This memorial to the victims (partisans) of the Second World War during the National Socialist regime in Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945 is located on the wall of a house in Piran.
"alla memoria di tutti gli eroici
compagni caduti per dare al popolo
liberta pace lavoro
i partigiani e il popolo di pirano
ouesta lapide posero
luglio 1948
glorio eterna
eroi del popolo"
"to the memory of all the heroics
fallen comrades to give the people
freedom peace work
the partisans and the people of piran
Ouest gravestone posed
July 1948
eternal glory
Heroes of the people"
"German Occupation Policy in Yugoslavia 1941-1945
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the German Wehrmacht and allied forces on 6 April 1941 without prior declaration of war and conquered within a very short time. The trigger had been a coup against the Belgrade government (27 March 1941), which seemed to endanger Yugoslavia's accession to the Three-Power Pact. The poorly equipped Yugoslav army, which was also partly disloyal to the unloved state, was overrun by the attackers. King and government fled to Great Britain. Yugoslavia capitulated and was divided between Nazi Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria.
The Division of Yugoslavia among the Occupying Powers 1941. Taken from Dunja Melcic ed., The Yugoslavian War. Manual on Prehistory, Course and Consequences. Opladen/Wiesbaden 1999, 166.
With the occupation of the country, which had originally not been one of its war aims, Nazi Germany wanted to secure the disposal of Yugoslavian raw materials and labour and "pacify" the Balkans in view of the Russian campaign. In addition, the "rebellious" Serbs were to be punished. Accordingly, the "Operation Criminal Court" on 6 April 1941 reduced Belgrade to rubble and ashes.
The occupation policy of the Third Reich was marked from the beginning by terror against the civilian population. The Jews and Roma of Yugoslavia were systematically persecuted within the sphere of influence of the German occupying forces. In the so-called "Independent State of Croatia", the fascist organization of the Ustaša also took part, and ethnic Serbs were among the victims. How many people lost their lives in Ustaša concentration camps such as Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška is not exactly known. In any case, over 90 percent of the Jewish population fell victim to the Holocaust in the "Independent State of Croatia". The number of Roma murdered on this territory is estimated at 40,000. Civilians were also held hostage and shot in "retaliatory actions". The initial quota was 100 people for one killed German soldier and 50 people for one injured. (Later it was halved and finally officially abolished.) In 1941 thousands of people, including young people, fell victim to "retaliatory actions" by the Wehrmacht in the Serbian cities of Kraljevo and Kragujevac. Among civilians and inmates of the camps and prisons in occupied Yugoslavia, forced laborers were also recruited for the German war economy. They worked partly in the "Reich" and partly in Yugoslavian industrial enterprises (e.g. the Bor mine). In addition, Yugoslav prisoners of war also had to work hard in Germany. The German attempts at Germanization in Slovenia can also be seen as part of a "racist ideologically founded repression policy" (Dlugoborski 1996, 21).
As early as the summer of 1941, two resistance movements against the German occupation were formed: the communist-led "People's Liberation Movement", better known as "Tito Partisans", and the Serbian nationalist, royalist Cetnici Draža Mihailovic'. The latter soon saw their worst enemy in the partisans and fought - sometimes even together with the occupiers - against the "People's Liberation Movement", but otherwise waited for developments on the international theatres of war. The partisans, on the other hand, whose leadership hoped to be able to create the basis for a later seizure of power in the resistance, waged a stubborn small war against occupiers and collaborating armed groups. Between 1941 and 1945, Yugoslavia was also ravaged by an ethnonationalist civil war motivated by political rivalries.
Armed resistance poured oil on the fire of occupation terror, not least because it made it impossible to exploit Yugoslavia's economic potential. Adolf Hitler finally ordered the use of "the most brutal means" in the "fight against the gangs" (order of 16 December 1942, BA-MA RW 40/50). Forced relocations and expulsions, the destruction of entire villages and hostage killings, which had already been on the agenda before, received their alleged justification by the partisan danger.
The German occupation policy soon proved to be counterproductive with regard to the occupation goal - "pacification" for the purpose of exploiting resources. The collaborative governments were weak (as in Serbia) or further aggravated the situation through their tyranny (as in the "Independent State of Croatia").
The partisan movement under Tito, on the other hand, gained in attractiveness and, especially since Italy's capitulation in September 1943, has enjoyed growing success. It liberated large territories, established its organs of power there and even formed a provisional government. Between autumn 1944 and May 1945, the "People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia", as the armed arm of the movement was called, succeeded, partly in cooperation with the Red Army, in driving the occupying soldiers out of Yugoslavia and also in decisively weakening their civil war opponents Ustaša and Cetnici . The combination of liberation and revolutionary war had proved to be a successful strategy for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to seize power. Occupation terror, liberation and civil war, however, had claimed about one million lives and largely destroyed the economy and infrastructure of the already weakly developed country."
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