One of the basic points of the National Socialist programme was the promise of the ‘Liberation’; of German nationality groups who had come under the control of neighbouring states through the peace treaties of 1919. Accusing a country of maltreating its German minority became a classic Nazi gambit in opening aggressive operations in the late 1930's. In most instances Nazi propaganda charges were vastly exaggerated, but if ever there existed a situation which might have provided some justification for Hitlerian wrath, it was Fascist repression in South Tyrol.