Alcide De Gasperi

Prime minister of Italy (1945-1953)

• Born: April 3, 1881
• Birthplace: Pieve Tesino, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Italy)
• Died: August 19, 1954
• Place of death: Sella di Valsugana, Italy

De Gasperi was the only person to preside over Italy’s eight consecutive governments over an eight-year period. He led Italy to its post-World War II national reconstruction and aligned it with the West.

Early Life

Alcide De Gasperi (ahl-SEE-day day-gahs-PAY-ree), named Alcide Degaspari at birth, was born in Pieve Tesino, Austria (now Italy), to Amedeo Degasperi and Maria Morandini. Three years later, his father, a marshal of the local gendarmery, was transferred to Civezzano, where young Alcide started his education under the supervision of the chaplain, Vittorio Merler. Before turning eighteen, De Gasperi was listed by the Austrian police as a pro-Italian irredentist.

In 1900, De Gasperi was graduated from the Emperial Royal Gymnasium of Trent and enrolled at the University of Vienna in the Department of Philosophy. His years at the university were not limited to academic studies. He engaged as speaker and organizer of political and cultural conferences, workers’ labor unions, credit unions, and low-cost housing associations. Also, he found enough time to write articles to La Voce Cattolica and Fede e Lavoro, in which he analyzed social, political, cultural, economic, and religious issues. In November, 1903, De Gasperi and other Italian university students gathered in Innsbruck to celebrate the inauguration of the academic year at the Law School of Wilten, run by Italian faculty in association with the University of Innsbruck. At the end of the meeting, the Italians and the Germans, who opposed any academic offerings under Italian control, were involved in a brawl. The following day, all 137 Italian students, including De Gasperi, were arrested. On July 19, 1905, he was awarded a doctorate in modern philosophy. From that moment on (he was only twenty-four), he embarked on a lifelong national and international political career. In September, 1905, the bishop of Trent, Don Celestino Endrici, appointed De Gasperi director of La Voce Cattolica. Soon after, De Gasperi changed the name of the paper to Il Trentino, making it the organ of the Popular Party of the Trentino and the legitimate voice of the Italians of the region. On the international front, he campaigned relentlessly against the Tyroler Volksbund, the Popular Tyrolean League that promoted the Germanization of the Trentino. During this period, De Gasperi attended international congresses where he expanded his horizons and met with leaders of other countries.

In 1909, De Gasperi was elected to the communal council of Trent and in June, 1911, at the age of thirty, to the Austrian parliament (Reichsrat). At the registration office of the parliament, his family name, “Degasperi,” by mistake was split into “De Gasperi.” He never bothered to request correction of the error and the name De Gasperi became official and used by the statesman for the rest of his life. As the youngest of the Italian ethnic deputies, he was selected as one of the secretaries of the assembly. He addressed the Austrian parliament in Italian and German and staunchly defended Italy’s history and culture. On many occasions, he proclaimed that irredentism meant unity based on national identity, cultural tradition, and religion.

At the beginning of 1914, De Gasperi was elected to the provincial diet of Innsbruck. A few months later, the Austrian emperor suspended both the parliament and the diet. It was the beginning of World War I. During the war, De Gasperi moved to Vienna to assist the Italians from the Trentino who had been deported by the Austrian government as political suspects (Politisch unverlasslich). A victim of this policy was the bishop of Trent, Don Endrici.

When the Austrian parliament reconvened in May, 1917, De Gasperi denounced the persecutions against the Italians of the Trentino. On September 28, De Gasperi delivered his strongest attack against Austria’s policies of persecution and neglect of the Trentino. The end of the war was in sight and with it De Gasperi’s political career in the Austrian parliament.

Life’s Work

De Gasperi made his first trip to Rome in the spring of 1902. He met with Pope Leo XIII and Secretary of State Cardinal Rampolla. In March, 1904, he was again in Rome to attend the consecration ceremony of Don Celestino Endrici as bishop of Trent. On that occasion, De Gasperi met with Pius X, who praised him for his good work among the Roman Catholics of the Trentino. In 1907, De Gasperi attended the International Catholic Congress of Wurzburg. There, he met with Italian, French, German, and Austrian Catholics who reaffirmed the principle that Catholics should champion social reforms in modern times. In November, 1910, De Gasperi was in Modena for the Italian Catholic Congress. Between September, 1914, and March, 1915, De Gasperi made three more trips to Rome. He met with Italy’s political leaders, with Pope Benedict XV, and with Italy’s foreign minister, Sidney Sonnino. He reaffirmed his belief that Italy would soon liberate the Trentino from Austrian subjugation. In October, 1918, De Gasperi went to Switzerland with Enrico Conci and Valeriano Malfatti to establish contact with the Italian government for immediate aid and assistance to the Italians of the Venetias. To celebrate Italy’s Victory Day (November 4, 1918), the three proceeded to Rome, where Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Ferdinando Martini introduced them to the enthusiastic crowds gathered outside Palace Braschi as Italians from the liberated Trentino. Back in Trent, De Gasperi resumed the publication of the paper Il Trentino under the new title Il Nuovo Trentino.

