I - an Austrian - told my co-worker - who is Italian - that their ice hokey team had recently won a match. He looked at me confused and said: "We have an ice hokey team?" He googled it, and most of the names in the team then there were German in origin, all of those hailing from South Tyrol. He brushed it off saying: "Those aren't Italians." "Then you don't mind giving South Tyrol back?", I countered. "Never!" Then we had a laugh about it, and went for an espresso. And that, is the South Tyrol situation in a nutshell.
As an Australian who lives in a federated, mostly culturally homogenous continent (albeit with a vibrant indigenous heritage), European borders endlessly fascinate me. I know there's almost always a valid historical reason, but the way you can track who owns what land back centuries and centuries before our current understanding of a "nation state" is really interesting.
I don't think Australia and homogeneous goes along very well. It's true that in some cities it is indeed homogeneous due to low population, but Australia as entirety overall is multicultural, over 30% of the population were born overseas so that pretty much proves my point.
As a son of Sicilians, born and living in Sydney, what's within island borders fascinates even more. Sicily is the most conquered island on earth. You find a mix of everything there. It's the centre of the Mediterranean, which itself means middle of earth. My parents' province, Messina, was colonised, by the Greeks, 700BC. There are genetic ties to Greece and in nearby towns an old Greek (Griko) is still spoken. Australia, in contrast, was practically untouched, by Europeans, until 250 years ago. Somehow the brutality, of 2700 years of occupation of Sicily, was exercised, in Australia, over the locals, just over a few decades, after settlement, in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
@@julm7744 Australia is one thing but Europe is covered in stolen land. For example Germans who were kicked out of Kaliningrad and Poland after WW2 and never received any compensation even though they lost the war those are still private land that was taken without reparations. Jews all over Europe who's land was stolen before, during and even after WW2, they died so the land was stolen, families never received reparations from governments or the new owners and this includes western countries, France, Germany, Poland, Austria, Greece, Netherlands pretty much every European country and of course Russia who stole the lands of millions of people and did so by calling land owners "Kulaks" basically legalizing land re-distribution and sending the owners to their death in Siberia, the families to this day never received anything.
There is a major mistake in the map here. What is shown as "south tirol" is actually both South Tirol and Trentino, which is Italian speaking. Historically, they have been ruled as a single entity, but at least for the past several centuries, South Tyrol has always been german speaking, and Trentino always Italian speaking. (Thus, interestingly the political boundary never matched with the linguistic boundary.) This is an important nuance that really should have been covered in the video. Edit: to all of you saying "but the video is only 4 minutes". The MAIN ISSUE is the MAP, and fixing that would take 0 seconds of extra time.
Fun fact: under Austria-Hungary "Trentino" was called "welschtyrol" or at least that's what I heard from my family which has been living in that reagion for generations Edit: @K Gius pointed out a spelling mistake
South and North Tyrol were Italian (Rhetes) (a variant of Latin) under the Roman Empire and until the arrival of the Lombards in the 7th century, so it was not always German (This comment have no purpose, just a fact to complete what is previosly say)
I´ve visited the Slovenian part of the Soca/Isonzo valley recently. The area is still covered with remnants from these horrible fightings between Italy and Austro-Hungary. To see these trenches and bastions in ruins is a remarkable contrast to the beauty of the area with alpine rivers, impressive mountains, forests, old villages ... And seeing this makes me appreciate even more that today we have peace and open borders between Italy, Austria, Slovenia etc.
There were also fears that giving away more Italian territory would further upset the population, and draw people closer to Communism, since there were a considerable number of communist Italian Partisans by the end of the war. Keeping Italy stable was seen as much more important.
The Italian-speaking Trentino Was allowed to vote. With 85%, it was even the region with the strongest commitment to the Republic. It was only the foreign language regions of South Tyrol and the Julian March that were not allowed to vote. The same was true for the first free election in Italy in 1946, to the Constituent Assembly, which took place at the same time: There, too, the two regions were not allowed to vote; the constitution was then imposed on them without their consent. And to the Julian March: That area did not come completely to Yugoslavia, but was divided up between both states.
No one feared italy lmao, that was not seen as important at all, they just conned the allies into believing that they were invaded or forced by germany when in reality Mussolini was there since 1920, over a decade before hitler came to power. But hiding behind the punishment germany was getting they were basically able to portray themselves as if they always had been part of the allies
I lived in “South Tyrol” for a couple of years… the name depending on who you speak with the name will change based on the language. From the Italian Perspective it’s the “upper Adige” (Alto Adige) or “South Tyrol” (Südtirol). It’s a beautiful place, but even today you still see some level of tension and separation between the two groups (the Italians and the South Tyrolleans). But you also see a number of people with mixed heritage and feeling almost caught in between the two. From a linguistic perspective it can be a little tricky there, the German they speak is a vey old dialect and very difficult to understand even if you already speak “High German”, the dialect also changes depending on where you are in the region. Sometimes you’ll try to speak in German and the person may respond in Italian, or you may speak Italian and the person responds in German. But just being there can really be amazing! The mountains everywhere, the apple orchards, vineyards, they views are always spectacular! And the food is quite good too 😋 definitely something I could continue writing about but I’ll stop here 😜
I had a different impresssion: despite having dialectal words the South Tyrolians I met so far spoke a clearer German than some Bavarians or Austrians you will encounter.
I was in South Tirol. As a native German speaker I can say that I am able to understand south Tiroliens better than Bavarian. If South Tirol would become a state of Austria the would loose their authonomy.
The Brenner Pass, site of today’s Italian-Austrian border, is one of the earliest-traversed and most important mountain passes in Europe, there’s a good video about it over on the Wayback history channel
@@luciano5241 nah, lui è molto bravo, e poi gli inglesi la storia la conoscono anche perché un po l'hanno fatta anche loro, gli americani nn hanno fatto niente apparte per gli untile 60 anni quindi
As others pointed out, there’s a mistake in the map: the region you call “South Tyrol” is actually Trentino-Alto Adige, which comprises South Tyrol (Alto Adige). There are two “capitals”: Trento, in the south, Italian speaking, and Bolzano/Bozen, with some German speakers (about a quarter of the population). So South Tyrol is actually the northern half of the region you showed, and the one that Austria might have a claim on
@@premjul7818 Sure, I was only taking into account the two major cities, since they’re the two “Autonomous Provinces” and have about the same degree of autonomy as a region does
@@premjul7818 One reason Bozen is now 3/4 Italian is because Mussolini deliberately "invited" Italians to settle there with extra perks and Italianisation was widely implemented. The German language was either banned or suppressed across much of the region. This also helped encourage people to leave to Austria and this, conveniently, left space for the incoming Italians.
Mussollini did the same in the Eastern parts of Austria they gained with the Slovene population, even going as far as translating people's surnames (for example changing Volk to Luppe)
@@poldi2233 Yes, in Istria and Dalmatia they imposed the use of Italian, forbidding any other language in public spaces. This was particularly important in schools, since teachers were all replaced by Italian speakers. It was just part of the atrocities Italians (and Austrians before them) committed in the region
I would have loved for him to dive deeper into the South tyrolers that fought for the Nazis rather than revolting against them as the majority of Italians did, I think a shame that is not talked enough, with people taking more care about that laud minority of fascist left after WW2 in Italy...
As someone already pointed out, the German South Tyrol is only the northern half of what was conquered after WW1. The autonomous region was conceived as a "confederation of two provinces", and it was especially created by the first PM of the Italian Republic Alcide de Gasperi after WW2. He himself was from Trento, and even got his degree in Vienna when he was young, because he was officially born an Austrian-Hungarian citizen. That autonomous region is a little masterpiece in terms of respect of a minority, and it compensates the sick behaviour that Fascist Italy imposed on that territory: the fascists invented fake toponyms to replace the original German ones, populated Bozen/Bolzano with plenty of Italian immigrants in a mostly failed attempt to change the ethnic composition, and built kitch marble monuments to restyle an otherwise exquisite Austrian Alpine settlement, which by the way came out to be quite well preserved until today. The population of Trento has always been a Lombard-Venetian-speaking majority living in mountainous area ruled by the local bishropic, which recognized the Archduke of Austria as liege lord. The Germans had such presence in North-Eastern Italy so that they called the area of Trento "Welschtyrol", literally meaning "Welsh Tyrol". "Welsch" (German), "Welsh" (English), "Wlochy" (Polish), "Walloon", "Wallachia", etc. are all historical words that were used by the German and Slavic speakers to call the Romance and Gaulish speaking neighbouring populations. Interestingly some cities that lie entirely in Italy, like Verona or Brescia, were known by the Germans with the exonyms of "Welsch-Bern" ("Romance Bern" reconducted by Germans to the familiar Swiss city of Bern), and "Welsch-Brixen" (related to the Tyrolean town of Brixen/Bressanone).
There is one big mistake in this video: the southern portion of South-Tyrol, known as Trentino since it’s the area in the province of Trento, was actually Italian-speaking. The propaganda for WW1 in Italy was centred around the duty to free the last two Italian cities under the control of Austria: Trento and Trieste. Today in Italy what this video calls “South Tyrol” is divided into two different provinces that are totally autonomous from each other: the southern Italian-speaking province of Trentino, and the northern mostly German speaking province of Südtirol (also called “Alto Adige” in Italian).
My great grandmother was from Trento (from Baselga di Pinè). She spoke Italian and so did her brothers and parents. Typical Trentino surnames sound quite Italian to me, such as Ioriatti, Bertoldi, Svaldi, Moser, Ambrosi, Avi, Pintarelli, Palaoro, Francisci, Casagranda, Gobbi, Fedel, Leonardelli, Brol... Ok, maybe not some of these... Or Pompermaier... But the Pompermaier immigrants to Brazil also spoke Italian and called themselves Italian (even though many had Austrian passports in the late 19th century).
@@Chocolatnave123 You're on a video about it so evidently you care dumbass, not as deeply for you to actually learn something from it, but apparently you're still here
There's a big mistake in the video. You talk about the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Alto Adige) but in the map you also included the autonomous province of Trento. The two provinces border each other but are different. Trentino is mainly Italian-speaking, while Alto Adige is mainly German-speaking. The two form a single region (although much of the power is in the hands of the autonomous provinces) and they were both part of Austria until 1919. While one might argue that Italy had no rightful claim on South Tyrol, Trentino was rightfully Italian and under Austrian occupation.
Italian claims on south tyrol were rightful. South Tyrol is geographycally italian, it was partially part of Principato Vescovile di Trento and also was inhabitated mostly by romance speaking population during middle ages. Some parts of South Tyrol, like Vinschgau (Val Venosta), had a romance majority until the XVIII century!!! Also Bolzano/Bozen was part of the napolenic kingdom of Italy And today the majority of the population don't want to be part of Austria.
@@Norhod yeah imagine making a video on this subject without understating the difference between South Tyrol and Trentino, that's not great. Not to mention that it's wrong calling South Tyrol a region; it never was. It's a province.
South Tyrol was heavily settled by Italians after it's annexation, while many Germans left. It had been in the hands of Austria for centuries - that's not an occupation.
There are several mistakes here. In the maps you are often confusing Trentino Alto Adige with South Tyrol. South Tyrol is the northern part of Trentino Alto Adige and it is called by italians in fact Alto Adige, while the southern part is called Trentino. But in the maps you always show the whole Trentino Alto Adige as "german area in Italy" which is incorrect, the Trentino is an italian speaking area.
It's more correct to say that the area annexed by Italy (part of the historical county of Tyrol centuries before) is divided properly in two-subparts. The Northern part with Bozen as capital is the one with a german speaking majority and it is the proper South-Tyrol (called by Italians "Alto-Adige" o "Sud-Tirolo"). The southern part of the area you discussed in the video is instead known as "Trentino" (the former bishopric of Trent during the HRE) and have instead an Italian speaking majority. So it's not correct to say that the reason for is annexation was only to complete the borders (even if it was an important strategic reason), because in both parts there was an Italian presence and in area of Trent that presence was the majority. Infact one of the maxim of the Italian troops during WWI was to reach Trent in the north and Triest in the east as the two cities that Italy missed during the unification. In the administrative division of Italy now they are known as the region of "Trentino-Alto Adige", but with the majority of the administrative power devolved to the two autonomous provinces that compose the region: The province of "Trento" and the "province of Bolzano" (Bozen).
In the video, South Tyrol is the whole “trentino Alto Adige” Italian region but South Tyrol is just the Alto Adige province. Trentino is an Italian province historically linked to the Venice Republic.
Let's be historically accurate and rather say: Historically linked to the Counry of Tyrol - which it was an integral a part of for more than 500 years...
