Slovene Home Guard

Slovene Home Guard
The sign of the Slovene Home Guard
Active	1943–1945
Country	Slovenia
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Size	about 13,000 at its height (summer 1944)
Motto(s)	Za Boga, narod in domovino "For God, Nation and Homeland"
Commanders
Notable commanders	Leon Rupnik Vuk Rupnik Ernest Peterlin Franc Krenner

The Slovene Home Guard (Slovene: Slovensko domobranstvo; German: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene military anti-Partisan organization during the 1943-1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries (In Slovene: "Vaške straže", in Italian language: "Guardia Civica"), part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after Italy dropped out of the war.

It was closely linked to Slovenian right wing anti-Communist political parties and organizations, which provided most of the membership, taking assistance of Germans rather than the opposite. In the Slovenian Littoral, a similar but much smaller unit, called Slovenian National Defense Corps (Slovene: Slovensko narodno varnostni zbor, German: Slowenisches Nationales Schutzkorps), more commonly known as the Littoral Home Guard (Slovene: Primorsko domobranstvo) was ideologically and organizationally linked to the SD. An even smaller Upper Carniolan Self-Defense (Slovene: Gorenjska samozaščita, German: Oberkrainer Landschutz), also known as the Upper Carniolan Home Guard (Slovene: Gorenjsko domobranstvo) was active in the Upper Carniola between 1944 and 1945. All three "home guard" units were formed almost exclusively by ethnic Slovenes. At their peak, they had a combined membership of around 21,000 men, of whom there were 15,000 in the Province of Ljubljana, 3,500 in the Julian March and 2,500 in the Upper Carniola. Its officers and language of command were Slovene.