Free Territory of Trieste
Yugoslavian post-war occupational zone in Europe.
This Identity Document was issued to a section that was controlled after the war by Yugoslavia and was part of Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT) – located in the north-eastern section of Italy, on the coast, situated near Slovenia on the Adriatic Sea.
The city of Trieste held great financial and commercial importance during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was ranked 4th among its largest of cities at the time after Vienna, Budapest & Prague.
After Italy joined the Great War of 1914-1918 on the allies’ side, she was “given” the city, and this was done following several international treaties such as the 1915 Treaty of London and the Italian-Yugoslav 1920 Treaty of Rapallo .
The city was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1943, following the Italian armistice of September that year, and though it fell under jurisdiction of the newly formed puppet-state of Italian Social Republic (RSI ), which issued itself its own passports (1943-1945), it was in fact part of Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, an area governing former north-eastern Italian territories with Trieste beings its administrative center. Following the end of the war, the city was divided by the western allies and Tito’s Yugoslavia. In 1947 it was declared as a free independent city (1947-1954) under the protection of the UN and called Free Territory of Trieste, though portioned into zones A and zone B from 1945.
The document in this article is not a travel document but a special post-war identity card issued in the zone under control of the Yugoslavians, where as Zone A was under Allied control (United Kingdom and the United Sates). These zones, their creation and control are similar to what had happened in Germany with the division of four allied zones and the one single zone in China, the joint Soviet-Chinese occupational zone of Dalian (port Arthur).
ID number 32139 was issued on October 10th 1950 to Ante Vlastelica at the city of Koper, located today at the south-western section of Slovenia. After WWI it was under Italian control, and for the last 2 years of the war it fell under German occupation. In 1954 the city came under full control and absorbed into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, becoming officially part of the communist country.
During the years the city was under joint administration and division, special visas where needed in order to enter or transit, similar to the allied occupational permits and visas that where implemented in Europe and China.
I have attached images of this post-war special identity card.
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