Leon Rupnik

Leon Rupnik (1944)

Leon Rupnik (also Leo , Lev or Lav , "lion"; born August 10, 1880 in Lokve near Čepovan ; † September 4, 1946 in Ljubljana ) was a Yugoslav general and politician who worked with the Italian and German during World War II Occupying power cooperated.

Life

Leon Rupnik was born on August 10, 1880 in Lokve near Gorizia as the son of the kuk forester Franc Rupnik and Ana Ogrizek. He attended elementary school in Idria and then the (German-speaking) Benedictine grammar school in Sankt Paul im Lavanttal . A year later he switched to the German-speaking branch of the Laibacher Gymnasium. After graduating from high school, he attended the officers' school in Trieste from 1895 to 1899 . After a few years in officer service, he went to the Austro-Hungarian War School in Vienna . There he was praised for his military aptitude, composure, and determination, but he was said to lack diplomatic skills and top-level leadership skills. Although he was considered a good student, he found no proximity to his comrades. After graduating from military school, he became a fortress commander in Nevesinje ( Herzegovina ) and later a general staff officer in Mostar , where he was promoted to captain in 1913 . During this time he married.

During the First World War , Rupnik took part in the attack by the Austro-Hungarian army on Serbia . In 1915 he came to the front on the Isonzo and from 1916 to the front in Russia . He was recognized for his bravery on all fronts, including the Knight's Cross of the Leopold Order, first class . He experienced the end of the war as chief of staff in the Bay of Kotor .

In 1919, Leon Rupnik was inducted into the army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as a general staff major . In 1933 he was already brigadier general and in 1937 division general . In 1938 he was transferred to Ljubljana (Laibach), where he was responsible for the construction of the defense systems named after him, the Rupnik line . At the beginning of the war he became the commander of the 1st Armade in Zagreb , which was supposed to protect the borders with Italy and the Greater German Reich . After the surrender of the Yugoslav Army, he sought refuge in Celje (Cilli) and a few months later went to Ljubljana. Because of the opposition he had expressed to communism, members of the communist security and intelligence service VOS carried out an attack on Rupnik, in which he was only slightly injured.

It was not until June 1942, after the resignation of the mayor of Ljubljana, Jure Adlešič , that Rupnik decided to work with the Italian occupying forces. At the suggestion of the head of the Italian administration in the province of Ljubljana , Emilio Grazioli , Rupnik was appointed mayor of Ljubljana. As a staunch anti-communist, he proposed to the Italians that special Slovenian units work together against the partisans of the “Liberation Front” ( Osvobodilna Fronta ) . This collaboration was also condemned by the anti-communist Slovenian Federation (Slovenska zveza) and led to the Yugoslav government-in-exile in London revoking Rupnik's general title, which was also announced on British radio.

After the capitulation of Italy , Leon Rupnik built the Slovenian Home Guard , which worked with the German occupying forces. His collaboration covered several levels, from administration and ideological aspects to military cooperation with the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS in combating the partisans. Rupnik saw the collaboration with the Germans as necessary to fight communism, while the Germans saw it as a welcome means of securing their own rule. However, they did not give him a say in military operations. At the suggestion of Bishop Gregorij Rožman , the German Reich Defense Commissioner Friedrich Rainer Rupnik appointed President of the Ljubljana Province , which formed part of the German Adriatic Coastal Operation Zone . Rupnik took the view that in this position he had to act as “the advocate of the Slovenian nation”. In fact, Rupnik only had little leeway here, since the head of the police force, SS-General Erwin Rösener , and Hermann Doujak , Friedrich Rainer's political advisor for the province of Ljubljana, exercised the actual rule. Rupnik had to submit all public speeches to the German censorship office beforehand. The Germans also prescribed when he could appear in the uniform of the General Inspector of the Slovenian Home Guard. After the Heimwehr was set up at the end of September 1943, Rupnik declared himself commander, but Rösener withdrew this title a few days later. Politicians from the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) are said to have encouraged Rupnik to set up the Home Guard, but the latter left the initiative to Rösener. He appointed Colonel Franc Krenner , who was neither close to Rupnik nor to the Catholic politicians, but rather to the liberals.

At the end of November 1944, the Germans appointed Rupnik General Inspector of the Slovenian Home Guard. Towards the end of the war he also became their commander. On May 5, 1945 Rösener removed the office of President of the Ljubljana Province, which he now left to the National Committee for Slovenia (Narodni odbor za Slovenijo, NO) , a body made up of representatives of several anti-communist parties. In May 1945 Rupnik withdrew with the Heimwehr and the German Wehrmacht to Carinthia , Austria , where he surrendered to the British. They held him in Italy for some time and handed him over to the Yugoslav authorities on January 2, 1946.

Rupnik became the main defendant in the Rupnik trial named after him , which began on August 21, 1946 in Ljubljana . Found guilty of treason and cooperation with the occupiers, he was sentenced to death by shooting on August 30th . For his co-defendants, SS-Obergruppenführer Erwin Rösener and the former police chief Lovro Hacin , the verdict was death by hanging . Other defendants were sentenced to long prison terms. All three death sentences were carried out on September 4, 1946.

Rupnik was at 16 o'clock with a car to the place of execution on the range below the hill Golovec brought. The execution took place in front of a large crowd at 4:15 p.m. with a volley of rifles from a seven-man firing squad (one of the rifles had a blank cartridge). Before his death, Rupnik shouted: Long live the Slovenian people . Rupnik's body was removed and buried in an unknown location.

literature

• Gortan Simončič : Obrambna črta in Leon Rupnik (The Defense Line and Leon Rupnik). Vojnozgodovinski zbornik 9, pp. 59-70, Logatec 2002.
• Miloš Habrnal et al .: Rupnikova črta in druge jugoslovanske utrdbe iz obdobja 1926-1941 (The Rupnik Line and other Yugoslav fortresses from 1926-1941), p. 358.
• Aleksander Jankovič-Potočnik: Rupnikova linija in Alpski zid. Utrjevanje rapalske meje med letoma 1932 do 1941 (The Rupnik Line and the Alpine Wall / Vallo Alpino. Fortification of the Rapallo border in the years 1932 to 1941)
• Življenje slovencev med drugo svetovno vojno (The life of the Slovenes during the Second World War)