Slovenian Home Guard

The Slovene Home Guard ( sl, Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; german: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti- PartisanHistorijska čitanka, Drugi svjetski rat
/ref> military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries ( sl, Vaške straže; it, Guardia Civica), part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice.

It was closely linked to Slovenian right wing anti-Communist political parties and organizations, which provided most of the membership, taking assistance of Germans rather than the opposite. In the Slovenian Littoral, a similar but much smaller unit, called Slovenian National Defense Corps ( sl, Slovensko narodno varnostni zbor, german: Slowenisches Nationales Schutzkorps), more commonly known as the Littoral Home Guard ( sl, Primorsko domobranstvo) was ideologically and organizationally linked to the SD. An even smaller Upper Carniolan Self-Defense ( sl, Gorenjska samozaščita, german: Oberkrainer Landschutz), also known as the Upper Carniolan Home Guard ( sl, Gorenjsko domobranstvo) was active in Upper Carniola between 1944 and 1945. All three "home guard" units were formed almost exclusively of ethnic Slovenes. At their peak, they had a combined membership of around 21,000 men, of whom there were 15,000 in the Province of Ljubljana, 3,500 in the Julian March and 2,500 in Upper Carniola. Its officers and language of command were Slovene.

Some of the resistance groups outside of the communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation were collectively known by the OF as White Guards (Slovene: ''Bela garda''). The British liaison officers with the Slovene Partisans saw the White Guards as another name for Home Guards, and declared them enemies of the Allies.

Background

In April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers, quickly overrun and carved up. Those areas of Yugoslavia that now form the country of Slovenia were annexed by Germany, Italy and Hungary. The Italians annexed southern Slovene territories with a population of 336,279, as the Province of Ljubljana. Italian occupation troops, the XI Army Corps, secured the new province, introduced fascist laws, and an Italian civilian high commissioner was appointed.

The influential Roman Catholic Bishop of Ljubljana, Gregorij Rožman, and in-country prewar politicians, led by Marko Natlačen, immediately expressed their willingness to collaborate with the fascist authorities, writing public letters of support for the annexation of Ljubljana Province to Italy. On 8 June 1941, Natlačen led Slovene politicians and industrialists to meet with Mussolini in Rome, after which they reiterated their loyalty, and started officially collaborating with the Italians in the Consulta, a supposedly consultative body, that had no power.

Much of the prewar police force and public administration continued to work for the new Fascist authorities.

Resistance begins

Soon after the annexation, several resistance groups emerged, but only the communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation ( sl, Osvobodilna fronta slovenskega naroda), or simply Liberation Front (''Osvobodilna fronta'', OF) raised armed units and engaged in sabotage and active resistance. The OF consisted of eighteen distinct groupings, including the Communist Party of Slovenia, quite a large number of members of the Christian Socialist Party, some members of the gymnastic body Sokol, various progressive intellectuals, some former Royal Yugoslav Army officers, and even some members of the strongly-Catholic Slovene People's Party. These bodies varied in origin, ideology and strength, but were united in their policy of immediate armed resistance to the occupying forces.
Besides the OF, other political groups organised on the basis that they would form the core of resistance against the Italians at some time in the future. These largely bourgeoisie groups generally considered immediate resistance to be pointless given the overwhelming enemy, and that it would be too expensive in terms of lives, property and suffering. Instead they planned to wait until Allied troops arrived in the region, then mobilise and, using arms obtained from the Allies or through capture, turn against the Italians and be on the winning side when the war ended.

In this they reflected the same approach as the Chetnik leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, Draža Mihailović. Some of these groups had a pro-Western stance, but others were pro-Axis, as the number of active collaborators with the Italians testified. The main part of the Slovene People's Party formed the Slovene Legion, the Yugoslav National Party and the majority of Sokol formed the Sokol Legion, and another group that was formed was the National Legion. All of these latter organisations tried to position themselves to take advantage of whatever outcome resulted from the war. These non-OF or bourgeoisie groups were collectively known by the OF as "White Guards" ( sl, Bela garda, link=no).

The pro-Western groups sought the re-establishment of Yugoslavia, and in common with the communists, the expansion of Yugoslavia to include those Slovene lands that had been annexed by Italy or remained part of Austria after World War I.

The leadership of the OF lay in the hands of several communists, Boris Kidrič, Edvard Kardelj, and Franc Leskošek. In August, the OF created the Security and Intelligence Service ( sl, Varnostno-obveščevalna služba, link=no, VOS) to coordinate resistance activities. This was a small and select secret police organisation, led by Zdenka Kidrič, Boris Kidrič's wife. Although it was part of the OF, the VOS was under exclusive communist control.

