Talk:Slovene Home Guard

message: I have removed the claim that "However, the Domobranci wanted to ally with the Allies, but as a result of the Yalta Conference, the Allies chose to ally with the Partisans forcing the Domobranci to ally with the Italians and the Germans in order to gain supplies and munitions.  Stalin persuaded Roosevelt to side with him in choosing to ally with Tito and the Partisans, where as Churchill was against this idea.  The Domobranci's main goal was to live in an independant Slovenian state at any costs".
Firstly, SD was originally set up by General Rösener in September 1943. It is illogical to say that they wanted to "ally with the Allies", as this would have put them into direct conflict with Rösener, who was providing them with weapons, uniforms and training. At his speech when SD took oaths of allegiance to Hitler, Rösener said "On 24 September 1943 I issued the command for the foundation of Slovensko domobranstvo. From the few troops of the so-called White Guard legionnaires, as per my order, Slovensko domobranstvo has grown. With the help of the Greater German Reich, we have trained, clothed and armed you. Today you have taken an oath, that you will, together with the German Army, the military SS and police fight for the freedom of all of Europe”.
Secondly, the reference to Yalta is not correct, I'm afraid. the Allies had been directly supporting the Partisans since the break with Mihailović in early 1943. After the Teheran Conference in 1943 the Partisans received official recognition as the legitimate national liberation force by the Allies. In September 1943, at Churchill’s request, Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean was parachuted to Tito’s headquarters near Drvar to serve as a permanent, formal liaison to the Partisans. In any case, the Yalta conference did not happen until February 1945. What was agreed at Yalta regarding Yugoslavia was the following:
: "VIII. YUGOSLAVIA 
It was agreed to recommend to Marshal Tito and to Dr. Ivan Subasitch: 
(a) That the Tito-Subasitch agreement should immediately be put into effect and a new government formed on the basis of the agreement. 
(b) That as soon as the new Government has been formed it should declare: 
(I) That the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation (AVNOJ) will be extended to include members of the last Yugoslav Skupstina who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy, thus forming a body to be known as a temporary Parliament and 
(II) That legislative acts passed by the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation (AVNOJ) will be subject to subsequent ratification by a Constituent Assembly; and that this statement should be published in the communiqué of the conference.
Nor is it logical to say that SD's main goal "was to live in an independent Slovenian state at any costs". It might be logical to say that their main goal was to avoid being part of a Partisan-led Yugoslavia at any costs but that is a quite different matter entirely. 
"It is also appropriate to bear in mind that SD swore allegiance to Hitler on two occasions in 1944 and 1945": "Prisegam pri Vsemogočnem Bogu, da bom zvest, hraber in svojim nadrejenim pokoren, da bom v skupnem boju z nemško oboroženo silo, stoječo pod poveljstvom vodje velike Nemčije, SS četami in policijo, proti banditom in komunizmu kakor tudi njegovim zaveznikom svoje dolžnosti vestno izpolnjeval za svojo slovensko domovino kot del svobodne Evrope. Za ta boj sem pripravljen žrtvovati tudi svoje življenje. Tako mi Bog pomagaj".
"I swear by almighty God that I will be loyal, brave and obedient to my superiors, that I will stand in common struggle with the German armed forces, stand under the command of the leader of Greater Germany, SS troops and police against bandits and communism and their allies; this duty I will carry out conscientiously for my Slovenian homeland as part of a free Europe. For this struggle I am also ready to sacrifice my life. So help me God!"
This photo sums SD up clearly: http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200742/clanek/slo-tema--borut_mekina/img/tema-prisega.html-l2 AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of paragraph added by anonymous user

message: The entire article seems to speak another language than the historians' speak. It calls the Domobranci "white reactionaries" and other words typical for Communist terminology. Also, it does not take the historical development into consideration, e.g. the Communist Partisan attacks against Slovenian villages and clergy. The Domobranci did not consider themselves Nazi Party members or Nazis.Smith2006 (talk) 21:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have seen that there has been another round of discussion about the NPOV label. Although the article needs a thorough reediting, I believe that the labels can stay as they are until then. Right now, only the two sections which contain misleading or incorrect statements are labeled non-neutral, while the whole article is not. If truth be told, there is little coherent information outside of those two labeled sections, but as far as I see it, it is not incorrect. Viator slovenicus (talk) 10:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias

message: I just noticed that there is a mistake in the translation of the oath. To avoid any further missunderstanding on this topic i'm going to explain it here.
In the original we have:
But then in translation:
The first bolded word, stoječo, refers to the German armed force, but the second, stand refers to domobranec taking the oath. The correct translation should be standing, but to make it even more clear (because some people still think this was an oath to Hitler), I'm going to make it which stand. Tadej5553 (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow you must be a genius to figure that out. All I wanted to explain was that this wasn't an oath to Hitler, I couldn't care less about you ideological bullshit... Tadej5553 (talk) 16:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Here is a quote from a WP:RS (Tomasevich 2001, pp. 124-125). 'the Home Guards took a solemn oath to fight together with the SS and German police under the leadership of the Fuhrer against the Communist guerillas and their allies'. Good enough for me. Peacemaker67 (talk) 10:50, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong translation of the oath 

