Marburg's Bloody Sunday | |
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Part of the Austro-Slovene conflict in Carinthia | |
Coordinates | 46°33′28″N15°38′44″E / 46.55778°N 15.64556°E |
Date | 27 January 1919 |
Target | Citizens of German ethnicity |
Attack type | Shooting |
Deaths | 9–13 |
Injured | 60+ |
Perpetrators | Troops from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes |
Marburg's Bloody Sunday (German: Marburger Blutsonntag, [1] [2] Slovene : Mariborska krvava nedelja) was a shooting that took place on Monday, 27 January 1919 in the city of Maribor (German: Marburg an der Drau) in Slovenia. Soldiers from the army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), under the command of Slovene officer Rudolf Maister, killed between 9 and 13 civilians of German ethnic origin, wounding a further 60, after the soldiers were attacked during a protest in the city centre. Estimates of casualties differ between Slovene and Austrian sources.
In November 1918, after the First World War ended, the territories of southern Carinthia and southern Styria, which had been claimed by both the Republic of German Austria and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, were captured by military units under Maister's command.
Maribor was the largest city of southern Styria and had a predominately German-speaking population, while the surroundings were almost exclusively Slovene. A US delegation led by Sherman Miles visited Maribor on 27 January 1919 as part of a wider mission to resolve territorial disputes. On the same day, German citizens organised a protest proclaiming their desire for Maribor to be incorporated into the Republic of German Austria. When the German protesters attacked the Slovenian police commissioner Ivan Senekovič, Maister's soldiers fired shots into the air and later at the people, causing few casualties. In response, German Austria launched a military offensive which expelled the Yugoslavs from several small towns in Central Styria along the Mur River. A ceasefire was agreed under the mediation of France in February 1919. According to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed on 10 September 1919, Maribor and the rest of Lower Styria became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. No one was ever charged over the Maribor shooting.
The Republic of German Austria was created following the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War and claimed areas with a predominantly German-speaking population within the bounds of the former empire. In addition to the current area of the Republic of Austria, these included parts of South Tyrol and the town of Tarvisio, both now in Italy; southern Carinthia and southern Styria, now in Slovenia; and Sudetenland proper and German Bohemia (later also part of Sudetenland), now in the Czech Republic.
The victorious Allied Powers divided the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian empire between German Austria, Hungary and several other countries. Though the division of territories was conducted through a proclaimed principle of national self-determination, populations of ethnic Germans and Hungarians [3] [4] [5] remained resident in many of these territories, including Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. [6] [7]
Control of the city of Maribor was disputed by Yugoslavia and German Austria. A Federal Act of German Austria, concerning "the Extent, the Borders and the Relations of the State Territories of November 22, 1918", asserted a claim to the region of Lower Styria within which Maribor was located, but excluded from its claim the predominantly Slav-populated regions. [8] To resolve the question of the ownership of Carinthia, the greater region of which Lower Styria formed a part, the U.S.-administered Coolidge Mission in Vienna proposed a demographic investigation of the territory. The mission was led by Archibald Cary Coolidge, professor of history at Harvard College, and operated under the American Commission to Negotiate Peace. The mission appointed a delegation to be led by Colonel Sherman Miles and including Lieutenant LeRoy King, professor of Slavic languages at the University of Missouri, [9] and professors Robert Kerner and Lawrence Martin. [10]
In 1900, the city itself had a population that was 82.3% Austrian German (19,298 people) and 17.3% Slovene (4,062 people; based on the language spoken at home); [11] : 4 most of the city's capital and public life was in Austrian German hands. However, the county excluding the city had only 10,199 Austrian Germans and 78,888 Slovene inhabitants, meaning the city was completely surrounded by majority-Slovene ethnic territory. [11] : 210, 300 Some former independent settlements that later became part of the city had more ethnic Slovenes than Austrian Germans (e.g., Krčevina, Radvanje, Tezno), whereas others had more Austrian Germans than ethnic Slovenes (e.g., Pobrežje and Studenci). [11] : 202–206
