The Battle of the Brenner - Caproni Museum
The Battle of the Brenner: Stories of Civilians and Pilots (1943-1945) is the title of the exhibition ...
The Battle of the Brenner: Stories of Civilians and Pilots (1943-1945) is the title of the exhibition that will open on 8 March 2025 at the Gianni Caproni Aeronautics Museum in Trento. An exhibition that intends to recall the two-year period 1943-1945, in which the Brenner line was the subject of a prolonged air campaign and in Trentino, as in the rest of Italy, little or nothing was done to protect civilians from its effects.
The exhibition is organized by the Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino in collaboration with the Benàch Cultural Association and is curated by Lorenzo Gardumi and Federica Lavagna.
From 2 September 1943 to 3 May 1945 the Brenner line was the subject of a prolonged Allied air campaign, with a peak between March 1944 and May 1945. The attacks on Trento and Bolzano on 2 September 1943 panicked the population. The raid had a dual purpose: military, because it was aimed at hindering the influx of German troops and vehicles into Italy, but also political, because it wanted to put pressure on the Badoglio government to sign the armistice with the Anglo-Americans.
Between 1943 and 1945, there were over 400 dead or missing and hundreds injured. But the end of hostilities did not coincide with the end of the mourning and pain caused by the bombings. In May 1945, Trentino was in fact scattered with bombs, butterfly bombs (today's cluster bombs), mines and grenades, often handled by curious and reckless children. Between May 1945 and December 1948, another 54 people were killed and 49 injured.
On the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the exhibition "The Battle of the Brenner", which will open to the public on Saturday 8 March at 5.00 pm, aims to remember that dramatic two-year period and its many legacies.
Through photographs, maps, infographics, films, interviews and objects, the exhibition gives space to the recovery work of the Benàch Cultural Association, which has been responsible for identifying the main places where warplanes have fallen on the territory of Trentino, identifying the aircraft and collecting objects and materials.
The exhibition is curated by Lorenzo Gardumi and Federica Lavagna and is created by the Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino in collaboration with the Benàch Cultural Association.
