Croatian memorial on the Loibacher Feld

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The Croatian memorial on the Loibacher Feld (also: Bleiburger Feld) in the Austrian town of Bleiburg ( Carinthia ) is a memorial that commemorates the Croats who committed the Yugoslav war and post-war crimes in the Austrian-Yugoslav border area (called "Bleiburg Massacre") , "Tragedy of Bleiburg", "Croatian Way of the Cross" etc.) fell victim in 1945. The memorial, which was initiated in 1985, is located at an important Croatian place of remembrance and consists of the central granite memorial stone in the middle of tall spruce trees , another memorial plaque and a covered altar in Loibach . The area of ​​originally 2,080  m² was expanded to 29,800 m² through land purchases between 2004 and 2008.

Refugees on the Bleiburg field north of the railway embankment.

Every year around Mother's Day , which is close to the anniversary of the massacre on May 15, Croatians from all over the world commemorate the capture and murder of the victims. The memorial event consists of a memorial of the dead at the cemetery in Unterloibach and a procession to the memorial at Loibacher Feld followed by a Catholic mass .

The initiator of the memorial and the organizer of the commemorative events is the Bleiburg parade of honor .

history

Schematic representation of the situation on the Loibacher Feld (here also Bleiburger Feld) in 1945.

In the Croatian culture of remembrance, “Bleiburg victims” refers to a number of war crimes against Croatian troops and civilians that took place in or around Bleiburg or that began and extended to Carinthia , Slovenia and other Yugoslav republics. It is difficult to determine the exact number of those locally killed on the Bleiburg field. The bodies of those killed were buried in the woods and on Gutensteiner Strasse. According to eyewitness reports, undiscovered corpses from the Bleiburg field are still lying in individual, group and mass graves in Austrian forests in the Bleiburg area or were transported away by trucks and buried on Slovenian soil. In 1947, eight mass graves were discovered near the memorial on Gutensteiner Strasse as far as the Yugoslav border:

“There are 8 graves on both sides of the road from the HRUST inn (Unterloibach) to the Yugoslav border. They are not marked and there are no crosses on them. At the time, a railway worker living nearby observed excavation work. It is fallen Ustasha -Soldaten. Some German soldiers are also among them. Identification is not possible because, according to Mr. EBNER - railway worker - the corpses were mostly buried without clothes. This spring all graves will be opened and the bodies will be buried in a grave in Unterloibach. It is also noted that there is a mass grave in the Unterloibach cemetery with 18 soldiers' bodies, which were burned beyond recognition. "

In the cited mass grave in the Unterloibach cemetery, according to the Loibach community:

"3. Grave: (mass grave) Konrad Gehling, Corporal, died on May 13, 1945 in Pollein , Georg Wendel, date of birth a. Unknown date of death, and 16 unknown Ustascha , died in Grablach in May 1945. "

The remains of bodies discovered in 1947 from the eight mass graves around the Loibacher Feld were mainly reburied in this mass grave No. 3 in the cemetery in Unterloibach. It was one of a total of six mass graves in the Unterloibach cemetery, which were marked as war graves with a cross and a steel helmet . A Ustaša officer identified as a Ustaše officer is said to have been reburied in mass grave No. 4.

In 1951 the Bleiburg Ehrenzug was founded in secret. On All Saints' Day in 1952, Halil Delić, Mirko Karačić, Petar Hristić, Ante Mačinković, Ante Samovojska and Josip Đakić swore on the Loibacher Feld that they would keep the memory of the victims. On All Saints' Day in 1955, the first memorial ceremony took place on the Loibacher Feld / Libuško polje. Partly celebrated on All Saints' Day and Mother's Day, the celebrations were later only celebrated on Mother's Day, which is closer to the anniversary of the massacre.

At the end of 1965, members of the parade bought a 2,016  m² plot of land on the Loibach field ( Libuško polje ) and held there every year commemorations for the Croatian victims. Communist Yugoslavia viewed the commemorative events, which were only three kilometers from the state border, as a provocation, because the dead of the massacre were commemorated there and because the symbols of an independent Croatia, which were strictly forbidden in Yugoslavia at the time, were openly displayed.

