Operation zone Alpine foothills
 Location in Italy |
|
| status | Operation zone of the German Reich (de facto) or the Italian Social Republic (de jure) |
| Official languages | Italian , German |
| Capital | Bolzano |
| Facility | September 10, 1943 |
| Supreme Commissioner | Franz Hofer |
| The End | May 1945 |
| currency | lira |
The Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills (OZAV) was on 10 September 1943 in the framework of the measures after the war exit of Italy introduced September 8 If axis by the Army Group B declared and included the states (provinces) South Tyrol , Trentino and Belluno . On the same day, the Adriatic Coastal Operation Zone (with the provinces of Udine , Gorizia , Trieste , Pola , Fiume , Kvarner and Ljubljana ) was established. From September 23, both operational zones formally belonged to the Repubblica Sociale Italiana , which ruled the remaining occupied territories of Italy from Salò on Lake Garda . The Italian influence was pushed back here, which was also shown in the restoration of the provincial borders in 1919 and the exchange of Italian mayors ( Podestà ). The mayors were replaced by (German-speaking) acting mayors who were recruited from the local optants . In South Tyrol , the German place and street names were allowed again alongside the Italian ones.
The civil administration in the operational zone was headed by Supreme Commissioner Franz Hofer , the Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Tyrol-Vorarlberg . He was appointed on September 27, 1943 and was instructed by Adolf Hitler to consider only German interests in the administration and authorized to set up new civil authorities. Hofer banned all parties, but left the Italian administration in place. Only free places were filled in South Tyrol by appropriate representatives of the German minority.
Peter Hofer , leader of the ethnic group, was initially appointed prefect of the province of Bolzano, but he was killed by an aerial bomb in December 1943 and replaced by the former parliamentarian Karl Tinzl .
For the security service or police duties was included the SOD ( South Tyrol stewards of from the set), ADO ( Association of optants for Germany ) emerged was. The SOD was also actively involved in the persecution of the Jews and the "Dableiber" (optants for Italy) (including Franz Thaler , Michael Gamper , Friedl Volgger , Alois Puff and Josef Ferrari ).
The temporarily deployed military commander of Northern Italy, General of the Infantry Joachim Witthöft , was appointed commander in the Alpine Foreland security area in October 1943 . He was not subordinate to the civilian supreme commissioner of the zone of operations. In May 1944, Witthöft was transferred to the Adriatic Sea and from then on the duties of the commander in the Alpine Foreland operations area were carried out by the Bolzano military command under Colonel Hans-Wolfgang von Schleinitz .
The only admitted print medium during the occupation was the official Bozner Tagblatt .
literature
- Andrea Di Michele, Rodolfo Taiani (ed.): The operational zone for the Alpine foothills in the Second World War . Athesia: Bozen 2009, ISBN 978-88-8266-573-9 .
- Margareth Lun: Nazi rule in South Tyrol. The Alpine Foreland operational zone 1943–1945 (Innsbruck Research on Contemporary History; Vol. 22). Study publisher: Vienna-Innsbruck-Munich-Bozen 2004.
- Margareth Lun: South Tyrol under Nazi rule . In: South Tyrol in words and pictures. 3rd quarter 2005/49. Vol., Pp. 26-32.
- Gerald Steinacher : South Tyrol and the secret services 1943–1945 . Innsbruck-Vienna: Studienverlag 2000.
- Gerald Steinacher (ed.): South Tyrol in the Third Reich: Nazi rule in northern Italy (1943–1945) / L'Alto Adige nel Terzo Reich: l'occupazione nazista nell'Italia settentrionale (1943–1945) . Innsbruck-Vienna-Munich-Bozen: Studienverlag 2003.
- Martha Verdorfer: Familiar fascism in the foothills of the Alps . In: Gottfried Solderer (Ed.): The 20th Century in South Tyrol . Volume 3 (1940–1959): Total war and a difficult new beginning. Edition Raetia: Bozen 2001, ISBN 88-7283-152-0 , pp. 48-60.
- Michael Wedekind: National Socialist Occupation and Annexation Policy in Northern Italy 1943 to 1945. The operational zones “Alpine Foreland” and “Adriatic Coastal Land” (Military History Studies 38), ed. from the Military History Research Office . R. Oldenbourg Verlag: Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56650-4 .
- Rolf Wörsdorfer: German views of the Adriatic region. From the construction of the southern runway to the end of the Second World War (1857–1945) . In: Hannes Obermair et al. (Ed.): Regional civil society in motion - Cittadini innanzi tutto. Festschrift for Hans Heiss . Vienna-Bozen: Folio Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 , pp. 94–116.