The 6th of April 1941. With hundreds of Luftwaffe fighters dropping bombs on Belgrade, Nazi Germany,
under the codename Operation Retribution, starts the invasion of Yugoslavia. Hitler
sees Yugoslavia as a potential threat to the southern flank of his planned attack on the
Soviet Union and wants to secure crucial supply routes for German forces in the
Balkans and southeastern Europe. 19 German divisions supported by additional Italian,
Hungarian and Bulgarian troops conquer the country in 11 days. Following the surrender,
the local partisans continue to fight against the Nazis and its allies,
who terrorize the local population. Among this local population is a teenager who will become
a symbol of resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. Her name is Lepa Radić.
Lepa Svetozara Radić was born on the 19th of December 1925 in the village of Gašnica, today’s
Bosnia-Herzegovina, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She grew up in a Bosnian Serb family
with strong communist roots. As a student, Lepa emphasized hard work and seriousness,
and was also interested in reading advanced literature. She developed her core positions
under the strong influence of her uncle Vladeta Radić, who was involved in the labor movement.
The conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary over Bosnia-Herzegovina provided the spark that
triggered World War I. With the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire at the end of World War I in 1918,
the Serb army occupied most of what became Yugoslavia. Fearing Hungarian and Italian
territorial ambitions, Croat, Slovene, and Bosniak leaders agreed to the establishment
of a South Slav Union under the rule of the Serb monarch, King Alexander Karadjordjevic,
without having developed a supra-ethnic consensus as to how the union would work.
Throughout its existence, the interwar Yugoslav Union, formally called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes, was unstable, rent by ethnic and religious tension, and threatened by Italian,
Hungarian, and Bulgarian encouragement of terrorist-separatist activities along its
borders, and deadlocked politically by fundamental differences between Serb and
Croat leaders over its very structure. After endless deadlocked negotiations and several
political assassinations, including one on the floor of the Yugoslav parliament,
King Alexander lost patience and backed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and civil service,
established a centralized royal dictatorship in 1929. It had been Alexander's intention, however,
to restore some form of parliamentary rule and some mode of ethnic autonomy. For the next ten
years, while fighting off Bulgarian terrorists organized in the Internal Macedonian Revolution
Organization and Croat terrorists organized in the separatist ‘Insurgents’ movement under Ante
Pavelić, both of which were financed, supported, and sheltered by Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria,
the federal government sought a compromise with the Croat leadership on Croat autonomy.
In 1934, terrorists from the Internal Macedonian Revolution Organization
assassinated King Alexander in Marseilles in France, where he had just arrived on a planned
state visit. As Alexander's son and heir, Peter, was still a minor the King's brother,
Prince Paul Karađorđević, acted as regent. Under Paul's leadership, Serb and Croat leaders reached
a tentative agreement on Croat autonomy in September 1939. The agreement left radicals
on both sides dissatisfied and antagonized Bosniaks and Slovenes because it favored
Croat claims to autonomy and ignored their claims. The heightened ethnic and political
tension exploded into murderous violence when the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia 2 years later.
Lepa Radić was 13 years old when on 1 September
1939 Germany invaded Poland and started the Second World War.
The early stages of the war saw rapid German advances in Europe, with the fall of Poland,
the invasion of France, and the evacuation of British forces from Dunkirk in 1940.
In July 1940, just weeks after the defeat of France, Hitler decided that Nazi Germany would
attack the Soviet Union the following spring. To do so, Germany needed to secure raw materials;
establish transit rights for German troops; and ensure the cooperation or participation of other
European states. Thus, Germany began to persuade and pressure those European states that were
sympathetic to the Nazi regime to join the Axis alliance, a military coalition led by Germany,
Italy and Japan. Nazi Germany offered economic aid to Slovakia, and it also offered military
protection and Soviet territory to Romania. Hitler also warned Hungary that Germany might retract its
recent support for Hungarian annexations of Czechoslovak and Romanian territory.
When Italy failed to conquer Greece in the late autumn and winter of 1940–1941,
Germany became more concerned about securing its southeastern flank in the Balkans. Greece’s
success in repulsing Italian forces allowed its ally, Great Britain, to establish a foothold on
the European continent. To subdue Greece and move the British off the European mainland,
Nazi Germany sought to bring Yugoslavia and Bulgaria into the Axis alliance as well.
On 25 March 1941, Yugoslavia joined the Axis and agreed to permit transit through its territory
to German troops headed for Greece. The immediate reason for the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia was the
Yugoslav government announcement that it would not honor its obligations under the agreement.
The debate over signing the Tripartite Pact that bound the Axis partners had bitterly
divided the Yugoslav federal government. Prince Paul had pushed hard for it and had prevailed.