For other German speakers South Tyrol really is a magical and convenient place. There, you have easy access to excellent food (be it risotto or notto), but don't have to take your hands out of your pockets to order it.
Specifically, it's the slope downwards from Sudtirol that makes the Italians want to possess it. Sloping steeply from the Austrian side to the summit, it is difficult for a military to traverse. From that point down into the Po valley is a much easier venture, making any defense of the Po dependent on control of the summit in Sudtirol.
Little correction for the map at 0:01, the one shown on the map is Trentino Alto-Adige, an italian region which includes both the provinces of Trento (the italian speaking part, also known as Trentino, which was also taken from Austria) and Bolzano (the german speaking part which is actually known as South Tyrol or Alto Adige in italian). So South Tyrol is just half of what is shown on the map.
Yes, that's true! A few other reasons are energy and water supply. South Tyrol now produces more energy than it uses. Obviously, also to make more money, clean energy gets exported and not so clean energy gets imported. December to March are negative months and there's a higher demand for energy since most of the energy comes from the water.
To be fair. There’s not a lot of difference to defend Italy at the Brennerpass or at the Salurner klause. It’s not like the border would be in open terrain then. It’s still mountains and one valley
@@gerrymnt9250 of courseit’s a question of natural borders of The italian phisical region. The Brenner could not remain in The hands of The reactionary balcanic state of Vienna. The french did exactly The same in Tenda and Briga Marittima so what are we talking about?
@@gigieinaudi24 what a big bullshit. We are nit barbars. We are in a union and not enemies. Most of the European borders are simply somewhere. Not always divided by mountains. And lastly there’s literally no difference between protecting Austria or Italy at a pass or down in The Valley. There’s not more connections either way. Still mountains. Only thing that changes is altitude.
@@gerrymnt9250 okay you gave use The evidence you simply do not know what we are talking about. Actually your insane position on borders reminds me Putin’s one. Go to Russia then no?
bavarian here, happy you mentioned bavaria in this since we are very close to the tyrolian people, i can speak fluent bavarian in south tyrol and keep up a conversation
@@andrefasching1332 Bairisch, nicht Alemannisch. Die beiden Dialektgruppen sind deutlich unterschiedlich, ihre Sprecher tun sich z.T. schwer sich gegenseitig zu verstehen.
I knew a few German speaking Tyroleans living in Austria and noticed a funny habit. When they spoke in English, they either spoke with a strong Italian accent or with a German one. Sometimes the accent even seemed to switch from one to the other.
Being from the region I can tell you one big mistake constant throughout the whole video: the region you highlight as South Tyrol is not South Tyrol. The northern half is South Tyrol, the southern half is Trentino. Trentino was referred to by Austrians as Welschtyrol, meaning it was considered Tyrol but its inhabitants were something else (Welsch means foreigner and has the same root of Welsh). Trentino had been inhabited since the middle ages by an Italian-speaking population, and the main state entity was the Prince-Bisphoric of Trent. Beginning in the 1880s Trentino was considered by the Kingdom of Italy as one of the two "regioni irredente" meaning Italian regions under foreign occupation.
Imo South Tyrol connects the best from the German and Italian side. We have the work spirit of the Germans, but still the sense for the "Bella Vita" of the italians.
German is one of the official languages of Alto Adige and their ID cards are bilingual. French is official in Valle d'Aosta too. And Campione d'Italia sits inside Switzerland on Lake Lugano. It's different up north.
Next this guy is going to be asking "why is Val D'Aosta Italian. How come he is not making videos on why is Scotland part of the UK or "Why is Northern Ireland not part of Ireland?" or "Why is Wales not a country?". Seems only questions relating to other countries not his own. Next it's gonna be "Why is Catalonia part of Spain?" or "Why Brittany part of France?" or "Why is Belgium a country of two people that hate each other?"
@@algiz21 Alto Adige was a Napoleonic term. He had the strength to unify the Italian peninsula again, under a friendly government. Südtirol is of course accepted as official name too, given the German-speaking population. Austria also has a history of suppressing Italian initiatives in South Tyrol, but since Fascism took centre-stage in everyone's attention span, it is seldomly covered. Fortunately now Italy got control back of its peninsula.
I think that you made a mistake, Italy own 2/3 of Tyrol (Trento and Bozen). Trento is majority Italian and was always thought as part of Italy, Bozen was the part with a German majority disputed with Austria
Bro there is no dispute. Trentino should be Italian allright, but they had zero rightfull claims for Süd-Tirol. Geographically, Trentino has some valuable connections to Verona and Venice Region, while Süd-Tirol has 4 connections towards Austria.
@@etetepete the Germans had ZERO CLAIMS on Sudtirol, only the LADINI are the TRUE INHABITANTS of those valleys and were BRUTALLY GERMANIZED in the past by german settlers. Today Bolzano is 73% ITALIAN and the entire province is only 60% german, and despite their ethnical proportion and the large and generous autonomy majority of people enjoy being Italians, also in the elections the secessionist parties in Sudtirol are a minorities, probably because THEY LOVE ITALIAN MONEY FROM ITALIAN TOURISTS (30% of Bolzano GDP is from Tourism)
@@etetepete A thing that no one consider is that the today's fact are chaged. The true German (Austrian) are the old generations. And there is a lot of immigrations from other region of Italy to Alto Adige. So Alto Adige is under a automathic Italianization.
Many years ago (I’m an Italian from Tuscany) I served in the Italian military paratroopers Folgore Brigade. 1993/1994. Just to give you a little contest: we are talking about the draft, the compulsory military service and I was 20 years old which means no life experience what so ever!!!! I met guys like myself from every part of Italy and of course some were from South Tyrol. They were blonde green / blue eyes or dark hair with green or blue eyes. German looking folks. I called them the Germans since their last names were: Pliger, Platner, Verginer, Unterkamsteiner… etc. They spoke Italian with a thick German accent. I didn’t like them at first and after a few days together they became my friends. That was my first time in my life - real life experience- brushed off some prejudice. Greetings to all the Italian / Austrian from South Tyrol, a beautiful land with great people. Special greetings to all the South Tyrolleans who served in the Military Paratroopers Folgore Brigade
Most of the people from South Tyrol are people you can trust. Not trying to say you can't trust any other Italians, but they're more or less loyal. Maybe a bit more reserved than most outgoing Italians, but in the end they're good people. They're not the type of population that do bad things.
Bro, people died in bombings because of this, less than 60 years ago. Edit: Fair enough, it's just a rather recent and still political thing, not a soley historical one. I've actually seen "South Tyrol is not Italy"- stickers two years ago.
They also left out quite a bit. Andreas Hofer and his Schützen stood their ground against Napoleon over three Battles in half a year before the bavarians came to a peace agreement with the French and they lost the fourth battle. They also left out the BAS, that was mentioned by Valentin Mitterbauer. The "Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol" or in english "South Tyrolean libreation comittee" did several attacks on Italian infrastructure in one night. They tried to pull it off without deaths and just wanted to halt the Italian industry that was used to italianize our region. Sadly one bomb on a electricity pole didn't went off and killed a worker who tried to remove it later. That lead to the involvment of the military and the police and they tortured some of the guys who did the attacks. Iirc there still live some of the attackers in austria who can never returned because they are wanted for terrorism.
Yes, part of Croatia coastal side belongs to Italy, I don't understand why Italian not asking for that land back They were forced out and killed by Croatian Nazi Ustase.
@@ranojutro426 because those belong to Croatia and Slovenia now and have for many years, and we'd much rather keep friendly relationships with our neighbors than to engage in poinless territorial disputes over some tiddlywink of coastline. We're all part of the EU now and that's all that matters
Possible vid idea: When/Why did Scotland start speaking English? (I am aware Scottish Gaelic still exists, but maybe that could be addressed too) Likewise the same could be done with Ireland, not only for the transition to speaking English, but now Ireland is also trying to revive the Irish Language
Think Scotland started speaking English as part of the Highland Clearances - which HM has a video on! 😎 Ireland somewhat later. The East Coast generally always predominantly spoke English (or some French/English mix as I think the originally conquerors of Ireland would still be termed Norman rather than English. Before that conquest Dublin was a Norse city). The rest of the island, save for pockets of Norse-founded cities which would have been assimilated into Norman/English ways, would have spoken Irish. Particularly true for the West Coast. The shift to English would've been taking place from mid 1750s onwards but was greatlt accelerated by Great Famine, subsequent emmigration and internal population shift to Belfast and Dublin. Irish is taught in schools but woefully so, with complaints about teaching curriculum focussing too much on analysing poetry and books rather than actually teaching children a language they don't speak. As far I can tell, these complaints have been going on for nearly as long as Irish has been taught in schools!
@@samkendlinhobbs8494 Thanks for the insight- I also didn’t know HM had a video that mentioned this! As for Ireland, I’ve been there a couple times before (both the Republic and the UK side) and have seen some of those differences in dialect firsthand- while Belfast accents were pretty clear, the accents of rural Munster and Connaught were a little harder to get used to at times, but sounded really cool nonetheless 😅 Hoping to be able to visit Scotland one day too- the cultures of the British Isles have always been intriguing to me
They speak German and even have a similar school system. In the 90s I chatted with a guy on ICQ about the specific type of school for engineers I we were on, and only after a while realized he was from South Tyrol.
Depends on what you're taking about. We have incorporated some italian words into our dialect. Sometimes I have to stop midsentence because people look at me confused because I used some italian term. For example calcetto, campetto, pattente, alla fine, pulmino...
@@will_i_craft5555 I think that's more a you problem, i'm from Switzerland, we have some French words incorporated within our dialect but we can communicate with Germans without confusing them when we speak High German.
@@will_i_craft5555 Not sure why you're bringing up dialect because the guy you responded to was obviously not refering to dialect talk but yeah, when people with different dialects talk there can sometimes be confusion, that's to be expected.
Nice. I am Brazilian, descendent of "Austro-Hungarians" (Italian speakers from Trento) that emigrated during the late 19h century. Quite large community here, mostly descending of Italian speakers
Same here, the bad thing is that Italy took that place after the first First World War, and all the descending of those people who emigrated before it, has no right to get a Italian citizenship
Can you make a video why there is still a German minority in Poland (despite the fact that the Germans were expelled from Poland after II World War), please?
Ironically its the german minorty that was already living in Poland prior to 1939 which wasn't totally expelled. Regions that were newly annexed by Poland had all their inhabitants expelled.
As a south tyrolian I have to say I'm all good with being part of Italy. If we were a part of Austria, we wouldn't have our great autonomy. This kind of autonomy made it possible to gain wealth in this region. This is something many south tyrolians don't want to understand...
In the musical Chess, written by the guys from Abba and Tim Rice, the first act is set in Merano in South Tyrol (first song: Merano) and the second act in Bangkok (first song: One Night in Bangkok). In "Merano" there's a line: "Right now we're Italian, we used to be German, the borders keep shifting around."
Greetings from South Tyrol, thanks for the video mate. I wanna add that the province's autonomy after WW2 essencially relies on the so called "Gruber-De Gasperi-Abkommen" from 1946, a contract between Austia and Italy guaranteeding that the german speaking population in South Tyrol, their language and their culture would be protected. Then, in 1948, the "Erstes Autonomiestatut" took place, which was supposed to give the province more autonomous competences. However, these competences, that many people weren't even satisfied to begin with, were never actually given to South Tyrol. This led to a demonstration on the castle "Schloss Siegmundskron" in 1957 and several bomb attacks in the 1960s. A commission was then built, which tried to find a solution. In 1969 they came up with the so called "Paket", which included many competences that would be given to the province. After the Italian and Austrian parliament as well as the SVP (most important political party in South Tyrol, especially at that time) had agreed to it, the competences were passed to the province in the period from 1972-1992. This was called the "Zweites Autonomiestatut" and in 1992 the "Südtirol-Frage" (South Tyrol question) was officially declared solved by Italy and Austria.
simply giving bozen to austria...or better said: ask the population of bozen if they want to join austria seems like a better solution to me than all those statuts. but thanks for the info anyways!
@@andrefasching1332 it hardly matters nowadays. Sued-Tyrol is still largely Germanic culturally, and since there's no border between Austria and Italy giving the land back to Austria wouldn't make much difference. Furthermore Bozen and Trento provinces enjoy some huge financial benefits that led them to become the region with the highest living standards in Italy after WW2, if Bozen went back to Austria would they retain those benefits?
