Operation Zone of Adriatic Coastal Region
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The Operation Zone of Adriatic Coastal Region, in German Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland, referred to as OZAK or, colloquially, "Operationszone Adria", was a National Socialist puppet district on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, opposite Italy.
This Operationszone was established on 10 September 1943 by German occupying power supported by the Wehrmacht, as one German countermove to the Allied Armistice with Italy proclaimed two days earlier; see Allied invasion of Italy. It comprised the provinces of Udine, Görz, Trieste, Pola, Rijeka (Fiume), Kvarner and Laibach. The Operation Zone of Alpine Foothills, comprising the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno, was established on the same day. Both operation zones formally belonged to the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI, Italian Social Republic), which governed those areas of Italy adminstered from Salò at Lake Garda and not yet contended for by the Allies.
The OZAK was the setting for many sinister and even genocidal activities. Its commander, Higher SS and Police Leader (in German, Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer, HSSPF) Odilo Globocnik, had become one of the most feared Nazi leaders in Eastern Europe after liquidating the Jewish ghettos in Warsaw and Białystok and supervising the construction of the extermination camps in Belzec, Sobibór, Majdanek and Treblinka. Globocnik, returning to his native city in triumph in mid-September 1943, established his office at Via Nizza 21 in Trieste and began to carry out Einsatz R, the systematic persecution of Jews, partisans and anti-Nazi politicians in Friuli, the Istrian peninsula and other areas of the Croatian Adriatic coastline. His staff of 92, mostly members of the German and Ukrainian SS with killing experience gained in Operation Reinhard, was quickly expanded to combat the unrelenting partisan activity throughout the region.
Globocnik's domain included a large, disused and decrepit rice mill (risiera) at Ratto della Pileria 43 in the Triestine suburb of San Sabba. Under his supervision it was converted into the only Nazi concentration camp on Italian territory. The camp was used to detain hostages, partisans and political prisoners, and as a collection and transit camp for Jews being deported to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthausen. This camp opened on 20 October 1943 and was staffed primarily by German and Ukrainian members of the SS under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Wirth, former commander of Belzec. After Wirth was killed by partisans on 26 May 1944, he was replaced by SS-Obersturmbannführer Dietrich Allers.
Over 25,000 Italian, Slovene, Croatian and Jewish civilians passed through the San Sabba camp, and about 5,000 were killed there by various methods including gassing. Today the rice mill is an Italian [National Memorial Site]. The camp's commanders and collaborators were [tried in Trieste] until 1976, but their sentences were never carried out.
Since an Allied landing in the area was anticipated, the OZAK also hosted a substantial German military contingent, the Befehlshaber Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland commanded by General der Gebirgstruppe Ludwig Kübler. On 28 September 1944 these units were redesignated XCVII Armeekorps. Every available armored vehicle, modern or obsolete, was pressed into service with Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Ordnungspolizei or collaborationist Italian and Slovenian units.
On April 29, 1945, Waffen-SS troops set free the remaining inmates of the San Sabba camp and demolished the gas chamber and incinerator building, to destroy evidence of war crimes. On April 30, several thousand volunteers of the Italian anti-fascist Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) rose up against the Nazis. On May 1, Globocnik was given command of a chaotic assortment of German and collaborationist troops converging on Trieste as they retreated from Italy and Yugoslavia. These units immediately engaged Slovene, Croat and Croatian Serb partisans of Tito's IX Corps, together with the U.S. 91st Infantry Division and the British 56th Infantry commanded by US Lieutenant General Mark Clark, and particularly, with considerable distinction, the New Zealand 2nd Division commanded by NZ Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, VC. German forces capitulated on the evening of May 2, but Tito's forces -- determined to secure Trieste and its environs for Yugoslavia -- killed many Italians in the so-called Foibe massacres and continued to fight other Allied troops until they were driven out of Trieste on May 12.
External links
[Panzers in the OZAK 1943-1945] by Stefano di Giusto, standard reference to German and collaborationist armor in the Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland. Accessed 15 June 2006.
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