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Slovak National Uprising

Slovak National Uprising (Slovak: Slovenské národné povstanie, abbreviated SNP; alternatively also Povstanie roku 1944, English: The Uprising of 1944) is the name for a military uprising organised by the Slovak resistance during the Second World War. The uprising was directed on the one hand against the occupation of Slovakia by the German Wehrmacht, which began on 29 August 1944, and on the other against the Slovak collaborationist regime of the Ludaks under Jozef Tiso. Along with the Warsaw Uprising, it was the largest uprising against the Nazism and its allies in Europe.

Carried by parts of the Slovak army, the main area of the uprising was in central Slovakia, with the town of Banská Bystrica as its centre. The Slovak insurgent army (officially the "1st Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia") was under the overall command of a military headquarters of the opposition Slovak National Council. This represented a coalition of the bourgeois Democratic Party and the Slovak communists and was linked to the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London. The uprising was additionally supported by Soviet and Slovak partisan units. At the beginning of the uprising, the insurgents controlled over half of what was then Slovak territory, but quickly lost ground as a result of the German advance. After 60 days of fighting, the uprising ended on 28 October 1944 when, with the fall of Banská Bystrica, the military leadership of the insurgents gave up open fighting against the Wehrmacht and, without surrendering, switched to pure partisan fighting, which they continued until the Red Army occupied Slovakia in April 1945.

As a result of the uprising, both parties to the conflict also committed numerous war crimes. In the areas controlled by the insurgents, up to 1,500 people were murdered (mostly members of the German minority), while the German occupation regime, for its part, claimed up to 5,000 lives (about 2,000 of them Jews), especially after the suppression of the uprising with targeted "punitive measures" against the civilian population. The German leadership also used the uprising as an opportunity to complete the extermination of the Jews in Slovakia, in the course of which more than 14,000 Jews were deported or murdered on Slovak territory by the end of the war. A total of about 30,000 Slovak citizens were deported to German prison, labour, internment and concentration camps.

After the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the Slovak National Uprising underwent strong reinterpretations, as a result of which the share of communists and partisans in the uprising was overrated by official Czechoslovak historiography. The bourgeois resistance and the significance of the insurgent army, whose representatives were persecuted by the communist leadership after 1948, were neglected. With the fall of communism in 1989, a process of re-evaluation began in Slovakia, through which the role of the bourgeois resistance and the insurgent army was emphasised. 29 August is a bank holiday in today's Slovakia.

Prehistory

Initial political situation

On 14 March 1939, under strong pressure from the Third Reich, the Slovak Parliament declared independence from the Czecho-Slovak Republic and proclaimed the Slovak State.[5] Slovakia's political development in the following six years was determined by its status as a "protective state" of the German Reich. [6] In the "Protection Treaty" concluded on 23 March 1939, Slovakia undertook to conduct its foreign policy and the building of its army "in close agreement" with the German Reich and to make a "protection zone" in the western part of the country available to the Wehrmacht for the establishment of military installations and garrisons. In the additionally concluded "Confidential Protocol on Economic and Financial Cooperation", Germany also secured its interests vis-à-vis the Slovak economy. In return, the German Reich undertook to "protect the political independence of the Slovak state and the integrity of its territory."[7]

Nevertheless, at the time of the state's founding, Slovakia's independence was still far from being assured. The flexibility of the German Reich in its protective obligations became apparent shortly after independence, when Slovakia was invaded by Hungarian troops and subsequently had to cede eastern Slovakian territories to Horthy's Hungary. Berlin did not grant Slovakia any protection in this conflict, but merely assumed the role of mediator. In fact, for several months after the formation of the Slovak state, the German leadership was still unclear about its continued existence and regarded it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Hungary and Poland. Since only the German government could give a guarantee of the existence of the independent state, good conduct and compliancy were therefore the order of the day among Slovak politicians, so as not to jeopardise protection by the German Reich."[8] Jozef Tiso, President of Slovakia and leader of the Ludak party.

The Slovak state was governed by a one-party regime of the dictatorial Ludaks. Historians sometimes classify it as fascist[9] or - with reference to the close ties between the government and the Catholic clergy - as clerical-fascist[10], but also simply as totalitarian[11] or authoritarian. The Slovak constitution of July 1939 was modelled more on the constitutions of Salazar's Portugal and Dollfuss' Austria than on the dictatorship of the National Socialists.[12] The domestic political situation in Slovakia from 1939 to 1942 was determined by a power struggle between the state president and party leader Jozef Tiso on the one hand and the prime minister and foreign minister Vojtech Tuka on the other. While Tuka, out of his admiration for National Socialism, entered into a voluntary relationship of instruction with the Third Reich, it was Tiso's endeavour to shield Slovak society from German influence. In return, however, Tiso was prepared to cooperate in the economic sphere, in military participation in the wars against Poland and the Soviet Union, and in the deportation of Slovak Jews. In 1942, by introducing the Führerprinzip, Tiso was able to oust Tuka and his radical party wing and subsequently establish a presidential dictatorship.[13]

On the international political scene, the Slovak state initially established itself relatively successfully despite its limited sovereignty. Even before the beginning of the Second World War, it obtained de jure or de facto recognition by 18 states,[14] including Great Britain (de facto, 4 May 1939) and France (de facto, 14 July 1939).[15] After the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939, de facto and de jure recognition by the Soviet Union also soon followed.[16] In total, the Slovak state was recognised by 27 states in the course of its existence.[17] In the wake of the Salzburg dictatorship, the Slovak state was recognised by 27 states.

As a result of the Salzburg Conference of 1940, Slovakia became even more closely tied to the German Reich.[18] In November 1940, Slovakia joined the Axis powers, which led to Slovakia's declaration of war against the Soviet Union in June 1941 and against Great Britain and the United States in December 1941. Through its support of the Third Reich, Slovakia fell into ever greater international isolation and reduced its chances of a possible post-war existence, especially when the Allies adopted the restoration of Czechoslovakia as one of their wartime objectives in 1941.[19] Since the Allies would now not recognise an independent Slovakia after the war, the question was no longer whether Slovakia would become part of Czechoslovakia again, but only under what conditions.[20]

Collaboration regime and population

The Ludaks of the ruling Hlinka party had already been the strongest political force in Slovakia since 1925, but within Czechoslovakia they never received more than a third of the Slovak electoral votes.[21] In the autumn of 1938 they took over the autonomous Slovak provincial government and by December 1938 imposed a one-party dictatorship in which only the political representations of the German and Hungarian minorities remained.[22] The other bourgeois parties were pressured into forced unification with the Hlinka Party, and left-wing and Jewish parties were banned. Press censorship was introduced and a concentration camp for actual or alleged opponents of the regime was set up in Ilava.[23] With its organisations - the Hlinka Guard and the Hlinka Youth - it strove to dominate all life in Slovakia.[24] The emergence of the Slovak state was seen by many Ludaks - despite its shortcomings and limitations under constitutional law - as the completion of Slovak national-emancipatory aspirations.[25]

But the majority of the Slovak population also took a decidedly positive view of its new state, at least in the first years of its existence. In contrast to the Czech protectorate, Slovakia had been spared a German occupation, and in terms of domestic and cultural policy it remained largely autonomous. The restriction of civil liberties was considered tolerable (the regime's brutality was concentrated against the Jews) and the economy profited greatly from the war. Education, science and culture also experienced an upswing. Until the late summer of 1944, conditions in Slovakia were better than in neighbouring countries in Central Europe, so that for years the Slovak government could rely on broad tolerance or even approval of its measures by the population.[26] The representatives and members of the Protestant Church in particular were dissatisfied with the government. They made up about 17% of the Slovak population, were traditionally Czechoslovak-oriented and felt treated as second-class citizens by the Catholic-dominated Ludaken regime. Since December 1938, only four Lutherans were represented in the Slovak parliament, and only one Protestant, Defence Minister Ferdinand Čatloš, made it into the government and the continued presidency of the Hlinka party.[27]

Contributing to the disgruntlement of the Slovak population were the very unpopular wars against the Slavic states of Poland and the Soviet Union, in which Slovakia participated with its own troops,[28] as well as the establishment of German advisory positions in Slovak ministries, the one-sided orientation towards Hitler's Germany and the exaggerated nationalism. [29] Later, the Slovak regime's policy towards the Jews also met with widespread social disapproval.[30] After the Salzburg Conference in 1940, the strengthened radical party wing of Prime Minister Tuka's Ludaks pushed through a rapid radicalisation of the so-called "solution to the Jewish question". The Jewish Code issued by the government in September 1941 completed the transition from the hitherto customary religious to the racial assessment of the Jewish question and was among the harshest anti-Semitic laws in Europe.[31] On Tuka's initiative, two-thirds of the Slovak Jews (about 58,000) were then deported to German extermination camps between March and October 1942; of these, only a few hundred survived.[32]

After the war situation turned in the winter of 1942/43, unrest within Slovakia increased.[33] In 1943, major news of German defeats (Stalingrad, Kursk, Italy's exit from the war) and the looming overall German defeat reached the country. Under the impression of the victories of the Red Army, but also of the spreading news of Nazi war crimes in the Soviet Union, a wave of Russophilia and Slavophilia grew in Slovak society.[34] Thus, in the spring of 1944, Slovakia outwardly presented the image of an "oasis of peace", but internally fundamental changes and a radical change of mood had taken place in all strata of the population. [35] Nevertheless, despite growing anti-German sentiment among the population, it took until mid-1944 for the political conditions in Slovakia to change to such an extent as a result of the dramatic events in all European theatres of war that the conditions for a national uprising were in place.[36]

Resistance groups and formation of the Slovak National Council

As in several other countries, there were two main lines of political resistance in Slovakia - one communist and one non-communist. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was the first party ever to be banned in 1938 and thus forced into illegality. After the emergence of the Slovak state, the Slovak communists became independent and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) was formed. The leadership of the Czechoslovak communists defected to Moscow.[37]

From the beginning, the Slovak communists were the main force of resistance in Slovakia and, as such, were the most fiercely persecuted.[38] They became active initially by publishing illegal writings and coordinating strikes.[39] Their attitude towards Slovak independence and Czechoslovakia went through several transformations and depended on Moscow's official policy. Until the recognition of Slovakia by the Soviet Union on 16 September 1939, the party leadership favoured the restoration of Czechoslovakia, after which it accepted the idea of an independent Slovakia. After 1940, the Slovak communists again made the establishment of a "Slovak Soviet Republic" their party programme. Only when Stalin recognised Edvard Beneš' Czechoslovak government-in-exile in 1941 did the KSS accept the restoration of Czechoslovakia, but demanded its federalisation.[40]

The bourgeois and social-democratic resistance was in contact with the Czechoslovak foreign movement and established contacts with the Czech resistance in the Protectorate.[41] From the emergence of independent Slovakia in March 1939, civil servants and politicians who remained loyal to Czechoslovakia and Beneš formed resistance groups. They gathered intellectuals from the military and politics and helped Czech refugees from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (mostly civil servants and resistance fighters) to escape via Slovakia to the Balkans and then to the West. All these groups rejected the idea of an independent Slovakia and advocated the restoration of Czechoslovakia.[42]