In November 1918, the Slovene major (later general) Rudolf Maister seized the city of Maribor and surrounding areas of Lower Styria in the name of the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, a forerunner of Yugoslavia. [12] On 23 November 1918, Maister and his soldiers disarmed and disbanded the "Green Guard" (German: Schutzwehr, Slovene: Zelena Garda) security force maintained by the Maribor city council. [13] Maister captured several villages and towns north of the Mur River, including Lichendorf, Bad Radkersburg, Mureck and Marenberg. [14] On 31 December 1918, Maister's units imprisoned 21 notable Maribor citizens of ethnic German origin. [15]
Sources differ on the exact cause and extent of the shooting in Maribor. [16] All agree that on 27 January 1919, the Coolidge Mission's delegation, led by Sherman Miles, visited Maribor [14] and found thousands of citizens of German ethnic origin gathered in the main city square and waving flags of German Austria, many of which also decorated nearby buildings. [17] German Austrian sources indicate that there were 10,000 protesters singing songs and wearing patriotic dress. Many of these protesters arrived to Maribor from Upper and Central Styria. Twenty soldiers under Maister's command were stationed in front of the city hall, armed with rifles mounted with bayonets. [18]
German-language sources assert that the soldiers began firing into the crowd after they were taunted and after a protester attacked a Slovenian soldier. According to these sources the fatalities numbered 13, and a further 60 protesters were wounded. [19]
A Slovene account of the same event asserts that the soldiers began to fire only when an Austrian citizen discharged a revolver in the direction of the Slovene soldiers, striking the bayonet of one. [20] The soldiers then returned fire: according to this account 11 were killed, and an unknown number wounded.[ citation needed ]
Subsequently, on 4 February 1919, German Austria commenced a military offensive to recover the regions of Central Styria controlled by Maister's troops. [21] A ceasefire was agreed on 10 February 1919, under French mediation from their military mission located in Maribor. [22] On 13 February 1919, a ceasefire agreement was signed and Maister's troops retreated from part of Central Styria. [23]
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed on 10 September 1919 observed that Maribor was firmly under the control of the Yugoslav army and that, since Slovenes constituted a majority in the region surrounding the city, Maribor should remain, with the rest of Lower Styria, within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Responsibility for the shooting in Maribor was never conclusively established. Austrian sources attributed blame to Rudolf Maister, and referenced him in some accounts as the Butcher of Maribor. [24] [25] In Slovenia, by contrast, Maister remains well-regarded; numerous societies [26] institutions and streets [27] are named in his honour and he is commemorated in several monuments. [28] [29]
Maribor is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Lower Styria. It is the seat of the Urban Municipality of Maribor and the Drava statistical region. Maribor is also the economic, administrative, educational, and cultural centre of eastern Slovenia.
The history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovenian territory from the 5th century BC to the present. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste. The Slovenian territory was part of the Roman Empire, and it was devastated by the Migration Period's incursions during late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The main route from the Pannonian plain to Italy ran through present-day Slovenia. Alpine Slavs, ancestors of modern-day Slovenians, settled the area in the late 6th Century AD. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000 years. Between the mid-14th century through 1918 most of Slovenia was under Habsburg rule. In 1918, most Slovene territory became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and in 1929 the Drava Banovina was created within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with its capital in Ljubljana, corresponding to Slovenian-majority territories within the state. The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was created in 1945 as part of federal Yugoslavia. Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, and today it is a member of the European Union and NATO.
Rudolf Maister was a Slovene military officer, poet and political activist. The soldiers who fought under Maister's command in northern Slovenia became known as "Maister's fighters". Maister was also an accomplished poet and self-taught painter.
Carinthia, also Slovene Carinthia or Slovenian Carinthia, is a traditional region in northern Slovenia. The term refers to the small southeasternmost area of the former Duchy of Carinthia, which after World War I was allocated to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. It has no distinct centre, but a local centre in each of the three central river valleys among the heavily forested mountains.
Dravograd is a small town in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria. It is the seat of the Municipality of Dravograd. It lies on the Drava River at the confluence with the Meža and the Mislinja. It is part of the traditional Slovenian provinces of Carinthia and the larger Carinthia Statistical Region.
