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Racial Legislation, Propaganda
and Measures in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in the German,
Italian and Hungarian Occupational Zones in Slovenia during
WW II
by Božo Repe
The Yugoslav state was created in the wake of World War I from
parts of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy and of some lands
that were in the 19th Century part of the Ottoman Empire. In
1929 King Alexander suspended the constitution and the parliament
and proclaimed a royal dictatorship. In 1934 Croatian and Macedonian
extremists organized the King’s assassination in Marseille.
Polarized country with huge nationalistic quarrels and authoritarian
regimes in the second half of the thirties was more and more
under the influence of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Anti-Semitic
legislation was introduced, Concentration camp in Bileca for
the opponents of the regime established and Parliament was dissolved
at the end of thirties.
The war in Yugoslavia began on April 6th 1941 with bombing
Belgrade. Yugoslavia was quickly defeated, surrendering in Belgrade
on April 17. The government fled into exile. When the Axis powers
in April 1941 invaded Yugoslavia, Ustasha regime seized power
in Croatia and “Independent Croatian State” under
German and Italian control was set up. Other parts of Yugoslavia
were divided among occupiers.
In Slovenia all of three occupying forces wanted to include
the occupied territories into their respective states permanently,
extending their administration to the Slovenian territory and
including it into their social order.
Map author: "Dr. Manfred Straka, SudostdeuschesInstitut,
Graz" 1940
The Hungarians annexed Prekmurje by a law adopted by Hungarian
Parliament on December 1941. They also annexed other territories
of former Yugoslavia: Baranja, Backo and Medmurje). Prekmurje
was not governed as a single administrative district. One of
them (Murska Sobota with its broader surroundings) was annexed
to the district Vas (Vasvármegye), with the centre in
Szombathely and the second one to the Zala district (Zalamegye)
with the centre in Zalaegerszeg. This administrative division
dates back to Austro-Hungarian times. The Hungarians namely
regarded the occupied territories as the return of the territory,
which they had lost with the Trianon treaty after World War
I. Hungarians regarded the people of Prekmurje as being Vends,
a special nation with its own language, which adopted Hungarian
culture during the long centuries of living together. According
to them, the only missing element for complete assimilation
was the replacement of the “Vend language” with
the Hungarian. Former Yugoslav officials and teachers, colonists
and other immigrants (about 600 of them), who moved to Prekmurje
between the two Wars on the basis of racial measures were confined
in the camp Sárvár. Influence of members of the
Hungarian fascist party - the Arrow Cross Party (so called “nyílas”)
raised. After the German occupation of Hungary and Prekmurje,
most of the Prekmurje Jews (452 persons) were imprisoned in
concentration camps. 328 of them were then killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau
in April 1944.
The territories occupied by Germans were given the same status
as Alsace, Loraine and Luxembourg. The plan was to annex them
formally to Germany as quickly as possible and thus become the
southern border of the German Reich. This would have meant a
complete elimination of Slovenians as a nation (ethnocide).
A special civil administration introduced in 1941 was supposed
to be of a temporary nature. According to German plans, the
territory was to be annexed to the Reich on October 1, 1941.
Until then, the administration of the occupied territories was
to be adapted to the one in the neighbouring districts of Štajerska
- Steiermark and Koroška - Carinthia (which was actually
carried out) and thus the Slovenian question “permanently”
solved.
The German leadership assigned the responsibility for the solution
of the “Slovenian question” to various offices under
the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the state secretary for
reinforcement of germanness. The plan for the elimination of
Slovenian nation was based on three basic elements: mass deportations
of the Slovenians (between 220 000 and 260 000), the settlement
of Germans (about 80 000) and a complete assimilation of the
people who stayed in their homes because they could meet the
required political and racial criteria.
First they brought people to collecting camps from where they
were shipped to Germany, Croatia and Serbia. The deportation
was to be carried out in several waves: the first to come were
the nationally feeling Slovenes who were followed by those who
moved to Slovenian territory after 1914, and finally by those
whose estates and property were needed for the German colonisation.
