War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration 9780804779241

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War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-r945 Occupation and Collaboration

War and Revolutio n in Yugoslav ia, I941-194 5

OCCUPA TION AND COLLAB ORATION

JOZO TOMASEVIC H

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 2001

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tomasevich, Jozo. War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: occupation and collaboration I Jozo Tomasevich. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-8047-3615-4 (cloth: alk. paper) r. Yugoslavia-History-Axis occupation, 1941-1945. 2. World War, 1939-1945- Yugoslavia. I. Title. 2001 DR1298.T66 2001020024 940.53 '497-dc21 This book is printed on acid-free, archival-quality paper. Original printing 2001 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 09 o8 07 o6 05 04 03 02 01 Designed and typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/13 Sabon by John Feneron

Contents

Preface Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Materials I

IX XV

Yugoslavia Between the Wars

I

Historical Background, r The Unification Act of December r, 1918, and the Constitution of June 28, 1921, 9 Early Political Emigration, 17 Political Developments from 1923 to 1934, 21 The Early Stages of the Ustasha Movement, 30 Political Developments in the Late 1930's, 39 2

The Partition of Yugoslavia

47

The Establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, 47 The Partition of the Country, 6r The German System of Occupation in Serbia, 64

3 Germany and Italy Divide Slovenia German Occupation of Northern Slovenia, 83 Italian Annexation of the Ljubljana Province, 94 German Occupation of the Ljubljana Province, r 21 Collaboration Leads the Anti-Partisan Forces to Defeat, 126

4 Foreign Annexation of Yugoslavia

I30

Italian Rule in the Annexed Part of Dalmatia, 130 Italian and German Occupation of Montenegro, 138 Italian-Albanian Rule in Kosovo and Western Macedonia, 148 Bulgarian Rule in Parts of Macedonia and Serbia, r 56 Hungarian Rule in Parts of Yugoslav Territory, r68

5 The Puppet Government of Serbia

I75

The Establishment and Reorganization of the Puppet Government, 177 German Auxiliary Forces in Serbia, r86 The Bulgarian Army in Serbia, r 9 5 The Special Occupation Regime in the Banat, 201 The Difficulties of the Nedic Government, 209 The Serbian Political Parties During the War, 228

6 The Independent State of Croatia: An Italian-German Quasi Protectorate The Italian-Croatian Treaties of Rome of May r8, 1941, 234 German-ltalian-Croatian Relations, 241 Italian Rule in Croatia, 246 The Independent State of Croatia and International Law, 268 German Rule in Croatia, 274 The Italian Surrender, 294

2

33

CONTENTS

VI

7 The Independent State of Croatia: Under German Dominance

303

The German Role in Military Affairs, 303 The German Role in Political Affairs, 3 I 5 German Inconsistencies, Croatian Grievances, 3 23 Approaching the End, 328

8 The Independent State of Croatia: Internal Problems and Policies

335

The Ustasha Program and Party, 3 3 6 The Ustashas as a Political Group, 342 The Narrow Popular Base of the Ustasha Regime, 3 5 I The Croatian Peasant Party During the War, 356 The Ustasha Regime and the Roman Catholic Church, 3 68 The Ustashas Convoke the Croatian Diet, 372 Croatian "Ethnic and Historical Territory," 376

9 The Independent State of Croatia: The Rule of Lawlessness and Terror The Political and "Legal" Foundations of Lawlessness and Terror, 380 The Ustashas' Case Against the Serbs West of the Drina River, 3 87 The Mass Expulsion of Serbs, 392 The Mass Killing of Serbs, 397 Other Population Shifts, 409 Ustasha Terror Engenders Armed Resistance, 4 I 2 IO

The Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia Formation and Organization, 4I6 The Weaknesses of the Army, 424 Conflicts Between the Army and the Ustashas, 434 The Removal of the Kvaterniks, 439 Croatian Peasant Party Plans for the Army, 442 The Unification of the Army and the Ustasha Militia, 456

I I

The Independent State of Croatia: The Bosnian Muslims Historical Background, 468 State of Croatia, 488

I 2

The Bosnian Muslims in the Independent

The Churches During the Occupation and Revolution

5II

The Serbian Orthodox Church, 5 I I The Catholic Church in Slovenia, 517 The Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia, 522 The Killing of Priests Throughout Yugoslavia, 568 Conclusion, 575 Appendix: Was the Archbishop's May I943 Report to the Pope Genuine?, 576

I3

The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Yugoslavia Introduction, s8o The Destruction of Jews Outside the Ustasha State, s8 s The Destruction of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, 592 Jews in the Yugoslav Partisan Forces, 6os Conclusion, 6o6 Appendix: The Destruction of the Yugoslav Gypsies, 6o8

I4

Axis Exploitation of the Yugoslav Economy: Part I Yugoslavia's Economic Relations Before the War, 6II German Control of the Wartime Economy, 6I7 Economic Components Exploited by Germany, 623 Italy's Share of Yugoslav Economic Spoils, 66o

6II

Vll

CONTENTS

r 5 Axis Exploitation of the Yugoslav Economy: Part II Payments for Axis Military Forces, 665 Foreign Economic Relations as an Instrument of Exploitation, 684 Conclusion, 696

r6 Further Economic Consequences of War and Exploitation Inflation in Serbia and Croatia, 699 Fiscal Policies in Serbia and Croatia, 706 The Food Economy in Serbia and Croatia, 707 The Country's Material Losses at War's End, 714

17 Alleged and True Population Losses Exaggerated Claims of Losses, 720 Scholarly Research, 729 The Reasons for Exaggerated Claims, 739 The Reasons for Excessive Human and Material Losses, 744

r8 The End of the Collaborationist Regimes·in Yugoslavia The Final Days of the Ustasha Forces, 751 The Deterioration and End of the Legionnaire Divisions, 768 The End of the Slovene Collaborationist Forces, 771 The Fate of Some Nedic and Chetnik Forces, 77 5 Concluding Observations on the Independent State of Croatia, 778

Bibliography Index

751

Maps and Tables

MAPS

r. The Partition of Yugoslavia, I94I

2. 3· 4· 5.

The Partition of Slovenia, I 94 I Occupied Serbia, I94I-I944 The Independent State of Croatia, I94I-I945 The Confessionally Intermixed Population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I 9 3 I 6. Concentration Camps for Jews in Yugoslavia, I94I-I945 7· Important Communication Lines in Wartime Yugoslavia 8. Mineral Resources in Wartime Yugoslavia TABLES

r. Army Corps and Divisions of the Croatian Armed Forces, Late

December I944/Early January I945 2. Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Roman Catholic Bishops and Priests Killed, I94I-I945 3· Jews in Yugoslavia: Membership in Religious Communities, I939I 940, by Political Units Established in April I 94 I, and Distribution by Historical Province, I 94 I 4· The Jewish Population in Yugoslavia, I94I, and Jewish Losses, I94I-I945, by Historical Province 5. Nonferrous Metal Shipments to the Greater Reich from Serbia and Bulgarian-Annexed Yugoslav Areas, I942-August I944 6. Deliveries of Industrial Products to the Military Economic and Armaments Office from Southeast European Countries, June I94I; by Six-Month Period, July-December I94I to January-June I944; and July I944 7· Monthly Occupation Costs Paid by Serbia to Germany, April I5, I94I-September 30, I944 8. Wholesale and Retail Prices in Zagreb, April I94I-December I944/Aprili945 9· Estimated Demographic and Real Loss of Population in Yugoslavia, I94I-I945, by Socialist Republic and Nationality

459 572

58 3 607 639

645 667 704 738

Preface

This is the second volume of my three-volume study on war and revolution in Yugoslavia from I94I to I945· It is organized around the complementary themes of occupation and collaboration, and comes after the first volume, which dealt with the Chetniks, and before the third volume, which will be devoted to the Partisans. All the actors and events described here shared three common circumstances. First, all events took place within Yugoslav territory during the Second World War. Second, all the forces discussed here-foreign and domestic-were opposed to Yugoslavia as a common state of South Slavic peoples, or at least accepted its partition. As I noted in the preface to the first volume, the attitude of various domestic forces toward the existence of the Yugoslav state has provided the organizing rationale for this entire study. And third, everything described here occurred against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, which held sway over the whole of southeast Europe and directed, shielded, and exploited it. Fascist Italy was an additional element of the foreign backdrop until its surrender in September I943, when Germany stepped into the breach and took over all earlier Italian-controlled areas in the Balkans and that part of Italy not yet in Allied hands. Occupation by conquering peoples and collaboration (or cooperation) with them have been a familiar part of the history of all South Slavic nations for centuries. This is because of their small size in comparison to their neighbors, and because of their geopolitical location on the Balkan Peninsula, astride the paths of expansion of large empires, great religions, and competing cultures and ideologies. There were always strong and weak forces, victors and vanquished, and collaboration under conditions of occupation was a way for those who were conquered to survive in, adjust to, or even profit from the given circumstances. The principal reasons for collaboration in Yugoslavia from I94I to I945 can be traced to the national and religious composition of the first Yugoslav state in I 9 I 8 and the way it was governed in the interwar period. Because of the new state's eminently multinational and multiconfessional character-it consisted of historically well-defined national units with different backgrounds

X

PREFACE

and competing religious traditions, which had never before been under one political system-a federally organized state would have been its appropriate form. Disregarding historical and political logic, however, the Serbs from the outset ruled as the dominant nation. This engendered resentment and opposition among the Croats; a pro-Bulgarian stance among some Macedonians, who were not recognized as a separate nation; and a desire for union with the mother country among many of the large and small national minorities (Albanians, Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, and Italians). The dissatisfaction of the separate nations and national minorities, the historical legacy of competing churches and religious communities, and the competition among European powers for territory and influence in the Balkans, undermined what little political cohesion was achieved. Under such circumstances, collaboration during the short War of April I94I and the occupation that followed was bound to occur, take many forms, and be marked by many despicable features. I begin by briefly describing the establishment of Yugoslavia in I 9 I 8 and its internal policies during the interwar period, which created great political instability and fostered a political emigration that worked against the territorial integrity of the country from without. Then I deal with the breakup of the state in April I94I, the annexation or occupation of parts of its territory by its neighbors, and the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia as a GermanItalian quasi protectorate, together with its policies and the problem of the Bosnian Muslims. Next I turn to the role of the churches during the occupation, the destruction of the Yugoslav Jewish community, and the economic exploitation of Yugoslav territory by the Axis powers, especially Germany. I conclude with a discussion of the wartime population losses of the country and the fate of the collaborationist forces. At the end of the war, the pre-I94I boundaries of the states of southeast Europe were restored, with some later important territorial adjustments in favor of Yugoslavia. But a fundamental political change had occurred: the Soviet Union had become the dominant superpower in the region, except in Greece. Two important issues not dealt with fully here, though they were an integral part of the Axis presence in Yugoslavia and of the collaborationist regimes, are wartime military operations and, as a complement to them, the systematic use of mass terror against the civilian population. They are reserved for a fuller discussion in the volume on the Partisans. This is because most military operations in Yugoslavia during the war were undertaken by the Partisans or directed against them, and because a great deal of mass terror was used against the Partisans and their sympathizers or practiced by the Partisans themselves. However, I do briefly describe military operations when they are needed to explain other topics under discussion. And I discuss quite fully the use of mass terror as an element of the political program of the collaborationist regimes and groups against their respective domestic enemies and rivals. The bloody confrontations among the various nations, national minorities,

PREFACE

and religious groups in Yugoslavia during the war often had their roots in antagonisms that reached deep into the past. Consequently, I have also provided historical discussion when it was necessary for an understanding of wartime events. It should be noted that in this volume I discuss only openly collaborationist regimes and groups in various parts of the country. This does not include the Serbian Chetniks of General Drah Mihailovic. As shown in the first volume of this study, the Chetniks started as a resistance group against the Axis powers. But once they realized that the Partisans were Communist-led and their chief competitors for power after the war, they become a collaborationist force with the Axis against the Partisans. Their double role was unique in occupied Europe. My purpose here is to present a general picture of the development and policies of the occupation systems and collaborationist forces in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. I include a great amount of detail, partly for reasons of completeness and partly for the light that it throws on the main events that I am trying to reconstruct and explain. The topics dealt with in the volume on the Chetniks as well as those reserved for the final volume on the Partisans have been intensively studied and written about-though to my mind not satisfactorily, nor with sufficient objectivity-both in Yugoslavia and elsewhere during the past fifty years. The topics analyzed here, however, have for the most part received much less attention in Yugoslavia, and, with few exceptions, very limited attention outside it. If anything, the events presented here are even more controversial and emotion-laden than those dealing with the Chetniks and the Partisans. In particular, very little writing in Yugoslavia has been devoted to the economic contribution of the country to the Axis, and especially German, war machine, that is, to the exploitation of the Yugoslav state and population by the Axis powers for their respective war economies. And these matters have never been touched upon by Yugoslav political emigres. Consequently, I felt impelled to fill this gap as far as possible within the scope of this study. All the historical literature on the Second World War, both from Yugoslavia and from Yugoslav political emigres, shows distinctive biases and, on certain topics, gross omissions. Mass terror is a good example. In Yugoslavia until the early 198o's, almost nothing was written about Partisan terror, while a great deal was written about German, Ustasha, and Chetnik terror. In a similar fashion, Croatian political exiles with Ustasha leanings have written very little about Ustasha terror, but very much about Partisan and Chetnik terror. And Serbian exiles have written only about Ustasha and Partisan terror. The collaboration of various domestic groups with the occupation forces is another delicate issue that has produced very biased writing. While self-serving writing by the various parties is quite understandable, it does not help establish historical truth, but only distorts it for ulterior purposes.

XI

xu

PREFACE

My chief sources of information were captured German and Italian wartime documents available on microfilm; published collections of Yugoslav, German, and Italian documents; and unpublished wartime Yugoslav, British, American, and German documents available in various depositories in Yugoslavia, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. I am grateful for the help with microfilmed and xeroxed documents that I obtained from the following institutions: the United States National Archives, Washington, DC; the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California; the Public Record Office, London; the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv, Freiburg i. Br. and the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany; and the archives of the Institute of Military History, Belgrade, the National and University Library, Zagreb, the Institute for the History of the Workers' Movement of Croatia, Zagreb, and the Institute for the History of the Workers' Movement of Slovenia, Ljubljana. All my efforts to obtain additional documents from the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in Yugoslavia, beyond those already published by them and by authors with special connections to them, were fruitless. Students of the German side of the war are well aware of the huge gaps that exist in German wartime documents, especially those relating to the last six to eight months of the conflict. As early as September 1944 German military authorities issued orders for the destruction of many confidential files, with the result that one rarely finds important German documents dated later than January 31, 1945· The only German documents that I was able to find for the period from January to May 1945 concerning activities in southeast Europe are deposited in the archives of the Institute of Military History in Belgrade or in the archives of the Institute for the History of the Workers' Movement of Slovenia in Ljubljana. On the other hand, Yugoslav and British documents on operations in southeast and central Europe during that period and from the first few months after the war are available in large numbers. Documents on some sensitive problems, particularly Yugoslav documents on the mass liquidation of captured collaborationist forces by the Communists at the end of the war, have not yet been released. Some of them have reportedly been destroyed. Very large gaps also exist in the documents of the Independent State of Croatia, especially those dealing with the Ustasha movement and the Ustasha government. A high Catholic Church dignitary in Zagreb told me in July 1967 that during the last two or three weeks before the Ustasha government fled Zagreb in early May 1945, the whole city reeked of burning papers. Not only government and Ustasha Party offices, but also the Kaptol (the seat of the archbishopric), were burning documents. And according to an eyewitness, a large part of the files of the Croatian General Staff taken to Austria with the fleeing Ustasha government were burned there when Ustasha forces were forced to surrender to the Partisans. Since about half of this volume deals with the Independent State of Croatia, I endeavored to consult all of the wartime and postwar writings of its political

PREFACE

and military leaders who escaped to the West at the end of the war. Unfortunately, very few of the latter have felt duty bound to give an account of their wartime activities or to present in a reasonably realistic and objective way the record and major policies of that state. The writings of these men, as a rule of a self-serving nature, will be noted in the appropriate places. All of these former high Ustasha dignitaries and generals, as well as scores of former Ustasha and pro-Ustasha Clericalist and Frankist intellectuals who fled to the West in the closing stages of the war, seem to believe that the less that is written about the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustasha movement, the better. But one topic on which they have chosen to write extensively is the end of the Ustasha state in May 1945, with the attendant surrender of its forces and accompanying refugees to the Partisans and their subsequent liquidation. Although my personal collection of source material gathered over a period of more than five decades was the principal foundation for this work, I also used to great advantage the collections of the Hoover Institution and the Green Library at Stanford University and the collections in the libraries of San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. I express my sincere thanks to the staffs of these institutions. I also thank those personal friends and colleagues in this country and abroad who helped me with rare literature and documents from their personal collections. Some of my information came from interviews or correspondence with people in Yugoslavia, Great Britain, the United States, Argentina, and Australia. Whenever I am free to do so I identify these sources in the text, and both to those whom I identify and to others who prefer to remain anonymous, I express my sincere thanks. A number of friends have read parts or all of the manuscript at various stages and made many constructive comments and suggestions: Professor Ivo Banac of Yale University, the late Professor Robert F. Byrnes of Indiana University, the late Colonel Vojmir Kljakovic of the Institute of Military History in Belgrade, Professor Barisa Krekic of the University of California at Los Angeles, and the late Dr. Ante Smith Pavelic of the pre-1945 Yugoslav diplomatic corps. Their recommendations have greatly improved my study, and to all I express my sincere gratitude. I have also benefited from the comments of Phyllis Auty, the late Jozo Bajurin, Dusan Biber, Dusan Bilandzic, Ljubo Bohan, F. W. Deakin, Tone Ferenc, the late Ivan and Fikreta Jelic-Butic, Svetolik Lazarevic, Ivo Perisin, Stanislav Rapotec, the late Bojan Ribnikar, Vladimir Stipetic, and Ivo Vucicevic. I alone, however, bear full responsibility for the final text. The editing of the manuscript was done primarily by Shirley Taylor, with some additional aid from my daughter Neda Ann. The maps were prepared by Bill Nelson. The typing was done by Mary H. Johnson. To all of them I express my sincere thanks. I also express my thanks to Stanford University Press and its former associate director and editor,]. G. Bell, who throughout gave me the benefit of his expert editorial knowledge.

Xlll

XIV

PREFACE

I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council for grants-in-aid that helped to cover expenses in connection with the last phases of work on this volume. For gener;:t! support and understanding, I thank my whole family, but especially my wife Neda. ]ozo Tomasevich POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE

]ozo Tomasevich, my father, died on October 15, 1994. This manuscript was almost completed at his death. Since then, I have put it on computer, polished the final drafts of the last three chapters, and edited the whole to make it easy to read and stylistically consistent. The text is entirely his; I have added at the most a sentence or two needed for transition from one section to another. I would like to thank Norris Pope, the director of Stanford University Press, for supporting my efforts to bring this manuscript to publication. I would also like to thank the late Professor Robert F. Byrnes of Indiana for his unfailing encouragement of and assistance in this work. Finally, my mother has provided the economic wherewithal and the workspace to complete this project, and without these and her loving support and commitment, it would not have been brought to completion. Neda A. Tomasevich July 2000

XIV

PREFACE

I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council for grants-in-aid that helped to cover expenses in connection with the last phases of work on this volume. For gener;:t! support and understanding, I thank my whole family, but especially my wife Neda. ]ozo Tomasevich POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE

]ozo Tomasevich, my father, died on October 15, 1994. This manuscript was almost completed at his death. Since then, I have put it on computer, polished the final drafts of the last three chapters, and edited the whole to make it easy to read and stylistically consistent. The text is entirely his; I have added at the most a sentence or two needed for transition from one section to another. I would like to thank Norris Pope, the director of Stanford University Press, for supporting my efforts to bring this manuscript to publication. I would also like to thank the late Professor Robert F. Byrnes of Indiana for his unfailing encouragement of and assistance in this work. Finally, my mother has provided the economic wherewithal and the workspace to complete this project, and without these and her loving support and commitment, it would not have been brought to completion. Neda A. Tomasevich July 2000

Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Materials

Brzopisni zapisnici

DGFP

Dokumenti o protunarodnom radu

F.O. Greueltaten

Hronologija I94I-I945

Kriegstagebuch

Micr. _,Roll_, Fr._

Croatia, Independent State of. Brzopisni zapisnici Prvog zasjedanja Hrvatskog drzavnog sabora u Nezavisnoj Drzavi Hrvatskoj godine I942. Zagreb, I942. United States, Department of State. Documents on German Foreign Policy, I9I8-I945. Series D, vols. I I-I3. Washington, D.C., I960-64. Horvat, Joza, and Zdenko Stambuk, eds. Dokumenti o protunarodnom radu i zlocinima jednog dijela katolickog klera. Zagreb, I946. United Kingdom, Foreign Office._. Croatia, Independent State of, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Greueltaten und Verwustungen der Aufruhrer im Unabhiingigen Staate Kroatien in den ersten Lebensmonaten des kroatischen Nationalstaates. Zagreb, June I942. Yugoslavia, F. P.R. of, Vojnoistorijski institut. Hronologija oslobodilacke borbe naroda ]ugoslavije, I 94 I-I 94 5. Belgrade, I964. Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando. Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht ( Wehrmachtfuhrungsstab), I940-I945· 4 vols. in 7 pts. Frankfurt am Main, I96I-65. United States, National Archives. Microcopy_, Roll_, Frame_.

Naprijed I943

Communist Party of Croatia. Dokumenti historije Komunisticke partije Hrvatske. Vol. 3, bk. I, Naprijed I943· Reprint, Zagreb, I 9 5 I.

Narodnoosvobodilna vojna

Yugoslavia, F. P.R. of, Military History Institute of the Yugoslav People's Army and the Institute for Historical Events in Ljubljana. Narodnoosvobodilna vojna na Slovenskem, I94I-I945. Zdravko Klanjscek, ed. 2nd ed. Ljubljana, I977· United States, National Archives. Microcopy No. T-120, Roll 5796. "Bericht des Generalbevollmachtigten fiir die Wirtschaft in Serbien iiber die Zeit von Mitte April bis Ende Juli I941."

"Neuhausen I"

XVI

ABBREVIATIONS

"Neuhausen II"

United States, National Archives. Microcopy No. T-75, Roll 69. "Zweiter Gesamtbericht des Generalbevollmiichtigten fiir die Wirtschaft in Serbien, Juli 1942."

"Neuhausen III"

United States, National Archives. Microcopy No. T- 501, Roll26o, Frames 320-417. "Die Wirtschaftslage im Bereich des Kommandierenden Generals und Befehlshabers in Serbien" [March 16, 1944].

Proces proti Rupniku

Yugoslavia, F. P. R. of, [People's Republic of Slovenia]. Proces proti vojnim zlocincem in izdajalcem Rupniku, Rosenerju, Rozmanu, Kreku, Vizjaku, in Hacinu. Ljubljana, 1946.

Proleter Reprint

Yugoslavia, F. P.R. of, Institute for the Study of the Workers' Movement. Proleter: organ Centra/nag komiteta Komunisticke partije Jugoslavije, I 92 9-I 942. Reprint, Belgrade, 1968. Ferenc, Tone, ed. Que/len zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien, I94I-I945· Maribor, 1980.

Quellen RG

United States, National Archives. Record Group_.

Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien

Germany, Federal Republic of, Bundesministerium fiir Vertriebene, Fliichtlinge und Kriegsgeschiidigte. Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa. Vol. 5, Das Schicksal der Deutsch en in Jugoslawien. Dusseldorf, 1961.

Sudjenje ... Stepincu

Stanic, Milan, ed. Sudjenje Lisaku, Stepincu, Salicu i druiini, Ustasko-Kri:tarskim zloCincima i njihovim pomagaCima. Zagreb, 1946. United Kingdom, War Office._.

W.O. YA, Mil. Hist. -Commission on Crimes -Croatia Docs. -Enemy Units -German Docs. -Nat'!. Lib. War -Nedic Govt. Docs.

Yugoslavia. Archives of the Institute of Military History, Belgrade. -Documents of Commission for Ascertainment of Crimes ... by Occupiers and Their Helpers -Independent State of Croatia Documents -Documents of Enemy Units -German Documents -Documents of National Liberation War -Nedic Government Documents

YA, Wkrs. Mvmt., Com. Party.

Yugoslavia. Archives of the Institute for the History of the Workers' Movement of Croatia. Communist Party Documents.

ZA VNOH dokumenti I943 [I944]

Yugoslavia, F. P.R. of, Institute for the History of the Workers' Movement of Croatia. Zemaljsko antifasisticko vijece narodnog oslobodjenja Hrvatske. Zbornik dokumenata, I943· Zagreb, 1964. Zbornik dokumenata, I944· Zagreb, 1970. Yugoslavia, F. P.R. of, Vojnoistorijski institut. Zbornik dokumenata i podataka o narodnooslobodilackom ratu jugoslovenskih naroda. I 5 vols. in over 173 bks. to date. Belgrade, 1949-.

Zbornik DNOR

ABBREVIATIONS

Zbornik zakona i nareCroatia, Independent State of, Ministry of Justice and Relidaba NDH, I94I [I942, gion. Zbornik zakona i naredaba Nezavisne Drzave Hrvatske. I943, I944] I94I. I942. I943· I944·

Zagreb, 1942. 2 vols., consecutively paginated. Zagreb, 1942. Zagreb, 1943. Zagreb, 1944.

XVll

War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945 Occupation and Collaboration

CHAPTER I

Yugoslavia Between the Wars

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in I929, was established on December I, I9I8.1t united the Kingdom of Serbia, which a few days earlier had joined with the Kingdom of Montenegro, and the one-month-old State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, whose peoples up to that time had lived under the newly defunct Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The new kingdom included five different nations: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins. The latter two were not recognized as separate nations in the new state, but were claimed by Serbs as Serbs. These five peoples lived in six historically fairly well defined contiguous territorial units: Serbia, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, and two areas historically not well defined, Slovenia and Vojvodina. All these territorial areas and their peoples had quite different histories and had never before lived within the same state. Furthermore, with the exception of Serbia and Slovenia, their populations were nationally and confessionally intermixed. In addition to the five nations, the new state also had many national minorities. Germans, Hungarians, Albanians, and Turks were the most important. Italians, Romanians, Gypsies, and Ruthenes, as well as several other minorities, were also present, though in smaller numbers. Conversely, close to half a million Croats and Slovenes lived in territory that went to Italy after I 9 I 8, and a small Slovene minority lived in part of Carinthia, which remained under Austria. The new state was also multiconfessional. Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians were Eastern Orthodox; Croats, Slovenes, and most Germans and Hungarians were Roman Catholic. More than one-third of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina were Muslims of South Slavic blood, while the Muslims of the Kosovo region were Albanians and those of Macedonia were either Albanians or Turks. Finally, the various geographical parts of the new kingdom exhibited very uneven levels of economic and educational development, the whole representing economically a complex case of the North-South syndrome.

2

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

The new Yugoslav state arose on the ruins of two old multinational empires, the Ottoman and the Habsburg. By 1912, the Ottoman Empire, after a long period of decline, retained only a toehold in the eastern Balkans, but the Habsburg Monarchy appeared strong and was determined to expand southward toward Salonika. The two dominant nations of the monarchy, the Austrians and the Hungarians, often pursued policies that totally disregarded the legitimate interests of the other constituent nations, which were discriminated against in many ways on the political, economic, and cultural planes. With the spread of the ideas of nationalism and democracy from the time of the Napoleonic wars, the opposition of Croats, Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Serbs, Slovaks, and Slovenes to their subordinate position in the monarchy gradually grew to undermine its very foundations. This was so even though certain groups in all these nations, such as government officials, military personnel, and a part of the bourgeoisie, were loyal to the monarchy. The introduction of dualism in 1867largely removed the difficulties between Austria and Hungary, but it failed to improve the position of the other nations in the two halves of the monarchy to any appreciable extent. Major difficulties also remained between Hungary and Croatia even after the conclusion of their own accord in 1868. Both as a protest and a defense against Germanization and later Magyarization, Illyrianism arose among Croats in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It originally developed as part of the Croatian national renaissance, that is, in the process of cultural identification and the building of a national consciousness among Croats. Illyrianism subsequently served as the basis for Yugoslavism, whose adherents advocated a common Yugoslav state of all South Slavs, including Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes in the Habsburg Monarchy, as well as Serbs in Serbia, Montenegrins in Montenegro, and according to some extreme advocates even Bulgarians. In such a state, free from foreign domination, all South Slavs would enjoy full freedom and equality. 1 But other nations had alternative plans for the unification of the South Slavs. In 1844, Ilija Garasanin, a Serbian minister, formulated the Nacertanije, a proposal for a South Slavic state that Serbia would lead and dominate. 2 The 10f the many individuals involved in the development of the Illyrian and Yugoslav ideas, I will mention only two: Ljudevit Gaj and Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer. The Yugoslav idea evolved over time and meant different things to different people. I am not aware of a study that treats the matter satisfactorily. See, however, V. Novak, Antologija jugoslovenske misli, and Sisic, Jugoslovenska misao. While the literature on various aspects of Yugoslav politics and ideology since the establishment of the Yugoslav state in December 1918 is voluminous, there is no meritorious study of the failure of the Yugoslav idea as an operative political program. During the interwar period, it was used by the Serbian-dominated regime in Yugoslavia as a cloak for Greater Serbianism and consequently became totally discredited. The Yugoslav idea was redefined and revitalized and successfully used by the Yugoslav Communists during the war and revolution, but again became largely discredited after 1945. Banac's book The National Question is a very successful first step in the critical analysis of the Yugoslav idea and the national question in Yugoslavia in general. 2 For the text of the Nacertanije, see V. Novak, Antologija jugoslovenske misli, pp. 101-3.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

nineteenth-century Serbian ethnographer and lexicographer Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic lent support to this approach by claiming that all Croats who spoke the stokavian dialect-the majority-were in fact Serbs. 3 In reaction both to Illyrianism and later Yugoslavism and to Greater Serbianism, as well as to the severe Austrian absolutism of the I 8 so's, pure Croatism arose in Croatia in the I 8 so's and I 86o's. Its author was a disappointed former Illyrianist, Ante Starcevic, a theologian and philosopher who worked as a writer, newspaperman, politician, and political ideologist. StarceviC's ideology had two basic tenets, one defining the name and geographical extent of the Croatian people and the other the political content he sought. First, he rejected all other terms such as "Illyrian" or "Yugoslav" and insisted on the name "Croatian" for his people. Disregarding both historical and political facts, he also claimed that there were only two South Slavic nations, the Bulgarians and the Croats. For him, Croatia included all the territory from the Alps in the north to Macedonia and the Bulgarian border in the south. The Slovenes he called Alpine Croats and the Serbs he simply appropriated as Croats. Therefore, at the beginning of this century, some authors, such as the Serbian literary critic Jovan Skerlic, claimed that under Croatism Starcevic in fact preached the ideology of Yugoslavism. Second, Starcevic claimed that Croatia was only in personal union with Austria and because this union was not serving Croatian national interests, Croatia should be free and independent. Consequently, he was vehemently anti-Austrian and anti-Habsburg, as well as anti-Hungarian, though he never advocated the use of force against the existing order. He based his claim for independence on Croatian state right, evidenced by such facts as the election of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria as Croatian king in Is 2 7. There was only one Croatian state right and it belonged to the Croatian people. This concept became the central constituent of his whole ideology and of the political party he founded, the Croatian Party of [State] Right. In fact, after Starcevic, this concept became the central element of every Croatian national ideology. In the polemics of the I 8 so's, Starcevic also coined a misleading term"Slavoserb," derived from the Latin words "sclavus" and "servus"-to denote persons ready to serve foreign rulers against their own people. He applied it to 'The Serbo-Croatian language, which includes both Croatian and Serbian, is linguistically one language. Three dialects are spoken by Croats-the stokavian, kajkavian, and cakavian-depending on the form of the word what-that is, sto, kaj, and ca-that is used. In the 183o's, stokavian became the literary language, and it is spoken by a majority of Croats and all Serbs. Many people claim that Croatian is linguistically different from Serbian, but others disagree. The language policy in both royal and Communist Yugoslavia went against Croatian interests, greatly exacerbating the Croat-Serb problem. As a result, many Croats and Serbs emphasize the differences between the Croatian (western) and Serbian (eastern) variants of the language. In time, two different literary languages, Croatian and Serbian, may develop. On the influence of language on the development of nationalism among the South Slavic nations, see Banac, The National Question, pp. 77-78, 210-1 I.

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such well-known Croats as Ljudevit Gaj and later Bishop Strossmayer and Ban Ivan Maiuranic, as well as to some Serbs. His ardent anti-Serbian followers later stretched the term to include the whole Serbian nation, although according to Starcevic, the Serbs were in fact Croats. 4 Despite his many exaggerations, inconsistencies, and gross mistakes of fact, Starcevic was by far the most important political thinker and ideologist in Croatia during the second half of the nineteenth century and contributed more than anyone else to the rise of national consciousness in the modern Croatian state. His influence on Croatian nationalists is strong even today. Toward the end of StarceviC's life (in I896), a split occurred in the Party of Right. Its chief offshoot, the Pure Party of Right, which until I 9 I I was headed by Josip Frank, a Jew born and baptized in Croatia but of German cultural background, completely renounced StarceviC's anti-Austrian and anti-Hungarian stance and became an instrument of Austrian and occasionally Hungarian anti-Croatian policies. The Austrians and Hungarians followed a policy of "divide and rule" in Croatia, attempting to divide the Croats among themselves and especially the Croats from the Croatian Serbs, and Frank was in their service. His party became extremely anti-Serbian and anti-Yugoslav. 5 On the Croatian political scene, Frank's followers, the Frankists (Frankovci), vehemently opposed any collaboration with the Serbs and therefore any common state of South Slavs. Their name and ideology lasted until the Second World War, when they were gradually displaced by the Ustashas, who with respect to antiSerbian and anti-Yugoslav ideology were their true heirs. In spite of the existence of exclusively Serbian and Croatian nationalist ideologies, however, the idea of a broader, more nationally inclusive Yugoslav state persisted and spread. It became the preoccupation of various political organizations in the South Slavic parts of the Dual Monarchy, especially after the beginning of this century. In Serbia, too, various political parties and groups, as well as secret societies dominated by army officers, advocated and worked for a common Yugoslav state, though of a Pan-Serbian character. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Young Bosnia society, made up of mostly Serbian but also some Croatian and Muslim youths, was especially prominent. Terror became one of its modes of operation. With the success of Serbian forces in the Balkan Wars of I9I2-I3, the prestige of Serbia among many Croats and especially among the Serbs of the Dual Monarchy greatly increased. Serbia was thus cast 4 For Starcevic's multifaceted personality, activities, ideas, and writings, and his influence on Croatian political ideas and politics during his life (1823-96), see Bogdanov, Historija politickih stranaka, pp. 729-68; Ladan's foreword to his selection of StarceviC's political writings, Politicki spisi, pp. 7-75; Gross, Povijest pravaske ideologije, pp. 1-8; and Banac, The National Question, pp. 8 5-89. 'Bogdanov, Historija politickih stranaka, pp. 76o-66; Gross, Povijest pravaske ideologija, especially pp. 337-66.

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in the role of the Yugoslav Piedmont, that is, as the strongest force working toward the unification of all South Slavs into one state. Authorities in the Dual Monarchy were aware of these developments within their territories as well as in Serbia. Some officials in Austria, Hungary, andespecially Croatia contemplated a reorganization of the monarchy, in which the South Slavic lands would form a third unit equal with Austria and Hungary. But states, especially old empires, do not undertake basic organizational changes except in response to great crises. Thus the Dual Monarchy continued on its way, disregarding the justified aspirations of its many dissatisfied nationalities. On the other hand, the pro-Yugoslav nationalist forces in the South Slavic lands of the Dual Monarchy and the pro-Greater Serbian nationalist forces in Serbia steadily gathered strength. With a view to promoting the cause of South Slavic unity, members of the Young Bosnia society, with assistance from secret societies of military officers in Serbia, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the AustroHungarian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. This gave Austria-Hungary the opportunity it had been looking for. When its demeaning ultimatum to Serbia was not unconditionally accepted, it declared war on the small state. Austro-Hungarian authorities thought that they were undertaking only a brief punitive action, but their move quickly drew in the other European powers and became the opening salvo of the First World War. From the beginning, however, Serbia viewed the conflict in different terms. The Serbian government, which was unable to maintain itself in Belgrade and had temporarily relocated to Nis, submitted a declaration to the National Assembly on December 7, 1914, asserting that "the royal government considers as its foremost, and in these fateful moments the only, task to secure a successful conclusion of this great war, which from the moment it started had also become a struggle for the liberation and unification of all our subjugated brother Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes." The declaration was adopted with jubilation.• In the course of the First World War, many politicians and prominent artists and scientists from the dissatisfied nations of the Dual Monarchy who were abroad organized political committees in the Allied world. These committees embarked, first, on a propaganda and lobbying campaign against the Habsburg Monarchy and for the liberation of their respective nations and, second, on a campaign to organize volunteer units of prisoners of war from AustriaHungary in Russia and Italy and of emigrants in the overseas countries to fight against the Central Powers. Thus, similar to the committees established by representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles, representatives of the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes from areas in the Dual Monarchy established the Yugoslav Committee (]ugoslavenski odbor) on April 30, 1915, under the leadership of

•sisic, Dokumenti, p. ro.

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Ante Trumbic, a Croatian politician from Dalmatia. The committee received both financial and political help from the Serbian government and was active in mobilizing public opinion in England, France, Imperial Russia, and the United States in favor of a common South Slavic state after the war. In overseas countries it also mobilized support among the many emigrants from the South Slavic areas of the Dual Monarchy. On July 20, 1917, the Yugoslav Committee and the Serbian government, at that time in exile on the Greek island of Corfu, issued the Corfu Declaration, a statement of common political aims whose basic objective was the establishment of a unified state under the Karadjordjevic dynasty embracing all South Slavic nations except the Bulgarians. 7 While Serbia struggled to attain its maximum war objectives as laid out in the Nis declaration of December 1914 and the Yugoslav Committee worked in the Allied world for a South Slavic state after the war-both of them assuming that the Habsburg Monarchy would be defeated and disintegrate-the politicians in the Croatian Diet remained completely loyal to Austria-Hungary. For most of the war they were confident that it would survive and be victorious. This view was buttressed by the fact that the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire was not among Allied war objectives. After mid-1917, some voices from the opposition began to argue that at the end of the war a revision of the constitutional setup of the monarchy in a trialist mode should be made or that at least the Hungarian-Croatian Accord of r868 should be revised. Soon afterwards there were also isolated calls for the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs of the monarchy to form an independent state of their own. As the collapse of the monarchy became more certain, such demands became more pronounced and acquired more and more supporters. 8 This gradual change in the opinion of Croatian Diet members was closely related to the worsening military position of the Central Powers, especially the Dual Monarchy. Tiring of the war and influenced by domestic and foreign antimonarchy propaganda and then by revolutionary ideas coming from Russia, Austro-Hungarian soldiers of South Slavic nationalities on the Russian and Italian fronts began to desert en masse. During the last months of the war largescale desertions and the formation of "green cadres" occurred, as well as the widespread refusal of soldiers to return to their units from regular leave. Combined with growing antimonarchy feeling and political activity among the nonAustrian and non-Hungarian nationalities of the Dual Monarchy, these developments steadily weakened the monarchy's ability to successfully prosecute the war. Conversely, the opposing countries were able to mobilize a sizable number of prisoners of war from Austria-Hungary to help fight the Central Powers. 9 7 A huge literature exists on the activities of the Yugoslav Committee during the First World War. For a brief orientation, consult Sepic, "Croatian Politics," pp. 373-404, with its valuable historiographical review on pp. 405-16. 'Krizman, "Political Parties," pp. 37 5-90. 9A division of I 8,ooo volunteers was formed from Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war of

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Toward the end of the war, the political representatives of different Slavic nations in the Dual Monarchy formed national councils to articulate their political objectives. On March 2-3, 1918, in Zagreb, a group of Croatian, Serbian, and Slovene politicians from the South Slavic parts of Austria-Hungary accepted a resolution demanding a concentration of political parties and groups that stood for the principles of national unity and self-determination and the establishment of an independent, democratically organized state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. By the following fall, anticipating the imminent collapse of the Dual Monarchy and following the example of Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles, representatives of the South Slavic political parties and groups established the National Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs on October 5-6, 1918, in Zagreb with the same objectives proclaimed at the March meeting. On October rr, the largest political group in Croatia-Slavonia, the CroatianSerbian Coalition, which had a majority in the Croatian Diet, joined the National Council and obtained a majority in it. On October r6, 1918, Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary declared that all peoples of the monarchy would be able to satisfy their political objectives within the monarchy, which would be reorganized as a federal state. But the National Council rejected this declaration. Between October I7 and r 9 it constituted itself a sovereign independent body and on October 19 declared that "from that moment on, on the basis of powers granted to it by all national political parties and groups, it was taking into its hands the conduct of national policy." The National Council also formulated a series of fundamental demands, the principal one being for the unification of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs into a united sovereign state without regard to any provincial or state frontiers then in existence. After the government of Austria-Hungary asked for a separate peace on October 28, the Croatian Diet broke all ties with Austria and Hungary on October 29 and proclaimed Croatia-Slavonia with Rijeka (or Fiume, up to that time a corpus separatum in the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarchy) and Dalmatia an independent state, which "according to the modern principle of nationality South Slavic nationalities in Russia and sent to Dobruja in September I9I6 to fight the Central Powers. It soon lost about half of its men. A Serbian Volunteer Corps of about 43,000 officers and men was formed from other South Slavic prisoners of war in Russia. But because, among other reasons, the Serbian commanders opposed designating the corps as a Yugoslav unit, it could not hold its troops. Its remaining manpower was sent by ship from Archangel via Great Britain and France to the Salonika front, where about I2,ooo joined the Serbian forces. In addition, another 3 5,ooo to 4o,ooo South Slavic prisoners of war in Russia participated in the Bolshevik revolution, with many individuals and units achieving great distinction. Italy allowed Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war of South Slavic nationalities to form volunteer units for the Salonika front only after the breakthrough there in September r 9 I 8, so that only a contingent of 23 5 officers and 8o men eventually arrived, most after the war had ended. A battalion of about r,ooo volunteers from Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war fought with the Italian forces against Austria-Hungary. About I I,ooo volunteers from South Slavic immigrants in the United States and Canada also went to the Salonika front. Yugoslavia, Vojna enciklopedija, 2nd ed., 2: 496-97.

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and on the basis of the national unity of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, enters into the common national sovereign State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs." Thus as a consequence of the military victory of the Allied powers and the internal actions of the subjugated nations, the Habsburg Monarchy disintegrated and the Habsburgs, rulers of Austria since 1282 and of Hungary and Croatia since I 52 7, passed from the scene. The Croatian Diet also decided that "the general Constituent Assembly of the entire unified nation of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs will decide with a qualified majority determined in advance, which completely protects against any domination, both the form of government and the internal organization of our state, founded on the complete equality of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs." At the same meeting the Diet declared that it considered the statement of the National Council of October I9 binding on itself and that it recognized the supreme power of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. On October 3 I, the National Council informed the Allied powers of the establishment of the new state and declared that it was ready to unite with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, that it was not at war with the Allied powers but rather considered them friendly, and that it expected aid from them to ensure the sovereignty of the new state. 10 There is no doubt that the desire for a united state of all South Slavs was widespread in the South Slavic lands of the Dual Monarchy by the end of the war. 11 The only question was whether the politicians in these areas and in Serbia-Montenegro played only a minor role-would be wise enough to carry out the unification in a historically and politically logical and intelligent manner or whether aggrandizing national proclivities and personal ambitions, a lack of appreciation for historical and political reality, short-term instead of long-term considerations, and naivete or outright political blundering would spoil everything. During November I9I8, the National Council, as the government of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, debated how to proceed with unifying the new state with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. While most members of the Council were for unification, opinions were strongly divided between those who wanted to achieve the fastest possible unification without any conditions and those who preferred a cautious approach with carefully defined safeguards for the rights of individual areas. The first group was impressed by the great military and diplomatic achievements of Serbia during the Balkan Wars of I9I2-I 3 and the First World War and was eager to enter into a unified state 10Sisic, Dokumenti, pp. 170, 189-217, especially pp. 196, 198-201, 216-17. See also Sepic, "Croatian Politics," pp. 396-400. "Under the influence of pro-Yugoslav propaganda and the general euphoria following the end of the First World War and the establishment of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, there was a great deal of talk about one Yugoslav nation with three nationalitiesSerbs, Croats, and Slovenes. This was naive thinking, because the three groups, although related, were three distinct nations, each with its own separate political and cultural history and national ethos.

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with it as soon as possible. This group used two arguments to support its views: the threat of Italian encroachment on Slovene and Croatian territory, which Great Britain, France, and Imperial Russia had promised to Italy by the secret Treaty of London of April26, I9I5, as an inducement to enter the war on the Allied side, and the danger of a Bolshevik revolution. The most outspoken member of this group was Svetozar Pribicevic, a Serb from Croatia and a leading member of the Croatian Diet and the Croatian-Serbian Coalition. Through his actions and influence over others, Pribicevic contributed more than any other politician from Croatia to the outright calamitous process by which the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs united with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro to become the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes on December I, I9I8, the way in which the new state was run until I925, and the exacerbation of relations between Serbs and Croats. The main representative of the other view was Stjepan Radic, the leader of the Croatian People's Peasant Party, which had acquired new strength due to the political awakening of the Croatian peasantry. 12 During the formative years of the new state, Radic changed his mind several times about the type of state organization the party would support. When the National Council in Zagreb debated the issue of unifying the new State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, he was in favor of unification, but in a manner guaranteeing the organization of the unified state on truly federal principles. When the National Council proclaimed the unification on November 24, I9I8, and adopted a directive for the delegation that would go to Belgrade to consummate the act of unification, Radic had the foresight to predict the difficulties that would arise if the principles of federalism were not observed and if the Croatian Diet did not duly and with a qualified majority accept the unification of the new state. But his warnings were not heeded. 13 Although named a member of the delegation, he refused to go. I, I9I8, 28, I92I

THE UNIFICATION ACT OF DECEMBER AND THE CONSTITUTION OF JUNE

The delegation of the National Council went to Belgrade to consummate the act of unification with Regent Alexander, who acted for the Serbian government. Because the delegates were not united, however, and above all because they lacked any power base, they were not able to ensure that the letter and spirit of the October 29 declaration from the Croatian Diet and the direc12The Croatian People's Peasant Party was established in 1905 by the brothers Anton and Stjepan Radic, but it never achieved a large vote before 1920 because of the extremely restrictive election laws of the country. In the last prewar Croatian Diet, elected in December 1913, the party had only 3 out of 88 deputies. See Krizman, "Political Parties," p. 375· 13 For the National Council's decision of November 24 on unification and its directive to the delegation going to Belgrade, see Sisic, Dokumenti, pp. 255-56, 275-78. For Radic's statements, see Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, pp. 84-88.

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tive from the National Council were strictly observed. Moreover, the Serbian army, at the invitation of the National Council in Zagreb and the National Council in Sarajevo, was already in possession of most of the new state's territory. Pribicevic was the person most responsible for the delegates not acting according to their instructions. Thus when Ante Pavelic, the chairman of the delegation (not to be confused with the man of the same name who later became the leader of the Ustasha movement and the head of the Independent State of Croatia), addressed Regent Alexander, he simply announced that the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs had decided to unite the state with the Kingdom of Serbia under the Karadjordjevic dynasty. He did not stipulate any conditions, although Point r of the National Council's directive specified that a two-thirds majority in the newly elected Constituent Assembly would have to adopt the new constitution and that the Assembly would also have the right to determine whether the new state would be a monarchy or republic. Regent Alexander simply accepted this declaration as the sufficient and final act of unification of the two states, and on that day, December r, 1918, the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established. 14 Just a few days earlier, on November 26, the Montenegrin National Assembly at Podgorica had dethroned King Nikola and proclaimed the unification of Montenegro with Serbia. Unfortunately, neither the Corfu Declaration nor the National Council in Zagreb had postulated that the Serbian National Assembly, the Croatian Diet, and the diets of the other South Slavic provinces formerly under the Habsburg Monarchy all ratify the act of unification. Although the interim government submitted the act of unification of December r, 1918, to the Serbian National Assembly for confirmation, which it gave on December 29/ 5 it did not submit it to the Croatian Diet, which would have surely ratified it, though not unanimously. This was undoubtedly by design on the part of Pribicevic and the Serbian government, because none of the Diet's power was to be maintained. The new kingdom was clearly a product of the strength of the Serbian dynasty and state on the one hand and the weakness of the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs on the other. The Kingdom of Serbia was a state with great prestige in the Allied world because of its victories in the Balkan 14 For Pavelic's address and Regent Alexander's response, see Sisic, Dokumenti, pp. 28083. Point I of the National Council's directive read: "The final organization of the new state can be decided only by the General National Constituent Assembly of the entire unified people of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes with a two-thirds majority. The Constituent Assembly must meet at the latest six months after the conclusion of peace. Specifically, the Constituent Assembly retains the power to decide on: (a) the constitution, including the form of the state (monarchy or republic), internal state organization, and the basic civil rights of citizens; (b) the state flag; (c) the seat of the government and other supreme state organs." The directive was prepared by a Committee of Seven and then discussed and on November 24 fully accepted by the Central Committee of the Council. Ibid., pp. 275, 278. ''Culinovic,Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, r: 149.

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Wars and its valiant stand against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Bulgaria in the First World War. It already possessed recognized territorial boundaries, a functioning government led by experienced and astute politicians, and a victorious army. The territory and peoples of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, by contrast, had been a part of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, an enemy country, until the last few days of the war. Only Serbia had granted recognition to it. It did not have a functioning army and was neither nationally nor confessionally unified. Different provinces had a variety of special interests and tendencies, with some, like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Vojvodina, ready to join Serbia on their own. The state was beset by danger from without, with Italy claiming choice territory, and Bolshevik danger from within. 16 It had politicians with great differences of opinion, many of them naive and some, like Pribicevic, acting as tools of the Serbian government. With this discrepancy in power, prestige, and experience, it is not surprising that the Serbian dynasty and the dominant Serbian political parties obtained everything they wanted in the new kingdom from a short-term and narrowly Serbian point of view. But from a long-term, Yugoslav point of view, they saddled the new state with insurmountable weaknesses that kept it in a condition of permanent CflSIS.

Following the act of unification and protracted negotiations among the political parties and Regent Alexander, an interim government was named and an interim Parliament convened. The government consisted of ministers from Serbia and from the areas earlier in the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. The interim Parliament consisted of representatives elected before the war in all parts of the country, to whom each party added some important figures from public life. Because of the perceived subordinate role of the Croats in the new state, Stjepan Radic and the few delegates of his party refused to sit in the interim Parliament, thereby establishing a pattern of behavior that continued even after the Croatian People's Peasant Party became the main representative of the Croatian nation in the first postwar election. According to arrangements between the politicians of the National Council and the Serbian government who carried out the unification, the central government assumed responsibility for principal state affairs, while the provincial governments in existence on December I, I9I8, assumed responsibility for those aspects of public administration that had not been transferred to the central government. Here too, Svetozar Pribicevic, who was considered by most politicians in Serbia to be an expert on the problems of the South Slavic nations formerly under the Habsburg Empire, played a disastrous role in the consolidation of the new state. As minister of interior in the first cabinet of the new kingdom, Pribicevic transferred to the central government many functions that the agreements had left to the regional governments. His policies differed so mark"See Sepic, "Croatian Politics," pp. 401-5.

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edly from those of Prime Minister Stojan Protic of the National Radical Party (the Radical Party, for short) that constant difficulties between the two men finally culminated in the resignation of the first cabinet of the new state in August 1919. 17 But this first cabinet change merely established the norm. The new state had eight different cabinets in its first three years. Radic vigorously opposed the new political developments. In February 1919 he convoked a meeting in Zagreb of the delegates of Croatian People's Peasant Party organizations from Croatia-Slavonia to ascertain the political pulse of the peasantry and demonstrate the new strength that the party had acquired. The delegates decided to work for the creation of a neutral peasant republic in Croatia and to begin collecting signatures for a memorandum to the peace conference at Versailles asking for its support of this cause. According to Vladko Macek, a party leader, about 26o,ooo signatures were collected within six weeks, with RadiC's on top. Probably because of this action, the Yugoslav government incarcerated Radic in March 1919. He was not charged with a specific offense and was not tried, but was simply kept in prison. The Croatian People's Peasant Party entrusted Macek with sending the memorandum and signatures to Versailles, which he tried to do with the help of the Italian Military Mission in Ljubljana. 18 His use of the Italians as intermediaries was a tactical mistake, however, because it gave them additional proof of the disunity and weakness of the new Yugoslav state and increased their intransigence regarding claims on Slovene and Croatian territory. Had the memorandum arrived at the peace conference, it would have undermined the efforts of the Yugoslav delegation fighting against Italian claims and been counterproductive with President Wilson, who strongly supported the Yugoslav cause. 19 As it turned out, the signatures never reached the conference, but they did show the immense support for Radic in Croatia, as did the subsequent election for the Constituent Assembly. Radic was released from jail in February 1920. He resumed political activity, but was arrested again for another outburst against the government in March, tried, and sentenced in August to two and a half years in prison. The sentence was not immediately confirmed, but he remained incarcerated. When elections for the Constituent Assembly were held on November 28, r 920, however, he was elected, thereby acquiring parliamentary immunity, and released from prison the same day. 20 The principal tasks of the interim Parliament were to pass the budget and josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, pp. 18 5-92, 200-202, 214-16. '"Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. 81-82. For this action, Macek and two other important party members were arrested. Macek was accused of high treason, but the charge could not be sustained, and after several months all three men were released. 1'Smith Pavelic, Dr. Ante Trumbic, pp. 233-34. Smith Pavelic puts the number of signatures sentto Versailles at I 50,000. '"Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, pp. 13 3-36, 147-50, r6o-6r. 17

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

enact a law for the election of the Constituent Assembly. It passed the latter on September 3, 1920. The election was held on November 28 with no fewer than 22 different parties participating, many of them of a regional or narrowly special-interest character. The election of the Constituent Assembly was manipulated from the outset in favor of the Serbian political parties. First, according to the law regulating the election, the population census of 1910 was the basis for the number of deputies allotted each province. Because of the great population loss that Serbia subsequently sustained from war casualties and a typhus epidemic, this provision gave it a disproportionate number of deputies. Second, due to the provisions of the peace treaties with Austria (of September ro, 1919) and Hungary (of June 4, 1920), according to which the members of the large German and Hungarian minorities in Yugoslavia could choose the citizenship of these states, these minorities were disenfranchised until 1922, which favored the Serbs in Vojvodina. As a result, in the various historical areas there were great disparities between the number of registered voters and the number of deputies allotted each province, as well as in the number of votes cast per deputy of the various political parties. The political parties whose electorate was chiefly in Serbia emerged with a disproportionate number of deputies. Thus in Vojvodina, an average of 3,301 voters were registered for each representative elected; in Montenegro, 4,337; in Slovenia, 5,382; and in Serbia, 5,642; whereas in Croatia-Slavonia, an average of 6,8 so voters were registered for each representative elected; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 7,496; and in Dalmatia, 8,092. The total number of votes actually cast for each of the seven leading parties, divided by the number of deputies each party obtained in the Constituent Assembly, showed a similar bias in favor of Serbia. Thus the almost purely Serbian Radical Party obtained on the average 3,127 votes per deputy; the predominantly Serbian Democratic Party, 3,472; the predominantly Serbian Agrarian Party, 3,887; the all-Yugoslav Communist Party, 3,426; the Slovene People's Party (allied with a small Croatian People's Party), 4,121; the Croatian People's Peasant Party, 4,612; and the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, 4,620. 21 In the election for the Constituent Assembly, the Croatian People's Peasant Party obtained 52.6 percent of the total vote cast in Croatia-Slavonia, while the other ten competing parties obtained 4 7 ·4 percent. Among these ten parties, only three, the Democratic Party, the Radical Party, and the Communist Party, obtained significant blocs of votes. 22 In fact, in this election the Croatian 21 ]osip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, pp. I90-95, 20I-5, 230-45; Culinovic, Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 2I6, 308-I 5· The electoral disparities were calculated on the basis of a table in Culinovic following p. 3 I 2. 22The Democratic Party (formed by the consolidation of two pre-I9I8 Serbian parties) and the Radical Party were the two Serbian parties that adherents of the older Serbian parties and strongly pro-Yugoslav Croats and Slovenes from areas formerly under Austria-Hungary joined. The Communist Party was a new party created by uniting the left wings of former Social Democratic parties in the various historical provinces of the new state. At its Second Congress at Vukovar in June I920, it sided with the Communist International.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

People's Peasant Party, due to its program, its mobilization of the Croatian peasant masses, the persecution of its leader, and newly introduced general male suffrage, practically eliminated all pre-I9I8 Croatian parties in CroatiaSlavonia.23 Beginning with this November I920 election and in all other elections in the country during the interwar period except the November I93I election, when only the single government party was able to put up a list of candidates, the Croatian People's Peasant Party obtained the overwhelming majority of the Croatian vote. As a consequence it was the authoritative representative of the Croatian nation during the interwar period. Despite its name, the Constituent Assembly had only limited powers. The principal issue, the form of the state-a monarchy under the Karadjordjevic dynasty-had already been decided upon by agreement between the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee and confirmed by the unification act of December I, I9I8. Although the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was a constitutional monarchy, it remained a monarchy in which the will of the ruler greatly outweighed the power of the parliament. Perceiving this, Radic and the Croatian People's Peasant Party abstained from participation in parliamentary deliberations. When a new centralist constitution was adopted in June I92I, they continued their determined struggle against the new political system, but without success. This policy earned them the enmity of RegentAlexander (who became king on August I6, I92I) and the dominant Serbian political parties, as well as of Pribicevic, who was to a large extent responsible for the nature and policies of the new state. 24 It was not until I 92 5 that a basic change took place in RadiC's policy. The diverse historical backgrounds of the different territorial and national units in the new Yugoslav state and its multinational and multireligious character dictated that it be organized as a federal state. Federal organization was clearly intended in the Corfu Declaration, the decision of the Croatian Diet of October 29, I 9 I 8, and the directive of the National Council in Zagreb of November 24, I9I8, to the delegation going to Belgrade to consummate the act of unification. The aim was to prevent the adoption of a constitution that would allow one of the constituent nations in the new state, without doubt the Serbs, to rule over and against the wishes of the other nations. Thus the Corfu Decla23 0ne of the most important consequences for the Croats of the establishment of the new Yugoslav state was the introduction of general male suffrage. This is best seen by considering the size of the electorate before 1918. According to Croatia-Slavonia's election law of the early 189o's, in effect until 1910, only 45,381 people were entitled to vote in the 1906 election. This in a territory whose population was 2,416,304 in the 1900 census. R. Horvat, Najnovije doba hrvatske povjesti, pp. 292-93. The election reform of 1910 expanded the electorate to about 19o,ooo people. 24 Pribicevic joined the Democratic Party in 1919, but left in 1924 because he was much more intransigent on the Croatian question than party leaders from Serbia. He established the Independent Democratic Party, which represented mainly Serbs from South Slavic areas formerly under the Dual Monarchy and strongly pro-Yugoslav Croats and Slovenes.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

ration called for a "qualified majority" that the Constituent Assembly itself would define as necessary for adopting the new constitution, and the directive of the National Council specified a two-thirds vote of the Assembly as the "qualified majority" for doing so. 25 But the two dominant Serbian political parties, the Democratic and Radical Parties, and Regent Alexander disregarded historical logic and the anticentralist wishes of the majority of the South Slavic peoples from the areas formerly under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Despite the declarations against centralism, the abstention of the principal Croatian political party from the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, and the abstention or negative vote of several other parties-the Slovene People's Party (the main Slovene party), the Serbian Agrarian Party, and the Communist Party-the two dominant Serbian political parties, with the help of votes from the Bosnian Muslims, the Macedanian Turks, and a small Slovene peasant party, all secured by specific economic concessions, voted a strictly centralist constitution on June 28, 192r. Of the total membership of 419 deputies in the Assembly, 223 voted in favor of the constitution, 3 5 voted against it, and the others either abstained or did not participate. The representatives who voted for the constitution had received less than half of the popular vote cast in the election. Thus, even the votes of the small parties obtained by special concessions would not have helped the Serbian-dominated government had it not been for the initial advantage it held from the disproportion in electoral votes. 26 The Croats, as the second largest nation in the country after the Serbs, with the longest continuous statehood, however formal rather than real for most of the time, and with a strong sense of state right and the principle of self-determination, felt themselves to be the nation most negatively affected by the centralist organization of the government and Serbian domination of political and state life. In their eyes, this robbed them of their national dignity, identity, and tradition. The Macedonians were even more unfavorably affected, because they were denied their nationality and language and simply considered as Serbs from southern Serbia. Those Montenegrins who desired the continuation of their state and dynasty were also dissatisfied. The Albanian minority in the Kosovo area, where in fact it constituted a majority of the population, and in Macedonia was especially harshly treated. The large German, Hungarian, and Turkish minorities were also dissatisfied and fearful about their future. In spite of its many shortcomings, however, the new state, as the culmination of the Sisic, Dokumenti, pp. 99,275, 309. Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 1: 348-52. The votes of the Bosnian Muslims and Macedonian Turks were secured by promises that their landlords, who controlled the parties, would receive more considerate treatment in the pending agrarian reform than contemplated earlier. The Slovene votes were obtained by promising one of their deputies (Bogumil Vosnjak) a diplomatic appointment and by granting cattle export licenses to Slovene areas. 25

26 Culinovic,

15

16

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

movement for liberation and unification of the South Slavic nations reaching back into the nineteenth century, was a decided improvement over the conditions under which these nations had lived until the end of the First World War. The victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia filled the Serbian and later Yugoslav authorities with great apprehension. Prior to 1917, close relations prevailed between Serbia and Imperial Russia, the country that had served as the protector of the small Balkan kingdom. The new Yugoslav state received and treated well thousands of White Russian emigrants. When many former prisoners of war in Russia from Yugoslav areas of the defunct Dual Monarchy began returning home, potential carriers of new revolutionary ideas-the later Josip Broz Tito was one-and when the Communists briefly took power in Hungary, apprehension heightened even more. Consequently, the establishment of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its success in the elections for municipal councils held in various provinces between March and August 1920 and in the election for the Constituent Assembly in November 1920 greatly worried the government.27 In the former, the Communists captured majorities or pluralities in many cities, including Belgrade and Zagreb, while in the latter they obtained the third largest number of deputies and the fourth largest number of votes. After a number of Communist-led strikes, which it interpreted as endangering the country's security, the government issued the Proclamation (Obznana) on December 30, 1920, outlawing the Communist Party and its organizations. Strict enforcement of the new proclamation followed. A faction of the party reacted by attempting to assassinate Regent Alexander on June 28 and then assassinating Milorad Draskovic, the former minister of interior and author of the Proclamation, on July 21, 1921. This led to even stiffer permanent legislation against the party in the Law on the Protection of the Realm issued on August 2, 1921. Two days later, Parliament annulled the credentials of 58 representatives who were members the Communist Party. 28 Thereafter, many people who had formerly supported the party left it, others became intimidated and inactive, some remained active but went underground, and others went into exile. Police informers infiltrated the party and the police killed some active Communists. The unfortunate way in which the Karadjordjevic dynasty, the dominant Serbian political parties, and many politicians from areas formerly under the Habsburg Monarchy unified the new State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs with the Kingdom of Serbia; the roughshod manner in which the centralist constitution of June 28, 1921, was adopted; the disregard of Croatian national rights and interests; the lack of recognition of the Macedonian nation; the limited observance of the rights of Albanian, German, and Hungarian minorities; and ln many areas, the vote for the Communist Party was much more a vote against government policies than a vote for the Communist Party program. "Culinovic,jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 315-21, 3 59-68. 27

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

many other negative developments prevented the interwar Yugoslav state from becoming truly consolidated. These developments were also responsible for political emigration. Several groups of emigrants and those at home closely associated with them played, in turn, an important role in the country during the War of April I94I and the following years of occupation, war, and revolution. For this reason we will now briefly sketch the history of political emigration from Yugoslavia during the interwar period. We will also examine political developments in the country, especially the relationship between the Croats and the Serbs, which was by far the most important and difficult internal political problem of the new state and one that evolved into a bloody conflagration during the Second World War. EARLY POLITICAL EMIGRATION

A small number of Croats-former military officers and officials of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and a few politicians-refused to accept the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes at the end of I 9 I 8 and moved to Austria or Hungary. The first organization established by these political emigres was the Croatian Committee, set up in May I9I9, with headquarters first in Graz, then Vienna, and later, after the consolidation of Regent Miklos Horthy's regime in Hungary, in Budapest. For some time it had a small paramilitary wing in Hungary called the Croatian Legion, which planned to enter Croatia in the event of an invasion of Yugoslavia or the outbreak of a revolution. 29 Although initially united, the Croatian political emigres soon disagreed over ideas and objectives. One group, the legitimists, consisting mostly of former Austro-Hungarian officers and government officials, aimed for the restoration of a Danube Basin state centering on Austria and Hungary, if possible under the Habsburg dynasty, to which Croatia would also belong. In Austria, these emigres were led by former Colonel General Baron Stjepan Sarkotic and former Lieutenant Colonel Stjepan (Stevo) Duic. Sarkotic had been the last head of the provincial government of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Dual Monarchy and had advocated a solution of the Yugoslav problem within the monarchy that would have satisfied the pro-trialists among the Croats. He felt that the Serbs, because of their strong nationalism and the permeating influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church, endangered the Croats, who were western oriented and Catholic. Thus a separate state that included all South Slavs threatened Croatian interests. 30 29 For information on the early Croatian political emigration, see the complaint against Hungary that Yugoslavia submitted to the League of Nations in connection with the assassination of King Alexander, which was received by the League on November 28, 1934, in League of Nations, Request by the Yugoslav Government, "Communication from the Yugoslav Government," pp. 7-9. See also R. Horvat, Hrvatska na muCilistu, pp. 124-29, and Banac, The National Question, pp. 264-70. 3°For SarkotiC's ideas, see the minutes of a meeting he held with the Austro-Hungarian

I7

r8

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

Because there was so little pro-Austro-Hungarian feeling in Croatia after 1918, the legitimist emigres lacked any real support among the Croatian popu-

lation. Though Duic claimed that he was empowered by Radic to act on his behalf, he also accepted money for his work from former Emperor Karl in Switzerland. Still another legitimist emigre, Emanuel (Manko) Gagliardi, after returning to Yugoslavia in 1922, provided the Yugoslav authorities with information on his former colleagues and wrote a pamphlet on them. 31 The second group of political emigres was headed by Ivo Frank, the only politician of some standing in the early Croatian emigration. Frank had been a member of the Croatian Diet in 1918 as a representative of the Croatian Party of [State] Right. He was the son of the earlier leader of that party, Josip Frank, whose strong antagonism toward the Serbs and the Yugoslav idea influenced the son and made him a logical opponent of the new Yugoslav state. Although Frank operated from Hungary during most of his life in exile, he apparently had no hope for the restoration of a Danube Basin state and thought that salvation for Croatia could only come from Italy. He therefore assiduously sought its support. To capitalize on the popularity of Radicand his republican ideas in Croatia, Frank also claimed to be a supporter of a Croatian republic and to represent both the Croatian Party of Right and the Croatian Republican Peasant Party (the renamed Croatian People's Peasant Party). The most interesting action that Frank and Gagliardi undertook during this early stage of exile was to sign two agreements in Venice on July 5, r 9 20, with Giovanni Giuriati and Giovanni Host Venturi, representatives of Gabrielle D' Annunzio, at that time usurper of power and self-appointed commander of the city of Rijeka (Fiume). 32 D' Annunzio concluded the accords, but allegedly made them in the name of Italy. The first was a general agreement between the representatives of the Croatian, Albanian, and Montenegrin anti-Yugoslav political emigres and D'Annunzio as sponsor and provider of arms, ammunition, and money. The signatories were to undertake concerted political and military military commanders of occupied Serbia and Montenegro in Sarajevo on May q-r4, r9r8, in Stulli, "Contributions to the Source Materials," pp. 28 r-304. 31 Banac, The National Question, pp. 264-65, 269. According to Banac, Gagliardi was executed by the Ustashas in r942. Duic was killed in r934, though the true identity of his killers has never been established. The antiquated and unrealistic views of the Croatian legitimist emigres are also seen in former Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Percevic, the third most important figure in this group. See Fertilio, "Cavalier and Legitimist," pp. 229-39. 32 Gabrielle D'Annunzio, the well-known Italian poet, was also enamored of martial arts and political extravagance. After seeing action as a reserve officer in the Italian army on the Italian-Austrian front during the First World War, he became dissatisfied with what he considered the insufficiently aggressive policies of the Italian government. Following skirmishes between occupying Italian and French forces in Rijeka, he and his adherents entered the city on September r2, r9r9. He assumed power in the name of Italy and appointed himself head of administration and "comandante" of the city. But the Italian government did not recognize him. See Giuriati, Con D'Annunzio e Millo, and Rhodes, D'Annunzio.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

operations against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to free the nations supposedly oppressed by the Serbs and "to occupy militarily the entire Serbian territory." Military operations against the new kingdom were to start in August 1920, first in Montenegro, then in Albania, and finally in Croatia. The second accord was to become operative after the military breakup of the new kingdom. It regulated frontiers and relations between Italy and the new "Croatian Republic," whose recognition and neutrality Italy guaranteed. It also included provisions regarding the frontier between Italy and the new "Slovene Republic" if it should be established. Otherwise, this frontier would be drawn as stipulated in the Treaty of London. According to this accord, Italy was to annex Istria, Rijeka, and a number of smaller islands in the upper and middle Adriatic. The main Dalmatian cities were to form a league, remain autonomous, and serve as free ports. Dalmatia with the islands but without the main cities was to form an independent and neutral "Dalmatian Republic" under Italian guarantee and after the establishment of the "Croatian Republic" was to decide by plebiscite whether to remain autonomous or join the latter. Italy could fortify militarily the islands and territory in Dalmatia that it already occupied according to the Treaty of London and that it deemed necessary for its strategic security, while the "Croatian Republic" could not keep garrisons along the frontier with Italy for a distance of 50 kilometers. The Bay of Kotor, it was agreed, would be included in Montenegro. Finally, there were provisions for the mutual protection of minorities in the affected territories. 33 These quixotic agreements between D' Annunzio and the emigres had no prospect of ever being implemented. But they exemplify typical political exile behavior and were harbingers of the future. Political exiles often put their hopes in foreign sponsors and are willing to pay a high price for outside aid. The actions of Croatian nationalist exiles during the interwar period and, as we shall see, in the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War amply illustrate this fact. The days of D' Annunzio as commander of Rijeka were limited even before the July 1920 agreements. The government of Francesco Nitti, which D'Annunzio professed not to recognize, was replaced in June 1920 by that of Giovanni Giolitti, with Count Carlo Sforza as minister of foreign affairs. Sforza, who for some time was envoy to the Serbian government, was more conciliatory toward the new Yugoslav state than other Italian politicians. Negotiations between the two countries, which had foundered up to that time, were renewed and on November 12, 1920, the Treaty of Rapallo was signed. Italy kept the Kanal area, the Slovene Littoral, Trieste, and lstria, as well as the islands of Cres, Losinj, and Unije in the upper Adriatic. But it obtained only a symbolic part of Dalmatia promised by the Treaty of London, that is, only the city of 33 For a discussion of how these accords were reached, see Giuriati, Con D'Annunzio e Millo, pp. 137-62, and for their texts, pp. 221-26. See also Rhodes, D'Annunzio, pp. 190-

262.

19

20

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

Zadar and the islands of Lastovo and Palagruza off central Dalmatia. Rijeka was to become a buffer state between the two countries. D' Annunzio and his cohorts were forced to leave the city at the end of 1920. The Treaty of Rapallo was very unfavorable to Yugoslavia because it left almost half a million Croats and Slovenes in Italy. But France and England pressed Yugoslavia to sign. Peace treaties with Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria had already been concluded, and the internal political situation was difficult. Under the circumstances, it was the best that could be achieved. Due to Italian obstruction, Rijeka could not be organized as a separate state and became a part of Italy by the Italian-Yugoslav Treaty ofJune 27, 1924. Both groups of early emigres had contacts inside Croatia, but they were, with one exception, of little significance. The exception was the supposed prorepublican group's Milan Sufflay, a well-known medieval historian, whose Croatian-centered but changing political ideas had earned him a certain domestic notoriety. Sufflay was indicted in 1921 for espionage and connections with Croatian emigres and sentenced to a three-year prison term. He lost his professorship at the University of Zagreb and was prevented from emigrating to take a similar position at the University of Budapest. He then made his living as a newspaperman and dabbled at the fringes of political happenings in Croatia until he was assassinated by police in Zagreb in February 193 r. 34 In addition to the Croatian legitimist and purportedly pro-republican emigres, several other groups of nationalist emigres came into existence when the new Yugoslav state was formed. The most important were the Macedonian emigres active in Bulgaria and to a limited extent in Austria and Italy. There were also a few Hungarian emigres from Vojvodina, Albanian emigres from the Kosovo region and western Macedonia active in Albania, and Montenegrin supporters of the old dynasty active in Italy. All these groups were dissatisfied with some aspect of the political situation in the Yugoslav state and worked against the existing political system. The reasons for this varied political emigration have already been enumerated: the centralist constitution, Serbian hegemony, the brutal persecution of political opponents, and the presence of many national minorities who looked to their respective mother countries. Since Yugoslavia was surrounded for the most part by revisionist states (except for Greece and Romania), which were dissatisfied with the frontiers established by the post-1918 peace treaties and each of which claimed different parts of Yugoslav territory, the emigres found support in one or more neighboring countries. Finally, a general Yugoslav Communist emigration followed the outlawing of the Communist Party and the application of extremely repressive measures against it. Most Communist emigres went to the Soviet Union (where scores 34josip Horvat, Hrvatski panoptikum, pp. 225-28. For his assassination, see Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase, p. 78. For more information on Sufflay, see Banac, The National Question, pp. 266-69.

21

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

later perished in Soviet purges), but some operated from Prague and Vienna and at times from Paris. In the 192o's, political developments in Yugoslavia became less and less encouraging to both the legitimist and pro-republican emigrations. It is interesting to note that Radic himself spent the period between July 1923 and August 1924 abroad seeking support for the Croatian cause, though without success. A few months after returning home, he was compelled by circumstances to make peace with Belgrade. Except for the submission of memoranda to foreign governments and some propaganda work, the original Croatian political emigration became quite passive. However, in mid-1928 and early 1929, events occurred in Yugoslavia that gave impetus to a new wave of political emigration. The two most important new emigre groups were the Croatian nationalists-the Ustashas (Insurgents), who differed completely in character and size from the earlier Croatian political emigration-and the all-Yugoslav Communists. Because the latter will be dealt with more fully in the third volume of this study, we will concentrate here exclusively on the Ustashas. But to explain the origin and nature of this new emigration, we must first sketch the course of internal political developments during the 192o's and early 193o's, particularly the crucial relationship between the Serbian-dominated state and the Croats. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

FROM

1923

TO

1934

After the government outlawed the Communist Party at the end of 1920 and again in August 1921, the activity of Radic and the Croatian Republican Peasant Party became the most difficult internal political problem for the new state. In the election of March r8, 1923, the party achieved even greater success than in the election for the Constituent Assembly, obtaining 473,773 votes compared to 250,590 votes in 1920. Emboldened, Radic intensified his attacks against the existing political system. In the early summer of 1923, rumors circulated that he might be arrested again. To avoid this, he fled to Hungary on July 21 and went on to Vienna, Paris, and London to plead the Croatian cause. But he failed to find any understanding or support and returned to Vienna. In early June 1924, following repeated invitations from Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs Georgi V. Chicherin, Radic went to Moscow. He met Chicherin and several other Soviet officials and, most significantly, on July r, 1924, he enrolled the Croatian Republican Peasant Party in the newly established, Communist-run Peasant International. The Communist International (Comintern), working through the Peasant International, was undoubtedly interested in using Radic and his party to obtain greater influence on the peasant masses in Croatia and other parts of Yugoslavia. Without peasant cooperation, the Communists had no prospect of victory in the Balkans. Possibly they also wanted a tool to break up Yugoslavia into a series of national Bolshevik repub-

22

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

lies, which became the Comintern's aim in July 1924. 35 Radic, on the other hand, apparently thought that his contact with the Soviet Union and the Peasant International would strengthen his position toward Belgrade. On August 3, 1924, the parliamentary deputies of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party confirmed RadiC's enrollment of the party in the Peasant International, and shortly thereafter, Radic returned home. 36 Given the negative attitude of the authorities and the general public in Yugoslavia and Western Europe toward Bolshevik Russia, however, Radicand the party soon realized that the trip to Moscow had been a mistake. Thus, although the Croatian Republican Peasant Party had joined the Peasant International, Radic was cautious enough to insist that it retain its own program. The party also never sent representatives to the Peasant International. But the damage was done. RadiC's activities in Moscow cost the party sympathies in Western Europe and gave the Yugoslav government the opportunity to invoke the anti-Communist laws of the state against him and the party. As of January r, 1925, the government officially dissolved the party, supposedly because it had become part of the Communist International, prohibited it from holding meetings and issuing publications, seized its files, and jailed Radic and five other leaders pending prosecution. 37 The government, however, did not prohibit all party activity. The party participated in the parliamentary election of February 8, 1925, and was again very successful, obtaining 545,466 votes and 67 out of 315 seats in Parliament.38 The government debated whether to annul the election of party deputies on the basis of the anti-Communist laws, but did not take this step. Meanwhile, having realized that his travels abroad had been completely fruitless and that the Belgrade government had the full support of Western Europe, Radic made a total about-face in policy. With the large new bloc of deputies in Parliament, his party became important as a potential partner of either of the two dominant Serbian political parties, the Radicals or the Democrats. An understanding with Radic would have given the former a majority in Parliament and the latter a strong base for a majority that would also have included the Slovene Clericalists and the Bosnian Muslims. Actually, Radic had already reached a 35 See the resolution of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in July I924 on the national question in Yugoslavia, in Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Istorijski arhiv, 2: 420-21. 36josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, pp. 343-49. Radic made the trip to Moscow not only to strengthen his position toward Belgrade, but probably also for a number of other reasons: his resentment at not being well received in Paris and London, his penchant for sudden shifts in tactics, and above all his Pan-Slavic feelings and admiration for everything Russian and his belief that the Russian revolution of I9I7 meant the liberation of the Russian peasantry. 37lbid., pp. 36I-66; Culinovic,]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 441-46; Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, pp. I78-83. "For detailed results of the I92o, I923, and I925 elections, see Culinovic, Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: table following p. 3 I2, and pp. 406 and 45 5.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

tentative understanding with representatives of the Radical Party in April I 9 2 3. But he cultivated contacts with other parties as well and was in touch with several Serbian politicians who enjoyed the confidence of the Crown. 39 Finally on March 25, I925, while in prison, Radic made a formal agreement through his representatives to cooperate with the leaders of the parliamentary opposition, Ljubomir Davidovic of the Democratic Party, Anton Korosec of the Slovene People's Party, and Mehmed Spaho of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, in coordinated action against the government, which was controlled by PasiC's Radical Party and PribiceviC's Independent Democratic Party. Two days later, on March 27, I925, RadiC's nephew Pavle Radic, a vice president of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, read a declaration in Parliament in which the party recognized the Karadjordjevic dynasty and the constitution of June I92I, discarded its republicanism (including the word "republican" from its name), and asserted its willingness to participate in parliamentary activity, but also declared its intention to work for constitutional reform. 40 Though Radic had ordered this declaration, he was also exploring the possibility of a coalition government with the Radical Party. As a result, four months later the Radicals unceremoniously dropped Pribicevic and the Independent Democratic Party as coalition partners and on July I8, I925, entered into a coalition government with the Croatian Peasant Party. Radic and his colleagues were released from prison and on November I7 of the same year Radic entered the cabinet as minister of education. But it was a tenuous coalition. In RadiC's own words, his party was not in the government but "attached" to it. Radic was eased out of the cabinet on April I 5, I 9 26, essentially for accusing Radical Party colleagues and their friends of corruption. The coalition finally collapsed on February I, I927. The Radical Party remained in power in a new coalition government with the Slovene People's Party. Thereafter, the parliamentary opposition greatly sharpened its attacks against the government, with corruption as the central charge. 41 The election of September I I, I927, failed to change the relationship among the various political parties. However, the Croatian Peasant Party, either because of its unsuccessful collaboration with the Radical Party or because it had "These were RadiC's contacts with Marko GjuriCic in April 1923 and Mita Dimitrijevic, a confidant of the royal court, in March 1925. See ibid., pp. 416-19,464-70. 4 °For these developments, see Josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, pp. 369-79. For the declaration of March 27, see pp. 379-80. 41 Ibid., p. 404; Culinovic,]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, r: 487-89. In 1925, even while the Radical Party was negotiating a coalition cabinet with the Croatian Peasant Party, it was also exploring the possibility of collaborating with Milan Sufflay and Ante Pavelic, representatives of what remained of the Croatian Party of Right (Frankists). The Frankists were flattered by these overtures, anticipating that their merger with the Radicals would be a blow to Radic and his party in Croatia and to Yugoslavism in general. But nothing came of these negotiations, which the Radicals only used to put pressure on Radic. Historically, however, this contact is an interesting fact about both Sufflay and Pavelic. See Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, pp. 219-28.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

temporarily relinquished opposition to the Belgrade government, or both, obtained one-third fewer votes than in the election of 1925. The most important development among the opposition parties during the ensuing months was the conclusion, on November 10, 1927, of an agreement between RadiC's Croatian Peasant Party and PribiceviC's Independent Democratic Party creating the Peasant Democratic Coalition, though both parties continued to exist separately. For Pribicevic, who until 1925 had been one of the most determined promoters and defenders of crude centralism and strong-arm government policies and thus one of RadiC's chief enemies, this was both a total about-face and an expression of the needs of Serbs in Croatia. By this time Pribicevic had lost much of his confidence in the organization and administration of the new Yugoslav state and undertook with Radic to seek thorough governmental reorganization. Debates in Parliament and polemics and threats in the press became daily more acrimonious. 42 The Peasant Democratic Coalition participated in parliamentary work until June 20, 1928. On that day during a parliamentary session, Punisa RaCic, a Serbian deputy of the Radical Party, a man of dubious background but reportedly with connections to the royal court, shot and killed two representatives of the Croatian Peasant Party, Pavle Radic and Djuro Basaricek, and wounded three others, including Stjepan Radic, who died of his wounds six weeks later. Several individuals in Serbia had made threats against Radic and threats had even appeared in a newspaper supported by Prime Minister Velja Vukicevic. 43 And they were not the only ones who wanted to eliminate Radic from public life. The small but vocal Croatian People's Party, the party of the Croatian Clericalists, opposed him not only because of his strong anti-Clericalism, but also because of his Pan-Slavic ideas and because he had begun cooperating with Svetozar Pribicevic, the leader of the Croatian Serbs, the previous year. 44 Culinovic,Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 4I4-I 5, 487-98, 502. The most complete examination of the assassinations in Parliament is the already cited work by Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica. See also Josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, pp. 423-32, and Culinovic, Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 524-35. For the threats against Radic, see Kulundzic, pp. 2I I-I 8, 294-305. 44 Kerubin Segvic, an adherent of the Croatian People's Party and a well-known Croatian Catholic priest and writer, wrote in a Croatian newspaper just four days before the tragedy: 42 43

Radic has stressed several times that somebody wants to take him out of public life. By this he wants to elicit the compassion and sympathy of the public. We want to say only this: if they wanted to remove him, they would have the means and power to do so .... If somebody succeeds in removing from public life this leader of the misled, the blind, and the drunk, it would be the greatest event ever remembered in Croatian history. He would remove a permanent danger to public order and peace in the world.