The most significant among the non-communist resistance groups were the agrarians, the majority of whom were Protestants.[43] However, the relationship between the Slovak agrarians and Beneš was complex, due to the fact that the government-in-exile adhered to the idea of a unified Czechoslovak nation - a position that the agrarians found unacceptable.[44] The Slovak agrarians no longer assumed Prague centralism and a unified Czechoslovak nation in their ideas about a renewed Czechoslovakia. The majority of them were in favour of respecting Slovak national autonomy, from which they also derived appropriate changes in Slovakia's status under state law.[45]

Before 1943, there was no planned cooperation between the resistance groups due to different objectives, lack of coordination and a lack of acceptance among the population. It was only due to the rapprochement between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and the Soviet Union, as well as the course of the war, which increased the influence of the Soviet Union in East-Central Europe, that a change also began in the Slovak resistance. In 1943, the young generation of communists, led by Gustáv Husák, and the young agrarians under Ján Ursíny began to negotiate a common programme. In December 1943, the "Christmas Agreement" was reached between the "socialist bloc" (communists and social democrats) and the "bourgeois bloc" (mainly agrarians). They agreed to plan an uprising and to form a "Slovak National Council" as the highest body of the illegal resistance, consisting of three communists (Gustáv Husák, Ladislav Novomeský, Karol Šmidke) and three non-communists (Ján Ursíny, Jozef Lettrich, Matej Josko). It was agreed to fight the Tiso regime and German domination and to re-establish Czechoslovakia as a democratic federation of two nation states in which Czechs and Slovaks would live as equal partners. In addition, political rapprochement with the Soviet Union was sought.[46]

Slovak Army and Golian's Military Headquarters

The opposition representatives were clear that the realisation of any overthrow or uprising was unthinkable without the army. From this point of view, the involvement of the general and officer corps was decisive for the success of the action.[47] The Slovak army had emerged from the ruins of the old Czechoslovak army, in which few Slovaks had risen to officer rank due to Czech dominance. The Slovak officer corps was built up - after the soldiers of Czech, Hungarian or Carpatho-Ukrainian nationality had been demobilised - between 1939 and 1942. The central role in building up the army was played by Ferdinand Čatloš, who became general, defence minister and commander-in-chief in one person after the establishment of an independent Slovakia.[48]

However, the Slovak army did not become a reliable pillar of power for the Ludaken regime.[49] In general, the Slovak military was Western-oriented, and the former Czechoslovak officers had been educated in the spirit of the democratic traditions of Masaryk Czechoslovakia. Communism and an orientation towards the Soviet Union were rejected, and the Communist Party had practically no influence on the army, police and gendarmerie.[50] The Slovak army was formally independent, but the Slovak regime had had to give up important areas of organisation, especially with the Military Economic Treaty of 1939 and the installation of the German Industrial Commission in 1943. [51] Slovak politicians had given in to German pressure to participate in the invasion of Poland, not least in the expectation that this would prevent further cessions of territory to Hungary and, in addition, that they would be able to regain the territories lost to Poland as a result of the Munich Agreement of 1938.[52] However, since Slovaks of all political camps found it repugnant to attack the closely related Polish people together with the Germans, there were mutinies by Slovak soldiers in many Slovak towns.[53]

After the declaration of war against the Soviet Union in 1941, an army of 60,000 men was sent to the Eastern Front.[54] Until the spring of 1943, the reliability of the Slovak units had been satisfactory in German eyes; during the whole of 1942, no more than 210 Slovak soldiers had defected to the Soviet Army or the partisans. From the beginning of 1943, however, after the catastrophe of Stalingrad, the number of Slovak defectors increased by leaps and bounds.[55] After two mass desertions of Slovak troops to the Soviets and Ukrainian partisans in October 1943, the Slovak units proved to be useless for further combat operations on the German Eastern Front.[56]

The example of the Slovak soldiers on the Eastern Front, but above all the entire military-political situation and the situation in Slovakia led to a deep differentiation among the cadre officers of the Slovak army. Outwardly, the Slovak army was still loyal to the Tiso government, but it was riddled with discontented officers and soldiers. The most active and influential resistance group within the army was formed by four officers, including Lieutenant Colonel Ján Golian,[57] who was transferred in January 1944 to the field army command in Banská Bystrica, where he held the exposed position of Chief of Staff. This position within the Slovak army opened up great opportunities for Golian to form a conspiratorial network in the garrisons. Against this background, Golian was entrusted by President-in-Exile Beneš with the temporary leadership of military actions in Slovakia in March 1944.[58]

Immediately after Golian's appointment by Beneš, the illegal Slovak National Council took steps to win him over to its own platform.[59] By contacting the army as well as subordinating Golian's pro-democracy group of officers, the Slovak National Council finally prevailed over other oppositional political groups. [60] On 27 April 1944, after a meeting in Bratislava, two institutions central to the uprising were created: a "Military Council" at the Slovak National Council, to which Golian and another Slovak officer belonged, and a "Military Headquarters" as the supreme commanding body of an illegal insurgent army, of which Lieutenant Colonel Golian became commander.[61]

Insurrection planning and diplomacy

After the establishment of the illegal military headquarters on 27 April 1944, the initiative in the preparations for the uprising passed completely from the Slovak National Council to the Slovak Army.[62] Since Golian had been tied to Banská Bystrica since January 1944, the command of the field army in Banská Bystrica came to the fore in the subsequent preparations for the uprising.[63] The military headquarters now set about making all the necessary preparations for an armed uprising in the months of May, June and July 1944. It was necessary to fill the leading command posts and staffs with reliable officers and to issue general guidelines for the troop units in the event of an uprising. It was decided to concentrate strong troop units in the central Slovak triangle of Banská Bystrica-Brezno-Zvolen. It was an area that they thought they could hold in any case, but it was also eminently suitable for an unnoticed deployment for military action.[64]

In both western and eastern Slovakia, the Slovak formations were under German observation. The German military mission was located in Bratislava, and the so-called German protection zone with its main base in Malacky extended directly northwest of it. Eastern Slovakia, in turn, had been declared an operational area since August 1944 at the request of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, in which the Germans enjoyed free right of passage. It thus followed naturally that mountainous central Slovakia became the glacis of the military conspiracy.[65]

Almost in parallel with, but independent of, the efforts of the military headquarters to work out a military insurrection plan, the Slovak defence minister Ferdinand Čatloš also developed a subversion plan of his own. Due to the changed war situation, Čatloš had already been considering a change of front since 1943, but he did not involve head of state Tiso in his plans.[66] In early 1944, Čatloš proposed the formation of an Eastern Slovak Army[67] that would act as one of the pillars of the future overthrow. Čatloš's proposal was approved by both the State Defence Council and the German leadership. By securing the north-eastern Slovak border with the home army, Čatloš wanted to pre-empt an occupation of this area by German units over which he would have had no influence and which would have blocked the passage of the Red Army in the Carpathians.[68]

Čatloš planned to overthrow the Tiso government at the appropriate moment, establish a military dictatorship and lead Slovakia to the Soviet side. Unlike the Slovak National Council, however, he proposed to decide on the future status of Slovakia only after the war.[69] Both the insurrection plan of the military headquarters and Čatloš's overthrow plan counted in principle on the exploitation of the Eastern Slovak Army to open the borders in the Carpathians and the passage of the Red Army into Slovak territory. [70] The insurgency plan of the Military Headquarters had been the subject of continued attention and expert support from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defence in London since July 1944, Čatloš's subversion plan, on the other hand, was not politically tied to the government-in-exile (which Čatloš did not recognise) and remained known only to a narrow circle of insiders until the end of July 1944.[71]

Apart from the two so-called front-line units (1st Infantry Division in Romania and Construction Brigade in Italy), the Slovak army was effectively divided into three in April 1944. In western Slovakia, in Bratislava and the surrounding area, there were the remnants of the Ministry of Defence under General Čatloš, the Bratislava garrison with about 8,000 soldiers and other units with a strength of about 8,000 men, half of which were "military labour corps". In Central Slovakia, in Banská Bystrica and the surrounding area, replacement and training units of about 14,000 men, plus 4,000 men from the "Military Labour Corps", were concentrated around the High Command of the Land Forces under General Turanec. Finally, in Eastern Slovakia, the Eastern Slovak Army took up position, comprising the two active infantry divisions No. 1 and No. 2 with 24,000 men. These - equipped with weapons and equipment of the latest German production - could be considered the elite of the Slovak armed forces.[72]

It was particularly important to determine the timing of the outbreak of the uprising. By the end of July 1944, the Soviet army had advanced in a narrow wedge to the Vistula River near Warsaw, thereby hastening the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August. However, the Soviets then did not advance further into Poland, thus enabling the Germans to put down the Warsaw Uprising. The Slovak National Council wanted to coordinate the uprising with the Soviet advance and therefore decided to send a delegation to the Soviet Union. The delegation, consisting of Karol Šmidke and a Slovak officer, managed to land in Ukraine on 4 August by plane. They carried with them both the insurrection plan of the military headquarters and the overthrow plan of General Čatloš ("Čatloš Memorandum"), who had provided them with the plane and also wanted to contact the Soviets through the delegation. They were escorted to the headquarters of the commander of the 4th Ukrainian Front, General Ivan Yefimovich Petrov, where they were first interrogated and then sent to Moscow for further interrogation. On 5 September they were allowed to return to Slovakia, but without having received any indication of Soviet operational plans or a commitment to support the uprising.[73]

The military headquarters continued its preparations for the uprising while awaiting the return of the two envoys as well as the arrival of the Soviet army. Under the pretext of "increased participation of the Slovak army in the struggle against the Soviets", it managed to get the Tiso government to issue a decree mobilising more age groups. Under the same pretext, some units of the army were quietly transferred to the strategically important triangle of the uprising. Finally, the military headquarters transported war supplies, food and medicines to the triangle to be defended under the pretext of removing them from areas exposed to Allied bombardment (especially Bratislava).[74] By June 1944, Central Slovakia had a full three months' worth of food supplies, 1.3 million litres of petrol in various storage centres and 3.54 billion Slovak crowns in the Bank of Banská Bystrica.[75]

Disruptive partisan movement and escalation of the situation

After the fiasco in the attempted coordination of the insurrection plan with Moscow, the situation in Slovakia itself also became complicated. This fact was also related to the Soviets or the partisans they sent. The partisan movement in Slovakia took two forms - domestic and imported, the latter being clearly more significant.[76] The first domestic attempts to form armed groups in the forests took place as early as 1942, called for mainly by the Slovak communists. The partisan units formed in the mountainous areas of central and northern Slovakia were composed of deserters from the Slovak army, escaped prisoners of war, persecuted Jews, and Slovak and also Carpathian German opponents of the government. However, partisanship did not take on a mass form in the first, "victorious" period for Germany and the Slovak regime, and the armed groups were isolated from the population. A genuine partisan movement did not develop in Slovakia until August 1944.[77]

In May 1944, Klement Gottwald, the chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Moscow, concluded an agreement with Nikita Khrushchev, then general secretary of the Ukrainian Communists, whereby the partisan movement of Czechoslovakia was subordinated to the Ukrainian partisan movement, which was directed from Kiev. Groups trained by the Soviets were dropped as paratroopers over Slovakia and some partisans also entered the country via eastern Poland. The first Soviet parachute unit was sent to Slovakia by the Ukrainian Partisan Command on the night of 25-26 July 1944 under Lieutenant Piotr A. Velichko to take command of the Slovak partisan movement and bring reinforcements to its cadres with experienced Soviet partisan fighters. [78] With increasing activity, especially acts of sabotage and raids on police stations, the partisans became more and more popular.[79] Their exact numbers are disputed among historians: Wolfgang Venohr assumes about 2,000 partisans at the beginning of the uprising, whose number increased to 7,000 due to influxes.[80] Other historians, however, give 12,000[81] to 18,000 partisans[82] as the maximum number.

