Organized armed struggle began in Carinthia in July 1942 with the participation of those having deserted the German Wehrmacht to the ranks of the  »Liberation Front« (Osvobodilna Fronta, OF). In November 1942, however, 200 arrests were made and thirteen resistance fighters were sentenced to death and executed. Despite this setback, a resistance movement took shape that was unique within the borders of the German Reich. In the bilingual areas of South Carinthia, 10,000 soldiers were tied down, in more than 600 operations the Nazi system was damaged, but the greatest achievement was that the Carinthian Slovenes emancipated themselves in the years of the Nazi oppression, thus defying the Nazis’ »master race« ideology intellectually as well as militarily.