Slovene Partisans
Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia | |
---|---|
Size | Least (1941): 700–800 Peak (1944): 38,000 |
Part of | Battle of Turjak Castle (1943), Battle of Ilova Gora (1943), Raid at Ožbalt (1944), Battle of Trnovo (1945), Race for Trieste (1945), Battle of Poljana (1945) |
The Slovene Partisans,[a] formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia,[b] were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement[4][5] led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists[6] during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans.[7] Since a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of total population of 1.3[8] million Slovenes were subjected to forced Italianization[9][10] since the end of the First World War, the objective of the movement was the establishment of the state of Slovenes that would include the majority of Slovenes within a socialist Yugoslav federation in the postwar period.[7]
Slovenia was in a rare position in Europe during the Second World War because only Greece shared its experience of being divided between three or more countries. However, Slovenia was the only one that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring
Being the first organized military force in the history of Slovenes,[15] the Slovene Partisans were in the beginning organized as guerrilla units, and later as an army. Their opponents were the Axis forces in Slovenia, and after the summer of 1942, also anti-Communist Slovene forces. The Slovene Partisans were mostly ethnically homogeneous and primarily communicated in Slovene.[15] These two features have been considered vital for their success.[15] Their most characteristic symbol was a cap known as a triglavka.[15][16] They were subordinated to the civil resistance authority.[14] The Partisan movement in Slovenia, though a part of the wider Yugoslav Partisans, was operationally autonomous from the rest of the movement, being geographically separated, and full contact with the remainder of the Partisan army occurred after the breakthrough of Josip Broz Tito's forces through to Slovenia in 1944.[17][18]
Background
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Provincia_di_Lubiana1941-1943.jpg/260px-Provincia_di_Lubiana1941-1943.jpg)
After World War I ended in 1918, the Slovene-settled territory partially fell under the rule of the neighboring states of Italy, Austria, and Hungary. Slovenes there were subjected to policies of forced assimilation.
On 6 April 1941,
The Nazis started a policy of violent
The Italian policy in the
Formation, organisation, and ideological affiliation of the membership
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Glavni_%C5%A1tab_Narodnoosvobodilne_vojske_in_partizanskih_odredov_Slovenije.jpg/220px-Glavni_%C5%A1tab_Narodnoosvobodilne_vojske_in_partizanskih_odredov_Slovenije.jpg)
In both Slovene Partisans squads and in the "field committees" of the
The
The first partisan shot in the
In the latter Socialist Republic of Slovenia, 22 July was celebrated as the Day of the National Rising.[23] The historian Jože Dežman stated in 2005 that this was a celebration of a day when a Slovene wounded another Slovene by shooting and that it symbolised the victory of the Communist Party over its own nation. In addition to the war against the Axis forces, there was a civil war going on in the Slovene Lands and both the Communist and the anti-Communist side tried to cover it, according to Dežman.[22]
At the very beginning the Partisan forces were small, poorly armed and without any infrastructure, but Spanish Civil War veterans amongst them had some experience with guerrilla warfare. Some of the members of Liberation Front and partisans were ex-members of the TIGR resistance movement.
Autonomy
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Triglavka.jpg/220px-Triglavka.jpg)
The partisan activities in Slovenia were initially independent of Tito's Partisans in the south. In autumn 1942, Tito attempted for the first time to control the Slovene resistance movement. Arso Jovanović, a leading Yugoslav communist who was sent from Tito's Supreme Command of Yugoslav partisan resistance, ended his mission to establish central control over the Slovene partisans unsuccessfully in April 1943.[17][18]
The merger of the Slovene Partisans with Tito's forces happened in 1944.[17] The Slovene Partisans retained their specific organizational structure and Slovene language as commanding language until the last months of World War II, when their language was removed as the commanding language. From 1942 till after 1944, they wore the triglavka, which was then gradually replaced with the Titovka cap as part of their uniform.[24] In March 1945, the Slovene Partisan Units were officially merged with the Yugoslav Army and thus ceased to exist as a separate formation. The General Staff of the Slovene Partisan Army was abolished in May 1945.
Cooperation with Allies
In June 1943 Major William Jones arrived at the high command of the Slovene resistance units located in the Kočevje forest as the envoy of a British-American military mission, and one month later the Slovene Partisans received their first consignment of arms from the Allies.[13]
Number of combatants
The estimates of the number of Slovene Partisans differ. Despite solid support among Slovenes,
Ethnic German Partisans
Although the majority of Gottschee ethnic Germans obeyed the Nazi Germany which issued an order that all of them should relocate from Province of Ljubljana, which had been annexed by the Fascist Italy, to the "Ranner Dreieck" or Brežice Triangle, which was in the German annexation zone, 56 refused to leave their homes, and instead joined Slovene Partisans fighting against the Italians.[30][31]
Logistics
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2012) |
In December 1943, Franja Partisan Hospital was built in difficult and rugged terrain, only a few hours from Austria and the central parts of Germany.
