Mitterdorfer attended the Italian primary schools and the Istituto Tecnico in his South Tyrolean hometown. As a teenager he joined a German Catholic youth group that had been banned by the fascist rulers. After taking the Italian Matura, he became an employee of the South Tyrolean Savings Bank in 1938. In 1939, he decided in favour of the German Reich in the option question. He was drafted into the German Air Force in 1940, deployed as a fighter pilot in Jüterbog during World War II and received the Iron Cross II Class as an officer.
After the war, he studied political science at the University of Innsbruck, graduating with a thesis on the development and development possibilities of South Tyrolean agriculture. After working in Innsbruck, he returned to South Tyrol in 1953 and again worked at the South Tyrolean Savings Bank. Mitterdorfer, a member of the ‘Major Josef Eisenstecken Gries Rifle Company, was the provincial commander of the South Tyrolean Rifle Association from 1961 to 1984, which initially had to largely cease its activities after the bomb attacks in 1962. He was also a founding member of the South Tyrolean Cultural Institute and the ‘Michael-Gamper-Werk’.
From 1958 to 1976 Mitterdorfer was a member of parliament for the South Tyrolean People’s Party in the Chamber of Deputies and from 1976 to 1987 in the Italian Senate. From 1969 to 1976 he was also a member of the European Parliamentary Assembly and from 1983 to 1988 a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. From 1977 to 1981 and from 1990 to 1994 he was President of the Federative Union of European Nationalities.
Mitterdorfer became honorary senator of the University of Innsbruck in 1980 and honorary national commander of the South Tyrolean Rifle Association in 1984. In 1998 he received honorary citizenship of Klausen, his mother’s home town. He was also a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit.
He died on 27 January 2017, one day before his 97th birthday. (from Wikipedia)
