ABSTRACT
In 1939, an agreement was reached between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini known as the Option: South Tyroleans could “opt” between retaining Italian nationality and migrating to the “Greater German Reich” as German citizens. To escape the draft into the German Wehrmacht, Claus Gatterer fled to Padua; at the university there, he studied history and philosophy. The young South Tyrolean journalist Thomas Hanifle presents the first full-scale biography of Gatterer. In the period following World War II, among the most interesting years in South Tyrol were those from 1959 to 1969: bombs in the beginning, in the end “the package,” the basis for a true autonomy. Gatterer was considered to be an outstanding journalist in Austria, less so in South Tyrol, at least until 1981. Gatterer himself said he was politically “left,” and advice from a leftist wasn’t worth much in conservative South Tyrol.
