The Kragujevac Massacre

Note from Ravnagora: Since there have been numerous discussions about "Nazis and Serbs" and "Tito and Mihailovich" on FR, this piece by Carl Savich on the Kragujevac Massacre during WWII goes a long way in shedding light on these issues.

In the summer of 1941, Serbian guerrillas launched an uprising in central Serbia against the German occupation. The Serbian uprising spread and increased in intensity threatening the German military occupation of Serbia and endangering the German southern flank in Europe. The Serbian uprising came at the time of the German invasion of the USSR. Adolf Hitler immediately perceived the danger that the Serbian insurrection posed to the stability of the Balkans region and for German control. Swift action was taken. Hitler ordered that brutal measures be taken to suppress the Serbian revolt. Hitler ordered that the rebellion be quelled "by the most rigorous methods". Pursuant to these instructions, Wilhelm Keitel ordered that for every German occupation soldier killed in Serbia, a hundred Serbian civilians would be executed, while fifty Serbian civilians would be killed for every wounded German soldier. This unprecedented order, that 100 Serbs would be shot for every German soldier killed, was given to quell the Serbian insurgency. This order would result in one of the most brutal massacres of civilians during World War II, the Kragujevac Massacre, when an estimated 5,000 Serbian civilians were executed.

Serbia was a hotbed of opposition and resistance to the Nazi New Order in Europe. The first organized resistance movement in Europe was launched in Serbia under the command of Serbian Colonel Draza Mihailovic at Ravna Gora. By the summer of 1941, the first major popular uprising to German occupation occurred in Serbia. Hitler was appalled at this unprecedented act of defiance to the New Order in Europe. To terrorize the Serbian population and resistance, Hitler ordered that Serbian civilians be rounded up and executed as reprisals for Serbian resistance. Thousands of Serbian civilians would be executed. One of the most brutal acts of reprisal occurred in the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, where to fulfill the hundred to one quota, thousands of civilians were killed. The Kragujevac Massacre became one of the most notorious and tragic events of World War II. Like the massacres at Lidice, Babi Yar, Oradour, and Nanking, Kragujevac symbolized the horrors of war and occupation and the cost of resistance to military occupation.

Yugoslavian Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic and Foreign Minister Alexander Cincar-Markovic had signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany on March 25, 1941. On March 27, Serbian military officers under Yugoslav Air Force General Dusan Simovic overthrew the regime and established Peter II as the titular ruler of Yugoslavia. The overthrow followed violent Serbian anti-German demonstrations in Belgrade and wide-spread popular antipathy towards a Yugoslav-German agreement. Hitler immediately reacted. Hitler perceived the coup d’etat as an affront and insult to Germany and as an unacceptable act of defiance. While the new Simovic regime requested a dialogue, Hitler immediately decided on the total destruction of Yugoslavia as a country.

Under Directive No. 25, Hitler ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia on March 27, 1941 after the coup d’etat in Belgrade. The invasion of Yugoslavia was known as Operation Punishment (Fall Strafe) while the invasion of Greece was Operation Marita. Hitler ordered that Yugoslavia "must be destroyed as quickly as possible". Hitler announced his plans for the invasion of Yugoslavia as follows:

It is my intention to break into Yugoslavia in the general direction of Belgrade and southward by a concentric operation from the area of Rijeka-Graz on the one side and from the area around Sofia on the other and to give the Yugoslav forces an annihilating blow. In addition I intend to cut off the extreme southern part of Yugoslavia from the rest of the country and seize it as a base for the continuation of the German-Italian offensive against Greece. As soon as sufficient forces stand ready and the weather situation permits, the ground organization of the Yugoslav Air Force and Belgrade are to be destroyed by continuous day and night attacks of the Luftwaffe.

Hitler also emphasized in this directive the plan to exploit the pro-German Croats, formerly a part of German Austria-Hungary, who would be used as a Fifth Column to destroy Yugoslavia. Hitler stated that "the domestic political tensions in Yugoslavia will be sharpened by political assurances to the Croats." This was the policy of divide and conquer.

