The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945
The atrocities and mass murders committed by Josip Broz Tito's Partisan units of the Yugoslav Army immediately after the Second World War had no place in the conscience of Socialist Yugoslavia. More than once, the annual Croatian commemoration of the Bleiburg victims was subject to attacks carried out by the socialist Yugoslav state. Abroad in the West, on Austrian soil, the Yugoslav secret service (UDBA) did not shy away from murdering the protagonist of the Croatian memory culture, Nicola Martinovic, as late as 1975. The official history was aligned with a firm interpretational paradigm that called for a glorification of the anti-fascist "people's liberation resistance." With the breakup of Yugoslavia and its socialist regime in 1991, the identity-establishing accounts of contemporary witnesses, which had mainly been cherished in exile circles abroad, increasingly reached public awareness in Croatia and Slovenia.

In the 1990s Croatia witnessed the emergence of a memory that had been suppressed by the socialist-Yugoslav regime—namely the Bleiburg tragedy. The situation in Slovenia was similar in terms of identity and remembrance culture. Among the Slovenes, the communist crimes committed during the turmoil are known as the drama of Viktring or the Viktring tragedy, named after the largest refugee camp of the Slovenes. Reports on the communist postwar crimes and on the countless discoveries of mass gravesites have also begun circulating in the media of the German-speaking world in the last few years. Florian Rulitz's meticulously researched book, now available for the first time in English, provides a corrective to the historical memory that had been previously accepted as truth. Rulitz focuses on two essential questions. First, did the so-called "final encirclement battles" indeed occur in Carinthia in the Ferlach/Hollenburg/Viktring and Dravograd/Poljana/Bleiburg areas, resulting in military victories for the Yugoslav Army? Second, were the battles after the capitulation fought by the refugees with the aim of reaching the British-controlled areas in Carinthia? To answer these questions, Rulitz presents a detailed reconstruction of those days in May 1945. He furthermore considers the question of the murders on Austrian territory, which were hushed up in Partisan literature and presented as casualties of the final military operations. This groundbreaking study will interest scholars and students of modern European history.

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The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945
The atrocities and mass murders committed by Josip Broz Tito's Partisan units of the Yugoslav Army immediately after the Second World War had no place in the conscience of Socialist Yugoslavia. More than once, the annual Croatian commemoration of the Bleiburg victims was subject to attacks carried out by the socialist Yugoslav state. Abroad in the West, on Austrian soil, the Yugoslav secret service (UDBA) did not shy away from murdering the protagonist of the Croatian memory culture, Nicola Martinovic, as late as 1975. The official history was aligned with a firm interpretational paradigm that called for a glorification of the anti-fascist "people's liberation resistance." With the breakup of Yugoslavia and its socialist regime in 1991, the identity-establishing accounts of contemporary witnesses, which had mainly been cherished in exile circles abroad, increasingly reached public awareness in Croatia and Slovenia.

In the 1990s Croatia witnessed the emergence of a memory that had been suppressed by the socialist-Yugoslav regime—namely the Bleiburg tragedy. The situation in Slovenia was similar in terms of identity and remembrance culture. Among the Slovenes, the communist crimes committed during the turmoil are known as the drama of Viktring or the Viktring tragedy, named after the largest refugee camp of the Slovenes. Reports on the communist postwar crimes and on the countless discoveries of mass gravesites have also begun circulating in the media of the German-speaking world in the last few years. Florian Rulitz's meticulously researched book, now available for the first time in English, provides a corrective to the historical memory that had been previously accepted as truth. Rulitz focuses on two essential questions. First, did the so-called "final encirclement battles" indeed occur in Carinthia in the Ferlach/Hollenburg/Viktring and Dravograd/Poljana/Bleiburg areas, resulting in military victories for the Yugoslav Army? Second, were the battles after the capitulation fought by the refugees with the aim of reaching the British-controlled areas in Carinthia? To answer these questions, Rulitz presents a detailed reconstruction of those days in May 1945. He furthermore considers the question of the murders on Austrian territory, which were hushed up in Partisan literature and presented as casualties of the final military operations. This groundbreaking study will interest scholars and students of modern European history.

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The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945

The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945

The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945

The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945

Overview

The atrocities and mass murders committed by Josip Broz Tito's Partisan units of the Yugoslav Army immediately after the Second World War had no place in the conscience of Socialist Yugoslavia. More than once, the annual Croatian commemoration of the Bleiburg victims was subject to attacks carried out by the socialist Yugoslav state. Abroad in the West, on Austrian soil, the Yugoslav secret service (UDBA) did not shy away from murdering the protagonist of the Croatian memory culture, Nicola Martinovic, as late as 1975. The official history was aligned with a firm interpretational paradigm that called for a glorification of the anti-fascist "people's liberation resistance." With the breakup of Yugoslavia and its socialist regime in 1991, the identity-establishing accounts of contemporary witnesses, which had mainly been cherished in exile circles abroad, increasingly reached public awareness in Croatia and Slovenia.

In the 1990s Croatia witnessed the emergence of a memory that had been suppressed by the socialist-Yugoslav regime—namely the Bleiburg tragedy. The situation in Slovenia was similar in terms of identity and remembrance culture. Among the Slovenes, the communist crimes committed during the turmoil are known as the drama of Viktring or the Viktring tragedy, named after the largest refugee camp of the Slovenes. Reports on the communist postwar crimes and on the countless discoveries of mass gravesites have also begun circulating in the media of the German-speaking world in the last few years. Florian Rulitz's meticulously researched book, now available for the first time in English, provides a corrective to the historical memory that had been previously accepted as truth. Rulitz focuses on two essential questions. First, did the so-called "final encirclement battles" indeed occur in Carinthia in the Ferlach/Hollenburg/Viktring and Dravograd/Poljana/Bleiburg areas, resulting in military victories for the Yugoslav Army? Second, were the battles after the capitulation fought by the refugees with the aim of reaching the British-controlled areas in Carinthia? To answer these questions, Rulitz presents a detailed reconstruction of those days in May 1945. He furthermore considers the question of the murders on Austrian territory, which were hushed up in Partisan literature and presented as casualties of the final military operations. This groundbreaking study will interest scholars and students of modern European history.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780875807225
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 03/07/2016
Edition description: 1
Pages: 290
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Florian Thomas Rulitz is a historian of contemporary Alps-Adriatic military history.

