Fantasma totalitario e democrazia blindata. La "questione alto-atesina" nelle carte del generale Aldo Beolchini, 1959–1961.

The involvement of the Italian security services in the handling of the so-called „questione alto-atesina“ has been extensively investigated by both magistrates and historians. However, the role played by the Italian Army has not received the same attention, a historiographical lacuna largely caused by the almost total absence of institutional sources. This makes it necessary to take an ‚indirectʻ approach to the question of the Italian army’s involvement in Alto Adige. This was made possible by the discovery of the personal archive of General Aldo Beolchini, commander of the IV Army Corps in Bolzano between 1959 and 1961. Tracing Aldo Beolchini’s biography allows us to reconstruct the various experiences that characterizes the military leadership of early Republican Italy. Indeed, the Beolchini archive is useful for reconstructing not only the phase immediately preceding the explosion of South Tyrolean terrorism, but also the attitudes and mindsets of the Italian military establishment in the Republican era and the nature of its interactions with the political authorities during the crucial transition from the 1950s of Centrismo to the 1960s of the Centrosinistra.