South Tyrol. The Other Italy. Elizaveta Ebner
Paine (“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government”). One might say that the quotations have been taken out of the context, but the main principle – not to destroy, but to add – was chosen quite correctly. The quotations, superimposing the still phrases from the past, which can still be clearly seen, show explicitly that you need to know your history, no matter how painful it is, but you also need to be able to re-examine it, so that horrible mistakes should not be repeated in future.
The exhibition in the limited space under the Victory Monument tells and shows the history of the region with all the happiness and sorrow of its people, who fought for themselves and for their traditions; it highlights the process of building the “new Bolzano”, the relationship of the Fascist regime with art and culture in general, the rise of Hitler’s power and the illegal national socialist movement in South Tyrol, the history of the Victory Monument and the history of other political and ideological monuments, as well as the fate of the architect Marcello Piacentini.
The Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen) became a crucial point in the life of South Tyrol. This monument has a strange fate. With surprising unanimity, both Italian nationalists and peace-loving left-wing German-speaking residents defended it from demolition and destruction. With no less unanimity, the nationalist representatives of the German-speaking community and the Italians who opposed fascism wanted to wipe it off the face of the earth. Ironically, sometimes the Victory Monument would, quite on the contrary, unite people who believed that they were on opposite sides.
On the plaque indicating in large letters the name of Piazza della Vittoria (Victory Square), there was a modest postscript Già della Pace (“Already of Peace”) in very small letters, but South Tyroleans afterwards placed the postscript in almost imperceptible brackets. Establishing peace is not as easy as one might wish, but it can still be achieved – through acting step by step, persistently, politely and very intelligently. In order to be able to say, to write, to proudly declare: “Already peace”. And to put a full stop after that phrase, rather than the eternal question mark.
Chapter Nine.
No One Has the Right to Obey
When the German writer, philosopher and social activist of Jewish descent Hannah Arendt published her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, most Israeli friends broke off relations with her, failing to appreciate her view of the events of the past. Arendt’s bold work was severely criticized, and the writer herself was boycotted in Israel for more than 30 years. At the heart of the plot of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil was the 1961 Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, a former S.S. Lieutenant Colonel, head of Gestapo Department IV B4; inter alia, it was responsible for the “final solution of the Jewish question”, which meant mass extermination of the Jewish population of Europe. Arendt was present at the trial as New York Times correspondent. In the book, written based on the results of the trial, the writer analyzed the events she had witnessed and gave them a third-party assessment.
Adolf Eichmann, judging by Arendt’s book, was a déclassé son of a solid middle-class family, a normal person, without mental disorders, surprisingly not distinguished by fanatical anti-Semitic views or a commitment to any kind of doctrine. Both the psychiatrists and the priest who had talked to Eichmann unanimously recognized him to be absolutely reasonable and, moreover, even a person with “very positive ideas”. Hannah Arendt, describing Eichmann, noted that “the deeds were monstrous, but the doer – at least the very effective one now on trial – was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous”.
Eichmann himself, during the police interrogation, described himself as an “idealist”, meaning by this the degree of his readiness to obey orders, to sacrifice everything and everyone for his cause. He did not admit his personal involvement in the systematic extermination of the Jews, and repeatedly said that the only thing he could be accused of was “aiding and abetting” their destruction. Eichmann explained his actions by the desire to fulfill his duty, to obey not only the orders, but also the law. His defender, Dr. Servatius, echoed his client’s words, saying that the latter was innocent because he had not done anything illegal, simply because it was his duty to obey the laws adopted in the state at that time, as well as the orders of Hitler, which in the Third Reich were considered equivalent to laws.
Once, during the police investigation process, Adolf Eichmann declared with great vehemence that “he had lived his whole life according to Kant’s moral precepts, and especially according to a Kantian definition of duty”. He said: “I meant by my remark about Kant that the principle of my will must always be such that it can become the principle of general laws,” adding that he had read Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. After that, judging by the records of Arendt, Eichmann “proceeded to explain that from the moment he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thought that he no longer ‘was master of his own deeds’, that he was unable ‘to change anything’. ” In connection with this statement, Arendt in The Banality of Evil mentions the wording of the “categorical imperative in the Third Reich” given by Hans Frank, which Adolf Eichmann could well have known: “Act in such a way that the Führer, if he knew your action, would approve it” (Die Technik des Staates, 1942, pp. 15—16).
Kant would be extremely surprised if he found out about such an interpretation of his philosophy. He, on the contrary, believed that each person, starting to act, uses his “practical reason” and becomes a legislator. Every man establishes for himself moral norms which can and even must become norms of law. The only thing which remained unchanged in Eichmann’s distorted Kantian philosophy was that a person must not only obey the law; he must go further and identify his will with the moral norm behind the law – with the source of the law itself. Hannah Arendt noted that “in Kant’s philosophy, that source was practical reason; in Eichmann’s household use of him, it was the will of the Führer”.
On November 9, 1964, in her radio interview to Joachim Fest, Arendt pronounced the phrase which immediately became famous: “According to Kant, no one has the right to obey.” Those who, committing crimes against humanity, justified themselves by their need to obey orders, had no right to such an excuse. Arendt insisted on the ethical duty of every individual to abandon unfair orders and to realize the significance of their actions. Adolf Eichmann justified his terrible actions by referring to Kant’s categorical imperative, which he completely distorted, whereas in fact the meaning of the Kantian moral doctrine was totally different. Hannah Arendt managed to get it across in a phrase that was as clear as possible: “No one has the right to obey”.
This phrase can be seen twice in the capital of South Tyrol, Bolzano (Bozen): in the museum under the triumphal arch – the Victory Monument – and on the facade of the former headquarters of the Fascist party. On the facade of the latter, the phrase, written in letters that glow in the evening, is superimposed over the bas-relief covering an area of 198 square metres – by far the largest work devoted to “Il Duce” Benito Mussolini and the Fascist era to still have been preserved in a public space.
The bas-relief was made by a South Tyrolean sculptor, Hans Piffrader, in the period from 1939 to 1942, to decorate the building of Palazzo degli Uffici Finanziari, which had formerly been called Casa Littoria and had been the headquarters of the Fascist organization in Bolzano (Bozen). The architects of the former headquarters of the Fascist organization were Guido Pelizzari, Francesco Rossi and Luis Plattner. This building was part of a general architectural project in the square named after Arnaldo Mussolini (brother of Benito Mussolini), which is today called Court Square (Piazza Tribunale). Piazza Arnaldo Mussolini was to become the central part of the plan of “new” Bolzano, developed by the Fascist regime in 1933—1934. Opposite the former headquarters of the Fascist organization, a courthouse was built by the design of architects Paolo Rossi