Are you interested in WW2 history?
Do you like the more niche subjects?
Then you don't want to miss this episode: in this episode I'm gonna talk about the
short-lived Independent Macedonia.
A proposed Nazi puppet state that was established in 1944. The Germans had only one goal with it:
to get THE HELL outta there! Sounds interesting? Keep watching.
Good to have you back on the channel. I'm Stefan, history teacher, Dutch, hustling history 4 U. And I'm on location
overlooking Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.
And if you like these on location videos, I have a lot of them. Consider subscribing and also hit that notification bell.
This video is about the closing chapter of what is Yugoslav Macedonia in WW2.
Macedonia is a much larger geographical region with its largest part in Greece.
This video isn't about Greece, but about what is today known as North Macedonia.
A region that was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the interwar period.
That kingdom got partitioned after the sucessfull Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Yugoslav Macedonia (or: Vardar Macedonia) was largely annexed by Bulgaria.
A smaller area in the west got absorbed by Italian-held Albania.
The Bulgarians were initially welcomed as liberators as the population of Yugoslav Macedonia
had enough with the Serbianization that took place before WW2.
However, the Bulgarians soon proved to be no better rulers as they set in motion a process
of Bulgarization.
“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 [Slavo] Macedonians of Bulgarian orientation.
Forests and grazing lands, insofar as they had not been nationalized before, were nationalized.”
Mid-1942 Bulgarian citizenship was imposed on the people.
Those who refused would be required to leave the country.
This lead to the expulsion of around 26,000 Serbs and Montenegrins to German-occupied
Serbia.
In September 1944 Bulgaria switched sides an was now on the side of the Allies, instead
of the Axis.
Earlier the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) proclaimed
a communist Macedonian state.
As the Bulgarian withdrew from their occupied regions the Germans wanted to take over control.
Why was that? Well, many German soldiers were still stationed in Greece and they now ran the risk of being cut off by the advancing
Red Army.
Therefore the Germans wanted to seize control over the area in order to gave their comrades
a save passage to better defendable positions.
The Germans sought the help of the IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization).
Back in April 1941 they wanted them to launch an uprising just as the ustasha did in Croatia
but as for Yugoslav Macedonia nothing came of it.
The IMRO was a Bulgarian-based organization established in 1893 and led by Ivan Mikhailov
in 1927.
It soon fell apart into a faction that supported an independent Macedonian state, and a third
branch, which was pro-Communist.
When Bulgaria outlawed Macedonian terrorist groups in 1934, Mikhailov fled to Italy.
After April 1941 he spent the entire war in Zagreb as a guest of Ante Pavelic (ustasha
leader of the NDH).
“Even though IMRO had little significance during the war, many individuals who had been
linked to the organization held positions of responsibility in Bulgarian agencies, particularly
in the “new lands.”
Mihailov himself retained a certain amount of influence.
There are reports that he was twice considered by the Bulgarians and Germans as a possible
governor of Macedonia.”
Mikhailov was pro-Bulgarian oriented and of course a fierce anti-communist.
He made it so Sofia where he negotiated with the Bulgarian authorities but left shortly
for Skopje after when on 5 September the USSR declared war on Bulgaria.
Soon after Bulgaria switched sides and declared war on Germany.
The Bulgarian Fifth Army, still stationed in North Macedonia but they soon
withdrew.
In Yugoslav Macedonia nother IMRO leader, Hristo Tatarchev who was offered the position
of president of the proposed state.
On 8 September the IMRO nationalists declared independence.
They hoped for a separate Macedonian state and organizing an administration and military
forces.
But there was none of that to be happening.
Since they had to rely on Germany for their existence, but there Germans were retreating
from the region which left the self-proclaimed state "virtually defenseless".
Mikhailov realized this and abandoned the project and returned to Zagreb.
For several weeks the Germans crossed to the territory to withdraw from Greece to Bosnia.
The Yugoslav Partisans inflicted losses on them.
By mid-November all Axis units had left Yugoslav Macedonia.
World War II in North Macedonia had come to an end.
Interesting enough, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia did recognize Macedonia as a nation.
For this they had practical reasons.
As historian Loring M. Danforth wrote:
“Whether a Macedonian nation actually existed at the time or not, it is perfectly clear
that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had important political reasons for declaring
that one did exist and for fostering its development through a concerted process of nation building,
exploying all the means at the disposal of the Yugoslav state.
[…] By recognizing the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia was able to gain control of Vardar Macedonia and justify retaining it as a part
of the Yugoslav federation.
[…] It was also regarded by the Yugoslav government as an important "bulwark against
Bulgarian irridentism".”
After the war Yugoslav Macedonia became a part of Tito's Yugoslavia and peacefully broke
away from the federation in 1991 to form the Republic of Macedonia, now known as the Republic
of North Macedonia.