[Mazhi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_P ... operations

On May 2, the German capital city, Berlin, fell. On May 7, 1945, the Germans surrendered unconditionally and the war in Europe officially ended. The Italians had quit the war in 1943, the Bulgarians in 1944, and the Hungarians earlier in 1945. Despite the German capitualtion, however, sporadic fighting still took place in Yugoslavia. On May 7, Zagreb was evacuated, on May 9, Maribor and Ljubljana were captured by the Partisans, and General Alexander Löhr, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group E was forced to sign the total surrender of the forces under his command at Topolšica, near Velenje, Slovenia, on Wednesday May 9, 1945. Only the Croatian and other anti-Partisan forces remained.

From 10 May to 15 May, the Yugoslav Partisans continued to face resistance from Croatian, and other anti-Partisan forces throughout the rest of Croatia and Slovenia. The Battle of Poljana, the last battle of World War II in Europe, started on May 14, ending on May 15, 1945 at Poljana, near Prevalje in Slovenia. It was the culmination and last of a series of battles between Yugoslav Partisans and a large (in excess of 30,000) mixed column of German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) soldiers together with Croatian Ustaše, Croatian Home Guard (Hrvatsko Domobranstvo), Slovenian Home Guard (Domobranci), and other anti-Partisan forces who were attempting to retreat to Austria.

Bet you didn't know that, huh?

[Verv]

I didn't.

I am very happy that other people fought around in your country for a week and some change after the surrender.

[Evilive]

Wow Slovenia has some history, it actually has some historical significance. That's pretty cool.

[Thunderhawk]

I dont believe fighting anti-partisan groups, small Nazi established puppet governments and german units desperate to flee from the Soviets should count.

Otherwise..
The anti-Soviet partisans in Western Ukraine lasted into the 50s.
There were those Japanese soldiers in the Philippines who kept on fighting.

[GandalfTheGrey]

I believe there were German units still battling regular soviet forces in the Austrian alps after the official surrender. Also the German occupation forces in Prague held out more or less intact until I think May 9. There were probably other hostilities.

[Mazhi]

I dont believe fighting anti-partisan groups, small Nazi established puppet governments and german units desperate to flee from the Soviets should count.

You don't know that much about Yugoslav history, eh? You're underestimating the importance of the Yugoslav Partisan war effort.

The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans,[1][2] (Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Slovene: Partizani, Cyrillic script: Партизани; meaning: "partisans") were a communist-led World War II resistance movement engaged in the fight against Axis forces and their collaborators in Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav People's Liberation War (being part of World War II) from 1941 to 1945. The common name of the movement is "the Partisans" (capitalized), while the adjective "Yugoslav" is used sometimes in exclusively non-Yugoslav sources to disambiguate from other (World War II) partisan movements. Despite the fact that their name suggests they fought as a guerrilla force, this was only true for the first three years of the conflict. From the second half of 1944. the total forces of the Partisans numbered over 800,000 men organized in four field armies, which engaged in conventional warfare.[3]

SFR Yugoslavia was one of only two European countries that were liberated by its own forces during the World War II, only with limited assistance and participation by the remaining Allies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Partisans

The anti-Soviet partisans in Western Ukraine lasted into the 50s.

Your claim is akin to saying anyone who fought the Soviets after the Nazi defeat was still part of World War 2, even if it happened in the 60s or 70s. If that's the case, than the Soviet War in Afghanistan that started in 1979 was part of WW2 as well. Just because the same forces were involved (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), doesn't mean it was the same war. Maybe a continuation but the Nazis were defeated, and it can't count as WW2. The Ukrainian insurgents were a nationalist movement that fought both the Nazis as well as the Soviets, although it did collaborate with the Nazis for a period of time, before the end of WW2 and their defeat. The Partisans fought Nazis and their collaborators, and the last battle in Slovenia was a battle against those.

There were those Japanese soldiers in the Philippines who kept on fighting.

I didn't know the Philippines were part of Europe.

[Thunderhawk]

You don't know that much about Yugoslav history, eh? You're underestimating the importance of the Yugoslav Partisan war effort.

I know of the Yugoslav partisans and their contribution (most notably they liberated their own country).

The Ustashe, puppet Croatian government and german units fleeing the Soviet advance dont strike me as major players nor major forces.

Just because the same forces were involved (Ukrainian Insurgent Army),

I see little difference between Ukrainian forces in a puppet Ukrainian state resisting the Soviets and the Ustashe in a puppet Croatian state resisting the Yugoslav partisans.

If the qualifier for the Slovene battle to count is the presence if German forces, then what of sporadic (1-5 man) German resistence to Soviets/partisans in the rest of Eastern Europe?

[Mazhi]

I know of the Yugoslav partisans and their contribution (most notably they liberated their own country).

