Slovenian Collaboration during World War II

Slovenian collaboration in Slovenia during the Second World War. What was this about? Slovenia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (known as Drava Banovina). After the German invasion of Yugoslavia (1941) Slovenia was partitioned by the Axis: the Hungarians, the Italians and the Germans. In the Italian zone the Slovenes set up the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation (OF) and its armed branch were the Slovene Partisans. There was also collaboration: the Italians set up the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (MVAC / White Guard) to combat the partisans. Later the Germans set up the Slovene Home Guard.
History Hustle presents: Slovenian Collaboration during World War II.

SOURCES
– Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941 – 45 [Men-at-Arms 282] (N. Thomas & K. Mikulan).
– Hitler's New Disorder. The Second World War in Yugoslavia (Stevan K. Pavlowitch).
– War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945. Occupation and Collaboration (Jozo Tomasevich).

IMAGES

MUSIC
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SOUNDS

[HistoryHustle]

SLOVENIA DURING WORLD WAR II:
CROATIA DURING WORLD WAR II:

[Frk]

I'm from slovenia and this is still sensitive topic. Keep the good work teaching history world wide👍

[tonnywildweasel]

What a chaos, lots of conflicting intrests and groups. Glad you shed some light in this !
Greets from the Netherlands 🌷, T.

[markobavdek]

There's very heated public debate about this topic here in Slovenia. People often become rude and unpolite because there's so much ideological dividing...
I wanna say, this is very slippery ground.... I've seen it by first hand...

[PanzerdivisionWiking]

I don’t think I could ever get tired learning from your very well done and concise uploads you present, thank you very much for the research and interesting content. Wishing you well over the holidays my friend!

[titnesovic]

A very nice summoning up of our ww2 history from the domobranci side. I'd say you hit the most important points but of course, you could extend this topic into a really long video, if you had the time: the divisions that escalated into our civil war were already there at end of the 19. century, the rise of communism in the first Yugoslavia, the facts that the first home guards formed because the partisans were constantly robbing villages, the horrible fate of the war refugees that were forced back from Austria ...
Lots and lots of stories. Even after almost 80 years lots of bones are still buried and the people are still careful about these topics. The emotional memories are clearly still there. Good video!

[Neo-wyfl]

You should make a video dedicated to Slovene partisans, Greetings from Slovenia.

[tng]

Thanks for the coverage of this very overlooked part of WW2 history. Much appreciated. I suppose without the break up of Yugoslavia, most normal people outside this region would not have bothered studying or investigated this part of history and would have listened only to Tito’s version of history which during communist rule era called all their wartime local opponents ‘Quislings’ and portrayed the conflict as a simple struggle between the good partisans backed by the Allies vs the bad Nazis.

[HowlingWof]

If only I history teacher like you, I would’ve paid more attention to history. Congratulations on reaching over 100K mile stone, Now on to A million 🤩

[stevekaczynski]

Milan Vidmar, a Slovenian grandmaster and for a time one of the top chess players in the world, was filmed taking part in an anti-Communist rally in Ljubljana in 1944. He seems to have escaped serious consequences when Tito's forces took over, and died in 1962.

[paulkoza]

My maternal grandparents were from Slovenia. I was in Ljubljana a few years ago and went to Ljubljana Castle. There is a nice history of Slovenia on display there. I don't remember anything about the collaboration, but there was a section on the Yugoslav partisan movement in Slovenia. Like my mom's generation, I suspect that many of these individuals have died, so obtaining primary source information would be difficult if not impossible. The Slovenians were lucky that their country was mostly populated with Slovenians when Yugoslavia broke up and did not have to go through the bloody national and religious conflict like other areas of the former Yugoslavia. Nice video. I will share it with my cousins.

[mladentomic]

The general ratio between partisans and home guard was 2, 5:1. 20-30000 partisans (1944/45) and 13000 collaborators.

[StephenS-]

I could listen to you all day, brother. Keep them coming, and thanks!

[tsar]

Fun fact about the Bishop of Ljubljana: Gregorj Rozman, Post-WWII he fled to Cleveland, Ohio. Where I live

[super_slav]

10 Slovenians for every German soldier killed or wounded. My grandfather would never forget seeing people shot on sight as a child until his death. The collaborators were called the white guard, "Belogardisti"

[nickpapagiorgio]

Great video professor Stefan! I was fortunate to visit Ljubljana and the surrounding countryside a little bit when I traveled around Europe years ago and it really is nowadays such a beautiful place especially the architecture in the capital and lake Bled in the countryside. You can still see a great deal of italian culture there but they are Definately their own people and thankfully they were able to form a beautiful country for themselves eventually!

[jamie]

Like they'll have said we'll done on another sensitive topic, nicely balanced. Also well done on all-out subscribers, its good to see an unbiased channel get the support it really deserves, again the Slovenia volksdeutche would be a good episode, keep up the great work 👍

[buco]

I was wating for this video for so long... Thanks!

[mosinnagant]

Thanks. Another interesting history of a less-discussed aspect of WWII.

[Neo-wyfl]

Home guard were actually nothing more than reserve SS units, they actually arrested all of Ljubljana Jews in 1944, they tortured and killed pro partisan citizens and peasants in basements of churches and their outpost, they helped germans with burning the pro partisan villages and they even helped germans run infamous concentration camp in Trieste build mostly for Slovenes in which around 5000 people were killed. They were nothing more then german tool for repressions of Slovene people.