Belgorod occupied Belgorod from 25 October 1941 to 9 February 1943. The Germans re-captured it on 18 March 1943 in the final move of the Third Battle of Kharkov. On 12 July 1943, during the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in world history took place near Prokhorovka, and Red Army definitively retook the city on 5/6 August 1943. The Belgorod Diorama is one of the World War II monuments commemorating the event. In 1954 the city became the administrative center of Belgorod Oblast. From this time the rapid development of the city as a regional center began. Belgorod is
Slovene Lands in World War II the capital city of the now independent Slovenia, was announced on 9 May 1945. The last battle was the Battle of Poljana, which took place near Prevalje on 14 and 15 May 1945, a few days after the formal surrender of the Nazi Germany. Hundreds of ethnic Italians from the Julian March were killed by the Yugoslav Army and partisan forces in the Foibe massacres; some 27,000 Istrian Italians fled Slovenian Istria from Communist persecution in the so-called Istrian exodus. Members of the ethnic German minority either fled or were expelled from Slovenia. The overall number of World War II