Casa Littoria (Bolzano)

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View of the Casa Littoria at the Court Square before the relief was historicized
After the historicization in 2017 with a quote from Hannah Arendt mounted in front of the relief and information blocks
The neon lettering attached to the relief at night

The Casa Littoria (also Casa del Fascio or House of the Fascist Party ) is a former party building of the National Fascist Party on the Court Square in Bolzano . It was built between 1939 and 1942 in the rationalist style according to the designs of the architects Guido Pelizzari , Francesco Rossi and Luis Plattner .

At the front of the house, above the outside staircase, there is a monumental relief by the Bolzano sculptor Hans Piffrader . It glorifies the twenty years of fascist rule since the March on Rome . The last panels of the relief were not installed until 1957, over a decade after the fall of fascism, following a visit to a trade fair by President Giovanni Gronchi . In 2017, the building and work of art - similar to the Bolzano victory monument - was transformed into a memorial in an act of historicization .

The building is owned by the Italian state and now serves as the administrative headquarters of the Revenue Agency (Tax Office) and other government departments. Structurally, the building corresponds to the Palace of Justice, diametrically opposite, from the same era.

relief

description

The travertine stone relief, popularly known as the “Mussolini frieze”, is the largest relief in Europe at 36 meters wide and 5.5 meters high. It consists of 57 composite panels of different widths, which are arranged in two rows one above the other and weigh a total of 95 tons. In the center it shows the Italian dictator, "Duce" Benito Mussolini , as a rider with a Roman greeting and the motto of the Italian fascists "credere, obbedire, combattere" ("believe, obey, fight"). In addition, the Italian victory in World War I , the founding of the various fascist fighting alliances, the March on Rome , the Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War are presented , each according to the fascist interpretation. "VV Mussolini" ("Viva / es lebe Mussolini") is clearly engraved on the upper left corner of the relief. On the right edge the relief shows a stylized “DUX” (“guide”). Below is the signature of the sculptor, who here calls himself "Giovanni" instead of "Hans": Giov. Piffrader, d'anni 52 (“Giovanni Piffrader, 52 years old”). Between the front legs of the horse is the date "EF XX", which means the twentieth year of the "Era Fascista" ("Fascist Era"). The calendar began with the March on Rome in October 1922, the year Mussolini came to power (year 1). The relief thus anticipated the twentieth anniversary of the 1942 regime. The relief was not yet complete when Mussolini was overthrown on July 25, 1943 . Three central picture panels were still stored in the open area of ​​the balcony before they were subsequently added in 1957 - in the middle of the South Tyrolean conflict of the post-war period and against the original recommendation of the Trento Monument Office.

The following former fascist organizations, all of which were banned in Italy after 1945, are carved in large letters with their abbreviations in the middle part:

  • GUF: Gruppi Universitari Fascisti, fascist student organization. Without a membership in the GUF, studying in fascist Italy was not possible.
  • PNF: Partito Nazionale Fascista, the Italian fascist party, whose founder and leader was the "Duce" Benito Mussolini.
  • GIL: Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, the fascist youth organization at the time, comparable to the Hitler Youth in the National Socialist German Reich , which raised offspring loyal to the regime.
  • OND: Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro, fascist organization for leisure activities and political influencing of the workforce.
  • MVSN: Milizia Volontaria Sicurezza Nazionale, the Camicie nere (militia of the black shirts) of the fascists. Murders, assassinations and crimes against humanity can be attributed to them. As the bodyguard of fascism, the militia also persecuted partisans and Jews .
and display information about the image
Panoramic image of the relief (before the 2017 lettering was applied)

Political reception

Like the nearby Victory Monument , Piffrader’s relief has been a conflict issue in South Tyrolean society since the Second World War . The work that glorified Mussolini and fascism was perceived by numerous German-speaking South Tyroleans as a provocation that culminated in the demand for the relief to be “razed”. Conversely, its protection from unauthorized access and absolute structural integrity were bitterly defended by the Italian-speaking side as a central element of Italian sovereignty in South Tyrol.

The information boards at the court square
Excerpt from the four-language detailed explanation

The former South Tyrolean governor Luis Durnwalder spoke out on February 9, 2009 in favor of “removing” the Mussolini frieze and suggested “ making it into a museum ”. On January 26, 2011, the Italian minister of culture, Sandro Bondi, promised to have the relief removed from the building. This happened in the course of the negotiations on the voting behavior of SVP parliamentarians on the occasion of a no-confidence vote against Bondi. Thereupon historians of all language groups called in an appeal to refrain from any concealment or even razing of the relief and to convert it into a public memorial and information point.

