The Serbian people suffered tremendously during World War II, be it at the hands of the Ustasha,
the Croatian ultranationalists, or at the hands of the Germans.
In this video we're gonna talk about Serbian collaboration with the Germans in occupied
Serbia. Keep watching.
By the eve of the Second World War Yugoslavia was a far from stable state.
It was created after the First World War under its initial name: Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes, where basically Serbia was ruling over the other south Slav nationalities.
In 1929 King Alexander I abolished the contitution and the country became
a royal dictatorship.
This was in response to the assassination of politician Stjepan Radić in parliament.
Alexander himself was assassinated in 1934 when visiting France.
His son Peter was too young to rule so Alexander's first cousin Paul became the Prince Regent
of Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia was in a precarious when 1941 came around.
By that time Germany dominated most of the Middle Europe.
Britain and the US urged the country not to sign an allience with Germany, but looking
at Yugoslavia's geographical position, things weren't looking favorable if it wanted to
resist Germany.
And thus on 25 March Yugoslavia signed the Triparte Pact to join the Axis Powers.
See, Hitler wanted to use the country's rail network to capture Greece.
Then 27 March Serbian military leaders seized power in a military coup in Belgrade, denounced
Paul and put 17-year old Peter on the throne.
Hitler then vowed to destroy Yugoslavia.
On 6 April, Orthodox Eastern Sunday, Operation 25 was launched (a.k.a. Operation Punishment): the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia.
It started with a massive bombing campaign of the capital of Belgrade.
Large parts of the city were destroyed and thousands of lives – both military ánd
civilian – were lost.
This dispurted communications and caused chaos in the Yugoslav ranks.
As historian Robert Citino puts it:
“It is no exaggeration to say that Operation Punishment had won the Yugoslav campaign in
the first twenty minutes”.
With minimal losses the Germans took over the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They were assisted by Hungarian
and Italian troops.
A German staff officer called it more of a military parade rather than a capaign.
Yugoslavia was then partitioned.
The largest part became known as the NDH (Independent State of Croatia), which
was an Axis puppet state where Germany and Italy wielded great influence
over.
What happened to Serbia?
What was left of Serbia, since pre-war Serbia lost territiory left and right, what was left
of Serbia came under German military control.
The Germans wanted to have control over Serbia's resources (metals like lead, antimony and
copper) as well as possessing two strategic transportation routes, the Danube River waterway
and the railroad line connecting central Europe with Bulgaria and Greece.
From the getgo the Germans imposed a strict regime on the Serbian people:
“The death penalty was established for acts of violence and sabotage, especially of communication
lines and public utilities.
[...] Street meetings were banned, as were demonstrations without previous permission
and the distribution of leaflets.
All work stoppages, strikes, and lockouts were prohibited.”
The first puppet government was established on 30 May 1941 and named: Commissioner Administration,
led by Milan Acimovic.
It lacked any semblance of power and can not be compared to the not so Independent State of Croatia
which had some kind of autonomy.
Serbia didn't have this at all.
That summer armed resistance increased and by August 1941 246 different rebel attacks
had been carried out.
Despite harsh measures, such as shooting hostages and burning down villages, the resistance
continued.
German military commander in Serbia Heinrich Danckelmann asked for reinforcements to combat
the resistance but by now Germany was waging an all out war in the USSR and therefore no
extra troops were available for occupied Serbia.
It was said to set up a new Serbian puppet government that could largely deal with the
insurrection itself.
Milan Nedic, former Yugoslav minister of army and navy and chief of
General Staff, was selected to head the new government:
“He was well known among Serbs as an elite General Staff officer of the pre-1918 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.”
Yet, the Germans had to resort to threats such as arrest.
Nedic yielded and thus became the head of the Government of National Salvation.
The relations between the Serbian puppet government and the German occupation authorities were
very strained.
Both Hitler and Himmler despised the Serbs.
There was a huge disagreement when it came down to the possible release of Yugoslav prisoners of war.
One area the Nedic government showed success was the acceptence of hundred thousand refugees
that were expelled by the Germans from other parts of Yugoslavia, many of them came fleeing
from the NDH were the Ustashas hunted them down by the masses.
Let's take a look at the different pro-Axis Serbian formations.
Serbian State Guard.
Nedić put ex-Yugoslav Gendarmerie Regiments into a 17,000-strong security force.
It was deployed as police as well as frontier guard.
In the autumn of 1944 they joined the Chetniks in Bosnia as 1st Serbia Assault Corps.
Around 3,000 of them were sent to Austria by the Germans to work for Organisation Todt:
the military engineering organisation.
Others went to Slovenia and by the end of the war surrendered to the British in Austria.
Looking on this photograph you can see these men wore old Yugoslav uniforms albeit with
new insignia.
Serbian Volunteer Command – In September 1941 the Serbian Volunteer Corps was created
from Chetniks and the Zbor movement (Yugoslav National Movement, the Yugoslav fascist organisation)
by Zbor politician Dimitrije Ljotić.
This man had no real command over the unit.
It had 12 detachements of 120-150 soldiers.
By 1943 it was a 7,000-strong force under German tactical command but reporting to Nedic.
The Germans admired this formation for its performance in combat.
In the autumn the formation retreated to Slovenia and became a Waffen-SS unit.
In May 1945 the units surrendered to the British in Austria and some units in Italy.
Also these men wore former Yugoslav army uniforms and they had dark-blue collar-patches.
Russian Defence Corps – In September 1941 a Russian unit
was set-up in occupied Serbia.
It consisted of Russian former tsarist officers that lived as White Emigres in Serbia after
the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war.
Command was held by Boris Shteifon and in September it had around 11,000 men.
It had one cavalry regiment and four infantry regiments.
Unlike the Serbian Volunteer Corps, this Russian formation was a part of
the German armed forces and its members took the oath of allegiance to Hitler.
The emigrés were reinforced by former Soviet POWs and had to guard
factories in occupied Serbia.
In September 1944 they saw action against the Yugoslav Partisans near Belgrade.
Then they were assigned to carry out anti-Partisan warfare in Bosnia.
I read there were plans to integrate these men in the ROA (Russian Liberation Army), also made a video about that
but it never got to that point.
On 10 October the unit was renamed to the Russian Corps in Serbia.
In May they surrendered to the British in Austria. I read that
these men eventually adopted German uniforms and wore Imperial Russian insignia.
Nedic also formed a Serbian labour force having 16,000 members in 1942.
Then there were also the Chetniks.
This is a very broad topic, that I'll explore in the future. It basically started as a resistance movement but later
joined the Axis in their fight against the Yugoslav Partisans.
In the Banat a 1,500-strong Banat State Guard (a.k.a.
the Black Police) which later joined the German-Croatian Police.
And in April 1941 a 6,000-strong SS-style German Force was formed for village security.
The units that surrendered to the British (either in Austria or Italy) in May 1945 were later repatriated to Tito's
partisans.
Many of them were than shot without
a trial.