Royal Wooing

Crown Prince Umberto obliged Dictator Benito Mussolini last week with a few personal appearances in the Italian Tyrol. Arriving at flag-bedecked. half-Austrian Bolzano (formerly Bozen), guarded by soldiers and Black Shirts, His Royal Highness inaugurated a public works program. He then visited Merano where he dedicated a monument to Italian Alpine troops. Meanwhile, his Belgian consort, Crown Princess Maria Jose, inspected welfare centres.

The royal visit was plainly calculated as a gesture which would impress and cheer up the 250,000 unhappy, German-speaking Italian Tyroleans, former subjects of the pomp-displaying Habsburg emperors, more than any blustering, oratorical visit by II Duce could. Living quietly in Naples, the tall, 33-year-old heir to the crown of Italy has been none too ardent a believer in Fascism, has silently but successfully sidestepped Fascist activities.

The mountainous South Tyrol sticks out as the weakest spot in the Berlin-Rome axis. Promise of this 30-mile, largely vertical strip along the Italian-Austrian border was part of the secret deal which in 1915 brought the Kingdom of Italy into the World War against her former Central Powers allies. No minorities treaty was signed by Italy, but until minority-hating Fascism's advent there was little oppression of the German population. In 1923 a determined program of oppressive "Italianization" was inaugurated. In the district's schools only Italian teachers conducting lessons in Italian were allowed. Germanic names were ordered Italianized. Until 1936 German could not be spoken publicly. No German secret society could be formed, officials were exclusively Italian, Italian-German marriages generally resulted in social ostracism.

Although Fuehrer Adolf Hitler's main plank is return of all German minorities to the Reich fold, his passiveness toward the South Tyroleans has contrasted with his agitation for the Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia. To South-Tyrolean Anschluss agitation the Fuehrer has lately turned a cold shoulder, has declared Italy's present frontiers inviolable, has let the word be passed around that Ally Mussolini should not be embarrassed by Nazi agitation for a German Tyrol.

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