History of South Tyrol

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historical Tyrol: North and East Tyrol (Austria) South Tyrol Welschtirol (Italy)
  

The history of South Tyrol, separated from the rest of Tyrol , begins in November 1918 with the occupation of the country by Italian troops. Due to the armistice agreement concluded by Austria-Hungary with Italy on November 3, 1918, and the Treaty of Saint-Germain between the victorious powers of the First World War and the newly created Republic of Austria , South Tyrol fell to the Kingdom of Italy in 1919 and became its northernmost province .

In the case of texts about South Tyrol, the historical context must be taken into account: Until 1918 and beyond, South Tyrol often referred to all parts of Tyrol south of the Brenner Pass , especially today's Trentino .

prehistory

In the Middle Ages , since around the 8th century, Tyrol , which was settled by Bavarians , Lombards and Rhaeto-Romans , belonged to the Duchy of Bavaria as far as the Po Valley . By the Counts of Tyrol , starting from the Bozen-Merano area, it fell to the House of Habsburg on the basis of an inheritance contract in 1363 from the Meinhardins , and became Habsburg hereditary land . The area from the Lake Constance region to Lake Garda and the Tauern was integrated as the Fürstete Grafschaft Tirol in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation , which existed until 1806 , and from 14/15. Century as Upper Austria , then as Tyrol with the Vorlanden or Tyrol with Vorarlberg territory and increasingly part of the Habsburg Monarchy , which extended from the Roman-German Empire to the east and southeast. From 1804 to 1867 Tyrol was part of the Austrian Empire , with an interruption in the Napoleonic coalition wars , from 1805 to 1814, when the country belonged to the new Kingdom of Bavaria , and from 1810 to a smaller extent also to the Napoleonic satellite states, Kingdom of Italy and the Illyrian provinces . 1867–1918, as crown land in the kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council ( Cisleithanien ), it was part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy .

At the beginning of the First World War , the Kingdom of Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance and thus an ally of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. Since the Triple Alliance was a defensive alliance, Italy, after the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia, did not feel obliged to enter the war and initially declared itself neutral. The Italian government under Prime Minister Antonio Salandra pursued - like other powers - expansionist war aims (see also irredentism ). After the Russian Empire agreed to the Italian wish to annex Slavic populated areas in order to make the Adriatic Sea a Mare Nostrum , the Triple Entente and Italy signed the secret treaty of London with Italy on April 26, 1915 to enter the war on the Entente side was committed within a month, whereupon the Kingdom of Italy Austria-Hungary declared war on May 23, 1915. Italy waged a bloody mountain war from 1915 to 1918 . Among other things, only modest successes were achieved in eleven material battles on the Isonzo , while one suffered a heavy defeat in the twelfth Isonzo battle . Only after the military help of the Allies and the increasing problems of supply and nationality in the Austro-Hungarian army did the turning point, symbolized in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto (or “Third Piave Battle ”) - from October 24, 1918 to the 3rd or 3rd. November 4, 1918 in northeast Italy - which led to the armistice of Villa Giusti near Padua and the defeat of Austria-Hungary.

Demographics

At the time of its annexation , today's South Tyrol was populated by a large German-speaking majority. According to the 1910 census , which differentiated between four language groups, 89% spoke German, 3.8% Ladin and 2.9% Italian for a total of 251,000 inhabitants.

In the following, the demographic development of the area according to the censuses from 1880 to 2001 is broken down by language group, both in absolute numbers and in percent:

year German speakers Italian speakers Ladin speakers Other All in all Country
1880 186,087 (90.6%) 126,884 (3.4%) 128,822 (4.3%) 123,513 (1.7%) 205,306 (100%) Austria-Hungary
1890 187,100 (89.0%) 129,369 (4.5%) 128,954 (4.3%) 126,884 (2.3%) 210,285 (100%) Austria-Hungary
1900 197,822 (88.8%) 128,916 (4.0%) 128,907 (4.0%) 127,149 (3.2%) 222,794 (100%) Austria-Hungary
1910 223,913 (89.0%) 127,339 (2.9%) 129,429 (3.8%) 110,770 (4.3%) 251,451 (100%) Austria-Hungary
1921 193,271 (75.9%) 127,048 (10.6%) 129,910 (3.9%) 124,506 (9.6%) 254,735 (100%) Italy
1961 232,717 (62.2%) 128,271 (34.3%) 212,594 (3.4%) 123.281 (0.1%) 373,863 (100%) Italy
1971 260,351 (62.9%) 137,759 (33.3%) 115,456 (3.7%) 123.475 (0.1%) 414,041 (100%) Italy
1981 279,544 (64.9%) 123,695 (28.7%) 117,736 (4.1%) 129,593 (2.2%) 430,568 (100%) Italy
1991 287,503 (65.3%) 116,914 (26.5%) 118,434 (4.2%) 117,657 (4.0%) 440,508 (100%) Italy
2001 296,461 (64.0%) 113,494 (24.5%) 118,736 (4.0%) 134,308 (7.4%) 462,999 (100%) Italy
2011 314,604 (62.2%) 118,120 (23.3%) 120,548 (4.0%) 151,795 (10.5%) 505,067 (100%) Italy

