Being a Guest in Your Own Home: Political Situation of South Tyrol and Its Inhabitants in the Years 1918–1945

Abstract

The end of the Great War led to the annexation of German-speaking South Tyrol to Italy. Italian efforts to culturally subordinate its German-speaking inhabitants clashed with their sense of strong regional patriotism. As a result, the population of South Tyrol was subjected to a strong and multidimensional Italianization, especially during the period of Italian fascism and the times immediately before it. Tyroleans had to bear a huge burden on the road to autonomy, still feeling like guests and not hosts in their local homeland. However, even in the reborn democratic state of Italy after World War II, the problems did not go away. The difficult history of interwar years turned out to be the first stage of the struggle for the right to self-determination of the regional community in South Tyrol.