Sepp Kerschbaumer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Memorial plaque for Sepp Kerschbaumer in Frangart
The grave of Sepp Kerschbaumer

Sepp Kerschbaumer (born November 9, 1913 in Frangart , South Tyrol , then Austria-Hungary ; † December 7, 1964 in Verona ) was a South Tyrol activist and head of the separatist , right-wing terrorist organization Liberation Committee South Tyrol (BAS).

Life

Sepp Kerschbaumer was born as the son of the businessman Josef (from Ritten ) and Luise. Zelger (from Aldein ) was born in Frangart near Bozen . When Kerschbaumer was four years old, his father fell on the Dolomite front ; when he was nine years old, his mother died.

After his training in the Rainerum Bozen and Neustift Monastery , he graduated from the commercial preparatory school in Brixen in 1927 .

In 1933 he was drafted into the Italian military .

In the autumn of 1934 Kerschbaumer was sentenced to two years' exile at Potenza for participating in a prohibited political event. After a pardon by Benito Mussolini in the fall of 1935 he returned to South Tyrol.

Then Kerschbaumer was handed over the parental general store by his guardian.

Kerschbaumer was a devout Catholic and attended Holy Mass every day in Bozen; in prison he often prayed the rosary.

On April 29, 1936 he married Maria Spitaler from Frangart. The couple had six children:

  • Seppl (born April 27, 1937; † 1969)
  • Marialuisa (born March 5, 1939)
  • Mali (born March 26, 1940)
  • Helga (born June 25, 1942)
  • Franz (born December 1, 1949)
  • Christl (born January 6, 1957)

As an optant , Kerschbaumer decided for himself and his family in 1939 to emigrate to the German Reich , and also promoted this decision because, like many of his compatriots, he wanted to develop culturally and linguistically according to his ethnicity. But over time he realized that no help was to be expected from Germany. He became a staunch opponent of National Socialism . He was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Bozen during the German occupation in 1944 .

When the South Tyrolean People's Party was founded after the war , he soon joined it, became local chairman, parliamentary group leader and councilor in Frangart and devoted himself to local politics .

In the early 1950s, however, there was criticism of the SVP's too conciliatory stance. Kerschbaumer was one of these critics and began to gather like-minded people. The resulting organization was called the Liberation Committee South Tyrol for short. In September 1956, the BAS first attacked. A second series of attacks was carried out in January 1957.

In the same year, the moderate voices in the party leadership of the SVP were replaced by more radical ones. When the new chairman Silvius Magnago coined the motto: Los von Trient at the so-called large rally at Sigmundskron Castle on November 17, 1957 , Kerschbaumer was there and distributed an unsigned leaflet in which he called for a free South Tyrol and justified this as follows: “German we want to stay and not become slaves of a people who have occupied our country without a fight through betrayal and fraud and have been operating a system of exploitation and colonization for 40 years that is worse than the former colonial methods in Central Africa. "

After the wave of attacks on the night of fire , Kerschbaumer and 150 other BAS members were arrested and tortured by the police in custody. The severe abuse of Kerschbaumer and his fellow prisoners, as a result of which Anton Gostner and Franz Höfler died, contributed to a further escalation.

On July 16, 1964, Sepp Kerschbaumer was sentenced to 15 years and 11 months in prison as the leader of the BAS. Like all co-defendants, he escaped a threatened conviction of twice life because the president of the jury, Gustavo Simonetti, dropped the charges of "attack on the unity of the state" and "attack on the constitution" under pressure from the government of Aldo Moro . On December 7th of the same year, he suffered a heart attack while in custody and died.

The funeral turned into a demonstration: more than 15,000 people attended the funeral.

Historical role of Kerschbaumer

By founding the BAS and its actions, Kerschbaumer had shown the international public that an accelerated solution to the South Tyrol problem was needed. The fact that Kerschbaumer did not receive the maximum possible sentence for his offenses in the 1st Milan Trial was due to the intervention of the newly sworn in center-left coalition under Aldo Moro at the court, as well as a full confession of his actions and the acceptance of the tactics of the defense the statement that the goal was autonomy and not self-determination (which was not his real intentions).

Whether the attacks did more harm or benefit has long been a matter of dispute among historians. Today it is assumed that the attacks mainly benefited the Italian side, as they discredited the possibility of South Tyrolean self-determination , which the attacks were supposed to bring about. Because no South Tyrolean politician wanted or could publicly agree to the acts of the assassins and thus also to their goals. Despite the tense situation in South Tyrol, including a massive military presence, the political representatives of the state and the South Tyroleans managed to maintain a peaceful dialogue to solve the problem. With the Nineteen Commission, the SVP was given a concrete opportunity for negotiations that ultimately led to the South Tyrol package and form the basis of today's autonomy in South Tyrol .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf Steininger : South Tyrol 1918–1999. Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7065-1348-X , p. 82

literature

Web links

Commons : Sepp Kerschbaumer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kerschbaumer, Sepp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician (SVP), South Tyrol activist and head of the South Tyrol Liberation Committee
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Frangart , South Tyrol
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1964
Place of death Verona