Option in South Tyrol

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South Tyrolean resettlers in Innsbruck in 1940

The option describes an option for German-speaking South Tyroleans and Ladins , enforced by the two fascist dictatorships Italy and Germany between 1939 and 1943, to leave their South Tyrolean homeland and exercise the "option for Germany" ("Optanten") or to remain in South Tyrol ("Dableiber “), Where they were exposed to further linguistic and cultural oppression and Italianization .

Although around 85% opted for the Germany option, only 75,000 South Tyroleans actually emigrated to the German Empire until the northern Italian Alpine foothills were incorporated into the German sphere of influence in September 1943 . After the end of the war, the Paris Agreement of 1946 gave the German-speaking minority equality of their language, extensive cultural freedoms and a certain political autonomy . As a result, 20,000 of the former optants returned to South Tyrol as "resettlers".

The South Tyrolean option of 1939/43 is also known as the “Great Option” in order to distinguish it from the first option in 1920/21.

prehistory

South Tyrol was annexed to Italy in the Treaty of Saint-Germain after the First World War . With this, Italy achieved the enlargement of the national territory aimed for by the movement of irredentism up to the supposedly natural border of the Italian cultural area at the Brenner Pass . The fascists who came to power in Italy in 1922 pursued an Italianization of the area and its largely German-speaking population: the German language disappeared from the public, German family names were forcibly Italianized, and the traditional place names had to give way to Ettore Tolomei's creations . From an Italian point of view, the result of this process was not satisfactory after 20 years. After the annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938, South Tyrol bordered directly on the German Reich. Especially after the annexation of the Sudetenland , many South Tyroleans hoped to be able to reunite with the rest of Tyrol within the German Empire.

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini , who signed the Steel Pact on May 22, 1939 , had other interests. Hitler had great personal esteem for Mussolini, whose fascists had been an ideological model for the National Socialists in many ways. He also believed that he could not do without Mussolini as an ally and would therefore have to make concessions. For Mussolini, on the other hand, relinquishing South Tyrol to Hitler was out of the question. For the Italian fascists, the supposedly “natural” Brenner border was sacrosanct and no bargaining chip. In order to get the South Tyrolean issue out of the way once and for all, the two dictators agreed that the South Tyroleans would have to make an individual decision. Either, they opted to continue living in South Tyrol. Then they should have to completely assimilate into Italian culture by giving up their culture (giving up language, customs, etc.). Or else, they wanted to keep their German-influenced culture and language. Then they would have to emigrate to the German Reich. Those willing to emigrate should be compensated for their property.

On June 23, 1939, German and Italian negotiating partners met in Berlin to discuss the details of the “Berlin Agreement”. Participants in this conference on the German side included Heinrich Himmler , Ernst von Weizsäcker , Reinhard Heydrich , Karl Wolff , Ulrich Greifelt and Otto Bene . On the Italian side, among others, the Italian Ambassador Bernardo Attolico , the Prefect of Bozen Mastromattei and Blasco Lanza D'Ajeta .

The Hitler-Mussolini Agreement

On October 21, 1939, Hitler and Mussolini signed an agreement to relocate the German population in South Tyrol and the Cimbri in the provinces of Trient ( Lusern , Fersental ), Vicenza ( seven municipalities ), Belluno ( Sappada ), Verona ( thirteen municipalities ) and Udine ( Sauris , Timau , Kanaltal - where the Slovenes were also allowed as an option). On November 17, 1939, there was another additional agreement. At the express request of the Italians, the Ladins were also included in the contract area ( Val Gardena , Gadertal , Cortina d'Ampezzo , Buchenstein and Colle Santa Lucia , but not the Fassa Valley ). The option for Germany was suggested to the approximately 250,000 “ ethnic German ” South Tyroleans (80% of the resident population) and the Cimbri. If you wanted to stay in Italy, you had to accept the Italianization with the abandonment of culture and mother tongue , which had already begun in the early 1920s. The hope was to many of South Tyrol on reunification with the members of the Republic of Austria and the eastern part of North Tyrol buried that in 1938 after the connection of Austria to the German Reich had intensified.

Originally, the deadline for both the option and the resettlement was December 31, 1942. In mid-October 1939, the date for the decision was brought forward to December 31, 1939.

The plans for resettlement were announced by Otto Bene on June 29, 1939 , on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, at a meeting of the NSDAP's foreign organization in Merano . In mid-July 1939, they became publicly known through the press and initially caused a wave of indignation. The illegal groups, the clerical-Catholic German Association (DV) and the National Socialist-oriented Völkische Kampfring Südtirols (VKS) met at the Bozen Marieninternat with Canon Michael Gamper and decided not to leave home under any circumstances. But the VKS swung around after a meeting of its spokesman with Heinrich Himmler . As a result, the VKS forced a propaganda war of the “optants” against the “Dableiber”, which occasionally degenerated into terror and continued for several years.