The Axis attack on Yugoslavia consisted of 24 German divisions and 1,500 aircraft, 23 Italian divisions and 670 aircraft and naval vessels which attacked on the Adriatic, and 5 Hungarian divisions. The total number of Axis divisions was 52 with a total of 2.300 aircraft. The Yugoslav army could muster 30 under strength divisions that were poorly trained, inadequately equipped, and demoralized.

Yugoslavia was to be attacked by Axis troops based in Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Second Army, commanded by Maximilian von Weichs, stationed in Klagenfurt, Austria and Barcs, Hungary was to attack from the north. The second formation was the German 12th Army stationed in Bulgaria under Field Marshal Sigmund Wilhelm List, one element of which was to occupy Macedonia while another was to press on to Belgrade. XLI Panzer Corps under the command of Georg-Hans Reinhardt was stationed in bases in Romania and was to attack Belgrade. Attached to the XLI Panzer Corps, was the 2nd Waffen SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" which had been transferred from southern France. The Das Reich Waffen SS Division was the spearhead of the attack on Belgrade. Das Reich was an elite formation commanded by SS Oberstgruppenfuehrer Paul Haussner, known as "Papa Haussner" because he was regarded as the founder of the Waffen SS or Armed SS, the military wing of the SS.

Belgrade was declared an open city which meant that it was not defended. This allowed the Luftwaffe to bomb the city non-stop for three days, destroying much of the center of the city and killing 17,000 Serbian civilians, men, women, and children. As an open city, there was only a garrison in Belgrade with hardly any front line troops. This led to the tragic-comical and absurd "capture" of the city. Nothing better illustrates the hollowness and emptiness of war than the "capture" of Belgrade. The actual capture of Belgrade has rarely been told. This was achieved by the commander of No.2 Company of the SS Motorcycle Reconnaissance Battalion, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Klingenberg of the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich". Klingenberg, along with one platoon leader, two sergeants, and five privates of the SS motorcycle assault company, crossed the Danube on a requisitioned motor boat. They rode their motor cycles through the streets of Belgrade unopposed. They did not meet any military forces or any resistance. They drove to the Yugoslav War Ministry in Belgrade which they found abandoned. They raised a Nazi swastika flag over the ministry building. They then went over to the German Embassy where another Nazi swastika flag was raised. The mayor of Belgrade then agreed to turn over the city to prevent further bombing of the city and the killing of more civilians. Hitler awarded Klingenberg a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for the "capture" of Belgrade and Klingenberg became a celebrity and hero in Nazi Germany as "the man who captured Belgrade." Klingenberg would himself be killed in 1945 when Russian and US troops occupied Germany. Belgrade would be occupied by the 1st Panzer Army under Generaloberst Ewald von Kleist. Kleist was photographed in front of the Skupshtina or Yugoslav Parliament building in Belgrade saluting a German tank commander of a Panzer Kampfwagen IV Ausf D tank on April 14. The 11th Panzer Division which had moved from Bulgaria seized Belgrade. The Germans casualties in the invasion of Yugoslavia were 151 killed, 392 wounded, and 15 missing. They captured 337,684 Yugoslav POWs, plus 6,028 officers. But 300,000 Serbian troops escaped into the mountains and country-side. They would continue the conflict as a guerrilla war.

Serbia was the only area of dismembered Yugoslavia in which an outright German military government was established. Serbia was the only Balkan country that Germany and the Axis countries occupied militarily throughout World War II. Why was this so? The Germans could never control Serbia and the Serbian population. Without direct German military occupation, Serbia could not be militarily and politically subdued. On April 20, 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, the Chief of the German Army High Command (OKH), ordered the establishment of a German military government in German-occupied Serbia. The office of the Military Commander in Serbia was the chief of the occupation. He was subordinate to the Quartermaster General of the Army High Command and to the commander of the German 2nd Army which occupied Serbia. The main responsibilities of the Military Commander in Serbia were enunciated as follows in the Dienstanweisung or brief as follows: To safeguard the railroad line between Belgrade and Salonika and the Danube shipping lanes, to execute the economic orders of Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering who was the Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, and to establish and to maintain law and order.