And that's not important? Wasn't the whole point to liberate us from Nazism and defeat Hitler? Or do our lands and efforts not matter?

Much of Slovenia was part of the Third Reich after the German Occupation. It was part of Nazi Germany and under direct Hitler's rule. It was not a puppet state of the Nazis, it WAS the Nazi State. Germany annexed it. So basically, there were lots of German soldiers here, as it was formally Germany. The Croatian State is another story but the battles we're talking about here didn't take place there. When Hitler came into Maribor (the 2nd largest Slovene city), he said: "Make this city German." He wanted to make it part of the German "Lebensraum" and was starting to get quite successful in forced germanization. In June 1941, they made a plan to move 200.000 Slovenes out of Slovenia. Italy also got a large part of our territories.

german units fleeing the Soviet advance dont strike me as major players nor major forces.

By the time the Soviets came here, much of our territories were already under Tito's control, under control of the Yugoslav Army which was first a guerilla force but grew into a conventional Army with conventional warfare that fought the German forces just like the rest of the Allies did. So saying they were fleeing solely from the Soviets is a bit absurd, to be honest. The Soviet presence here was at best limited.

In September 1944, Soviet Red Army advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off. By this point, the Yugoslav Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito controlled much of the Yugoslav territory and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on October 20.

It was the Slovene Partisans that liberated Ljubljana from Nazi rule. Who do you think they were really fleeing from here? Was it maybe the people who they were oppresing for years, sending to concentration camps, burning their villages, and killing their innocent?

I see little difference between Ukrainian forces in a puppet Ukrainian state resisting the Soviets and the Ustashe in a puppet Croatian state resisting the Yugoslav partisans.

What exactly are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting that WW2 was still being fought in the 50s? And as I said before, the last WW2 battles in Europe that the OP talks about did not take place in the Croatian state, they took place in the area Germany considered their own, their "Lebensraum". But in any case, and even if this was the Croatian Independent State, they were, in fact, battles against the German Nazi Army and its helpers, battles against the Axis forces.

If the qualifier for the Slovene battle to count is the presence if German forces, then what of sporadic (1-5 man) German resistence to Soviets/partisans in the rest of Eastern Europe?

Hmm..a few individuals as opposed to an Army of 30.000? And what exactly are you talking about? Where did this happen?

You obvisouly seem to think that the Partisans were not the Allies, and that they were not really important in the fight against Nazis. Well, the Yugoslav Front was an important part of WW2. Do you know anything about it? Here is what was happening in the end, a short while before the final battles in Slovenia:

On March 20, 1945, the Partisans launched a general offensive in the Mostar-Višegrad-Drina sector. With large swaths of Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian countryside already under Partisan guerrilla control, the final operations consisted in connecting these territories and capturing major cities and roads. For the general offensive Marshal Josip Broz Tito commanded a Partisan force of about 800,000 men organized into four armies: the 1st Army commanded by Peko Dapčević, 2nd Army commanded by Koča Popović, 3rd Army commanded by Kosta Nađ, and the 4th Army commanded by Petar Drapšin. In addition, the Yugoslav Partisans had eight independent army corps (the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and the 10th).

Set against the Yugoslav Partisans was German General Alexander Löhr of Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E). This Army Group had seven army corps (the XV Mountain, XV Cossack, XXI, XXXIV, LXIX, and LXXXXVII). These corps included seventeen weakened divisions (1st Cossack, 2nd Cossack, 11th, 41st, 104th, 22nd, 181st, 7th SS, 369th Croat, 373rd Croat, 392nd Croat, 237th, 188th, 438th, 138th, 14th SS Ruthenian, and the Stefan Division). In addition to the seven corps, the Axis had remnant naval forces (under constant attack by the British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) to defend the coast, strong police forces to secure the rear, and roughly twenty weak, remnant divisions of local Croatian and Serb units. The Croats included Ustaše and Croatian Home Guard units of the Independent State of Croatia, as well as the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia and the units of the Croatian Air Force Legion, returned from service on the Eastern Front. The Serbs included the remnants of the Serbian State Guard and the Serbian Volunteer Corps from the Serbian Military Administration. There were even some units of the Slovene Home Guard (Slovensko domobranstvo, or SD) still intact in Slovenia. By the end of March, 1945, it was obvious to the Croatian Army Command that, although the front remained intact, they would eventually be defeated by sheer lack of ammunition. For this reason, the decision was made to retreat into Austria, in order to surrender to the British forces advancing north from Italy.[16]

Bihać was liberated by the Partisans the same day that the general offensive was launched. The 4th Army, under the command of Petar Drapšin, broke through the defenses of the XV Cossack Corps. By April 20, Drapšin liberated Lika and the Croatian Littoral, including the islands, and reached the old Yugoslav border with Italy. On May 1, after capturing the former Italian possessions of Rijeka and Istria from the German LXXXXVII Corps, the Yugoslav 4th Army beat the western Allies to Trieste by one day.

