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Present day Alto Adige-South Tyrol coincides with the province of Bolzano-Bozen, a province of Italy created in 1927. Until 1918 its area was part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tyrol and it was ceded to Italy after World War I. The area is part of the Tyrol-South Tyrol/Alto Adige-Trentino Euroregion since 1998.

Before the 19th century

Historically the region was home to a series of autochthonous cultures occupying roughly the area of the later county of Tyrol. The most prominent are the late Bronze Age Laugen-Melaun/Luco-Meluno and Iron Age Fritzens-Sanzeno cultures.

In 15 BCE the region was conquered by the Romans and its northern and eastern part were incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Raetia and Noricum respectively, while the part south of and including the area around the modern day cities of Merano and Bolzano became part of Italia's Regio X.

After the conquest of Italy by the Goths Tyrol became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom from the 5th to the 6th century. After the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 553 the Germanic tribe of the Langobards invaded Italy and founded the Langobard Kingdom of Italy, which no longer included all of Tyrol, but only its southern part. The northern part of Tyrol came under the influence of the Bavarii, while the east probably was part of Alamannia.

In the years 1007 and 1027 the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire granted the counties of Trento, Bolzano and Vinschgau to the Bishopric of Trento, in 1027 the county of Norital was granted to the Bishopric of Brixen, followed 1091 by the county of Pustertal.

Over the centuries, the Counts residing in Castle Tyrol, near Merano, extended their territory over much of the region and came to surpass the power of the bishops, who were nominally their feudal lords. Later counts came to hold much of their territory directly from the Holy Roman Emperor.

Following defeat by Napoleon in 1805, Austria was forced to cede Tyrol to the Kingdom of Bavaria in the Peace of Pressburg. Tyrol as a part of Bavaria became a member of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. Tyrol remained under Bavaria and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy until it was returned to Austria following the decisions at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. Integrated into the Austrian Empire, from 1867 onwards it was a Kronland of Cisleithania, the western half of Austria-Hungary.

Time of nationalism

After Napoleonic Era the time of nationalisms started in all Europe. Even in Italy, several groups began to push the idea of a unified national state (see Risorgimento). At the time, the struggle for Italian unification was perceived to be waged primarily against the Austrian Empire, which was the hegemonic power in Italy and the single most powerful force against unification. The Austrian Empire vigorously repressed nationalist sentiments growing in Italy, most of all during 1848 revolution and in the following years. Italy finally reached its independence in 1861; Venetia was annexed in 1866 and Latium with Rome, in 1870.

The process of unification of the Italian people in a national state was seen as incomplete, because several Italians communities remained under foreign rule. This situation created the so-called Italian irredentism (see Italia irredenta).

In 1882 Italy signed a defensive Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany (see Triple Alliance). However, Italian public opinion remained unenthusiastic about their country's alignment with Austria-Hungary, still perceiving it as the historical enemy of Italy. In the years before World War I, many distinguished military analysts predicted that Italy would change sides.

The Kingdom of Italy had declared its neutrality at the beginning of the World War I, because the Triple Alliance was a defensive one, requiring its members to come under attack first. Many Italians were still hostile to Austrian historical and continuing occupations of ethnically Italian areas. Austria-Hungary requested Italian neutrality, while the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France and Russia) its intervention. A large opinion movement in Italy, asked to join the conflict declaring war to Austria, with the aim to gain the "unredeemed" territories.

With the London Pact, signed in April 1915, Italy agreed to declare war against the Central Powers, in exchange (among other things) of territorial gains in the Austrian crown-lands of Tyrol, Kustenland and Dalmatia, homeland of large Italian minorities. The war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire was declared in May, 24, 1915.

