I'm here on the Cemetery of the Belgrade Liberator that fell towards the end of 1944
when both Yugoslav Partisan forces and Red Army troops launched the Belgrade Offensive. Belgrade
was captured by Axis forces on the 13th of April 1941 but in October 1944 it was taken
by the Partisans and the Red Army. How did this operation go is what you will learn in this video.
Good to have you back on the channel; if you're new: my name is Stefan, I'm a Dutch history teacher,
and I like to cover history on location like I am right now on a Soviet-Partisan war cemetery in
Belgrade, Serbia. If you find this on location content interesting, consider subscribing, hit
that notification bell, leave a comment, leave a like, and you can also support me via Patreon,
PayPal, or via a Super Thanks. You can all find the information below! On April 6th the German
Luftwaffe planes dropped 360 tons of bombs on the Yugoslavian capital Belgrade, leaving 50 percent of
the downtown destroyed and thousands of civilians and military dead. The Germans captured the city on
the 13th of April. The German-led Axis invasion of the country lasted till the 18th. The Kingdom of
Yugoslavia was then carved up. Now I won't go into all the details but what you need to know for now
is that Serbia came under direct German military control. German-occupied Serbia was officially
known as a Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (or: the Serbian Residual State). The
collaborationist government was led by Milan Nedić and became known as the Government of National Salvation
(Nedić's government). From 1941 to 1944 the Belgrade population fell from 320 000
to 238 000. Wartime Belgrade had no relationship to the civilized pre-war city. Here is a scene that
occurred on the street: “[F]ive Communists were hanged from lamp-posts. A little to the left of them was an advert for the horse races, and under that, people from the town and refugees would drink beer.”
Belgrade saw a large influx of refugees that were coming from the NDH (the Independent
State of Croatia) which had its border close by, just on the opposite side of the river, and the
Ustasha (the Croatian ultranationalists) they hunted down Serbs by the masses so many Serbs fled or were
expelled to German-controlled Serbia. Also corpses of murdered Serbs floated down the Danube River
and horrified the inhabitants of Belgrade. In April 1944 British and American bomber planes bombed the
city and it saw even more destruction than during the 1941 German bombing: again thousands of lives
were lost. Problems with food supplies increased as the war progressed and in February 1942 the
bread rationing in Belgrade was reduced from 400 to 265 grams and in April to 200 grams per person.
Despite heavy penalties the black market became an important source of supplies. When Yugoslavia
was partitioned and occupied two resistance movements occurred: there were the Serbian
nationalists that were led by Draža Mihailović. They were known as the Chetniks and then there
were the communist-oriented Partisans that were led by Joseph Broz Tito. Both started their
operations in German-controlled Serbia and they soon moved to other regions as well. “In 1942 the
bulk of the guerrilla warfare shifted to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Partisan leadership never
lost sight of Serbia as the critical region for the future political transformation of Yugoslavia.
Returning to Serbia became an obsession for Tito, who correctly judged that only in Belgrade could the communists ensconce themselves as the successors to the monarchy.”
On the 23rd of
August 1944 Romania switched sides. Bulgaria did so on the 8th of September. Risking to be trapped in
the Balkans the German Southeast Command ordered a general retreat with the right flank secured
by Soviet and Yugoslav partisans prepared to advance on Belgrade with 16 divisions and 20 000
battle-hardened troops. From Sandžak, Montenegro, and the Ibar valley. Their ranks were swelled by
large numbers of volunteers and among these were thousands of former Chetniks who switched sides
after the Yugoslav king in exile made an appeal to the Yugoslav people to join Tito instead of
Mihailović. On the 3rd of October the Partisans took Bor and by the 12th of October all of Eastern
Serbia was taken and the area between Kragujevac and Sava as well. On the 13th of October Germans
left Nis and the next day the Battle of Belgrade began. The Battle of Belgrade (1944) consisted of
heavy artillery barrages and skirmishes in the streets. “Belgrade was a well-defended point on
the Germans’ withdrawal route. Tito’s NOV [National Liberation Army] on its own could not have freed it at that time without the Soviet contribution in tanks and heavy artillery.
The Red Army took part in the campaign to free eastern and northern Serbia.” The fighting in the streets of Belgrade was
intense and urban in nature; heavy street fighting took place; house-to-house battles occurred. The
Partisans faced heavy resistance from German forces; the German forced use a strategy of urban defense.
Fortified positions, snipers, and barricades but despite the German resistance the Partisans and
Red Army troops made progress capturing the city. The Yugoslav Partisans played a very important role
in the street fighting while the Red Army provided them with artillery support and armor. Fitzroy
Maclean, head of the British military mission to Tito's headquarters, was in the city on the
Belgrade Fort and saw how the Germans retreated across the river: “Across this troops were
pouring headlong — guns, vehicles, horses and infantry. Looking through our glasses, we saw that they were
Germans, retreating in confusion to the suburb of Zemun across the river, […]. Suddenly, as we
watched, the stream of fugitives was broken, and for a few moments the bridge remained unoccupied. Then
more troops came pouring across. As we focused our glasses on them, we saw to our amazement that they were Russians.
We could hardly believe our eyes. It seemed incredible that the German sappers should have failed to blow up the bridge as soon as their last troops were across.”
Now you may wonder: why did the Germans fail to blow up the bridge? Well here is a story that I read: in the house near the
bridge lived a very old man; he was a veteran of the Balkan War in 1912 where he fought against the
Ottomans and he had distinguished himself by removing the demolition charges of a bridge
while the Ottomans were retreating. For this he was awarded with a gold medal by King Peter I
Now 32 years later he came into action once more: in the night of the 19th of October
he saw the Germans placing demolition charges and when they had their guard down he left his
house and he spent 30 minutes disconnecting the charges underneath the bridge. And when a
couple of hours later the Germans retreated across the bridge and wanted to blow it up...
nothing happened, thanks to this very old Balkan War veteran. And for this he was
awarded with another golden medal. Many explosives did go off though. While retreating
German units set off explosives in many buildings which collapsed or burned, killing
people hiding in it, the Partisans suffered 2 953 casualties and Soviet forces around 1 000 men
* Partisan newsreel *
Tito's forces imposed a Soviet model of socialism on the city and later the country. Soon collaborators and alleged
collaborators, members of the pre-war elite, were executed by the Partisans. The 1944-45
communist purges claimed the lives of many and after Belgrade was captured the
Partisans still had to go a long way. The very last battle actually occurred on the
25th of May which was the Battle of Odzak.