The Schutzstaffel (SS): Waffen-SS, Gestapo & Einsatzgruppen
Erwin Rösener: SS General Behind Brutal Reprisals in Slovenia
13m
April 1941. Nazi Germany invades Yugoslavia, crushing the country within days and dividing it among Axis powers. In occupied Slovenia, resistance grows—but every act of defiance is met with ruthless retaliation.
At the centre of this terror stands SS General Erwin Rösener, responsible for anti-partisan warfare in the region. Under his command, mass arrests, deportations, and executions become tools of control.
Rösener oversees the creation of the Slovene Home Guard, a collaborationist militia used to hunt resistance fighters. Working alongside the Gestapo—the Nazi secret police—his forces imprison thousands and carry out systematic killings.
In places like Maribor, prisoners and suspected supporters are executed as “reprisals,” their bodies buried in unmarked graves.
After the war, Rösener is captured, tried, and executed for his crimes.
Up Next in Season 1
-
SS General Behind Balkan Atrocities i...
August Schmidhuber was an SS commander whose forces spread terror across Yugoslavia during World War II. After Nazi Germany invaded the Balkans in 1941, he rose through the Waffen-SS and led units infamous for mass killings, village burnings, deportations, and anti-partisan reprisals.
As an offi...
-
The Butcher of Warsaw: Nazi Gestapo C...
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Josef Meisinger became one of the most feared Nazi officials in occupied Warsaw. Known as the “Butcher of Warsaw,” he oversaw brutal reprisals, executions, and terror against Polish civilians and Jews, including the Palmiry massacres and the wider campaig...
-
The SS Officer Behind the Vilnius Ghe...
22 June 1941. Under the codename Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union and rapidly occupies Lithuania. In the months that follow, the Jews of Vilnius are forced into ghettos, subjected to starvation, terror, and mass executions carried out by Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads...