Hrvatski list (Osijek), June I6, I928. Xerox copy in my files. See also KulundZic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, pp. 218-36. This was an extreme view and it is difficult to say how many Croatian Clericalists shared it. For RadiC's anticlericalist ideas as well as the Croatian Clericalists' views about Radic, see V. Novak, Magnum crimen, pp. 209-52. This tendentious book is outspokenly antiCatholic, but it contains valuable documentary material, particularly long quotations from

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

After the tragedy, the Peasant Democratic Coalition withdrew from Parliament and demanded the resignation of the government, the dissolution of Parliament, and new elections. The cabinet did resign and a new one was formed, headed by Anton Korosec, a Catholic priest, the leader of the Slovene People's Party and the only non-Serb to hold the office of prime minister (for four months) during the interwar period. The one Croat among the ministers in his cabinet was Stjepan Baric, the head of the Croatian People's Party, which was closely affiliated with Korosec's party. But the government did not dissolve Parliament and new elections were not held. On August r, 1928, the representatives of the Peasant Democratic Coalition adopted a resolution in Zagreb that showed the critical impact of the slayings on political opinion in Croatia. The Coalition asserted that the newly convoked rump Parliament in Belgrade could not enact any decisions binding on the whole state, especially those of a financial nature, and that no decisions would be binding outside of Serbia, especially not in Croatia. It further declared that Croatia and Montenegro and all provinces represented in the National Council in r 9 r 8 had entered into union with the Kingdom of Serbia without surrendering their historical states or national identities in favor of the new state, but that Serbia had used the unification act of December r, 1918, and the constitution of June 28, 1921, to establish hegemony over other parts of the country. Finally, since the assassinations in Parliament had destroyed popular support for the existing state, the Coalition vowed to wage a determined fight to achieve a new state organization with full equality for all historical and national entities. 45 The assassinations in Parliament represented, in fact, the end of parliamentary government in interwar Yugoslavia. Under the royal dictatorship that followed in the 1930's, the elections for the two houses of Parliament were a sham. Early in July 1928, just before Radic was taken from his Belgrade hospital to Zagreb, King Alexander made the rather startling statement to Pribicevic and a Slovene politician that it was impossible to work with the Croats and that if they wanted, the Croats and the Slovenes could immediately have their own separate states. The king was apparently willing to amputate part of the country, which would have created a Greater Serbia and a rump Croatia and Slovenia. But the Peasant Democratic Coalition totally rejected such a measure. 46 the daily and periodical press otherwise not easily available. Novak, a Croat by birth, was professor of Croatian history at the University of Belgrade. For at least one year, I936-37, he served as Grand Secretary of the Freemasonic lodge Great Yugoslavia, which heavily influenced his views. The attitude of the Croatian Clericalists toward Radic can also be seen from the proclamation of the Croatian People's Party before the election of I927. See Sto je Hrvatska pucka stranka, especially pp. I 2-I 6. 45 Culinovic, ]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, I: 53 5. 461bid., pp. 544-48; Pribitchevitch [Pribicevic], La dictature du roi Alexandre, pp. 8o-86. The idea of amputating a rump Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of the state appeared in Belgrade as early as I 923. See Josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, p. 308.

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The tragedy in Parliament and RadiC's death on August 8, 1928, caused sadness and outrage among the Croatian public. Vladko Macek, who succeeded Radic as leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, wrote later about the threatening situation at the time: The June 20 shooting in the Belgrade Parliament and the ensuing death of Radic plunged all of Croatia into indescribable agitation, and an armed revolt was believed imminent . . . . I did everything in my power to prevent an open revolt, which was threatened not only in Zagreb but throughout Croatia. I did so not merely because of RadiC's wishes and my own pacific tendencies, but because it would have been utter folly to let the political struggle stray onto a field where we would necessarily prove the weaker. 47

Fortunately, peace was preserved in Croatia. During the next few months, with a rump Parliament under the influence of the June tragedy, the cabinet's prestige and authority greatly impaired, and a critical political situation in Croatia, the governmental crisis deepened. When Prime Minister Korosec submitted his resignation on December 28, 1928, the king entered into consultation about forming a new government with the leaders of the different political parties, including the two chairmen of the Peasant Democratic Coalition. The latter informed him that the crisis could not be resolved without a "reorganization of the state system," a democratic organization that would satisfy Croatian demands. But the king had other plans. On January 5, 1929, the Crown issued an ominous statement that a solution of the crisis was impossible with a parliamentary regime. On the following day the king, assured of the support of the armed forces and police, as well as of many important Serbian politicians, abolished the 1921 constitution, prohibited the activity of all political parties, and introduced personal dictatorship. The new cabinet was headed by General Petar Zivkovic, one of the king's most trusted advisors and up to that time commander of the Royal Guard. It also included several important Serbian and Slovene politicians, several nonpolitical Croatian technicians, a few representatives of small political groups, and later a number of dissidents from both the Croatian Peasant Party and the Independent Democratic Party. The Croatian Peasant Party initially accepted the king's personal rule as the first step in a reorganization of the state following the sense of the August 1, 1928, resolution of the Peasant Democratic Coalition and Macek's suggestions made to the king in audiences on January 4 and 5, 1929. But this proved to be a mistaken interpretation, the product of wishful thinking. The king showed himself interested in establishing unlimited personal rule and protecting the interests of the Serbian ruling elite, rather than in reor47Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. I I 9-20. Some members of the Croatian Peasant Party, especially former Austro-Hungarian officers in Croatia, thought that such a revolt should have been undertaken and would have been successful, given the internal weakness of the Yugoslav regime and the favorable international situation for the Croats. See Kvaternik, "Trum bit's Attitude," especially pp. 22 5-3 I.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

ganizing the state in a manner responsive to Croatian demands. Both parties of the Coalition soon came out in opposition to the new regime. 48 The political developments of the late 192o's, culminating in the assassination of Croatian leaders in Parliament and the introduction of King Alexander's personal dictatorship, were the cause of the post-1928 Croatian political emigration. Had it not been for these developments, the earlier Croatian emigration led by Sarkotic, Duic, and Frank would have withered away. But the events of the late 192o's showed Croatian politicians that normal parliamentary politics could not lead to a satisfactory solution of the Croatian question. The leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party were exasperated by the new situation, but due to the outspokenly pacifist and humanitarian nature of their program, did not turn to tactics of force. Hoping to achieve their objectives by peaceful means, they sent two important leaders-Juraj Krnjevic, the secretary general, and August Kosutic, one of the vice presidents-abroad in August 1929 to work for the Croatian cause in Western capitals and to keep the Croatian question before the Western public. But a small number of Croats, especially younger ones exposed to Frankist and Catholic Clericalist ideology, drew different conclusions. They became newly opposed or increased their opposition to the Yugoslav state, which for them meant Serbian domination, and they became dedicated fighters for an independent Croatian state. They were willing to use conspiratorial and terrorist methods and to accept help from any foreign power, whatever the price. This led to the establishment of the Croatian Liberation Movement (the Ustashas) by Ante Pavelic in 1930. Pavelic was a 40-yearold lawyer by profession, vice president of the minuscule Croatian Party of Right, a member of the Zagreb city council, and between September 1927 and January 1929 a member of the Yugoslav parliament. After the introduction of royal dictatorship, he left the country and soon became the leader of the new Croatian political emigres. Before turning to their activities, however, we will describe political developments in the country in the years immediately following the establishment of the new regime. On October 3, 1929, King Alexander changed the name of the state to Yugoslavia and divided the country into nine regions (banovina) and the district of Belgrade instead of the previous 3 3 districts. Through gerrymandering, six of these regions and the district of Belgrade had a Serbian majority (counting the Macedonians and Montenegrins as Serbs), two had a Croatian majority, and one had an almost exclusively Slovene population. The king wanted to eliminate or divide the opposition from the old political parties that he could not subvert, particularly the two chairmen of the Peasant Democratic Coalition, Macek and Pribicevic. The government ordered the arrest of Macek in April r 9 3o and accused him of financing the terrorist activities of a small group of Croatian youths, in this way connecting him with the Croa'"Bohan, Macek, 1: 41-48.

27

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tian political emigres. While in prison, the king's agents proposed to Macek that he end his opposition, but in vain. Of the large group of people indicted and tried with Macek in June, thirteen were sentenced to long prison terms, while ten, including Macek, were freed for lack of evidence. In October I930, Macek was allowed to visit Czechoslovakia for health reasons. While passing through Austria he saw not only the representatives of his own party who were working for the Croatian cause in Western Europe, but also members of the old Croatian emigration, including General Sarkotic, as well as the leader of the new Croatian emigration, Ante Pavelic. 49 The regime also acted against the other chairman of the Peasant Democratic Coalition, Svetozar Pribicevic. In May I929 he was interned in the village of Brus in the interior of Serbia. Due to illness, he was transferred after six months to a hospital in Belgrade, a section of which served as his prison. He was held there for more than eighteen months. To keep from being returned to Brus, Pribicevic began a hunger strike and requested permission to travel to Czechoslovakia for health reasons. Under pressure from authorities in Prague and Paris, the government granted this request and on July 2 3, I 9 3 I, Pribicevic left for Prague. He spent two years there, then three years in Paris, then returned to Prague in the spring of I936, where he died the following September of lung cancer. 50 Because of poor health and the difficulty of communicating with Yugoslavia, as well as King Alexander's success in subverting a considerable number of his former colleagues, PribiCeviC's political activity abroad was limited. But he did write and publish La dictature du roi Alexandre in Paris in I 9 3 3, a book in which he attacked Yugoslavia's political system and especially King Alexander, blaming him personally for all political aberrations and misfortunes in the country since I 9 I 8. According to Pribicevic, the unification act of December I, I9I8, the adoption of the June 1921 constitution, and the policies based on them were all mistakes. It was necessary to rebuild the country on the basis of the declaration of the Croatian Diet on October 29, 1918. The Croatian question was the key political issue in Yugoslavia for Pribicevic and its solution was to be found in the establishment of a federal republic. 5 1 But while it is true that King Alexander was largely responsible for political developments during his rule, it is also the case that between I9I8 and I925 Pribicevic bore a large share of the responsibility for the aggravation of the Croatian question. In his book he chose not to assume his share of the blame. "Ibid., pp. 50-53. When passing through Austria on his return trip, Macek was joined on the train for some distance by Pavelic. But the presence of Macek's companion, Ivan Subasic, whom Pavelic considered a confidant of the royal court, prevented them from discussing politics. See Jareb, Pola stoljeca hrvatske politike, p. 4 7· 50 Pribitchevitch [Pribicevic], La dictature du roi Alexandre, pp. r62-66, 179-82. See also Boban, Svetozar Pribicevic, pp. 62-66, r 87. 51 Pribitchevitch [Pribicevic], La dictature du roi Alexandre, pp. r 88-90, 269-71.

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In September I93I the king granted a constitution that safeguarded all royal dictatorial prerogatives. With a series of laws and decrees of the same month, the government prepared for the election, with open balloting, of members of the two houses of Parliament. Limitations on party activity, however, were such that only the government party was able to participate in the election on November 8, I 9 3 I. With the new measures, the royal dictatorship obtained a constitutional and parliamentary veneer. In reality, however, little had changed. 52 After the constitution was granted, the leaders of the old political parties who had not been subverted by the king tried to reactivate their organizations. An important step in this direction was the secret meeting of the leadership of the Peasant Democratic Coalition on November 5-7, I932, in Zagreb. The group issued a resolution known as the Zagreb Punctuations, condemning the regime and its policies and spelling out the political demands of the Coalition. The principal demand was to scrap all the fundamental political decisions of the state beginning with the unification act of December I, I 9 I 8, and to rebuild it on the basis of federal and democratic principles so that all component nations and historical entities would have equality with the Serbs and Serbia. At this meeting, the Independent Democratic Party came out in support of a federal organization. Other opposition parties soon issued similar statements. The Zagreb resolution caused a strong negative reaction in the government, but three months passed before it arrested and indicted Macek on the basis of the Law on the Protection of the Realm. The government's objective was to portray the resolution as an act of Croatian separatism. Macek was tried and on April 29 sentenced to three years in prison. 53 While Macek was in prison, the vice president of the party, Josip Predavec, was apparently murdered by the police. Two other leaders, Krnjevic and Kosutic, were in exile, and Ivan Pernar, another leading party member who had been wounded in Parliament in June I928, was also in prison. Several former deputies of the party, subverted by the king, were serving the new regime. Thus, the Croatian Peasant Party was left without authoritative leadership, precisely the condition that the government desired. Macek gave secret instructions from prison that his followers should consult Ante Trumbic, the veteran Croatian politician, for directives when necessary, although he had joined the party only "Culinovic,]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: I 3-I4, 29-4 5. 53 lbid., pp. s6-8o; Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. I42-48; Bohan, Macek, I: I6?-69, I84. In I937, a leading Zagreb Freemason told me that the royal court had asked him to approach Macek at the railroad station when the latter was being taken to Belgrade to tell him that if he (Macek) would only say that he recognized the Karadjordjevic dynasty, he would immediately be released and the trial would not be held. Macek, known for his often biting aphorisms, told the intermediary to tell his principal, "Svaka rit dodje na sekret" (literally "Every arse goes to the toilet"), meaning in this case that King Alexander's rule would also end some time.

29

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a few years earlier. 54 It was Trumbic who had drafted the Zagreb Punctuations. During the later part of Macek's prison term, King Alexander maintained contact with him through Ivan Subasic, a lawyer and former deputy of the Croatian Peasant Party who, because he had volunteered on the Salonika front in the First World War, enjoyed the confidence of the Crown. The king was mostly interested in Macek's views on the Croatian question. It also appears that he promised Macek to review the whole Croatian problem after his return from a state visit to France in October 1934. But it was at the beginning of that visit that he was assassinated. 55 The assassination was the most notorious act of the emigre Croatian Ustashas, to whose activities we now turn. THE EARLY STAGES

OF THE USTASHA MOVEMENT

The Ustasha movement was founded by Ante Pavelic, a leading Croatian nationalist, in 1930. PaveliC's anti-Yugoslav activities, however, had begun well before then. In June 1927, while on his way to Paris to attend an international meeting of municipal government representatives as a member of the Zagreb city council, he first stopped in Vienna, where General Sarkotic and his colleagues arranged for him to meet a representative of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome after the Paris meeting. At about the same time, Ivo Frank in Budapest delivered a memorandum to the Italian envoy similar in content to the accord that he and Gagliardi had signed on July 5, 1920, in Venice with representatives of D' Annunzio. The memorandum outlined the aims of the Croatian nationalists and asked for Italian assistance in their struggle against Yugoslavia and in the establishment of an independent Croatian state. Italy was known to be assisting other revisionist forces in the Danube Basin and the Balkans, working against Yugoslavia not only on its own borders and in the Adriatic Sea, but also through Albania, which had claims to the Kosovo region and western Macedonia, and Bulgaria, which had claims to most of Yugoslav Macedonia. The Croatian nationalists therefore had every reason to think that the Italians would consider their memorandum favorably. The meeting between Pavelic and the representative of the Italian ministry took place in Rome in mid-July 1927. Pavelic submitted a copy of the memorandum that Frank had just delivered to the Italian envoy in Budapest, which in several ways presaged developments in 1941. Though it seemed designed to enlist Italian aid for Croatian independence, the terms formulated by the Croats made Croatia little more than an Italian protectorate. In exchange for aid from Italy, the Croatian emigres accepted a number of general principles and a set of specific obligations. They agreed that the Adriatic peoplesCroats, Montenegrins, and Albanians-in accord with the Italians should solve the eastern Adriatic problem. They recognized Italy's dominance in the Adriatic 54 Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. I 50-5 I. ''Ibid., pp. I 52-54; Bohan, Macek, I: I2I-3 I.

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and Italy's right to exercise its cultural influence and use the rich natural resources of the Balkans in exchange for industrial products. Finally, "the Croats were ready to adjust themselves to the Italian sphere of influence both politically and economically, as well as from the military point of view." They recognized all the provisions of the treaties existing at that time between Italy and Yugoslavia, thus abandoning all claims to Istria, Rijeka, Zadar, and the Adriatic islands that Italy had annexed after the First World War, containing between 30o,ooo and 4oo,ooo Croats. They also promised that, contingent on their assuming power, Croatia would cede to Italy the Bay of Kotor and any Dalmatian headlands of strategic importance, as well as bases on Dalmatian islands and the mainland, to guarantee Italy effective protection and military control of the Adriatic. Croatia would also renounce having its own navy, as long as Italy would protect the Croatian coast. It would grant Italy all the concessions necessary for utilizing economic resources in Croatia as well as across the Balkans, and it would not build another seaport for a specified time in order not to impede the development of Rijeka (Fiume). 56 The Croatian emigres also renounced their interest in any other part of Yugoslav territory. The memorandum suggested that the Slovene territory of Prekmurje and the Yugoslav areas of Baranja, Backa, and Banat should all belong to their parent country-Hungary-and that the independence of Montenegro should be supported. The Croatian emigres were also willing to support Italian plans for a common frontier between Italy and Hungary, a plan possible only at the expense of the Slovenes and one that would have meant further encirclement of Croatia by Italy. All these promises were highly treasonable, to Yugoslavia and even more to Croatia. For centuries, a basic component of Croatian national policy had been to maintain a grip on the eastern shores of the Adriatic-Istria, the Croatian Littoral, and Dalmatia-to prevent the Italians from controlling the sea. Not only did the emigres promise to abandon claims to undeniably Croatian territory already in Italian hands, but they were also prepared to cede additional Croatian territory and most of Croatia's sovereign rights to their powerful western neighbor. The emigres' schemes with Italy in 1927 might have borne as little fruit as those of Frank and Gagliardi with D' Annunzio in 1920, had the political situation in Yugoslavia not changed. But the assassination of Croatian leaders in Parliament in June 1928 and the death of Radic the following August greatly strengthened the Croatian separatist forces. After the imposition of royal dictatorship in January 1929 and the prohibition on all political parties, Pavelic left the country for Vienna, supposedly to seek medical aid. In April he and a colleague, Gustav Percec, a former Austro-Hungarian lieutenant colonel and later 56 For this memorandum, see Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, 7th series, 5: 303-5.

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a newspaperman, went to Sofia en route to Italy to make contact with the legal organization of Macedonian political emigres. The two groups issued a joint declaration pledging coordination of their activities for achieving full independence for Croatia and Macedonia. 57 During his brief stay in Sofia, Pavelic also had a clandestine meeting with the leader of the outlawed Internal Macedanian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), Ivan Mikhailov, a declared enemy of Yugoslavia, with whom he made an agreement to cooperate against the Yugoslav state. Informers reported this to the Yugoslav authorities and Pavelic was tried in absentia on the basis of the Law on the Protection of the Realm for his association with Macedonian revolutionaries and his declared intention to work against the political and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in July I 9 29. 58 About a year later (the date is uncertain), Pavelic established the Ustasha movement, an organization dedicated to using all means, including terror, to achieve an independent Croatian state. This organization, modeled on the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, was the logical culmination of PaveliC's nationalist activities and he was the logical person to head it. The sentence of death for his threats and activities against the Yugoslav state enhanced his stature among nationalists both at home and in exile. It also became clear that he had both the financial backing and protection of the Italian government, whose Fascist principles he accepted by the late 193o's, and the support of Hungary, where his followers, undoubtedly with the acquiescence of the Hungarian authorities, leased an estate called Janka Puszta for training armed units. 59 57 For the October 1928 memorandum, see ibid., 7: 40-42, and for the joint declaration in Sofia, ibid., 7: 392-93. Pavelic was well known in Sofia because in December 1927 he had defended several pro-Bulgarian Macedonian activists in a Yugoslav court. For PaveliC's brief stay in Vienna, see Krizman, Ante Pave/it i ustase, pp. 53-54· Vladeta Milicevic, a Yugoslav police official ostensibly stationed in Vienna as a member of the International Police Organization but there in fact to observe political emigres working against Yugoslavia, was informed about Pavelic's arrival and went to the railroad station to observe. Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, pp. 30-3 r, gives January 14 as the date of PaveliC's arrival in Vienna, which in view of evidence presented by Krizman is erroneous. The Ustashas knew that a few of their colleagues were acting as agents of the Yugoslav police. "R. Horvat, Hrvatska na mucilistu, pp. 44 5-4 7. 59 For a collection of PaveliC's political writings, speeches, and statements before he went into exile, see his book Putem hrvatskog drzavnog prava, especially pp. 23, 34-39, 75-86. Discussions of the interwar Croatian political emigration can be found in Hory and Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha Staat, pp. 19-38; Jelic-Butic, "Ustasha Activity up to I94I," pp. ss-92; Colic, Takozvana Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska I94I, pp. 9-82; JelicButic, Ustase, pp. 13-40; and Krizman, Ante Pave/it i ustase, pp. sr-418 and the very valuable appendixes, pp. 533-79. Pavelic's Fascist inclinations are best seen in his book Strahote zablude. The first edition was published in Siena, Italy, in 1938 and the second in Zagreb in 1941. Written from the Fascist point of view, this lightweight anti-Communist tract shows Mussolini in a very favorable light and mentions Hitler only in passing.

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With the establishment of the Ustasha organization, the new, numerically stronger, partly terrorist, and fanatical Croatian political emigration led by Pavelic eclipsed the original and numerically weaker Croatian political emigration led by Sarkotic, Duic (until 1934), and Frank. The new emigration was a tool of Italy.'0 Pavelic also had the full backing of Croatian emigres such as Percec and Ivan Percevic, another former Austro-Hungarian lieutenant colonel, while the influence of Sarkotic and Frank faded (Sarkotic died in 1939 and Frank in 1940). Percec served for a time as commander of the Ustasha camp at Janka Puszta and became PaveliC's deputy, but he was executed in February 193 5 after the Ustashas learned that his mistress, Jelka Pogorelec, was a Yugoslav government agent. 61 Pavelic deliberately included terrorist features in the Ustasha program. He wanted to cause as much damage to Yugoslavia as possible. He organized training camps in Hungary and Italy, attracting recruits from emigre circles and especially from Croats working in Belgium, France, and other countries. Most of the organization's funds came from the Italian government, though Croatian workers who belonged to pro-Ustasha organizations that were set up in Western Europe, Argentina, Canada, and the United States also contributed money. 62 Ustasha operations against the Yugoslav state began shortly after the establishment of the organization. Among other activities, the Ustashas planted time bombs on international trains bound for Yugoslavia. Some caused a few deaths and considerable material damage, while others were discovered in time and dismantled. They also fomented armed rebellion. In September I 9 3 2 a small uprising was staged in Lika in northwest Croatia with the help of Ustasha members who had secretly entered the country from Italy. The Yugoslav gendarmerie quickly crushed the uprising with extremely harsh means, which gave the incident a lot of publicity and possibly even some prestige to the Ustashas. 63 The Ustashas' most famous terrorist act was the assassination of King Alexander and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in Marseilles on October 9, 1934. The gunman, Velicko Georgiev Kerin (also known as Vlada Georgiev Chernozemski), a Macedonian revolutionary, had been an instructor at Janka Puszta. Kerin was immediately killed by the French police, and three Ustashas, Mijo Kralj, Zvonimir Pospisil, and Milan (Ivan) Rajic, who were waiting for the king at other points, including Paris, were caught and sentenced to life im60 See A. Pavelic, Hrvatsko pitanje, pp. 31-3 2. This pamphlet, first published in German in 1936, was meant for distribution in German-speaking countries. See also Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, yth series, y: 319. "Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, pp. 39-43; Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase, pp. 128-29,144,159· ' 2B. Lorkovic, Ustaski pokret, pp. ro-12; Colic, Takozvana Nezavisna Driava Hrvatska 1941,pp.28-29,68. "For the bombings, see Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, pp. 37-39, and Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase, pp. 131-32. For the uprising in Lika, see Stojkov, "Lika Uprising," pp. 167-80. See also Culinovic,Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: 58-59.

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prisonment by a French court. The same court also handed down sentences of death in absentia to Pavelic, Eugen Kvaternik, and Ivan Percevic as the real organizers of the deed. The Ustasha emigres thought that by killing King Alexander they had broken the back of the Yugoslav state and considered it their most important achievement. 64 The assassination brought the political difficulties of Yugoslavia into the international diplomatic arena. Prior to this time, the anti-Yugoslav activities of the emigres in Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria had often been an issue in bilateral relations between Yugoslavia and these countries. But with the assassination of King Alexander and Foreign Minister Barthou on French soil, these activities became an issue of international diplomacy and a matter of debate before the League of Nations. Since France was trying to reach a political agreement with Italy, neither at the French trial of the Ustashas nor in the statements of the French delegate at the League of Nations did France mention Italy as a culpable party, although it well knew that the Ustashas in Italy had planned the assassination and that the Italian government had supported them politically and financially for several years. No doubt under French pressure, Yugoslavia also refrained from naming Italy in its request to the League of Nations of November 22, 19 34, asking that the matter be put on the agenda of the coming session. But Yugoslavia did accuse Hungary of partial responsibility for the assassination. Czechoslovakia and Romania, as immediate neighbors of Hungary, supported Yugoslavia in notes to the Secretariat of the League. The Yugoslavs included a detailed account of the anti-Yugoslav activities of Croatian political exiles in Hungary, as well as of alleged Hungarian activities prejudicial to Yugoslav interests and international peace. They charged that the criminals immediately connected with the assassination had been selected and trained in Hungary and that they had used Hungarian passports. Bogoljub Jevtic, the Yugoslav minister of foreign affairs, implicated the Hungarian authorities again at the meeting of the League on December 7, 1934. Hungary, however, rejected Yugoslavia's accusations. Tibor Eckhardt, the Hungarian delegate, denied that Janka Puszta had been a training camp for terrorists and that Hungary had any responsibility for the assassination. While 30 to 40 Croatian exiles had indeed leased Janka Puszta from a private Hungarian citizen, the Hungarians pointed out that this was a simple matter of private law. Moreover, by April 1934, in response to Yugoslav government demands, 64 Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, especially pp. 5 2-8 5; Culinovic, ]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: 6I-7o; Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase, pp. I 5 6-224. After the Ustasha state was established in I94I, Mladen Lorkovic, minister of foreign affairs, inquired about the three Ustashas imprisoned in France. The French Consulate in Zagreb, in a letter of July I, I942, reported that Pospisil had died in prison on August I4, I940, and Kralj on May I6, I94I. See YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 20/5-3, Box 239· At the intervention of the German occupation authorities in France, the third member of the group, Rajic, was freed and, quite ill, returned to Croatia early in I942, where reportedly he was killed on PaveliC's orders. Krizman, Pavelic izmedju Hitlera i Mussolinija, pp. 2I I-I 2.

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the local authorities had started the gradual dissolution of the lease of Janka Puszta and by October r a new lessee had taken over the estate. Some Croatian exiles had left the country, some had obtained employment on farms in the area, and others had moved to the city of Nagy Kanisza in search of work. In the discussion at the League of Nations, most countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, tried to smooth things over. This was clear from the resolution passed on December ro, I934· It deplored the assassination of King Alexander and called upon all members not to tolerate terrorist activities in their territories. It pressed for the punishment of the Croatian emigres, and it required the Hungarian government to submit a report on the measures it had undertaken against those culpable. Finally, it called for drafting an international convention against terrorism. The Hungarian government submitted its report on January 12, 1935, and the Yugoslav government, often contesting the report's assertions, added its observations on March 25. Eventually, on May 25, 193 5, with the approval of the Yugoslavs, the issue was removed from the League's agenda. 65 Whatever the role of the Hungarian authorities in connection with the Ustasha terrorist group at Janka Puszta, after October r, 1934, and the discussions at the League of Nations, only a few Ustashas remained in Hungary. Italy, although not accused of complicity in the assassination at Marseilles, was embarrassed by the matter. Though it refused France's request for the extradition of Ante Pavelic and Eugen Kvaternik, it arrested both in mid-October and kept them in prison for about a year and a half. Subsequently, Pavelic was kept in semidetention and later under surveillance in Siena and then Florence. The Italian government also ordered the disarming of all Ustashas in Italy, between 500 and 6oo men. It interned the more important members in various localities in southern and central Italy and sent most of the rank and file to camps on the Lipari Islands. Mile Budak, the second most important Ustasha, was in charge of the camps on the Liparis. Because of the harsh life there, discipline deteriorated and dissension grew. Apprehension about the future greatly increased after Italy and Yugoslavia concluded a treaty of friendship on March 25, 1937, according to which the two countries undertook not to tolerate any groups engaged in activities directed against the other country. Outside Italy, various Ustashas, mostly intellectuals like Andrija Artukovic, Branko Benzon, Branimir Jelic, Mladen Lorkovic, and Vilko Rieger in Ger65 ln addition to the already cited Yugoslav complaint of November 1934, see also the following League of Nations documents, all published under the general title Request by the Yugoslav Government Under Article II, Paragraph 2, of the Covenant: "Communication from the Hungarian Government," Dec. 10, 1934; "Communication from the Hungarian Government," Jan. 16, 1935; and "Observations of the Yugoslav Government on the Communication from the Hungarian Government, dated January 12, 193 5," May 20, 193 5· For a review of the debate on the assassination of King Alexander at the League of Nations, which includes long quotations from the above documents and a paraphrase of the resolution of December 10, 1934, see Krizman, Ante Pavelic i ustase, pp. 202-24.

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many and Ivan Percevic in Austria, continued propaganda work, though without the support of the countries in which they lived. 66 (Lorkovic returned to Yugoslavia in 1938 and was put in a concentration camp in 1940.) Some Ustashas remained in Hungary, among whom the most important were Marko Dosen and Vjekoslav Luburic. A few were also active among Croatian workers in Belgium and France, and some second-echelon leaders traveled to the United States, Canada, and Argentina, engaging in propaganda, publishing, and fundraising activities. Propaganda work included the clandestine distribution of pro-Ustasha, anti-Yugoslav, and toward the end of the 193o's also anti-Macek leaflets and pamphlets inside Croatia. Some of this material was written by supporters in the country, well informed about the domestic political situation. Manuscripts were smuggled out for printing and then printed leaflets and pamphlets were smuggled back in for distribution. This activity was on a small scale, however. Its chief effect was to keep the Yugoslav authorities aware of the existence and continued activity of the exile Ustasha organization. 67 Since both the Ustashas and the Communists were opposed to the Yugoslav state and operated underground in Yugoslavia and in exile, we may ask whether they were in contact and collaborated with each other in any way. To answer this, we must first take a brief look at the Communists' experience following the introduction of royal dictatorship. A month after King Alexander's action, in February 1929, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, apparently basing its decision on its interpretation of the resolution of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern and totally misjudging the prospects for revolution, issued a call to the workers and peasants of the country for armed struggle against the government. The regime responded by intensifying its crackdown against the 66 Undoubtedly they were known to and had some contact with the secret services of these countries. See, for example, the letter of March 20, 1939, from Joachim von Ribbentrop, German minister of foreign affairs, to Count Galeazzo Ciano, his Italian counterpart, in Ciano, Diplomatic Papers, p. 279· See also Biber, "The Ustashas and the Third Reich," pp. 37-56. 67 For a review of the Ustasha press in Croatia and abroad, see Colic, Takozvana Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska 1941, pp. 67-70. A xerox copy of an anti-Macek pamphlet, entitled Za sto se bore Hrvatski UstasePavelicevci! (What the Croatian Ustashas-PaveliCites are fighting for!), is in my files. This 15-page tract, without place or date of issue, was published as a critical answer to the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement of August 26, 1939, and Macek's entry into the cabinet, which will be discussed later. See also the article by Lendic, "This Is How It All Started ... ," pp. 471-88. Lendic, a Croatian poet and journalist, otherwise always identified with Croatian Clericalist groups, admitted (p. 478) that he wrote at least one such propaganda leaflet. He sent the text to Hungary, whence printed leaflets were later smuggled into Yugoslavia and distributed. Lendic did not indicate when he wrote it, but in October 1938 he was chief of the Propaganda Department of the Center of Catholic Action for the archbishopric of Zagreb. See his "Penetration of Marxism," pp. 269-76, especially p. 269.

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party. By the end of April, the secretary general, Djuro Djakovic, had been apprehended and killed. During the following three years many other leading Communists, including seven secretaries of the Communist Youth Organization, were killed, while scores of others were sentenced to long prison terms. Party membership fell from about 8oo to about 400 by the end of I929 and to about 200 by I932. 68 Thus the Communists suffered even more severe government persecution than the Ustashas. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the only contacts between the Ustashas and the Communists were those among political prisoners, who generally took a united stand against prison authorities in matters of maltreatment, poor food, unsanitary conditions, and the like. Animated political discussions undoubtedly took place among Croatian nationalists, Ustashas, and Communists in prison, because some men who entered as Croatian nationalists, though not as sworn Ustashas, left as Communists. Perhaps the best known was Sime Balen, who entered prison as a Croatian nationalist and strong Roman Catholic, but left as a convinced Communist. Upon his release in I935, under orders from the Communist Party, Balen became active as a newspaperman with the Croatian Peasant Party. His shift in allegiance became known after he rose to high positions with the Partisans during and after the war. 69 Italian charges in the spring of I942 that Mladen Lorkovic, for some time foreign minister of the Independent State of Croatia, had been a Communist were undoubtedly circulated to discredit him, since he was at that time in disfavor for his strong pro-German views. Lorkovic was cleared of the charges after a secret investigation by the Croatian police. But the German police attache in Zagreb was able to establish that Lorkovic was in close contact with several Communists between I932 and I934 and that even during I94I and I942, he had helped some Croatian Communists/0 The Ustashas' objective of breaking up Yugoslavia and establishing an independent Croatian state was shared by the Communists from I 9 2 3 to I 9 3 5, when, following the Comintern, they advocated dividing the country into a series of national Bolshevik republics. In this vein, the Communists praised the uprising led by the Ustashas in Lika in I 9 3 2. But they criticized the Ustashas for 68 Colakovic, Jankovic, and Moraca, Pregled istorije Saveza komunista Jugos/avije, pp. 152-60, especially p. 159, for the first drop in membership figures, and Marjanovic, Komunisticke partije Jugoslavije, p. 4 3, for the second. ••Information from a personal conversation with Mr. Balen in the summer of 1979. In 1948, Balen left the Communist Party, for two reasons. First, he disagreed with party authorities about the alleged guilt of Andrija Hebrang, the former secretary general of the Communist Party of Croatia, who was imprisoned in May 1948 and who subsequently was either murdered or committed suicide. Second, he sided with the Cominform in June 1948, an action, however, that he later recanted. A xerox copy of a Communist pamphlet that was edited and published by a convert from Catholicism, Nikola Rubcic, Robija-Zapisci hrvatskih narodnih boraca, is in my files. The main contributors were Sime Balen and Pavle Gregoric. 70 Micr. No. T-120, Rolls786, Frs. H3oo,766-69 and H3o0,773·

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not appealing to the masses in the antigovernment fight. "The Greater Serbian military-Fascist dictatorship cannot be overthrown only by the actions of small groups without the participation of the broadest masses, not only in Croatian but also in Serbian areas. " 71 The Communist Party also came out against acts of individual terror, such as the Ustashas' assassination of King Alexander in Marseilles, although the party itself had practiced this kind of terror during the early 192o's. It claimed that the ruling methods of the "Greater Serbian military-Fascist dictatorship were conducive to provoking individual terror," but it repeatedly rejected such acts as instruments of petty bourgeois political struggle. Its strongest criticism was that Fascist or pro-Fascist groups and their leaders "such as Pavelic and Percec had played and were playing the role of direct agents of foreign Fascism . . . . National Fascism, be it Croatian or Macedonian, taken as a whole, was a tool and helper of Hitler's, Horthy's, and Mussolini's Fascism ... and an enemy of the proletariat and of the oppressed masses." In fact, the Communists interpreted the assassination of King Alexander as a deliberate act of the Fascist powers to provoke war and stressed that their own chief objective was to struggle against the Fascists and the new war that they were preparing. 72 With such views as these, no real cooperation was possible between the Ustashas and the Communists in exile. Moreover, after the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, following the Comintern, changed its policy in 193 5 and came out in defense of Yugoslavia as a unified state against the looming Fascist danger, the only point on which the Ustashas and the Communists had earlier agreed-the destruction of Yugoslavia-disappeared, and they became bitter enemies. The Ustashas, however, did maintain limited contact with the Croatian Peasant Party. In Yugoslavia, Mile Budak, the leader of the Ustashas before he went into exile, was on friendly terms with Macek and was a signatory of the Zagreb Punctuations in November 1932 issued by the Peasant Democratic Coalition. Abroad, the Ustashas had some contact with the two Croatian Peasant Party leaders in exile, Krnjevic and Kosutic. Undoubtedly both organizations appreciated each other's criticism of and activities against the Belgrade government, though the Croatian Peasant Party strongly condemned the Ustashas' terrorist methods. But during the second half of the 193o's, increasing differences between the Ustashas and the Croatian Peasant Party developed. Macek refused to follow Budak's suggestion (after the latter returned from exile) that the Croatian Peasant Party support the Axis camp. When Macek temporarily sought Italian assistance, he threatened the Ustashas' monopoly on 71 Proleter Reprint, pp. 162-63 (vol. 8, no. 28 [Dec. 1932]). This journal was published in various places, which were never indicated. A complete edition was republished by the Institute for the Study of the Workers' Movement in Belgrade in 1968, with both original and new consecutive pagination. 72 Proleter Reprint, p. 319 (vol. 10, no. 8-9 [Sept.-Oct. 1934]), and Proleter Reprint, p. 335 (vol. rr, no. r Uan. 1935]).

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Italian support. Finally, Macek's negotiations with Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic, which led to the agreement of August 26, 1939, enraged the Ustashas, in whose eyes Macek had become a traitor to the cause of an independent Croatia. 73 Because the Croatian Peasant Party had the only effective political party organization among Croats, however, the Ustashas systematically pushed their adherents into it and worked to subvert its members. As we shall see, these tactics paid handsome but not sufficient dividends after the Ustashas were installed in power in April r 94 r. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LATE 1930'S During the 193o's, even as Italy continued to plan the dissolution and partition of Yugoslavia and supported enemies of the Yugoslav state, it was prepared to make a formal change of position when it saw the opportunity to achieve influence in Yugoslavia by peaceful means. Both Prince Regent Paul and Milan Stojadinovic, prime minister from r 9 3 5 to r 9 39, were increasingly friendly to the Axis powers, and on March 25, 1937, Italy and Yugoslavia signed a treaty of friendship and nonaggression. Article 4 of this treaty, in veiled reference to the Ustashas, specified that the contracting parties would not "tolerate in their respective territories, or aid in any way, activities directed against the territorial integrity or the existing order of the other Contracting Party or activities of a nature that prejudice friendly relations between the two countries. " 74 The Yugoslavs took the opportunity to insist that the Italians proceed against the Ustashas. As a result, on the occasion of the signing of the treaty, the Italian envoy in Belgrade delivered a verbal note promising action. It declared that Pavelic and Kvaternik would be interned, some Ustashas would be sent to Italian colonies, the Italian police would inform the Yugoslav police where the Ustashas were interned and give them the names of the Ustashas who wished to return to Yugoslavia, and "an officer of the Yugoslav police will be allowed to establish contact with the Italian police in connection with the above matter." 75 The man selected for this task was Vladeta Milicevic, who had followed emigre activities in Austria and Hungary for many years and had assisted French authorities in investigating the assassination of King Alexander. He had already managed to turn several Ustashas into his agents and had planted some of his own men among the Ustashas. 76 Following the terms of Article 4, the Italian government kept the Ustasha rank and file in detention camps off the Italian mainland. A small group of important Ustashas was transferred from southern Italy to Tuscany in the spring 73 For relations between the Croatian Peasant Party and the Ustashas, see Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. 173-75. For Ustasha views about these relations up to 1937, see Kvaternik, "Trumbic's Attitude," pp. 236-5 5· 74 For this treaty, see Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, p. 301. 75 lbid., pp. 71-74. 7'Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, pp. 3 3-46, 94-100.

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of 1940. Pavelic continued to live under surveillance and enjoy an ample Italian allowance. 77 Milicevic, with the help of the Italian police and his own agents, did his utmost to break up the Ustashas as a potential threat to Yugoslavia, mainly by persuading them to return home. Of about 500 Ustashas in Italy, 220 agreed to go back to their homeland, some with their families. The most distinguished among this group, Mile Budak, arrived in Zagreb in July 193 8. 78 There is some indication that Prime Minister Stojadinovic expected that Budak's return would not only weaken the Ustasha emigration, but also strengthen his own political standing in Croatia. 79 However, Prince Regent Paul was beginning to tire of the policies of the prime minister. On December II, 1938, a new election was held in which the government list received r,643,783 votes (54· r percent) and the United Opposition list headed by Macek 1,3 64,5 24 votes (44·9 percent). But because of the bias in the electoral law, the government obtained 306 seats in Parliament and the opposition only 67. 80 Prince Regent Paul, interpreting the vote as an insufficient mandate for StojadinoviC, dismissed him in February 1939 and appointed Dragisa Cvetkovic as prime minister. Thus, whatever Stojadinovic expected from Budak's return to Croatia could not be put to the test. However, Budak published a newspaper, Hrvatski narod, in Zagreb with a more or less openly pro-Ustasha orientation from February 1939 until it was prohibited in March 1940. During this time and until the invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the activity of the Ustashas and of pro-Ustasha elements in Croatia increased. As Italian-Yugoslav relations improved and the fortunes of the Ustashas temporarily declined, Macek and the Croatian Peasant Party continued their search for a solution to Croatia's problems through legal political means. The participation of the Croatian Peasant Party in the United Opposition in the election of 193 5 led nowhere. So Macek turned to personal contacts, meeting with Prince Regent Paul in November 1936 and with Prime Minister Stojadinovic in January 1937. His objective was to achieve the consolidation of all 77 See two articles by Eugen Kvaternik, "Ustasha Emigration in Italy," pp. 209-Io, and "Words and Deeds," pp. 57-58. For a list of Ustashas in Italy in the spring of I937, with names, places of origin, years of birth, and occupations, according to data of the interwar Yugoslav Ministry of Interior, see Krizman, Ante Pave/it i ustase, pp. 564-74. According to data that Milicevic collected in Italy, the Ustashas at that time could be classified by social class and profession as follows: 337 peasants, 77 workers, 3 5 seamen, I 7 students, I 2 merchants, I o officers, 2 newspapermen, and 6 other professionals. See Jelic-Butic, Ustase, p. 3 5. These figures add up to only 496 men, while at the time there were apparently 5 IO Ustashas in Italy. 73 Milicevic, Der Konigsmord von Marseille, pp. 88-Ioo; Kvaternik, "Words and Deeds," pp. 57-58; Boban, "A Series of Reports," pp. 507-23, especially pp. 522-23. 7 'Krizman, Ante Pave/it i ustase, pp. 30I-9. '°Culinovic,Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: table following p. I3o. For a detailed analysis of how the Croats voted in the election of December I9 3 8, see JanCikovic, Hrvati u izborima I I. prosinca I93 8.

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Croatian territory into one unit and a reasonable degree of internal autonomy for Croatia within Yugoslavia. By November 1938, however, Macek realized that his efforts to reach an agreement with Stojadinovic had failed. He then turned to Count Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, both to ascertain whether the close relations between Stojadinovic and Ciano boded ill for Croatia and to present his own case for Croatia and thereby exert pressure on Belgrade. On three occasions, in November 1938 and March and May 1939, Macek and Ciano, through agents, discussed Croatia's relations with Belgrade and Italy. There was in principle nothing unusual about this contact with a foreign government; over the years the Croatian Peasant Party, through representatives abroad, had presented its case to several European governments. In a departure from the past, however, the contact with Italy resulted in a draft agreement that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent to Macek for his signature (which he never provided). Apparently Amadeo Carnelutti, the Italian intermediary, explained to Ciano Macek's desire for a federal Croatian state within Yugoslavia, which would include Croatia-Slavonia to a line running from Ilok to Srijemska Mitrovica, Dalmatia (without the Bay of Kotor), and that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina lying west of the Vrbas and Neretva Rivers. Ciano sent back word that he would like further details and suggested that the Croats ask for more territory. 81 For some time the matter rested. The Italians were well aware that Macek had the support of a large majority of Croats, whereas Pavelic had only a small following. Thus it was in Italy's interest to keep Macek on its side. In addition, should he become discouraged and turn to the Germans for help, that might lead to the direct or indirect presence of Italy's powerful northern ally on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, territory that Italy itself coveted. 82 After Stojadinovic was removed as prime minister, Macek initiated talks with his successor, Dragisa Cvetkovic. In March 1939 he also spoke to the Marquis Josip Bombelles, who like Carnelutti had connections with Ciano. Macek and Cvetkovic soon arrived at a tentative agreement on the Croatian question, but in April Prince Regent Paul vetoed it because he disliked the provision for partitioning Bosnia. Following this disappointment, Macek asked Carnelutti to convey to Ciano the additional information that the latter had asked for in January. He also repeated Croatia's terms: a federal state within Yugoslavia, with joint ministries of foreign affairs and defense (with the understanding that Croats would serve their military duty only in Croatian territory "Macek, Struggle for Freedom, pp. I86-9o; Ciano, Diaries, pp. 39-40, 48-50, 84-88, 9I; Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, pp. q6-4I; Culinovic, Jugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: I3 6-47, especially pp. 143-46, where he reproduces the deposition of Amadeo Carnelutti before the Yugoslav authorities on March 4, I946; Tasso, Italia e Croazia, I: 179-82, 2IO-I8; Martinovic, "My Recollections from the Great Times, II," pp. 32-38; Boban, Macek, I: 43 s59 and 2: 79-140. Boban's is by far the most complete and most objective discussion. Amadeo Carnelutti, an architect by profession, was a naturalized Croat whose father had been a building contractor in Zagreb. "Ciano, Diaries, p. 46.

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under Croatian generals), a joint central bank, joint state monopolies, and joint customs. The Croatian state would have a democratic form of government with secret balloting and the Croatian parliament would serve as a legislative body. The frontiers would be as previously stipulated, except that the line in Bosnia would be moved east to the Bosna River. After he delivered this information to Ciano, Carnelutti saw Macek again two days later. He gave Macek the draft of an agreement that supposedly had been concluded between Ciano and Carnelutti himself as Macek's special emissary and that the Italians wanted Macek to sign. 83 The purpose of the agreement, which the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had prepared and Mussolini probably approved, was to push the Croats into action against Yugoslavia. The agreement stipulated that after the Croatian Peasant Party prepared for a revolution in Croatian areas, it would appeal to Italy for military intervention. Once the Italians occupied the country, Croatia would be established as a free state with fixed borders, federated with Italy. Macek would head the government, though there would be an Italian viceroy, Croatia would share certain ministries with Italy, and Italy would initially garrison troops in Croatia. The question of a possible personal union between the two countries would be decided in the future. Finally, Italy would loan Macek 21 million dinars to finance the revolution. 84 Macek quickly informed Carnelutti that this agreement was not what he had in mind and, furthermore, "that this action had become superfluous because meanwhile he had reached agreement with the Cvetkovic government. " 85 The Italians had clearly misunderstood Macek's intentions by imagining that he would undertake a revolution with Italian backing, call in the Italian army to occupy the country, and accept an Italian viceroy-in other words, that he would allow Croatia to become an Italian protectorate. But Macek was not looking for a solution to the Croatian question outside of Yugoslavia. His behavior both before and after this incident proves that he never considered allowing Croatia to become a puppet state. He apparently used the talks with Ciano to apply pressure on the Yugoslav government. His choice of intermediaries bears out this interpretation, for it seems reasonable to believe that if he had been serious in these negotiations, he would have relied on trusted party officials to represent him rather than men who had no connection with his party. The negotiations between Macek, the head of the Peasant Democratic Coalition, and Prime Minister Cvetkovic culminated in the Cvetkovic-Macek ''According to Carnelutti, in Culinovic, ]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: 14 5. Carnelutti said that this happened toward the end of March, but other evidence puts it in late May 1939. 84 For this draft agreement in Italian, as acquired by German authorities (but incorrectly dated April 26, 1939, instead of May 26, 1939), see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5786, Fr. H3o0,913. For the Serbo-Croatian translation, see Boban, Macek, 2: r r 1. See also the paraphrase of the draft in Ciano, Diaries, pp. 87-88. 85 See Carnelutti's statement in Culinovic,]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, 2: 146.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

Agreement (Sporazum) of August 26, 1939. This decreed the establishment of Banovina Croatia by consolidating the former banovinas of Sava and Primorje and a number of counties from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The new banovina was autonomous in internal affairs. Macek became the first vice premier of Yugoslavia and several colleagues from the Peasant Democratic Coalition became members of the cabinet, which was headed by Cvetkovic. Ivan Subasic, an important member of the Croatian Peasant Party who also enjoyed the confidence of the Crown, became the ban (chief executive) of Banovina Croatia. Undoubtedly the threatening situation in Europe-war broke out just a few days later-facilitated the conclusion of the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement, which the Yugoslav government thought might help consolidate and strengthen the country should it be drawn into war. While Macek and his colleagues did not consider the Agreement as the final solution to the Croatian question, it was a great advance over previously existing arrangements and met with wide approval among the Croatian people. 86 The conclusion of the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement, as well as leaks about Macek's earlier contacts with the Italians, infuriated the Ustashas. They felt that Macek's agreement to participate in the Yugoslav government and accept the formation of an autonomous Banovina Croatia was tantamount to bailing out the Yugoslav state and therefore nothing short of treason. The Ustashas immediately launched a propaganda barrage against Macek and other leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party. One of their most outspoken pamphlets accused them of working against the vital interests of the Croatian people and cooperating with Serbs, Jews, and other enemies of the Croats. "To this Macek, all Serbs, all Slovenes, all Jews, all Communists, all Russians, all Freemasons, and all capitalists are closer than Dr. Pavelic and the Croatian nationalists, because since he has been sitting in the Belgrade government, the pressure on the Croatian nationalists-the Ustashas-not only has not stopped but has increased. " 87 The presence of Macek in the cabinet did not improve the political and economic situation in Croatia, though it was not for his lack of good intentions. The outbreak of war in Europe only a few days after the signing of the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement posed a grave threat to the country as a whole, as Macek realized, and international concerns crowded out all other matters. In the past Macek had occasionally stated that in case of war with Italy, the Croats in the Yugoslav army would not fight. But after the Agreement, he became a defender of Yugoslav unity. 88 For more details on the Agreement, see my book The Chetniks, pp. 22-2 5. Za sto se bore Hrvatski Ustase-Pavelicevci!, p. 6. In fact, under the Cvetkovic-Macek regime, a sizable number of Ustashas and Communists were put in concentration camps for reasons of national security. 88The Italians were always interested in this point. See, for example, Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, yth series, y: r 2 7-28, and ibid., 9th series, 3: !41, 155· 86

'7

43

44

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

Since the Croats had expected an immediate improvement in their fortunes after the signing of the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement, when things seemed to get worse, not better, the Croatian Peasant Party had to bear the brunt of the criticism from both the right-the Ustashas-and the left-the Communists. As part of the government coalition and as the controlling force in Croatia, the party had to deal with higher taxes, increasing inflation, growing government expenditures, a shortage of consumer goods, and the rationing of some commodities, all caused or exacerbated by the war in Europe and the fear that the war might engulf Yugoslavia too. 89 The war did, in fact, provide Italy with the opportunity it had been seeking to acquire Yugoslav territory. Part of the grand plan of the Rome-Berlin Axis for creating a "New Order" in Europe was dividing spheres of influence between Germany and Italy. Germany was to have a free hand in central and eastern Europe and Italy a free hand in the Mediterranean, particularly in Yugoslavia and Greece. The Germans pointed this out to the Italians once again after they dismembered Czechoslovakia and took over the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia (March rs, 1939), in a message from the German ambassador in Rome to Ciano on March 20 and a letter from von Ribbentrop to Ciano on the same day. A special point in these communications was that Germany had no political interests in Croatia. 90 As if to match Hitler's move against Czechoslovakia, Mussolini took over Albania on April 7-8, 1939, the first step of an expansionist drive in the Balkans. But Italy's main objective was Yugoslavia. Ever since unification, the Italians had coveted parts of Slovene and Croatian territory and dreamed of reconquering what Venice had held for centuries. They hoped to get much of this with minimal risk and sacrifice, and they thought they had permission from Germany. Hitler explained to Ciano on August 12, 1939, apropos of the impending German attack on Poland, that Poland represented an acute danger for Germany that had to be eliminated. When Ciano suggested that Yugoslavia represented a similar danger to Italy, Hitler answered that "Italy should grasp the first favorable opportunity to dismember Yugoslavia and occupy Croatia and Dalmatia." 91 Ciano also wanted to sound out France and England about Italian aspirations in Yugoslavia, possibly hoping to arrange a Yugoslav Munich, but Mussolini opposed this idea. 92 After the Italians were rebuffed by Macek, they again turned to Pavelic and the Ustashas, whom they had been supporting for a decade as potential tools against Yugoslavia. The 1937 treaty of friendship and nonaggression with Yugoslavia did not hamper them from scheming against their neighbor. On 89 A good discussion of this period is in Boban, "Political Ferment," pp. 225-66, especially pp. 241-43,250-64. See also Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 24-25. '"Ciano, L'Europa verso Ia catastrofe, 2:43-45. "Ibid., 2: 8 3-84. "Ciano, Diaries, pp. r 58-59, r83, 199-200.

YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

January 23, 1940, Ciano had a long meeting with Pavelic and the Marquis Bombelles, the link to the Ustashas in Croatia. They discussed how Croatia could be detached from Yugoslavia, with Italian armed forces brought in to make the separation effective, and connected by strong political, military, and economic ties to Italy. Ciano proposed a plan similar to the one he had outlined to Macek eight months earlier: the domestic Ustashas would start a revolution against Yugoslavia in Croatian areas and after they had acquired control of Zagreb and the main cities, they would invite Italian forces in to help maintain the new state. From the Italian point of view, Croatia would be handed to them at virtually no cost. 93 Pavelic apparently accepted the plan in principle, though he was not able to guarantee that the Ustashas could carry out their part. His refusal to accept the plan outright may have been an attempt to reduce Italian demands. But there is no doubt that he signified the Ustashas' willingness to participate in Italian plans to usurp a large part of Yugoslav (or better said, Croatian) territory, if that would help him establish what he called an independent Croatian state. After the meeting, Ciano wrote in his diary: "Pavelic is an aggressive, calm man, who knows where he wants to go and does not fear responsibility for attaining his ends. We have fixed upon the principal points of preparation and action. " 94 Many issues still remained to be settled, but the meeting marked the beginning of a new phase in relations between the Italians and the Ustashas. The Italians began preparing for military actiqn against Yugoslavia as early as June 1940. On May 10, Ciano had another meeting with Pavelic. 95 A month later, probably at Pavelic's request, the Ustashas in Yugoslavia sent Ciano a memorandum appealing for Italian military aid in detaching Croatia from Yugoslavia and proclaiming an independent Croatian state under Italian auspices. According to Ciano, the memorandum (which no longer exists in the original Croatian) was signed by 66 members of the so-called Croatian National Committee for the Liberation and Reestablishment of the Independent State of Croatia, from all parts of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. 96 93 For the minutes of the meeting prepared by Filippo Anfuso, Ciano's chef de cabinet, see Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, 9th series, 3: 162-64. For Bombelles's understanding of what was discussed in the meeting, see ibid., pp. 164-66. Bornbelles's role has never been satisfactorily and clearly explained. He apparently enjoyed the confidence of Prince Paul and also had contacts with the British services, since according to a reliable source he traveled abroad during the second half of the 193o's with a British passport (to which he was entitled because of a relative's marriage to a British woman). Apparently he also felt safe with Pavelic, because he went to see him after the latter's return to Zagreb in mid-April 1941. But he was arrested in the anteroom of Pavelic's office and later taken to a concentration camp and savagely murdered. 94 Ciano, Diaries, p. 200. 95 lbid., pp. 24 7, 249. 96 ltaly, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, 9th series, 4: 63 I 32. Unfortunately the memorandum as printed, if genuine at all, does not include the names of the signers.

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YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE WARS

Italy's entry into the war against France on June ro, 1940, brought the planned Italian invasion of Yugoslavia to a temporary halt. As Ciano commented, if Mussolini did not intervene in the war against France soon enough, he would lose whatever spoils he might get at the expense of that country. 97 The Italian invasion of Yugoslavia, under code name E, was rescheduled for September. But in the meantime Hitler changed his mind about Italian aspirations in Yugoslavia. As late as July 7, 1940, he had assured Ciano that the question of Yugoslavia would be solved in a manner favorable to Italy. When he heard of Mussolini's plan to invade the country in September, however, he indicated that Germany wanted peace on its southern border and had no wish to give the British an excuse to bring their air force to Yugoslavia. 98 Mussolini complied with Hitler's views and deferred the invasion. In addition, he ordered a partial demobilization of the army, despite the objections of his leading generals, though they were also opposed to the invasion of Yugoslavia.•• Then suddenly on October 28, without prior consultation with Hitler, Mussolini ordered Italian troops in Albania to attack Greece, and so the war moved into the Balkans. In November, Hitler, also acting in the name of Mussolini, began pressing Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Pact. The government of Prince Regent Paul finally did so on March 25, 1941, a blow to the Ustashas' plans for an independent Croatia. 100 But their disappointment was short-lived, for the Yugoslav officers' coup two days later precipitated the invasion of the country and insured that the services of the Ustashas would be used by the Axis powers. The Ustashas' time was at hand. 97 Ciano, Diaries, p. 249. France signed the armistice with Germany on June 22 and with Italy on June 24, I940. ••von Rintelen, Mussolini als Bundesgenosse, p. I o 5. 99 Roatta, Otto milioni di baionette, pp. I I 8-I9. 100lt should be mentioned that Vice Premier Macek strongly supported Yugoslavia's adherence to the Tripartite Pact, believing that he was thereby helping to preserve peace and the territorial integrity of the country. But his colleagues in the Peasant Democratic Coalition, the leaders of the Independent Democratic Party who were also in the cabinet, strongly opposed it. Because of this difference in views on such a crucial question, the Coalition collapsed.

CHAPTER 2

The Partition of Yugoslavia

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA

To put the partition and occupation of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia into perspective, it is necessary to go back to Hitler's reaction to the officers' coup in Belgrade on March 27, 1941, and the organization of the government of General Dusan Simovic. Originally Germany, unlike Italy, was not interested in invading and breaking up Yugoslavia, at least not as long as the country served German aims. After the middle of r 9 3 5, under Prime Ministers Milan Stojadinovic and Dragisa Cvetkovic, Germany and Yugoslavia were on friendly terms. Germany became the chief trading partner of Yugoslavia, which served as an important source of food and nonferrous metals. Moreover, the Germans, and especially Hitler, recalling Serbia's splendid military record in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, believed that the Yugoslav army was a strong force that would require considerable effort to crush, an effort that until March 1941 they were not willing to expend. A politically "coordinated" Yugoslavia, playing the role assigned to it, suited German interests well. But the revolt of March 27, 1941, changed this view. Carried out at British urging, the coup was a reaction to the decision of Prince Regent Paul and the Cvetkovic-Macek government to join the Tripartite Pact two days earlier. It showed Hitler the necessity of subduing Yugoslavia militarily in order to eliminate any threat of British air force operations from bases in Greece and Yugoslavia against the southern flank of the German armies soon to invade the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hitler decided to destroy Yugoslavia politically by partitioning it. To subdue and break up Yugoslavia, Hitler decided to use not only the forces of Germany and its allies Italy and Hungary, but also the dissatisfaction of a large number of Croats with their inferior position in the interwar Yugoslav state. Consequently, his directive for the invasion of Yugoslavia-Operation 25-stated: "Internal political tension in Yugoslavia will be increased by political promises to the Croats." Yet the minutes of the meeting in Hitler's office on the day the directive was issued indicate that German thinking on how

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

to reward the Croats for their help was not clear. The minutes stated only that the Croats "will be assured of political treatment (autonomy later on). " 1 The Germans were also planning on the assistance of national minorities in Yugoslavia, especially the half-million strong Volksdeutsche, already fully under Nazi influence. A change in German thinking about Croatia took place while Operation 25 was being prepared, under the influence of the activity of German agents in Zagreb and of Hitler's diplomatic play with his allies. Eventually the idea of an independent Croatian state emerged. Initially, in a message to Regent Miklos Horthy of Hungary on March 27, Hitler suggested that Hungary should in some way absorb Croatia. But Horthy wisely declined the offer and so informed Hitler on March 29. In a conference on March 3 r in the Abteilung Landesverteidigung, the Germans subsequently decided that Croatia would be given independence. 2 That same day, von Ribbentrop ordered the German consul general in Zagreb to "Please inform Croatian leaders confidentially through suitable intermediaries that we would provide for an independent Croatia within the framework of the new order for Europe, should the Yugoslav state collapse through its own mistakes. They could promote this goal most effectively by completely abstaining from further cooperation with Belgrade." 3 When German planes bombed Belgrade and ground forces invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, German agents continued their subversive work in Zagreb. On April ro, under their guidance, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia. For those Croats who collaborated with German agents in proclaiming the new state, its territory was also to include the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But here too, German thinking was not clear. Point 6 of Hitler's Preliminary Directive of April r2, 1941, on the partition of Yugoslavia declared: "Croatia within its ethnic frontiers will be an independent state. Germany will not interfere in its internal affairs." 4 But what Hitler included in Croatia's "ethnic frontiers" seems to have been only the pre-r9r8 province of CroatiaSlavonia, since Point 7 of the directive stipulated that the decision about the organization of the "remaining areas including Bosnia and Herzegovina" would be left to Italy. The order of General Franz Halder, chief of General Staff, of April 13, 1941, to the German 2nd and 12th Armies in the field in Yugoslavia about the "administration of Yugoslavia" confirmed this in Point 5: "The Dalmatian coast including Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro should be DGFP, 12: 274· The Abteilung Landesverteidigung was the Wehrmacht department that, under the direction of the chief of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW), formulated Hitler's war directives for the various departments of the Wehrmacht and other high Reich authorities. See Kriegstagebuch, 1: 371,881. 'DGFP, I2: 425. 4 Micr. No. T-77, Roll 1295, Fr. 8r4. 1

2

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

left to the Italian political decision. Renewal of an independent Montenegro can also be considered. " 5 However, even while Hitler's directive declared that Germany would not interfere in Croatian internal affairs and both it and Halder's order specified that the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be left to Italy to decide, the Germans again revised their plans. They established a demarcation line separating German and Italian zones of occupation in Croatia that left most of the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the German zone (see Map r below). With minor changes, Foreign Ministers von Ribbentrop and Ciano accepted it at their conference in Vienna on April 21-22. This line (sometimes called the Vienna Line) was supposed to remain in force for the duration of the war. Just before the invasion, in March and early April 1941, the German consul general, Alfred Freundt, several German intelligence officers, and Walter Malettke, a special agent of Alfred Rosenberg's Office of Foreign Relations of the National Socialist Labor Party, were active in Zagreb. They were joined on April3 by SS Colonel Edmund Veesenmayer, representing the Dienststelle Ribbentrop. Veesenmayer was by far the most accomplished and successful expert on installing pro-Nazi governments in central and southeast Europe and was to play a leading role in developments in Zagreb during the following two weeks. 6 Although the Ustasha movement was ideologically akin to the Fascist and Nazi movements, the Germans were more interested in having a government in Croatia with popular support, which would allow them to control their zone with limited forces and exploit it peacefully, than in establishing a regime similar to theirs ideologically, but which had a small following and could not give assurance of governing in the manner the German military authorities desired. With these aims in mind, they tried to enlist Vladko Macek, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, in their cause. Macek had the support of a majority of the Croatian people, was vice premier in the Cvetkovic cabinet, and was known as a staunch supporter of Yugoslav adherence to the Tripartite Pact. Moreover, the Croatian Peasant Party and its ally, the Independent Democratic Party (consisting mostly of Serbs from Croatia), controlled the administration of Banovina Croatia and in particular the party's paramilitary forces, so that the transition to a new regime under German tutelage would have been relatively easy. Finally, unlike Pavelic, Macek was not an Italian agent. The Germans wanted Macek to proclaim an "independent" Croatian state and call in GerMicr. No. T-77, Roll 1295, Fr. Su. Prior to his assignment in Croatia, Veesenmayer played an important role in the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938 and the proclamation of the "independent" state of Slovakia in March 1939· After managing Croatia's "independence," he helped select and install General Milan Nedic as prime minister of the Serbian government in August 1941. His last assignment was as plenipotentiary and envoy to Hungary after it was occupied by the Germans in March 1944. 5

6

49

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

man troops to effect the separation of Croatia from the rest of Yugoslavia. In this way, they would acquire a large part of Yugoslavia with no military effort and the remainder would probably crumble automatically. Influenced by German agents, the domestic Ustashas under Slavko Kvaternik, a former Austro-Hungarian lieutenant colonel, reportedly would have accepted Macek as head of the new Croatian puppet state/ They were proGerman and there was every reason to think that if the German Wehrmacht was instrumental in creating the new Croatian state either by being invited in or by invasion, it would be better to have as its head a man selected by the Germans instead of Ante Pavelic. Macek, however, refused German overtures. On April3, he went to Belgrade to join his party in the putschist cabinet of General Simovic as first vice premier. Since the Germans had admonished him to stay away from Belgrade, they may have interpreted his action as a resolve to preserve the country's territorial integrity. At this moment, the Ustashas and their sympathizers repeated their charge that Macek was a traitor to his people. But Macek thought that by joining the Simovic government, which had declared its intention to honor the country's adherence to the Tripartite Pact, he was helping to keep the country out of war and preserve its territorial integrity. 8 His refusal to play the role of a German agent in wrecking Yugoslavia, a decision reached and maintained against tremendous pressure, testifies to his unwillingness to serve as a pawn in the Axis attack on Yugoslavia and to his faith in the victory of the Western democracies. It was only after Macek's refusal that the Germans threw their full support behind the Ustashas. Following the German bombing of Belgrade and the opening of hostilities on April 6, the king and the cabinet left the capital for what they thought was the comparative safety of the mountainous interior, intending to go from there into exile, since no one had any confidence in protracted resistance against the invaders. On the second day out of Belgrade, Macek informed Simovic "that under no circumstances would he consent to go into exile. " 9 He thereupon resigned his position, designated the secretary of the Croatian Peasant Party, Juraj Krnjevic, as first vice premier and his representative in exile, and returned to Zagreb. Macek's resignation was a severe political blow to the Simovic government, since he had the strongest popular backing of all its members. Two other ministers, also members of the Croatian Peasant Party, Ivan Andres and Barisa Smoljan, as well as the chief of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization and the sole 'Tudjman, Okupacija i revolucija, p. 72. 'For Macek's press statement after he decided to join the Simovic cabinet, see DGFP, 12: 448-49. The report of the German consul in Zagreb to the Foreign Ministry contains this statement, the report of German agent Malettke on his conversations with Macek, and the latter's categorical refusal to serve as a German instrument in wrecking Yugoslavia. See also Bohan, Macek, 2: 364-436. 9 Macek, Struggle for Freedom, p. 226.

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

representative of the Bosnian Muslims in the cabinet, Dzafer Kulenovic, also chose to remain in the country. When Macek returned to Zagreb on April 8, the Germans had already decided to use Pavelic and the Ustashas as their agents in Croatia and Macek's personal and political authority all but disappeared. On the same day, the Yugoslav military command in Zagreb asked him to send an emissary to the rebelling ro8th Regiment of the Slavonian Division in Bjelovar, not far from Zagreb, urging the soldiers to obey their officers, which he did. But the appeal was of no use. 10 Macek also issued a statement addressed to the Croatian people: Croats! I have returned among you and would like to convince you of the following: the greatest possible misfortune that can occur to a nation has struck uswar. This evil can be mitigated only if we remain united and disciplined. You have so far followed me in hard times, and I am sure that you will continue to do so from now on. I shall remain among you and will share with you the good and evil. It goes without saying that I shall give instructions in each particular case as I have done up to now. This will be done either through our organizations or through special envoys who will be people's deputies or other well-known leading personalities of our party. At this moment, I ask from you order and discipline, regardless of whether you are in the forces or at home. 11

Some Zagreb newspapers published Macek's proclamation on April9, but by then the influence of German agents, the Ustashas, and pro-Ustasha elements in the Croatian Peasant Party was such that those newspapers never reached the masses. But the proclamation provides further evidence that Macek did not support Ustasha efforts to disrupt the activity of the Yugoslav army and open Croatia to German forces. 12 He naively assumed that he still enjoyed the confidence of most Croats, that he was in a position to make significant political decisions, and that the orders he issued would be followed. Undoubtedly a majority of the people supported him, but a considerable number, especially in Zagreb and other cities, who had anticipated the creation of an independent Croatian state had already switched allegiance to Pavelic and the Ustashas. Thus Macek and several other important leaders were left powerless and isolated. Though the Croatian Peasant Party had representatives in the Yugoslav government-in-exile, this did not help party leaders or members still in Croatia. 101bid., p. 228. According to a political portrait of Macek drawn up in the British Foreign Office using information from Rudolf Bicanic and other sources in London during the war, Macek took the initiative in sending his emissary to the rebelling division. But this assertion was obviously nottrue. See F.O. 371l44271, R 8642111/92. ''T udjman, Okupacija i revolucija, p. 73; Macek, Struggle for Freedom, p. 22 7. 12 General Velimir TerziC's assertion in]ugoslavija u Aprilskom ratu 1941, pp. 524-25, that Macek left the Simovic government without informing anyone and went to Zagreb to meet the Germans is inaccurate. His attempt to malign Macek is only part of his thesis that the Croats were responsible for the rapid collapse of Yugoslav forces in April 1941.

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The Croatian Peasant Party, which throughout the interwar period had been the authoritative voice of the Croatian people, was crippled, with none of its parts in a position to exercise any real political influence. In view of later developments, another event at this time was also important. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the party's secretary general, Josip Broz Tito, were then in Zagreb. On April 8, 1941, the Central Committees of the Yugoslav and Croatian Communist parties decided to send a delegation to the headquarters of the Yugoslav 4th Army to urge the military authorities to issue arms to workers to help defend Zagreb. Pavle Gregoric, a member of both committees, went to the army command twice, but though he spoke briefly with the commanding general on the first day and with one of his aides on the second, he failed to convince them to arm the workers. 13 After Macek rejected their overtures, the Germans threw their support to the Ustashas. Though they knew of PaveliC's pro-Italian stand, they relied on the pro-German attitude of many other leading Ustashas, especially the most prominent domestic Ustasha, Slavko Kvaternik. With this support, the Germans set about undermining the Yugoslav state from within and preparing a military attack on Croatia. In Zagreb Veesenmayer worked closely with a group of pro-German Ustashas and third-echelon leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party, who had already been planning the proclamation of a Croatian state with German assistance. 14 On April 10, learning that German forces were nearing Zagreb, Veesenmayer decided to arrange the proclamation of an independent Croatian state to coincide with the entry of German troops into the city. In the morning he saw Kvaternik and in mid-afternoon he persuaded Macek to give up his leadership and cooperate in the transfer of power. He then saw Kvaternik again to tell him that the time had come to proclaim the new state. Both went to Macek, who, faced with the inevitable, cooperated in composing and signed a declaration that would be read over Radio Zagreb following the proclamation of independence by Kvaternik. 15 This done, VeeGregoric, "Entry of German Troops," pp. 88-89. See Veesenmayer's telegram to his ministry on April 5, which refers to an earlier manifesto by these politicians dated March 31, I94I, on the end of Yugoslavia. DGFP, u: 46I62. "Macek only briefly described his encounter with Veesenmayer and Kvaternik on April IO in Struggle for Freedom, pp. 228-29. But he did relate how earlier, after he had decided to join the Simovic cabinet, Walter Malettke, another German emissary, called on him and told him that the time had come to "sever Croatia from Serbia." Macek refused to go along, since it would have meant war, and Malettke, in taking leave, handed him a loaded revolver. Ibid., pp. 220-21. Count Paul Teleki, the Hungarian premier who opposed the invasion of Yugoslavia by Hungarian troops because he had concluded a treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia on December I I, I940, was presented with an identical gift and obliged the Germans by committing suicide on April4. For Slavko Kvaternik's version of the events that led to Macek's declaration on April Io, see his statement as a government witness at the trial of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac in I946, in Sudjenje . .. Stepincu, pp. 362-63. At 13

14

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

senmayer and Kvaternik went to the Zagreb radio station, over which Kvaternik read the following proclamation at about 5:45P.M.: Croats! God's providence and the will of our ally, as well as the hard centuries-long struggle of the Croatian people and the great efforts of our Poglavnik [Leader] Dr. Ante Pavelic and the Ustasha movement both at home and abroad, have determined that today, the day before Easter, our independent Croatian state arise. I call upon all Croats wherever you may be, and especially all officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates of the entire armed forces and public security forces, to maintain perfect order, to report to the commander of the armed forces in Zagreb or the place where you are now stationed, and to take an oath of allegiance to the Independent State of Croatia and its Poglavnik. As plenipotentiary of the Poglavnik I have today taken control of the entire government and command of all armed forces. 16

Soon after, Macek's statement was read over the station: Colonel Slavko Kvaternik, the leader of Croatian nationalists in the country, has today proclaimed a free and independent state of Croatia in the whole historical and ethnic area of Croatia and has taken over the powers of government. I call upon the entire Croatian nation to obey the new government and I call upon all the followers of the Croatian Peasant Party who are in various positions of administration, all county deputies, all mayors of communes and their council members, etc., to remain at their posts and to cooperate loyally with the new government.17

With this unequivocal declaration, Macek abdicated his role as the political leader of the vast majority of Croats and approved the new puppet state. Clearly, Veesenmayer was the metteur en scene of the political change in Zagreb and the drama was made possible by the collapse of the Yugoslav army and state under German attack. Without German tanks and bayonets on Croatian territory, no proclamation of a Croatian puppet state could have succeeded. The new state was the offspring of the Wehrmacht and German subversion experts. Veesenmayer's role is best shown in his own report on April I I to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs about his activities on April I o: the trial, Jakov Blazevic, the public prosecutor, asserted (p. 363) that before the collapse of the old Yugoslavia, Kvaternik and Macek conspired with German agents against it. With respect to Macek, all evidence proves that this accusation was false. The same must be said about Blazevic's statement in January 1981 when he was president of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, on the occasion of the publication of the third volume of his memoirs, dealing mostly with the case of Archbishop Stepinac, that Ante Pavelic was brought to Zagreb in April 1941 only after the Germans had made the necessary arrangements with Macek and the archbishop "on what to do and how to do it." See Sedam dana (Zagreb), January 31, 1981, p. 10.

Colic, Takozvana Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska I 94 I, p. 91. The original text was in Veesenmayer's possession. The above wording is from Martinovic, "My Recollections from the Great Times, II," p. 48. Other sources corroborate this text. 16 17

53

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THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

At noon on April 10 the first reliable reports reached me of the advance of German troops, for which reason I decided to act on my own without delay. At 3:oo P.M. there was another meeting with Kvaternik, during which I informed him that now the hour had come and I had resolved to call on Macek in order to induce him to resign. Kvaternik was very pleased with this because this matter was his greatest worry, which he did not feel entirely able to cope with. From 3:30 to 4:00 P.M. the discussion between me and Macek took place that, after some struggle, resulted in his stating that he was willing to withdraw and hand over the power of government to Kvaternik personally. Macek gave me his word of honor that he would carry out this decision. I went to Kvaternik without delay, informed him of this outcome, which occasioned tremendous rejoicing among the leadership of the nationalists, and took him to Macek at once. There the statement of resignation and the transmittal of the power of government to Kvaternik was formulated and signed by Macek. The original text is in my hands. In order not to lose any time, and because I had to reckon with sabotage if this decision should become known too soon, I succeeded with great difficulty in getting Kvaternik to go with me at once to the radio station, where the solemn announcement of the decision regarding resignation and the assumption of government was made at about 5:45 P.M. Being an officer, Kvaternik wanted to go to meet the German troops in order to be the first to greet them. In the end, however, he did not reject my considerations of practical politics, and it thus came about that shortly before the entry of the first German troops the proclamation of a free, independent Croatia was made; this fact called forth tremendous rejoicing and the immediate decorating of the city with flags. An upshot of this was the subsequent welcome for German troops in a manner that would never have been considered possible, and General Kiihn said to me that he had experienced something similar only in Linz [presumably on the occasion of the Anschluss of Austria to Germany in March 1938]. The initiative and execution during the hours described were exclusively in my hands. Thus it was possible to avoid bloodshed entirely and, at the same time, because of Kvaternik's splendid preparatory work from the military point of view, to spare German troops time and blood. The faith and trust of the entire Croatian people in the Fuhrer and his Wehrmacht from the day of the start of the war against Serbia is moving. Since Kvaternik took over the government I have been at his side constantly and I am assisting him inconspicuously. I intend to continue to do this so that the existing elements of danger can be overcome more easily. However, I have not committed myself in any way as regards the interpretation of the concept of freedom. 18

There is no doubt that the Ustashas and many followers of the Croatian Peasant Party wanted an independent Croatian state. But the state they obtained was a puppet state, independent in name only. Two weeks earlier, Hitler had not even considered a separate Croatian state, and even after he had de"DGFP, 12: 515-17. Veesenmayer may have overstated his role, but there is no doubt that he orchestrated the affair and that the Ustasha regime was indebted to him. A few days after he completed his job, Pavelic expressed special thanks to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his aid and requested his help "in the work of reconstruction." Ibid., pp. 5 8o81. In fact, Glaise, plenipotentiary German general in Croatia, in a letter to Colonel von Mellenthin of the Army High Command Attache Department on November 26, 1941, called Veesenmayer "the leader of the [Croatian] fifth column and the founder of the Croatian state." See Micr. No. T-501, Roll268, Frs. 667-68.

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

cided to destroy Yugoslavia, he did not know exactly what to do with Croatia. Nevertheless, on April 10, 1941, the Croatian state came into existence, a part of Hitler's "New Order" in Europe. Most revealing for its future was the last sentence of Veesenmayer's report, in which he refrained from committing himself "in any way as regards the interpretation of the concept of freedom." The "splendid preparatory work from the military point of view" that Veesenmayer praised Kvaternik for was largely done by General Staff Colonel Franjo Nikolic, chief of staff of the Yugoslav 1st Group of Armies, the 4th and 7th Armies deployed in northern Croatia and Slovenia, respectively. Leaving his post early on April 10, Nikolic laid before Kvaternik a plan for neutralizing the 4th Army command. He carried out this plan by returning to his post and directing 4th Army units in the vicinity of Zagreb to either cease operations or move to innocuous positions and wait, since armistice talks with the Germans were already under way. In this fashion, armed resistance against the Germans moving on Zagreb was reduced or eliminated and, above all, any danger that Yugoslav troops around Zagreb might foil the plans of Kvaternik and Veesenmayer was averted. 19 Additional preparatory work included the limited fifth-column activities of a few Croatian officers in the Yugoslav army and air force, preparations among the Civic and Peasant Guards, most of whose officers and men transferred allegiance to the Ustashas at this time, and two speeches by Pavelic over the radio from Florence (see below). One 4th Army unit-the Io8th Regiment of the Slavonian Division, stationed at Bjelovar-refused to move toward the front on April 8. The Ustashas and their sympathizers from the Civic and Peasant Guards succeeded in disarming and capturing the staff of various 4th Army units, including that of 4th Army Headquarters. The Ustashas apparently killed a number of Serbian officers and men of the 4th Army in these actions. 20 While waiting for Pavelic to arrive, Kvaternik, together with leading domestic Ustashas and dissidents from the Croatian Peasant Party, set up a rudimentary administration for the new state in those areas of the country that were under the security umbrella of German troops. On April I 2, he established an interim government-the Croatian State Leadership-under the chairmanship of Mile Budak, consisting of Budak (who was in the hospital), Budak's deputy, seven other members (one a Bosnian Muslim), and four delegates of his own (for economy and finances, railroads, the army, and Dalmatia). 21 Kvaternik also issued several laws and decrees, the most important being a law on the orFor NikoliC's activities on April 10, see a series of articles that were written or inspired by him but do not mention him by name, entitled "On April1o, 1941, Zagreb was Saved from Bombardment in the Last Moment by the 'Yugoslav' Artillery" (in Serbo-Croatian), in Hrvatski narod (Zagreb), October 1o-13, 1941. See also an early November 1941 report from General Vilko Begic, undersecretary in the Ministry of the Army of the Independent State of Croatia, to Glaise, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll265, Frs. 782-84. 20Terzic,Jugoslavija u Aprilskom ratu 1941, pp. 498-99. "Jelic-Butic, Ustase, p. 75· 19

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THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

ganization of the Croatian army (see Chapter 10). The war on Yugoslav territory continued officially until April 17, when representatives of the Yugoslav army in Belgrade signed the document of unconditional surrender to Germany and Italy. On the same day that the Croatian puppet state was proclaimed, Macek tried to withdraw to his farm in Kupinec near Zagreb, but was returned to the city by German soldiers. Subsequently, according to Macek, he was interrogated by a high Gestapo official and again offered the leadership of the new state. He later wrote: "I extricated myself as well as I could from this situation by underlining my reputation as an incorrigible pacifist who had no desire for any political activity during the war. " 22 If these events are true-and there is no reason to doubt that they are-they show with what great reluctance the Germans accepted Pavelic as head of the new state and how much they would have preferred to have Macek even after the state was proclaimed in PaveliC's name. This was because the Germans knew that Pavelic had a small political following and suspected that he was an Italian agent. After this interview, the Germans allowed Macek to leave for his farm but ordered him not to move or return to Zagreb. Macek's statement over the radio undoubtedly gave some of his followers and almost all officials (except Serbs) of the former Banovina Croatia an excuse to side with the new government. The Ustashas and those former Croatian Peasant Party members who had joined them even before April ro, 1941, already maintained that Macek, by concluding the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement of August 26, 1939, and participating in the Belgrade government, had saved Yugoslavia and in so doing had lost the confidence of Croats who wanted an independent Croatian state. Macek's decision to join the Simovic government had further enraged the nationalist Croats, to whom he became a traitor. 23 It was especially important to the Ustashas in their seizure of power that the two paramilitary organizations of the Croatian Peasant Party, the Civic Guards (Gradjanska zastita) and the Peasant Guards (Seljacka zastita), especially the former, sided almost completely with them. In the first crucial days and weeks, the guards helped to disarm several units of the Yugoslav army and to establish some degree of control over much of the territory of the new puppet state under the security umbrella of the German and Italian armies. 24 But the Ustashas did Macek, Struggle for Freedom, p. 230. See the telegram of the German consul general in Zagreb to the Foreign Ministry on April4, 1941, in DGFP, 12: 449· On the alienation of some Croats from Macek during the two years before the invasion of the country, see also Jareb, Pola stoljeca hrvatske politike, pp. 71-81, and Boban, "Political Ferment." 24 The Croatian Peasant Party established the Civic and Peasant Guards after the 193 5 parliamentary election, when the party again showed great electoral strength. Their overt purpose was to guard Macek, help implement the decisions of the party, and act as a countervailing force to various progovernment organizations in Croatian territory, such as the (pre1941) Chetniks and the National Defense Organization, which sometimes engaged in terror22 23

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

not trust the guards. As soon as they organized their own party militia and took control of the police, they incorporated some guard units into the nascent regular army and disbanded others altogether. While Hitler was orchestrating the alliance against Yugoslavia and assembling forces for the campaign and German agents in Zagreb were busily preparing to detach Croatia from the Yugoslav state, Italian forces were readying their own operations against the country. Mussolini personally took charge of activating Pavelic and the Ustashas, now that the opportunity for which Italy was supporting them had arrived. On March 29, Mussolini received Pavelic for the first time, at his private residence, the Villa Torlonia. Filippo Anfuso, Ciano's chef de cabinet, who was acting minister of foreign affairs while Ciano was in military service, was the only other person present. 25 According to Anfuso, Mussolini's principal concern was with Italian rights in Dalmatia. Pavelic acknowledged his earlier obligations and fully reassured him in this respect. 26 The two men also discussed several other matters of immediate interest to the Ustashas. First, Pavelic requested that the Ustashas interned on the Lipari Isist activity against the Croatian population. Their covert aim was to serve as the nucleus of a Croatian army once Croatia had gained enough autonomy within Yugoslavia to have its own separate force. Guard members were men between 25 and 50 years of age who had completed military service. The commanding staff was recruited from former Austro-Hungarian officers who had participated in the First World War and who were later retired by the new Yugoslav state or simply not taken into the Yugoslav military. The exercise manual was written by retired Lieutenant Colonel Slavko Kvaternik, Zvonko Kovacevic, another retired officer, and Major Ivan Babic, at that time on the Yugoslav General Staff. At the end of 1940, the guards had about 142,ooo members. These data are from a series of articles by Batusic, "The Croatian Peasant and Civic Guards," in Drina (Madrid), an organ of General LuburiC's wing of the Ustashas in exile. I had only the installments listed. On the basis of a special decree by the autonomous government of Banovina Croatia, Civic Guard contingents in Zagreb had the status of an auxiliary police force. This undoubtedly increased their standing and made it easier for them to obtain arms, ammunition, and other supplies, as well as important information. 25There are only two important sources on Pavelic's activities between the officers' coup in Belgrade on March 27, when the Ustashas' main objective, the establishment of a Croatian state, became imminent, and his return to Zagreb on April I 5 after twelve years in exile. These are Filippo Anfuso and Eugen Kvaternik. Anfuso wrote from memory, provided no dates, and implied that only one meeting occurred between Mussolini and Pavelic. Kvaternik wrote that there were two. For Anfuso's story, see Du Palais de Venise, pp. 142-53, and Roma Bertino Salo, pp. 184-97. The second version is a little different from the first. Eugen Kvaternik, Slavko's son, also known as Dido, was a member of Pavelic's immediate entourage in exile. His main contribution on this period is "Ustasha Emigration in Italy." Because Pavelie unceremoniously removed both Kvaterniks from their posts in October 1942, this article, as well as others cited elsewhere, displays a clear anti-Pavelic and anti-Italian bias. Pavelic never wrote about his meetings with Mussolini, nor did he confide in even his closest associates about what was discussed. In fact, if at all possible, Pavelic attended all meetings with German and Italian officials as the sole representative of the Croatian side. 26 Anfuso, Du Palais de Venise, pp. 143-44.

