For more information on Alcide De Gasperi, visit Britannica.com.
Alcide De Gasperi
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Alcide De Gasperi |
| 5min Related Video: Alcide De Gasperi |
| Political Biography: Alcide De Gasperi |
(b. Trento, 3 Apr. 1881; d. 18. Aug. 1954) Italian; Prime Minister 1945 – 53 De Gasperi was born in the village of Pieve Tesino in the province of Trento, at a time when though linguistically Italian it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement from 1896, and it was Catholic social organization which gave impetus to his politics rather than Italian nationalism, though he was briefly imprisoned by the Austrian authorities in 1904. He graduated in philology from the University of Vienna in 1905 and helped establish the Partito Popolare Trentino, for whom he was elected to the Austrian Parliament in 1911.
He was firmly neutralist during the First World War, which he spent in Vienna. When the Trentino province passed to Italy in the post-war settlement, he took Italian citizenship, and was a founder-member of the Partito Popolare led by Don Luigi Sturzo. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1921, he initially supported the participation of the Popolari in Mussolini's first government in October 1922, but was soon in conflict with the Fascists over constitutional changes to the powers of the executive and to the election system, and to Fascist violence against the constitutional parties. The Popolari split, and De Gasperi became secretary of the remaining anti-Fascist Popolari in May 1924. In November 1926, in a climate of overt violence and intimidation by the Fascists, his party was dissolved by order of the Ministry of the Interior. De Gasperi attempted to escape into exile and was arrested and imprisoned. After his release in May 1928, he was unemployed and in serious financial hardship, until in May 1929 his ecclesiastical contacts secured him a job as a cataloguer in the Vatican Library, where he spent the next fourteen years until the collapse of Fascism in July 1943.
Throughout this period he continued to write pseudonymously, but his most important work was "Ideas for reconstruction" (Idee ricostruttive), published in 1943, which amounted to a party programme for a new Christian Democrat Party. He was the first general secretary of the new party in 1944, and after a period as minister in the coalition governments under the allies he became Prime Minister for the first time in December 1945. He remained in office as Prime Minister in eight successive governments until August 1953. After a brief period as party secretary again, he retired from active politics in increasing ill-health and died in 1954.
De Gasperi's involvement in the post-war reconstruction was of critical importance for the future functioning of the new Italian state. During his period of office, Italy voted to become a republic (June 1946), the Peace Treaty was signed (February 1947), the Marshall Plan and other US support for Italy was agreed, the wartime coalition with the Communists and Socialists was ended (May 1947), the new constitution came into force (January 1948), the DC won a majority in the first parliamentary elections (April 1948), and Italy joined NATO (1949). In all of these the guiding hand of De Gasperi was evident. Though at times his control of the DC appeared almost complete, it was in fact the result of a careful balancing of different factions and interests, especially over relations with the Vatican, over social reform, and over foreign policy. The 1952 party congress overwhelmingly endorsed his authority over the government and over the party, but initiated the period of his decline, as he came under increasing criticism from the emerging left of the party. The main accusations against him were that he was too cautious in social and economic reform, that he stifled debate, and that he subordinated the party to the interests of government.
A gradualist and a firm believer in the importance of international alliances, he was a politician for whom the term "centrist" could have been coined. He was a good practical administrator and a deeply religious individual who hated dogmatism and anything that smacked to him of extremism. De Gasperi is often regarded as one of the few undoubted statesmen of the post-war Italian Republic.
| Biography: Alcide De Gasperi |
The Italian statesman Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954) was one of the founders of Italian democracy after World War II.
Alcide De Gasperi was born on April 3, 1881, at Pieve Tesino in Trentino, then controlled by Austria. As a young man, he became active in the Irredentist movement to bring Italian-speaking people still under Austrian jurisdiction into the kingdom of Italy. In 1906 he began publication of the polemical journal II Trentino. This brought him a good deal of attention, and in 1911 he was elected to the Austrian Parliament as deputy for Trentino, a post he held for 6 years.
De Gasperi then joined the new Catholic People's party (Partito Popolare Italiano), founded by the Catholic political leader Don Luigi Sturzo. Trentino became part of Italy following World War I, and De Gasperi served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924. Hard work brought him a position of eminence, and when Don Sturzo was forced into exile in 1924, De Gasperi became general secretary of the party.