Interwar period (1918–1939)

The Victory Monument in Bolzano (2014)
Fascist ossuary near Innichen

The Kingdom of Italy had joined the Dual Alliance (Germany and Austria-Hungary ) in 1882 ; this became a Triple Alliance . This alliance was unstable, however, because Italy pursued an expansionist policy with irredentism , which aimed primarily at Italian-populated areas under Austro-Hungarian rule. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy, for its part, did not deny its expansionist goals in the Balkans, as foreseen by the Triple Alliance provisions, with Italy, for example in the Bosnian annexation crisis of 1908 or in the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.

De jure, the alliance broke up in 1915 when Italy, after signing the secret London Treaty in May 1915, terminated the Triple Alliance and entered the First World War a little later on the side of the Triple Entente (details here ). The Entente Powers had assured Italy of the “Brenner border” and other areas in order to induce Italy to enter the war.

After the First World War, which Austria-Hungary lost, the predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol and the predominantly Italian-speaking Welschtirol were occupied by Italy in November 1918 . Nevertheless worked all 15 in the Empire Council Election 1911 (only for men) selected Reichsrat deputies from the German-speaking region of Tyrol of 21 October 1918 to 16 February 1919 in the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria with, including seven MPs from South Tyrol as Atanas Guggenberg , Emil Kraft and Ämilian creator .

The election of the Constituent National Assembly of German Austria, held on February 16, 1919, could only be made by about a tenth of the eligible voters in the constituency of German South Tyrol , namely in the Lienz district . Therefore, the National Assembly on April 4, 1919 decided, for the unrepresented areas proportionally according to available in North and East Tyrol election results eight more on the electoral lists of the parties run candidates to the National Assembly convened . They were sworn in on April 24, 1919 in Vienna. There were five mandataries from the Tyrolean People's Party, two Social Democrats and one German freedom.

On October 21, 1919, the Constituent National Assembly had to ratify the Treaty of Saint-Germain (then known as the dictate of Saint-Germain ), which was forcibly signed by State Chancellor Karl Renner in September 1919 . Thus the loss of South Tyrol, which occurred against the will of the local population, was accepted by Austria. The country was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy on October 10, 1920 .

The Italian annexation contradicted the principle of national self-determination , which the US President Woodrow Wilson had previously announced in his Fourteen Points as an Allied war goal, because the present-day Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol was 89% inhabited by Germans according to the 1910 census. In particular, Wilson's point 9 explicitly stipulated that “a new regulation of the Italian borders should be carried out along clearly identifiable national borders”. In Austria, mainly in Innsbruck , streets and squares were renamed after South Tyrolean locations as a sign of solidarity (see: Südtiroler Platz ). Something similar happened in the German Empire, mainly in Bavaria.

The German-speaking areas south of the Brenner Pass were combined with the former Welschtirol ( Trentino ) to form a predominantly Italian-speaking administrative unit Governatorato della Venezia Tridentina , from 1921 Provincia di Venezia Tridentina (largely congruent with today's region of Trentino-South Tyrol ).

King Victor Emmanuel III had assured in his speech from the throne on December 1, 1919 that the new province would be granted “careful maintenance of local institutions and self-administration”. On May 15, 1921, the South Tyroleans were able to take part in the elections to the Roman parliament for the first time. The German Association , a joint list of the Tyrolean People's Party and the German Freedom Party, received 90% of the votes in the country and was able to win four seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The Social Democrats, however, went away empty-handed. The MPs Eduard Reut-Nicolussi , Karl Tinzl , Friedrich von Toggenburg and Wilhelm von Walther campaigned for South Tyrol, but all attempts at autonomy were disappointed due to the dramatically changing political situation.

In 1921, thugs of the Italian black shirts also came to South Tyrol, where they mainly destroyed remains and symbols of the "double monarchy" they hated (such as double-headed eagles). The highlight of these scenes was the so-called Bolzano Sunday , an attack on a costume parade in Bolzano on April 24, 1921, during which the Marling teacher Franz Innerhofer was murdered. On October 2, 1922, 700 Italian fascists moved to Bolzano and occupied the town hall under the eyes of the police, who did not intervene.

With the seizure of power by Duce Benito Mussolini , the Italianization phase began for the South Tyroleans .

The following years bore the signature of Ettore Tolomei , a nationalist from Trentino , who made the Italianization of South Tyrol his life's work. On July 15, 1923, he presented his program for the assimilation of South Tyrol in the Bolzano City Theater. From 1923 all place and field names were Italianized and the use of the name Tyrol was prohibited. Tolemei had published the Prontuario as early as 1916 , a list in which the place names were translated into Italian, sometimes simple translations of the common German names. The German family names of the population were also already translated.