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THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

lands and elsewhere be released to join him, which Mussolini immediately agreed to. Second, an Italian liaison officer, Lieutenant Colonel Domenico Sangiorgio, was assigned to maintain contact between Pavelic and the Italian military in Rome and in the field. He met with Pavelic for the first time on April 6. Finally, Mussolini put at Pavelic's disposal a radio station in Florence for late evening broadcasts. This was put to immediate use. Within a few days of the meeting with Mussolini, Pavelic broadcast two speeches and sent two proclamations to the Croatian people over the Florentine station, which operated as the Ustasha station Velebit. These announced that the hour of Croatian liberation was at hand, attacked Serbian domination of the old Yugoslav government and those Croats who had cooperated with the Serbs, praised the friendly and liberating German and Italian forces, and described in glowing terms how wonderful life would be in the new Ustasha state. Pavelic appealed to Croatian soldiers in the Yugoslav army to "remove Serbian officers, pledge allegiance to the Ustasha flag, and turn your rifles against those who had captured the Croatian people, desecrated all things sacred to Croats, and taken over Croatian homes and Croatian land. " 27 On April I o, I 94 I, Supreme Ustasha Headquarters used the station to order the domestic Ustashas to form units in order to take over all government offices and communications, disarm the gendarmerie and any Serbian military deserters, and apprehend all people considered traitors and enemies of Croatia, as well as other unreliable persons. They were also directed to preserve peace and order and prevent plundering.28 Meanwhile, the Ustashas detained on Italian soil were released and sent to Pistoia (about 50 kilometers northwest of Florence), where they were issued Italian uniforms and light arms. On April Io, they were visited by Pavelic and learned over the radio of the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia. At this point, events began to move rapidly. On April I I, Mussolini received Pavelic a second time, this time at his official residence, the Palazzo Venezia. Anfuso was again the only other person present, although the young Eugen Kvaternik (Slavko's son) had accompanied Pavelic to Rome. Dalmatia was again apparently uppermost in Mussolini's mind, whereas Pavelic had many other problems, chiefly, in Anfuso's view, that he would return to his country looking like a traitor because of the concessions he was promising Mussolini. 29 But no written document was composed or signed obligating Pavelic to consider Italian rights in Dalmatia once he became head of the Croatian state, though the new state was understood to be in the Italian sphere of influence. The Ustashas assembled at Pistoia traveled by special train to Trieste, where they were temporarily housed in military barracks. Pavelic also made his way 27 For the texts of these broadcasts, see YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 21I 5, I-8, Box 8 5, especially Reg. No. 21I 5, 1. ''YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No.3 7II-I, Box I I4b. 29 Anfuso, Roma Bertino Sa/a, pp. I 86-87, and Du Palais de Venise, pp. I44-4 5.

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

to Trieste, stopping briefly at Gorizia to see General Vittorio Ambrosio, the commander of the Italian 2nd Army, which a few days earlier had begun operations against Yugoslav forces. In Trieste, Pavelic and the Ustashas were provided with buses and a few automobiles, and on April 13 at 2:10A.M. they entered Croatian territory at Susak and proceeded toward Zagreb. The column of vehicles stopped for short breaks in several towns along the way, where Pavelic made brief speeches. At Karlovac, some 50 kilometers southwest of Zagreb, they were met by a German general, who requested that Pavelic come to Zagreb as soon as possible. They were also met by a Croatian delegation led by Slavko Kvaternik and accompanied by Veesenmayer. 30 And the next day they were sought out by Filippo Anfuso, whom Mussolini had sent in search of Pavelic. Although Italian rights in Dalmatia had been Mussolini's chief concern at both of his meetings with Pavelic, in response to which Pavelic apparently gave clear oral promises, the lack of a written document confirming these promises disturbed the Italian leader. While he trusted Pavelic and thought that he was "our only pawn on the Balkan chessboard and we should not let him escape," Mussolini was afraid of what the Germans, already in Zagreb, might let Pavelic do once he returned. Consequently, he felt that it was essential for Pavelic to give a "public and solemn declaration" recognizing Italian rights in Dalmatia before the Axis powers recognized his government and thus before the Germans might act. 31 On April14 Mussolini sent Anfuso posthaste to obtain such a declaration from Pavelic. Anfuso flew to Zagreb and then to Karlovac. Apparently after considerable argument, the two men composed a telegram to Mussolini in which Pavelic acknowledged that Italian rights in Dalmatia would be taken into consideration in the establishment of Croatia's new frontiers. But Pavelic insisted that the telegram first be cleared with Berlin. After German approval was obtained, the telegram still could not be sent because telephone and telegraph connections with Rome were interrupted. Anfuso therefore personally took the telegram to Mussolini. 32 At the same time, Pavelic asked Mussolini and Hitler for official recognition of the Independent State of Croatia. '"Kvaternik, "Ustasha Emigration in Italy," pp. 231-37. For the recollections of another Ustasha who was at Pistoia and returned with Pavelic to Zagreb on April I 5, 194I, confirming in all essentials Kvaternik's narrative, see the interrogation of Ante Moskov by Yugoslav authorities in May I 94 7, in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. I/4, Box 9 I. 0., pp. 2631. Moskov was the commander of Pavelic's Personal Guard. 31 Anfuso, Du Palais de Venise, pp. 147-48; idem, Roma Bertino Salo, p. 191. Anfuso wrote that Pavelic had obligated himself more formally on the issue of Dalmatia than he did at the meeting at Villa Torlonia (Du Palais de Venise, p. 147), but it is not clear to what occasion he was referring. He could hardly have meant the memorandum that Pavelic delivered to a representative of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in July 1927 (see Chapter I), because it had not been sufficiently formal to satisfy the Italians. 32 Anfuso, Du Palais de Venise, pp. 152-53· According to Kvaternik ("Ustasha Emigration in Italy," pp. 241-43), Veesenmayer ordered German soldiers, who at that time controlled the telephone and telegraph lines in Croatia, to disconnect the lines to Rome.

59

6o

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

Because Pavelic and his entourage in Karlovac were concerned about his safety in Zagreb, they decided to move into the city not during the day, but at night. Thus in the small hours of April I 5, without fanfare and through empty streets, Pavelic, his assistants, and 200 to 300 Ustashas in Italian uniforms with light arms moved into Zagreb in Italian trucks and occupied the former residence of the Croatian bans. I suspect, however, that another consideration also favored a nighttime entry. After the German army had broken through Yugoslav defenses in Macedonia in the south, Pavelic had announced in a radio broadcast that German and Italian forces in the northwest had started to move, which would lead to the dispersal of the Serbian army in Croatia, and he had called upon the Croatian people "to meet the brave soldiers of our friends and protectors with joy, jubilation, and respect." "With them," he had added, "your sons also, the Croatian Ustasha army, are coming into your midst with rifles in their hands, bravely fighting. " 33 But revealing to the Zagreb public that the Ustasha army consisted of only 200 to 300 men would not have impressed it at all. Thus on April I5, I94I, Pavelic came to power, albeit a very limited power, in the new Ustasha state under the umbrella of German and Italian forces. On the same day, Hitler and Mussolini granted recognition to the Croatian state and declared that their governments would be glad to participate with the Croatian government in determining its frontiers. 34 As we shall see, reality in the Ustasha state proved quite different from the glowing promises that Pavelic made in his broadcasts and from the expectations that many Croats had when they celebrated the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia. The German plenipotentiary general in Croatia, Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, arrived in Zagreb on April I 5 and the German envoy, Siegfried Kasche, presented his credentials to Pavelic on April 22. The Italians were slower in appointing representatives. The special representative, Raffaele Casertano, arrived in Zagreb around April2o and presented his credentials as envoy on July 3· Glaise's counterpart, General Giovanni Battista Oxilia, together with the Military Mission under his direction, arrived in mid-June. The oral directive that the state secretary in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ernst Waizsiicker, gave to Kasche before the latter left for Zagreb illustrated the official German attitude toward both Italy and the Croatian state: Subject to such instructions as he [Kasche] would receive from the Foreign Minister or from the Fuhrer himself, I said that I wanted to draw his attention to a single though important point. It was in the nature of things that the Croats and Italians would not get along well with each other. It was therefore certain that the Croats would come to Kasche, as he was the German Minister, and attempt to YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 21I 5, 4-5, Box 8 5· For these telegrams, see Italy, Stato Maggiore del R. Esercito, Ufficio Propaganda, Bollettini della guerra, pp. 500-50!. 33 34

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

make him the arbiter in the disputes between themselves and the Italians. As long as the war continued we would absolutely have to spare Italian sensibilities. If we therefore should become involved in deciding disputes between the Italians and the Croats, we would in each instance have to decide in favor of the Italians. As a result the Croats would be disgruntled, and there was no reason whatever why we should take this burden upon our shoulders. Therefore Kasche should keep his hands off these matters and let Italian hegemony in Croatia prevail to the extent that this was in harmony with our own interests. 35 THE PARTITION OF THE COUNTRY

Once Hitler had made the decision to destroy and partition Yugoslavia, he was intent on accomplishing five territorial objectives: (I) rounding off the Greater Reich by occupying for later annexation the northern part of Slovenia, an area inhabited by a population that according to Nazi ideology was amenable to speedy Germanization; (2) temporarily occupying part of Yugoslavia, in particular Serbia proper, which was important in the Balkan area because of its communication lines and large supplies of strategic nonferrous metals; (3) satisfying the territorial aspirations of both Italy and the minor partners, Hungary and Bulgaria, and in this way rewarding them for playing the roles assigned to them; (4) satisfying the Croatian Ustashas' proclivities for an independent Croatian state as a reward for their role during the invasion of Yugoslavia; and (5) of vital concern, preserving and, in fact, extending "Germany's special economic interests in territories in the former Yugoslav state. " 36 Map I shows the partition of Yugoslavia. Germany occupied the greater part of Slovenia, excluding the city of Ljubljana but including the northwest area of the province to the Italian border and the area from a line about ten to fifteen kilometers from the right bank of the Sava River to the former Austrian border and east to the new Croatian and Hungarian borders. Germany decided unilaterally what it wanted of Slovene land, informed the Italians, and expressed the hope that they would be satisfied with the remainder. In fact, during the first few weeks before the new border was fixed, the Germans changed it several times to their own advantage. Italy annexed the remainder of Slovenia and called it the Ljubljana Province (Provincia di Lubiana). Italy also annexed some Croatian territory in the hinterland of Rijeka (Fiume), a large part of Dalmatia including most of the Adriatic islands, and the Bay of Kotor. Further, Italy occupied Montenegro, which was supposed to become a separate kingdom attached to Italy as a vassal state. Italian-ruled Albania annexed the western part of Macedonia, most of the Kosovo region (or the Kosovo-Metohia region as it was called at the time), a 35 DGFP, 12: 605-6. Kasche barely escaped liquidation during the purge of Ernst Roehm and his group on June 30, 1934. But he soon rehabilitated himself and ended up as envoy to the wartime Croatian state. See Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende, p. 143. 36 DGFP, 12: 632.

6I

PREKMURJE

ROMANIA

B

Occupied by Germany

-

Annexed to Italy

CJ Occupied by Italy

B

Annexed to Albania ~ Annexed to Bulgaria

UJID Annexed to Hungary -Yugoslavia, 1941 - - German-Italian demarcation line - · - National boundaries 0

50

100

150 km.

ADRIATIC SEA

~

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

small strip of Montenegrin territory near Lake Scutari, and the area of Plav and Gusinje, all areas in which ethnic Albanians made up a majority or a large proportion of the population. Bulgaria was allowed to annex the greater part of Macedonia, part of southeast Serbia, and small parts of eastern Serbia and the Kosovo region. Hungary was allowed to annex Backa and Baranja, the Croatian area of Medjimurje, and the Slovene area of Prekmurje. Serbia, essentially in its pre-1912 borders, but also including a section of the Kosovo region and the Banat, was occupied outright by German troops and put under a military government. The Banat was administered by the local Volksdeutsche. Serbia proper was administered by the German army of occupation, first with the help of a group of Serbian administrators-the Commissioner Administration-and then from August 29, 1941, with the help of a quisling government headed by General Milan Nedic, former Yugoslav minister of army and navy and chief of General Staff. The Germans also brought Bulgarian troops into Serbia in three successive stages to help in the occupation, but they remained under full German control. Finally, out of the territory of Croatia-Slavonia (minus a small area northeast of Rijeka, some northern Adriatic islands, and Medjimurje), together with that part of Dalmatia not annexed by Italy and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Independent State of Croatia was created and officially recognized on April 15 by Germany, Italy, and Hungary. However, the new state was divided by a demarcation line running approximately through its middle, into German and Italian zones of occupation. The demarcation line continued southeast to the point where the boundaries of German-occupied Serbia met with the Bulgarian- and Albanian-annexed parts of Yugoslavia. Neither in Germany nor in Italy was there unanimity among military and political leaders concerning the administration of subjugated Yugoslavia. In Germany, the chief advocate for creating the puppet state of Croatia seems to have been von Ribbentrop, who expected to exercise some influence in Zagreb through the German envoy. Undoubtedly he was supported by Hitler, who systematically endeavored to divide authority among his subordinates and in this case wanted to satisfy the pressing need of his partner Mussolini for "victories" to announce to the Italian people. In Italy, Mussolini was the chief proponent of immediately dividing the territorial spoils and thus establishing the Croatian state, in which Italy was supposed to have predominant influence. On the other hand, it seems that military leaders in both countries favored a simple regime of belligerent occupation of all Yugoslav territory. They apparently opposed the creation of puppet states, which complicated the role of the military forces and reduced their influence and freedom of action. The critical views of Generals Vittorio Ambrosio and Mario Roatta on the partition of Yugoslavia, especially on the establishment of a separate Croatian state, were expressed already in

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late 1941 and early 1942 (see Chapter 6). In his memoirs, Roatta was even more explicit: "The partition of Yugoslavia, desired by Hitler and Mussolini in order to immediately consummate their success (on the part of the Duce probably also in order to avoid the possibility that at a later date his partner might take everything from him), constituted a grave error .... If Yugoslavia had been maintained intact and considered and treated simply as an occupied state, it is not certain, but quite possible, that it would have remained peaceful." 37 While some of Roatta's supporting arguments seem weak, his views show that the partition of Yugoslavia was not unanimously supported by the very people who executed it. THE GERMAN SYSTEM OF OCCUPATION IN SERBIA

Serbia proper, approximately within its pre-1912 frontiers, was the only area of dismembered Yugoslavia in which the Germans established a military government of occupation. This territory was particularly valuable for its transportation lines-the Danube River and the railroads-and supply of nonferrous metals. To use these assets at least expense, the Germans had to maintain peace and order. A Serbian puppet government, first the Commissioner Administration of Serbian administrators and later a more formal government under a prime minister, was established to help, but was allowed to have only a limited number of police, gendarmerie, and military units. From January 1942 on, Bulgarian troops were also engaged to occupy parts of Serbian territory under the supervision and for the account of the German military government so that more German troops could be made available for service elsewhere. In addition, the Germans used a series of irregular armed formations as auxiliary forces to help maintain peace. This section describes the German occupation regime in Serbia and briefly touches on the overall German military organization in southeast Europe, of which the regime in Serbia was a part. Chapter 5 provides a more detailed description of the Serbian puppet government and its relations with the German occupation authorities, the use of Bulgarian troops for occupation duty in Serbia, the use of auxiliary formations in Serbia, the special occupation rule in the Banat, and the puppet government's policies toward MihailoviC's Chetniks. Between the conquest and partition of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and the Germans' departure from Belgrade in October r 944, German rule in southeast Europe underwent several changes in organization and command at the highest levels. To some extent, military conditions dictated these changes, but politics also entered in, as various German authorities advanced different solutions for the problems in southeast Europe. 37

Roatta, Otto milioni di baionette, pp. r 64-6 5.

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While military operations against Yugoslavia were still in progress, the chief of the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des HeeresOKH) issued a proclamation to the population that was to come under the control of German forces. It specified the rules governing German occupation as well as the principles applying to the activity of local government authorities, public utilities, and businesses and the conduct of the population at large. 38 After Yugoslavia was partitioned and most German forces withdrew from Yugoslav territory, these regulations applied only to German-occupied Serbia and the German-occupied part of Slovenia and they were changed and adjusted as conditions warranted. For the first two weeks after the entry of German troops into Yugoslavia, civil affairs in Serbia were directed by General Wolfgang Schmidt-Logan, chief of the Rear Area Command of the 2nd Army, according to orders of the Army High Command. At the end of this period, on April2o, 1941, the military government of occupation in Serbia was established by an order of Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, chief of the Army High Command. This order set up the office of the military commander in Serbia as the head of the occupation regime. The military commander was subordinate to the quartermaster general of the Army High Command and also to the commander of the German 2nd Army as long as it was in the field in Serbia, and he carried out his executive powers in the name of both. Even before this order was issued, the personnel for the military government had been assembled in Wiirzburg, Germany, and on April 17, the brief for the military commander had been drafted, outlining his basic duties. These included safeguarding the railroad lines between Belgrade and Salonika and the Danube shipping route, executing the economic orders issued by Reich Marshal Hermann Goring as the plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, and establishing and maintaining peace and order. Additional important early tasks included guarding Yugoslav prisoners of war still in Serbia and protecting military booty captured from the Yugoslav army. 39 A special order of the Army High Command on April23 specified these duties in more detail and outlined the extent of the military commander's power in Serbia. His immediate command was divided into a military and an administrative staff. In order to establish control over the country, he was given personnel for four area and about ten district commands. He was assigned four Local Defense (Landesschiitzen) battalions, which were divided among the "For an English translation of this proclamation, see Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, pp. 591-92. 39 For General Schmidt-Logan's orders, see Micr. No. T-501, Rol1245, Fr. 113. For Field Marshal von Brauchitsch's order, see Rol1264, Fr. 421. For the assembled personnel in Wi.irzburg, see Roll 25 r, Fr. 407. For the brief (Dienstanweisung) outlining the duties of the military commander, see Rol1264, Frs. 427-28. For details on the operation of the military government in Serbia during its first six months, see the war diary of the Quartermaster Department of the military commander in Serbia, in Rol1251, Frs. 405-82.

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four area commands. He also received one contingent of secret military police. He had no combat or garrisoning troops under his command and his responsibility was limited to the maintenance of law and order "only as far as it could be established and assured by administrative orders, legislation, and law enforcement. " 40 The first military commander in Serbia was Air Force General Helmuth Forster. On June 2 he was transferred to another command and was replaced by Antiaircraft Artillery General Ludwig von Schroder, who scarcely more than a month later died from injuries suffered in a plane crash. Air Force General Heinrich Danckelmann took over on July 27 and remained in the post until late September. 41 For garrisoning purposes, the Germans brought to Serbia the Higher Command for Special Purposes LXV in early June 1941 under the command of General of Artillery Paul Bader and under the jurisdiction of the 2nd Army. Bader had at his disposal four garrisoning divisions, of which the 704th, 714th, and 717th were deployed in Serbia. The 718th was deployed in adjacent parts of the Independent State of Croatia because Bader was also in tactical command of German troops stationed there. 42 The three divisions in Serbia were somewhat strengthened by the addition of artillery units using heavy arms captured from the Yugoslavs. But they remained small, with many overage soldiers, poor armament, and no motorized transportation, though some units were deployed over large areas. 43 They were adequate for service in peaceful rear areas, but for little more. Bader's position was parallel with rather than subordinate to that of the military commander in Serbia. The latter as territorial commander could order Bader to undertake military operations in the event of a revolt, but he could not act as Bader's military superior. 44 The Germans soon recognized the need for a unified command over their 4

"Micr. No. T-sar, Rol1249, Frs. 1046-48. Micr. No. T-sar, Roll 251, Frs. 420-22. See also Stambolic, "Occupation of Serbia,"

41

p.

so.

42 Some German troops were stationed in the Independent State of Croatia after the end of military operations against Yugoslavia by unilateral German decision and later on the basis of a German-Croatian agreement of June 20, I 941. 4 'For the deployment of the four garrisoning divisions as of June 9, 1941, which probably remained the same until sometime in August, see Micr. No. T-sor, Rol124s, Fr. 433· For the relatively low quality of these divisions, see "Wisshaupt Report," p. 6. This was a 190-page report, "Die Bekiimpfung der Aufstandsbewegung im Siidostraum," pt. I, June 194 r-August 1942, prepared by Higher Army Archivist Ernst Wisshaupt for the chief of staff of the commander in chief in southeast Europe (Army Group F) on February I, I944· I obtained amicrofilm copy by courtesy of Rodoljub Colakovic. (A slightly shorter version can be found in United States, National Archives, Record Group 238, World War II Crimes Records, Document No. NOKW-1898, Office of Chief of Counsel, Nuremberg.) For the deployment of the four Local Defense battalions as of June 27, 1941, see Micr. No. T-sor, Roll245, Fr. 504. 44 Stambolic, "Occupation of Serbia," pp. ss-s6.

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forces. Not only did complications arise from the presence of several occupying armies-in securing southeast Europe Germany had to cooperate with Italy and Bulgaria-but also from various occupation regimes in different areas of the Balkans. With Directive No.3 I of June 9, I94I, therefore, Hitler appointed Field Marshal Wilhelm List as armed forces commander in southeast Europe (Wehrmachtbefehlshaber im Siidosten), with headquarters in Salonika. The military commander in Serbia (Danckelmann), the military commanders in the Salonika-Aegean area and southern Greece, and the commander of the Higher Command for Special Purposes LXV (Bader) were subordinate to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe, and he, in turn, was responsible directly to Hitler, commander in chief of the Wehrmacht. Thus List, who continued to hold the position of commander of the 12th Army/ 5 was given full responsibility for the security and defense of the entire area and for maintaining liaison between the German forces in the area and their allies, primarily the Italians. 46 From the beginning of the occupation, the Germans left the maintenance of peace and order in Serbia to the local gendarmerie and the small Local Defense and police forces they brought in. With them, they first sought to put down the uprising that began on July 7, I94I. But within days it became clear that these forces were too weak. On August 4 Danckelmann, the military commander in Serbia, requested reinforcements of two extra police battalions and 200 Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst-SD) troops. Several days later he asked for an additional Local Defense battalion and on August 8 he requested that the armed forces commander in southeast Europe send a new division. 47 The original request for reinforcements brought the following reply from the chief of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht-OKW) on August 9: "Sending additional police forces and SD [Sicherheitsdienst] men to Serbia is impossible because they are needed on the eastern front. Owing to the increase in insurrectional and sabotage acts, the Fuhrer expects that henceforth army troops would be employed so that with the speediest and harshest intervention, peace and order will be restored as soon as possible. " 48 Indeed, no additional troops were forthcoming. On August I I Danckelmann ordered Bader 45 Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitters Weisungen, pp. 122-27. On the takeover of the 2nd Army by the 12th Army, see the minutes of a conference on June 17, 1941, in Micr. No. T-sor, Rol1251, Frs. 654-57. 46The Italians had a large liaison group with the armed forces commander in southeast Europe in Salonika and a liaison group with German command posts in Belgrade. On March 21, 1942, the latter consisted of 36 officers, 3 5 noncommissioned officers, and 310 privates. Micr. No. T-501, Roll 247, Fr. 1047. The Germans, for their part, had liaison groups with Italian command posts. See also footnote 90. 47 For Danckelmann's request on August 4, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll246, Fr. 21, and for his request on August 8, Fr. 86. See also Micr. No. T-120, Roll5786, Fr. H3o0,998. 4 'Micr. No. T-501, Rol1246, Fr. 41.

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to crush the rebellion, and two days later Bader issued an order, Combating the Communist Bands, thereby assuming chief responsibility for the suppression of the rebels. 49 But none of the measures undertaken by German army and police forces and the small Serbian gendarmerie, even with the help of several air force training units, succeeded in stopping the spreading rebellion. Unable to obtain the necessary reinforcements and seeing that the Commissioner Administration was getting weaker and less effective day by day, the German authorities in Belgrade decided to try strengthening the domestic government, hoping that a stronger administration with some armed forces might succeed where the police were failing. In response to a request for assistance from Envoy Felix Benzler, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the military commander in Serbia, the home office in Berlin dispatched Edmund Veesenmayer, who arrived in Belgrade on August r6. This was the very agent who had played a key role in the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia the previous April. Veesenmayer was a student and admirer of government by indirect rule, such as the British used in overseas colonies, and thought that such a system-a government under a strong national leader fully under German control-might work in occupied Serbia. He interviewed a number of potential candidates and, after consulting further with German commanders and officials in Belgrade, chose General Milan Nedic, former Yugoslav minister of army and navy and chief of General Staff. Nedic was installed as prime minister of the Government of National Salvation on August 29. But he was given very limited powers and he too was unable to establish peace and order. 50 By this time, senior German military authorities in Salonika and at Hitler's headquarters had begun to realize that the uprising in Serbia was serious. Consequently, the 125th Infantry Regiment, reinforced with an artillery unit, was dispatched from Greece to Serbia on September 4· In the following two weeks, with the uprising now growing at a rapid rate, consultations in Belgrade and at List's and Hitler's headquarters resulted in a series of strong measures that were to be put into effect as quickly as possible. Field Marshal List was insistent on receiving first-rate forces for operations in Serbia. On September 14 he learned that a division would be dispatched from France and put at the disposal of the Higher Command for Special Purposes LXV. 51 On September r6, Hitler issued Directive No.3 ra, which ordered List to crush the uprising in Serbia with the chief objective "first to secure 49 For Danckelmann's order to Bader on August II, see Micr. No. T-50I, Roll 246, Frs. 45-47, and for Bader's order on August I3, Frs. 78-So. 50 See the postwar interrogation of Veesenmayer in Micr. No. 679, Roll 3, Frs. 640-41, which is part of the records of the U.S. Department of State Special Interrogation Mission to Germany in I945 and I946. 51 "Wisshaupt Report," p. 42 (see footnote 43 ).

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communication lines and the enterprises important for the German war economy and then in a wider sense to reestablish order in the area by the application of the harshest means." The same directive also appointed the commanding general of the XVIIIth Army Corps in Greece, General Franz Bohme, as plenipotentiary commanding general in Serbia, a new position, to take charge of all German troops and all operations against the rebels. The directive promised to send to Serbia one (actually already under way) or, if necessary, two regular divisions.52 Simultaneously, the Armed Forces High Command issued Hitler's order, Communist Armed Resistance Movements in the Occupied Areas, which became the formal basis for various drastic measures for the suppression of the Communist-led resistance in all German-occupied areas, but was strictly enforced only in Serbia. This order stipulated that 100 people were to be executed for each German soldier or official killed and 50 for each one wounded. 53 The two most terrible outrages that the Germans committed in Serbia on the basis of this decree were the executions in mid-October 1941 of about 2,ooo people in the town of Kraljevo and about 3,ooo people in the town of Kragujevac. 54 This gruesome formula was reduced by one half in February I 94 3 and removed altogether in the fall of 1943. Thereafter, Special Envoy Hermann Neubacher had to approve each case of shooting hostages (see Chapter 5). Bohme arrived in Serbia on September 19. Shortly thereafter, Danckelmann was relieved of his post, apparently for having failed to assess correctly the nature and seriousness of the uprising, and retired from service. Bohme thus assumed the function of military commander, that is, head of the occupation regime in Serbia, in addition to that of plenipotentiary commanding general. The 342nd Infantry Division began arriving from France around September 20 and within a few days operations were launched against the rebels in the northwest corner of Serbia. The Army High Command also transferred a detachment of the Iooth Tank Brigade to Serbia.'' General Bader continued as commander of the Higher Command for Special Purposes LXV under the overall command of General Bohme. Bohme's strategy was to shorten the front line against the rebels by withdrawing German troops from southwest Serbia, thus giving the latter more concentrated striking power in selected crucial areas. The strategy worked and by the end of October the Germans had pacified the northwest part of the country. Resistance was greater in the southwest, where there were strong Partisan and some Chetnik forces, and another division, the 113th Infantry, was brought from Russia and used in conjunction with other troops. 56 By early December the Germans had essentially subdued Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitters Weisungen, p. 128. For this order, see United States, Trials of War Criminals, 11: 102o-25. 54 Glisic, Teror i zlocini, pp. 63-69, especially pp. 64 and 66. swwisshaupt Report," pp. 42, 51-52 (see footnote 43). 56 Zbornik DNOR, 1, bk. 1: 450-52; "Wisshaupt Report," pp. 62, 66-67 (see footnote 52

53

43).

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the uprising in all parts of Serbia. Bohme and the staff of the XVIIIth Army Corps were transferred to Finland and on December 6 Bader took over the duties of plenipotentiary commanding general in Serbia. 57 Early the next year, following an order of the Armed Forces High Command of February 2, I942, the three-pronged military command structure in Serbia, made up of the military commander, the commander of the Higher Command for Special Purposes LXV, and the plenipotentiary·commanding general, was consolidated into the single office of the commanding general and military commander in Serbia. General Bader assumed this post, which remained subordinate to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe. 5 8 At the latter level, the military command structure in southeast Europe established by Hitler in June I94I remained in effect until December 3I, I942, although important personnel changes took place. Field Marshal List, owing to illness, was replaced as armed forces commander in southeast Europe on October I 8, I94I, by General of Pioneers Walter Kuntze, who in turn was succeeded on August I, I942, by Air Force Colonel General Alexander Lohr. 59 Toward the end of I942, Germany's military position deteriorated badly. The disaster at Stalingrad was impending on the Russian front and the landing of Allied troops in Morocco and Algeria opened up the possibility of early Allied landings in the Balkans. With these developments, guerrilla warfare in Yugoslavia, already widespread and capable of further growth, assumed greater military significance, both as a possible aid to Allied landings along the Adriatic coast and especially as a threat to the communication lines between central Europe and the large German army in Greece watching over the safety of the southern Balkans. In an effort to strengthen this sector, Hitler issued Directive No. 47 on December 28, I942, reorganizing the post of the armed forces commander in southeast Europe (Wehrmachtbefehlshaber im Siidosten) into the post of commander in chief in southeast Europe (Oberbefehlshaber Siidost), again under his direct control. The territorial organization of military occupation in the Balkans remained unchanged. The forces under the commander in chief in southeast Europe were at the same time designated as Army Group E. Colonel General Lohr, the former armed forces commander in southeast Europe, became the new commander in chief and the chief of Army Group E, with jurisdiction over all commands in southeast Europe: the commanding general in Serbia (Bader), the military commander in the Salonika-Aegean area, "Zbornik DNOR, I, bk. I: 626. "Micr. No. T-soi, Roll 247, Fr. 940. Henceforth, I will refer to him as the commanding general. 59 For the replacement of List by Kuntze, see Zbornik DNOR, I, bk. I: 589, and for the replacement of Kuntze by Lohr, see Kriegstagebuch, 2, pt. I: I40. Lohr was the son of an Austrian father and a Russian mother and is said to have been the only Russian Orthodox general in the German forces. He served in Bosnia as a young Austro-Hungarian officer.

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the military commander in southern Greece, the commander of Fortress Crete, the naval commander in the Aegean Sea, the German plenipotentiary general in Croatia, the commanding general of German troops in Croatia, and the military attache in Sofia (in his functions beyond those of military attache). 60 Seven months later, with Directive No. 4 8 on July 26, r 94 3, the Command in and the Defense of Southeast Europe (and a series of implementing orders), Hitler reorganized anew the senior command of German forces in the Balkans.61 This reorganization became necessary because of the impending collapse of Italy, which compelled German troops to assume responsibility for territory that had been held by the Italians, and because of the need to liquidate the Yugoslav Partisans, who had developed into an annoying thorn in the Germans' side and a great danger in the event of an Allied landing in the Balkans. The reorganization of the German military command in the Balkans inaugurated by Directive No. 48 was far-reaching. The final shape of the new command structure was presented in the order, the New Command Organization in Southeast Europe, of August r8, 1943, and went into effect eight days later. 62 By this order, the commander in chief in southeast Europe, whose command was at the same time designated as Army Group F with headquarters in Belgrade, assumed command over all forces and operations in the Balkans. Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs replaced Colonel General Lohr as commander in chief in southeast Europe. Von Weichs was given supreme command over Army Group E, which was based in Salonika and responsible for the defense of Greece, and the 2nd Panzer Army, which had its headquarters in Kragujevac, Serbia, and was responsible for all troops and operations in the western Balkans. The latter area comprised Yugoslav territory to the eastern frontiers of Slovenia and Istria and Albanian territory. Lohr became the commander in chief of Army GroupE, and Colonel General Lothar Rendulic, who had fought on the Russian front and was experienced in partisan warfare, became the commander in chief of the 2nd Pa_nzer Army. 63 The latter included the IIIrd SS Panzer Corps, the Vth SS Mountain Army Corps, the XVth Mountain Army Corps (units formerly under the commanding general of German troops in Croatia, a command post that was abolished by the new reorganization), the XXIst Mountain Army Corps, and the LXIXth Reserve Army Corps. All other German units in Serbia and the Independent State of Croatia that were not absorbed into these corps commands or otherwise exempted were also subordinated to the 2nd Panzer Army command. 64 '"Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitlers Weisungen, pp. 209-14. "For this directive, see ibid., pp. 218-23. 62 Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. 2: 969-70, IOI 5, and especially 14 53-54· 63 Like Lohr, Rendulic was Austrian, of Croatian lineage on his father's side. 64 Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. 2: 946-47, 969-70, and II15. The number of divisions and combat groups in these SS and army corps differed over time, depending on the scope and area of operations against Yugoslav and Albanian Partisans.

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Also at this time, the Armed Forces High Command took measures in anticipation of the collapse of Italian forces in the Balkans. Most important was Implementing Order No.2 on August 3 to Directive No. 48 regarding the takeover of Italian-controlled areas of Greece, western Macedonia and the Kosovo region, Albania, Montenegro, and the Independent State of Croatia. 65 (A special Directive No. 49 regarding the German occupation of Italy-Operation Achse-was not issued, but a series of implementing orders relating to this operation were issued to the appropriate commands. 66 However, this matter is not of direct interest to our study.) With Directive No. 48, Hitler also established the new position of military commander in southeast Europe (Militdrbefehlshaber im Siidosten), with headquarters in Belgrade. An order of August 21, 1943, dealing with the new command relationships in southeast Europe, described this position more fully. 67 The commander in chief in southeast Europe delegated his supreme executive powers in the whole of southeast Europe to the military commander in southeast Europe. The latter, in turn, exercised his executive powers only in Serbia and delegated his powers in Greece to the military commander in Greece and his powers in Croatia to the plenipotentiary German general. 68 With regard to Serbia in particular, Directive No. 48 stated: The overwhelming importance of Serbia for the entire conduct of the war in the southeast requires that all German services should be coordinated. Nonmilitary services stationed in Serbia will therefore be subordinated to the Military Commander in Southeast Europe and incorporated into his staff. The authority of the senior officials of the ministries of the Reich for issuing technical instructions is not affected by this directive, but these instructions will be transmitted through the Military Commander in Southeast Europe. 69

The military commander in southeast Europe was the chief of the occupation regime in Serbia, replacing the commanding general in Serbia (Bader) in this role. After Italy collapsed and German troops took over Sandzak and Montenegro, he also became responsible for the occupation of these areas. General Hans Gustav Felber was sent from France to become the military commander in southeast Europe. The staff of the former commanding general in Serbia was split into the new staffs of the military commander in southeast Europe and the XXIst Mountain Army Corps, and Bader took over command of the latter. Felber had under his command all German troops in "Ibid., pp. 223-24. For relations between German and Italian forces from early July to mid-September I943, see ibid., pp. 765-I098. 66 For the draft of Implementing Order No. I of July 3 I, I943, to Directive No. 49, see Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitters Weisungen, pp. 227-30. 67 Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1264, Frs. 440-41. ••see Implementing Order No. 3 of August 7, I943, to Directive No. 48, in Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitters Weisungen, pp. 224-26. 69 Ibid., p. 222.

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Serbia except those directly under Bader. The Bulgarian 1st Occupation Corps, then occupying most of Serbia for the German account, also came under the command of Felber. Bader was transferred to Italy in November 1943, but Felber held his post until German troops were driven out of Serbia in October 1944. The German command established in southeast Europe in July and August 1943 remained in force until almost the end of the war. The occupation regime in Serbia began to crumble as Soviet forces approached and the Partisans mounted an offensive into Serbia in the late summer of 1944 and Bulgaria, having gone over to the Allied side, sent its newly reorganized and rearmed troops to join them in early October. 70 On October r, tactical command over German forces in the Banat and Serbia, facing Soviet, Bulgarian, and Partisan troops and now grouped as Army Group Serbia (also known as Army Group Felber), was entrusted to General Felber. According to an order of the commander in chief in southeast Europe on October 5, Felber's former staff was split. The General Staff department went to Army Group Serbia and the chief of staff was made responsible for the military administrations in Serbia, Sandzak, and Montenegro. Felber was completely freed of all duties in this respect. By that time, however, the chief problem for German forces in northern Serbia, operational troops as well as those on occupation duty, was to execute an orderly and timely withdrawal, as the directive of October 2 issued by the commander in chief in southeast Europe made clear. 71 The German occupation regime in Serbia ended in October 1944. Both German operative and occupation forces withdrew from Belgrade by October 20, when Soviet and Partisan troops liberated the city. The only German troops in Serbia between October 20 and the end of the year were those in flight, withdrawing from Greece and passing through southwest Serbia and Sandzak. By early January 1945, there were thus two Army Group commands, E and F, in Yugoslav territory, making one of them redundant. Consequently, on January ro Hitler decided to transfer to Army Group E the command and responsibility for all territory to the line formed by the Danube and Drava Rivers and to use the Army Group F command staff elsewhere. But the transfer did not take place until March 23, 1945. 72 Two days later, Colonel General Lohr resumed his former post of commander in chief in southeast Europe. On April 22, this post was put under the supreme command of the "'Hronologija I94I-I945, p. 934· 71 For Felber's assumption of tactical command, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll 257, Fr. I75· For the reorganization of his former staff, see Micr. No. T-3 I r, Roll 194, Fr. 204. For the October 2 directive, see Micr. No. T-3 II, Roll 194, Frs. 153-54. 72 Kriegstagebuch, 4, pt. 2: 1405-6. At the same time, Lohr's former chief of staff, Lieutenant General Hermann Foertsch, received command of the rst Army on the western front, and Lieutenant General Heinz von Gyldenfeldt, former chief of staff of Army Group F, became chief of staff to Lohr. Field Marshal von Weichs was not given another command.

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commander in chief in southwest Europe, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, and remained operative for two more weeks until the end came on May 8, 1945· Despite these extensive changes in the highest commands of the German military organization in southeast Europe, the German occupation regime in Serbia remained more or less the same throughout the war. It was first divided into two main branches, military-administrative and economic, and from January 1942 into three main branches, military-administrative, economic, and police. At the head of the occupation regime was the military commander in Serbia, also later called, as his functions expanded, the plenipotentiary and commanding general in Serbia or the commanding general in Serbia. The economic and police chiefs of the occupation regime, though theoretically subordinate to the military commander, reported on their specific functions directly to their higher authorities in Berlin, so that in fact the military commander had jurisdiction over little more than disciplinary matters/ 3 For the military administration of the occupation regime, the Germans divided Serbia into four area commands (Feldkommandanturen). 74 Each area command had one or more district commands (Kreiskommandanturen) subordinated to it, and about a hundred towns and localities had town or post commands (Platzkommandanturen or Ortskommandanturen) subordinated to the district commands. Each area and district command had a complement of military, administrative, economic, police, and other cadres depending on its need. In each area command, the area commander was entrusted with establishing a unified administration, and through the area commands the chief of military administration could implement his policies throughout the land. Since the prewar administrative (banovinal) division of Serbia was no longer suitable and because of military exigencies, the Germans ordered the Nedic government in October 1941 to undertake an administrative reorganization. The country was divided into fourteen districts (okruga), with the old counties retained but grouped together into more convenient units. With an order of December 4, 1941, the military commander in Serbia adjusted the military-administrative organization to conform to the new administrative divisions of the country, after which no further changes were made during the occupation period. The district command in the Banat became an independent 73 In addition to StamboliC's article, "Occupation of Serbia," see also the following Yugoslav works on this topic, though most refer almost exclusively to developments during 1941: Visnjic, "German Occupation System," pp. 84-92; Marjanovic, "German Occupation System," pp. 263-301; idem, Ustanak i narodnooslobodilacki pokret, pp. 13-41. For the organization of the German police apparatus in Serbia, see the already cited study by Glisic, Teror i zloCini. 74 See the order of the Army High Command of April r6, 1941, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll 245, Fr. 264. The four area commands were no. 599 in Belgrade, no. 809 inNis, no. 8r6 in Uzice, and no. 6ro in Pancevo in the Banat.

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

district command under the direct control of the commanding general in Serbia. Its function was to supervise the government of the Banat Volksdeutsche, whose community had become a public law entity. 75 According to a circular letter of the commanding general in Serbia on June 29, 1943, the area of the Bor copper mines became his direct responsibility from July 10. This decision was further implemented by an order of the military commander in southeast Europe on November 17, 1943, which made the commanding general responsible for the defense of the Bor area against both air and land attack. An identical order covered the area of the Iron Gate on the Danube/6 Neither the Germans' central military-administrative organization in Belgrade nor their several area and district commands were in any sense executive organs. They were merely the directing and supervising organs superimposed on the Serbian collaborationist government. That is to say, the German central occupation authority had its counterpart in the Serbian collaborationist government and the German area and district commanders had their counterparts in the Serbian district chiefs. The head of the military-administrative staff in occupied Serbia, and thus the senior administrative officer, was at first Harald Turner, who had previously held military government positions in occupied Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, with the rank of lieutenant general. 77 He was responsible for the military administration and, beneath it and directed and controlled by it, the Serbian administration. In a report to State Secretary Stuckart on July 8, 1942, Turner called this type of military government a "supervisory administration."78 Undoubtedly, savings in manpower, a lack of people who knew the Serbo-Croatian language and local conditions, and concerns about the psychological acceptance of German rule influenced the choice of this alternative. Although strict and unyielding, Turner was on the whole more considerate 75 Micr. No. T-501, Roll246, Frs. 723-27. Area command no. 599 remained in Belgrade and had district command no. 378 in Pozarevac under it; area command no. 809 remained in Nis, with district commands no. 8 57 in Zajecar and no. 867 in Leskovac; area command no. 816, formerly in Uzice, was transferred to Sabac, with district command no. 861 in Valjevo; and area command no. 61o, formerly in Pancevo, was moved to Kraljevo and had five district commands under it, no. 832 in Kragujevac, no. 8 3 3 in Krusevac, no. 8 34 in Cuprija, no. 8 3 8 in Kosovska Mitrovica, and no. 847 in Uzice. District command no. 823 in Veliki Beckerek, in the Banat, became an independent district command. See also Turner's report of July 8, 1942, to State Secretary Stuckart of the German Ministry oflnterior, of which more will be said below, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll266, Frs. 1261-68. 76 Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Frs. 704-5, and Roll253, Frs. 823-27. 77 According to a Serbian source, Turner was the son of a British colonel who left the British army in 1888 and joined the German Imperial Army with the same rank. The younger Turner was trained as a professional officer, but left the army after suffering serious wounds in the First World War. Krakov, General Milan Nedic, 1: 183-84. 78 Micr. No. T-501, Roll 266, Fr. 1263. The report answered Stuckart's inquiry of June 22, 1942 (Frs. 1259-60), on the nature of the military government in Serbia.

75

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

in his policies toward the Serbian government and population than any other important member of the occupation regime. For that reason he came into conflict with the armed forces commander in southeast Europe, General Kuntze, who asked for his replacement. He was also in constant conflict with the higher SS and police leader in Serbia, General August Meyszner. On November 8, 1942, both Turner and his deputy Georg Kiessel were forced to leave/ 9 Turner was succeeded for a short time by the chief of the legal department of the military administration, Walter Uppenkamp, who in turn was replaced by Counselor Egon Bonner. On October 18, 1943, the plenipotentiary for economic affairs, Franz Neuhausen, also took over the duties of chief of military administration. 80 For the economic administration of the occupation regime, the Germans appointed a special plenipotentiary for economic affairs and put him under the direct jurisdiction of Reich Marshal Goring, the plenipotentiary for the FourYear Plan. Franz Neuhausen held this position for most of the occupation. As noted above, from mid-October 1943 he was also chief of military administration in occupied Serbia. 81 Economically, Serbia was very important as a source 79 Micr. No. T-5oi, Roll 3 52, Fr. 5So. For Kuntze's request of July 3 I, I942, that Turner be replaced, see Roll 256, Frs. I047-48. The military disliked Turner because he believed that its power should be limited to military affairs. He wanted the occupation regime in Serbia put under a Reich commissar responsible to the Reich Ministry of Interior, as in German occupation regimes in western Europe. See his report to Stuckart in Roll266, Fr. I 264. Turner also quarreled with Wehrmacht authorities about the legal position of military government officials. For correspondence on this topic between September I94I and August I942, see Roll266, Frs. I203-57. For the acrimonious disputes between Turner and Meyszner, see the correspondence between them and others during the period from April to October I942, in Roll266, Frs. I062-II35· ""Micr. No. T-50I, Roll3 52, Frs. 629 and 64I, and Roll25 3, Fr. 563. "For the directive of April I?, I94I, on the functions of the plenipotentiary for economic affairs in Serbia, see Micr. No. T-50I, Roll 264, Frs. 43 I-32. A more detailed outline of the plenipotentiary's functions and his relation to the military commander and the militaryadministrative apparatus in Serbia can be found in the April 26, I94I, letter of Paul Korner, state secretary in the office of the plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, to the commander in chief ofthe army. See Micr. No. T-75, Roll69, Frs. I70-72. On December 9, I942, Neuhausen was named plenipotentiary for metal and ores production in southeast Europe. At first, only the mining and metal-producing enterprises in occupied Serbia and the Bulgarian-annexed part of Macedonia were under his jurisdiction. After March I, I943, these same enterprises in the German-occupied part of Greece, and after the Italian surrender, those in the formerly Italian-occupied part of Greece and in Albania, also became his responsibility. See "Neuhausen III." Neuhausen, who had been a flyer in the First World War, enjoyed the confidence of Reich Marshal Goring. He was well acquainted with Serbia, having been stationed in Belgrade from I93 I on, first as manager of the German Transportation Office (where he probably also performed political and economic intelligence work), then as the official representative of the National Socialist Labor Party in Yugoslavia, and finally as German consul general. He had many contacts in both government and business circles and was well informed about political and economic conditions. According to Hermann Neubacher, who became special envoy in Belgrade in September I943, Neuhausen was not only powerful but corrupt, and he amassed a huge fortune during his service in Belgrade. After repeated complaints against him by the commander in chief in southeast Europe and by Neubacher, and in agreement with von Rib ben-

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

of large supplies of copper, antimony, lead, and zinc, and smaller amounts of mica, bismuth, and asbestos, as well as of coal and food (corn, wheat, and livestock). In addition to Neuhausen's economic apparatus, the Germans also established the Military Economic Staff for Serbia in Belgrade under the command of Colonel Erwin Braumiiller, which on June 7, 1941, was reorganized into the Military Economic Staff for Southeast Europe. It had branch offices in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia. Finally, for the police administration-one of the most important forces from the outset of the occupation regime-the Germans used the Gestapo (secret police), the criminal police, and the Security Service (SD). The first chief of these combined forces of Security Police Special Employment Squads (Sicherheitspolizei Einsatzgruppen) was Wilhelm Fuchs, with the rank of colonel. Though he was officially under the jurisdiction of Harald Turner, chief of military administration, Fuchs reported directly to his superiors in Berlin. 82 Hitler soon took steps to strengthen this important service. On January 22, 1942, he raised the status of the police organization and appointed Obergruppenfiihrer and Lieutenant General of the SS August Meyszner as the higher SS and police leader in Serbia (Hoherer SS- und Polizeifuhrer in Serbien). 83 Meyszner at once began a thorough reorganization of all police forces and operations in Serbia. The organizational staff of the uniformed police (Ordnungspolizei) established early in January 1942 in Belgrade was renamed the command of the uniformed police (Befehlshaber der Ordnungspolizei) on February 17. Under it there were four police area commands, corresponding to the four military government area commands, and under them about ten police district commands (Polizeikreisstellen), corresponding to the military government district commands. Meyszner also set up a number of volunteer and auxiliary police units for policing the entire territory of Serbia and, after the collapse of Italy, of Sandzak and Montenegro. 84 He took under his command the Serbian State Guard and was instrumental in the organization of the 7th SS Volunteer Division "Prinz Eugen," made up largely ofBanat Volksdeutsche. 85 trop and Himmler, Neuhausen was arrested in late August 1944. According to his postwar statement to Yugoslav interrogators, he then spent five months in a concentration camp and the remainder of the time to the end of the war in confinement. YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. 1/5, p. 26, Box 27/1. Neuhausen was replaced as plenipotentiary for economic affairs by Administrative Chief Theo Keyser and as chief of military administration by Administrative ChiefDanckwerts. Micr. No. T-501, Roll258, Frs. 743-46. 82 Micr. No. T- 501, Roll266, Fr. 1092; Stambolic, "Occupation of Serbia," pp. 54-55. 83 For the brief (Dienstanweisung) for Meyszner of January 22, 1942, see Micr. No. T501, Roll264, Frs. 438-39. 84 Germany, Federal Republic of, Bundesarchiv, Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei, I 9 3 6- I 94 5. This publication contains studies by Hans-Joachim Neufeldt, Jiirgen Huck, and Georg Tessin. The first two are paginated consecutively, the third, separately. The reference is to Tessin, pp. 68-71. 85 Micr. No. T-501, Roll248, Fr. 586, and Roll253, Frs. 283-87. See also Glisic, Teror i zloCini,pp. I00-110.

77

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

Although Meyszner was subject to the orders of the commanding general in Serbia in matters of military security and military operations, in all other matters, including police activities, the strengthening of the Volksdeutsche in occupied Serbia (chiefly in the Banat, which they administered), and the utilization of the Volksdeutsche in SS and police formations, he was responsible only to Himmler, with the same authority that Himmler possessed in Germany. Since the brief of his appointment in Serbia had not clearly delimited his functions and jurisdiction, he was able to define his own role. 86 Following his slogan "I like a dead Serb better than a live one," Meyszner became one of the most bloodthirsty high officials of the German occupation regime. 87 His systematic efforts to interfere in both the military and political domains brought him into conflict with the chief of military administration and the commanding general and later with Special Envoy Hermann Neubacher, who was sent to Serbia in the fall of I 94 3 to organize a Serbian united nationalist front against the Partisans and whose policies of necessity involved somewhat more lenient treatment of the Serbian population than Meyszner thought fit. 88 Neubacher and the military finally succeeded in ousting Meyszner in April I944· He was replaced by Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS Hermann Behrends, who had been the very effective deputy leader of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI), one of Himmler's special organizations. From the beginning of the occupation regime in Belgrade, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Envoy Felix Benzler, was assigned to the military commander in Serbia. 89 Although the German-Italian agreement of April21, 1941, called for the establishment of an "independent Serbia," Serbia had in fact a puppet government and Germany accorded it no status in internationallaw except that of a fully occupied country. Thus it never enjoyed formal diplomatic status with the Axis powers and their satellites as did the Independent State of Croatia. With the exception of the Italian consul, foreign consuls stationed in Belgrade could not transact consular business directly with the Nedic government, but had to deal with the representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the city. 90 Benzler, like Turner, thought that the "Herzog, Besatzungsverwaltung, pp. II7-I 8. 87Meyszner's slogan was known among German officials in Serbia. See an August 29, I943, report that Lieutenant Colonel Klamroth of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht made after an inspection trip to the Balkans, in Micr. No. T-78, Roll 332, Fr. 6,289,889. Meyszner, an Austrian, started his career as an Austro-Hungarian army officer, then transferred to the Austrian gendarmerie after the First World War and began dabbling in politics. In I 9 34, he was involved in the revolt that cost the life of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. When the revolt failed, he fled to Germany and somewhat later joined the German police force. Germany, Federal Republic of, Bundesarchiv, Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei, I 93 6- I 94 5, Neufeldt contribution, p. I I I. ''More will be said on Neubacher's mission in Chapter 5. 89 For Hitler's service brief of April28 and von Ribbentrop's directive of May 3, I94I, to Benzler, see Micr. No. T-r2o, Roll2oo, Frs. I 5 3,205-8. '"Micr. No. T-I 20, Roll 578 5, Fr. H299,941. Strangely enough, the prewar Italian envoy

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

Nedic government could be somewhat strengthened and he defended its position in some disputes, though this brought him into conflict with both the higher SS and police leader and the plenipotentiary for economic affairs. As an ordinary ministry official, he could not compete with the military heads of the occupation regime and officials like Meyszner and Neuhausen, who had powerful backers in the Reich. After Neubacher arrived in Belgrade in September 1943, Benzler's position became redundant and he was recalled to Berlin. 91 The Germans also organized a maze of other offices and services in Belgrade and Serbia: intelligence, propaganda, radio traffic monitoring, labor mobilization and recruiting, sections of Organization Todt, and so on, many of which reported directly to their superior offices in Berlin. In disciplinary matters, however, all German personnel in Serbia were under the jurisdiction of the military commander or whatever the current title was of the chief of the occupation regime. One of the main characteristics of this regime was the lack of a unified German command and thus of a unified German occupation policy. This was apparently an outgrowth of Hitler's policy of distributing authority in any one area or undertaking among several centers of power in order to ensure that no government service accumulated too much influence and also to stimulate competition. The controversies between Turner, chief of military administration, and the military commanders, between Turner and Meyszner, between Meyszner and the military, and between Meyszner and the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were the result of this system. Similarly, the plenipotentiary for economic affairs had disagreements with all other branches of the occupation regime over the extent of his jurisdiction. Nobody was satisfied with the system and many of its leading figures criticized it and made suggestions for change. The most authoritative statement about the difficulties produced by the multitrack German occupation regime in Serbia came in a report by Commanding General in Serbia Paul Bader to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe on September 12, 1942. Bader complained about his inability to direct the administrative, economic, and police affairs of the country satisfactorily, although he was responsible for its safety and for the preservation of peace and order. To remedy the situation, he proposed that he (as commanding to Yugoslavia, Francesco G. Mameli, remained in Belgrade after the Germans occupied Serbia. His function was probably to observe. See, for example, his report of December 26, 1941, in Micr. No. T-821, Roll21, Frs. 38 5-90. "For Neubacher's condescending view of Benzler, see the former's interrogation, in Micr. No. 679, Roll2, Fr. 752. Even after his recall, Benzler was opposed by the SS, which tried to prevent him from obtaining a new assignment in Budapest. One accusation was that Benzler, who had a Hungarian-born wife, had shown favoritism toward the Hungarian minority in the Banat. For correspondence on this, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5784, Frs. H299,476-5o1, especially H299,498-5or.

79

8o

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

general) be given jurisdiction over the economic branch of the occupation system, with the possible exclusion of armaments manufacture; that he have authority over the higher SS and police leader in police matters; and that the police and administrative organizations at the district command level be unified. He also stated (probably having in mind Turner's idea of a "supervisory administration") that the establishment of a Reich Commissariat in Serbia under the jurisdiction of the Reich Ministry of Interior was not feasible because guerrilla activity made the country a military operations area. 92 As time went on and Bader received no answer, he acquired new grounds for complaint. Some of this is seen in a message of April29, 1943, to the Wehrmacht Operations Staff (QU 5) and the commander in chief in southeast Europe, answering a query from the former about the use of 300 Russian prisoners of war for service with the Russian Protective Corps in Serbia and the desertion of four men from the Serbian Volunteer Corps-happenings about which he, Bader, the commanding general in Serbia, had not been informed. He was particularly incensed by the actions of Higher SS and Police Leader Meyszner: The Commanding General did not know about this report because of the nature of command conditions here, which are known. It makes unified command impossible. The Higher SS and Police Leader is personally under my command. But he has his own line of communication to the Reichsfiihrer SS [Himmler], through which he can directly report everything without my knowledge .... The situation in Serbia is not only impossible, but is for me as a soldier disgraceful, in that my orders, which I issue in the interest of securing this land, can be disputed through police channels by one of my own subordinates without my knowledge. And yet for all that takes place here I am held responsible. 93 [Bader's emphasis]

An internal Ministry of Foreign Affairs note of May 22, 1943, about Prime Minister NediC's many requests for changes in occupation policy and his planned visit to Hitler's headquarters noted that the Serbian government was receiving orders from four different German authorities: the commanding general, the higher SS and police leader, the plenipotentiary for economic affairs, and the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This led to great difficulties because "these orders often contradicted one another." Although Colonel General Lohr, the armed forces commander in southeast Europe, had raised this problem with Hitler in the autumn of 1942, "the Fuhrer had decided that a change in jurisdiction should not be undertaken, but that German agencies in Serbia should agree among themselves as conditions required. " 94 The Ministry 92 Micr. No. T-501, Rol1352, Frs. 76-78. See also Bader's directive of November 9,1942, on the "cooperation of the German services in Serbia among themselves and with the Serbian authorities," in Frs. 498-502. 93 Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Frs. 351-52. ••Micr. No. T-120, Roll5784, Frs. H299,458-6o. For details on Nedic's demands at that time, see Chapter 5·

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

of Foreign Affairs, for its part, wanted to use political pressure in dealing with Nedic. In response, the German government decided that the ministry should approach the Armed Forces High Command, the Four-Year Plan Agency, and the Reichsfiihrer SS with a proposal not to change the jurisdictions of the various German agencies in Serbia, but to designate one agency for transmittal of orders to the Serbian government and in this way ease NediC's position. At an ensuing conference of all parties concerned, including Meyszner, Neuhausen, and representatives of the commanding general in Serbia, held on May 3 I in Berlin, some minor points regarding NediC's requests were agreed on. But the conference found no solution to the main problem of coordinating the activities of the various services or selecting one service as the channel for communications with the Nedic government. 95 Some simplification of the occupation regime in Serbia did take place following the reorganization of the senior command in southeast Europe in July and August I943· Directive No. 48 stated that the ministries would continue to issue technical instructions, but would channel them through the military commander in southeast Europe. 96 One consequence of this coordination was Neuhausen's appointment as the head of the military administration, in addition to his position as plenipotentiary for economic affairs. After September I943, however, a new contender for power and influence in the occupation regime in Serbia appeared in the person of the new special envoy, Hermann Neubacher, who was in charge of implementing the Germans' "new policy" in southeast Europe (see Chapter 5). In general, however, the struggle for power among high officials of the German occupation system in Serbia continued, though perhaps on a somewhat reduced scale. The "Concluding Report on the Military Administration in Serbia," completed in April I 94 5, stressed the negative effects of the multiplicity of powers in the occupation regime, blaming them in part on the poor selection of various department heads, who were intent on their own self-aggrandizement. The report concluded: "The resulting situation can hardly be characterized in any other way than as a war among agencies, in which every participant was interested primarily in defending and enlarging his own sphere of influence." The situation was especially problematical for General Nedic, who found that arrangements made with one German agency were often countermanded by another, usually to the detriment of his government. 97 Finally, we have the opinion of General Walter Warlimont, deputy chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff until September I944, writing after the war. Micr. No. T-uo, Rolls784, Frs. H299,465-67. ln a conference on September 24, 1943, General Felber informed Nedic that henceforth he, Felber, was solely responsible for matters of military administration and military security and that Nedic should address himself only to him in these matters. Micr. No. T-501, Roll 253, Fr. 366. 97 Micr. No. T-501, Roll264, Frs. 219-21. 91 96

8I

THE PARTITION OF YUGOSLAVIA

He characterized the organization of the German occupation administration in Serbia as chaotic, typical of the confusion that Hitler allowed in all Germanoccupied areas. According to Warlimont, the military government in Serbia existed only in name and was limited and attacked from all sides: the plenipotentiary for economic affairs as Goring's representative made his influence felt in all military matters; the chief of military administration listened more to officials of the National Socialist Labor Party than to the commanding general; the higher SS and police leader as Himmler's representative interfered in all aspects of the occupation regime, even in the use of the 7th SS Division "Prinz Eugen," which was under the command of the Wehrmacht; and the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs often interfered in the activities of the Wehrmacht. 98 In spite of its many inherent problems, however, Germany's policy in Serbia worked reasonably well until the spring of 1944· From then on, as the Allies advanced on all fronts, Germany's days in Serbia were numbered. In Yugoslavia, the Partisans, helped by supplies from the Allies, attacked German forces and their domestic collaborators in Serbia. By October 20, 1944, Belgrade was freed by Soviet and Partisan forces and the German occupation of Serbia was at an end. 9'Warlimont, Im Hauptquartier der deutschen Wehrmacht; Kriegstagebuch, 2, pt. r: 735-36. See also Herzog, Besatzungsverwaltung, p. II2, and Veesenmayer's interrogation, Micr. No. 679, Roll3, Fr. 640.

CHAPTER 3

Germany and Italy Divide Slovenia

GERMAN OCCUPATION OF NORTHERN SLOVENIA

Following the conquest of Yugoslavia, the Axis powers divided Slovenia into three parts. Germany occupied the largest, northern part with 798,700 people; Italy annexed the southern part with 3 3 6,2 79 people; and Hungary annexed the northeast part, the Prekmurje, with 102,867 people.' In this chapter we will trace developments in the German- and Italian-controlled areas through the duration of the war. Developments in the Hungarian-annexed area were of no special significance and will not be covered. Annexations of all other parts of Yugoslavia will be dealt with in the following chapter. The Germans further divided their occupied area into two parts. The larger, eastern part, Lower Styria, was administered by Sigfried Uiberreither, the Gauleiter (district leader) of Styria. The smaller, western part, including sections of Upper Carniola and Carinthia, was first administered by Franz Kutschera and then from December r6, 1941, by Friedrich Rainer, the Gauleiter of Carinthia. Map 2 shows the division of Slovenia among the Axis powers. Originally the Germans intended to annex their parts to the Greater Reich, claiming that about 25,000 Volksdeutsche lived in occupied Lower Styria and about 1,500 in occupied parts of Carniola and Carinthia. In reality, there were about ro,ooo fewer ethnic Germans there than they claimed. According to the Yugoslav census of 193 I, the number of Volksdeutsche in what became both the German-occupied and Italian-annexed parts of Slovenia ten years later was 25,054. According to statistics of the German Kulturbund prepared in Slovenia for internal purposes, 28,075 Volksdeutsche lived in the whole of Slovenia in January 1941. Of this number, 15,157 were in Lower Styria, about 12,ooo were in Kocevje (in the Italian-annexed part), and the remaining few were in other parts of the province. 2 'Ferenc, "Le systeme d'occupation des Nazis en Slovenie," p. 49· For the German claims, see Herzog, Besatzungsverwaltung, p. 46, who cites official German documents. For the Kulturbund figures, see Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji, pp. 17-22. One of the most authoritative German sources puts the number of Volksdeutsche in Slovenia on September 1, 1939, at 29,200. See Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Juga2

AUSTRIA

/'

INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA

.....

'' /

r.

)>

i

Occupied by Germany

c::::::J Annexed to Italy ITIIJl Annexed to Hungary

"'

(')

- - Kingdom of Yugoslavia, April 6, 1941

:X:

- - Independent State of Croatia, 1941 ----- Slovene-Croatian border, April 6, 1941

ISTRIA

40 km.

· - · -Italian-Yugoslav border, 1954

GERMANY AND ITALY DIVIDE SLOVENIA

The proponents of annexation felt that many Slovenes in the occupied areas were "people very close to the Germans." Hitler had ordered his officials "to make these lands German again" and they immediately went to work. Already on April 12, r94I, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Police and Security Service (SD) and the official supervising the implementation of German population policies in Lower Styria, established a special Staff for the Resettlement of the Population in the office of the commander of the Security Service for Lower Styria. On April r8, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfiihrer SS and chief of German police, in his capacity as Reich commissar for the strengthening of Germandom abroad, issued a six-point directive on the removal of "foreign elements" from Lower Styria and a series of orders on specific matters of German policy in this area. On May 3 he issued a separate directive on the expulsion of Slovenes from Upper Carniola and the occupied part of Carinthia, where conditions differed from those in Lower Styria. On May I4 he established a Staff for the Resettlement of the Population from these areas. For the Germans to achieve their demographic aims in occupied Slovene areas, they needed to change both the ethnic composition and the national consciousness of the population. They planned to achieve these goals in three ways: by the large-scale expulsion of undesirable Slovenes, especially the intelligentsia; by the transfer in of Volksdeutsche from the Italian-annexed part of Slovenia, northeast Italy, and east and southeast Europe; and by the Germanization of the remaining Slovene population. 3 As they did in other parts of occupied and annexed Yugoslavia, the Germans in occupied Slovenia used the services of the local Volksdeutsche to further their aims. While the Volksdeutsche in the Danube basin were to serve as the nucleus of a future German political unit spearheading German rule in that part of Europe, the Slovene Volksdeutsche were to serve as a bridge to the Adriatic.• slawien, p. I 22E. For a succinct presentation of Nazi views and German objectives in the Slovene areas occupied in April 1941, see Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 2: 268-73. 'The best and most complete study of the German expulsion of Slovenes from Lower Styria, Upper Carniola, and parts of Carinthia, and of denationalization policies in these areas, is Ferenc's Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika. Ferenc later edited Que/len zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien, I94I-I945 (cited as Que/len), containing 323 documents, including several from the Independent State of Croatia. For special problems on the expulsion of Slovenes from Upper Carniola, see Ferenc, "Expulsion of Slovenes," pp. 91-103. For the expulsion of Slovenes from Lower Styria and Upper Carniola, see also Milosevic, Izbeglice i preseljenici, pp. I 9-4 3. 4 The Volksdeutsche in Slovenia came under Nazi influence earlier and more fully than those in other areas of Yugoslavia. In the mid-1930's, the Yugoslav government prohibited the activity of their Kulturbund organizations, though the latter continued to operate surreptitiously as sporting, folklore, and similar groups. Late in 1939, the government again allowed the Kulturbund to operate legally. Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v ]ugoslaviji, pp. 43-58 and 93-127.

ss

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The earliest German document specifying the number of Slovenes to be expelled from the newly occupied areas was issued by Heydrich on April 2I, I94I. Heydrich felt that the essential issue was to evacuate about 26o,ooo Slovenes-a number arrived at in preliminary discussions among German authorities-to occupied Serbia. He invited officials concerned with this question to a conference in Maribor on May 6 to discuss the implementation of Hitler's order to change the composition of the population. On the same subject, the German Army High Command sent a message to the military commander in Serbia on April 30, stating that the intended transfer of Slovenes to Serbia would be made only with the latter's approval. 5 At the May 6 conference in Maribor, the representative of the military commander, while expressing strong reservations, agreed that Serbia would take as many Slovenes as possible in order to comply with the Fuhrer's wishes. However, he also suggested that Bulgaria and Italy be urged to accept some of the expellees, Bulgaria some 4o,ooo to so,ooo in the Bulgarian-annexed part of Yugoslav Macedonia and Italy some 6o,ooo to 7o,ooo. This conference also revealed that Hitler opposed settling any Slovene expellees in the new Croatian state. The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs subsequently asked its envoys in Sofia and Rome about the possibility of resettling Slovenes in the two allied countries. On May I 6, the envoy in Sofia advised against approaching the Bulgarian government about the matter because of the difficulties it would cause in the newly acquired areas. A negative response also came from German diplomats in Rome. As a result, the idea of resettling a large number of Slovenes in these countries was dropped. 6 Meanwhile, Envoy Siegfried Kasche had informed the Croatian government about German plans to expel Slovenes from Lower Styria, Upper Carniola, and parts of Carinthia to occupied Serbia. On May I 3, I 94 I, he reported to Berlin that the Croatian government was considering accepting all Slovene expellees if it were allowed to expel the same number of Serbs from Croatia to Serbia. Realizing that there was no possibility of transferring any Slovenes to the Bulgarian-annexed part of Yugoslav Macedonia or to Italy and that the military commander in Serbia also had reservations about accepting them, the Germans accepted the offer of the Croatian government. On May 2I, German authorities announced that Hitler had withdrawn his opposition to the resettlement of Slovenes in Croatia and had accepted the proposal that in exchange for Slovenes expelled to Croatia, Croatia could expel the same number of Serbs 'For Heydrich's invitation, see Que/len, p. 67, and for the message of the German Army High Command to the military commander in occupied Serbia, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll 249, Fr. 1096. Just two days earlier, the same commander had opposed the transfer of some 8,ooo Serbs from Hungarian-annexed Backa into Serbia because of the difficulty of feeding and housing them. See Fr. 1098. •see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5782, Frs. H297,892-93, H297,897-903, H297,914, and Que/len, pp. 101, 104.

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to Serbia. On May 28, the Croatian government agreed in principle to accept the Slovene expellees/ At a conference in Zagreb on June 4, 1941, convoked at Kasche's initiative, all interested parties unanimously agreed that about 5,ooo intellectuals and politically tainted Slovenes from Lower Styria and about 4,ooo from Upper Carniola and the occupied part of Carinthia would be transferred to occupied Serbia, while the 25,000 Slovenes who had settled in the German-occupied parts of Slovenia after 1914 and 145,ooo Slovene peasants from border areas would be transferred to the Independent State of Croatia. They were to be expelled in three successive stages: first the intellectuals, then those Slovenes who had settled in these areas after 1914, and finally people from areas along the new borders. A corresponding number of Serbs from Croatia would be moved to Serbia. It was specifically provided that the Slovene intellectuals to be expelled included Catholic priests and that Croatia was entitled to deport an equivalent number of Orthodox priests and their families to Serbia. The conference also agreed that about 3o,ooo Serbs living in Croatia who lacked resident rights would be transferred to Serbia. 8 The expulsion of Slovenes from Lower Styria to occupied Serbia started on June 7 and to Croatia on July r r, 1941, and was carried out with great brutality. People were not given time to prepare for departure and were allowed to take along only 30 kilograms of personal belongings and less than ten dollars in cash. 9 The Slovenes reacted very negatively to expulsion and this reaction was intensified by two facts. First, with the exception of the intelligentsia and people who had settled in the occupied areas after 1914, the Germans did not clearly identify the groups to be expelled. As a result, all Slovenes in Germanoccupied areas felt threatened and turned against Germany. Second, those expelled were deprived of their possessions without indemnity and were placed at the mercy of the authorities and populations in the areas in which they were resettled. Himmler's di~ective of May 3 on the expulsion of Slovenes from Upper Carniola and parts of Carinthia was essentially the same as his April I 8 directive for expulsions from Lower Styria. But already during that month the Carinthian regional government and Nazi Party officials expressed their oppo7See Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5781, Frs. H296,639-49, especially Fr. H296,639, and Que/len, pp. 109-10. As German envoy in the Independent State of Croatia, Siegfried Kasche was involved from the beginning in resettling Slovenes in Croatia and expelling a corresponding number of Serbs to Serbia. He provided a chronological account of Nazi denationalization measures and their consequences in German-occupied Slovene areas, as well as much statistical data, in a concluding report of November 20, 1941, in the microcopy cited at the beginning of this footnote. 'Micr. No. T-120, Roll5781, Frs. H296,639-40; Que/len, pp. 163-69. 9 Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 239-63.

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sition to parts of the plan. A principal concern was the damaging effect the expulsion would have on the supply of labor for war industries. Surveys were soon prepared showing that the racial composition of Slovenes in the border belt of Upper Carniola, all of whom were to be expelled, was largely acceptable from the German point of view, intimating that they should not be expelled. The Germans also realized that Germanizing the Slovene population in occupied areas would require working systematically on Slovene young people over several generations. This led to a new directive on expulsions from Upper Carniola, issued on July 7, I 94 I, that reduced the number of planned expellees in the first and third stages and halted the expulsion of people in the second stage to Serbia and Croatia. However, it permitted the continued expulsion of Slovenes to Germany. Toward the end of July, proposals were made for the first time to postpone the expulsion of Slovenes until the end of the war and presumed German victory . 10 Actually, the Germans soon started to exempt from deportation Slovenes working in industries and services important for the war effort. In addition, many able-bodied Slovenes who were deported to Serbia and Croatia were apprehended by German labor recruiters and sent to Germany as slave labor. The expulsions, in addition to creating unfavorable political and economic consequences in both the areas from which people were expelled and the areas in which they were resettled or to which they fled, also contributed to the spread of armed resistance. Armed resistance by Serbian nationalists (Chetniks) and members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Partisans) began in all parts of Yugoslavia except Macedonia in July I94I and quickly gathered momentum. The Slovenes resettled in Serbia and Croatia and the Serbs moved from Croatia to Serbia spread anti-German sentiment in these areas. Displaced individuals joined armed groups. Armed resistance in Yugoslavia endangered vital German communication lines in southeast Europe as well as the supply of food and strategic metals for the German economy from Yugoslav territory. The Germans soon realized the connection between the expulsion of Slovenes from Slovenia and Serbs from Croatia on the one hand and the rise of armed resistance on the other. On August I8, Himmler ordered a temporary halt to the expulsions. On August 2 5, he limited expulsions from Lower Styria to its southern part and halted them from Upper Carniola altogether until after the war. 11 A conference in Zagreb on September 22 to examine the new situation was attended by Reich representatives from Berlin, German occupation authorities from the two parts of northern Slovenia, the military commander from occupied Serbia, and Croatian government officials. According to Kasche's data, up to that date a total of 9,343 Slovenes had been expelled to Croatia in organized '"Ferenc, "Expulsion of Slovenes," pp. 94-9 5· "Ibid., pp. 96-97; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 279-83; Que/len, pp. 231-33.

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railroad transports and another approximately 17,ooo had moved there on their own, for a total of 26,343 persons. In addition, 6,720 Serbs had been sent by railroad transports to Serbia. At the same time, Croatian authorities had sent 9,900 Serbs in officially organized railroad transports to Serbia and had driven about 90,000 Serbs illegally across the frontier into Serbia. 12 Both those Serbs who were officially moved to Serbia and those who fled were dispossessed without indemnity. Disorder and armed resistance made it impossible for Croatian and Serbian authorities to handle satisfactorily transferees and refugees. This conference confirmed the order halting the expulsion of Slovenes to Serbia and Croatia and officially stopped the expulsion of Serbs from Croatia to Serbia. The expulsion of Slovenes from Lower Styria to Croatia, which had been temporarily permitted on September rr and involved 3,730 people, was stopped on September 2 7. On October r 3, Himmler finally decided that no more Slovenes would be expelled to Croatia. 13 However, this did not put a stop to the expulsion of Slovenes to other areas where they could not assist in armed resistance or otherwise work against Germany. Thus, some 36,ooo Slovenes from the two Lower Styrian counties bordering the Italian-annexed Ljubljana Province were expelled to various parts of the Old Reich between October 22, 1941, and July 30, 1942. For "reasons of state policy," the Germans wanted a German population along that border. These deportees could take along their cash and valuables and as much movable property as transportation conditions would allow and were reimbursed by German authorities for their real estate. Subsequently, the only kind of deportation from Slovene areas that continued was the deportation of relatives of Partisans and executed hostages to a score of small camps in the Reich. The Germans stopped such deportations from Lower Styria in the spring of 1943 but continued them from Upper Carniola and the occupied part of Carinthia until August I944· From each of these areas, the Germans deported about 4,ooo people under this program. 14 Instead of expelling, in three stages, about one-third of the Slovene population from the areas they occupied, the Germans actually expelled an estimated 80,300 people (including those who left on their own), or about one-third of "See the data from Kasche's report of November 20, 1941, in Micr. T-120, Roll 5781, Frs. H296,640-4r; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 284-87. For the life of Slovene expellees in Serbia, see Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 418-35; Ros, Slovenski izgnanci v Srbiji; and Milosevic, Izbeglice i preseljenici, especially pp. 259-62 and 268-72. For the life of Slovene expellees in the Independent State of Croatia, see Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 436-74, and Milosevic, Izbeglice i preseljenici, pp. 325-42. For the especially difficult conditions of Slovene deportees in Bosnia, see BrCic, "Settlement of Slovene Refugees," pp. 301-15. 13 Micr. No. T-12o, Roll 5781, Fr. H296,642; Que/len, pp. 392-93; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 280-89. 14 Micr. No. T-12o, Roll 5781, Frs. H296,656-57; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 290-332; and Professor Ferenc's letter of June 23, 1982, to the author.