The relationship between the partisans and the Slovak National Council was far from ideal. Despite repeated warnings from the Slovak National Council and military headquarters that the Slovak army was preparing for a major uprising and needed all functioning communication routes for this, the partisans continued to destroy roads, railways and bridges. They also attacked Germans living in Slovakia, as well as people who were active in the party and state apparatus of the Ludaks.[83] The increasing partisan actions disrupted the coup preparations and drew the attention of the Slovak and German services to the centre of the conspiracy in central Slovakia.[84] Warnings from the Slovak National Council that such actions could lead to a German occupation of Slovakia and thus to a premature outbreak of the uprising were not heeded by the partisans.[85]

In addition to the partisan problem, from mid-August onwards there was also a tendency for ever larger sections of the Slovak army not only to sympathise with the liberation organisation but also to defect to it. Although the new commander-in-chief of the army, General Turanec, attempted to restore the government's authority with repressive measures on 26 August, the step was taken too late, as the political leadership in Bratislava had long since lost the loyalty of the army.[86] The activities of the partisans, who were often supported by the Soviet Union, and the Slovak army, which was increasingly judged to be unreliable, made Slovakia a factor of insecurity within the German hegemonic sphere.[87]

Since the precautions taken by the Slovak government against the partisans not only remained ineffective, but the resistance groups rather increased their actions against the German minority and the armed forces of the German Reich, the German envoy in Bratislava, Hanns Ludin, saw himself forced to request the dispatch of Wehrmacht units to fight the partisans. [88] However, the military situation in all theatres of war did not permit any intervention by the Wehrmacht for the time being, and after a temporary calming of the situation Ludin also withdrew his request for the dispatch of German troops on 27 August, as the political situation no longer seemed to justify such a measure. As a result, an incident occurred in the night of 27-28 August in the central Slovakian town of Martin, which led to the escalation of the tense situation and triggered the German intervention.[89]

The Uprising

Martin Incident and the Outbreak of the Uprising

Romania's defection from the German to the Soviet side, successfully carried out by Romanian King Michael I on August 23, caused consternation in Berlin and fear that Romania's example would be imitated in the other German satellite states of East Central Europe.[90] In Slovakia, Romania's change of front made a great impression, as it was the first time a satellite state in Southeastern Europe had defected from Germany. [91] On August 27, in Martin, Slovakia, an alliance of partisans under the Soviet partisan leader Velichko and the mutinous local garrison of the Slovak Army, without the knowledge of the military headquarters, held up a train on which the German military commission in Romania was returning to Berlin after Romania's defection from Bucharest. The 22 German officers[92] were arrested and all of them were shot the next morning by the mutinous government troops on Welitschko's orders.[93]

It was primarily the fact that the Slovak army was involved in the Martin incident, but also the increasing disloyalty of many units to the government in Bratislava, that set in motion a swift and harsh reaction by the German Reich. The German Reich Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, asked the German envoy, Ludin, to immediately persuade the Slovak government to give its official consent to the German invasion. Ludin then met (again) with President Tiso and more or less categorically demanded his approval of the German occupation, with which Tiso agreed after much hesitation. Steps toward intervention in Slovakia, however, had already been taken by the Wehrmacht before the Slovak leadership had asked Berlin for military support. The intervention of German troops in Slovakia, already considered in the weeks before, was now put into action. Just 24 hours after the Martin incident, the first improvised units of the Wehrmacht moved into Slovakia.[94]

An extremely complicated situation had arisen for Golian and his co-conspirators. They had no news of the outcome of the Šmidke mission and did not know the attitude of the Soviet Union.[95] Nor had the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London heard a word from the Soviets about their attitude toward the plans for a Slovak national uprising in the more than three weeks that had elapsed since the Šmidke delegation arrived in the USSR. Moscow remained silent.[96] Golian's efforts to delay the day of the uprising until he had news from the Soviet Union and could coordinate his military measures with the Red Army were now all doomed to failure.[97] Added to this was the fact that, on Hitler's orders, because of the acute danger of the Soviet advance, the Eastern Slovak Army had already been assigned to the German Army Group North Ukraine on August 1, 1944. This was a scenario that had not been anticipated at all in the original planning of the uprising.[98] For Defense Minister Čatloš, too, the realization of the uprising according to his plans had become unrealistic since he had been deposed as commander-in-chief of the army on August 25.[99] On the evening of August 29, 1944 - only after a short time - the uprising began.

On the evening of August 29 - only a few hours after the first German advance units had crossed Slovakia's northeastern border - Defense Minister Čatloš, on President Tiso's orders, read his proclamation to the army and population on Bratislava radio, according to which the Slovak government had called the German Wehrmacht into the country to fight the partisans and that the Slovak army should not offer any resistance to the Germans. Forty-five minutes later, the military headquarters in Banská Bystrica informed by telephone all garrisons scattered throughout Slovakia to resist the Germans.[100] The Slovak National Uprising thus began as a response to the invasion of the German occupation units.[101]

Initial situation and disarmament actions

In the first days of the uprising, the insurgents' territory covered about 22,000 km², more than half of Slovakia's territory at the time, and with a population of 1.7 million, about 64% of Slovakia's total population.[102] On the recommendation of the London government-in-exile, the leadership of the insurgent army issued an order as early as 30 August declaring its units to be an integrating part of the Czechoslovak armed forces. On 7 September, the USA, the Soviet Union and Great Britain officially recognised this status.[103] Thus, on 30 August, the military headquarters transformed itself into the "Command of the Czechoslovak Army" (Veliteľstvo československej armády, VČSA for short). The Slovak troops forming the core of the armed uprising were given the name "Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia" (Československá armáda na Slovensku, ČSAS for short) and on 30 September were renamed "1. Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia" (1st ČSAS).[104] This army was regular from day one, had its command staff, regiments, battalions and companies, carried weapons, uniforms and adhered to international martial law.[103] SS-Obergruppenführer Berger, first German general in Slovakia.

The 1st Czechoslovak Army initially had 18,000 men; after mobilisation on 5 September 1944, their numbers rose to 47,000 and later again to around 60,000.[105] At its head, as provisional commander, was Lieutenant Colonel Ján Golian, who was promoted to colonel in early September and shortly afterwards to brigadier general. The headquarters were in Banská Bystrica.[106]

German troops gradually invaded Slovakia in the late summer of 1944 with nearly 50,000 men, and the "sovereign" and "friendly" state became a theatre of war. The country was divided into two independent military areas: while in the eastern part of the country the Army Group North Ukraine led the implementation of the action, the command in the rest of the country lay with the "German General in Slovakia", who from 1 September 1944 was provided by the SS in the person of Gottlob Berger, since the action fell into the area of "partisan combat".[107] Berger initially had just under 9,000 men at his disposal, combined in combat groups newly set up for this operation. The first units to arrive were the Kampfgruppen Ohlen and Junck on 29 August, which had about 3900 men and were combined into the 178th Tatra Division on 5 September. Since 1 September, the Kampfgruppe Schill, over 2000 strong, had been fighting in Slovakia; in addition, Major Otto Volkmann's Kampfgruppe and the Kampfgruppen Wildner and Wittenmeyer from the 14th Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS operated on Slovak soil in the first days of September.[108] With the completion of the deployment, a ring of German troops had formed around the central Slovak insurrectionary area.[109] The German troops had been deployed in the area of the Turčiansky Uprising.

The Turčiansky Svätý Martin incident not only had the effect of triggering the confrontation between the opponents too early, thus nullifying any calculation on the part of the conspirators, but above all it had the effect of putting the German side in possession of the operational initiative from the very beginning. [110] As a result of the surprise effect, the German combat groups succeeded in almost completely disarming the hardly resisting Slovak units stationed in eastern, but also in western Slovakia.[111] The greatest initial success for the Germans was the rapid disarming of the Slovak soldiers of the Eastern Slovak Army, who were probably the best equipped and best trained. In the original insurrection plans, Golian and the Slovak National Council had assigned the main role to these units. The disarmament of the Eastern Slovak divisions, which had been prepared by the command of Army Group North Ukraine since 27 August, lasted two days and was completed on 31 August 1944. Half of the total of 25,000 Slovak soldiers were disarmed and interned, some escaped and fled to their families or joined the partisans. Only about 2,000 soldiers reached the insurgents' territory in central Slovakia. Considerable stocks of weapons and military equipment, including artillery, fell into German hands.[112] The Germans won another early victory in western Slovakia, as the strong garrisons of Bratislava and Nitra did not join the uprising. Only the military garrison of Trnava (German: Tyrnau) in western Slovakia defected to the insurrection area with 3,000 soldiers.[113]

First Defence of the Insurgent Army and Soviet Offensive

After the initial successes, the German general in Slovakia was convinced that the "expiatory action" would only take four days to pacify the country in the sense of the "protecting power". Unaware of the actual situation, Berger believed that the raids and actions against the German forces would be carried out exclusively by partisan groups. However, the attack of Kampfgruppe Ohlen, even before it reached the operational objective of Martin, came to a halt due to stubborn Slovak resistance and unfavourable terrain conditions near Žilina (German: Sillein). This first Slovak defensive success had a positive effect on the fighting morale of the insurgents, so that the advance of all German units slowed down considerably and in some cases came to a complete standstill. While the advances of Kampfgruppe Ohlen got bogged down in the Slovakian defences, Kampfverband Mathias was able to advance successfully to the north and north-east towards Ružomberok (Engl. Rosenberg) and threatened the important central Slovakian industrial centre with its weapons factories. Kampfgruppe Schill also operated successfully in the Nitra Valley, taking Baťovany north of the district town of Topoľčany (Eng: Topolchan) as early as 5 September, before Slovak resistance made further advance impossible. The battlegroup of Army Group North Ukraine succeeded in capturing Ružomberok one day later, so that the insurgents lost the indispensable weapons factories. Especially in the eastern part of the insurgency area, the military leadership in Banská Bystrica tried to build up a strong defensive bar in order not to have to give up any space here. This was because it hoped that a planned Red Army offensive on the Beskydy front, which ran only 120 km to the northeast, would be quickly successful and lead to unification.[114]

However, the Slovak National Council and the military headquarters were not aware of the changes in Soviet strategic plans, according to which the Red Army was not to advance from the north across the Carpathians into the middle Danube basin, but from the south through Romania and the Danube valley. Thus, while in Soviet war planning the liberation of Slovakia was postponed to the last months of the war, the leadership of the Slovak Insurgent Army assumed that the Soviet invasion would take place in the summer or early autumn of 1944.[115] Only on the occasion of the political and military changes in Slovakia did the Red Army correct its operational planning. Although it continued its successful campaign in Romania and on the Balkan Peninsula, it opened its offensive on the Beskid front earlier than intended.[116] However, the attack organised at short notice came at the expense of military strength. The Red Army's Eastern Carpathian Operation lasted from 8 September to 28 October 1944, and although the Red Army was only 40 km from the Slovakian border when the military action began, by the end of October 1944 it had only managed to conquer Carpathian Ukraine and parts of eastern Slovakia, suffering casualties of 21,000 soldiers killed and 89,000 wounded in the process.[117] The balance of the German "cleansing" of the Beskid Front was not as good as it seemed.