message: I think there should be some mention of the atrocities the Home Guard committed at Sveti Urh. 
Also, there should be mention of the lists that the Home Guard wrote of their opponents that they gave to the German occupiers to "take care of".
Justice and Reason (talk) 23:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atrocities at Sveti Urh & lists of opponents 

message: In order to ensure accuracy and integrity of the editing process I reverted all the edits of the Socks of the banned editor Irongron. I was away from editing due to obligations and missed what what happening until much later. Please see the banned editor's sock investigation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JamesBWatson&oldid=618034898#A_Very_Strong_Probable_Sock_of_an_editor_you_permanently_banned_in_April_2014_User:IRoNGRoN The IP 178.216.122.254 and ☭Soviet☭ User talk:Иронгрон Иронгрон is Irongron written in the Cyrillic alphabet... are both socks of ☭Irongron☭User talk:IRoNGRoN
:That may be true, but in blanket reverting you have removed material sourced from Kranjc and Tomasevich, which should be verified and restored immediately. Peacemaker67  (send... over) 01:57, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You are welcome to do so. I do not have the time to spend to much time on all the socks edits. It is SOP to revert a socks edits but in some cases I have left them as is. Many I have reverted due the inaccurracy, direct copying of texts, tone, conjecture or other issues I am familar with of the banned editor. Please do improve the article as it is something you have a passion for. 208.54.35.169 (talk) 02:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits of a Banned Editor's Sock 

