page_title: Slovene Home Guard
section_title: SD command and organization
hierarchical_section_title: Slovene Home Guard / Establishment and operations / Collaboration with the Germans / SD command and organization
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Pogreb Dušana Meničanina
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: The SD operated under the command of SS Lieutenant-General Erwin Rösener, who in turn reported directly to SS Chief, Heinrich Himmler. The SD was initially grouped into companies and battalions, but the Germans re-organised it several times. Towards the end of the war, German officers commanded several battalions, and some units had a mix of Slovene and German soldiers. According to sources close to the SD, by September 1944 the numbers enlisted reached 13,000. The SD were armed, supplied and paid by the Germans, and when deployed in the field, were always under German command. The SD used Italian equipment (confiscated after the Italian Armistice in September 1943), and weapons, uniforms and equipment supplied by the Germans, especially later in the war.
caption: Home Guards at the funeral of SD commander Dušan Meničanin, killed in battle with Partisans near Novo Mesto
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