Between 1923 and 1925, Italian became the only official and court language allowed; all German-language newspapers were banned, with the exception of the fascist Alpenzeitung , which appeared for the first time in 1926 and until 1943. From 1927 the Dolomiten and some other magazines from the (then) ecclesiastical publishing house Athesia were allowed to appear again.

In addition, South Tyrol was under military protectorate from 1924; Buildings were only allowed to be erected with the consent of the military.

In the course of the fascist school reform of 1923, the German language was banned in all schools in the following school years. Church schools also had to submit or close. Only the Vinzentinum boys' seminars in Brixen and Johanneum in Dorf Tirol were able to continue working in German due to the Lateran Treaty of 1929.

Since protests by the German South Tyroleans did not lead to a readmission of the German language, new ways of passing on the mother tongue to the children were sought. In the school year 1925/26, German secret schools ( catacomb schools ) began their activities.

In 1927 the province of Venezia Tridentina was divided, the mostly Italian-speaking province of Trento and the mostly German-speaking province of Bolzano emerged. The Ladin settlement area is divided into the three provinces of Bolzano, Trient and Belluno.

Ten years after the end of the war, a large victory monument was erected in Bolzano in 1928 , a monument of typical ruling architecture of Italian fascism , which was dedicated to the Italian victory in World War I. Demands for the elimination of this dictatorship did not lead to its demolition, so that it could be used as a "place of pilgrimage" by Italian neo-fascists before it was redesigned in 2014 and converted into a permanent historical exhibition on fascism and National Socialism. Monuments from the Austrian Empire, however, were destroyed or removed.

In 1928 the second phase of the policy of Italianization began. Since the previous efforts to extinct the German language in South Tyrol were not crowned with great success, a large industrial area was created in Bolzano for the settlement of Italians. Firms received generous subsidies and tax breaks when they set up branches in Bolzano. Within a few years, Bolzano's population was multiplied by Italian immigrants: the population grew from 30,000 at the turn of the century to up to 120,000 in the meantime.

The South Tyrolean Alpine Wall was also built during this time .

Second World War (1939–1945)

Card index of returnees in the Central Office for Resettlement in South Tyrol (1940), recording from the Federal Archives
Arrival of South Tyrolean resettlers in Innsbruck (1940), photo from the Federal Archives

The annexation of Austria to the German Reich led by Adolf Hitler in 1938 was greeted with enthusiasm by many South Tyroleans - in the hope that the country would soon be brought home to the Reich itself . In the same year, however, Hitler declared the Brenner border to be inviolable. In the circles of the National Socialist Völkischer Kampfrings Südtirols (VKS), which in the 1930s had an enormous impact on the population with its Nazi propaganda, this decision was justified on the grounds that for the Greater German idea one must ultimately also lose the Accept home.

In 1939 the so-called "Hitler-Mussolini Agreement" took place, which gave the German-speaking South Tyroleans the choice of either opting for Germany and emigrating there or - facing an uncertain future in the fascist state - remaining in South Tyrol and retaining their Italian citizenship . The VKS in particular advocated the option for ideological reasons, supported by rumors carefully spread from the German side that Italy was planning to deport the German-speaking South Tyroleans to Sicily or even Abyssinia . As a result, 86% of the approximately 200,000 South Tyroleans surveyed voted for the option.

After the results became known, the VKS forced a propaganda war of the optants against the Dableiber , which occasionally also degenerated into terror and continued for several years. This inner-South Tyrolean conflict was reflected in the church, albeit with a different balance of power: While the bishop of Brixen Johannes Geisler supported the resettlement, a clear majority of the clergy decided to remain in South Tyrol.

The first major waves of emigration to the Reich began in mid-November 1939, and by the end of the year around 11,500 resettlers were recorded, who were supported in their project by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Optanten für Deutschland and the official German immigration and return office . Of the 75,000 or so optants who actually moved to the Reich by 1943, around 50% emigrated in 1940. Thereafter, the number of resettlements steadily decreased every year for several reasons: The allocation of a closed settlement area that the South Tyroleans had been promised did not materialize, the accommodation and work opportunities of the first emigrants did not meet expectations and the appraisal and redemption of the assets that the Optanten should be replaced was delayed.

After the fall of Mussolini in July 1943 and with it the dissolution of Italy's ally status with the German Reich, the subsequent invasion of the Wehrmacht (see: Case Axis ) and the establishment of the Alpine Foreland operational zone under the direction of Supreme Commissioner Franz Hofer , the Gauleiter of Tyrol Vorarlberg , the emigration of the Optanten and the immigration of Italians ended. A large part of the population in South Tyrol welcomed the entry of German troops as a liberation.

On November 6, 1943, although the area was not part of the German Reich, general conscription was introduced, non-compliance being punishable by the death penalty. Both optants and Dableiber (i.e. Italian citizens) were incorporated into German associations, including units of the SS . Thomas Casagrande assumes 3500 to 5000 South Tyroleans in the Waffen SS. The assassination attempt on 33 soldiers of the SS Police Regiment Bolzano in Via Rasella in Rome was the reason for the massacre of over 300 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine Caves in March 1944. Within South Tyrol, the “ South Tyrolean Ordnungsdienst ” (SOD), one of the NS - Police-like auxiliaries supported by rulers, active.