The Yugoslav 2nd Army, under the command of Koča Popović, forced a crossing of the Bosna River on April 5, capturing Doboj, and reached the Una River. On May 8, the Yugoslav 2nd Army, along with units of the Yugoslav 1st Army, captured Zagreb. On April 6, the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps of the Yugoslav Partisans took Sarajevo from the German XXI Corps.

On April 12, the Yugoslav 3rd Army, under the command of Kosta Nađ, forced a crossing of the Drava river. The 3rd Army then fanned out through Podravina, reached a point north of Zagreb, and crossed the old Austrian border with Yugoslavia in the Dravograd sector. The 3rd Army closed the ring around the enemy forces when its advanced motorized detachments linked up with detachments of the 4th Army in Carinthia.
Also on April 12, the Yugoslav 1st Army, under the command of Peko Dapčević penetrated the fortified front of the German XXXIV Corps in Syrmia. By April 22, the 1st Army had smashed the fortifications and was advancing towards Zagreb. After taking Zagreb with the Yugoslav 2nd Army, both armies advanced in Slovenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_F ... #Aftermath

But anyway, here is this last battle, the Battle of Poljana:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poljana

The Battle of Poljana (Monday May 14 - Tuesday May 15, 1945) was the last battle of World War II in Europe. It started at Poljana, near the village of Prevalje in Yugoslavia,[1] and was the culmination of a series of engagements between the Yugoslav Partisans and a large retreating Axis column, numbering in excess of 30,000 men. The column consisted of German (Wehrmacht), Ustaše, Montenegrin Chetniks, and Slovene Home Guard forces, as well as other fascist collaborationist factions and even civilians who were attempting to escape into British-controlled Austria.

Background

In the spring of 1945, the German Army and their allies were in full retreat from the Yugoslav Partisans. In early April, the Partisan 3rd Army, under the command of Kosta Nađ, fanned out through the Drava Valley region (Podravina), reaching a point north of Zagreb, and crossed the old Austrian border with Yugoslavia in the Dravograd sector. The 3rd Army closed the ring around Axis forces when its advanced motorized detachments linked up with detachments of the 4th Army in Carinthia. As a result, the German Army Group E was prevented from escaping north-west across the Drava river. Completely surrounded, General Alexander Löhr, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group E was forced to sign the unconditional surrender of the forces under his command[2] at Topolšica, near Velenje, Slovenia, on Wednesday May 9. Nevertheless, some of his troops, along with collaborationist units, namely the Ustaše, Slovene Home Guard, Montenegrin Chetniks, and elements of other factions, continued to resist and tried to fight their way west to what they hoped would be the protection of the British at Klagenfurt

The Battle

Just before 9am on May 14, a significant force of mostly Ustaše with some Chetniks and Slovenian Home Guard troops approached Partisan positions at the Šurnik farm near Poljana demanding free passage west. This was refused, and firing commenced on both sides. Ustaše attacks intensified in the afternoon, evening and overnight, finally ceasing on the morning of May 15 with the arrival of around 20 British tanks. Tense negotiations followed, during which British officers made it abundantly clear that they would not offer protection to the collaborators and that unconditional surrender to the Partisans was the only option. White flags were finally raised around 4pm on May 15 [3].

Casualty estimates were at least 310 Ustaše dead in the two main locations of fighting, and 250 wounded. On the Partisan side, losses were considerably lower, numbering fewer than 100 dead and wounded. The surrender of this last area of Axis resistance is considered to be the end of World War II in Europe, 8 days after the official surrender of the Germans on Monday May 7, 1945.

However, numerous isolated incidents carried on in the next few days, including one on the evening of May 20 when a group of Ustaše appeared near Ferlach (Slovene: Borovlje), and attempted to set terms for their passage west. "As the Ustaše did not want to surrender" reads the operational diary of the 2nd Battalion of the Partisan 11th Dalmatian Assault Brigade, "we attacked them at 21:00hrs. On this occasion we took 24 Ustaše soldiers and one officer" [4].

Supposedly, 50.000+ Nazis were killed in the Yugoslav Front from 1941 to 1945

And here are the overall statistics of the Yugoslav war victims, by ethnicity (there are more estimates that people did not agree on, especially the Germans):



But anyway, what are you trying to prove by disagreeing with a fact that is a general consensus among historians?

[Dave]

Or do our lands and efforts not matter?

Not really, no. For what reasons were your country important? I can't think of any.

[Mazhi]

For what reasons was yours important then?

[Thunderhawk]

What exactly are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting that WW2 was still being fought in the 50s?

Are you seriously saying fighting colaberators and some regular german units fighting for their lives, rather then the side they were on, count?


