A Model for Europe?
The Rise of Post-Fascists in Northern Italy
By Walter Mayr in Bolzano, Italy
The centrist People's Party has ruled in South Tyrol since 1948. Now, though, the provincial governor is forming a coalition with the post-fascist party Fratelli d'Italia. Many are concerned that it could provide a blueprint for similar partnerships at the European level.
Anti-fascist protesters in Bolzano Foto: noexcuses.bz / InstagramIts façade decorated with bundles of lances and axe blades, the 20-meter-tall Victory Monument stands right in the heart of Bolzano.
A stone testament to fascist claims to power.
The columns behind that façade were, according to the inscription, erected "in the 16th year of the fascist era" (1938).
It was built in honor of those who had lost their lives as part of Benito Mussolini’s army, still glorifying today the wars launched by the dictator.
Including the campaign in Libya, where Italian troops perpetrated a genocidal slaughter, killing at least 100,000 men, women and children.
Nevertheless, the politician Marco Galateo sees nothing wrong with the monument.
Many years ago, he even removed protest graffiti from the monument with his own hands.
Indeed, a photo of him doing so decorated his Facebook page until recently.
Galateo is a member of the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia, the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The party’s symbol, the Italian tricolor in the shape of a flame, resembles that once used by the neo-fascist party MSI, which disbanded in 1995.
The same party whose former headquarters in Rome was the focus last Sunday of a rally which saw hundreds of people raise their right arms in the fascist salute.
The interesting thing about Galateo is that he will most likely soon become deputy governor of Italy’s Alpine province of South Tyrol.
Since 1948, the region has been dominated by the South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP), and fascists – whether avowed or latent – have had very little influence.
Now, though, the province’s second highest political office is supposed to be handed to a political heir of Il Duce, a man who, starting in 1923, forcefully Italianicized this province, which had been part of Austria until 1919.
He banned German from the schools, and in 1939 – with the approval of Adolf Hitler – obliged the majority German-Tyrolean population to decide between emigrating or assimilating.
Liberals and leftists in South Tyrol, especially, are referring to Galateo’s rise as a breaking of a taboo.
Singing the partisan tune "Bella Ciao" and chanting the slogan "we are all anti-fascists," a group of around 1,000 protesters marched though the Bolzano city center on December 23.
Some carried a cardboard casket bearing the initials of the governing SVP.
A handful of Mussolini portraits served to recall South Tyrol’s darkest days.
"Historic Alliance"
Since December, hundreds of artists and academics have joined an open letter of protest, but to no avail.
The new coalition under Governor Arno Kompatscher, who has been in office since 2014, is set to be made official next week, a five-party alliance under the leadership of the SVP.
In addition to Fratelli d’Italia, the coalition includes Lega and South Tyrolean Freedom, both of which are also on the far right of the political spectrum, and the Civic List.
"History is not a great passion of mine.
I am more interested in today," says Galateo.
The leader of the South Tyrolean chapter of Fratelli and an acolyte of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has agreed to an interview in the state parliament building in Bolzano.
Why, then, did he make the effort to clean the graffiti off the monument to Mussolini’s bloody wars?
"History should be preserved, not befouled," he says.
Galateo says that the approaching cooperation with the South Tyrolean People’s Party and the others is an "historic alliance, an epochal step."
He has threatened legal action against those who have accused him and his party of being "racists, homophobes and right-wing extremists."
Artists in the region are now concerned about "blacklists," fearing that particularly vocal critics could be facing financially tough times under a provincial government that involves Fratelli.
South Tyrolean Governor Arno Kompatscher Foto: Lorenzo Zambello / ZUMA Press / picture allianceCritics are speaking of an internal party "Waterloo" for government head Kompatscher, who personally tends toward the left-wing liberal side of the political spectrum.
They say the coalition represents a serious danger to the long tradition of the SVP.
Since its founding in 1945, the party – which aspires to unite South Tyrol’s German- and Ladin-speaking populations – has emphasized its roots in anti-fascism and sees itself as centrist.
Elections in 2018 saw the SVP lose its former absolute majority, earning 42 percent of the vote, and it fell even further last October, when it received just 35 percent.
It no longer has complete flexibility when it comes to choosing its partners.
In his offices at the provincial capital in Bolzano, Kompatscher is eager to rebut the impression that he is in the process of "selling souls or entering into a pact with the devil."
Such are the accusations that have been leveled by his political opponents.
Still, it is clear that he has been deeply affected by the personal attacks, especially those that have come from longtime supporters.
When asked if it is true that his wife and seven children are among his harshest critics, Kompatscher says: "At home, we have a social-liberal, cosmopolitan stance, and my children do ask me if it was unavoidable."
But, he adds, "this isn’t the election result that I wanted either."
The situation in South Tyrol is a complicated one.
By law, at least three ethnic Italians must be members of the government.
From a purely mathematical point of view, a coalition without the Italian right-wing parties was a possibility, if only just.
But given the power structures in Rome, it would have been risky.
The government in Rome has control over the purse strings, and also makes decisions about the degree of autonomy enjoyed by South Tyrol.
Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populist Lega party already spent the last five years as part of the South Tyrolean governing coalition.