Memorial for the Jews of Merano who were deported in 1943 at the former Balilla House, Otto-Huber-Straße, Merano (translation in the description of the image)

The Nazi rule in South Tyrol also sealed the fate of the Jewish community of Merano , which still comprised around 60 members when the German troops marched in. In September 1943, 24 of them were arrested by the SOD under the leadership of the Gestapo and subsequently deported to the Reichenau camp near Innsbruck. 19 members died in Auschwitz , four in Reichenau. Only eight people survived the decimation of their community. In July 1944, the Bolzano police transit camp was established, through which around 11,000 people had been smuggled to Auschwitz, Dachau and Mauthausen by 1945 .

Resistance to National Socialism occurred to a lesser extent in South Tyrol than in the rest of Italy, because - unlike further south - at least on the German-speaking side it could not be justified as a national liberation struggle. In addition, the resistance was fragmented along the language group boundaries. On the German-speaking side, the Andreas-Hofer-Bund was active, which basically consisted of Dableibern and found its most important actors in Friedl Volgger and Hans Egarter . Among other things, the South Tyrolean People's Party emerged in 1945 from the circle around the Andreas Hofer Bund . On the Italian-speaking side, there was a section of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) in Bolzano , which - unlike the Andreas Hofer Bund - campaigned for South Tyrol to remain with Italy and, from May 3, 1945, also took over the administration of the country . In some measures of the CLN, such as the adjustment of administrative boundaries or the reinstatement of fascist functionaries and bureaucrats, a continuity with fascist politics immediately became noticeable.

On the other hand, the situation in South Tyrol in the last days of the war offered the opportunity to free victims of the National Socialists: on April 30, 1945, Wichard von Alvensleben was able to free a transport of 139 prominent special prisoners near Lake Braies , whose SS guards had been ordered not to use these prisoners to fall alive into enemy hands. These prisoners included the former Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg , the multiple French Prime Minister Léon Blum , the theologian Martin Niemöller , the German industrialist Fritz Thyssen as well as the resistance fighters Bogislaw von Bonin , Fabian von Schlabrendorff and Alexander von Falkenhausen , Isa Vermehren and family prisoners from the 20th century July 1944, such as the family of the Hitler assassin von Stauffenberg .

After the Second World War, thousands of refugees crossed South Tyrol on their way to Genoa and Rome , including prominent figures from the Nazi regime and war criminals. Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele , among others, escaped to South America via South Tyrol . In the post-war years, South Tyrol was a suitable hiding place for war criminals and National Socialists because, on the one hand, after the withdrawal of the Allies in December 1945, it was the first German-speaking territory no longer under Allied control and, on the other hand, in a population that was largely stateless due to the option It was easier to go into hiding. The state's limbo also meant that - in many cases with decisive support from the Catholic Church - it was possible to easily obtain forged ID cards.

Reconstruction and the struggle for autonomy (1945–1972)

US newsreel about protests in Vienna, June 24, 1946
Partition proposals for South Tyrol (1945/1946)

After the Second World War , many South Tyroleans once again harbored hopes of reunification with North Tyrol in the course of a foreseeable new state establishment of Austria. On the initiative of the newly founded South Tyrolean People's Party , 155,000 signatures were collected and handed over to the Austrian Chancellor Leopold Figl on April 22, 1946. However, since Austria had not yet regained full state sovereignty from the victorious Allied powers, the negotiating position of the Austrian delegation with Italy at the peace negotiations in Paris in 1946 was weakened. As part of these negotiations, Austria called for a referendum on the reintegration of South Tyrol into Austria. The Austrian territorial claim encompassed all of today's South Tyrol and the Ladin-speaking communities of Colle St. Lucia , ceded to the province of Belluno ; Buchenstein and Cortina d'Ampezzo . Furthermore, the Ladin-speaking communities in the Fassa Valley ( Moena , Vigo di Fassa , Canazei ) and the only partially Ladin-speaking district of Cavalese in the Fiemme Valley . The US State Department also had several partition solutions for South Tyrol worked out as part of the negotiations. On the sidelines of the peace negotiations, the so-called Gruber-De-Gasperi Agreement was finally signed between Italy and Austria on the South Tyrol issue . Italy, which as a result of the war had already had to cede the Istrian peninsula and the cities of Fiume and Zara to Yugoslavia , was reassigned the territory of South Tyrol during these negotiations. The German- and Ladin-speaking majority of the population in the region were, however, guaranteed autonomous basic rights by Italy ; Austria was recognized as the protective power of the South Tyrolean population in Italy.

