South Tyrol / Südtirol
In South Tyrol, economic and historic-cultural factors come together. Since the Roman empire broke down, Tyrol (and here South Tyrol is included) had never belonged to Italy nor to any Italian state or principality. South Tyrol belonged to Austria-Hungary until the end of the First World War and was then adjudged to Italy. After a phase of Italianification during Mussolini's regime, South Tyrol gained more and more political and linguistic autonomy after the Second World War. The wealthy region is even allowed to keep a large part of their state income.
For a long time, South Tyrol's citizens seemed satisfied. But the national debt crisis lit new fire under the separatist movement. After Greece, Italy is the most in-debt country in the eurozone. Many South Tyrol citizens who are doing very well themselves don't want to have anything to do with Italy's problems, so more and more of them call for a secession from Rome.
In Roman times Tyrol formed part of Rhaetia, which was conquered by the Romans, B.C. 15. At the time of the great migration of nations it was overrun by various German tribes, including the Ostrogoths. The southern portion later fell into the hands of the Lombards, and the northern became subject to the Bavarians, who were subdued by the Franks. Ultimately the country was divided into a number of petty lordships, some under the suzerainty of the dukes of Bavaria, some under that of the bishops of Trent, and others under that of the bishops of Brixen.
The whole of German Tyrol finally came into possession of one family, the counts of the Adige or of Tyrol (the latter being the name of their castle, so-called from the Roman Teriolis, near the site of which it stood). The last Count, who died in 1335, left one daughter, Margaret Maultasch. She bequeathed her rights to her cousins, the dukes of Austria, who thus acquired possession of Tyrol in 1363. The Italian slope remained in possession of the bishops of Trent, who were dispossessed in 1803, By the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria, much to the discontent of the people, who were warmly attached to the House of Austria. They made a gallant resistance to the French in 1809, under Andreas Hofer, but were defeated. By the Treaty of Schonbrunn the county was divided into three parts, North Tyrol going to Bavaria, South Tyrol to the Kingdom of Italy, and the eastern part being annexed to the Illyrian Provinces. Tyrol was restored to Austria by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.
The acquisition of Italian Tyrol formed part of the program of the Italian irredentists. Italians who were enthusiastic over a "Greater Italy" before the Great War claimed that their country's natural frontier is the main chain of the Alps marked by the St. Gothard Pass in Switzerland and by the Brenner Pass in the Austrian Tyrol. South Tyrol had a large German population, but the part furthest from the Brenner included the two old Venetian cities of Trient and Riva. "Italia Irredenta" or "Unredeemed Italy," was the part of Austria which was once Italian, or was commercially controlled by Italians, and includes Austria's chief port, Trieste, Styria, and Hungarian coast of Croatia, Fiume, and all Dalmatia as far as Albania.
Far from feeling Italian or having a desire to join Italy, they hated the Italians with an intensity which they did not hesitate to express, and while it was under discussion during the Great War whether the Welsch portions of Tyrol should be surrendered to Italy, there prevailed a great anxiety all over Tyrol, mainly in the Italian portions of it, and the relief of the people found vent in outbursts of joy when Italy declared war. The Welsch Tyrolians were said to fight the Italians with almost greater bitterness than the German soldiers of the Austrian army because they were not at all willing to be delivered from what the Italians and their English allies term the "Austrian tyranny." After the War, Italy obtained her "natural frontier" in south Tyrol, and completed her national unity.
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