Operational Zone Adriatic Coast
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral (, OZAK; or colloquially: ''Operationszone Adria''; ; ; ) was a
Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
district on the northern Adriatic coast created during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
in 1943. It was formed out of territories that were previously under Fascist Italian control until its takeover by Germany. It included parts of present-day Italian,
Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
n, and
Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
n territories. The area was administered as territory attached, but not incorporated, to the '' Reichsgau'' of Carinthia. The capital of the zone was the city of
Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...
.


Background

OZAK was established, with its headquarters in Trieste, on 10 September 1943, by
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, as a response to the Italian capitulation (8 September 1943) following the
Allied invasion of Italy The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allies of World War II, Allied Amphibious warfare, amphibious landing on mainland Italy that took place from 3 September 1943, during the Italian campaign (World War II), Italian campaign of World War II. T ...
. It comprised the provinces of Udine, ,
Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...
, Pula (Pola),
Rijeka Rijeka (; Fiume ( fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman dialect, Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Ba ...
(Fiume) and
Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...
(Lubiana). The Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills, comprising the provinces of Belluno, South Tyrol, and
Trentino Trentino (), officially the Autonomous Province of Trento (; ; ), is an Autonomous province#Italy, autonomous province of Italy in the Northern Italy, country's far north. Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the Regions of Italy, region of Tren ...
, was established on the same day. Both operational zones were separate from the
Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic (, ; RSI; , ), known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy (; SNRI), but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò (, ), was a List of World War II puppet states#Germany, German puppe ...
(RSI), based in Salò on
Lake Garda Lake Garda (, , or , ; ; ) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, between Brescia and Milan to the west, and Verona and Venice to the east. The lake cuts into the edge of the Eastern Alps, Italian Alp ...
, which governed the remainder of Italy that had not yet been occupied by the Allies. The OZAK was not incorporated in the German Reich outright, but attached to the Gau of Carinthia. Friedrich Rainer,
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
Gauleiter of Carinthia was appointed Reich Defense Commissioner of OZAK, thereby becoming chief of the civil administration of the semi-annexed territory. The province of
Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...
was given a Slovenian provincial administration. Leading collaborator Gregorij Rožman, Bishop of Ljubljana, recommended to Rainer that notorious anti-Semite Leon Rupnik should be the president of the new Ljubljana provincial government, and Rupnik was then duly appointed on 22 September 1943. SS General
Erwin Rösener Erwin Friedrich Karl Rösener (2 February 1902 – 4 September 1946) was a German '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he was responsible for mass executions of civilians in Slovenia. Rösener was put on tri ...
became Advisor to the President.


Genocidal activities

OZAK was the scene of genocidal activities. Its commander, Higher SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik, had become one of the most feared Nazi leaders in Eastern Europe after liquidating the
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
ghettoes in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
and
Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...
and supervising the operations of the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibór, Majdanek, and Treblinka. He commanded all the Nazi camps in occupied Poland from 1941 to 1943. After serving briefly as Gauleiter of Vienna he had been posted to Trieste, where to the very end he ran the Risiera di San Sabba prison, the only SS camp ever set-up on Italian soil. Globocnik, returning to his native city in triumph in mid-September 1943, established his office at Via Nizza 21 in Trieste and began to carry out ''Einsatz R'', the systematic persecution of Jews, partisans and anti-Nazi politicians in Friuli,
Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; ; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian: ; ; ) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at th ...
and other areas of the Croatian Adriatic coastline. His staff of 92, mostly members of the German and Ukrainian SS with killing experience gained in
Operation Reinhard Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...
, was quickly expanded to combat the unrelenting partisan activity throughout the region. Globocnik's domain included Risiera di San Sabba, a large, disused and decrepit rice mill at Ratto della Pileria 43 in the Triestine suburb of San Sabba. Under his supervision it was converted into the only Nazi extermination camp in Italian territory. The camp was used to detain hostages, partisans and political prisoners, and as a collection and transit camp for Jews being deported to
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...
. In October 1943, arrests started and the camp opened, staffed primarily by German and Ukrainian members of the SS under the command of SS- Sturmbannführer Christian Wirth, former commander of Belzec extermination camp. Wirth was killed by
Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...
in Opatija, on 26 May 1944. He was replaced by Wirth's former deputy in
Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
and successor in Belzec, SS- Hauptsturmführer Gottlieb Hering. Hering was replaced by SS- Obersturmbannführer Dietrich Allers in August 1944. On 28 April 1945, the San Sabba camp ceased operating, and Waffen-SS troops set free the remaining inmates and demolished the gas chamber and incinerator building the next day, to destroy evidence of war crimes. Over 25,000 Italian, Slovene, Croatian and Jewish civilians passed through the San Sabba camp, about 5,000 were killed there by various methods including gassing. Today the rice mill is an Italian National Memorial Site. The camp's commanders and collaborators were tried in Trieste in 1976, but their sentences were never carried out.