In October 1917, the Italian army was defeated in the Battle of Caporetto, and was forced to put a new defensive line along the Piave river. On June 1918, an Austro-Hungarian offensive against Piave was repulsed (see Battle of the Piave River). On October, 24, 1918 Italy launched its final offensive against the Austro-Hungarian Army, which consequently collapsed (see Battle of Vittorio Veneto). The subsequent armistice of Villa Giusti was signed on November, 3. It was agreed to set it into force at 3.00 PM of November 4. In the following days the Italian Army completed the occupation of all Tirol (including Innsbruck), according to the armistice terms.

Annexation by Italy

According to the London Pact Italy had been granted the right to push its border up to the strategic frontier of the Alpine water divide (i.e. up to the Brenner pass).

After the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1919, these territories where officially annexed in October, 10, 1920 and organized in the Governatorato della Venezia Tridentina. It included the present day region Trentino-Alto Adige and the three communes of Cortina, Colle Santa Lucia and Livinallongo, today in the Province of Belluno. The northern part of Tyrol (composed by North Tyrol and East Tyrol) is today one of the nine federal states of present day Austria.

In January, 21, 1921 the "Governatorato" become one of the Italian Provinces, most exactly the "Provincia di Trento". In 1923, the three communes of Cortina, Livinallongo and Colle Santa Lucia were incorporated into the Province of Belluno. Finally, in January, 2, 1927, the new "Provincia di Bolzano" was created in the present days borders.

London Pact vs. Fourteen Points

Aannexation of South Tyrol was in breach of the principle of self-determination which US-president Woodrow Wilson had outlined in his Fourteen Points (Jan. 1918), specifically against point nine which made the recognition of "clearly recognizable lines of nationality" mandatory for any border realignment:

"A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality."

Despite this, Italy's demands where granted without difficulty and without opposition from the American side. It has been claimed that Wilson later complained about the annexation:

"Already the president had, unfortunately, promised the Brenner-Pass boundary to Orlando, which gave to Italy some 150,000 Tyrolese Germans-an action which he subsequently regarded as a big mistake and deeply regretted. It had been before he had made a careful study of the subject..."

The fate of the Germans of Southern Tyrol was similar to the fate of millions of other Europeans, detached from their motherland. Among them, millions of other Germans were put under a foreign sovereignty, such us the 3.2 millions of Sudetendeutsche, whose lands were detached from Austria and annexed to new state of Czechoslovakia, to grant it defensible borders.

Italianization period

The peace treaty signed in Saint Germain left Italy free of requirements to protect the German minority. The Italian government and the king Vittorio Emanuele III, however, assumed precise duties in this direction. The King, during the "speech of the Crown" on December, 1, 1919, declared full respect for local autonomies and traditions.

The protection proposals were soon fought by the rising influence of Fascism. In April 21, 1921, a group of fascist mobsters killed an elementary school teacher, Franz Innerhofer, who become later the symbol of the opposition to Fascism. In October 1922, the new Fascist government retired all the special dispositions created to protect linguistic minorities. All the toponyms were given just in the Italian version, and several family names were translated.

The Italianization program had been started, and the Fascist regime charged Achille Starace and Ettore Tolomei (a nationalist from Rovereto) to drive it.

Tolomei's “program in 23 points” was adopted. Among other things it decreed:

• the exclusive use of Italian language in the public offices
• the closure of greater part of the German schools
• incentives for immigrants from other Italian regions.

The first forms of opposition to the regime appeared in 1925: a priest, Michael Gamper, opened the first "Katakombenschulen", clandestine schools where teachers taught in the German language.

In 1926 the ancient institution of communal autonomy was abolished. In all Italy the "podestàs", appointed by the government, replaced the mayors and he had to report to the "prefettos".

The advent of National Socialism in Germany gave hope to several people, especially young ones. Hitler was seen as a possible liberator of the Southern Tyrol. The Völkischer Kampfring Südtirol, a party close to Nazi ideals, was consequently founded.

A large industrial zone in Bolzano was realized in 1935. It was followed by a strong immigration of workers, with their families, from other Italian lands (mainly from Veneto).

Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938; although Nazis were stationed at the Brenner Pass, Mussolini obtained from Hitler reassurances about the Italian borders.