@@nicolaramoso3286 Isn't it true that the population in South-Tyrol has mixed up a lot, anyway? In the cities (Bozen and Meran), there are lots of ethnic Italians, whereas in the rural villages, German language still dominates. I personally have always enjoyed the Italian colour of the cities, for instance restaurants with Italian food and gelaterias in Bolzano. :) Since Italy as well as Austria are members of the European Union, it doesn't matter too much, what passports the citizens are owning, imho. I am a German living in Austria and I have learned that Austrians of the political party FPÖ are considering to offer Austrian passports to South-Tyrolians. This reminds a bit on Putin. :(
@@andrefasching1332 ask the population of Bozen if they want to join Austria, this is funny. Despite being the capital of South Tyrol Bozen has now an itlian speaking majority of 74%.
@@nefertut6750 And? Is a majority of a certain languange more important than a democratic process? Culturally the ties are extremely close to Austria and looking at switzerland next door, a common ideological or cultural approach is reason enough for asking people what they want instead of looking at languange or ethnics
2 Fun pieces of trivia about South Tyrol. 1)it's not called like this in Italy (Duh) it's called "Alto Adige" which literally means "Upper Adige. 2)the Italian constitution states that "Italy is one and indivisible" which means than any kind of referendum to split the country is unconstitutional.
Most countries have a line in their constitution about being indivisible or say the whole nation must vote on a region leaving. It is why Catalonia will probably never be independent and why Russia's referendums are completely invalid even if every person there honestly wanted to join them. Fun fact Norway tried to give Finland a mountain peak near their shared border for Finland's birthday, but the Norwegian constitution says they are indivisible so it didn't happen.
@@taylordinney1484 Ah, that's the reason! i remember the story that they wanted to give them a peak, but then i never heard why they in the end did not. Thanks!
True! A referendum can be done with permission from Rome only. But there's only 2 options. Remain in Italy or get an own state. Going back to Austria makes no sense and that's the same error that already happened 100 years ago. This would be a bad situation for many years for all the Italian-speaking people.
There is no reason for South Tyrol to go back to Austria since they enjoy their special status in North Tyrol while having an Italian passport. Since South Tyrol has nothing in common with the rest of Italy, North Tyroleans just consider them as part of The Tyrol located in the adjacent country. Going back to Austria would just be a unnecessary hassle for them.
What I find most amusing is that south tyrol always wanted to go back to austria, yet when one of their independent movement gained enough popularity Austris basically went "ok but you'll have to pay taxes and lose your autonomous region status" after that no one ever mentioned secession for real again.
I spoke to a chap from the region some years ago. His grandfarther had spoken german as did many in the area. Italy held a referendom and the local people rejected any idea of returning to Austria because they got so much a better deal as a specical area of Italy than as just another area of Austria. I can recommend it for a visit, lovely area.
Fascinating (and hilarious) video! Very interesting that this has been an 200+ year situation. This hits pretty close to home for me because growing up I was told I was mostly Italian, but after having my DNA checked, it turned out I was actually mostly German. I soon found out that the village my grandfather's family was from was in South Tyrol, so while I'm technically from Italy, I'm ethnically German.
@@haraffael7821 Gesprochen wie ein wahrer Eigenbrötler ausm Freistaat Bayern. The feeling is quite mutual so how about you keep your Söder and Seehofer to yourselves and leave the sane parts of Germany alone?
@@haraffael7821 I'd say Austria/Bavaria speaks Austro-Bavarian but other than that yes, I very much agree with Austria/Bavaria being ethnically Austro-Bavarian.
@@haraffael7821 Mate, macedonians have a better ethnogenesis than "austro-bavarians". You considered yourselves germans up until you: 1. lost the Brother's War; 2. lost WW1 and wanted to escape the consequences; 3. lost WW2 and reimagined yourselves as victims of the "evil germans" even though you joined willingly and were one of the most loyal provinces to the Reich, with one of the highest party membership rate per 1000 people. And before you ask, no, i'm not german.
I knew Napoleon mostly as a military commander, but as I read more about him, I think his influence can be compared to Alexander and Caesar. Without Napoleon, I don't see how Germany and Italy would have achieved unification. And his Napoleonic Code basically set the foundations for the legal system currently used in most of the world.
Exactly Napoleon is like a big change in European powers to crave more. I would say Napoleon is the biggest impact to 1880 technology and weapons in 19th century
I remember reading a Bavarian-based history magazine (PM History) about Tyrol´s mostly unsuccessful battles against Napoleon, in which the author as good as claiimed that whereas Napoleon and Bavaria stood for enlightenment, the Tyroleans of the time stood for backward ignorance. Needless to say that this article didn´t go down well with the Austrians.
@Ian Roger Burton: Both mostly stood for violent oppression in this region. (not for enlightenment) Mostly unsuccessfull battles... Well: Tyrolean farmers and peasants and a priest beat the bavarians and Napoleons army in battle. (under command of one of his Marshals!) Needless to say that neither the french nor the bavarians were thrilled about that, and to this day they would never paint themselves in a bad light about that time. And as Napoleon won on a different battlefield the tyroleans got stopped by their own emperor and told to stand down. Their leader (a farmer and innkeeper got executed by the french and this is the main theme of north tyrols anthem to this day. You see, they remember. So they are a little reserved about the viennese, and of course the french and the bavarians) In those "mostly unsuccessfull battles", the tyroleans (we are talking about north+south here as at that time they weren't seperated) captured the flag of the french who they fought in those battles. Doesn't sound like much for our ears today. But that's a huge loss of face for the Grand Arme. When Tyrol was back under austrian control, each year the militia that had it's origins in those farmers and peasants, at their annual parrade carried this flag around. Fast forward to the end of WW2: The 4 big winning nations occupied Austria and the french wanted the western part. Meaning Vorarlberg and Tyrol. Now get that: the french during that time tried to bribe children to tell them were that flag was hidden, and tried to get the information of adults too. The tyroleans hid the flag successfully for the *10 years* of occupation. And when the french had to leave again in 1955, at the next parade of the former militia and now reduced to historical shooting club, they paraded with that flag again. They still have it (in northern tyrol) and occasionally display it. I am not tyrolean, but i always wanted to know why they acted even more sceptical towards the capitol than my own area, and history gave me the answer. I am from an area around a town where the grande arme managed to be given the city without fight so they wouldn't destroy as much and plunder as much as they did on their way there. Only the tiny fortress inmidst the city on a small hill was not given up. The Napoleons troops outnumbered and outgunned (and outsupplied) the defenders 20fold. In the end the peacetreaty that ended the tyroleans fight ended the fortress defense. And Napoleon himself was so outraged at his army not being able to capture the fortress, that he ordered the destruction of the fortress. The citizens of the city asked if at least the clock tower that provided the city with a good visible time information could be spared. And they were pressed for ransom money to let that little tower be there. So here Napoleon and his army are mainly seen as plunderers and ransom pressers. More than enlightenment they brought death and destruction.
@@nirfz That's some very interesting information and perspective. I didn't know much about Tyrol's history. I know some things about Bavaria because I am from Greece and I was always interested in our first King, Otto Wittelsbach, who was Bavarian. The Bavarians were always pro-French, not only under Napoleon, but also before that, under the Bourbon Kings of France, especially Louis XIV. I think this is one reason why Bavaria wasn't interested in German unification, despite being among the strongest German states for centuries.
@@mrbarbastathiss3739 They STILL aren´t, nicknaming all the other Germans as being Prussians. In fact, they even managed to declare themselves an independent country just after WW2. Whilst that literally only lasted a few days, they still managed to have Bavaria declared a "Free State" within the new Bundesrepublik.
I have learned so much from the creators of this channel. The quality of the output is great and so i just wanted you to know i am appreciative of the work that you put in👍
A little imprecision here: the borders you highlighted are those of Trentino and South Tyrol. Despite being politically together for the last 200 years, the two regions are very different; South Tyrol has always been Germanic, while Trentino has always been Italian-speaking (with small Retho-romance minorities). The Germanic and Italian communities had deep ties with each other, which complicated the issue significantly after WW1. The Italian Government was (as always) not particularly smart, plus Italy held a grudge against Austria the size of Australia, so finding a conciliatory solution was out of the question - the Government simply went for easily defendable borders. As for why S.T. (the Germanic part) is still part of Italy now that borders in the EU are open, well, there are legal arguments (Italy is constitutionally bound not to cede Land, plus propositive Referendums are unfortunately not legally binding) but there also political (ST nowadays has significant autonomy within Italy) and economic arguments (Italy has bound ST to her economy and infrastructure for 100 years).
Trentino's proper language isn't italian. It is a variety of lombard, which is a language distinct from italian. Lombard derives from latin itselfs. Italian is formed by a completely other variety - tuscan, thus these are different languages. It is like calling catalan a dialect of spanish.
@@Ch-xk5tv Technically Trentino's original language is a variety of Venetian, not Lombard. I am aware of Italy's historical languages. My apologies for the generalization, but I feel It is necessary. A further explanation including Tyrolean and Trentino regional identity would require a book, not a comment. Anyway I encourage people interested in a better understanding of this dispute to visit Bolzano and Trento, the two regional capitals.
As italian i love südtirol, beautifull montains, german food with italian attitude, north italian food with german mixed ingredients, and 3 lenguage in one only place (german, ladin and italian). Best region of Europe for me!
It's nice and I'm happy we have thr Italian mix. Makes us very unique. The only thing annoys me is when Italians come and are rude about people not speaking perfectly Italian.
@@SF-eo6xf very sorry, as an italian i must say that lot of people (not only young sadly) joke about everyone that doesn't speak well, meanwhile the others jokes about our government and our economy
@@lordnat1968 Sie haben Recht! Das Südtiroler Essen und die Kultur sind österreichisch-bayerisch. Ich habe das Adjektiv "deutsch" fälschlicherweise verwendet, weil ich beim Schreiben dieses Kommentars an die deutsche Sprache dachte.
Life in South Tyrol is pretty sweet right now: standard of living is very high, people can freely move across the border and live and work in either Italy or Austria, they can choose between Italian or Austrian food, there is peace and harmony, beautiful landscape, they have the best of both worlds, of ALL worlds
È un grande esempio di integrazione e rispetto delle tre lingue/culture, un esempio che dovrebbero seguire in moltissime parti del mondo, dove le dispute territoriali possono sfociare in un conflitto.
I have found the South Tyrol thing to be quire curious, and now I know why: Italy being on the winning side of both world wars, a natural border in South Tyrol, and the USSR thinking that Austria was "partially responsible" for World War II. Also, nice "rigorous process" at 1:07, and good question at 1:29. Thanks for the video!
Good vídeo, but there is a mistake. In the map you included Trentino (capital:Trento) (that was historically populated by Italians) in South Tyrol (capital: Bozen/Bolzano) (populated by Austrians) Trentino was the main reason for Italians to take this region, because was consider to be a continuation of the Risorgimento as Istria in Croatia.
I watched your videos for years now and I was amazed to see, that you now made a video about the region I came from! :D I have one minor nitpick about the video though: While all you said is true, the region you're showing is not just what we call South Tyrol today but South Tyrol and Trentino (formerly called "Welschtirol") which in of its self wouldn't be a problem, because first, it was occasionally called South Tyrol as well and secondly, it changed country the same way as South Tyrol. However Trentino is almost exclusively ethnic Italian and it has a greater population than South Tyrol, which means that the region you're showing in your video, has an Italian majority, not a German one. But that minor "mistake" aside, good job! 🤗 Keep up your good work!
@@StarryNightGazing It's minor in the sense that everything he said is true. Only the depiction of the region is off, or at least doesn't quite match with the content of the video. In theory you could call everything he depicted on the map "South Tyrol", since it used to be the southern part of the former county of Tyrol indeed and was also called so in the past. The thing that's off is that he implies that Trentino is part of what he calls "South Tyrol" and he still said, that the region is predominantly German, which is true for what is usually called South Tyrol today, but not for the region he depicted.
Thanks for your informative videos (it's astonishing what you can pack into 4 minutes -- greatly assisted by your visual support... so thanks to them too 🤟👏)
0:34 “Why do you freaking exile yourself in your little island and hide? Cause this is a rap rollercoaster, you’re not tall enough to ride. Uh.” Napoleon Dynamite
The region you're showing is actually South Tyrol and Trentino combined. South Tyrol it self is almost fully Austrian/German, while Trentino is mostly Italian
As a truck driver I'm gonna add that Autostrada A22 with only 2 lanes that goes through out the region is the slowest high way in the Italy. No overtaking for trucks 0-24h from Italian border up to Modena, 60km/h speed limit for trucks from Italian border up to Bolzano, add to that neverending road works and you have traffic jam pretty much all the way.