This plan was intended to be carried out in five months. Due
to the problems of transportation, the uprising of the population2
and because Croatia and Serbia were unable to accept as many
deportees as planned, about 80 000 Slovenians were deported
(about 17 000 of them fled to Italian occupation territory).
12 000 Germans from Slovenia (Gotschee Deutsch) were settled,
mostly to the borderland with the Independent State of Croatia,
along the rivers Sava and Sotla in agreement with the Italian
occupational authorities.
The Nazi order, including the mobilization into the German army
was introduced. Next to the so-called Volksdeutscher (German
minority), also a part of Slovenian population was granted -
though only conditionally and after a political and racial assessment
- German citizenship. The use of the Slovenian language was
forbidden, geographical and personal names were germanized,
and the occupied territories looked like as if they were German.
After a short military administration, the Italian occupiers
transformed their occupied territories into the so-called Province
o Ljubljana (Provinzia di Lubiana), which became one of the
Italian provinces. It was led by the High Commissionaire (first
this was Emilio Grazioli who was later followed by Giuseppe
Lombrassa and finally by general Riccardo Moizo). Annexation
of the Italian occupational zone to Italy was based on the King’s
order dating from May 3, 1941 the so called Province of Ljubljana
The Chamber of Fascies and corporations confirmed his order
on June 10, 1941, whereas the legislative commission for internal
affairs and legislation within the Senate did not acknowledge
it until June, 10, 1943, whereby the King’s order became
a law. Mussolini hastened to with the annexation because he
feared Hitler could further reduce the territory previously
allotted to him. Provinzia di Lubiasna gained in some areas
an autonomous status which manifested itself in a different
name for the person in charge (High Commissioner as opposed
to Prefect as called in other parts of Italy), in bilingualism,
in formal co-administration by the advisory committee for the
Province of Ljubljana whose members were Slovenians and finally
by the fact, that Slovenian citizens did not have to serve the
army.
In the legal field, the former Yugoslav legislation was preserved
to a high extend. Italians were appointed as the heads of local
districts, whereas the lower ranks (mayors) could also be occupied
by the Slovenes, after they had sworn to the Italian King. In
the areas of economy, finances, banking and insurance the Italian
fascist corporate system was introduced. Parallel to Yugoslav,
Italians gradually set up their own administration, however,
due to lack of Italian staff, there were more Slovene than Italian
officials in the Province of Ljubljana. Apart from the army,
there were four other types of units responsible for peace-keeping:
the police, gendarmerie (the “carabinieri”), financial
guards and on the frontier with the German occupational zone
and along the former Rapallo border, the frontier police, which
was preserved and which thus separated the Province of Ljubljana
from Italy. All those units were Italian, however, the carabinieri
and the police also included former Yugoslav policemen (of 1350
members of the police, 322 were Slovenians; a further 204 were
given a salary although they were not on duty). Along with that,
Italian court-martials responsible for the offences perpetrated
or only planned against the Italian army or its members started
to operate. In practice this meant that they were responsible
for any form of opposition towards the Italian occupation; the
law-court in Ljubljana handled 13 186 persons until the capitulation
of Italy, out of which 8737 were found guilty and sentenced.
The fascist party introduced all the organizations, which existed
in Italy, to Slovenia, as well. Membership of those parties
was restricted to Italian officials; however, young people attending
schools and universities as well as the members of some women’s
and workers’ organizations, were also accepted in order
to speed up the process of assimilation. After hesitating for
some time, the Italians also allowed the so-called Voluntary
Anti-communist Militia (Milizia volontaria anticommmunista)
to be formed; its main task was to fight the partisans.
The Italians, being so sure of the predominance of their civilization
and the fascist ideology (according to the well-known diary
of Gaelazzo Ciano, the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs)
planned to carry out ethnocide over the Slovenians over a longer
period of time than the Germans. In the Italian occupational
territory similar plans as in German were made in spring 1942:
there were planned mass deportations of the Slovenians and Italian
colonisation of the emptied Slovene territories. However, Italy
surrendered before the above plans could be implemented. Yet,
the Italians succeeded to deport about 25 000 thousands Slovenes
into Italian concentration camps. The preserved documents let
us believe that in case of their victory, the Italians would
have introduced the same denationalising regime as the one that
was carried out in the Slovenian coastal area and Istria during
both World Wars.
