The Slovene Home Guard (Slovene: Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; German: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti-Partisan militia that was founded and supported by the Germans and fought alongside them against the Partisans. It operated during part of the 1943–1944 German occupation of the formerly Italian-annexed Slovene Province of Ljubljana. The Guard consisted of former Village Sentries (Slovene: Vaške straže; Italian: Guardia Civica), part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice of September 1943. At the end of 1944, the National Committee for Slovenia re-organized all the anti-communist armies into one called the Slovenian National Army/Slovenska Narodna Vojska. This new Slovenian National Army re-took their oaths to King Peter in their support of the kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The Guard had close links with Slovenian right-wing anti-Communist political parties and organizations, which provided most of the membership, receiving assistance from the Germans rather than providing assistance to them. In the Slovenian Littoral, a similar but much smaller unit, called the Slovenian National Defense Corps (Slovene: Slovensko narodno varnostni zbor, German: Slowenisches Nationales Schutzkorps), more commonly known as the Littoral Home Guard (Slovene: Primorsko domobranstvo) was ideologically and organizationally linked to the SD. An even smaller Upper Carniolan Self-Defense (Slovene: Gorenjska samozaščita, German: Oberkrainer Landschutz), also known as the Upper Carniolan Home Guard (Slovene: Gorenjsko domobranstvo) operated in Upper Carniola between 1944 and 1945. All three "home guard" units comprised almost exclusively ethnic Slovenes. The officers and the language of command were Slovene.
