The Night of fire happened on the night of 12 June 1961 when numerous electricity pylons were blown up in 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...

. It formed a turning point in the history of the province.

Background

After fascism

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...

 came to an end in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, the situation of the Austrian population in South Tyrol seemed to be getting better. However, was not ready to accept the status quo as existed under 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....

. Even though fundamental questions were addressed in the Treaty of Paris

Paris Peace Treaties, 1947

The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...

, In addition, many German speakers of the province wanted to renege their attachment to Italy and to once again become part of Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and others wanted to become self-governing. Starting in 1957 small groups started to form that were prepared to use force to achieve their aims. The night of fire was the starting point for a series of attacks throughout the 1960s, planned and carried out by a group called South Tyrolean Liberation Committee

South Tyrolean Liberation Committee

The South Tyrolean Liberation Committee was an organisation founded by Sepp Kerschbaumer in the mid-1950s to fight for South Tyrolean independence from Italy. The organisation were regarded as terrorists by the Italian government but many South Tyroleans regarded them as freedom fighters....

 (Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol (BAS)).

Aims

The aim of the attacks was, first and foremost, to make the world aware of the South Tyrolean question. By blowing up the electricity pylons the electricity supply to the Bolzano industrial zone, a powerful symbol of the ex-fascist regime, was cut off. This goal was not achieved during the night of fire, but the world was indeed made aware of the plight of the province. The immediate response of the Italian state was to massively increase the military and police presence there. One month later there was another attempt, a mini-night of fire, which did indeed cut off the power supply to a part of the northern Italian industrial zone and forced international trains to grind to a halt.