Great Video!! As a South Tyrolean myself it summarises the History of the region pretty well. As some viewers have pointed out already the region shown is actually South Tyrol and Trentino combined. But in my opinion it still is correct. We call it even "Welschtirol" which means Italian Tyrol. Also what I wanted to add is that our autonomy sadly is gradually taken away again😢 but more subtile and slower than Mussolini did so no one really cares exept we do. Overall a nice Video👍
La vostra autonomia è garantita dalla costituzione stessa. Non vi hanno tolto nulla, Mussolini ha fatto cambiare tutti i nomi in italiano ed impedito di parlare il tedesvo. Non mi pare accada oggi. Un po' ingrati, forse dovevamo prendrrci pure Enoponte ed unificare la vecchia Rezia
Tretino shown on the map and included in the agreement (south of South Tyrol) was a mainly Italian region and was owned by Austria. Austria-Hungary had an ethnically Italian region and when it returned it ended up giving up an ethnically Germanic region along with it. By correcting one error, another was created. It's the price you pay for losing a war.
I don't want to be wrong but the southern part of what you call South Tyrol is actually majorly italian-speaking still today, its capital is Trento and the region is called Trentino.
It is also interesting to know that South Tyrol, through its autonomy, has its own provincial governor, like any region, but with more influence, and can make minor laws and decisions itself, without the approval of Italy. These things come from the South Tyrolean Parliament.
@@TheMrantonio93 The autonomous province of bozen / bolzano has a special status granted to linguistic minorities. There is much greater autonomy than in other Italian regions.
@@premjul7818 ALL the italian autonomous regions (something that need to be changed because they have only outdated privileges, especially fiscally paying no taxes to Rome ) can do this
@@commenter4190 As far as I know I do pay taxes to rome. A shit must change is good so that the autonomies have more privileges. Our rights were established in a treaty after the Second World War and it is good that Italy is abiding by it.
I want to say something as myself an italian we need to remember that South Tyrol is divided between 2 the province of Trent italian speaker zone and the province of Bolzano, as we call Alto Adige,Südtirol. The allies after ww2 wantes to give only to the german part to austria but Italy and Austria made a deal if it stayed autonomus. No problem if you didn't knew. (I corrected this error in the video)
@@jmhorange I am a jew but not an israeli. The Israelites were the ancient abitants of the land of israel the term from modern day israeli comes from israelite + the term jewish.
@@jacopomorini8915 Yep. Tyrol consists of the Austrian parts North-Tyrol and East-Tyrol (which is a tyrolean enclave within the Austrian borders), and the Italian South -Tyrol.
In Italy we call this region "Trentino-Alto Adige". Trentino is the southern part, where Italian is the major language; Alto Adige - or Sudtirolo - is the northern part, where German (Austrian) is the major language. Trentino-Alto Adige is divided in two provinces: Trento (South) and Bolzano/Bözen (North). Both these provinces have a large authonomy, like other speceal regions in Italy (like Val d'Aosta, Sardegna e Sicilia).
I am an italian living in Bolzano, the capital of south tyrol, here the majority of the population is italian, but outside bolzano the rest of the territory is mostly populated by german spaking people.
Yup. The two cities Bozen and Meran, are mostly italian speaking now. I believe the Demographics are something like: Bozen and Meran 2/3 Italian Speakers, 1/3 German. Rest of the State 2/3 German Speakers 1/3 Italian Speakers.
@@GameXTwo Does it? The stats I have seen say otherwise. And the times I was there I only ever seemed to have run into the supposed 49% But that was actually before the census of 2011 from which you take those numbers. So maybe things have changed. According to those numbers Bozen actually is 3/4 Italian speakers already.
I went on holiday to Italy and it included a day trip to Bolzano. Afterwards I found I kept telling people "I went on holiday to Italy and Austria...no wait I never actually crossed any borders out of Italy, it just felt like I did".
"South Tyrol". Shows the whole region of "Trentino - Alto Adige/ South Tyrol" whose capital is Trento. And by the way, over 60% of the population of that region is Italian.
Yea, this is rather misleading, as austria's deal after WWI was about South Tyrol, not the whole region with Trentino. In South Tyrol roughly 2/3 of the population speak german (although they neither identify as germans or austrians, they are tyroleans), but it's actually a conglomerate of several tyrolean dialects, which themself fall into the bavarian family, which spreads across most of austria and the state of bavaria in germany. In my opinion, the conflict about South Tyrol cooled off after austria joined the EU, which made the border between the countries less noticeable.
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 Indeed. It also cooled off because Austria proclaimed its neutrality (sort of a second Switzerland) after the second world war to have the Soviets leave their country as soon as possible. Now both countries aren't among the most war-like around so hopefully peace.
I remember an old South Tyrolean terrorist (yeah, this also happened) saying that it wasn't much the various agreements between Italy and Austria that cooled down the situation among South Tyroleans who wanted to be part of Austria. It was Italy winning the World Cup. 🤣😂
whaddup fellow sauftiroleans. Yes, most people do speak german, but in the cities, especially Bolzano, up to 70% of the people are italian. When you enter a bar, you need to expect people speaking italian. I live near Bolzano, my mother language has alvays been german (our german is a horrible version of standard german for example spoken in germany, it's pretty hilarious), but my italian is not horrible by any means, I understand most things and can keep a conversation going. I don't think that I am italian, nut neither do I think I am german or austrian. Every time I visit a german speaking country, for example when I was studying in Austria, I notice that I am something in between, I am south tyrolean . We in South Tyrol use a lot more italian words (especially swear words) than you would think, it's also surprising to me sometimes.
Great video! As an italian, however, I feel compelled to make a small observation. What you are showing on the maps is not South Tyrol, but the whole italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige. South Tyrol would be just the northern portion of this region, the autonomus Province of Bolzano, aka Alto Adige. The history in the video pertains only to the province, not the whole region. So, from our perspective, it is the northern part of the Adige basin, from the austrian perspective, it is the southern part of Tyrol. This distinction is important because you won't find many german speakers in Trentino, whereas they are a majority in Alto Adige/South Tyrol.
@@antoniomariamacri7500 The region is divided into two provinces, South Tyrol and Trentino. So Trentino lies south of South Tyrol, but is not the lower part of it.
My grandma came from S. Tirol (Partschins/Parcines) in 1928. Visiting there today you realize it is indeed the richest of Italy's regions. That province gets SO much revenue (subsidies) from Rome. The locals know that the gravy train would end and theyd be a lot poorer as just another Austrian county.
That is partially true: Tyrol in the times of the Austrian Empire finished at Riva del Garda and Verona, the majority of what they called Lochtyrol was Italian speaking and during WWI the Austrians deported the entire Italian population. Due to geography Trentino could not be defended unless it finished on the Brenner pass and Vetta d'Italia, this is the reason why the Italians needed it. Durin WWII the Nazis made it clear that all the old Austrian domains including Milan and Veneto would be incorporated in the Reich, not just Sudtyrol...as a matter of fact Trieste and the Kusterland were incorporated.
God, the "how was the drive" for the Archduke killed me. That is just perfect
It surely killed him too
Haha yea that was funny
I would never have got that, thanks for highlighting it
Comedy gold!
I came directly to the comments to say that, and I'm glad to see someone beat me to it. That was a slick joke.
I - an Austrian - told my co-worker - who is Italian - that their ice hokey team had recently won a match. He looked at me confused and said: "We have an ice hokey team?" He googled it, and most of the names in the team then there were German in origin, all of those hailing from South Tyrol. He brushed it off saying: "Those aren't Italians." "Then you don't mind giving South Tyrol back?", I countered. "Never!" Then we had a laugh about it, and went for an espresso.
And that, is the South Tyrol situation in a nutshell.
Then you decided: - how about an Isonzo battle?
I think if so many people hadn't died in ww1 for it most Italians wouldn't care about it.
If it was in the middle east you would be killing each other and ruin both countries
If only these kinds of scenarios went like this more often.
Sehr lustig, grüßen aus die Niederlande.
As an Australian who lives in a federated, mostly culturally homogenous continent (albeit with a vibrant indigenous heritage), European borders endlessly fascinate me. I know there's almost always a valid historical reason, but the way you can track who owns what land back centuries and centuries before our current understanding of a "nation state" is really interesting.
I heard the westerners wanted to leave?
I don't think Australia and homogeneous goes along very well.
It's true that in some cities it is indeed homogeneous due to low population, but Australia as entirety overall is multicultural, over 30% of the population were born overseas so that pretty much proves my point.
As a son of Sicilians, born and living in Sydney, what's within island borders fascinates even more.
Sicily is the most conquered island on earth. You find a mix of everything there. It's the centre of the Mediterranean, which itself means middle of earth. My parents' province, Messina, was colonised, by the Greeks, 700BC. There are genetic ties to Greece and in nearby towns an old Greek (Griko) is still spoken.
Australia, in contrast, was practically untouched, by Europeans, until 250 years ago. Somehow the brutality, of 2700 years of occupation of Sicily, was exercised, in Australia, over the locals, just over a few decades, after settlement, in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
@@julm7744 Australia is one thing but Europe is covered in stolen land. For example Germans who were kicked out of Kaliningrad and Poland after WW2 and never received any compensation even though they lost the war those are still private land that was taken without reparations. Jews all over Europe who's land was stolen before, during and even after WW2, they died so the land was stolen, families never received reparations from governments or the new owners and this includes western countries, France, Germany, Poland, Austria, Greece, Netherlands pretty much every European country and of course Russia who stole the lands of millions of people and did so by calling land owners "Kulaks" basically legalizing land re-distribution and sending the owners to their death in Siberia, the families to this day never received anything.
South Tyrol was ladin territories before germans invasions during middle age
There is a major mistake in the map here. What is shown as "south tirol" is actually both South Tirol and Trentino, which is Italian speaking.
Historically, they have been ruled as a single entity, but at least for the past several centuries, South Tyrol has always been german speaking, and Trentino always Italian speaking. (Thus, interestingly the political boundary never matched with the linguistic boundary.)
This is an important nuance that really should have been covered in the video.
Edit: to all of you saying "but the video is only 4 minutes". The MAIN ISSUE is the MAP, and fixing that would take 0 seconds of extra time.
4 minutes long mate
Fun fact: under Austria-Hungary "Trentino" was called "welschtyrol" or at least that's what I heard from my family which has been living in that reagion for generations
Edit: @K Gius pointed out a spelling mistake
South and North Tyrol were Italian (Rhetes) (a variant of Latin) under the Roman Empire and until the arrival of the Lombards in the 7th century, so it was not always German
(This comment have no purpose, just a fact to complete what is previosly say)
No need to cover it since you covered it here. Therefore no harm done.
You are wrong a part is italian the province of Trent,the province of Bozen/Bolzano is german.
“3 years and 12 Isonzos later.”
God, I love his humor.
Come se gli inglesi e francesi avessero fatto di meglio
@@Nicolo01 they didn't do better but the episode is about Italian not french borders
I´ve visited the Slovenian part of the Soca/Isonzo valley recently. The area is still covered with remnants from these horrible fightings between Italy and Austro-Hungary. To see these trenches and bastions in ruins is a remarkable contrast to the beauty of the area with alpine rivers, impressive mountains, forests, old villages ...
And seeing this makes me appreciate even more that today we have peace and open borders between Italy, Austria, Slovenia etc.
War lasted 3 years for whoever and btw Austrians and Germans had the biggest number of casualties..for nothing ..Duh.
We all do! (Because we all have great minds! lol)
There were also fears that giving away more Italian territory would further upset the population, and draw people closer to Communism, since there were a considerable number of communist Italian Partisans by the end of the war. Keeping Italy stable was seen as much more important.
Funnily enough they didn't let people from trentino-alto adige and Istria (later ceded to yugoslavia) to vote in the referendum monarchy vs republic
"A considerable number" is quite an euphemism considering that more then half of the italian partisans were communists
It is very unstable anyway xd
The Italian-speaking Trentino Was allowed to vote. With 85%, it was even the region with the strongest commitment to the Republic. It was only the foreign language regions of South Tyrol and the Julian March that were not allowed to vote. The same was true for the first free election in Italy in 1946, to the Constituent Assembly, which took place at the same time: There, too, the two regions were not allowed to vote; the constitution was then imposed on them without their consent. And to the Julian March: That area did not come completely to Yugoslavia, but was divided up between both states.
No one feared italy lmao, that was not seen as important at all, they just conned the allies into believing that they were invaded or forced by germany when in reality Mussolini was there since 1920, over a decade before hitler came to power.
But hiding behind the punishment germany was getting they were basically able to portray themselves as if they always had been part of the allies
I cannot stress enough how much I am now emotionally invested in the newspaper pages that are presented. They’re just so good
It's weird, dude :-)
I hope you are organising a whip-round for Dave's retirement gift.