The Carinthian plebiscite was held on 10 October 1920 in the area in southern Carinthia predominantly settled by Carinthian Slovenes. It determined the final border between the Republic of Austria and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) after World War I. The predominantly Slovene-speaking plebiscite area voted to remain part of Austria with a 59% majority.
Ptuj is the eighth-largest town of Slovenia, located in the traditional region of Styria. It is the seat of the Municipality of Ptuj. Being the oldest recorded city in Slovenia, it has been inhabited since the late Stone Age and developed from a Roman military fort, located at a strategically important crossing of the Drava River along a prehistoric trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic.
Styria, also known as Slovenian Styria or Lower Styria to differentiate it from Austrian Styria, is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of Styria in its historical boundaries amounts to around 705,000 inhabitants, or 34.5% of the population of Slovenia. The largest city is Maribor.
Anton Korošec was a Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator.
Muta is the largest settlement and the centre of the Carinthia Statistical Region of northern Slovenia. Traditionally, it is part of Styria because it was part of the Duchy of Styria. The Muta Bistrica flows though the town, where it enters the Drava River.
The Slovene lands or Slovenian lands is the historical denomination for the territories in Central and Southern Europe where people primarily spoke Slovene. The Slovene lands were part of the Illyrian provinces, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. They encompassed Carniola, southern part of Carinthia, southern part of Styria, Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste, and Prekmurje. Their territory more or less corresponds to modern Slovenia and the adjacent territories in Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, where autochthonous Slovene minorities live. The areas surrounding present-day Slovenia were never homogeneously ethnically Slovene.
Prekmurje Slovene, also known as the Prekmurje dialect, East Slovene, or Wendish, is the language of Prekmurje in Eastern Slovenia, and a variety of the Slovene language. Part of the Pannonian dialect group, it is spoken in the Prekmurje region of Slovenia and by the Hungarian Slovenes in Vas County in western Hungary. It is used in private communication, liturgy and publications by authors from Prekmurje as well as in television, radio and newspapers. It is closely related to other Slovene dialects in neighboring Slovene Styria, as well as to Kajkavian with which it retains a considerable degree of mutual intelligibility, and forms a dialect continuum with other South Slavic languages.
The General Maister Monument is a bronze equestrian statue of Rudolf Maister that stands in a park at Liberation Front Square in front of the Ljubljana railway station. It was created in 1999 by Jakov Brdar as a tribute of the City of Ljubljana to Maister, the first Slovene major general, who secured for Slovenia the city of Maribor.
Peter Štih is a Slovenian historian, specialising in medieval history.
Franjo Malgaj was a Slovenian soldier, military leader and poet. He was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, he became one of the commanding officers in the Slovene volunteer army under Rudolf Maister's command that fought against German Austrian units during the struggle for the northern Slovenian borderlands. He later became an officer in the Army of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He died during the Austrian-Yugoslav struggles in 1919. He is considered a Slovenian national hero.
Mihajlo Rostohar was a Slovenian psychologist, author and educator, who played an important role during the creation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Together with Ivan Hribar and Danilo Majaron, he had a crucial role in the establishment of the University of Ljubljana.
Major General Sherman Miles was an officer of the United States Army, who was Chief of the Military Intelligence Division in 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happened, bringing the United States into World War II.
Lojze Ude was a Slovene lawyer, journalist and historian.
World War II in the Slovene Lands started in April 1941 and lasted until May 1945. The Slovene Lands were in a unique situation during World War II in Europe. In addition to being trisected, a fate which also befell Greece, Drava Banovina was the only region that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Hungary. The Slovene-settled territory was divided largely between Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, with smaller territories occupied and annexed by Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia.
The Austro-Slovene conflict in Carinthia was a military engagement that ensued in the aftermath of World War I between forces loyal to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and forces loyal to the Republic of German-Austria. The main theater of the conflict was the linguistically mixed region in southeastern Carinthia. The conflict was settled by the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1919, which stipulated that the territorial dispute be resolved by a plebiscite.
