Ettore Tolomei
Encyclopedia
Ettore Tolomei was an Italian nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 and fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...

. He was designated a Member of the Italian Senate in 1923, and ennobled ("Conte della vetta") in 1937.

Pre-World War I activism

Born into a nationalistically oriented family (that rejected the Austrian domination of his Trentino and supported the Italian irredentism), after his studies in Florence and Rome Tolomei became associated with the nationalistic Dante Alighieri Society
Dante Alighieri Society
The Dante Alighieri Society is a society that promotes the Italian culture and language around the world.It was formed in Italy in July 1889. The society was named after Dante Alighieri , a pre-Renaissance poet from Florence and the author of The Divine Comedy...

. After graduation in 1888 he taught in Italian schools at Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

, Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

 and Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. He returned to Italy in 1901 and was appointed Inspector General of Italian Schools Abroad by the Foreign Ministry's Office.

His nationalistic activities had begun in 1890 with the founding of the weekly magazine La Nazione Italiana (The Italian Nation), a propagandistic publication whose aim was to popularize the positions of the Dante Alighieri Society. Its articles dwelled mainly on the issue of Trento
Trento
Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...

 and Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

, then still under Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 rule, but covered other areas including the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

, anticipating the fascist dream of a new Mediterranean empire.

As the end of the century neared, Tolomei's activities began to focus on the northern boundaries of Italy. To him, this natural boundary was the main watershed of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 near Reschen Pass and Brenner Pass
Brenner Pass
- Roadways :The motorway E45 leading from Innsbruck via Bolzano to Verona and Modena uses this pass, and is one of the most important north-south connections in Europe...

, even though few Italians lived in this mostly German-speaking area of the Austrian Empire.

In this early phase, he saw the Ladin
Ladin
Ladin is a language consisting of a group of dialects spoken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy in the border regions of the provinces Trentino, South Tyrol and Belluno...

s (a group speaking a Rhaeto-Romance language
Rhaeto-Romance languages
Rhaeto-Romance languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes multiple languages spoken in north and north-eastern Italy, and Switzerland...

 which inhabited the mountainous areas in what was then the eastern part of Southern Tyrol, a territory now divided between South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...

, Trentino and the province of Belluno
Province of Belluno
TheThe Province of Belluno is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.It has an area of 3,678 km², and a total population of 214,026 .-Geography:...

 as the Latin element through which "an Italian-Ladinic wedge" could be driven into the Germanic-speaking region, which in those days he called Alto Trentino - Upper Trentino, not having yet devised the name Alto Adige - High Adige
Adige
The Adige is a river with its source in the Alpine province of South Tyrol near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland. At in length, it is the second longest river in Italy, after the River Po with ....

, a creation which would become the official Italian designation for the province after World War I up to this day. This would have required an italianization of the Ladins, a plan he later abandoned in favour of the greater goal of italianizing or displacing the German-speakers who, according to Tolomei, were Germanized Italians that had to be re-italianized; this claim today can sound silly, but similar claims were common, in that time, between all European nationalists.

In 1904 Tolomei climbed the 2911m high Klockerkarkopf or Glockenkarkopf
Glockenkarkopf
The Glockenkarkopf, also known as Klockerkarkopf, is a mountain of in the Zillertal Alps on the border between the Austrian state Salzburg and the Italian province of South Tyrol.-Location:...

, which he believed to be the northern-most mountain on the main watershed in the Tyrolean Alps. In fact, the northern-most point of the Adrian drainage basin
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

 is not the Klockerkarkopf, but the nearby Western Zwillingsköpfl.

Tolomei claimed to be the first climber and renamed the peak Vetta d'Italia - Summit of Italy (with a clear political aim), although Franz Hofer and Fritz Kögl had already climbed it in 1895. It is not clear whether Tolomei was aware of Kögl's ascent or not, although an extensive article about it had appeared in the Austrian Alpine Club magazine.
Italian maps later adopted this name. According to a legend U.S President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

, for this reason believed that South Tyrol was an Italian land . In 1938 Tolomei was given the title "Conte della Vetta" (Count of the Summit) by the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III.

To further his goals, in 1906 Tolomei founded the Archivio per l' Alto Adige, a magazine which moved along the same propagandistic lines as La Nazione Italiana, but focused solely on the South Tyrolean issue. The Archivio propagated the Italianness of South Tyrol in articles that claimed scientific authority and objectivity, but were in fact deeply tinged with ideology and propagandistic intent, and for Tolomei a tool for personal promotion and narcisstic gratification. An important instrument in the struggle for the Italianization of South Tyrol, apart from the scholarly articles in the Archivio per l' Alto Adige which soon enjoyed a large readership in Italy, was the creation of an Italian name for every village and geographical feature in South Tyrol. As World War I neared, toponimy assumed increasing importance. The toponymic studies where presented as a re-Italianization of names which, according to Tolomei and his collaborators, had been Germanized not many generations before. The result of these activities, called Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige
Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige
The Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige is a list of Italianized toponyms for mostly German place names in South Tyrol which was published in 1916 by the Royal Italian Geographic Society...