After consulting with Rome, Lega and Fratelli made it clear that "they could only be had for a coalition as a package deal," says Kompatscher.
"So I didn’t have much choice."
Italian Prime Minister Meloni, he says critically, has "missed the opportunity in the past to clearly state once and for all: 'We condemn the fascist ideology in all its forms.'"
That is why this avowal will be unequivocally included in the preamble of the South Tyrolean coalition agreement.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Foto: Mauro Scrobogna / ZUMA Press / picture allianceIn addition, the agreement will contain "a clear commitment to Europe, and not to the continent, but to the future of the EU," Kompatscher says.
"Knowing that she is a pariah and in recognition of the deep skepticism in Europe of post- and neo-fascists," he adds, Meloni has apparently decided since entering office to play the part of a pro-European and supporter of minorities.
For South Tyrol, that means: "She promised the return of our full-scale autonomy, which had been limited since 2001 primarily in our ability to enact laws."
A Model for a Right-Wing Alliance in Brussels?
Kompatscher rejects the premise that the fight for autonomy is more important to him than combating right-wing extremism and discrimination.
Still, there are some who warn that South Tyrol risks becoming an example for creating future right-wing alliances – and perhaps even a blueprint for the convergence of conservatives and right-wing populists at the European Union level once the votes have been counted following elections for the European Parliament in June and it comes time to divvy up the political appointments and assemble majorities.
It is a concern diligently promoted by Manfred Weber, head of the center-right European People’s Party and a leading conservative voice in Brussels.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, by contrast, has recently been seen at Meloni’s side in Italy on multiple occasions, with no shortage of hugs and pecks on the cheek.
In Brussels, Fratelli has thus far been part of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in European Parliament, along with the Poland’s Law and Justice party.
But the entire right-wing spectrum in Brussels, including the Fidesz party led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is reshuffling ahead of the June elections.
"Here in the future provincial government of South Tyrol, we don’t want to be a platform for anything larger.
We just want to be a working partnership," says Kompatscher.
Those who don’t believe that he will be able to tame recalcitrant right-wingers, he says, should just take a look at the government official from Lega who used to spew homophobic jargon.
"Now, I’ve got him to the point that he stood next to me under a rainbow flag at a press conference against discrimination based on sexual orientation."
The fascist Victory Monument in Bolzano Foto: Martin Zwick / ddpThere has been no shortage of accusations in recent days that Fratelli is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
To hear them, it is sufficient to simply hang out in the bar of the Parkhotel Laurin in Bolzano, well-known in South Tyrol, with its 530,000 residents, as a place where parliamentarians of all stripes – right and left, government loyalists and government critics – go to exchange gossip and where journalists go to sniff out stories.
"For me, Meloni is currently the most dangerous politician in Europe.
She still has some surprises in store for us," says the South Tyrolean journalist Christoph Franceschini in the Parkhotel.
He is co-author of a bestselling book about the intricacies of politics in his province, a tome that closely examines the SVP’s various entanglements.
Franceschini says that the Athesia publishing house, which puts out the daily paper Dolomiten, began backing the post-fascists early on, as did leading business executives and tourism lobbyists.
The "Gravedigger of South Tyrol"
Luis Durnwalder, who was the longtime governor of South Tyrol from 1989 to 2014 and is Kompatscher’s predecessor, has also found his way into the bar.
The 82-year-old dignitary gracefully accepts the homages of other bar guests ("Presidente, che gioia" – what a delight) before sliding into a booth to discuss what he thinks of the recent developments.
The more lavish "Durni," as he is known, who is reminiscent of a ruler from the Late Baroque period, is not considered a huge fan of his more tightfisted successor, who immediately sold the official government Mercedes on Ebay upon entering office and eliminated the complimentary breakfast pastries at cabinet meetings.
But in the current issue at hand, Durnwalder throws his support behind Kompatscher.
"Entering into an alliance with the right wing – despite all the caution that remains necessary – was the right move.
Because being in a coalition with people who have friends in Rome makes things easier; and because Meloni, who used to celebrate Mussolini as a great statesman, has thus far kept all of her promises."
Has the passage of time now healed more wounds than thought?
To cite just one example: The tomb of the fanatic Tolomei, bestowed even before Mussolini’s death, can be found in the cemetery of the South Tyrolean municipality of Montan.
Buried in an ancient Roman toga and facing north, as he said himself, "to watch as the last German" is driven northward across the Brenner Pass, lies the man who some refer to as the "gravedigger of South Tyrol."
Because his studies paved the way for annexation and allegedly served to prove that "the holy soil of the Italian fatherland" extended to the peak of the Alps, Tolomei’s tomb was the target of a number of bomb attacks.
In the most recent of those attacks, which took place in 1979, the remains of the fervent fascist were scattered about – before then being recollected and encased in concrete.
For a long time thereafter, right-wingers would lay wreaths in his honor.
These days, though, emotions have calmed.
Only on the outskirts of Montan, where Tolomei’s distant relatives still make wine, does the Duce Tower – named for Mussolini – bear witness to Tolomei’s former home – it, too, a stone testament to fascist claims to power in South Tyrol.
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