Nemecká [German: Deutschdorf an der Gran] lies 229 kilometres northeast of Bratislava and 22 kilometres from Banská Bystrica. It is the site of a massacre that took place in Slovakia between 4 and 11 January 1945. In the space of seven days, more than 400 people of various ages were murdered; among the victims were Jews, Roma, sympathisers of the Slovak National Uprising, insurgents, and Slovak and foreign partisans.
Course of Events
At the beginning of January 1945, while Einsatzkommando 14 of Einsatzgruppe H was carrying out mass shootings in Kremnička, further murders took place in Nemecká in the Ráztocka Valley. This execution site was chosen by SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Herbert Deffner (1916–1945),1Archive of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising, Fund IX, Box No. 6, No. S2/78. Deffner was last seen in the Nitra area on 3 April 1945, see https://www.volksbund.de/erinnern-gedenken/graebersuche-online/detail/6ab4521c09016fb79c3ec369f96bc7cb [accessed: 23/03/2026]. commander of Einsatzkommando 14 and the fortress in Banská Bystrica, because the mass graves in Kremnička were over-full and the frozen ground made it impossible to dig new pits.2Baranová, Pred bránami pekla, 59. Einsatzkommando 14 worked together with the standby troops [Pohotovostné oddiely Hlinkovej gardy, POHG] of the Hlinka Guard from Považská Bystrica under the command of Oberwaffenmeister Vojtech Hora (biographical data unknown).
Most of the victims were taken from the regional prison in Banská Bystrica to the killing site, which was a lime kiln in Ráztocká Valley near the village of Nemecká. Before the troops from Einsatzkommando 14 and the Hlinka Guard reserve forces killed the people in their custody, they robbed them of their valuables. Finally, they forced the victims to bend over a red-hot lime kiln and shot them in the back of the head. If the victims did not die immediately, they were burned alive.3Mičev et al., Fašistické represálie na Slovensku, 35; Šindelářová, Einsatzgruppe H, 126–127. Their ashes were thrown into the Hron River.
The exact number of victims cannot be determined, as most of them were incinerated in the lime kiln; an estimate of the number of victims and the identification of those killed is based mainly on the prisoner register of the regional prison in Banská Bystrica.4Ibid., 127; Baranová, Pred bránami pekla, 76. The number of Roma murdered during the massacre is unknown. Samuel Bučko (1902–1945) and Milan Bučko (1930–1945) have been identified by name.5Baranová, Pred bránami pekla, 71.
The Guard members responsible for the massacre signed confidentiality agreements. On the instructions of Kurt Herbert Deffner they undertook not to speak to anyone about the murders they had committed – neither to members of the public, nor to other members of the Hlinka Guard and their German superiors. Each pledge bore three signatures: that of Kurt Herbert Deffner, that of the translator (an SS-Unterscharführer) and that of the individual Guard member.6Archive of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising, Fond IX, Box No. 6, No. S 3/78.
After the War
The members of the POHG from Považská Bystrica were not brought to trial immediately after the end of the war. It was only in 1958 that 15 former members of the Hlinka Guard were tried for the crimes committed in Nemecká. Four of the defendants were sentenced to death; the others received sentences ranging from 14 to 25 years.7Gryzlov, Gardistické inferno, 113. Today, the Nemecká Memorial, which is also a designated cultural monument, stands on the former site of the executions. An exhibition provides information about the historical site, and commemorative events are held there every January. Since 2002, the memorial has been administered by the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising.
