose just too much by doing so...)
Additionally, there is this film available on YouTube who gives an amazing insight into that time:
Unfortunately, I guess it will be pretty hard to understand – most of the film is in heavily dialectal German with parts of it being in Italian. There seem to be some German/Italian subtitles though, so if anyone of you want to give it a shot – and I highly encourage that – do it, the film is a marvel!
But back to our history lecture:
The “Dableiber” were mostly compromised of clerics and religious people who hated the Nazis with a passion and were lead by the so-called “Andreas-Hofer-Bund” - which would later become the SVP (more on that later).
The “Optanten” on the other hand ranged from hardcore nationalists to regular people who wanted to stay what they are. They were however lead by the VKS – the “Völkischer Kampfring Südtirols” the South Tyrolean offshot of the NSDAP in all but the name.
Fun fact: as soon as the VKS found out about Hitler's plan for the Option agreement, they sent him a letter telling him that they would follow every order of their Führer, but not this one. I guess it's quite telling when Nazis rather deny obedience to Hitler than to leave their homes. Well, in the end the still conformed to his orders, but anyway...
But even though 85% of the German-speaking people in South Tyrol opted for Germany, only a small fraction of them actually did emigrate. One problem was... well there was a pretty big war going on, so the problem of the South Tyroleans became rather unimportant. On the other hand, the Italian government didn't expect such overwhelming odds against them and purposely tried to hinder or halt the emigration before the country would be depopulated. Many of those that left came back however after the war. I guess I don't need to tell that their lives weren't really that good: they were denounced as Nazis by those that stayed, their property had already been sold to Italians and they had lost both their Italian and German citizenship, becoming stateless persons. It took a long while before they were truly rehabilitated.
The option finally came to end in 1943, when the Wehrmacht occupied northern Italy. While officially, South Tyrol stayed part of the Republic of Saló (Hitler's puppet state in Northern Italy after the Italians overthrew Mussolini), both South Tyrol and a few neighboring provinces were reorganized into the “Operationszone Alpenvorland” and put under German civil governance, thereby becoming de-facto part of the Reich. Finally, Tyrol was reunited, though under the worst circumstances possible...
The Flames of War
Even though Hitler betrayed the people of South Tyrol, most of them still welcomed the Wehrmacht as they occupied the province. Now, finally everything could get better, right? At least that is what many still thought. In some areas, the German government did indeed roll back many fascistic atrocities: German was again allowed to be spoken in public and in schools, the mayor were again elected and German names were restored. However, Germany also made sure to bring its own brand of terror to our little land: contingents of the SS, both from Old Germany and formed by locals, made sure to work on the "Endlösung" and many South Tyrolean Jews were deported to concentration camps.
And with the Germans came bombing runs by the allies. Because being terrorized by both fascists and Nazis wasn't enough already...
Sad fact: my grandmother is still heavily traumatized by witnessing a bombing run when she was still a child. I've never seen more fear in the eyes of a human being than when she told me about it.
Fun fact: An American bomber pilot crashed near the village in which I grew up. He was rescued by the inhabitants and brought back to health. The rock on which he rested after a long walk is still named after him.
Two years after the German occupation, the war ended and fortunately, South Tyrol was spared from destruction. But as soon as the Nazis left, the fascists came back – under a new name this time...
Clearing up the rubble – After the war
After the war, during the Paris Peace treaties, South Tyrol become a source of headache for the big players again. In the beginning, the Allies wanted to give South Tyrol back to Austria, but at that time, it wasn't completely out of the question that Austria would fall under the sway of the USSR. And therefore it was decided that South Tyrol would stay with Italy to deny the Soviets control of the important mountain passes in such a case. It is quite sad but ironic that in the end, Italy was much closer to ending up in the communist camp than Austria ever was.
To solve the problem however, the government of Italy and Austria agreed that South Tyrol would stay with Italy, but get an autonomy. In addition, the so-called “Gruber-De-Gaspari-Agreement” ensured that the German-speakers in South Tyrol would be able to keep their culture and language. Austria was named as South Tyrols “protection force” - a function which Austria fulfills to this day.