Ilustrations
a) A Fragment from the report
of a Federal Official of the Ministry of the Interior with the
Head of the Civil Administration for Lower Styria dated May
30, 1941: About the Mass Evictions of the Slovenians
3
The most difficult problem to be solved within the Lower Styria
is to cleanse the lower Styrian national body from the foreign
Slav element, which cannot be submitted to the Germanising process.
If the regermanisation of the lower Styria is to succeed at
all, and this south-eastern end of the German Reich is to become
a reliable barrier against the ever tumultuous Balkans, the
local population has to be freed of every substance which either
racially or behaviourally sabotages germanisation. The task
of the Styrian Patriotic Association can only succeed if the
ground is accordingly cleansed.
Therefore a deportation (removal) of the population is planned,
which will be carried out in four stages and in a way which
has proved successful in similar activities in other regained
territories of the Reich (especially in the east).
The deportations to Serbia and partially to Croatia will be
carried out in trains containing about 1000 persons. The time
of its beginning and its extend (for the time being one or two
trains daily are planned) have not been determined yet….
According
to the plan, the deportations will take place in four waves.
b) Unknown girl, waiting for
the deportation, near Celje
c) Fragment from an Interview
with Cveto Kobal4
“After a few days they crowed us together for transport.
About 1000 people were transported in one single train. The
drive took two days. On the way some people already died in
our wagon. There was terrible heat, unbearable conditions. The
wagons were cattle trucks, without any possibility to use toilet.
Then we carried the dead bodies from the railway station to
the top of the hill, where concentration camp was. Just before
we came to Mauthausen, one prisoner was shot only because he
picked up green apple from the ground...
Speaking from my experience, I would like to say to the younger
generations how necessary it is to fight against any violence.
No violence, even with the best of intentions, can’t be
justified…”
(Front page of the brochure on Mauthausen, written by Cveto
Kobal in June 1944, first known published text about one of
the most horrible concentration camps.)
d) Poster with the names of killed
hostages in German occupying zone
e ) Report of the High Commisssioner
for the Province of Ljubljana, August 24, 1942: Programme of
Activities in the Region 5
The Kingdom of Italy
High Commissioner for the Province of Ljubljana; The Office:
personal secretariat
No 1387/2 confidential
To the Ministry of Interior
The Cabinet August 24, 1942/XX
Highly confidential
Regarding the confidential document No 1362/2, dated August
16, I allow myself to give an outline of the programmes of activities
I intend to carry out in this province.
a) The problem of the Slovenian population could be solved in
three ways:
1) By its destruction;
2) By deportations;
3) By removal of opposition elements, which could be reached
by carrying out a hard, yet fair policy of bringing together,
with the purpose of laying the foundations for a useful and
fair cooperation. This would give us a possibility for assimilation,
which could be achieved only with time. Thus we have to decide
which way we want to choose.
b) For mass deportations of the population we would have to
follow a programme prepared in advance, which would have to
be carried out within the entire province. It would be better
to set up work camps instead of internment camps in which people
do nothing but idle.
c) For the purpose of replacing Slovenian population with the
Italian, the following has to be determined:
1) Where Slovenian population should be moved;
2) Where suitable Italian population should be found in which
case it has to be considered, that the people from the northern
and the central areas are the most appropriate ones to be settled
in Slovenian territories;
3) If the area along the border is to be completely Italianised,
its width is to be determined (20 to 30 km);
4) If the entire Slovenian population is to be moved, the process
should be started in the areas along the border, where Slovenians
live under Italy.
It is my opinion that a complete or even a partial relocation
of the Slovenian population would hardly be possible during
the war.
f) Don Pietro Brignoli: Holly
Mass (fragment from diary) 6
“25. August. Desperate women. One of them is asking for
justice.
In the village, we just come in, we imprisoned all men, as elsewhere.
