Prejudice and racism toward immigrants were and are common practice in Innsbruck, as in all societies. Whether Syrian refugees since 2015 or Turkish guest workers in the 1970s and 80s, what is foreign generally evokes little goodwill among the average Tyrolean. Today, Italy may be the favorite travel destination of Innsbruck’s residents and pizzerias an integral part of everyday gastronomy, but for a long time our southern neighbors were the group viewed with the greatest suspicion. What Jews and “brick-Bohemians” were to Viennese around 1900, “Walsche” were to Tyroleans. Aversion toward Italians in Innsbruck can look back on a long tradition. Although Italy did not yet exist as an independent state, the political landscape was shaped by many small counties, city-states, and principalities between Lake Garda and Sicily. Linguistically and culturally, the individual regions also differed from one another. Nevertheless, over time people began to see themselves as Italians and were also perceived as such abroad. Most of those with whom Innsbruck’s residents came into contact belonged to the upper class, which automatically generated a certain level of resentment. During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, they lived in Innsbruck as members of the administrative apparatus, the court, as bankers, wholesale merchants, or spouses of various territorial princes. The hostility between Italians and Germans was mutual. Each side regarded the other, depending on perspective, as dishonorable, unreliable, arrogant, vain, morally corrupt, and lazy, or conversely as uncivilized, barbaric, uneducated, and porcs.

With the wars between 1848 and 1866, hatred toward everything Italian reached a new peak in the “Holy Land of Tyrol,” although many “Walsche” served in the imperial and royal army and much of the rural population among the Italian-speaking Tyroleans remained loyal to the monarchy. Italians—especially Garibaldi’s troops—were seen as godless agitators and republicans and were denounced from church pulpits between Kufstein and Riva del Garda, both in Italian and in German. The Tyrolean press played a major role in the conflict. After the liberalization of the press in 1867, newspapers achieved a new level of reach. What social media contributes to social division today was in many ways performed by newspapers at that time. Conservatives, Catholics, Greater Germans, liberals, and socialists each had their own press organs, and loyal readers of these hardly neutral publications lived within their own opinion bubbles. The Innsbrucker Nachrichten, with a circulation of about 15,000 copies, was the medium with the widest reach in Tyrol around the turn of the century. Although it did not have an explicitly stated political alignment, it was considered to be Greater German-liberal in outlook. On the Italian side, Cesare Battisti (1875–1916), who was executed by the Austrian military during the war for high treason by hanging, stood out in particular. The publicist and politician from Trento had initially begun studying at the German-speaking university in Vienna, but later transferred to the University of Florence. With a sharp pen, he repeatedly fueled the conflict of nationalities within the borders of the province in the Italian newspapers Il Popolo and L’Avvenire. Owing to his combination of socialist convictions and Italian patriotism, he was regarded by many Tyroleans as the number one enemy of the state and a traitor.

Associations also played a crucial role in the hardening of fronts. In 1867, not only press law but also the law governing associations was liberalized, triggering a veritable boom in new foundations. Sports clubs, gymnastics societies, theater groups, marksmen’s associations, or the Innsbrucker Liedertafel often served not only for leisure but functioned as political pre-organizations. Members met in their own venues and regularly organized club evenings, often also open to the public. Particularly politically active and extreme in their views were the student fraternities. The young men who gathered there came from the upper bourgeoisie or the aristocracy and were accustomed both to giving orders and to bearing arms. One third of the students in Innsbruck belonged to a fraternity, nearly half of them with a German nationalist orientation. Unlike today, it was not unusual for them to appear in public in full regalia—in their colors, that is, in uniform complete with saber, beret, and sash—often also armed with walking sticks and revolvers. Opposing them were the Italian-speaking students, who were inferior not only in numbers but also in organization. After the loss of Padua, Tyroleans of Italian descent no longer had the possibility of completing their studies in their mother tongue within the country; many therefore oriented themselves toward Innsbruck, where they were met with little sympathy. One of the greatest political points of contention between Italian- and German-speaking students was the establishment of an Italian university. The discussion about whether such a university should be located in Trieste (the preferred location of Italian-speaking representatives), Innsbruck, Trento, or Rovereto dragged on for years. Although attending university was essentially a matter for a small elite, irredentist and anti-Austrian Tyrolean deputies from the Trentino repeatedly succeeded in emotionally charging the issue as a symbol of the desired autonomy, given that, since 1867, all language groups within the monarchy were legally to be treated equally. German nationalist politicians such as Innsbruck’s mayor Wilhelm Greil—who was repeatedly reprimanded by the imperial governor of Tyrol for his improper conduct toward the Italian population—used the emotions surrounding the issue to stir up fears of foreign infiltration. Alongside ethnic and racist resentments toward their southern neighbors, conservatives in particular were also influenced by fear of figures such as Cesare Battisti, who as a socialist was seen as embodying absolute evil.