The corpses from the six mass graves in the Unterloibach cemetery were exhumed again in 1974 and transferred to the St. Veit an der Glan military cemetery. The remains of the Croatian victims were already so mixed up with the bones of others that they were difficult to separate. After protests by Croats in exile, at least the remains of the victims, clearly identified as Croats, could remain in the cemetery. In addition there were the remains of the Ustascha lieutenant Josef Objetin, who was reburied from the Bleiburg parish cemetery in Loibach. After the renewed exhumations at the Unterloibach cemetery were completed, Croats in exile erected a memorial stone there from 1974 to 1976 (→ memorial stone at the Unterloibach cemetery).

The Bleiburg parade of honor and the annual commemoration event for the Croatian victims were targeted by the Yugoslav secret service. This was followed by several explosive attacks against anti-communist rallies and on February 17, 1975 the murder ("passivation") of 65-year-old Nikola Martinović, the co-founder of the honor train and main organizer of the Croatian graves and memorial maintenance in Austria. The murder of Martinović, who lives in Klagenfurt, by the communist Tito regime shows how explosive the subject of the Bleiburg victims was for the Yugoslav regime.

With the approval of the Austrian authorities, the parade of honor erected the central memorial stone in 1987.

After the collapse of Yugoslavia , the Croatian Parliament became the patron of the annual commemoration ceremonies, at which the Croatian Parliament President or his deputy and government representatives were all present. Prime Ministers Ivica Račan and Ivo Sanader personally visited the memorial and laid wreaths. Presidents Franjo Tuđman and Stjepan Mesić sent representatives or wreaths. Official representatives of the Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina also take part in the commemorative events. Representatives of the Catholic Church in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina hold masses . Prayers are said by representatives of the Islamic Community of the Republic of Croatia ; in 2005 personally by the Croatian Grand Mufti Ševko Omerbašić .

The memorial was renewed and expanded from November 2004.

According to a report by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, around 25,000 people attended the memorial event on the 70th anniversary of the massacre in 2015. The sermon was delivered by the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Đakovo-Osijek Đuro Hranić . Speeches were given by the President of the Croatian Parliament Gordan Jandroković and the Member of the State Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dr. Dragan Čović . Around 15,000 people took part in the memorial event in 2016 and around 10,000 in each of the following two years.

For the meeting planned for May 18, 2019, the administrator of the diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt , Engelbert Guggenberger , refused to approve the mass after crimes and convictions of Ustaša sympathizers had occurred in 2018 . The General Secretary of the Croatian Bishops 'Conference , Petar Palić , asked the chairman of the Austrian Bishops' Conference, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn , to lift the ban. The fair also applies to civilian victims. After the refusal of the diocese remained, the district administration became responsible for the event. In a report commissioned by the District Captain of Völkermarkt, the constitutional lawyer Heinz Mayer came to the conclusion that, taking into account the “case law of the Constitutional Court”, a “prohibition of the planned memorial event was not only permissible, but required”. In contrast, the spokesman for the Carinthian regional police department , which is subordinate to the district authority as the security authority, emphasized that, in the opinion of the LPD, a ban on the event would not be lawful.

investment

Memorial stone at the Unterloibach cemetery

Before the memorial was erected on the Loibacher Feld, the memorial events took place in the Unterloibach cemetery and are still starting there today. First of all at the mass graves of Croatian soldiers described above. After the renewed exhumations in 1974, a larger memorial stone was erected in the cemetery in Unterloibach between 1974 and 1976 and unveiled on May 8, 1977. It bears the inscription on the left :

MAJKA HRVATA / TUGUJE I PLAĆE. / I BLEIBURŠKO POLJE / OVO, GORKA NAM JE / USPOMENA, VIJEČNOG / MIRA DOMOBRANA, / KO I RATNOG / POBRATIMA SVOGA. / MILOŠ PERO / MOTHER CROATIA / MORRORS AND CRIES. / THE BLEIBURG FIELD IS / BITTER MEMORIES FOR US. / ETERNAL PEACE TO / HOME DEFENDERS AND / HIS WARMARADS. / MILOŠ PERO

In the middle of the stone, a seated and obviously mourning woman is depicted in profile, who looks at a slightly raised Croatian coat of arms .