Can they please be printed larger as I miss out on a lot of the jokes. 🥺
I lived in “South Tyrol” for a couple of years… the name depending on who you speak with the name will change based on the language. From the Italian Perspective it’s the “upper Adige” (Alto Adige) or “South Tyrol” (Südtirol). It’s a beautiful place, but even today you still see some level of tension and separation between the two groups (the Italians and the South Tyrolleans). But you also see a number of people with mixed heritage and feeling almost caught in between the two. From a linguistic perspective it can be a little tricky there, the German they speak is a vey old dialect and very difficult to understand even if you already speak “High German”, the dialect also changes depending on where you are in the region. Sometimes you’ll try to speak in German and the person may respond in Italian, or you may speak Italian and the person responds in German. But just being there can really be amazing! The mountains everywhere, the apple orchards, vineyards, they views are always spectacular! And the food is quite good too 😋 definitely something I could continue writing about but I’ll stop here 😜
I had a different impresssion: despite having dialectal words the South Tyrolians I met so far spoke a clearer German than some Bavarians or Austrians you will encounter.
There are also the Ladin population that live in 5 valleys of Alto Adige, Trentino and Veneto. They speak Ladin.
@@donkeymarco And they are the original Tyroleans
@@unknownzzz5115
Fck no!!
I was in South Tirol. As a native German speaker I can say that I am able to understand south Tiroliens better than Bavarian. If South Tirol would become a state of Austria the would loose their authonomy.
As a South-Tyrolean, I have waited for this moment for my entire life
Südtirol ist nicht Italien!
@@AEIOU05 Hab dazu keine starke Meinung
I’m just curious, but do you wanna unite with Austria, or stay in Italy?
Do you speak Italian?
So do you primarily use German or Italian?
Hello from Süd Tirol/Alto Adige from a speaker of the third, always forgotten local language ("Ladin" yes with a D, not Latin)❤
Zuzlapulver looool
@@chucknorrismlg425 Un gran bot eget vita (I have no clue how it's written lol)
@@will_i_craft5555 i won't be pendantic about slight errors but you asked for a shot of hard liquor 😁🥃
@@rafaelcrepaz3513 I know, it's the only ladin phrase I learned till now, lol.
@@will_i_craft5555 And the only real one you need!
The Brenner Pass, site of today’s Italian-Austrian border, is one of the earliest-traversed and most important mountain passes in Europe, there’s a good video about it over on the Wayback history channel
an error, the territory shown in the video is the whole Trentino Alto Adige region. Bolzano is a full of germans but Trento is italian speaking
The city of bolzano is actually mostly italian speaking due to resettling and industrializing policy during the 20s
*Bozen and Trient
@@luciano5241 mate he's british
@@luciano5241 non è americano, strano che ci sia del pressapochismo nel commento di un italiano -facepalm-
@@luciano5241 nah, lui è molto bravo, e poi gli inglesi la storia la conoscono anche perché un po l'hanno fatta anche loro, gli americani nn hanno fatto niente apparte per gli untile 60 anni quindi
God asking Fran’s Ferdinand “how was the drive?” Is so dark and funny, I don’t even know what else I expected from this gift of a man.
So dark! lol
It's St. Peter
*Franz
The blood splattered on his clothes just makes it better.
St Peter
As others pointed out, there’s a mistake in the map: the region you call “South Tyrol” is actually Trentino-Alto Adige, which comprises South Tyrol (Alto Adige). There are two “capitals”: Trento, in the south, Italian speaking, and Bolzano/Bozen, with some German speakers (about a quarter of the population). So South Tyrol is actually the northern half of the region you showed, and the one that Austria might have a claim on
Well in Bozen may be 3/4 Italians but in other regions especially in villages you will hardly find any people with Italian mother language
@@premjul7818 Sure, I was only taking into account the two major cities, since they’re the two “Autonomous Provinces” and have about the same degree of autonomy as a region does
@@premjul7818 One reason Bozen is now 3/4 Italian is because Mussolini deliberately "invited" Italians to settle there with extra perks and Italianisation was widely implemented. The German language was either banned or suppressed across much of the region. This also helped encourage people to leave to Austria and this, conveniently, left space for the incoming Italians.
Mussollini did the same in the Eastern parts of Austria they gained with the Slovene population, even going as far as translating people's surnames (for example changing Volk to Luppe)
@@poldi2233 Yes, in Istria and Dalmatia they imposed the use of Italian, forbidding any other language in public spaces. This was particularly important in schools, since teachers were all replaced by Italian speakers. It was just part of the atrocities Italians (and Austrians before them) committed in the region
On the thumbnail, that's not South Tyrol, that's Trentino-Alto Adige. South Tyrol is half of it. The northern half.
It would have been nice to see you dive deeper into the post-WW2 resistance movement
It would be so awesome, it would be so cool
True. He didn´t mention the suppression
I would have loved for him to dive deeper into the South tyrolers that fought for the Nazis rather than revolting against them as the majority of Italians did, I think a shame that is not talked enough, with people taking more care about that laud minority of fascist left after WW2 in Italy...
@@jorgearguetaface1206 it would be da bomb
@@alessandroolivieri7 ah, let‘s all just enjoy the view of the Dolomites together.
Alto Adige/South Tirol is the upper half of the Trentino-Alto Adige region, not the whole region like you've shown on the map.
South Tyrol=Schnitzel
Trentino=Lasagne
Bolzano is also already mostly Italian-speaking.
As someone already pointed out, the German South Tyrol is only the northern half of what was conquered after WW1. The autonomous region was conceived as a "confederation of two provinces", and it was especially created by the first PM of the Italian Republic Alcide de Gasperi after WW2. He himself was from Trento, and even got his degree in Vienna when he was young, because he was officially born an Austrian-Hungarian citizen.
That autonomous region is a little masterpiece in terms of respect of a minority, and it compensates the sick behaviour that Fascist Italy imposed on that territory: the fascists invented fake toponyms to replace the original German ones, populated Bozen/Bolzano with plenty of Italian immigrants in a mostly failed attempt to change the ethnic composition, and built kitch marble monuments to restyle an otherwise exquisite Austrian Alpine settlement, which by the way came out to be quite well preserved until today.
The population of Trento has always been a Lombard-Venetian-speaking majority living in mountainous area ruled by the local bishropic, which recognized the Archduke of Austria as liege lord.
The Germans had such presence in North-Eastern Italy so that they called the area of Trento "Welschtyrol", literally meaning "Welsh Tyrol". "Welsch" (German), "Welsh" (English), "Wlochy" (Polish), "Walloon", "Wallachia", etc. are all historical words that were used by the German and Slavic speakers to call the Romance and Gaulish speaking neighbouring populations. Interestingly some cities that lie entirely in Italy, like Verona or Brescia, were known by the Germans with the exonyms of "Welsch-Bern" ("Romance Bern" reconducted by Germans to the familiar Swiss city of Bern), and "Welsch-Brixen" (related to the Tyrolean town of Brixen/Bressanone).
The Germans? You mean the Austrians, which is a big difference!
There is one big mistake in this video: the southern portion of South-Tyrol, known as Trentino since it’s the area in the province of Trento, was actually Italian-speaking. The propaganda for WW1 in Italy was centred around the duty to free the last two Italian cities under the control of Austria: Trento and Trieste.
Today in Italy what this video calls “South Tyrol” is divided into two different provinces that are totally autonomous from each other: the southern Italian-speaking province of Trentino, and the northern mostly German speaking province of Südtirol (also called “Alto Adige” in Italian).
bro who tf cares
@Mattia cuz it doesnt need to include your hometown perfectly in the thumbnail for it to be helpful to everyone?
@@Chocolatnave123 I care. The only useless thing here is your rudeness
My great grandmother was from Trento (from Baselga di Pinè). She spoke Italian and so did her brothers and parents. Typical Trentino surnames sound quite Italian to me, such as Ioriatti, Bertoldi, Svaldi, Moser, Ambrosi, Avi, Pintarelli, Palaoro, Francisci, Casagranda, Gobbi, Fedel, Leonardelli, Brol... Ok, maybe not some of these... Or Pompermaier... But the Pompermaier immigrants to Brazil also spoke Italian and called themselves Italian (even though many had Austrian passports in the late 19th century).
@@Chocolatnave123 You're on a video about it so evidently you care dumbass, not as deeply for you to actually learn something from it, but apparently you're still here
There's a big mistake in the video. You talk about the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Alto Adige) but in the map you also included the autonomous province of Trento. The two provinces border each other but are different. Trentino is mainly Italian-speaking, while Alto Adige is mainly German-speaking. The two form a single region (although much of the power is in the hands of the autonomous provinces) and they were both part of Austria until 1919.
While one might argue that Italy had no rightful claim on South Tyrol, Trentino was rightfully Italian and under Austrian occupation.
That's an incredibly huge mistake indeed
Italian claims on south tyrol were rightful.
South Tyrol is geographycally italian, it was partially part of Principato Vescovile di Trento and also was inhabitated mostly by romance speaking population during middle ages. Some parts of South Tyrol, like Vinschgau (Val Venosta), had a romance majority until the XVIII century!!!
Also Bolzano/Bozen was part of the napolenic kingdom of Italy
And today the majority of the population don't want to be part of Austria.
@@Norhod yeah imagine making a video on this subject without understating the difference between South Tyrol and Trentino, that's not great. Not to mention that it's wrong calling South Tyrol a region; it never was. It's a province.
@@julm7744 it's such a stupid thing to say. Have you ever been to Italy?
South Tyrol was heavily settled by Italians after it's annexation, while many Germans left. It had been in the hands of Austria for centuries - that's not an occupation.
There are several mistakes here. In the maps you are often confusing Trentino Alto Adige with South Tyrol. South Tyrol is the northern part of Trentino Alto Adige and it is called by italians in fact Alto Adige, while the southern part is called Trentino.
But in the maps you always show the whole Trentino Alto Adige as "german area in Italy" which is incorrect, the Trentino is an italian speaking area.
You have no idea how entertaining and informative these videos are dude. Thanks for making them.
It's more correct to say that the area annexed by Italy (part of the historical county of Tyrol centuries before) is divided properly in two-subparts. The Northern part with Bozen as capital is the one with a german speaking majority and it is the proper South-Tyrol (called by Italians "Alto-Adige" o "Sud-Tirolo"). The southern part of the area you discussed in the video is instead known as "Trentino" (the former bishopric of Trent during the HRE) and have instead an Italian speaking majority. So it's not correct to say that the reason for is annexation was only to complete the borders (even if it was an important strategic reason), because in both parts there was an Italian presence and in area of Trent that presence was the majority. Infact one of the maxim of the Italian troops during WWI was to reach Trent in the north and Triest in the east as the two cities that Italy missed during the unification. In the administrative division of Italy now they are known as the region of "Trentino-Alto Adige", but with the majority of the administrative power devolved to the two autonomous provinces that compose the region: The province of "Trento" and the "province of Bolzano" (Bozen).
In the video, South Tyrol is the whole “trentino Alto Adige” Italian region but South Tyrol is just the Alto Adige province. Trentino is an Italian province historically linked to the Venice Republic.
Let's be historically accurate and rather say: Historically linked to the Counry of Tyrol - which it was an integral a part of for more than 500 years...
For other German speakers South Tyrol really is a magical and convenient place. There, you have easy access to excellent food (be it risotto or notto), but don't have to take your hands out of your pockets to order it.
Oly a German could order a risotto in alto Adige 😂😂😂
@@pedrination It was mostly a pun... I certainly would notto order Risotto there.
@@domsjuk why?
"After a rigorous process Napoleon narrowed the candidate pull down to... himself"
This made me rofl, i love this channel's humour.
Cheney in the USA: hey, I have an idea for a VP.........ME. Not that it's been done before, if anyone remembers.
Specifically, it's the slope downwards from Sudtirol that makes the Italians want to possess it. Sloping steeply from the Austrian side to the summit, it is difficult for a military to traverse. From that point down into the Po valley is a much easier venture, making any defense of the Po dependent on control of the summit in Sudtirol.
Little correction for the map at 0:01, the one shown on the map is Trentino Alto-Adige, an italian region which includes both the provinces of Trento (the italian speaking part, also known as Trentino, which was also taken from Austria) and Bolzano (the german speaking part which is actually known as South Tyrol or Alto Adige in italian).
So South Tyrol is just half of what is shown on the map.
Bözen
1:28 DAMN, that was brutal. 😆
The Brenner pass is crucial for the strategic defense of Italy. Understandably, Italy wanted control of it.
Yes, that's true! A few other reasons are energy and water supply. South Tyrol now produces more energy than it uses. Obviously, also to make more money, clean energy gets exported and not so clean energy gets imported. December to March are negative months and there's a higher demand for energy since most of the energy comes from the water.
