Background

Alcide De Gasperi was born on April 3, 1881, in Pieve Tesino, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary (present-day Pieve Tesino, Trentino, Italy). He was a son of Amedeo De Gasperi and Maria Morandini. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. De Gasperi also had two brothers and a sister.

Education

Alcide De Gasperi attended Liceo Classico Giovanni Prati from 1896 to 1900. 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. In 1904 he took an active part in 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 defended his thesis on Carlo Gozzi, an Italian dramatist, and graduated from the University of Vienna.

Career

In 1906 Alcide De Gasperi began publication of the polemical journal II Trentino 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 Italian People's Party and served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924. In 1924, De Gasperi became secretary of the People's Party and the following year he led a delegation to the King, Victor Emanuel III, begging him to take action against Fascist abuses, but the King refused to act. In 1927, he received a four-year prison sentence. After serving sixteen months, De Gasperi was released on parole, possible after the Roman Catholic Church had intervened on his behalf. From March 1929 to 1943, he worked without pay in the Vatican Library, translating several books and writing as a journalist under various pen names.

During World War II De Gasperi became active in the underground and was one of the founders of the illegal Christian Democratic Party. He also founded the newspaper Popolo. On December 12, 1944 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and held this post until 1946. On December 10, 1945 De Gasperi became Prime Minister of Italy, a post that he held until 1953. He also served as Minister of the Italian Africa from 1945 to 1953 and Minister of the Interior from 1946 to 1947. In 1951, he became a member and co-founder of the European Coal and Steel Community that later evolved into the European Union. De Gasperi again took up a post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1951 and held it until 1953. After the fall of his government in 1953, he became secretary general of the Christian Democratic Party, which named him its president. On January 1, 1954 he was appointed President of the European Parliament and held this post until his death in August 1954.

Achievements

• Alcide De Gasperi was an Italian politician and statesman who was famous as the 30th Prime Minister of Italy and one of the founding fathers of the European Union. He is regarded as the chief architect of Italy's post-war recovery. He led Italy into the NATO and championed closer relations with the United States.
  
  In 1952, De Gasperi was awarded the Charlemagne Prize. The 1954-1955 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. There is a Rue Alcide de Gasperi in Luxembourg and a Via Alcide De Gasperi in Rome. There is also a 23 storied Alcide De Gasperi Building in Kirchberg, North-East of Luxembourg. There is a memorial in his honor in Trento, Italy.

Politics

Alcide De Gasperi became an active member in the Social Christian movement in 1896. In 1906 he joined the Trentino People's Party and took positions in favor of a cultural autonomy for Trentino and in defense of Italian culture in Trentino in contrast to the Germanisation plans of the German radical nationalists in Tyrol.

In 1920, De Gasperi became a member of the Italian People's Party which represented the liberal Christian Democratic tradition. From 1921, he was a Deputy in the Italian Parliament becoming President of the Italian People's Party Parliamentary Group. De Gasperi supported the participation of the Italian People's Party in Benito Mussolini's first government in October 1922. However, he was arrested soon and spent a year in prison. After his release he wrote a regular international column for the review L'Illustrazione Vaticana in which he depicted the chief political battle as one between Communism and Christianity. De Gasperi also said that the German Church was correct in preferring Nazism to Bolshevism.

In 1943, Alcide De Gasperi organized the establishment of the first Christian Democracy Party. In 1945, he was appointed Prime Minister of Italy. 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. He instituted a long-term land reform program in southern and central Italy and sought to increase utilization of Italy's natural resources by constructing new power plants fueled by natural gas or natural steam of volcanic origin. 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 to establish the southern Tirol as an autonomous region.

De Gasperi also enjoyed considerable support in the United States, where he was considered able to oppose the rising tide of Communism. In January 1947 he visited the United States. The chief goals of the trip were to soften the terms of the pending peace treaty with Italy and to obtain immediate economic assistance. He also helped organize the Council of Europe and the European Coal and Steel Community.

Views

Quotations: "Politics means to realize."

"Taking the floor in this world forum I feel that everything, except your personal courtesy, is against me."

"There are many who in politics make only a small excursion, as amateurs, and others who consider it and such is for them, as an accessory of secondary importance. But for me, since I was a boy, it was my career, my mission."

"Signs does not have enough health to assume government responsibilities, but it has too much to give up."

"A politician looks to the next elections. A statesman looks to the next generation."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Romano Prodi: "De Gasperi always sought confrontation and dialogue with everyone, demonstrating that he was not afraid to face change. This was his great teaching that is still valid today."
  
  Amintore Fanfani: "He was one of the very few men from whom I never heard a disrespectful judgment against anyone."

Connections

Alcide De Gasperi married Francesca Romani on June 14, 1922. The marriage produced four daughters - Maria Romana, Lucia, Cecilia and Paola.

Father:

Amedeo De Gasperi

Mother:

Maria Morandini

Wife:

Francesca Romani

(1894 – August 20, 1998)

Brother:

Augusto De Gasperi

Augusto De Gasperi (April 18, 1893 – December 13, 1966) was an Italian company executive.

Brother:

Luigi Mario De Gasperi

(1883 – 1906)

Sister:

Marcellina De Gasperi

(born 1886)

Daughter:

Maria Romana De Gasperi

Maria Romana De Gasperi (born 1924) is an honorary president of the Alcide De Gasperi Foundation.

Daughter:

Lucia De Gasperi

Daughter:

Cecilia De Gasperi

Daughter:

Paola De Gasperi

References

• Political Leaders of Contemporary Western Europe: A Biographical Dictionary Recognized scholars from 15 countries offer rich political analyses of 71 European leaders chosen for the significant roles that they have played nationally, regionally, or internationally since 1945.
  1995
• History of Contemporary Italy From a war-torn and poverty-stricken country, regional and predominantly agrarian, to the success story of recent years, Italy has witnessed the most profound transformation – economic, social and demographic – in its entire history.
  2003
• Alcide De Gasperi: The Long Apprenticeship A book by Elisa A. Carrillo.
  1965