 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(September 2018) |
SS-Heimatschutz Slowakei (HS) was an auxiliary military formation within the Waffen-SS in Slovakia during World War II.
From 1943, the agents of the Deutsche Partei of the Slovakian Germans, sent news of partisan activities in Slovakia to Germany. In the summer of 1944, these reports were becoming more common and more specific about the activities of partisans in Eastern and Central Slovakia. On July 25, 1944, a meeting of Slovak German leaders was held in Bratislava. Here, Franz Karmasin called for the establishment of a paramilitary organization in the Slovak state. On August 19, 1944 Karmas sent a summary report to Heinrich Himmler in which he stated that the situation in Slovakia was becoming critical, not only because of frequent partisan activities but also because of the division and weakness of the Slovak forces. Karmasin also informed Himmler that the Germans in Slovakia had begun to set up the Heimatschutz (HS), an armed organization under the command of Ferdinand Klug, head of the Freiwillige Schutzstaffel (FS), with the agreement of the German Embassy.
The main task of Heimatschutz was to protect the German minority in Slovakia against possible partisan attacks, so they started arming their members. Karmasin's plan failed however because the Slovak national uprising exploded earlier than expected on August 29, 1944, and in some cases the weapons intended for arming the Heimatschutz members were seized by the partisans. At the beginning of September 1944, the training of members of the HS armed organization began, involving the 8,000 male Germans in Slovakia. At the time of the uprising, Heimatschutz units were under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger. Following the outbreak of the uprising, armed units of the HS were strengthened and in many cases committed crimes against the Slovak civilian population. There were campaigns against the partisans hiding in the mountains and in the forests. After the collapse of the Slovak national uprising, in November 1944, the Heimatschutz, together with SS units and the Hlinka Guard, embarked on a campaign of terror.
In March 1945, the Heimatschutz armed forces were reorganized, and the SS-Heimatschutz "Slowakei" unit was set up under SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Thumser. The commander of the SS-Heimatschutz "Slowakei" was Colonel Rudolf Pilfousek, formerly an officer of the Czechoslovak Army, who had later participated in the campaign against the Soviet Union as an officer of the Slovakian army and joined the SS in 1944 as SS-Standartenführer. Pilfousek was directly responsible to SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger. The operations of SS-Heimatschutz "Slowakei" were not long-lived, its combat activity was not significant, and its members had a low level of combat morale.
 | This German World War II article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Gottlob Christian Berger was a senior German Nazi official who held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS and was the chief of the SS Main Office responsible for Schutzstaffel (SS) recruiting during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS – within which Berger was a senior officer – was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Berger was convicted as a war criminal and spent six and a half years in prison.
Oskar Paul Dirlewanger was a German military officer (SS-Oberführer) in Germany. He played a significant role as the founder and commander of the SS penal unit known as the "Dirlewanger" during World War II.
The Dirlewanger Brigade, also known as the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944), or the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, or The Black Hunters, was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II. The unit, named after its commander Oskar Dirlewanger, consisted of convicted criminals who were not expected to survive their service with the unit. Originally formed from convicted poachers in 1940 and first deployed for counter-insurgency duties against the Polish resistance movement, the brigade saw service in anti-partisan actions in German-occupied Eastern Europe.
The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", initially named the SS-Volunteer Division Prinz Eugen, was a mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, an armed branch of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. From 1942 to 1945, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in occupied Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1941 from both Reich Germans and Volksdeutsche – ethnic German volunteers and conscripts from the Banat, Independent State of Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The division surrendered on 11 May 1945 to Yugoslav Partisan forces.
The (First) Slovak Republic, otherwise known as the Slovak State, was a partially-recognized client state of Nazi Germany which existed between 14 March 1939 and 4 April 1945 after abandoning Czechoslovakia to be annexed by Germany. The Slovak part of Czechoslovakia declared independence with German support one day before the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. The Slovak Republic controlled the majority of the territory of present-day Slovakia but without its current southern parts, which were ceded by Czechoslovakia to Hungary in 1938. It was the first time in history that Slovakia had been a formally independent state.