Despite initial successes, the balance of the German "cleansing action" was quite meagre in the first ten days. The responsibility for this lay primarily with SS-Obergruppenführer Berger, who had completely misjudged the dimension of the Slovakian uprising and had therefore tried to solve the problem with a far too small deployment of forces. However, the German general's unconceptualised combat leadership in Slovakia also contributed to the poor result. The German attack had almost come to a standstill after two weeks as a result of the stabilising Slovak defensive front.[118]

As the scope of the insurgents' territory shrank, warfare by partisans became more important. According to the military's plan, the partisan units were to provide effective support for the insurgents and the army, notably by operating in the enemy's rear. Some Slovak partisan groups had even placed themselves under army command before the outbreak of the uprising. Most partisan groups, however, limited the support they gave to the army to the absolute minimum and pursued their own actions, following orders from the Ukrainian Partisan Headquarters in Kiev.[119] Since the Slovak communists failed to gain control of the military, headed by non-Marxist officers, they tried to compensate by forming their own army from the partisan detachments. The conflict between the army and the partisans led to a crisis during the uprising, which the Slovak National Council tried to resolve on 12 September by setting up a "war council" to coordinate all the activities of the army and the partisans. However, the council, which included leading democrats and communists, was never able to completely resolve the conflict because of constant communist harassment.[120]

Reorganisation and territorial gains of the German troops

In the second phase of operations, which was characterised by successful defensive battles by the resistance units, Gottlob Berger's units made little progress in the period from 8 to 19 September. In the east of the insurgency area, Army Group North Ukraine limited itself to a minimal defence of the front line, as the Kampfgruppen Mathias and Rintelen were urgently needed to repel the Soviet offensive. Only in the southwest did Kampfgruppe Schill succeed in pushing the front to the east.[121]

On 14 September, SS-Obergruppenführer Berger was relieved of the post of "German General in Slovakia" by General of the Waffen-SS Hermann Höfle due to his lack of success. With Höfle, a new stage of combat leadership began. After Berger had carried out the armed actions against the insurgents in an essentially improvised and hardly coordinated manner, Höfle had an operational plan drawn up for the first time, which gave priority to a coordinated deployment of all German forces. After three weeks of fighting against the liberation movement, the general intended to seal off the insurgent area with a complete encirclement ring and to proceed concentrically against the resisters. The Tatra Division, which had in the meantime been reinforced by two battalions, now had sufficient fighting power to break through the Slovak defensive barricade near Žilina and capture Martin on 21 September.[122]

Instead of taking advantage of the Tatra Division's attack momentum, Höfle halted the unit to comb the hinterland of the Váh and Turz valleys for partisans. Since the partisans retreated into the impassable Little Tatra, this action was quite unsuccessful. With his "cleansing action" Höfle gave the Slovakian insurgent army ten days to build up a new defensive front. Only the II Battalion of Kampfgruppe Schill succeeded in occupying the town of Handlová (German: Krickerhau) almost without a fight on 23 September. In the southern section, the operation only began to move again after three weeks, after the I Battalion Schill had taken Žarnovica (Eng: Scharnowitz) and on 28 September was able to establish contact with the reinforced battalion of the 14th Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS, which was advancing from the direction of Nová Baňa (Eng: Königsberg). In contrast, the weak securing forces of Korück 531 east of Telgárt (Eng: Thiergarten) suffered further setbacks when they once again failed to withstand the onslaught of the insurgents and therefore fell back almost 15 km west of Spišská Nová Ves (Eng: Spišská Neudorf).[123]

Between 20 September and the beginning of October, the occupier was able to improve his military position considerably, whereby the changed operational command with changing attacking foci had proven its worth. By the end of September, the tactical triangle Zvolen-Brezno-Banská Bystrica, the centre of the Slovak insurgency, was within range of the German offensive forces and the insurgents' territory had been reduced to 6,800 km² with a population of 340,000. In view of the successful actions in the last days of September, Höfle planned a frontal attack on the core of the liberation movement, which was only 25 km away from the German lines. The general ordered the Tatra Division in the direction of Kremnica (German: Kremnitz) and Kampfgruppe Schill in the direction of Svätý Kríž to start the offensive. However, he weakened the division by withdrawing part of the forces to Kampfgruppe Schäfer. The reinforced SS unit was ordered to advance from the north towards Liptovská Osada. With his intention to attack Banská Bystrica from three sides, Höfle believed he could defeat the insurgents in a short time. But the operation failed completely, as the individual battle groups were too weak to overcome the massive Slovakian defences. Although the Tatra Division occupied Kremnica on 6 October, the offensive as a whole remained a failure, so that the general called off the enterprise on 8 October. Once again the insurgents had succeeded in resisting the German onslaught.[124]

German Final Offensive and End of the Uprising

Meanwhile, there had also been a change of leadership among the insurgents. On 7 October, after 40 days, Brigadier General Golian handed over command of the "1st Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia" to Division General Rudolf Viest, who had flown in from London, and became his deputy.[125] Under pressure from the German occupation forces, the insurgents' territory had shrunk to just under 7,000 km² with a population of about 300,000 by the first days of October.[126] The Slovak insurgent army had suffered heavy losses. Some 2,180 soldiers had fallen, thousands more had dropped out through wounding, desertion, capture or defection to the enemy. By mid-October, the insurgent army still numbered about 36,000 soldiers, but only two-thirds of them were fully armed and ready for action. In addition, there were a few thousand partisans in the encirclement and the partisans and soldiers outside the encirclement ring behind the German lines, but they had hardly any military effectiveness left. Almost 80% of the armoured weapons had been destroyed by the Germans, and the Slovak artillery had also lost well over half of its stock.[127]

In the period from 10 to 17 October, fighting on all fronts in central Slovakia leveled off. The Germans consolidated in the conquered areas and secured their rule and occupation troops. At the same time, General Höfle drafted an operational plan for the final offensive. Since it had become apparent that the existing formations were not sufficient to defeat the insurgents in the mountainous and defensible terrain, the attack forces had to be considerably reinforced.[128] After the fall of the Horthy regime in Budapest and the installation of the Arrow Cross government on 16 October, the Germans were able to smuggle a considerable amount of military from Hungary into southern Slovakia. From this point on, the insurgents' situation deteriorated visibly.[129] Two new battle groups were to contribute to the final decision. On 16 October, the notorious SS Brigade Dirlewanger, which had already been used in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, arrived in the north of the area of operations with 15,000 men. In the southeast, the 18th Panzer Grenadier Division of the SS "Horst Wessel" gathered on Hungarian territory. The operational plan envisaged that the German units would attack concentrically from all sides, with the SS 18th Panzer Grenadier Division intervening in the fighting from the neighbouring country as a surprise element. In this way, Höfle intended to leave the enemy with no means of evasion.[130]

After the deployment had been essentially completed on 17 October, the attack was scheduled to begin the following day. On 18 October, the Kampfgruppe Schill and the SS Brigade Dirlewanger opened the final offensive, with the Tatra Division merely tying up the enemy in its combat strip. It was not until a day later that the operation in the south began with the 18th SS Division as well as Kampfgruppe Wittenmeier, which was composed of parts of the 14th SS Division and a reinforced army battalion. The security forces of Korück 531, which had assumed command in the Eastern Slovakia command area on 10 October, also intervened in the final offensive from the Betlanovce-Spišská Nova Ves area from 19 October onwards and were able to bring the area up to the western border of the operational area under German control within six days. The units in the south proceeded according to plan against the centre of insurgency in Banská Bystrica, which was captured by Kampfgruppe Schill on 27 October[131]. With the capture of Banská Bystrica, the uprising against the "protective power" and the Tiso regime collapsed.[132]

Although the uprising was put down, the army did not capitulate.[133] On the night of 27-28 October, at 04:00, General Rudolf Viest issued his last order to the "1st Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia". In it, he accepted the defeat of the insurgent army as an organised unit and ordered the soldiers to cease regular resistance, retreat to the mountains and switch to partisan fighting.[134]

Role of the Slovak collaboration regime

The Slovak government in Bratislava was unpleasantly surprised by the proclamation of the Slovak National Uprising and shocked by the spontaneous reaction of the population. Before their eyes, the entire power apparatus broke down and the continued existence of the Slovak state was only possible under German supervision and with the assistance of National Socialist power structures.[135] On 5 September 1944, a week after the outbreak of the uprising, a new government was installed in Slovakia. Štefan Tiso, a third cousin of President Jozef Tiso, replaced the previous Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka and at the same time took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Ministry of Justice.[136] Besides the government, President Jozef Tiso was one of the most important actors in Slovakia. In addition to his far-reaching powers enshrined in the 1939 constitution, Tiso enjoyed great popularity and authority among the population, which was based on the well-regarded intermingling of state and church offices. Externally, Tiso knew how to underpin the independence of the Slovak state by performing representative tasks. This position led to the Germans sticking with him even after the outbreak of the uprising, although he was at no time one of the most radical representatives of National Socialist ideology among Slovak politicians.[137]

The Slovak government remained loyal to its "protecting power" until the end of the war,[138] however, the Slovak army proved completely useless to the German troops moving into Slovakia in late summer 1944. Even though the Slovak regime was firmly behind the German commander, it could hardly support him with its own fighting troops. Two divisions of the Slovak army were deployed outside Slovakia in 1944; two others stationed in eastern Slovakia were disarmed and seized by the Germans immediately after the outbreak of the uprising. In western and especially central Slovakia, a large number of Slovak officers and soldiers joined the uprising. The Slovak army had disintegrated, and by the end of the war the Slovak regime had not succeeded in replacing it with a newly formed army.[139] The result of these efforts was the "Domobrana" (Engl. Heimwehr), which was able to draw on an "army" of 6,900 soldiers loyal to the government in mid-September 1944, rising to just under 20,000 men in November and reaching a personnel strength of 41,000 soldiers through the mobilisation of older cohorts in January and March 1945. The core was formed by the garrisons that had remained loyal to the regime, first and foremost the Nitra garrison, which was the only one not to be disarmed after the outbreak of the uprising. However, the "Domobrana" had more of a symbolic character, since the army's lack of combat readiness, inadequate training and equipment (more than two-thirds of its men remained unarmed) ruled out from the outset any deployment at the front or in the fight against the partisans, so that it could be called upon primarily only for entrenchment and repair work in the hinterland.[140]

