YUGOSLAVIA IN WORLD WAR II (1941-45)

YUGOSLAVIA IN WORLD WAR II (1941-45)

The Axis invasion caused panic in Yugoslavia, as foreign
occupiers partitioned the country and terrorized its people.
Bloody encounters involved both invading and domestic forces
throughout the four years of war. The Communist-led Partisans
(see Glossary) rose from near oblivion to dominate the country's
resistance movement. They emerged from the war in firm control of
the entire country.

Partition and Terror

Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria dismembered Yugoslavia.
Germany occupied a rump Serbia and part of Vojvodina (see fig.
5). It created a puppet "Independent State of Croatia" (Nezavisna
drzava Hrvatska, NDH) including Croatia and Bosnia and
Hercegovina, and it annexed northern Slovenia. Italy won southern
Slovenia and much of Dalmatia, joined Kosovo with its Albanian
puppet state, and occupied Montenegro. Hungary occupied part of
Vojvodina and Slovenian and Croatian border regions. Bulgaria
took Macedonia and a part of southern Serbia.

Germany unleashed a reign of terror and Germanization in
northern Slovenia. It resettled Slovenes in Serbia, moved German
colonists onto Slovenian farms, and attempted to erase Slovenian
cultural institutions. The Catholic hierarchy collaborated with
the authorities in Italian-occupied southern Slovenia, which
suffered less tyranny than the north.

Germany and Italy supported the NDH and began diverting natural
resources to the Axis war machine. When Macek refused to
collaborate, the Nazis made Ante Pavelic head of the NDH. His
Ustase storm troopers began eliminating the two million Serbs,
Jews, and Gypsies in the NDH, through forced religious
conversion, deportation, and extreme violence. The NDH was backed
enthusiastically by some Croatian Catholic clergy, including the
Archbishop of Sarajevo; some Franciscan priests enlisted in the
Ustase and participated in massacres. The Archbishop of Zagreb,
Alojzije Stepinac, publicly welcomed and appeared with Pavelic
while privately protesting NDH atrocities. On the other hand,
many Catholic priests condemned the violence and helped Orthodox
Serbs to practice their religion in secret. Even the Germans were
appalled by Ustase violence, and Berlin feared the bloodbath
would ignite greater Serbian resistance. Italy reoccupied areas
of Hercegovina to halt the slaughter there.

Jews and Serbs also were massacred in areas occupied by the
Albanians and the Hungarians. Thousands of Serbs fled to Serbia,
where the Germans had established a puppet regime under General
Milan Nedic. Nedic considered himself a custodian rather than a
collaborator and strove to maintain control of violence. In the
south of Yugoslavia, many Macedonians welcomed Bulgarian forces,
expecting that Sofia would grant them autonomy; but a harsh
Bulgarianization campaign ended their enthusiasm.



Resistance in Yugoslavia developed mainly in dispersed units of
the Yugoslav army and among Serbs fleeing genocide in Croatia and
Bosnia and Hercegovina. Various armed groups in Serbia organized
under the name Cetnik (pl. Cetnici--see Glossary), from the
Serbian word for "detachment." Some Cetnici supported Nedic,
others the Communist-led Partisan guerrillas. The best known
Cetnici were the followers of Colonel Draza Mihajlovic, a Serbian
nationalist, monarchist, and staunch anticommunist. Certain that
the Allies would soon invade the Balkans, Mihajlovic advised his
Cetnici to avoid clashes with Axis forces and prepare for a
general uprising to coincide with the Allied push. In October
1941, Britain recognized Mihajlovic as the leader of the Yugoslav
resistance movement, and in 1942 the government-in-exile promoted
him to commander of its armed forces.

The Resistance Movement

The communist-led Partisans eventually grew into Yugoslavia's
largest, most active resistance group. The Communist Party of
Yugoslavia (CPY) had sunk into obscurity after the government
banned it in 1921. Police repression, internal conflict, and the
Stalinist purges of the 1930s depleted party membership, and by
the late 1930s its leadership in Moscow directed only a few
hundred members inside Yugoslavia. The Partisan leader, Josip
Broz Tito, son of a Croatian-Slovenian peasant family, had joined
the Red Guards during the 1917 Russian Revolution and become a
party member after returning to Yugoslavia. Tito won membership
in the Central Committee of the Yugoslavian Communist Party in
1934, then became secretary general after a 1937 purge. In the
four years before the war, Tito directed a communist resurgence
and built a strong organization of 12,000 full party members and
30,000 members of the youth organization. The party played some
role in demonstrations in Belgrade against the Tripartite Pact,
and it called for a general uprising after Hitler attacked the
Soviet Union in June 1941. The Partisan slogan "Death to Fascism,
Freedom to the People," combined with a pan-Yugoslav appeal, won
recruits for Tito across the country--despite the fact that
before the war the communists had worked for the breakup of
Yugoslavia.

