Name Marko Natlacen | Role Politician | |
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Died October 13, 1942, Ljubljana, Slovenia | ||
Marko Natlačen (24 April 1886 – 13 October 1942) was a Slovenian politician and jurist, who also served as the last ban (Governor) of the Drava Banovina in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. His assassination at the hands of the Slovenian Communist secret service (VOS) during World War II was an important event in the escalation of the armed conflict between the Slovenian partisans and the Slovenian anti-revolutionary forces in the Province of Ljubljana. The role of Natlačen during World War II and the extent to which he collaborated with the Fascist Italian occupying forces has been disputed.
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Biography
Natlačen was born in the village of Manče in the upper Vipava Valley, in what was then the Duchy of Carniola within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Natlačen finished his law studies in Vienna and then moved to Ljubljana, where he worked in a law firm. He was a member of the Slovene People's Party and an anticommunist. During the Second World War he founded the National Council of Slovenia (Slovene: Narodni svet za Slovenijo) together with the leaders of other political parties. He initially accepted a position on the advisory council for the Ljubljana Province, but resigned soon thereafter and withdrew from public political life due to his opposition to the Italian authorities and their unlawful treatment of people in Ljubljana Province. Together with the Albert Kramer of the Liberal Party, he helped draft the London Points (Slovene: Londonske točke) on October 1941.
He was assassinated by the Security and Intelligence Service (VOS) at the order of the Communist Party of Slovenia. After the war the Communist authorities desecrated his grave, exhumed his remains, and disposed of them at an unknown location.
Controversies
Natlačen published the anti-Serb xenophobic poem Srbe na vrbe (Hang the Serbs on the Willow Trees) in the Ljubljana newspaper Slovenec on 27 July 1914, the day before Austria-Hungary declared war against the Kingdom of Serbia.