When Don Luigi Sturzo, a Sicilian priest, organized the Italian Popular Party in January, 1919, De Gasperi joined it. At the first party congress, held at Bologna in June, Sturzo declared publicly that the Partito Popolare Trentino had provided “the name and a history” to the Italian Popular Party. De Gasperi presided over the congress.

At the second congress, held in Naples in April, 1920, De Gasperi was elected member of the national council of the party. A few days later, he joined the leadership of the party. In the national political elections of May, 1921, De Gasperi was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. The parliamentary group of the party elected him president. It meant that De Gasperi was a go-between, helping to link the Italian Popular Party and the parliament. In August-September, 1921, De Gasperi accompanied Luigi Sturzo, Stefano Iacini, and Rufo Ruffo della Scaletta to Germany to explore the possibility of a Christian Democratic International whose scope was to prevent the spreading of totalitarianism in Europe. The trip gave De Gasperi the opportunity to meet with Konrad Adenauer. At the third congress of the party, held in Venice in October, 1921, De Gasperi addressed the problem of the role of the socialists in Italy’s coalition governments. At the fourth congress, held in Turin in April, 1923, Sturzo and De Gasperi denounced Benito Mussolini who had become Italy’s premier and his fascist squadrists who spread violence and terror throughout the entire peninsula. The denunciation backfired; some deputies of the Italian Popular Party lent their support to Mussolini and eventually joined the Fascist Party. On July 10, 1923, Sturzo was forced to resign as secretary of the Italian Popular Party and went into an imposed exile that lasted until 1947.

In May, 1924, De Gasperi was elected political secretary of the party. He moved to Rome with his family. In June, the murder of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti by the fascists raised a storm of indignation in Italy and abroad. The withdrawal from the Chamber of Deputies of 150 members, including the Populars, led to the Aventine Secession. The move, instead of producing the downfall of Mussolini’s government, made more acute the conflict between Mussolini and his political opponents. In June, 1925, the fifth congress of the Italian Popular Party took place in Rome. As secretary of the party, De Gasperi delivered the keynote speech. He affirmed that the contrast in Italy was no longer between liberalism and fascism but between the state based on law and order and the police state. In the middle of mounting fascist repression, De Gasperi resigned as secretary of the party in December, 1925. Soon after, Mussolini ordered a close surveillance of him. De Gasperi and his wife Francesca were arrested at Florence railroad station on a train bound to Trieste. Mussolini ordered the couple transferred to Rome. De Gasperi was confined to the Regina Coeli Prison and his wife to the Mantellante. Among other charges, De Gasperi was accused of attempting a clandestine expatriation. Put on trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to four years in jail and fined twenty thousand lire. In jail, he devoted most of his time to reading, researching, and writing. He composed scholarly articles published with the pseudonym G. Jaspar. A personal plea to King Victor Emmanuel III from Bishop of Trent Endrici led to De Gasperi’s release.

Later, the bishop was instrumental in securing De Gasperi a job in the Vatican Library as a cataloger. He worked there for fourteen years, which happened to be the most formative years for his future political career. In June, 1939, De Gasperi was named secretary of the library. The new position allowed him to meet with national and international leaders. His scholarly production did not dwindle as he wrote new articles and essays covering a vast range of topics. Those published in the bimonthly L’Illustrazione Vaticana demonstrated De Gasperi’s knowledge of international problems and events.

The “clandestine period” of De Gasperi’s political activity began in 1942. He was convinced that Mussolini’s war was lost and that Italy needed to think about the postwar national reconstruction. In Rome and elsewhere, he met secretly with religious and political leaders to lay down the foundation of a new political party to be called Democrazia Cristiana. In July, 1943, De Gasperi established the main ideas of the party in a paper entitled “Reconstructive Ideas of the Christian Democracy.”

With Mussolini’s downfall, the antifascist parties came to the forefront with the formation of the Committee of National Liberation. In the provisional governments of Ivanoe Bonomi (second cabinet) and Ferruccio Parri, De Gasperi was minister of foreign affairs. On December 10, 1945, De Gasperi formed his first government. He kept the ministry of foreign affairs. He considered foreign policy Italy’s most vital issue, in view of the threat that Tito posed in the Trieste and Venezia Giulia territories and the Allies’ peace treaty that De Gasperi considered too onerous.

At home, De Gasperi’s program concentrated on fighting inflation, engaging in economic recovery, and preparing the referendum on monarchy or republic and the election of the constituent assembly. On June 2, 1946, the Italian people voted in favor of the republic. It was the end of the Savoy Dynasty in Italy. After the election of Enrico De Nicola as provisional president of the republic, De Gasperi formed his second government. Again, he kept the foreign ministry. On August 10, 1946, De Gasperi delivered, in the old senate chamber of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, one of the most vibrant and historic speeches of his career. In an atmosphere of weariness and hostility, he presented to the plenum of the peace conference the case of defeated Italy. At the end, of the thousand and more delegates, only James F. Byrnes, United States secretary of state, rose and shook his hand. On January 4, 1947, De Gasperi left Rome for the United States. The trip was a triumph. He earned the respect and admiration of the American people and of President Harry S. Truman. On his return to Rome, the generosity of the United States translated into dollars, foodstuffs, and ships for the Italian people. The success of the trip increased De Gasperi’s prestige worldwide. Soon after the trip to the United States, De Gasperi dismissed the communists and Pietro Nenni’s socialists from the government. The decision was timely and appropriate. Perhaps it saved Italy for democracy.