Since the Slovak army and to a large extent the Slovak police had failed, after the outbreak of the uprising the Hlinka Guard remained the only organisation on whose cooperation the Tiso regime or the German authorities were willing to rely. Immediately after his appointment as the new head of the Hlinka Guard on 7 September 1944, Otomar Kubala began to reorganise the Guard. New was above all the establishment of the stand-by units of the Hlinka Guard (Slovak. Pohotovostné oddiely Hlinkovej gardy, POHG for short), special armed units that were set up in larger towns and subordinated to the responsible district captains of the Hlinka Guard or their main commander in Bratislava. A total of 38 POHG units were established; in March 1945, 5,867 Slovaks served in the POHG.[141] The POHG were organised as military units, but - although they were subordinate to the army's judiciary - they were not part of the army organisation. Their field companies (Slovak Poľné roty) wore German uniforms and collaborated directly with the German security police and security service.[142] Under the Ministry of Defence, a State Secretariat for Security was created, to which all security police organs (state security, police, gendarmerie, but also the Hlinka Guard) were subordinate. Otomar Kubala was also appointed its head on the instructions of the German commander.[143]

Insurgent government and population

For sixty days Banská Bystrica was the command center of the insurgent army and also the center of political life and administration of the liberated Slovakia. The insurgent Slovakia formed an independent administrative-state entity - the restored Czechoslovak Republic. The revolutionary Slovak National Council, which now had 13 members, was fully established on September 5 after Slovak communist Karol Šmidke returned from Moscow. Together with Vavro Šrobár, the representative of the bourgeois-democratic camp, he became one of the two chairmen of the Slovak National Council. The National Council and its organs had, in principle, the same number of members from the socialist bloc and the bourgeois-democratic bloc.[144] The plenary assembly of the Slovak National Council (consisting of 41 members from September 5 and 50 members from October) issued decrees with the force of laws. The Slovak National Council assumed legislative, state, and executive power in Slovakia and repealed laws and decrees that contradicted the "republican-democratic spirit" (including all anti-Jewish laws). In turn, those Slovak, German, and Hungarian parties and organizations that shaped the political system of the Slovak state were banned.[145]

In terms of party politics, the bourgeois-democratic camp of the insurgents organized itself into the Democratic Party (DS), while the socialist bloc, in turn, organized itself into the Communist Party of Slovakia.[146] In this context, the most radical change with regard to the conditions in the Slovak state, but also in the previous Czechoslovak Republic, was the accession to power of the Slovak Communists, who until 1938 never received more than 10 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections. The uprising did not represent a "communist coup," as the representatives of the bourgeois camp were the more significant component in the preparation and course of the uprising. Nevertheless, it was during the uprising that the Slovak communists first came to power, became the ruling party, and assumed key political positions.[147] The new political system established through the Slovak National Council was independent of the Ludaken government in Bratislava, as well as the exile centers in London and Moscow. Its political system was more democratic than that of the Ludaks, but political parties other than the Democrats and the Communists were not allowed. Also, all educational institutions of the national minorities were closed, with the exception of elementary (primary) schools.[148] Replica of an armored Zvolen train.

The economy of the area controlled by the insurgents was primarily subordinated to military requirements. A key enterprise was Podbrezovské železiarne (= Podbrezov Iron Works), which produced for the insurgents without interruption for two months, mainly grenade launchers, steel anti-tank obstacles, etc. The production of the ironworks in Podbrezov was also important. Also important were the railroad works in Zvolen, which managed to build three armored trains in record time. The financial security of the insurgent area was provided by the branch of the National Bank of Slovakia in Banská Bystrica, the rest of the economic-social life was under the responsibility of the individual commissioners (ministers) of the Slovak National Council. In addition to the requirements of the army, it was also necessary to serve the civilian sector. In terms of infrastructure, roads were crucial here, with railroad lines also being used for the civilian sector. In the area of supplies, a system of food stamps applied in the insurgency area, as it did in the Slovak state.[149]

The issue of information, or in a broader sense propaganda, was also important. The most important role here was played primarily by the insurrectionary radio, which began its activities on August 30, 1944, as Slobodný slovenský vysielač (= Free Slovak Radio) in Banská Bystrica and served as a means of mobilization, organization and information for the population of central Slovakia. During the uprising, BBC also broadcast in Czech and Slovak for Czechoslovakia and Moscow Radio, organized by the Moscow leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, broadcast for Czechoslovakia. In addition, 20 to 30 newspapers and magazines appeared more or less regularly in the insurgency area, and the institutions of theaters and cinemas, typical of peacetime, also functioned.[150]

From both sides, the resistance struggle was repeatedly understood not only as political, but also as a confessional struggle of "the Lutherans against the Catholics." During the existence of the Slovak state, the majority of Catholic dignitaries took a loyal stance towards the new regime, and several also worked in its highest political and legislative structures. After the outbreak of the uprising, Catholic parish priests within the uprising area were labeled as enemies of the renewed Czechoslovak Republic and were persecuted, some even executed. The situation was diametrically different for the Protestant Church, which did not identify with the Ludaken regime and adopted a negative attitude towards it. During the preparation and creation of the political resistance organization, it was precisely Protestants who took over its leading positions, while practicing Catholics were practically non-existent in the Slovak National Council. Later, dozens of Protestant pastors as well as bishops joined the uprising - the uprising included the most Protestant areas of Turiec, Liptov and Banská Bystrica. Most of the Protestant pastors were active in the field mission of the 1st Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia during the uprising. Nevertheless, to speak of an "evangelical uprising" would be incorrect, since the majority of the members of the insurgent army - that is, the decisive force of the uprising - were Catholics.[151]

Conduct of the Allies

The successful implementation of the uprising was based on the assumption that it would be quickly and effectively supported by the Allies. However, the Allies took an ambivalent attitude toward the Slovak popular uprising. The Western Allies sympathized with the uprising politically, but took little interest in it militarily, since their armies were not thinking of conducting operations in East-Central Europe. On the other hand, Soviets were interested in the uprising from the military point of view, since it could facilitate the advance of the Soviet army to the west. Politically, however, they viewed the uprising with suspicion because its leading class were communists and democrats, the democrats being hostile "bourgeois nationalists" from a Marxist point of view.[152] Wolfgang Venohr assesses Allied support for the Slovak National Uprising in summary as "just as insignificant and insufficient as in the case of the Warsaw Uprising."[153]

On August 31, 1944, Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, personally addressed the Allied representatives in London and asked them to support the Slovak insurgents. He requested the representatives of Great Britain and the United States that the Allies bomb the German operational targets in Slovakia, and secondly, that Allies issue a declaration granting the domestic Czechoslovak forces the rights of combatants so that the insurgents would be under the protection of the Geneva Convention. On September 7, the U.S. State Department issued a statement conceding to the Slovak insurgents "to constitute forces fighting against the Germans" and strongly warning the Germans not to violate "the rules of war" in the form of reprisals against them. The British Foreign Office issued a similar statement.[152]

The British and American commands were reluctant to accede to Masaryk's request for military assistance to the Slovaks. British and American air forces had already bombed certain targets in Slovakia and had provided aid to the Warsaw Uprising, which was farther away from their base in Italy than Slovakia. They also landed twice at Banská Bystrica to evacuate Allied pilots who had taken shelter over the area the Germans occupied. Nevertheless, on September 22, the American General Staff decided to refrain from supporting the Slovaks on the grounds that "it would not constitute a reasonably feasible operation for the American and British air forces." American reluctance to support the Slovak uprising was due to the oft-expressed fear of the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that Western interference in Eastern Europe might jeopardize the support promised by the Soviets in the Pacific.[154]

The Soviet government never responded to Britain's request, although it did provide limited aid to the Slovak insurgents. On September 22, the Soviet government, somewhat belatedly, appended to the declarations of the United States and Great Britain a declaration of its own which conceded "to the united resistance forces on Czechoslovak territory the right of a belligerent state with all the consequences which flow therefrom." Earlier, the Soviet command issued an order to the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps, which was conducting joint operations with the 4th Ukrainian Front and Soviet forces, to attempt a breakthrough through the Dukla Pass in the Carpathians and establish links with the Slovak insurgents. However, when the Czechoslovak army reached the pass on September 14, it was no longer guarded by the Slovak army but by the Germans. The Czechoslovak and Soviet forces were able to take it only on October 6 after suffering heavy losses.[155]

In direct support of the Slovak uprising, the Soviet command sent the 1st Czechoslovak Air Squadron with 21 fighter planes, which was a great help. The Soviet Command also sent the 2nd Czechoslovak Parachute Brigade, which included about 2000 well-trained and well-equipped men. However, they arrived only gradually over the course of several weeks. As a result, they could not participate in combat as a unit. The Soviets also transferred several smaller weapons and 150 antitank guns, but they were ineffective against the Germans' heavy and medium tanks.[156]

Military strategic significance of the uprising

When the Slovak National Uprising began on August 29, 1944, the event threatened not only the Slovak collaborationist regime under Tiso, but also the hegemony of Nazi Germany in East Central Europe. At the same time, the possibility could not be ruled out that the uprising would expand into a threat to the German defensive front between the Vistula and the Southern Carpathians. By the summer of 1944, the Axis powers had completely lost the military initiative on the Eastern Front and had been forced onto the defensive by the Red Army. In the process, the Wehrmacht had lost so much substance by the summer of 1944 that it was barely able to maintain front-line cohesion. At this stage of the war, two factors in particular affected the Axis forces' ability to act operationally. On the one hand, the Anglo-American Allied invasion of northern France on June 6 had created a new focal point in the west of the German dominion, and on the other hand, the Soviet summer offensive, which opened in mid-June in the front section of Army Group Center, so seriously worsened the military situation of the Third Reich that the Wehrmacht was even more at the mercy of the superior forces of the anti-Hitler coalition than it had been before."[157]

Therefore, German historian Klaus Schönherr holds that although at first glance the Slovak National Uprising gives the appearance that the event, was an isolated occurrence in the rear of the German front, upon closer examination it nevertheless proved to be a factor that significantly influenced the military situation as well as operational procedures on the southern wing of the Eastern Front. This was because the politico-military events in Slovakia caused the USSR military leadership to significantly change its operational intentions and adapt them to the new circumstances. The Red Army wanted to use the national military resistance to collapse the cornerstone of the German front. Thus, Moscow intended to occupy Hungary as well as to advance directly into the southern parts of the "Greater German Reich." As a result of the Red Army's revised operational planning, the Wehrmacht was forced not only to repel the Soviet-Romanian offensive in Transylvania, but also to resume full-scale defense in the Beskids after a brief period of rest. Ultimately, the Wehrmacht, as well as its Hungarian ally, still possessed the substance both to put down the uprising in central Slovakia and to repel the Soviet objective of encircling and destroying parts of Army Group A and South.[158]

From a military point of view, the significance of the uprising was primarily that it disrupted the cohesive, unified German front.[159] From the outbreak of the uprising until the end of the war, Slovakia ceased to be a safe rear area for the German Army on the Eastern Front. Behind the lines of the front, the communication system of the Germans was interrupted. Slovakia no longer formed a convenient supply route or a retreat area for the German forces. The German troops, which were urgently needed elsewhere to fight the Allies, were kept in Slovakia to fight the insurgents and the partisans. The German plans about using the Slovak army in the war was foiled. In the end, the Germans suffered heavy losses of life and material in fighting the insurgents and the partisans.[160] Nevertheless, the military significance of the uprising remained low in the end. Only for the disarmament of the two Slovak divisions in eastern Slovakia did the Wehrmacht withdraw units from other fronts. Otherwise, reserve and replacement units that were in the process of being deployed or re-deployed after a front-line mission were primarily used for counterinsurgency operations.[161]