To be fair. There’s not a lot of difference to defend Italy at the Brennerpass or at the Salurner klause. It’s not like the border would be in open terrain then. It’s still mountains and one valley
@@gerrymnt9250 of courseit’s a question of natural borders of The italian phisical region.
The Brenner could not remain in The hands of The reactionary balcanic state of Vienna.
The french did exactly The same in Tenda and Briga Marittima so what are we talking about?
@@gigieinaudi24 what a big bullshit. We are nit barbars. We are in a union and not enemies. Most of the European borders are simply somewhere. Not always divided by mountains. And lastly there’s literally no difference between protecting Austria or Italy at a pass or down in The Valley. There’s not more connections either way. Still mountains. Only thing that changes is altitude.
@@gerrymnt9250 okay you gave use The evidence you simply do not know what we are talking about. Actually your insane position on borders reminds me Putin’s one. Go to Russia then no?
bavarian here, happy you mentioned bavaria in this since we are very close to the tyrolian people, i can speak fluent bavarian in south tyrol and keep up a conversation
Du meinst schon den Dialekt, oder?
@@nikpan9744 was soll er sonst meinen?
@@nikpan9744 Bairisch ist so oder so besser als Deutsch
Nennt sich die Alemannische Sprachgruppe...
@@andrefasching1332 Bairisch, nicht Alemannisch. Die beiden Dialektgruppen sind deutlich unterschiedlich, ihre Sprecher tun sich z.T. schwer sich gegenseitig zu verstehen.
I recomment everyone to pause the video whenever the newspaper is shown. They‘re always so fun to read.
But the writing is too small on the phone for me to read.
Poor Dave's not getting a second chance at editing the newspaper
Or the treaty. "The food will be better provided 'ol Mussolini gets over the whole rice obsession"
I knew a few German speaking Tyroleans living in Austria and noticed a funny habit. When they spoke in English, they either spoke with a strong Italian accent or with a German one. Sometimes the accent even seemed to switch from one to the other.
Being from the region I can tell you one big mistake constant throughout the whole video: the region you highlight as South Tyrol is not South Tyrol. The northern half is South Tyrol, the southern half is Trentino. Trentino was referred to by Austrians as Welschtyrol, meaning it was considered Tyrol but its inhabitants were something else (Welsch means foreigner and has the same root of Welsh). Trentino had been inhabited since the middle ages by an Italian-speaking population, and the main state entity was the Prince-Bisphoric of Trent. Beginning in the 1880s Trentino was considered by the Kingdom of Italy as one of the two "regioni irredente" meaning Italian regions under foreign occupation.
It's crazy how many of us South Tyroleans are in this comment section, lol.
love me some prince-bishoprics
@@will_i_craft5555 The algorithm goes crazy lol
Imo South Tyrol connects the best from the German and Italian side. We have the work spirit of the Germans, but still the sense for the "Bella Vita" of the italians.
Speaks the majority of the time in German, swears in Italian. Classic South Tyrol
10% of comments : good job, interesting video
90% : Trentino
Welschtirol is still Tirol, because: Tirol isch lei oans.
@@ekesandras1481 Welschtirol, the word speaks by itself, is an italian speaking region.
German is one of the official languages of Alto Adige and their ID cards are bilingual. French is official in Valle d'Aosta too. And Campione d'Italia sits inside Switzerland on Lake Lugano. It's different up north.
It is südtirol
Next this guy is going to be asking "why is Val D'Aosta Italian. How come he is not making videos on why is Scotland part of the UK or "Why is Northern Ireland not part of Ireland?" or "Why is Wales not a country?". Seems only questions relating to other countries not his own. Next it's gonna be "Why is Catalonia part of Spain?" or "Why Brittany part of France?" or "Why is Belgium a country of two people that hate each other?"
@@algiz21 Alto Adige, peek-a-boo!
@@algiz21 Alto Adige was a Napoleonic term. He had the strength to unify the Italian peninsula again, under a friendly government. Südtirol is of course accepted as official name too, given the German-speaking population. Austria also has a history of suppressing Italian initiatives in South Tyrol, but since Fascism took centre-stage in everyone's attention span, it is seldomly covered. Fortunately now Italy got control back of its peninsula.
@@gs7828 German land then German land now
I think that you made a mistake, Italy own 2/3 of Tyrol (Trento and Bozen). Trento is majority Italian and was always thought as part of Italy, Bozen was the part with a German majority disputed with Austria
Bro there is no dispute. Trentino should be Italian allright, but they had zero rightfull claims for Süd-Tirol.
Geographically, Trentino has some valuable connections to Verona and Venice Region, while Süd-Tirol has 4 connections towards Austria.
@@etetepete the Germans had ZERO CLAIMS on Sudtirol, only the LADINI are the TRUE INHABITANTS of those valleys and were BRUTALLY GERMANIZED in the past by german settlers. Today Bolzano is 73% ITALIAN and the entire province is only 60% german, and despite their ethnical proportion and the large and generous autonomy majority of people enjoy being Italians, also in the elections the secessionist parties in Sudtirol are a minorities, probably because THEY LOVE ITALIAN MONEY FROM ITALIAN TOURISTS (30% of Bolzano GDP is from Tourism)
@@commenter4190 German tourists also play a huge role in Südtirol`s tourism industry.
@@etetepete A thing that no one consider is that the today's fact are chaged. The true German (Austrian) are the old generations. And there is a lot of immigrations from other region of Italy to Alto Adige. So Alto Adige is under a automathic Italianization.
@@commenter4190 bro almost every tourist is from austria or Germany lol
Many years ago (I’m an Italian from Tuscany) I served in the Italian military paratroopers Folgore Brigade. 1993/1994.
Just to give you a little contest: we are talking about the draft, the compulsory military service and I was 20 years old which means no life experience what so ever!!!!
I met guys like myself from every part of Italy and of course some were from South Tyrol.
They were blonde green / blue eyes or dark hair with green or blue eyes. German looking folks.
I called them the Germans since their last names were:
Pliger, Platner, Verginer, Unterkamsteiner… etc.
They spoke Italian with a thick German accent.
I didn’t like them at first and after a few days together they became my friends.
That was my first time in my life - real life experience- brushed off some prejudice.
Greetings to all the Italian / Austrian from South Tyrol, a beautiful land with great people.
Special greetings to all the South Tyrolleans who served in the Military Paratroopers Folgore Brigade
Most of the people from South Tyrol are people you can trust. Not trying to say you can't trust any other Italians, but they're more or less loyal. Maybe a bit more reserved than most outgoing Italians, but in the end they're good people. They're not the type of population that do bad things.
@@multa7053 except that big incident that happened between 1933 and 1945. And putting ketchup on pasta of course
As an American, I love these little European Territorial histories
Bro, people died in bombings because of this, less than 60 years ago.
Edit: Fair enough, it's just a rather recent and still political thing, not a soley historical one. I've actually seen "South Tyrol is not Italy"- stickers two years ago.
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 okay? I can still love history even with its grave details. Chill bro
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 They tried to pull it off without death. That guy just got really unlucky and then everything escalated from there.
Just wait until he does one on the Bosnian war and the resulting territorial entities...
They also left out quite a bit. Andreas Hofer and his Schützen stood their ground against Napoleon over three Battles in half a year before the bavarians came to a peace agreement with the French and they lost the fourth battle.
They also left out the BAS, that was mentioned by Valentin Mitterbauer. The "Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol" or in english "South Tyrolean libreation comittee" did several attacks on Italian infrastructure in one night. They tried to pull it off without deaths and just wanted to halt the Italian industry that was used to italianize our region. Sadly one bomb on a electricity pole didn't went off and killed a worker who tried to remove it later. That lead to the involvment of the military and the police and they tortured some of the guys who did the attacks. Iirc there still live some of the attackers in austria who can never returned because they are wanted for terrorism.
Can we get a video on the Italian resistance in WW2? That's a topic that's barely ever explored
O partigiano portami via,
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
o partigiano portami via
che mi sento di morir.
Nobody usually makes videos about them because they were mostly communists and propaganda wants you to believe that communism=bad people.
Yes, part of Croatia coastal side belongs to Italy, I don't understand why Italian not asking for that land back
They were forced out and killed by Croatian Nazi Ustase.
@@ranojutro426 because those belong to Croatia and Slovenia now and have for many years, and we'd much rather keep friendly relationships with our neighbors than to engage in poinless territorial disputes over some tiddlywink of coastline. We're all part of the EU now and that's all that matters
@@ranojutro426 Who cares? Borders between European countries matter very little in nowadays daily life.
Possible vid idea: When/Why did Scotland start speaking English? (I am aware Scottish Gaelic still exists, but maybe that could be addressed too)
Likewise the same could be done with Ireland, not only for the transition to speaking English, but now Ireland is also trying to revive the Irish Language
Think Scotland started speaking English as part of the Highland Clearances - which HM has a video on! 😎
Ireland somewhat later. The East Coast generally always predominantly spoke English (or some French/English mix as I think the originally conquerors of Ireland would still be termed Norman rather than English. Before that conquest Dublin was a Norse city). The rest of the island, save for pockets of Norse-founded cities which would have been assimilated into Norman/English ways, would have spoken Irish. Particularly true for the West Coast.
The shift to English would've been taking place from mid 1750s onwards but was greatlt accelerated by Great Famine, subsequent emmigration and internal population shift to Belfast and Dublin.
Irish is taught in schools but woefully so, with complaints about teaching curriculum focussing too much on analysing poetry and books rather than actually teaching children a language they don't speak. As far I can tell, these complaints have been going on for nearly as long as Irish has been taught in schools!
@@samkendlinhobbs8494 Thanks for the insight- I also didn’t know HM had a video that mentioned this! As for Ireland, I’ve been there a couple times before (both the Republic and the UK side) and have seen some of those differences in dialect firsthand- while Belfast accents were pretty clear, the accents of rural Munster and Connaught were a little harder to get used to at times, but sounded really cool nonetheless 😅
Hoping to be able to visit Scotland one day too- the cultures of the British Isles have always been intriguing to me
They speak German and even have a similar school system. In the 90s I chatted with a guy on ICQ about the specific type of school for engineers I we were on, and only after a while realized he was from South Tyrol.
Depends on what you're taking about. We have incorporated some italian words into our dialect. Sometimes I have to stop midsentence because people look at me confused because
I used some italian term. For example calcetto, campetto, pattente, alla fine, pulmino...
@@will_i_craft5555 I think that's more a you problem, i'm from Switzerland, we have some French words incorporated within our dialect but we can communicate with Germans without confusing them when we speak High German.
@@zoomerboomer1396 I know that, but when speaking with Tyroleans or Bavarians we usually talk in our respective dialects...
@@will_i_craft5555 True willi... Passiert mir a ollm xD
@@will_i_craft5555 Not sure why you're bringing up dialect because the guy you responded to was obviously not refering to dialect talk but yeah, when people with different dialects talk there can sometimes be confusion, that's to be expected.
there are many south tyrolians studying in vienna graz and innsbruck. Really lovely people
Nice. I am Brazilian, descendent of "Austro-Hungarians" (Italian speakers from Trento) that emigrated during the late 19h century. Quite large community here, mostly descending of Italian speakers
Same here, the bad thing is that Italy took that place after the first First World War, and all the descending of those people who emigrated before it, has no right to get a Italian citizenship
@@matheuspiffer8154 Because youre not italian
@@matheuspiffer8154
Fake news!!!
Can you make a video why there is still a German minority in Poland (despite the fact that the Germans were expelled from Poland after II World War), please?
Stalin literally moved Poland west to establish a defensive border on the line of the Oder, in case the West attacked him.
Ironically its the german minorty that was already living in Poland prior to 1939 which wasn't totally expelled. Regions that were newly annexed by Poland had all their inhabitants expelled.
After 3 years and 12 isonzos later hahahahahah, thank you Cadorna.
Man I love this channel.
This made me spit my drink...
As a south tyrolian I have to say I'm all good with being part of Italy. If we were a part of Austria, we wouldn't have our great autonomy. This kind of autonomy made it possible to gain wealth in this region.
This is something many south tyrolians don't want to understand...
Isn't they want full independence!?
I agree with you
Yea your autonomy basically make south tyrol a state in a state, and very wealthy one also
So you are a traitor to your heritage!
It is not only you there: the land belongs also to the Ladin population so the question would be “why Austria”?
Napoleon truly was history's wildcard.
In the musical Chess, written by the guys from Abba and Tim Rice, the first act is set in Merano in South Tyrol (first song: Merano) and the second act in Bangkok (first song: One Night in Bangkok). In "Merano" there's a line: "Right now we're Italian, we used to be German, the borders keep shifting around."