However, Italy didn't really care about this agreement that much. South Tyrol did get it's autonomy, but it was fused together with the neighboring province of Trentino and in the newly created region, Italians outnumbered Germans by a large margin, therefore making the autonomy obsolete. In addition, Italy proceeded with guiding Italian immigrants to South Tyrol in an attempt to outnumber the German-speakers there. This was largely done by influencing the Italian economy, providing benefits for companies that settled in the industrial zone of Bozen.
And while Austria was busy with becoming an independent state again, the problems of the South Tyroleans were again forgotten...
The eagle cries for help – The bombing attacks of the 1960's
It was in this climate of helplessness, where German-speakers were marginalized both politically and economically, the despair of the the people of South Tyrol grew. Most political position, as well as subsidized housing for example, was given to Italians. German-speakers were second-class citizens in their own home.
A large demonstration organized by the Südtiroler Volkspartei (South Tyrolean People's Party – the name doesn't sound as communist in German...), the successor of the Andreas-Hofer-Bund that organized the Dableiber during the Option, demanded Italy to stop with its subversion of the Gruber-De-Gaspari agreement and wanted to secede the province of South Tyrol from the province of Trentino (“Los von Trient”/”Away from Trentino” was their motto). Not that Italy really cared about this – it practically just ignored this demonstration, which became an important point in the history of South Tyrol.
And it was at this time that a small group of people decided to something against this. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much they actually COULD do, so the resorted to violence. There was some talk about an armed insurrection or a guerrilla war going on (and some people even had contacts Algerian rebels that fought against the French at that time), but in the end, the newly formed “Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol”/”South Tyrolean Liberation Comitee” decided on bombing attacks against electrical pylons – the symbol of the forced industrialization and Italianization of South Tyrol.
The attacks of the BAS – who always tried to respect human lives – finally peaked in June 1961, in the so-called “Night of Fire”. During that night, bombing attacks were carried out against 37 electrical pylons simultaneously, paralyzing a large part of the industry in Northern Italy by taking out the power supply. Other, smaller groups carried out similar attacks, but both them as well as the BAS were soon taken out by the Italian Intelligence Service and police.
Fun fact: this first generation of attackers were held in high esteem by the local people, who even gave them a cute nickname – Bumser/”Boomers”.
The BAS was led by a man named Sepp Kerschbaumer – an unknown merchant from a small village in South Tyrol. He, along with 150 other members of the BAS, were imprisoned in Verona, while others fled the country and still can't return to their homes even today. Many of the imprisoned were tortured and two of them even died due to it. This fact soon radicalized the situation and soon, new attacks were carried out.
(Sepp Kerschbaumer, leader of the BAS)
This time around however, the attacks purposely targeted human lives, especially Italian ones. This second generation of attackers were largely supported by Nazis and members of the Intelligence service from Germany and Austria. Fortunately, this second generation – which were terrorists for all intents and purpose – soon lost the support of the local people. Fortunately, violence was no longer necessary, as the problem again became part of international diplomacy...
Diplomatic relations – the problem finally solved?
Because of those outbreaks of violence – and because the Staatsvertrag was finally a done deal – Austria again brought the problem South Tyrol to the international table. This time the Austrian Foreign Minister even went all the way to the UNO to finally find a solution for the problem. Because of this international attention, Italy was more or less forced to finally adhere to the Gruber-De-Gaspari agreement.
1961 a commission was instituted that should decide which actions Italy had to take to finally fulfill their part of the agreement. This commission negotiated until 1969, when it finally agreed on a plan of action (“Operationskalender”) that Italy had to go through in the next years. Both the SVP as the representative of the South Tyrolean people as well as the Austrian government agreed to this plan of action and in 1971 it was ratified by the Italian parliament. After a long and tragic history, it seemed that the problem had finally been solved. Well, Italy took a bit (~20 years) longer than it had initially promised, but in 1992 the governments of Italy and Austria (with the agreement of the South Tyrolean politicians) officially considered the problem solved.
Today, South Tyrol has a large and still expanding autonomy inside the Italian state, so all is well. Still, there are many problems, though they are largely emotional ones – for now. In the last years there were always attacks from Italian politicians against this autonomy and only recently an openly fascistic individual was elected into the city council of Bozen. We German-speakers of South Tyrol finally live in peace with our Italian neighbors, but in my humble opinion, friction is still there. But as this was a short recollection of the HISTORY of South Tyrol, I'm going to refrain from talking about the FUTURE...
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