On the right side of the memorial stone is written:

U ČAST I SLAVU / POGINULOJ IU / DOMOVINU IZRUČENOJ, / TE NESTALOJ / HRVATSKOJ VOJSCI, / U BORBI ZA / HRVATSKU DOMOVINU / SVIBNJA 1945 / POSTAVI GEE PREŽIVJELI, AROUND / SUBORCI / EH EXTRIBUTED / AND MISSING / CROATIAN SOLDIERS / IN MAY 1945 / ERECTED BY THE / SURVIVING FAMILIARIES / MILOSCH PETER

The memorial stone is framed on the left by the depiction of the risen Christ and on the right by the crescent moon and star .

Memorial stone on the Loibacher Feld

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the massacre in 1985, an initiative by the Croatian Cultural Society (Bleiburg) ( Croatian Hrvatsko kulturno društvo Bleiburg , or HKDB for short) to erect the central memorial stone on the Loibacher Feld . Petar Miloš (1910–1999) negotiated a permit for the association with the Austrian authorities. After an initial rejection, mainly for foreign policy reasons, this was granted after a year.

In 1987 the memorial stone was erected, financed by survivors and Croatian exiles (mainly from Australia ). It was inaugurated on Mother's Day , May 10, 1987.

The memorial stone received the inscription accompanied by a Croatian coat of arms, cross , crescent moon and star:

U ČAST I SLAVU / POGINULOJ / HRVATSKOJ VOJSCI / SVIBANJ 1945 / IN MEMORY / TO THE / FALLEN CROATS / MAY 1945 / PODIGAO MILODARIMA P. MILOŠ

The literal translation of the Croatian inscription was "To the glory and honor of the fallen Croatian army" and thus did not correspond to the German inscription. This was intended to circumvent the condition of the official approval that the “Croatian army” should not be thought of.

In November 2003, the board of the Bleiburger Ehrenzug informed the Austrian authorities about a planned expansion of the memorial. After approval in March 2004, the renovation began in June 2004. The Croatian government donated 125,000 euros to buy more land and to renovate the monument.

The memorial stone erected in 1987 with the status of the inscription from April 25, 2005.

In the course of the renovation permit, an agreement was reached with the authorities on an inscription which, from April 25, 2005, read:

U SPOMEN NA NEDUŽNE ŽRTVE / BLEIBURŠKE TRAGEDIJE / MAY 1945 / IN MEMORY / TO THE INNOCENT VICTIMS OF / BLEIBURG TRAGEDY / PODIGAO POČASNI BLEIBURŠKI VOD, 1987

For this text change, the Bleiburg Ehrenzug was massively criticized by organizations in Croatia and in exile (USA, Canada, Australia), so that in 2005 the inscription was changed to:

U SPOMEN NA HRVATSKE ŽRTVE / BLEIBURŠKE TRAGEDIJE / SVIBNJA - 1945 - MAY / IN MEMORY / TO THE CROATIAN VICTIMS OF THE / BLEIBURG TRAGEDY / PODIGAO POČASNI BLEIBURŠKI VOD, 1987

In 2008 at the latest or possibly as early as 2007, the inscription was changed to the original text from 1987. Only the year 1987 was added to the dedication.

