Battle of Poljana
Final World War II operations in Slovenia in May 1945.
The Battle of Poljana took place outside of Poljana, near the town of Prevalje in Yugoslavia (modern-day Slovenia) between the Yugoslav Army and a column of 30,000 retreating Axis soldiers, which consisted of the German Wehrmacht, the Croatian Armed Forces (which consisted of Home Guard and Ustaše soldiers), the Montenegrin People's Army (which was of former Chetniks and survivors of the Battle of Lijevče Field), the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Slovene Home Guard, the 15th Waffen SS Cossack Cavalry Corps and other collaborationist forces who were on their way to surrender to the British in Austria. The battle was one of the last confrontations of World War II in Europe taking place on 14 and 15 May 1945, 6 days after Germany unconditionally capitulated.
Background
Yugoslavia was invaded by Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria on 6 April 1941. Poorly prepared and overrun, the Yugoslav army capitulated after 11 days of fighting on 17 April. Following the invasion, Yugoslavia was split between the Axis powers with annexed and occupied territories. The Italians and Germans supported the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia (Serbo-Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), a puppet state led by dictator Ante Pavelić who was also the leader of the ultranationalist Ustaše movement. The country was founded on the territories of modern-day Croatia and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within weeks of its creation, NDH authorities implemented genocidal policies against its Serb, Romani, and Jewish populations living within the new borders.
Armed resistance broke out almost immediately within the territories following the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. Initial resistance lacked a centralized ideology and was largely based around survival, particularly Serbs who took up arms against the Ustaše.
“Battle of Poljana” enters the record as final World War II operations in Slovenia in May 1945. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Poljana and Final can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2889635. Authority coordinates are 46.544, 14.874. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Poljana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.