Greetings from South Tyrol, thanks for the video mate.
I wanna add that the province's autonomy after WW2 essencially relies on the so called "Gruber-De Gasperi-Abkommen" from 1946, a contract between Austia and Italy guaranteeding that the german speaking population in South Tyrol, their language and their culture would be protected. Then, in 1948, the "Erstes Autonomiestatut" took place, which was supposed to give the province more autonomous competences. However, these competences, that many people weren't even satisfied to begin with, were never actually given to South Tyrol. This led to a demonstration on the castle "Schloss Siegmundskron" in 1957 and several bomb attacks in the 1960s. A commission was then built, which tried to find a solution. In 1969 they came up with the so called "Paket", which included many competences that would be given to the province. After the Italian and Austrian parliament as well as the SVP (most important political party in South Tyrol, especially at that time) had agreed to it, the competences were passed to the province in the period from 1972-1992. This was called the "Zweites Autonomiestatut" and in 1992 the "Südtirol-Frage" (South Tyrol question) was officially declared solved by Italy and Austria.
simply giving bozen to austria...or better said: ask the population of bozen if they want to join austria seems like a better solution to me than all those statuts.
but thanks for the info anyways!
@@andrefasching1332 it hardly matters nowadays.
Sued-Tyrol is still largely Germanic culturally, and since there's no border between Austria and Italy giving the land back to Austria wouldn't make much difference.
Furthermore Bozen and Trento provinces enjoy some huge financial benefits that led them to become the region with the highest living standards in Italy after WW2, if Bozen went back to Austria would they retain those benefits?
@@nicolaramoso3286 Isn't it true that the population in South-Tyrol has mixed up a lot, anyway?
In the cities (Bozen and Meran), there are lots of ethnic Italians, whereas in the rural villages, German language still dominates. I personally have always enjoyed the Italian colour of the cities, for instance restaurants with Italian food and gelaterias in Bolzano. :)
Since Italy as well as Austria are members of the European Union, it doesn't matter too much, what passports the citizens are owning, imho. I am a German living in Austria and I have learned that Austrians of the political party FPÖ are considering to offer Austrian passports to South-Tyrolians. This reminds a bit on Putin. :(
@@andrefasching1332 ask the population of Bozen if they want to join Austria, this is funny. Despite being the capital of South Tyrol Bozen has now an itlian speaking majority of 74%.
@@nefertut6750 And? Is a majority of a certain languange more important than a democratic process? Culturally the ties are extremely close to Austria and looking at switzerland next door, a common ideological or cultural approach is reason enough for asking people what they want instead of looking at languange or ethnics
2 Fun pieces of trivia about South Tyrol.
1)it's not called like this in Italy (Duh) it's called "Alto Adige" which literally means "Upper Adige.
2)the Italian constitution states that "Italy is one and indivisible" which means than any kind of referendum to split the country is unconstitutional.
Most countries have a line in their constitution about being indivisible or say the whole nation must vote on a region leaving. It is why Catalonia will probably never be independent and why Russia's referendums are completely invalid even if every person there honestly wanted to join them. Fun fact Norway tried to give Finland a mountain peak near their shared border for Finland's birthday, but the Norwegian constitution says they are indivisible so it didn't happen.
That's like stealing from someone and then claiming your new possessions belong to you
@@taylordinney1484 Ah, that's the reason! i remember the story that they wanted to give them a peak, but then i never heard why they in the end did not. Thanks!
True! A referendum can be done with permission from Rome only. But there's only 2 options. Remain in Italy or get an own state. Going back to Austria makes no sense and that's the same error that already happened 100 years ago. This would be a bad situation for many years for all the Italian-speaking people.
There is no reason for South Tyrol to go back to Austria since they enjoy their special status in North Tyrol while having an Italian passport. Since South Tyrol has nothing in common with the rest of Italy, North Tyroleans just consider them as part of The Tyrol located in the adjacent country. Going back to Austria would just be a unnecessary hassle for them.
What I find most amusing is that south tyrol always wanted to go back to austria, yet when one of their independent movement gained enough popularity Austris basically went "ok but you'll have to pay taxes and lose your autonomous region status" after that no one ever mentioned secession for real again.
They realised it's better to remain in Italy. And it's the best choice, look at this region now: wonderful
I spoke to a chap from the region some years ago. His grandfarther had spoken german as did many in the area. Italy held a referendom and the local people rejected any idea of returning to Austria because they got so much a better deal as a specical area of Italy than as just another area of Austria. I can recommend it for a visit, lovely area.
Fascinating (and hilarious) video! Very interesting that this has been an 200+ year situation. This hits pretty close to home for me because growing up I was told I was mostly Italian, but after having my DNA checked, it turned out I was actually mostly German. I soon found out that the village my grandfather's family was from was in South Tyrol, so while I'm technically from Italy, I'm ethnically German.
Ethnically Austrian/Bavarian/Austro-Bavarian, not German. Difference as we speak Bavarian and not German and have a seperate culture
@@haraffael7821
Gesprochen wie ein wahrer Eigenbrötler ausm Freistaat Bayern. The feeling is quite mutual so how about you keep your Söder and Seehofer to yourselves and leave the sane parts of Germany alone?
@@haraffael7821 I'd say Austria/Bavaria speaks Austro-Bavarian but other than that yes, I very much agree with Austria/Bavaria being ethnically Austro-Bavarian.
bet youre american
@@haraffael7821 Mate, macedonians have a better ethnogenesis than "austro-bavarians". You considered yourselves germans up until you: 1. lost the Brother's War; 2. lost WW1 and wanted to escape the consequences; 3. lost WW2 and reimagined yourselves as victims of the "evil germans" even though you joined willingly and were one of the most loyal provinces to the Reich, with one of the highest party membership rate per 1000 people. And before you ask, no, i'm not german.
2:03 Please read the newspaper, all of you. You're missing out on some great news. Also, press F for Dave.
I knew Napoleon mostly as a military commander, but as I read more about him, I think his influence can be compared to Alexander and Caesar. Without Napoleon, I don't see how Germany and Italy would have achieved unification. And his Napoleonic Code basically set the foundations for the legal system currently used in most of the world.
Exactly Napoleon is like a big change in European powers to crave more. I would say Napoleon is the biggest impact to 1880 technology and weapons in 19th century
I remember reading a Bavarian-based history magazine (PM History) about Tyrol´s mostly unsuccessful battles against Napoleon, in which the author as good as claiimed that whereas Napoleon and Bavaria stood for enlightenment, the Tyroleans of the time stood for backward ignorance. Needless to say that this article didn´t go down well with the Austrians.
@Ian Roger Burton: Both mostly stood for violent oppression in this region. (not for enlightenment) Mostly unsuccessfull battles... Well:
Tyrolean farmers and peasants and a priest beat the bavarians and Napoleons army in battle. (under command of one of his Marshals!) Needless to say that neither the french nor the bavarians were thrilled about that, and to this day they would never paint themselves in a bad light about that time.
And as Napoleon won on a different battlefield the tyroleans got stopped by their own emperor and told to stand down. Their leader (a farmer and innkeeper got executed by the french and this is the main theme of north tyrols anthem to this day. You see, they remember. So they are a little reserved about the viennese, and of course the french and the bavarians)
In those "mostly unsuccessfull battles", the tyroleans (we are talking about north+south here as at that time they weren't seperated) captured the flag of the french who they fought in those battles. Doesn't sound like much for our ears today. But that's a huge loss of face for the Grand Arme.
When Tyrol was back under austrian control, each year the militia that had it's origins in those farmers and peasants, at their annual parrade carried this flag around.
Fast forward to the end of WW2: The 4 big winning nations occupied Austria and the french wanted the western part. Meaning Vorarlberg and Tyrol. Now get that: the french during that time tried to bribe children to tell them were that flag was hidden, and tried to get the information of adults too.
The tyroleans hid the flag successfully for the *10 years* of occupation. And when the french had to leave again in 1955, at the next parade of the former militia and now reduced to historical shooting club, they paraded with that flag again.
They still have it (in northern tyrol) and occasionally display it.
I am not tyrolean, but i always wanted to know why they acted even more sceptical towards the capitol than my own area, and history gave me the answer.
I am from an area around a town where the grande arme managed to be given the city without fight so they wouldn't destroy as much and plunder as much as they did on their way there. Only the tiny fortress inmidst the city on a small hill was not given up. The Napoleons troops outnumbered and outgunned (and outsupplied) the defenders 20fold. In the end the peacetreaty that ended the tyroleans fight ended the fortress defense. And Napoleon himself was so outraged at his army not being able to capture the fortress, that he ordered the destruction of the fortress. The citizens of the city asked if at least the clock tower that provided the city with a good visible time information could be spared. And they were pressed for ransom money to let that little tower be there. So here Napoleon and his army are mainly seen as plunderers and ransom pressers.
More than enlightenment they brought death and destruction.
@@nirfz That's some very interesting information and perspective. I didn't know much about Tyrol's history. I know some things about Bavaria because I am from Greece and I was always interested in our first King, Otto Wittelsbach, who was Bavarian. The Bavarians were always pro-French, not only under Napoleon, but also before that, under the Bourbon Kings of France, especially Louis XIV. I think this is one reason why Bavaria wasn't interested in German unification, despite being among the strongest German states for centuries.
@@mrbarbastathiss3739 They STILL aren´t, nicknaming all the other Germans as being Prussians. In fact, they even managed to declare themselves an independent country just after WW2. Whilst that literally only lasted a few days, they still managed to have Bavaria declared a "Free State" within the new Bundesrepublik.
I have learned so much from the creators of this channel.
The quality of the output is great and so i just wanted you to know i am appreciative of the work that you put in👍
The quality on this one s very poor though, since the map is wrong to begin with.
You might want to rethink this one.
A little imprecision here: the borders you highlighted are those of Trentino and South Tyrol. Despite being politically together for the last 200 years, the two regions are very different; South Tyrol has always been Germanic, while Trentino has always been Italian-speaking (with small Retho-romance minorities). The Germanic and Italian communities had deep ties with each other, which complicated the issue significantly after WW1. The Italian Government was (as always) not particularly smart, plus Italy held a grudge against Austria the size of Australia, so finding a conciliatory solution was out of the question - the Government simply went for easily defendable borders.
As for why S.T. (the Germanic part) is still part of Italy now that borders in the EU are open, well, there are legal arguments (Italy is constitutionally bound not to cede Land, plus propositive Referendums are unfortunately not legally binding) but there also political (ST nowadays has significant autonomy within Italy) and economic arguments (Italy has bound ST to her economy and infrastructure for 100 years).
Trentino's proper language isn't italian. It is a variety of lombard, which is a language distinct from italian. Lombard derives from latin itselfs. Italian is formed by a completely other variety - tuscan, thus these are different languages. It is like calling catalan a dialect of spanish.
@@Ch-xk5tv Technically Trentino's original language is a variety of Venetian, not Lombard. I am aware of Italy's historical languages. My apologies for the generalization, but I feel It is necessary. A further explanation including Tyrolean and Trentino regional identity would require a book, not a comment. Anyway I encourage people interested in a better understanding of this dispute to visit Bolzano and Trento, the two regional capitals.
As italian i love südtirol, beautifull montains, german food with italian attitude, north italian food with german mixed ingredients, and 3 lenguage in one only place (german, ladin and italian). Best region of Europe for me!
It's nice and I'm happy we have thr Italian mix. Makes us very unique. The only thing annoys me is when Italians come and are rude about people not speaking perfectly Italian.
@@SF-eo6xf sono d'accordo.
@@SF-eo6xf very sorry, as an italian i must say that lot of people (not only young sadly) joke about everyone that doesn't speak well, meanwhile the others jokes about our government and our economy
You mean Austrian food!
@@lordnat1968 Sie haben Recht! Das Südtiroler Essen und die Kultur sind österreichisch-bayerisch. Ich habe das Adjektiv "deutsch" fälschlicherweise verwendet, weil ich beim Schreiben dieses Kommentars an die deutsche Sprache dachte.
Life in South Tyrol is pretty sweet right now: standard of living is very high, people can freely move across the border and live and work in either Italy or Austria, they can choose between Italian or Austrian food, there is peace and harmony, beautiful landscape, they have the best of both worlds, of ALL worlds
È un grande esempio di integrazione e rispetto delle tre lingue/culture, un esempio che dovrebbero seguire in moltissime parti del mondo, dove le dispute territoriali possono sfociare in un conflitto.
E un grande esempio di soldi regalati
I have found the South Tyrol thing to be quire curious, and now I know why: Italy being on the winning side of both world wars, a natural border in South Tyrol, and the USSR thinking that Austria was "partially responsible" for World War II. Also, nice "rigorous process" at 1:07, and good question at 1:29. Thanks for the video!