The announcement of the agreement on 25 March was extremely unpopular in many parts of the country,
particularly in Serbia and Montenegro. On 27 March, Serb military officers overthrew the
regency, placed the 17-year-old King Peter on the throne and denounced the previous
government's decision to join the Axis. Although the new prime minister, Colonel Dušan Simović,
sought within days to retract this statement, Hitler was furious and ordered the invasion
of Yugoslavia on the evening of 27 March. The invasion, involving German, Italian,
Hungarian, and Bulgarian military units, commenced on 6 April 1941. On 17 April of the same year,
the Yugoslav army surrendered, and the country was then occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers.
While the Germans maintained tight control over the roads and towns, they did not control the
remote, mountainous regions. In those towering mountains, Serbian resistance forces began to
emerge and were divided into two main groups: the Chetniks and the Partisans.
The Chetniks were led by former Yugoslav Army Colonel Dragoljub Mihailovic, who served under
the Yugoslav royalist government in exile. The Chetniks were united in name only and
comprised various sub-groups whose interests did not always align. Some were fiercely anti-German,
while others, at times, cooperated with the occupiers. But what virtually all
Chetniks did manage to agree on was their nationalist desire to ensure the survival
of the Serbian population and their loyalty to the old Yugoslav monarchy.
The Partisans were opposed to the Chetniks, as their group was strictly communist. Their leader,
Josip Broz commonly known as "Tito," was the head of the underground Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
Under Tito, the Partisans' overarching goal was to establish an independent socialist Yugoslav
state by overthrowing the Axis powers. The Radić family was heavily involved
in the struggle against the Axis powers. In July 1941, her father and uncles joined the
partisan movement and Lepa was a member of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia.
In November 1941, Lepa Radić and her family members were arrested by the Ustaše which was
a Croatian fascist, ultranationalist and terrorist organization and its members fiercely hated Serbs,
Jews, Communists, and non-Catholics. The entire family, including young Lepa, was arrested for
dissident activities. After only a few weeks of imprisonment, members of the Partisan Party
managed to free Lepa and her family. Soon after her escape, Lepa took another step in her fight
against the Axis powers, when she and her sister Dara officially joined the Communist partisans.
Lepa joined the 7th Partisan Company of the 2nd Regional Division and volunteered to serve on the
front lines by transporting wounded soldiers on the battlefield and vulnerable civilians
fleeing the Nazis and its allies. In July 1942, during a major battle
between the partisans and the Axis forces Lepa’s father and two uncles were killed,
and her only brother Milan, still a child, was captured and never returned. Lepa continued
to help local civilians during the day and fought enemy strongholds at night.
In early 1943, Nazi Germany mounted a huge offensive against the partisans to regain
control over territories held by the resistance. During a period of especially fierce fighting,
Lepa began evacuating civilians, the wounded, and the elderly while, at the same time, removing
food and livestock from the area under attack. Then, one night in February 1943, Lepa walked
through deep snow far from friendly Partisan brigades with more than one hundred evacuees
seeking refuge. Soon, German troops reached the frightened group's mountain shelter.
Lepa fired all the ammunition she had, but it was not enough to protect either her,
or the helpless people in her care. She charged at the enemy and shouted: "Fight, people! Don't
let yourself fall into the hands of the wicked! Let them kill me; my death will be avenged!"
After they caught her, the Germans sentenced Radić to death by hanging. First, the Germans
kept her in isolation and tortured her to extract information over the course of three days leading
up to her execution. She refused to disclose any information about her comrades both then
and in the moments just before her execution. With the noose around her neck, she cried out:
"Long live the Communist Party, and partisans! Fight, people,
for your freedom! Do not surrender to the evildoers! I will be killed, but there are those
who will avenge me!" In her last moments at the scaffold, the Germans offered to spare her life,
in return for the names of the Communist Party leaders and members in the shelter,
but she refused their offer with the words: "I am not a traitor of my people.
Those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping
out all you evildoers, to the last man.” Lepa Radić was 17 years old when she was
publicly executed on 8 February 1943 in Bosanska Krupa, in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lepa’s bravery, however, was not forgotten. In 1951 for her role in the resistance
movement against the Axis powers she was awarded the Order of the People's Hero,
the second highest military award, becoming the youngest recipient at the time.
Lepa Radić's unwavering courage and sacrifice made her an enduring symbol of resistance and
heroism in Yugoslavia and beyond. Her legacy remains an important part of the
history of the Yugoslav Partisan movement and the fight against fascism during World War II.
There were many tears shed for Lepa Radić.
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