Alpini monument (Bruneck)

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Alpini monument on Kapuzinerplatz in Bruneck

The Alpini Monument (popularly disrespectfully called Kapuzinerwastl ) is a controversial monument that was erected during the Fascist era in the historical urban area of ​​the South Tyrolean city ​​of Bruneck on the occasion of the victory in Italy's Abyssinian War. It was viewed by the local population as an Italian provocation and destroyed several times.

history

Inauguration of the second monument in 1951

In the colonial war of Fascist Italy against Abyssinia from 1935 to 1936, the Alpini division Val Pusteria also took part as a mountain troop unit. The division had been specially set up in December 1935 for the Abyssinian War and had its divisional headquarters in Bruneck, the name Val Pusteria being chosen for propaganda purposes. It should underline that the recently affiliated inhabitants of South Tyrol also fought for the "greatness of Italy". In reality, the proportion of German-speaking soldiers from South Tyrol in the Val Pusteria division was negligible.

After the war had been won, the then Podestà Brunecks Antonio Di Stefano initiated the erection of a monument for this association. The idea found the support of the alpine association ANA, to which the project was entrusted. The historic Kapuzinerplatz on the other side of the Rienza was chosen as the location . Several buildings, such as the old customs post and the Am schwarzen Rössl inn , were destroyed in order to erect new buildings in their place as symbols of Italy and as a counterpoint to historic Bruneck. The Fascist Party in South Tyrol also collected donations from the population for the construction , although public authorities criticized the locals' reluctance to donate.

On June 6, 1938, the monument to Paolo Boldrin (1887–1965) was inaugurated on the same spot, Kapuzinerplatz. It represented a six-meter-high Alpini soldier armed with a rifle and looking north towards the state border. In addition to the purpose of honoring the mountain hunter unit Val Pusteria and their fallen in the Abyssinian War, the monument also served as a symbol of the annexation of South Tyrol by Italy after the First World War and the Italianization policy of the fascist state towards the German and Ladin speaking locals.

In view of this, the first opportunity was seized to get rid of this symbol hated by the population. It presented itself with the occupation of Italy by German troops in 1943 after the armistice of Cassibile . German-speaking Bruneckers tore the monument from its base.

After the Second World War , the Alto Adige section of the ANA alpine association did everything in its power to restore this monument. A restoration in the previous form was dispensed with, however, and instead an attempt was made to set a slightly different accent by making the new figure of an alpine soldier four meters tall and depicting the soldier unarmed. The sculptor Rudolf Moroder from Val Gardena created such a figure in a striding pose, which was placed in the same place in 1951.

In the times of the South Tyroleans' struggle for self-determination, this less martial monument also remained a symbol of rule of the Italian state in South Tyrol, while it was no longer criticized as a monument to the war of conquest in Abyssinia. It was damaged several times and finally blown up on December 2nd, 1966 by BAS activist David Oberhollenzer, so that only one leg remained standing up to the knee. Oberhollenzer was arrested four months later and tortured during special interrogations. In 1969 he was sentenced to 17 years and nine months at the 4th South Tyrol Trial in Bologna .

After that, the monument was to be erected again, according to the wishes of the then Italian Interior Minister Paolo Emilio Taviani , after veteran associations in South Tyrol had campaigned for the reconstruction and described the destruction as an act of terror. This time it was dedicated to all Alpini who perished in the war or in civilian missions . After the parts of the blown up monument had been put back together again in a makeshift manner, it had to be replaced by a new monument in 1968 for structural reasons. In 1973 it was declared a “national interest” by a legal decree, which means that removal and repositioning elsewhere requires the approval of the relevant ministry in Rome. In 1979 the terror group Ein Tirol also blew up this third Alpini monument. After that, only the bust of the last monument was placed on the pedestal, whereby efforts were made to interpret it as a peaceful monument for the Alpini , who had participated in international peace missions and had taken on important tasks in civil defense . In the 1980s, the municipality of Bruneck tried to set up the monument elsewhere, while the Alpine Association ANA successfully took legal action against it.

Even if no further major actions have been taken around the monument since then, for many it remains a symbol of the oppression of the South Tyrolean population in the time of fascism and a relic from that time. In 2008 the Ethiopian ambassador to Italy also criticized the monument as it stood for the glorification of the war crimes committed against the Ethiopian people by Italian troops during the Abyssinian War . In 2011, the municipality of Bruneck gave the order to "defuse" the monument with appropriate multilingual information boards, which should point out the history and the meaning of the monument and were subsequently put up.

Most recently, in 2017, the bust was chopped off its hat, which led to lively discussions about whether or not to renovate the monument. The former governor Luis Durnwalder demanded that all fascist monuments in South Tyrol should finally be completely removed, as they would only lead to discord. In 2018, however, there were also dissenting voices referring to the cultural significance of the history of monuments and the associated controversies and advocating preservation of the current state.

Web links

Commons : Alpini Monument (Bruneck)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gerald Steinacher : Dall'Amba Alagi a Bolzano. Tracce d'Africa in Alto Adige. In: Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra (ed.): Annali No. 14–15–16, 2006–2008. Rovereto 2008, p. 86.
  2. ^ Renewal work in Brunico , report in the fascist Alpenzeitung of April 12, 1938, p. 6.
  3. ↑ a b Defusing the Alpini monument. In: Kulturverein-bruneck.net. April 9, 2011, accessed September 3, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Camera dei Deputati - Atti parliamentari: X Legislatura - Discussioni - Seduta del 14 November 1988. P. 21797 PDF
  5. ↑ Hans Karl Peterlini : South Tyrolean bomb years: From blood and tears to a happy ending? Edition Raetia, Bozen 2005 ISBN 88-7283-241-1 pp. 302-303
  6. ↑ Gerald Steinacher: Dall'Amba Alagi a Bolzano. Tracce d'Africa in Alto Adige. Pp. 86-87.
  7. ^ A b Camera dei Deputati - Atti parliamentari: X Legislatura - Discussioni - Seduta del 14 November 1988. P. 21798.
  8. ↑ L'Italia continua ad onorare l'aggressione e l'occupazione dell'Abissinia. In: resistenze.org. July 13, 2008, accessed September 3, 2019 (Italian).
  9. ↑ Fantasmi sulle montagne. In: internazionale.it. March 30, 2015, accessed September 3, 2019 (Italian).
  10. ↑ Hoi Waschtl! Memoria a Brunico e in South Tyrol. In: Heimat: yesterday - oggi - duman. May 17, 2018, accessed September 4, 2019 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 47 ′ 48.7 "  N , 11 ° 56 ′ 25.7"  E