, would be published in 1916 by the Reale Società Geografica Italiana la prima .

Activities during World War I

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Tolomei fled to Rome in order to avoid being drafted by the Austrian army. By this time, he had succeeded in giving the Region between the Brenner pass and the Salurner Klause an appearance of Italianness. The Archivio had become the reference work for all matters regarding South Tyrol, and during the war became the sole source of information for Italians. The idea of an Italian legal entitlement to South Tyrol had become generally accepted.

As Italy joined the war on the sides of the Allies in 1915, Tolomei joined the Italian armed forces under the pseudonym "Eugenio Treponti", to avoid being executed as a traitor if caught by the Austrians. He was immediately assigned to the Chiefs of Staff committee. The Archivio continued to appear as Serie di Guerra - War series, printed in Rome. The spectrum of the topics changed, and most articles where now written by Tolomei himself. As a result, the magazine's propagandistic intentions became more obvious. From 1915 onwards Tolomei increased his lobbying activities, sending several letters to government officials and nationalistic associations detailing his views on the steps to be taken for and after the annexation of South Tyrol. He anticipated that German speakers would assimilate to the Italian language and culture, although there were already thoughts of a possible resettlement. Also in 1915 he published his programmatic points for the "annexation and adaptation" of South Tyrol in the Archivio per l'Alto Adige. In its Volume 11 of 1916 appeared the Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige, a translation of over 10,000 village and place names. "[...] for the first time, the entirety of the indigenous nomenclature of place names, including the names of geographical features and farmsteads, were transformed into another language through one man's act of will".

In 1916 and 1917 he collaborated with the Istituto Geografico De Agostini (now De Agostini
De Agostini
De Agostini S.p.A. is a publishing house in Italy. It was founded in 1901 by the geographer Giovanni De Agostini in Rome, Italy, and later moved to Novara, Italy.- Overview :*De Agostini Editore S.p.A.**Istituto Geografico De Agostini S.p.A....

) to prepare maps for the region which should show it as being part of Italy. These maps where used by the Italian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, strengthening the impression that this was really an old Italian region.

After the occupation of Tyrol by Italian troops, Tolomei vigorously advocated decisive measures to radically alter the ethnic situation so that South Tyrol would become permanently Italian. Although he was nominated Commissario alla Lingua ed alla Cultura in Alto Adige - Commissioner for language and culture in Alto Adige, during the first postwar years his suggestions were not received well by the liberal administration. His big moment would only arrive with the fascist takeover of the Italian state.

Post-World War I career

Shortly after Italian troops had occupied the southern part of Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

 in the wake of the Austrian-Italian Armistice of Villa Giusti in November 1918 (which was confirmed by the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919), Tolomei was appointed to a cultural office in the main city of the area, Bozen (Bolzano).

On 2 October 1922, Tolomei led a group of Blackshirts
Blackshirts
The Blackshirts were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II...

 when they occupied the town hall of Bolzano and managed to persuade the Civil commissioner Luigi Credaro to depose the mayor; the following day they moved to Trento and, using similar tactics, obtained the suppression of the administrative Provincial assembly and, after Credaro's and minister Salandra's dismissals that of the entire Central office for the new provinces. It was 'de facto' the end of all democratic policies in the area of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol between the wars: supported by Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

, Tolomei enforced his policy of Italianization
Italianization
Italianization or Italianisation is a term used to describe a process of cultural assimilation in which ethnically non or partially Italian people or territory become Italian. The process can be voluntary or forced...

 from 1923 onwards. Not only the names of towns were changed, but also people were forced to change names and to learn Italian. His program totalled 32 points, of which some of the most salient were:
  • prohibition of the name "Tirol", and any variation of the same;
  • closure of German-language schools:
  • dissolution of parties specific to the German-speaking community;
  • imposition of Italian as the only official language;
  • closure of German-language press.


In 1939, his work led to the South Tyrol Option Agreement
South Tyrol Option Agreement
The South Tyrol Option Agreement refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin speaking people in South Tyrol and three communes in the province of Belluno were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy and...

 that forced people to choose between remaining in Italy or emigrating to the Third Reich, the so called "Option für Deutschland".

In 1943, when Italy surrendered, he was seized by German forces and deported, first to the Dachau concentration camp then to a sanatorium in Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

.

Because of his policies of enforcing Italian names on towns in South Tyrol, he is denigrated as "the undertaker of South Tyrol" by the German-speaking group in the area.

External links

Ettore Tolomei - Der Totengräber Süd-Tirols. Tiroler Schützenkompanie Andreas Hofer Meran
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