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After the defeat of Austria in the First World War and the peace treaty signed at Saint Germain near Paris, it was not surprising that, on August 21 1919, the first Italian soldiers, with the orders ‘in service’, were registered in the visitors’ book at Schneeberg, already written in four languages. Even under Austria, there had been a large colony of Italians at Schneeberg, but now the whole mine was the property of Italy, and this was something quite different. The pluri-national Austrian state no longer existed. The rights of the mining office of Klausen passed to the Mining Office of Trient. As owner, the state rented the mine to an often changing series of companies.
During the Fascist era, with the declared aim of ‘Italianizing’ the South Tyrol, all German-speaking employees were sacked and replaced by Italians. In a time of serious unemployment, even local workers were reduced to a small percentage of the whole workforce. In order to be hired, men were obliged to be members of the Fascist Party and to Italianize their names and surnames.
The disadvantages of this inflamed Italian nationalism were immediately obvious.
Schneeberg was profoundly influenced by the separation of the Tyrol from Austria. With every miner and every miner’s family who left - people who had sometimes been connected with the mine for whole generations and who deeply felt themselves to be part of the community – the old Schneeberg gradually disappeared, and nostalgia-laden tales described the place as it had been in ‘the good old days’. The old hierarchical structure of the workforce, uniforms, language, festivities, customs, music, privileges, traditions, the very names of the galleries, and many links with nearby valleys and the northern part of the Tyrol, disappeared or were interrupted and cut off by the new frontier.
As the Austrian mining authorities were not prepared to collaborate with their Italian successors, most of the scientific knowledge which had been accumulated in the course of centuries in the mines was no longer accessible and had to be laboriously regained.
The new Italian Schneeberg became a mine without miners, in the traditional sense of the term. Italian workers were attracted by the greatly coveted jobs, without knowing what in fact lay in store for them. Most were not able to tolerate the conditions of living so high up in the mountains and underground, as may be deduced from the average period of time they remained employed - about six months. In spite of their lower numbers, the true backbone of the workforce remained the miners of Ridnaun and Passeier, a thing which, in time, was also recognized by the mining management.

‘My husband too (Vinzenz Heel) spent a long time at Schneeberg. He always told the story of one of the Italians up there, who was always swearing and blaspheming because nothing ever went right and because he wasn’t able to see his family often enough. He used to throw himself on the ground and roll about, spitting upwards into the sky, towards God, and he spent most of his time swearing in the most horrible way. One year, just before Christmas, he had some holidays due to him. So he went down towards the valley, immediately after his workshift, at night, even though the wind was blowing strongly and snow was falling. The others told him to wait until the following day and go down with them, but he wouldn’t listen.
Nothing more was ever heard of him – he never came back. Up in the mountains, they thought he hadn’t wanted to return, and down in the valley they thought he hadn’t been given any holidays.
In the spring, when the snow melted, they found him at Seemoos, near the path, lying on his back, in the same position he always had when he used to utter his blasphemous oaths. From that time onwards, the sound of blows could be heard coming from Seemoos, as if someone was working, but there was nobody there. My husband heard them once, and went out to see if he could find where they came from, but then the sounds seemed to come from another direction. At that point, everyone understood it was the Italian, doing penitence.’ (Antonia Heel, S. Leonardo)