How great the supposed danger of an “Italianization” of Innsbruck by students from Trentino actually was is illustrated by demographic data. Even at that time, facts in public discourse were often replaced by gut feeling and racially motivated populism. After the incorporation of Pradl and Wilten in 1904, Innsbruck had just over 50,000 inhabitants. The proportion of students, at a little over 1,000, was under 2%. Of the roughly 3,000 people of Italian origin—most of them “Welsch Tyroleans” from the Trentino—just over 100 were enrolled at the university. The majority of the “Walsche” consisted of workers, innkeepers, traders, and soldiers. Many had long lived in and around Innsbruck. In somewhat more affordable Wilten, something akin to a “Little Italy” had emerged. Anton Gutmann sold Italian wines in his cellar cooperative “Riva” at Leopoldstraße 30, and across the street one could eat well and cheaply at the Steneck inn. Most of the immigrants, as subjects of the monarchy, spoke excellent German; only a small proportion came from Dalmatia or Trieste and were in fact foreign-language speakers. The differences were of a socio-cultural nature. There were their own associations such as the Club Ciclistico and the Unione Ginnastica, socialist-oriented workers’ and consumer organizations, music societies, and student fraternities.

Although students also made up only a small proportion among Italians, they and the demand for an institute with Italian as the language of instruction and examination received disproportionate attention. After considerable back and forth, it was decided in September 1904 to establish a provisional faculty of law in Innsbruck. This was intended to separate the students without alienating either group. From the outset, however, the project was ill-fated. No one wanted to rent the university the necessary premises. Eventually, the enterprising builder Anton Fritz made an apartment in one of his rental buildings at Liebeneggstraße 8 available. At the inaugural lecture and the festive evening event at the “Gasthaus zum Weißen Kreuz” on 3 November, prominent figures such as Battisti and the later Italian prime minister Alcide De Gasperi were present. As the evening progressed, the mood became increasingly exuberant. When jeering slogans such as “Porchi tedeschi” and “Abbasso Austria” (note: “German pigs” and “Down with Austria”) were shouted, the situation escalated. A crowd of German-speaking students armed with sticks, knives, and revolvers besieged the Weißes Kreuz, in which the Italians—also largely armed—had barricaded themselves. A unit of Kaiserjäger succeeded in dispersing the initial tumult; several Italians were arrested. In the process, the painter August Pezzey (1875–1904) was mistakenly fatally wounded by a bayonet thrust from an overly nervous soldier.

Following the night’s events, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten appeared on November 4 with the headline: “German blood shed!” The reporter present wrote of 100 to 200 revolver shots fired by the Italians at the “crowd of German students,” and of Pezzey’s death. The news of what had happened triggered a wave of acts of revenge and violence. As in any uprising, onlookers and rioters joined the politically motivated participants, people who enjoyed overstepping boundaries in the anonymity of the crowd without holding a genuine political conviction. While the Italians taken into custody sang the martial Inno di Garibaldi in the overcrowded city prison, serious riots broke out in the city against Italian establishments and businesses. The premises of the Weißes Kreuz were completely devastated in a display of loyalty to the monarchy, except for a portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph. Rioters threw stones at the residence of the already unpopular governor in Palais Trapp, because his wife had Italian roots. The building on Liebeneggstraße made available to the university by Anton Fritz was destroyed, as was his private residence.

Once the initial turmoil had subsided, a process of myth-making quickly began around the events. August Pezzey, who had died amid the chaos and came from a Ladin family, was declared a “German hero” in a wave of nationalist fervor by politicians and the press. He was given an honorary grave at the Innsbruck West Cemetery. At his funeral, attended by thousands of mourners, Mayor Greil delivered a pathos-laden speech:

"...A gloriously beautiful death was granted to you on the field of honour for the German people... In the fight against impudent acts of violence you breathed your last as a martyr for the German cause..."

Reports of the Fatti di Innsbruck reached the international press and contributed significantly to the resignation of the Austrian Minister-President Ernest von Koerber. Depending on the medium, Italians were portrayed either as dishonorable bandits or as courageous national heroes, while Austrians were depicted as pangermanist barbarians or as a bulwark against the “Welsch.” On 17 November, just two weeks after its ceremonial opening, the Italian faculty in Innsbruck was dissolved again. A university of their own remained denied to this linguistic group within Austria-Hungary until the end of the monarchy in 1918. The long tradition of viewing Italians as dishonorable and lazy was further intensified by Italy’s entry into the war in 1915 on the side of France and England. To this day, many Tyroleans continue to maintain negative prejudices toward their southern neighbors with great persistence.