As Mussolini's hold on the Italian government grew stronger, the position of the party became ever more precarious, and in 1926 it was dissolved. De Gasperi was imprisoned but was released 3 years later when, amid the atmosphere of good feeling between Mussolini and the Vatican, the archbishop of Trent intervened on his behalf. De Gasperi found asylum and temporary peace in the Vatican, where he studied Catholic social doctrine.
During World War II De Gasperi became active in the underground and was one of the founders of the illegal Christian Democratic party (Democrazia Christiana). He also founded the newspaper Popolo. After the liberation of Italy in June 1944, he served as minister without portfolio and then as foreign minister; in December 1945 he became premier, a post he held until 1953. As chief of the Italian delegation at the World War II peace conference, he elicited concessions from the Allies that guaranteed Italian sovereignty.
After the formal end of the monarchy in June 1946, De Gasperi functioned as head of the Christian Democrats, the party that dominated Parliament for the next 8 years. As premier, he gave moderate guidance that kept a precarious balance, during this critical postwar period, between disparate elements within the party and the nation. By avoiding conflicts with the numerous Socialists and Communists, he managed with great delicacy to put Italian democracy on a firm foundation. Besides his successful negotiations with the Allied Powers, his most striking achievement in foreign policy was the agreement with Austria (September 1946) to establish the southern Tirol as an autonomous region.
When the Christian Democrats did not gain a majority in the elections of 1953, De Gasperi was unable to establish a workable Cabinet and was forced to resign as premier. The following year he also had to forgo the leadership of his party, and 2 months later, on Aug. 19, 1954, he died.
Further Reading
Sources on De Gasperi in English are scarce. Elisa A. Carrillo, Alcide de Gasperi: The Long Apprenticeship (1965), covers his early life through his entry into the Quirinale as premier. Consult Denis Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History (1959), for the political picture. English translations of the works by Luigi Sturzo that are helpful are Church and State (1939), Italy and the Coming World (1945), and Italy and Fascism (1967).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Alcide De Gasperi |
De Gasperi, Alcide (älchē'dā dā gä'spārē), 1881-1954, Italian premier and a founder of the Christian Democratic party. Born in the Trentino-then under Austria-he represented Italian irredentists in the Austrian parliament and after the transfer of the Trentino to Italy at the end of World War I served (1921-24) as a Catholic deputy in the Italian parliament. After 16 months of imprisonment as an anti-Fascist, De Gasperi received (1931) a position at the Vatican Library; there he organized during World War II the center-right Christian Democratic party. A successor in part to Luigi Sturzo's Popular party, the moderately conservative group derived its program from the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. After the Italian surrender in 1943 he held several cabinet posts. From 1945 to 1953 he was premier of eight successive coalition cabinets dominated by the Christian Democrats, and as such was the main architect of Italy's initial postwar, post-Fascist recovery. In 1947, De Gasperi excluded the Communists and left-wing Socialists from the government, and in 1948 his party won a major electoral victory. De Gasperi inaugurated land reform, championed close cooperation with the United States, and led Italy into the European Recovery Program and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
| Wikipedia: Alcide De Gasperi |
|
Alcide De Gasperi
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|---|---|
| In office June 12, 1946 – July 1, 1946 |
|
| Preceded by | King Umberto II (as King of Italy) |
| Succeeded by | Enrico De Nicola |
|
|
|
| In office December 10, 1945 – August 2, 1953 |
|
| President | Enrico De Nicola Luigi Einaudi |
| Preceded by | Ferruccio Parri |
| Succeeded by | Giuseppe Pella |
|
|
|
| In office December 12, 1944 – October 10, 1946 |
|
| Prime Minister | Ivanoe Bonomi Ferruccio Parri Himself |
| Preceded by | Ivanoe Bonomi |
| Succeeded by | Pietro Nenni |
| In office July 26, 1951 – August 2, 1953 |
|
| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Carlo Sforza |
| Succeeded by | Giuseppe Pella |
|
|
|
| In office July 13, 1946 – January 28, 1947 |
|
| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Giuseppe Romita |
| Succeeded by | Mario Scelba |
|
|
|
| In office 1954 – August 19, 1954 |
|
| Preceded by | Paul Henri Spaak |
| Succeeded by | Giuseppe Pella |
|
|
|
| Born | 3 April 1881 Pieve Tesino, Trentino, County of Tyrol, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 19 August 1954 (aged 73) Passo Sella, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Political party | Christian Democracy |
| Spouse(s) | Francesca Romani |
| Children | Maria Romana De Gasperi other 3 daughters |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Alcide De Gasperi (3 April 1881 – 19 August 1954) was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics. He is considered to be one of the Founding fathers of the European Union, along with the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer.
