page_title: Bleiburg repatriations
section_title: Axis retreat
hierarchical_section_title: Bleiburg repatriations / Axis retreat
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Umik Nemcev in domobrancev skozi Tržič
context_page_description: The Bleiburg repatriations occurred in May 1945, at the end of World War II in Europe. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians associated with the Axis powers fled Yugoslavia to Austria as the Soviet Union and Yugoslav Partisans took control. The British Army put them on trains supposedly headed west when in reality they were sent east towards Yugoslavia, forcing them to surrender to Partisan forces. The soldiers and others were subjected to forced marches, together with columns captured by the Partisans in Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands of these men were executed; others were taken to forced labor camps, where more died from harsh conditions. The events are named for the Carinthian border town of Bleiburg, where the initial repatriation was conducted.
  On 3 May 1945, the government of the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist puppet state established in parts of German-occupied Yugoslavia, decided to flee to Austria. They ordered the remnants of the Croatian Armed Forces to move there as soon as possible in order to surrender to the British Army. The Axis-aligned Slovene leadership issued a retreat order for the Slovene Home Guard on the same day.
context_section_description: The collapse of the Syrmian front in April 1945 accelerated the withdrawal of German forces, which had been retreating from the Balkans since October 1944. Like other Axis troops, forces of the NDH did not want to surrender to the Red Army or the Yugoslav Partisans. They retreated through Slovenia trying to reach the Yugoslav-Austrian border, in order to surrender to the British forces advancing north from Italy. A large-scale exodus of people was planned and organized by the authorities of the NDH although there was no strategic benefit to it: there was no viable destination for all the population. The NDH government's decision to organize a retreat was reached on 3 May. On the same day, the Slovene leadership also decided to retreat to Austria.
  Some in the NDH and Slovene political and military leadership believed that the Western Allies would use them as anti-Communist forces and support them in returning to Yugoslavia and regaining power. Slovenian Bishop Gregorij Rožman appealed to the Allies to occupy Slovenia and prevent the Communists from taking power. The NDH leadership abolished racial laws and sent a request for collaboration with the Allies on 6 May, but all of these efforts failed. While the NDH leadership may have organized a civilian retreat to bolster their claims that the Yugoslav Communists were after innocent civilian victims, the sheer number of civilians slowed down the retreat, and made surrender to the Allies unfeasible. Some observers believed the government was using the civilians as a human shield against the Ustaše. The majority of the civilian refugees reportedly held anti-Communist views or feared reprisals.
  Divisions of three Yugoslav armies were pursuing the Axis forces. Some units of the Yugoslav 4th Army managed to reach Carinthia before or at the same time as the retreating columns. Additional divisions of the 3rd and 4th Armies were sent to the area in order to capture southern Carinthia and prevent the Axis retreat. The 1st and 2nd Armies were halted near Celje, while the 3rd Army advanced further in pursuit of the retreating columns.
  On 6 May 1945, the government of the NDH fled Zagreb and reached a site near Klagenfurt, Austria on 7 May. Pavelić and the military leadership left Zaprešić on the evening of 7 May, intending to join the rest of the NDH regime in Austria. The bulk of the NDH leadership, including Pavelić, escaped in early May, fleeing to Western Europe and Latin America. Partisans captured only a small number of senior military NDH officers.
  Zagreb was defended by parts of the 1st Division of the Army of NDH and the 41st and 181st German Divisions, deployed along the unfinished fortified "Zvonimir line" between Sveti Ivan Žabno and Ivanić-Grad. The fierce battle with the Yugoslav 1st Army lasted from 5–8 May. The 7 May was the single bloodiest day in the 1,240-day long history of the 1st Proletarian Brigade, with 158 killed and 358 wounded in the fighting for Vrbovec.
  Besides the HOS, the Slovene Home Guard and the German Army Group E, other military units were retreating. The remnants of the Serbian State Guard, two regiments of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, and a group of Chetniks surrendered to the British near the Italian-Yugoslav border on 5 May. These units were not repatriated to Yugoslavia. The Montenegrin National Army, formed in April 1945 by Sekula Drljević with the support of the NDH government, to gather Montenegrins from NDH in the unit, were retreating together with Croatian forces. Thousands of Russian Cossacks of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, stationed in Yugoslavia since 1943, were also retreating to Austria.
  On 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allied powers, marking the practical end of World War II in Europe. The German Instrument of Surrender applied to German Wehrmacht forces in Yugoslavia, as well as to other armed forces under German control, such as the Croatian Armed Forces. Ordinarily this would have meant that they, too, had to cease their activities on 8 May and stay where they found themselves. The military of NDH, 
caption: Slovene Home Guards and Germans retreating through the town of Tržič
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:04:12 10:10:49", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8734", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1952", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1376"}