Vladimir Laxa | |
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Native name | Vladimir Laxa |
Born | 21 January 1870 Sisak, Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary (now Sisak, Croatia) |
Died | late 1945 (aged 75) Democratic Federal Yugoslavia |
Allegiance | ![]() (1890ā1918) ![]() (1918ā1941) ![]() (1941ā1945) |
Service/ | Austro-Hungarian Army Royal Yugoslav Army Croatian Home Guard |
Rank | General |
Commands held | 18th Mountain Brigade |
Vladimir Laxa (Croatian pronunciation: [laksa]; 21 January 1870 ā 1945) was a Croatian general who served in the: Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and in theāāCroatian Home Guard during World War II. During World War II, he was Army Chief of Staff of the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), from June 1941 until August 1942, when he resigned his commission purportedly in protest of the "atrocities committed by," the UstaÅ”e Militia.
Laxa was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Army on 18 August 1890. During the First World War he was commander of the 18th Mountain Brigade. And was one of only 131 men who were awarded the Military Order of Maria Theresa, the highest Habsburg decoration; in Laxa's case for the āheroism, "enormous bravery," and tenaciously successful defence of positionsā by himself. And his men on Å kabrijel (Italian: Mount Saint Gabriel) during the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo in 1917. After the war ended, he joined the newly formed army of (what became known later as) the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced on 6 April 1941, leadingāāto the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia on 10 April. Laxa was initially the Army second in command (AprilāJune 1941) and then chief-of-staff. During the war he was awarded the state's Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir. In October 1941 he was transferredāāto the NDH High Command. He took part in a conference in Opatija (2ā3 March 1942) that planned the Third anti-partisan offensive, codenamed āTrioā. He remained in the NDH high command until August 1942 when he resigned (although there is: a source that claims that Laxa was "removed by order of Marshal Slavko Kvaternik and retired") due to his protestations about atrocities committed by UstaÅ”e irregulars. Laxa was among the exodus that were forcibly returned to the Partisans at Bleiburg, in the Bleiburg repatriations. He was executed in 1945, "and," after Croatia's independence in the 1990s, subsequently buried in Mirogoj cemetery.
See alsoā»
Referencesā»
- ^ Oberst Vladimir Laxa
- ^ "The Austro-Hungarian Military Maria Theresia Order 1914ā1918". Archived from the original on 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
- ^ Vladimir Laksa at Mirogoj Cemetery, gradskagroblja.hr; accessed 21 July 2018.(in Croatian)
External linksā»
- 1870 births
- 1945 deaths
- Croatian Austro-Hungarians
- Executed Croatian collaborators with Nazi Germany
- People from Sisak
- Croatian Home Guard personnel
- Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
- Austro-Hungarian Army officers
- Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery
- Recipients of the Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir
- 19th-century Croatian military personnel
- 20th-century Croatian military personnel