Contents |
Biography
Early years
De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in Trentino, at that time belonging to Austria-Hungary, now part of the Province of Trento in Italy. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. From 1896 De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement. In 1900 he joined the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in Vienna, where he played an important role in the inception of the Christian student movement. He was very much inspired by the Rerum Novarum encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. In 1904 he took an active part in the student demonstrations in favour of an Italian-language university. Imprisoned with other protesters during the inauguration of the Italian juridical faculty in Innsbruck, he was released after twenty days. In 1905, De Gasperi obtained a degree in philology.
In 1905 he began to work as editor of the newspaper La Voce Cattolica which was replaced in September 1906 by Il Trentino, and after a short time he became its editor. In his newspaper he often took positions in favour of a cultural autonomy for Welschtirol and in defence of Italian culture in Trentino, in contrast to the Germanisation plans of the German radical nationalists in Tyrol. However, he never questioned whether or not Trentino should belong to Austria–Hungary and claimed that, in the case of a referendum, 90% of the Trentino would nevertheless choose the popular Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria over the Italian motherland.
In 1911 he became a Member of Parliament for the Popular Political Union of Trentine (Italian: Unione Politica Popolare del Trentino - UPPT) in the Austrian Reichsrat, a post he held for 6 years. He was politically neutral during World War I, which he spent in Vienna. However, he sympathized with the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) and Bl. Karl I of Austria to obtain an honourable peace and stop the war and mass warfare. When his home region was transferred to Italy in the post-war settlement, he accepted Italian citizenship.
Opposing Fascism
In 1919 he was among of the founders of the Italian People's Party (Italian: Partito Popolare Italiano - PPI), with Don Luigi Sturzo. He served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924, a period marked by the rise of Fascism. He initially supported the participation of the PPI in Benito Mussolini’s first government in October 1922.
As Mussolini's hold on the Italian government grew stronger, he soon diverged with the Fascists over constitutional changes to the powers of the executive and to the election system (the Acerbo Law), and to Fascist violence against the constitutional parties, culminating in the murder of Giacomo Matteotti. The PPI split, and De Gasperi became secretary of the remaining anti-Fascist group in May 1924. In November 1926, in a climate of overt violence and intimidation by the Fascists, the PPI was dissolved.
De Gasperi was arrested in March 1927 and sentenced to four years in prison. The Vatican negotiated his release. A year and a half in prison nearly broke De Gasperi's health. After his release in July 1928, he was unemployed and in serious financial hardship, until in 1929 his ecclesiastical contacts secured him a job as a cataloguer in the Vatican Library, where he spent the next fourteen years until the collapse of Fascism in July 1943.
Founding the Christian Democrat Party
During World War II, he organized the establishment of the first (and at the time, illegal) Christian Democracy party, or Democrazia Cristiana, drawing upon the ideology of the Popular Party. In January 1943, he published "Ideas for reconstruction" (Italian: Idee ricostruttive) which amounted to a party programme for the party. He became the first general secretary of the new party in 1944.
De Gasperi was the undisputed head of the Christian Democrats, the party that dominated Parliament for the next decades. Although his control of the DC appeared almost complete, he had to carefully balance of different factions and interests, especially over relations with the Vatican, over social reform, and over foreign policy.
Prime Minister
From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive Christian Democratic governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for one leader in modern Italian politics. During his successive governments Italy became a Republic (1946), signed a Peace Treaty with the Allies (1947), a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 and an ally of the United States, which helped to revive the Italian economy through the Marshall Plan. In the same years, Italy also became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which eventually transformed into the European Union (EU).
After the liberation of Italy in June 1944, he had served as minister without portfolio and then as foreign minister. In December 1945, he became Prime Minister for the first time, leading a coalition government that included the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Communist party leader Palmiro Togliatti acted as vice-premier. He tried soften the terms of the pending Allied peace treaty with Italy and secured financial and economic aid through the European Recovery Program (Marshal Plan) – which was opposed by the Communists.
