On the eve of WW2 today's Slovenia was a part of fascist Italy and a part of the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia.
This kingdom got taken down by the Axis powers in April 1941.
Then the Slovene lands were partitioned by the Germans and the Italians Some Slovenes
worked together with the occupier.
In other words: they collaborated.
What was that like?
In this video you will learn more about Slovene collaboration in WW2.
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Let's start.
What is now Slovenia used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After World War One Italy got a piece, but the majority became part of the Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).
As a province it was known as Drava Banovina.
In 1941 the Axis Powers lead by Germany invaded Yugoslavia and took down the kingdom within
12 days.
When that happened representatives of Slovene political parties set up a National Council
trying to negotitiate some special status (like to Croats had achieved) but this wasn't
succesfull.
The Axis had other plans.
The former province of Yugoslavia was partitioned.
A small portion in the north-east was taken by Hungary.
Germany took the north.
Italy annexed the southern part.
The west was already part of Italy after 1920.
Before diving into the different Slovene collaborator units with the word 'collaboration' because
of its negative connotation.
Collaboration was different in other countries during WW2.
In some countries, take for example Norway, collaborators were known as Quislings (named
after Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling who lead the Nazi collaborationist regime).
In other words: the majority of the Norwegians saw him and his henchmen as traitors.
In Slovenia it was not that simple as historian Stevan K. Pavlowitch describes:
“Civil war flared up in the autumn, when both anti-communist 'defenders of the faith'
and communist-controlled 'liberators' went out to win the uncommitted centre of Slovene
opinion, or to force it to come out with a clear choice.”
The Italian southern part of Slovenia had around 350,000 people.
Both Italian and Slovenian were used as a public language.
Slovenian cultural institutions were kept and thus normal cultural life continued.
Yet, leading Emilio Grazioli strived for italianising the Slovenes.
The Italians set up the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (MVAC / White Guard) Vrijwillige Anticommunistische
Militie to combat the partisans.
Slovenes were among these.
Supported by the Catholic Church who was anti-communist and wanted to stop partisan terror.
A big part of the MVAC consisted of so-called Village Guards, self-defense units who battled
the partisans.
Others were Yugoslav POWs who wanted to join the Axis cause.
Mid-1942 the MVAC had between 2000-3000 armed men.
One year later it had over 6,000 men.
Within the MVAC developed the Slovene Legion, part of the Slovene People's Party which had
strong ties to the Catholic Church.
Later a Slovene Chetnik Detachment joined as the 'Legion of Death'.
This all shows how fragmented the MVAC actually was.
And ironacally their uniforms confirm this, since it was a hotchpotch of different equipment
and weaponry.
Some wore civilian clothing; other Italian uniforms and items.
Some wore Czech helmets, others French helmets.
The same goes for weaponry.
The German part of Slovenia was intended to be annexed in the German Reich.
This formally happened in November 1941.
The area was to be germanised, or as the Nazis put it: re-germanized again as it had allegedly
once been.
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was put in charge of a programme of ethnic relocation.
It had around 800,000 people had thereby the largest population.
The Germans claimed over 25,000 ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) lived in the area.
In reality this was around 10,000.
What followed were mass deportations and executions as reprisals after partisan attacks.
One key figure in Slovenenian collaboration was former Yugoslav general Leo (or Leon)
Rupnik; a conservative anti-communist.
Under Italian administration he served as a mayor of Ljubljana, but had limited power.
After the Italian surrender of 1943 he served under the Germans.
Under the Germans he didn't have much freedom of movement either.
“Rupnik acted on the assumption that the Germans would win the war.
His powers and prerogatives were narrowly limited and he served only as a tool of the
German occupation authorities.”
He initiated and helped with the recruitment of the Slovene Home Guard (Domobranci).
I get to that later.
I also wanted to point out Bishop of Ljubljana: Gregorij Rožman he had a controversial role
during World War II.
As an anti-communist he was against the OF (Liberation Front of the Slovene People) and
collaborated fully with the Germans and anti-Partisan forces.
Italy surrendered in 1943, however the Germans stepped in and took over the whole of the
territory by September.
The Slovene Home Guard was established (many former MVAC fighters joined this Guard) to
combat the partisans in the Ljubljana area.
The Slovene Home Guard was the beginning of the military collaboration of the Slovene
anti-Partisan forces with the Germans.
By September 1944 it had around 13,000 men in its ranks.
They had to swear a solumn oath to fight with the SS and the German police against bandits
and the Allies.
Many acted under duress, because it would make them suspect in the eyes of the Western
Allies.
They were fully armed and paid by the Germans and were first organized into companies and
battalions and later reorganized and regrouped several times.
They were commanded by Germans officers and sometimes by Slovenians.
Altough fighting on the Axis side in some cases shot down Allied airmen who landed in
Slovene territory where saved by them.
“Rudolf Hirschegger, a Slovene Clericalist who served in both the MVAC and the Home Guards,
described how he saved an American pilot whose plane was shot down by the Germans near Ljubljana
in November 1944.
He evacuated the pilot to a supposedly safe place where another fourteen American fliers
were hidden by the Home Guards.
But they were discovered by the Germans and taken as prisoners of war.”
The Slovene Home Guard had both Italian and German uniforms.
Then there was also the Black Hand (established in 1944 in several cities) who arrested, tortured,
and killed Liberation Front members.
In April 1945 the Germans withdrew from Slovenia.
Not the Western Allies, not the Soviets but the Yugoslav partisans came in their place.
Even after the German surrender fighting between pro-Axis units and collaborators took place,
such as the Battle of Poljana in mid-May 1945.
After the war many of the collaborators who fell in partisan hands were killed.
Ethnic Germans and Italians were forcefully expelled and sometimes massacred.
That is a story for another time.