![[Flag of Domobranstvo]](../images/s/si^domob.gif)
Last modified: 2014-12-20 by ivan sache
Keywords: home guard | liberation front |
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Flag of the Home Guard - Image by Ivan Sarajčić, 2 May 2000, according to photos, scans and information provided by Janez Vezalka
The Slovenian Home Guard (Domobranstvo, from dom, "home", and braniti, "to defend") was an armed formation created by the German occupying forces in Slovenia during the Second World War.
Ivan Sarajčić & Eugene Ipavec, 2 February 2009
The flag is a variation of the flag of the Carniola province of
Austria-Hungary - Slovenian tricolour with
the coat of arms of the Carniola province - white with a blue eagle bearing a chequy red-white crescent.
The coat of arms is in fact that of the Ljubljana Province (Slovene,
Ljubljanska pokrajina; Italian, Provincia di Lubiana; German, Provinz
Laibach; Wikipedia), the part of present-day Slovenia which was annexed by Italy
in 1941 and included the town of Ljubljana and areas between the town and the Croatian border. It is not quite clear if the coat of arms was actually used before the capitulation of Italy in 1943, when the area was occupied by Germany and made part of Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral (Operationszone Adriatisches Kuestenland; Wikipedia), which was administratively attached to the Third Reich without formal
annexation. In that year, after the German takeover of the area, a
series of banknotes (photos), denominated in lire, was issued for the Province which were charged with this coat of arms, with inscriptions in German on one side and in Slovene on the other, and remained in use until the liberation in 1945.
Željko Heimer & Tomislav Todorocić, 30 March 2013
![[Symbol of OF]](../images/s/si^of.gif)
Symbol of the Liberation Front - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 29 August 2000
In 1941 started in Slovenia the resistance movement named Osvobodilna fronta (Liberation Front), whose symbol depicts Triglav (three headed mountain -- the highest mountain in Slovenia), on top of which are letters "O" and "F". The Triglav is a pan-Slovene symbol, which was adopted as the main part of the post-war, Communist era, coat of arms. The current coat of arms, designed in 1991, is also based on the Triglav silhouette.
Andrej Brodnik, 30 June 1995
![[Partisan flag]](../images/s/si^vos41.gif)
![[Partisan flag]](../images/s/si^vdv44.gif)
Two partisan flags - Images by Eugene Ipavec, 2 March 2000
The book Slovenska grb in zastava - heraldika in veksilologija by Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, shows the photos of two flags used by partisan units, vaguely prototypical of the
post-war Socialist Yugoslav flag:
- a flag presented to the Varnostno-Obvečevalna Služba (Security and Intelligence Service on 31 December 1941 by the women of
Ljubljana.
- a flag belonging to the 1st batallion of the Vojska Državne
Varnosti (State Security Army, February 1944
Oddly the shades of gray in each photo suggest the blue fields to be
much lighter than the red, which would seem to mean a very light blue
and a very dark red. The outline of mount Triglav on the second flag
is of unknown color: not red; blue wouldn't show; gray seems a
possibility. Green is unlikely as I understand it was associated with
the Germans at the time.
Željko Heimer & Eugene Ipavec, 2 March 2009
![[Symbol of OF]](../images/s/si^zct.gif)
Flag of the Triglav Guard Company - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 15 December 2009
The historical exhibition organized in December 2008 in Kamnik by the local cultural association Kulturno društvo Triglav (KD Triglav) shows a flag (photo, no longer online) horizontally divided white-blue-red with a red star in the blue stripe and the golden writing "ZAŠČITNA ČETA" and "TRIGLAV" in the white and red stripes, respectively.
The caption says that this flag belonged to the "Triglav Guard Company" and is used today by KD Triglav as its flag.
Ivan Sache & Eugene Ipavec, 15 December 2009