The German ethnic group and war crimes of the insurgents

According to the results of the census conducted in December 1940, there were 130,192 Slovak citizens living in Slovakia who professed German nationality. Their ancestors had migrated to the then Kingdom of Hungary since the 12th century and lived mostly in the following three settlement areas since the 19th century: in Bratislava (before 1918 Bratislava) and its surroundings in Western Slovakia, in the Hauerland in Central Slovakia and in the Spiš in Eastern Slovakia. After the formation of the Slovak state, they were granted extensive rights as a national minority according to the Slovak constitution.[162]

The Germans became politically active in the Slovak state primarily through the German Party (DP), formed in 1938. At its head was Franz Karmasin, who at the same time was appointed State Secretary of the newly established State Secretariat for German Ethnic Group Affairs. Specifically, the DP had the task of educating the Germans included in the party politically and militarily along the lines of the Reichsdeutsche NSDAP, promoting the economic and cultural life of the Germans living in Slovakia, and ensuring that they were treated as fully equal citizens and enjoyed the same rights as Slovaks. In the fall of 1941, the DP had 60,997 members, covering almost half of the Slovak citizens of German nationality. The military organization of the Germans was the Freiwillige Schutzstaffel (FS), which in mid-1944 had a total of 7,818 members and was mostly assigned to guard duties, but often also participated in various "security measures," e.g., the arrests of Jews.[163] On September 2, 1944, by order of the German commander in Slovakia, the Deutsche Heimatschutz was established. All members of the German ethnic group from 16 to 50 years of age who were fit for military service were to be registered by the SS-Einsatzkommando Slowakei and initially deployed in closed settlement areas as local armed forces. According to a list from January 1945, the German Homeland Guard had a total of 8,116 members.[164]

Numerous crimes against the German minority occurred in the liberated territory controlled by insurgents.[165] The number of ethnic Germans killed in Slovakia cannot be accurately determined to this day. It is assumed that partisans and insurgents murdered between 1000[166] and 1 500[167] people in their actions against the civilian population, the vast majority of whom were of German nationality. Most of the crimes against ethnic Germans were committed shortly after the outbreak of the uprising in central Slovakia, in the Hauerland region. In this area, insurgents and partisans exercised control for more than a month, mostly targeting German civilians. An order from the illegal military headquarters dated August 28, 1944, stated that after the insurrection was declared, all local Germans along with their families were to be immediately interned in barracks or liquidated if they resisted. In several places in central Slovakia, ethnic Germans were murdered in the late summer of 1944, partly because they were committed to the interests of the Reich, but partly simply because they belonged to the German minority.[168]

The largest mass shooting took place on September 21 near the village of Sklené (German: Glaserhau) (see also Glaserhau Massacre). On the night of September 17, the village, where almost 90 percent of the population professed German nationality, was occupied by about 250 partisans of the unit "1st Czechoslovak Partisan Brigade of Josef W. Stalin."[169] The massacre took place in the village of Sklené. On the night of September 21, these conducted house searches and had about 300 men between the ages of 16 and 60 line up at the local citizen's school. From there, most of them were taken - under the pretext of doing entrenchment work - to the train station, where they had to board a train. After a journey of about two kilometers, the train stopped. The prisoners had to get off and were shot by the partisans. A total of 187 men were murdered in this way, and another 62 were taken to the internment camp in Slovenská Ľupča. Further shootings of ethnic Germans by partisans and insurgents took place in Handlová (German: Kickerhau, about 80 murdered[170]) and other places in the Hauerland region.[171]

In the fall of 1944, in anticipation of the Red Army's advance, the German leadership began preparing for a total evacuation of Germans from Slovakia. An exact number of the evacuated ethnic Germans has not yet been determined; figures vary between 70,000 and 120,000 evacuees. In total, two-thirds of the ethnic Germans living in Slovakia were probably affected by the evacuation. After the war, some of them returned to Slovakia, but were then expelled from Czechoslovakia again in 1946 as part of the resettlement campaigns along with those who remained. In the census conducted in 1950, only 5,179 inhabitants in Slovakia professed German nationality. In this respect, the Third Reich and the Slovak state, which existed for six years, effectively meant the end of the coexistence of Germans and Slovaks in this region, which had lasted since the Middle Ages.[172]

Participation of Jews in the Uprising

Beim Ausbruch des Aufstands im August 1944 lebten Schätzungen zufolge noch bis zu 25.000 Juden auf slowakischem Gebiet. Der Großteil besaß als unverzichtbare Arbeitskraft eine Arbeitsbewilligung von einem der slowakischen Ministerien, die vor dem 14. März 1939 getauften Juden (ca. 3.200) und die in Mischehen lebenden (ungefähr 1.000) wiederum zumeist eine Ausnahmebewilligung des Staatspräsidenten. Ein Teil lebte aber auch unangemeldet in der Slowakei.[173]

Juden kämpften als Soldaten und Offiziere der aufständischen Armee und als Angehörige der Partisaneneinheiten an allen Fronten des Aufstands. An den Kämpfen nahm u. a. eine ausschließlich aus Juden zusammengesetzte Einheit teil, die sich aus 250 kampffähigen ehemaligen Internierten des Konzentrationslagers Nováky rekrutierte. Ihre Partisaneneinheit („Nováky-Gruppe“) wurde Bestandteil der 4. taktischen Gruppe der Aufstandsarmee.[174] Eine Sonderstellung unter den jüdischen Kämpfern, die sich am slowakischen Volksaufstand beteiligten, nahm die vierköpfige Gruppe der mit Fallschirm auf dem Aufstandsgebiet gelandeten britischen Militärmission in Banská Bystrica ein. Alle hatten zuvor im damaligen Palästina gelebt und Fallschirmkurse absolviert. Unmittelbar nach Ausbruch des Aufstands meldeten sich alle vier freiwillig zu der Militärkommission, die das britische Oberkommando in die Slowakei zu entsenden gedachte. Die Aufgabe der Mission war, den Kontakt des britischen Heereskommandos mit dem Oberkommando der aufständischen Slowakei zu vermitteln. Nachdem die deutschen Truppen das Aufstandszentrum besetzt hatten, zogen sich die palästinensisch-jüdischen Fallschirmsoldaten in die Berge zurück. Drei der vier kamen infolge des Aufstands um.[175]

Der überwiegende Teil der jüdischen Partisanen kämpfte in verschiedenen Partisaneneinheiten – in 32 der 46 größeren Partisaneneinheiten wurden jüdische Namen festgestellt. Ihre bisher eruierte Gesamtzahl beträgt 1.566 jüdische Teilnehmer, davon 1.397 Männer und 169 Frauen. Damit waren von den insgesamt rund 16.000 Partisanen etwa 10 % Juden, und bis zu 6,4 % der in der Slowakei verbliebenen – wegen der vorausgegangenen Deportationen mehrheitlich älteren – jüdischen Bevölkerung nahmen am Aufstand teil. Damit lag der Prozentsatz der Juden, die sich für den Aufstand entschieden, größer als der Anteil slowakischer Kämpfer an der Gesamtbevölkerung. 269 jüdische Partisanen fielen im Kampf oder starben in der Folge der Kampfhandlungen, was 17 % aller kämpfenden Juden entspricht. 166 jüdische Teilnehmer am Aufstand erhielten die Auszeichnung des Ordens des SNP I. und II. Klasse. Damit steht die Teilnahme der Juden am antifaschistischen Kampf in der Slowakei nicht nur zahlenmäßig, sondern auch in Bezug auf die Intensität ihrer Teilnahme an vorderster Stelle der jüdischen Beteiligung an der europäischen Widerstandsbewegung.[176]

Consequences

German occupation regime and war crimes

Spätestens mit dem Beginn des Aufstands hatte das Tiso-Regime den Rückhalt im eigenen Land endgültig verloren und war in völlige Abhängigkeit zum Deutschen Reich geraten. SS-Truppen gingen in der Folgezeit zusammen mit slowakischen Verbänden sowie dem aus der deutschen Bevölkerungsgruppe in der Slowakei rekrutierten „Heimatschutz“ brutal gegen Partisanen, aber auch gegen Zivilisten vor. Durch die Vergeltungsmaßnahmen an den gefangenen Aufständischen und „Strafmaßnahmen“ an der Zivilbevölkerung in den ehemaligen Aufstandsgebieten stieg die Zahl der Opfer nach dem Ende des Aufstands.[177] Öffentliche Hinrichtungen, Massenerschießungen, Deportationen in die Vernichtungs- und Konzentrationslager, das Niederbrennen von Gemeinden und Dörfern gehörten nun zum slowakischen Alltag. Die meisten Aktionen wurden von der bereits kurz nach Ausbruch der Aufstands in die Slowakei entsandten Einsatzgruppe H organisiert und häufig unter der Mitarbeit von Einheimischen durchgeführt. Zu den Opfern gehörten vor allem Juden, aber auch zahlreiche Roma sowie festgenommene Partisanen und Aufständische oder ihre Unterstützer.[178] Insgesamt wurden rund 30.000 Staatsbürger der Slowakei in deutsche Gefangenen-, Arbeits-, Internierungs- und Konzentrationslager deportiert (etwa zwei Drittel in Gefangenen- und Arbeitslager).[179]

Die Orte mit den meisten Massenerschießungen waren Kremnička (743 Opfer, davon 280 Frauen und 99 Kinder) und Nemecká (mindestens 400 Opfer), wobei die Erschießungen durch das Einsatzkommando 14 der Einsatzgruppe H unter Obersturmführer Herbert Deffner organisiert und unter Mitarbeit einer Truppe der Bereitschaftseinheiten der Hlinka-Garde durchgeführt wurden.[180] Eine wichtige Aufgabe der Einsatzgruppe H bestand in der Festnahme der militärischen Führer des Aufstands, den Generälen Viest und Golian. Nach der Besetzung von Banská Bystrica am 27. Oktober hatten sie sich auf den Gebirgspass Donovaly zurückgezogen und waren in die Ortschaft Pohronský Bukovec gelangt, wo sie am 3. November von Angehörigen des Einsatzkommandos 14 verhaftet wurden. Beide Generäle wurden in Bratislava verhört und anschließend am 9. November nach Berlin gebracht. Eindeutige Beweise für das weitere Schicksal der Generäle fehlen bis heute, jedoch deute laut der Historikerin Šindelářová alles darauf hin, dass sie im Februar 1945 im Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg erschossen wurden.[181]

Im Zuge der Aufstandsbekämpfung leiteten Wehrmachtseinheiten und Einsatzgruppen außerdem umfangreiche Plünderungsaktionen ein, ohne auf die künstlich aufrechterhaltene Scheinsouverenität des Slowakischen Staates Rücksicht zu nehmen. Diese wurden – trotz der Proteste slowakischer Stellen – auch auf nichtaufständische Gebiete in der Slowakei ausgedehnt. Ende Dezember 1944 erfolgte die Berufung eines deutschen „Wirtschaftsbeauftragten“, wonach alle Rohstoff- und Nahrungsmittelrreserven beschlagnahmt und nach den Arbeitskräften auch die Industrieanlagen der vollen Verfügungsgewalt der Reichsorgane unterworfen wurden. Dazu urteilt Hoensch (1994): „Die Slowakei behielt nach dem Nationalaufstand ihre ‚souveräne‘ Fassade lediglich noch aus Tarnungsgründen und wurde intern bereits als ‚innerreichliches Problem‘ betrachtet und behandelt.“[182]

