Province of Ljubljana

Coordinates: 46°03′20″N 14°30′30″E / 46.0556°N 14.5083°E / 46.0556; 14.5083
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Province of Ljubljana (

Kingdom of Italy, and after 1943 occupied by Nazi Germany. Created on May 3, 1941, it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when the Slovene Partisans and partisans from other parts of Yugoslavia liberated it from the Nazi Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral. Its administrative centre was Ljubljana
.

During World War II,
Italy occupied the vertically hashed black area, including Gottschee area. (Solid black western part being annexed by Italy already with the Treaty of Rapallo
). After 1943, Germany took over the Italian occupational area, as well.
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Background

During World War II, the

Axis Powers on 6 April 1941, Germany and Hungary occupied and annexed the northern part of the region. The ethnic German Gottscheers
were moved out of the province because Hitler opposed having them in the Italian zone.

Territory

After the attack on Yugoslavia by Germany and

Roman provinces of Illyria, and the Roman city of Emona (modern Ljubljana) had been an important hub of communication.[2]
The bulk of its territory was:

The Kingdom of Italy occupied Marindol and other villages that had previously belonged to the Banovina of Croatia, Milić-Selo, Paunović-Selo, Žunić-Selo, Vukobrati, Vidnjevići, and Vrhovci. These villages were annexed to the municipality of Črnomelj as part of the Province of Ljubljana, despite being predominantly inhabited by Orthodox Serbs.

After the war the inhabitants of those areas demanded to be returned to the

Žumberak/Gorjanci area were also annexed by Italy to the Province of Ljubljana and parts of Gorski Kotar mainly in the Čabar area (villages around Prezid), all from what was earlier part of the Banovina of Croatia. This was an agreement between the Kingdom of Italy and the Independent State of Croatia on the border between the two Axis
states during the Second World War.

Administration

The Italian period

Pre-resistance

Compared to the German policies in the northern Nazi-occupied area of Slovenia and the forced

Lower Styria and Upper Carniola
escaped to the Province of Ljubljana until June 1941.

The central area of Slovenia was first occupied by the

corpus separatum. Unlike other provinces, it was administered by a High Commissioner, appointed by the Italian Government. The High Commissioner had a similar position as prefects in other Italian provinces, but was given wider competences. The first High Commissioner was Emilio Grazioli. The province did enjoy some political or administrative autonomy and several concessions were given to the local Slovene population. In the countryside, most of the municipal administrations, elected in general elections during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, could continue to function. Judiciary and local administration personnel were also kept. Both Italian and Slovene were given the status of official languages and also the status of an administrative language. Most Slovenian cultural and educational institutions of national importance, such as the University of Ljubljana and the Academy of Sciences and Arts
, were kept. Education in Slovene was kept, although Italian was introduced as an obligatory second language. The population of the province was exempted from military service in the Italian Army.

Also, the Consult was created as an advisory council of the High Commissioner's office. It was composed by members of local economic and professional associations, as well as of those political party leaders that were willing to collaborate with Italian authorities.

Post-resistance and war crimes against the Slovene civil population

1942 announcement that exiting Ljubljana is forbidden by Fascist Italian authority

The initial tolerant policies of the Italian administration did not last long. After the establishment of the

Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps.... I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians....

— Benito Mussolini, speech held in Pula, 22 February 1922[3][4]

As noted by Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mussolini government, Galeazzo Ciano, when describing a meeting with secretary general of the National Fascist Party Aldo Vidussoni who wanted Italian army to kill all the Slovenes:

(...) I took the liberty of saying they (the Slovenes) totaled one million. It doesn't matter - he replied firmly - we should model ourselves upon ascari (auxiliary Eritrean troops infamous for their cruelty) and wipe them out".[5]

General

XI Corps (Italy) in Slovenia and Croatia, issued an order in line with a directive received from Mussolini in June 1942: "I would not be opposed to all (sic) Slovenes being imprisoned and replaced by Italians. In other words, we should take steps to ensure that political and ethnic frontiers coincide.",[6] which qualifies as ethnic cleansing
policy.

The Province of Ljubljana saw the deportation of 25,000 people, which equaled 7.5% of the total population. The operation, one of the most drastic in Europe, filled up

Italian concentration camps
on the island Rab, in Gonars, Monigo (Treviso), Renicci d'Anghiari, Chiesanuova and elsewhere.

war crimes while he was the commander of the 2nd Italian Army in the Province of Ljubljana.[7]

Italians put the

Liberation Front in the city and the Partisan resistance in the surrounding countryside.[8]

On February 25, 1942, only two days after the

Italian concentration camp in Monigo (near Treviso
). The survivors received no compensation from the Italian state after the war.

