Paternion: Photograph showing the capture of Gauleiter Rainer

In the first few weeks of May 1945, the end of the Nazi regime became clear in Carinthia. British and Yugoslav troop had both liberated the region and were now rivals for influence. However, the British army soon took control of the administration. Only a few hours before the British had liberated Klagenfurt, the Nazi Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer had resigned in favour of a provisional state government. Together with high-ranking SS-officer Odilo Globočnik and other Nazis co-responsible for the Holocaust, Rainer went into hiding in the hope of eventually making his escape to Italy. On 31 May, however, the men were captured on a mountainside near Paternion. The prompt arrest was meant by the British to signal their Yugoslav allies how serious they were about the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

This photograph shows British soldiers with the captives: the man in the middle is Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer; behind him are Hermann Höfle and Georg Michaelsen – both co-responsible for the Holocaust in Poland. Odilo Globočnik’s corpse can be seen in the background – he took his own life using a cyanide pill.