German-Italian option agreement

Adolf Hitler never claimed any part of the Southern Tyrol for his Third Reich, even before the alliance with Benito Mussolini; in fact in "Mein Kampf" (1924) he claimed that Germans were just a small and irrelevant minority in Southern Tyrol (this definition including also Trentino) and he definitely acknowledged that the German portion of Southern Tyrol as a permanent belonging of Italy.

In 1939, both dictators agreed to give the German-speaking population a choice (the Alto Adige Option Agreement): they could emigrate to neighbouring Germany (including annexed Austria) or stay in Italy and accept their complete Italianisation.

South Tyrolean society was deeply divided. Those who wanted to stay (Dableiber) were condemned as traitors; those who left (Optanten), the majority, were defamed as Nazis. There was a plan to relocate the "optaten" in Crimea (annexed to Greater Germany); Most were meanwhile resetteld in the German annexed Western Poland or mainly expelled or killed after the war. Because of the outbreak of World War II, this agreement was just partially consummated.

In the 1939 Mussolini decided to start to build an Alpine Wall, a military fortification to defense Italy's Northern land border.

Annexation to Nazi Germany

In 1943, Mussolini was deposed and Italy surrendered to the Allies, who had invaded southern Italy via Sicily. German troops promptly invaded northern Italy and South Tyrol became part of the Operation Zone of the Alpine Foothills, annexed to the Greater Germany. Many German-speaking South Tyroleans, after years of linguistic oppression and discrimination by Fascist Italy, wanted revenge upon ethnic Italians living in the area (particularly in the larger cities) but were mostly prevented from doing so by the occupying (northern) German Nazis, who still considered Mussolini head of the Italian Social Republic and wanted to preserve good relations with the Italian Fascists still supporting Mussolini and his combat against the Allies. Although the Nazis were able to recruit amongst South Tyrolean youth, and to capture local Jews, they prevented anti-Italian feelings from getting out of hand. Mussolini, who wanted to set up his new pro-German Italian Social Republic in Bolzano, was still a Nazi ally.

The region largely escaped fighting during the war, and its mountainous remoteness proved useful to the Nazis as a refuge for items looted from across Europe. When the 88th Infantry Division occupied South Tyrol from May 2 to May 8 1945, and after the total unconditional surrender of Germany (May 9 1945), it found vast amounts of precious items and looted treasures of art. Among the items reportedly found were railway wagons filled with gold bars, hundreds of thousands of metres of silk, the Italian crown jewels, King Victor Emmanuel's personal collection of rare coins, and scores of works of art looted from art galleries such as the Uffizi in Florence. It was feared that the Germans might use the region as a last-ditch stronghold to fight to the bitter end and from there direct Werwolf activities in Allied-controlled territories, but this possibility was rendered moot by the suicide of Hitler, the disintegration and chaos of the Nazi apparatus and the rapid Nazi German surrender thereafter. (The Times, London, 25 May 1945)

After World War II

First Austrian - Italian agreement

After World War II and despite the harsh German occupation of Italy, the Province of Bolzano was untouched by the massive expulsion of ethnic Germans which occurred in all Europe, including former Nazi allies such as Hungary and Romania and western countries such as France and Netherlands.

No one of remaining Optanen (the greater part) was forced to leave. On the contrary, Italy allowed several Optanten to came back.

Attempts of the restored Republic of Austria, to regain the German lands of "Venezia Tridentina" came to nothing.

In 1945 the South Tyrolean People's Party (Südtiroler Volkspartei) was founded, above all by Dableiber – people who had chosen to stay in Italy after the agreement between Hitler and Mussolini. A party founded by the Optanten would not have been acceptable for the occupying Americans, owing to the 'Optants' apparently close relationship to the Nazis and their ideology. The support of the Dableiber proved useful as a means of deflecting Austrian claims.

