German-Slovak protection zone statute

The German-Slovak protection zone statute was an international agreement between the German Reich and the Slovak state on the establishment of a so-called protection zone in western Slovakia , in which the German armed forces were to exercise sole military sovereignty.

Slovakia 1940 with marked protection zone

The contract was signed on August 28, 1939 in the Slovak capital, Bratislava . The contract provided for the construction of German military facilities within the protection zone.

Originally, the content of the protection zone statute was to be part of the German-Slovak Protection Treaty concluded on March 23, 1939 . In the protection treaty, however, the chapters on the German-Slovak protection zone statute (scope of the protection zone, military-related issues, etc.) and the German-Slovak Defense Industry Treaty (WWV) were omitted. It was agreed to regulate both chapters in detail in individual contracts to be negotiated later. The German-Slovak Protection Zone Statute is one of these individual agreements.

The negotiations on the protection zone statute were delayed, in particular due to different ideas about the Slovak part of the armaments of the former Czechoslovak armed forces stored on the soil of Slovakia at the time of the dissolution of the Czechoslovak state . The size of the new Slovak armed forces has also been the subject of much controversy. It was only after Adolf Hitler gave in to the Slovak Prime Minister Jozef Tiso on this issue that the contract came about in August 1939.

consequences

As a result of the contract, several German garrisons and a large military training area (Small Carpathian military training area , today Záhorie military training area in the Föhrenwald near Malacky ) were set up in the western Slovakian protection zone.

Web links

• Online readable version of the original contract

literature

• Christoph Dieckmann , Babette Quinkert, Tatjana Tönsmeyer (eds.): Cooperation and crime. Forms of “collaboration” in Eastern Europe 1939–1945 (= contributions to the history of National Socialism 19). Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-690-3 ( review ).