Exactly 66 years ago, on August 19, 1954, one of the most important and appreciated post-war Italian political leaders and beyond, Alcide De Gasperi, passed away. Born on 3 April 1881 in Pieve Tesino, in the province of Trento and at the time an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, De Gasperi, who was first a deputy in the Vienna Parliament and from 1921 in the Italian one on democratic Catholic positions, was the founder of the Christian Democrats and the very first prime minister of the newborn Italian Republic, from 13 July 1946. A devout Christian, the political leader from Trentino, who died in Borgo Valsugana on 19 August 1954, he held the office of Prime Minister for 7 years, until 1953, leading a total of seven governments, the first of a grand coalition (with the Communist Party and the Socialist Party) and the last by vocation, in alliance with the republicans of the PRI.
De Gasperi therefore guided Italy in the difficult years of the immediate post-war period, managing the first stages of reconstruction and above all the Marshall Plan aid, signed in 1948 by the American president Truman (who in exchange asked precisely to expel the social-communist parties from the government). That dramatic and decisive phase recalls, in part, what is happening today with the Recovery Fund. In fact, De Gasperi was not only a protagonist on the Italian scene. Indeed, with regard to the Recovery Fund and Europe, it is useful to remember, today more than ever, that the political leader from Trentino comes internationally recognized as one of the founding fathers of the European Union, together with the German Konrad Adenauer, the French Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, the Dutch Johan Willem Beyen, the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak, the federalist Altiero Spinelli.
His career began as a journalist: in 1904 he joined the editorial staff of Il Trentino, quickly becoming director. In 1919 he joined the Italian People's Party, promoted by don Luigi Sturzo, and in 1921 he was elected deputy in Rome. Engaged in the front line against fascism, he was arrested at the Florence station on 11 March 1927, together with his wife, while he was on his way by train to Trieste. Released in 1928, he was still persecuted by the regime and he went through a period of difficulty, without being able to work, except for finding a modest job in the Vatican Library. In 1942-43, during World War II, he and others composed the pamphlet The reconstructive ideas of Christian Democracy in which he expressed the ideas underlying the future Christian Democrat party, of which he would be a co-founder. And after the Liberation he became a protagonist of the first magnitude in the history of the Republic.
Farsighted realism, fueled by great democratic ideals and passions, was the distinctive trait of a great leader and a father of the country which Alcide De Gasperi unquestionably was.