In January 1940 the “ Official German Immigration and Return Office ” under the direction of SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Luig founded the “ Working Group of Optanten für Deutschland (AdO)”. The AdO gradually took over the structures of the VKS and was thus present throughout South Tyrol. It now formed the only legal organization of the Optanten and the South Tyroleans as a whole. As a result, the resettlers in particular came under the influence of National Socialist politics and their organizations. Long after the end of World War II, the Optanten were notorious as "Nazis".

The difficult choice between forced emigration and the associated hope for free cultural development and secure economic livelihood stood in contrast to the loss of ancestral home and important civil rights and was the subject of heated discussions in the communities and across many families. The German authorities promised at least a closed settlement area. Due to the events of the war, however, the geographical location was not yet clear. Once the Optanten was promised by officials of the AdO Galicia , then farms in Poland. Later, the settlement of the Optanten in an SS model district in Burgundy was considered , which only existed on the drawing board, then the Crimean peninsula was brought up again. Of course, this caused serious uncertainty among those willing to settle and was grist to the argumentation mills of the Dableiber. The resettlement was accelerated by a rumor launched by the Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels that the Dbleiber would be settled in Sicily , but in any case south of the Po ; Occasionally there was also talk of a settlement in the newly conquered Italian colonies in Abyssinia . Only when tens of thousands had emigrated did Mussolini assure the Dableibern in March 1940 that they would be able to stay in South Tyrol on the basis of economic considerations.

The fascist prefect Giuseppe Mastromattei, who was responsible for South Tyrol, initially supported the emigration of non-Italian South Tyroleans, as he hoped that the "troublemakers" would move out, which should help calm the region. Only after he had become aware that over two thirds of the population had opted for the German Reich did he attempt to counteract this. In October 1939 his guarantee was published that the non-Italian South Tyroleans could stay in their homeland.

Resistance and founding of the Andreas Hofer Association

Leaflet against resettlement (1939)

While 85 to 90 percent of the South Tyrolean population opted for the German Empire, the ratio of the local clergy and people close to them was exactly the opposite: in the diocese of Brixen , 20 percent, in the German-speaking area of ​​the diocese of Trento, 10 percent of the clergy opted for emigration. Above all, many priests and politically committed Christian socialists among the South Tyrolean "Dableibern" tried to counter the German option propaganda and the Italian coercive measures organized resistance.

Its most prominent protagonist was Canon Michael Gamper, who worked for the only German-language newspaper in South Tyrol in the interwar period, the Tyrolean (from 1923 Der Landsmann , from 1925 Dolomites ). Despite the eloquent articles in his media, Gamper could not even encourage a third of South Tyroleans to stay.

The South Tyrolean Andreas-Hofer-Bund (AHB) was founded in 1939 to protect the “Dableiber” from attacks by the “optants” . It was the most important German- South Tyrolean resistance group against National Socialism , from which the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) emerged in 1945 .

In addition to Gamper, four other leading members were founding members of the AHB: the later South Tyrolean Senator in Rome Friedl Volgger , the MP Paul von Sternbach , the Bozen businessman Erich Amonn , the Bozen politician Alois Puff and Josef Mayr-Nusser . Friedl Volgger took over the function of chairman and held it until 1943, when he was arrested by the National Socialists and deported to the Dachau concentration camp . Several thousand Tyrolean resistance suffered this fate.

The minutes of the German-Italian negotiations in Berlin of June 1939 also mentions a strong rejection of resettlement among the Cimbri in the provinces of Trient ( Lusern , Fersental ) and Belluno ( Sappada ), but "all worms involved in the realization of the task are to be destroyed gnawed ”. The main problem arises from around 10,000 Austrians who “became Reich Germans through the Anschluss , but now form the General Staff of the Resistance, so to speak”; the beginning must be made here. The number of Italian nationals of German origin and German language is not easy to determine. There were around 200,000, of which "around 100,000 were of Italian or almost Italian descent" (a claim that was not true).

Developments after the 1939 option

Overall, something that neither the Italian fascists nor the National Socialists had expected, around 85% of the South Tyrolean population decided in favor of resettlement in the Reich and thus for German citizenship : 166,488 South Tyroleans and 16,572 voters in the provinces of Belluno , Trento , Vicenza and Udine . Plus the women and under-age children, for whose husbands or fathers were voting, concerned the 213,000 South Tyrol, one of which in the years 1939 to 1943 but only 75,000, mainly from landless families dependent employee has bigger places, but few farmers actually emigrated (total balance 47,000).