Persecution of Jews and Holocaust

The uprising that broke out at the end of August 1944 was taken by the German leadership as an opportunity to complete the extermination of the Jewish population in Slovakia. Unlike the deportations of 1942, this time the action was organized and carried out almost exclusively by German agencies from the very beginning. No letter of protection was recognized anymore. One fact remains that the highest Slovak bodies did not intend to continue the deportations of Jews, they even tried to prevent them. Nevertheless, at that time they still behaved in an anti-Jewish manner, because they did not want to take note of the real cause of the uprising as a general and open expression of rejection of the regime. On the question of the cause of the uprising and the decisive part played by the Jews in its preparation, outbreak and course, the Slovak and German government circles were of one mind.[183]

The main role in the now proclaimed radical solution of the "Jewish question" was undoubtedly played by Einsatzgruppe H under the command of Josef Witiska. Its activities meant in practice the arrest of Jews and their subsequent deportation from Slovakia or their murder on Slovak soil. The actions began immediately after the arrival of Einsatzgruppe H or its first two Einsatzkommandos 13 and 14. Larger raids with numerous arrested Jews took place in the first days of September, especially in Topoľčany and Trenčín; the largest raid against Jews was carried out in the Slovak capital at the end of September 1944, when 1,600 Jews were arrested. The arrest was usually carried out by members of Einsatzgruppe H, often with the assistance of Slovaks or Volksdeutsche. This was followed first by the transfer of those arrested to the nearest prison, where they were registered and in some cases interrogated (under torture) in order to learn from them the whereabouts of other hidden Jews.[184]

The majority of the arrested Jews were subsequently transferred to the Sereď concentration camp. The place near Trnava had already served as a concentration camp during the 1942 deportations or, after their completion in September 1942, as a labor camp for up to 1,200 Jews until the end of August 1944, and was taken over by German authorities in the first days of September (immediately after the German invasion, all but 15 remaining Jews had fled the camp). Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner, one of Adolf Eichmann's most important collaborators in the realization of the genocide of Slovak Jews, was ordered to Slovakia to organize the subsequent transport of Jews from Sereď to the extermination camps. Upon his arrival in Sereď, deportations from Slovakia resumed immediately and were to continue for the next six months until the end of March 1945. By the end of the war, more than 14,000 Jews (in addition to the approximately 58,000 deportees of 1942) had been deported or murdered on Slovak territory.[184]

Thanks to the help of fellow Slovaks, however, about 10,000 Jews, some of whom fought in the armed uprising, were saved even in this second phase. In terms of numbers, Slovaks are among the most frequent recipients of the Israeli Righteous Among the Nations award, which the State of Israel bestows for the rescue of Jews. Nevertheless, the "solution of the Jewish question" in World War II, which resulted in the genocide, in fact initiated the disintegration of the closed Jewish community in Slovakia. The waves of emigration in 1945, 1948 and 1968 then brought its definitive end.[185]

Casualty figures and war damage

Estimates of the total number of soldiers and partisans of the insurgents killed from the beginning of the uprising until the liberation, as well as the number of fallen German soldiers, are based today on about 7500 soldiers and 2500 partisans, whereby the Slovak insurgents lost about 3000 men during the national uprising (mostly soldiers but also partisans) and about 1000 others already died in captivity. Through the research work of Slovak historians, about 1500 victims could be proven so far.[186] The number of German soldiers killed in the uprising fighting could not be objectively quantified until today, according to historian Martin Lacko (2008).[187] In an anthology on the history of the Slovak National Uprising published in 1985, still in socialist Czechoslovakia, the authors state the following German losses: 4200 fallen soldiers, 5000 wounded and 300 prisoners.[188] The number of German soldiers killed in the Slovak National Uprising was not known.

Data on casualties as a result of the Nazi occupation policy in Slovakia from September 1944 to March 1945 mostly vary between 4000 and 5000 people, with about 2000 of them being Jews.[189] The Museum of the Slovak National Uprising (Múzeum SNP), in its 2009 publication, estimates that from September 1944 to the end of April 1945, a total of 5305 people were murdered in 211 mass graves. 102 villages and communities were completely or partially burned to the ground.[190]

In addition, the German occupation forces destroyed or confiscated 800 motorized vehicles and 267 aircraft. The total damage caused in Slovakia during the uprising and the frontline passage was estimated at about 114 billion crowns after the war. Roads, bridges and rails were destroyed. Only 22 of the original nearly 700 locomotives remained. The majority of tunnels and railroad bridges were buried or destroyed, and road communications fared similarly, with about 1,500 bridges destroyed and 500 more damaged.[191]

Significance for the political position of Slovakia after 1945

The importance of the Slovak National Uprising was not so much on the military level, but on a political and moral level.[192] Due to the defeat of the uprising, the political expectations of the politicians of the uprising were only partially fulfilled. With the realization of the uprising, they were able to free Slovakia from the burden of the previous collaboration with the Third Reich, gained significant influence, and their political views had to be taken note of in London as well as in Moscow. Nevertheless, they were fully dependent on outside forces for liberation, which significantly worsened their position for the postwar era. On the liberated Slovak territory, which was gradually handed over to the civil administration by the Red Army, the Slovak National Council was still able to maintain a de facto monopoly on power. Only after the full establishment of the new Czechoslovak government in Prague, from 1945 to 1948 or 1960, there was a gradual dismantling of all elements of national-political self-government, which the Slovaks had won over Czech politics through the uprising. The political goals of the bourgeois democrats and communists involved in the uprising were not taken into account in the post-war period. The democrats managed to protect Slovakia from a communist regime only until February 1948. The Slovak communists did not fare much better, the majority of whom were sent to communist prisons as part of the internal party purges of the 1950s. Nevertheless, the uprising, with its struggle for political freedom and national self-government, gave Slovakia ideals to which it proudly professed and still professes after 1989.[193]

Legal reconditioning

The Slovak state ceased to exist after six years, yet in the first years of the re-established republic there were areas that belonged exclusively to the competence of the Slovak National Council, the legislative body of the autonomous administration in Slovakia, and thus were removed from the decision-making power of the central government in Prague. One of these areas was the prosecution of crimes committed since 1938. This was based on the relevant Allied agreements that had been concluded during or shortly after the war. The decree prepared by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London containing the provisions for the prosecution of Nazi and war criminals was rejected by the Slovak National Council, with the result that Czechoslovakia ultimately proceeded in this sphere according to two different sets of standards. In the western part of the republic, the basic norm was the so-called Great Retribution Decree of June 19, 1945; in Slovakia, it was Decree of the Slovak National Council No. 33/1945, which had already entered into force a month earlier.[194]

Regarding the 100 SS leaders of Einsatzgruppe H examined in the study by Czech historian Lenka Šindelářová, the following picture emerges: a total of five SS leaders were convicted by the Czech People's Courts with final effect. None of these, however, was held accountable for the crimes committed in Slovakia - all of them had to answer for their earlier activities in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Three death sentences and two prison sentences of five and twelve years were handed down.[195] Only one of the 100 SS leaders had to stand trial in Slovakia. Others were investigated, but the results were not sufficient to bring the accused to trial.[196] In the Federal Republic, not a single SS leader of Einsatzgruppe H was convicted for his activities in Slovakia. Nevertheless, some of them had to answer to a Federal German court for their actions during the war and in some cases even had to serve a prison sentence. A total of ten SS leaders of Einsatzgruppe H were convicted in the Federal Republic of Germany for killing crimes committed outside Slovakia.[197] In addition to Czechoslovakia and the Federal Republic, members of Einsatzgruppe H were also held accountable in other countries and in some cases convicted with final effect. Four commando leaders were sentenced to death and subsequently executed.[198]

However, other persons were convicted by Slovak People's Courts with final effect who can be seen more or less in some connection with the activities of Einsatzgruppe H.[196] For example, on December 3, 1947, the National Court in Bratislava sentenced the former German envoy in Bratislava, Hanns Elard Ludin, and the German commander in Slovakia, Hermann Höfle, to death by hanging. Both were found guilty on a total of 27 counts, their crimes consisting mainly of participating in the "political, economic and other oppression of the Slovak people. Höfle fought with the German army on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic against the Red Army, against other armies of the Allies, the Slovak National Uprising and the partisans in Slovakia; both were in the service of Nazi Germany, gave orders and participated in the deportation of Slovak citizens abroad." The death sentences were carried out on December 9, 1947.[196] On February 27, 1948, the "Commissioner for Jewish Affairs" for Slovakia, Dieter Wisliceny, was also executed in Bratislava. The first German commander, Gottlob Berger, on the other hand, could not be seized by the Czechoslovak organs.[196]

Another trial before the National Court in Bratislava, namely that against the former president of the Slovak state, Jozef Tiso, caused a much greater stir. He was joined on trial by the former Slovak Minister of the Interior, Alexander Mach, and the former Minister of the Interior and Foreign Affairs, Ferdinand Ďurčanský. The controversial verdict was handed down on April 15, 1947. Tiso was sentenced to death by hanging and the death penalty was carried out three days later. The court also imposed a death sentence on the absent Ďurčanský. Mach, on the other hand, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, although the sentence was later reduced to 25 years and Mach was ultimately released early in 1968 thanks to an amnesty. In another trial before the National Court on November 11, 1947, the other ministers who had taken up their posts on September 5, 1944, were also convicted: Former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Štefan Tiso to 30 years, Minister of Defense Štefan Haššík in absentia to death by firing squad, Minister of Finance Mikuláš Pružinský to six years, Minister of Economy Gejza Medrický to seven years, Minister of Education and National Enlightenment Aladár Kočíš to six years, and Minister of Transport and Public Works Ľudovít Lednár to four years imprisonment. Furthermore, in August 1946, the National Court sentenced Otomar Kubala, Chief of Staff of the Hlinka Guard and State Secretary for Security, to death and subsequently shot him.[199]

Reception

Contemporary interpretations (1944–1945)

Propaganda poster of the Ludaks against the uprising: "These are the deeds of Czecho-Bolshevism - so take up arms!"

In September and October 1944, the representatives of the Slovak collaborationist regime labelled the uprising as small, unprepared, meaningless and foreign - the work of "non-Slovak elements": the so-called Czechoslovaks, Czechs, Jews, Russian paratroopers and domestic traitors. For President Tiso and the leadership of the Hlinka party, the Slovak National Uprising was a purely communist-inspired conspiracy to which a small section of the Slovaks had allowed themselves to be misused by the pretence of false facts. They saw the collapse of their state as a historical misunderstanding, which they believed to be due to the intervention of a foreign power and a foreign will imported from Moscow and London. Sympathisers of the ruling Hlinka party and their ideological successors perceived and still perceive it as a criminal, anti-national, pro-Czech, pro-Bolshevik and anti-Christian or Lutheran conspiracy, as terrorism against state sovereignty and a fratricidal civil war.[200] After the suppression of the uprising, the German patron's need to proclaim a great victory prevailed - consequently, the official Slovak press also reclassified the "putsch" as an "uprising".[201]

President Beneš in exile wanted to see the Slovak National Uprising as confirmation of his loyalty to pre-war Czechoslovakia. However, his government in exile in London also had to accept the self-confident behaviour of the Slovak national bodies and after 1945 it proved difficult to return to pre-war centralism. The majority of Slovak non-communist organisers and participants expected a new joint democratic state of Slovaks and Czechs based on the principle of equal rights[201].