In June 1946 a referendum was held to decide whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. The republican option won with 54%. (See: Birth of the Italian Republic) As chief of the Italian delegation at the World War II peace conference in Paris, he obtained concessions from the Allies that guaranteed Italian sovereignty. Under the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the eastern border area was lost to Yugoslavia and the free territory of Trieste was divided between the two states.
One his most striking achievements in foreign policy was the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement with Austria in September 1946 that established his home region, southern Tirol, as an autonomous region.
American support
De Gasperi enjoyed considerable support in the US, where he was seen as the man who could oppose the rising tide of Communism – in particular the PCI, which was the biggest communist party in a Western European democracy. In January 1947 he visited the US. The chief goals of the trip were to soften the terms of the pending peace treaty with Italy, and to obtain immediate economic assistance. His ten-day tour, engineered by media mogul Henry Luce – the owner of Time Magazine – and his wife Clare Boothe Luce the future ambassador to Rome, was viewed as a media "triumph," prompting positive comments of a wide section of the American press.[1]
During his meetings in the US, he managed to secure a financially modest but politically significant US$100 million Eximbank loan to Italy. According to De Gasperi, public opinion would view the loan as a vote of confidence in the Italian Government and strengthen his position versus the Communist Party in the context of the emerging Cold War. The positive results strengthened De Gasperi’s reputation in Italy. He also came back with useful information on the incipient change in American foreign policy that would lead to the Cold War and in Italy the break with the Communists and left-wing Socialists and their removal from the government in May 1947.[2]
1948 elections
Main article: Italian general election, 1948
The general elections in April 1948 were heavily influenced by the cold-war confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Soviet-inspired February 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the US became alarmed about Soviet intentions and feared that, if the leftist coalition were to win the elections, the Soviet-funded Italian Communist Party (PCI) would draw Italy into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence.
The election campaign remains unmatched in verbal aggression and fanaticism in Italy's history on both sides. The Catholic Church in Italy worked hard to encourage people to vote against communist candidates. The Christian Democratic propaganda became famous in claiming that in Communist countries "children sent parents to jail", "children were owned by the state", "people ate their own children", and claiming disaster would strike Italy if the left were to take power.[3][4]
In the US a campaign was launched to prevent a victory of the Communist dominated Popular Democratic Front (FDP - Italian: Fronte Democratico Popolare). Italian-Americans were encouraged to write letters to their relatives in Italy. The popular Italian-American singer Frank Sinatra made a Voice of America radio broadcast. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funneled "black bag" contributions to anti-communist candidates with the approval of the National Security Agency (NSA) and President Truman. Joseph P. Kennedy and Claire Booth Luce helped to raise US$2 million for the Christian Democrat Party.[5] Time Magazine backed the campaign and featured De Gasperi on its April 19, 1948 issue’s cover and in its lead story.[4] (He would appear on a Time cover again on May 25, 1953, during the campaign for that year's election, with an extensive biography.[6])
The Christian Democrats won a resounding victory with 48 percent of the vote (their best result ever, and not repeated since). The communists received only half the votes they had in 1946. The Christian Democrats won a parliamentary majority and De Gasperi formed a new centre-right government. In the following five years De Gasperi continued to run the country. "De Gasperi’s policy is patience," according to the foreign news correspondent for the New York Times, Anne McCormick. "He seems to be feeling his way among the explosive problems he has to deal with, but perhaps this wary mine-detecting method is the stabilizing force that holds the country in balance."[7]
Death and legacy
In 1952, the party overwhelmingly endorsed his authority over the government and over the party. However, it was also the start of his decline. He came under increasing criticism from the emerging left wing in the party. Their main accusations were that he was too cautious in social and economic reform, that he stifled debate, and that he subordinated the party to the interests of government.
When the Christian Democrats did not gain a majority in the elections of 1953, De Gasperi was unable to establish a workable government and was forced to resign as Prime Minister.[8][9] The following year he also had to give up the leadership of the party.