In July 1941, with some Cetnik support, the Partisans launched
uprisings that won control of much of the Yugoslav countryside.
The Partisan leaders established an administration and proclaimed
the Uzice Republic in western Serbia. But in September the Axis
struck back. Germany warned that it would execute 100 Serbs for
every German soldier the resistance killed, and German troops
killed several thousand civilians at Kragujevac in a single
reprisal. Tito correctly reasoned that such actions would enrage
the population and bring the Partisans more recruits, so he
disregarded the German threat and continued his guerrilla
warfare. He also arranged assassinations of local political
figures and ordered attacks on the Cetnici to coincide with
German action against them. Mihajlovic, however, feared that
German reprisals would turn into a Serbian holocaust, so he
ordered his forces not to engage the Germans. After fruitless
negotiations with Tito, the Cetnik leader turned against the
Partisans as his main enemy. Cetnik units attacked Partisans in
November 1941 and began cooperating with the Germans and Italians
to prevent a communist victory. The British liaison to Mihajlovic advised London to stop supplying the Cetnici after the Uzice attack, but Britain continued to supply Mihajlovic.

In late 1941, the Partisans lost control of Western Serbia,
Montenegro, and other areas, and their central command withdrew
into Bosnia. Despite the setbacks, Bosnian Serbs and other
Yugoslavs flocked to the Partisans. The Serbian-based Cetnici
expanded into Montenegro, where they gained local and Italian
support. Soviet dictator Joseph V. Stalin, fearing that Partisan
action might weaken Allied trust of the Soviet Union, and
suspicious of revolutionary movements not under his control,
reportedly instructed Tito to limit the Partisans to national
liberation and antifascist activities. Moscow refused to supply
arms to Tito, maintained relations with the government-in-exile,
and even offered a military mission and supplies to the Cetnici.

At Bihac in November 1942, the Partisan leaders, anxious to gain
political legitimacy, convened the first meeting of the Anti-
Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia
(Antifasisticko vece narodnog oslobodjenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ), a
committee of communist and noncommunist Partisan representatives
from all over Yugoslavia. AVNOJ became the political umbrella
organization for the people's liberation committees that the
partisans established to administer territories under their
control. AVNOJ proclaimed support for democracy, the rights of
ethnic groups, the inviolability of private property, and freedom
of individual economic initiative. Stalin reportedly barred Tito
from declaring AVNOJ a provisional government. In 1943 Germany
mounted offensives to improve its control of Yugoslavia in
anticipation of an Allied invasion of the Balkans. The Partisans,
fearing that an Allied invasion would benefit the Cetnici,
attacked Mihajlovic's forces. In March the Partisans
outmaneuvered the German army and defeated the Cetnici decisively
in Hercegovina and Montenegro. In May, however, German, Italian,
Bulgarian, and NDH forces surrounded the Partisans and launched a
final crushing attack. In fierce combat in the Sutjeska Gorge,
the Partisans escaped encirclement. This proved a turning point
in their fortunes; when Italy surrendered in September 1943, the
Partisans captured Italian arms, gained control of coastal
territory, and began receiving supplies from the Allies in Italy. Tito convened a second session of AVNOJ in November 1943. This
session, which included representatives of various ethnic and
political groups, built the basis for the postwar government of
Yugoslavia. AVNOJ voted to reconstitute the country on a federal
basis; elected a national committee to act as the temporary
government; named Tito marshal of Yugoslavia and prime minister;
and issued a declaration forbidding King Petar to return to the
country until a popular referendum had been held on the status of
the monarchy. Tito did not notify Stalin of the November meeting,
which enraged the Soviet leader. The Western Allies, however,
were not alarmed, because they believed that the Partisans were
the only Yugoslav resistance group actively fighting the Germans.
At Teheran in December 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
decided to support the Partisans. A month later, Britain stopped
supplying the Cetnici and threw full support to the Partisans.
The first Soviet mission arrived at Partisan headquarters shortly
thereafter. The United States kept a military mission with
Mihajlovic to encourage continued Cetnik aid for downed American
fliers.



In May 1944, German airborne forces attacked Tito's headquarters
in Drvar, nearly capturing him. Tito fled to Italy, then
established new headquarters on the Adriatic island of Vis. After
throwing full support to the Partisans, Britain worked to
reconcile Tito and Petar. In June 1944, at Britain's urging,
Petar named Ivan Subasic, former ban of Croatia, as prime
minister of the government-in-exile. Subasic accepted the
resolutions of the second AVNOJ conference, and Petar agreed to
remain outside Yugoslavia. In September the king succumbed to
British pressure and summoned all Yugoslavs to back the
Partisans.