South Tyrolean settlement in Bludenz ; from the cable car to the Muttersberg

A large part of the emigrants were settled in specially built South Tyrolean settlements in what is now Austria, especially in the federal states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg . Men of military age were drafted into the Wehrmacht .

Although actually intended to improve relations, the resettlement operation soon turned out to be a “smoldering incendiary device” within the “Berlin-Rome axis” , a point of contention that permanently strained the relationship between the allies. Because while the resettlement was still being pushed forward by the Germans in the first few months, the number of resettlers decreased rapidly from the summer of 1940, which gave the Italians the impression that the agreement was not being taken seriously in Berlin. And it is not unlikely that the question actually lost importance for the Germans in the war, especially since Rome no longer had to be courted; the fate of the partners had inevitably been linked since Italy entered the war. On the German side, there were also practical reasons why the resettlement was stalled: the dispossessed, who could be easily integrated as workers or employees, could easily be resettled. This was more difficult with the property-bound “ethnic Germans” for whom the German government did not have an attractive settlement area. In Rome, however, it was only noticed that on the one hand Berlin was not keeping the deadlines, on the other hand the Germany optants did not leave the country and thus the South Tyrol question remained unresolved. Soon rumors were circulating in the region that the area would be reclaimed by the National Socialists after the war.

After Mussolini's fall, the German occupation of northern Italy and the de facto annexation of South Tyrol as an operational zone for the Alpine Foreland took place in September 1943 , which ended emigration. The area was thus almost completely removed from the influence of the Italian authorities.

During the German occupation, the "Dableiber" were subjected to reprisals, and there were also numerous arrests. Friedl Volgger was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp . Michael Gamper escaped arrest by escaping.

After 1945, the majority of the Optanten returned to their homeland as so-called “resettlers”. The South Tyrolean People's Party demanded autonomy or reunification with the Austrian North and East Tyrol , for which 156,600 South Tyroleans (almost 100% of the voters) signed. However , this variant did not prevail at the Paris Peace Conference , instead the Gruber-De-Gasperi Agreement was concluded in 1946 , in which Article 3 stipulates

"
To revise in a spirit of fairness and generosity the question of citizenship options arising from the Hitler-Mussolini Agreement of 1939."

In accordance with the peace treaty, the so-called optant decree was passed on February 2, 1948, which gave all optants and their children the right to return options. The children of the re-optees had to prove by a birth certificate that they were entitled to Italian citizenship .

Before that, between 2000 and 12,000 emigrated Optanten had illegally returned to South Tyrol.

Many families were destroyed by the option and the split in South Tyrolean society continued for many years.

Leaflets of the Dediber and the Optanten

In summer 1939, the contents leaked out of the German-Italian negotiations on 23 June 1939, with the implementation of Hitler SS boss Heinrich Himmler had ordered in April. From August 1939, the question of “staying or resettling” became the topic of many leaflets. Two relatively moderate ones were:

That leaflet

“Now it is up to the last to make the decision. It is about emigrating or staying in the country, about home or foreigners. The choice cannot be difficult. [...] So go there and testify to the homeland by submitting the white ballot. Attempts have been made to falsify this voice by maliciously giving it the meaning that it is 'in tune'. In reality, nothing else is written on the white ballot other than that you want to retain your Italian citizenship. And this is essential for you if you want to continue to live and work in this country, just as a foreign citizenship is necessary for millions of other ethnic Germans who live outside the Reich. Whoever signs the white slip of paper gives his voice to home. "

Optanten leaflet

“South Tyroleans, confess yourselves! A difficult but proud hour calls you to confess your blood and people , to decide whether you want to finally renounce your German nationality for yourself and your descendants or whether you want to confess yourselves proudly and freely as German [...] You do not choose between Home and Galicia , you choose between a South Tyrol that has become alien to us and between the country that the Führer in the German imperial body will assign to us [...] The decision is difficult, but not doubtful for a moment, because we know what our German calls Owe blood to the German people and our Führer. [...] The plaice we sacrifice the great goals, the great, holy German Reich. "

Sharp words from other leaflets

The tone of the later leaflets became sharper, which explains the need to protect the “bad guys” who are in the minority through the Andreas Hofer Bund established in November .

Statements like the one about Poland show that the Dedeiber were apparently better informed than their opponents, since these events actually occurred later. They are an expression of the deep rift that ran through South Tyrol at that time and in some cases still has an effect today.

