page_title: Slovene Home Guard
section_title: Resistance begins
hierarchical_section_title: Slovene Home Guard / Background / Resistance begins
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Nalaganje ustreljenih talcev v krste, Stari Pisker, 22. julija 1942.
context_page_description: The Slovene Home Guard was a Slovene anti-Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries, part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice.
  It was closely linked to Slovenian right wing anti-Communist political parties and organizations, which provided most of the membership, taking assistance of Germans rather than the opposite. In the Slovenian Littoral, a similar but much smaller unit, called Slovenian National Defense Corps, more commonly known as the Littoral Home Guard was ideologically and organizationally linked to the SD. An even smaller Upper Carniolan Self-Defense, also known as the Upper Carniolan Home Guard was active in Upper Carniola between 1944 and 1945. All three "home guard" units were formed almost exclusively of ethnic Slovenes. At their peak, they had a combined membership of around 21,000 men, of whom there were 15,000 in the Province of Ljubljana, 3,500 in the Julian March and 2,500 in Upper Carniola. Its officers and language of command were Slovene.
context_section_description: Soon after the annexation, several resistance groups emerged, but only the communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation (Slovene: Osvobodilna fronta slovenskega naroda), or simply Liberation Front (Osvobodilna fronta, OF) raised armed units and engaged in sabotage and active resistance. The OF consisted of eighteen distinct groupings, including the Communist Party of Slovenia, quite a large number of members of the Christian Socialist Party, some members of the gymnastic body Sokol, various progressive intellectuals, some former Royal Yugoslav Army officers, and even some members of the strongly-Catholic Slovene People's Party. These bodies varied in origin, ideology and strength, but were united in their policy of immediate armed resistance to the occupying forces.
  Besides the OF, other political groups organised on the basis that they would form the core of resistance against the Italians at some time in the future. These largely bourgeoisie groups generally considered immediate resistance to be pointless given the overwhelming enemy, and that it would be too expensive in terms of lives, property and suffering. Instead they planned to wait until Allied troops arrived in the region, then mobilise and, using arms obtained from the Allies or through capture, turn against the Italians and be on the winning side when the war ended. In this they reflected the same approach as the Chetnik leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, Draža Mihailović. Some of these groups had a pro-Western stance, but others were pro-Axis, as the number of active collaborators with the Italians testified. The main part of the Slovene People's Party formed the Slovene Legion, the Yugoslav National Party and the majority of Sokol formed the Sokol Legion, and another group that was formed was the National Legion. All of these latter organisations tried to position themselves to take advantage of whatever outcome resulted from the war. These non-OF or bourgeoisie groups were collectively known by the OF as "White Guards" (Slovene: Bela garda). The pro-Western groups sought the re-establishment of Yugoslavia, and in common with the communists, the expansion of Yugoslavia to include those Slovene lands that had been annexed by Italy or remained part of Austria after World War I.
  The leadership of the OF lay in the hands of several communists, Boris Kidrič, Edvard Kardelj, and Franc Leskošek. In August, the OF created the Security and Intelligence Service (Slovene: Varnostno-obveščevalna služba, VOS) to coordinate resistance activities. This was a small and select secret police organisation, led by Zdenka Kidrič, Boris Kidrič's wife. Although it was part of the OF, the VOS was under exclusive communist control. During the second half of 1941, the White Guards remained inactive against the Italians. This was in strong contrast to the OF, which took its first armed actions against the Italians following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in late June. Its armed wing was the Slovene Partisans. The OF developed an underground organisation in Ljubljana and in the countryside, and the Partisans conducted attacks on Italian forces and sabotaged important targets from July. The Italians retaliated against the OF and against the civilian population, conducting operations in the late summer and early autumn that destroyed or broke up many of the Partisan companies and caused losses to others. The non-OF groups made contact with Mihailović and planned to provide recruits for his "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland" during a future uprising against the Italians. Setbacks to the OF, followed by the onset of a severe and early winter, meant that the Partisans gained little ground until early 1942. In December, the VOS began a campaign against Slovenes who were collaborating with the Italians, assassinating several prominent leaders.
caption: German troops on July 21 1941, executing some of the 374 Slovene hostages they executed in Celje, among them 49 women (a German officer is finishing off a woman with a shot to the head)
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