Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eduard Reut-Nicolussi
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Flees from Italy in 1927,
banned from his profession in 1939,
Resistance fighter (undiscovered)
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Eduard Reut-Nicolussi already learned about the struggle for his homeland of South Tyrol during his school days at the German grammar school in Trento. After graduating from high school in 1906, he went to Innsbruck to study law, which he completed in 1911 with a doctorate in law. Here he joined the student fraternity Austria Innsbruck in 1906. After graduating, he completed his year in court and was a trainee lawyer from 1912.
From 1915 to 1918, he served in the 4th Tyrolean Imperial Infantry Regiment, ultimately as a lieutenant in the Landsturm, and was seriously wounded at Col di Lana.
After the end of the First World War in 1918, Eduard Reut-Nicolussi stood up for the rights of South Tyrol. In 1919, he founded the Andreas-Hofer-Bund for the unity of Tyrol. His mandates in the Tyrolean National Council, the Executive Committee of the Tyrolean National Assembly, the Tyrolean Provincial Parliament and the Constituent National Assembly in Vienna ended with the peace treaty of St. Germain on November 18/December 15, 1919.
On November 18, 1919, he resigned from the Austrian parliament, moved to Bolzano and became an independent lawyer. Regardless of the disadvantages and the dangers threatening his physical safety and professional existence, he openly championed the interests of South Tyrol and from June 21, 1921 represented the rights of his fellow countrymen as an elected representative for the "German Association" [DV], a merger of the Catholic-conservative "Tyrolean People's Party" with the Greater German "Freedom Party", in the Italian Chamber of Deputies until fascism dissolved parliament in 1924. In 1921, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by fascists on the so-called "Bloody Sunday" on 24.4.1921 and was physically attacked on 22.7.1921.
The DV was banned in 1926 and Eduard Reut-Nicolussi was banned from practising his profession as a lawyer in 1927 because he had defended two assistant teachers against prosecution for forbidden German lessons. Following a confidential warning, he was only able to evade arrest in the fall of the same year by quickly fleeing unprepared over the Ötztal glaciers. On 23 June 1927, he is one of the co-founders of the Rheno-Danubia in Innsbruck. From 1928 to 1930, he undertook study trips to Germany, France, England and America. In 1931, he habilitated at the University of Innsbruck in international law and philosophy of law and was appointed associate university professor in 1934. From here he continued to fight for the rights of his fellow South Tyroleans. He solicited friends and support for the just cause and wrote the book "Tirol unterm Beil", which was published in several editions and translated into English.
As his attitude and criticism ran counter to the alliance plans of 1939 between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, namely the resettlement of the South Tyroleans (the so-called option), he was only allowed to teach civil law. The Andreas-Hofer-Bund is dissolved and his book is banned. Before the end of the war, Eduard Reut-Nicolussi is called up to join the "Standschützen" (the Tyrolean "Volkssturm") in the Vinschgau Valley. He led the resistance group POEN, the "Provisional Austrian National Committee", which, together with other groups, handed over Innsbruck, which had been liberated from the Nazis, to the advancing US soldiers of the 103rd US Infantry Division. On May 3, 1945, he gave the welcoming speech to the commanders of the invading US soldiers in the Innsbruck Landhaus.
After the war, he largely withdrew from politics in 1946, after South Tyrol finally remained part of Italy, and returned to his professorship in Innsbruck; in 1946/47 he was elected Dean and in 1951/52 Rector of the University.
Places
Residence:
Citations
- Krause, Peter/Reinelt, Herbert/Schmitt, Helmut (2020): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen. Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. Teil 2. Kuhl, Manfred (ÖVfStG, Wien), p. 281/282.
Photo: ÖCV