Judgement in post-war democratic Czechoslovakia (1945–1948)

On the first anniversary of the SNP, which was celebrated on 29 August 1945, the foundation stone for the memorial to the victims of the uprising was laid with the participation of Czechoslovak President Beneš. The celebrations were intended to mobilise people to rebuild war-ravaged Slovakia within the framework of Czechoslovakia and, above all, to send a message: The war had been "anti-fascist" and "fascists" were responsible for all atrocities and crimes. The following SNP anniversaries reflected the loss of authority of the Slovakian national institutions in favour of the Prague institutions. The insurgents' ideas about the federalisation of Czechoslovakia had not been implemented - not only because of the disobedience of the Czech side, but also because of the political conflict between Slovak democrats and communists, with the latter becoming instruments of the renewal of centralism[202].

Reinterpretations in communist Czechoslovakia (1948–1989)

The Order of the SNP II. Class, awarded by the ČSSR for participation in the uprising

After coming to power in February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gained the exclusive right to administer the "historical legacy" of the Slovak National Uprising.[203] After the February coup in 1948, the already insignificant competences of the Slovak National Council, once the highest body of the 1944 Uprising, were reduced to a minimum of representative functions. Next, generals of the Czechoslovak army, insofar as they were Slovaks and former prominent members of the uprising, were dismissed and imprisoned. All those insurrection leaders who were non-communists were denounced, persecuted and excluded from any honour (such as Jozef Lettrich, Ján Ursiny and Matej Josko). This process was already over by 1949.[204] On the 5th anniversary in 1949, it was declared that the Communist Party had been the "sole leading and organisational force of the uprising" and that Klement Gottwald had "personally prepared the uprising from Moscow and Kiev" and led it from there. The Slovak National Uprising had strengthened the "fraternal bond between Czechs and Slovaks in a unified and indivisible state".[205]

According to Slovakian historian Elena Mannová (2011), the assessment of the uprising from 1949 to 1964 in communist Czechoslovakia was characterised by a denationalisation of the memory of the national uprising: "The construction of the 'socialist Czechoslovak people' began, cheerfully building socialism shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet Union. The initiative of those who already had experience of fighting against an undemocratic regime was not welcome. Political purges, intimidation and the political trials of the 1950s, which also affected many of the former insurgents, generally did not allow dissenting interpretations of the SNP to be expressed publicly."[203] The historical propaganda defined the event as "communist", internal party rivals were labelled as "fake communists" and criminalised as traitors. Power struggles between the leaders of the Slovakian and Czech CPs played out as a variant of the campaign against so-called bourgeois nationalism that took place in all multi-ethnic communist states. After Yugoslavia's break with the Soviet Union, several leading Slovak communists were accused of (alleged) anti-Czech "bourgeois" nationalism. Calls for a federal organisation of Czechoslovakia, which had been raised during the SNP, were seen as the first step towards future secession.[206]

At the IX Party Congress of the Czechoslovak Communists in 1950, the communist uprising leaders of 1944 were finally also accused of "bourgeois nationalism". On 18 April 1951, Husák and Novomeský were accused at a meeting of the Central Committee of the KSS of having been prepared to switch to the position of the class enemy during the uprising. Novomeský and Husák were put on trial, and in December 1952 the former chairman of the Slovak National Council of 1944, the former communist Karol Šmidke, died in unexplained circumstances.[207] The German historian Wolfgang Venohr (1992) writes:

"Afterwards it was clear that the fact and legacy of the Slovak uprising of 1944 fitted the Czech Stalinist communists under Gottwald just as poorly as it had previously fitted the Czech bourgeois forces under Beneš. In Prague, it was quickly realised that the uprising had far more than mere historical significance, that it would inevitably become fodder for all Slovakian emancipation and equality aspirations if its tradition was not brought under control as quickly as possible and deformed in the desired sense. [...] Everything that appeared on the Czechoslovakian book market in 1954 on the tenth anniversary of the uprising was nothing but historical fabrication of the most primitive kind [...]"[208].

Wappen der Tschechoslowakei 1960–1990

Wolfgang Venohr summarises the "new authoritative interpretation of the uprising" in the following six points:

• The uprising was a matter for the entire Slovakian people under the leadership of the Communists.
• The uprising was to be regarded merely as part of the overall Czechoslovak resistance.
• The uprising was prepared and organised by the communist Gottwald group in Moscow.
• In military terms, the uprising was carried out by the partisans and not the Slovakian army units.
• The uprising could never have taken place without the active support of the Soviet Union.
• The uprising ultimately failed due to the incompetence of the Slovak army officers and the intrigues of the Beneš clique in London[209].

Gustáv Husák and his comrades were released from prison in 1960, but were not morally rehabilitated until the end of 1963 - for fear that after the rehabilitation of the "Slovak bourgeois nationalists", their political programme from the SNP era could be renewed. [210] The new constitution of 1960 completely demoted the Slovak National Council and subordinated the administration directly to Prague.[211] In addition, the Slovak double cross was replaced by a fire on Mount Kriváň, which was intended to symbolise the Slovak National Uprising, in the coat of arms of the country, which was now called the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR).[212]

In the second half of the 1960s, the nationalisation of the memory of the uprising could no longer be halted. In 1968, aspects of the uprising that had previously been kept secret were freely discussed in the press. For the first time since 1948, representatives of the democratic resistance appeared in the stands at local celebrations of the anniversary. The Soviet occupation and the subsequent so-called normalisation then put an end to pluralist remembrance. After 1969, the only official interpretation of the uprising that was binding for historians was Gustáv Husák's "national-communist" interpretation, which he had set out in his memoirs in 1964[213].

References

Monographs and Document editions

• Hoensch, Jörg K. (Introduction and Ed., 1984): Dokumente zur Autonomiepolitik der Slowakischen Volkspartei Hlinkas [= Documents on the autonomy policy of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party]. Munich/Vienna: Oldenbourg Verlag, ISBN 3-486-51071-1. (German)
• Jablonický, Jozef (2009): Z ilegality do povstania. Kapitoly z občianskeho odboja [= From underground to insurgency. Chapters from the Civil Resistance]. Second Edition, Banská Bystrica: DALI-BB/Múzeum SNP, ISBN 978-80-89090-60-0. (Slovak)
• Lacko, Martin (2008): Slovenské národné povstanie 1944 [= Slovak National Uprising 1944]. Bratislava: Slovart, Bratislava 2008, ISBN 978-80-8085-575-8 (Recension in German). (Slovak)
• Stanislav Mičev et al. (2009): Slovenské národné povstanie 1944 [= Slovak National Uprising 1944]. Bratislava: Múzeum SNP, ISBN 978-80-970238-3-6. (Slovak)
• Šindelářová, Lenka (2013): Finale der Vernichtung: Die Einsatzgruppe H in der Slowakei 1944/45 [= Final of extermination: Einsatzgruppe H in Slovakia 1944/45]. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, ISBN 978-3-534-25973-1 (Recension in German). (German)
• Venohr, Wolfgang (1992): Aufstand der Slowaken. Der Freiheitskampf von 1944. New updated edition, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin: Ullstein, ISBN 978-3-548-33156-0 (Rezension zur vorherigen Ausgabe). (German)

Studies from collected volumes

• Josko, Anna (1980): Die Slowakische Widerstandsbewegung [= The Slovak Resistance Movement]. In: Mamatey, Victor S. and Luža, Radomír (Ed.): Geschichte der Tschechoslowakischen Republik 1918–1948 [= History of the Czechoslovak Republic 1918-1948]. Vienna/Cologne/Graz: Böhlau, ISBN 3-205-07114-X, p. 385–408. (German)
• Mannová, Elena (2011): Jubiläumskampagnen und Uminterpretationen des Slowakischen Nationalaufstands von 1944 [= Anniversary campaigns and reinterpretations of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising]. In: Jaworski, Rudolf; Kusber, Jan (Ed.): Erinnern mit Hindernissen. Osteuropäische Gedenktage und Jubiläen im 20. und zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts [= Remembering with Obstacles. Eastern European commemorations and anniversaries in the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century]. Berlin: LIT, ISBN 978-3-643-10816-6, p. 201–240. (German)
• Prečan, Vilém (2011): The Slovak National Uprising: the most dramatic moment in the nation’s history. In: Teich, Mikuláš; Kováč, Dušan; Brown, Martin D. (Ed.): Slovakia in History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-80253-6, p. 206–228.
• Rychlík, Jan (2011): The Slovak question and the resistance movement during the Second World War. In: Teich, Mikuláš; Kováč, Dušan; Brown, Martin D. (Ed.): Slovakia in History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-80253-6, p. 193–205.
• Ryder, John L. (2014): Civil war in Slovakia? Outlining a theoretical approach to the Slovak national uprising. In: Syrný, Marek et al.: Slovenské národné povstanie. Slovensko a Európa v roku 1944 [= Slovak National Uprising. Slovakia and Europe in 1944]. Banská Bystrica: Múzeum SNP, ISBN 978-80-89514-30-4, p. 423–428.
• Schönherr, Klaus (2001): Die Niederschlagung des Slowakischen Aufstandes im Kontext der Deutschen Militärischen Operationen, Herbst 1944 [= The Suppression of the Slovak Uprising in the Context of German Military Operations, Autumn 1944]. In: Bohemia, No. 42, 2001, p. 39–61.
• Schönherr, Klaus (2009): Die Auswirkungen des slowakischen Nationalaufstandes auf die südliche Ostfront [= The Impact of the Slovak National Uprising on the Southern Eastern Front]. In: Pekník, Miroslav (Ed.): Slovenské národné povstanie 1944. Súčast európskej antifašistickej rezistencie v rokoch druhej svetovej vojny [= Slovak National Uprising 1944. Part of the European anti-fascist resistance in the years of the Second World War.]. Bratislava: Ústav politických vied SAV VEDA / Múzeum SNP, ISBN 978-80-224-1090-8, p. 194–202.
• Zückert, Martin (2011): Slowakei: Widerstand gegen das Tiso-Regime und nationalsozialistische Vorherrschaft [= Slovakia: Resistance against the Tiso regime and National Socialist domination. In: Ueberschär, Gerd R. (Ed.): Handbuch zum Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus und Faschismus in Europa 1933/39 bis 1945 [= Handbook on the Resistance to National Socialism and Fascism in Europe 1933/39 to 1945]. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-598-11767-1, p. 243–254.
• Zückert, Martin (2014): Partisanenbewegungen in Europa – grundsätzliche Überlegungen zum slowakischen Fall [= Partisan Movements in Europe - Fundamental Reflections on the Slovak Case]. In: Syrný, Marek et al.: Slovenské národné povstanie. Slovensko a Európa v roku 1944 [= Slovak National Uprising. Slovakia and Europe in 1944]. Banská Bystrica: Múzeum SNP, ISBN 978-80-89514-30-4, p. 410–416.

Overviews and further reading