Preparatory Document
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Preparatory document Slovenia in the Second World War After the attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, German, Italian and Hungarian occupation forces divided the territory of the former Drava Banovina. Some villages were also included in the Independent State of Croatia. The occupation administrations wanted to destroy the cultural and national identity of the Slovene nation as soon as possible. In German- held territory, names and place names were first germanised and the use of German was introduced. In the mass deportation of Slovenes and the planned settlement of Germans, 63,000 Slovenes were forcibly exiled to Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Germany. The emptied homesteads near Sotla and Sava were settled by (Gottschee) Kočevje Germans. The occupation authorities introduced forced mobilisation into the German and Hungarian armies. Primorska Slovenes had already been inducted into the Italian army before the war. The Hungarians also banned the use of Slovene and expelled educated Slovenes. At least initially, the Italian occupier used milder measures of suppression of nationality. The Slovene language and cultural and educational institutions were retained, and Slovene officials served in the Italian administration. During the occupation, the bourgeois parties tended to wait tactically, awaiting instructions from the refugee government in London, while left-wing political groups advocated organized resistance. On April 26, 1941, representatives of the Communists, part of the Sokol Organization, Christian Socialists and cultural workers formed the Anti-Imperialist Front, which was later renamed the Liberation Front (OF). They advocated an armed campaign against the occupier, which would be the starting point for the liberation and unification of all Slovenes. The Communist Party of Slovenia took on a key role. In the summer of 1941, the first partisan units were formed as part of a broader Yugoslav resistance movement. In 1942, part of the disunited bourgeois camp united in the Slovene Alliance, advocating a federalist and democratically regulated state and the unification of all Slovenes. Ideological opposition and revolutionary violence fuelled the emergence of armed village guards, who were supplied by the Italians. The Chetniks, or the Yugoslav army in their homeland, who were in favour of rebuilding the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, were also armed opponents of the partisan movement. The confrontation between partisan and anti-partisan military units, who also for the most part collaborated with the occupier, had the characteristics of a civil war. In order to suppress the armed resistance movement, the occupiers directed campaigns and offensives against the partisan units and escalated violence against the civilian population. About 80,000 Slovenes were imprisoned, 60,000 were held in concentration camps in Italy, Germany, Croatia and Hungary and more than 2,500 were shot as hostages. The Hungarian authorities gathered the Jews of Prekmurje and handed them over to the German Gestapo in April 1944; they were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. Ljubelj concentration camp was established on both sides of the Ljubelj saddle, as a satellite camp of Mauthausen concentration camp. In September 1943, the Slovene Home Guard was established in the Ljubljana Province, which was occupied by the Germans after the capitulation of Italy. It was designated an auxiliary police force for fighting and the maintenance of law and order on Slovene territory. Similar formations were created in Gorenjska and Primorska. In cooperation with German units, these formations were involved in various forms of collaboration. The partisan movement developed throughout the entire ethnic Slovene territory. Many combat units, partisan workshops and hospitals were established. Units also travelled to Julian March and Carinthia in Austria, and Slovenes also participated in resistance movements across Yugoslavia and Europe. At a meeting of allies in Tehran in November 1943, the partisan movement was recognized as part of the anti-fascist coalition. The Allies further supplied partisan units and took part in joint attacks on the communications network. Over 800 airmen who had been shot down and allied prisoners of war were rescued with the help of the population. On the liberated territories, OF committees held elections for members of National Liberation Councils. Slovene women were able to vote for the first time at that time. At an assembly in Kočevje in October 1943, envoys from all Slovene liberated and occupied territories and partisan troops elected 120 members of the Alliance of National Liberation Councils, later renamed the Alliance of National Liberation Councils of Slovenia. As the legislative and representative power in Slovenia, they emphasized that Slovenes, as a politically independent and sovereign nation, wanted to live in a federal Yugoslavia. A delegation also attended the 2nd Session of the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, where they appointed a Provisional Government of Yugoslavia, headed by Joseph Broz Tito. For Slovenes, the most important decision was to confirm the annexation of the Slovene Littoral and Julian March to Yugoslavia. Shortly before the end of the war, a National Government of Slovenia was appointed in Ajdovščina on May 5, 1945. From the spring of 1945, various German units and their collaborating national armed formations retreated across Slovene territory and, at the end of the war, also the Slovene Home Guard. Ljubljana was liberated on May 9, 1945, and the final military operations took place in Carinthia after the official end of the war, which had claimed almost 100,000 casualties among Slovenes. Slovenes returned home from the war right up to the mid-1950s. .