World War II in Yugoslavia

World War II in Yugoslavia
Part of the European theatre of World War II

Clockwise from top left: Ante Pavelić visits Adolf Hitler at the Berghof; Stjepan Filipović hanged by the occupation forces; A group of Chetniks with German soldiers in a village in Serbia; Josip Broz Tito with members of the British mission; Draža Mihailović confers with his troops
Date6 April 1941 – 25 May 1945
(4 years, 1 month, 1 week and 2 days)
Location
Yugoslavia
Result

Yugoslav Partisan–Allied victory

Belligerents
April 1941:
Germany
 Italy
 Hungary		 April 1941:
 Yugoslavia
1941 – September 1943:
  • Germany
    • Government of National Salvationa
      • Pećanac Chetniks
  •  Italy
    • Montenegroa
    • Albania
  •  Hungary
  •  Bulgaria
  • Independent State of Croatiaa
 1941–43:
1941–43:
September 1943–1945:
  • Germany
    • Government of National Salvation (until 1944)
    • Montenegro (until 1944)
    •  Albania (until 1944)
    • Slovene Home Guard
  •  Bulgaria (until 1944)
  •  Hungary
  • Independent State of Croatia
  • Chetniks
  • Italian Social Republic
 1943–45:
Strength
300,000 (1944)[2]
321,000 (1943)[3]
170,000 (1943)[4]
130,000 (1945)[5]
70,000 (1943)[6][7]
60,000 (1944)[8]
12,000 (1944)[9]		 700,000 (1941)
(400,000 ill-prepared)[10]
93,000 (1943)[11][12]		 100,000 (1943)[13]
800,000 (1945)[14]
580,000 (1944)
40,000 (1943)[15][16]
Casualties and losses
Germany:[17]c
19,235–103,693 killed
14,805 missing[18]
Italy:d
9,065 killed
15,160 wounded
6,306 missing
Independent State of Croatia:[19]
99,000 killed		 Partisans:[20]
245,549 killed
399,880 wounded
31,200 died from wounds
28,925 missing
Civilians killed: ≈514,000[21]–581,000[22]
Total Yugoslav casualties: ≈850,000[23]–1,200,000

a ^ Axis puppet regime established on occupied Yugoslav territory
b ^ Initially a resistance movement. Engaged in collaboration with Axis forces from mid-1942 onward, lost official Allied support in 1943.[24][25][26] Full names: initially "Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army", then "Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland".
c ^ Casualties in the Balkan area, including Greece, from April 1941 to January 1945

d ^ Including casualties in the April invasion of Yugoslavia

World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941,[27] the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans, on orders from Moscow,[27] launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.[28]

Both the Yugoslav Partisans and the Chetnik movement initially resisted the Axis invasion. However, after 1941, Chetniks extensively and systematically collaborated with the Italian occupation forces until the Italian capitulation, and thereon also with German and Ustaše forces.[28][29] The Axis mounted a series of offensives intended to destroy the Partisans, coming close to doing so in the Battles of Neretva and Sutjeska in the spring and summer of 1943.

Despite the setbacks, the Partisans remained a credible fighting force, with their organisation gaining recognition from the Western Allies at the Tehran Conference and laying the foundations for the post-war Yugoslav socialist state. With support in logistics and air power from the Western Allies, and Soviet ground troops in the Belgrade offensive, the Partisans eventually gained control of the entire country and of the border regions of Trieste and Carinthia. The victorious Partisans established the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The conflict in Yugoslavia had one of the highest death tolls by population in the war, and is usually estimated at around one million, about half of whom were civilians. Genocide and ethnic cleansing was carried out by the Axis forces (particularly the Wehrmacht) and their collaborators (particularly the Ustaše and Chetniks), and reprisal actions from the Partisans became more frequent towards the end of the war, and continued after it.

  1. ^ D'Amico, F. and G. Valentini. Regia Aeronautica Vol. 2: Pictorial History of the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana and the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force, 1943–1945. Carrollton, Texas: Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc., 1986.
  2. ^ Mitrovski, Glišić & Ristovski 1971, p. 211.
  3. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 255.
  4. ^ Jelić Butić 1977, p. 270.
  5. ^ Colić 1977, pp. 61–79.
  6. ^ Mitrovski, Glišić & Ristovski 1971, p. 49.
  7. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 167.
  8. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 183.
  9. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 771.
  10. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 64.
  11. ^ Microcopy No. T314, roll 566, frames 778 – 785
  12. ^ Borković, p. 9.
  13. ^ Zbornik dokumenata Vojnoistorijskog instituta: tom XII – Dokumenti jedinica, komandi i ustanova nemačkog Rajha – knjiga 3, p. 619
  14. ^ Perica 2004, p. 96.
  15. ^ Giacomo Scotti Ventimila caduti. Italiani in Iugoslavia 1943–45, printed by Mursia in Milan, 1970: in page 492 there is text regarding division Italia
  16. ^ "article by Giacomo Scotti" (PDF).
  17. ^ Sorge, Martin K. (1986). The Other Price of Hitler's War: German Military and Civilian Losses Resulting from World War II. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 62–63. ISBN 978-0-313-25293-8.
  18. ^ Overmans, Rüdiger (2000). Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. p. 336
  19. ^ Geiger 2011, pp. 743–744.
  20. ^ Geiger 2011, pp. 701.
  21. ^ A'Barrow 2016.
  22. ^ Žerjavić 1993.
  23. ^ Mestrovic 2013, p. 129.
  24. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 226.
  25. ^ Ramet 2006, p. 147.
  26. ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 308.
  27. ^ a b Ramet 2006, p. 142.
  28. ^ a b Ramet 2006, pp. 145–155.
  29. ^ Tomasevich 1975, p. 246.
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