Haviva Reik was one of 32 or 33 parachutists sent by the Jewish Agency and Britain's MI9 on military missions in Nazi-occupied Europe. Reik went to Slovakia in fall 1944 and worked with local Jewish people to resist the German occupation there. She established a camp for Russian prisoners of war who had escaped, and helped organize a Jewish resistance unit. The Germans organized forces to put down the Jewish resistance, and Reik and the other parachutists escaped with about 40 local Jews into the mountains. In November 1944, however, Reik and the other parachutists were captured, killed, and buried in a mass grave.
Kaminski Brigade, also known as Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, was a collaborationist formation composed of Russian nationals from the territory of the Lokot Autonomy in Axis-occupied areas of the RSFSR, Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
The 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS also Legione SS Italiana was an SS formation of Nazi Germany during World War II. It was originally created in the puppet Italian Social Republic in 1943 as the Italian Legion, later renamed to a brigade. The unit was upgraded to division status on 10 February 1945.
Halim Malkoč was a Bosniak Imam and SS Obersturmführer in the Waffen-SS division Handschar, and the first Muslim awarded the German Iron Cross during World War II. He received the medal for his involvement in the suppression of the Villefranche-de-Rouergue mutiny of 1943. He was born to a Bosniak family in Bihać on 12 August 1917.
During World War II, Slovakia was a client state of Nazi Germany and a member of the Axis powers. It participated in the war against the Soviet Union and deported most of its Jewish population.
Ludwig Hermann Karl Hahn was a German SS-Standartenführer, Nazi official and convicted war criminal. He held numerous positions with the German police and security services over the course of his career with the Schutzstaffel (SS).
The Slovak National Uprising was a military uprising organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War II in central Slovakia. This resistance movement was represented mainly by members of the Democratic Party, social democrats, and communists. It was launched on 29 August 1944 from Banská Bystrica in an attempt to resist German troops that had occupied Slovak territory and to overthrow the collaborationist government of Jozef Tiso. Although the resistance was largely defeated by German forces, guerrilla operations continued until the Red Army, Czechoslovak Army and Romanian Army occupied the Slovak Republic in 1945.
The Carpathian German Party was a political party in Czechoslovakia, active amongst the Carpathian German minority of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus'. It began as a bourgeois centrist party, but after teaming up with the Sudeten German Party in 1933 it developed in a National Socialist orientation.
Franz Karmasin was an ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia, who helped found the Carpathian German Party. During World War II he was state secretary of German affairs in the Slovak Republic, and rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer.
The Slovak Expeditionary Army Group was an element of the military forces of the Slovak Republic that fought under Nazi German command on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Einsatzgruppe H was one of the Einsatzgruppen, the paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany. A special task force of more than 700 soldiers, it was created at the end of August 1944 to deport or murder the remaining Jews in Slovakia following the German suppression of the Slovak National Uprising. During its seven-month existence, Einsatzgruppe H collaborated closely with the Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions and arrested 18,937 people, of whom at least 2,257 were murdered; thousands of others were deported to Nazi concentration camps. The victims included Jews, Romani people, actual or suspected Slovak partisans, and real or perceived political opponents. One of its component units, Einsatzkommando 14, committed the two of the largest massacres in the history of Slovakia, at Kremnička and Nemecká.
The Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions or Flying Squads of the Hlinka Guard were Slovak paramilitary formations set up to counter the August 1944 Slovak National Uprising. They are best known for the role they played in murdering Jews, Romani people, and actual or suspected Slovak partisans in conjunction with Einsatzgruppe H, especially for their participation in the Kremnička massacre.
Tibor Kováč (1905–1952) was an activist in the illegal Working Group resistance organization during the Holocaust in Slovakia; he also worked for the welfare department of the Ústredňa Židov (ÚŽ), the Judenrat in the Slovak State.
The German Youth in Slovakia was a youth organization in the Second World War Slovak Republic. The organization functioned as the youth wing of the German Party. DJ was modelled after the Hitler Youth in the German Reich. The leader (Landesleiter) of DJ was F. Klug.
The First Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia was an ad-hoc military formation formed by the insurgents of the Slovak National Uprising against Nazi Germany. It was destroyed by German and pro-German Slovak forces as part of the successful crackdown against the Slovak National Uprising.