German Air Force General Helmuth Foerster was the First Military Commander in Serbia. He was replaced in June, 1941 by Antiaircraft Artillery General Ludwig von Schroeder. Air Force General Heinrich Danckelmann replaced him when Schroeder was killed in a plane crash a month after assuming command. In June, 1941, the Germans brought in four under-strength divisions to occupy or garrison Serbia under the command of General of Artillery Paul Bader: the 704th, 714th, 717th, and 718th divisions. The German Second Army was deployed to the Russian Front. On June 9, under Directive No. 31, Hitler unified the command structure by making Wilhelm List the Armed Forces Commander in Southeast Europe who was directly subordinate to Hitler. List was responsible for the security and the defense of Serbia and Greece and General Bader was subordinated to him. List had his headquarters in Salonika.

Two rival guerrilla or resistance movements emerged in Serbia following the German occupation. The Ravna Gora Chetnik Movement was headed by Colonel Dragoljub-Draza Mihailovic which was based in the UK where the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile fled. The guerrillas under Mihailovic engaged in sabotage but opposed direct attacks on German troops because such attacks were futile from a military standpoint and because the goal or objective of the guerrilla movement was to lay the groundwork for the Allied invasion of Yugoslavia which was to occur later in the war. Mihailovic opposed attacks on German troops because he did believe the sacrifice in Serbian lives was worth the cost. Mihailovic maintained that it was not worth sacrificing fifty Serbs for "a single German or a section of railway line." The Partisan or Communist guerrillas began uprisings began in Serbia in July, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. On July 3, 1941, Tito convened a meeting of the Politburo of the Communist party of Yugoslavia in a suburb of Belgrade after Joseph Stalin had made a call for Communist resistance in the the occupied countries. The following day, Tito issued a proclamation calling for a general uprising in Serbia. The Partisans managed to seize Uzice in western Serbia and to set up a so-called Communist Republic. The Partisans were internationalist in outlook and were not indigenous to Serbia. Josip Broz Tito was a Croat-Slovene Roman Catholic born in Croatia when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He spoke with a Croatian accent and did not know the Serbian terrain. He was like a foreigner in Serbia. He had been a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, had been captured by the Russians in 1915, and joined the Red Army in 1918. He fought in the Red Army from 1918 to 1920 and became a Communist leader who would lead the Yugoslav Communist Party. His wife was the Russian Pelagija Belousova, whom he married in 1919 in Russia. The Partisans wanted to create as much bloodshed and carnage and destruction as possible. This was their raison d’etre. They wanted to destroy the pre-Communist foundations and to create legitimacy for Communist rule by after the war by demonstrating that they had liberated the country from German occupation. Thus the forces under Mihailovic and Tito were fighting under two opposing concepts of guerrilla resistance.

The Serbian population was anxious to drive out the German forces from Serbia. The Serbian insurgency thus had overwhelming popular support in Serbia. Both the forces under Mihailovic and Tito were involved in the rebellion, even cooperating against the Germans and engaging in joint actions. The German military occupation of Serbia was threatened. The German combat troops had been redeployed to the Russian Front so that Serbia was occupied by under-strength garrison troops. The German police and the three German divisions were unable to suppress the Serbian insurgency. On September 4, the 125 Infantry Regiment was sent to Serbia from Greece.

On September 19, Tito and Mihailovic met for the first time at Struganik following Mihailovic’s meeting with Partisan representatives in August. They sought to organize their forces in a common front against German troops. Mihailovic and Tito agreed not to attack each other. No real agreement, however, was reached to cooperate because of conflicting concepts of resistance. A second meeting between Tito and Mihailovic took place on October 27 at Brajici located between Uzice and Ravna Gora. Captain D.T. "Bill" Hudson of the British mission to Draza Mihailovic came along to the Brajici meeting. Mihailovic and Tito were unable to reach an agreement to cooperate against the German forces.