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the number originally planned. This was about ro percent of the Slovene population of these areas. While sources differ somewhat on the numbers in various groups of expellees, the best authority on this problem, Professor Tone Ferenc, estimates that the expelled population consisted of about 7,300 deportees to Serbia, ro,ooo deportees to Croatia, 17,ooo people who fled to Croatia on their own, 37,ooo deportees to Germany, 8,ooo relatives of Partisans and executed hostages deported to Germany, and about r,ooo others deported across the frontier .15 Thus, German plans to change the ethnic composition of occupied parts of Slovenia by the rapid mass expulsion of Slovenes and their replacement by Volksdeutsche from other areas met with only limited success. However, the Slovenes deported included those who provided leadership to Slovene society, namely Catholic priests, teachers, other intelligentsia, and business leaders. This left the peasants, workers, and lower middle class leaderless and consequently more amenable to German policies of denationalization and economic subjugation. Nevertheless, some German officials considered the undertaking a political failure. In his report of November 20, I 94 I, Kasche wrote, "Through the expulsion of Slovenes we wanted to free the southernmost frontier of the Reich from all hostile forces and to destroy the strength [Volkskraft] of the Slovenes as a people. In fact, we have achieved just the opposite." He estimated that 70 to 8o percent of the Slovenes in these areas who had earlier been friendly toward Germany had been transformed into bitter enemies and that many of them became new recruits for guerrilla forces. 16 Economically, the principal negative effect of the expulsions was to reduce agricultural and livestock production and industrial and mining output. In general, the new settlers proved less efficient producers than the expelled Slovenes had been. In Croatia, the brutal expulsion and flight of Serbs from the state, general insecurity and disorder, and armed resistance also greatly reduced agricultural production and general economic output there. 17 A further consequence of Germany's anti-Slovene policies in the areas under its occupation was the flight of many Slovenes to the Italian-annexed Ljubljana Province. Some Slovenes who had been expelled to German-occupied Serbia and many who had been expelled or fled to the Independent State of Croatia later moved to the Ljubljana Province. The Germans estimated that in the city of Ljubljana alone there were about 17,ooo fugitives and expellees from German-occupied areas. Naturally they spread anti-German feeling in the city and many worked against the German occupation regime in northern Slovenia. 18 They also supplied manpower to the Partisan forces fighting in the Professor Ferenc's letter of June 23, 1982, to the author. See Micr. No. T-120, Roll5781, Frs. H296,642-46, especially Fr. H296,642. "Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5781, Frs. H296,646-48. See also Kasche's reports of January 7 and 13, 1942, in Micr. No. T-120, Roll5781, Frs. H296,626-3 5. 18 Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," p. 188. 15

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Ljubljana Province, as well as to the Partisan units sent to the German-occupied parts of Slovenia to spread resistance. Although the Germans stopped the mass expulsion of Slovenes from occupied areas, they were determined to carry through Germanization in these areas as far as possible. They had developed plans for that purpose even before the occupation and after it they enlarged and adjusted them to fit the new conditions. One of the simplest measures was Germanizing all geographical names and changing the names of streets, offices, businesses, banks, and so on to German form. Slovenes were also ordered to change their names: the Slovene form of first names was prohibited and all family names had to use German spelling. The German form of names was introduced in all public records. To further the process of Germanization, the Germans established two special organizations, the Carinthian Volksbund and the Styrian Heimatbund, and induced or forced most Slovenes to join. Applicants were classified according to political and racial criteria. Politically they were ranked in five different groups from "friendly to the Germans" to "strongly anti-German" and racially in four groups from "very good" to "unsuitable" for inclusion in the German community. The Germans interpreted the large number of applicants for membership in the two organizations as an unofficial plebiscite indicating acceptance of their rule. While a considerable number of Slovenes did succumb to German propaganda and joined in good faith, most joined to avoid expulsion and the expropriation of their possessions without indemnity. But the Germans went even further in exploiting the Volksbund and Heimatbund. In Lower Styria they enrolled 84,700 men between the ages of r8 and 45 from the Heimatbund and in Upper Carniola 28,052 men from the Volksbund into the Wehrmannschaft and in both areas about 33,ooo youths of both sexes into the Deutsche Jugend. Although both organizations were primarily intended to serve as instruments of Germanization, the former was also used as an auxiliary military force for guard duty and fighting the Partisans. 19 Employing one of the most common techniques used by states engaged in denationalization for political purposes, the Germans closed all Slovene schools and reopened them with instruction permitted only in German. The Germans fired almost all Slovene teachers, expelled most to Serbia or the Independent State of Croatia, and replaced them with hundreds of teachers brought from Austria and Germany. The obvious objective was to prevent the development of Slovene national consciousness in Slovene children and young people and to implant German national consciousness instead. The Germans closed all Slovene libraries and after removing copies of Slovene books, journals, and newspapers for a select number of German and Austrian libraries, burned the rest. They also gave special attention to identifying and removing 19 Mikuz, Pregled razvoja NOB u Sloveniji, 1: 63-67; Ferenc, "The German 'Wehrmannschaft,"' pp. 81-156; idem, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 731-34,745-61,781-

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Slovene cultural monuments and historical materials from the occupied areas, in order to destroy the evidence proving that these were Slovene lands. They prohibited the activity of various Slovene cultural and social associations and transferred their properties to the Volksbund and Heimatbund. 20 Aware of the important cultural and political role of the Catholic Church in Slovenia, the Germans expelled 448 Catholic priests-most of the priesthood in the occupied areas-to the Independent State of Croatia during the summer of 1941. They allowed only sick and elderly priests to remain, leaving the majority of parishes without priests. Few of the new priests whom the Germans brought in from the outside spoke any Slovene. The Germans also closed Catholic schools and divested the church of a large part of its property, transferring it to the Volksbund and Heimatbund. 21 In March (in Lower Styria) and July 1942 (in Upper Carniola and the occupied part of Carinthia), the Germans introduced German military law and began drafting young men into military service. According to the report of the postwar Yugoslav commission that investigated the crimes of the occupying and collaborating forces in Slovenia, the Germans drafted 28,092 men in Lower Styria and 7,216 in Upper Carniola and the occupied part of Carinthia, figures that do not include those who later deserted to the Partisans. Many of these men lost their lives on the Russian front. 22 Other young men and women were drafted for German labor service. In addition to supplying soldiers and labor power, these drafts were aimed at facilitating the Germanization of these young people and at preventing them from joining the Slovene Partisans. Finally, the Germans systematically acquired ownership of the economic assets of occupied Slovenia. In addition to expropriating without indemnity the land and other possessions of the expelled population and of hostages and executed Partisans, the Germans expropriated, or German banks, industrial combines, and other business interests took over, mines, industrial enterprises, banks, insurance companies, cooperatives, newspapers, and other businesses that had belonged to the Yugoslav state, local governments, private Slovene citizens, or private interests in other parts of Yugoslavia or in countries at war with Germany. Some of the changes in property rights required settlement with Italian authorities because the domicile of the former owners was in the Italianannexed part of Slovenia. However, the negative effects of the mass expulsion of Slovenes, the failure of measures directed at the Germanization of the remaining Slovene population, and the armed resistance that began in Slovenia in the summer of 1941 '"Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 734-44, 789-97. For the number of expelled priests, see YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 17/5-I, Box 238; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 245-46, 8oo. In his study Ferenc pays minimal attention to the Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in occupied Slovene areas. 22 As given in Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 419. 21

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and more or less steadily gathered momentum forced the Germans to abandon their plans to annex the occupied areas of Slovenia to the Greater Reich. Thus the administrative system they established in April 1941 remained until the end of the war. As in most other parts of Yugoslavia, the Communist-led resistance in Slovenia started in July 194r. The Liberation Front (Osvobodilna fronta), behind which stood the Communist Party of Slovenia, led the fight. The front was initially established in April 1941 as the Anti-Imperialist Front and engaged only in propaganda. But it changed its name and increased its activity after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Throughout the war, the Liberation Front considered Slovenia a political unit, though as long as Italy held the Ljubljana Province and to some extent even after Germany occupied it in September 1943, conditions of resistance there differed markedly from conditions in the originally German-occupied parts. Although armed attacks by the Communist-led resistance first began in the western part of German-occupied Slovenia, the resistance there and especially in Lower Styria developed more slowly and on a much more limited scale than in the Italian-annexed part. This was so for several reasons. The mass expulsion of the intelligentsia and those persons considered politically unreliable from Lower Styria in the first few months of occupation removed the most politically active elements of the population. The mass enrollment of Slovenes in the Heimatbund and its suborganizations, the Wehrmannschaft and the Deutsche Jugend, enabled the Germans not only to fully control the movement of their members, but also to use the Wehrmannschaft as auxiliary troops. Above all, the execution of hostages and of Partisans and their sympathizers for even minor offenses eliminated many Slovenes who had chosen active resistance. Mass executions increased as time went on. From July 30 to December 1941, the Germans executed 306 people; from January 3 to May 21, 1942, 391; and from June 3 to November 4, 1942, 976. In addition, they deported the family members of those executed to detention camps in Germany and confiscated their possessions. 23 The Partisans from the Ljubljana Province, probably encouraged by their success there and wanting to intensify their operations in Lower Styria, attempted to send an expeditionary force of about 500 men to Lower Styria in May 1942. But the plan was betrayed and the Germans repulsed all Partisan efforts to cross the Sava River. In the next effort, made much further to the west the following July, the Partisans sent the 2nd Group of Detachments with about 500 men to the German-occupied area. The operation proved costly and 23 For the names of the Partisans and hostages, including some women, executed by the Germans, based on copies of official German announcements, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. r: 29r-sro; 6, bk. 2: 307-453; and 6, bk. 3: 625-50. I was unable to find any additional systematic data on mass executions in the German-occupied parts of Slovenia for the period after November 4, 1942.

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only a small number of men reached the western part of Lower Styria. The penetration of this group into the German-occupied area was also responsible for a great increase in the execution of Partisan sympathizers and hostages. Nevertheless, the operation was important for maintaining the Partisan struggle in the German-occupied parts of Slovenia. The last Partisan expeditionary force sent from the Ljubljana Province to Lower Styria got under way in January 1944. The 14th Partisan Division with about r,roo officers and men, after making a wide detour through Croatia, entered Lower Styria from the east. This division also suffered terrible losses but contributed materially to the growth of Partisan resistance in Lower Styria and succeeded in maintaining itself in the area until the end of the war. 24 ITALIAN ANNEXATION OF THE LJUBLJANA PROVINCE

The Establishment of the Province

The Italians received much less Slovene territory than they expected. They were very dissatisfied with the frontier that Hitler established and that the Germans continued to change at Italian expense for several weeks after the end of the war against Yugoslavia. They were especially disgruntled by the fact that the German-occupied area included the Ljubljana-Zagreb railroad line, the coal mines of Trbovlje, and the steel mill at Jesenice. 25 But the Italians did receive the city of Ljubljana, although the Germans drew the frontier near its northern suburbs. The Germans feared that if Ljubljana, the political and cultural capital of Slovenia, were included in their own occupation area, it might counteract efforts at Germanizing the Slovene population. 26 The partition of Slovenia and the location of the border between its German and Italian parts caused many economic and financial problems. Property rights among citizens, banks, insurance companies, mining and industrial enterprises, and cooperatives had to be settled; debts owed by the Yugoslav government, local governments, and the Yugoslav National Bank had to be apportioned; Ljubljana had to be supplied with electricity produced by power plants located in the German-occupied area; and small traffic in goods across the border had to be regulated. A German-Italian commission settled some of the economic and financial problems resulting from the partition of Yugoslavia as a whole and another commission dealt with such problems in partitioned Slovenia. 27 24 For the first Partisan effort in May I942, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: I47· For the next two attempts, see Narodnoosvobodilna vojna: for the second, in July I942, pp. 269, 3 5 5-77, and forthe last, in January I944, pp. 6 54-70 and 98 I-86. 25 Favagrossa, Perche perdemmo Ia guerra, pp. I 56-57, and Mikuz, Pregled razvoja NOB u Sloveniji, I: 37-4 5, 52-68. 26 Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," pp. I87-88. "See Micr. No. T-586, Rol1424, Frs. I2,I46-63 and 12,172-87.

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In May 1941, the Germans estimated that there were about 18,ooo Volksdeutsche in the Ljubljana Province, although according to preliminary data from the Italian census of July 31, 1941, there were only 13,5 8o. After the expulsion of the Slovene population from the counties along the border between the Ljubljana Province and Lower Styria and following a German-Italian agreement of August 14, 1941, the transfer of Volksdeutsche from the Ljubljana Province began. This transfer, carried out between mid-November 1941 and the end of February 1942, involved about 12,ooo people from the Kocevje (Gottschee) area (an old German enclave in southern Slovenia) and possibly 1,ooo to 2,ooo people from other parts of the province, especially the Ljubljana area. Most transferees were settled in the Lower Styrian frontier counties from which the Slovene population was expelled, but some were sent to the Reich and some to new German colonies in Polish territory, depending on their classification by officials carrying out the transfer. 28 The Italians annexed outright the part of Slovenia allocated to them and organized it as the Ljubljana Province (Provincia di Lubiana). The XIth Army Corps of the Italian 2nd Army under General Mario Robotti occupied the province. When Robotti became commander of the 2nd Army in December 1942, he was succeeded by General Gastone Gambarra, who remained until the Italian surrender. The civilian administration of the province was headed by a high commissioner, first Emilio Grazioli until June 1943 and then retired General Giuseppe Lombrassa, previously the chief of the Italian Administration for Internal Colonization. Lombrassa was soon replaced by another retired general, a Badoglio appointee, whom the Germans drove out when they took over the province in September after the Italian surrender. 29 In order to make their rule more acceptable to the Slovene public and probably to stress the difference between Italian and German treatment of the Slovene people, the Italians in the beginning behaved relatively decently in the Ljubljana Province. 30 To give an impression of Slovene participation in the administration of the province, they appointed the Consulta, an advisory body of fourteen Slovene representatives from political, business, and cultural groups, several of them followers of the former Slovene People's Party (Clericalists), to advise the high commissioner. However, advice was seldom asked for and after its principal members resigned, the Consulta withered away. In addition, in 28 For the estimate of the Volksdeutsche population, see Micr. No. T-586, Rol1424, Frs. r2,r43-45· For their resettlement, see Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien, p. 82E; Ferenc, Nacisticna raznarodovalna politika, pp. 6 r 6-3 2; Frensing, Die Umsiedlung der Gottscheer Deutschen, pp. 45-47, 87-98, I 52-72. 29 ltaly, Stato Maggiore del R. Esercito, Ufficio Propaganda, Bollettini della guerra, pp. 513-14; Juvancic, "The Italian Occupier in Ljubljana, I941-1943," pp. 63-143, especially p. 138 . .1oFor a critical Italian assessment of German policy toward the Slovenes in the latter's area of occupation, see a report to Mussolini of July 20, 1941, in Micr. No. T-586, Roll424, Fr. r2,202.

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June 1942 the Italians appointed a former Yugoslav general, Leo Rupnik, a conservative and a determined enemy of Communism, as mayor of Ljubljana, who held that position as long as Italian rule lasted. But Rupnik's powers were limited and he operated under close Italian control. In another important departure from practices in the German-occupied area, the Italians took no measures against the Catholic Church in their part of Slovenia. Rather, in time, close cooperation developed between the church and the Italian civilian and military authorities.

The Origin of Resistance and Collaboration In addition to describing Slovenia's partition between Germany and Italy and the policies of the Axis states in their respective parts, our main task in this chapter is to analyze the formation and activities of the Slovene forces that subsequently collaborated with the occupying powers. This requires a description and analysis of the Communist-led resistance that arose in Slovenia, because it was the development and policies of the latter that were chiefly responsible for the rise and behavior of the former. Both resistance and collaboration first became established to a significant degree in the Ljubljana Province. Although several potential resistance groups emerged in the province soon after the annexation, only the Communist-led Liberation Front began to organize armed units and engage in sabotage and active resistance. The front consisted of members of the Communist Party of Slovenia, a sizable number of followers of the Christian Socialist Party, the gymnastic organization Sokol, progressive intellectuals from other groups and organizations, some former Yugoslav army officers, and even some members of the Slovene People's Party. According to Professor Ferenc, there were eighteen distinct groups in the front, differing in origin, ideology, and strength. But all of them supported a policy of immediate armed resistance against the occupying forces. 31 The Communist-led resistance in Slovenia was part of the general Communist-led resistance throughout Yugoslavia, whose objective was to establish a Communist-ruled Yugoslav state. The grand strategy of the Communists was to oppose, with the help of popular front organizations, the armies of the occupying powers and the armed units of the collaborationists unequivocally and at all costs. Through armed struggle, they hoped to become the controlling military force in the country so that political control of the state would be within their grasp at the end of the war. Since Yugoslavia was an agricultural country whose peasants were strong believers in peasant ownership of the land, the Communists could not hope to attract the peasants-without whom they could not achieve victory-by advocating traditional Communist objectives. Conse11 For the genesis of the Liberation Front in 1941 on the one hand and the growth of its rightist opponents on the other, see Skerl, "Slovene Liberation Front," pp. 7-86; idem, "Opponents of the Liberation Front," pp. 69-198; and Professor Ferenc's letter of June 23, 1982, to the author.

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quently, their chief appeal was to nationalist, democratic, and federalist sentiments and to reliance on the Soviet Union in foreign policy. In the latter respect, a large dose of Pan-Slavism was present, since the war in Europe appeared to the Yugoslav masses largely as a struggle between Slavs and Teutons. Another Communist plank demanded the inclusion into Yugoslavia of those Slovene areas that were acquired by Italy or remained in Austria after the First World War. The nationalist factor was perhaps stronger in Slovenia than in any other part of Yugoslavia because the Slovenes' very existence as a nation was in jeopardy if the Axis triumphed. The Communist Party and the Liberation Front undertook their first armed attacks against the Italian and German occupation forces and their domestic opponents toward the end of July 1941. The next month, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia established the Security and Intelligence Service (Varnostno-obvescevalna sluiba-VOS) to coordinate the struggle against the enemy. The VOS was subsequently incorporated into the Liberation Front, but it remained under exclusive party control. Its chief was Zdenka Kidric, known in party circles and the Liberation Front as Marjeta. She was the wife of Boris Kidric, who with Edvard Kardelj and Franc Leskosek formed the senior Communist leadership in Slovenia. Boris Kidric was also political commissar for Partisan forces in the province for about twenty months at various times during the war and secretary, that is chief executive officer, of the Liberation Front. 32 The Communist Party and the Liberation Front also established the People's Protection (Narodna zascita-NZ). While the VOS was a relatively small but highly select and dedicated group, the NZ was a mass organization, a support and auxiliary group for Partisan armed units. Its members and sympathizers, many of them women, came from all professions-government work, teaching, business, transportation and communication, and so on. The NZ was especially widespread in Ljubljana, but it was also active in the countryside. Its principal tasks were to serve as the recruiting reserve for the armed units of the Liberation Front and the VOS, to engage in sabotage, to work against police raids and the deportation of Slovenes to concentration camps, to organize the production and transportation of supplies to the fighting units, to collect useful information for the Partisans, and to maintain morale. 33 On December 4, 1941, the VOS began a campaign of liquidating important collaborationists by executing Fanous Emer, a prominent leader, for recruiting former Yugoslav officers and followers of Catholic Action for groups opposed to the Liberation Front. The next victim was the industrialist Avgust Praprot32 Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 2: 276-93 and 3: 286, 368; Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: 149. In 1944, the VOS was taken over by the all-Yugoslav police organization, the Department for

the Protection of the People (Odjeljenje za zastitu naroda-OZNA). 33 Mikuz, "The People's Protection in Ljubljana," pp. 204-14. The NZ was established in October 1941 and its multiple tasks were defined in January 1942.

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nik, killed in February I942 for denouncing some Partisans (who were later executed) to the Italians. On May 26 came the execution of the Reverend Lambert Ehrlich, for proposing that the Italians allow the Slovenes to form a gendarmerie and security service to fight the Partisans. This was followed by the execution of Fortunat Majdic, an alleged police confidant, in August I942 and of Kazimir Kukovic, a police officer, and Marko Natlacen, the domestic leader of the Slovene People's Party and the most prestigious anti-Partisan leader in Slovenia, on October I3, I942. 34 The Italians retaliated by shooting a number of hostages for each person killed, the largest being 24 hostages for Natlacen. That effectively stopped VOS executions in Ljubljana. In the countryside, however, the VOS continued liquidating people accused of treason, while the collaborationists reciprocated by killing members of the Communist Party and the Liberation Front or denouncing them to the Italians. In response to an Italian decree of April 2I, I942, on the shooting of hostages, the Liberation Front declared on May I that for every hostage executed by the Italian police and armed forces, the Partisans would execute the same number of people from among those on whom Italian rule in the Ljubljana Province rested, namely Italian soldiers, gendarmes, policemen, and government officials, as well as Slovenes who collaborated with them. The threat applied equally to German authorities and Slovene collaborators in Slovene areas under German occupation. And on May 27, I942, the Liberation Front warned their bourgeois opponents that the Partisans would execute anybody who engaged in organizing Slovene armed units outside the Liberation Front. 35 These threats were mostly psychological, however, since the Partisans could only carry them out to a small extent. Nor could they stop the Italians and Germans from shooting hostages in reprisal. German and Italian operations in the late summer and fall of I94I destroyed or broke up I 5 of the 3 I Partisan companies formed in Slovenia up to that time and inflicted losses on the others. 36 This and the early and very severe winter of I94I-42 greatly reduced Partisan activity in both the Ljubljana Province and the German-occupied areas and prevented the Partisans from securing any liberated territory. Early in I942, Yugoslav Partisan Supreme Headquarters ordered the Slovene Partisan leadership to strengthen its units and increase armed actions and sabotage. The results were widespread Partisan operations in April, May, and June I942 in the Ljubljana Province. Since these operations coincided with a planned Italian withdrawal from weak outposts to Saje, Belogardizem, rst ed., pp. 129-31; Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 295, 314, 322, 326-38, 346. In a letter of November 17, 1942, to Marjeta, the chief of the VOS, Kardelj wrote: "At present the main task is to demolish the White Guard, politically as well as physically. You can therefore liquidate all those who you can easily prove to the public were the originators of civil war in favor of the Italians." Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 39· 35 For the May I declaration, see Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 179, 189. For the May 27 warning, see Saje, Belogardizem, rst ed., pp. 296-97. "Klanjscek, "Slovene Partisan Detachments," pp. 8 8-89. 34

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larger garrisons (Plan Primavera), the Partisans, according to Kardelj, were able to establish control over about half of the province. At about the same time High Commissioner Grazioli reported that the Partisans controlled about twothirds of the province's territory and population. 37 This enabled the Partisans to increase their armed effectives, broaden the groups that supported their armed forces, and strengthen their position against both the Italians and their domestic adversaries. But it also increased the determination of the Italian military authorities to deal resolutely with the Partisans, whose challenge to them had become very frustrating. And it strengthened the determination of the Slovene bourgeois forces to find an effective mode of armed collaboration with the Italians to fight the Partisans. In the Ljubljana Province, bourgeois political forces were very dispersed. Only a few followers of the interwar bourgeois parties joined the Liberation Front. The majority concluded that the enemy was so overwhelmingly strong that immediate resistance was pointless, too expensive in lives, property, and suffering to undertake. Instead they planned to establish the framework of an underground military organization that would surface when Allied troops landed on Yugoslav soil, call a general mobilization, and, with arms obtained from the Allies or captured from the enemy, turn against the occupation forces and be on the winning side in the end. In this respect, the strategy for resistance of these Slovene groups was identical to that at General Draza Mihailovic, to whom they soon secretly pledged allegiance. The Yugoslav government-inexile also urged these groups not to undertake any premature action, but to wait for the appropriate time. Thus in regard to armed resistance, a fundamental difference of opinion and approach existed between the Liberation Front and the Slovene bourgeois groups. This difference and the political and military consequences deriving from it determined the nature of Slovene politics throughout the war. The main body of every bourgeois political party and of some non-political organizations initially formed groups that were intended to be the nuclei of resistance to the occupying powers at a later date. The Slovene People's Party, with strong ties to the Catholic Church, organized the Slovene Legion at the end of May 1941; the Yugoslav National Party and a large segment of the Sokol organization formed the Sokol Legion; and still another intermediate group organized the National Legion. Although in 1941 it was impossible to predict who was going to win the war, most Slovene bourgeois political forces were pro-Western. Some, however, were pro-Axis, as the considerable number of active collaborators, primarily with the Italians, clearly indicated. All of them, however, tried to position themselves favorably for whatever outcome the war might bring. These groups were known in Liberation Front terminal37 For Kardelj's report, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: 139, and for Grazioli's views, see JuvanCic, "The Italian Occupier in Ljubljana, 1941-1943,'' p. 119.

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ogy as the White Guards (Bela garda). The Slovene bourgeois political forces that were pro-Western wanted the reestablishment of Yugoslavia and, like the Communists, the inclusion into it of those Slovene areas that had gone to Italy or remained in Austria after the First World War. During the second half of 1941, the bourgeois forces in Slovenia remained in a waiting state. The Communist Party and the Liberation Front, on the other hand, greatly increased their activity after the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. The Liberation Front systematically endeavored to acquire greater political control both in Ljubljana and the countryside through underground organizations and to obtain more recruits for its fighting and auxiliary units. The front's attacks and acts of sabotage against the enemy and its liquidation of important domestic opponents engendered Italian retaliation against it and the civilian population. All this worked against the bourgeois parties, which tried not to provoke the enemy. They, meanwhile, established contact with Mihailovic and planned to supply manpower for units of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (the Chetniks) in Slovenia. By early 1942, the bourgeois parties came to realize, with good reason, that the ultimate objective of the Communists and the Liberation Front was the introduction of a Communist regime in Slovenia as part of a Communist-ruled Yugoslavia. From their point of view, this made the Partisans a much more dangerous enemy in the long run than the foreign occupation forces. The latter were expected to rule only a short time, until the anticipated victory of the Allies. Once the bourgeois parties realized this, it was only a small step for them to shift from passive acquiescence to armed collaboration with the enemy, first the Italians and later the Germans. This enabled their nascent armed units to obtain legal standing and to receive arms, ammunition, and other supplies, as well as pay, from the enemy. Since the Chetniks had legalized most of their units with the Nedic regime in Serbia and with the Italians in Montenegro and the Independent State of Croatia, it was natural for the anti-Partisan forces in the Ljubljana Province to work for a similar arrangement as well. Thus the groups deriving from the bourgeois parties, which in the beginning appeared to be potentially anti-Axis resistance groups, never became such; rather, they became collaborationists. On their side, the Partisans likewise came to consider the bourgeois forces as their principal opponent. For they also anticipated an Allied victory, in which case only the defeat of both the occupying powers and the domestic bourgeois parties would allow them to reach their goal of political control in Slovenia. With such diametrically opposed objectives, the two groups became bitter enemies. In order to devise an appropriate policy and an effective strategy against the Communist Party and the Liberation Front, representatives of the bourgeois parties-which, though prohibited, continued to operate surreptitiously on a limited scale-met together with several non-political groups in early 1942.

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Italian officers were reportedly present at some of the meetings. The result was a series of proposals made to the Italians, most directed in one way or another against the Partisans. 38 The aims of the bourgeois forces are well illustrated in the memorandum that the Reverend Lambert Ehrlich, a Jesuit priest and theology professor at Ljubljana University and the supervisor of the most .militant Catholic student youth group in Slovenia, submitted to the Italian military command in Ljubljana on April r, I942. (As we have already mentioned, Ehrlich was subsequently executed by the VOS for this memorandum.) This document reflected the views of the Slovene People's Party and groups closely allied with it. Ehrlich first reviewed conditions in the Italian- and German-held parts of Slovenia and argued that the foremost need in the Ljubljana Province was to establish order and safety. To this end, he suggested that the Italians give arms to Slovene gendarmes, who would be commanded by former Slovene police officers. To help destroy Communist organizations, which the Clericalist Slovenes considered "their greatest internal national and cultural evil," the Slovenes should be allowed to establish their own security service, which would operate under Italian military supervision. They should also be permitted a greater degree of administrative autonomy so that the population would feel closer to the occupying authorities. The Italians should release innocent people from prisons and concentration camps, help rebuild burned-down villages, and allow the Slovene press freedom to engage more fully in anti-Communist propaganda.39 Shortly after the submission of the memorandum, in early April r942, the bourgeois parties established the Slovene Alliance (Slovenska zaveza) to coordinate their anti-Partisan policies. By far the strongest member of the alliance was the Slovene People's Party (Clericalists), which controlled the Slovene Legion. It also had the best connections with the West. Until June r944, it had representatives in the Yugoslav government-in-exile and also good channels of communication through the Vatican. Soon after the alliance was established, Miha Krek, head of the party and a vice premier in the government-in-exile, called upon all alliance members over the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to follow the orders of General Mihailovic, minister of army, navy, and air force in the government-in-exile from January r942 and chief of staff of the Supreme Command of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland from June r942. In the following months, a series of messages through various channels and over the BBC was exchanged between Krek and the Reverend Alojz Kuhar, another 38 Saje, Belogardizem, rst ed., pp. 277-84. One suggestion that was not directed against the Partisans was that the Italians arrest and deport to prisoner-of-war camps the large number of former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers who lived in the Ljubljana Province, since they were considered an unsafe element. In fact, between March 19 and 27, 1942, the Italians did just that, taking 1,103 former officers and noncommissioned officers to prisoner-of-war camps. Ibid., p. 284. 39 See Proces proti Rupniku, pp. r 51-54 for the Ehrlich memorandum.

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Slovene People's Party leader in London, on the one hand, and the Slovene Alliance on the other, concerning policies to be followed at home. Beginning in August 1942, the government-in-exile sent a regular monthly subsidy to the Slovene Alliance through Switzerland. 40 The clandestine recruiting and organizing of the first Slovene anti-Partisan armed units began in May 1942. These units, initially only a few score men, included members of the Slovene, Sokol, and National Legions, as well as some of Major Karla Novak's followers of General Mihailovic. The new units called themselves the Legion of Death. Already in the first month of operation they had some minor encounters with the Partisans. 41 Once these first, though small, armed units were organized and began to fight the newly strengthened Partisans, obtaining legal standing with the Italian occupation forces became urgent. Both the Italian military and civilian authorities in the province at first opposed allowing the Slovenes to organize their own militia and police units. The Italians did not trust the Slovenes with arms, nor were they prepared to grant any authority to militia units. A report of the intelligence unit of the Italian Xlth Army Corps of June 1, 1942, however, revealed that the Italians had become aware in the preceding months that Slovene anti-Partisan groups were recruiting men for armed units and that they had already had brief encounters with the Partisans. The report continued, "Although for the time being these are only modest episodes, this development should be carefully watched because it shows in these groups intentions that deserve to be helped and that seem capable, if rationally used, of making possible interesting future developments in the anti-Bolshevik struggle. An anti-rebel spirit is rising among the population that is mostly Catholic because the rebels have taken a decisively Bolshevik orientation. " 42 Italian Operations Against the Partisans

The principal problem facing the Italian civilian and military authorities in the Ljubljana Province from July 1941 on was the Communist-led resistance. In the beginning the police were the prime force used to combat the rebels, with military forces playing a secondary role. However, the civilian authorities, under the leadership of high officials in the Fascist Party, did not always agree with the military authorities on how to proceed and an intense rivalry developed between them. High Commissioner Grazioli was instrumental in temporarily removing General Robotti and his staff from Ljubljana. But Grazioli could not suppress the resistance and after Mussolini declared the Ljubljana 41'Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 1: 298-315; Narodnoosvobodilnavojna,pp. 321-23. 41 Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 3 20-2 7. 42 For a Serbo-Croatian translation ofthe report, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3:406-7. See also Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 3 22-2 3.

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Province an "operational area" on January I9, I942, Robotti returned to Ljubljana and the chief burden of fighting the resistance devolved upon the military, with the full participation of the police. Disagreements between Grazioli and Robotti, however, continued. 43 In dealing with the resistance in the Ljubljana Province, the Italians had two operationally different tasks: to crush it in the city of Ljubljana, the center of both the political and military struggle against the Italians, and to fight it in the countryside, where occupation forces were especially inconvenienced by Partisan attacks on vital communication lines. In Ljubljana, the Italians proceeded in a methodical and costly manner. During the first half of I942, they built a barbed wire fence and bunker system around the entire city, which at that time had a population of about 8o,ooo people. Some bunkers, barricades, and machine gun nests were also built inside the city. The objective was to break the links between the Partisans in the city and the countryside and, with the city divided into sectors, to make systematic and sustained searches for members of the resistance. A further objective was to find the able-bodied men of military age whom the Partisans were recruiting and deport them to concentration camps. According to a report of the "Granatieri di Sardegna" Division of July 4, I942, in the eight-day period from June 24 to July I, 20,43 5 people were stopped, and of them, 2,8 58 were arrested (77I students, I,899 suspects, and I 88 jobless and refugees). These systematic raids inflicted great losses on the Partisans in the city and resulted in the deportation of several thousand young men to concentration camps. The leadership of the Communist Party of Slovenia and the Liberation Front had to be moved to the countryside in May I942. Thereafter, according to Kardelj, women formed the great majority on the 300 to 400 committees in Ljubljana supporting the Partisans. Italian operations greatly increased the difficulty of Partisan communications between the city and the countryside, which continued to function only on a reduced scale. 44 But they failed to crush resistance in the city entirely. Mass raids and deportations to concentration camps remained a basic component of the Italian struggle against the Partisans and their sympathizers, both in Ljubljana and the countryside. The main Italian concentration camps for the Slovenes were located on the island of Rab in the northern Adriatic and 43 An Italian intelligence report of March 1942 noted that the situation in the Ljubljana Province was gradually deteriorating and that relations between the civilian and military authorities were not satisfactory. Micr. No. T-586, Rol1424, Frs. 12,164-69. The squabbles between Grazioli and Robotti can be clearly seen in Juvancic, "Occupier's Documents," pp. 102-38. According to a German report of December 1942, Robotti was removed from his post at Grazioli's request. See Micr. No. T-175, Roll 124, Frs. 2,598,736-43. Since he was then promoted to commander of the 2nd Army, the perennial rivalry between the army and the Fascist Party may have been at play. 44 0n the barricading of Ljubljana, see Juvancic, "The Enclosure of Ljubljana by Wire," pp. 141-54· On the report of the "Granatieri di Sardegna" Division, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: 515-16. On Kardelj's analysis, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: 149, 276.

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at Gonars near the town of Udine in Italy. Undesirables were also interned in smaller camps and in small groups or individually in rural areas on the Italian mainland. The chief rationale for deportation was to repress resistance activity, but it was also used secondarily as a precautionary measure. Both types of deportation were directed against the Partisans, though some collaborators were deported to protect them from the Partisans. In addition, the police confined individuals in certain localities for various reasons. 45 It is estimated that about 4o,ooo Slovenes went through Italian concentration camps in the course of the war, of whom 7,ooo perished from illness, starvation, and maltreatment. 46 Between October 1941 and October 1942, Italian military and civilian authorities in the Ljubljana Province and the province of Fiume (Rijeka), which included some newly annexed parts of Croatian territory, carried on an extended correspondence with the 2nd Army command and the Comando Supremo about measures contemplated or undertaken against the Partisans and their families. These included interning family members of Partisan leaders and more prominent Partisans, reducing food rations for family members of known Partisans, prohibiting family members of Partisans from moving between localities, penalizing people who had left their regular domicile without permits, and confiscating the movable and immovable property of Partisans and distributing it to families of Italian soldiers wounded or killed in action against the Partisans. Several of these measures were put into effect, but on October q, 1942, the Comando Supremo countermanded the decreed confiscation of the property of known and supposed Partisans as contrary to existing laws and regulations. 47 To fight the Partisans in the countryside, the Italians had to use a totally different approach than the one used in the city of Ljubljana. Partisan resistance in the countryside frustrated the Italians in the extreme. They had two full divisions and other forces in the province, about 3 5,ooo well-armed and wellsupplied men, and still could not eliminate the rebels. But doing so became more urgent when the Partisan leadership from the Ljubljana Province began sending small units and organizers to the Slovene Littoral and the Julian March to foment resistance. This activity threatened peace and communication lines in Skerl, "Robotti's Eight Hostages," pp. 28 5-92, especially p. 28 5. For Slovene estimates, see Vodusek, "The Meaning ofltalian Occupation," pp. 266-70, especially p. 268, and Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: I 56, I73· For Italian statistics, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll4o5, Fr. 8I9. According to data from the Italian 2nd Army, the number of inmates on April I, I943, in the main civilian camps for Slovenes were: 2,628 on the island of Rab; 4,499 at Gonars; 3 5 at Manigo; 3,0I3 at Chiesanuova; 2,390 at Visco; 3,I83 at Renicci; and 6I9 at Camp. No. 83; for a total of I 6,3 67, all for repressive reasons; and 4 at Gonars, 2,46 5 at Manigo, and 2 at Chiesanuova, all for protective reasons, for a total of I8,838 persons all together. Most were Catholic. 47 Micr. No. T-821, Roll498, Frs. 960-1205, especially Frs. 976-Ioo4, I036-58, n6o63, and I I95-97· 45 46

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areas that the Italians had held since I9I8 but that had large Slovene populations. Consequently, in the spring of I942 the Italian authorities decided toremove the Slovene Partisan menace in the countryside once and for all by mounting a strong offensive over a prolonged period of time. The plan of the offensive and its objectives were described in detail by General Mario Roatta, commander of the Italian 2nd Army, in an order of June 8, I942, to General Robotti, who was put in charge of the forthcoming operations. The Partisans were to be methodically sought out, pushed together, surrounded, and destroyed. So that they could not maintain themselves in rural areas, Italian troops were to destroy crops, remove all food and livestock, and burn villages supporting Partisans and Partisan bases in forests and mountains. Men found with weapons in their hands were to be shot on the spot and most other men of military age were to be sent to concentration camps. While the Italian military authorities were aware that these operations would cause great hardship to the civilian population, they considered this an unavoidable consequence that the population had brought upon itself by aiding the rebels. To prevent the Partisans in the Ljubljana Province from escaping to neighboring areas, other Italian troops were to seal off the province from the southeast and west. Under a special arrangement with the Germans, the latter were to move against the Partisans along the frontier in their area of occupation. 48 On July I 5, General Robotti and High Commissioner Grazioli together issued a proclamation to the population of the Ljubljana Province explaining the reasons for the coming offensive-Partisan activity and its support by a small part of the Slovene population-and describing the non-military measures that would accompany the military operations. All local rail and bus traffic would be stopped, all city and intercity mail, telegraph, and telephone traffic would be halted, and all travel by any vehicle or on foot between localities was prohibited. All people opposing the Italian forces with arms, all people with arms in the areas of operations, and all people with false identification papers would be shot. All houses and buildings from which shots were fired at the Italians, all buildings in which arms, ammunition, and explosives were found, and all buildings whose owners voluntarily gave hospitality to the Partisans would be destroyed. The proclamation also guaranteed that those rebels who reported to the Italian command and laid down their arms before the start of the offensive would be spared and promised that those who behaved peacefully and properly toward the Italians need not fear for their lives or property. On July I 6, Robotti ordered the start of the first phase of operations. 49 The Italian military authorities assumed that there were between 8,ooo and ro,ooo armed Partisans in the Ljubljana Province. Accepting this estimate, Roatta assigned Robotti two more divisions from Montenegro and Herze"For a Serbo-Croatian translation of the respective documents, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk.3:429-41,531-35· 4 "Ibid., pp. 55 3-59.

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govina, which had had considerable experience in fighting the Partisans there. In addition, several smaller units were also moved into the province. Thus, the Italian forces in the great offensive, which lasted from July r 6 to November 4, 1942, numbered between 75,ooo and 8o,ooo men. By contrast, the number of Partisans in fighting units, that is, excluding members of the NZ (People's Protection), was only between 2,500 and 3,ooo men. 50 The Italians were well armed and supplied, had various means of transportation and communication at their disposal, and also used some artillery and aircraft. The Partisans had only light arms and few supplies. Nevertheless, the Partisans were able to partially offset this tremendous disproportion in manpower and armaments by anticipating both the overall strategy and various tactical moves of the Italians. 51 To stress the military and political significance of the offensive, Mussolini himself, Marshal Ugo Cavallero, chief of the Comando Supremo, and General Vittorio Ambrosio, chief of General Staff of the army, came to Gorizia (Gorica) on July 3 r, 1942, for a conference with Roatta, Robotti, and other field generals. In addition to discussing the objectives and progress of the offensive, the Italian leaders were determined to show their strength and dispel any idea that they were weaklings. The conference reaffirmed the policy of mass deportation of Slovenes of fighting age to concentration camps. In fact, the Italians agreed to deport the majority of the Slovene population from the province if necessary, resettling it with Italians. At this meeting the Italian military command in the province obtained Mussolini's permission to accept the offer of the Slovene People's Party to help fight the Partisans, though this was to be understood as an Italian concession "without obligations for the future." In a conference a few days later at Kocevje, Robotti and his officers again discussed the matter of deportations and agreed on the possibility of deporting even the entire Slovene population from the Ljubljana Province and colonizing it with Italians, so that Italian ethnic and political frontiers would coincide. 52 Ibid., pp. 55 5-5 6; Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 2: 92-9 3. For the phases of the offensive from July r6 to November 4, see Mikuz, pp. 92-141, and Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 304-21. 51 See, for example, Kardelj's letters to Fischer (Ivo Lola Ribar, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and of Partisan Supreme Headquarters) of July 14 and early August 1942, in Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: r 39-50, 264-76. 52 See ibid., pp. 587-93 for a Serbo-Croatian resume of the minutes of the Gorizia conference, and pp. 596-6oo for a similar resume of the Robotti conference. See also Saje, Belogardizem, rst ed., p. 520. Some Italian politicians, such as Aldo Vidusoni, the secretary general of the Fascist Party, thought that most Slovenes should be killed outright. See Ciano, Diaries, p. 4 3 2. Angelo Scocchi, a professor in Trieste, in a pro memoria entitled "Politica di frontiera: La difesa dell'Italia dallo slavismo," prepared for the Italian authorities in July 1942, advocated the uprooting of all Slovenes and their resettlement on the Italian mainland and islands, in the colonies, and in Russia, which he assumed would be German after the war. Slovene territory would then be colonized with Italians. See Micr. No. T-586, Roll424, Frs. 12,225-5 5. 50

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The Rise of Collaborationist Forces Units of the Legion of Death collaborated with Italian forces during the first two weeks of the great offensive against the Partisans in the second half of July 1942. Collaboration apparently occurred on the basis of informal arrangements reached in the field. It showed the Italians that the Slovene armed groups could be very helpful. Consequently, immediately after obtaining Mussolini's permission at the Gorizia conference to accept the offer of armed collaboration from the organizations of the Slovene People's Party, the Italian command formally arranged to employ Slovene units as auxiliaries. On August 6, the Italian command ordered all existing and future Slovene anti-Partisan units to be organized into the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (Milizia volontaria anticomunista-MVAC). Toward the end of the same month, armed units in rural areas were also formed for self-defense and to fight the Partisans. These units, called Village Guards (Vaske straze), in time became the largest component of the MVAC. 53 In mid-August 1942, while on an inspection trip to Ljubljana, Roatta visited Bishop Gregorij Rozman and urged the Slovene Catholic forces to participate actively in the struggle against the Communists. The reaction of the bishop and his colleagues was very favorable, as his memorandum of September 12, 1942, to General Robotti indicated (see Chapter 12). Thus a combination of factors accounted for the rapid growth of the MVAC units. The Italians needed them in operations against the Partisans. The Catholic Church in Slovenia fully supported them ideologically and politically and in rural areas parish priests were in many cases their chief promoters. The Slovene Legion, by pushing its supporters into the MVAC units, saw a simple and easy way of legalizing a large number of its forces and insuring a steady supply of arms, ammunition, food, and pay from the Italians. For the same reasons, men from the two other legions also joined the MVAC. Finally, after the Partisans lost a large part of their liberated territory in the Italian offensive, many Slovenes thought they had been defeated and turned to collaborationist units. Among the latter were some Partisan deserters and individuals afraid of Italian reprisals. By the end of September 1942, the MVAC units in the Ljubljana Province had 2,823 men, 2,219 of them under arms, and by the end of November 1942, 4,4 71 men under arms. By the end of February 1943, there were 40 MVAC detachments in the province with 5,145 officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates distributed among Italian divisions and other forces of the Xlth Army Corps deployed there. The militia continued to grow and by July 1943 included 6,134 officers and men in its two battalions of the former Legion of Death, 107 detachments, and 171 men detailed to three Italian special battalions. Although the Partisans had expected armed collaboration between the White Guards and 53 Saje, Belogardizem, 1st ed., pp. 39 3-9 8;

Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 3 2 7-3 o.

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the Italians to develop, they were surprised at the speed with which this occurred.54 In March 1942 the Slovene People's Party and its organizations had been primarily responsible for inducing the Italians to apprehend and send over r,roo former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers living in the Ljubljana Province to prisoner-of-war camps. Subsequently, in the fall of 1942 and early 1943, they were chiefly responsible for convincing the Italians torelease those officers who were anti-Partisan, somewhat more than half of the total, to join the rapidly growing MVAC units. The units included both these men and men who, with Italian permission, were drafted. The officers who were pro-Partisan remained in captivity. 55 One released officer, former General Staff Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Peterlin, was appointed by the Italians to command the MVAC unit in Ljubljana. This unit, organized at the end of October 1942, had about r 50 men and served as an auxiliary police force in the city. It acted so harshly against actual and suspected followers of the Liberation Front, especially during raids and searches in December 1942, that considerable public protest arose. As a result, it was disbanded in mid-January 1943. Those it had apprehended were either released, turned over to military courts, or sent to concentration camps. In the spring of 1943, the Slovene Legion named Peterlin the secret commander of all its men in the MVAC in the province. 56 A variety of individuals commanded the MVAC units: men from the Slovene Legion, that is, Catholic activists; men from the Sokol Legion; former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers released from prisoner-of-war camps; and young peasants recommended by rural parish priests. To each unit the Italians assigned one or more liaison officers, who did not, however, live with the unit. 57 14 For the strength of MVAC units in September and November 1942, see Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 343, 346. See also Saje, Belogardizem, 1st ed., pp. 397-404. For the strength of most detachments, their armament, and the Italian command to which they were attached in February 1943, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll31, Frs. 218-19. For MVAC strength in July 1943, see Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 520. For Partisan reaction, see Kardelj's report to Tito of December 7, 1942, in Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3:68. 15 See Kardelj's report to Tito of December 14, 1942, in Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3:82. "Ferenc, "Police Raids by the Enemy," pp. 183-228, especially pp. 214-24; Saje, Belogardizem, 1st ed., pp. 63 1-41; Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 520. For the great December 1942 raids, several hundred Slovene MVAC members were brought to Ljubljana from the surrounding areas. 57 ln the first volume of this study (The Chetniks, p. 224, footnote 8r), I stated that, according to a report by General Robotti, some Village Guard units were commanded by Catholic priests. Janez Grum of Milwaukee, Wis., sent me a memorandum dated April 22, 1976, contesting this point. According to Mr. Grum, a high school teacher in interwar Slovenia and first lieutenant in the reserves of the royal Yugoslav army, who served as an officer in the Village Guards from the time they were formed, no Catholic priest was ever in command of these units. In his opinion, General Robotti's report rested on an understandable misconception. Some Village Guard units were commanded by young peasants who did not know Italian. In dealing with Italian liaison officers, they were often assisted by Catholic priests,

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Although some members of the Sokol Legion and a considerable number of former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers released from prisoner-of-war camps were included in the MV AC units, the controlling force, with Italian acquiescence and within the limits imposed by the Italians, was the Slovene Legion, the fighting arm of the Slovene People's Party. 58 The Italians, however, never fully trusted the MVAC units and supplied them almost exclusively with light arms. When General Gambarra assumed command of the Xlth Army Corps with the assignment from Rome to "destroy the Partisans and pacify Slovenia," he also gave detailed instructions on how to manage the MVAC units. He thought that these units could be "precious" if well armed and appropriately used. They should be considered as "voluntary aid," should always be under Italian command and used with Italian forces, and should not be employed alone for tasks that could be easily abused, such as house searches and arrests. Gambarra reminded his troops that the MVAC, as a party (that is, Slovene People's Party) militia, might act not only against the Communists, but also in its own interests. 59 At this point we may logically ask why the bourgeois forces in the Ljubljana Province were so splintered during the Second World War and why each political party and group organized its own armed units and tried to maintain, at least to some extent, its own identity within the armed units collaborating with the occupying powers. The explanation lies in the nature of political conditions in Slovenia during the interwar period. At that time, the Slovene People's Party was the strongest political party in Slovenia, exercising great influence not only on Slovene politics, but also on the educational, cultural, social, and economic affairs of the province. The opposing forces, from the Liberals and the Socialists to groups like the Sokols, had to struggle to assert themselves. It is not surprising that when the war came, the Slovene People's Party developed the strongest armed group, the Slovene Legion, within the MVAC (and later within the Slovene Home Guards under the Germans). The Catholic Church, with the who used Latin to communicate with the Italians. The Italians apparently assumed that these priests were in command of the units. While this may be true, there is no doubt that in many instances priests were the principal organizers of MVAC units in rural areas and were also an important source of information for the Italians about the Partisans and their sympathizers. See Saje, Belogardizem, rst ed., pp. 517-74. Mr. Grum noted: "It is true that almost all priests in the Ljubljana Province have publicly shown their sympathies for the Village Guards." "In a speech at a confidential gathering, Rudolf Smersu, a principal leader of the Slovene Legion, stated on July 8, 194 3: "The Slovene Legion is today the most powerful political and military organization. It is kept secret from the Italians and is illegal. It has 7 ,ooo members in the countryside, of whom 6,ooo are in the Village Guards, and r,6oo sworn members in Ljubljana. The Sokol Legion has 6oo members in Ljubljana and roo outside, and the National Legion has 200 members in Ljubljana and 50 outside." The speech was apparently reported by a secret Partisan agent who was present. See "The Slovene Legion," pp. 294-301, especially p. 29 8. '"See the Serbo-Croatian translation of his message to the troops of the Xlth Army Corps on january I, 1943, in Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 5: 349-56, especially pp. 3 54-55·

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exception of a few individual priests, was solidly behind the party, which had representatives in the Yugoslav government-in-exile until June 1944 and through it contact with the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (the Chetniks) of General Mihailovic. This meant that in the case of a Chetnik victory and the reestablishment of Yugoslavia under Chetnik control, the Slovene People's Party, as the Chetniks' strongest ally in Slovenia, would be assured of even more power than it had had during the interwar period. It was therefore natural for the other collaborating political parties and groups to try and maintain their identity and at least the positions they had had before April 1941. They could achieve this only if they remained separately organized and active. This situation on the political right made the work of the Communist Party of Slovenia and the Liberation Front easier than it would have been had the right been united. The limited success of Major Karlo Novak, the chief representative of Mihailovic in Slovenia, further reflected this political reality. Novak's relations with the political parties and groups included in the Slovene Alliance, of which his own group was a part, were never marked by sincere cooperation, partly due to Novak's exaggerated opinion of his own importance. Since the political parties and their armed groups in the MVAC secretly owed allegiance to Mihailovic and the government-in-exile, separate armed units under Novak's command apparently seemed redundant to them. Moreover, Novak lacked a political base in Slovenia, while all other armed groups participating in the MVAC had the support of a political party or group. At the suggestion of the Slovene People's Party, the Italians took Novak's group, most of which consisted of former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers, to prisonerof-war camps. This still further weakened Novak's influence. Those officers later released were designated for release by the Slovene People's Party and, as subsequent developments showed, Novak could not count on their loyalty to him. The political parties, especially the Slovene People's Party through the Slovene Legion, wanted to maintain control over their men in the MVAC units rather than share it with Novak. Not surprisingly, after months of unsuccessful cooperation and bickering, Novak began organizing his own armed units, popularly known as the Blue Guards (Plava garda), in February I943· But neither Novak nor these units-which according to him numbered only 3 50 to 400 men at the end of August 1943-ever acquired any military or political significance in wartime Slovenia. For some time Novak pressed the Slovene Alliance to detail part of their forces from the MVAC units to him, ostensibly to start actions against the Italians. But to no avail; the Slovene People's Party and its organizations effectively blocked all Novak's efforts. According to an Italian report of July 3 I, 1943, the Slovene People's Party considered the MVAC units its monopoly and opposed the efforts of all other groups, including Novak's, to put its men into or withdraw them from the militia. Novak accused many former Yugoslav officers of Slovene nationality and a number of Slovene politi-

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cians of following the orders of the Slovene People's Party rather than cooperating with him as MihailoviC's representative in Slovenia. 60 After the war Novak claimed that his units had several armed encounters with the Italians and that they were important in gathering intelligence, especially on the movement of Italian troops, that was then sent through Mihailovic to the Western Allies. The first claim is groundless because the Italians assigned a special zone to Novak's principal unit and there is evidence that they also indirectly supplied Novak's units. 61 As for the second claim, any intelligence gathering could have been of only very limited benefit, due to the small number of Novak's troops and their inability to observe much Slovene territory. Consequences of the Italian Offensive

The large-scale Italian offensive in the Ljubljana Province from July I6 to November 4, I942, inflicted considerable damage on the Slovene Partisans. The Italians shot all prisoners found with arms and ammunition (except when Italian commanders failed to enforce this rule), removed several thousand men of military age to concentration camps, wreaked great material destruction in the countryside, and pushed the Partisans out of a large part of their liberated territory. In general, they caused so much demoralization in the population at large and in some Partisan units that between 200 and 3oo Partisans deserted. The Italians also succeeded in largely destroying units of the NZ (People's Pro6 °For Novak's side, see K. Novak, "The Resistance in Slovenia," pp. 317-3 2. For the Italians' assessment, see the report of the Italian 2nd Army on political and military developments in its area of command, including the Ljubljana Province, for July I943, in Micr. No. T-82I, Roll3 I, Frs. 246-63, especially Fr. 249· For the tenuous relationship between former Yugoslav officers and noncommissioned officers who commanded a large number of MVAC units and representatives of the Slovene Legion who controlled these units, see also Kardelj's report to Tito of December I4, I942, in Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 79· The fierce opposition of the Slovene People's Party to Major Novak's proposals was probably also influenced by an additional factor. Early in I943, while vice premier in the government-in-exile in London, Miha Krek had begun to doubt the possibility of reconstituting a unified Yugoslav state after the war because of the deepening antagonism between Croatian and Serbian politicians in the government-in-exile. In conversations with Sir George Rende!, British envoy to the government·in-exile, he expressed his doubts about the future of the country, although up to that time the Slovenes had been strong supporters of Yugoslavia and of the Karadjordjevic dynasty. Krek tried to gauge British reaction to a non-Yugoslav alternative for Slovenia, because the Slovenes wanted to have British backing for any new arrangement. This would be a state embracing territory from Rijeka and Trieste on the Adriatic to the central Danube in the east, in which Slovenia, united with Slovene areas at that time under Italy and Austria, would be a federal unit. For both Yugoslav and non-Yugoslav alternatives, it was in the interest of the Slovene People's Party as the main representative of the Slovene antiCommunist forces to keep all its armed forces together, as it did in the MV AC units, rather than relinquish any control to Major Novak. See Rendel's reports of March 4 and May 28, I943, to the Foreign Office, in F.O. 37If3763o, R 2038l246/92, and F.O. 37If3763o, R 47371246192. 61 Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 5 I 8.

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tection) by killing some members, taking many to concentration camps, forcing others into inactivity, and even inducing some to transfer allegiance to the MVACunits. But the Partisans also made many political and military mistakes before and during the Italian offensive. The policy of "leftist deviation"-the use of terror against alleged and actual collaborators and those who, because of their social class, were considered potential adversaries in the future, as well as against Partisan deserters and their families-was very damaging because it fostered the development and strengthened the determination of the collaborationist forces. In combination with the loss of a great deal of liberated territory, this also led to the loss of Partisan influence with the wealthier peasants and the so-called Middle, that is, with groups that until the late summer of 1942 refused to join either the Liberation Front or its adversaries on the right. Some of the Partisans' difficulties were due to the mediocre quality and inexperience of their commanders, and Kardelj asked Tito to send some experienced officers from other areas to Slovenia. On occasion, the Partisan leadership misinterpreted certain moves of the Italian troops. At one point Partisan leaders were surrounded and had great difficulty in extricating themselves from encirclement. 62 However, according to Kardelj's reports, the Italian offensive was in some ways salutary for the Partisans. The leaders of the Communist Party and the Liberation Front were able to identify and demote or replace commanders who were not upholding the party's directives, who tended to assume the role of small independent chieftains, and who inclined toward "leftist deviation." The Partisans also came to realize that the MVAC units were an important and disturbing factor, because they controlled an increasing number of villages and had infiltrated other Partisan areas. When the Partisans moved out of the reach of Italian troops and sought safety in the villages, they often found themselves facing the Village Guards. As Kardelj reported, it was impossible for small Partisan units to move about any longer in many rural areas. The Partisans therefore needed to organize larger units to withstand pressure from the MVAC units, to impress the villagers with their strength, and to engage in more ambitious offensive undertakings. In fact, by November 1942 the destruction of the MVAC units became the first priority of the Partisan forces. 63 During the last stage of the Italian offensive and soon after it, the Slovene Partisans undertook a series of measures to strengthen their military forces. They began organizing brigades with complements of usually less than 1,ooo men and they reorganized the Partisan Chief Staff for Slovenia. At the beginning of December 1942, they divided Slovenia into four operational zones to 62 0n the "leftist deviation," see Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 210-n, 231, 257. Of Kardelj's writings, see his letters of July 14 and early August 1942 to Fischer (lvo Lola Ribar), in Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 3: 139-50, 264-76, and his reports to Tito of December 7 and 14, 1942, in Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 65-9 5, especially pp. 68, 74-79, 82-83. 63 Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 3: 78-8o; Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 4: 229-3 I.

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promote an offensive spirit in the troops against the occupying and collaborating forces and to give more independence to the commanding cadres in the zones. In December 1943, the first, second, and third operational zones, with the addition of the Slovene Littoral and Slovene parts of !stria, were divided between the Vllth and IXth Army Corps, while the fourth operational zone, Styria, remained intact until the end of the war. Having learned valuable lessons during the Italian offensive, the Partisans quickly recovered, both politically and militarily. Already in late November 1942, they could again mount successful operations, primarily against their domestic adversaries. Above all they were able to maintain themselves in the Ljubljana Province without having to flee to neighboring Croatia, which would have destroyed their remaining prestige and political standing in all parts of Slovenia and correspondingly enhanced that of the White Guards. The Slovene Partisans were also proud that their organization, though much weakened, survived in Ljubljana. Even after the leaders of the Liberation Front were forced to leave in May 1942, the city remained a stronghold of both political and military resistance in Slovenia. 64 The most important decision-making entity in the Liberation Front was the Communist Party of Slovenia. The Communists controlled the armed units, the VOS, the technical services, the communication lines between the Executive Committee of the front and the organizations in the field, and the majority of regional and local committees. This fact, and the "leftist deviation" of some Partisan commanders, often led to disagreements with the non-Communist leaders of the front. Since its breakup would have been politically inopportune for the Communist Party, discussions among the leaders of all participating groups were held in February 1943 to overcome these difficulties. The resulting agreement, later known as the Dolomites Declaration, pointed to the achievements of the front, smoothed over the difficulties between member groups, recorded the promises of the non-Communist groups to not form their own political parties, and reaffirmed the leading role of the Communist Party in the front. In short, the Liberation Front ceased to be a coalition of the Communist Party and dissidents from bourgeois political parties and groups and became a front organization for the Communist Party of Slovenia. It later became part of the all-Yugoslav National Liberation Front. 65 The Slovene Partisans, like the Partisans in other provinces of Yugoslavia, also established political and administrative organizations. In September 1943 64 Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 2: 170-77i Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 391-413. See also the reports of Kardelj to Ribar and Tito cited in footnote 62. 65 For the controlling role of the Communists, see a report by Boris Kidric, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Liberation Front, around December 14, 1942, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, in Kardelj and Kidric, Jesen 1942, pp. 575-89, especially p. 589. For the Dolomites Declaration, see Zbornik DNOR, 6, bk. 5: I 8 5-89, and Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 442-4 5.

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they held public elections in liberated areas. The 572 elected delegates met on October r-3 in the town of Kocevje and elected a Slovene National Liberation Committee of I 20 members, who constituted themselves as the general Slovene legislative body while its Presidium assumed executive powers. Though the Slovene Partisans had been unable to send representatives to the first session of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifasisticko vijece narodnog oslobodjenja ]ugoslavije-A VNO]) held in Bihac in western Bosnia on November 26-27, 1942, they did send representatives to its second session, held inJajce in central Bosnia on November 29, I943· This session decided, among other things, that AVNOJ would assume the functions of the supreme legislative body of the peoples of Yugoslavia organized in a federal state and it established the National Committee of Liberation of Yugoslavia (Nacionalni komitet oslobodjenja Jugoslavije-NKO]) as the interim Partisan government. On February 19-20, 1944, the Slovene Partisans convened the Slovene National Liberation Council (Slovenski narodnoosvobodilni svetSNOS), the Slovene counterpart of similar councils established by the Partisans in the other Yugoslav provinces, all subordinate to AVNOJ. SNOS accepted all decisions of the second session of AVNOJ and also established an interim Slovene government. 66 An extremely important development for the Partisans in the Ljubljana Province, as well as in other parts of Yugoslavia under Italian control, was that from early 1943, the Italians became steadily weaker and therefore unable or unwilling to mount new large-scale operations or maintain sustained pressure against the insurgents. The loss of the 8th Army in Russia, the landing of Anglo-American forces in North Africa, increased Anglo-American air attacks on mainland Italy, worsening relations between the Italian and German military commands, increasing economic difficulties, and the Allied invasion of Sicily on July ro, 1943, allied to spreading demoralization in the Italian armed forces and among the civilian population and a growing readiness to get out of the war at almost any price. The ouster of Mussolini on July 25, 1943, presaged the early surrender of Italy. This greatly improved the prospects of victory for the Partisans and increased the number of volunteers joining their units. On the other hand, the Slovene forces that had been collaborating with the Italians, about to lose their protector and supplier, were faced with difficult choices: establishing effective contact with Western Allied troops if they should land in Istria; making some arrangement with the Partisans, which meant surrendering to them; or collaborating with the Germans in order to continue fighting the Partisans. Since Allied troops did not land on the eastern shores of the Adriatic and the collaborationist forces were unwilling to surrender to the Partisans, the only viable alternative was to collaborate with the Germans. During April and May 1943 Allied military missions arrived at Partisan 66

Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 3: 89-9 5,

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Chief Headquarters in Croatia and Partisan Supreme Headquarters in Montenegro. One Allied mission under the command of British officer Major William Jones (a Canadian) spent about a month at Partisan Chief Headquarters in Croatia and then moved north, arriving at Partisan Chief Headquarters in Slovenia on June 27. Judging from what Jones later wrote in his book, his reports on the Partisans must have been very favorable. 67 Partisan contacts and cooperation with the Western Allies steadily grew, providing them with a great political and military boost and auguring well for their cause in all parts of the country. Moreover, during the period from mid-March to mid-June 1943, the Partisans, while sustaining great losses, inflicted a series of defeats on the Chetniks in Herzegovina, southeast Bosnia, and Montenegro that ushered in a period of military and political decline from which the latter never recovered. This decline was greatly accelerated by the de facto and then at the Tehran Conference the formal recognition of the Partisans as an Allied force and the withdrawal of Allied military missions and aid from the Chetniks. All of this also had harmful effects on the Slovene forces allied with the Chetniks. One immediate benefit for the Western Allies from their support of the Slovene Partisans was the rescue of Allied personnel. These included American and British fliers who had been shot down in, bailed out over, or crash-landed in Partisan-controlled Slovene territory, as well as Allied prisoners of war and slave laborers who had escaped from the Germans. The Slovene Partisans rescued 303 American airmen, 3 89 British airmen and prisoners of war, and I 20 French and other prisoners of war and slave laborers. 68 Two additional advantages for the Allies from their cooperation with the Slovene Partisans soon became apparent. First, the Partisans significantly disrupted railroad communications through the Ljubljana Province and later to some extent also through the Slovene Littoral, lines over which the Germans moved troops and supplies, especially Romanian oil, to the Italian front. Second, and especially appreciated by Allied intelligence and special operations services, it now became relatively easy for the Allies to infiltrate operatives into northeast Italy and Austria. 69 As already noted, the principal reason for the development of Slovene collaborationist armed forces in the Ljubljana Province, under first Italian and later German rule, was the rise of the Liberation Front and the fear of the bour67Jones, Twelve Months With Tito's Partisans, pp. I-2, I I, 47-I22. '"Research Institute, Ljubljana, Allied Airmen and Prisoners of War, pp. rr-88, provides names and dates of all those who reached the Slovene Partisans and were flown out to Allied bases in Italy. '"This last point was stressed by Lieutenant Colonel P. A. Wilkinson, an SOE officer and British liaison with the Slovene Partisans. He also pointed out that the latter were almost exclusively interested in tactical intelligence. They were not concerned about wider aspects of the war and knew little about broader German intentions, which could be of help to the Allies. See his report of April27, I944, in F.O. 371/4425 5, R 7125/8/92, pp. I 5-I6, 20-23, 27.

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geois political parties and groups that the Partisans would introduce a Communist dictatorship after the war. This is clearly indicated in many wartime sources, and later historical writings bear it out. Professor Metod Mikuz has said it succinctly: "The counterrevolution in the true sense of the word appeared only as a reaction to the National Liberation War, that is, to the national revolution. " 70 The Slovene bourgeois parties fought the Liberation Front politically and with propaganda both before and after they began collaborating militarily with the Italians against the Partisans in July 1942. The Slovene Alliance coordinated their policies. In their propaganda effort, two books, one published in February 1943 and the other sometime in 1944, were especially important. They alleged that the Liberation Front was a Communist organization that planned to turn Slovenia into a Bolshevik state and that it pressured people to join its ranks and used terror against them when they refused. They portrayed the Slovenes who were caught between the occupation forces and the Liberation Front as victims caught between two fires and asserted that their only appropriate action was to organize self-defense armed units against the Liberation Front in order to defend the lives, homes, and religious and cultural values of the Slovene people. The most telling aspect of these two publications was the inclusion of hundreds of names and photographs of people, including some Catholic priests, killed by the Partisans, as well as pictures of churches, schools, and other buildings destroyed by them. 71 The End of Italian Rule

With the Italian surrender approaching, the competing forces-Slovene groups within and behind the MVAC, Major Novak and the Chetniks, and the Liberation Front-jockeyed for position when the crucial moment came. As Italian 2nd Army reports for July and August 1943 indicate, the Partisans continued their attacks against Italian and MVAC units and communication lines, but on a reduced scale, trying to save their forces for critical developments after 70 See the already quoted Italian intelligence report of June I, I942, cited in footnote 42; Kardelj's report to Tito on December I4, I942, cited in footnote 62; and the memoranda of the Slovene People's Party and other Slovene anti-Partisan political parties, received by the British Foreign Office in January I 944, cited in footnote 9 5. For Professor Mikuz's statement, see his Pregled razvoja NOB u Sloveniji, I: 244· See also Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 328. 71 The first of these books was V znamenju Osvobodilne fronte (Under the Shadow of the Liberation Front) (Ljubljana, February I943), and the second, a sequel and enlargement of the first, was Crne bukve (The Black Book) (Ljubljana, I944). Both described the terrorist acts of the Communist-led Liberation Front in Slovenia. They were published anonymously, but according to reliable information the first was edited by the Reverend Franc Glavac and the second by journalist Mirko Javornik, editor of the strongly anti-Partisan Catholic weekly Slovenski dom (Slovene Home) in Ljubljana. While saying nothing about the collaboration of their own side with the enemy, the editors accused the Partisans of collaboration with the Italians, especially during the last few months of Italian occupation.

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the Italians left. 72 In July 1943, as a preparatory measure, they established two divisions by combining three or four brigades. They also strengthened existing guerrilla units and established new ones in the Slovene Littoral, which, like the Ljubljana Province, had important railroad lines for both the Italians and the Germans. The MVAC units and Novak's Chetnik units hoped that when the Italians surrendered, Allied troops would land in !stria and accept them as allies. So the Chetniks' principal detachment, with about half of the Chetnik forces, moved south in the province to meet the reinforcements that the Chetniks hoped would be coming from the Croatian area of Lika and there await further orders. However, the Partisans attacked the detachment and pushed it southwest, where it withdrew to the village of Grcarice about ten kilometers west of Kocevje. In a similar action, after the Italian surrender, the former MVAC units-now renamed the Slovene National Army (and part of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland commanded by Mihailovic)-which were in no way connected with the Chetniks at Grcarice, concentrated a sizable part of their forces, together with large amounts of ammunition and food, in the castle of Turjak, some twenty kilometers southeast of Ljubljana. It was a favorable point for an expected move toward the coast. But Partisan brigades were also moving in the same direction and were under orders to disarm Italian troops and capture or destroy any Chetnik and former MVAC units within their reach. The Slovene Partisans wanted to inflict as much damage as possible on the Slovene collaborationists, so that the latter would be of less value to the new German occupation forces. Significantly, these Partisan units had succeeded in inducing some Italian soldiers to join them, including some with tanks and artillery. Italy surrendered on September 8. At the time, it had about so,ooo men in the Ljubljana Province. In the middle of the previous month, the MVAC units included 6,049 men, the Chetnik forces of Major Novak between 300 and 400 men, and the Partisan units 2,9 58 men. 73 According to Professor Ferenc, Partisan strength was actually much larger if one included armed men in Liberation Front committees, the Communist Youth Organization, and other Partisan groups. Great uncertainty reigned among the Chetniks and the former MVAC forces when the Italian army, their erstwhile protector and provider, surrendered. Above all they were deeply disappointed that no Allied troops landed in !stria or along the eastern Adriatic coast. This deprived them, as a part of General MihailoviC's forces, of any opportunity for political maneuvering with the Allied side. At Grcarice and Turjak a breakdown in the lines of communication with superior commands or the actual disintegration of these commands oc72

73

Micr. No. T-82r, Roll3 r, Frs. 249, 26o, 322. Vojko, Izmedju Triglava i Trsta, p. 52, citing figures published in 19 52 by Francek Saje.

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curred. The upshot was that at Grcarice the Chetniks dug in, hoping that reinforcements would arrive in time, and at Turjak approximately two-thirds of the troops or close to 7 50 men stayed at the castle, planning to withstand an attack until help arrived from Ljubljana. The rest of the troops moved to the village of Zapotok, three to four kilometers due west, where they were joined by the remnants of other former MV AC units and two small Chetnik detachments that came to the area. The Partisans pressed their advantage. On September 9 and IO, after refusing an ultimatum to surrender, the Chetniks at Grcarice were overwhelmed by a Partisan brigade using two Italian howitzers. On September q, the Partisans completed the encirclement of Turjak and, after the defenders refused to surrender, laid it under a siege that lasted until September 19. Essential for its speedy collapse were again the heavy weapons that the Partisans had acquired from the Italians. During this same period the Partisans also captured men from other former MV AC units, including some assembled at Zapotok, which were pushing north toward Ljubljana (where they were disarmed by the Germans). By September 2I, Kidric reported that the Partisans had about I,2oo prisoners of war. A small number were tried for war crimes and shot, while most were put into work battalions or in work units as preparation for entering Partisan ranks. 74 There is great controversy over the number of men liquidated from among the prisoners taken at Grcarice and Turjak. According to Partisan data, about I I 5 former MV AC members and Chetniks were sentenced to death, and others were shot while trying to flee from work battalions. Slovene anti-Partisan sources, however, put the number of collaborationist prisoners liquidated after the Italian surrender as high as I,ooo. 75 Considering the inherent tendency of the Yugoslav Communist authorities to minimize or not acknowledge the number of opponents they liquidated and the tendency of former collabora74 Ferenc, Kapitulacija ltalije, pp. 181-99; Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, pp. 518-20, 52328; Hronologija 194I-I945, pp. 5 59-60. 75 Professor Ferenc's letter of June 23, 1982, to the author; Grum, Memorandum (cited in footnote 57), p. 10. Janez Grum, who commanded the former MVAC units that moved to Zapotok, claimed that the Partisans liquidated between 500 and 6oo officers and men of the former MVAC and Chetnik units during September 1943.

In his memorandum, Grum disagreed with parts of my brief presentation of the happenings at Turjak in the first volume of this study. In particular, he disputed the assertion that the troops under his command suffered "huge losses" in extricating themselves from Zapotok and fleeing toward Ljubljana. According to him, of the 650 to 700 men involved, only between 20 and 30 lost their lives. Grum attributed the Partisans' speedy victories at Grcarice and Turjak in large part to the Italian heavy arms at their disposal. But he concluded that major blame for both disasters lay with the defenders themselves, who made a basic tactical mistake when they decided to hold fixed positions. See Grum, "On the Twentieth Anniversary of Turjak," pp. 3 10-20; idem, "On the History of Turjak," pp. 260-72. These detailed descriptions of developments at Turjak and Zapotok were partly based on Grum's own experience and partly pieced together from conversations and correspondence with other surviving participants.

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tionists to increase their own number of victims, we will probably have to wait several more years before we learn the full truth about this episode in the Partisans' settling of accounts with their adversaries. After his disappointing experience with the Slovene People's Party organizations and the destruction of his principal unit at Grcarice, Major Novak, totally disgusted, ordered the disbanding of his remaining Chetnik detachments. However, the Germans had already disarmed them together with the former MVAC troops that had come from Zapotok. Novak withdrew from the Slovene Alliance and left Ljubljana for Italy on September 26, 1943. 76 The disasters at Turjak and Grcarice were only the worst episodes in the disintegration of the Slovene forces that had collaborated with the Italians. According to Francek Saje, of about 6,500 men belonging to such forces in the Ljubljana Province at the time of the Italian surrender, about 3,ooo were captured by the Partisans, about 500 were killed in fighting against them, about r,ooo volunteered to join Partisan troops, and about 2,ooo later joined the Slovene Home Guards, sponsored by the Germans. 77 Thus the momentous developments that immediately followed upon the end of Italian rule in the Ljubljana Province also brought about the end of the Slovene Chetniks and the almost total disintegration of the Slovene forces that had served as MVAC units. This, and the fact that the Partisans were able to disarm a large part of the Italian forces in the Ljubljana Province at the time of surrender, which gave them sizable amounts of arms and other military supplies, led to a rapid increase in the size of the Partisan forces and greatly strengthened their position and prestige. West of the Ljubljana Province, in the Slovene Littoral and lstria, the Slovene and Croatian populations welcomed the Partisans as liberators when the Italian army and administration collapsed in September 1943. This was due to their pent-up hostility toward the Italians' oppressive rule of the previous 24 years and to the successful preparatory political and propaganda work of the Partisans during the preceding year. A considerable number of Italian antiFascists also cooperated with the Partisans, at least in the beginning. On the political side, the Partisans immediately set up their own administration and on September r 6 proclaimed the unification of the Slovene Littoral with free Slovenia as part of a federal Yugoslavia. On the military side, they tried to attract volunteers to their units and ordered a general mobilization of young people in order to enlarge existing units and establish new ones. They even formed several units from anti-Fascist Italian soldiers and civilians. The Partisans' chief military aim was to destroy communication lines in order to impede the movement of German troops and military supplies. The fact that the Slovene bourgeois political forces had no military forces in the Slovene Littoral similar to the 'K. Novak, "The Resistance in Slovenia," pp. 3 30-31. Saje, Belogardizem, en!. ed., p. 6o8.

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former MVAC units in the Ljubljana Province and that, out of consideration for the Italian authorities, they also had no underground political organization also helped the Partisans. The Communists' administrative, military, and party organizations in the Slovene Littoral and !stria were not as widespread and effective after the Partisans assumed control as Yugoslav Communist sources would have us believe. Sharp differences also developed between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (and its subdivisions in Slovenia and Croatia) and the Communist Party of Italy over Yugoslav procedures and policies in the newly liberated areas, which the Yugoslav Communists annexed to Yugoslavia without discussion with the Italian Communists. Moreover, according to Italian witnesses, Yugoslav Partisan forces engaged in mass terror and killed between 400 and 500 Italians in the Slovene Littoral and !stria before the Germans retook these areas. Without any trial, these people were shot or thrown alive into karstic abysses. 78 After the Italian surrender, the Germans also moved in to establish control over the Slovene Littoral and !stria, as well as the Ljubljana Province, and organize them militarily and administratively. Because the Partisans threatened important railroad communications and could be of great help to invading forces in case of an Allied landing in !stria, the Germans gave high priority to clearing these areas. Since they did not have sufficient forces there, they first had to bring in additional troops from outside. Army Group B, which was deployed in northern Italy, was in charge of operations. Between September 25 and 30 the Germans undertook sweeping operations against the Partisans in the Slovene Littoral and between October 2 and ro in !stria. They inflicted great losses and cleared most of the territory that the Partisans had briefly held. A principal reason for their speedy success was that in these areas, the Partisans deployed mostly new, rapidly formed, or enlarged units without battle experience and with inexperienced commanding cadres. Hitler ordered German forces to proceed with exemplary brutality and immediately shoot all people giving resistance regardless of nationality (that is, whether Slovene, Croat, or Italian), so that they could accomplish their objective as quickly as possible and be available for use elsewhere. 79 After clearing out the Partisans from the Slovene Littoral and !stria, the Germans undertook a similar operation in the Ljubljana Province. This offensive, which has been compared with the Italian offensive between July and November 1942, lasted from October 21 to November r2, I943· Although the Slovene Partisans suffered great losses and were driven from much of their liberated territory, they were not defeated and reappeared again and again in supposedly cleared areas. They continued to grow and expand their operations as the war progressed. 80 '"Terzuolo, Red Adriatic, pp. 25-28. These karstic abysses are called foibe in Italian. Kapitulaciia Italiie, pp. 375-413; Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. 2: II2I-22, rr3o--33; Narodnoosvobodilna vo;na, pp. 578-93. 8°Ferenc, Kapitulaciia Italiie, pp. 4 56-566; Narodnoosvobodilna vo;na, pp. 594-604. 7'Ferenc,

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GERMAN OCCUPATION OF THE LJUBLJANA PROVINCE

Operation Achse was the Germans' plan for taking over Italian-held areas after the Italian surrender. But already two weeks before the surrender, and despite Italian protests, the Germans moved two regiments of the 7Ist Infantry Division from Carinthia and Upper Carniola through the Ljubljana Province to the Slovene Littoral and the neighborhood of Trieste and stationed a third regiment in the area of Ljubljana and along the Ljubljana-Postojna railroad. Between September 9 and 14, they moved additional forces into the Ljubljana Province, mostly SS, police, and gendarmerie units. 81 Their main concern in these areas was to secure the principal communication lines connecting southeast and central Europe with German forces in Italy. Already on September 10, I943, apparently following an earlier suggestion of Friedrich Rainer, Gauleiter of Carinthia, Hitler ordered the establishment of two operational zones in Italian territory, the Lower Alps Zone and the Adriatic Coastland Zone. The objective was to have special administrations in both zones completely responsive to local military needs. Franz Hofer, Gauleiter of the District of Tyrol, also became the highest commissar of the Lower Alps Zone, while Rainer, Gauleiter of Carinthia, also became the highest commissar of the Adriatic Coastland Zone. Since the Germans had just helped form a new Italian Fascist government in Munich on September 9 and had rescued Mussolini on September I 2, the creation of the two zones was a politically ticklish problem and the decree establishing them was not published. Instructions on the organization and administration of the two zones were apparently given only orally to Hofer and Rainer on September I 2. 82 Militarily, the Adriatic Coastland Zone was from September to early November 1943 the responsibility of Army Group B under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and included northern Italy between the French and Croatian borders. At the beginning of November, Army Group B was reorganized as an Army for Special Purposes and sent to Western Europe. The Adriatic Coastland Zone came under the command of General Ludwig Ki.ibler. He was subordinate to Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who as commander of Army Group C and commander in chief in southwest Europe was put in command of all German troops in the whole of Italy, including the Adriatic Coastland Zone. On September 10, 1944, the forces in the zone were redesignated as the XCVIIth Army Corps and remained part of Kesselring's forces until early April I 94 5, when the "Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," pp. 197-207. ' 2 For the establishment of the two new operational zones, see Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. 2: 1113-14, and Ferenc, Kapitulacija Italije, pp. 3 52-74. On September 23, 1943, Mussolini reorganized and moved this government to Italian soil. On November 25, he named his puppet state the Italian Social Republic. See Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, pp. 5 54-74.

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approach of the strong and well-equipped Partisan 4th Army toward Istria resulted in a transfer of the corps to the command of Colonel General Alexander Lohr, the new commander in chief in southeast Europe. Police and SS troops in the Adriatic Coastland Zone, with the exception of those in the Ljubljana Province, were under the command of General of Police Odilo Globocnik, the higher SS and police leader in Trieste. 83 Highest Commissar Rainer divided the Adriatic Coastland Zone into six provinces: Gorica, Kvarner, Ljubljana, Pula, Trieste, and Udine. The former Ljubljana Province continued as a separate administrative unit with the same lower administrative organization as in pre-April 1941 Yugoslavia and under Italian occupation. In all the provinces except Ljubljana, Rainer named Italians as prefects. In the Ljubljana Province, he appointed Leo Rupnik as president of the provincial government. A former Yugoslav general and mayor of Ljubljana under the Italians, Rupnik assumed his position on September 22, 1943. 84 He was a logical choice. In addition to his military background and collaboration with the Italians, he was recommended by Bishop Rozman of Ljubljana and thus supported by most Catholic-oriented politicians. Above all, Rupnik acted on the assumption that the Germans would win the war. His powers and prerogatives were narrowly limited and he served only as a tool of the German occupation authorities. 85 To the head of each provincial civilian government, the Germans assigned a group of advisers, the chief among them bearing the innocuous title of "the German adviser" (der deutsche Berater). In fact, this individual was the princi"For Field Marshal Keitel's order of September 9, I943, on the command organization in Italy, see Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. 2: I257-58, I295, 146o-6I, 1465-67. For later organizational changes, see ibid., 4, pt. I: 563; ibid., 4, pt. 2: I892, I902; and the postwar interrogation of General Kubler, in YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. 50/7, p. 7, Box 7· See also Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," p. 2I3. ••Ferenc, Kapitulacija Italije, pp. 357-58. Those parts of Slovenia occupied by the Germans in April I 94 I were administered as before. "'For Bishop Rozman's recommendation of General Rupnik for the position of president of the provincial government, see Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," p. 21 I, and for General Rupnik's expectation that the Germans would win the war, see Hren, "Addendum: My Encounters with General Rupnik," p. I 56. Rupnik's belief in a German victory can also be seen in many of his speeches and appeals. See, for example, his speech of April I7, I 944, in Zeljeznov, Rupnikov proces, pp. I 79-9 3. After the collapse of Yugoslavia in I94 I, Rupnik had gone to the German-occupied part of Slovenia hoping to obtain employment from an acquaintance, August Westen, a Volksdeutsche and important Slovene industrialist. But as a non-German citizen, he could not get work. He considered obtaining German citizenship, but the procedure was too cumbersome and he did not apply. Hearing favorable reports from his family about the decent behavior of the Italians in the Ljubljana Province and believing that as a former Yugoslav officer he might obtain financial support, he moved to Ljubljana in mid-May 1941. After a brief arranged sojourn in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp, he began his collaborationist career as mayor of Ljubljana in June I942. See Zeljeznov, Rupnikov proces, pp. 6 5-72.

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pal occupation executive in the province. The first German adviser in the Ljubljana Province was Hermann Doujak. After only a few days on the job, he was replaced by Lieutenant General of Police Erwin Rosener, the higher SS and police leader of the Alpenland from Salzburg. Rosener was responsible directly to Himmler. In addition to supervising the Ljubljana provincial administration, his main task was to fight the Slovene Partisans in the province as well as in the Slovene areas occupied by the Germans in April r941. The Security Police and Security Service for Carinthia, with their seat at Bled, were in charge of political and other police work in the Ljubljana Province. These services had a special delegation in Ljubljana whose members worked with and supervised the Slovene political police, headed by Lovro Hacin, a pre-r94r director of the Ljubljana police and now an appointee of General Rupnik. 86 Since the Slovene anti-Communist forces were more threatened by the Partisans after the Italian surrender than they had been before and since no Allied troops landed in Yugoslav territory, it was natural for these forces to seek an accommodation with the Germans in order to survive and continue their struggle against the Communists. Similarly, it was advantageous for the Germans, who lacked manpower, to have the help of as many Yugoslav anti-Partisan groups as possible, including those in Slovenia. Both Rainer and Rosener knew that the Slovene anti-Partisan forces in the Ljubljana Province had collaborated with the Italians against the Partisans and they were determined to have similarly organized Slovene forces help them. 87 Given this resolve, it was not surprising when Rainer suggested that Rupnik start organizing a new anti-Partisan force immediately after the latter took office as provincial president. This must have pleased both Rupnik personally ""General Rosener, as one of Himmler's commanders, was in charge of antiguerrilla operations in his area of command, which included the German-occupied parts of Lower Styria, Upper Carniola, and Carinthia. To conduct operations in these areas, he had a command staff at Bled, northwest of Ljubljana. Because of increased Partisan activity in the spring of r943, Himmler proclaimed them "guerrilla fighting areas" on June 2r, I943· According to Hitler's dispositions, this gave Himmler and the SS and police organization the exclusive right to combat the guerrillas. See Micr. No. T-r75, Roll 8r, Frs. 2,6or,636-37; 2,6or,645-46; 2,6or,65I; 2,6or,659· From later correspondence between Rosener and Himmler and other documents, it is clear that Rosener retained both of his posts, that is, as higher SS and police leader in the Alpenland with the seat at Salzburg and as German adviser in the Ljubljana Province, until the end of the war. See also Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," pp. 2I3, 2I6. The Liberation Front had a highly placed pre-r94r police official, Vladimir Kante, working for them in the Ljubljana police. Siding with the Liberation Front from the beginning, Kante served during the entire Italian occupation and was retained after the Germans took over. When the Germans penetrated the Ljubljana Communist Party and Liberation Front in February I945, he was discovered, arrested, and executed. See Krivic, Ljubljana v ilegali, 4:253-54,535-36. "'For the change in German policy toward the Chetniks and other anti-Partisan forces, see Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 3 r7-2r.

