Feuernacht

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Feuernacht (Night of Fire) happened on the night of 12 June 1961 when numerous electricity pylons were blown up. It formed a turning point in the history of South Tyrol.

[edit] Background

After fascism came to an end in Italy, the situation of the non-Italian speaking minorities in South Tyrol seemed to be getting better. However, a large section of the population were not ready to accept the status quo as existed under Mussolini. Even though fundamental questions were addressed in the Treaty of Paris, the conditions of the treaty were rarely fully fulfilled. In addition, many South Tyroleans wanted to renege their attachment to Italy and to once again become part of Austria 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. Feuernacht was the starting point for a series of attacks throughout the 1960s, planned and carried out by a group called South Tyrolean Liberation Committee (Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol (BAS)), led by Sepp Kerschbaumer.

[edit] Aims

The aim of the attacks was, first and foremost, to make the world aware of the South Tyrol problem. 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 Feuernacht, but the world was indeed made aware of the plight of South Tyrol. The immediate response of the Italian state was to massively increase the military and police presence in South Tyrol. One month later there was another attempt, a mini-Feuernacht, 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. Italy found itself under a lot of pressure.