The general elections of April 18, 1948, demonstrated the kind of prestige De Gasperi enjoyed in Italy. The Christian Democratic Party won an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies: 305 seats of 574. If the April, 1948, elections represented for De Gasperi the zenith of his political career, the June, 1953, elections were instead the beginning of his political decline. The elections were conducted with the new electoral law that guaranteed a majority premium in the Chamber of Deputies to the party or group of parties that totalled 51.1 percent of the vote. Had the four parties of the governmental coalition (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberals, and Republicans) won the 51.1 percent of the total vote, they would have received 65 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The new electoral law, nicknamed by the opposition parties Swindle Law, created a discontent among the electorate who saw in it a plot against political pluralism. All the coalition parties suffered losses. Although they maintained a narrow majority in parliament, De Gasperi’s attempts to reconstitute a quadripartite coalition government failed. He then formed a one-party government, composed exclusively of Christian Democrats. On July 28, 1953, the Chamber of Deputies rejected it. It was De Gasperi’s eighth government and his last. The defeat marked the end of De Gasperi’s political career. Soon after, he was elected secretary of the party. He remained in that position until the fifth congress of the party, held in Naples in June, 1954. In the keynote speech, considered De Gasperi’s spiritual testament, he warned the Christian Democrats to remain united: He said, “If we are united, we are strong.” After the congress, De Gasperi was elected president of the party and Amintore Fanfani, secretary. De Gasperi went to Sella di Valsugana for a period of rest. He died on August 19, 1954, and was buried in the portico of the Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls, on the outskirts of Rome.

Significance

The twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of great statesmen. De Gasperi was one of them. A person of integrity, a convinced Catholic, and a towering political leader, he personified the desire for peace and prosperity of a new generation of Italians. As the premier of Italy’s political, economic, and social reconstruction, he championed reform without revolution. He abhorred imperialism, nationalism, and totalitarianism and maintained that only through democracy can people assert their rights to justice, peace, and legality.

His concept of democracy was based on the notion of political pluralism and tolerance. He wanted the Christian Democratic Party to be and remain nonconfessional, autonomous, interclassist, constitutional, and democratic. De Gasperi saw in the Christian Democratic Party a blend of Catholic social doctrines and liberal democracy. By insisting on the collaboration with other democratic parties, he succeeded in forming a quadripartite-centrist coalition that governed Italy from 1947 to 1953.

De Gasperi was also an active Europeanist. With Robert Schuman and Adenauer, he will be remembered as a staunch supporter of a united Europe. He spoke of the United States of Europe, similar to the United States of America, before the New YorkChamber of Commerce in 1947. He understood that nationalisms are dangerous idealities; only through unity and collaboration can nations overcome their national interests and egoisms. He dedicated a great part of his time and energy to creating a united Europe of which the defense community would be an essential part: “We must create a Europe capable of defending itself.” On May 11, 1954, at Strasbourg, De Gasperi was elected by acclamation president of the Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, succeeding Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium. It was the highest tribute to his Europeanism.

Bibliography

Carrillo, Elisa A. Alcide De Gasperi: The Long Apprenticeship. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965. Carrillo’s book is the only available work in English on De Gasperi. The author provides an account of De Gasperi’s intellectual, religious, and political formation or “apprenticeship” from his early years to 1945. The book deals also with De Gasperi’s propaganda and activity in the Trentino before, during, and after World War I.

Kogan, Norman. The Politics of Italian Foreign Policy. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963. The work investigates Italy’s foreign policy within the framework of its political system. One of the main topics of the book is De Gasperi’s role and authority in shaping Italy’s foreign policy from 1945 to 1950.

Mammarella, Giuseppe. Italy After Fascism: A Political History, 1943-1965. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966. The book presents a chronological account of Italy’s political events from 1943 to 1965. Within this framework, the chronology of De Gasperi’s governments and his domestic and foreign policies are well documented and critically examined. By far the best analysis of Italy’s history from 1943 to 1965.

Spotts, Frederic, and Theodor Wieser. Italy, a Difficult Democracy: A Survey of Italian Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. The book analyzes the evolution of Italy’s political order since 1945. This study is essential for an understanding of the events and personages that have shaped the politics of the Italian republic. The authors make frequent references to De Gasperi’s role and legacy.

Ventresca, Robert A. From Facism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of 1948. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Recounts the birth of the postwar Italian political system by focusing on the election of 1948, the first parliamentary election in the Republican era.

Webster, Richard A. The Cross and the Fasces. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1960. The book, a narrative of the Catholic protest movements of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Christian Democratic Party as the leading political party in post-World War II Italy, contains a comprehensive biographical account of De Gasperi. Chapter 9, “De Gasperi: The Exile of the Vatican,” is reminiscent of De Gasperi’s knowledge and grasp of national and international affairs.