1919South Tyrol is annexed to Italy
In 1919 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was crushed in Saint Germain, a small suburb of Paris. The areas south of the Brenner Pass (South Tyrol and today's Trentino) became part of Italy. Fascism, then in power, pursued the policy of assimilation and Italianization. Italian language and culture were, in other words, imposed to the whole Italian territory and all the other languages, minorities and cultures were to be eradicated. The fascist government wanted to erase the identity of South Tyrol and of other areas with ethnic minorities.
Ettore Tolomei (1865-1952) was one of the most strenuous proponents of this policy. His program, introduced in 1923, was detailed and included for example: the ban on the use of the name ‘Tyrol’, the Italianization of names of places and farms, of family names, graves’ inscriptions and much more. Teaching was to take place exclusively in Italian as the only official language. The Germans were excluded from public life and Laas became Lasa.