Plaque

The Družba Braća Hrvatskoga Zmaja (Brotherhood of the Croatian Dragon), founded in 1905, banned in socialist Yugoslavia in 1946 and re-founded in 1990, also erected a plaque in 1995 with the inscription accompanied by the brotherhood's coat of arms and a cross:

U SPOMEN / BLEIBURŠKIM ŽRTVAMA I / STRADALNICIMA KRIŽNOGA PUTA / ZAPOČETOG NA OVOM MJESTU / 15. TO THE DEAD OF BLEIBURG / AND TO THE VICTIMS OF THE KREUZWEGES / WHO STARTED IT IN THIS PLACE ON MAY 15, 1945. /. / CROATIA / WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HIS SONS / AND DAUGHTERS / WHO SUFFERED DEATH / BECAUSE THEY LOVED THE PEOPLE AND HOME / O 50. OBLJETNICI BLEIBURŠKE TRAGEDIJE PODIGOŠE BRAĆA HRAGVATSKOGA OF THE CITY OF BLEIBERURG, THE 50th TRAGVATSKOGA OF BLEIBERURG, GERMANY / 15th V. 1995.

altar

From October 2006, a covered altar was erected on newly acquired land around the memorial stone and blessed at the memorial ceremony on May 13, 2007 . The buildings were financed by the Croatian government and Croatian exile organizations, mainly in the United States and Canada .

literature

  • Bože Vukušić: Bleiburg Memento . Zagreb 2005 (Croatian).
  • Florian Thomas Rulitz: The tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring: Partisan violence in Carinthia using the example of the anti-communist refugees in May 1945 . Extended and revised 2nd edition. Mohorjeva Hermagoras, Klagenfurt 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0655-2 .

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holm Sundhaussen : Yugoslavia and its successor states 1943–2011: An unusual history of the ordinary . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-205-79609-1 , p. 64 : "Today Bleiburg or the nearby Loibacher Feld is an important Croatian place of remembrance."
  2. ↑ Rulitz 2012, pp. 205, 206 (see literature).
  3. ↑ Loibach community: Report on the war graves of the Loibach community, February 28, 1947. In: Schwarzes Kreuz, Carinthia regional office, Bleiburg / Loibach archive file. Quoted from Rulitz 2012, p. 205 f. (see literature).
  4. ↑ Loibach municipal office to the regional secretariat of the Austrian Black Cross in Klagenfurt, crosses for the war graves in the Unterloibach local cemetery, No. 028-1 / 57, Bleiburg, December 9, 1957. In: Schwarzes Kreuz, regional office in Carinthia, archives folder Bleiburg / Loibach . Quoted from Rulitz 2012, p. 206.
  5. ↑ Rulitz 2012, p. 206.
  6. ↑ Photo by Vukušić: Bleiburg Memento, image part p. 5 (see literature)
  7. ^ Bože Vukušić: Bleiburg Memento . Zagreb 2005, p. 8th f .
  8. ^ Reports of the work program of the State Security Service (inventory AS 1931, TE 2232) from 1975.
  9. ↑ Rulitz 2012, p. 207.
  10. ↑ Peter Stachel: Review of: Rulitz, Florian Thomas: Die Tragödie von Bleiburg and Viktring. Partisan violence in Carinthia using the example of anti-communist refugees in May 1945. Klagenfurt 2011, in: H-Soz-Kult (communication and specialist information for the historical sciences), November 14, 2013.
  11. ↑ Federal Minister of the Interior Herbert Kickl : reply to the President of the National Wolfgang Sobotka to the request of the deputies to the National Sabine treasure of 16 May 2018 the number 841 / J. . BMI-LR2220 / 0276-II / 2 / b / 2018. Vienna July 13, 2018, p. 3 u. 8 ( parlament.gv.at [PDF]).
  12. ^ Croatian bishop hopes to commemorate Bleiburg. ORF from March 11, 2019.
  13. ↑ Vera Deleja-Hotko: And again the fascists march. Spiegel Online, May 17, 2019, accessed on the same day.
  14. ^ Pål Kolstø: Bleiburg: The Creation of a National Martyrology . In: Europe-Asia Studies . Vol. 62, No. 7 , September 2010, p. 1159 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 34 ′ 4.9 ″  N , 14 ° 49 ′ 4 ″  E

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