100th Birthday of Franc Rozman

A portrait of Franc Rozman (1911–1944), Slovenian military commander and national hero, alongside a five-pointed star; the inscription 'Franc Rozman Stane' with the years 1911 and 1944, the state name 'Slovenija', and the year 2011.

Franc Rozman, born in 1911 in the municipality of Dobje pri Planini in Lower Styria, joined the communist movement in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia at an early age and, after the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, became one of the central military figures of the Slovenian resistance. Under his nom de guerre "Stane," he rose to become commander-in-chief of the Slovenian Partisan Army, which fought against the occupying powers as part of the National Liberation Movement under Josip Broz Tito. Rozman was regarded as organisationally gifted and militarily determined - he restructured the scattered partisan units into a coordinated fighting force and led them through the difficult occupation period in Slovenian territory.

His death in November 1944, just months before the end of the war, made him a national symbolic figure in Yugoslavia's post-war socialist order. In Slovenia, he was commemorated in collective memory through street names, monuments and honours. Following Slovenian independence in 1991, his historical role has been discussed in more nuanced terms - yet he remains at his core a formative figure in Slovenia's contemporary history of the Second World War. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, Slovenia issued a 2-euro commemorative coin in 2011, honouring his life and work.