In 1946, Italy and Austria accepted a compromise solution, the De Gasperi-Gruber agreement, so named after the Austrian minister for foreign affairs and the Italian prime minister. The German-speaking people were granted special rights.

A special "Autonomy Statute" was granted by the new Italian constitution to region "Trentino-Alto Adige" (the new name of "Venezia Tridentina"). Thus, in this region Italian speakers were in the majority, so a proper self-government for the German speakers was made harder. Not all what was granted was fully and quickly implemented; the total implementation of this "First statutory order" was delayed repeatedly.

The second agreement

Eventually, international (especially Austrian) public opinion and domestic consideration led the Italian central government to consider a "Second statutory order" and to negotiate a "package" of reforms that produced the an "Autonomy Statute", that virtually delinked the mostly German speaking province of Bolzano from the Trentino. The new agreement was signed in 1969 by Kurt Waldheim for Austria and by Aldo Moro for Italy. It took further 20 years of reforms to be fully implemented. In 1992 Italian government of Rome emanates the last previewed norms to implement the Package. After a debate in Parliament, also Vienna declares sluice the dispute. In June 18, 1992 the releasing receipt signed was signed by Italian and Austria in New York, in front of the U.N.

Today

Today, Alto Adige/South Tyrol is a peaceful and rich land, which enjoys a high degree of autonomy. It has deep relations with North and East Tyrol, especially since Austria's 1995 entry into the European Union, which led to a common currency and a de facto disappearance of the borders.

The whole historic region Tyrol (Austrian state Tyrol (North and East Tyrol) and Trentino-Alto Adige) forms an Euroregion, a region of intensified cross-border cooperation within the EU, called "Tirol-Südtirol/Alto Adige-Trentino" which, albeit having only limited competences, led to a joint Tyrolean parliament .

Linguistic and demographic history

At the time of its annexation, the territory subsequently known as Province of Bolzano-Bozen was inhabited by a large German-speaking majority. According to the census of 1910, which listed four groups according to their spoken language, the area was inhabited by approximately 89% German speakers, 3.8% Ladin speakers, 2.9% Italian speakers, and 4.3% speakers of other languages of the Austrian empire, altogether 251,000 people. According to some sources, the census did not include some 9000 immigrants from Italy. However, from the official provincial statistics of the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol it appears that Italian citizens were indeed registered in the census, although not necessarily as Italian-speakers.

In the following, the resident population is listed by language group, according to the censuses undertaken from 1880 to 2001. In absolute numbers:

In percentages:

Notes and references

1. First World War.com - Battles - The Battle of Vittorio Veneto, 1918
2. Regio Decreto Legislativo n. 1/1927 del 02.01.1927 "Riordinamento delle circoscrizioni provinciali"
3. Wilson, Woodrow (1918-01-08). "President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points" (HTML). Retrieved 2005-06-20.
4. Wilson, Woodrow (1918-01-08). "The Conditions of Peace" (HTML). Retrieved 2005-06-20.
5. 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", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 126, No. 4. (Aug., 1982), pp. 243-300 (246)
6. Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement, New York, 1992, Vol. II, p. 146.
7. Mein Kampf
8. Storia dell'Alto Adige in breve - 1969-1998
9. ^ Oscar Benvenuto (ed.): "South Tyrol in Figures 2008", Provincial Statistics Institute of the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Bozen/Bolzano 2007, p. 19, Table 11
10. Italians non included in 1910 census
11. ^ "Locals" with a different commonly spoken language and "non locals"
12. ^ "Italian citizens with a different commonly spoken language and non Italian citizens"
13. ^ "Foreigners"
14. ^ "All residents with a different commonly spoken language"
15. ^ "All residents, who did not declare which language group they belonged to"
16. ^ "Resident Italian citizens without any valid language group declaration, as well as resident foreigners"
17. ^ "Invalid declarations, people temporarily absent and resident foreigners"

See also

• Tyrol

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from July 2008
• Province of Bolzano-Bozen
• History of Italy by region
• South Tyrol