During the second half of 1941, the White Guards remained inactive against the Italians. This was in strong contrast to the OF, which took its first armed actions against the Italians following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in late June. Its armed wing was the Slovene Partisans. The OF developed an underground organisation in Ljubljana and in the countryside, and the Partisans conducted attacks on Italian forces and sabotaged important targets from July. The Italians retaliated against the OF and against the civilian population, conducting operations in the late summer and early autumn that destroyed or broke up many of the Partisan companies and caused losses to others. The non-OF groups made contact with Mihailović and planned to provide recruits for his "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland" during a future uprising against the Italians.

Setbacks to the OF, followed by the onset of a severe and early winter, meant that the Partisans gained little ground until early 1942. In December, the VOS began a campaign against Slovenes who were collaborating with the Italians, assassinating several prominent leaders.

Resurgence and reaction

Early in 1942, Partisan Supreme Headquarters directed the Slovene Partisans to re-develop its depleted units and increase attacks and sabotage. This order resulted in a spate of Partisan operations in April–June in the Province of Ljubljana. These operations occurred at the same time that the Italians were concentrating their many small, weak and widely-spread garrisons into larger bases under Plan Primavera. The Partisans were thus able to effectively extend their control to over half of the province and population, and expand their recruiting and number and size of their units. The Partisans' success in mid-1942 meant that the Italians were even more committed to combating them, and the non-OF forces sought to find an effective way to collaborate with the Italians in order to fight the Partisans. By early 1942, the non-OF or bourgeoisie forces had concluded that the OF was working towards a communist takeover of Yugoslavia, which made the OF a far greater threat to them than the Italians, especially if the Allies prevailed. Likewise, the Partisans realised that the non-OF or bourgeoisie forces were their main enemy. These realisations resulted in bitter enmity between the two groups.

The non-OF or bourgeoisie forces then made a series of proposals to the Italians, aimed at opposing the objectives of the OF and Partisans. They also established the Slovene Alliance ( sl, Slovenska zaveza, link=no) to coordinate their anti-Partisan policies. The alliance was dominated by the Slovene People's Party, with its Slovene Legion. The leader of the Slovene People's Party, Miha Krek, who was vice-premier in the Yugoslav government-in-exile in London, broadcast messages urging all members of the alliance to follow the orders of Mihailović, who was by this time the Minister of Army, Navy and Air Force in the government-in-exile, despite being physically located in occupied Yugoslavia. In May 1942, clandestine recruiting and organisation of the first Slovene anti-Partisan forces began. Initially this effort was very small, and included members of the Slovene, Sokol and National Legions, as well as a number of Major Karl Novak's Slovene Chetniks. This organisation was known as the Legion of Death. Whilst small initially, once this force was raised, it became critical to obtain Italian endorsement for its operation.

Armed collaboration begins

Units of the Legion of Death informally collaborated with Italian units during a major Italian offensive against the Partisans that commenced in the second half of July 1942 and continued through to early November. Impressed with the potential of such units, and with the approval of the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, the Italians decided to accept the offer of the Slovene Alliance, and to enrol the anti-Partisan units as auxiliaries. In early August, the Italians directed that all existing and future Slovene anti-Partisan units would be incorporated into the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia ( it, Milizia Volontaria Anti Comunista, MVAC). In the same month, armed units in rural areas were formed into the Village Guards ( sl, Vaške straže, link=no), which was also included in the MVAC, and ultimately became the largest grouping among the Italian auxiliaries.

MVAC growth was greatly aided by the letter Bishop Rožman sent to Italian General Mario Robotti, in September, 1942, wherein Rožman proposed the creation of a Slovene collaborationist army and police force, under Italian command, to help fight Partisans and track down their supporters. MVAC forces participated in the brutal Italian offensive of Summer-Fall 1942, when 80,000 well-armed Italian troops, attacked 3,000 poorly-armed Partisan forces, killing half of them, shooting all prisoners they found with arms. With MVAC help, the Italians ultimately sent to concentration camps 30,000 Slovenes, nearly 10% of the population of Ljubljana Province, including thousands of women and children, and where thousands died. The Italian army shot thousands of additional Slovene civilians as hostages, surrounded Ljubljana and other cities with barbed-wire, forbade entry and exit. In Ljubljana, MVAC units conducted the "Christmas raids" in December 1942, arresting 550 suspected Liberation Front members, many sent to concentration camps.


