Ettore Tolomei

His nationalistic activities had begun in 1890 with the founding of the weekly magazine La Nazione Italiana (The Italian Nation), a propagandistic publication whose aim was to popularize the positions of the Dante Alighieri Society.

[1] Its articles dwelled mainly on the issue of Trento and Trieste, then still under Austro-Hungarian rule, but covered other areas including the Levant and North Africa, anticipating the fascist dream of a new Mediterranean empire.

[3] In 1904 Tolomei climbed the 2,911 m (9,551 ft) high Klockerkarkopf or Glockenkarkopf, which he believed to be the northernmost mountain on the main watershed in the Tyrolean Alps.

Tolomei claimed to be the first climber and renamed the peak Vetta d'Italia - Summit of Italy (with a clear political aim), although Franz Hofer and Fritz Kögl had already climbed it in 1895.

To further his goals, in 1906 Tolomei founded the Archivio per l'Alto Adige, a magazine which moved along the same propagandistic lines as La Nazione Italiana, but focused solely on the South Tyrolean issue.

The Archivio propagated the Italianness of South Tyrol in articles that claimed scientific authority and objectivity, but were in fact deeply tinged with ideology and propagandistic intent, and for Tolomei a tool for personal promotion and narcissistic gratification.

[6] The result of these activities, called Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige, would be published in 1916 by the Reale Società Geografica Italiana la prima .

From 1915 onwards, Tolomei increased his lobbying activities, sending several letters to government officials and nationalistic associations detailing his views on the steps to be taken before and after the annexation of South Tyrol.

[10] Shortly after Italian troops had occupied the southern part of Tyrol in the wake of the Austrian-Italian Armistice of Villa Giusti in November 1918 (which was confirmed by the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919), Tolomei was appointed to a cultural office in the main city of the area, Bozen (Bolzano).

On 2 October 1922, Tolomei led a group of Blackshirts when they occupied the town hall of Bolzano and managed to persuade the Civil commissioner Luigi Credaro to depose the mayor; the following day they moved to Trento and, using similar tactics, obtained the suppression of the administrative Provincial assembly and, after Credaro's and minister Salandra's dismissals that of the entire Central office for the new provinces.