865.014/9–447
The Counselor of Legation in Austria (Denby) to the Secretary of State
No. 3391
I have the honor to make herein an interim report on the South Tyrol problem which, in its two most pressing aspects, namely the status of the optants and the form of the proposed autonomy for that area, has not progressed beyond the discussion stage.
One at any rate of the underlying difficulties appears to be lack of confidence on both the Austrian and the Italian sides toward each other. It is an unfortunate lack of mutual confidence and yet there doubtless is some justification for it. The Austrians seem to feel that the Italians have no intention of carrying out wholeheartedly and fully the Agreement signed in Paris on September 5, 1946.72 The Italians, on their part, seem to feel (as far as I can judge here in Vienna) that the Austrians do not regard the Paris Agreement as a definitive solution of the problem and will not be completely content until the South Tyrol is reincorporated into the Austrian homeland.
Dr. Karl Gruber, the Austrian Foreign Minister, referred briefly to the problem in an address delivered to the Tyrolese branch of the Austrian Peoples’ Party at Innsbruck on August 23, 1947. He recalled that the Paris Agreement had been given an international status by being included in Article 10 and Annex IV of the Peace Treaty with Italy. Conversations had, he said, been in progress for some time between Italy and Austria to implement the Agreement, and in particular, consideration was being given at present to the settlement of the complicated and difficult question of the South Tyrol optants (i.e. the people who had the right of option to choose their nationality and to choose whether they wished to live in the South Tyrol or not.) Dr. Gruber recalled that several tens of thousands of them were living outside the Tyrol, in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere, [Page 1222] and were now being given an opportunity to return. He concluded by saying that the many difficulties involved would be mastered, and that the justified demands of the Tyrolese people would be met, but that is was proving a hard struggle.
The Legation is informed by the Austrian Foreign Office that there are approximately 75,000 optants living outside the South Tyrol and that two-thirds of them wish to go back to that province. There are 42,000 in Austria at present, and 23,000 are living in Germany, mostly in Bavaria. Several thousand have already made their way back to the South Tyrol illegally.
In July 1947, the Foreign Office asked the assistance of the Legation and of U.S. authorities in the American Zone of Germany as a channel of communication in transmitting to the Bavarian authorities a memorandum setting forth the desire of the competent Austrian authorities to compile statistics on the optants in Bavaria, in order to prepare for their eventual repatriation. The Austrian authorities expressed the desire for that purpose to set up an Austrian repatriation office in Munich where relevant data could be collected. The Legation has not inquired as to recent developments in this regard but understands from an informal consultation with an official of the Italian Legation in Vienna that the Italian authorities have for some time been aware of the desire of the Austrian Government to establish several of these fact-finding offices including a central office of that character already in existence in Innsbruck.
For several months, the Austrian and the Italian authorities have been discussing the provisions of a legislative measure to be introduced in the Italian parliament which will set forth the various conditions under which returning South Tyrolese will be able to resume Italian nationality, reacquire property rights, and in general reestablish themselves in the province. A regularization is also necessary of the status of those persons, understood by the Legation to number 30,000, who opted for German citizenship under the Hitler-Mussolini Agreements of 193973 but then did not actually leave the South Tyrol. The contemplated legislative measure likewise defines certain classes of persons, such as former Nazi officials and war criminals, who will not be permitted to return. It is estimated that there are about 500 such persons, not including their families.
As to present conditions within the South Tyrol, reports reaching this U.S. Army Headquarters from Austrian sources seem to indicate that the Italian objective is to rid the local administration of the few remaining South Tyrolese before the optants’ return and the autonomy question is settled. Reports prepared by the South Tyrol Peoples’ Party [Page 1223] are understood to tell of a systematic elimination of South Tyrolese from Government and municipal jobs; of dismissal of schoolteachers; and of pressure exerted against professional groups. The Paris Agreement stipulating that the South Tyrolese be accorded proportional representation in the local administration apparently is being violated—an example of how the Agreement is carried out being that Italian participation in local administration was 95 percent before Paris, and is reported to have increased to 97 percent since then. The current over-all picture within the South Tyrol thus seems to be one of distrust of the Italian Government on the part of the South Tyrolese with Austrian sympathies, set against the Italian impression that the South Tyrolese are impatient and unreasonable in their claims.
Further details are contained in the enclosure herewith, i.e., an extract from a report prepared in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G–2, USFA.74
Respectfully yours,
- The agreement under reference is included as Annex 4 to the Treaty of Peace with Italy, signed in Paris, February 10, 1947; for text, see Department of State Treaties and Other International Acts Series 1648. The agreement provided for Italian-Austrian conversations to settle outstanding questions affecting the South Tyrol.↩
- For a summary of the agreement under reference here, see Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series D, vol. vi, Document 562, p. 778.↩
- Not printed.↩