When the Red Army reached the Yugoslav-Romanian border in
September 1944, Tito traveled secretly to Moscow, arranged for
the Soviets to enter Yugoslavia, and secured Stalin's word that
the Red Army would leave the country once it was secure, without
interfering with domestic politics. Soviet troops crossed the
border on October 1, and a joint Partisan-Soviet force liberated
Belgrade on October 20. The majority of the Red Army then
continued into Hungary, leaving the Partisans and the Western
Allies to crush remaining Germans, Ustase, and Cetnici. When the
Partisans advanced into Croatia in the bloodiest fighting of the
war, Ustase leaders and collaborators fled to Austria with
regular Croatian and Slovenian troops and some Cetnici. The
Partisans finally occupied Trieste, Istria, and some Slovenian
enclaves in Austria, but they withdrew from some of these areas
after the Allies persuaded Tito to let the postwar peace
conferences settle borders. The Partisans crushed a small
Albanian nationalist revolt in Kosovo after Tito and Albanian
Communist leader Enver Hoxha announced that they would return
Kosovo to Yugoslavia.



gopher://gopher.umsl.edu/00/library/govdocs/armyahbs/aahb2/aahb0148
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Yugoslavia was a bizarre place, one where they fought as much against other countries unfairly thrown together after WW1..The slavs of the former Austro-Hungarian empire which include Croats,sers slovanians where bunched together to form a nation, which was a huge mistake post WW1...here people speaking,writing, religious beliefs,and different pokitical ideals where all lumped into one and expected not to have wars among themselves???
Cocentration camps where set up in Croatia to house jews, Serbs...no wonder Tito fought and backed Russia, as the Crotians where a puppet state with Germany and it's people where being used as slaves and being slaughtered.....people see Yugoslavia as a partisan bunch fighting the Germans, which isn't altogether so...Numerous Croatian pilots( now deemed yugoslavians flew and became aces against the soviets as Croatia became to back Hitler and Nazi Germany...

the chetnik rebels did good fighting for their king in exile...but soon Germans executed so many for each of their own killed, so in consideration, resistance against Germans stopped...

original signing as a puppet state by the prince whom reluctantly signed made Hitler happy, but a soon attempted coup d etat by a few British dropped special forces/diplomats trying to over throw the deal so infuriated hitler, that Richtofen was sent to have his Luftwaffe flatten Belgrade....a trait he new well from the Spanish war, and would use later upon Stalingrad...
Unsure if this made any sense, but would be almost like those backing bush went to fight with him, and those against his Iraq war, fought both bush and those backing him...(as a figure of speech)

When Churchill was dropping weapons for Tito's gurella forces, while the American preferred backing Mihalslovic(sp?) i believe it was attlee whom asked Churchill if this was wise to be supporting a regime which would eventually back, or be backed by Russia...all churchill retorted with..."I have no intention of living their after the war....do you?"

 

Here is a Serbian perspective on Draza Mihailovic;
Draza Mihailovich - He saved Russia
It is a fact that the Wehrmacht did not reach the Gates of Moscow until the Fall of '41 because of the critical 6 week delay taken earlier that year during operations in Yugoslavia and Greece. It is also a fact that guerrilla actions in Greece but mostly Yugoslavia tied down German forces for the duration of WWII; and most critically during the Barbarossa to Operation Blau periods. Small nations CAN have huge effects on World events. Here are some Greek YOUtubes on the subject (Thanks to my Greek friend Courevec);
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcInAE3R7Gk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYCCZrWEK_A&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-PonDxfoO0&feature=related (it's a film I have wached for over 20 times!)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscJ68rlxAg&feature=related


JeffinMNUSA

 

The biggest factor besides yougoslavia, was Hitlers reprisal for the Belgarde uprising resulting in his feeling betrayed...a reprisal started by british commandoes parachuted into Serbian (i believe territory)

Hitlers not capturing Moscow, was not because of a 6 week late start...had the Wehrmacht had set this goal, and this goal specifically, moscow would have fell early...It was the success of the Wehrmacht, and thus Hitlers micro-managing which diverted troops, set panzer armies south then back to the North almost with reckless abandonement the Japanese had shown in the Pacific until they had their noses bloodied at Midway...

Besides, if one thinks the battle could have began in early may,,,the excess rain that spring made roads,fields unpassable until into June...as well as the swollen rivers, terrain etc made this start date impossible

 

BF;
Here is the history channel debate on "The Six Week Delay" factor (and others)
History Channel: Barbarossa time period? ...
Here is a Russian site that proposes the "Six week delay meant little" thesis (and I suspect just a touch of nationalistic braggadocio in this);
÷ÏÅÎÎÁÑ ÌÉÔÅÒÁÔÕÒÁ : éÓÔÏÒÉÑ ×ÏÊÎ : Fugate B., Operation Barbarossa

My read? Well how could a six (or even two) week delay NOT had a huge effect on the first year of the war? You can argue that Hitler's switching operations to the Ukraine were much more significant and probably be right (so why did Hitler swing South when he had Moscow in his sights? Well certainly "Der Fuhrer" enjoyed the slaughter, but also there is the militarily sound principle of "securing one's flanks"-the same logic that led him to invade the Balkans). This still does not change the fact that the badly depleted, poorly equipped (for cold weather)NAZI Legions arrived at the Gates of Moscow just as the nasty weather- "rasputitsa" -was setting in. 2-6 weeks earlier could have made a huge difference. Then there were those 9 divisions left in the Balkans missing from the Wehrmacht's force mix...

JeffinMNUSA