German plans for the region

The ethnic and political re-definition of the Adriatic Littoral was considered during the war on a theoretical level. In a telegram sent on 9 September 1943 to foreign minister Ribbentrop, ''Gauleiter'' Rainer suggests the future establishment of Reich protectorates in Gorizia, Istria and Carniola, based on the subdivisions of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Initial German occupation policy, however, favored incorporating the area into the ''Reichsgau'' of Carinthia. The ethnic complexity of the region was to be used to minimize Italian influence, promote ethnic segmentation, and introduce Germandom as a stabilizing force. This strategy was based on an understanding of history of medieval Germany and the
Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...
, where the German lords and nobles were seen to have made the economic and administrative development of the region possible. The ethno-social composition of Venezia-Giulia, Trieste, and Friuli was an important component to Germany's plans of occupation. The fascist government had lost support of the fragmented social groups throughout the region- and the collapse of the regime ushered in a period of disorientation amongst Italians. Nazi propaganda worked to create the illusion that the areas under the zone had Austro-Hungarian roots. Germany had plans to adopt the region as part of the Reichstag; however, they used the region's imperial-past to make connections with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They named the zone "Adriatisches Küstenland" which bore reference to the Austro-Hungarian past as that had been the name used by the empire in reference to areas North of the Adriatic. This propaganda relates to the greater German plan as they intended to replace Rome with Vienna as the capital of the region. Germans believed that by referencing the prosperous past, they could evoke feelings of nostalgia that would ultimately forge cultural links between Vienna and Trieste to Germany. Nazis employed more tactics of propaganda as seen in Italy through the creation of the Italian Social Republic (RSI), which effectively was a puppet-government that was under the control of Germany. With the RSI in control, Germany was able to enact extremely repressive laws which targeted specific ethnic and national groups, thereby spreading Nazi ideology throughout the zone. On 10 November 1943, Karl Lapper - head of SS Alpenland- issued an order which restricted all Italian radio and news sources within the zone, as they were substituted with German broadcasts of radio and news. By creating an extensive propaganda network that affected all parts of daily life, Germans were able to coerce support for the Nazi cause. The future of the Province of Udine (Central and Western
Friuli Friuli (; ; or ; ; ) is a historical region of northeast Italy. The region is marked by its separate regional and ethnic identity predominantly tied to the Friulians, who speak the Friulian language. It comprises the major part of the autono ...
, today the provinces of Udine and Pordenone) was uncertain, but it is evident that a strategy similar to the other areas of the operational zone was to be pursued. In the previously mentioned telegram, Rainer emphasizes that the Friuli region is not ethnically Italian, but is composed of speakers of Friulian and, to a small extent German and Slovene. German scholars also presented supposed evidence for the "profound influence" German culture and language have had on the Friulians, including loan words and medieval place-names. Historical evidence was also found for the region of Friuli being a
march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...
land in the Carolingian and the early German empires, as well as for the role the German feudal lords played in the region, and its annexation to the Duchy of Carinthia in the late 10th century. It was thus concluded that the Friulians belonged to the German cultural field, and that their land was an ancient part of the German empire and has ever since been part of the German "vital space" (''
Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...
''). These supposedly scholarly findings were echoed in German newspapers, although the Italian-language propaganda spread in the province of Udine emphasized the local population's ethnic distinction and regional autonomy, not pan-Germanism. Several factions within the Nazi government also intended to extend the area of the two operational zones even further to the detriment of Italian territory. Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that the only "logical" border would be one that included the territories of the former Habsburg Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, expressing his hopes that Hitler's renewed friendship with
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
would not deter him from this step: ich, Norman: ''Hitler's War Aims: The Establishment of the New Order'', page 320. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 1981./ref> He eventually managed to convince Hitler that this course of action should be undertaken, who agreed that Venice should be bound to the
Reich ( ; ) is a German word whose meaning is analogous to the English word " realm". The terms and are respectively used in German in reference to empires and kingdoms. In English usage, the term " Reich" often refers to Nazi Germany, also ca ...
in "some sort of loose confederation."


Military operations in the zone

Since an Allied landing in the area was anticipated by the Germans, and because of presence of large numbers of Italian, Slovene and Croatian partisans, OZAK also hosted a substantial German military contingent, commanded by General der Gebirgstruppe Ludwig Kübler. On 28 September 1944, these units were redesignated LXXXXVII Army Corps. Nearly every available armored vehicle, modern or obsolete, was pressed into service with ''Wehrmacht,
Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...
, Ordnungspolizei'', or fascist Italian and Slovenian units. On 30 April 1945, several thousand volunteers of the Italian anti-fascist Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale rose up against the Nazis. On 1 May, Globocnik was given command of a chaotic assortment of German and collaborationist troops converging on Trieste as they retreated from Italy and Yugoslavia. These units were immediately engaged by the Partisans' 4th Army before surrendering to the New Zealand 2nd Division commanded by NZ Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg on the evening of 2 May. However, fighting continued between
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito ( ; , ), was a Yugoslavia, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 unti ...
's army and remnant Wehrmacht and collaborationist forces for several days. The Partisans began to withdraw from areas west of the Isonzo river on 15 May. On 11 June Yugoslav troops began to withdraw from Trieste.


See also

* Slovenian National Defense Corps * Adriatic Campaign of World War II *
Areas annexed by Nazi Germany There were many areas annexed by Nazi Germany both immediately before and throughout the course of World War II. Territories that were part of Germany before the annexations were known as the "Altreich" (Old Reich). Overview The respective da ...


References


External links


Panzers in the OZAK 1943-1945
by Stefano di Giusto, standard reference to German and collaborationist armor in the ''Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland''. Accessed 15 June 2006. {{coord missing, Europe Trieste in World War II Adriatic Littoral Italian Social Republic Croatia in World War II Slovenia in World War II History of the Adriatic Sea History of Istria Adriatic Littoral 1943 establishments in Yugoslavia 1945 disestablishments in Yugoslavia States and territories established in 1943 States and territories disestablished in 1945 1943 in Croatia 1943 in Slovenia 1944 in Croatia 1944 in Slovenia 1945 in Croatia 1945 in Slovenia