By the end of September, MVAC units in the province numbered some 2,219 armed men. Each unit had one or more Italian liaison officers attached to it. This rapid growth was driven by the close alignment of the MVAC with the Catholic Church at all levels, along with the Slovene Alliance viewing the MVAC as a simple method by which to legalise a large number of its members, whilst also gaining arms, ammunition, food and pay from the Italians. Members of the Sokol and National Legions were also absorbed into the MVAC for the same reasons. Following Partisan reverses in the Italian offensive that commenced in July, and the loss of Partisan territory, many Slovenes considered them defeated and were drawn towards collaboration. During 1942, at the urging of the Slovene People's Party, around 600 anti-Partisan former Royal Yugoslav Army prisoners-of-war (POWs) were released from Italian camps, returned to the province, and enlisted in the MVAC. One of these, Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Peterlin, was appointed to command the MVAC unit in Ljubljana which was formed in October. By the following month, the MVAC had 4,471 men under arms.

While the MVAC included some members of the Sokol Legion and many former POWs, the dominant force within it was the Slovene Legion, and through it, the Slovene People's Party. However, the non-OF/bourgeoisie political forces remained splintered, and the various other armed forces tried to maintain their identity within the MVAC. This division within the non-OF forces made the work of the OF easier. However, the communist-led OF made many mistakes before and during the 1942 Italian offensive which eroded their chances of gaining the allegiance of those who were uncommitted to either the OF or non-OF forces. Among these were leftist errors, which involved the use of terror against real and alleged collaborators, and those who, due to their social class, were considered future opponents of the OF, such as wealthier peasants. The OF also made a number of military mistakes, mainly due to lack of experience or poor leadership. The Partisans sought to rectify their mistakes, and by November 1942 had recovered to a significant extent and concluded that destruction of the MVAC forces must be their first priority.

Italian officers, among them general Roatta, criticized the MVAC's poor discipline, stating they “resembled goon-squads”, were “insubordinate and rowdy” and pillaged. Speaking to Rožman in the autumn of 1942, Italian general Vittorio Ruggero warned Rožman: "I am not Slovenian, but this is how I see Slovenes and their struggle: the MVAC units help us Italians a lot ... but among you Slovenes they create such hatred that you will not be able to eliminate it for fifty years."

Collapse of Italian rule

In February 1943, the OF held a conference which resulted in the Dolomite Declaration, a statement that smoothed over the internal conflicts within the OF that had resulted from the leftist errors. The practical effect of the Declaration was that the OF ceased to be a coalition and became a front organisation for the Communist Party of Slovenia. From early 1943, the Italians became steadily weaker, and were less capable of conducting large-scale operations against the Partisans. This weakness was exacerbated by the losses of the Italian Army in the Soviet Union and the landing of Anglo-American forces in North Africa in 1942, a worsening relationship with the Germans, increasing economic problems in Italy, and the Allied invasion of Sicily and the ousting of Mussolini in July 1943. By this time, increasing numbers of the Slovene population were joining the Partisans as the prospects of their victory grew.

In February 1943, Novak, Mihailović's chief representative in the province, having tried for many months to get the Slovene Alliance to place some of their forces under his command, formed his own collaborationist militia, known as the Blue Guards ( sl, Plava garda, link=no) but also referred to as the Slovene Chetniks. However, this unit never grew larger than 400 troops, and because Novak had no political base in Slovenia, it was never a significant military or political force. After the war, Novak claimed that the Blue Guards had armed encounters with Italian troops and gathered intelligence on the Italians for Mihailović, but according to the historian Jozo Tomasevich the first claim is groundless as the Italians allocated an operational zone to Novak's principal unit and indirectly provided it with supplies, and its size and restrictions on its movement precluded the gathering of much useful intelligence.

With the pending collapse of the Italians, those that had been collaborating with them were faced with difficult choices: trying to join the Western Allies if they landed in the Slovene Littoral; coming to an arrangement with the Partisans; or preparing to collaborate with the Germans in order to keep fighting the Partisans. Given the political views of the collaborationists, unless the Western Allies landed on the coast, the only viable option remaining was to collaborate with the Germans. For their part, the Partisans, whilst continuing to attack Italian and MVAC units in July and August 1943, began to strengthen and conserve their forces to take advantage in the aftermath of the Italian collapse. Italy surrendered on 8 September.

