Partisan

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A partisan ("partisan") is an armed fighter who does not belong to the regular armed forces of a state. The term guerrilla refers to resistance fighters since the Napoleonic campaigns on the Iberian Peninsula and in other parts of the world in the Spanish-speaking area.

Definition
Partisans conduct fighting in an area where another regular force (army or police of their own or a foreign state or civilian administration) officially claims to rule. Partisans usually fight only within their own territory, but not always regionally, as showed in the Spanish War of Independence from 1808 to 1812 with the emergence of the guerrillas, in the Russian campaign in 1812, in the Spanish Civil War, in the German-Soviet War, in the Titopartisans or in Mao Zedong. Partisans exist both in civil wars and domestic conflicts and as part of a resistance movement against conquerors, occupiers or colonialists. Already in 1785 Johann von Ewald published his treatise on the small war in Kassel, which was based on his experiences with the insurgents in the North American colonies.

Partisans are generally only equipped with light weapons. Their methods of combat include sabotage, espionage, attacks on smaller military units of the enemy and combating collaborators. They operate mostly from the cover of a civilian population, tie up regular troops and are difficult to grasp, especially due to their often accurate local knowledge and the possibility of hiding in the population.

From a military point of view, the terms Partisan and Guerillero are often used interchangeably. Resistance fighters in European countries occupied by the Axis powers during World War II are usually called partisans, liberation fighters of anti-colonial movements are usually called guerrillas.

Legal status
International law does not know its own legal status for the partisan. According to the Hague Land Warfare Regulations, four minimum criteria were applied to establish the status of combatant and thus, on the one hand, to be entitled to military action and, on the other hand, to enjoy the status of prisoners of war in the case of capture:

standardisation,
open carrying of the weapons,
warfare according to custom,
fixed structures.

In the two Additional Protocols of 8. On 1 June 1977, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 changed these requirements so that only the open carrying of weapons during military deployment and attack is sufficient to be considered a combatant.

Persons who do not meet the above criteria, but who nevertheless take part in hostilities, still enjoy the conditions laid down in Protocol I, Art. 75 established protections, such as against intentional killing, torture, etc. However, they bear responsibility for crimes they have committed in accordance with the