Why is South Tyrol a part of Italy and not Austria? (Short Animated Documentary)

Austria (and Austria-Hungary) used to own South Tyrol which despite being majority German-Speaking is today a part of Italy. So how did this come to pass? Why does Italy now own South Tyrol? To find out watch this short and simple animated history documentary.

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[notvonbayern]

God, the "how was the drive" for the Archduke killed me. That is just perfect

[nohero]

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.

[GCho]

“3 years and 12 Isonzos later.”

God, I love his humor.

[amk]

I cannot stress enough how much I am now emotionally invested in the newspaper pages that are presented. They’re just so good

[cz.gazz.]

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.

[cynicat]

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.

[aqualone]

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.

[RafaelDiFuria]

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 😜

[gabriele]

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.

[presidenteantonioconte]

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

[lucaferretto]

On the thumbnail, that's not South Tyrol, that's Trentino-Alto Adige. South Tyrol is half of it. The northern half.

[ChrisSum.]

As a South-Tyrolean, I have waited for this moment for my entire life

[wetwillyis_]

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.

[thejaerd]

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

[zxzolfo]

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.

[rafaelcrepaz]

Hello from Süd Tirol/Alto Adige from a speaker of the third, always forgotten local language ("Ladin" yes with a D, not Latin)❤

[DK]

You have no idea how entertaining and informative these videos are dude. Thanks for making them.

[SimonUslengh]

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).

[macrowolf]

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.

[fugbisch]

It would have been nice to see you dive deeper into the post-WW2 resistance movement