| Summary/Abstract |
As Slovenes were the only people to be annexed by three occupiers during World War II—Italy, Germany, and Hungary—the work offers a unique comparison of Axis policies on conscripting occupied populations and combatting desertion and draft-dodging. In Slovenia’s fratricidal guerilla war between the native Communist-led resistance, the Liberation Front, and Axis-sponsored Slovene military collaborators, these irregular units also competed to enlist men of fighting age and struggled to keep them from leaving. An examination of the motives behind the men’s decisions not to fight reveals that the rallying cry of “national duty” was often trumped by more parochial and individual concerns.
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