In 1948, the Italian government expanded the province of Bolzano to include some German-speaking municipalities that had previously been added to the province of Trento , but combined the two provinces into one region. This autonomous region of Trentino-Tyrolean Etschland , which was mostly Italian-speaking, received substantial parts of the autonomous competencies, which brought the political representatives of the German-speaking South Tyroleans into a minority position. The implementation of important points of the Paris Treaty was deliberately delayed by the Italian central government, which led to increasing dissatisfaction of the German and Ladin speaking South Tyroleans with this first autonomy solution, the so-called First Statute of Autonomy . Particularly controversial in those years was the immigration of Italian labor migrants, promoted by the Italian government, which reached its peak in 1957 when 5,000 apartments were to be built for these people in South Tyrol. Representatives of the South Tyrolean People's Party under Silvius Magnago feared a progressive marginalization of the German- and Ladin-speaking majority of the population. At the large rally in Sigmundskron Castle in 1957, the People's Party gathered around 35,000 South Tyroleans and called for the Province of Bolzano (South Tyrol) to break away from the Province of Trento , which for the first time also aroused international interest in the South Tyrolean question.

UN resolution 1497 (XV) on the South Tyrol issue, which was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1960 on the initiative of the Austrian Foreign Minister Bruno Kreisky .

With the definitive re-establishment of Austria after the signing of the State Treaty in 1955, the South Tyrolean People's Party again received increased support from the Austrian Federal Government . This achieved a first partial success in the sense of the South Tyroleans when, after various unsuccessful exploratory talks between government representatives of Italy and Austria, on the initiative of the Social Democratic Foreign Minister Bruno Kreisky, the failure to implement the Paris Treaty was first put on the agenda of the UN General Assembly in 1960 . With the UN resolution 1497 / XV of October 31, 1960 it was established that the implementation of the Paris Treaty was binding for Italy.

Parallel to the diplomatic negotiations between the South Tyrolean People's Party and representatives of the Italian and Austrian government, a series of bomb attacks had already taken place from 1956 onwards, initially (until 1961) carried out by the BAS around Sepp Kerschbaumer , and later by neo-Nazi circles from German-speaking countries, These groups did not aim to implement the solution of autonomy, but clearly advocated the separation of South Tyrol from Italy. While the attacks in the first few years under Kerschbaumer's direction were largely aimed at the destruction of property (electricity pylons, Italian residential buildings), the violence of so-called "South Tyrol activists" was increasingly directed against people, after the original BAS as a result of the series of attacks on the night of fire in 1961 -Group was almost completely detained. A total of 361 attacks were counted in the period from September 20, 1956 to October 30, 1988, in which explosives, machine guns and mines were used. 21 deaths were registered, including 15 state representatives, two civilians and four members of the BAS who were killed in preparation for a bomb attack, as well as 57 injured (24 state representatives and 33 civilians). From 1961 onwards, the Italian authorities also contributed to the escalation of violence. In addition to the torture of arrested BAS activists by the Carabinieri , who were largely acquitted of these offenses in court - in contrast to most BAS activists - the Italian military intelligence service SIFAR was soon operating in South Tyrol in order to heighten political tensions with violent provocations and thereby weakening the negotiating position of the German-speaking South Tyroleans.

The diplomatic negotiations had come closer to a solution after Kreisky's success at the UN in 1960 and against the background of the 1961 assassinations, when the parliamentary commission of the nineteen began its work in Italy in the same year to come up with concrete solutions for the implementation of the Gruber de- Draw up Gasperi Agreement . The commission presented its results in April 1964; In December of the same year, the two social democratic foreign ministers Giuseppe Saragat and Bruno Kreisky then reached a fundamental agreement, which, however, was rejected by the South Tyrolean People's Party . Only after several years of renegotiations for the South Tyrolean People's Party by representatives of the Austrian ÖVP government under Josef Klaus , various Italian government representatives (including the Christian Democrat Aldo Moro ) and Silvius Magnago , was it possible to finally reach an agreement on a number of measures be achieved. Under the catchphrase South Tyrol Package , these measures were approved in 1969 by the General Assembly of the South Tyrolean People's Party, by the Austrian National Council and in 1971 by the Italian Parliament, which enabled the so-called Second Statute of Autonomy for South Tyrol to come into force as a constitutional law in 1972. In the course of the following decades it was gradually implemented through simple legislation.

Autonomy since 1972

In the summer of 2014, the permanent exhibition BZ '18 –'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships was set up in the Bolzano Victory Monument, which dates from the fascist era .

In 1992 the Italian government informed the Austrian government that the South Tyrol package had been implemented. When asked about this by the government in Vienna, over 90% of the SVP delegates were in favor of Austria declaring the dispute over; the Tyrolean state parliament in Innsbruck also passed this recommendation. In 1992 Austria then submitted the so-called “Dispute Settlement Declaration” to Italy and the United Nations. In the period from 1972 to 1992, all of the package provisions, as agreed in the "Operation Calendar", were gradually implemented.

Since then, due to the ethnic proportionality, a fair distribution of positions in public administration - in 1972 90 percent of civil servants were Italian as their mother tongue - can be guaranteed, as well as a distribution of social housing appropriate to the size of the language group. Self-government, as provided for in the original Gruber-De-Gasperi Agreement, has been achieved through the granting of important competencies, including in the legislation exercised by the state parliament. The considerable financial resources to which the State of South Tyrol is entitled and which are used efficiently are also important. Governor Luis Durnwalder , who succeeded Silvius Magnago in 1989 , was honored with the “European Taxpayers' Award” on May 30, 2006 for his commitment to prudent and forward-looking budgetary policy.