At the beginning of the operations people didn’t get anxious
when we imprisoned adult men, because they new nothing about
what to expect. As news about what was going on spread around,7
some kind of desperation wave rose. The same was in this “liberated”
village.
Because they took men and guarded them in the meadow, women
gathered not far away, they plead for the men and cried with
such emotions, that even less sensitive soldiers were struck
by that. From time to time someone scold this miserable group
and threatened that all of man will be shot if women would not
pleading. For a moment, all became silent, than we heard restraint
sobbing and in the end they cried even more desperately then
they did before…”
After Italian capitulation, the former Italian occupational
territory was taken over by the Germans. Due to their military
weakness, the Germans were forced to acknowledge the existence
of the Slovenians and introduce an occupying policy, which differed
from the one, which they applied on the territories, which were
planned to be annexed to the German Reich.
The Germans promised to the Slovenians within the Province
of Ljubljana a kind of autonomy and restoration of the former
Austro-Hungarian district of Krain. A step in this direction
was the appointment of the district administration, which was
led by a president. After a consultation between the Nazi officials
and the Ljubljana bishop (an unusual case of cooperation), Leon
Rupnik was appointed for the president. Rupnik was an aging
general of the Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav army who under
Italians served as the Ljubljana mayor. Fascinated by the power
of Germans, his ideas were highly pro Germanic and conservative,
based on the mottos of mother, homeland, God. His orientation
being expressively anti-communist and anti-Jewish, he established
collaborationist units called Home-guard, which were fighting
against the partisans. The Germans did formally acknowledge
Italian sovereignty, yet they prevented the effective take-over
of administration, they disarmed the gendarmes and the fascists
and fired Italian officials. They supported Rupnik who refused
a renewed arrival of Italian officials. The regional administration
assumed a similar form to the one it had as the former ban’s
dominion within Yugoslavia. The administration was in fact a
“controlled head” since a great deal of the territory
was controlled by the partisans who set up their own administration.
The district authorities thus only controlled Ljubljana and
the most important railway and roadside posts. In spite of the
formally Slovene management, the German superiority could be
seen everywhere. So, the judiciary system in Ljubljana was controlled
by the High Commissariat in Triest (the seat of the Adriatic
coastal region). The police was German, led by the SS general
Erwin Rösner who was under the immediate command of Himmler.
Slovenian uniformed police did exist along with the German,
yet it was supervised by the German officer for connections.
It also had its political section that had a task to deal with
the members of the resistance movement. As the president, Rupnik
was supported (similarly as the Italian Prefects in other regions)
by German advisors whose task it was to make sure that German
policy was carried out. The welfare state Italy had no competences
(though the territory formally belonged to Italy). For the reasons
of rationality, the Germans preserved lira as the currency,
and also the postal and banking system remained to be Italian.
Such concept was preserved till the end of the war. Before the
withdrawal of the Germans, the Slovenian middle-class politicians
tried to take over power from Rupnik (whom they previously supported),
set up their own parliament, renamed the Slovenian Home-guard
into Slovene National Army and then awaited the Allies. Due
to the superiority of the Partisans their plan failed and they
withdrew along with the Germans and the Home-guard.
Endnotes
1 Repe, Božo. Racial legislation, propaganda and measures
in the German, Italian and Hungarian occupational zones in Slovenia
during the WW II: prispevek na 20th International Congress of
Historical Sciences, Sydney, 3-9 July 2005. Sydney, 2005.
