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The Bleiburg massacre was a massacre that happened near the end of World War II, during May 1945. It is named after near the village of Bleiburg on the Austrian-Slovenian border where the massacre began. It involved mass murder of Croatian soldiers and civilians who were fleeing from the defeated fascist puppet state of Croatia. The atrocities were a reprisal against the real or alleged members or collaborators of the fascist regime, by the Yugoslav partisan army, presumably with full knowledge of their supreme commander Josip Broz Tito, himself half-Croatian.

Although a still undefined number of Croatian soldiers died during a series of battles and skirmishes, it is generally accepted that the vast portion of violent deaths were the result of executions that lasted at least two weeks after the cessation of hostilities. The victims were Croatian soldiers and civilians, executed without trial as an act of vengeance for the crimes committed by the Ustaše regime in Croatian-controlled territories during World War II — frequently in overtly gruesome manner (mass rape and subsequent killing by stoning of women; beheading of Croatian disarmed soldiers). Murder continued in nearby Slovenia, and it is hard to estimate the number of victims in Bleiburg field, compared to those later found in the trenches in the Maribor area and other numerous pits in Slovenia. Many captives were sent on a death march further into Yugoslav territory.

Croatian political emigration, as well as other sources related to the Cossacks, had published numerous testimonies on the atrocities and British involvement in the affair (interestingly enough, British archives on the Operation Keelhaul tragedy are still sealed), but their publications have received little or no attention since communist Yugoslavia was the West's protege and the buffer-zone to the Soviets in the post-war period.

Number of victims

The number of those who met their death in the Bleiburg massacre is almost impossible to ascertain. Generally, there are two schools that have tried to do this:

1. The school based mainly on historiographic and demographic investigations of scientists:

• The Croatian statistician Vladimir Žerjavić has estimated based on demographic records that ca. 55,000 people were killed in Bleiburg area and in Slovenia.
• British journalist Misha Glenny and other investigators or publicists have come up with the figure of 50,000 executed disarmed soldiers and 30,000 civilians.
• The Croatian-American historian Jozo Tomašević (from Stanford University) collected fairly exact records stating that 116,000 Croatian combatants (Ustaše and Domobrani) arrived at Bleiburg (in a group of around 200,000 people in total), and were subsequently barred entry. He stated this number with certainty, and then proceeded to estimate that around one half of them were killed.

Which of these figures is closest to the reality is still hard to decide.

2. Another school operates with big numbers, and their contention is that over 250,000 Croats had been executed in Bleiburg, Slovenia and northern Croatia. This theory has gained some credibility in recent years, when Slovene authorities have estimated, in 1999 and 2000, that mass excavations in wider Maribor area have found cca. 180,000 human corpses, mostly Croats (judging from the remnants of military insignia). As reported elsewhere:

• In 1999 the resources from the Republic of Slovenia reported of as many as 110 mass graves of Croats discovered in this state, victims of the "Way of the Cross" in 1945 immediately after the end of World War II. Among them there were not only soldiers, but also a large number of civilians. The Slovenian public was shocked by the size and number of these graves.

• In 2001 Slovenian sources reported of as many as 296 mass graves on their territory, and an estimate of about 190,000 Croats killed immediately after the end of World War II (May 1945 and later), mostly Croats. Only in the region of Tezno woods Slovenian sources estimate about 60-80,000 killed. Many children bones have been found among the remains victims.

However, the investigation was stalled, so no definite conclusion can be drawn.

External links

• Yalta and the Bleiburg tragedy
• The Bleiburg Massacres - by Count Nikolai Tolstoy
• Operation Slaughterhouse
• The Bleiburg Tragedy on Croatian World Network

• History of Croatia
• History of Slovenia
• World War II crimes
• Massacres
• 1945