About Yugoslavia partisans. I have friends who give tales. I have read. I dont know Yugoslav partisan actions aswell as my friend's greatuncle who commanded ~5k partisan soldiers, but I've listened to the tales. Im not some western boob who doesnt know of it. I am not dismissing partisan actions - I believe the Yugoslav partisans did more then the French army IMO, I am simply saying that last battle mentioned in the OP strikes me as cleaning up left overs, not part of the war.

If you insist it counts as part of the war, then I will insist Ukrainian partisans continuously resisting the Soviets for 5 years after the German surrender also counts.

[Mazhi]

Well, every war has its "leftovers" to clean up, if you want to call it that way. It's a bit disrespectful to the victims on both sides though. You don't think 400 people dying in a one-day battle is still part of the War? Would it have to be more? The Gaza conflict has been going on for 2 weeks and the death toll is still less than 1000. As is written above, the fleeing Axis forces demanded free passage west, and naturally the Partisans did not allow this, as well as the later arriving British troops. After losing 310 men and 250 getting wounded, they were forced to surrender to the Partisans because they saw they were being defeated. I'm sure that if they had more manpower and arms, they would continue to fight.

And as I said, the Ukrainian partisans kept on resisting the Soviets, not the defeated Nazis. WW2 in Europe ended with the defeat of the Axis powers. The future battles of the Ukrainians were part of a new War.

[Thunderhawk]

WW2 in Europe ended with the defeat of the Axis powers.

So some Germans fighting qualify as a major power seperate from Nazi Germany?

[alyster]

Well fighting after the surrender of your country/army is illegal from the point of view of international law and these men were basically bandits, not soldiers in that perspective and can be legally executed. Armed resistants like that continued in Eastern Europe well into 1950s, just later they weren't linked to Third Reich anymore.

BTW Mazhi, Wikipedia is not considered as a quoteable source.

[Mazhi]

So some Germans fighting qualify as a major power seperate from Nazi Germany?

How exactly were they not part of Nazi Germany? Yesterday, they're Nazi soldiers, and today they're not? Why did the Allies even want to capture them, if they weren't Axis soldiers? Might as well leave them alone then.

Well fighting after the surrender of your country/army is illegal from the point of view of international law and these men were basically bandits, not soldiers in that perspective and can be legally executed. Armed resistants like that continued in Eastern Europe well into 1950s, just later they weren't linked to Third Reich anymore.

Then everyone who fought the Nazis on Nazi-occupied territoy was a "bandit". Our countries surrendered to them, didn't they? Was there an international law that said Nazis can kill those who resist them? All the resistance movements in Europe that fought Nazi occupation were then illegal. And according to Nazi law, they were. But what's your point? And what exactly was "international law" then and how the hell did it matter? If the Nazis won the war, then they'd be the ones talking about "international law" now.

BTW Mazhi, Wikipedia is not considered as a quoteable source.

Considered by whom? I didn't know there was a rule about what's considered quoteable and what's not.

[alyster]

Then everyone who fought the Nazis on Nazi-occupied territoy was a "bandit". Our countries surrendered to them, didn't they? Was there an international law that said Nazis can kill those who resist them? All the resistance movements in Europe that fought Nazi occupation were then illegal. And according to Nazi law, they were. But what's your point? And what exactly was "international law" then and how the hell did it matter? If the Nazis won the war, then they'd be the ones talking about "international law" now.

International law isn't about some demagouges, feelings etc. It's law. If your army says enough, stop killing us, PLEASE, and the other side agrees then some morons breaking this agreement are playing with the lives of their fellow commrades because the enemy can not understand who has surrenered and who fights. Soldiers always have the right to protect themselves.

Considered by whom?

The scholars, unis etc. 5 year olds can write into wiki.

[Thunderhawk]

Then everyone who fought the Nazis on Nazi-occupied territoy was a "bandit". Our countries surrendered to them, didn't they?

A lot of countries occupied by the Nazis had governments that fled, or were set up, in exile.

There is a difference between a government the people of the country recognize as legitimately theirs and disagree with (and thus individuals fight on even if their government says stop) and a government that is not recognized by the people -be it one imposed on the people by a foriegn power or one that has lost the support of the people- saying the people should stop fighting.

The General government in Poland was imposed - the people did not recognize it.
The Yugoslav roayalists lost the support of the people (except a few here and there).
Vichy had tenuous support of the French people it ruled over and didnt rule over a great deal of France, some considered it treasonous which is why the French government in exile had some legitimacy.

What is the role of the partisan?
To free his country or to kill what he precieves as the enemy?

The Czechoslovakian government surrendered. Their partisans were still fighting on to kill the enemy, and I sympathize with them, but their actions endangered their own people unnesscessarily by German retaliations. Of course, once the Germans started behaving badly in Czech lands the government ruling the Czechs lost support of the people so the resistance group offered alternative became more and more legitimate in the eyes of the Czech people.