Sepp Kerschbaumer

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Sepp Kerschbaumer (9 November 1913 - 7 December 1964) was a political activist from South Tyrol and a leading member of the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee (Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol (BAS)).

1 Early life
2 Politics
3 Incarceration and death
4 Sources
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Sepp Kerschbaumer was the son of the merchant Josef Kerschbaumer and his wife Luise of Aldino-Aldein, and born in the fraction (frazione) Frangarto-Frangart of the town Appiano sulla Strada del Vino-Eppan an der Weinstraße. Kerschbaumer's father was killed on the Dolomite Front in World War I when he was four, followed by the death of his mother when he was nine.

After his education in Bolzano and Neustift Monastery, he completed the commercial preparatory school in Bressanone-Brixen in 1927. In 1933 he was conscripted into military service. In late 1934 Kerschbaumer was banished for two years because of participation in a forbidden political meeting. After Mussolini pardoned him in late 1935, he returned to South Tyrol. At this point, he was put in charge of his parents' grocery business by his guardian.

On 29 April 1936 he married Maria Spitaler from Frangart. The couple had six children:

Seppl (born 27 April 1937, died 1969)
Marialuisa (born 5 March 1939)
Mali (born 26 March 1940)
Helga (born 25 June 1942)
Franz (born 1 December 1949)
Christl (born 6 January 1957)

[edit] Politics

In January 1923 Fascist Italy, which after World War I had gained the majority German-speaking area of South Tyrol from Austria-Hungary, begun a process of Italianisation.

In the Option in South Tyrol (1939), Kerschbaumer chose to align with Nazi Germany. He later realised that no assistance could be be expected from Germany and became a firm opponent of Hitler. After World War II he joined the South Tyrolean People's Party (Südtiroler Volkspartei (SVP)) and dedicated himself to local politics. He became local chairman of the party and local council/parliamentary group chief of Frangarto-Frangart.

At the start of the 1950s, he became frustrated at what he felt was the too conciliatory attitude of the SVP. At a large demonstration on 17 November 1957, Kerschbaumer distributed an anonymous leaflet demanding "a free South Tyrol". From then on he began to found and build the new South Tyrolean Liberation Committee (Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol (BAS)), which was at first limited to distributing leaflets and symbolic actions, such as the display of the forbidden flag of South Tyrol.

On 12 June 1961, the BAS organised the destruction by explosives of 34 electricity pylons supplying power to the industrial zone of Bolzano, later known as the Feuernacht (Night of Fire).

[edit] Incarceration and death

In the aftermath of the Feuernacht, Sepp Kerschbaumer was arrested and tortured by police. The mistreatment of Kerschbaumer contributed to further escalation of events.

Being the leading member of BAS, Sepp Kerschbaumer was sentenced to fifteen years and eleven months on July 16, 1964 for organising the bombing. On 7 December 1964 he died in prison in Verona of a heart attack. More than 20,000 of South Tyrol's 400,000 inhabitants attended the funeral on 9 December 1964.