31st December 1939
Klagenfurt

Klagenfurt

Klagenfurt am Wörthersee is the capital and largest city of the Austrian state of Carinthia, as well as of the historical region of Carinthia including Slovene Carinthia. With a population of 104,862 (1 January 2024), it is the sixth-largest city in Austria after Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, and Innsbruck. The city is the bishop's seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt and home to the University of Klagenfurt, the Carinthian University of Applied Sciences and the Gustav Mahler Private University for Music. Klagenfurt is considered the cultural centre of the Carinthian Slovenes, one of Austria's indigenous minorities.

In 1938, Klagenfurt's population suddenly grew by more than 50% through the incorporation of the town of St. Ruprecht and the municipalities of St. Peter, Annabichl, and St. Martin but during World War II, the city was bombed 41 times. The bombs killed 612 people, completely destroyed 443 buildings and damaged 1,132 others. A volume of 110,000 cubic metres (3,884,613 cu ft) of rubble had to be removed before the citizens could set about rebuilding their city.

From the beginning of 1945, when the end of the war was rather obvious, numerous talks among representatives of democratic pre-1934 organisations had taken place, which later extended to high-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht and officials of the administration. Even representatives of the partisans in the hills south of Klagenfurt were met who, in view of the strong SS-forces in Klagenfurt, agreed not to attempt to take the city by force, but upheld the official declaration that south-eastern Carinthia was to be a Yugoslav possession.

To avoid further destruction and a major bloodshed, on 3rd May 1945 General Löhr of Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E) agreed to declare Klagenfurt an 'open city' 'in case Anglo-American forces should attack the city', a declaration that was broadcast several times and two days later also published in the Kärntner Nachrichten.

On 7th May 1945, a committee convened in the historic Landhaus building of the Gau authorities to form a Provisional State government, and one of the numerous decisions taken was a proclamation to the 'People of Carinthia'. This proclamation included the reporting of the resignation of the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Friedrich Rainer, the transfer of power to the new authorities, and an appeal to the people to decorate their homes with Austrian or Carinthian colours. The proclamation was printed in the Kärntner Zeitung of 8th May. When on the following day, Yugoslav military demanded of Klagenfurt's new mayor that he remove the Austrian flag from the city hall and fly the Yugoslav flag instead, the acting British Town Officer Captain Watson immediately prohibited this, but also ordered that the Austrian flag be taken down. Accompanied by a guerilla troop carrying a machine pistol, a Yugoslav emissary appeared on the same day in the Landesregierung building, demanding of the Acting State Governor Piesch repeal the order to take down the Yugoslav flag, which was ignored.

On 8th May 1945, 9:30 am, British troops of the Eighth Army under General McCreery entered Klagenfurt and were met in front of Stauderhaus by the new democratic city and state authorities. All the strategic positions and important buildings were immediately seized, and Major General Horatius Murray was taken to General Noeldechen for the official surrender of the 438th German Division. Three hours later, groups of partisan forces arrived on a train they had seized in the Rosental valley the day before, at the same time as Yugoslav regular forces of the IVth army. Both of these forces made their way through the city's streets which were jammed with tens of thousands of Volksdeutsche refugees, and masses of soldiers of all the nationalities that had been fighting under German command and were now fleeing the Russians. These partisan and Yugoslav regular forces claimed the city and the surrounding South Carinthian land, establishing the Komanda staba za Koroška, which would be named the 'Commandantura of the Carinthian Military Zone' under Major Egon Remec.

On Neuer Platz—renamed Adolf Hitler Platz in 1938—British armoured vehicles are said to have faced allied Yugoslav ones in a hostile way, which would have been a curious spectacle for the liberated citizens, but this is unlikely.

Several days passed before, under British pressure and American diplomatic backing, the Yugoslav troops withdrew from the city proper, but not before establishing a parallel Carinthian-Slovene civil administration (the Carinthian National Council) presided over by Franc Petek. However, protected by British soldiers, the members of the Provisional State Government went about devising a comprehensive programme to cover the new political, sociological, and economic outlooks in the land, which would serve the British military authorities. Rapid financial assistance and the restitution of property to the victims of the Nazi regime was necessary. This posed a problem, because one of the first actions of the British had been to confiscate all the property of the Nazi Party, as well as to freeze their bank accounts and to block their financial transfers. It took months before basic communication and public transport, mail service and supply were working again, to some extent at least. During the years that followed these turbulent days, a major part of the British Eighth Army, which in July 1945 was re-constituted as British Troops in Austria (BTA), had their headquarters in Klagenfurt - as Carinthia, together with neighbouring Styria, formed part of the British occupation zone in liberated Austria, which remained to be the case until 26th October 1955.

Source: Wikipedia

 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page