Marburger Blutsonntag
Tako je prišlo do demonstracij, ki jih je nacionalistični del nemške publistike zaradi streljanja, do katerega je prišlo na Glavnom Trgu pred Mestno Hišo, še danes oznečuje Der Marburger Bluttag...
In this January 8, 1918, address to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proposed a 14-point program for world peace. These points were later taken as the basis for peace negotiations at the end of the war.... Germany quickly found out that Wilson's blueprint for world peace would not apply to them.
10. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. This proposition no longer holds. Instead we have [today] the following elements: (1) Czechoslovakia. Its territories include at least a million Germans for whom some provision must be made. The independence of Slovakia means the dismemberment of the northwestern countries of Hungary. (3) German Austria. This territory should of right be permitted to join Germany, but there is strong objection in [France] because of the increase of [population] involved.
... por. King, profesor za slovanske jezike na Unverzi v Misuriju
Sie bestand aus Oberstleutnant Sherman Miles, Leutnant Le Roy King und den Professoren Robert Kerner und Lawrence Martin.
(Maisterovo nenadano i potpuno samoinicijativno proglašenje Maribora dijelom Jugolavije 1. XI i preuzimanje vojne komande nad gradom i čitavom Donjom Štajerskom
Mestni svet mesta Maribor je sklenil, da so vsi za orožje sposobni ljudje, v Mariboru stanujoči ljudje, od dovršenega 18. do dovršenega 50. leta starosti dolzm služiti v mariborski Schutzwehr in se morajo torej vsi v Mariboru stanujoči možje rojstnih letnikov od 1868 do vključno 1900 javiti pri mariborski Schutzwehr...Za razorožitev je določil Maister 23. november, začetek pa na 4. uro zjutraj...23. novembra, istega dne, ko je bila razorožena Schutzwehr, ..
In the south, Slovene nationalist militia units....occupied three major centers of South Styrian German nationalists politics .. Major Rudolf Maister, a Slovene nationalist and Austrian commander of the militia in Maribor, had taken control of all military forces... In late November his units moved northward to occupy the north bank of the Mur/Mura River, including towns of Radkersburg/Radgona and Spielfeld/Spilje
Določil sem 21 uglednih mariborskih meščanov kot talce,..
Slovensko in nemška poročila si med seboj in v sebi preveč nasprotujejo
Takoj po prihodu Američanov so se na hišah glavnih ulic, kmalu na to pa po vsem mestu, pojavile črno - rdeče - rumene trobojnice, frankfurtarice. Mariborsko nemško meščanstvo, pomešano z ljudmi, ki so prišli od drugod, se je začelo zbirati v neprestano naraščajoče sprevode.
Stražniki so imeli v rokah puške z nasajenim bajoneti
Eine Salve nach der anderen feuerten die Soldaten in die nichtsahnende, wehr- und waffenlose Volksmenge, .... 13 Tote und etwa 60 Verwundete...
Naenkrat slišim strel iz množice, ki je zadel bajonet na puški predmenoj stoječega vojaka.
... Nemški napad na Radgono se je začel 4. februarja ..
...naj se določijo pogoji premirja in začnejo pogajanja,..ob navzočnosti francoske misije začela 10. februarja pogajanja.
...Zaključila so se 13. februarja .Jugoslovanska posadka se umakne iz Cmureka na južni breg,
Er war der Sohn einer ethnisch gemischten Familie in der Steiermark, wurde von seiner slowenischen Mutter zu einem glühenden Nationalisten erzogen und ging als „Schlächter von Marburg"
„Schlächter von Marburg"
KAJ VSE JE POSVEČENO RUDOLFU MAISTRU: Seznam objektov po krajih: Maribor: Spomeniki, Relief, Kipi, Osnovne šole, Razstava; Kamnik: Spomenik, Srednja šola; Ljubljana: Spomenik, Ulice.
Spomenik generala Rudolfa Maistra stoji na današnjem Trgu generala Maistra od leta 1987. Rudolf Maister sodi zaradi svojih zaslug pri oblikovanju slovenske severne državne meje med izjemno pomembne Mariborčane.