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and the anti-Partisan political and armed groups that earlier had collaborated with the Italians. On September 24 Rupnik issued a call for volunteers for a Home Guard Legion, to which about I,ooo former MVAC members and other men responded by October r. In fact, three former MVAC units survived destruction and dispersal following the Italian surrender by joining the Germans for safety. These were soon organized as the first three battalions of the German-sponsored Slovene Home Guards and together with German forces immediately engaged the Partisans in the Ljubljana Province.'' This was the beginning of the military collaboration of the Slovene anti-Partisan forces with the Germans, which steadily grew and lasted until the end of the war. Shortly after recruiting for the Home Guards was launched, Rosener took over the incipient guard organization and split it into two departments, organizational and propaganda. Former Yugoslav officers of Slovene nationality who had served with the MVAC units and were known for their close relations with Slovene People's Party organizations (the Committee on Village Guards and the Slovene Legion) were put in charge, though under close German supervision. On September 30, Rosener established the Command Staff for the Suppression of Guerrillas (Fuhrungsstab fur Bandenbekampfung). 89 In time, with the complete cooperation of Rupnik, collaborating Slovene officers, and anti-Partisan political forces, he developed the Home Guards into the principal instrument for fighting the Partisans in the Ljubljana Province. Although Rupnik had initiated the establishment of the Home Guards, he had no control over them, even after Rosener named him inspector general in September I944· In this capacity he helped only with recruitment and training. When visiting guard units in the field, Rupnik always called upon them to be good and disciplined soldiers, to work closely with the German forces, and to fight with determination against the Partisans. 90 The Home Guards were at first organized into companies and battalions. Subsequently the Germans reorganized and regrouped them several times. In the last stages of the war, German officers commanded several battalions, some with mixed Slovene-German complements. By September I 944, according to Slovene sources cooperating with the Home Guards, their strength was about I3,ooo officers and men. They were fully armed, supplied, and paid by the German occupation authorities. Whenever deployed in operations against the Partisans, guard units were under higher German command. On April 20, I 944, the Home Guards took a solemn oath to fight together with the SS and "Professor Ferenc's letter of June 23, 1982, to the author. ••Proces proti Rupniku, pp. 93-95; Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 3: 44-47; Ferenc, "The German Occupier in Ljubljana," pp. 213-14; Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," pp. 238,244. 90 See especially his appeals and speeches, in Zeljeznov, Rupnikov proces, pp. 142-43, 154-55. 175-95·

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German police under the leadership of the Fuhrer against the Communist guerrillas and their allies, meaning Soviet and Western Allied troops. Though they probably acted under duress and with reservations, the fact that the Home Guards took this oath made them suspect in the eyes of the Western Allies. 91 Akin to the Slovene Home Guards in ideology, organization, and purpose were the German-sponsored Home Guards in the Slovene Littoral and the Province of Trieste, which were organized beginning in November I943 to fight Partisan forces there. The inspector general and later commander of the guards was Colonel Anton Kokalj, a former Yugoslav officer sent by the Slovene People's Party from Ljubljana, who was appointed by and directly subordinate to General of Police Globocnik, higher SS and police leader in Trieste. By the end of July I 944, these units included I ,8 I 5 officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates from volunteers and a partial draft. Most officers came from the Slovene Home Guards in the Ljubljana Province. The Littoral Home Guards were organized in companies and were helped by the Slovene Home Guards to the extent that the Germans allowed. 92 In mid-I944 Colonel (later General) Ivan Prezelj, General MihailoviC's representative in Slovenia after Major Novak's departure, tried to induce a few Home Guard officers and men to reestablish units of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland in Slovenia. The few small detachments that were organized disintegrated almost immediately, partly because they did not have a political base and partly because the Germans intervened. But one Chetnik unit organized in Lower Styria by Joze Melaher, a follower of the Slovene People's Party, survived until the end of the war. 93 Slovenes serving in the Home Guards, although ostensibly on the Axis side, occasionally helped the Allies by assisting Allied airmen who had been shot down over Slovene territory. Rudolf Hirschegger, a Slovene Clericalist who served in both the MVAC and the Home Guards, described how he saved an American pilot whose plane was shot down by the Germans near Ljubljana in November I944· He evacuated the pilot to a supposedly safe place where another fourteen American fliers were hidden by the Home Guards. But they were discovered by the Germans and taken as prisoners of war. In contrast to such actions, Hirschegger asserted, "It is the actual truth that the Partisans shot all 91 Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," pp. 267-69, 277; Mikuz, "The Ljubljana Bishop Dr. Gregorij Rozman," pp. 340-42. 92 Narodnoosvobodilna vojna, p. 577; Mlakar, Domobranstvo na Primorskem (I943I94J), pp. 63-65,78. Mlakar, p. 96, thinks that these troops might have increased in number to about 2,ooo. See also B. Novak, Trieste, I94I-I9J4, pp. 86, 105-6. 93 Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," p. 274; Mikuz, Pregled zgodovine narodnoosvobodilne borbe, 3: 199-203, 276-77; Melaher, "The Chetniks in Styria," pp. 245-60. On pp. 247-51, Melaher gives firsthand observations on the extremely harsh German occupation regime in Lower Styria. Professor Ferenc has German documents showing that Melaher collaborated with the Germans.

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the airmen who tried to save themselves on Slovene soil and fell into their hands (Borovnica, Velike Lasce, and elsewhere). They did not have a single one at the end of the war to turn over to the British or the Americans. " 94 As we have seen above, the facts speak otherwise. COLLABORATION LEADS THE ANTI-PARTISAN FORCES TO DEFEAT

The Slovene political parties in the Slovene Alliance and the Slovene National Council, which was established in October 1944 (see below), remained emotionally attached to the Allies and expected them to win the war. Their policy was to wait for a favorable opportunity when, after Western Allied forces had landed in lstria, they could transfer allegiance to them and turn their arms against the Germans. Meanwhile, they considered the Partisans their foremost enemy, to be fought with all possible means. The Catholic political forces in the alliance stressed again and again that their struggle was directed against "godless Communism." It was this collaboration with the Axis powers to counter the greater threat of a Communist victory that alliance members repeatedly tried to explain to the Western Allies. In a memorandum to the Yugoslav government-in-exile in Cairo on December 20, 1943, also conveyed to the British Foreign Office by way of the Yugoslav and British Legations at the Vatican, the representatives of the Slovene People's Party argued: The steps that the Slovenes have taken in order to stop the destructive activities of the Communists by means of armed resistance against them were in no way meant to help the invader. Armed resistance to Communism was forced upon the Slovenes by Communist terrorism. The Slovenes made up their minds to defend themselves and the life of the Slovenes as a nation. These measures of self-defense had furthermore the aim of building up an armed force with which to secure an orderly administration and to maintain peace and public order in Slovene territory at the moment of Germany's collapse. By which [means] the Slovenes meant to facilitate the occupation of the country by the Allies. 95

The reports of British liaison officers with the Slovene Partisans told a different story. Their major conclusion about the Slovene Home Guards was that the Germans had developed them into an important force, especially for protecting railroads and fighting the Partisans. As one British officer wrote on July 2 3, r 944, "Therefore, the White Guards are by their actions declared enemies of the Allies. Their existence deprives the Partisans of much needed manpower and immeasurably eases the task of the Germans. " 96 Hirschegger, "The Truth About Our Struggle," pp. 109-26, especially p. 126. The British envoy to the Vatican sent this memorandum and several from other Slovene anti-Partisan political parties to the Foreign Office with his report of January 28, 1944. See F.O. 371/44269, R 3490/n/92. The quotation is from p. 4 of the Slovene People's Party memorandum. 96 See Lieutenant Colonel P. N. M. Moore's "Report on the Military Situation of the Jugoslav 94

95

GERMANY AND ITALY DIVIDE SLOVENIA

German commanders were aware of the pro-Western leanings of the Slovene Home Guards. A report of the XCVIIth Army Corps of December 17, 1944, on the current enemy situation noted that as long as the Home Guards fought against Tito's Partisans, they could be considered reliable. In case of an Allied landing in lstria, however, they would change sides, as would collaborating Serbian groups, that is, LjotiC's Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Chetniks of Dobrosav Jevdjevic and Momcilo Djujic, all of which had come to the area on German instigation. Even the Croatian forces, the report warned, would have to be carefully watched in case of an Allied landing. 97 For this reason, the Germans exercised tight control over the Slovene collaborationists, successfully thwarting every effort of the latter to contact the Allies and gain their support. 98 In the struggle of the anti-Communist Slovene forces against the Liberation Front, the Slovene political police under Police Chief Hacin played an important part. To fight the Partisans efficiently, he established branches of the police organization in half a dozen larger cities of the Ljubljana Province. Generally speaking, close cooperation existed between the police, the Home Guards, and the Gestapo. To avoid criticism about police brutality toward arrested Partisans and their sympathizers, an unofficial secret organization called the Black Hand was established in the spring of 1944 in several cities, including Ljubljana. It arrested, tortured, and killed outright Liberation Front members. 99 One of the foremost tasks of the police on the collaborationist side and of the VOS on the Communist side was to penetrate the organizations of their opponents in order to gather information on their agents and modes of operation. The struggle between the two sides was continuous and very bloody and based exclusively on ideological differences. The observations of Colonel Vladimir Vauhnik, an experienced prewar Yugoslav intelligence officer and anti-Partisan who during the first two years of occupation organized an intelligence network in Croatia and Slovenia for the British, are revealing in this respect. In a letter from Switzerland in June 1944, he wrote that the Slovene police and Home Guards "have mopped up everything that could be suspicioned [sic] of leftist sympathies. They have gone too far in many cases in helping the German cause, so much so that now they really are collaborationists." 100 Army of National Liberation (JANL) in Slovenia," p. 16, in F.O. 371/44263, R I4II7/8/92. Among the duties that the German occupation regime in the Ljubljana Province imposed on the population was labor service to build a rearward system of defenses on Slovene territory. Since the appeal for volunteers, both men and women, did not fill the need, some labor had to be drafted. See Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitlers Weisungen, pp. 26772; Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," pp. 274-76. 97 YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. I 7/7, Box 7. 98 Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," pp. 269-70, 274. "Ibid., pp. 252-63. 100 See his letter of November 4, 1944, to an unidentified friend in London, which the British intercepted, in F.O. 371/44326, R 20050/8 50/92.

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GERMANY AND ITALY DIVIDE SLOVENIA

In an effort to counteract the establishment of SNOS (Slovene National Liberation Council) by the Slovene Partisans on February I9-20, I944, which proclaimed itself the highest organ of Slovene statehood, the anti-Partisan political parties and groups, under the leadership of the Slovene People's Party, established the Slovene National Council on October 29, I944· On the same day the council issued a declaration signed by some 300 participants, including Bishop Rozman (using a pseudonym), stating Slovene national objectives: the formation of a united Slovenia, including the entire territory inhabited by Slovenes (Slovenia proper together with the Slovene Littoral and the southern parts of Carinthia), as a unit in a federally organized Yugoslav state under the Karadjordjevic dynasty, and the assumption by the council of the prerogatives of supreme Slovene national authority. Despite the fundamentally strong pro-Western stance of the Slovene antiCommunist political parties and groups, their collaboration with the Italian and German occupation forces in this strategically important area worked against both the Slovene Partisans and the Western Allies. It is not surprising that the Allies, assessing the situation from a short-term military point of view, decided to transfer their political and military support to the Slovene Partisans, who were useful to them, and came to consider the Slovene anti-Partisan forces as the enemy. Once inaugurated during the second half of I943 by Great Britain, the maker and manager of Allied policy toward the competing domestic groups in Yugoslavia, this policy gathered momentum, and the hopes of the Slovene Home Guards and MihailoviC's Chetniks in the Western Allies proved completely misplaced. Indeed, on September I 2, I 944, under British pressure, King Peter II in a speech over the BBC called upon the soldiers in the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, as well as Croats and Slovenes in various collaborationist formations, to join the forces of Marshal Tito. An important leader of the Slovene People's Party in exile, the Reverend Alojz Kuhar, also urged the Slovene Home Guards over the BBC to transfer to Tito's command. 101 In September I944, Tito announced an amnesty for the members of all Yugoslav collaborationist forces, including the Slovene Home Guards, who did not have criminal records and who were willing to join the Partisans. But the response of the Home Guards was limited. The main reason seems to have been the Guards' counterpropaganda that the Germans would take reprisals on the families of those men who transferred allegiance to the Partisans. 102 The strong Catholic and anti-Communist values of the Guards were also a contributing factor. Although the Allies supported the Slovene Partisans, relations between the two groups were not always good. After Major Jones's mission in June and July I943, several other British military missions spent extended periods of time with them. A few American and Soviet military missions also joined them. 101 Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 4 I s-r 6; Debeljak, "The First Slovene Parliament," pp. 28o-86, especially p. 280. 102 Kriznar, "The Slovene Home Guards," pp. 276-77.

GERMANY AND ITALY DIVIDE SLOVENIA

When the Allied missions tried to collect military and political information on the Partisans' organization and plans for the future, both in Slovenia and other parts of Yugoslavia, Partisan leaders became apprehensive and suspicious. They considered such activity potentially dangerous to their military and political interests. Consequently, Allied missions were restricted in movement and contacts and were given only limited amounts of information, while Soviet missions were treated with full confidence and not subject to any supervision or limitation. According to the Allied missions, the Slovene Partisans did not live up to Allied expectations in helping Allied missions penetrate Austrian territory, establish contacts, and collect desired intelligence. 103 In fact, in Trieste, Istria, the Julian March, and Carinthia, relations between the Western Allies and the Yugoslav Partisans became potentially explosive. In the end, peace and cooperation were preserved, but the Yugoslavs were forced to reduce considerably their territorial aspirations toward Italy and give them up completely toward Austria. 104 The collaboration of the Slovene anti-Communist forces-like that of General Mihailovic and the Chetniks-with the Italians and the Germans against the Partisans was fraught with danger. From the time of the Italian surrender, and especially during the last year of the war, the position of the Slovene collaborationists became extremely precarious. As Tine Debeljak, an important postwar Slovene emigre, put it, "The situation filled the politicians of all Slovene democratic groups with fear. They were preoccupied with ... how to separate the Slovene anti-Communist forces from apparent collaboration and how to regain the original Western European political orientation and alliance." 105 But this they were unable to do. Their subsequent fate at the end of the war will be discussed at the conclusion of this study. See Biber, "Allied and Soviet Military Missions." See also idem, "Failure of a Mission." 0n the involved problem of Trieste and its satisfactory solution by the agreement of October 5, 1954, see Jeri, Trzaska vprasanje; Duroselle, Le Conflit de Trieste; B. Novak, Trieste, I94I-I954i and Campbell, Successful Negotiation: Trieste I954· 105 Debeljak, "The First Slovene Parliament," p. 280. 103 104

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4

Foreign Annexation of Yugoslavia

ITALIAN RULE IN THE ANNEXED PART OF DALMATIA

In the division of spoils that followed the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in I 94 I, the Italians acquired Dalmatia, the coastal region of the country extending along the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea from the island of Rab in the north to and including the Bay of Kotor in the south. The Italians had claimed most of the area as part of their national territory as far back as Roman times. Only by possessing a large part of Dalmatia could they satisfy their propensity to call the Adriatic "mare nostro." Dalmatia had become a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) at the end of the First World War. Prior to that, it had been under Austro-Hungarian rule from I815 to I9I8. The Habsburgs followed a policy of "divide and rule" in the province, favoring the Italian population over the Dalmatian by using the Italian language in administration and employing Italians in government service. In terms of population, however, the Italian claim to Dalmatia was quite unjustified. The Austrian census of I9IO showed that only I8,o24 out of 645,604 people in Dalmatia were Italians and about half of them lived in Zadar (Zara), the capital. 1 During the First World War, Great Britain, France, and Russia, ignoring the national interests of the South Slavic nations, promised Italy large sections of territory in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including more than half of Dalmatia, in the secret Treaty of London of April r 9 I 5 as an inducement to enter the war on the Allied side. At the end of the war, Italy and the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes could not agree on frontiers at the peace conference, so the two countries had to settle the problem through bilateral negotiations. The result was the Treaty of Rapallo of November 12, I92o. In Dalmatia, Italy obtained the city of Zadar and the island of Lastovo but renounced its claim to other Dalmatian territory. Following the conclusion of the treaty, a considerable number of Dalmatian Italians sold their businesses and Digovic, La Dalmatie et les problemes de l'Adriatique, p. 5 57·

1

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

properties and moved to Italy. The Yugoslav census of I93I recorded only 2,09 5 Italians in (Yugoslav) Dalmatia 2 and the number probably declined during the next decade, leaving the minority with no political or economic power. This figure did not include the Italians in Zadar and on the island of Lastovo, where the Italian population increased. Many Italians lamented the decline of the Italian presence in Dalmatia, which seemed to spell the end not only of the "ltalianity" of Dalmatia but also of Italian influence in adjoining South Slavic areas. 3 Though this was self-delusion in the extreme, there having been no real Italian influence in the province since the Croatian national renaissance of the I86o's, Italy's determination to acquire Dalmatia continued. During the interwar period, despite the Treaty of Rapallo, a series of economic agreements, and the Italian-Yugoslav treaty of friendship of I9 37, Italy worked to subvert the territorial integrity of the Yugoslav state. It did this both directly by supporting the Croatian Ustasha and Macedonian political emigres and indirectly by working with Albania and Bulgaria against Yugoslavia. According to Pero Digovic, at least eight societies in Italy, all supported more or less by the Italian government, had as their main purpose to keep alive Italian interests in Dalmatia and work for its incorporation into Italy. They were very vocal partisans for the cause, leading Ciano to comment in his diaries that "to be pro-Dalmatian is a profession for many. " 4 In the course of the invasion of Yugoslavia in April I 94 I, Italian forces occupied about a third of Slovenia, large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, all of Dalmatia, all of Montenegro, and through Albania most of the Kosovo region and western Macedonia. Shortly after the entry of their troops into Yugoslav territory, the Italians established a military government administration for Dalmatia, a regime that lasted only about a month. Athas Bartolucci, chief of the Fascist Party in Zadar, was named civil commissioner, based in Zadar. Prefects were appointed in what were formerly counties and mayors were appointed in communes (the lowest administrative units). A considerable number of appointees to lower administrative positions were people of Dalmatian birth who had emigrated to Italy during the interwar period. Many of them bore South Slavic names and were of mixed Italian-South Slavic descent.' According to the treaties of Rome between Italy and the Independent State of Croatia that were concluded on May I8, I94I (see Chapter 6), Italy ob2 Ibid. One pro-Dalmatian Italian fanatic, Luigi Federzoni, called this the period of the quasi agony of Italianity in Dalmatia. L 'ora della Dalmazia, p. vii. 'See, for example, the February I9, I929, report of the Italian envoy in Belgrade, Carlo Galli, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I documenti diplomatici italiani, 7th series, 17: 288-90. 4 Digovic, La Dalmatie et les problemes de l'Adriatique, pp. 4I I-I s; Ciano, Diaries, p. 4 3 2, the entry for April 24, I 941. 'Kvesic, Dalmacija u narodnooslobodilai':koj borbi, pp. 7o-73; Barbaric, "Italian Policy in Dalmatia in I94I," pp. I42-47·

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

tained part of the Croatian Littoral and its islands in the upper Adriatic and roughly half of Dalmatia and most of its islands, with a total population of about 38o,ooo (see Map I). The annexed parts of the Croatian Littoral and the neighboring islands were incorporated into the Italian province of Fiume (Rijeka). The annexed part of Dalmatia was organized as the Governorship of Dalmatia (Governatorato di Dalmazia) under a governor, based at Zadar, responsible directly to Mussolini. Giuseppe Bastianini, an important Fascist functionary and most recently Italian ambassador to the United Kingdom, was named governor. The Governorship of Dalmatia was divided into the three provinces of Zadar (Zara), Split (Spalato), and Kotor (Cattaro). Venzi Orazi was appointed prefect of Zadar, Paolo Zerbino prefect of Split, and Franco Scasselatti prefect of Kotor. All were Fascists of high standing. 6 After the establishment of the new governorship, the Italians began a drive to Italianize the annexed territories, as they had worked to Italianize !stria, the Slovene Littoral, and other South Slavic areas acquired after the First World War. Geographical names were Italianized and Italian was introduced as the official language in schools, churches (next to Latin), government administration, telegraph, and radio. Croatian cultural and national societies were prohibited. Newspapers were published either in Italian or in both Italian and Croatian. Government employees and teachers were required to speak Italian to remain in government service, and few were so qualified. Some students from Dalmatia were sent to Italian universities for schooling in the hope that they would accept Italianization and help promote it, but the scheme did not prove successful. Still, the Italians believed that schools were the best instruments of Italianization and to that end they brought several hundred teachers from Italy to replace teachers in elementary and secondary schools who had been dismissed. The Croatian population stubbornly resisted all these efforts, prompting Bastianini to declare that the population of Dalmatia would have to accept Italianization or emigrate. 7 The organization of the three provinces paralleled the state government and Fascist Party organizations existing in the rest of Italy. Italian legislation on the mainland was extended to the Dalmatian provinces, formally putting them on an equal footing with provinces in other parts of the kingdom. In the judicial area, the Italians established, in addition to regular courts, a section of the Military Court, in Sibenik. On October I I, I 94 I, alarmed by spreading resistance, Bastianini also established an Extraordinary Tribunal. But on October 28 both For the decree establishing the Governorship of Dalmatia, see Italy, Stato Maggiore del R. Esercito, Ufficio Propaganda, Bollettini della guerra, pp. 536-37, or Zbornik DNOR, 13, bk. 1: 65-69. Several regulations promulgated by the military occupation administration remained in force for some time. For a Yugoslav description and analysis of Italian rule in the annexed part of Dalmatia, see Sepic, "La politique italienne d'occupation," pp. 377-424. 7 Sepic, "La politique italienne d'occupation," pp. 3 83-89. 6

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

the Military Court and the Extraordinary Tribunal were replaced by a Special Tribunal for Dalmatia "with far-reaching powers," established by a special order of Mussolini. To maintain peace and enforce the orders of the civilian administration, the governor had at his disposal units of the gendarmerie, the financial police, and the Blackshirts. A large part of the XVIIIth Army Corps was deployed in the provinces of Zadar and Split. 8 All principal mineral and industrial resources and business establishments in the annexed areas-coal and bauxite mines, cement production, electric power, chemical and aluminum factories, shipping, and fish-processing plantswere taken over by Italian interests. So too were banks, insurance companies, and various endowments. Most Italians in the government no doubt realized that there could be no real peace and friendship between Italy and Croatia as long as Italy held any part of Dalmatia and therefore that the whole system of Italian-Croatian relations based on the Rome treaties was unstable. Possession of a large part of Dalmatia may have satisfied Italy's desire for prestige and contributed to its military security in the Adriatic (serving as a buffer against possible threats from Germany), but from an economic point of view it was a burden. However, the Italians were determined to remain in Dalmatia because they envisioned it as a stepping-stone for further penetration into the Balkans and the Danube Basin. Soon after the annexation, some Italians looked beyond Dalmatia to the large timber, mineral, and water resources of Bosnia and Herzegovina and proposed that Italy occupy these areas as well-which according to their experts had nothing in common with Croatia proper-and establish an Italian "military governorship" there, at least until the end of the war.' The Dalmatian Croats, an intensely nationalistic people with a centuriesold animosity toward the Italians because of the latter's traditional aspiration to possess the eastern shores of the Adriatic, met the annexation and attempted Italianization of their homeland with determined resistance. The Dalmatians never accepted the Ustashas' surrender of Croatian territory to Italy and the Ustashas never succeeded in overcoming the unfavorable political effects of surrendering it. Furthermore, it was apparently well known that Pavelic had little trust in and actually disliked Dalmatians. Once, half jokingly and half seriously, he allegedly told his entourage that to him the most satisfactory compromise with the Italians over Dalmatia would be for Croatia to obtain all Dalmatian territory and the Italians all Dalmatians. 10 'Micr. No. T-82I, Roll 55, Frs. 984-86, and Roll410, Fr. 330. For Bastianini's report to Mussolini of November 17, 1941, see Micr. No. T-586, Roll424, Frs. 12,306-7. 'For a candid Italian discussion of ltalian-Croatian relations, the problem of Dalmatia, and the desirability of Italy acquiring Bosnia and Herzegovina, see Marcello Zuccolin's report of December 1941, in Micr. No. T-821, Roll410, Frs. 898-909. On Italian desires for Bosnia and Herzegovina, see also the report by General Pieche of the Italian 2nd Army of September 9, 1942, in Roll347, Frs. 774-79. 10 YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 1/3-7, Box 219.

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About 8 3 percent of the Dalmatian population was Croatian and Roman Catholic. With the exception of a few Ustashas, clerics, and business and professional people, it was solidly against Italian rule. The Italian government hoped that it might strengthen the Italian element in Dalmatia by inducing Dalmatian-born Italians living in Italy to return to Dalmatia. But it soon became evident that there was no suitable employment or housing for them there and that in order to make room for them, it would have been necessary to expel the same number of people to other parts of Croatian territory. Consequently, on! y a few families were transferred and the scheme was abandoned. 11 As in other parts of Yugoslavia, armed resistance in Dalmatia was a threat to the Axis powers and the quisling regimes from the summer of 1941 on. Beginning with the sabotage of communication lines and of industrial and mining enterprises working for the Axis and with attacks on individuals and small units of Axis and quisling armed forces, the resistance eventually became organized guerrilla warfare, for which the Italian army, gendarmerie, and Blackshirts were not at all suited. Partisan attacks caused heavy losses and great frustration among the Italians. The situation led to three distinct, but interdependent, developments. First, since the Italians could not subdue the Partisans, they resorted to brutal reprisals against the civilian population for Partisan attacks and sabotage. Their fixed policy was to rule with an iron hand in the belief that this would break the will of the South Slavs to resist. They reacted to attacks in the countryside with instantaneous reprisals against neighborhoods and villages where attacks took place or from which suspected attackers came. These reprisals included taking or shooting hostages, withdrawing ration cards and burning houses, confiscating the property of known Partisans and declaring their family members to be Partisans, and taking all males over fifteen years of age or all inhabitants of villages to concentration camps. The Italians also paid bounties for the capture of more important Partisans. Often the reprisals were indiscriminate and victimized innocent people. Two of the most brutal such operations took place near Susak and in the village of Primosten in 1942. On July r 2, near Susak, in reprisal for the killing of 4 Italian citizens by the Partisans, over roo men from the village ofPodhum and the neighboring area were shot and some 8oo people from the same area were taken to concentration camps in ltaly. 12 On November 16, in retaliation for a Partisan attack on a "According to data of the Italian Ministry of Interior, at the beginning of January 1942 there were 6,413 Italians born in Dalmatia who lived in Italy: 573 in Rijeka (Fiume); 1,539 in Pula (Pola); 3,513 in Trieste; and 788 in other parts of the region. Micr. No. T- 586, Roll 3 56, Frs. 12,351-54· 12 For the Italian side of the reprisals near Susak, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll4I0, Frs. 478523· For the Yugoslav side, see Hronologija I94I-I94J, p. 304. Two Italian victims of the Partisans were 63-year-old Giovanni Renzi, a reserve officer and former member of the national militia, who had been brought from Italy to serve as principal of the elementary school in Podhum, and his wife. Renzi showed manly courage before his execution on June I 6, 1942, bearing his breast and shouting "Viva l'Italia!" This incident

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

truck convoy in which 14 Italian soldiers were killed, 7 wounded, and 6 taken prisoner, the Italians bombarded the village of Primosten and the coast south of Sibenik in a four-hour combined land, air, and naval attack, leaving about r 50 dead. They also burned nearby villages and arrested about 200 people. 13 A second development that occurred as a result of Partisan activity, as well as from the Italians' desire to profit from a policy of "divide and rule," was that the latter sought likely collaborators. They found them among those Serbs in the annexed part of Dalmatia and the adjacent areas of Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Lika who opposed both the Partisans and the Ustashas, that is, among the Chetniks. In fact, Serbian politicians in the annexed part of Dalmatia urged the Italians to broaden their zone of annexation beyond the agreed-upon limits. 14 The Italians also found collaborators among Croats in the annexed part of Dalmatia who were likewise opposed to both the Partisans and the Ustashas. A limited amount of Italian-Chetnik collaboration occurred in the latter part of 1941, but it greatly increased after General Mario Roatta assumed command of the Italian 2nd Army in January 1942. Within a year, by the end of February 1943-shortly after Roatta was replaced by General Mario Robotti as commander of the 2nd Army-20,514 Chetniks were organized as Italian auxiliary forces in the Independent State of Croatia in the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia (MVAC). In addition, 882 men were attached to the Italian army in the provinces of Zadar and Split and 1,4 74 more in the province of Kotor. We do not have Italian data on the confessional and national composition of the MVAC and Yugoslav sources give contradictory information, but it included both Serbs and Croats and the majority were young men. These Dalmatian units were commanded by Italian officers and they were armed, supplied, and paid by the Italian authorities. Their families were given food and textile ration cards. As auxiliaries they proved eager and harsh helpers of the Italian gendarmerie. 15 The recruitment of local men for the auxiliary units may have helped to polarize the population in these areas into those who supported was reported in several Italian newspapers, and the army collected eyewitness affidavits of Renzi's courage while considering giving him a posthumous "medaglia d'oro." The Italian reprisal was probably partly inspired by public reaction in Italy. 13 For the Primosten action, see Hronologija I94I-I945, p. 375· Following it, the bishop of Sibenik, Jerolim Mileta, submitted a vigorous protest to Governor Bastianini and wrote to Luigi Cardinal Maglione asking for the Vatican's help. See YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. I/3, 99-IOI, Box 28r. For a partial record of the brutal Italian rule in Dalmatia, see Yugoslavia, State Commission of Croatia, Dokumenti o zloCinima talianskog okupatora, and Despot, "Reprisals of the Italian Armed Forces," pp. 9I-I09. wzuric, "Serbian Bourgeois Politicians and the Italians," pp. I 9 5-2 I I. '-'Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 2I5-I8. See also the report of the consulate general of the Independent State of Croatia in Zadar of July 9, I943, in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. I/3, I38-42, Box 281. On the whole issue of "banda anticomunista," see Branica, "The Formation of the Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia," pp. 87-I05.

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the armies of occupation and their helpers and those who opposed them, but it did little to help the Italians maintain peace and order and indeed it probably made the antagonisms among various segments of the population worse than ever. The failure of the Italian armed forces and domestic auxiliaries to crush the Partisans also led to a third development, namely, changes in the deployment of Italian army units, which in turn caused disagreements between the military authorities and Governor Bastianini. When General Quirino Armellini, the commander of the XVIIIth Army Corps stationed at Split, withdrew troops from smaller localities and concentrated them in a number of larger military posts in late February 1942, for example, Bastianini thought that this action endangered peace and order in smaller localities. He insisted on participating in decisions on the deployment of army units within the territory for which he was responsible. But Armellini was not willing to allow the civilian authority to interfere in his affairs and the dispute continued between Bastianini and General Roatta, commander of the 2nd Army. The result was Roatta's order of April 6, 1942, stipulating that he alone would decide all fundamental matters and that army commands must only obey the orders of higher command posts in all basic matters. In minor matters, however, military commanders could take into account the desires of local administrators, provided they stayed within the framework of military orders. In case of disputes, Roatta and Bastianini would decide. Note that in this case the original dispute was between a leading Fascist Party member and General Armellini, a well-known Badoglio man. Subsequently, Bastianini was able to arrange the removal of Armellini from his post without consultation with Roatta. 16 Disputes between the military and civilian authorities in the Governorship of Dalmatia over their respective powers continued until the final days of Italian rule in the province. As late as August 4, 1943, Governor Francesco Giunta asked the commander of the Supersloda (Superior Command for SloveniaDalmatia), General Robotti, for a review of "the attributions and powers of the military and civilian authorities" in the governorship and Robotti reported (the same day) to the General Staff of the army that this problem should be settled. 17 After changes in the Italian government and higher echelons of the armed forces, as well as among officers and officials in the occupied and annexed areas, were instituted toward the end of January 1943, Bastianini was recalled to Rome, where he assumed the post of undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He took a number of assistants with him, most of whom had been detailed to him by the ministry when he went to Dalmatia. In February 1943, Francesco Giunta, an old Trieste squadrista with extremely anti-Yugoslav "For correspondence on the disputes between Armellini, Bastianini, and Roatta, see Micr. No. T-82r, Rolls s, Frs. 928-94. Roatta's order of April6 is found in Frs. 962-63. For Armellini's removal, see Zanussi, Guerra e catastrofe d'Italia, I: 246-48. 17 Micr. No. T-82I, Roll4IO, Frs. 63 s-36.

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views, became the governor of Dalmatia. Giunta installed a number of former irredentists from Trieste and elsewhere in Italy as assistants and ruled even more brutally than Bastianini had done. 18 Even in the concluding months of their occupation, the Italians continued to perpetrate acts of terror in Dalmatia and other parts of the Ustasha state. Among these were killing seven civilians in the village of Stro:lanac near Split on April2r, 1943; plundering villages in the area of Omis during combing operations against the Partisans between June 29 and July 3, 1943; burning the village of Zrnovnica near Omis on July 8, 1943; and burning villages and shooting civilians on the island of Brae in August I943· These acts brought protests from the Ustasha government and from the Catholic Church in Croatia to the Vatican, which in turn protested through its nuncio to the Italian government. 19 The draft of the report of the Supersloda to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of early September 1943, prepared as an answer to the Vatican, maintained that the latter's protest was based on assertions used in a long-continuing campaign against Italy by the archbishopric of Zagreb and that it disregarded the positive deeds of Italian forces in Croatia. The draft explained that all the measures of the Italian forces had been necessitated by the nature of anti-Partisan warfare and the efforts of Italian forces to maintain peace and order and protect the civilian population. 20 As their alliance with Nazi Germany drew to a close, the Italians, perhaps realizing how costly and unproductive their policy in Dalmatia had been, abolished the Governorship of Dalmatia in mid-August I943· Italy's surrender the following month brought to an end its rule in those parts of Yugoslavia that it had occupied or annexed in 1941. 21 On September ro, the Ustashas declared the Rome treaties of May r 8, 1941, null and void and incorporated the Dalma18 See the report of the consulate general of the Independent State of Croatia in Zadar of July 9, 1943, in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 1/3-138, Box 281. 1'For these incidents, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 403, Frs. 194-214, 269-96, and 298325. For the nuncio's note of July 12, 1943, see Roll410, Frs. 314-15. He particularly referred to the area between Rijeka (Fiume) and. Senj, but also took into account conditions throughout Italian-ruled Dalmatia. He noted, for example, that 9,416 people were in concentration camps out of a total population of about 6o,ooo in the area. In the parish of Jelenje on July 12, 1942, alone, Italian forces executed 108 males between 18 and 45 without even allowing them to have confession. 2 °For Archbishop Stepinac's letter of protest to Raffaele Casertano, Italian envoy in Zagreb, on the excesses of Italian troops in Croatian villages, see Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, pp. 265-66. The date of the letter is not given. For the Supersloda's draft report, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll410, Frs. 316-21. 21 Micr. No. T-586, Roll424, Frs. 12,256-59. According to the decree abolishing the governorship, most of the powers earlier vested in the governor were now assumed by the three provincial prefects for their respective territories. However, because these provinces were within military operation zones, the Comando Supremo claimed civilian powers in the provinces for itself and delegated them to the commanders of the two army corps deployed there. Micr. No. T-821, Roll403, Fr. 1032. Italian rule in Dalmatia was drawing to a close, however, and these formal changes made no practical difference.

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tian and Croatian areas that Italy had annexed two years earlier into the Independent State of Croatia. (The Germans resisted their efforts, however, to incorporate the Croatian areas that Italy had held during the interwar period.) Croatian and German control of Dalmatia until the end of the war will be described in Chapter 7· ITALIAN AND GERMAN OCCUPATION OF MONTENEGRO

Among the Yugoslav areas that Hitler assigned to Italy in his preliminary decision of April I2, I94I, on the partition of Yugoslavia was Montenegro. Montenegro was a miniature Balkan kingdom up to the end of the First World War, ruled by King Nikola I of the Petrovic-Njegos dynasty. In early I9I6, Austro-Hungarian forces overran the country and King Nikola and his government went into exile in Italy and France. The rule of the Montenegrin king, unlike that of King Peter I of Serbia, was personal rather than democratic and many of his subjects opposed him and worked for union with Serbia. By the decision of the Montenegrin National Assembly meeting in Podgorica on November 26, I 9 I 8, Montenegro united with Serbia. When the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, proclaimed shortly before that by the representatives of these nations living in the now defunct Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, united with Serbia on December I, I9I8, to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes under the Karadjordjevic dynasty, Montenegro became part of a united Yugoslavia. King Nikola died in exile in I922, but the supporters of Montenegro's independence continued to oppose the Yugoslav state. They were known as separatists or the Greens (Zelenasi), while those who supported the new state were known as the Whites (Bjelasi). 22 In April I94I, Montenegro was invaded by both Italian forces from Albania and German forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Germans withdrew almost immediately and the military occupation of Montenegro was taken over by the Italian "Messina" Division, part of the XIVth Army Corps deployed in Albania with the 9th Army. Civil affairs were managed by a civil commissioner (later high civil commissioner), Count Serafino Mazzolini, appointed on April 28, who was responsible to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Italy had a dynastic interest in Montenegro-Queen Elena of Italy was the daughter of the late King Nikola-but its principal interest was strategic: Montenegro, along with Albania and the annexed part of Dalmatia, was a steppingstone into the central Balkans, and the adjacent Bay of Kotor was to serve as a base for the Italian navy guarding the southern Adriatic. From an economic 22 The appellations were derived from the color of the ballot boxes used in the National Assembly during the voting on November 26, 1918. Because some Greens later accepted Yugoslavia but demanded a federal organization of the country in which Montenegro would be a separate unit, they were also called Federalists.

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point of view, however, Montenegro was a burden from the start. It was a food-deficit area into which the Italians had to import between r,2oo and r,5oo metric tons of food monthly, though they were able to utilize some of the country's own production, such as livestock, for the troops deployed there. Thirty-six percent of the total area was forested and deposits of lead, zinc, manganese, bauxite, and lignite had yet to be developed. 23 When Italian troops arrived at Cetinje, the former capital, they were met by leaders of the local separatists calling themselves the Committee for the Liberation of Montenegro. Italian commanders suggested that they organize a committee to represent the Montenegrin population. Mazzolini launched an Advisory Council of Montenegrins on May r 8, which, along with a government administration almost unchanged from the previous one, began to work with mixed Montenegrin and Italian personnel under the supervision of the Italian occupation regime. 24 In the beginning, the Italian occupation authorities were friendly and lenient. At the same time they systematically fostered the notion that Montenegro would be closely linked to Italy. But the Montenegrins soon found reasons to be dissatisfied. Mazzolini summed up their grievances in a report he submitted at the end of July 1941 after he was recalled to Rome, following a revolt and the introduction of a military government. Most serious was the influx of refugees, estimated at up to 2 5,ooo people, including about 5,ooo Montenegrins expelled from the Kosovo region and to some extent from Vojvodina, where they had settled during the interwar period. These refugees, together with other Montenegrins who had fled from other parts of Yugoslavia and refugees fleeing Ustasha terror in the border areas of southeast Bosnia and Herzegovina, constituted a great economic burden, even though the occupation authorities helped to support them. Another grievance was the loss of territory, including land near the coast and Lake Scutari, the area of Plav and Gusinje, and especially the greater part of the Kosovo region, all of which Italy included in the new Greater Albania. In losing its part of the Kosovo region, Montenegro lost its only foodsurplus area, and in losing Ulcinj, in the coastal area, it lost a salt-producing facility. This meant not only a possible salt shortage, but also a loss of revenue. A third major grievance had to do with the stamping of old Yugoslav banknotes, which was carried out in the first week of July. After calling in and marking the old currency, the occupation authorities returned banknotes of small denominations to the populace, but retained on deposit those of 500 and r,ooo dinars, 23 For food imports into Montenegro, see Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1258, Fr. 679. For the use of local products for Italian troops, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 248, Frs. 6-7. As the latter source indicates, between July I, I94I, and March 3 r, 1943, Montenegro's exports to Italy consisted of only 6o8.2 metric tons of hides, I 17.3 metric tons of wool, and 6.5 metric tons of goat hair. 24 See Jaukovic, "The Italian System of Occupation," pp. 349-75, and Pajovic, "The Occupation of Montenegro in 194I," pp. 272-306.

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claiming that many of them had been unlawfully put into circulation. Many Montenegrins were economically greatly damaged as a result (though apparently banknotes of all denominations that had been put into circulation legally were eventually recognized as valid). 25 The Italians had good reason to be concerned about dissatisfaction among the people. As a result of the collapse of the Yugoslav army in April I94I, the population in Montenegro had a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition, far more than any other area of Yugoslavia. Montenegro also had many officers from the former Yugoslav army, men of Montenegrin birth who had been released from prisoner-of-war camps and had returned to Montenegro. Most importantly, it had a strong Communist Party organization. In July I94I in Montenegro, including the areas of Kotor and Sandhk, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) had I,8oo members and the Communist Youth Organization 3,ooo members, many of whom, together with their friends, were ready to follow the party in armed action after the German attack on the So-. viet Union. 26 Italy was determined to use the Montenegrin-Italian dynastic connection to reconstitute Montenegro as a separate "independent" state. This plan went awry when Prince Mihajlo PetroviC-Njegos, a grandson of the late King Nikola, refused the offer of the throne. The Italians, undaunted, convoked a Montenegrin Assembly at Cetinje with the help of the Montenegrin separatists. On July I 2, I 94 I, the assembly issued a declaration (prepared by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and submitted to the assembly by High Civil Commissioner Mazzolini) that annulled the decision of the Montenegrin National Assembly of November 26, I9I 8, unifying Montenegro with Serbia and "proclaimed a sovereign and independent state of Montenegro in the form of a constitutional monarchy." It also thanked Italy for making possible the reconstitution of the Montenegrin state and announced its decision to link Montenegro with Italy. Since Prince Mihajlo had refused the throne, the assembly asked the Italian king to name a regent. 27 The following day, July I3, the Communist Party initiated a general uprising. Many non-Communists and a substantial number of former army officers, some pro-Communist but most strongly nationalistic, joined in. According to Yugoslav sources, some 3 2,ooo people participated in the uprising. 28 Most of 25 For Mazzolini's report, see the Serbo-Croatian translation in Zbornik DNOR, I3, bk. I: 230-34. See also Pirzio Biroli's report of August 2, I94I, on pp. 245-53. For the estimate of refugees, see Milosevic, Izbeglice i preseljenici, pp. I05-6. 26Trgo, Cetrdeset prva, p. 261; B. Jovanovic, Crna Cora, I: 46. 27 Petrovic-Njegos, "How I Refused to Accept the Throne," pp. 33-37. Among the lead-

ing separatists participating in the assembly was Sekula Drljevic, a former minister under King Nikola. For more about his role in the Second World War, see Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 209,446-49. For the assembly's proclamation, see Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4: 38990. 28 B.

Jovanovic, Crna Cora,

I:

257. According to Mazzolini's report at the end of July

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its success came in the early days, when rebel forces seized local administrations in small towns and villages. The Italians quickly dropped their plans for a regent and appointed a military governor, General Alessandro Pirzio Biroli, up to that time commander of military forces in Albania, with full control over both military and civilian affairs in Montenegro and directly responsible to Mussolini. Pirzio Biroli put the commander of the XIVth Army Corps in charge of the military in Montenegro and the province of Kotor and assigned over 7o,ooo Italian troops to crush the uprising. He declared martial law, introduced a strict curfew, and on August 5 ordered the civilian population to surrender all firearms. Three days later he ordered the confiscation of the property of the rebels. 29 Under Pirzio Biroli's command, the Italians began using their large forces to good advantage. The uprising had been hastily organized. Within six weeks the Italians reestablished control over the towns and all main communication lines in the country. Between the towns, Italian troops moved as a rule in convoys accompanied by light artillery and even airplanes. To handle civilian business, Pirzio Biroli established the Office of Civilian Affairs, which included Montenegrin as well as Italian officials, on July 26. (The post of high civil commissioner being thereby made redundant, Mazzolini was recalled to Rome.) He dismissed the existing Advisory Council and only named a new National Council, composed of both separatists and nationalists, a year later, on August 22, I942.30 Some separatists had refused to attend the meeting of the assembly on July 12, I94I, because they disagreed with certain Italian actions. The military government of occupation introduced by Pirzio Biroli dismayed them even more. One of their principal representatives, Novica Radovic, replied to a letter of Pirzio Biroli with a petition on January I I, I942. It accused the Italians of introducing a regime of military occupation instead of creating a sovereign and independent state as promised and of separating important Montenegrin areas from the state and incorporating them into Albania, thus contributing to the uprising in July I 94 r. 31 Toward the end of I94I, the rebels recovered sufficiently from their setback to resume activity. But this only brought sharper repressive measures from the Italians. An order of the commander of the XIVth Army Corps of December (after he was recalled to Rome), the number of rebels did not exceed 5,ooo men with light arms. Zbornik DNOR, 13, bk. r: 233. 29 For Pirzio Biroli's order of July r 5, 1941, on the suppression ofthe Montenegrin uprising, see Micr. No. T-821, Rol1356, Frs. 722-25, and for its Serbo-Croatian translation, see Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4: 392-96. For his subsequent orders, see Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4: 416-27. 30 Micr. No. T-3rr, Roll 196, Frs. 99, 10r; Micr. No. T-821, Roll356, Frs. 682-87. 31 Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4:464-67. For the views of and divisions among various groups of separatists regarding Italian policy in Montenegro, see also Micr. No. T-821, Roll356, Frs. 689-91, and Pajovic, "The Occupation of Montenegro in 1941," pp. 291-93.

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1941, declared that people in villages in whose neighborhood attacks on Italians occurred would be considered responsible for the attacks. An order of the military governor of January 12, 1942, specified the reprisals: for every Italian officer killed or wounded, 50 civilians would be shot, and for every noncommissioned officer or private killed or wounded, ro civilians would be shot. 32 The defeats inflicted by the Italians on the insurgents and the realization by some that the leading elements in the uprising were Communists led to a split in the resistance between the nationalist, Serbian-oriented forces-the Chetniksand the Communist-led forces-the Partisans. In late October 1941, Colonel (later General) Draza Mihailovic, the Chetnik leader in Serbia, came to the conclusion that his principal enemies were the Partisans, not the Axis forces. From the beginning of 1942, this attitude was also clearly reflected in Montenegro in relations between the Chetnik and separatist forces on the one hand and the Partisans on the other. Instead of concentrating on the Italians, the two sides of the resistance turned their energies against each other, a development that the Italians naturally welcomed. The Chetniks and the separatists in turn sought to use the Italians against the Partisans. In return for aid against the Partisans, they promised to follow a policy in common with the Italians. The first collaboration between the Italians and the Chetniks took place on the basis of special agreements concluded between representatives of Colonel Bajo Stanisic (on February 17 and March 6, 1942) and Captain (later Major) Pavle Djurisic (in early March 1942) and representatives of Italian division commanders or the military governor of Montenegro and covered territories in which the respective divisions were deployed. As a result, during the first half of 1942 the great majority of Montenegrin Chetniks were put into Italian service as auxiliary troops against the Partisans. The officially organized and recognized auxiliaries were detachments of about r,soo men each, led by Stanisic and Djurisic (mostly Montenegrin Chetniks) and the pre-r9r8 Montenegrin Brigadier General Krsto Popovic (mostly separatists). But collaboration also extended to armed Chetniks who were not part of the auxiliary forces. The special agreements were followed on July 24, 1942, by a general agreement between General Blazo Djukanovic, the senior commander of all Chetnik forces in Montenegro, and Pirzio Biroli, the military governor. The Italians allowed the Chetniks to establish the Nationalist Committee of Montenegro under the chairmanship of Djukanovic. The committee obligated itself "to use all its power and authority for the maintenance of order and discipline in the country and to prevent any possible action that might be directed against the Italian authorities. " 33 21,

"Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4:462-63. 33 For more information on these agreements, see Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 2ro-r2. The Djukanovic-Pirzio Biroli agreement is in Zbornik DNOR, 4, bk. 4: 527-30. Pirzio Biroli had proposed the formation of a group like the Nationalist Committee as

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The collaboration between the Italians and the Chetniks was very successful, in part because of a series of Partisan military and political blunders. In the course of the second quarter of 1942, ltalian-Chetnik operations in Montenegro, which coincided with operations of German and Croatian troops in southeast Bosnia and eastern Herzegovina (the Third Enemy Offensive in Partisan parlance), forced the remaining Partisans out of Montenegro. These forces, estimated at about 3,ooo troops, joined other Partisans forced out of southeast Bosnia and eastern Herzegovina and began their "long march" toward western Bosnia. With the exception of some individuals and small groups operating underground, the Partisans did not reenter Montenegro for almost a year. 34 One of the major blunders of the Partisans was the attempt on December 1, 1941, to take the town of Pljevlja with its strong Italian garrison. This unsuccessful effort resulted in 203 dead and 269 wounded for the Partisans and caused widespread desertions. Partly to stem them and partly anticipating a later stage of Communist revolution, the Partisans pursued the policy of "leftist deviation" in Montenegro, the use of mass terror not only against the deserters and their families and the Chetniks and their followers, but also against wealthier peasants, merchants, and professionals, who were regarded as a present or potential fifth column. This policy embittered many people and turned them against the Partisans, further weakening their position in Montenegro. 35 During the first half of 1942, Italian-Chetnik collaboration in Montenegro took the form of a condominium in which the Italians controlled and maintained peace in the towns while the Chetniks operated and tried to maintain peace in the countryside. Both groups cooperated in securing communication lines. 36 The Italians supplied, armed, and paid the Chetnik auxiliaries and brought food into the country; in exchange, the Chetniks and separatists put themselves at the disposal of the Italians in fighting the Partisans and, after the Partisans were ousted, in policing the country. In specific instances, for example during the last stages of Operation Weiss in the winter of 1943, the Chetniks also fought for the Italians against the Partisans in Herzegovina. According to the Comando Supremo, on January 2, 1943, all Montenegrin auxiliary armed forces (Chetniks, separatists, police, gendarmerie, and militia) in Italian service numbered about 17,000 officers and men. 37 General Mihailovic established his headquarters in Montenegro in June 1942. On June 10, he was named chief of staff of the Yugoslav Army in the early as December r, 1941, but the Italian government did not accept his proposal at that time. See Micr. No. T-821, Rol13 56, Frs. 750-54. 34 For a brief review of operations by the Axis and collaborationist forces against the Partisans between September 1941 and june 1943, see the last section of Chapter 9· 35 0n the disaster at Pljevlja, see Hronologija I94I-I94J, p. 172. There is a great deal of literature on the Partisans' subsequent "leftist deviation." See, for example, Vujovic, "On the Leftist Mistakes of the Communist Party," pp. 45-113. 36 Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 4: 486-87. 37 Micr. No. T-821, Rol1248, Fr. 28.

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Homeland by the Yugoslav government-in-exile. Thus Montenegro became the center of the Chetnik organization for the whole of Yugoslavia. Though Mihailovic himself did not maintain direct contact with the Italian commands in Montenegro, his principal commanders did, with his backing and cooperation. In Chetnik strategy Montenegro had another advantage: it was adjacent to the Adriatic coast and the Chetniks could take advantage of any Allied invasion of Yugoslav territory along that coast. Two of the most ambitious plans formulated by the Chetnik Supreme Command were developed in December 1942 and January 1943 when it was located in Montenegro. The first was for a "march on Bosnia" to destroy Partisan forces there and the second was for Chetnik operations that would begin after the Allies landed on the Adriatic coast. 38 The Germans, less trusting than the Italians, pressed the latter to disarm the Montenegrin Chetniks. They also insisted that the Italians disarm the Chetniks in their service in the Independent State of Croatia. The Italians argued that disarmament would have to be gradual and that the Partisans must be liquidated first. The question of disarming the Chetniks arose at meetings between Mussolini and the new chief of the Comando Supremo, General Ambrosio, in Rome on March 3-4, 1943, during the final days of Operation Weiss. Robotti, the commander of the Supersloda, and Pirzio Biroli, the military governor of Montenegro, who were also present, resolutely opposed the German requests. Robotti declared that disarming the Chetniks would give the Italians another 5o,ooo enemies: the 25,000 Chetniks that they would lose and the 25,000 new allies that the Partisans would gain. Pirzio Biroli claimed that disarming the Montenegrin units commanded by Popovic, Stanisic, and Djurisic was absolutely impossible and that if anything of this sort were attempted, the "whole of Montenegro would burst into flames." The same would happen, he said, if the Italians acted against Mihailovic. 39 Events soon resolved the question for the Italians. Instead of marching on Bosnia and annihilating the Partisan forces there, the Chetniks suffered a series of irreversible military defeats, beginning with the battle of the Neretva River in Herzegovina in mid-March 1943, during the last phase of Operation Weiss. The Partisans routed the Chetnik forces defending the left bank of the river and with their main force and sick and wounded crossed into an area considered Chetnik domain. These reverses were followed by a series of engagements in eastern Herzegovina and southeast Bosnia that took place between about March 20 and the end of April, in which the Partisans defeated some of the best Chetnik units and forced the remaining Montenegrin Chetniks back into Montenegro. Since Operation Weiss had failed to annihilate the Partisans, the Germans launched a new attack, Operation Schwarz, to destroy the Partisans in "See Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 23 3-34, 240. 19 Micr. No. T-821, Rol1252, Fr. 319, and Roll 125, Frs. 817-19.

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Montenegro, disarm a large part of the Chetnik forces there, and capture Mihailovic. Italian forces, along with some Croatian regiments and a Bulgarian regiment, joined the Germans in this operation. Disregarding Italian protests, the Germans disarmed the elite Montenegrin Chetnik troops of Major Djurisic and took him and his troops prisoners of war. This left the Italians little choice but to submit to German pressure and follow suit, since in the circumstances the Chetnik units still under their control would be of limited value. They began disarming Chetnik units in Italian areas in Montenegro and Herzegovina. But having no reason to doubt the allegiance of the units composed of Montenegrin separatists, they decided to "clear" and reduce them without disarming them. 40 Mihailovic had been waiting for the arrival of Chetnik units from Serbia to join him in Montenegro in order to establish a barrier against further Partisan advances to the southeast, but when he saw how events turned against the Chetniks, he decided to return to Serbia. To stay in Montenegro was to risk capture by the Germans. In the latter part of May, he took over the newly arrived Chetnik contingents and, without engaging them in battle against the Partisans, headed for Serbia. 41 On the political front, too, the spring of 1943 was unfavorable for the Chetniks. The establishment of direct relations between Partisan Supreme Headquarters and operatives of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) toward the end of May was the first step leading to eventual military and political aid to the Partisans, recognition of them as an Allied force, and later the withdrawal of recognition of and aid to the Chetniks. The Chetniks never recovered from the military setbacks in Herzegovina and Montenegro between mid-March and June r, 1943, and the resulting political reversal. Beginning in late January 1943, the Italians inaugurated changes in their military and political leadership both at home and in the annexed and occupied areas of the Balkans. In the process, they reassigned the leaders of the occupation regime in Montenegro. Pirzio Biroli was withdrawn and on July r, 1943, the post of governor of Montenegro was assumed by General Curio Barbasetti di Prun. But the new governor was only in command of the military government, while the XIVth Army Corps was in charge of military affairs. Pirzio Biroli's report on his stewardship in Montenegro, submitted to Mussolini on June 4 °For the Partisans' defeat of the Chetniks, see Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 242-43, 24 7-5 5. See also the reports of the Information Service of the Italian army's General Staff on May I 3 and 23, I943, dealing with the crisis of the nationalist forces in Montenegro, in Micr. No. T-82I, Roll248, Frs. 9-I2. For the disarming of the Chetniks by the Germans, see Micr. No. T-3 I 5, Roll64, Frs. 630-37, and by theltalians, Micr. No. T-821, Rol1248, Frs. 4-5. 41 Major Radulovic, a Chetnik commander, informed Mihailovic from the area of Niksic on May 20, I943: "It has to be clearly understood that everything has been destroyed here and that we have no more forces for attack. A terrible spirit of capitulation prevails among the people, even among the best known. We must recuperate and organize anew. The Partisans are in the forests and we have no place to go." From a German radio intercept turned over to the Italians, in Micr. No. T-82I, Roll3 56, Fr. 202.

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26, 1943, was optimistic but contained little worthwhile information. He paid

special tribute to the Montenegrin Chetniks and separatists for collaborating with the Italian forces and occupation authorities and also noted the Montenegrin politicians whose quarrels he had used to promote Italian interests. 42 The last three or four months of Italian rule in Montenegro, although marked by occasional outbursts of brutality against the civilian population, were essentially a time of waiting for the inevitable end. By this time the Italians had ceased to be either the protectors of or the providers for the Chetniks in Montenegro and parts of Herzegovina and in fact had disarmed or attempted to disarm most of the Chetnik units in these areas. They continued to support the Chetniks only in parts of the Independent State of Croatia almost until their capitulation. According to Italian reports, Chetnik leaders in Herzegovina were unable to hold their followers together and many Chetniks, primarily those forcefully drafted and not compromised by atrocities against the Croatian, Muslim, and Partisan-inclined Serbian populations, joined the Partisans. 43 Even before the Italian surrender, some Chetnik commanders-Dobrosav Jevdjevic from Herzegovina, for example-had developed contacts with the Germans. But most Chetnik commanders had to establish contact for the first time and arrange for collaboration when the Germans arrived in the formerly Italian-controlled areas of Montenegro and the Independent State of Croatia. All this took time and some Chetnik leaders, including Djukanovic and Stanisic in Montenegro, fell victim to the Partisans in the interim. 44 Nor did collaboration with the Germans in the end prove of great value to the Montenegrin and Croatian Chetniks. Not only were the Germans less trusting of the Chetniks than the Italians had been, but also the government of the Independent State of Croatia continued to protest against German-Chetnik collaboration in its territory. Chetnik commanders never achieved the status and importance, nor the 42 For the changes made by the Italians, see a report by the Abwehrstelle Zagreb of September 7, I943, in Micr. No. T-3 I I, Roll I96, Frs. I 83-84. In the reorganization of the Italian armed forces in the spring of I943, the XIVth Army Corps, as well as the troops of the 9th and I Ith Armies (deployed in Albania and Greece), were included in the Group of Armies East. The VIth Army Corps, deployed in southern Dalmatia and Herzegovina as part of the Italian 2nd Army, was also attached to it later on. Pirzio Biroli's report, "Governatorato del Montenegro-luglio I94I-giugno I943,'' is in Micr. No. T-821, Roll347, Frs. 579-602. 43 Vrazalic, "The Occupation System in Montenegro," pp. 169-208 and 457-83. For an interesting report by the Intelligence Section of the Italian VIth Army Corps on July I, I943, which also deals with the problem of the Chetniks, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 347, Frs. 83 I36. 44 General Djukanovic, Colonel Stanisic, and their retinue were caught by the Partisans in the monastery of Ostrog between October I4 and r8, 1943. They were either killed in the course of the four-day siege or, after surrendering, sentenced to death by an impromptu court martial. In all, 28 men were executed. The Partisans had 5 dead and 20 wounded. See Zbornik DNOR, 3, bk. 5: 280-83.

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same amount of aid and privileges, while collaborating with the Germans that they had enjoyed while collaborating with the Italians in these areas. After the Italian surrender, the Germans took over all of Montenegro except certain Partisan-controlled areas and established an occupation regime under an area command headed by Major General Wilhelm Keiper. 45 Until the spring of r944, this area command was subordinated in succession to three different German commands, the German general in Albania, the Vth SS Mountain Corps, and the 2nd Panzer Army. Then it was raised to an independent area command and put directly under the military commander in southeast Europe, who had his headquarters in Belgrade. To facilitate their rule in Montenegro, the Germans followed the Italian practice of securing the cooperation of the separatists, of those Chetniks who were well disposed toward Nedic but not toward Mihailovic in Serbia, and even of representatives of the Sandzak Muslims. 46 From among representatives of these groups, the Germans formed the National Administrative Council in October I943 to help them administer the country. Misjudging its standing, the council tried to bargain with Keiper about its prerogatives, but was sharply reprimanded and told that it was only an organ of the occupation regime. A major concern of the council was to insure imports of food into the area with German help. The Nedic government in Serbia was willing to supply about 900 metric tons of food monthly, but the Germans had to furnish transportation. But what they and the civilian population provided was so limited that only 250 to 300 metric tons of grain were imported monthly, or only about 20 percent of what the Italians had imported. Thus in many areas of Montenegro there was near starvation during the German occupation. 47 The Germans tried to use the local gendarmerie and militia and the remainder of some Chetnik units to help control Montenegro. When these forces proved inadequate, they turned to Chetnik Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Pavle Djurisic, whom they had captured together with his troops in May r943. 48 Djurisic had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in Galicia and later turned up in Belgrade, where he was accepted by Nedic and the Germans. This was area command (Feldkommandantur) no. 1040. Like the Italians, the Germans considered Montenegro a state in a nascent stage. See Herzog, Besatzungsverwaltung, pp. 52-53, 77· 46 This was a group of Montenegrin politicians formed during the last month of Italian rule. See Micr. No. T-311, Roll 196, Frs. 183-84. For their meeting on September 14, 1943, see Frs. 194-97. 47 For General Keiper's reprimand to the council, see his letter of November 3, 1943, to Ljubo Vuksanovic, council chairman, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll258, Frs. 700-701. On food imports, see Frs. 679, 690. 48 General Djukanovic and Colonel Stanisic were killed in October 1943, and Major Djordjije Lasic, another leading Chetnik commander, was killed in an Allied air raid on Podgorica (later Titograd). The remaining Chetniks in Montenegro, deprived of leadership, completely lost control of the area. 45

I47

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Nedic took him into the Serbian State Guard with the rank of lieutenant colonel and asked him to help organize the Montenegrin Volunteer Corps, which was then sent to Montenegro to fight the Partisans. The Germans were not entirely pleased with the arrangement, however, since Djurisic, while owing allegiance to the Germans who maintained him, also owed allegiance to Nedic and Mihailovic. Djurisic apparently thought that in the end Mihailovic would reestablish good relations with the Western Allies, who would save him from disaster.49 German rule in Montenegro lasted until early December r 944, when the last occupation forces departed in the general German withdrawal from the Balkans through Bosnia toward the Austrian border. 50 Djurisic and his troops withdrew along with the Germans to northeast Bosnia, where they joined Mihailovic and his much depleted forces. But Djurisic soon discovered that Mihailovic had neither a plan for saving what remained of the Chetnik forces nor effective contacts with the Western Allies. They quarreled over whether toreturn to Serbia, as Mihailovic proposed and later attempted, or to move to the Slovene Littoral, as Djurisic wanted, to join the Ljotic forces and other Chetnik forces and await the arrival of the Western Allies. Djurisic and his troops eventually left on a fateful trek toward the Slovene Littoral. In northwest Bosnia they collided with superior Ustasha forces and he, most of his entourage, and some of his men met their end. Other troops were destroyed by the Partisans. Still others transferred allegiance to the Montenegrin separatist Sekula Drljevic and withdrew to Austria. 5 1 In the second half of May, these troops were delivered by the British to the victorious Communist forces. ITALIAN-ALBANIAN RULE IN KOSOVO AND WESTERN MACEDONIA

The Kosovo region in southern Yugoslavia (or the Kosovo-Metohia region, as it was known until recently) was acquired by Serbia in the First Balkan War of I912-13. A majority of the population-an estimated 70 percent in 1938was Albanian, about 20 percent was Serbian, and the remainder belonged to other national groups. During the interwar period, the Yugoslav government followed a policy of strengthening and favoring the Serbian and Montenegrin elements in the area and discriminating against the Albanian population, which caused much dissatisfaction among the latter. 52 Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 348-5 I. °For the Germans' account of their occupation of Montenegro, see the "Concluding Report on the Military Government in Montenegro," prepared in April 1945, in Micr. No. T501, Rol1258, Frs. 673-702. 51 Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 446-49. ·"For the 1938 population figures, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. r6-r7. For conditions in this region during the interwar period, see Hadri, "Kosovo and Metohia Under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia," pp. sr-84. 49 5

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The first Axis unit to enter the Kosovo region in April 1941, the German 6oth Motorized Infantry Division, was hailed as a liberating force. On April 21, the commander of the division and a group of local Albanian chieftains, among them Xhafer Deva, a leading chieftain, signed an agreement according to which the latter were to help the Germans maintain peace and order in exchange for a certain degree of autonomy in administering regional affairs. 53 Undoubtedly most Albanian chieftains in the Kosovo region were pro-Albanian, but since Albania was under full Italian control, they threw in their lot with the Germans. According to German-Italian agreements, most of the Kosovo region, as well as western Macedonia running north from Lake Ohrid to a point east of the town of Prizren, was to be annexed by Italian-occupied Albania. Consequently, the Germans withdrew their forces from these areas. By a special decree of the Italian viceroy in Albania of July 10, 1941, they were annexed to Albania and put under civilian administration. The northern part of the Kosovo region was incorporated into German-occupied Serbia and the eastern part was annexed by Bulgaria. 54 Feizi Alizoti, Albanian minister of state, was named high commissioner of the annexed areas. The move was generally applauded by Albanians both in Albania proper and in the new regions. 55 In December 1941, the administration of the annexed areas was put in the hands of the Italian Ministry for Liberated Areas and in February 1943, when the latter was abolished, it was spread among various other ministries. The Italians also annexed to Albania the small Montenegrin area of Plav and Gusinje and some Montenegrin territory in the vicinity of Lake Scutari. Because the areas annexed to Albania contained about 3 5 to 40 percent of the total Albanian population of the region, the annexation in 1941 fulfilled the Albanian nationalist dream of a so-called Greater Albania, even though control was in Italian hands. 56 The demarcation line (the Vienna Line) in these areas was provisional, however, drawn so that the two main Axis partners and their lesser satellite Bulgaria could arrive at a quick solution to their conflicting interests. Both the Italians and the Bulgarians were dissatisfied and were determined to rectify the situation. Here as elsewhere, the Germans used their dominant position to in"Micr. No. T-sor, Roll249, Frs. ro53-56. For a review of Italian-Albanian and then German rule in the Kosovo region, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 89-I44· For an account of Italian-Albanian and later German rule in Western Macedonia, see Todorovski, "Occupation of Western Macedonia," pp. 25-39. For a map showing how the Kosovo region was partitioned in r94r, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, p. 9 2. 55]acomoni di San Savino, La politica dell'Italia in Albania, pp. 2 79-80. Before the Italian occupation of Albania on April7-8, r939, Jacomoni was Italian envoy in Tirana. From then until March 20, r943, he was Italian viceroy in Albania. He was succeeded by General Alberto Pariani, a former Italian military attache and military adviser in Albania. 56 0n the Italian administration, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 98-99. On the Albanian population, see Skendi, Albania, pp. 48-5 r. 54

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sure that they had control of the main lines of communication and the chief economic resources. In this instance, they were mainly interested in denying the Italians control of the British-owned Trepca mines in the northeast Kosovo region, which produced lead, zinc, and silver, and the chrome ore mines in the Ljuboten massif northwest of Skopje. 57 Accordingly, the Trepca mines were added to German-occupied Serbia and the chrome ore mines in the Ljuboten massif, although actually in territory annexed by Bulgaria, were put under the control of German or joint German-Bulgarian corporations. But the Germans failed to obtain a majority of stock in the Jezerina mine, one of the most important chrome ore mines in the Bulgarian-annexed part of Macedonia. The unequal division of spoils was one reason why the Kosovo region continued to create problems in German-Italian relations. Concerns by both countries about the population's loyalties were another reason. After the transfer of most of the Kosovo area to Italian-controlled Albania, the April 1941 agreement between local Albanian chiefs and the German 6oth Motorized Infantry Division applied only in that part of the Kosovo region in German-occupied Serbia. It remained in effect until some time in 1942. Several Albanian chieftains from the Albanian- and Bulgarian-annexed areas who had readily cooperated with the Germans, including Xhafer Deva, left those areas and moved to Belgrade and other places. The Germans rebuffed all Italian efforts to have Deva extradited. They worried that the Italians might woo the roo,ooo or so Albanians still living in Serbia into Albania, while the Italians worried that among these Albanians an anti-Italian irredentism might develop. Largely to forestall trouble that might arise over these and other matters, including control of the Trepca mines, which Italy attempted to acquire, Germany consented to certain small adjustments in the demarcation line between German-occupied Serbia and Italian-occupied Albania to the advantage of Albania. These were agreed upon in Rome on November 13, 1942, and became effective the following month. 58 The Italians made no secret of their determination to tie the Albanian peo57Most characteristic in this respect is a message of the German Army High Command (OKH) to the commanders of the German 2nd and 12th Armies in the field in Yugoslavia on May 20, 1941: "According to a message of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it is especially important to see to it that Italian troops do not advance into the area of Mitrovica east of the present line of demarcation (because of the lead and zinc mines in that area) and likewise into the area of the Ljuboten massif northwest of Skopje (because of the chrome ore mines in that area)." See Micr. No. T-78, Roll 329, Frs. 6,285,668-747 and 6,285,778-82; the quoted passage is from Fr. 6,28 5,779. The directive from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was dated May 14, 1941. "See a series of documents from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in November 1941 and January 1942, in Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5781, Frs. H296,757-64, especially a memorandum of November II, 1941, from Benzler, the Ministry's representative with the military commander in Serbia, answering point by point various questions and issues raised by the Italians about the Kosovo region. See also Micr. No. T-120, Roll2415, Frs. E22I,62r23, and Micr. No. T-501, Roll352, Frs. 542-47,566, 749·

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pie to their cause in the newly annexed areas. First, they used Albanian instead of Serbo-Croatian as the official language in administration. They opened many elementary and several secondary schools with Albanian as the language of instruction and with most of the teachers brought in from Albania. The use of the Albanian language in schools was welcomed by the local population, since Yugoslavia had forbidden it during the interwar period. The Italians also established special forces, made up of the local populace, as border guards in the region. To please the landlord class, the Italian-Albanian administration reversed the agrarian reform carried through in parts of the annexed region by the Yugoslav government after the First World War, which had aimed at strengthening the Serbian and Montenegrin population. The Italians cleared the area of most Serbian and Montenegrin settlers who had moved into the region during the interwar period. They also tried to increase farm and livestock production and mining in the Kosovo region and western Macedonia. As in Albania proper, the Italians promoted their administrative institutions and practices in the annexed areas, as well as the organizations of the Albanian Fascist Party. 59 In western Macedonia, the Italians resurrected certain pre-1912 Turkish practices for the maintenance of law and order in villages. They hired special village guards from powerful local families and placed a 10 percent tax in kind (over and above other taxes) on agricultural products, which had to be paid before sale. The tax was probably intended not only to assure food for the local population, but also to cover the needs of Italian and Albanian forces in the area. The right to collect the tax in kind was given to the highest bidder at public auctions. 60 As in Yugoslavia, resistance in Albania developed among Communist-led groups and nationalists. With the help of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the small and disparate Communist groups in Albania were consolidated into the Communist Party of Albania in November 1941. Throughout the war its armed units followed a line parallel to that of the Yugoslav Partisans. The Communists were unsuccessful in their attempt to absorb the incipient nationalist resistance, however, and the latter established its own organization, the National Front (Balli Kombetar), in September 1942. 61 The National Front was supposed to be directed against the Italians, but it soon became anti-Communist and an instrument of the Italians in the struggle of both groups against the Communist-led Albanian forces. Partly because Italy considered Albania its most secure base and a stepping59 Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 105-17. See also a report of the British ambassador in Belgrade on April27, 1945, reviewing developments in the Kosovo region during the entire war, in F.O. 371/48090, R 8181h37/9o. '"Todorovski, "Occupation of Western Macedonia," pp. 32-34. "Skendi, Albania, pp. 19-22; Dedijer,Jugoslovensko-albanski odnosi (1939-1948), pp. 7-1 ro; Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 263-72 and 282-84.

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stone into the Balkans and partly because of the Yugoslav and Albanian resistance movements, Italy maintained a large military presence in Albania and the areas annexed to it. According to a report of the Italian Comando Supremo, even as late as August I, I943, the Italians had Io8,ooo troops in Albania. The size of Italian and Albanian collaborationist forces in the annexed areas of Kosovo and western Macedonia is more difficult to determine. Yugoslav sources put the number of Italian troops in the Kosovo region (no exact date indicated) at about 2o,ooo and the number of Italian police and frontier guards at 5,ooo, with an additional 5,ooo Albanian collaborationist forces. In the latter part of I 94 I Italy had 12,ooo soldiers and about 3,ooo police and border guards in western Macedonia.62 As already mentioned, armed groups of volunteers (known as Kosovars or Vulnetars) were also organized locally for the protection of villages in the Kosovo region under Italian and later German rule. Some groups were also used as frontier guards. These forces, by choice, fought only in their own localities, which sometimes meant action against the Partisans or the Chetniks, against whom they showed themselves skilled and determined fighters. 63 After the surrender of Italy in September I943, the Germans took over Albania and reorganized the administration of the country. An Albanian National Committee under German sponsorship was established on September IS, I943, and governed until a formal Albanian government under a Regency Council was established on November 3 and immediately recognized by Germany as the official government. The Germans' old ally from the Kosovo region, Xhafer Deva, became minister of interior and their most effective and reliable helper, though other ministers and members of the council also enjoyed their confidence. For the Germans, the Albanian government's main task was to help maintain peace and order so that Germany could use manpower elsewhere. 64 Bulgaria had hoped that the surrender of Italy might lead to a rectification of the border in western Macedonia to its advantage, but Germany refused to alter the demarcation line that had been established in April I94I and slightly adjusted in November I942 (with Serbia) and in December I942 and March I943 (with Bulgaria). Germany did make some concessions to Bulgaria, however, in the organization of local government and the establishment of local self-protection units in western Macedonia. 65 German policy was dictated by the need to retain 62 For the Comando Supremo's estimate ofltalian troops in Albania, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 252, Frs. 72-73. For the Yugoslav estimate of Italian troops in the Kosovo region, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, p. 105. For the Italian presence in western Macedonia, see Todorovski, "Occupation of Western Macedonia," p. 25. 63The Kosovars are mentioned in many documents and secondary sources, but I have not run across a systematic study of them. See, however, Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, p. 105, and especially F.O. 371/48090, R 8181f237/9o. 64 Avramovski, "The Third Reich and 'Greater Albania,"' pp. 130-33. For a brief account by the man who was largely responsible for the formulation of German policy in Albania, see Neubacher, Sonderauftrag Sudost, 1940-1945, pp. 105-21. 65 Mitrovski, "Some Aspects of German Policy in the Balkans," pp. 135-41.

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the good will of the Bulgarian and Albanian governments, since the Germans needed both as allies against the Yugoslav and Albanian Partisans. The main German force in Albania, with the task of keeping the country under control and fighting the Albanian Partisans, as well as resisting any Allied invasion, was the XXIst Mountain Army Corps. It was part of Colonel General Rendulic's 2nd Panzer Army, deployed in the Balkans in August 1943, shortly before the Italian collapse, to take over the areas held by Italy (except those in Greece) and suppress the Partisans in Yugoslavia and Albania. InTirana there was also a plenipotentiary German general representing the Wehrmacht and a special representative of the Reichsfiihrer SS. In order to save their own troops for deployment elsewhere, the Germans used all the Albanian forces available that had formerly collaborated with the Italians, including the National Front. They also added to the strength of several units of the regular Albanian army and increased the effectives of the Albanian gendarmerie. But none of these troops proved reliable, especially as the war turned more and more against the Germans.•• On May 23, 1944, Himmler's representative in Albania, General Josef Fitzthum, reported that the Albanian units used in operations against the Albanian Partisans had completely failed and that he had dissolved the four battalions organized by the Wehrmacht. Most Albanian army and gendarmerie officers were totally corrupt, he wrote, and unusable, undisciplined, and untrainable. 67 Since the Germans found the Albanians in the Kosovo region more cooperative than those in Albania proper/ 8 they had great expectations for the projected establishment of SS formations composed of men from there. In this they were influenced to some extent by the leaders of the Second League of Prizren for the Defense of Kosovo, which was established in September 1943 after the Italian surrender to promote the interests of the Kosovo Albanians. In a memorandum to Hitler on March 29, 1944, the president of the Central Committee of the league proposed to "militarize" 12o,ooo to 15o,ooo Kosovo volunteers to fight the Serbian and Montenegrin Partisans. He asked for arms, ammunition, and other military supplies, German officers and noncommissioned officers as instructors, and personnel for the units. He also asked for the rectification of existing Albanian borders with Serbia and Montenegro. None of these requests was fulfilled, but the league remained the chief anti-Partisan organization among the Kosovo Albanians and the leader in anti-Partisan activity. 69 Avramovski, "The Third Reich and 'Greater Albania,'" pp. 135-37, 164-65. Micr. No. T-175, Roll 81, Frs. 2,601,478-79· 6 'This situation was clearly recognized by the president of the Regency Council of Albania. See a report by Herman Neubacher, special envoy in southeast Europe, to Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop of January 29, 1944, in Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5783, Frs. H298,8o7-9. 69The First League of Prizren was established in 1878 following the conclusion of the abortive Treaty of San Stefano between Russia and Turkey, for the purpose of protecting Albanian interests against the Slavic peoples of the Balkans. It was abolished by the Turks in 1881. Skendi, Albania, pp. 7-9. The Second League of Prizren was established in September 66 67

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After months of preparation and after scaling down their plans, the Germans established the 2rst SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Skanderbeg" in April 1944 as part of the XXIst Mountain Army Corps. Included in it was the Albanian contingent from the 13th SS Volunteer Division "Handschar." All officers, noncommissioned officers, and specialists in the "Skanderbeg" division were German, under the command of General August Schmidhuber. By September r 944, the total combined manpower of the division was somewhat below 7 ,ooo men, less than one-third of its planned strength/0 But the same lack of discipline, unreliability, and desertions that plagued other Albanian units soon appeared in the new division and by the autumn of 1944, drastic changes were ordered. On October 24, the commander of Army GroupE instructed the XXIst Mountain Army Corps to disarm (and presumably release) all Albanian manpower of the "Skanderbeg" division and reorganize it. The result was the SS Fighting Group "Skanderbeg," of regimental strength, consisting of the German manpower of the division along with some German naval personnel withdrawing from Greece. This reorganized unit was pulled out of the Kosovo region in mid-November in the course of the general withdrawal of German troops from the southern Balkans and for a few weeks was redeployed in the areas of Zvornik and Brcko in northeast Bosnia. In late February 1945 it was disbanded altogether and its remaining manpower reassigned to the German police regiment in the area of Zagreb/' The imminence of the German withdrawal in late 1944 apparently inspired the Albanians to increase their fighting units. In early September r 944, Xhafer Deva and other leaders from the Kosovo region returned to Prizren to take charge of the Second League of Prizren and its operations against the Partisans. According to German reports, Deva had about 2o,ooo armed men in the region in November. 72 Although this figure is probably exaggerated, large groups of armed Kosovo Albanians were in the area at that time. In fact, at the beginning of October, when the Germans were preparing to leave Albania, General Fitzthum, Himmler's representative in Albania, and Deva were collecting arms, ammunition, food, and radio equipment for Albanian guerrilla units to use against the Partisans in northern Albania and the Ko1943 after the capitulation of Italy. Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 306-10. See Micr. No. T-175, Roll81, Frs. 2,601,486-88 for the league's proposals to Hitler. 70 In early April 1944, the Germans and some members of the Albanian government thought that they could draft 5o,ooo troops that year in Albanian territory for the Waffen SS. See Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5783, Fr. H298,869. For the actual strength of the division, see Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 294-97, and Avramovski, "The Third Reich and 'Greater Albania,"' pp. 156-64. 71 For the creation of the SS Fighting Group "Skanderbeg," see Micr. No. T-311, Roll 186, Frs. 915-18. The details on its fate are from the postwar interrogation of a German police officer whose unit was detailed to the group immediately after its formation and remained with it until its dissolution. YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. 5 5/6, Box 9· 72 Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 309-10; Micr. No. T-311, Roll I 89, Fr. 1201.

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sovo region. Deva himself soon left Kosovo, however, and in December 1944 turned up in Vienna. 73 A few words should also be said about the Partisans and the Chetniks in the Kosovo region. Although elsewhere in Yugoslavia both these resistance groups arose in the first few months of occupation and soon became important political and military forces for the occupying or annexing powers and the Western Allies to deal with, in the Kosovo region, where the population was over two-thirds Albanian, neither group developed quickly or became important during the war. Membership in the prewar Communist Party in the Kosovo region was small and almost exclusively limited to Serbian and Montenegrin settlers, with a handful of Albanian intellectuals who had few contacts and no real influence. After the former left the region, the Albanian people, largely peasants dominated by reactionary chieftains, were readily caught up in the strongly nationalistic regime instituted by the Italians with the cooperation of many chieftains. They were easily persuaded to see the Partisan movement as not only a Serbian and Montenegrin movement-as indeed it was in that area-but also as Christian and Communistcontrolled and thus opposed to the political and social interests of Albanian Muslims. During the early months of Italian-Albanian rule, the Albanians committed many atrocities against the Serbian and Montenegrin population, which intensified old, latent antagonisms. Consequently, only a few small Partisan units were raised in the Kosovo region prior to the Italian surrender. From the point of view of the Yugoslav Partisans, their chief value was to serve as a communication link with the Albanian Partisans in Albania proper. The strength of the Partisans in the Kosovo region increased somewhat after the Italian surrender, but the newly established Second League of Prizren was an important foe. The Partisans tried to form several new units, mostly of Albanians, but they had trouble recruiting, especially after the Albanian Partisans, in the summer of 1944, had to recognize the Yugoslav Partisans' claim to the territorial integrity of the old Yugoslav state, including the Kosovo region and western Macedonia annexed to Albania in 1941. 74 The Chetniks of Draza Mihailovic had even more trouble recruiting in the Kosovo area than the Partisans. Within the region, most Chetnik units were no more than command staffs that were supposed to become active and fill their units as needed when a general uprising was called. 75 Most Chetnik units carrying the names of the Kosovo region were actually organized in adjacent areas 73 Micr. No. T-120, Roll I757, Frs. Eo25,389-90; Neubacher, Sonderauftrag Sudost, I940-1945, p. I I 9· I next heard about Xhafer Deva from an obituary in my local newspaper, The Palo Alto Times, on May 27, I978. Deva was a retired assistant supervisor of the mailing service department at Stanford University, where he was employed from I 9 59 to I 97 r. The obituary noted that he had been president of the Second League of Prizren and the leader of Albanian political exiles for over thirty years. 74 F.O. 37I/48090, R 8I8Ih37/9o. 71 Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 3IO-I3; F.O. 37I/48090, R 8I8Ih37/9o.

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of Serbia, ready to move into the Kosovo region when conditions permitted, and not all of these were in active training. Their personnel consisted mostly of Serbs and Montenegrins formerly resident in the Albanian- and Bulgarianannexed areas-former gendarmes, border guards, government employees, merchants, and a few professional people and peasants-all eager for revenge against the Albanians. All Serbian nationalists looked upon this region, the site of the Battle of Kosovo Field in I 3 89, when the Serbian medieval state was lost to the Turks, as hallowed ground that had to remain forever in Serbian hands. In this situation, no collaboration was possible between the Serbian Chetniks and the Albanian forces in the service of the Axis powers, although they had a common enemy in the Communist-led Partisans. During October and November I944, the Kosovo region became an important area militarily for both the Germans and the Yugoslav Partisans. German Army Group E was withdrawing through it from Greece toward Bosnia, since the escape route over Nis and Belgrade had been closed by Yugoslav Partisan, Bulgarian, and Soviet forces. German forces from Albania and Montenegro were withdrawing through Sandzak toward Bosnia. In fighting the withdrawing Germans, the Yugoslav Partisans were assisted by troops of the new Bulgarian regime and two brigades of Albanian Partisans, as well as by air force sorties of the Western Allies and Soviets. 76 Freeing the Kosovo region from the Germans did not bring immediate peace and order. Some Partisan units of Kosovo Albanians refused to leave the area to fight in other parts of Yugoslavia and fled to the hills. Other armed groups affiliated with the earlier pro-German regime and some Chetnik units that had not withdrawn from the area were also active against the Yugoslav Partisans. In February I 94 5, Tito ordered the establishment of a military regime in the area and additional Partisan troops were brought in for intensified mopping-up operations, but it was not until the end of May I945 that the opposing armed groups were completely eliminated and peace and order established. 77 BULGARIAN RULE IN PARTS OF MACEDONIA AND SERBIA

Undoubtedly one of the most involved national and territorial problems of modern Europe has been that of Macedonia. The complexity of this issue was reflected in developments during the Second World War, which must be put in 76 Yugoslavia, Vojnoistorijski institut, Oslobodilacki rat, 2nd ed., 2: 372-77; Hronologija I94I-I94J,p.IOI5. 77 F.O. 3 71/48090, R 8 I 8 Ih 3 7/90; Hadri, Narodnooslobodilacki pokret na Kosovu, pp. 387-90. According to a telegram from Ambassador Stevenson to the Foreign Office on March 29, 1945, the Germans parachuted Kosovar agents and a group of 6o men into the area in mid-March to make trouble for the Partisans. F.O. 371/48090, R 59 soh37l9o.