Thanks to the European Union and the establishment of the European Region Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino , the political borders between the areas of historic Tyrol are disappearing more and more: border posts and border controls have in fact not existed for years. In addition, the euro as a common currency contributes to the economic integration of the entire region.

The three Ladin-speaking towns of Cortina d'Ampezzo , Livinallongo del Col di Lana and Colle Santa Lucia , which, originally also united with South Tyrol, were attached to the province of Belluno by the fascists, voted for it again in a referendum on October 28, 2007 to be affiliated to South Tyrol. Ultimately, the Italian Parliament will decide on the restoration of the historical borders.

Due to the special protective measures for the German and Ladin population, South Tyrol is considered a model region for the autonomy of ethnic minorities, so that after a past that was quite rich in conflict, a peaceful coexistence of all population groups emerged.

Nevertheless, there is no real togetherness. The separation of the population groups is mainly promoted by the school system, but also by the concentration of Italians in the larger towns. For various reasons, the discomfort, so-called “disagio”, of many Italians did not decrease before the South Tyrolean autonomy. Their origins from various regions of Italy have impaired the formation of a strong common identity. In addition, many of them have a poor command of the German language (not to mention the South Tyrolean dialect). Since the introduction of proportional representation, the public service is no longer a purely Italian domain. Certain tensions between the population groups known as language groups have therefore remained. In the eighties the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale profited from the displeasure of the Italians and was able to achieve considerable electoral successes, especially in Bolzano . Nowadays their votes are dispersed among numerous parties, which makes strong political representation almost impossible. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that of South Tyrol's 2,030 municipal councils, only 162, i.e. 7.98%, belong to the Italian language group, although this group makes up 26.47% of the total population.

On November 15, 2001, the City Council of Bolzano decided to rename the Victory Square, where the Victory Monument is located, to Friedensplatz: The renaming should be a sign of reconciliation between the South Tyrolean language groups. The Alleanza Nazionale and the Italian-nationalist Unitalia saw this as an attempt to rob the city of Bozen of its (today) “Italian identity” and, as a result of a signature campaign, were able to force a referendum, the result of which was unexpectedly clear: 62 percent of those on 6 Valid votes cast in October 2002 favored renaming to Siegesplatz.

The petition of the South Tyrolean mayors to the Austrian parliament in Vienna, initiated by the riflemen in 2006 , to anchor Austria's protective power function in the constitution , caused displeasure . The Italian senator and former president Francesco Cossiga then introduced a bill for a referendum on the state affiliation of South Tyrol to the Italian parliament. The South Tyrolean People's Party also rejected the draft so as not to encourage new ethnic tensions. On May 10, 2008, Francesco Cossiga brought another motion to the Senate in Rome to exercise the right to self-determination for South Tyrol. The South Tyrolean population should be asked in a referendum whether South Tyrol should remain part of the Italian state, join Austria or Germany, or become independent.

There are also efforts in the German-speaking and Ladin South Tyrolean population to break away from belonging to the Italian state. Various parties are campaigning for this, from the Union for South Tyrol to the Freedom Party and South Tyrolean Freedom , which has drawn attention to itself with provocative poster campaigns under the motto "South Tyrol is not Italy".

In particular, the financial autonomy of South Tyrol has repeatedly come under fire from Italian politicians because, unlike the neighboring regions, the country does not participate adequately in the transfer payments for the underdeveloped south of Italy. The former President of the Veneto Region openly spoke of "outdated autonomy privileges" and threatened to refer to the Italian Constitutional Court and even the European Court of Justice.

At the end of July 2009, the Austrian FPÖ politician and third President of the National Council, Martin Graf, called for a referendum on South Tyrol's return to Austria. South Tyrol's governor Durnwalder described Graf's move as "unrealistic and irresponsible". The move was also criticized by the North Tyrolean governor Günther Platter , by the second president of the National Council Fritz Neugebauer and by Andreas Khol , president of the National Council until 2006. Nevertheless, there was a general relaxation of Italian-Austrian relations on the South Tyrol issue. This was symbolized by the first meetings of high political representatives from both countries on South Tyrolean soil: On September 5, 2012, Presidents Giorgio Napolitano and Heinz Fischer met for consultations in the Merano Kurhaus , on July 5, 2014 Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann attended a conference at Castle Prösels .