Establishment and operations

Aftermath of the Italian surrender

At the time that the Italians surrendered, the Italians had about 50,000 troops in the province, assisted by 6,049 MVAC soldiers and 300–400 Slovene Chetniks. The Partisans fielded around 3,000 men, although there were many more in non-combat organisations. About half of Novak's Chetniks, anticipating an Allied landing in the Slovene Littoral, moved south to meet reinforcements that they were expecting to arrive from the Lika region of the neighboring Independent State of Croatia. Partisan units attacked the Chetnik force, pushing them southwest to the village of Grčarice, about south-southeast of Ljubljana. At the same time, the former MVAC units, now renamed the Slovene National Army, and part of Mihailović's "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland", concentrated a large force of around 1,600 men at Turjak Castle, south-southeast of Ljubljana. The force at Turjak had considerable ammunition and food supplies. Partisan forces were moving in the same direction as the collaborationists, with orders to disarm Italian troops and capture or destroy any Chetnk or MVAC forces they encountered. The Partisans aimed to inflict as much damage as possible on the former Italian auxiliaries to make them of less value to the Germans when they took over. These Partisan units managed to recruit some Italians to join them, including some equipped with tanks and artillery.

At both locations, a breakdown in command and communication occurred. The Chetniks decided to stay at Grčarice expecting reinforcements to arrive, and about two-thirds of the men at Turjak, between 695 and 750 in total, elected to remain at the castle until assistance arrived from Ljubljana. They were joined by 26 Catholic priests and seminarians. The remainder of the Slovene National Army troops at Turjak withdrew to the village of Zapotok, about west of Turjak. There they were joined by elements of other former MVAC units and two small Chetnik detachments. On 9–10 September, a Partisan brigade, supported by two Italian howitzers, overran the Chetniks at Grčarice. Four days later, the Partisans completely encircled Turjak Castle, and after their surrender demands were rejected, besieged the castle for five days, again using captured heavy weapons against the defenders until they capitulated. During this period, the Partisans also captured other MVAC troops, including some of those located at Zapotok. The rest withdrew towards Ljubljana, suffering devastating losses, where they were disarmed by the newly arrived Germans. Boris Kidrič stated the Partisans had captured about 1,200 collaborationist troops by 21 September. A small number were charged with war crimes and shot, while the rest were allocated to labour units in preparation for integration into Partisan units.

There is a great deal of controversy regarding the fate of the collaborationist troops captured at Grčarice and Turjak. According to Partisan records, a total of 115 former MVAC troops and Chetniks were sentenced to death, and others were shot trying to escape from work units. Anti-Partisan sources claim that up to 1,000 were killed. Given the tendencies of both sides to either minimise or inflate these figures to their own ends, it remains unclear how many collaborationist troops were killed following capture. Disgusted with his dealings with the Slovene Alliance, and following the defeat at Grčarice, Novak disbanded his remaining troops and escaped to Italy in late September. Of the approximately 6,500 collaborationist troops present in the province at the time of the Italian surrender, about 500 were killed fighting the Partisans in the immediate aftermath of the capitulation, about 3,000 were captured, and about 1,000 agreed to join the Partisans. The remaining 2,000 were still in the field, although they were quickly disarmed by the Germans. The aftermath of the Italian surrender was devastating for the collaborationist forces, not only due to their losses, but also due to the large amounts of Italian arms and equipment captured by the Partisans, which allowed a substantial increase in their forces.

German occupation

At the time of the Italian surrender, the Germans had occupied Ljubljana Province as part of Operation Achse, the plan to disarm the Italians in case they signed an armistice with the Allies. Two weeks prior to the surrender, the Germans had moved in a regiment of the 71st Infantry Division to secure Ljubljana and the Ljubljana–Postojna railway line that ran towards Trieste on the Adriatic coast. Over the period 9–14 September, they moved in additional troops, including elements of the SS, police and gendarmerie. Their initial aim was to secure the main lines of communication that passed through the province. The areas previously part of the province were incorporated into the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral under the overall control of the ''Gauleiter'' of '' Reichsgau Kärnten'', SS-''Obergruppenführer'' Friedrich Rainer, who was appointed Reich Defense Commissioner for the zone. The designation of this area as an operational zone was to ensure that military needs were prioritised.

From September until early November 1943, the zone was the responsibility of Army Group B under ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Erwin Rommel. After Army Group B was sent to Western Europe in November, the zone came under the command of ''General der Gebirgstruppe'' Ludwig Kübler as part of Army Group C of ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Albert Kesselring. From September 1944, the forces in the zone were organised as LXXXXVII Army Corps under Kübler, and remained under Kesselring's overall command until April 1945, when the corps was transferred to the Commander-in-chief in Southeast Europe, ''Generaloberst'' Alexander Löhr. Rainer divided the zone into six provinces, of which Ljubljana was one. In Ljubljana Province, Rainer appointed Leon Rupnik as president of the provincial government. Rupnik was a pre-war Yugoslav general, and had been mayor of Ljubljana under the Italians. In addition to his military experience and previous collaboration with the Italians, Rupnik was also recommended by Gregorij Rožman, Catholic Bishop of Ljubljana

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