2 Resistance was organized by Slovene Liberation Front (first
named Anti-Imperialist Front), established on April 27th 1941
in Ljubljana. Slovene Communists took the initiative. Christian
Socialists, the liberal Sokol (Falkon) patriotic gymnastic society
members and group of intellectuals were founders of Liberation
Front. The actual uprising extend after German attack on Soviet
Union to most Slovene lands. The partisan movement liberated
Slovenia, coordinating operations with Tito’s National
Liberation Struggle in Yugoslavia, which was since 1943 a part
of allied Antifascist Coalition. During the war Communist Party
in Slovenia, which organized and operationally controlled the
resistance, began articulating revolutionary goals. In March
1943 it persuaded non - Communists in the Liberation Front to
submit to unity under Communist leadership. Liberation Front
had the support of the majority of Slovenian population, but
not all in Slovenia joined to it. Former middle - class parties
and leadership of Catholic Church in Ljubljana Province (Provinzia
di Lubiana)
in collaboration with occupiers organized the resistance (counterrevolution)
to the Liberation Front. First in 1942 the Village Guard (Milizia
Volontaria Anticomunista) and later (after Italian capitulation
in September 1943) the Home-Guard (Landeswehr) mounted armed
opposition to the leftist character as well as the excesses
of the Partisan resistance. This led to a civil war in a part
of Slovenian territory. The partisan movement won, middle -
class politicians and Home-Guardists after unsuccessful attempt
to establish their own parliament and government in May 1945,
mostly fled to Austria together with German Army. They were
sent back by the British and majority of them, treated as traitors,
were executed without a trial.
In September 1943 a wartime assembly had already come to represent
Slovenians in Partisan - held areas. Delegates were sent to
Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ),
the central political and representative body of the National
Liberation Struggle of Yugoslavia (established in November 1942
in Bihac, Bosnia). AVNOJ on his second meeting on November 29th,
1943 in Jajce, Bosnia, proclaimed itself supreme legislative
and executive body under Tito’s leadership. Royal government
in exile later accepted the Jajce provisions. In 1945, the participants
of Yalta Conference requested that AVNOJ include also representatives
of other political parties outside the liberation movement (those
who had not collaborated with Axis powers). At its third meeting,
held in Belgrade in August 1945, AVNOJ officially became a provisional
Parliament of Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, on May 5th, 1945 the
Liberation Front established a Slovene government. In November
1945 a federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed
and Slovenia became one of the six republics. The settlement
of borders at the Paris Peace Conference in September 1947 was
- due to active resistance during the war - quite favourable
for Slovenia. It was unable to obtain Carinthian Slovenian lands
in Austria (Austria was considered a victim, not an aggressor
in WWII) and also not some territories in Italy, including port
Trieste, but it did acquire most territories that had belonged
to Italy between both of World Wars.
3 Tone Ferenc: Okupacijski sistemi na Slovenskem (Occupational
Systems on Slovenian Territory), Modrijan, Zgodovinski viri,
Ljubljana 1997
4 Cveto Kobal was born on 15.12. 1921. He became a member of
resistance movement in Slovenia in 1941. In January 1941 he
was arrested and sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz,
and afterward to Mauthausen. In the spring of 1944 he escaped
from working camp in Linz (Austria) and joined partisans in
Slovenia. In June 1944 illegal partisan printing works published
his brochure on Mauthausen, which is first known published text
about one of the most horrible concentration camps.
5 While Italian “soft” occupational policy was unsuccessful,
military and civil authorities, following the instructions of
Mussolini, took the same measures as Germans in their occupational
zone: shooting of hostages and mass executions of captured partisans,
illegal activists of Liberation Front, inhabitants of places
suspected of allegiance to the liberation movement but also
completely innocent persons (in the total period of the Italian
occupation of the Ljubljana Province the Italian armed forces
shot at least 416 individual persons and 238 groups with 1153
persons, a total therefore of 1569 persons, not taking into
account those convicted by the military court in Ljubljana,
and mass deportation. Final goal was to “clean”
Slovenian national territory and prepare it for Italian settlement
after war.
6 Don Pietro Brignoli was curate in Italian occupation army
in Slovenia and Croatia. During the war he was writing a diary,
which was published in the sixties. He was loyal to Italy, but
he also described and condemned the cruel treating of Italian
soldiers with civil population during the Italian offensive
in summer and autumn of 1942: burning of villages, shooting
hostages, deportations in concentration camps, robbery…
Brignoli for all the horrors he saw, blamed the war itself and
he was somehow searching for the answer of his distress in war
as the universal culprit.
7 Shooting of hostages or sending people to the concentration
camps (remark B.R.)
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