Two months later, on August 19, 1954, he died in Sella di Valsugana, in his beloved Trentino. He is buried in the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, a basilica in Rome. The process for his beatification was opened in 1993.[10]
"De Gasperi was against exacerbating conflict," according to his former secretary and former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. "He taught us to search for compromise, to mediate."[11]
He is considered to be one of the Founding fathers of the European Union. From the very beginning of European integration, De Gasperi, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer met regularly.[12] He helped organize the Council of Europe and supported to the Schumann Plan, which in 1951 led to the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) - a forerunner in the process of European integration. He was named president of the Community in 1954, and although the project eventually failed, De Gasperi helped develop the idea of the common European defence policy.[13] In 1952 he received the Karlspreis (International Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen), an award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.
See also
References
- ^ De Gasperi through American Eyes: Media and Public Opinion, 1945-53, by Steven F. White, in: Italian Politics and Society, No.61 Fall/Winter 2005
- ^ The Italian Stabilization of 1947: Domestic and International Factors, by Juan Carlos Martinez Oliva, Institute of European Studies, 2007
- ^ Show of Force, Time Magazine, April 12, 1948
- ^ a b How to Hang On, Time Magazine, April 19, 1948
- ^ The Cold War Begins, Frank Eugene Smitha
- ^ Man from the Mountains, Time Magazine, May 25, 1953
- ^ New York Times, February 16, 1949, quoted in De Gasperi through American Eyes: Media and Public Opinion, 1945-53, by Steven F. White, in: Italian Politics and Society, No.61 Fall/Winter 2005
- ^ Cabinet Maker, Time, July 27, 1953
- ^ De Gasperi's Fall, Time, August 10, 1953
- ^ (Italian) Servo di Dio Alcide De Gasperi, Santi beati
- ^ All the prime minister's men, by Alexander Stille, The Independent, September 24, 1995
- ^ Alcide De Gasperi's humanist and European message, European People's Party
- ^ In the beginning was De Gasperi, The Florentine, October 4, 2007
- Man from the Mountains, biography in Time Magazine, May 25, 1953
- Alcide De Gasperi and his age: A chronology of the Statesman's life and works, Alcide De Gasperi Foundation
- Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954) by Pier Luigi Ballini, Alcide De Gasperi in the history of Europe
Bibliography
- Pietro Scoppola, La proposta politica di De Gasperi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1977.
- Giulio Andreotti, Intervista su De Gasperi; a cura di Antonio Gambino, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1977.
- Giulio Andreotti, De Gasperi visto da vicino, Milano, Rizzoli, 1986.
- Nico Perrone, De Gasperi e l'America, Palermo, Sellerio, 1995.
- Alcide De Gasperi: un percorso europeo, a cura di Eckart Conze, Gustavo Corni, Paolo Pombeni, Bologna, Il mulino, 2004.
- Piero Craveri, De Gasperi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alcide De Gasperi |
- Alcide De Gasperi Foundation
- Alcide De Gasperi Archives, Historical Archives of the European Union, European University Institute
- (Italian) De Gasperi: un politico europeo venuto dal futuro, Centro Studi Malfatti
 Alcide De Gasperi burial in San Lorenzo Basilica, Rome |
 Monument to Alcide De Gasperi in Trento |
|
||||||||
.svg)
|
||||||||||
|
|||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | Luigi Einaudi (Italian president) |
| Anno Uno (1974 Drama Film) |
| Giulio Andreotti (Italian politician) |
 | De bibble de bibble de booma de booma de bibble de ba de bibble de bibble de booma da bibble did a poo at matlock? Read answer... |
| Who is Doña Victorina de los Reyes de de Espadaña? Read answer... |
| Nombre de la secretaria de salud de Honduras? Read answer... |
Help us answer these
 | What is Alcides Escobar's walk up song? |
| 90's song that goes de de de de de de de de? |
| What does the DE do? |
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
 |
 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Political Biography. A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alcide De Gasperi". Read more |
Related answers
- Who is alcides?
- Does Sookie Stackhouse date Alcide Herveaux?
- What is a DE?
- What song has the lyrics la-de-de la-de-da la-de-de la-de-da?
ADVERTISEMENT
Answer these
- Is Fernando Alcid related to Lance Gokongwei?
- What is the Libretto of Alcide ou le triomphe d'Hercule from Marais and Lully?
- How does de?
Mentioned in
- Luigi Einaudi (Italian president)
- Anno Uno (1974 Drama Film)
- Giulio Andreotti (Italian politician)
- Aldo Moro