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historical perspective to be understood. The territory of Macedonia lacked clearly and unambiguously defined frontiers. It also lacked a unifying language; until the end of the Second World War, the Macedonians spoke a variety of dialects related to both Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian. (After the war, the Macedonians living in Yugoslavia accepted the western Macedonian dialect as the literary language of the Macedonians.) In the Middle Ages, the area was at different times a part of the Byzantine Empire, a part of the Bulgarian state, and the center of the Serbian state. Church organization was at times Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian Orthodox. From the late fourteenth century to I 9 I 2, as part of the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia acquired a sizable Turkish population, brought in by Turkish rulers for strategic reasons. A considerable number of Albanians also moved in. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, when it became apparent that Ottoman rule in that part of the Balkans was drawing to a close, the area became the object of rival claims by its neighbors. Inevitably, in vying for primacy in the Near East, the Great Powers used the Balkan states as their pawns and also became involved in the fate of Macedonia. Three neighboring states, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, claimed that the area was inhabited by Bulgarians, Greeks, or Serbs, respectively, but that five centuries of Ottoman rule had kept the Macedonian people at a low level of socioeconomic and educational development and had prevented them from developing their national consciousness. Thus, each claimant state argued that there was no separate South Slavic Macedonian nation, but that Macedonia or very large parts of it belonged rightfully to it. Each tried in various ways to promote its interests. Correspondingly, there were always groups of Macedonians who thought of themselves as Bulgarians or Greeks or Serbs and who wanted the liberation of their homeland from Turkish rule and its unification with their respective mother country. Up to 1870, the Greeks had the upper hand because, through the Patriarchate in Istanbul, they controlled the church and thus also the schools, which were used as instruments of Hellenization. When the Ottoman Empire established the Bulgarian Church Exarchate in 1870 and subjected Macedonia to its jurisdiction, the Bulgarians gained the advantage. It might be added that from the 187o's until the Balkan Wars, probably due to the new church organization, a large number of people from Vardar Macedonia moved to Bulgaria, where many of them and their descendants prospered in all walks of life. This greatly contributed to the interest and emotional involvement of Bulgaria in the Macedonian question. In the early I 87o's and even more forcefully in the early I 89o's, some Macedonian intellectuals claimed that the Macedonians were a separate South Slavic nation, related to the Bulgarians and the Serbs but clearly distinct from them. They began to work first for autonomy within the Ottoman Empire and ultimately for a separate Macedonian state. But lacking the support of any neighboring state or church organization and the backing of any Great Power,

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theirs was an uphill struggle. Despite temporary setbacks, however, their ideas spread. 78 In the half century between the 187o's and 1918, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, supported by different Great Powers, fought among themselves to acquire Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. It remained under Turkish control until the Balkan Wars of I9I2-IJ, when it was divided among the three countries. Bulgaria acquired Pirin Macedonia and access to the Aegean Sea, Greece obtained Aegean Macedonia, and Serbia acquired Vardar Macedonia. 79 This division was confirmed at the end of the First World War, though Bulgaria was forced to yield small sections of territory in the west to the new Yugoslav state and to give up some territory in the south that it had gained in r 9 r 3 to Greece, thereby losing access to the Aegean. 80 After the First World War, in the Yugoslav part of Macedonia, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes continued the policies of Serbianization and discrimination against the Macedonian people that the Serbian government had begun after the Balkan Wars. The dissatisfaction of the population with these policies was shown in the first postwar election of November 20, 1920, for delegates to the Constituent Assembly. The Serbian parties failed to win a majority in Macedonia. Out of 109,489 votes cast, the Communist Party obtained 36.7 percent of the total; the Democratic Party, the main party in the cabinet, 28.7 percent; the Turkish National Party, 19.6 percent; the National Radical Party, which from 1912 to 1920 had been primarily responsible for policies of Serbianization, 9.8 percent; and the Republican Party, 5.2 percent. 81 The heavy Communist vote in Macedonia, compared with only 12.4 percent in the country as a whole, was mainly a vote of protest, since the Communists did not include Macedonians among the three nations-Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes-of the Yugoslav state. The vote was directed against the government's policy of including Macedonia as a part of Serbia, labeling it Southern Serbia and its population Southern Serbs or simply Serbs. The dissatisfaction of the Macedonians expressed in this election did not diminish. Throughout the interwar period, the Macedonian question was an open sore on the Yugoslav '"Apostolski, "Historical Development of the Macedonian People," pp. 26-38; Dellin, Bulgaria, pp. r82-85; Doklestic, Kroz historiju Makedonije, pp. 92-204. See also Smilevski, "Macedonian National Question," pp. 8r-n8, and Taskovski, Radjanjeto na makedonskata nacija. "Yugoslavia, Vojna enciklopedija, 2nd ed., r: 449-58. The two Balkan wars were fought with unusual brutality by all participants. The International Commission that investigated their origin and conduct for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace criticized all parties involved, particularly Greece and Serbia. See Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report, especially pp. 21-70 and 148-207. 80Dellin, Bulgaria, p. 19. For the arguments of Bulgarian and Serbian scholars in support of their respective countries' claims to Macedonia during and immediately after the First World War, see, for example, Ischirkov, Les confins occidentaux des terres bulgares, and Georgevitch, La Macedoine. "Based on a table in Culinovic,]ugoslavija izmedju dva rata, r, facing p. 3 r2.

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body politic, next in seriousness only to the Croatian question. Instead of becoming closer to either the Serbs or the Bulgarians, the Macedonians seemed more and more aware that they were a separate and distinct people. 82 When the new Yugoslav state continued the policies of Serbianization in Yugoslav Macedonia, a sizable emigration of Macedonians to Bulgaria took place. Many emigres were militantly anti-Yugoslav or, more precisely, antiSerbian. They worked against Yugoslavia from Bulgaria, mostly through the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which had been established in r893. Under Ivan Mikhailov, who became its leader in 1927 after a bloody intraorganizational struggle, the IMRO supported the incorporation of Macedonia into Bulgaria. But a second branch, which soon broke away, supported an independent Macedonian state, and a third branch, which was proCommunist, supported a Balkan federation with Macedonia as one unit. For a time, the Macedonian exiles in Bulgaria had the support-official or unofficial-of the Bulgarian government and military authorities, in part because many Bulgarian politicians and military leaders were of Macedonian origin. To some extent they, and Mikhailov in particular, also had the backing of Italy, which at that time supported all groups working against the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. But when Bulgaria outlawed Macedonian terrorist groups in 1934, Mikhailov fled the country, going first to Turkey and then to Italy (which was also harboring Yugoslavia's other archenemy, Ante Pavelic). 83 Up to 1934, the various groups of Macedonian revolutionaries at home and in exile in Bulgaria engaged in terrorist activity in Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia, which Yugoslavia and Greece determinedly tried to suppress. From 1929 on, the IMRO also cooperated with the Croatian Ustashas in terrorist and other anti-Yugoslav activities. I was unable to find a consolidated statistical record of these operations. But in his autobiography Ivan Mikhailov provided detailed information on the starkly suppressive measures undertaken by the Yugoslav and Greek governments against Macedonian revolutionaries from 1918 to 1934. 84 It is in the nature of such data to be biased, however, and they must be read with caution. The authoritarian regime of Kimon Georgiev and Colonel Damian Velchev that came to power in Bulgaria in May 1934 was genuinely interested in improving relations with Yugoslavia. King Boris, who replaced this government with more moderate rule in r 9 3 5, continued a policy of reconciliation with his western neighbor. In 1937 Bulgaria concluded a pact of friendship with Yugo82 Apostolov, "Manifestations of Macedonian National Individuality," pp. 7I-88. The first collection of poems by a Macedonian poet in the Macedonian language, in the eastern dialect spoken near the Bulgarian border, was published at the end of the interwar period. This was Beli mugri (White Dawns) by Koco Racin, published in Samobor, near Zagreb, in 1939. After the war, the Macedonians chose as their literary language the dialect of the westernmost areas of Macedonia, that is, of the areas furthest from Bulgarian territory. '-'Micr. No. T-3 I I, Roll I96, Fr. 227. 84 Mikhailov, Spomeni, 4: 627,727.

I

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slavia and in 1938 promised not to use force to change its frontiers. 85 But though this was official policy, powerful individuals and groups in Bulgaria, even in the government, still hoped to realize the dream of a Greater Bulgaria. One of these was Parvan Draganov, the Bulgarian envoy to Berlin, who told Hitler on December 3, 1940, apparently on his own initiative and not on orders from his government, that one and a half million Bulgarians lived in Macedonia and could not be left there. Bogdan Filov, the Bulgarian prime minister, also brought up the issue with Hitler on January 4, 1941. He raised the Bulgarian claim to Yugoslav Macedonia as one of the matters to be considered in a final territorial settlement after the war. 86 Hitler was at that time trying to bring Yugoslavia peacefully into the Tripartite Pact and he cautioned the Bulgarians to have patience. But the Belgrade revolt of March 27, 1941, quickly changed his attitude. On the same day that he decided to destroy Yugoslavia, he summoned Draganov and told him that "the Macedonian question was cleared," in other words, that Bulgaria, which had joined the Tripartite Pact on March r and where German forces were already poised for the attack on Greece and Yugoslavia, would be given the Yugoslav part of Macedonia. 87 The Germans also gave some thought to using Mikhailov and the IMRO to organize an uprising in Yugoslav Macedonia to coincide with the German invasion, but nothing came of it. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Hitler allowed the Bulgarians to appropriate the bulk of Yugoslav Macedonia, the southeast part of Serbia, and a small eastern part of the Kosovo region (see Map r). At the same time, through a secret six-point agreement concluded on April 24, 1941, between Ivan Popov, the Bulgarian minister of foreign affairs, and Carl Clodius, the German special representative, the Germans laid a heavy lien on these areas. The agreement provided that in the occupied areas, Germany would continue extracting industrial raw materials, especially minerals, from existing plants without any limitations, and would have a preferred position in obtaining new mining concessions. It would also have full control of the chrome ore mines. The Bulgarian government was to assume responsibility for changing German military currency already spent by German forces in these areas, as well as sums that might be spent in the future, into Bulgarian currency. All goods in these areas acquired by German forces through requisitioning were to remain German property. Enemy (Yugoslav) property in Yugoslav territory occupied by Bulgarian forces would remain under German administration. "'Dellin, Bulgaria, p. 21. "See Hillgruber, Staatsmanner und Diplomaten bei Hitler, I: 387-88 for Draganov's statement, and I: 424 for Filov's claims. See also the memorandum by the director of the Political Department of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs about a conversation with Envoy Draganov on December Io, I940, in which the latter mentioned one million Bulgarians in Macedonia and half a million Macedonian refugees in Bulgaria. DGFP, I I : 83 3-3 5. "Hillgruber, Staatsmanner und Diplomaten bei Hitler, I: 50 I-2.

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Workers from these areas already in Germany would continue to work there and the Bulgarian authorities would facilitate German recruiting of additional labor from these areas. Bulgaria would pay that portion of the Yugoslav state debt that fell on the Bulgarian-occupied areas to Germany and to German citizens. Furthermore, according to a later agreement, Bulgaria was obliged to put its (leva) currency at the disposal of the Germans for the needs of the Wehrmacht as well as for the wages of workers in enterprises working for Germany in Bulgarian-occupied (later annexed) areas of Yugoslav Macedonia. 88 The Bulgarian government, which had maintained that Yugoslav Macedonia was rightfully Bulgarian, treated the newly acquired areas as "liberated territory." Without making any formal proclamation, it simply extended Bulgarian military, administrative, police, and judicial organizations and legislation to these regions, though it did issue a number of specific laws and decrees applicable to them. 89 Militarily, the Macedonian area was taken over by the Bulgarian 5th Army. In all, including the gendarmerie, various specialized troops, and police, the Bulgarians kept a force of about 4o,ooo men in the annexed part of Yugoslav Macedonia until early 1943, when increased Partisan activity re"For the agreement of April 24, 1941, see Valev, Bolgarskii narod v borbe protiv fashizma, pp. 290-92. On April 27, it was extended to cover Bulgarian-occupied Western Thrace. Bulgaria stopped making the required currency payments to the Germans in June or July 1944. Micr. No. T-501, Roll258, Fr. 736. Bulgarian materials on Bulgarian rule in Yugoslavia during the Second World War are extremely scarce. I learned in Belgrade that repeated Yugoslav efforts to gain access to Bulgarian wartime documents were unsuccessful, the Bulgarians arguing that their publication might put a strain on Bulgarian-Yugoslav relations. My impression is that the Bulgarians have decided to publish as little as possible about the history of their government and armed forces during the period from March 1941 to September 2, 1944, when they were in the Axis camp, and to concentrate their attention almost exclusively on the policies and achievements of the Fatherland Front government and the Communist Party of Bulgaria during the last eight months of the war, when they contributed to the defeat of Hitler. According to one impartial author, "Bulgarian historiography has not been very helpful on the wartime period. Bulgaria having lost to Tito after 1943, Bulgarian sources have since concentrated on polemics. For the wartime years reliance is overwhelmingly on Yugoslav sources." Oren, Bulgarian Communism,p. 189. Some Yugoslav works dealing more generally with Bulgarian rule in Yugoslav territory during the Second World War are: Mojsov, Bugarska radnicka partija (komunista), pp. 5287; Yugoslavia, Vojnoistorijski institut, Pregled narodnooslobodilackog rata u Makedoniji, 1941-1944, pp. 5-32; Apostolski, Hristov, and Terzioski, "The Position of Occupied Macedonia," pp. 303-48; Yugoslavia, Institute for National History, Skopje, Istorija makedonskog naroda, 3: 253-73; Kulic, Bugarska okupacija, 1941-1944, vol. 1; and Mitrovski, Glisic, and Ristovski, Bugarska vojska u Jugoslaviji, 1941-1945. For non-Yugoslav works, in addition to Oren, Bulgarian Communism, pp. 166-200, see also Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Politics, pp. 76-101, and Miller, Bulgaria During the Second World War, pp. 122-34. "Culinovic, Okupatorska podjela Jugoslavije, pp. 602-5; Yugoslavia, Institute for National History, Skopje, Istorija makedonskog naroda, 3: 259.

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quired that another division be brought in from Bulgaria. 9° For administrative purposes, the annexed area was divided into two districts, Skopje and Bitola, each under a district director. The police, too, were territorially organized, though police chiefs were independent of administrative directors. The annexed parts of Serbia and the Kosovo region, which the Bulgarians claimed were populated by Morava Valley Bulgarians, were attached to other administrative districts and put under other Bulgarian troops. 91 In addition, the Bulgarians annexed Greek western Thrace and the eastern parts of Aegean Macedonia in 1941, thereby regaining access to the Aegean Sea. The annexations were represented as rectifications of the unjust territorial decisions made at the expense of Bulgaria in 1913 and 1919. In Yugoslav Macedonia and the Kosovo region, the demarcation line between the German and Italian spheres of influence (the Vienna Line) did not fulfill the goals that the Bulgarians and the Albanians (and the Italians) had, and it failed to satisfy any of these parties. The Bulgarians had hoped to realize their dream of a Greater Bulgaria and the Albanians theirs of a Greater Albania through the partition of Yugoslavia. The Germans, in the role of arbiter, naturally made decisions in their own interest. They divided Macedonia for a number of reasons. First, though Italy was a weak partner, nevertheless it was the other main Axis pillar, and a sensitive one, especially because it was jealous about its areas of interest. Consequently, though Germany was biased in favor of Bulgaria, it could not disregard Italian interests. A second important concern was communication lines. The main railroad line from Belgrade to Greece ran through Macedonia. Since its operation and security were vital for the Germans as long as their troops were in Greece and North Africa, they found it expedient to put this railroad in Bulgarian-annexed Macedonia, where they could easily keep their troops. About 4,ooo men were assigned to protect airfields and supervise Bulgarian services protecting the railroads. For similar reasons, Germany allotted Bulgaria those areas containing large chrome ore mines and put their management in the hands of German firms or mixed GermanBulgarian corporations or, if sequestered, German commissioners. 92 Finally, in part by rewarding Bulgaria with territory, Germany was able to induce it in January 1942 to supply troops for occupation service in a large part of Serbia, an arrangement extended on two later occasions to include additional territory, and to police it under German control and for the German account, thereby freeing German forces for use elsewhere. '"Yugoslavia, Vojnoistorijski institut, Pregled narodnooslobodilackog rata u Makedoniji, PP·

s-7.

"Popovic, "The Bulgarian Army in Occupied Serbia (1941-1944)," 1952, no. 3: 23-26. "On the Germans' supervision of Bulgarian forces to protect airfields and railroads, see Yugoslavia, Vojnoistorijski institut, Pregled narodnooslobodilackog rata u Makedoniji, p. 7· On the Germans' control of chrome ore mines in Bulgarian territory, see DGFP, 12: 623-24, 639-40.

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The dissatisfaction of both the Bulgarians and the Italians {speaking for the Albanians) with the Vienna Line caused trouble between the two countries almost from the start. Bulgaria asked for practically the entire area of Macedonia that had been allotted to Albania and Albania asked for the city of Skopje and other parts. Border rectification became a matter of discussions between the Bulgarians and the Italians as early as July 1941. In the second half of 1942, an Italian-Bulgarian Border Commission was established, which agreed on small adjustments to the border in early December 1942. On January 2, 1943, an agreement on fishing rights in Lake Ohrid was reached and on March 29 an overall agreement on the demarcation line was signed in Tirana. It was to go into effect the following June 15, though it only became effective on July 15. But despite the agreement, Bulgaria still refused to give up certain villages to Albania. Bulgaria thus obtained actual control of small sections of territory in the area of Lake Ohrid, including several villages and three monasteries that it deemed of national significance. The Bulgarians also succeeded in obtaining from Germany a border adjustment that slightly extended the Bulgarianannexed area in southeast Serbia. 93 The Germans, however, did not trust the Bulgarians, fearing that at an opportune moment they might leave the Axis camp. Consequently, they also supported remnants of the IMRO, now displaying definite pro-Nazi leanings. (Mikhailov spent the entire war in Zagreb as a guest of Pavelic.) This group now agitated for a unified and independent Macedonia and was on the whole anti-Bulgarian. Reports of the representative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Macedonia from 1942 and early 1943 indicate that the IMRO had at that time substantial support among the rank and file of the Macedonian population. 94 After the Bulgarian annexation of Macedonia, the pro-Bulgarian Macedonian exiles who returned to their homeland were eager to help in its administration. They organized the Central Action Committee in Skopje and action subcommittees in various other towns, but these were dissolved when the Bulgarians established a firm hold over the area. During the interwar period, the Macedonians had been told that they were Serbs from southern Serbia; now they learned that they were Bulgarians from Macedonia. But even those Macedonians who felt that they were Bulgarians soon discovered that the Bulgarians from Bulgaria were suspicious of them and discriminated against them in em93Todorovski, "Relations Between Italy and Bulgaria," pp. 77-97, especially pp. 9o-9r; Kljakovic, "The Italian-Bulgarian Conflict About Macedonia in 1941," pp. I 59-74; Toskowa, "The Foreign Political Position of Bulgaria," pp. 34-38. The border adjustment was arranged in November 1942 and went into effect in March 1943. Micr. No. T-501, Roll 352, Fr. 749· 94 Communist Party of Yugoslavia, lstorijski arhiv, vol. 7, Makedonija, pp. 173-7 4, 2 3236.

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ployment and other ways-in short, considered them second-class Bulgarians. Consequently, many Macedonians cooled toward the new regime. 95 The Bulgarians, realizing that only part of the Macedonian population felt Bulgarian or was pro-Bulgarian, initiated a program of Bulgarization. This extended to all areas of life and was mainly the work of Bulgarians brought from Bulgaria for specific functions. The Bulgarians had already brought military and police forces into the country and most of the manpower to establish the civil, judicial, and police administrations. The chief thrust of subsequent Bulgarization was in education. Many new schools, from elementary to university level, were established to inculcate into young people the idea that Macedonians were Bulgarians. Bulgarian was the only language of instruction and textbooks and many teachers at all levels were brought in from Bulgaria. In the school year 1941-42, for example, of a total of 2,03 5 teachers in annexed Macedonia, r,5o8 came from Bulgaria. Macedonian teachers deemed suitable were sent to Bulgaria for a year of study and indoctrination, while unsuitable teachers were transferred to administrative jobs outside the school system or were dismissed. The government also established and funded branches of Bulgarian patriotic organizations, such as Branik, Father Paisi, the Legionnaires, and the Warriors, in annexed Macedonia. It made every effort to use the mass media for propaganda to promote Bulgarization. Similar policies were followed in the annexed areas of Kosovo and southeast Serbia. 96 A special target of Bulgarian anti-Serbian policies in Macedonia was the Serbian Orthodox Church, which the Bulgarians considered the principal vehicle of Serbianization. At the beginning of May 1941, they expelled the metropolitan of Skopje, Josif Cvijovic, two other bishops, and all priests who were considered Serbs to German-occupied Serbia and replaced them with clergy from Bulgaria. The Macedonian bishoprics were also formally included in the organization of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (see Chapter r 2). But all these measures in education, church organization, personnel, and propaganda failed to achieve their objective. The only Macedonians to welcome the new policies were those who already considered themselves Bulgarians and had faith in the new rulers. All the rest-those who considered themselves Serbs or Turks or Albanians, and especially the great majority who considered themselves Macedonians-resisted the new policies or remained passive. The latter in particular saw no difference between the wartime Bulgarian regime and the interwar Yugoslav (in fact Serbian) government: both denied "See, for example, the report of the military attache of the Independent State of Croatia in Sofia on October 21, 1941, relaying information from a German with business interests in Skopje, in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 38/5-3, Box 239. Similar views were expressed in the September 28, 1943, report of a former Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav officer with a good knowledge of Macedonia, who was used as a confidant by the Germans. See Micr. No. T-311, Roll 196, Frs. 203-7. 96Terzioski, Denacionalizatorskata dejnost, pp. 21-59, 145-228.

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them their nationality, their language, political autonomy, and free development as a national unit. In short, the Bulgarians committed all the mistakes in Macedonia that the Serbs had made earlier and thus forfeited the support and allegiance of the majority of the population. If the Bulgarians had developed in the Macedonians a sense of cultural unity with Bulgaria and a feeling that they were part of the Bulgarian nation, then the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, in its Macedonian branch and Partisan formations, which advocated a separate Macedonian republic in a federal Yugoslav state, would not have had the success it did. The Bulgarian government took over all the property that had formerly belonged to the Yugoslav state, except for the assets retained by the Germans. In banking and industrial and commercial businesses, owners and other personnel of Serbian orientation were replaced by Bulgarians from Bulgaria or Macedonians of Bulgarian orientation. Forests and grazing lands, insofar as they had not been nationalized before, were nationalized. A further measure of both economic and political significance was the expulsion of Serbs and Montenegrins who during the interwar period had settled on land made available by the post-1918 agrarian reform and who were regarded as instruments of Serbianization. In this way, some 26,ooo settlers were expelled to Serbia (or left because they expected to be expelled) from Bulgarian-annexed areas. 97 An extremely important aspect of the Macedonian problem during the war was the conflict between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and the Communist Party of Bulgaria (CPB) over the province's national loyalties. The CPY charged that the CPB tried to appropriate the regional Macedonian party organization of the CPY by subverting its leading officials, including Metodi Satorov-Sarlo, the secretary of the Provincial Committee, and by so doing accepted the partition of Yugoslavia. It further charged that the CPB never protested against the Bulgarian annexation of Yugoslav Macedonia and Greek territories and thus identified itself with the views of the pro-Nazi Bulgarian government. Finally, it accused the CPB of failing to call for the withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from Yugoslav Macedonia, as it did for the withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from German-occupied Serbia. Along with these specific differences, there were also disagreements over tactics in the armed operations undertaken by the two groups during the war. 98 Tito lodged a strong protest with the Comintern about the subversion of the Macedonian Provincial Committee by the CPB. The Comintern took the Yugo97Apostolski, Hristov, and Terzioski, "The Position of Occupied Macedonia," p. 348. The expellees and refugees from the Bulgarian- and Albanian-annexed parts of Macedonia and the Kosovo region were a difficult problem for the German occupation authorities in Serbia, but nothing was done to force them back on the Bulgarians and Albanians. See Micr. No. T-5or, Roll249, Frs. roo 5-7· "These matters will be discussed in the volume on the Partisans. See, however, Zbornik DNOR, 2, bk. 2: 335·

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slav side and after reexamining party ranks in Macedonia, named a new Provincial Committee with Lazar Kolisevski as secretary. But all this took time and delayed the start of the Communist-led uprising in Macedonia until October I I, I94I, that is, almost three months after it began in other parts of YugoslaVIa.

The CPY only had a few members in Macedonia at the time of Yugoslavia's collapse and the differences between the pro-Yugoslav and pro-Bulgarian factions were only one of many hindrances to its growth. The deposed leadership of the Provincial Committee tended to undermine the weak authority of the new leadership, which was unable to come to a decision about armed struggle and generally seemed inept. The latter also had to contend with the infiltration of the Bulgarian police into local party organizations. Many leading members, including Kolisevski, were arrested and sent to Bulgaria. Partisan units were organized, only to fall apart or give way under counterattacks in the few areas they managed to liberate in early operations. The Partisans elsewhere in Yugoslavia also suffered reverses, but in Macedonia it took over a year and a half for sizable Partisan operations to get under way. Beginning in the early summer of I943, however, the Partisan movement and pro-Yugoslav Communist forces in Macedonia showed steady growth, even in the face of mounting opposition from the Bulgarian military, while pro-Bulgarian Communist sympathizers, pro-Bulgarian nationalists, and pro-Serbian Chetnik forces, as well as forces agitating for a unified and independent Macedonia, weakened. 99 In response, the Bulgarian government used repressive measures on a broad scale against villages in Macedonia that were known to harbor Partisans. Those suspected of pro-Partisan sympathies were drafted into special labor companies, imprisoned, or deported to Bulgaria. A special type of counterunit for combating the Partisans was also developed, though with little success. Bulgarian rule in the Yugoslav areas annexed in April I94I lasted until early September 1944. The three weeks between August 20 and September 9, I944, were filled with activity of great consequence. As Soviet troops approached the Bulgarian frontier through Romania toward the end of August, the Sofia government declared its neutrality and dispatched its representatives to Cairo to seek contact with the Western Allies. At the same time, however, aside from disarming a few troops, it did nothing to prevent the German forces stationed in Bulgaria and those coming from Romania from withdrawing to99 For the difficulties in Partisan ranks and operations in Macedonia, see the letter of Svetozar Vukmanovic Tempo, the delegate of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Macedonia, of February 28, 1943, to all party members and organizations in Macedonia, in Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Istorijski arhiv, vol. 7, Makedonija, pp. 204-

II.

For the unsuccessful organization and operation of Mihailovic's Chetnik detachments in Macedonia, several of which eventually switched over to the Partisans, see Colic, "The Chetnik Armed Formations in Macedonia, 1942-1944,'' pp. 145-67, especially pp. 153-65.

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ward Yugoslav territory. This brought strong protests from the Soviet Union. On September 2, a new pro-Western government was established in Sofia, which only a week later, following a domestic revolt by the leftist Fatherland Front coalition, was replaced by a pro-Communist government. The new government immediately joined the Soviet side. 100 Even as these changes transformed a German ally into a German foe, formerly Bulgarian-annexed Yugoslav Macedonia acquired great military importance as a withdrawal corridor for German forces in Greece numbering over 30o,ooo men. Ivan Mikhailov then again entered German schemes for Macedonia. After much effort and in the face of Bulgarian opposition, Mikhailov had finally succeeded in January 1944 in persuading the Germans to arm some of his followers and attach them to SS formations in Bulgarian-annexed Greek Macedonia. 101 More important, in September 1944 the Germans decided to use Mikhailov personally to help them shore up the situation in Yugoslav Macedonia by proclaiming a separate Macedonian state and organizing an administration and military forces, which would be put in their service. Aleksandar Stanishev, a friend of Mikhailov who had been the Bulgarian minister of interior, also suggested the proclamation of a separate Macedonian state under German protection. So Mikhailov was brought from Zagreb to Skopje by way of Sofia to establish the new state. But after two days in Skopje, September 4 and 5, he realized that the plan was hopeless, since it was impossible to achieve anything with political means alone and no military support was forthcoming. Mikhailov's only choice was to leave and he was returned to Zagreb. 102 The withdrawal of German forces from Greece through Yugoslav Macedonia (and continuing through the Kosovo region and Sandzak toward Bosnia) began in early October and continued for several weeks. A special task force under the command of Luftwaffe Lieutenant General Scheurlen was charged with keeping communications open. Yugoslav Partisan troops, with the limited cooperation of Bulgarian forces, inflicted some losses on the Germans and delayed their passage through Yugoslav Macedonia by ten to twelve days. The last enemy troops that the Partisans had to clear from their soil were Albanian National Front units helping the Germans to protect communication lines. By 100Dellin, Bulgaria, pp. 1 14-20; Oren, Bulgarian Communism, pp. 244-5 8; Miller, Bulgaria During the Second World War, pp. 204-16. ""Micr. No. T-311, Roll 196, Frs. 224 and 227-34. A German intelligence report on Mikhailov dated December 12, 1943 (Fr. 227), noted that "Mikhailov's importance in Bulgaria and Macedonia has much declined. He maintains contact only with former close coworkers, having lost all influence with the Macedonian masses some time ago, mainly to the Communists. His only influence now is over some compact Macedonian localities in northern Greece and on small Macedonian groups in Old Bulgaria." 102 For the proposed proclamation of a new Macedonian state, see Toskowa, Bulgaria i Tretiat Raih (I94I-I944), p. 214. For Mikhailov's realization of its hopelessness, see Micr. No. T-uo, Roll 1757, Frs. Eo25,194-9 5·

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FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

mid-November, all German units had withdrawn from Macedonian soil and the Partisans included the whole province in their military and interim governmental organizations. 103 In Bulgaria, one of the first priorities of the new Fatherland Front government was to reorganize the armed forces. The Russians supplied advisers and instructors and the whole army was put under supreme Soviet command. Some Bulgarian units on Yugoslav soil at the time of the change in government continued to operate, but under new leadership. Other units of the new Bulgarian army entered Yugoslav territory on the basis of a special Yugoslav-Bulgarian agreement of October 5, r 944, between Marshal Tito and Bulgarian representative Dobri Terpeshev, which provided for the participation of Bulgarian troops in the fight against German forces in Yugoslav territory as well as against various Yugoslav collaborationist forces. But cooperation between the Yugoslav Partisans and the new Bulgarian troops did not proceed without difficulties.104 Besides the Yugoslav Communists' a hove-mentioned criticism of the pro-Nazi Bulgarian regime and its forces and of the policies and activities of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, differences of opinion and recriminations arose regarding the Bulgarians' military effort after September 1944 and the extent of their contribution in fighting German forces on Yugoslav soil. After Bulgaria left the Axis alliance in September 1944, the expansionist dreams of the Greater Bulgaria enthusiasts-both within the army and among politicians and intellectuals-collapsed, like the expansionist dreams of other countries in southeast Europe that rode Hitler's coattails in 1941. But if Bulgaria was the loser, the Macedonians in Yugoslavia were the winners. They acquired a high degree of autonomy in the postwar Yugoslav state, and independence following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 199o's. HUNGARIAN RULE IN PARTS

OF

YUGOSLAV TERRITORY

One of the first moves that Hitler made after he decided to destroy Yugoslavia following the Belgrade coup was to summon the Hungarian envoy in Berlin, Dome Szt6jay, to deliver a confidential message to Regent Miklos Horthy in Budapest. The message had four main points. Germany would not permit any anti-German base to be established in southeast Europe; in the event of a conflict with Yugoslavia, Germany would not oppose Hungary's desire for a revision of frontiers with that country; Germany considered it tactically advantageous to give autonomy to the Croats; and Hungary should undertake preMitrovski, "Operations Against German Army GroupE," pp. 73-86. For the announcement and provisions of the agreement of October 5, 1944, see Yugoslavia, Vojnoistorijski institut, Pregled narodnooslobodilackog rata u Makedoniji, pp. 14142. For the difficulties in Macedonia in November 1944 according to German intelligence sources, see Micr. No. T-311, Roll 189, Frs. 1298 and 1301. 103 104

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

liminary military preparations, which would be discussed and agreed upon between the military authorities of the two countries. The editor of the minutes of Hitler's meetings with foreign statesmen and diplomats notes that Hitler's reference to autonomy for the Croats in fact meant "that Hungary should in some fashion absorb Croatia into its own state system." 105 Horthy's answer confirms this inference. The message to Horthy seemed to suggest that, despite German assurances to Italy that Yugoslavia and, even more, Croatia were within the Italian sphere of influence, Hitler would have preferred for Hungary to have predominance in Croatia. But it is quite possible that Hitler was only making promises to Hungary to induce it to abrogate its pact of friendship and nonaggression with Yugoslavia and bring it to Germany's side. Although Horthy was agreeable to most of the propositions, he declined to accept the Croatian bait. Through Szt6jay, who returned to Berlin on March 28, he declared that "Hungary had no interest in including Croatia within its frontiers" and only wanted to be a good neighbor to Croatia. He did hope, however, that some arrangement could be made for a Hungarian outlet on the Adriatic. 106 It would appear that Hitler decided to let Italy have formal dominance in Croatia only after receiving this reply from Horthy. Hungarian forces entered Yugoslavia on April I I in the Backa region between the Danube and Tisza Rivers. After the war, Horthy told American authorities during his interrogation that he had not wanted to attack Yugoslavia but was forced to do so because of disorders and the massacre of Hungarians in Backa. 107 This, however, was not true. All Yugoslav defenses had collapsed by the time Hungarian forces entered the country, and they advanced southward to the Danube between Vukovar and the confluence of the Tisza and the Danube without difficulty. The report of a Volksdeutsche leader, Johann Wuescht, of April I?, I94I, shows that the German minority had already established its own militia and had disarmed about 9o,ooo Yugoslav soldiers. 108 But though the Hungarians encountered no military resistance to speak of, they engaged in the wholesale killing of civilians. Yugoslav sources put the estimate for Backa and Baranja at about 3,500 people. This is documented by the Volksdeutsche reports from Backa from this period, which describe how Hungarian troops engaged in wild shooting even in German villages and caused a number of deaths among the German minority. 109 The Hungarians occupied the Yugoslav areas of Backa, Baranja, Medji105 Hillgruber, Staatsmiinner und Diplomaten bei Hitler, I: 498-501. Undoubtedly Hitler had in mind only the historical province of Croatia-Slavonia. 1061bid., pp. 514-18, especially p. 517, and DGFP, 12:403-4. 107 Micr. No. 679, Rol12, Fr. 297. 10'Micr. No. T-120, Rol15782, Frs. H297,862-64. 109 See Golubovic, "[Hungarian] Raids in January 1942," p. 165, for the Yugoslav estimate, and Micr. No. T-120, Roll5782, Frs. H297,8 52-89, for the Volksdeutsche reports.

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FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

murje, and Prekmurje (see Map I). The Germans had also promised them the Yugoslav Banat, but the promise was withdrawn. For the first four months, until August I6, I941, these areas were under purely military occupation, with all executive powers held by the Hungarian Southern Army. This was followed by another four months of military occupation, but under a civilian administration. Then on December 14 the Hungarian parliament voted to annex the areas to the Crown of St. Stephen and give them full representation in the parliament. According to the census of I93J, Backa and Baranja had a total population of 837,742 people: 305,9I7 Serbs and Croats, 283,I I4 Hungarians, and I8 5,45 8 Germans, with Slovaks, Ukrainians, Russians, and Gypsies making up theremainder.110 Because Hungary had never accepted the loss of these and certain other areas by the Treaty of Trianon on june 4, I92o, their full reincorporation into the Hungarian body politic was the foremost aim of the Hungarian regime that took them over in April I 94 I. In Backa and Baranja, one of the first actions of the Hungarian occupation authorities was to classify the population into two groups: those who had been in the territory at the time of the armistice of I9I8 and those who had entered during the interwar period. The latter included mainly government officials, teachers, businessmen, workers, and colonists on agricultural land formerly belonging mostly to Hungarian noble families and made available by the postI 9 I 8 Yugoslav agrarian reform. The influx of these people was considered part of the policy of Yugoslavization (mostly Serbianization) of these areas, which was now to be undone by countervailing measures of Magyarization. During the first two weeks of Hungarian rule, about Io,ooo people were expelled to Serbia, the Independent State of Croatia, and Montenegro. A plan to deport about I 5o,ooo Serbs to German-occupied Serbia failed because of the opposition of the German military commander there, but even so, some 3 5,ooo Serbs, according to estimates of German occupation authorities in Belgrade, were secretly shipped to Serbia, and another r 2,ooo were put in Hungarian concentration camps, from which they were gradually shipped to Serbia. 111 By expelling the Yugoslav colonists, the Hungarian government acquired an estimated I92,ooo cadastral yokes of land (I yoke= 0.58 hectares or 1.07 acres). By dispossessing the Jews, it acquired another 86,ooo cadastral yokes, for a total of 278,ooo yokes. Of this total, 25,000 yokes were distributed to individuals entitled to such land, 3 5,ooo yokes to relocated families, and I I ,ooo yokes to an110For the Hungarian occupation of Yugoslav areas, particularly of Backa and Baranja, see Mirnic, "The Hungarian Occupation Regime in Yugoslavia"; Atanackovic, Vojvodina u borbi, I94I-I94J, pp. 7-22; idem, "The Occupation of Vojvodina"; and a very critical review of Atanackovic's article by Josip Mimic in the same journal in which it was published, Vojnoistorijski glasnik, I965, no. 3: 57-70. See also Horthy, Confidential Papers, pp. 18794. For the Hungarian law of December 27, I94I, on the annexation of Backa, Baranja, Medjimurje, and Prekmurje, see Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, pp. 631-33. For the 1931 census figures, see Das Schicksal der Deutschen in]ugoslawien, p. I IE. 111 Das Schicksal der Deutschen in ]ugoslawien, p. nE.

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

other group of transferees, while the remainder was kept by the state or sold to large landowners and other people. 112 After this, the Hungarians began a systematic Magyarization of the political, economic, and cultural life of the annexed areas. They reestablished the old 1918 administrative divisions of local government, with the difference that the new officials were appointed rather than elected. They encouraged the activity of Hungarian political parties and patriotic organizations in the drive to Magyarize desirable elements of the population, which conversely meant discrimination against Serbs and Croats. In the economic domain, the Hungarians took over the assets that had formerly belonged to the Yugoslav state. They endeavored to increase the Hungarian share of the stock capital of banks and industrial and trading corporations, hoping to eliminate Yugoslav interests andreduce the share of the German minority. Most industrial enterprises were arbitrarily placed in the category of war industries and put under the management of commissioners named by the military authorities. The same sort of discrimination against Serbs, Croats, and Jews also applied in educational and cultural institutions. With one exception, all secondary schools had to use Hungarian or German as the language of instruction. The publication of books, newspapers, and periodicals in Serbo-Croatian was almost completely prohibited, and Serbs and Croats with higher education were effectively excluded from appropriate employment. 113 That Hungary was made to pay for its acquisition of Yugoslav, as well as Czechoslovak and Romanian, territory is evident from a report by the German economic expert Carl Clodius on August 16, 1941: "The Hungarian government has tried as far as possible to take account of German wishes in the economic field. Thus, among other things, it agreed to do away with the undervaluation of the Reichsmark; it provided a credit of 200 million Reichsmarks for financing German purchases of strategic goods from Hungary; and it greatly improved conditions for the activity of Reich Germans and Reich German capital in Hungary in compliance with our requests." Sending a Hungarian army of about 20 5,ooo men to the Russian front may also be considered payment for German help in acquiring the annexed areas. 114 Large surpluses of food and such raw materials as hemp from Backa and Baranja were earmarked for Germany. A memorandum of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepared in March 1943 in expectation of forthcoming German-Hungarian negotiations noted that "the harvest of the Backa Lebl, "The Agrarian Policy of the Hungarian Occupier," pp. 198, 205, 209. "The Hungarian Occupation Regime in Yugoslavia," pp. 436-42,459-66. 114 For Hungary's economic concessions, see DGFP, 13: 319-21. For a map showing Hungarian territorial acquisitions between 1938 and 1941, see Helmreich, Hungary, p. 15. For the way in which Hungary was brought into the war against the Soviet Union by an attack of unidentified but probably German planes on the border town of Kosice (Kassa) on June 26, 1941, and the strength and losses of the Hungarian 2nd Army, which was sent to the Russian front, see Gosztony, Hitters fremde Heere, pp. 120-23, 213, 343-44,43 3-34. 112

113 Mirnic,

171

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FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

area, which was reincorporated from Yugoslavia, stood and still stands in its entirety at the disposal of the Axis powers." 115 In all the annexed areas, as in Hungary proper, the government applied direct controls over wages, prices, rationing, and similar matters. The well-organized German minority in Backa and Baranja, about 22 percent of the total population in I 9 3 I and outnumbered by the Hungarians, who made up about 34 percent of the total population, was economically the most advanced and strongest group. At the time of the invasion of Yugoslavia, the Backa Volksdeutsche were completely under Nazi influence. They were very disappointed to see Hungarian rather than German troops marching in, the more so as some of these troops saw no reason to treat them any differently than the rest of the population. Several incidents, resulting in a few Volksdeutsche casualties, for a time caused such difficulties between the Germans and the Hungarians that they came to Hitler's attention. 116 As a result, the Volksdeutsche refused to assume any role in local administration. But they had a certain amount of power as well as a bargaining chip in their chief political and cultural organization, the Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn, which had been recognized by a German-Hungarian agreement of August 30, I940, as the only official Volksdeutsche organization in Hungary. The German minority in the annexed areas and in Hungary soon came to enjoy the status of almost a state within a state. They professed full loyalty to the Hungarian state and had a number of representatives in the Hungarian parliament. But they were allowed to appoint their own officials in towns with a predominantly German population and, on the basis of a German-Hungarian agreement of February I2, I942, they acquired the power to draft their members into the German armed forces. 117 When armed resistance broke out in Hungarian-annexed Backa and Baranja in the second half of I 94 I, though on a much smaller scale than in most parts of Yugoslavia, the Hungarian military authorities, like their counterparts elsewhere, applied heavily repressive measures. Their harshest action against the insurgents and the Serbian and Jewish civilian population occurred in January I942, when according to Yugoslav sources about 3,500 people were killed and thousands more were robbed, imprisoned, otherwise maltreated, or taken to concentration camps. 118 The Partisan movement was never as strong in Backa as it was in most other parts of Yugoslavia, however, for two reasons. First, the "'Horthy, Confidential Papers, p. 367. 116 ln addition to the already cited reports from the field in Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5782, Frs. H297 ,8 53-89, see also the notes on the conference between Hitler and Hungarian Envoy Szt6jay on April 19, 1941, in Hillgruber, Staatsmanner und Diplomaten bei Hitler, 1: 527· 117 Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien, pp. 57E, 68E-72E. See also Mimic, "The Hungarian Occupation Regime in Yugoslavia," pp. 468-69. '''Mimic, "The Hungarian Occupation Regime in Yugoslavia," p. 459; Golubovic, "(Hungarian] Raids in January 1942," pp. 170-90. See also reports from some Volksdeutsche representatives in Backa, in Micr. No. T-120, Rol15781, Frs. H296,61 5-20.

FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

flat land was not suitable for the type of guerrilla warfare practiced by the Partisans, and second, the South Slavic population constituted only a little more than one-third of the total population. Some Partisan units from Backa were sent to Srijem and Bosnia to reinforce Partisan forces there. The Chetniks also apparently had an underground organization in Backa, but otherwise they exhibited little activity. Despite the abusive treatment of the Serbian, Jewish, and to some extent Croatian population by the Hungarian military and civilian authorities, some Serbian and Croatian politicians collaborated with them. A former Serbian senator and a former representative of the Croatian Peasant Party became members of the Hungarian parliament and urged the Yugoslav population to support the new Hungarian regime. Their example was followed by a number of other politicians and by some large landowners and businessmen eager to protect their personal economic interests. 119 Beginning in late I943, the Hungarian government made a number of attempts to reach the Western Allies, with a view to detaching itself from what now looked like the losing side in the war. This became known to the Germans, who responded in March I944 by taking control of the country in order to keep it from falling into Soviet hands. Operation Margarethe, launched on March I9, brought large additional German forces into Hungary. Regent Horthy was allowed to remain as head of state, but the government was replaced by a cabinet headed by the former Hungarian envoy in Berlin, General Dome Szt6jay, whom the Germans trusted. Much of the planning for the political takeover was done by Edmund Veesenmayer of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who became the chief civilian executive in Hungary with the title of German plenipotentiary and envoy in Hungary. 120 With the assumption of full control over Hungary, the Germans also superimposed their rule over the Hungarian-annexed Yugoslav areas of Backa, Baranja, Medjimurje, and Prekmurje. By August I944, however, Germany began rapidly losing its hold over southeast Europe. The collapse of Romania and soon after of Bulgaria induced Regent Horthy, despite opposition from a majority of his cabinet, to renew his contact with the Allied command in Caserta in order to negotiate a surrender. The latter advised him to deal with the Soviet forces, which he did, and on October I I a provisional truce was signed in Moscow between the representatives of Hungary and the Great Allies. This brought swift German reaction. Horthy was removed from his post and replaced by Ferenc Szalasi, the head of the Hungarian Nazi Party, which now assumed power in that part of the country still under German control. In late December in Debrecen, the political forces Atanackovic, "The Occupation of Vojvodina," pp. 3 5-3 6. °Kriegstagebuch, 4, pt. r: r77-249. One result of German rule in Hungary was the deportation of about 30o,ooo Hungarian Jews from the territory of pre-r940 Hungary to extermination camps. See Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry, especially p. 97r. 119

12

I73

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FOREIGN ANNEXATION OF YUGOSLAVIA

that had gone over to the Allied side announced the establishment, with Soviet backing, of a National Front government under the leadership of General Bela Miklos, in which various bourgeois political parties as well as Socialists and Communists were represented. On December 30, this government declared war on Germany and a little later accepted the conditions for a truce imposed on the Horthy representatives in Moscow .121 The Germans perceived in time the danger to the Volksdeutsche in southeast Europe from advancing Soviet forces as well as from vengeful national groups who during the war had been harmed by them. The evacuation of the German minority from Backa and Baranja to Austria and Germany started about October r, 1944· In the course of that month about half of them were moved out. 122 By the end of October, Soviet, Bulgarian, and a small contingent of Yugoslav forces had cleared Backa of German troops. By the end of December, these forces were in control of most of western Hungary, and Soviet forces surrounded Budapest. To counteract these advances, the Germans assembled a huge number of troops in the remainder of western Hungary and on March 6, 1945, launched an offensive against the Soviets. This undertaking had several objectives. One was to defeat the Russians on a subsidiary front, which would necessitate the shift of some Soviet forces away from the eastern front, thus easing pressure on German troops there. Another was to free Budapest and reach the Danube River to block the Russian advance toward Austria, in order to safeguard oil and bauxite supplies in western Hungary-of critical importance for the German war machine-and prevent the bottling up and destruction of German Army Group E, withdrawing from the Balkans, before it reached Austrian territory. But this last great German offensive of the war, involving about 30 divisions, r r of them armored, failed to achieve any major results. Ten days after the offensive began, it was met by a Russian counteroffensive. German forces were pushed back until by April 4 the last German troops, together with Hungarian forces still loyal to the Szalasi government, were forced to withdraw from Hungarian territory. 123 The Hungarian-annexed Yugoslav areas of Medjimurje and Prekmurje were liberated during the last weeks of the war by Bulgarian forces. As it lost territory during the last few months of 1944, Hungary was stripped of all the territorial gains it had made between 1938 and 1941. Thus ended, much as in the case of Bulgaria, this short-lived period of Hungarian expansion at the cost of its neighbors. Gosztony, Hitters fremde Heere, pp. 428-34. Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien, pp. 87E-88E. 121 Kriegstagebuch, 4, pt. 2: II51-1225; Gosztony, Endkampf an der Donau, 1944-45, pp. 214-46. 121

122

CHAPTER

5

The Puppet Government of Serbia

The Germans established a military government of occupation in Serbia proper in order to control several critical resources. Besides possessing two strategic transportation routes, the Danube River waterway and the railroad line connecting central Europe with Bulgaria and Greece (and thence by sea with North Africa), Serbia was also a large producer of certain nonferrous metals (lead, antimony, and copper) that Germany needed for war production. The Germans wanted to utilize the country's resources without, however, tying up a large amount of German manpower. They did so by using Serbian labor to man the factories, the Serbian puppet government and its forces to run the country under their direction, and Bulgarian occupation troops to keep the peace. They also used several kinds of armed formations as auxiliary military forces. In addition, from November 1943 on, as a result of sometimes formal, sometimes informal, arrangements with the principal Chetnik commanders, they could count on the support of the bulk of General MihailoviC's Chetniks. Map 3 shows the dimensions of occupied Serbia during the war. Even before the end of the brief military campaign against Yugoslavia in April 1941, the commander in chief of the German army issued a proclamation defining the conditions of German rule in occupied areas of the country. There was no question but that the Germans intended to enforce a very strict occupation. The death penalty was established for acts of violence and sabotage, especially of communication lines and public utilities. All arms were to be surrendered, along with all other implements of war and all radio transmitters and batteries. No assistance was to be given to non-German soldiers or civilians in occupied territory trying to escape to unoccupied territory. Communicating any news outside the occupied area that could be injurious to German forces, or communicating with prisoners of war, was strictly forbidden. So too was insulting the German army and its commanders or demonstrating against German forces. Street meetings were banned, as were demonstrations without previous permission and the distribution of leaflets. All work stoppages, strikes, and lockouts were prohibited. Shops and enterprises were ordered to reopen and begin regular operation. The hoarding of goods was forbidden, as well as

Annexed to Albania Annexed to Bulgaria Annexed to Hungary Independent State of Croatia Occupied by Italy Areas of Bulgarian army occupation: A . From January 1942 B. From January 1943 C. From July 1943 Kingdom of Yugoslavia, April6, 1941 0

60km.

'--~-~~

ROMANIA

N I

ALBANIA

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

any increase in prices and wages above the level existing on the first day of occupation.1 A special German occupation currency, the Reichskreditkassenscheine, became legal tender for all German armed forces personnel. The Germans further decreed that the German criminal code and criminal statutes would apply in German-occupied areas of Yugoslavia. Other orders were issued soon after the occupation began. One required the registration of all printing and mimeographing equipment. Another specified that determining what could be published in newspapers and periodicals in Serbia was a public function that was to be exercised only by editors who had been duly admitted to the profession and registered according to this order. Special orders regulated the opening of theaters and places of entertainment (from which Jews were expressly excluded). To tighten control over vital production, all manufacturing firms with more than twenty employees were required to obtain special permission from the German authorities to continue operating. Inventories of a long list of raw materials had to be reported to the German authorities and their transfer was prohibited. 2 By these and a multitude of subsequent rulings and orders, the Germans regulated a wide range of administrative, political, economic, cultural, and social matters during their occupation of Serbia. Since it was impossible for them to take on all aspects of the day-to-day operation of the Serbian administration, however, they had to establish some domestic public body that would carry on administrative chores under their direction and supervision. This they quickly did in the form of a puppet government, which could issue orders that came from them or that they had sanctioned in advance. THE ESTABLISHMENT AND REORGANIZATION OF THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT

The first puppet government established in Serbia on May 30, 1941, was the so-called Commissioner Administration. It was headed by Milan ACimovic and had a commissioner in charge of each of the former Yugoslav ministries except the Ministry of Army and Navy, which was abolished. ACimovic was a former Belgrade police chief and had been minister of interior for a short time in the Stojadinovic cabinet. Ardently anti-Communist, he had had contact with the German police even before the war. There were nine other members in the administration: Stevan Ivanic, MomCilo Jankovic, Risto Jojic, Stanislav Josifovic, Lazo Kostic, Dusan Letica, Dusan Pantie, Jevrem Pro tic, and Milisav Vasiljevit_3 The government was an experienced one. Letica, too, had been in the 1For an English translation of this proclamation, see Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, pp. 591-92. 'Ibid., pp. 592-6or. 'Micr. No. T-sor, Roll264, Frs. 422-23. See also B. Kostic, Za istoriju nasih dana, pp. 20-2I.

!77

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

Stojadinovic cabinet, Pantie had been in the Cvetkovic cabinet, both lvanic and Vasiljevic were closely associated with Dimitrije LjotiC's political party, and the others belonged to various former Serbian political parties or were experts in specific fields. All of them were known to be pro-German. ACimovic maintained the existing administrative apparatus, though personnel changes were required to replace non-Serbian government employees who had left Serbia. Also, in one way or another, most Serbian officials of actual or suspected antiGerman sentiment were removed or resigned from the government. The ACimovic administration was in an extremely difficult position because it lacked any semblance of power. It was nothing more than an instrument of the German occupation regime. It performed administrative chores in Serbia, now constituted as a separate German-occupied area and still stunned by the quick and complete collapse of the Yugoslav army and state. The king and the previous government had fled in the last days of the war; most of the officer corps of the defeated Yugoslav army, primarily Serbs from Serbia, as well as soldiers from Serbia, had been taken as prisoners of war to Germany and Italy. From the neighboring Independent State of Croatia, where Serbs were being systematically persecuted by the new Ustasha regime, refugees were flooding in, some officially expelled, others escaping. Other Serbian refugees were entering from Macedonia, the Kosovo region, and Vojvodina, and several thousand Slovene refugees were being transferred from the German-occupied part of Slovenia. To this grave situation was added, beginning in early July-that is, shortly after the German attack on the Soviet Union-the turmoil of armed resistance. Under Communist leadership, it was directed at both the ACimovic administration and the German occupation regime. After it gathered momentum, some Serbs of nationalist inclination joined, while other nationalist forces under Draza Mihailovic prepared for action of their own against the occupation forces at an opportune moment. Acts of sabotage against communication facilities and economic enterprises producing for the Germans increased. Between July I and August I5, I94I, according to a report of the ACimovic administration, the rebels made 246 different attacks and killed 26 government functionaries, wounded I I, and captured I o. In the same period, the gendarmerie killed 82 rebels, wounded I4, and captured 47· The German occupation authorities took harsh measures against the rebels, shooting hostages, who were labeled as Communists and Jews, and burning villages where German soldiers and policemen had been attacked.' But the insurgency continued. On August II, the Appeal to the Serbian People was issued. Sponsored by the Commissioner Administration and signed by 307 prominent intellectuals and other important Serbs, it called upon the rank and file of the population to 'For the report of the ACimovic administration, see YA, Mil. Hist., Nedic Govt. Docs., Reg. No. 3I/3, I-II, Box I9. For reports on retaliation by German forces, see Zbornik DNOR, I, bk. I: 345-424.

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

help the authorities in every way in their struggle against the Communist rebels. This was followed on August 14 by an appeal to all rebels to return home within eight days. The ACimovic administration also announced a bounty of 3,ooo dinars to anyone who captured or killed a member of the Communist armed bands and a bounty of 2 5,ooo dinars to anyone who killed the leader of an armed band.' But the appeals had no effect. Rather than subsiding, the uprising increased in momentum. 6 The military commander in Serbia, General Heinrich Danckelmann, realizing that the forces at his disposal were insufficient to quell the growing rebellion, asked for additional police and army units. But he was advised that they were needed on the Russian front and that he should use his available forces fully and ruthlessly. It was in this context that the chief of the military administration, Harald Turner, suggested reorganizing and strengthening the Serbian administration so that the Serbs themselves might crush the rebellion. To head such an administration, the Germans had to find a Serb who was well known and highly regarded by a substantial part of the population, who could be entrusted with the task of establishing some sort of Serbian armed force-though of course under full German control-and who, moreover, would be willing to proceed ruthlessly against the insurgents. When the German authorities in Belgrade asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for help, it sent Edmund Veesenmayer to provide assistance. After a series of consultations, General of the Army Milan Nedic, former Yugoslav minister of army and navy and chief of General Staff, was selected to head the new government. 7 To arrange the transition more smoothly, first two commissioners and then the entire Commissioner Administration resigned. General Nedic was installed as prime minister on August 29. In addition to him, the government had twelve ministers: Milan ACimovic, Dusan Djordjevic, Djura Dokic, Panta Draskic, MomCilo Jankovic, Josif Kostic, Ognjen Krsmanovic, Cedomir Marjanovic, Jovan Mijuskovic, Mihailo Olean, Milos Radosavljevic, and Milos Trivunac (soon replaced by Velibor Janie). There were also three subministers: Tanasije Dinic for reorganization of government administration and personnel prob'For the Appeal to the Serbian People, see Krakov, General Milan Nedic, I: 105-I3. Many of those who signed it were known for their leftist views. Some later turned out to have been Partisan supporters even at that time, and others subsequently joined the Partisans. For the bounties offered, see Zbornik DNOR, I, bk. 2: 328. •DGFP, 13: 308,400. 7 General Nedic had been fired from his ministerial post by Prince Regent Paul in November 1940 for advocating that Yugoslavia join the Tripartite Pact, at a time when the country was still desperately trying to remain neutral. Nedic believed that the Germans would win the war and he wanted Yugoslavia to be on the winning side. After the coup of March 27, 1941, General Simovic, trusting NediC's seniority and high professional standing, put him in charge of the 3rd Group of Armies, assigned to the defense of Yugoslav Macedonia, the Kosovo region, and Montenegro. That the Germans gave Nedic special treatment is best shown by the fact that, after the defeat of the Yugoslav forces, he was not taken as a prisoner of war to Germany, as most other generals were, but was left at home in peace.

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!ems, Djordje Peric for propaganda, and Darko Petrovic for price control. Only two ministers from the Commissioner Administration, ACimovic and Jankovic, were retained. Of the new ministers, several were experts in their fields, and three, Dokic, Kostic, and Draskic, were former generals. Dokic headed the Ministry of Transportation, Kostic the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and Draskic the Ministry of Labor. 8 The facilities managed by the first two ministries were prime objects of sabotage by the rebels, and it was intended that the third ministry would play a key role in mobilizing labor for the economic reconstruction of the country. The Germans had sound reasons for choosing General Nedic to head the puppet government. He was well known among Serbs as an elite General Staff officer of the pre-r9r8 Serbian and interwar Yugoslav armies, and he had held the two highest military positions in the country. He was regarded as a man of great personal authority, not simply because of his high professional standing, but also because of his commanding behavior in official positions. The Germans were particularly impressed by his reputation as a man of authority.• Nedic was also considered fairly reliable, since he was known as a believer in German victory and was strongly anti-Communist. Nonetheless, according to a variety of sources, the Germans had to use strong-arm tactics to persuade Nedic to accept the job. These included threats that they would bring in Bulgarian troops to occupy Serbia and Belgrade and would take him as a prisoner of war to Germany if he did not accept. I was unable to confirm another threat supposedly used against him, namely, that if he did not assume the leadership of the government, the Germans would split Serbia into four parts to be occupied by Bulgarian, Albanian, Hungarian, and Croatian troops. Additional persuasion also came from several Serbian generals and politicians who apparently took these threats seriously and who no doubt were worried that the uprising was Communist led. 10 'Micr. No. T-501, Rol1264, Fr. 424. For a favorable appraisal of Nedic, see Krakov, General Milan Nedic; MartinovicBajica, Milan Nedic; and Karapandzic, Gradjanski rat u Srbiji, I94I-I945. These authors either supported or collaborated with Nedic during the war and have defended him ever since. All the Chetnik and Communist literature during and after the war is anti-Nedic. For a Chetnik appraisal, see, for example, Trisic, 0 Milanu Nedicu, which rebuts Martinovic-Bajica's praise of Nedic and strongly criticizes both the man and his policies. 10The German threat to use Bulgarian troops as an occupation force in parts of Serbia was employed again later and, as will be shown below, became a reality in January 1942. For the German threat to divide Serbia into four parts, see Krakov, General Milan Nedic, r: 143-45. It is true, however, that in April 1943 the Hungarian General Staff turned down a German request to supply two or three Hungarian divisions for occupation duty in Serbia beginning in June. The Hungarian government had good reasons to refuse (though these were not necessarily communicated to the Germans). Not only would it have been a moral impossibility to use Hungarian troops abroad while parts of supposedly Hungarian territory (such as the Banat) were still under foreign occupation, but Hungary wanted to use Hungarian troops only within its historical borders. Furthermore, it needed a relaxation of tensions with its neighbors and, considering the unfriendly attitude of Romania and Slovakia, it could not af9

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Nedic finally yielded to these various pressures. On August 2 7 he informed Danckelmann by letter that after consulting with the commissioners and leading representatives of the Serbian people, he would be willing to become prime minister if the military commander would agree to specific operating conditions. First, a Serbian government would be formed that would manage the affairs of the Serbian people under the supervision of the military commander, to conform to German military, political, and economic interests. Second, the Serbian government would be allowed to develop an armed force (without which it could not assure peace and order in the country), consisting of a gendarmerie of up to ro,ooo men and auxiliary armed forces according to need, and, with the permission of the military commander, both of them would be equipped with the Yugoslav arms captured by the Germans. Third, Serbian prisoners of war in Germany who were ill, all prisoners over the age of 55, and those prisoners needed for the reconstruction of the country would be released to their homes, and the Serbian government would be allowed to send food supplies to improve the rations of prisoners remaining in Germany. Fourth, the "economic and administrative boundaries" of Serbia would be improved by having German troops occupy certain areas (meaning, apparently, northeast Bosnia). And finally, the impoverishment, persecution, and murder of Serbs in Croatia and in Bulgarian- and Hungarian-occupied areas would cease. In addition to these major conditions, Nedic also wanted a number of other concessions. He asked for a political council to promulgate the new political arrangements. The struggle against Communism was to be considered primarily the concern of the Serbian people and its government, with the German army helping only insofar as the means used by the Serbian government proved insufficient. In cases of sabotage, reprisals were to be applied only against those who were guilty and never against the innocent, and they were not to be undertaken until complete information had been obtained from the Serbian government. And the use of Serbian national and state emblems was to be allowed. 11 There is no written record of Danckelmann specifically accepting these conditions, but in NediC's speech on the occasion of his instalhition, he thanked Danckelmann "for the full power of authority [Vol/macht] which it pleased you to give me." And from Danckelmann's reply on the same occasion, which also mentioned giving Nedic "full power of authority," it would seem that a real understanding existed between the two men, though only in oral form. Other documentary evidence, including a circular sent by Turner to all German area and district commands in Serbia, dated August 29, 1941, shows that Danckelmann did promise Nedic that the Serbian authorities, under German supervision, would have a large degree of independence. Turner wrote: "A ford to alienate the Serbs. See Horthy, Confidential Papers, pp. 367-68, and Kallay, Hungarian Premier, pp. 149-50. "For this letter, see Krakov, General Milan Nedic, 1: 145-46, or Micr. No. T-501, Roll 256, Frs. 103 5-36.

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promise was given to the government that, under German supervision, it will be given the highest possible degree of independence in administration. Please, therefore, limit the activity of the administrative groups to purely supervisory functions." A note from Minister of Interior ACimovic to Turner, dated September r6, 1941, protesting against the interference of German authorities in the operations of the Serbian gendarmerie and other government armed forces, is further proof that the Nedic administration understood that it would be largely free in using these forces. 12 But all these promises were soon forgotten. Almost as soon as the Nedic government had been installed, the intensity of the uprising increased markedly when some Chetnik forces joined the Partisans. Nedic, not having had time to organize his own forces, could only stand by helplessly as the Germans began bringing new forces into Serbia and applying reprisals of the utmost brutality against the insurgents and the civilian population. Since the arrangements between Nedic and Danckelmann had not been put in writing, when Danckelmann was removed as military commander for misjudging the seriousness of the uprising and allowing it to get out of hand, his oral agreements with Nedic were forgotten. Danckelmann's successor, General Franz Bohme, was satisfied with keeping Nedic as head of the puppet government, as was Bohme's successor, General Paul Bader, who held the command in Belgrade from December 1941 until the end of August I943· But neither of them was inclined to make NediC's position any easier. For a time, Nedic stood to gain some increase in executive powers from Turner, chief of military administration and one of the few Germans who had a sense of his nearly impossible position. But Turner, as shown in Chapter 2, was unable to convince his superiors to grant Nedic enough additional power to administer the state efficiently. In November 1942 he was forced out for his efforts. Nedic thus headed a government whose powers were strictly limited, one that had no international standing even with the Axis powers. Like its predecessor, it was no more than a subsidiary organ of the German occupation authorities, doing part of the work of administering the country and helping to keep it pacified so that the Germans could exploit it with a minimum of effort, and bearing some of the blame for the harshness of the rule. As time went on, NediC's powers, instead of being increased as a reward for his loyal service to the Germans (which was repeatedly noted by most high German commanders and officials in Serbia), were whittled away. His situation was always difficult and frustrating and the minutes of his conferences with and his letters and memoranda to succeeding military commanders in Serbia amply show that it became more and more degrading to him personally. Nedic was undoubtedly sincere in his determination to follow policies that ' 2 For the text of NediC's and Danckelmann's speeches, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll 256, Frs. 1032-34. For Turner's circular, see Micr. No. T-sor, Roll 246, Frs. 190-91, and for ACimovic's note, Fr. 333·

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would minimize the sacrifices of the Serbian people. Order No. I of September 5, I 94 I, to all government employees and all armed formations under his command encouraged government officials, the armed forces, and the public at large to resist the spreading rebellion. It stressed the need for discipline, hard work, honesty, and devotion to the good of the people. Point 6 said: "All national forces, both of the state gendarmerie and police and of loyal Serbian men at large, can have at this time only one objective, that is, to save the Serbian people from new bloodshed and sacrifices, removing without compromise all those elements in their midst that would want to push the nation into total ruin. Under these circumstances, my orders, directed through the appropriate state organs, must be carried out by all people without hesitation. " 13 Nedic emphasized unity and sacrifice in his first radio address to the nation on September I 3. He condemned the Communist-led resistance and those who had brought on the war in April and were now making trouble again. In view of Germany's tremendous military power, he argued, resistance was senseless. It could only result in undue hardship. He gave an ultimatum to all those in the hills to put down their arms by September I7 and return home to useful work. Those who did not respond to the call would be destroyed. 14 During the second half of August I94I, even before Nedic became prime minister, the Germans had arranged with Kosta Milovanovic Pecanac for the transfer of several thousand of his Chetnik followers to the Serbian gendarmerie as auxiliaries. These were controlled by the Serbian government, though under German supervision. In September these forces were strengthened when the Germans allowed Dimitrije Ljotic and his followers to organize the Serbian Volunteer Detachments. In November, in the course of the successful operation by German and quisling forces against the insurgents in northwest and southwest Serbia, a group of detachments that had been part of the Chetnik forces of Draza Mihailovic also legalized their status with the Nedic government and became part of its auxiliary forces. In the meantime, Nedic was allowed to proceed with the organization of the Serbian State Guard (Srpska dri;avna straia), which absorbed the Serbian gendarmerie within a few months. The Serbian State Guard was organized into three sections: the police in the cities, the forces in rural areas (performing functions earlier assigned to the gendarmerie), and the Serbian Frontier Guard (Srpska pogranicna straia). In addition, a certain number of peasants who were considered reliable were armed and served as a sort of auxiliary militia in the villages. Although first planned as a moderately sized force of around I7,ooo men, by late I943 the State Guard, counting officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates in all these services and the village militia, numbered 36,7I6 men. 15 But NediC's command over these combined forces was short-lived. On "YA, Mil. Hist., Nedic Govt. Docs., Reg. No. I/5-2, Box I9. No. T-3 14, Roll 1457, Frs. I 128-32. 15 Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1249, Fr. 523; Yugoslavia, Vojna enciklopedija, Ist ed., 9: I 8 5· 14 Micr.

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January 22, 1942, General August Meyszner, the newly appointed higher SS and police leader, took over command of the State Guard, and German customs authorities in Serbia took over command of the Frontier Guard. Nedic retained control of the Volunteer Detachments and the Chetniks from Pecanac and Mihailovic, but it was not long before he lost control of even these. Nedic soon lost authority over the government as well. The German military administration, the plenipotentiary for economic affairs, and the higher SS and police leader took over all fundamental decision making and all functions of government and even intervened in small decisions supposedly still left to the Nedic administration. NediC's only power lay in whatever influence he might have on the Serbian people, to whom he could speak more or less freely over the radio and in the press. He used the media regularly, appealing to the population to keep the peace. He himself gave not the least offense to the Germans, so as not to provoke them into even more severe policies toward Serbia or into reprisals against the civilian population, and he did his best to convince his fellow Serbs to follow his example. Many Serbs at home and in the government-inexile did not for this reason consider him a true quisling, but looked upon him rather as a man who knowingly sacrificed himself, much as Marshal Petain did, in order to prevent the loss of Serbian lives and in general to soften as much as possible the severity of the German occupation. To some extent this is a fair judgment. But Nedic was at the same time a resolute foe of the Communists and considered the harshest measures against them justified. For a long time he was also an enemy of Mihailovic, whose actions he thought were inspired from London and contrary to Serbian national interests. 16 In addition to the troubles that the Nedic regime experienced because of its limited powers and constant difficulties with the Germans and, after January 1942, with the Bulgarian occupation forces as well, Nedic was also handicapped by the weakness of his following in the country. It was never large, and as time went on it declined even further, while that of MihailoviC's Chetniks, who infiltrated his regime, rose. Even within the cabinet there were conflicts. An apt appraisal of NediC's situation in August 1943 came from the chief of staff of the commander in chief in southeast Europe, General Hermann Foertsch: The political situation in Serbia is dominated by the struggle between the legal government of Nedic and the movement of Draza Mihailovic. The Nedic government has been unable to acquire an appreciable following among the people. Government employees are dissatisfied and largely unreliable. Their salaries often do not suffice for the barest necessities. The Serbian State Guard becomes more 16The best collection of NediC's radio speeches is in Krakov, General Milan Nedic, r: 156-57, 164-67, etc., and 2: 12-13,25-27, etc. That Nedic himself considered his role similar to that of Marshal Petain can also be seen from General Bohme's letter to Field Marshal List of November 15,1941, in Micr. No. T50I, Rol12p, Fr. 365.

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and more unreliable. LjotiC's Serbian Volunteer Corps, which was built on national socialist lines and has up to now fought well against the Chetniks, also shows signs of disintegration. The peasants, who are thoroughly nationalistic and devoted to the king, reject the Nedic government. The workers are partly Communist oriented. The largest number of Serbs put their hopes in Draza Mihailovic. 17

Nedic had a thankless job. He was not fully trusted by the Germans and he was mistrusted by most of his fellow Serbs, who in their unhappiness under foreign occupation blamed him for many things over which he had no control. In one of his long conferences with Turner, on March 28, 1942, in which he complained that the Germans did not trust him and had curtailed his powers to the point of making his regime totally impotent, he pointed out that he had many enemies: "The amorphous mass of the Serbian Church, Draia Mihailovic, a part of the Chetniks, the professional officers who did not side with me, the Bulgarian occupation [forces] that make enemies against me among the people, certain politicians, Freemasons, and Jews." Furthermore, "surely unintentional interference and mistakes of the German command posts" created difficulties for him, as did the dropping of leaflets by Croatian planes in western Serbia and the plundering of the peasant population by units of the Russian Protective Corps. 18 NediC's difficulties within his cabinet and the upper echelons of his administration were mainly with pro-Ljotic and pro-Stojadinovic individuals and, during the second half of the war, with those who, in one way or another, were working for Mihailovic. Periodically, apparently as a way of trying to force the Germans to grant concessions, Nedic handed in his resignation. Each time it was he, not the Germans, who backed down. Twice he reorganized his cabinet. In October 1942 he dropped several ministers, including Olean, the chief Ljotic supporter, and ACimovic, the leader of the Stojadinovic faction who was also well disposed toward Mihailovic. He replaced ACimovic with Colonel Tanasije (Tasa) Dinic, who was strongly pro-German and equally strongly anti-Mihailovic.19 In November r 94 3, Nedic reorganized the cabinet a second time, apparently after consulting with General Hans Gustav Felber, the newly appointed military commander in southeast Europe. Nedic himself took over the Ministry of Interior and shifted Dinic to the Ministry of Social Welfare. He reduced the size of the cabinet by eliminating several ministries altogether, and he dropped all the generals. The cabinet kept this composition until the end of the Nedic government in early October 1944. 20 "Micr. No. T-3 II, Roll 196, Frs. r 59-60. 18 Micr. No. T-501, Roll257, Frs. 1229-30. 19 Micr. No. T-501, Roll 264, Fr. 425. DiniC's ideas on close cooperation with the Germans and on various ways of fighting MihailoviC's Chetniks can be seen from his statements to German officials in Belgrade. See Micr. No. T-501, Roll256, Frs. 889-90 and 977-79. 20 See General Felber's notes on his meetings with Nedic on September ro and 24, 1943, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll253, Frs. 283-87 and 366-68. See also Micr. No. T-501, Roll264, Fr. 426.

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The cabinet reorganizations, however, had no effect on the real problem, which was lack of power. As time went on and it became clear that Germany was going to lose the war and that the days of the Nedic regime were numbered, the cabinet became almost meaningless. Not only were NediC's armed forces and administration officials trying to hedge their bets with the Chetniks, but the Germans themselves, aware of Nedic's dwindling following and lack of prestige, began circumventing him and dealing directly with the commanders under Mihailovic. GERMAN AUXILIARY FORCES IN SERBIA

Three special, formally organized, and officially recognized armed groups operated as German auxiliaries during the occupation of Serbia. These were the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Russian Protective Corps, and the small and rather insignificant Auxiliary Police Troop composed of Russian Volksdeutsche. The Germans also used two other armed groups between the fall of 1941 and the end of I 942 as auxiliaries, the Chetnik detachments of Pecanac, which began collaborating in August 1941, and later the legalized Chetnik detachments of Mihailovic. Though differing greatly in origin and composition, all these groups were utilized as auxiliary troops because of the pressing need of the German occupation forces for immediate aid in combating the expanding Communist insurgency in the late summer and fall of 1941 and in establishing peace and order. We will describe them in turn. The Serbian Volunteer Corps was the party army of the Yugoslav People's Movement, or Zbor (Assembly) for short, a small political movement that was established at the beginning of 193 5 under the leadership of Dimitrije V. Ljotic. A deeply religious and staunchly patriotic man, Ljotic propounded a political philosophy of many extreme components. He believed in Serbian peasant paternalism, the religious ethics of Serbian Orthodoxy, monarchism, and total loyalty to the Karadjordjevic dynasty, as well as authoritarianism, the corporative organization of the state, and integral Yugoslavism. He was also antiliberal and antidemocratic, opposed to the traditional political parties, Freemasons, and Jews, and above all anti-Communist. Because of these latter views and because he collaborated with the Germans throughout the war, many consider him to be a Fascist, which is, however, too one-sided a characterization. 21 21 For Ljotic's political and philosophical views, see his autobiography, Iz moga Zivota; a collection of his writings, Videlo u tami, published in Munich in 1976 and later translated into English and published as Light of Truth in Birmingham, England in 1984; and a collection of his prewar and wartime work, edited by his followers: [Ljotic], Dimitrije Ljotic u revoluciji i ratu. For the beginning and later development of the Zbor movement and a portrayal of Ljotic by an early coworker and strong supporter, see Parezanin, Drugi svetski rat i Dimitrije V. Ljotic. Other accounts by close associates are Kostic, Za istoriju nasih dana, pp. 9-4 5, 6 3-64, and Karapandzic, Gradjanski rat u Srbiji, I94I-I945• pp. 66-69, 81-91. For a Yugoslav

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LjotiC's followers were mostly conservative, pro-authoritarian intellectuals, militant anti-Communist high school and university students, and, especially outside Serbia, young people of an integral Yugoslavist orientation. But his movement did not achieve any substantial following in Serbia or other parts of Yugoslavia during the second half of the 193o's.22 Because of its conservatism and authoritarianism and especially its anti-democratic and anti-Communist stance, however, it was followed with interest by the Germans. The Nazis' strength and strong anti-Communism, in turn, greatly impressed Ljotic. After war broke out in Europe, Ljotic supported Yugoslavia's policy of neutrality, but he also felt that Yugoslav diplomacy should focus on relations with Berlin. He bitterly opposed the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement in August 1939 and Yugoslavia's diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union in July 1940, both of which were intended to strengthen Yugoslavia internally in case of war. 23 As a result, the Yugoslav government became increasingly irritated by the activities of Ljotic and the Zbor. In November 1940, after an incident between LjotiC's supporters and Communist students at the University of Belgrade, the Zbor was abruptly declared illegal and Ljotic went into hiding. After the invasion and partition of the country and the German occupation of Serbia in April 1941, LjotiC's political fortunes again rose. In July and August, he was permitted to give three talks over Radio Belgrade, and he was one of the Serbs whom the Germans consulted before they installed General Nedic as prime minister. Ljotic refused to take an official position in the puppet government, but he apparently had a good deal of influence on Nedic in a private advisory capacity and as a relative. Several important followers served in Communist view of the establishment and development of the Zbor movement until the invasion of Yugoslavia, see Gligorijevic, "Political Movements and Groups," pp. 3 s-8 2. A good example of LjotiC's rhetoric is this statement from a brochure entitled "Stav 'Zbora'" ("The Position of the 'Zbor'"), written or approved by Ljotic and issued shortly after the Germans occupied Serbia: "Democracy as a system has dragged politics into the mud and made it a profession for the mob .... In the Karadjordjevic dynasty Zbor sees the natural protector of the Serbian nation from the ruin which Jewry induces through republics and democracies." YA, Mil. Hist., Nedic Govt. Docs., Reg. No. I/9, I-2, Box 2 7. For the denials of Fascism, see Dimitrije Ljotic u revoluciji i ratu, pp. I 8-3 8, and Parezanin, Drugi svetski rat i Dimitrije V. Ljotic, pp. 128-42. 22 In the election of May I935, the first in which the Ljotic party took part, its national list obtained 23,8I4 votes out of 2,778,172 cast. Ofthese, I3,635 were in Banovina Danube, in which Ljotic's home district of Smederevo was located. In the election of December I 9 3 8, its national list got 30,734 votes out of 3,039,041 cast. Of these, I7,573 were in Banovina Danube. The Zbor vote also increased in Banovina Primorje, primarily in the northern Dalmatian area, from 974 in I935 to 2,427 in I938. For data on the election of I935, see Yugoslavia, Kingdom of, Sluzbene novine, May 30, I935, and for those on the election of I938, see idem, Annuaire statistique, I9J8-I9J9, pp. 478-79. 21 Ljotic bitterly criticized the government in three long memoranda to Prince Regent Paul on February 22, August 30, and December 25, I940. English translations of them, as well as most of the other cited works by Ljotic and his followers, were sent to me by Mr. Svetolik Lazarevic, a devoted coworker and follower now living in Wellington, New Zealand. I greatly appreciate his courtesy.

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the Nedic cabinets during the occupation. What Nedic thought about Ljotic is best indicated by his remark to Turner on March 28, 1942, that in the event of his departure, Ljotic was the only man to be considered as his successor. Turner thought that Nedic "could not be serious about this because Ljotic was a prophet and a visionary, not a leader and statesman. " 24 The Germans trusted Ljotic, however, more than any other Serb. And since they needed dependable domestic forces to help them combat the Communistled uprising, they allowed him to form a party army in September 1941, the Serbian Volunteer Detachments, with a maximum strength of about 3,500 men. The initial public appeal in October called for volunteers in the struggle against the Communist danger. It did not mention Mihailovic or the Chetniks, but did speak of small army detachments still in the hills whom the Communists had contacted and misled. By November, however, Ljotic was openly denouncing Mihailovic and his forces. In a scathing article, he charged Mihailovic with responsibility for the death of many Serbs and much destruction in the country as a result of his naive cooperation with the Communists, which gave them a standing that they otherwise would not have had. 25 In addition to thousands of Serbs, a few Croats and Slovenes joined the Ljotic party before the war and the Volunteer Detachments-later renamed the Volunteer Corps-during it. I believe they did so because of LjotiC's supposed integral Yugoslavism. But there is no reason to believe that if the latter had been put into practice, it would have been any different from the discredited Yugoslavism that served as a cloak for the Greater Serbianism of the Serbian-dominated regime in Yugoslavia in the interwar period. If we judge this question by LjotiC's proposals in memoranda to Prince Regent Paul on February 22 and August 30, 1940, it is clear that his Yugoslavism was a sham. In these memoranda, he advocated, among other things, immediately reorganizing the government according to his political views, abolishing Croatian autonomy, and dividing the Yugoslav army into contingents of Serbs augmented with Croatian and Slovene volunteers, which would be armed, and contingents of most Croats and Slovenes, which would serve as labor units and would not be armed. 26 Thus the non-Serbs would be formally second-class citizens. Further24 For favorable German references to Ljotic, see Veesenmayer's postwar interrogation, in Micr. No. 679, Roll 3, Fr. 641, and Gerhard Peine's report from Belgrade of December 3, 1941, to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in DGFP, 13: 947· See also Micr. No. TSOI, Roll249, Frs. 60-63. For his influence on Nedic, see Parezanin, Drugi svetski rat i Dimitrije V. Ljotic, pp. 34243· For Turner's remark, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll257, Fr. 1227. "For the public call for volunteers of the Serbian Volunteer Command on October 9, 1941, see YA, Mil. Hist., Nedic Govt. Docs., Reg. No. 5/9, 1-2, Box 27. For LjotiC's subsequent attack on Mihailovic, see "Draza Mihailovic and the Communists," in [Ljotic], Dimitrije Ljotic u revoluciji i ratu, pp. 306-19. 26 See Ljotic's memorandum to Prince Regent Paul of August 30, I 940, especially points b, c, d, i, j, and I (footnote 23).

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more, during the critical years of the war when even the Serbian Chetniks paid lip service to Yugoslavism-the official name of their forces was the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland-Ljotic, to my knowledge, never spoke in favor of it. The Volunteer Detachments and later Volunteer Corps were almost purely Serbian forces. Out of a total of about r 2,ooo members in their ranks, there were only about r so Croats27 and even fewer Slovenes. According to an order of the German commanding general on April ro, 1942, the volunteers were organized into nineteen detachments, designated Dr, D-2, and so on. Each detachment was assigned an area of operations and was subordinate to the German division located in that area. In areas occupied by Bulgarian army units, the detachments were subordinate to the German area or district command. They could not move out of their assigned area without German permission, and they had a German liaison officer with them in all operations.28 In December 1942, after several months of deliberation, the German military authorities changed this parallel organization to the traditional army organization of companies, battalions, and regiments. The Serbian Volunteer Detachments were renamed the Serbian Volunteer Corps and placed under the direct command of General Bader, commanding general in Serbia. The corps was in no sense an SS organization or formally part of the German armed forces. It received arms and ammunition from the Germans and the men were fed and clothed according to German army standards, but for the latter outlay the Germans were reimbursed by the Serbian government. The men were also paid by the Serbian government, at the same rate as the Serbian police. 29 Point 2 of the service oath of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, as revised in December 1942, stated that members would fight, to the death if necessary, both 27 Antic, "Croats in the Serbian Volunteers," pp. 430-48, especially p. 442. Some of these Croats were already in Serbia and others went there after hearing about the establishment of the Volunteer Detachments. 28 Micr. No. T-sor, Roll247, Frs. rr 18-19, and Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Fr. 142. 29 For the proposal by the commanding general in Serbia to reorganize the Serbian Volunteer Detachments and subordinate them to the German army, made to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe on November 7, 1942, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll352, Frs. 492-94. For the commanding general's order on December 23, 1942, on the formation ofthe Serbian Volunteer Corps, see Fr. 694. According to a report of the Abwehrstelle Belgrade, some young Serbs with Nazi views had expressed a willingness to fight in German forces against Bolshevism on the eastern front. The Wehrmacht Operations Staff (QU 5) answered on December 9, 1942: "The use of Serbs in the German Wehrmacht is out of the question." Wehrmacht Operations Staff to Abwehrstelle Belgrade, December 9, 1942, in Heinrich Himmler Collection, Box 8 (File 300), Hoover Institution Archives. Apparently, however, a small Serbian SS unit was later established by former Yugoslav army Lieutenant Strahinja Janjic, who reportedly was a German agent. But the unit never operated successfully; it was disbanded and Janjic was taken to Germany. See Kostic, Za istoriju nasih dana, pp. 61-62. For the outfitting and reimbursement of the corps, see Micr. No. T-sor, Roll 249, Frs. 142and285.

