The southern part of Tyrol, renamed "Province of Bolzano", had been a part of Italy since the end of World War I. After the rise of fascism in 1922, a policy of Italianization in the area was implemented ruthlessly. All places, down to the tiniest hamlet, were given Italian names, and even family names were translated. The process intensified in the 1930s, when the government of Benito Mussolini encouraged thousands of southern Italians to relocate to the region, in a deliberate attempt at reducing the indigenous German-speaking population to minority status.