Back الحرس السلوفيني الرئيسي Arabic Slovensko domobranstvo German Guardia Nacional Eslovena Spanish Garde nationale slovène French Slovensko domobranstvo Croatian Domobranci Italian Domobranci Dutch Słoweńska Domobrana Polish Guarda Nacional Eslovena Portuguese Словенское домобранство Russian
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2012) |
| Slovene Home Guard | |
|---|---|
| Slovensko domobranstvo | |
 The symbol of the Slovene Home Guard | |
| Active | 1943–1945 |
| Size | about 18,000 at its height (autumn 1944)[1] |
| Motto(s) | Za Boga, narod in domovino "For God, Nation and Homeland" |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Vuk Rupnik Ernest Peterlin Franc Krener |
| Insignia | |
| Flag |  |
The Slovene Home Guard (Slovene: Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; German: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti-Partisan[2] militia that was founded and supported by the Germans and fought alongside them against the Partisans.[3] It operated during part of the 1943–1944 German occupation of the formerly Italian-annexed Slovene Province of Ljubljana.[4] The Guard consisted of former Village Sentries (Slovene: Vaške straže; Italian: Guardia Civica),[5] part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice of September 1943. At the end of 1944, the National Committee for Slovenia[6] re-organized all the anti-communist, anti-fascist armies into one called the Slovenian National Army/Slovenska Narodna Vojska.[6] This new Slovenian National Army re-took their oaths to King Peter in their support of the kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The Guard had close links with Slovenian right-wing anti-Communist political parties and organizations, which provided most of the membership, receiving assistance from the Germans rather than providing assistance to them.[7] In the Slovenian Littoral, a similar but much smaller unit, called the Slovenian National Defense Corps (Slovene: Slovensko narodno varnostni zbor, German: Slowenisches Nationales Schutzkorps), more commonly known as the Littoral Home Guard (Slovene: Primorsko domobranstvo) was ideologically and organizationally linked to the SD. An even smaller Upper Carniolan Self-Defense (Slovene: Gorenjska samozaščita, German: Oberkrainer Landschutz), also known as the Upper Carniolan Home Guard (Slovene: Gorenjsko domobranstvo) operated in Upper Carniola between 1944 and 1945. All three "home guard" units comprised almost exclusively ethnic Slovenes. The officers and the language of command were Slovene.[8]
Some of the resistance groups outside of the communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation (OF) were collectively known by the OF as White Guards (Slovene: Bela garda), a pejorative term. Some of the British liaison-officers with the Slovene Partisans saw the White Guards as another name for the Home Guards, and declared them enemies of the Allies. All the while, the Slovene Home Guard had embedded intelligence officers into its ranks who secretly spied on the German military movements and reported this intelligence to the British, both in London and to MI6 in Switzerland.[3][9][10]
- ^ Pirjevec 2018, p. 174.
- ^ "Historijska čitanka, Drugi svjetski rat" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
- ^ a b Mlakar, Boris (2003). Slovensko Domobranstvo 1943–1945 [Slovenian Home Guard] (in Slovenian). Ljubljana Slovenia: Slovenska Matica. pp. 527–530. ISBN 9612131147.
- ^ Klemenčič & Žagar 2004, p. 168.
- ^ Kranjc 2010, p. 34.
- ^ a b National Committee for Slovenia (2023). Slovenes and their Liberty Struggle During Occupation 1945. Arlington Virginia USA: Planinca Press. pp. 38–63. ISBN 9798989660117.
- ^ Kranjc 2010, p. 57.
- ^ Kranjc 2010, p. 101.
- ^ Mozina, Joze (2019). Slovenski Razkol [Slovenian Schism] (in ISO 639-1 Slovenian). Slovnia: Drustvo Mohorjeva druzba. ISBN 9788896632840.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ Velikonja, Maria (2024). Slovenes and their Liberty Struggle During Occupation 1945 Annotated. Arlington Virginia USA: Planinca Press. pp. 100–137. ISBN 9798869832665.