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the Communists and the Chetniks. 30 Due to the political indoctrination of the corps with LjotiC's ideas, Chetnik infiltration of their units was rare. And despite MihailoviC's accusation that the corps included a high percentage of Communists-in February 1943 he reported to the government-in-exile that 6o percent of corps members were Communists-! think that Communist infiltration was even rarer. 31 Ljotic himself had no control over the volunteers. General Nedic, as head of the Serbian puppet government, was the official commander in chief (until 1942), but the troops were at the disposal of the German commanding general in Serbia. Direct command was given to Colonel (later General) Kosta Musicki, a former officer in the Yugoslav army and a longtime supporter of the Zbor. 32 Most of the officers came from either the old Yugoslav army or the gendarmerie. One of LjotiC's most trusted lieutenants, Mihailo Olean, who was dropped from the Nedic cabinet in October 1942, became, on German insistence, a sort of political commissar of the corps in October 1943, enjoying complete German confidence and working as LjotiC's representative. 33 Among the volunteers, morale was high. Each company, battalion, and regiment had its own education officer, who taught and indoctrinated the soldiers and generally worked to maintain morale, much as political commissars did for Soviet forces and for Yugoslav Partisan troops. The Education Department, as it was called, was headed by Ratko Pardanin, LjotiC's longtime coworker and one of the founding members of the Zbor. In the ideology of the corps, Ljotic himself, through his philosophical and political pronouncements, was the guiding spirit. 34 3°For the volunteers' oath, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Fr. 64. They pledged to stay in the corps at least six months and to serve the cause of the Serbian people. "In a report on September 1, 1943, Colonel Musicki cited an instance in which a Volunteer Corps officer helped the Chetniks: one of his staff officers, apparently with the assistance of the Serbian State Guard, transferred a shipment of 50 machine guns to the followers of Chetnik commander Nikola Kalabic. Micr. No. T-sor, Roll 253, Fr. 195. For MihailoviC's accusation that many corps members were Communists, see Z. Knezevic, Why the Allies Abandoned the Yugoslav Army, p. 26. "Both Colonel Musicki and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Radoslav Tatalovic, were Serbs from outside Serbia and began their careers as officers in the Austro-Hungarian army. Micr. No. T-501, Roll26o, Fr. 422. ·13 Micr. No. T-501, Roll 253, Frs. 367 and 379· Ljotic withdrew his two representatives from Nedic's cabinet in October 1942 in order to avoid sharing responsibility for the unpopular and difficult economic measures, especially food policies, that Nedic was forced to take. See the report by Turner, chief of military administration in Serbia, for September and October 1942, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll3 52, Frs. 513-14. ·14 Pardanin, Drugi svetski rat i Dimitrije V. Ljotic, p. 4 58. Pardanin performed other functions for Ljotic as well, most importantly acting as liaison with Lieutenant Colonel Pavle Djurisic, commander of the Montenegrin Volunteer Corps after its establishment in the spring of 1944. Ibid., pp. 494-98. On the role of education officers, see Mitrovic, "The Education Service in the Volunteer Units," pp. 9-14. A politically didactic aspect, or better said, political religious preaching was characteristic of most of Ljotic's writings and pronouncements. For his sermon-like addresses to the volunteers during the war, see [Ljotic], Dimitrije Ljotic u revoluciji i ratu, pp. 34 7-60.

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The Serbian Volunteer Corps was the only group of armed Serbs during the war that the Germans trusted, and the units were often praised by German commanders for their valor in action. The Germans wanted to develop the corps as a nationalist group around national socialist ideology to serve as a counterweight to MihailoviC's Chetniks, but the corps was no more successful than the Zbor had been in acquiring a mass following. 35 The antagonism between LjotiC's forces and MihailoviC's Chetniks that developed in the fall of I94I lasted until almost the end of the war. Only in the final months, under the pressure of rising military difficulties, were there a few instances of cooperation between the two groups. In mid-September I 944, a corps unit saved Mihailovic and the Chetnik Supreme Command in northwest Serbia from capture by the Partisans, enabling them to withdraw to northeast Bosnia. During March and early April I945, Mihailovic and Ljotic exchanged messages on the possibility of a last-ditch alliance against the Partisans, though it was too late for this to be of any practical use. However, on March 27, I 94 5, General Miodrag Damjanovic, chief of the Forward Command of the Supreme Command, following an understanding between Mihailovic and Ljotic, took under his command all Ljotic and Chetnik forces in the Slovene Littoral. On April23 Ljotic was killed in an automobile accident. Early in May Damjanovic led the troops under his command into northeast Italy, where they were disarmed by the British and put in detention camps. Almost all remained abroad after the war, and the antagonism between them continued in exile. 36 The Russian Protective Corps was established at the same time as the Serbian Volunteer Detachments, in September I94I, and in the same way, that is, by an order of the military commander in Serbia in agreement with the Nedic government. The name-briefly at first the Separate Russian Corps (Das Abgesonderte Russische Korps) and for a year or so the Russian Factory Protective Group (Weissrussischer Werkschutz)-described its function and manpower. Originally it consisted of White Russians who had been living in Yugoslavia, primarily in Serbia, during the interwar period and who, because of their anti-Communism, volunteered on the German side. In the words of its first 35 For the good opinion of German commanders, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Frs. 6o63; Micr. No. T-5or, Roll 253, Frs. 936-37; Micr. No. T-501, Roll 256, Frs. 596 and 757· Only one detachment, D-r r, had to be disbanded in the summer of 1942 because of unreliability. Critics of the Volunteer Corps were found even among Nedic's ministers. Milorad Nedeljkovic, minister of economic affairs from October 1942 to the end of the Nedic regime, commented in January 1944 that the corps, as LjotiC's party army, was looked upon with suspicion by the population and therefore could never gain significant support among Serbs. But the Germans rejected his suggestion that the corps be reorganized and renamed the Serbian Home Guards or Serbian Militia. Micr. No. T-3 n, Roll286, Fr. 190. "For a Chetnik treatment of Ljotic and his movement, mostly on the war period in occpied Serbia, see Rasevic, Ogled o shvatanjima Dimitrija Ljotica, and Ivanovic, Ko su Ljoticevci?. For an instance of cooperation between the two groups, see footnote 3 r above and the reference cited there.

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commander, General Mikhail Fedorovich Skorodumov, after they had fulfilled their duty toward Serbia, the land that had welcomed them after the First World War, he was to lead them back to Russia. 37 Skorodumov was chosen by the Germans, but he was sick and old and not well known to the rank and file of Russian emigres. He was replaced within the first month by his chief of staff, General Boris Aleksandrovich Steifon, who held the position until his death shortly before the end of the war. The German officer who was instrumental in organizing the Russian Factory Protective Group was Colonel Erich Kewisch, chief of staff of the military commander in Serbia. Recruitment and screening were carried out by the head of the Russian Intelligence Office (Vertrauensstelle) in Serbia, Major General Kreyter, a White Russian who must have earlier been in German service. The original plans were modest: a force of some 3,ooo officers and men, organized in three regiments, to protect industrial enterprises and mines producing for the Germans. The group was under the jurisdiction of the plenipotentiary for economic affairs in Serbia, but the cost of its outfitting and maintenance was borne by the Serbian government. However, within a year the force had grown to more than twice its original size and its responsibilities had been enlarged. 38 As early as May 1942 Kewisch recommended a reorganization of the Russian Factory Protective Group and its closer affiliation with the Wehrmacht. After much additional consideration, on October 29, 1942, the German Army High Command ordered the reorganization of the group, renaming it the Russian Protective Corps and subordinating it in all respects to the commanding general in Serbia. 39 By December, the size of the corps was around 7,500 men, all Russians, though some members came from areas of southeast Europe other than Serbia. The command language was Russian. German liaison officers were assigned to work with the Russian (former tsarist) officers. After the reorganization, a few Germans were added to each unit to ensure full German con37 See his order of September u, 1941, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll246, Frs. 3 10-u. For a general report on White Russian emigres in Yugoslavia (estimated at about 1o,ooo men, the majority in Serbia), prepared by the Abwehrstelle Belgrade on October 27, 1941, see Micr. No. T-3 12, Roll4 70, Frs. 8,o6o,o17-25. Of those emign!s who had been officers in the Yugoslav army or were specialists such as engineers and physicians, a small number joined the Mihailovic Chetniks, the Croatian army, or the Yugoslav Partisans. "According to a report of May 9, 1942, Colonel Kewisch thought that if he were permitted to recruit in all areas of Europe under German control, he could create a force of 25,000 men. He also recommended reorganizing the unit and tying it more closely to the Wehrmacht. Micr. No. T-501, Roll 248, Frs. 55-56. For a history of the corps as seen by its veterans, see Vertepov, Russkii Korpus na Balkanah. For the burden on the Serbs to outfit and maintain the corps, see Micr. No. T-uo, Roll 5786, Fr. H301,083. And for its expansion, see the letter of SS Obergruppenfiihrer Karl Wolff of November 30, 1942, to Martin Luther, undersecretary in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Fr. H3o1,182. "See Micr. No. T-501, Roll257, Fr. 1192 and Micr. No. T-501, Roll352, Frs. 66-68, 787-92, and 8o6-7.

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trol and better training and command, and generally the corps became more closely tied to the German forces than it had been. Like the units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the units of the Russian Protective Corps were subordinated to the German division in whose area they were deployed and to the respective German area or district command in Bulgarian-occupied areas. Unlike the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Russian Protective Corps was a full-fledged part of the German armed forces and its members took the oath of allegiance to the German Fiihrer. 40 In addition to recruiting Russian emigres from areas outside of Serbia and Yugoslavia, since the supply there was necessarily limited, the corps also made an attempt to expand its size by taking in Russian prisoners of war. This strategy was decided upon in December 1942 at the time of the reorganization. In March of the following year some 3oo Soviet prisoners were transferred to the corps, but apparently with so little success that the program was not repeated. There is no record of how many emigres were persuaded to volunteer by promises, made after December 1942, that they would receive preferential treatment in obtaining land in Russia after the war, when it was assumed that the Communist regime would collapse. 41 The third German auxiliary force in Serbia, launched in late May 1942, was the Auxiliary Police Troop, composed solely of Russian Volksdeutsche and "of Russians who in their sentiments stood near to the German people." The size of the unit was to be around 400 men, recruited not only in Serbia but also in Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania. The chief of the Ordnungspolizei in Berlin was kept informed about the troop and put the necessary training personnel at the disposal of General Meyszner, higher SS and police leader in Serbia. Very little was heard about this small force during the remainder of the war, and I have not been able to determine even its exact size, but probably it was not much larger than originally planned. 42 In all, by mid-1943 the Germans had under their command in Serbia, other than their own and Bulgarian army and police forces, between 25,000 and 3o,ooo officers, noncommissioned officers, and men in the Serbian State Guard, the Frontier Guard, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, the Russian Protec40Micr. No. T-501, Roll352, Frs. 533 and 754· For an interesting report on the Russian Factory Protective Group just before it was reorganized, see Meyszner's letter of October 23, 1942, to Himmler, in Heinrich Himmler Collection, Box 4 (File 272), Hoover Institution Archives. 41 Micr. No. T-501, Roll3 p, Frs. 647, 754, 78o-8r. See another letter from Meyszner to Himmler of March 24, 1943, on the Russian Protective Corps, with his comments on the 300 former Red Army men assigned to it, in Heinrich Himmler Collection, Box 4 (File 272), Hoover Institution Archives. 42The establishment of the unit and the international political questions that were raised because of recruitment for it in several countries led to a voluminous correspondence between Meyszner and the SS Chief Office in Berlin and between this office and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For our purposes it is sufficient to consult Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5786, Frs. H301,o8r-82, H3or,roo-ro2, and H3or,r8r-84.

193

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tive Corps, and the Auxiliary Police Troop. After September 1943, the Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Russian Protective Corps were allowed to enlarge their effectives. But the reversals suffered by the Germans on various fronts and stiffer opposition from the Chetniks hampered recruiting for the Serbian Volunteer Corps. According to a German report on January 7, 1944, the great majority of new recruits for the corps were draftees, not volunteers. Since the Germans relied on highly trained officers to build quality in a corps, and such officers were not available-professional Serbian officers were considered too much of a risk-growth and training lagged. The Russian Protective Corps was allowed to recruit in all southeast European states, at the discretion of those states, but lack of funds and lack of potential recruits hampered the undertaking. Despite these difficulties, however, both corps managed to greatly increase their complements. Data prepared by the staff of Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs, commander in chief in southeast Europe, for his report to Hitler on August 22, I944, show that the effectives of the Serbian Volunteer Corps amounted at that time to five regiments with 9,886 officers and men and those of the Russian Protective Corps to five regiments with I I, I 8 8 officers and men. Of the latter, only the newer regiments, composed of younger men, were usable for frontline fighting. 43 As auxiliaries, the Chetnik detachments of Pecanac and the legalized Chetnik units formerly under the command of Mihailovic were in a unique position. They were organized not by the Serbian government or the German occupation forces, but by individuals with no official standing, and were then taken over by the Serbian government. The first volume of this study, The Chetniks, explains the origin of these two kinds of Chetnik units in detail, and I refer the reader to that account. We are concerned here with these Chetniks' rather brief participation in the fighting forces of the Serbian puppet government. Pecanac's detachments were taken on as auxiliaries in August I94I, when the Communist-led uprising was growing. The Mihailovic units that legalized themselves became German auxiliaries in November I94I, when the uprising was nearly crushed. By December, the Germans were already having second thoughts about using the Chetniks. 44 They were concerned about the quantity of arms in the hands of Serbs, most of whom, with the exception of Ljotic and his party army, they did not trust. They also saw no need to maintain such sizable forces after the uprising had been quelled. Moreover, early in January Micr. No. T-5or, Rol1352, Frs. 85o-5r; Micr. No. T-5or, Roll253, Frs. 29,582, and 6r3; Micr. No. T-3rr, Roll r95, Fr. 974· According to Vertepov, Russkii Korpus na Balkanah, p. 405, Romania was the most important source of new recruits for the Russian Protective Corps; of its rr,r97 officers, noncommissioned officers, and men on September r2, r944, no fewer than 5,067 came from Romania (perhaps including Bessarabia-the source is unclear). There were 3,r98 from Serbia. The remainder, including the 3 I4 former Red Army men, were from other areas. 44 Micr. No. T-5or, Rol1256, Frs. rr50-53· 43

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1942, large Bulgarian forces moved into Serbia for occupation duty. The Germans realized that the manpower of the two Serbian groups would be more useful to them in the labor force, either in Serbia or Germany. For the time being, however, they decided to maintain both groups at full strength. At the peak of their strength in mid-May 1942, the two Chetnik auxiliary forces numbered 13,400 officers, noncommissioned officers, and men. 45 In the same fashion as the Serbian Volunteer Detachments, the Mihailovic and Pecanac detachments were given unit numbers according to an order of the commanding general in Serbia on April 10, 1942, designations C-20 to C-3 8 for MihailoviC's Chetniks and C-39 to C-101 for Pecanac's Chetniks. The detachments were put under the command of the German garrisoning divisions in whose areas they operated or under the command of the German area or district commands in Bulgarian-occupied parts of Serbia. No unit could leave its area without prior permission of the division or area command. German liaison officers accompanied the detachments during all operations. Requests for arms and ammunition for these detachments were submitted by the division or area command, with their comments, to the commanding general in Serbia, who made all such decisions. During the summer of 1942, some Chetnik detachments and even one of the Serbian Volunteer Detachments were dissolved, but full-scale disarming did not start until late September 1942, as a result of the combined actions of the Nedic government and the German occupation administration. First most of the legalized Mihailovic detachments were dissolved and then most of the Pecanac detachments. By the end of 1942, all but two of these auxiliary detachments with a total of about 12,ooo men had been dissolved. 46 The last two detachments, one from each group, were dissolved in March 1943· The manpower thus freed was used in various ways. Some men were reassigned, either to the Serbian State Guard or the Serbian Volunteer Corps. Others were put at the disposal of the authorities who recruited workers for industrial and mining enterprises producing for the Germans. Still others returned to agricultural work in their villages. A number of officers who were regarded as security risks were sent to prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. But a very large number of both officers and men-perhaps as many as half the total-seeing what was happening to their comrades-in-arms as the process of dissolution advanced, deserted and made their way to the hills to throw in their lot with the illegal Chetnik detachments of General Mihailovic. THE BULGARIAN ARMY IN SERBIA

In addition to using the auxiliary troops we have just described to help them put down the uprising, the Germans also used the Bulgarian army to help keep 4

'Micr. No. T-501, Roll3 52, Fr. 809. Micr. No. T-501, Rol1352, Frs. 572-74; Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Fr. 61.

46

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the peace. The Germans did not at first envision a major role for the Bulgarians in Serbia. In April I94I, after Yugoslavia had surrendered, Bulgaria, in accordance with Hitler's grand plan, was allowed to annex a large amount of Yugoslav territory, including the better part of Yugoslav Macedonia, a small section of the Kosovo region, part of southeast Serbia, and a narrow strip of land along Serbia's eastern frontier (see Map I). In southeast Serbia, the Bulgarian 29th Division and the necessary police and administrative cadres took over, and Bulgarization proceeded there along much the same lines as it did in the Bulgarian-annexed part of Macedonia (see Chapter 4). Late in the first year of occupation, after the uprising in Serbia had finally been quelled by troops brought from France and the Russian front, Hitler and his senior command decided that Serbia could be policed mainly by Bulgarian forces, so that frontline German troops could be transferred to places where the need was greater. In early January I942, following Hitler's Directive 39a of December I 5, I 94 I, the German I I 3th Infantry Division returned to the Russian front and the 342nd Infantry Division was sent temporarily to the Independent State of Croatia for operations against the Partisans. The German armed forces commander in southeast Europe arranged with the Bulgarian Ministry of War for Bulgarian troops to occupy about 40 percent of Serbia proper (that is, excluding the Banat), under overall German control. 47 Map 3 shows the Yugoslav areas that were occupied and annexed by Bulgaria in the course of the war. The basic terms of the arrangement were contained in two German documents, the Order to the Bulgarian Ist Occupation Corps in Nis, issued by General Paul Bader, plenipotentiary commanding general in Serbia (and subsequently commanding general and military commander), on January I6, I942, and the Directive on Relations Between the Bulgarian Occupation Troops in Serbia and the Service Posts of the German Armed Forces in Serbia, issued by the German Armed Forces High Command on January I?, I942. These orders-the second in essence repeated the provisions of the first-made clear the position of the Bulgarian army doing occupation duty in Serbia and its relationship to the German occupation authorities, the Serbian administrative apparatus, and the Serbian population at large. 48 The order of January I 6 provided for the Bulgarian Ist Occupation Corps, consisting of three divisions that had begun moving into Serbia on December 3 I, to occupy the roughly circular area from just south of the Bor copper mine on the north to the Bulgarians' annexed territory on the south and from the Ibar River on the west to the old and new Bulgarian borders on the east (A on Map 3). The territory remained under German sovereignty, but Bulgarian rather than German troops were responsi4 'Germany, Wehrmacht, Oberkommando, Hitlers Weisungen, p. 175; "Wisshaupt Report," pp. 93-97 (see Chapter 2, footnote 43, about this report). 4 'For Bader's order ofJanuary 16, 1942, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll247, Frs. 727-29, and for the directive ofJanuary 17, 1942, see Micr. No. T-77, Rol1884, Frs. 5,633,891-93·

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ble for security. Bulgarian forces were under the command of the German military commander in Serbia, a position that had been vacated by General Franz Bohme in December and that was assumed by Bader in February. The principal task of the Bulgarian troops was to safeguard the railroadsespecially the Belgrade-Nis-Sofia and Nis-Skopje lines-the main highways, and the main industrial enterprises, mines, and supply centers. The administration of the railroads and the maintenance of peace and order on them were the duties of the Serbian state authorities, and Bulgarian and German soldiers could not interfere, though if the Serbs' forces proved insufficient for the task, German area commands were to ask the Bulgarian army for assistance. In this work, the closest cooperation was required among the Serbs, the German area commands, and Bulgarian troops. People arrested and arms captured in such operations were to be turned over to the area commands. When conditions required Bulgarian troops to engage in active operations against the rebels, they were to inform the German authorities of all planned operations involving battalion-size or larger forces. Political control, in areas occupied by Bulgarian troops, remained exclusively in the hands of German area and district commands, which supervised the Serbian civilian administration. The German commands assisted the Bulgarian troops in all administrative matters, because the latter were not supposed to deal directly with the Serbian authorities. All announcements to the civilian population were made through the German military commands. German military courts were responsible for prosecuting and punishing Serbs who had committed crimes against the Bulgarian forces. All actions by the Bulgarians involving taking or shooting hostages or requesting food from civilians required the prior approval of the German commanding general in Serbia. The Bulgarians were primarily responsible for supplying their own troops, though the German authorities were to give advice. To facilitate cooperation between the Bulgarian and German occupation authorities, special liaison officers were appointed. The Bulgarian Ist Occupation Corps was to submit daily reports on its activities and the enemy situation to the German commanding general in Serbia. Other documents show that German area and district commands, as well as German police and economic officials in areas occupied by Bulgarian forces, remained in full operation and whenever necessary cooperated with Bulgarian command posts. 49 The order of January 17 was issued to iron out difficulties between the Germans and the Bulgarians, following a second meeting between them at which the Bulgarian commanders seemed dissatisfied with and professed themselves not able to fully understand the order of January 16. The Bulgarians specifically objected to German military courts having jurisdiction over Serbian citizens committing offenses against Bulgarian soldiers, but the Germans in49

Micr. No. T-501, Rol1264, Fr. 210.

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sisted that they had sovereign rights in the occupied areas and therefore also jurisdiction in such cases. After the second meeting, however, the German commanding general in Serbia issued a number of additional regulations and explanations on the maintenance, financing, and prerogatives of the Bulgarian troops, amplifying the basic regulations of the January r6 order. One additional provision was that German forces were made responsible for protecting a series of industrial enterprises and coal mines in the area producing for the Germans. 5° In so carefully specifying the duties of the Bulgarians in Serbia, the Germans were no doubt primarily interested in avoiding trouble with their ally in the future. But they may also have wanted to allay General NediC's apprehension about the presence of Bulgarian troops there. Nedic strongly protested Germany's decision to bring in Bulgarian troops for occupation duty, and he was so fearful about how they might act toward the populace that he threatened to resign and even to kill himself. On December 3 r, 1941, Bader attempted to placate him by suggesting to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe that Bulgarian troops be limited to one division, with another to be brought in only in the event of new disorders, and that the towns of Kragujevac and Zajecar not be occupied by them. This would have left the Kragujevac-Kraljevo railroad line (Kraljevo was the seat of a German divisional command) and the Bor-Zajecar line (over which Bar copper was transported) in German hands, and would have satisfied one of NediC's special requests.51 But Bader's suggestion was disregarded, and three Bulgarian divisions were brought in as scheduled. Nedic did not resign, but the presence of Bulgarian troops in Serbia was a heavy political burden for him to bear and he continued to ask for their removal. Hitler and senior Wehrmacht officers had no intention of withdrawing Bulgarian troops to please Nedic. Already in January 1942, they were making plans to enlarge the area of Bulgarian occupation at an early date. Again they brushed aside Bader's objections. 52 The area in which the Bulgarians served as occupation troops was expanded on two later occasions. In January 1943, the Bulgarians occupied the area (Bon Map 3) that had been held for some three months by the 7th SS Volunteer Division "Prinz Eugen," which was transferred to Croatia for the impending Operation Weiss against the Partisans. 53 Early in July 1943, the Bulgarian 25th Division took over the area (Con Map 3) previously held by the German 297th Infantry Division, bringing the total strength 50 Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1247, Frs. 746-48 and 733-38. "In his letter, Bader reported on NediC's reaction to the introduction of Bulgarian troops in Serbia, discussed the implications of this move, and suggested not proceeding with the earlier plans. Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1256, Frs. II4I-42. "See Bader's letter to the armed forces commander in southeast Europe of January I9, I942, in Micr. No. T-50I, Roll257, Frs. II I I-I3. 53 Kriegstagebuch, 3, pt. I: 36.

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

of the Bulgarian Ist Occupation Corps to four divisions. Thereafter, only the agriculturally rich northwest corner of the country, the immediate area around Belgrade, the area around the Bor copper mines in the northeast, and a strip along the Danube River in the Iron Gate area from Ram (west ofVeliko Gradiste) to Turnu Severin, about I 50 kilometers long, were under exclusive German control. The rest of Serbia proper (excluding the Banat), about 8o percent of the country, was occupied by Bulgarian forces. From the German point of view, the main task of the Bulgarian occupation troops was to maintain peace and order and to relieve German forces for service in other theaters of war. Maintaining peace and order meant controlling guerrilla activity, which was usually done by the Bulgarian forces acting in cooperation with German army and police units and Serbian quisling forces. Since the Chetniks had an incomparably larger following in Serbia than the Partisans until the concluding weeks of German rule, the Bulgarians considered them to be potentially more dangerous than the Partisans until the middle or even end of I 94 3. They kept strict watch over them and on several occasions suggested that the Germans arrest various Chetnik leaders. In the fall of I943, when the Germans began making armistice agreements with Chetnik commanders, the Bulgarians cooperated, but when the "new policy" ran into difficulties early in February I944, they came out against the extension of such agreements. 54 On several occasions, the Bulgarians supplied troops for German operations against the Partisans. The Bulgarian 6Ist Regiment participated in Operation Schwarz in May and June I943· The Bulgarians also contributed a large part of the forces in combined operations against the 2nd and 5th Partisan Divisions that penetrated deep into Serbia in April and May I944 and were successfully turned back into Sandzak (Operation Kammerjager). In these operations, the Bulgarian 24th Division supplied the bulk of the forces, though the Germans were not satisfied with their performance. 5 5 Relations between the Bulgarian forces and the Serbian population were strained. The Serbs had not forgotten the draconian rule imposed by the Bulgarians during the First World War in areas under their occupation, and the Bulgarians made no effort to change that impression. Particularly in operations against the Partisans, the Bulgarians burned their share of villages, deported people to Bulgaria or to labor camps, and seized crops and livestock from peasants beyond the scope of their legal obligations. 56 14 For the Bulgarians' suggestion to arrest Chetniks leaders, see the report by General Asen Nikolov, commander of the Bulgarian 1st Occupation Corps, to the German commanding general in Serbia in late September 1942, in Micr. No. T-sor, Roll 257, Frs. 1174-80. For their opposition to the armistice agreements between the Germans and the Chetniks, see Micr. No. T-sor, Rol1256, Fr. 16. 55There were several reasons for German dissatisfaction: lack of discipline, poor com· manding cadres, inadequate preparation for attack operations, and in a few cases, even the disposal of arms and surrender to the Partisans. Micr. No. T-sor, Rol1256, Frs. 663-64. "See Popovic, "The Bulgarian Army in Occupied Serbia (1941-1944)." This article was

I99

200

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

The attitude of Bulgarian commanders in Serbia toward the Serbian puppet government and population in the early period of Bulgarian occupation can be seen in a speech made by Colonel Ivan Malinov, commander of the Bulgarian 6th Division, in Cuprija on February 25, 1942. Clearly, he had no intention of coddling the Serbs: The population hates the Germans and the Bulgarians equally. People's behavior depends exclusively on the strength of the occupation forces and the strictness with which they are dealt. All people are our enemies. Nedic is not the right man for the government. The Serbian gendarmerie cannot be trusted. The [Pecanac] Chetniks are completely unsafe. In the beginning there was some friction with German troops because the Germans were taken in by Serbian intrigue. One must not believe anything the Serbs say. The county prefects and [rural] mayors, not we, must name the necessary number of hostages. The mayors should prepare lists of all unreliable men and all men in the hills. All Chetniks are unreliable, and their detachments should be disarmed immediately, because at a later date this will be impossible to do. County prefects ... and mayors should be made responsible for everything that goes wrong in their respective areas. All gun permits are to be withdrawn and new ones issued on the basis of very strict standards. Thereafter, whoever is found to possess arms without a new permit is to be killed. Nedic should be given only until April r, 1942, to pacify the country. If he fails, then the Bulgarians should take matters into their own hands and proceed ruthlessly against all those who possess arms without new gun permits. One should carry on active propaganda by posters and over the radio, especially pointing to successes against the insurgents. All radio receivers in the hands of the public must be confiscated. The people listen as a rule only to London and Moscow radio and not to what Radio Belgrade says. 57

Toward the end of 1942, the Bulgarian intelligence service, through skillful work, succeeded in penetrating the organization of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia inNis and in February 1943 arrested several of its leaders. It then proceeded to work against CPY organizations in the remainder of its occupation area. 58 On its side, the CPY and the Yugoslav Partisans had a standing policy of directing propaganda at Bulgarian officers and soldiers, urging them to turn against their own government and the senior officers who had put their country and army in the service of Hitler against their neighbors and brother Slavs, the Serbs. But Communist propaganda met with little success, partly because it ran counter to the policy of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, which cautioned its members and sympathizers in the Bulgarian army not to join the Partisans in the hills, but to work within the armed forces to bring them to the Communist side en bloc when the opportunity arose. In the closing days of the pro-Nazi Bulgarian regime, in late August and early September 1944, German written in 19 52 at a time of great tension between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and is somewhat polemical as a result. So is the treatment of the same subject in Mitrovski, Glisic, and Ristovski, Bugarska vojska u ]ugoslaviji, pp. 3 5-42 and 94-114. See also Kulic, Bugarska okupacija, I94I-I944, 1:97-195. 17This is taken from a German report, in Micr. No. T-501, Rol1247, Frs. 87s-8o. "Popovic, "The Bulgarian Army in Occupied Serbia (1941-1944)," 19 52, no. 4: 44-45.

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

troops in Serbia disarmed a large part of the Bulgarian occupation forces and apparently took possession of the heavy equipment from all forces. The Chetniks also disarmed some units and the Partisans others, while some units remained intact. The whole former occupation army subsequently returned to Bulgaria. 59 After the change in the Bulgarian regime on September 9, 1944, and the organization of the new Bulgarian army, part of its forces, as described in Chapter 4, were brought to Yugoslavia and participated with Partisan forces in operations against the Germans. However, most Bulgarian forces operated under Soviet command against the Germans in Hungary. THE SPECIAL OCCUPATION REGIME IN THE BANAT

In the Yugoslav Banat, the Germans established a special occupation regime administered by the strong local German minority. In so doing they not only solved the troublesome problem of who, the Hungarians or the Romanians, would occupy or annex the Yugoslav portion of the Banat, but also secured for their own use the rich agricultural resources of the area. At the same time they satisfied the demands of the German minority itself. 60 The Yugoslav Volksdeutsche in the Banat, Backa, Baranja, Slavonia, and Srijem, as well as the rather small minority in Slovenia, was well organized in the interwar period. In June 1920, shortly after the formation of the new state, they established a central cultural and social organization, the SchwabischDeutscher Kulturbund, which had as its slogan "True to the State and the People," that is, true to the Yugoslav state and the Volksdeutsche. In December 1922, some months after they acquired the right to vote, they established their own political party and began to participate as an independent voting bloc in national elections. Usually they were able to send five to eight representatives to 59 Mitrovski, Glisic, and Ristovski, Bugarska vojska u Jugoslaviji, pp. I 59-97. There were of course isolated instances of individual Bulgarian officers and soldiers going over to the Partisans. And in May I944, two Bulgarian companies deserted to the Partisans in the area of Lehane in southern Serbia. Micr. No. T-50I, Roll256, Frs. 770 and 863. 60 According to the Yugoslav census of March 3 I, 193 r, there were 489,943 people in Yugoslavia whose mother tongue was German, excluding ro,o26 Jews but including 17,6I4 citizens of other countries. Adjusted by German writers to historical provinces, the German minority, excluding the Jews, was divided as follows: 169,776 in Backa, 15,682 in Baranja, n8,576 in the Banat, 48,8o6 in eastern Srijem, 77,731 in Croatia-Slavonia, 28,833 in Slovenia, 9,8r8 in Belgrade, 14,979 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 5,742 in other areas. Das Schicksal der Deutschen in ]ugoslawien, p. nE. Confessionally, 78.3 percent were Roman Catholic, 20.6 percent were Protestant, and r.r percent were other religions. Ibid., p. 19E. For detailed information on the German minority in Yugoslavia, see also Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v ]ugoslaviji; Wuescht, ]ugoslawien und das Dritte Reich; and Paikert, The Danube Swabians, pp. 263-9r.

201

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THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

the Yugoslav parliament. 61 At about the same time they also organized anumber of agricultural, credit, and health care cooperatives. The political, cultural, and economic center of the Vojvodina (Banat, Backa, and Baranja) and Srijem Germans was Novi Sad, with a population in 1941 of about 64,000 people, of whom some ro,ooo were Germans. The center of the Slavonian Germans was Osijek, with a population in 1941 of about 36,ooo people, of whom somewhat over 7,ooo were Germans. Until the late 193o's, the leadership of the Volksdeutsche organizations was conservative and hardworking, cooperating with the government in Belgrade and seeking to improve the economic and cultural status of the German minority. But after the rise of Hitler, most younger members of the minority, many of whom attended German universities, became converted to Nazi ideology and fell under the influence of Berlin. These young people, eager to spread their ideas, challenged the leadership of the older conservatives. In the ensuing political struggle, the Nazi-oriented younger group, with a good deal of help from Himmler's organization, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI), swept away the old leadership. Although the militant wing of the younger group favored an outspoken Nazi named Jakob Awender to head the national group, the VOMI prudently decided upon a middle-of-the-road candidate, Sepp Janko, a politician and lawyer, in order not to antagonize the Yugoslav government and jeopardize Germany's relations with a friendly state. Janko's position was further strengthened by his election as the leader of the Kulturbund. Under his direction, a restaffed and revitalized organization, embracing numerous political, cultural, and economic societies of one sort or another, embarked upon a program of Nazi-oriented political mobilization. It was not long before it had drawn in almost the entire German minority in Yugoslavia. 62 Janko and his associates made no secret of their hope that after Germany invaded Yugoslavia, the areas with strong Volksdeutsche populations would "Brucker, Deutsche Spuren in Be/grad, pp. I79-86. 62 For the change in the political leadership of the German minority in I939, see Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji, pp. I67-2Io. For the views of Janko's assistant, Johann Wuescht, on the German minority in Yugoslavia, including its relation to the Reich and its development during and fate after the war, see his ]ugoslawien und das Dritte Reich, pp. 247-85. Wuescht, who apparently left Yugoslavia in I944, strongly favored the Germans and German minority against the Yugoslavs. For the political mobilization of the minority under Janko's leadership, see the report, "Die deutsche Volksgruppe in Jugoslawien," prepared by the staff of the Reichsbauernfuhrer (Reich peasant leader) early in I94I, in Micr. No. T-84, Roll I04, Frs. I,398,832-41. It also gives information on the minority's new political and economic leadership and its various economic organizations throughout Yugoslavia. See also Janko, Reden und Aufsatze, pp. 505 I, who asserted that by the summer of I940, there were 30o,ooo Kulturbund members and plans existed to bring in another 2oo,ooo by the end of the year. In Belgrade alone, Kulturbund membership (including family members) rose from 280 in I933, to I,248 in I938, to 2,8I8 in I940, and to 5,784 shortly before the invasion in April I94I. Brucker, Deutsche Spuren in Be/grad, p. I 89.

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

be made a separate political unit and an integral part of (or at least closely linked to) the Reich. They reasoned that since the Danube River was the economic lifeline of the whole area, the Reich must have complete control over its entire course. These grandiose ideas were shared by some important officials in the German government and the Nazi Party. The heart of the scheme was control of Belgrade because of its strategic location and commanding position over the Danube waterway. From Belgrade the Germans could also easily control the rich mining areas (of copper and coal) of northeast Serbia, as well as the approaches to the central Balkans. Consequently, Belgrade was to be developed into a Reich Fortress. 63 A separate political unit of Yugoslav Germans, however, was not created. Hitler's decision to dismember Yugoslavia after the conquest effectively divided the Volksdeutsche among four different state jurisdictions: Germanoccupied Serbia (the Yugoslav Banat), Hungarian-annexed areas (Backa and Baranja), the Independent State of Croatia (Srijem and Slavonia), and the German-occupied part of Slovenia. The Germans living in the Italian-annexed part of Slovenia, mainly in the enclave of Kocevje (Gottschee), 13,ooo or J4,0oo people, were resettled in the German-occupied part in the homes and on the farms of those Slovenes who had been resettled in the Reich or expelled to Croatia and Serbia.•• The dismemberment of Yugoslavia and therefore also the division of the German minority was dictated by the temporary political interests of the Third Reich, and the Yugoslav Germans could only acquiesce. 65 What their future role might be in the overall scheme of the "New Order" in Europe was to be decided after Germany had won the war. "Janko's views on the critical position of the Danube and the strategic importance of the Danube Basin for the German Reich were expressed in a speech, "Volkwerdung der Deutschen in Siidslawien," delivered in Munich in October I940. See Reden und Aufsiitze, especially pp. 54-60. See also the telegram of the German envoy in Hungary, Otto von Erdmannsdorff, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 9, I94I, in Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5783, Frs. H297,774-75. On Nazi plans for the incorporation of Belgrade and northern and eastern Serbia into a German-controlled Danube Basin political unit, see Wehler, "'Reichsfestung Belgrad,"' pp. 72-84. These plans were inspired by the conquests of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the great Austrian military leader of the early eighteenth century, who wrested much of the Danubian plains, as well as Belgrade and most of northern Serbia, from the Ottoman Empire. Belgrade and much of northern Serbia were subsequently occupied by Austrian troops from I7I8 (the Treaty of Pozarevac [Passarowitz]) to I739 (the Treaty of Belgrade), when they reverted to Ottoman control. 64 Das Schicksal der Deutschen in Jugoslawien, pp. 82E-83E. According to the census by the Italian authorities, there were I3,58o Volksdeutsche in the annexed part of Slovenia on July 3 I, 194I, that is, prior to their resettlement. Micr. No. T-s86, Roll424, Fr. I2,I43· 65 The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs order of May II, I94I, defined the policy precisely: all displaced Volksdeutsche in southeast Europe had to return to their original domiciles, and other Volksdeutsche were prohibited from moving, under any pretext, from areas under non-German rule or occupied by non-German forces to areas under German occupation. Micr. No. T-soi, Roll249, Fr. I029.

203

THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF SERBIA

Only a small number of Volksdeutsche of military age in Yugoslavia had been called up into Yugoslav military units and a somewhat larger number into military labor battalions before the invasion of the country. The military coup of March 27, 1941, caught the German minority by surprise and uncertain about what course of action to follow. As a precaution, Janko visited the ban of Banovina Danube to express his congratulations on King Peter II's assumption of full power and sent a telegram to the king expressing his loyalty. He also ordered the Volksdeutsche organizations to cease their political activity. 66 But on March 28 the German envoy in Belgrade was advised by Berlin that the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle had received orders to make it known confidentially to those members of the German minority in Yugoslavia who might be called to the colors that they were to desert at the first opportunity and attempt to reach German territory, if necessary by way of Hungary. 67 On March 29 Janko asked the Abwehr in Graz to inform him about plans for the invasion of Yugoslavia so that the German minority could prepare for action. On April6 Janko put the entire German minority at the disposal, for military purposes, of the Abwehr organization Jupiter. 68 The chief task of the Yugoslav Volksdeutsche at the time of the invasion was to act as a fifth column. Under Janko's direction, German men had been organized into a sports group, the Deutsche Mannschaft. Overnight it was converted into a paramilitary organization that collaborated with German forces entering the Banat from Romania and with those entering Slovenia, Croatia, and Slavonia from Austria and western Hungary. 69 As noted in Chapter 4, the German minority in Backa and Baranja was disappointed when the area was invaded by Hungarian rather than German troops, but it eventually reached an accommodation with the new rulers. 70 The breakup of Yugoslavia meant a change in the administrative structure ''Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji, p. 262. See also Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5783, Fr. H297,812. ' 7 Micr. No. T-120, Roll5783, Fr. H297,816. "See the references to these prewar days in the Kriegstagebuch der Abwehr (conducted by Erwin von Lahousen, chief of Section II of the Abwehr from 1938 to mid-1943), as given in Jong, The German Fifth Column, p. 233. See also Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji, pp. 261-64. "On the fifth-column activity of the German minority in Yugoslavia, see Biber, Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji, pp. 211-67, and Vegh, "German Occupation in the Yugoslav Banat," pp. 497. 547-48. 7399,644. ''Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5794, Frs. H3o7,679-8I; Micr. No. T-77, Roll I298, Fr. 254; Micr. No. T-84, Roll 105, Fr. 1,399,695. 74 Micr. No. T-84, Roll Io5, Fr. I,399,6o6.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART I

not supplying any bauxite at all, either because the mines were in Partisan hands or because transportation problems could not be overcome. For more bauxite to be shipped from Croatia, the memorandum continued, it would be necessary to make additional investments in the mines and above all to secure militarily the remaining mining areas and transportation routes. Since an order from Hitler to increase bauxite output in Croatia had existed for some time, the memorandum provided information on the needed investments. It also noted that Germany's bauxite consumption amounted to about 1.5 million metric tons annually and that planned production in western Hungary, Germany's main source of bauxite throughout the war, would be between I .2 and I ·4 million metric tons. Actual Hungarian supplies at that time, however, were about 50 percent of planned production. The Planning Office asked whether it should do something about Croatian bauxite or concentrate all its efforts on Hungary/5 On November I6, I944, Field Marshal Keitel, in a telegram to the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions, pointed out that troops withdrawing from Greece and elsewhere in the Balkans could provide security for the production and shipment of bauxite in Croatia and suggested that production be increased both in the Mostar area and in western Bosnia/6 It may be assumed that Keitel was already worried about the danger that advancing Soviet troops posed to the bauxite mines in western Hungary. The final decision about bauxite supplies for Germany was reached at a meeting on December 7, I944, at the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions. The experts reaffirmed the fact that the Independent State of Croatia, from the point of view of both production and transportation, could no longer be counted on as a source. They suggested that further measures be undertaken to secure the shipment of Istrian bauxite. However, they concluded that "basically the best way of securing bauxite supplies for Germany consisted in so militarily holding the Hungarian bauxite fields, especially the great mines of Gant and Jszka, that the production and shipment of bauxite from these areas could be safeguarded." Also, the accumulated ore at these mines amounted to between I 6o,ooo and I 7o,ooo metric tons. 77 High-quality iron ore was mined at Ljubija in northwest Bosnia and near Yard in central Bosnia. However, mine installations at Ljubija and the railroad facilities serving it were wrecked several times by the Partisans, and production and shipment of ore to the Greater Reich and to some extent to Hungary suf75 For the meeting on September 24, 1944, see Micr. No. T-84, Roll 105, Frs. 1,399,65861. A month later, about 25o,ooo metric tons of bauxite, at mines, railroad stations, and ports in the Independent State of Croatia, were waiting to be shipped; see Frs. 1,399,624-25. Except for a token shipment in November 1944, none of it reached the Reich. For the Planning Office memorandum, see Germany, Federal Republic of, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Catalogue No. R 7, Document File No. 1033. 76 Micr. No. T-84, Roll 105, Fr. 1,399,610. 77Micr. No. T-84, Roll 105, Frs. 1,399,605-6.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART I

fered badly. Since the Germans were very interested in this iron ore, they strove to keep the mine in their hands and to retake it after it was captured by the Partisans. The available data show, however, that iron ore shipments from the Ljubija mine were quite irregular and much below the level that the Germans anticipated in April I94I. 78 The Yard iron ore mine supplied the steel mill at Zenica, which on the eve of the invasion produced about I 2o,ooo metric tons of steel annually. The Zenica mill, in turn, supplied the state arsenal in Sarajevo and the machinery and railroad car factory in Slavonski Brad, both of which produced various items for the Wehrmacht during the war, including grenades and shell castings. Some Yard iron ore was also exported to Italy, Hungary, and Romania. Because of Partisan attacks and sabotage, mining production in the Independent State of Croatia declined steadily. According to data from the Croatian Ministry of Forests and Mines, average monthly production of brown coal fell from J48,o83 metric tons in I94I to I05,69o metric tons in I943 and to 6 5,66o metric tons during the first quarter of I 944· Average monthly production of iron ore fell from 37,900 metric tons in I94I to I6,345 metric tons in I942, and after rising to 26,940 metric tons in I943, fell to only about 5,ooo metric tons during the first quarter of I944. 79 As we can see from the preceding discussion, Yugoslavia was an important source of nonferrous metals and ores for Germany during the war, though hardly as important as the Germans expected. While the greater part of the cost of supplying these minerals was carried by the Yugoslavs themselves, the Germans also expended much greater energy and effort than they had anticipated, primarily because of the continuing interference of the Communist-led resistance. Industrial Products

In areas under German occupation, that is, in Serbia and part of Slovenia, the management of industrial facilities was transferred to German combines or banks that controlled them through majority ownership or influenced them through part ownership or because they had been put in charge by the German military authorities. In Croatia, the Germans controlled many industrial and banking enterprises through part or majority ownership. Financial, industrial, and trading enterprises owned by those considered unfriendly to the Croatian state, such as Jews, Serbs, and citizens of Western Allied countries, were taken over by Croatian authorities on the basis of special legislation. As the war advanced and German influence in Croatia increased, some of them were taken over by the Germans and others, insofar as they could make a contribution to the German war effort, were put into German service. 78 For German efforts to recapture the mine, see the report of the armed forces commander in southeast Europe of October 2, 1942, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll 264, Fr. 596. For shipments from it, see Micr. No. T-120, Rol15796, passim. 79 Micr. No. T-120, Rol15793, Fr. H306,3oo.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART I

TABLE

6

Deliveries of Industrial Products to the Military Economic and Armaments Office from Southeast European Countries, June I94I; by Six-Month Period, July-December I94I to January-June I944; and July I944 (in thousands of Reichsmarks) Period

June 1941 July-December 1941 January-June 1942 July-December 1942 January-June 1943 July-December 1943 January-June 1944 July 1944 TOTAL

Serbia

Croatia

3,314 9,841 4,071 13,270 19,619 14,030 22,554 4,504 91,203

542• 14,563 35,058 50,277 61,820 100,347 65,816 328,423

Bulgaria

Romania

3,169b 5,704C 10,204 4,353C 8,569 2,609 45 34,653

17,871 15,348 16,594 16,707 2,341 68,861

souRCE: Monthly data of the Military Economic Staff for Southeast Europe, Micr. No. T-77, Roll 12.95, Frs. II7:Z.-I474·

•Four-month period &Three-month period 'Five-month period

Some industrial enterprises in Yugoslavia and other southeast European countries were utilized by putting them under contract directly with the Military Economic and Armaments Office of the Wehrmacht. The Military Economic Staff for Southeast Europe used uniform reporting methods to provide full statistical data on the production of these enterprises in monthly reports from June I94I to July I944· Contracts were classified into eleven different product groups: ammunition, arms, motor vehicles, ships, airplane parts and equipment, communications equipment, optical equipment, clothing for troops, other general military equipment, working machines, and diverse utensils and equipment. These reports covered every contract worth more than Io,ooo Reichsmarks granted directly to these enterprises (as well as other contracts originating from the Military Economic and Armaments Office). The data were organized into five categories: the number of producing units, the value of contracts at the beginning of each month, the value of deliveries for each month, the value of new contracts granted each month, and the value of contracts still outstanding at the end of each month. Contract changes and cancellations, as well as corrections of occasional double counting, often modified the figures. Table 6 sums up the data for industrial products delivered to the Military Economic and Armaments Office by Serbia and Croatia-with Bulgaria and Romania given for purposes of comparison-for the period from June I 94 I to July I 944· 80 80The German tabulations also provide data on production in Greece for the Military Economic and Armaments Office, divided between the regional offices of the Military Economic Staffs in Athens and Salonika. Contracts placed in Greece were of incomparably larger value than those placed in the other Balkan countries in Table 6, due to the presence of large German forces there.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY:

PART I

The data show that from the beginning of 1942, Croatia was the leading producer under these contracts and during the entire period delivered products worth almost 6o percent more than the other three countries combined. In Serbia, the principal goods produced were textiles, especially in the beginning, probably from raw materials impounded in the country at the time of the invasion, and later arms, ammunition, and airplane parts and equipment. In Croatia, the most important commodity produced was prefabricated barracks, which amounted to about 6o percent of the total value of these deliveries. The remainder consisted of clothing for the Luftwaffe, dry-cell batteries, bridge construction parts, and ammunition (grenades). Bulgaria produced ships, clothing for the SS, and some prefabricated barracks. Romania supplied armaments, ammunition, communications equipment, and general utensils and equipment. 81 As far as possible, these products were manufactured with raw materials supplied by the respective countries. But some raw and semifinished materials that went into them had to be imported from Germany and areas under German control. In Croatia, and very likely in other countries also, these imports were exempt from all customs duties. 82 Like other wartime industrial manufacture in most countries, production under these contracts was impeded by shortages of raw materials, of coal and electricity, and of skilled labor, though enterprises producing for the Wehrmacht also enjoyed priorities. And in both Croatia and Serbia, particularly during the second half of the war, industrial production was greatly hampered by guerrilla activity, sabotage, and the guerrillas' scorched -earth policy. Since the purchasing power of the Reichsmark declined in Germany between June 1941 and July 1944, and at varying rates for different groups of commodities, the purchasing power of the Reichsmark in other countries often had to be adjusted by special regulations for the various commodities traded (see the following chapter). It is therefore impossible, on the basis of the available data, to express Reichsmark values in Table 6 in constant prices.

Food Although the Germans kept the Yugoslav Banat formally as a part of occupied Serbia, they organized it as a separate unit and put the German minority in charge of civil administration under the guidance and supervision of the German military commander in Serbia. The Volksdeutsche were also proclaimed a body of public law. Apart from any political plans that the Germans might have had for the Banat Volksdeutsche in the future, their immediate objective 81 For more details on the use of industrial facilities for direct production for the Wehrmacht in Serbia and Croatia as of September 1942, see Micr. No. T-77, Roll 1298, Frs. 657-61 for a report from the Military Economic Staff in Belgrade, and Frs. 680-87 for areport from the Military Economic Staff in Zagreb. "Micr. No. T-120, Roll5797, Fr. H3o9,369.

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was to maximize the contribution of the Banat Germans and the Banat area in manpower and agricultural and livestock production for the Wehrmacht and the German civilian economy. The chief products of the Banat in agriculture were wheat, corn, sugar, and oil seeds, and in animal husbandry, pigs, cattle, poultry, and their products. To secure all food surpluses for their exclusive use, the Germans strictly isolated the Banat from the rest of occupied Serbia by prohibiting all private commerce between the two areas. The first comprehensive report of Franz Neuhausen, plenipotentiary for economic affairs, covering the period from April to the end of July 1941, shows that the German occupation authorities and the Serbian quisling government issued a series of regulations and established a network of agencies to operate in both Serbia proper and the Banat. These enabled the Germans to exercise considerable influence on agricultural production by instituting a production plan and taking control of a large part of agricultural and livestock production. According to the same report, as of mid-July 1941 the Germans had already exported about 3 5,ooo metric tons of corn and certain quantities of other agricultural and livestock products from the Banat to the Reich. From the 1941 crop, the Germans expected to export about 2oo,ooo metric tons of wheat, 1oo,ooo metric tons of corn, and 3o,ooo to 4o,ooo metric tons of sunflower seeds from the Banat. 83 Serbia proper was not a food-surplus area, and at the outset the Germans did not contemplate exporting any wheat from it. But they did expect it to supply all the food needs of German forces there. And as long as eastern Srijem was under official German occupation, the large food surpluses from that area, which had a strong German minority, were earmarked for German forces in Serbia and the population of Belgrade. However, by a German-Croatian agreement of September 25, 1941, eastern Srijem was turned over to Croatia and its food surpluses could no longer be used for the Wehrmacht in Serbia and the Belgrade population. But the agreement was open to different interpretations. As late as July 1942, representatives of various Wehrmacht units in Serbia were buying food in eastern Srijem and paying higher than fixed Croatian prices. One of the arguments of the plenipotentiary for economic affairs in Serbia for obtaining food from eastern Srijem was that Serbia alone could not feed the large number of Serbian refugees who had fled there from Croatia. Nevertheless, buying food in eastern Srijem for German troops and other needs in Serbia continued to be officially prohibited, though this area remained the most important source of food smuggled into Serbia. 84 The 1941 crop was excellent in both Serbia proper and the Banat. But the Germans got considerably less food from the Banat during the period from "Neuhausenl," pp. 36-37. For the long and involved discussions of this problem among German army representatives in Serbia and Croatia, and for various orders and other documents, see Micr. No. T-r 20, Rolls788, Frs. H3o2,2r 5-52. 83 84

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August r, 1941 to July 25, 1942, than they expected, only 102,240 metric tons of wheat and 69,404 metric tons of corn, as well as certain quantities of other food. 85 During almost the same period, the Wehrmacht also received some food supplies for its needs. But it was impossible for German forces in Serbia to cover their needs from Serbia proper alone, so that some food for them as well as for workers in enterprises producing for Germany and for part of the Belgrade population had to be brought in from the Banat. 86 In a letter of September r6, 1942, to the commanding general in Serbia, General Nedic pointed out that the plenipotentiary for economic affairs had promised him that "not one grain of wheat would be exported from Serbia, that food should remain in the country and serve only to feed the population and the occupation troops." This statement was confirmed by and large by Neuhausen and expressly by Felix Benzler, the representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the staff of the commanding general. The Germans, however, changed their mind. In his second comprehensive report of July 1942, Neuhausen asserted that "the foremost duty of the plenipotentiary for economic affairs was to make full use of the economic power of Serbia proper and the Banat for the wartime economic needs of the Reich." 87 The Serbian government accepted the complete appropriation of Banat food surpluses by the Germans without argument, but saw their determination to extract large amounts of food from Serbia proper also, despite their promise, as a threat to minimum domestic food needs. This became a major problem in relations between the German occupation authorities and the Nedic government. The Germans did get a maximum contribution to the war effort from the Banat Volksdeutsche, in return for political and economic favors. According to Neuhausen's third comprehensive report, covering the period from August 1942 to January 1944, the Banat was assigned a larger amount of imported goods, especially agricultural machinery and tools, than Serbia proper. A much better supply of clothing and footwear was made available to the Banat Volksdeutsche than to Serbs, and at reduced prices. Banat agricultural and livestock products were sold at higher prices than such products in Serbia, and land tax rates for the Volksdeutsche in the Banat were lower than those for other people in the Banat or in Serbia. In 1944, peasants in the Banat who had sown the same hectarage of wheat, corn, and oil seeds as in 1943 received special subsidies. The Banat was also favored with larger allocations of artificial fertil"'Of this, 27,260 metric tons of wheat went to Greece and r,or4 metric tons of wheat plus r 2,970 metric tons of corn went to Italy. " 6 "Neuhausen II," Frs. r6-r7. The Bor copper corporation apparently had special arrangements with farmers in the Banat for food deliveries to its workers. See Micr. No. T-71, Roll3, Frs. 396,or8-22. " 7 For NediC's letter, see Micr. No. T-sor, Rol1256, Fr. 1026, and for Benzler's statement, Fr. 104I. See "Neuhausen II," Frs. r6-r7 for Neuhausen's confirmation, and Fr. ro for the quote from his second report.

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izers, selected seeds, better breeds of animals, and other supplies, making possible technical improvements and increased production. Moreover, roads were repaired, some new roads were built, and drainage in flood-prone areas was improved. The only major change in agricultural production in the Banat brought about by German and Volksdeutsche efforts was a marked increase in the hectarage under oil seeds, primarily sunflower. The Banat remained an important source of agricultural and livestock products for the Wehrmacht and for export to Germany throughout the German occupation. And thanks to the determined efforts of Volksdeutsche administrators and their enforcement agencies, the Germans had no difficulty in securing these supplies because the Volksdeutsche "fulfilled their duties as well as people in any German district. " 88 The situation in Serbia proper was markedly different. In Serbia, the collection of assigned amounts of wheat from the 1942 crop was first handled by the Serbian authorities. But the Germans found the results so unsatisfactory that Neuhausen took matters into his own hands and by using occupation area and district commands and the German police, fully succeeded in meeting collection quotas despite the reduced area sown and a poor crop. He then suggested to the commanding general in Serbia that the same method be used to collect the 1942 corn crop. 89 According to NediC's letter to the commanding general on September 16, 1942, the Germans wanted to collect 9o,ooo metric tons of wheat from an estimated crop of 24o,ooo metric tons and 3 84,000 metric tons of corn from an estimated crop of 45o,ooo metric tons. The large share of the crop the Germans wanted to collect and the brutal methods they had used in collecting the wheat crop caused panic among the Serbian population and even threatened NediC's continuation in office. Since the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (as well as the commanding general) strongly wanted Nedic to continue as prime minister, they agreed to a compromise on collecting the 1942 crop. The Nedic government was again entrusted with collecting 27 5,ooo metric tons of corn, of which 1oo,ooo metric tons were destined for export to the Reich. However, Benzler's report of March 9, 1943, stated that up to that time the Serbian authorities had collected only 23,000 metric tons of corn, or about 8 percent of ""Neuhausen III," Frs. 412-15; the quote is from Fr. 412. Drainage facilities were improved on 2 3,ooo hectares of land in Serbia proper and on nearly 2oo,ooo hectares of land in the Banat. See Fr. 330. 89The orders of area command no. 809 (Nis) on August 29, 1942, and area command no. 610 (Vrnjacka Banja) on September II, I942, reveal the strictness with which German area commands enforced the compulsory delivery of agricultural products by the peasants. Assigned but unfulfilled delivery was treated as sabotage and entailed immediate punishmentthe imposition of heavy fines, the taking of hostages to camps, the shipment of slave labor to Germany, whippings on the spot, and collective penalties for communes that were behind in their delivery quotas. See Micr. No. T-soi, Roll256, Frs. 1037-38. For Neuhausen's recommendation to use the same methods to collect the corn crop, see Micr. No. T-soi, Roll249, Fr. 647.

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the quota, because "corn delivery was sabotaged by the peasants, by the rebels, and to some extent also by the authorities of the Serbian government." Therefore, as of March 9, I943, the commanding general again assigned area and district commands to collect the corn; the immediate quota was fixed at I Io,ooo metric tons, of which 9o,ooo were for shipment to the Reich. He put German police and army units at their disposal and also ordered Serbian state agencies to help. All of them were to proceed "with the harshest means," if necessary.90 The remainder of the quota was to be used for the pressing needs of the Wehrmacht and for enterprises producing for Germany. As "for other Serbian needs and supplying the Serbian population," Benzler wrote, "the Serbs must help themselves as best they can." He was dubious, however, whether even the strongest coercive measures would enable the quota to be met, and his fears on this point were borne out. Farmers had had ample time between the previous September 2I and the new order to dispose of the I942 corn harvest. Dissatisfied with the poor results of the March 9 order and in need of greater food supplies, the Germans decided to reorganize the system for collecting the I943 wheat and corn crops. At a meeting of the leaders of the German occupation regime in Serbia on June I8, I943, the collection of crops was again assigned to area and district commands, with assistance from the German police and Serbian State Guard, but also from German army troops if necessary. The Germans had compiled a card index of individual producers by commune, showing their planted area, type of crop, potential production, and number of family members. It was decided that all threshing should be supervised by German or Serbian government agents, who would decide how much each farmer could keep for consumption and for seed, with the remainder appropriated by the collection apparatus at official prices. To provide control and security, threshing was staggered by area so that collection crews in each area could be backed by a sufficient number of enforcement units. The exceptions were about one-third of the communes, where production was very limited. 91 The new collection scheme was apparently a success. According to Neuhausen, whereas the Germans collected a total of 222,982 metric tons of grains and legumes in Serbia proper and the Banat in the I942-43 crop year, they collected 3 6 3,9 55 metric tons from July I 94 3 to the end of I 94 3. Some of the increase was due to a better crop year, but more seems to have been due to better organization and stricter methods of collection. According to the "Situation Report" of the military commander in southeast Europe for the period from 9°For NediC's letter of September 16, 1942, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll256, Fr. 1028. For Benzler's report of March 9, 1943, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5782, Frs. H298,897-99. For the commanding general's order of March 9, 1943, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Frs. 69-71. 9 'For the Germans' dissatisfaction with the results of the March 9 order, see "Neuhausen III," Fr. 325, and for the memorandum of the June 18 meeting, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll 249, Frs. 647-53.

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February I 6 to March I 5, I 944, in the Banat, assigned compulsory deliveries had by that time fulfilled 90 percent of the quota for wheat and 63 percent of the quota for corn; in Serbia proper, the figures were 76 percent of the quota for wheat and 49 percent of the quota for corn. 92 The unwillingness of Serbian peasants to part with their products at low official prices unless forced to do so should not have surprised the Germans. Generally, less land than normal was being farmed, with correspondingly lower output, and prices on the black market, several times higher than official prices, encouraged smuggling. In addition, rations were low, consumer goods were not available in official trade channels, and the Germans disregarded the legitimate needs of producers. The latter were thus greatly tempted to sell as much of their production as possible at black market prices in order to be able to buy consumer goods in the same market at high prices. From March I943 on, the Germans collected all crops themselves, and from July I 94 3 they did so according to the guidelines set out in June I943· In the spring of I944, however, while continuing to use brute force in the collection program, they also tried to import consumer goods-clothing, shoes, kitchen utensils, matches, and so on-to distribute among cooperative peasants and workers in mining and lumbering enterprises producing for the Germans, with the aim of raising morale and giving an incentive to peasants to make assigned compulsory deliveries on time and to workers to stay on the job. Prices of these bonus commodities, like prices of all farm products (and wages of workers), were fixed. Since the cost of some of them in Germany exceeded the selling price in Serbia, these imports were exempt from Serbian import duties and required the payment of special subsidies to the trading enterprises handling them. 93 It is impossible to determine whether or not this scheme had any effect on production. It may have increased the collection of the I944 wheat crop, but by the time the I944 corn crop was harvested, the Germans had withdrawn from Serbia. It seems to have been a concession to Serbian peasants at a time when Germany badly needed food imports. Compulsory deliveries of livestock and livestock products in Serbia were sufficient to cover the needs of German troops and workers in enterprises producing for Germany, but very little was left over for the civilian population. As the number of pigs declined, lard production also declined, and by I943 the compulsory delivery of pigs was practical only in the Banat. In the Banat, too, milk and eggs were included in the compulsory delivery system. Compulsory 92 For Neuhausen's figures, see "Neuhausen III," Frs. 322-23. For the "Situation Report," see Micr. No. T-5oi, Rol1256, Frs. 327, 572. Additional amounts were collected in the next 30 days, the last period for which I have been able to find data. '-'This plan was developed by Neuhausen. See his memorandum of April 2I, I944, in Micr. No. T-soi, Roll258, Frs. 851-54· For more details on the commodities involved, see Frs. I I 50-6o, and for the calculation and payment of subsidies, see passim.

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deliveries of livestock in Serbia greatly declined after the Allies started bombing Serbian cities in April 1944, and the Germans had to apply stricter coercive methods to obtain supplies. 94 The main agency used by the Germans to oversee compulsory deliveries of agricultural and livestock products and manage the distribution of the meager supply of consumer and producer goods was the commodity central. These centrals, established by the Serbian puppet government on orders from the German occupation authorities, covered the whole range of agricultural and consumer goods. There were separate centrals for trade in grains, fodder, legumes, and oil seeds; in livestock for slaughter (later in livestock and milk); in sugar, molasses, beer, industrial alcohol, yeast, and glycerin; in textile products; in leather; in iron and metal products; and in chemical products. All the centrals were under the direct authority of the plenipotentiary for economic affairs and were designed to carry out his policies. 95 Two additional points about the disposition of agricultural surpluses in occupied Serbia may be made here. First, according to a German-Italian agreement of June 19, 1941, 30 percent of the agricultural exports from occupied Serbia and the Banat was to be sent to Italy. However, during the 1941-42 crop year these exports amounted to only 3 percent of total exports, and during the 1942-43 crop year, to only 16 percent. Italian exports to Serbia were no doubt also lower than planned. But as in many other respects, we can safely assume that here too the Germans shortchanged their ally. Second, according to German information, because of a lack of transportation, large quantities of the 1944 wheat crop were left in the Banat when the Germans withdrew before the advancing Russians. 96 Although a considerable amount of scattered statistical data is available on the amount of food taken by the Germans from the Banat and Serbia proper in the course of the war, it is much too incomplete to allow any meaningful estimate of the total amount of food supplies appropriated. The Germans obtained the food they wanted in scores of different ways: by purchasing compulsory deliveries and products through market channels to export to Germany and elsewhere and to supply the Wehrmacht in Serbia, the Banat, and other countries, especially Greece; by imposing penalties, paid in money or produce, on peasants, communes, and counties that failed to meet their quota of compul"Neuhausen III," Fr. 33 5; Micr. No. T-501, Roll256, Fr. 8o2. On September 10, 1943, General Nedic complained bitterly about the significant depletion of livestock in Serbia by the Germans at a meeting with General Felber, the new military commander in southeast Europe and chief of the occupation regime in Serbia. He told Felber that at the start of the occupation, the Germans took about 10 percent of Serbia's food production, but that by September 1943, they were taking several times that much. Micr. No. T501, Rol1253, Fr. 285. 95 For additional information on the organization and function of these centrals, see Ivkovic, "Economic Policy and Economic Plunder," pp. 175-200, especially pp. 182-89. ""Neuhausen III," Fr. 370; Micr. No. T-501, Rol1258, Fr. 736. 94

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sory deliveries; by sequestering products that they discovered peasants had hidden; and by sequestering supplies, especially livestock and grains, during military operations against the resistance. 97 Some food supplies were also taken unlawfully by Bulgarian forces doing occupation duty in Serbia. Not all purchases were documented, and many documents are incomplete or cover only a small area. In short, though we have a great deal of information on how the Germans extracted the maximum amount of food from the Banat and Serbia proper, I think it will never be possible to ascertain even approximately how much they actually took. Finally a word should be said about Franz Neuhausen, the economic czar of Serbia from the beginning of the German occupation until his arrest in August 1944. Neuhausen's reports and statements make clear that he was completely ruthless in squeezing as much food, mineral production, labor, and other wherewithal from Serbia proper and the Banat as he could. As a reward for his zeal, his superior, Reich Marshal Hermann Goring, presented him with a saohectare estate in the Banat. Neubacher, Hitler's and von Ribbentrop's special envoy in southeast Europe, and several other high officials of the occupation regime in Serbia accused him and some of his coworkers of crass corruption. Neuhausen denied all charges in postwar interrogations by Yugoslav officials and in fact bragged about how he had protected the interests of the Serbian people, particularly in managing the food economy. He claimed that he had softened orders from Berlin to protect the Serbs and that he had acted in their interest by staying at his post, since an SS replacement would have executed orders to the letter and made them even harsher. 98 But one should be skeptical about his postwar declarations and rely on his official wartime reports and statements in judging his policies and activities. Labor

From the very first day of occupation, the Germans were interested in using Yugoslav manpower for the German war effort. The supply of workers varied from area to area, and the formal conditions under which Germany obtained them depended on the Germans' interpretation of an area's legal status. One set of conditions prevailed in occupied Serbia, with specific adjustments for the Banat, which was administered by the Volksdeutsche; another in satellite Croatia; and still another in the German-occupied part of Slovenia. In addition to manpower for the military, which came from German-occupied Slovenia, Croatia, and the Volksdeutsche in the Banat, Backa, Baranja, and Croatia, the Germans used Yugoslav manpower in two other important ways during the war: for the manufacture of goods and services for the Germans in the Yugo97 For data on the imposition of collective fines on various Serbian communes and cities, see Marjanovic, "The Economic Policy of German Nazi Occupiers," pp. 84-8 5. "Neuhausen's interrogation, in YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. 1!5, Box 27, pp. 16-18, 3 2, and passim.

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slav economy itself, and as a source of labor, willing or not, for work in Germany. The latter category included Yugoslav soldiers captured during the invasion and kept as prisoners of war, over 90 percent of whom were Serbs from Serbia. Serbia was an important and easy source of workers because it was wholly controlled by Germany, but Croatia actually supplied more workers in the course of the war. It is not known, even approximately, how many workers and peasants were employed, directly or indirectly, on the Germans' behalf in Yugoslavia itself. Since most of the country's industry and mining was under direct German control and a large portion of its agricultural production was appropriated by the Germans, the number must have been extremely high. In Serbia, Neuhausen's figures on preferential insured food rations during 1943 are a good indication: 305,ooo workers were obtaining them, he said. 99 One can easily assume that most were working for the Germans. During the last eighteen months of German occupation, about 40 percent of Serbia's national income was paid as occupation costs, and it also had a huge foreign trade surplus with Germany. One can safely say that close to half of the employed Serbian population was working for Germany. In all cases where the exploitation of mineral resources was of fundamental importance for the German war economy-antimony, copper, lead, molybdenum, and zinc mines in Serbia, chrome ore mines in Macedonia, and bauxite and iron ore mines in Croatia, including bauxite mines in the Italian-annexed parts of Dalmatia-labor management was in the hands of Organization Todt. 100 In the beginning, it was not difficult for the Germans in Serbia to obtain the necessary manpower to work in mines and enterprises producing for them. But as the war advanced and manpower reserves became smaller, as passive and active resistance increased and working for the Germans became a possibly incriminating matter after the war, labor recruitment became more and more difficult. The shortage of workers was particularly acute for German military com""Neuhausen III," Fr. 33 7· See also Chapter r6. 100 0rganization Todt was the brainchild of Fritz Todt. After Hitler's rise to power, he became an advocate of large public works as a cure for mass unemployment. Organization Todt came into existence during the construction of the Autobahnen during the mid-193o's, and after May 1938 it managed the building of fortifications in the West. Its staff of managers, specialists, technicians, foremen, and crews was organized along paramilitary lines. When war broke out in September 1939, Organization Todt became a part of the German war production effort. Todt became the first minister of armaments and munitions, a position in which he was succeeded by Albert Speer. He was killed in an airplane crash in February 1942. See Milward, The German Economy at War, pp. 54-71. In occupied and satellite countries, Organization Todt used both hired and forced labor. In Yugoslavia, many of its labor sites were located in guerrilla-infested areas and were therefore heavily guarded by German, Italian, Bulgarian, or Hungarian soldiers or by troops provided by the Serbian and Croatian governments. In Serbia, however, mines and industrial enterprises, as explained in Chapter 5, were primarily guarded by the Russian Protective Corps.

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mands responsible for repairing and maintaining railroads and highways and building for the Luftwaffe. This was because wages paid by the military services were usually only half as much as those paid by Organization Todt and because workers were often not released after their contracts, usually lasting four months, had expired. It was especially difficult to persuade men to take jobs away from their own localities. In Serbia, one of the main inducements to attract workers was food ration cards for men and their families. In later stages of the war, more drastic steps had to be taken. Able-bodied men were rounded up in antiguerrilla operations to work in mines. 101 Early in I943, drafting men for work in Serbia or Germany was instituted, though only in areas that were considered favorable for guerrilla activity and that were not important in producing food surpluses or other products needed by the Germans. Still another method was to obligate the Chetnik commanders with whom armistice agreements were concluded in December I943 (for example, Lieutenant Colonel Ljuba Jovanovic-Patak and Captain Mihailo CaCic) to bring back workers who had fled from jobs in mines and industries in their areas, even those who had joined their own Chetnik units. 102 After September I943, some Italian prisoners of war also worked for the Germans in Serbia. From the beginning of the occupation in Serbia, the Germans also systematically recruited labor, mostly men but to some extent also women, to work in Germany. By the end of] uly I 94 I, they had already transported about I 7 ,ooo Serbian workers to Germany, and a year later, that number had reached 43,700. They also shipped Partisans and others who had been captured in areas taken back from the Partisans in pacification drives. But because of the security risks involved, such deportations were resorted to only when labor needs were urgent, and those sent were carefully screened. 103 Those considered bad security risks were either shot or sent to concentration or extermination camps or to special camps from which hostages were taken for mass executions. ""On the use of food ration cards to attract workers, see the June 8, 1943, report of the commanding general, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll 249, Frs. 601-2. According to it, German military commands in Serbia at that time, for the reasons listed, were encountering extraordinary difficulties in obtaining the necessary labor. On rounding up workers during antiguerrilla operations, see the August 5, 1943, order of the commanding general on how new armed outbreaks in Serbia were to be handled, in Micr. No. T-501, Roll253, Frs. 41-43. One provision stipulated deporting captured rebels to Germany as forced labor. Others included imposing tribute on areas of guerrilla activity and detaining people in special hostage camps. wzon the labor draft, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Frs. 55 and 305. By April 1943 it was producing about 900 workers weekly to work in Germany. On the obligation of Chetnik commanders to return workers, see RG 238, World War II Crimes Records, Document No. NOKW-1082. 101 For the number of Serbian workers in Germany in July 1941 and July 1942, see Micr. No. T-77, Roll 1298, Frs. 5II and 623. In August 1942, recruiting was stopped in order to insure a sufficient supply of labor for enterprises in Serbia working for Germany, especially the Bor copper mines. See Fr. 633. For the deportation of Partisans, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll253, Fr. 6o.

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The Germans also used Yugoslav prisoners of war (almost exclusively Serbs) as labor in Germany. There were nearly 2oo,ooo prisoners from Serbia in Germany, about half as workers and half in camps. After the collapse and partition of Yugoslavia, the Germans took only officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates who were Serbs from Serbia proper as prisoners of war to Germany, along with some Serbs from other parts of Yugoslavia and some Slovenes known to be strongly pro-Yugoslav. Prisoners of war from parts of Yugoslavia annexed by Italy were either transferred to Italian prisoner-of-war camps or returned to their areas of origin, where they were subject to the regulations imposed by the Italian occupation authorities. Still others were released to their respective areas of origin. 104 By taking prisoners, the Germans sought, first, to remove military personnel from Serbia who could participate in potential uprisings or otherwise cause problems, and second, to increase the labor supply in Germany. In February 1944, about 92,100 Yugoslav prisoners of war were at work in the German economy. They were among the 2,5oo,ooo prisoners of war (more than 1,ooo,ooo of them Frenchmen) who made up about 8 percent of the total workforce in Germany, estimated at 30,77o,ooo in November 1944. 105 The Germans used Serbian prisoners of war not only to provide labor, but also to bargain with for additional labor. In May 1943, they agreed with the Nedic government to release one prisoner for every two able-bodied workers sent to Germany (the so-called French formula). The prisoners they sent home, however, were only old officers or men ill with tuberculosis. 106 Among the worst problems that the Germans faced in Serbia in mines and industrial enterprises and on construction sites were those of labor instability and rapid turnover. These increased as the war advanced and the tide began to turn in the Allies' favor. Of the approximately 4o,ooo Serbian workers drafted by the end of 1943 to work in enterprises producing for Germany, more than half, under the influence of anti-German propaganda and resistance forces, left their place of work before their draft period expired. And of the 17,ooo deserters from labor duty who mostly came from rural communes and for whom warrants were issued, only about 1,ooo could be found and brought back to their jobs. Communes that did not supply the required number of people for labor service were assessed fines by the occupation authorities in the form of Tomasevich, The Chetniks, pp. 73-74. Billig, "Le role de prisonniers de guerre," pp. 53-75, especially pp. 54-55. In Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany, p. 19 5, Homze puts the number of Serbian prisoners of war working in the German economy in the fall of 1943 at roughly 94,ooo, with an additional45,ooo Serbian civilian workers. An authoritative German source gives different figures on the total number of workers in Germany in November 1944: 30.2 million, of whom 7.6 million were foreigners, including 1.6 million prisoners of war. According to the same source, three months earlier, in August 1944, there were 1.9 million prisoners of war employed. Deutsches Institut fiir Wirtschaftsforschung, Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege, 1939-1945, p. 89. 106 Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Fr. 524· " 14

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special contributions. 107 Probably the worst labor troubles occurred at the Bor copper mining and smelting enterprise. Labor for Bor was mostly recruited or drafted in Serbia, but it was supplemented by a variety of foreign workers. Domestic workers at Bor were influenced by and themselves participated in the struggle going on among the three domestic groups in Serbia competing for power-the Nedic forces, the Chetniks, and the Partisans-and were for that reason always an unstable force. The news of Partisan and Allied successes especially encouraged Bor workers to desert their jobs. From 8oo desertions in May 1943 the number rose to 1,6oo in April 1944 (out of a total work force of 7,716) after the Allies began bombing communication hubs in Serbia. In Belgrade and Nis, too, workers left their jobs during March and April 1944. 108 In order to increase mining production and probably also instill discipline, the Germans, on Hitler's orders, brought in a battalion of 1,ooo soldier-miners from the Reich in the summer of 1943 to use at Bor and the chrome ore mines in the Bulgarian-annexed part of Macedonia. They also began bringing in foreign laborers to Bor-first about 1,200 Hungarian Jews in the summer, then Polish and Bulgarian workers and captured Greek Partisans, then Italian prisoners of war in March 1944, then up to s,ooo additional Hungarian Jews. Bor was truly a large international concentration camp of workers. 109 One of the first economic agreements between the new Independent State of Croatia and Germany was that of May 8, 1941, on sending Croatian workers from both the German- and Italian-occupied parts of the state to Germany, to work mainly on farms but also in mines and factories. Agreements on the export of labor from Croatia regulated not only the recruitment of workers, which was handled cooperatively by the Croatian State Emigration Service and the German plenipotentiary for labor in Croatia, but also wages, living conditions, the remittance of part of the wages home, and the exchange rate of remittances paid to the workers' families. 110 In the early part of the war, Croatian workers in Germany 107 "Neuhausen III," Frs. 392-93. See also Neuhausen's interrogation, in YA, Mil. Hist., German Docs., Reg. No. I/5, Box 27, p. I5. 10'See Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1249, Fr. 496 for labor desertions from Borin May I943· See Micr. No. T-50I, Roll 256, Fr. 803 for labor desertions from Borin April I944, and Fr. 572 for labor desertions from Belgrade and Nis. 109 For the battalion of soldier-miners, see "Neuhausen III," Fr. 340. For the Hungarian Jews used at Bor, see Federation of Jewish Communities, The Crimes of the Fascist Occupants, pp. I79-88, and Romano, ]evreji Jugoslavije, 1941-1945, p. 84. According to Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian jewry, pp. IOO-I I 2, 3,ooo Hungarian Jews were used at Bor. For the Italian prisoners of war, see Micr. No. T-84, Roll 8o, Fr. I,368,440. For the international character of the workers, see BosiljCic, "Communist Party Work in the Bor Mines," p. I83. In exchange for the Hungarian Jewish workers for Bor, the Germans had to sell Hungary a certain amount of copper concentrate. To protect Bor from guerrilla attacks, the Germans used Bulgarian and Hungarian soldiers. See Micr. No. T-5oi, Roll253, Fr. I62, and Chapter 5· When the Germans withdrew from Borin September I944, they withdrew the Hungarian Jews as well and killed them on the march toward Hungary. See Chapter I 3. ""For the May 8, I94I, agreement, see Croatia, Independent State of, Ministry of Foreign

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were apparently used in the least desirable jobs and many young girls ended up in brothels. Branko Benzon, Croatian envoy in Berlin, made this charge in a telegram of July 15, 1941, to his ministry in Zagreb and suggested that no more passports be issued to Croatian workers for work in Germany. 111 Perhaps because of his lack of cooperation with the Germans on this issue, Benzon was removed from his post in late October 1941 and reassigned to Romania. In spite of the provisions of the May 8, 1941, agreement, the German plenipotentiary for labor in Croatia often failed to cooperate with Croatian authorities in recruiting workers. A new German-Croatian labor agreement was concluded on February 3, 1943, reiterating the earlier provisions and adding several new ones, but irregularities apparently increased. One method of circumventing the Croatian State Emigration Service was for "individual Wehrmacht units to seize Croatian men and women and take them to labor assembly camps at Sisak, Tenje, Zemun, or Zagreb. These men and women were not asked for their consent, but were forcibly taken against their will. ... In the same way, the Germans took Croatian men who had volunteered for service with SS troops but had been found to be physically unfit, and often also Croatian soldiers on furlough." Without medical examinations or consultation with the Croatian State Emigration Service, these people were sent to Germany in sealed railroad cars with W ehrmacht transports. Nor did the Germans allow Croatian frontier guards to inspect the cars, because they claimed that "these were captured Partisans." To obtain workers, "but without consulting the Croatian authorities, the Germans often declared peaceful Croatian villages Partisan nests, surrounded the villages with troops, and took the entire able-bodied male population as forced labor to Germany." Any rumors about approaching German troops induced men to flee to the hills, that is, to the Partisans. And for those men seized, Croatian authorities were unable to secure the same treatment in Germany to which regularly recruited workers were entitled. These facts were clearly elaborated in a pro memoria of the Croatian government of February 10, 1944, in which observance of the agreed-upon regulations was also demanded. 112 But as in many other respects, this request probably went unheeded. In fact, in labor recruiting Germany again treated Croatia not as an allied country but as an occupied one. Although exact data are not available, Croatia supplied Germany with about 15o,ooo to 16o,ooo workers during the war who went to Germany volAffairs, Medjunarodni ugovori, 1941, pp. r-3. The most complete publication on this subject, with many pertinent agreements between Croatia and Germany regulating labor export, is Dilber, Medjunarodni ugovori. 111 YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 13!2-r, Box 233. 112Micr. No. T-120, Roll5793, Frs. H3o6,147-5 r. This was one in a series of pro memorias that Stijepo Peric, Croatian minister of foreign affairs, delivered to von Ribbentrop on March r, 1944, when he and Prime Minister Mandie visited Hitler. For the Germans' deportation of 63 peasants as forced labor from the village of Srinjine near Split in November 1943, see YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 14!2-6, Box 87.

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untarily after being recruited in organized campaigns. 113 This figure does not include persons forcibly deported from captured Partisan areas, or the small number of Partisan prisoners shipped to Germany as slave labor. Nor does it include those workers forcibly taken there in contravention of agreements governing the Germans' recruitment of workers in Croatia. Nor does it include persons forcibly shipped to labor camps in Norway, nor those Croatian Serbs weeded out of Croatian concentration camps by the Germans in early r 944, who according to an earlier stipulation of the Croatian government could only be listed as "Orthodox." 114 Another obvious, though much smaller, source of manpower was the German minority in Yugoslavia. Most able-bodied Volksdeutsche entered the German military (primarily the SS) and police services, but several thousand were recruited to work in Germany. They wholeheartedly supported the German war effort at home as well, especially by producing food surpluses for the Reich. Finally, according to certain estimates, about 28,ooo people from German-occupied Slovenia were sent to Germany as forced labor. 115 In comparison with the total number of foreigners (voluntary recruits, prisoners of war, and others) working in Germany during the war, the number from Yugoslavia constituted only about 12 to 14 percent of the total. But in comparison with the total Yugoslav population of working age and not in the fighting ranks in the country, this number represented a major contribution. In conclusion, it should be pointed out that a sizable number of workers 113 According to Dilber, Medjunarodni ugovori, p. 6 5, there were between I 2 5 ,ooo and I 5o,ooo Croatian workers in Germany. According to the German plenipotentiary general in Croatia, by the end of August I944, Croatia had supplied a total of I 5 I,300 workers for the German economy, including its merchant marine. See Micr. No. T-3 I I, Roll 286, Fr. 708. According to Tudjman, Okupacija i revolucija, p. 90, a total of I47,ooo workers from Croatia were sent to Germany during the war. Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany, p. I48, gives a much lower figure of 69,0I4 workers, but it is only as of November I 5, I 94 3. Banovic, "The Export of Labor and the Deportation of People," pp. 375-89, gives somewhat higher figures, but they are for different periods of time. Banovic also divides them into prisoners of war, forcible deportees, and those who went to Germany of their own free will. 114 According to a report of the German plenipotentiary for labor recruiting in Croatia of July 20, I942, to Kasche, the Germans recruited a total of 7,190 Serbian Orthodox men and women, who took along 409 children, in the concentration camps at Stara Gradiska and Sisak during June and July I942. They were among those detained by the Ustashas and the Germans during operations against the Partisans in the Kozara Mountain area. The Germans anticipated getting another 3,ooo labor recruits from the same group of detainees at the concentration camp in Zemun. See Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Frs. H3o9,981-87. On the Germans' recruitment of labor in Croatian concentration camps, see also Micr. No. T-501, Roll265, Fr. 3 I, and Roll267, Fr. 343· 115 For the contribution of the Volksdeutsche, see Chapters 5 and 6, and Herzog, Die Volksdeutschen in der Waffen-SS, p. I7. On the deportation of Slovenes to Germany, see Furlan, Fighting Yugoslavia: The Struggle of the Slovenes, p. IS. Banovic, "The Export of Labor and the Deportation of People," p. 3 8I, gives a figure of 34,ooo Slovenes deported to work in Germany.