In the 2013 state elections , the South Tyrolean People's Party lost the absolute majority of seats for the first time in its history, with 45.7% or 17 seats. This trend continued in the 2018 elections , when the SVP won 41.9% or 15 seats in the state parliament.

literature

Overview representations

  1. Siglinde Clementi: Farewell to the Fatherland. 1909-1919 . 1999, ISBN 88-7283-130-X .
  2. Helmut Alexander: fascist ax and swastika. 1920-1939 . 2000, ISBN 88-7283-148-2 .
  3. Stefan Lechner: Total war and a difficult new beginning. 1940-1959 . 2001, ISBN 88-7283-152-0 .
  4. Michael Gehler: Autonomy and departure. 1960-1979 . 2002, ISBN 88-7283-183-0 .
  5. Michael Gehler: Between Europe and the Province. 1980-2000 . 2003, ISBN 88-7283-204-7 .
  • Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol in the 20th century. About the life and survival of a minority . Study publisher : Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 1999, ISBN 3-7065-1233-5 .
  • Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol in the 20th century. Documents . Study publisher: Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 1999, ISBN 3-7065-1329-3 .
  • Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . StudienVerlag: Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich / Bozen 2003, ISBN 3-7065-1348-X .

Immediate post-war period

Fascism, National Socialism and Resettlement Agreements (option)

  • Andrea Bonoldi, Hannes Obermair (ed.): Tra Roma e Bolzano / Between Rome and Bozen. State and province in Italian fascism . Bozen: City of Bozen 2006, ISBN 88-901870-9-3 .
  • Thomas Casagrande: South Tyroleans in the Waffen SS. Exemplary attitude, fanatical conviction . Edition Raetia: Bozen 2015. ISBN 978-88-7283-539-5
  • 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 Schloss Tirol , Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 .
  • Stefan Lechner: The conquest of those of foreign origin. Provincial fascism in South Tyrol (1921–1926). Universitätsverlag Wagner: Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7030-0398-7 .
  • Günther Pallaver , Leopold Steurer (Ed.): Germans! Hitler is selling you! The legacy of option and world war in South Tyrol . Edition Raetia: Bozen 2011, ISBN 978-88-7283-386-5 .
  • Joachim Scholtyseck : On the way to "brutal friendships": German policy on Austria and Italy in the interwar period . In: Maddalena Guiotto, Helmut Wohnout (ed.): Italy and Austria in Central Europe of 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 .
  • Gerald Steinacher : Nazis on the run. How war criminals escaped overseas via Italy . Study publisher: Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7065-4026-1 .
  • Leopold Steurer: South Tyrol between Rome and Berlin 1919–1939. Europa-Verlag: Vienna / Frankfurt / Zurich 1980.
  • Michael Wedekind: National Socialist Occupation and Annexation Policy in Northern Italy 1943 to 1945. The operational zones "Alpine Foreland" and "Adriatic Coastal Land" . Oldenbourg Verlag : Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56650-4 .

From the border and autonomy question 1945/46 to the South Tyrol package 1972

  • Antony Evelyn Alcock: History of the South Tyrol Question. South Tyrol since the package 1970–1980 . Braumüller : Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-7003-0328-9 .
  • Michael Gehler: Failed self-determination. The South Tyrol question, the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement and its inclusion in the Italian peace treaty 1945–1947 (files on South Tyrol policy 1945–1958, vol. 1). Study publisher: Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2011.
  • Gustav Pfeifer, Maria Steiner (Ed.): Bruno Kreisky and the South Tyrol question . Edition Raetia: Bozen 2016.
  • Rolf Steininger: Files on South Tyrol Policy 1959–1969 . 7 volumes. Study publisher: Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2005–2013.

Fire night and South Tyrolean terrorism

  • Manuel Fasser: One Tyrol - two worlds. The political legacy of the South Tyrolean fire night of 1961. Study publisher: Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7065-4783-3 .
  • Claus Gatterer: South Tyrol and right-wing extremism. In: Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (ed.): Right-wing extremism in Austria after 1945. Bundesverlag: Vienna 1979, pp. 336–353.
  • Hans Karl Peterlini : South Tyrolean bomb years. From blood and tears to a happy ending? Edition Raetia: Bozen 2005, ISBN 88-7283-241-1 .
  • Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol between diplomacy and terror 1947–1969 . 3 volumes, Athesia: Bozen 1999.

Cold war and anti-communism

  • Joachim Gatterer: "Give everything, expect nothing!" The Communist Party of Italy in the province. A contribution to transregional contemporary history in South Tyrol. In: Hannes Obermair et al. (Ed.): Regional civil society in motion. Festschrift for Hans Heiss . Folio Verlag : Wien / Bozen 2012, pp. 301–324, ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 .
  • Joachim Gatterer: In the regional subconscious. Fragments of communist memory in the ethnically divided memory of South Tyrol. In: Yearbook for Historical Research into Communism , Metropol Verlag : Berlin 2014, pp. 47–62.
  • Michaela Koller-Seizmair: The interests and activities of the GDR State Security in South Tyrol. In: Zeitschrift für Politik (Munich), No. 4/2006, pp. 454–472. (PDF; 1.6 MB)
  • Günther Pallaver: South Tyrol: Ethnic Winner in the Cold War. In: Robert Knight (Ed.): Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European Cold War. Continuum: London / New York 2012, pp. 147–172.