From leaflets of the "Dableiber" movement:

  • “South Tyrol and Galicia! Is there a more blatant contrast? Living ye in huts that make up the Polish inhabitants were expelled [...] inserted between hostile nations [...] shall ye against Poland be used [...] hated by these until you you out of the land selling is because the wheel of fortune can turn again "
  • "The motto is not 'to emigrate closed', but 'stay closed at home!'"
  • "The more Germans stay in their homeland, the greater the moral power we have, the easier it will be for us to assert our previous rights [...]"
  • “I choose the lesser of two evils. We stay at home! "

From leaflets of the "Optanten":

  • "Those who vote for Italy ... publicly deny their German origins [...]"
  • "He will never be happy with this lie when he sees how his children blur [...]"
  • "[...] so-called 'stayers' who voluntarily and blindly give their consent to the corruption of our nationality "
  • "Elements alien to the people [...] and incited clergy form the clean society who today preach love of their homeland for money [...] They say: 'Don't go, there is war outside!' [...] "
  • "Yes, did we South Tyroleans become cowards by 1939 , who fear war and sacrifice for our German fatherland ?"
  • "The kingdom is against the sanctimonious, politicizing priesthood, which ... hates Germany and that Judaism , which crucified Christ our Lord, defends wherever it can."
  • "[...] the Ten Commandments of God are practically basic state laws in the German Empire! ... [The Reich] will know how to appreciate our sacrifice ... and keep his word! "

Poems by Dbleiber and Optanten

The burning love (geranium), which to this day (21st century) adorns many courtyards and houses in South Tyrol in summer, was also used for propaganda purposes on both sides. This symbol of the farmers should be used to advertise the respective page in poetry.

Version of the Dableiber Hans Egarter Version of the Optanten Karl Felderer

At the bay window the
glowing “burning love” blossoms as always.
Loyalty to
our homeland was stronger, How we rejoice that it stayed with us.

O bloom and shine you flower -
a sign of loyalty you are!
And proclaim that faith and home are
the highest for us.

So tear from the sunny bay window
The last burning love;
Loyalty to Germany was stronger,
the most sacred thing we had.

We take them with us in our hearts,
for others a symbol one day;
You calm the homesickness pains:
Farewell, my South Tyrol!

literature

  • Helmut Alexander, Adolf Leidlmair , Stefan Lechner: Homeless: the resettlement of the South Tyroleans. Deuticke, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-216-07832-9 .
  • Carl von Braitenberg : Under the black-brown dictatorship. Memories of a family man . Arunda, Schlanders 1976
  • Klaus Eisterer, Rolf Steininger (ed.): The option. South Tyrol between fascism and national socialism (=  Innsbruck research on contemporary history . Volume 5 ). Haymon, Innsbruck 1989, ISBN 3-85218-059-7 .
  • 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 , chap. Myth Option - Mito Opzioni , p. 208-227 .
  • Stefan Lechner: The first option: the granting of Italian citizenship to the South Tyroleans as a result of the annexation in 1920 . In: Hannes Obermair, Stephanie Risse, Carlo Romeo (eds.): Regional civil society in motion. Festschrift for Hans Heiss (=  Cittadini innanzi tutto ). 1st edition. Folio Verlag, Vienna / Bozen 2012, ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 , p. 219-236 .
  • Margareth Lun: Nazi rule in South Tyrol: the Alpine Foreland operational zone 1943–1945 . In: Innsbruck research on contemporary history . tape 22 . Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2004, ISBN 3-7065-1830-9 .
  • The option, in 1939, 86% of South Tyroleans voted to give up their homeland. Why? A lesson in contemporary history. In: Reinhold Messner (Ed.): Series Piper . updated new edition, 2nd edition. tape 2133 . Piper, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12133-0 .
  • Günther Pallaver , Leopold Steurer (Ed.): Germans! Hitler is selling you! The legacy of option and world war in South Tyrol . Raetia, Bozen 2011, ISBN 978-88-7283-386-5 .
  • Günther Pallaver, Leopold Steurer, Martha Verdorfer (eds.): One option and back: The consequences of emigration and return for South Tyrol's post-war development . Raetia, Bozen 2019, ISBN 978-88-7283-706-1 .
  • Ludwig Walter Regele: Meran and the Third Reich . StudienVerlag, Innsbruck 2007, ISBN 978-3-7065-4425-2 .
  • Joachim Scholtyseck: On the way to “brutal friendships”. German policy on Austria and Italy in the interwar period . In: Maddalena Guiotto, Wolfgang Wohnout: Italy and Austria in Central Europe in the interwar period / Italia e Austria nella Mitteleuropa tra le due guerre mondiali . Böhlau, Vienna 2018, pp. 201–216, ISBN 978-3-205-20269-1 .
  • Literature and leaflets : June 23, 1939 - Go or stay. The option in South Tyrol. In: Rolf Steininger: From the monarchy to the Second World War . In: Austria in the 20th century, 2 volumes . tape 1 . Böhlau, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 1997, ISBN 3-205-98416-1 .
  • Karl Stuhlpfarrer : Resettlement South Tyrol: 1939–1940 . 2 volumes. Löcker, Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-85409-073-0 .
  • Tyrolean History Association , Section Bozen (ed.): Option, Heimat, Opzioni: a history of South Tyrol - about going and staying . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1989, ISBN 3-215-07477-X .
  • Anton Wiechmann: The "Big Option": From South Tyrol to southern Emsland - In the care of the Thuin Franciscan Sisters, disabled people escape "euthanasia" under National Socialism . In: Emsländische Geschichte 25, Haselünne 2018, pp. 359–389.

