Preobrat na Gorenjskem v letu 1943

The year 1943 marked a number of changes in the military and political developments in the Gorenjska region, which had from April 1941 been under German occupation and de facto annexed to the Third Reich through various measures of the German authorities. That year, the German state was completing its last major investments in the local infrastructure, and the authorities also started mass mobilisation into the compulsory labour service and German army. Despite the fact that in early May, Gorenjska was visited by the SS leader and Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, Heinrich Himmler, this was the year when all remaining Germanisation plans by the occupation authorities, particularly the long-term colonisation of German farmers, foundered. Following Italy’s surrender in September 1943, there was an increase in the strength of the Partisan army in Gorenjska and particularly in the activities of the Security and Intelligence Service (VOS), as well as in the number of civilian casualties caused by the latter. In late 1943 and early 1944, this resulted in the first seeds of the Home Guard in Gorenjska. The threat of air raids by the Western Allies increased, and the supply of necessities to the population became more difficult.