Good vídeo, but there is a mistake.
In the map you included Trentino (capital:Trento) (that was historically populated by Italians) in South Tyrol (capital: Bozen/Bolzano) (populated by Austrians)
Trentino was the main reason for Italians to take this region, because was consider to be a continuation of the Risorgimento as Istria in Croatia.
Thank you for another great video. 4 minutes of history, facts and fun.
I watched your videos for years now and I was amazed to see, that you now made a video about the region I came from! :D
I have one minor nitpick about the video though: While all you said is true, the region you're showing is not just what we call South Tyrol today but South Tyrol and Trentino (formerly called "Welschtirol") which in of its self wouldn't be a problem, because first, it was occasionally called South Tyrol as well and secondly, it changed country the same way as South Tyrol. However Trentino is almost exclusively ethnic Italian and it has a greater population than South Tyrol, which means that the region you're showing in your video, has an Italian majority, not a German one.
But that minor "mistake" aside, good job! 🤗 Keep up your good work!
I mean, I wouldn't call it minor. It a huge damn mistake.
@@StarryNightGazing
It's minor in the sense that everything he said is true. Only the depiction of the region is off, or at least doesn't quite match with the content of the video. In theory you could call everything he depicted on the map "South Tyrol", since it used to be the southern part of the former county of Tyrol indeed and was also called so in the past. The thing that's off is that he implies that Trentino is part of what he calls "South Tyrol" and he still said, that the region is predominantly German, which is true for what is usually called South Tyrol today, but not for the region he depicted.
Thanks for your informative videos (it's astonishing what you can pack into 4 minutes -- greatly assisted by your visual support... so thanks to them too 🤟👏)
Pls do how was life in Central Asia during the Soviet Union? Great vid by the way!
Probably just as bad as everywhere else in the ussr
Glory to the Soviet Union
My grandfather's brother lived there during Soviet times
0:34 “Why do you freaking exile yourself in your little island and hide? Cause this is a rap rollercoaster, you’re not tall enough to ride. Uh.” Napoleon Dynamite
The region you're showing is actually South Tyrol and Trentino combined. South Tyrol it self is almost fully Austrian/German, while Trentino is mostly Italian
I'd love to see a video on San Marino
Funfact: cause of this Tirol is split in two seperate parts that still count as one in austria itself.
Oh, that's the reason. I always had a question why Tirol in Austria is so weirdly shaped.
As a truck driver I'm gonna add that Autostrada A22 with only 2 lanes that goes through out the region is the slowest high way in the Italy. No overtaking for trucks 0-24h from Italian border up to Modena, 60km/h speed limit for trucks from Italian border up to Bolzano, add to that neverending road works and you have traffic jam pretty much all the way.
Great Video!!
As a South Tyrolean myself it summarises the History of the region pretty well.
As some viewers have pointed out already the region shown is actually South Tyrol and Trentino combined. But in my opinion it still is correct. We call it even "Welschtirol" which means Italian Tyrol.
Also what I wanted to add is that our autonomy sadly is gradually taken away again😢 but more subtile and slower than Mussolini did so no one really cares exept we do.
Overall a nice Video👍
Ringrazia De Gasperi e il buon senso di noi tutti, anche tu, Italiani.
Ringrazia che parlate ancora tedesco e mangiate ancora crauti, potevamo benissimo farvela passare come è passata a noi in Istria e Dalmazia
La vostra autonomia è garantita dalla costituzione stessa. Non vi hanno tolto nulla, Mussolini ha fatto cambiare tutti i nomi in italiano ed impedito di parlare il tedesvo. Non mi pare accada oggi. Un po' ingrati, forse dovevamo prendrrci pure Enoponte ed unificare la vecchia Rezia
@@Bolognabeefvivo in alto adige, di famiglia veneta di origine e sono fiero di essere uno di quelli che rende bolzano una città italiana de facto
Tretino shown on the map and included in the agreement (south of South Tyrol) was a mainly Italian region and was owned by Austria. Austria-Hungary had an ethnically Italian region and when it returned it ended up giving up an ethnically Germanic region along with it. By correcting one error, another was created. It's the price you pay for losing a war.
I love the way this channel gives me the answer to questions I never had but still very interesting
I don't want to be wrong but the southern part of what you call South Tyrol is actually majorly italian-speaking still today, its capital is Trento and the region is called Trentino.
based
correct
0:35 To quote a previous video on this channel, "It's always Napoleon".
I love that you completely wrote out hilarious stories for the spinning newspaper that’s on the screen for all of one second.
It is also interesting to know that South Tyrol, through its autonomy, has its own provincial governor, like any region, but with more influence, and can make minor laws and decisions itself, without the approval of Italy. These things come from the South Tyrolean Parliament.
All regions in Italy can.
@@TheMrantonio93 Yes, but South Tyrol has more freedom in this case. They can also make decisions that would usually need the ok from Rome
@@TheMrantonio93 The autonomous province of bozen / bolzano has a special status granted to linguistic minorities. There is much greater autonomy than in other Italian regions.
@@premjul7818 ALL the italian autonomous regions (something that need to be changed because they have only outdated privileges, especially fiscally paying no taxes to Rome ) can do this
@@commenter4190 As far as I know I do pay taxes to rome. A shit must change is good so that the autonomies have more privileges. Our rights were established in a treaty after the Second World War and it is good that Italy is abiding by it.
The map shown in the video is "Trentino Alto Adige" which is both South Tyrol and Trentino. Please correct the video
Great work James, thank you for the video!
I want to say something as myself an italian we need to remember that South Tyrol is divided between 2 the province of Trent italian speaker zone and the province of Bolzano, as we call Alto Adige,Südtirol. The allies after ww2 wantes to give only to the german part to austria but Italy and Austria made a deal if it stayed autonomus. No problem if you didn't knew. (I corrected this error in the video)
I thought you were from Israel?
@@AlfaGiuliaQV I am from Italy. Just because I am interested into the israelites it dosen't mean I am from israel bloodyhell
@@AshleyGravesreal An Israelite would generally be considered someone from Israel, not someone interested in the Israelites...
@@jmhorange I am a jew but not an israeli. The Israelites were the ancient abitants of the land of israel the term from modern day israeli comes from israelite + the term jewish.
@@jmhorange But still you can't random bring politics for a name and a pfp of a Menorah.
Guys, I think we need more comments about the map inaccuracy and make it 95% of the comments to make sure the point really gets across /s
It's kind of important, like not confusing Alps and Carpathians or California and Baja California.
I just watched a bunch of Napoleon documentaries so I got a REAL good laugh on those digs in this video
Love all ur vids but I would really love if you brought back ten minute history
I actually have often wondered about Tyrol but never bothered to look it up
The natural borders part makes a lot of sense.
tyrol is not the same as south tyrol, they are two different regions
@@jacopomorini8915 Yep. Tyrol consists of the Austrian parts North-Tyrol and East-Tyrol (which is a tyrolean enclave within the Austrian borders), and the Italian South -Tyrol.
@@Ellisepha yeah i know thats why i said it
In Italy we call this region "Trentino-Alto Adige". Trentino is the southern part, where Italian is the major language; Alto Adige - or Sudtirolo - is the northern part, where German (Austrian) is the major language. Trentino-Alto Adige is divided in two provinces: Trento (South) and Bolzano/Bözen (North). Both these provinces have a large authonomy, like other speceal regions in Italy (like Val d'Aosta, Sardegna e Sicilia).
Noi siamo una provincia autonoma cosa che ci differenzia da tutti gli altri
@@wikaiserjager3944 sì, è esattamente quello che ho scritto, uagliò 🤣
I am an italian living in Bolzano, the capital of south tyrol, here the majority of the population is italian, but outside bolzano the rest of the territory is mostly populated by german spaking people.
Yup. The two cities Bozen and Meran, are mostly italian speaking now. I believe the Demographics are something like: Bozen and Meran 2/3 Italian Speakers, 1/3 German. Rest of the State 2/3 German Speakers 1/3 Italian Speakers.
@@Quotenwagnerianer Meran actually has 50% german speakers and 49% italian. And some ladins, but very few.
@@GameXTwo Does it?
The stats I have seen say otherwise. And the times I was there I only ever seemed to have run into the supposed 49%
But that was actually before the census of 2011 from which you take those numbers. So maybe things have changed.
According to those numbers Bozen actually is 3/4 Italian speakers already.
@@Quotenwagnerianer Wikipedia page says so and my experience too. I live in a village right next to it.
@@Quotenwagnerianer Yeah, Bozen is Italian. I personally wouldn't even try to start German conversations there within the shopping center.
I went on holiday to Italy and it included a day trip to Bolzano. Afterwards I found I kept telling people "I went on holiday to Italy and Austria...no wait I never actually crossed any borders out of Italy, it just felt like I did".
Thank you so much for talking about our tiny region ❤
"South Tyrol".
Shows the whole region of "Trentino - Alto Adige/ South Tyrol" whose capital is Trento.
And by the way, over 60% of the population of that region is Italian.
Yea, this is rather misleading, as austria's deal after WWI was about South Tyrol, not the whole region with Trentino. In South Tyrol roughly 2/3 of the population speak german (although they neither identify as germans or austrians, they are tyroleans), but it's actually a conglomerate of several tyrolean dialects, which themself fall into the bavarian family, which spreads across most of austria and the state of bavaria in germany. In my opinion, the conflict about South Tyrol cooled off after austria joined the EU, which made the border between the countries less noticeable.
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 Indeed. It also cooled off because Austria proclaimed its neutrality (sort of a second Switzerland) after the second world war to have the Soviets leave their country as soon as possible.
Now both countries aren't among the most war-like around so hopefully peace.
I remember an old South Tyrolean terrorist (yeah, this also happened) saying that it wasn't much the various agreements between Italy and Austria that cooled down the situation among South Tyroleans who wanted to be part of Austria. It was Italy winning the World Cup. 🤣😂
For any F1 fans out there, this is where Gunther Steiner is from
whaddup fellow sauftiroleans. Yes, most people do speak german, but in the cities, especially Bolzano, up to 70% of the people are italian. When you enter a bar, you need to expect people speaking italian. I live near Bolzano, my mother language has alvays been german (our german is a horrible version of standard german for example spoken in germany, it's pretty hilarious), but my italian is not horrible by any means, I understand most things and can keep a conversation going. I don't think that I am italian, nut neither do I think I am german or austrian. Every time I visit a german speaking country, for example when I was studying in Austria, I notice that I am something in between, I am south tyrolean . We in South Tyrol use a lot more italian words (especially swear words) than you would think, it's also surprising to me sometimes.
Endlich, eine Kommentarspalte für uns Südtiroler!
Great video! As an italian, however, I feel compelled to make a small observation. What you are showing on the maps is not South Tyrol, but the whole italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige. South Tyrol would be just the northern portion of this region, the autonomus Province of Bolzano, aka Alto Adige. The history in the video pertains only to the province, not the whole region. So, from our perspective, it is the northern part of the Adige basin, from the austrian perspective, it is the southern part of Tyrol. This distinction is important because you won't find many german speakers in Trentino, whereas they are a majority in Alto Adige/South Tyrol.
0:50 - Tirol was ceded to Bavaria in 1805. Confederation of the Rhine was created one year later, in 1806 :P
The region of Trentino (the lower part of South Tyrol) was actually very much italian already at the time.
Trentino is not the lower part of South Tyrol.
@@MichaelvonMaruun I would normally agree buy that's the way It was interpreted in this video.
@@antoniomariamacri7500 The region is divided into two provinces, South Tyrol and Trentino. So Trentino lies south of South Tyrol, but is not the lower part of it.
well, split it up, the italians become italian, the germans austrian..
@@ypsilondaone nope, it's ours.
As a German from an area that was for a long part effectively part of Denmark, I wonder how much we actually speak a similar language to Tyroleans.
My grandma came from S. Tirol (Partschins/Parcines) in 1928. Visiting there today you realize it is indeed the richest of Italy's regions. That province gets SO much revenue (subsidies) from Rome. The locals know that the gravy train would end and theyd be a lot poorer as just another Austrian county.
That is partially true: Tyrol in the times of the Austrian Empire finished at Riva del Garda and Verona, the majority of what they called Lochtyrol was Italian speaking and during WWI the Austrians deported the entire Italian population. Due to geography Trentino could not be defended unless it finished on the Brenner pass and Vetta d'Italia, this is the reason why the Italians needed it. Durin WWII the Nazis made it clear that all the old Austrian domains including Milan and Veneto would be incorporated in the Reich, not just Sudtyrol...as a matter of fact Trieste and the Kusterland were incorporated.