Movies

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Stefan Lechner: Die Erste Option (op.cit.), P. 219 ff.
  2. ↑ Günther Pallaver, Leopold Steurer (Ed.): Deutsche! Hitler is selling you! The legacy of option and world war in South Tyrol. Raetia, Bozen 2011, p. 40.
  3. ^ A b June 23, 1939: The resettlement agreement. Discussion of the South Tyrol issue in Berlin
  4. ↑ Günther Pallaver, Leopold Steurer (Ed.): Deutsche! Hitler is selling you! The legacy of option and world war in South Tyrol. Raetia, Bozen 2011, p. 11.
  5. ^ Günther Beitzke : South Tyrolean Optanten cases , in: Karl Strupp / Hans-Jürgen Schlochauer (Ed.): Dictionary of international law . Vol. III, 2nd edition, Berlin 1962, p. 415.
  6. ↑ Pallaver-Steurer: op. Cit. , P. 73.
  7. ↑ Rules p. 42 f
  8. ↑ Alpenzeitung of July 16, 1939, p. 1
  9. ↑ Dolomites of July 17, 1939, p. 1
  10. ↑ Federico Scarano: La lunga strada di Mussolini verso le opzioni dei sudtirolesi nel 1939 . In: Maddalena Guiotto, Wolfgang Wohnout (ed.): Italy and Austria in Central Europe in the interwar period / Italia e Austria nella Mitteleuropa tra le due guerre mondiali . Böhlau, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-205-20269-1 , p. 261 .
  11. ↑ Dolomites of March 21, 1940
  12. ↑ Dolomites of October 9, 1939 page 1 ,
  13. ↑ Josef Gelmi: The Brixen Bishops in the History of Tyrol. Bozen 1984, p. 278.
  14. ↑ Dietrich Schindler , Südtirol , in: Karl Strupp / Hans-Jürgen Schlochauer (Ed.): Dictionary des Völkerrechts , Vol. III, Berlin 1962, p. 413.
  15. ↑ South Tyrol until 1945 , accessed on June 3, 2014.
  16. ↑ a b The population in South Tyrol - An analysis at community level (PDF), accessed June 3, 2014.
  17. ↑ Malte König: Cooperation as a power struggle. The fascist axis alliance Berlin-Rome in the war 1940/41 , Cologne 2007, p. 227.
  18. ↑ König: Cooperation as a Power Struggle , pp. 231–238.
  19. ↑ See Michael Wedekind: National Socialist Occupation and Annexation Policy in Northern Italy 1943 to 1945. The operational zones “Alpine Foreland” and “Adriatic Coastal Land” , Munich 2003; Gerald Steinacher (Ed.): South Tyrol in the Third Reich. Nazi rule in northern Italy, 1943–1945 . Innsbruck 2003.
  20. ↑ Margareth Lun: Nazi rule in South Tyrol , op.cit., P. 352 ff.
  21. ^ Gruber-De-Gasperi-Agreement # Text of the agreement
  22. ↑ Memories of Walburg Senoner geb. Prieth (* 1944). In: KVW department for work with the elderly (ed.): Irgendwann und elsewhere. "I tell and write my story (s)". Bolzano 2004.
  23. ^ Stefan Lechner: Everything is back. Resettlement option and resettlement after 1945. In: Gottfried Solderer (Hrsg.): The 20th century in South Tyrol. Volume 3: 1940-1959. Pp. 77-84 (especially 80f and 83f).

Web links

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