Bolzano Blood Sunday
The events of April 24, 1921 in Bolzano are called Bolzano Blood Sunday . It was about the first peak of violence in Italian fascism in the predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol, which fell to Italy after the First World War .
On April 24, 1921, a referendum took place in the Austrian Tyrol on the connection to the German Reich . The Squadristi , at that time a group of thugs operating across Italy, regarded the opening of the Bolzano spring fair, which happened on the same day, as a provocation related to the plebiscite and decided to disrupt the traditional costume parade through Bolzano. Despite warnings, the competent Italian authorities did not take any security measures.
In the morning of the day, about 290 black shirts from the rest of Italy arrived at Bolzano train station , led by Francesco Giunta and Achille Starace , who were joined by about 120 local fascists. During the costume parade, the Squadristi attacked participants and spectators with clubs, pistols and hand grenades. Around fifty South Tyroleans were injured, some seriously. The teacher Franz Innerhofer from Marling died while trying to protect a boy by gunshots in the entrance to the Stillendorf residence in Bolzano .
The now intervening military limited themselves to escorting the aggressors to the train station, where they could leave unmolested. Following the request of the Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti to arrest the perpetrators immediately and bring them to justice, two Bolzano fascists were arrested. After Benito Mussolini had threatened to use 2000 black shirts in Bozen to force the liberation of his comrades-in-arms on May 1st , the two were released again.
A general strike was called the following day , which the unions and all parties supported. There was a large protest rally on the Viehmarktplatz (today's Verdiplatz). On April 26th, the body of Innerhofer was transferred from Bozen to Marling in a public transport led by numerous politicians and civil commissioner general Luigi Credaro .
Today a memorial plaque in the Stillendorf residence commemorates the events. In November 2019, the two presidents of Italy and Austria, Sergio Mattarella and Alexander Van der Bellen , laid a bouquet of white flowers in front of her as a token of their mutual commemoration. On April 25, 2011, the day Italy was liberated from fascism and National Socialism , a square in the old town of Bozen (near the main building of the Free University of Bozen ) was named after Franz Innerhofer.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stefan Lechner: The "Bozen Blood Sunday": Events, Backgrounds, Consequences . In: Hannes Obermair , Sabrina Michielli (Ed.): Cultures of Remembrance of the 20th Century in Comparison - Culture della memoria del Novecento a confronto (Booklets on the history of Bozen / Quaderni di storia cittadina 7). Bozen: Stadtgemeinde Bozen 2014. ISBN 978-88-907060-9-7 , pp. 37–46, reference p. 41.
- ↑ Press release of the City of Bolzano from April 24, 2008 , accessed on April 26, 2011.
- ↑ side by side , article on Salto.bz from November 23, 2019 (with photo of the memorial plaque).
- ↑ Article on stol.it from April 25, 2011 ( Memento from April 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 26, 2011.
literature
- Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . StudienVerlag, Innsbruck - Vienna - Munich - Bozen 2003, ISBN 3-7065-1348-X .
- Stefan Lechner: The conquest of those of foreign origin. Provincial fascism in South Tyrol 1921–1926 . Wagner, Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7030-0398-7 .
- "Der Tiroler" from April 26, 1921
- Gerhard Hölzle: 100 years ago: Bozen's Bloody Sunday. His reception, viewed from outside. In: Der Schlern, vol. 95 (2021), issue 4, pp. 62–69.