Civil war and postwar killings
The civil war that broke out in Slovenia during the Second World War was, ideologically and politically, the result of the conflict between two authoritarian ideologies: Bolshevik communism and Catholic clericalism.[13] Communists were unreceptive to warnings of harmful consequences of the rash elimination of opponents. With the success of the Slovene Partisan movement in spring and summer 1942, they began to be convinced that the national liberation phase was to be continued with the revolutionary one,[13] which had already led to violent encounters with Catholic activists, who began to leave the Partisan ranks. The Communist security service killed 60 people in the first few months of 1942 in Ljubljana alone; people who the Communist leadership had proclaimed as collaborators and informers. After the assassination of Lambert Ehrlich, and 429 shot by VOS (varnostno-obeščevalna služba; security and intelligence service) agents in May 1942, and especially the murder of a number of priests, Bishop Rožman rejected the OF (osvobodilna fronta; liberation front) and Partisans outright. Part of the clergy continued to support the Partisan movement and performed religious ceremonies for them, burying killed Partisans in church graveyards, etc. Gottschee ethnic German priest Josef Gliebe, who preferred to stay with those who did not want to be moved away, helped Partisans with food, shoes and clothes, being labelled "red one" by Slovene Home Guard.[32]
In the summer of 1942, a civil war between Slovenes broke out. The two fighting factions were the
Notable members
Members of Slovene Partisans who are today internationally most notable include:
- Chief Justice of the Slovenian supreme court
- Karel "Kajuh" Destovnik (1922–1944), poet and literary hero
- Italian Fascism and TitoistCommunism, as well
See also
Notes
References
- ^ According to Brezovar, Milan. Letopis muzeja narodne osvoboditve LRS, 1957 p. 41, the Slovene Partisan flag is the Slovene tricolor flag with the anti-Fascist red five-armed star over all three fields.
- ISBN 978-1-85065-944-0.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-2588-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19-958097-2, p. 87
- ISBN 978-1-58340-603-8, p. 1981
- ISBN 978-0-520-03730-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.
- ISBN 978-961-231-871-0
- ^ Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004) Clash of civilisations Archived 2020-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol.12, No.2, p.4
- ISBN 978-0-8264-1761-9.
- ^ Gregor Joseph Kranjc (2013).To Walk with the Devil, University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, p. introduction 5
- S2CID 145127681.
- ^ a b c d e f Štih, P.; Simoniti, V.; Vodopivec, P. (2008) A Slovene History: Society, politics, culture. Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino. Ljubljana. p.426.
- ^ ISSN 1580-4828. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-624-9.
- COBISS 17009408.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86011-336-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-57607-294-3.
- ISBN 0-691-08697-4 p. 327
- ISBN 978-1-85065-944-0.
- ^ Mlakar, Polona. "Archivalia of the Month (February 2012): Partisan Act". Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, Ministry of Culture, Republic of Slovenia. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
- ^ ISSN 1580-5352.
- ^ ISSN 0351-9902.
- ISBN 978-1-84176-675-1.
- S2CID 145127681.
- ISBN 978-1-85065-944-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-961-01-0208-3.
- ^ COBISS 27504733.
- ^ Guštin, Damijan. "Slovenia". European Resistance Archive. ERA Project. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
- ISBN 961-91287-0-2
- ^ Ulrich Weinzierl (2003) Wald und Wald und Wald, Spectrum - Die Presse, 15. November 2003.
- ^ Igor Mekina (2004) Germans who were Partisans, Mladina, 27 February. Ljubljana.
- ^ Slovenski zgodovinski atlas (Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2011), 186.
- ^ Svenšek, Ana (10 June 2012). "Prvi pravi popis - v vojnem in povojnem nasilju je umrlo 6,5% Slovencev" [The First True Census: 6.5% of Slovenes died in the War and Post-War Violence]. MMC RTV Slovenija (in Slovenian). RTV Slovenija.
Further reading
- Cox, John C. (2005). Slovenia: Evolving Loyalties. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-27431-9.
- Pirjevec, Jože, ed. (2008). Resistance, suffering, hope: the Slovene partisan movement 1941-1945. Union of Societies of Combatants of the Slovene National Liberation Struggle. ISBN 978-961-6681-02-5.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Website of the Union of Societies of Combatants of the Slovene National Liberation Struggle
- Former website of the Union of Societies of Combatants of the Slovene National Liberation Struggle
- History of the Union of Societies of Combatants of the Slovene National Liberation Struggle