Drawing on previously unpublished archival sources, pictorial material, school chronicles, central registers, sensitive personal papers from victims of Nazi violence and other private collections, oral accounts and field research (LIDAR technology and use of metal detector), the masters thesis for the first time comprehensively studies and analyzes the four-year Nazi occupation of municipality Rogaška Slatina, which was for its health and glassmaking importance, large accommodation capacity and position along the German-Croatian state border on the Sotla River turned into one of the key outposts of the Lower Styrian occupation zone. The research shows that the basis of the denationalizing terror, of which in all its distorted form was carried out in Rogaška Slatina after its occupation, had been prepared before the attack where the significant role was also played out by treacherous intelligence activity of the pro-Nazi-oriented fifth column and local »Kulturbund« section. The occupation municipality under the leadership of German mayor Herbert Miglic was often the most important unit of the Celje political district. The key wider significance of Rogaška Slatina and its Sotla hinterland was also evident from the fact that the seats of denationalize organizations and associations and the most important levers of the half-military and military, police and administrative offices as well as various fortification staffs connected by building anti-invasion fortification systems and defence barriers along the demarcation Sotla at the end of the War were installed here. The occupation of Rogaška Slatina was so brutal that its consequences 74 years after the end of the greatest war in the history of mankind are still visible through material remains, traces and covert war graves, and are preserved in the tragic memory of a handful of living witnesses and victims of German violence. Those are the last direct monuments of suffering and irreparable injustices that serve as a historical lesson for future generations.
|
