August, 1944

After Tiso proclaimed martial law in on August 12, 1944, Germans wasted no time. Four Waffen Sturz Staffel arrived to Slovakia, one from Poland, one from Austria,one from former Czech republic, and one from Hungary. On the same day, General Jan Golian, who was in charge of military operations, mobilized his forces and the general uprising commenced. However, before it could spread across the country, the Germans speed, captured and disarmed most of the soldiers in eastern slovakia and only 2,000 troops escaped to join insurgents in central Slovakia. On August 20th, Anglo-American bombers of 15th US Army Air Force flew from their airbases in southern Italy, and bombed oil refinery in Dubova. They destroyed fuel depots that were included in plans for the uprising. Depots were bombed even though Gnereal Golian sent dispatches to London, asking not to bomb Dubová and Podbrezová.

On August 29, 1944, Golian was informed, that German troops entered Slovak territory. He put all of his soldiers in Banska Bystrica on full alert. Then he issued an order via telephone to commanders of military units: “Turn out begins, valid from 8 p.m. today.” This was confirmed the next day by a letter from Golian. Slovak National Uprising began.

During the first days of the uprising, there were 18,000 soldiers and officers fighting against German invaders. The uprising affected more than 30 counties, which was about 20.000 km2 large territory with population approximately 1.700.000 inhabitants. Jan Golian was promoted to the rank of colonel. The next day, memebers of partisan units took Banska Bystrica. At 11 a.m. Free Slovak Radio started its broadcasting. People were asked to participate in the uprising.
But the Germans didn't like that, so they started bombing the radio station in Banská Bystrica in the evening of the same day at 6 p.m.
Headquarter of 1st Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia was established in Banská Bystrica. According to the decicion of Ministry of Defence in London, the insurgent units became part of Czechoslovakian Army. Jan Masaryk, Czechoslovak Minister of foreign affairs send a dispatch to Czechoslovak ambassador in Washington informing him of the National Uprising, in which partisans and regular people were fighting as regular units of the Czechoslovak army and asked “all three big allied countries” to acknowledge them as allied forces too. U.S. government did so on September 7, 1944, Soviet Union on October 11, 1944 and Great Britain in mid October.

September, 1944