TRIESTE – Allied Identity card
Post-war occupational zone in Europe.
This beautiful city is located in the north-eastern section of Italy, on the coast, situated near Slovenia on the Adriatic Sea.
The city of Trieste held great financial and commercial importance during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was ranked 4th among its largest of cities at the time after Vienna, Budapest & Prague.
After Italy joined the Great War of 1914-1918 on the allies’ side, she was “given” the city, and this was done following several international treaties such as the Treaty of London (1915) and the Italian-Yugoslav 1920 Treaty of Rapallo .
The city was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1943, following the Italian armistice of September that year, and though it fell under jurisdiction of the newly formed puppet-state of Italian Social Republic (RSI), which issued itself its own passports (1943-1945), it was in fact part of the German Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, an area governing former north-eastern Italian territories with Trieste beings its administrative center. Following the end of the war, the city was divided by the western allies and Tito’s Yugoslavia. In 1947 it was declared as a free independent city (1947-1954) under the protection of the UN and called Free Territory of Trieste, though portioned into zones A and zone B from 1945.
The document in this article is not a travel document but a special post-war identity card issued in the Free Territory of Trieste, under Allied control, similar to what happened in Germany with the division of four allied zones and in China, with the joint Soviet-Chinese occupational zone of Dalian (大连) (port Arthur).
ID number 550434 was issued August 28 1953, bearing the city symbol and crest with allied revenue stamps applied on the back.
During the years the city was under joint administration, special visas where needed in order to enter or transit the zones, similar to the allied occupational permits and visas that where implemented in Europe and China.
I have attached images of this post-war allied issued identity card & sample visas.
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
