1965

26 August, Sesto Pusteria (BZ)
Palmerio Ariu, 26 years old, carabiniere
Luigi De Gennaro, 25 years old, carabiniere

In the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, a series of attacks shocked Alto Adige. South Tyrolean irredentism and NATO’s desire to maintain the Brenner border as an anti-Soviet function were exploited by the secret services, experimenting with those unorthodox warfare techniques that would reach their peak, starting from 1969, in the so-called “strategy of tension”. The attacks were carried out by members of the BAS (acronym for Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol), a South Tyrolean secessionist group. They are a long series, which will be called the “Brennero Connection”, while the attackers will then be called the “good guys from the Aurina valley”, that is:
Siegfried Steger, Sepp Forer, Erich Oberleitner, Heinrich Oberlechner.

It is 9 pm on August 26, 1965. After a day of intense work, Palmerio Ariu finds himself in the barracks kitchen. The attackers, South Tyrolean separatists, stationed on a lawn in front of the barracks, fire, firing machine gun bursts towards Palmerio; his colleague Luigi De Gennaro rushes into the kitchen and tries to help his injured friend, but he too is hit.

A girl who is walking nearby sees the terrorists: they try to eliminate her too but without success. Palmerio dies instantly while his friend and colleague Luigi dies shortly afterwards in San Candido hospital.

From
La Voce di Bolzano del 31 agosto 2022
Il ricordo di chi viene dimenticato: gli attentati di Selva dei Molini e di Sesto Pusteria – La voce di Bolzano
Piantiamolamemoria.org
Vittime del terrorismo in Alto Adige 1965-1967 – Piantiamolamemoria