“Gangs” and the Slovene Emigration within Austrian Refugee Camps: 1945–1949

ABSTRACT
The paper discusses and provides an insight into how the State Security Administration (UDBA) monitored the Slovene emigration in Austrian refugee camps and linked it with the operation of illegal groups in Slovenia. These illegal groups were labelled by the Communist Party as one of the core opponents of the new political system, where their operations were deemed a large-scale organized political, military and religious movement and were linked to the activities of the Slovene military and political emigrants in Austrian refugee camps, as well as to foreign intelligence services. The Main Intelligence Centre was founded at the St. Johann military refugee camp near Salzburg in October 1945 and its primary task was to establish a network of intelligence centres within the refugee camps in Austria. UDBA was convinced that these intelligence centres had formed illegal groups which were sent into Slovenia to undermine the Communist authorities.
KEY WORDS: State Security Administration (UDBA), Slovene emigration in Austria, refugee camps, intelligence centres, “gangs”

Text is published on SLO pages