Far-Right Conflict around South Tyrol: The 1967 Cima Vallona Ambush and Its Aftermath

South Tyrol, a predominately German-speaking region of northern Italy, had long been a site of tension over national and linguistic identities. Annexed by Italy from Austria-Hungary after World War I, the region was subject to attempts at cultural “Italianization” by the Fascist government. These efforts provoked mistrust between South Tyroleans and the Italian state which lingered after 1945. The cause of South Tyrol was taken up by right-wing activists in both Austria and West Germany, who embraced a pan-German view of national identity and came to view the region as a linguistic minority denied the right of self-determination. In the view of the West German and Austrian far right, the mistreatment of South Tyrol was yet another example of Italy’s treachery, in line with the country’s entry into World War I on the side of the Allied Powers and the 1943 Armistice of Cassibile. By the late 1950s, some advocates for South Tyrol’s return to Austria had embraced violence in pursuit of their aims; this campaign reached its deadliest stage in the second half of the 1960s.

This paper focuses on one such instance of violence, the 26 June 1967 Cima Vallona ambush. This attack, perpetrated by members of the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee, killed four Italian military personnel. Less than a month after the attack, the Italian Social Movement (MSI), Italy’s largest neofascist party, organized a nationwide convoy that converged on Bolzano/Bozen, the main city in South Tyrol. In doing so, this paper examines a source of tension between German- and Italian-speaking right-wing activists in the 1960s, analyzes far-right conceptualizations of nationhood, and discusses the role of memories of the Nazi and Fascist pasts in later activism on the right.