Table of Contents

Foreword Paul E. Gottfried xi

Author's Preface xv

Acknowledgments xvii

Preface to the First and Second German Editions Heinz Dieter Pohl xix

Author's Note on the Use of Names xxv

Introduction 1

Pivotal Issues 3

Body of Literature and Source Material 3

The State of the Research 4

Main Themes and Limitations 5

Chapter 1 Background 7

The Occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945 7

From the Partisans to the Yugoslav Army 9

Diverse Military Formations and State Building 12

Independent Croatia versus Croatian Antifascist People's Liberation Movement 12

Anti-Communist Defense Formations in Croatia 15

Chetniks against Chetniks 16

Slovenia, the Torn People-The Civil War between the "White Guards" and Tito's "Red Partisans" 17

Chapter 2 Main Escape Routes into Carinthia 21

Escape Route 1 Across the Loibl Pass into Klagenfurt-Viktring 23

Escape Route 2 Across the Mezica Valley/Meziška dolina into Bleiburg/Pliberk 34

The Arrival of the Refugees on Bleiburg Field 36

Negotiation Rounds 37

The Rejection and the Massacre on Bleiburg Field 39

Escape Route 3 Across the Kamnik Alps/Kamniške Alpe into Völkermarkt 43

Well Beyond May 15-Clashes along the Drava 45

Chapter 3 The Detention Camps and the Chronology of the British Repatriations 50

The Refugee Camp of the Slovenes on Viktring Field 50

Main Reception Camps of the Croats-The Camps Grafenstein and Krumpendorf 53

The Extradition of the Refugees, May 18-31, 1945 54

The British Command Chains from Caserta and the British-Yugoslav Negotiations in Klagenfurt 54

The Extradition of the Croats, May 18-24, 1945 60

The Extradition of the Serbs, Montenegrins, and Slovenes, May 24-31, 1945 62

The Prevention of Further Repatriations and the Emigration Overseas 64

Chapter 4 The Killing Grounds and Mass Graves-Places of Violence and Remembrance 83

Killing and Burial Grounds on Austrian Territory 83

Killing and Burial Grounds in the Bleiburg/Pliberk Area 85

Killing and Burial Grounds in the Taun Valley/Podjuna 88

Killing and Burial Grounds in the Bad Eisenkappel/Zelezna Kapla Municipal Area 90

Killing and Burial Grounds in the Völkermarkt/Velikovec Area 91

The Mass Grave Glainach/Glinie-The Massacre of Slovene Refugees in the Reichmann Forest 92

Killing and Burial Grounds in the Eastern Klagenfurt Area (Grafenstein/Grabštanj-Ebenthal/Zrelec) 93

The Reinterpreted and Hushed-Up Partisan Victims in the Municipality of Köttmannsdorf/Kotmara vas 98

Murdered versus Fallen Refugees and the Casualties of the Fights at Ferlach/Borovlje 100

Ethnic Focus of the Cleansings on Origin and Region-German and Slav Victim Groups by Comparison 104

Mass Grave Sites in Slovenia and Croatia 108

Slovenia 108

Croatia 112

Chapter 5 The Mass Crimes-Revenge or Revolutionary Violence? 114

The Mass Grave Leše (Liescha) in the Koroška (Carinthia)-The Austrian Victims of Partisan Violence-Revenge or Revolution? 117

Tito's Partisans Serving the Revolution 121

The Background of the Communist Terror Intelligence Service, OZNA, in Relation to Slovenia 125

The Intelligence Service OZNA and the Security Elite Unit KNOJ-"Communist Killing Services" of the Revolution 126

Chapter 6 The OZNA/UDBA Terror in Austria after 1945 131

Carinthia in the Net of the Yugoslav Intelligence 131

The Terror against the Yugoslav Emigrants and the Christian-Conservative Part of the Slovene Minority in Carinthia 133

The Terror against the Anti-Communist Care of Graves and Remembrance Culture-Martinovic, the Last Victim of the Bleiburg Tragedy 137

The Murder Case of Nikola Martinovic in Comparison to the Murder Case of Ðurekovic 141

Conclusion: "The Grand Finale of the Yugoslav Army in Carinthia" versus the Tragedies of Bleiburg and Viktring 147

Crimes against Humanity versus "War Casualties" and the Shared Responsibility of the British 151

The Shared Responsibility of the British for the Massacres 154

Postface: "The Large-Scale Death": The Massacres of Bleiburg and Viktring Tomislav Sunic 159

Table of Spellings and Synonymous Terms 161

Appendixes 163

Summary of Research Results and the Mast Important New Historical Findings 167

Against the Forgetting 178

Transcript: Kronenzeitung, Kärnten, Sunday, May 4, 2014 185

List of Abbreviations 187

Notes 189

Bibliography 257

Index 287

What People are Saying About This

Lee Congdon

Based upon impressive research, Rulitz's study shows that thousands of anticommunist refugees were murdered by Tito's Partisans-in many cases after having been repatriated by the British as the price for a Yugoslav Army withdrawal from Austrian territory. In his attempt to correct historical memory, Rulitz has written an important and original book.

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