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from all parts of Yugoslavia who were officially recruited to work in Germany went there willingly. Many young people, especially those not ideologically committed one way or another, thought that their chances of surviving the war were greater by going to work in Germany than by remaining in Yugoslavia, where a multifaceted civil war and ruthless Axis operations against the rebels put human life in great danger. ITALY'S

SHARE OF YUGOSLAV

ECONOMIC SPOILS

In the partition of Yugoslavia, Italy obtained a large part of Yugoslav territory, but most of it was relatively poor in natural resources and had little industry. There were some important timber stands, several cement plants, an aluminum and a ferromanganese plant near Sibenik, a few brown coal mines supplying fuel to railroads and industry, and rich bauxite fields. From the latter Italy was to derive no benefit, however, because Foreign Ministers von Ribbentrop and Ciano concluded at a conference in Vienna on April 21-22, 1941, that In view of Germany's special economic interests in the former Yugoslav State, it is agreed that German economic interests will be given special consideration in the areas falling to Italy. Germany is primarily interested in developing the production of the Dalmatian bauxite mines. The production of these mines will accordingly be developed as far as possible, and the satisfaction of German requirements will be given preferential consideration in exports. 116

Furthermore, additional important mineral resources, such as the Trbovlje coal fields in Slovenia, the Ljubija iron ore mine in northwest Bosnia, the Trepca lead and zinc mines in the Kosovo region, and the Ljuboten massif chrome ore mines in Macedonia, all near the German-Italian demarcation line, came either under direct German control or under the control of Croatia and Bulgaria, German satellites that could be intimidated even more easily than Italy. The Italians seized much less war booty from the collapsed Yugoslav army than the Germans did, though I was unable to find data on the exact amount. This was because the Germans were the first to enter most Yugoslav territory, crushed the main Yugoslav forces, and remained in control of the areas where most military supplies were kept. The Italians, like the Germans, took not only arms, ammunition, and other military supplies, but also some civilian supplies. We know from a complaint by Mladen Lorkovic, Croatian minister of foreign affairs, to German Envoy Kasche on April29, 1941, that the Italians appropriated about ro,ooo metric tons of food supplies in Mostar and also that they were seizing food and probably also other supplies in transit on the railroads. 117 116

DGFP, I2: 632. Micr. No. T-120, Rolls787, Fr. H3o1,722.

117

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The Italians also took over whatever was left of the small Yugoslav navy and of Yugoslav coastal and other shipping in the Adriatic, but I was unable to ascertain the total tonnage of these ships. In May I94I, after securing Croatia's political and military alignment through the Rome treaties of May I 8, Italy undertook measures to promote its economic interests. Ciano's letter of May 30, I94I, to Pavelic outlined Italy's proposals for dealing with economic matters in Dalmatia. Trade between the Italian-annexed and Croatian parts of Dalmatia should be maintained at least at the previous level and expanded in every way possible. The properties and rights of enemy-owned firms engaged in mining and industrial production in Dalmatia should be divided in such a way that Italy and Croatia, as successor states, would acquire the properties located in their respective territories. Properties that formerly belonged to the Yugoslav state or to foreign citizens and that were now located in areas belonging to both Italy and Croatia should be divided equally between them, and properties and rights acquired by Italian citizens prior to the dismemberment of the old Yugoslav state should remain untouched. Furthermore, both states should encourage the development of industry and mining in their respective areas, and for ventures in other areas, the conditions should not be less favorable than those granted by the former Yugoslav state. Pavelic accepted these proposals in his reply of the same date. 118 In the Italian-annexed part of Dalmatia, the cement industry continued to operate but now for the Italians, as did the aluminum plant at Lozovac and the ferromanganese and cast iron plant near Sibenik. These two plants, as well as the carbide and chemical fertilizer plant in Dugi Rat in the Italian-occupied part of Dalmatia, which also produced ferromanganese, were taken over by Fiat Corporation of Turin. 119 The bauxite mines in Drnis near Sibenik were partly owned by German corporations and continued producing for the Germans. There were also several small brown coal mines in the Italian-annexed part of Dalmatia that continued producing for local industry, the railroads, and shippmg. On June 26, I94I, Italy and Croatia concluded an agreement that was intended to expand trade relations between the two countries by implementing existing political and military agreements. Other agreements followed. But Italy's position in the Croatian economy, weak from the start, never approached Germany's. Even though Germany repeatedly denied that it had special political interests in Croatia, it imposed and maintained a heavy lien on the state and economy. The Italians were powerless to change the situation and could only fume. Ciano took note of Mussolini's anger in his diary on June Io, I 94 I, only mFor both letters, see Micr. No. T-586, Roll424, Frs. 12,262-65. See Kasche's report of August IO, 194 3. to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5796, Frs. H3o8,77I-75, especially Fr. H3o8,772. Before the war, the Lozovac aluminum plant was owned by Yugoslav interests, while the plants in Sibenik and Dugi Rat were owned by a French company, La Dalmatienne. 119

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two months after the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia and less than a month after the Italians had supposedly secured their quasi protectorate over Croatia through the Rome treaties: Using as a pretext increased German meddling in Croatia, Mussolini uttered the harshest charges against Germany that I have ever heard from him. He was the aggressive Mussolini, and hence Mussolini at his best. "It is of no importance," he said, "that the Germans recognize our rights in Croatia on paper, when in practice they take everything and leave us only a little heap of bones. They are dirty dogs, and I tell you that this cannot go on for long. I do not even know if German intrigue will permit Aimone, Duke of Spoleto, to ascend the Croatian throne. " 120

But Italy did begin to expand its investments somewhat. It established several Italian-owned or half-Italian, half-Croatian companies. The share capital of the partly Italian-owned Croatian Bank was increased, and several new trading companies and two new construction and building corporations were established. For mineral prospecting, the Italians established Rudnik Corporation in Zagreb, an affiliate of S.A. Mineraria Siderurgica "Ferromin" of Genoa and of Azienda Minerali Metallici Italiani (A.M.M.I.), an Italian governmentcontrolled corporation. For oil prospecting and exploitation, two corporations were established in Zagreb with the Italian state-controlled Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (A.G.I.P.) as the controlling firm. 121 None of these firms, however, proved very successful. In addition to these Italian-Croatian firms for mineral and oil prospecting, the Italian 2nd Army engaged Enzo Minucci of Genoa as its own expert for minerals. He was camouflaged as the Italian vice consul in Sarajevo, but his real function was to study mineral resources in areas under Italian control. The 2nd Army also issued scores of prospecting permits to various Italian individuals and firms, none of which established any new mining venture. The Italians were not alone in prospecting for minerals in areas under their control. In at least one case, a group of German specialists worked in the area of Livno for the Berlin firm Hansa Leichtmetalle. 122 Besides being poor in natural resources and industry, the Yugoslav areas that fell under Italian control were food-deficit areas. Thus the Italians were obliged to import cereals, fats, and sugar to help feed the civilian population. According to a German-Italian accord ofJune 19, 1941, apparently intended to alleviate the food shortage, 30 percent of the agricultural surpluses from German-occupied Serbia were to be exported to Italy, in exchange for Italian ""Ciano, Diaries, pp. 3 64-6 5. See alsop. 3 59· 121 United States, Foreign Economic Administration, German Penetration of Corporate Holdings in Croatia, p. 18. 122 See Micr. No. T-821, Rol1498, Frs. 3 39, 370 for Minucci's role. See Frs. 348-61 for his report of February I, 1942, on mineral resources in Bosnia and Herzegovina. See Frs. 623890 for the 2nd Army's permits, and Frs. 382-90 for the Germans' efforts.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART I

commodities exported to Serbia. 123 But as we saw earlier, food exports from Serbia never approached this level. An Italian-Croatian agreement of October 27, 1941, on the supply of food to Italian forces in Croatia also proved less than satisfactory. But when the Italians tried to establish a special agency in April 1942 for the purchase of agricultural and livestock products in Slavonia, the important food-surplus area of the satellite state, this venture too was thwarted by the Germans. One of those most keenly aware of Germany's disregard of Italy's interests in Yugoslavia was General Carlo Favagrossa, who as undersecretary for war production in the Italian Ministry of War was the foremost expert on war economy among Italian generals. His memoirs are especially bitter about the way in which Germany drew the line between the German-occupied and Italian-annexed parts of Slovenia so as to keep the coal mines at Trbovlje and the steel mill as Jesenice for itself, although both were near the demarcation line. He ascribed this move to the German tendency to oppose Italian development in the steel and metallurgical industries. 124 Unlike the Germans, the Italians did not deport labor from the areas of Yugoslavia that they annexed or occupied, and they only occasionally impressed labor for special uses in Yugoslavia. But they did engage in the largescale deportation of people as a measure of pacification. Most of the undesirables were sent to Italy, though there were a few camps in Italian-annexed Yugoslav territory (especially on the islands of Rab, Molat, and Murter) and in Albania. The Yugoslav delegation to the Allied Advisory Council for Italy submitted a memorandum in October 1944 that claimed that, including prisoners of war taken in April 1941, the Italians had detained between 7o,ooo and 9o,ooo people in their camps. The Italians also confined small groups of Yugoslavs consisting of r to so people in isolated villages in Italy. Some Yugoslavs from Istria and the Slovene Littoral who were Italian citizens were also impressed into forced labor units. One of the few labor agreements between the Italian occupation authorities and Croatia was that of January r6, 1942, in which the Croats agreed to supply some 6oo workers for lumbering operations in the Italian-occupied part of northwest Croatia. 125 It was not until August 1943, when it was clear that they would soon withdraw from the Axis alliance, that the Italians dismantled factories in Dalmatia. In that month, they removed key machinery and some raw materials from the aluminum plant at Lozovac, the ferromanganese and cast iron plant near Sibenik, and the carbide and chemical fertilizer plant in Dugi Rat and shipped them, as well as a number of locomotives, to Italy. These plants were idle in late 12l"Neuhausen III," Fr. 3 70. 124 Favagrossa, Perche perdemmo Ia guerra, pp. I s6-57· 125 For the Italian citizens impressed into labor units, see F.O. 37II390o8, C I6Io11I4/62. For the January 16, 1942, Italian-Croatian labor agreement, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 53, Frs. 1036-37.

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September 1943, but I was unable to discover whether the Germans later repaired them with the machinery that had been removed or with machinery from other sources. 126 In summary, we may say that Italy's economic spoils in Yugoslav territory were small at the beginning and increased very little, if at all, during its 29 months of occupation. 126 For the dismantling of plants by the Italians, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5796, Frs. H3o8,77I-72.. For subsequent German repairs, see the report of the German 1 14th Light Infantry Division of September 2.5, 1943, in Frs. H3o8,6z.o-2.2..

CHAPTER

!5

Axis Exploitation of the Yugoslav Economy: Part II

PAYMENTS

FOR AXIS MILITARY FORCES

During the war, Germany acquired a large part of the national income of dismembered Yugoslavia by imposing huge occupation costs on Serbia and assessing large contributions for the maintenance of German forces on the Independent State of Croatia. Italy also exacted contributions for the maintenance of its forces from the Croatian state. Unlike Serbia, Croatia was not formally liable for occupation costs, since both Germany and Italy considered it an allied sovereign state where Axis troops were stationed by agreement with the Croatian government. And both Germany and Italy did, in fact, repay part of Croatia's contributions in the course of the war. Nonetheless, to all intents and purposes, most of these contributions were occupation costs. No such occupation costs or special financial contributions were imposed on the German-occupied part of Slovenia or on Yugoslav areas annexed by Italy (and Albania for the Italian account), Bulgaria, and Hungary. The economies and finances of these areas were simply coordinated with the economies of the occupying and annexing countries. Even so, all areas not actually occupied by the Germans were put under a sort of lien, inasmuch as their strategic raw materials and food and other agricultural surpluses were earmarked for Germany for the duration of the war. Serbia's Payments to Germany The first mention of Serbian occupation costs in German sources that I found was in a document of the Wehrmacht's Military Economic and Armaments Office of April 19, 1941. It noted that in addition to occupation costs proper-namely, sums necessary to run the occupation regime itself-Serbia should also pay an annual contribution of about 200 million Reichsmarks. Occupation costs would be set by the Wehrmacht's Office of Administration, while the annual contribution would be set by the Military Economic and Armaments Office and would consist of raw materials (not counting the raw gold and silver in exported nonferrous metals and concentrates) worth 175 million Reichsmarks and supplies of armaments worth 2 5 million Reichsmarks (I 5

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million for the German army and ro million for the Luftwaffe). These were huge sums, and the Military Economic and Armaments Office itself questioned Serbia's ability to pay. In addition, it soon became clear that occupation costs did not remain steady, but fluctuated according to Germany's needs, as the "Concluding Report on the Military Administration in Serbia" made clear. 1 Payments for occupation costs were deposited monthly by the Serbian Ministry of Finance into the Occupation Costs Account in the Serbian National Bank for use by the military commander in Serbia. Payments for billeting, for labor services for the repair of communication lines, for the construction and repair of Luftwaffe facilities, and for several other types of services were handled separately, as the occasion arose. These included such things as the expenditure in r942 of about 200 million dinars for the organization and outfitting of the 7th SS Division "Prinz Eugen," which was composed of the Banat Volksdeutsche, and 2 50 million dinars for the organization and outfitting of the Russian Protective Corps, even though both units were part of the German armed forces. Above and beyond payments for the occupation and other costs, the Serbian government was further obliged, as shown in the previous chapter, to deliver a large part of the country's agricultural and livestock production to the Germans. The German occupation authorities imposed special fines and contributions on peasants and communes that failed to deliver the prescribed quotas of products under the compulsory delivery program, on communes that failed to supply the assigned number of workers for enterprises producing for the Germans, and on cities and towns for acts of sabotage and resistance in their areas-all, according to General Nedic, amounting to several hundred million dinars annually. 2 The fluctuation in occupation costs was perhaps one of the most insidious features of this burden. Payments were decreed monthly after claims for funds needed were submitted by various agencies of the German occupation regime. Furthermore, even when monthly costs remained steady, as they did in r942, extra payments were demanded for specific purposes. Prime Minister Nedic repeatedly tried to persuade the Germans to fix occupation costs at a set amount, but he was never able to do so. 3 Especially in the last year of the war, as the rate of inflation increased, the Germans sought to squeeze Serbia to the limit. 1 For the Military Economic and Armaments Office document, see Micr. No. T-77, Roll 129 5, Fr. I 127. For the "Concluding Report," see Micr. No. T-501, Roll264, Fr. 279. The occupation currency remained legal tender for the Germans in Serbia until its replacement by Serbian dinar notes in July 1942. 2 See Micr. No. T-5or, Roll 256, Fr. 1029 for NediC's letter of September r6, 1942, to Bader, on the cost of outfitting the German and Russian units, and Fr. 884 for his letter of February 22, 1944, to Felber, on the special fines and contributions the Germans levied. See also "Neuhausen III," Fr. 393· 3 See, for example, Micr. No. T-501, Roll249, Fr. 524, and Micr. No. T-501, Roll253, Fr. 285.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART II

TABLE

7

Monthly Occupation Costs Paid by Serbia to Germany, April IJ, 1941-September 30, 1944 (in millions of dinars) Month

January February March April May June July August September October November December

1941

1942

1943

4,110• I I I 75 150 150 300 300

300 300 300 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 240

360 360 360 360 360 360 520 520 1,200 1,200 1,500 1,500

1944

1,750 1,698 1,565 1,621 1,765 2,274 1,780 1,655 2,057

SOURCES: For April 15, 1941-December 1942, "Concluding Report on the Military Administration in Serbia," Micr. No. T-501, Roll264, Fr. 279; for January-August 1943, ibid., Roll253, Fr. 285; for October and November 1943, ibid., Roll 253, Fr. 514; for September and December 1943, estimated on the basis of payments for October and November 1943; for January-September 1944, the monthly orders issued by the German Ministry of National Economy, in Micr. No. T-84, Roll 105, Frs. 1,399,590-93. "Total for April 15-July JI, 194!.

Table 7 shows the amount of occupation costs paid by Serbia on a monthly basis from April I5, I94I, through September I944· After a huge initial payment of 4,I IO million dinars, secured by impounding the funds of the Yugoslav military establishment in Serbia and by using German occupation currency and requisition scrip, only I 50 million dinars monthly were paid for two and a half months, from August I 5 to the end of October I94 r. But the uprising in Serbia and consequently higher demands on Germany's forces caused the payments to double to 300 million dinars monthly in November I94I. The reduction to 240 million dinars monthly in April I942 held steady for nine months, but in January I943 payments rose to 360 million dinars monthly. They rose again in July I 94 3 to 5 20 million dinars monthly and in September I 94 3 more than doubled to I,2oo million dinars monthly. For the last eleven months of occupation, they were never below I,5oo million dinars monthly. The total for three and a half years, not including October I 944, came to a staggering 3 2,9 IO million dinars.' This figure closely agrees with the figures, provided by the Yugoslav acting minister of finance shortly after the liberation of Belgrade, of payments to German forces recorded by the Serbian Ministry of Finance. According to the 'According to the report in Micr. No. T-501, Roll264, Fr. 279, payments for the period from January to June 1943 amounted to 240 million dinars monthly, but according to the minutes of the Felber-Nedic conference of September 10, 194 3, they amounted to 3 6o million dinars monthly. I use the latter figure. Micr. No. T-501, Roll253, Fr. 28 5· The Germans were in Belgrade until October 20, 1944, but I could not find what payments were made in the final period of occupation.

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minister, Serbia paid the following occupation costs during the war: 4,300 million dinars for billeting German troops; 368 million dinars to exchange German requisition scrip; So million dinars to compensate the Volksdeutsche for war damage; 6,200 million dinars for labor services to repair communications; and 22,300 million dinars for general expenditures. 5 The total sum of these payments came to 33,248 million dinars, roughly 338 million dinars or I percent more than the figure quoted above. It must be remembered, however, that the purchasing power of the dinar fell as the war advanced. But of basic significance was the fact that, according to Franz Neuhausen, plenipotentiary for economic affairs, occupation costs imposed on Serbia had risen to the astounding level of about 40 percent of current national income by the beginning of I944· 6 The steady increase in occupation costs, especially from the middle of I943 on, and the huge increase in Germany's clearing debt to Serbia during I 94 3 and I944, discussed below, together show that the rate of Germany's economic exploitation increased as Serbia's economic condition deteriorated. Serbia had great difficulty in meeting the steadily rising payments. To do so, as well as to finance increasing regular and special government expenditures and the large export surplus of I 94 3 and I 944, the Serbian government had to increase taxes and especially increase its debt to the Serbian National Bank by means of huge advances in banknotes. Bulgarian forces doing occupation duty in much of Serbia for the German account satisfied their financial needs in a different way. Although their presence greatly irritated the Nedic government and the Serbian people, they were not a financial burden comparable to the Germans. According to German-Bulgarian agreements, the Bulgarians had to provide most of the supplies for their forces in Serbia from Bulgaria, except for meat, fodder, potatoes, firewood, and fresh vegetables. Livestock for meat could be bought only at officially organized livestock markets, and only at officially established prices. In addition, part of the Bulgarians' cash requirements were covered by the transfer of funds from the German occupation authorities directly to them. 7 Needless to say, Bulgarian troops occasionally requisitioned food from Serbian peasants beyond what the latter were obliged to deliver and also occasionally plundered supplies, which the Nedic government complained about to the German occupation authorities and which brought periodic German reminders to Bulgarian command posts. 8 -'Borba (Belgrade), November 23, 1944.

"Neuhausen III," Frs. 396-97. Micr. No. T-501, Roll247, Frs. 73 5-36, and Roll25 3, Fr. 8 55. I could notfind any data on the amounts transferred to the Bulgarians. 'See, for example, Micr. No. T-5or, Roll253, Frs. 855, 874; Rol1256, Frs. 998, ro28; Roll257, Fr. 1224. 6

7

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Croatia's Payments to Italy The payments imposed on Croatia by Italy and Germany for the maintenance of their troops were more complicated than the direct occupation costs that Serbia was obliged to pay. With respect to Italy, Croatia's costs were stipulated in the October 27, 1941, agreement between the two countries that set forth how Italian forces and the civilian population in the Italian-annexed part of Dalmatia and the reoccupied zones (Zones II and III) would be supplied. 9 The Italians were well aware that the region under their control west of the demarcation line was a food-deficit area and that supplying it with food would be the most difficult economic and political task there. In obligating the Croatian government to fulfill it, they made the Croats responsible for any shortcommgs. Article r of the agreement abolished customs duties between the Italianannexed part of Dalmatia and Croatian territory and freed all traffic in goods. Special mixed border services registered the two-way traffic in goods and controlled foreign exchange operations. Article 2 obliged the Croatian government to help with the food supply for the civilian population in the Italian-annexed part of Dalmatia and the province of Fiume (Rijeka), for which separate agreements were to be made. In Article 3, the Croatian government accepted the obligation to supply Italian forces in Zones II and III with "the necessary quantities of construction [wood] and firewood, charcoal, potatoes, vegetables, fodder, meat, lard, and flour. In regard to meat, lard, and flour, the Croatian government obliged itself to supply as much as possible." Article 4 stated that "the Croatian government would put at the disposal of the Command of the 2nd Army sums that would be mutually agreed upon from month to month and that were necessary for the above Command to purchase the needed commodities mentioned in Article 3 and to cover other expenditures that it would have in Croatia." Special enclosures to the agreement stipulated that the 2nd Army was to inform the Croatian State Food Administration (Drzavna obskrbna poslovna sredisnjica-DOPOS) each month of the kinds and amounts of food required for the following month and that the State Food Administration would see that these quantities were purchased at prices not higher than wholesale prices for civilian purchases and delivered according to arrangements made with the Italian military authorities. If the quantities supplied proved insufficient, the command of the 2nd Army would be free to purchase supplies at wholesale prices in Croatia to fill the shortages, in which task it would be assisted by the Croatian authorities. The food supply for the civilian population in the Italian-annexed part of Dalmatia was provided according to arrangements between the Croatian government and the government of that province, which also had the right to make direct purchases on the Croatian market if the Croatian government failed to 'YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 2hra, Box 87.

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respond, or responded inadequately, to its requests. Similar arrangements were also to be made with the province of Fiume (Rijeka). The Croatian government was responsible for the food supply for the civilian population in reoccupied Zones II and III, just as in the remainder of the country. On the basis of the October 27 agreement, the command of the 2nd Army requested the Croatian government to pay 250 million kunas monthly for November and December r 94 r, and 200 million kunas were paid monthly for the first four months of 1942. During May and June 1942, the Italians were toreceive only roo million kunas monthly, so that total payments for the maintenance of Italian troops in Croatia from November r, 1941, until the end of June 1942 amounted to r,soo million kunas. This sum agrees almost exactly with the figure of 1,450 million kunas given by Aleksandar Hondl, a high Croatian government official, in his report of May r 5, 1945. 10 On June 19, 1942, the Italian Supersloda and the Croatian government concluded an agreement in which the Italians agreed to withdraw a large part of their troops from Zones II and III. This made it possible to reduce and generally change the system of financing Italian troops in Croatia, which from then on was calculated as part of the general ltalian-Croatian Clearing Account. Since this account always showed a heavy deficit for Croatia because of a permanent Croatian import surplus in trade with Italy and the lack of counterbalancing Croatian earnings on the Service Account, Italy did two things. First, it made it more difficult for Italian goods to be exported to Croatia, and second, it transferred 450 million kunas to this account in October 1942, mostly in commodities. The remaining 1,ooo million kunas paid to support Italian forces in Croatia prior to July 1942 were accepted by Italy as a debt to be repaid to Croatia after the war. 11 Thus, although formally the cost of maintaining Italian troops in Croatia amounted to a loan from Croatia to Italy, the fact that Italy received real goods for these sums meant a heavy burden on the Croatian wartime economy. This burden was lightened somewhat after July r, 1942, when Italy reduced the number of its troops in Croatia and similarly its requests for support. Be"'For the I94I payments, see Micr. No. T-821, Roll 4IO, Frs. 209, 228; and for the I942 payments, Micr. No. T-50I, Rol1264, Fr. 587. According to Glaise's report of]une I6, I942, in the spring of I942 Croatia paid 1.25 million kunas per month for each battalion of Italian troops stationed in Croatia. See Micr. No. T-50I, Roll 264, Fr. I026. For Hondl's figures, see Aleksandar Hondl, "Economic and Financial Consequences of Occupation" (Gospodarske i financijske posljedice okupacije), an IS-page report dated May I 5, I945, a copy of which I obtained by courtesy of Vladimir Bakaric. Hondl was chief of the Section of Monetary Policy and Government Debt in the Croatian Ministry of Finance, a member of the Supervisory Committee of the Croatian State Bank, and chairman of the Croatian Government Committee, which coordinated Croatian economic policy with the corresponding German Government Committee, from April I 944 to the end of the war. "Aleksandar Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy" (lzvjesce o valutno-gospodarskoj politici), pp. II-I3. This was an internal report submitted to the president of the Croatian State Bank in June 1943. I obtained a copy by courtesy of Ivo Perisin.

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tween that date and the end of April 1943, Croatia paid only about 434 million kunas in maintenance costs. Hondl thought that during this time the Italians were drawing on large sums of kunas that they had accumulated earlier. Another cost connected with Italian forces in Croatia that Croatia had to pay, which was also to be repaid after the war, was for the use of Croatian railroads by Italian personnel and Italian freight, amounting to an estimated 300 million kunas. 12 The Italians obtained funds from the Croatian state in several other ways as well. One was by using old Yugoslav dinar banknotes, which Italians could get in exchange for Italian lire in the Italian-annexed parts of Yugoslavia and in parts annexed to Albania for the Italian account. This was done through a special agency, the Commissariato civile, established by the Italian military authorities in Karlovac near Zagreb for the purpose of buying various commodities with the old Yugoslav currency. Hondl thought that some 500 to Soo million dinars were involved. 13 Since the Italians desperately needed additional commodities, they were willing to pay prices that were much higher than the controlled prices set by the Croatian authorities. The result was a lively smuggling trade from the German-controlled areas of Croatia to the Italian zones, thereby reducing the supply of goods in the German areas, increasing the supply of money, and contributing still further to inflation. 14

Croatia's Payments to Germany Financial relations between Croatia and Germany were much more complex, and on a much larger scale, than those between Croatia and Italy. During the first phase of the occupation, from April to August 1941, the Germans used their own occupation currency in Croatia, the Reichskreditkassenscheine, which the Croatian government announced (on April25) was a legal means of payment for the German military. The Germans also used requisition scrip to acquire supplies. On August 18, 1941, the Croatian government announced that the German occupation currency was no longer legal tender for German forces and would be exchanged for kunas. The total value of exchanged Reichskreditkassenscheine was 3 71.2 million kunas, and of the withdrawn scrip, 147.2 million kunas. Both were exchanged at the expense of the Croatian government and returned to the Reichskreditkasse. During this early period, 12Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy," p. I3; Hondl, "Economic and Financial Consequences of Occupation," p. 6; Micr. No. T-82I, Roll4I0, Frs. I 57-58. The personal baggage allowance for Italian military personnel in either direction was I 50 kilograms, and since there was no customs inspection, Italian soldiers were able to carry a considerable amount of supplies out of Croatia. For the estimate of 300 million kunas as Croatia's credit balance on this account, see Tinti, pp. 29-30, and Hondl, p. 6. uHondl, "Economic and Financial Consequences of Occupation," pp. 5-6. 14 Glaise wrote in his private service letter of May 26, I943, to Colonel Schuchardt that the Italian occupation zone in Croatia operated like a vacuum cleaner, sucking commodities into goods-hungry Italian hands. Micr. No. T-50I, Roll264, Fr. 520.

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the Germans undoubtedly also drew on the estimated 2,ooo million dinars that they seized from the Yugoslav military in the Independent State of Croatia in April I94I and probably also on dinar notes brought in from outside the country.15 This was possible because the exchange of old dinar notes into new kuna notes continued until the end of I 94 I. In addition to a series of public economic agreements between Germany and Croatia (on the export of labor, on trade, and clearing agreements), the two countries also concluded a series of secret agreements. Besides the already quoted Clodius Agreement, another early secret German-Croatian accord of foremost significance was the Agreement on Maintaining German Troops in the Independent State of Croatia Who Are Not in Transit, concluded on June 20, I94I. 16 It became effective on August I, I94I, and, with some changes, remained in operation until January I943· According to this agreement, the Croatian government was obliged to deposit into the account of the Deutsche Wehrmacht Zentralkasse fiir Kroatien at the Croatian State Bank the kuna amounts requested each month in advance by the Wehrmacht quartermaster stationed at the office of the German plenipotentiary general in Zagreb. The Croatian State Food Administration was to supply the German forces with the amounts and kinds of food requested by the Wehrmacht quartermaster. The German forces paid for these supplies, at officially decreed maximum prices, out of the funds received from the Croatian government. If the Croatian agencies did not satisfy German demands, German military authorities were free to buy the requested amounts in the market at any price, regardless of official price ceilings. The Croatian government also agreed to supply German forces in Croatia with billeting facilities, which included, in addition to lodging and all necessary supplies, all equipment and supplies for heating, lighting, water, and the like, as well as the necessary offices, warehouses, slaughter houses, bakeries, and workshops. To the extent that the quartermaster of the Croatian army was not able to supply these facilities and necessities, the German army could acquire them in the market directly, using funds provided by the Croatian government. Further, the two parties agreed that German forces would refrain from req15 For the August I8, I94I, announcement, see Zbornik zakona i naredaba NDH, 1941, pp. 23-24,426. For the total amount of occupation currency and requisition scrip exchanged for kunas, see Croatian State Bank, "Payments to the Germans" (Isplate Njemcima), a report based on the central accounting of the bank showing payments made between April I 94 I and May 7, I945· While different in composition, the total amount is almost identical to that given by the Wehrmacht quartermaster in Zagreb in his report of May 22, I942, in Micr. No. T-soi, Roll264, Frs. 586-87. For the 2,ooo million dinars seized by the Germans in Croatia, see Croatian State Bank, "Financing the German Armed Forces in Croatia" (Financiranje njemackih orui;anih snaga u Hrvatskoj), p. I, an internal report of late I944· I obtained copies of the Croatian State Bank reports by courtesy of Ivo Perisin, former governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia. 161 obtained a copy of this agreement by courtesy of Ivo Perisin.

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uisitioning in Croatia and that requisition scrip issued up to that time would be exchanged according to new agreements. Commodities rationed in Croatia would be provided to German forces according to the existing supply. To prevent a possible sellout in Croatia, German armed forces personnel could not obtain additional monies from home. The amount of goods that German soldiers could take out of the country when going on furlough or send out by mail was to be regulated by separate agreement. However, Wehrmacht personnel and German military transports were not subject to Croatian customs control when crossing the frontier. German forces were entitled to request civilian workers for their needs through labor exchanges, and Croatian workers were supplied and paid for by local mayors rather than by the German military authorities. All disputes falling under civil law between German commands or Wehrmacht personnel and Croatian civilians were to be referred to a GermanCroatian commission, since Croatian courts were expressly denied jurisdiction over such cases. Certain other items, as well as the exchange of occupation currency and requisition scrip, were to be regulated by additional agreements. A supplementary agreement between Germany and Croatia, concluded on November 5, 1941, stipulated that the cost of maintaining German troops in Croatia who were there primarily in Germany's interest and the cost of maintaining German troops in eastern Srijem whose activities were related to the functions of the German commanding general in Serbia were to be carried by Germany. This agreement, however, reaffirmed the obligation that Croatia took on in the Clodius Agreement to finance the building and maintenance of installations in Croatia for the Wehrmacht "insofar as these are expenses arising within the country itsel£." 17 There are several sources of information on Croatia's payments to maintain German troops after August 1941, but the simplest and most complete is the Croatian State Bank document entitled "Payments to the Germans." It shows that in addition to the exchange of German occupation currency and requisition scrip in August 1941, totaling 518.4 million kunas, the Croatian government paid 415 million kunas in the last five months of 1941 and 2,042 million kunas in the course of 1942 to maintain German troops. However, in 1942 and 1943, following the provisions of the November 5, 1941, agreement, the Germans repaid Croatia 642.8 million kunas. To the end of April 1942, some 222.5 million kunas of this came from occupation costs imposed on Serbia and another 70.6 million kunas from sources in the Reich. According to Kasche, during the entire year of 1942, a total of 450 million kunas of German repayments to Croatia came from occupation costs on Serbia. Croatia was repaid for expenses connected with the maintenance of German troops in eastern Srijem, who were part of the occupation troops in Serbia. 18 "The agreement is in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 8/7, Box 233· '"Croatian State Bank, "Payments to the Germans"; Micr. No. T-sor, Rol1264, Fr. 587; Micr. No. T-120, Rol15794, Fr. H3o6,922.

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Unfortunately, I was unable to discover how much the Croatian government spent from August I94I to the end of I942 for constructing and maintaining facilities for the Wehrmacht or for civilian labor put at the Wehrmacht's disposal. Croatia also had to pay for building roads from the bauxite fields west of Mostar to the railroad line at Mostar, for constructing the railroad from Metkovic farther south on the line to Ploce near the estuary of the Neretva River, and for building the Ploce harbor. These works were all joint German-Italian-Croatian ventures, under the overall management of Organization Todt, to facilitate the production of bauxite, its transport to the coast, and its loading for export to Germany, but the costs were borne entirely by the Croatian government. 19 As noted above, Croatian payments to the Italians were greatly reduced in mid-I942 when the Italians agreed to carry part of the cost of maintaining their troops in Croatia and also withdrew a large part of their forces from Zones II and III according to the agreement of June I 9, I 942. The Croatian government did its utmost to obtain a similar reduction in payments for the maintenance of German troops, sending Finance Minister Vladimir Kosak to Berlin in January I943 for that purpose. But the two situations were hardly comparable. The Germans, rather than withdrawing forces from Croatia, began to increase them after September I942. Their commitments became very heavy in early I943, a fact clearly reflected in increased requests for Croatian currency payments. Whereas in I942 Croatian payments to German forces averaged I70 million kunas monthly, during the first seven months of I943 they averaged 5 so million kunas monthly. 20 German commitments in Croatia became even heavier in September I943 after Italy's capitulation, when the Germans found themselves fighting the Partisans over a much wider territory and feared a possible Allied landing on the Adriatic coast. Still, the Croatian plea for a reduction of payments was formally quite successful, because by the German-Croatian Confidential Protocol of January I9, I943, the Germans agreed to bear the costs of maintaining their troops in Croatia. It was agreed that the Croatian government would supply the German military authorities in Croatia with the necessary advances in kunas for the 19 Among the mass of documents relating to the construction of the Ploce harbor, see German documents in Micr. No. T-77, Roll886, Frs. 5,635,268-462, and Micr. No. T-501, Roll266, Frs. 58-59, and Italian documents in Micr. No. T-821, Roll65, Frs. 498-505. The monthly reports of the German military economic officer in Zagreb, who reported on the quantity of bauxite stored at mines and Adriatic ports (Zelenika, Dubrovnik, Split), as well as that transported by land over Bosanski Brod, did not mention the Ploce harbor, from which one can infer that it was not completed by August 1944. The last monthly report available to me is in Micr. No. T-120, Roll5796, Frs. H3o6,889-93. 2l'For Kosak's trip to Berlin, see Micr. No. T- 501, Roll268, Fr. 6 5. For increased Croatian payments to the Germans, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5794, Fr. H3o6,922. Some of this increase was due to rapidly advancing inflation in Croatia. German repayment of part of these payments somewhat reduced Croatia's burden.

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purchase of supplies and services and that the German government would deposit a corresponding amount of Reichsmarks with the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse in Berlin in Special Account M [Military] No. 406 53 in favor of the Croatian State Bank for the account of the Croatian government. The Germans, however, would import the necessary rations for their troops in Croatia and also not more than 4o,ooo rations for Croatian troops "fighting as part of the German forces." The Croatian government agreed to supply fresh meat and fresh vegetables for German troops. The agreement, however, did not work out as it was supposed to. Croatian payments for maintaining German troops in Croatia rose steadily until the fall of 1944. The explanation for this seeming paradox had to do with the functioning of Special Account M, through which German troops in Croatia were financed. The account was established according to the above protocol, which also stipulated other provisions about it in general terms. Problems that inevitably arose in managing the account in Berlin and Zagreb were regulated by decisions of the German and Croatian Government Committees. The account worked in the following manner: each month, the Wehrmacht quartermaster in Zagreb presented his request for the desired amount of kunas (itemized according to use) to the Croatian Ministry of Finance, which issued orders to the Croatian State Bank to pay these amounts to the Deutsche Wehrmacht Zentralkasse in Zagreb. Payments were made daily according to the requests of the Zentralkasse, whereupon the German quartermaster in Zagreb reported the amounts to the German Armed Forces High Command, which made the corresponding deposits in Reichsmarks with the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse in Berlin to Special Account M. Since the Croatian Ministry of Finance did not have any deposits with the Croatian State Bank from which to finance payments to the Germans because state revenues were not sufficient to cover even basic government expenditures, the State Bank had to keep granting loans, mostly by printing banknotes, to the state, debiting these loans to the Claims Abroad Account, that is, Special Account Min Berlin. As a result, during 1943 and 1944, payments to the German forces in Croatia became the most important determinant of banknote circulation in the country. In addition, the Ministry of Finance issued treasury bills to the State Bank, which used them as additional collateral for these loans. 21 When the Croatian Ministry of Armed Forces or another government agency wanted to buy supplies in Germany or withdraw them from German military warehouses in Croatia and finance them through Special Account M, it gave orders to the Ministry of Finance. Depending on the rules governing various kinds of supplies-arms and ammunition could be ordered automatically, while other supplies had to be approved by the German and Croatian Arrangements between the Croatian government's Ministry of Finance and the Croatian State Bank concerning the operation of Special Account M on the Croatian side were stipulated by a contract of February 19, 1943, and its amendment of July 17, I943· 21

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Government Committees-the Ministry of Finance deposited the required amount in kunas with the Croatian State Bank in favor of Special Account Min Berlin, where the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse used the corresponding amount in Reichsmarks to pay the invoices in Germany. 22 Three basic problems faced the Croatian government in the operation of Special Account M: (I) the amount of advances required by the Germans in Croatia, (2) the use to which Croatian Reichsmark credits in Berlin could be put, and (3) the prices charged by the two sides for supplies financed through the account. The requests from the Wehrmacht quartermaster in Zagreb for advances to German troops in Croatia had no limit other than what the German military authorities considered necessary. Given the increasing amount of these payments and the efforts of the Croatian authorities to reduce them, one can safely assume that German posts in Croatia were liberal in assessing their needs for kuna currency. This was clearly shown by later negotiations between the two countries. With respect to the use of Croatian Reichsmark credits in Germany, Point I of the Confidential Protocol of January I9, I943, stated that the German and Croatian Government Committees would agree as time went on how these credits could be used by Croatia, but "that in the first place, covering current military deliveries by Germany for the needs of the Croatian armed forces will be involved." Since the Germans in Berlin only sparingly allowed Croatian credits in Special Account M to be used for Croatian purchases in Germany, a huge Croatian credit balance arose in the account. In other words, while the Germans were able to obtain a commensurate amount of goods and services in Croatia through advances acquired in Croatia, they limited the Croats to the use of only about half of their credits in Berlin for the purchase of goods in Germany. Thus, through these forced credits, Croatia still supported the German troops, despite the provisions of the January protocol. Moreover, almost the only goods that the Croatian government was allowed to buy in Germany or to obtain from German military warehouses in Croatia were those for arming and maintaining Croatian forces, which were almost completely under German command and fighting for German objectives. The arrangement of January I9, I943, was therefore only a partial improvement over previous conditions. As for the price of supplies, in Croatia the Germans usually paid official prices for Croatian commodities that they purchased, and these prices were steadily rising. When the Germans were unable to acquire the desired supplies at official prices, they paid higher prices, which was very much resented by the 22 For the conclusion of the Confidential Protocol of January 19, 1943, see Micr. No. Tsor, Roll 268, Frs. 63-64. For its text, a report on the operation of Special Account M, and other related documents, see Croatian State Bank, "Account M" (Racun M), an internal report prepared in late I944· I obtained a copy by courtesy oflvo Perisin.

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Croatian authorities. But the Germans, too, though maintaining the official exchange rate of 20 kunas for r Reichsmark, increased the prices that they charged Croatia for supplies twice before September 1944 (and probably after that as well). As the war progressed, the worsening military and economic situation in Croatia was reflected in how Special Account M was operated and how other provisions of the January r 94 3 protocol were carried out. Croatian authorities had difficulty supplying fresh meat to German forces as early as March I943· Since they were unable to provide the necessary livestock, German commands established special units for buying livestock and paid prices up to roo percent higher than official maximum prices. For the additional costs, they simply requested more kunas through Special Account M. After discussions between the Croatian and German authorities, it was finally agreed on February II, 1944, that Croatia would supply 400 metric tons monthly of fresh meat, carcass weight, up to July r, 1944. 23 Another revision of terms, presumably at the Germans' initiative since it was in their favor, was arranged through an exchange of letters between the chairmen of the German and Croatian Government Committees on July r, 1943. This provided that payments for Croatian orders in Germany financed through Special Account M could be automatically processed only if they covered arms and ammunition. For all other military and other supplies, it was first necessary to obtain the permission of the German and Croatian Government Committees. 24 The chairman of the German Government Committee also emphasized that new arrangements would be made for financing the construction of facilities for German forces in Croatia. Some further understanding about this issue must have been reached, or at least anticipated, by the Croatian government, because on July 17, 1943, by an amendment to the agreement of February 19, 1943, between the Croatian government and the Croatian State Bank, the latter henceforth was also to charge to the credits in Special Account M in Berlin Croatian payments for "costs for building and maintaining German military installations in Croatia." Another agreement, reached on February II, 1944, after several months of negotiations between representatives of the Wehrmacht and the German Ministry of Food on the one hand and the Croatian Ministry of Armed Forces and 23 Micr. No. T-77, Roll 788, Frs. 5.517,483-84; Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Frs. H309,697-98. Peasants were exceedingly unhappy about the special German units for buying livestock, because free or gray market prices were as much as 750 percent higher than official maximum prices. According to the February 1944 agreement, the Croatian authorities would make available livestock at official prices, but the German military had to provide the security troops needed to carry out acquisition operations. This implies that the Croatian authorities had to use force to obtain the livestock from the peasants. It was also agreed that any livestock taken by the Germans as booty in operations against the Partisans was to be counted as part of the monthly quotas. 24 Micr. No. T-120, Roll5797, Frs. H309,513-15.

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the State Food Administration on the other, stipulated that the Germans would provide rations for another 4o,ooo Croatian soldiers fighting as part of German forces in Croatia, bringing the total number of Croatian troops that Germany supplied rations for to 8o,ooo. 25 By early 1944, the tendency of the German posts to require ever higher advances from the Croatian state, due partly to the growing number of German forces in Croatia and partly to advancing inflation, put a severe strain on the Croatian economy. On February 4, Josip Cabas, Croatian minister of industry and trade, submitted a frank and gloomy report on the state of the economy to Nikola Mandie, Croatian prime minister. As Cabas saw it, the three main problems of the Croatian economy were rising prices, a decline in the productive capacity of the country, and a precarious food supply. He put most of the blame for the rise in prices on the payments to German forces in Croatia, with less important factors such as the increased velocity in the circulation of money due to declining public confidence and the declining supply of goods and services also contributing to it. To stabilize the economy, he proposed a drastic reduction in advances to German forces in Croatia, down, in fact, to a level sufficient only to cover the pay of German military personnel, with all necessary goods shipped in from abroad; strict customs controls for all German military transports leaving Croatia, with a ban on the export of all goods bought or confiscated in Croatia and customs inspection of all individual German soldiers leaving Croatian territory; a drastic reduction in the cost of arming Croatian forces, by obtaining credits in kind from Germany; the enactment of measures to safeguard and stimulate agricultural and industrial production; and the import of necessary quantities of foodstuffs (grains, potatoes, fats, and sugar) to prevent possible starvation. 26 At a meeting in Zagreb on March 21, Cabas submitted a report incorporating most of these recommendations, though in somewhat modified form, to the chairman of the German Government Committee. He emphasized again that the large advances made to German forces in Croatia were the principal cause of rapid inflation and other unfavorable developments in the Croatian economy. As a remedy, he proposed that these payments be broken down into two parts. The first part, 300 million kunas monthly, sufficient to cover the pay 25 Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Fr. H309,697. For discussions among German experts on rations on October 25, 1943, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll5796, Frs. H3o8,6o1-3. "Josip Cabas, "Economic Problems of the Independent State of Croatia" (Gospodarski problemi Nezavisne Drzave Hrvatske), pp. 17-18. I obtained a copy of Cabas's report by courtesy of the State Archives of the Socialist Republic of Croatia in Zagreb. Until April 1944, Cabas was also the chairman of the Croatian Government Committee that, with its counterpart, the German Government Committee, managed German-Croatian economic and financial relations. Italy and Romania also complained that the Germans took large quantities of commodities from them by military trains without customs control. Romania apparently succeeded in instituting some controls.

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of German forces in Croatia, would be financed through Special Account M. The second part, 1,200 million kunas monthly, the difference between the first part and the 1,500 million kunas that he assumed was the amount required to maintain German troops in Croatia (without the support payments mentioned below), would be raised through the sale in Croatia at prevailing prices of special imports from Germany worth about 10 million Reichsmarks monthly, which the Germans would account for at internal German prices. Cabas asked for further discussions on the 550 to 6oo million kunas monthly that the Germans needed to support the families of Croatian soldiers serving in German forces. The January 19, 1943, protocol, he pointed out, did not stipulate that this support was to be advanced by the Croatian government. He also proposed several special changes: that Special Account M No. 406 53, in which Croatia had a huge credit balance, be combined with the German-Croatian Combined Clearing Account No. 4065, in which the Croatian government soon expected to have a deficit; that a Croatian economic officer be delegated to the senior German military authority in Zagreb; that the Germans observe official maximum prices in their purchases in Croatia; that in their purchase of foodstuffs they limit themselves exclusively to fresh meat and fresh vegetables and refrain from buying food items that Croatia imported from Germany and paid for through the Combined Clearing Account; and finally, that the branch of the Reichskreditkasse in Zagreb cease activity, that is, no longer intervene in regulating the money market and money traffic, since these functions could be performed by the Croatian State Bank. 27 The Germans, however, had anticipated Cabas's report. The Wehrmacht General Department, which acted for the Wehrmacht Operations Staff and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, estimating that German troops in Croatia would require about 3,ooo million kunas for the month of March 1944 and aware of the rapidly worsening economic and financial situation in Croatia as well as of forthcoming Croatian requests for a drastic reduction in advances to German forces, began preparing arguments in defense of the German position in February. The German military authorities, it insisted, had not only done all they could to lessen the burden on Croatian finances, but Germany could neither increase the amount of supplies shipped to its forces in Croatia, nor reduce the amount of Croatian advances, including those needed to support the families of Croats serving in the German military. Furthermore, the Croatian economy would be stabilized not by reducing payments to German forces, but by restoring peace and confidence in the currency and the government. But the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs did advocate the reduction of payments to German forces in Croatia to 2,ooo million kunas monthly. 28 A partial answer to the Croatian proposals, but covering only secondary "Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Frs. H309,7II-16; Croatian State Bank, "Account M," pp. 17-22. 2 'Micr. No. T-77, Rol178I, Frs. 5,507,642-43· See also Kriegstagebuch, 4, pt. 1: 747-48.

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points, came in a letter from the chairman of the German Government Committee on April 24, 1944. The main decisions were included in Point 8 of the protocol of May 2, 1944, which was concluded following meetings between representatives of the two countries in Wustrau and Berlin between April 13 and May 2. 29 This protocol established the continuing use of Special Account M for financing German forces in Croatia, but set a maximum limit of about 2,400 million kunas monthly on Croatian advances to German forces "for the immediate future," with an additional unspecified amount "for the maintenance of Croatian troops [serving with German forces], for which the Croatian government was responsible." Of the 2,400 million kunas monthly, 6oo million kunas were to be credited by the Germans to the German-Croatian Combined Clearing Account "instead of additional deliveries of goods" and an additional 6oo million kunas were to be used to support the needy families of Croats serving in German forces. These changes seemed to satisfy the Croatian authorities. The provisions of Point 8 were "the best that could be achieved under the circumstances," and the Croats were especially pleased at having obtained a fixed upper limit for advances in a presumably binding document. 30 But most of these provisions were soon outdated. By August, the situation in Croatia had changed significantly due to Germany's rapidly deteriorating military position in southeast Europe. Croatia was now of vital strategic importance, the target of intensified Allied bombing and Partisan attacks that inflicted great damage on railroads and disrupted life and production. The productive capacity of Croatian agriculture, industry, and mining continued to decline, and prices soared. The consequence was an increase in German requirements for kunas. A new protocol of August 9, 1944, following meetings of the German and Croatian Government Committees between August 4 and 9 in Berlin, set Croatian payments for the maintenance of German forces in Croatia for August at 4,ooo million kunas, less Croatian payments for German supplies to maintain some Croatian forces serving with the Germans. Payments for September and later months were to be set after additional negotiations later in August. The Germans, however, did agree to put at the disposal of the Croatian government, as it had requested on July 29, 3 million Italian lire monthly for salaries, retirement pay, and family support in the operational Adriatic Coastland Zone. The Wehrmacht also stated its willingness to supply, if possible until the end of December, about 75,000 complete uniforms for Croatian forces. 31 29 See Micr. No. T-r2o, Roll5797, Frs. H3o9,755-56 for the letter of April24, and Frs. H309,738-47, especially Frs. H309,743-44, for the protocol of May 2. "'Croatian State Bank, "Financing the German Armed Forces in Croatia," p. 3· "See Micr. No. T-r2o, Roll 5797, Frs. H3o9,76o-66 for the August 9 protocol, and Fr. H309,767 for the Wehrmacht's agreement to supply uniforms. I was unable to find any confirmation, however, that they were ever delivered. For Croatian requests for uniforms and similar supplies, which were for much more than what the Germans finally promised to deliver, see Fr. H309,542. In return for these supplies, the Croats promised to deliver extra quotas of tannin.

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The protocol also contained an important provision regarding prices. Henceforth, German supplies delivered to Croatia and paid for through Special Account M would be accounted for at prices ro times the level prevailing in April 1941, or current German prices if prices for April 1941 were not available. There is very little detailed information on German-Croatian arrangements for the maintenance of German troops in Croatia after the August 1944 protocol. The May 15, 1945, report of Aleksandar Hondl, who had become chairman of the Croatian Government Committee in April 1944 (replacing Josip Cabas, who was appointed Croatian trade representative in Switzerland and spent the rest of the war there), is open to question in certain respects. Hondl wrote that the financing of German forces in Croatia was carried on through Special Account M until the end of the war, which other evidence corroborates. But it is hard to believe his statement that after December r 944, all German troops in Croatia, as well as those Croatian troops formerly provisioned by Germany, lived off the land, presumably because no food was being shipped in due to shortages in Germany and disruptions in transportation. Hondl reported that the Germans declined a Croatian request that they pay for the food in free foreign exchange or gold, but they did promise to return the commodities in kind as soon as transport conditions permitted. 32 Any German decision to let their troops in Croatia live off the land could not have been realized. By November 1944, the Partisans had captured part of food-rich eastern Srijem, and they also controlled parts of food-rich Slavonia. By the end of the same month, probably close to three-quarters of the Croatian civilian Volksdeutsche, who had been important producers of food for the Germans in Croatia, had been evacuated to Austria or Germany. Furthermore, Croatian peasants at this time were increasingly loath to sell the food they produced to Croatian authorities or German forces at low official prices in return for money that could buy little or nothing. Moreover, a letter of Stjepan Hefer, Croatian minister of peasant agriculture and food, to the German envoy in Zagreb, dated January 31, 1945, confirms that the Germans promised to ship some grain supplies from abroad to Croatia for Croatian use. Hefer protested the cancellation of three railroad trains with bread grains for the civilian population of Zagreb and one railroad train for the Croatian army, which were supposed to arrive in Zagreb in the last week of January, and pleaded for the speedy dispatch of ten railroad trains with food grains, since there was only enough grain on hand to feed the people of Zagreb until February 5 and the Croatian army until February 6. In the same letter, he reported that food from eastern Srijem and certain counties in Croatia had been taken by the Germans for their troops, including the Cossacks. 33 This was a time when Croatia was filled with masses of German troops, who since December 1944 had been "Hondl, "Economic and Financial Consequences of Occupation," pp. ro-r I. YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. r!r 6a, Box 87. I was unable to ascertain whether the Germans actually delivered any bread grains to Croatia for the Croats' own use. 33

68r

682

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART II

moving from Greece, Albania, and Montenegro through Croatia by train and motorized vehicle, as well as on foot while fighting, toward Austria and Germany. They carried some rations with them, but these could have been only partly supplemented by food produced in Croatia. Most of the food supplies needed had been brought in from the Greater Reich and western Hungary. 34 We have no data on what the Germans procured in Croatia with the kunas delivered by the Croatian government either before or after the introduction of Special Account Min January I943, or what the Croatian government received in kind from the Germans through this account from January I943 until the end of the war. But we do have complete data on Croatian payments to the Germans through this account and the amount of Croatian purchases for its forces and transfers to its Combined Clearing Account through this account. According to the Croatian State Bank's "Payments to the Germans," the payments through Special Account M No. 40653 were: II,270 million kunas in 1943, 30,820 million kunas in I944, and 20,870 million kunas from January I to May 7, I945, for a total of 62,960 million kunas. Croatian drawings through the same account were: 5 I 6 million kunas for the purchase of arms in Germany in I943; I3,548 million kunas for the purchase of arms in Germany, the withdrawal of food from German military warehouses for Croatian troops, and German transfers to the German-Croatian Combined Clearing Account of 6oo million kunas monthly (from May I944) in I944; and I6,oi5 million kunas for the same purposes as in I944 from january I to May 7, I945, for a total of 30,079 million kunas. The balance in favor of the Croatian State Bank was J2,88I million kunas. A postwar Yugoslav recapitulation of transactions between the Independent State of Croatia and Germany through Special Account M and other accounts in which payments from commercial and other operations were made (see below) also mentioned an Evidence Account, the so-called Special Account M Without Number, in the books of the Croatian State Bank. This was reportedly an account in which the Croatian State Bank recorded payments to the Germans that did not go through Special Account M No. 406 53 and that did not have a corresponding account on the German side. According to this summary, the German debit on Special Account M Without Number at the end of the war was II,66o,733,455 kunas or, at a rate of 20 kunas to I Reichsmark, 583,036,672.75 Reichsmarks. The Croatian government's directive on accounting procedures in transactions through Special Account M No. 406 53 14 I would have expected Colonel General Alexander Lohr, commander of Army Group F and later commander in chief in southeast Europe, to have commented on the provisioning of German forces in the Independent State of Croatia from November 1944 to May 1945 in his postwar interrogation. But he barely mentioned it. He did say that he had great difficulty in providing his troops with food and that the Croatian government, in addition to supplying its own forces and civilian population, helped to supply his men as well. See his statement in YA, Mil. Hi st., German Docs., Reg. No. 1, pp. 6o, 6 5, Box 70/I.

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mentioned an Evidence Account M, but it seems to me that this account did not refer to any additional payments to the Germans. 35 Furthermore, neither "Payments to the Germans" and "Financing the German Armed Forces in Croatia" of the Croatian State Bank, nor the reports of Cabas and Hondl, mentioned this account. Therefore we will also disregard it. As the war progressed and Croatian payments for the maintenance of German forces and the purchase of supplies from Germany through Special Account M rose, the purchasing power of the kuna fell (see Table 8 in the following chapter). Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the effective exchange rate between the kuna and the Reichsmark, it is not possible to express these amounts in uninflated kuna values. It must also be remembered that during the last six months of the war, the extent of Croatian territory under Croatian and German control steadily shrank and the productive capacity of the Croatian economy declined. Thus German purchases in Croatia were made from a steadily declining production pool. The fact that the Germans allowed the Croats to use a much larger proportion of Croatian claims on Special Account M to buy supplies in 1944 and especially in 1945 than they had in 1943 proves that the Germans had to assume an increasing share of the cost of maintaining their forces in Croatia as the war advanced. Nevertheless, when the war ended, Croatia had a claim of 32,881 million kunas on Special Account M No. 406 53. 36 This represented the financial burden of maintaining German forces in Croatia from January 19, 1943, to the end of the war, a period when Germany was supposed to maintain them. From Germany's point of view, this was part of Croatia's contribution to the war effort. From Croatia's point of view, it was part of the price paid by the Ustasha government for the German support that kept it in power. The payments to the Italian and German armed forces until September 1943 and to the German armed forces until the end of the war were undoubtedly one of the principal causes of the tremendous increase in government expenditures in Croatia. Since usual state revenue did not suffice to cover even regular, that is, nonmilitary, state expenditures and recourse to loans from banks and the public proved impossible, these and other extra expenditures had to be covered through loans from the Croatian State Bank, or quite simply, by printing more banknotes. As a result, the weak Croatian economy was bur35 For the postwar Yugoslav recapitulation of transactions, see National Bank of Yugoslavia, "The Clearing Transactions Between the Former Independent State of Croatia and Germany, 1941-1945" (Klirinski platni promet izmedju bivse NDH i Njemacke u vremenu od I94I-I945), pp. 3-5. This 9-page report was based on the files of the Croatian State Bank and was made available to me by courtesy of Ivo Perisin. For the Croatian government's directive, see Croatian State Bank, "Account M," pp. 9-ro. ' 6 This is the figure in Croatian State Bank, "Payments to the Germans." A later statement of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, "The Clearing Transactions Between the Former Independent State of Croatia and Germany, 1941-1945,'' after adjustments with the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse, gave a final claim of 25,03 6 million kunas on this account.

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dened to the point of exhaustion. Certainly the two ministers, Cabas and Kosak, as well as Hondl and Aleksandar Tinti, who also had high posts, blamed these payments for the financial plight of the country. But since the Ustasha state owed its very existence to the Germans and depended on the German army, and to a much lesser extent on the Italian army, for its continuation in power, it had no choice but to pay what the Germans and Italians asked and to endure both political and economic abuse from the two Axis powers. FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF EXPLOITATION

Foreign trade relations were another means by which Germany and Italy economically exploited the puppet states established in Yugoslavia. The Germans were the chief culprits and their methods receive the most attention here, but we will also examine the Italians' measures. Only incomplete figures are available on the foreign trade of occupied Serbia and the Independent State of Croatia. From them, we can obtain an approximate picture of the situation and draw several conclusions. But it must be remembered that not all exports were recorded, particularly in Croatia. Because the available data are not complete, our analysis is to that degree less accurate. Even less information exists on the export of strategic materials from other areas of Yugoslavia that were occupied or annexed by various powers (Germany, Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, and Hungary), and it is inadequate for any systematic presentation. When these areas carried on trade with the countries that had occupied or annexed them, it was considered domestic, not foreign, trade, and therefore not specifically recorded. When these areas exported goods to other countries, the data were included in the overall trade figures of the occupying or annexing countries and not separately indicated. In the foreign trade of both Serbia and Croatia, Germany was the major partner. It supplied between 6o and 70 percent of their imports, and it compelled both to maximize their economic contribution to the German war effort by taking about 8o percent of their exports. Furthermore, in both countries the armies of occupation or virtual occupation consumed large quantities of foodstuffs, heating materials, and construction goods without supplying any countervalue in exchange, because they bought these supplies with funds furnished by the two governments or acquired them by requisitioning or plunder. But just as the occupation costs paid by Serbia differed from the payments for the maintenance of Axis troops made by the Independent State of Croatia, so too did Serbia's foreign trade operate differently from Croatia's. The most significant difference between the two countries was that Serbia, under a strict occupation regime that effectively sealed the frontiers, tightly controlled merchandise traffic going out of the country, whereas Croa-

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART II

tia, a formally sovereign state without sealed frontiers, never succeeded in completely controlling such traffic. Throughout the war a great deal of smuggling took place from Croatia, especially to the Italian zone of occupation, to Serbia in eastern Srijem, and to Hungary. But the largest amount of uncontrolled and unrecorded merchandise export was to Germany, by military transports not subject to customs control.

Serbia According to the March I6, I944, report by Franz Neuhausen, plenipotentiary for economic affairs, Serbia's total exports for the economic year from October I, I94I, to September 30, I942, amounted to I,302 million dinars, of which 83.5 percent went to Germany and 5.2 percent to Italy. During the same period, imports amounted to I,2I8 million dinars, of which 61.9 percent came from Germany and 7·9 percent from Italy. Trade was also carried on with Croatia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and other countries. For the economic year from October I, I942, to September 30, I943, Serbia's exports amounted to 2,8I9 million dinars, of which 82.2 percent went to Germany and I 2.7 percent to Italy. Imports amounted to 2,073 million dinars, of which 58.8 percent came from Germany and 6.9 percent from Italy. The remaining trade was with other countries. It is evident from these figures that although the lion's share of Serbia's exports went to Germany, about 40 percent of its imports came from countries other than Germany, especially Croatia and Romania. Moreover, "commodities that were imported from the Reich were used mostly for the development and/or operation of economic enterprises working directly or indirectly for the Reich. Of the imports, 3 5 percent were metal products, I 6 percent chemicals, I I percent coal, and 8 percent paper products. " 37 The above figures are not complete. According to Neuhausen, Serbia delivered to the Wehrmacht quartermaster in Germany and his subsidiary offices in the Polish General Government, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Greece, as well as to other organizations of the Wehrmacht or working for the Wehrmacht, such as Organization Todt, commodities valued at 989 million dinars in I942 and I,075·4 million dinars in the first half of I943· These commodities were not included in trade statistics "and for them no real countervalue had "Neuhausen III," Frs. 369-70; the quote is from Fr. 370. According to official Serbian data, Serbian exports and imports for the period from June to December 1941 and for all of 1942 were as follows: 37

Exports Imports (in millions of dinars)

June-December 1941 1942

569.2 1,948.9

317.9 1,367.8

See Serbian National Bank, Serbische National bank 1942, p. 6. This was the annual report of the bank for 1942, a copy of which I obtained by courtesy of the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade.

685

686

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been received by Serbia." 38 According to all indications, these unrecorded exports did not include the dismantled industrial equipment discussed in the previous chapter. There are no similar data on the value of Serbian commodities delivered to the Wehrmacht for the period from July I 94 3 to October I 944, but if we project the figure for the first half of I943 and allow for inflation, it probably amounted to some 2,500 to 3,ooo million dinars. The plenipotentiary for economic affairs quite rightly stated in his March I944 report that, given its productive capacity, Serbia was contributing more to the Reich war economy than the other countries of southeast Europe. In fact, Serbia's uncompensated deliveries to Wehrmacht organizations were simply another component of the huge economic tribute exacted from the country. All payments connected with Serbian foreign trade, involving not only the Greater Reich but also all other countries with which Serbia maintained trade relations, were carried by the Serbian National Bank over the Central Clearing Account in Berlin managed by the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse. Payments for nontrade transactions were normally not carried over the clearing account. At the end of I94I, Serbia's credit in the Central Clearing Account amounted to about 45 million Reichsmarks. With Bulgaria there was a credit of 2 million Reichsmarks and with Croatia a debit of about 5 million Reichsmarks. Expressed in dinars, Serbia's overall credit in the clearing account at the end of I94I was 949·5 million dinars. 39 It should be pointed out that Germany systematically increased its debit balance in trade with Serbia, thereby putting additional pressure on the Serbian economy. A report by the military commander in southeast Europe of September ""Neuhausen III," Fr. 376. These deliveries to the Wehrmacht quartermaster and other organizations in Germany and in other countries were as follows: First half of 1943 (in millions of dinars)

1942

Destination

Germany Bulgaria Croatia Greece Polish General Govt. Romania Serbia: RR traffic cost for the Wehrmacht TOTAL

115.6 87.5 237.6 342.4 119.9 86.0

212.6 56.6 139.8 264.7 197.9 1.2

989.0

202.6 1,075.4

The figure for Croatia in I942 also included 165.8 million dinars for constructing the airport at Zemun, which Croatia was supposed to pay but had not yet paid as of the middle of I943· See Frs. 374-75. "Serbian National Bank, Srpska narodna banka, 1941 godina, p. I 1. According to an agreement concluded on July 22, I942, in Berlin among the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia also assumed 29 percent, or 22.4 million Reichsmarks, of the 77·3 million Reichsmarks in clearing debt that Yugoslavia owed Germany at the time of the invasion. See footnote 52 for Croatia's share. The exchange rate ofReichsmarks for dinars remained at I to 20 throughout the war.

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22, I 94 3, listed the amount of German debt in the Central Clearing Account with Serbia, presumably as of the end of August I943, as 4,8oo million dinars. Within the next three and a half months, it rose another 2,ooo million dinars, and it continued to rise during the remaining ten months of German occupation until in the end it amounted to over Io,ooo million dinars, or almost 502 million Reichsmarks. Furthermore, Germany also owed Serbia for deposits made by Serbian workers in Germany during the war, a total of almost 5I million Reichsmarks. 40 Both cases exemplify the phenomenon of forced loans from Serbia to Germany.

Croatia

Complete data on Croatia's foreign trade from April I94I to the end of that year are, not surprisingly, not available. It was a highly unstable time following the brief war and proclamation of the new state, with formal or virtual occupation by Italy and Germany, uncertain frontiers, and lack of enforcement of most trade controls. For I942, of the exports recorded in Croatia, about 8o percent went to Germany (including Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, and the Polish General Government) and I2 percent to Italy. Germany supplied 70 percent of the imports and Italy 2 5 percent. The remaining trade took place with Hungary, Romania, Finland, Serbia, and Switzerland, the last named being the most important because it paid for its imports in hard currency. Croatia's exports consisted mostly of timber and timber products; agricultural products, including tobacco; animals and animal products; and minerals, including the strategically extremely important bauxite, all of which went to Germany. In imports, Croatia mainly received machines, tools and other metal products, textiles, and fuels. 41 For I943, I have been unable to find any overall data on Croatia's foreign trade, and for I944 only the percentage commodity composition of imports and exports, showing simply that it was similar to the composition in I942. Almost all monetary transactions during the war between Croatia and its trading partners, resulting from the trade in commodities and the exchange of services and including interest payments, payments for government representation abroad, and remittances of workers employed abroad, were handled through a series of clearing accounts. 42 If Croatian payments for the upkeep of «>For the military commander's report of September 22, 1943, see Micr. No. T-501, Roll 253, Fr. 362. For the increase of 2,ooo million dinars, see "Neuhausen III," Fr. 397· For the over 1o,ooo million dinars (501,884,63 5.63 Reichsmarks) that Germany owed Serbia at the end of the occupation, and the almost 51 million Reichsmarks (50,8 5 5,78 5.42) that it owed for workers' deposits, see the statement based on the wartime accounting records of the Serbian National Bank, made available to me by courtesy of lvo Perisin. 41 Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy," pp. 19-22. 42 The clearing arrangements between Germany and Croatia were regulated briefly by a memorandum of May 16, 1941, and then in detail by the Clearing Agreement of May 30, r 94 r. See Croatia, Independent State of, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Medjunarodni ugovori, 1941, pp. 29, 75-78. The agreement of May 30, 1941, subsequently underwent many alterations and additions.

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Axis forces in its territory and unrecorded exports are excluded, the clearing accounts would closely mirror the balance of payments. From the beginning of the existence of the new state, it ran a foreign trade deficit. However, earnings from transportation services and remittances of Croatian workers in Germany counterbalanced this deficit. In fact, excluding military payments, the clearing accounts with all countries through I943 showed the following surpluses: 245.8 million kunas in I94I, 452.4 million kunas in I942, and I,741.2 million kunas in I943· But in I944, Croatia's foreign trade and its position in the clearing accounts greatly deteriorated. The debit balance in the clearing accounts from merchandise trade rose from 2,9 3 6 million kunas in I 94 3 to 14,2 I r. 5 million kunas in I944· The trade deficit is misleading, however, because in the course of I944 something like 9,69I million kunas made up advance payments for contracted goods, only some of which (exactly how much is not known) were imported in I 944· According to official data, the Croatian debt in the clearing accounts at the end of I944 amounted to 969.8 million kunas. 43 The Germans' central clearing accounts in Berlin were the means by which payments could be made not only to and by Germany, but also to and by all German allies and satellites. Under normal conditions, they would have been a mechanism for balancing credits and debits among the participating states. However, by design, Germany quickly became heavily indebted to all countries that were part of the system, with the result that most soon refused to take German IOUs to settle claims among themselves because this would have meant only a further accumulation of German IOUs. At the end of I942, for example, in the clearing system Croatia owed 472 million kunas to Italy and I I 3 million kunas to Romania, while at the same time it had a credit of I ,2 I 7 million kunas with Germany. But neither Italy nor Romania was willing to accept Croatian claims on Germany in payment. The deficit in the German balance of payments was so large that even then it was assumed that Germany would not be able to repay these debts until after the war. 44 In August I942, Friedrich Walter Landfried, state secretary in the German Ministry of National Economy, acknowledged that the credit balances of German allies in the clearing accounts should be understood as their contribution to the common war effort for the liberation of the continent and that they would mostly be repaid after the war. 45 In other words, even though these balances resulted from commercial transactions, he wanted them to be considered as war loans. 43These figures are taken from Croatia, Independent State of, "The Croatian State Bank in 1944" (Hrvatska Drzavna Banka u godini r944), p. 21. This was the last annual report of the bank. As far as I know, it was never published, and in typewritten form (36 pages) it probably had a very restricted circulation. I obtained a copy by courtesy of a friend at the University of Zagreb. 44 Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy," p. 24. 45 As reported in Favagrossa, Perche perdemmo Ia guerra, pp. 219-21, 307.

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Foreign trade relations between Croatia and Italy were regulated by an agreement concluded in Rome on June 26, 1941. Its basic framework was extended periodically, with specific new provisions, first in September 1941, and then again in January, May, and August 1942-and presumably during 1943-by the Italian-Croatian Standing Economic Commission. Payments between Croatia and Italy were carried through a Clearing Account according to a separate agreement concluded on June 25, 1941. This agreement specified a parity of 38lire for roo kunas and stipulated that if large balances appeared in the Clearing Account, each country would issue advances to its citizens for their claims in the account up to 40 million lire. 46 Here again, unfortunately, full data are lacking. We do know that trade with Croatia accounted for only a small part of total Italian foreign trade. For the years 1941, 1942, and the first half of 1943, according to Italian foreign trade statistics, Italian imports from and exports to Croatia amounted to the following percentages of total Italian imports and exports: o. 7 percent of imports and o.6 percent of exports in 1941, 1.4 percent of imports and 3.2 percent of exports in 1942, and 1.3 percent of imports and r.r percent of exports in the first half of r 94 3. 47 A note on Italian-Croatian trade prepared by the Italian Legation in Zagreb, dated April r, 1942, shows that Croatian exports to Italy from June to December 1941 totaled 74·4 million lire and Croatian imports from Italy 93.0 million lire. During January 1942, Croatian exports to Italy totaled r 8.3 million lire and imports from Italy 62. r million lire. 48 Not only in this early period but up to the Italian collapse in September 1943 as well, Croatia ran a trade deficit with Italy. As shown earlier, in October 1942 the Italians paid 450 million lire into the Croatian-Italian Clearing Account to reimburse Croatia for part of its payments to Italian forces stationed in Croatian territory, reducing correspondingly the Croatian debit in the account. Croatian sources show that a large part of this deficit was due to Croatian prepayments for contracted imports from Italy, many of which, however, never materialized. 49 It should also be pointed out that railroad transport payments and workers' remittances did not play a role in the Croatian-Italian Clearing Account as they did in the Croatian-German Combined Clearing Account. The payment of Croatian claims for transportation services was put off until after the war, and there were no Croatian workers in Italy to send home remittances. There are almost no systematic statistical data on Croatian-German trade during the war, either in terms of total value or total amount of commodities. ••see Croatia, Independent State of, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Medjunarodni ugovori, 1941, pp. 105-9 for the June 26, 1941, agreement on foreign trade, and pp. 97-99 for the June 25, 1941, agreement on the Clearing Account. 47 Micr. No. T-84, Roll 103, Frs. 1,397,3 73 and 1,397,376. 48 YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 1/3, 13-16, Box 87. 49

Hondl, "Economic and Financial Consequences of Occupation," p. 7·

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But even if we had data on trade that officially passed through customs channels, we would have an incomplete picture. Only some commodities went through Croatian customs authorities and were paid for through the GermanCroatian Combined Clearing Account. For a variety of reasons, large amounts of Croatian-produced commodities were never accounted for. Some were requisitioned and used by German forces in Croatia and some were shipped by military railroads and trucks to Germany or through Zemun in eastern Srijem to German-occupied Serbia for German forces there without being recorded by Croatian authorities. Also, as noted earlier, some foodstuffs were sent to Germany by mail by German soldiers or taken there in person by them. And when the Volksdeutsche were evacuated in 1943 and in large numbers in October and November 1944, they took along a sizable amount of personal movable property (food, clothing, livestock, tools, and vehicles). It is clearly impossible to determine how many goods were transferred to Germany in this manner during the war. Early on, the Croats estimated that from the summer of 1941 to the end of September 1942, about 1,250 million kunas or 62.5 million Reichsmarks worth of Croatian commodities, largely timber products, had been taken out of the country (primarily to Germany and Italy) without export license and without any countervalue credited to Croatia in the clearing accounts. 50 In a detailed report dated July 8, 1943, on GermanCroatian cooperation and Croatia's contribution to the war effort, Kasche noted that supplies sent by the German military economic officer in Zagreb to Germany for the armaments industry from January to May 1943 totaled 32.18 million Reichsmarks (643.6 million kunas) and that they were mostly notrecorded in German import statistics. 51 Payments from merchandise trade and services with Germany were handled through the Combined Clearing Account No. 406 5 in Reichsmarks. Up to January 1943, Croatian purchases of arms and other military supplies in Germany were also paid through this account. After the conclusion of the protocol of January 19, 1943, payments for the maintenance of German troops in Croatia were handled through Special Account M No. 406 53, discussed earlier. Payments of savings of Croatian workers in Germany were handled through a special Account of Workers' Savings No. 406 51, also in Reichsmarks. Croatia did not receive any of the monies deposited in this account until the end of 1942, however, because they were used to repay its share of the Yugoslav debt 50Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy," p. 13. See also a memorandum of the State Food Administration of November 5, 1941, to the office of the prime minister, dealing with the smuggling of food out of Croatia by the Italian and German armed forces, in YA, Mil. Hist., Croatia Docs., Reg. No. 43/3-5, Box 235. "Micr. No. T-120, Roll5794, Fr. H3o6,900. If these commodities were generally notrecorded as imports in Germany, we may be sure that since they were sent by the German economic officer in Croatia, that is, by military transports, they were not recorded as exports in Croatia.

AXIS EXPLOITATION OF THE ECONOMY: PART II

in existence at the time of the invasion in April 1941. 52 Meanwhile, the Croatian government had to pay the countervalue of these deposits in kunas to the addressees. After the repayment of the 1941 debt, the balance in this account was transferred monthly to the Combined Clearing Account. A Special Account A No. 406 55, also in Reichsmarks, was used to transfer payments to retirees and those receiving government support. And finally, a Kuna Account, calculated in kunas in both countries, was used to transfer capital between the two countries. 53 As suggested earlier, one of the main problems in Croatian-German economic relations during the war was that of determining the price of imports and exports between the two countries. The inflation rate in Croatia was much higher than in Germany. The official rate of 20 kunas to r Reichsmark was maintained, but after March 1944 was essentially used only as a basis for calculating various premiums for the Reichsmark in different transactions. By the end of 1942, Croatian export prices had risen about 300 percent above their April 1941 level, whereas import prices had risen only roo percent in the same period. At the fourth session of the German and Croatian Government Committees meeting between November r6 and 30, 1942, German representatives pointed out how damaging the situation was for Germany and stressed that a solution to the problem had to be found. 54 As the war advanced and this disparity increased, the Germans pushed more strongly for an appropriate adjustment in prices between the two countries. It immediately became clear that deep differences of opinion existed on the issue, and for the next six months no agreement between the two sides seemed possible. At the fifth session of the German and Croatian Government Committees in Zagreb from June r6 to July r, 1943, the issue of prices assumed a central place in the negotiations. The Croatian delegation maintained that price increases in Croatia were a result of the burdens of the war, including the cost of maintaining Italian and German forces in Croatia, which had already far exceeded the productive capacity of the Croatian economy, and that the problem could only be solved by removing these basic causes of price increases and of the disparity in prices between the two countries. The German representatives asserted that they would do everything possible to keep the German forces' requirements for Croatian currency under control. In the end, a compromise was reached. The Germans promised that price relations existing at the end of 1942 would be continued for important German exports to Croatia, while the Croats promised that Croatian 52 Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Fr. H309,436. Croatia assumed 42 percent, or 32.5 million Reichsmarks, of the total debt of 77·3 million Reichsmarks that Yugoslavia owed Germany in 1941. See footnote 39 for Serbia's share. ''This synopsis was made on the basis of National Bank of Yugoslavia, "The Clearing Transactions Between the Former Independent State of Croatia and Germany, 1941-194 5." 54 For the rise in import and export prices by the end of 1942, see Tinti, "Report on Monetary Economic Policy," p. 19. For the Germans' concerns at the fourth session of the German and Croatian Government Committees, see Micr. No. T-120, Roll5797, Fr. H309,428.

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prices for goods exported to Germany would remain stable. The two delegations also jointly appointed a Price Subcommittee, based in Zagreb, to study the issue of prices and make recommendations.'' As far as I am aware, the first specific intervention in German-Croatian prices was stipulated in the protocol of March 2r, 1944, which concluded the sixth session of the German and Croatian Government Committees meeting between February 7 and March 21, 1944, in Zagreb. It provided that German exports coming into Croatia between April r 5 and September 30, 1944, would be valued at 5 times their price in Germany in April 1941, namely at the original price plus a 400 percent surcharge. This was in response to a combined price increase of 5.27 times over April 1941 levels for Croatian exports to Germany, for the remittances of Croatian workers in Germany, and for earnings from railroad freight for the Germans in Croatia. In this way, a certain parity in prices for goods exchanged between the two countries was restored. 56 The surcharge on German exports to Croatia could obviously not be reaped by German exporters, but since it was indicated on the invoice and paid by Croatian importers, it somehow had to be captured and utilized, mostly for Germany's benefit. A system was worked out in which it was skimmed off by Croatian customs authorities and deposited in a special ac55 Micr. No. T-120, Roll 5797, Frs. H309,477-79· The Price Subcommittee consisted of three members from each country. Croatia was represented by the price commissioner in the Ministry of National Economy, another senior government official, and the secretary general of the Zagreb Chamber of Commerce. Germany was represented by an official of the German Legation in Zagreb, the president of the German Chamber of Commerce in Zagreb, and Max Stadler, of the Siidosteuropa-Gesellschaft in Croatia. In July 1943 Stadler prepared a report entitled "Die Preisentwicklung in Kroatien seit 1941 und ihre Bestimmungsgriinde," which can befound in Micr. No. T-84, Roll I05, Frs. I,399.9I8-I,400,03 8. Though he pointed (Fr. r,4oo,oi3) to the increase in the number of Croatian troops and in Croatia's payments to maintain Italian and German troops on Croatian soil as essential reasons for the growth of the money in circulation and thus of inflation, he discounted them because they were directly related to military affairs. At the meeting of the two government committees in Vienna on July 14-29, 1944, a similar Price Subcommittee was established in Berlin. Micr. No. T-120, Roll5797, Fr. H309,52r. 56 For the section of the protocol of March 2r, 1944, dealing with prices, see Micr. No. Tr2o, Roll5797, Frs. H309,5 86-9r. The combined increase in the price of Croatian exports to Germany and in Croatia's rendering of services to Germany of 5.27 times that of April 1941 was reached by weighing the three components. The price of commodities exported to Germany had risen by r r. 7 times, the remittances of Croatian workers from Germany by 3 times (from then on they were exchanged at 6o kunas per Reichsmark instead of 20), and railroad freight rates for the Germans by r.r times (only about ro percent). See Fr. H3o9,587. By comparison, wholesale prices in Germany (r9r3 =roo) rose relatively little between 1941 and 1944 because of stringent price controls. The agricultural price index rose from rr2.4 to r2r.7, the industrial raw materials and semifinished products index from roo.3 to ro2.5, and the finished industrial products index from r r2.3 tor 17.6. See Germany, Landerrat des Amerikanischen Besatzungsgebiets, Statistisches Handbuch von Deutschland, 1928I 944, pp. 4 59-60.

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count with the Croatian State Bank, which had to inform the Deutsche Verrechnungskasse every ten days about the status of the account. The Government Committees agreed that for most commodities, 6o percent of the purchase price would be skimmed off, but that for certain specified commodities, differentiated rates of skimming of from o to I20 percent (and in one case 240 percent) would apply. Five-sixths of the accumulated amounts were to be used for promoting Croatia's trade with Germany (but not with other countries) and for pricing measures in Croatia. 57 The two Government Committees continued to discuss prices after their meetings in February and March I944· But they only implemented the decisions formulated in the protocol of March 2I at their next two meetings, in Wustrau and Berlin between April I3 and May 2 and in Vienna between July I4 and 29. 58 The Vienna meeting affirmed that prices of certain commodities not previously listed that were exported from Croatia to Germany could not exceed I r. 7 times the prices of April I 94 I, but this simply confirmed the March 2I agreement that Croatian export prices would be held at that level until the end of September. Finally, the two Government Committees decided at an August meeting in Berlin that prices for German supplies to Croatia financed through Special Account M would be IO times those prevailing in April I94I.

There is no documentary evidence on price adjustments in GermanCroatian trade and other foreign exchange transactions after September I, I944, except for workers' remittances and some other transfer payments. But given the great rise in prices in Croatia after August I944 and the resulting increase in price disparity between the two countries, as well as the increase in the Reichsmark rate for workers' remittances and some other transfer payments agreed upon in December I944, we can confidently assume that surcharges on German exports to Croatia were adjusted several more times between September 30, I944, and May I945· Another development was a change in the premiums on the transfer of the savings of Croatian workers in Germany to Croatia. According to the protocol of March 2I, I944, the Croatian government had to pay these transfers at a rate of 6o kunas per Reichsmark, instead of the official 20. The two Government Committees decided at their meetings in the spring of I944 that Croatian workers in German industry could transfer 200, and those in agriculture 130, Reichsmarks monthly to relatives in Croatia, and that for a limited time they could transfer a lump sum of 400 Reichsmarks of their savings still in Germany.59 According to a German-Croatian agreement of December 2, I944, af.