Ernest Peterlin

Ernest Peterlin (11 January 1903 – 20 March 1946) was a Slovene military officer who rose to a senior position in the Royal Yugoslav Army prior to the Second World War.Married to Anja Roman Rezelj. A decided anti-Communist, during the war he became a prominent anti-Partisan military leader and one of the main exponents of the pro-Western faction of the Slovene Home Guard, an anti-Communist collaborationist militia active in parts of German-occupied Slovenia between 1943 and 1945. In 1945, he was tried and sentenced to death by the new Yugoslav Communist authorities and executed in 1946.

Born in Ljubljana on 11 January 1903, Peterlin became a career soldier in the Royal Yugoslav Army. At the time of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he was Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav 3rd Army Group's 15th 'Zetska' Infantry Division, commanded by Brigadier general Milenko Varjačić. Following the swift Axis victory and occupation of Yugoslavia, Peterlin was involved in and worked to promote pro-royalist militia. However, in March 1942 most royal army officers who were in the Italian-annexed parts of Slovenia, including Peterlin, were arrested and sent to Italian prisoner-of-war camps "as a precautionary measure."

The foremost resistance to the occupation was Josip Broz Tito's Partisan movement. In Slovenia, this resistance was led by the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People, in which the Communist influence soon prevailed. The pro-royalist militia took on a fundamentally anti-Communist stand. The Italian occupation forces under General Mario Roatta "were eager to use the anti-Communist forces as auxiliary troops" against the partisans. This was in line with the desires of the anti-Communist forces themselves, "which were to strengthen their armed groups and obtain Italian recognition and assistance in order to carry on their fight against the Partisans – who for them, as for the Chetniks, were a much more dangerous enemy than the occupying powers." In August 1942, Roatta visited Bishop Gregorij Rožman "and urged the Slovene Catholic forces to participate actively in the struggle against the Communists." Rožman responded favourably, sending Roatta a memorandum in September 1942 containing detailed advice on how to fight the Partisans, which included the suggestion that named anti-Communist internees should be released to lead the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (Milizia volontaria anticomunista — MVAC). Peterlin was among those released from internment and "became the chief of the Slovene units in Italian service," but, according to Jozo Tomašević:

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