The violence against the Slovene civil population easily matched the German.[9] For every major military operation, General M. Roatta issued additional special instructions, including one that the orders must be "carried out most energetically and without any false compassion".[10]

One of Roatta's soldiers wrote home on July 1, 1942: "We have destroyed everything from top to bottom without sparing the innocent. We kill entire families every night, beating them to death or shooting them."[11] The idea that Italian excesses in violence was due to anger or grief at the loss of comrades is false, since the process of killing and mass execution was a consequence of Fascist propaganda, de-humanizing the Slovenes as racially inferior.[12][13]

After the war, Roatta was on the list of the most sought after

anti-communist post-war Italy within the context of the Cold War. Some of the most notorious were put on trial however, including Roatta. But he escaped just before being jailed, and fled to Spain.[14][15]

Structure

The Province of Ljubljana (1941–1943)

The province was divided into five districts (Italian: distretti) based around the pre-existing Yugoslav district boundaries, plus the city of Lubiana. Each district was further sub-divided into municipalities (Italian: comuni). The five districts were:[16]

The German period (1943–1945)

After the

Italian armistice in September 1943, the province was occupied by Nazi Germany. The province was kept in the same borders that were set by Italian occupation forces. The province was included in the Adriatic Littoral
. It was finally abolished on May 9, 1945.

Administration

During the Italian period (1941–1943), the province was ruled by a high commissioner; for most of its history this post was held by

fall of Fascism was in turn replaced by General Riccardo Moizo, who only held the post for a month before the Armistice of Cassibile. In the first months after the province was officially annexed to Italy (May 1941), a so-called Consultation Council (consulta) was set up from high-ranking members of local economic, professional and political elites. The first chairman of the council was Marko Natlačen, former Yugoslav governor of the Drava Banovina
. Already in 1942, he stepped down in opposition to Italian occupation policies, and the Council itself ceased to be summoned.

After the German occupation in September 1943, Leon Rupnik was named president of the province. He managed to establish a fairly autonomous provincial administration with the help of a small circle of collaborators.

Armed formations

In 1942 so called village guards started appearing spontaneously, as a self-defense against partisan revolutionary violence. They turned to Italians for weapons and equipment, and the Italians soon organized them as a part of

Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia
. They were called White Guard by the partisans (and even Germans later on).

After the capitulation of Italy most of the Slovene

Slovenian Home Guard
.

While the war was still going on some of the leaders of the 'White Guard' underwent a military court-martial in

Slovenian National Liberation Council
.

On the Allied side there was the

Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
which was formed on 27 April 1941 by the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia, which refrained from active participation in the fighting as the Communist line at the time was that both sides were engaged in an 'imperialist' war. Originally, organizations from the entire political spectrum participated, but as the influence of the Communist Party within the Liberation Front started to grow, some of them turned against it.

Ending

The area of the Province of Ljubljana after the Second World War was united with the rest of

Tito’s Yugoslavia and formed the People’s Republic of Slovenia
in 1947, which in the meantime was called the Federal State of Slovenia (short form: Federal Slovenia).

Some of its territory was returned to Croatia but some was subsequently claimed by Slovenia.

The bulk of its territory is now the

Republic of Slovenia
.

See also

  • Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
  • Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia

References

  1. ^ Gregor Joseph Kranjc (2013).To Walk with the Devil, University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, p. 5
  2. ISBN 978-0-521-84515-1
    .
  3. ISBN 978-88-6576-106-9
    .
  4. ^ Santarelli, Enzo (1979). Scritti politici: di Benito Mussolini; Introduzione e cura di Enzo Santarelli (in Italian). p. 196.
  5. ISBN 1-931313-74-1
  6. Le Monde Diplomatique
    , May Issue.
  7. ^ James H. Burgwyn: "General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942", Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Volume 9, Number 3, September 2004, pp. 314-329(16), link by IngentaConnect
  8. ^ Vurnik, Blaž (22 April 2016). "Kabinet čudes: Ljubljana v žičnem obroču" [Cabinet of Curiosities: Ljubljana in the Barbed Wire Ring]. Delo.si (in Slovenian).
  9. ISBN 0-691-08697-4
  10. ^ Giuseppe Piemontese (1946): Twenty-nine months of Italian occupation of the Province of Ljubljana. Page 10.
  11. ^ James Walston, a historian at the American University of Rome. Quoted in Rory, Carroll. Italy's bloody secret. The Guardian. (Archived by WebCite®), The Guardian, London, UK, June 25, 2003
  12. ^ Niall MacGalloway (2014): Book review of the Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi's book The Italian Army in Slovenia. Strategies of Antipartisan Repression, 1941–1943, 'Diacronie: Studi Di Storia Contemporanea'. No. 20, Vol. 4
  13. ^ Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi (2013): The Italian Army in Slovenia. Strategies of Antipartisan Repression, 1941–1943, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
  14. ^ Effie G. H. Pedaliu (2004) Britain and the 'Hand-over' of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945-48. Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 39, No. 4, Special Issue: Collective Memory, pp. 503-529 (JStor.org preview)
  15. ^ Rory, Carroll. Italy's bloody secret. The Guardian. (Archived by WebCite®), The Guardian, London, UK, June 25, 2003
  16. ^ Davide Rodogno. Fascism's European empire. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006 Pp. 419.

Further reading

46°03′20″N 14°30′30″E / 46.0556°N 14.5083°E / 46.0556; 14.5083

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