EnergyandpublicutilitiesinTriesteintheperiodofthe.docVIP

Energy and public utilities in Trieste in the period of the Anglo-American occupancy (1945-1954) Pier Angelo Toninelli (University of Trieste and University of Milano-Bicocca) pierangelo.toninelli@unimib.it 1. The following paper will focus on specific aspects of the economic recovery of Trieste during the ten years (1945-1954) of military occupation by the Anglo-American forces of the city and its surrounding territory, which followed Italy’s surrender and the temporary occupation of the nazi arm – the so called AMG, Allied Military Government. The war had ravaging effects on this region, especially on his staple activities: the commercial ones, for the previously highly efficient port had been almost paralyzed by the number of ships and vessels bombed and/or sunk on purpose in its waters; the shipyards, badly damaged; the refineries the structures of which had been almost totally destroyed. Moreover the peace opened a long period of uncertainty about the political destiny of the city: its territory had been violated, as separated as it was in two zones: the A Zone ruled by the Allies, the B Zone by the Yugoslavians. But, in addition to the compulsorily breaking of a previous organic economic unity, the new iron curtain separated the city and its port from their prewar economic background. The Peace Treaty, unable to solve the conflict between Italy and Yugoslavia for the control of the entire territory, protracted temporarily such a separation, which on the other hand was definitively confirmed in 1954, when zone A (by 1946 FTT, Free Territory of Trieste) was assigned to Italy and zone B to Yugoslavia. Within such a framework the sectors analyzed in the paper – energy, oil in particular, and public utilities – played quite an important role: the first showed itself not only as the most dynamic firm either regard growth or innovative activity of the whole FTT economic system but also, in the case of the Aquila refinery, in the entire oil sector of the country;