Social history of the Italian language group in South Tyrol

  • Giuseppe Albertoni et al .: Semirurali e dintorni / Not only Semirurali. Working group for a museum in the Semirurali: Bozen 2004.
  • Fabian Fistill: Italiani a Brunico. Alle origini di un percorso , Mimesis, 2017, ISBN 978-88-575-4495-3 .
  • Joachim Gatterer: marginal figures. South Tyrolean member of the state parliament of the state parties from 1948–2013 . In: Günther Pallaver (Hrsg.): Politika 14th year book for politics. Edition Raetia / Nomos Verlag: Bozen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8487-1455-1 , pp. 391-414
  • Lucio Giudiceandrea: Spaesati. Italiani in South Tyrol. Edition Raetia: Bozen 2006, ISBN 978-88-7283-285-1
  • Paolo Valente : Sinigo . Con i piedi nell'acqua. Storia di un'insediamento italiano nell'Alto Adige degli anni venti. AlphaBeta: Bozen 2010, ISBN 978-88-7223-133-3

Web links

Commons : History of South Tyrol  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. Not marked are the municipalities of Cortina d'Ampezzo , Livinallongo del Col di Lana , Colle Santa Lucia ( BL ), Valvestino , Magasa ( BS ) and Pedemonte ( VI ), which belong to the old Austrian Crown Land , and all of them have voted for a restoration of the historic ones Have pronounced national borders.
  2. a b c Oscar Benvenuto (Ed.): South Tyrol in Figures 2008. State Institute for Statistics of the Autonomous Province of Bozen - Südtirol (PDF; 453 kB), Bozen / Bolzano 2007, p. 19, plate 11
  3. a b c "locals" with a different colloquial language and "non-locals"
  4. ^ "Italian citizens with a different colloquial language and non-Italian citizens"
  5. "foreigners"
  6. "All residents with a different colloquial language"
  7. "All residents who did not provide a declaration as to which language group they belong to"
  8. ^ "Resident Italian citizens without a valid language group declaration, as well as resident foreigners"
  9. a b "Invalid declarations, persons who are temporarily absent and resident foreigners"
  10. ^ Rolf Steininger : 1918/1919. The division of Tyrol . In: Georg Grote , Hannes Obermair (Ed.): A Land on the Threshold. South Tyrolean Transformations, 1915-2015 . Peter Lang, Oxford-Bern-New York 2017, ISBN 978-3-0343-2240-9 , pp. 3–25, here: pp. 4–5 .
  11. ^ Session 9 (April 4), p. 238 ALEX
  12. Report of the commission on the representation of the occupied territories : 141 of the enclosures. Constituent National Assembly , can be found on the website of the Austrian National Library under Stenographic Protocols, First Republic, Session 2, 130.-179. Supplement, p. 53 f.
  13. 10th Session (April 24), p. 245 ALEX
  14. ^ Rolf Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . StudienVerlag, Innsbruck - Vienna - Munich - Bozen 2003, ISBN 3-7065-1348-X , p. 9-11 .
  15. "A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality." Sterling J. Kernek: Woodrow Wilson and National Self-Determination along Italy's Frontier: A Study of the Manipulation of Principles in the Pursuit of Political Interests. In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , Vol. 126, No. 4 (Aug. 1982), pp. 243-300 (246)
  16. 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 .
  17. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 40-42 .
  18. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 43-49 .
  19. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 50-53 .
  20. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 54-47 .
  21. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 57 .
  22. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 57-58 .
  23. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 59 .
  24. http://www.juedischegemeindemeran.com/flucht_aus_der_holle.html (November 27, 2012).
  25. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 59-60 .
  26. ^ Steininger: South Tyrol. From the First World War to the present . S. 60-61 .
  27. Gerald Steinacher: Nazis on the run. How war criminals escaped overseas via Italy . Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2008, ISBN 978-3-7065-4026-1 , pp. 17-18.
  28. Steinacher: Nazis on the run , p. 110.
  29. Steinacher: Nazis on the run , p. 111.
  30. Steinacher: Nazis on the run , pp. 47–48.
  31. Steinacher: Nazis on the run , pp. 156–166.
  32. Steinacher: Nazis on the run , p. 110.
  33. http://www.uni-hildesheim.de/de/29713.htm
  34. Der Standard , July 25, 2014: «Fascist Victory Monument Depoliticized»
  35. European Taxpayers' Award ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / wai.provinz.bz.it
  36. Surprise in Proporzistan , FF-Das Südtiroler Wochenmagazin, May 20, 2010
  37. ^ Winfried Kurth, Josef Berghold: Group fantasies around the "Siegesplatz" conflict in Bozen (PDF; 1.7 MB), in: Yearbook for Psychohistorischeforschung 7 (2006), Mattes Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 97-138
  38. Constitutional law proposal by Senator Cossiga, April 29, 2008 (PDF; 39 kB)
  39. Addio Veneto, hello South Tyrol
  40. ^ Graf calls for a referendum on the return of South Tyrol. In: DiePresse.com. July 26, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2018 .
  41. http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Platter-will-keine-Suedtirol-Abstimmen-0501072.ece