In 2011, the South Tyrolean provincial government launched an ideas competition on how the relief could best be historicized . In 2014, a commission made up of Andrea Di Michele, Hannes Obermair , Christine Roilo , Ugo Soragni and Silvia Spada examined the 486 submitted proposals and recommended the modified implementation of a project designed by the Val Gardena artists Arnold Holzknecht and Michele Bernardi. This stipulated that the work of art should be left in place, but neon letters with the quote attributed to Hannah Arendt No one has the right to obey before installing the relief (in Italian Nessuno ha il diritto di obbedire , in Ladin Deguni ne à l dërt de ulghé ). This is a shortened quoted phrase that Arendt in a radio interview with Joachim Fest expressed (in the series "The theme of" the Südwestfunks on November 9, 1964 broadcast) and the original No person has the right to obey Kant was . It was taken from a context in which Arendt resolutely rejected Adolf Eichmann 's assertion made during the Jerusalem Trial that his actions in organizing the Holocaust were based on Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy. According to the statements of the historian Hannes Obermair, the sentence - in stark contrast to the fascist motto "credere, obbedire, combattere" ("believe, obey, fight") - should be understood as a warning against blind obedience ; the obvious statement of the fascist system artist Piffrader would be overlaid by Arendt's dictum and the perception of the monument would be permanently changed. In 2017 the corresponding construction work was carried out, which also provided for the installation of information boards. On November 5th of the same year the installation was ceremoniously unveiled in the presence of Governor Arno Kompatscher and Mayor Renzo Caramaschi .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sabrina Michielli, Hannes Obermair (Red.): BZ '18 –'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships. Accompanying volume for the documentation exhibition in the Bolzano Victory Monument . Folio Verlag, Vienna-Bozen 2016, ISBN 978-3-85256-713-6 , p. 66-67 .
  2. ^ Article in the daily newspaper Dolomiten on February 5, 2011
  3. ↑ Carl Kraus , Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol, Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 202–203 (with documentation) .
  4. ↑ Press release of the South Tyrolean provincial government of February 9, 2009
  5. ↑ Article on the news portal Stol.it ( memento from January 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), viewed on January 28, 2011
  6. ↑ "Let's solve the problem of the fascist monuments together!" Appeal of February 5, 2011. Accessed November 7, 2011.
  7. ↑ Duce Relief: Already 100 suggestions. Südtirol Online, March 1, 2011, archived from the original on March 5, 2011 ; Retrieved March 5, 2011 .
  8. ^ Report of the Historians' Commission of June 9, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Sound document audible on the CD Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers : Eichmann - Von der Banalität des Böse . Quartino, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-86750-072-2 ; online: Hannah Arendt in conversation with Joachim Fest (1964) (from 0:16:11) on YouTube ; in the transition No one has the right to obey Kant in the transcript of the conversation on hannaharendt.net; reprinted in Hannah Arendt, Joachim Fest: Eichmann was outrageously stupid. Conversations and letters. Eds. Ursula Ludz & Thomas Wild. Piper, Munich 2011. ISBN 3-492-05442-0 , p. 44. Often the sentence appears in the modified form Nobody has the right to obey .
  10. ↑ The enigmatic sentence. Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung , February 5, 2017, accessed on November 2, 2017 (conversation between Heinrich Schwazer and the philosopher Andreas Oberprantacher).
  11. ↑ Gerald Krieghofer: “Nobody has the right to obey.” Hannah Arendt (allegedly). Quotation puzzles - blog for citation puzzles, false quotations, apocryphal and distorted quotes, July 1, 2017, accessed November 2, 2017 .
  12. ^ Karl Hinterwaldner: From Hans to Hannah . In: ff - Südtiroler Wochenmagazin , No. 44, November 2, 2017, pp. 34–35.
  13. ↑ Susanne Pitro: Now we can start. salto.bz , January 20, 2017, accessed November 2, 2017 .
  14. ^ Hannah Arendt instead of Mussolini: Illuminated lettering. Südtirol Online , November 5, 2017, accessed on November 5, 2017 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 29 ′ 50.3 "  N , 11 ° 20 ′ 21.9"  E