Here in Pristina (Kosovo) WW2 seems to be largely forgotten looking at the state of this monument
which is understandable regarding the more recent events.
But someone has not forgotten it.
And that someone is me, aka the History Hustler.
In this video you’re gonna learn about Kosovo during WW2! Keep watching.
Good to have you back on the channel, if you're new I'm Stefan.
I'm a Dutch history teacher and I like to cover history on location for you.
If you like that consider subscribing and also hit that notification bell.
The Kosovo region (or: Kosovo-Metohia region) was taken over by Serbia in the First Balkan
War of 1912-13.
Although it is beyond the scope of this video I do have to mention that Serbia has much
history in the area.
Kosovo was the area were the Serbian medieval state was lost to the Turks in 1389.
That – in short – explains why the region is important for many Serbs today and why
the Serbian government sees it as a renegade region rather than an independent nation.
In 1938 an estimated 70 per cent of Kosovo's population was Albanian, 20 per cent Serbian
and the remainder belonged to other nationalities.
During the interwar years the Yugoslav government strengthened Serbian and Montenegrin elements
in Kosovar society causing much recentment its Albanian population who felt discriminated against.
Not surprisingly, when the Axis forces entered the region in April 1941 they were
greeted as liberators by the Albanian population of Kosovo.
Pro-Albanian chieftains were willing to work together with the Germans.
Albania itself had been under Italian occupation since 1939.
When talking about Kosovo in WW2 we need to know what we're talking about and that's kinda
tricky because what is today Kosovo was in April 1941 partitioned by the Axis Powers.
Let's look at this map.
So the bulk of the area was annexed into Italian-held Albania.
This was due to the large concentration of Albanians living in that region.
A smaller part in the southeast was annexed by Bulgaria and the north of Kosovo was under
German occupation being part of the so-called Serbian Residual State, the rump Serbian state.
When in July 1941 the bulk of Kosovo was incorporated in Italian-held Albania, among which other
former Yugoslav regions too, the decisions were favored by most Albanian Kosovars who
saw it as the creation of a 'Greater Albania'.
The German reason to deny north Kosovo to the Italians was as follows:
“Here as elsewhere, the Germans used their dominant position to insure 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.”
This did create problems in German-Italian relations, though small adjustments were made
in 1942.
The Italians replaced the Serbo-Croatian language by Albanian language in administration.
School teachers were brought in from Albania.
The Italians also established special forces, made up of the local populace, as border guards
in the region.
The size of Albanian collaborationist forces in Italian-annexed Kosovo is hard to determine.
Yugoslav sources stated around 5,000 with an additional 20,000 Italian troops and 5,000
Italian police.
Armed groups of volunteers served as village militia but basically functioned to their
own interest.
Lastly, agrarian reform were carried through.
Serbian and Montenegrin settlers were expelled or in many cases murdered by Albanians to
settle old scores.
In September 1943 Italy surrendered and the Germans then rushed in to take over the Italian
territories among which the largest chunk of Kosovo that was held by the Italians.
“An Albanian National Committee under German sponsorship was established on September 15,
1943, 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.
[…] For the Germans, the Albanian government's main task was to help maintain peace and order
so that Germany could use manpower elsewhere”
The were assisted by Kosovar collaborator Xhafer Deva (serving as minister of interior,
part of the nationalist party Balli Kombëtar) who had briefly worked with the Germans before
when they marched in in April 1941.
The Germans found the Kosovar Albanians more co-operative than those in Albania proper.
To Hitler it was proposed to "militarize" 120,000 to 150,000 Kosovo volunteers to fight
the Serbian and Montenegrin Partisans.
This request wasn't granted.
What was granted was a scaled down version.
Early 1944 an Albanian Waffen-SS division was set-up: the SS “Skanderbeg” Division
with around 6,000 recruits.
Its morale was poor, many deserted and others committed rape and pillage against the Serbian
population in Kosovo.
The also arrested 281 Jews in Kosovo and these were deported by Germany.
Towards the end of that year the unit was disarmed and disbanded by the Germans.
Where elsewhere in the dismembered Yugoslav Kingdom resistance sprung up quickly – Partisan
or Chetnik – it happened only slowly in Kosovo.
The resistance movement here never became that big or important.
That had to do with the fact there were mostly Albanians living in the area. The Kosovo Communist Party was never that big and most of its members were Serbs or Montenegrins
who were either expelled or murdered.
“[T]he 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 Communist-controlled
and thus opposed to the political and social interests of Albanian Muslims.”
Towards the end of 1944 Kosovo was important for the Germans.
Because they needed to withdraw their troops from Greece and Albania because
of the advancing Red Army.
The Partisans aided by Bulgarian units (Bulgaria had switched sides by this point) advanced
through the region.
The Partisans – initially sought a deal with those suspected of collaboration – started
to persecute Albanians as a whole.
After an incident in which a Partisan guard was killed there were to be 40 Albanians executed
as reprisal.
Albanians in the ranks of the Partisans protested and together with former collaborators an
uprising occured that was not subdued until May the following year.
From February 1945 Tito (partisan leader) had declared martial law in Kosovo.
After WW2 the Yugoslavs were determinent to include Kosovo in a post-war Yugoslav state,
both communists and non communists (read: politicians from the government in exile):
“Referring to Albanian claims to Kosovo, he [deputy foreign minister of the Yugoslav
government in exile, Stojan Gavrilovic] added that ‘to surrender that would require another
28 June 1389, the date on which the Serbs lost their empire to Turkey at the Battle
of Kosovo […] in fact, the Serbs would more readily leave Belgrade than Kosovo’.”
The Yalta Conference gave the final verdict for the fate of Kosovo.
Kosovo was to be a part of Tito's Yugoslavia and its people were to subordinate to Belgrade
from now on.
Eventually, towards the end of that century a war of secession took place, which was known as the Kosovo War.
I hope to cover that in the future.