crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
1941 to 20 January 1942. Some moved into triangle of Brežice, where homes were abandoned and
others into territory of the German Reich. 11,174 people migrated to the Lower Styria.
They also had a plan to colonize Gorenjska. This plan was in the form of a hedgehog. At first three
colonies were to be established in the shape of hedgehog in Gorenjska: the first in the region between
Radovljica and Jesenice, with the facility in Gorje, the second in the territory between Škofja Loka and
Šmartno below Šmarna gora hill, with standing points in Šmartno, and the third between Domžale and
Homec, with the standing points in Dob. This colonization was also intended to stem the rising tide
of the partisan movement. Of all these plans, only the colonization of Gorje was begun, but was soon
abandoned.
3.2.2. Offices for strengthening German nationality
The work of the Offices of Deputies of the National Commissioner for Strengthening German
Nationality was tightly connected with the deportations of Slovenes. At first, their duty was the
administration of the sizeable possessions of deported Slovenes and German colonization. For successful
Germanization, the German occupying authorities intervened in the economy. Dr Uiberreither spared no
pains to include the economy of Slovene Styria in the economy of Austria Styria and, therefore, in the
Nazi economy. Thus, for example, in Slovene Styria in the first two years 112 industrial, 471 tradesmen’s
and 426 commercial plants, and 7,200 farms totalling some 115,000 hectares were confiscated.
Later on, the Office was given the additional task of deporting some Slovene groups which they
believed susceptible to Germanization, and the relatives of partisans and executed hostages.
During the process of Germanization, the German occupying authorities dedicated special attention
to children in kindergarten and schools. They established German-only kindergartens, and lessons in
schools were in German only.
The German occupying authorities also undertook other Germanization measures, including
the mass destructions of books, the abolition of Slovene associations and the confiscation of their
estates. The occupier sought to destroy Slovene nationality with these measures. Newspapers like
the Marburger Zeitung and Styrian Master (Štajerski gospodar) and cinema helped a great deal in
promoting Germanization and enthusiasm for German nationality.
3.2.3. Racial and political evaluation
In the spring and summer of 1941 the Nazis marked politically and racially almost the whole
population in the occupied region of Slovenia. Nowhere in the occupied territories was the examination
as thorough as here. With the political evaluation they tried to eliminate all “persons hostile to Germans”,
and with the racial evaluation they wanted to prevent the inclusion in “the German people’s community”
of “racial unsuitable elements”. Political grades were awarded from 10 to 5, and racial from I to IV (the
best were I, 1). They evaluated each person separately and then gave political and racial grades for the
whole family. On the basis of these two evaluations they assigned final grade: E (evacuee; deported in
NDH or Serbia), V (verbleibt; stay home), A (altreich; deported to Germany).
The majority of the population was graded racially as III and politically as 3, which would for
example mean deportation of more than half of the Gorenjska population. Since this kind of mass
deportation was hard to execute, the criteria were slightly changed. They introduced the new grades of
III+ and III-, whereupon only the families graded III- were assigned for deportation.
The emigration staff for Styria included the “Southeast SS Action Committee for the Racial and
Colonization Central Office” (Einsatzstelle Südost des Rasse- und Siedlungs-Hauptamtes SS), which
“evaluated” the population. In Lower Styria from 24 April to 15 September 1941, 312,252 persons were
checked; 70,162 in the region of Sava and Sotla, and 42,520 persons, who settled here after 1914. “Racial
examination” in Gorenjska was executed by the “Southeast Action Office” (Einsatzstelle Süd-Ost). This
included 63,334 persons, with 14,086 families and 10,747 individuals without relatives. During the
examination of the Gorenjska population the Nazis were quite surprised, because they discovered that
these people had better racial grades (higher bigger percentage of pure Nordic and Phalian races) than
in Slovene Styria, which was considered the more German region. On the basis of these results, almost
half of the Gorenjska population had blue eyes.
46