Hans Egarter

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Hans Egarter (born April 20, 1909 in Olang ; † June 20, 1966 in Brixen ) was the leader of the South Tyrolean resistance movement " Andreas-Hofer-Bund ". This resistance movement against the resettlement of the South Tyroleans in the German Reich was formed after the option in November 1939 from "Dableibern".

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Egarter was born on April 20, 1909 in Olang and grew up at the Stundlhof in Niederdorf . As for many intellectuals of peasant descent, his access to higher education was through church educational institutions. He studied at the Vinzentinum in Brixen, but dropped out after only two years. He did not become a priest (his real goal), but worked for a few years as a sacristan and then as a journalist for the Catholic Athesia publishing house .

Activity in the resistance during the Second World War

Confirmation of the cooperation between the AHB and the CIC and SCI services, 1945

The South Tyrolean Andreas-Hofer-Bund was founded in 1939 to defend itself against the resettlement of South Tyroleans as part of the "option". The association was headed by Friedl Volgger and Hans Egarter, Josef Mayr-Nusser and Erich Amonn were also members. After the German armed forces marched into South Tyrol in 1943, its members were persecuted and severely punished. In autumn 1943 the active core of the AHB consisted of only about 30 people. At this point in time, Hans Egarter took over the management of this organization, which until then had been operating purely for political and propaganda purposes.

In the course of time Egarter came to the firm conviction that a liberation of South Tyrol from Nazi oppression and the Italian rule could not be achieved with Hitler, but only in the resistance against the Hitler regime. So he wrote in 1945:

“The task of the Andreas-Hofer-Bund was to work against fascism and Nazism and to contribute to their destruction. The members of the group wanted to show the world that there are men in South Tyrol who have nothing in common with the Nazi criminals and who, through their work against Nazism and fascism, showed that they followed their words with deeds and that they were ready to to make the heaviest sacrifices in order to achieve their goal. "

With this attitude he was in open opposition to many of his compatriots. An entry in the diary of a South Tyrolean from 1944 sums up the mood of the South Tyrolean majority:

"We have fully bet on the German map and must now win with it or go under."

Egarter's group was pro-Austrian and Catholic and strove for South Tyrol to become part of an independent post-war Austria . In order to implement this goal, Egarter's group had contacts with the French and British military intelligence in Switzerland from 1944 onwards.

After the Second World War

After the war, Egarter, one of the founders of the South Tyrolean People's Party , was soon pushed to the fringes of society as a "slacker" and "traitor", and was even physically attacked. Egger's “impertinence” to report some South Tyrolean National Socialists finally stamped him “persona non grata”. So he was soon perceived as an unpleasant dissident in the ranks of the South Tyroleans and pushed to the local editorial office of the daily newspaper Dolomiten in Brixen. The National Socialists in Brixen spread rumors of his alleged homosexuality in order to silence him. In the arch-conservative episcopal city, this was almost the same as a leper. Egger's last years were marked by bitterness, loneliness and illness. He died in Brixen in 1966. On the simple tombstone at the new Bressanone cemetery there is a short text: "Hans Egarter, 1909–1966, journalist".

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personal data
SURNAME Egarter, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian resistance fighter (South Tyrol)
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Olang
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1966
Place of death Brixen