message: As  is a new editor, I am assuming they don't understand WP:BRD, which I have mentioned to them on their talk page. According to Tomasevich 2001, pp. 124-125. 'the Home Guards took a solemn oath to fight together with the SS and German police under the leadership of the Fuhrer against the Communist guerillas and their allies'. That sounds like allegiance to the Germans to me. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 03:36, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The source you have used doesn't say that the Home Guard didn't hold allegiance to the Nazis, it makes a general comment about the effects of military occupation on the allegiance of citizens of an occupied country, in this case Yugoslavia. Just because what is now Slovenia was completely occupied by the Germans after September 1943, that doesn't mean that all Yugoslav citizens had an allegiance to the Nazis. But this is not similar to that situation at all, and is much more specific, and they did swear an oath, unlike normal everyday citizens. In this case the Home Guards swore an oath to fight alongside the SS and German police under the leadership of Hitler. That means that they did have allegiance to Nazi Germany, in fact, they swore an oath to that effect. I will post a Request for Comment to get a wider community view on this issue. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 06:32, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: There is also this which clearly states that the Home Guard swore allegiance to the Third Reich. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 06:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I'd have no problem with that, if a statement about Partisan allegiance to the Soviet Union is found in reliable secondary sources. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 06:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably any of these: "the Partisans, led by Josip Broz, known as Tito, and loyal to Moscow" (Work Out Modern World History GCSE, 1990); "recognition of the communists' supremacy within Yugoslavia: their allegiance to Moscow" (The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War, 2008); "Both during and immediately after the Second World War, Tito remained totally loyal to Moscow" (Congressional Record Vol. 126, Part 8); "the Yugoslav Communists were slavishly loyal to Moscow" (The Soviet Union, Congressional Quarterly, 1 Jan 1990). It seems like parallelism in these two related articles would be appropriate. Doremo (talk) 07:01, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not that keen on the sources (I mean, a high school GCSE text?), except maybe The Great Crusade, which might be ok for our purposes. It would be better to have a specialist academic-level source on WWII Yugoslavia similar to Tomasevich than some generic broad-brush history of WWII. Surely there are better sources for this? Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 07:27, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the first published source material that came up in my Google search. Someone interested in the topic could spend time digging up additional sources, including in other languages. Doremo (talk) 07:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are advancing the case that there should be a similar mention of allegiance in respect of the Partisans, surely you would be willing to find a reasonable academic source that supports that? Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 08:30, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Here are two more: "Tito's Partisans, whose loyalty lay with Moscow" and "the Yugoslav Partisans based their National Liberation Movement on the principle of unconditional loyalty to the Soviet Union". Doremo (talk) 09:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely you can come up with something better than that? Something published by a university press? The first one I can't view, and the second one seems to be a "Free Europe" Cold War organisation. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 10:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Hard to say what's wrong with your browser; the link works for me (it's to Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II's OSS, 2014). Otherwise: "there was almost complete unanimity within the British and American governments that Tito would remain completely loyal to Moscow" (Beacons in the Night: With the OSS and Tito's Partisans in Wartime Yugoslavia, Standford University Press, 1993); "...through the Partisan struggle ....  must nevertheless be described as a thoroughly revolutionary group of men, loyal to Stalin, the Comintern, Bolshevism and Tito's new party line" (Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question, 2016). And, on later revisionism: "The myth that every Partisan was a Communist, for example, was now being revised downward to suggest that fewer than 10 percent had pledged allegiance to Moscow" (Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, 2001). Doremo (talk) 11:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I'm not interested in labelling anyone, the article just needs to reflect what is in all the reliable sources, not just the ones that paint the Home Guard in a favourable light. The article needs to reflect that they swore allegiance to Nazi Germany and the circumstances under which that occurred, as well as the fact that according to the source you have quoted regarding the duress under which it was done. But the fact is that many of the reliable sources describe the Home Guard as collaborators with the Axis, and that must also be in the article. I have no issue with the article on the Partisans mentioning that they swore allegiance to the Soviet Union either. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 01:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I fully support a balanced approach to the article. Personally I don't think it is clear enough in the lead that these people were collaborators. I'd also like to see a reliable source for the claim that these people fought the Germans prior to September 1943. Most if not all of them were either part of the MVAC under Italian rule or were recruited after the Italians surrendered. The MVAC did not fight the Germans. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 00:34, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I am not sure you support a balanced approach.  You just stated that it isn't clear enough that these people were collaborators. From what I have read, it was less collaboration, and more cooperation.  Who do you think the Domobranci were fighting for?  The germans?  The key aspect to Slovenia at that time was that Germany moved into Slovenia in the middle of a vicious civil war between Catholic Slovenes and Communist Slovenes. This was a civil war in the middle of a world war.  There were no black and white sides.  All Slovenes wanted the Italians out, as well as the Germans, but they were also fighting one another in a Civil War.  It's not like Catholic Slovenes wanted to become part of Germany, they created an armed force called the Slovenia Homeguard.  So I guess I don't know why the narrative of this Wikipedia page focuses on the cooperation with Germany, rather than the Civil War itself.  It seems like you are solely focused on the Domobranci being Nazis that you feel that is more important on this page than the horrific acts the British army did in Vitkring, sending over 12,000 Slovenes back to their deaths.  No mention of the mass graves that are still being uncovered to this day in Slovenia at the hands of the Partisans. Who is the one with the agenda? Bohsie (talk) 15:23, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I disagree with deleting the second section in toto. There are a number of elements of it which should be integrated into the earlier section, and the earlier section has a few redundancies of things already explained in the Background section. If there is additional information about whose idea the oath was and who wrote it, that should be incorporated, although I think we should be careful about taking the word of SD personnel about such things. What this article really lacks is information about SD operations. Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 01:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The 2nd section is almost entirely about the first oath, and in my view has lots of less important info (flags flying, anthems playing, etc). Regarding caution for taking the word of SD personnel, I agree, but then I suspect claims that the oath was imposed on an unwilling SD by the Nazis, came mostly from SD members/supporters, after the war, with no documents or proof for such self-serving claims. I think it helps to judge personal accounts by:(1) were they in a position to know, and (2) are they being self-serving. As Rupnik’s secretary, Kociper was in a much better position to know the facts, and he tells a tale that is not purely self-serving. Btw, the claim that the SD “protected villages and towns” from the Partisans is also hard to take, since Slovene researchers, like Tominsek-Rihtar, write that the occupiers, plus the SD and other allies, killed more than 90% of Slovenes during the war, including 16,000, mostly civilians, exterminated in concentration camps and shot as hostages, with, as Gregor Kranjc writes, the assistance of collaborating forces Thhhommmasss (talk) 05:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegiance to Nazi Germany 

message: Regarding the sentence that the SD "occasionally helped Allied airmen who had been shot down over the province", it is worth noting that both Tomasevich (p. 125) and Gregor Kranjc offer only one example of SD members attempting to help Allied pilots, carried out by 2 low-level SD soldiers in November 1944, near the end of the war, and this in fact failed, since the Germans captured the Allied pilots. I’ve not seen documentation from reliable sources of any other such attempts. On the contrary, Gregor Kranjc (p. 145) quotes official SD policies to capture Allied pilots and turn them over to the Germans, with confirmations from SD leaders that they turned over all Allied pilots to the Germans, as well as documentation of specific examples where the SD captured and turned over Allied pilots to the Germans (it should also be noted that this contrasts with over 800 documented pilots and other allied personnel saved by Slovene Partisans, alone, including a joint airfield built by the Allies and Partisans on liberated Slovene territory, from which hundreds of Allied personnel, saved by Partisans, were evacuated). Thus I believe more specifics should be provided here – e.g. that there is only one documented, failed attempt to help Allied pilots, vs. multiple official SD policies, confirmations and documented SD actions of turning Allied pilots over to the Germans Thhhommmasss (talk) 22:21, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  SD helping Allied airmen 

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