Option in South Tyrol
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The Option in South Tyrol (German: Option in Südtirol; Italian: Opzione in Sudtirolo) refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when non-Italian speaking people living in South Tyrol were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in South Tyrol and being forcefully integrated in to the mainstream Italian culture, losing their language and cultural heritage.
South Tyrol had been a part of Italy since the end of World War I and, after the rise of fascism in 1922, a policy of Italianization was implemented ruthlessly. All places, down to the tiniest hamlet, were given Italian names, and even family names were translated. The process intensified in the 1930s, when the government of Benito Mussolini encouraged thousands of southern Italians to relocate to the region.
On the 21 October 1939, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini reached agreement on the assimilation of the ethnic German and Ladin speaking minorities in South Tyrol. The members of these two language communities had until 31 December 1939 to choose between remaining in Italy and losing all minority rights, or emigrating to the Nazi Germany, the so called "Option für Deutschland" (option for Germany).
85%-90% of South Tyroleans opted for the emigration (they were called Optanten and banded together in the ADO, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Optanten für Deutschland) and the remainder centred on the Catholic priests. Those who wanted to stay (Dableiber), were condemned as traitors, those who left (Optanten) were defamed as Nazis. The Option destroyed many families and the development of the South Tyrolean economy was set back many years. The first families left their homeland in 1939, and until 1943 a total or around 75,000 South Tyroleans emigrated.
The outbreak of the World War II meant that the relocation of people and complete Italianization of the area was never fully accomplished. When the Wehrmacht marched into South Tyrol in 1943 and the Operation Zone of Alpine Foothills was established, the emigration officially halted.
The majority of the South Tyroleans who had emigrated returned to the area in 1945. South Tyrol remained part of Italy after World War II, and many chose to take up Italian nationality after the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement. Those who returned had to register themselves and their children had to prove, by means of a birth certificate, that they had the right to Italian citizenship.
According to the 2001 census, more than two-thirds (69.4%) of the population of South Tyrol speaks German as a first language; the second most used language is Italian (26.3%), followed by Ladin (4.3%).