Following the German occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece, guerrilla movements launched a massive resistance campaign against German occupation forces. In Serbia, a large insurrection against German occupation began in the summer of 1941. There were attacks and sabotage against communication and transportation lines. German troops were tortured, mutilated, and killed by Serbian resistance forces. The German response to these guerrilla attacks was to attempt to suppress the resistance by mass hangings and mass executions of Serbian civilians and hostages.

In June, 1941, Wilhelm List became the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast, the supreme representative of the German Army in the Balkans and exercised executive authority in Serbia which was occupied by German troops. List had been the Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army during the German invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece. List was assigned the duty of safeguarding of the unified defense of areas occupied by German troops in Serbia against attacks and unrest. Hermann Foertsch, who had become the Chief of Staff of 12th Army on May 10, remained List's Chief of Staff in his new position as Wehrmacht Commander Southeast.

By September 5, the uprising in Serbia was spreading rapidly and endangering the stability of the German occupation. List issued an order on the suppression of the revolt:

In regard to the above the following aspects are to be taken into consideration: Ruthless and immediate measures against the insurgents, against their accomplices and their families. (Hanging, burning down of villages involved, seizure of more hostages, deportation of relatives, etc., into concentration camps.)

On September 16, Hitler issued a personally signed directive, Directive No. 31a, to List charging him with the suppression of the insurgency in Serbia:

I assign to the Wehrmacht Commander the task of crushing the insurrectionary movement in the southeastern area. It is important first to secure in the Serbian area the transportation routes and the objects important for the German war economy, and then to restore order by the most rigorous methods.

List then recommended and requested that General Franz Boehme, a pre-war Austrian officer who then commanded the XVIIIth Army Corps in Greece, be commissioned to handle military affairs in Serbia. The entire executive authority for Serbia was subsequently transferred to Boehme. Boehme was made the Plenipotentiary Commanding General. Boehme thus was delegated supreme authority to suppress the insurgency in Serbia although he remained subordinated to List. Boehme took command of all German troops in Serbia and directed all actions against the Serbian insurgents on September 19. Boehme was a veteran of the German Army military campaigns in France and Poland. He would later be transferred to serve with the 20th Gebirgsarmee in Norway as a General der Gebirgstruppen and ended the war in Norway. The 342th Infantry Division was transferred from France and deployed in Serbia to suppress the insurgency. The 100th Tank Brigade was also deployed to Serbia. Danckelmann was relieved of command in Serbia while Boehme took over the command of Serbia. Danckelmann was held responsible for letting the Serbian rebellion get out of control and spread.

Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the supreme command of the German armed forces, pursuant to Hitler's directive, sent instructions for the suppression of insurgency movements in the occupied territories, which List issued to his subordinate commanders:

Measures taken up to now to counteract this general communist insurgent movement have proven themselves to be inadequate. The Fuehrer now has ordered that severest means are to be employed in order to break down this movement in the shortest time possible. Only in this manner, which has always been applied successfully in the history of the extension of power of great peoples can quiet be restored.

The following directives are to be applied here: (a) Each incident of insurrection against the German Wehrmacht, regardless of individual circumstances, must be assumed to be of communist origin. (b) In order to stop these intrigues at their inception, severest measures are to be applied immediately at the first appearance, in order to demonstrate the authority of the occupying power, and in order to prevent further, progress. One must keep in mind that a human life frequently counts for naught in the affected countries and a deterring effect can only be achieved by unusual severity. In such as case the death penalty for 50 to 100 communists must in general be deemed appropriate as retaliation for the life of a German soldier. The manner of execution must increase the deterrent effect. The reverse procedure to proceed at first with relatively easy punishment and to be satisfied with the threat of measures of increased severity as a deterrent does not correspond with these principles and is not to be applied.

The German punitive expedition was headed by Franz Boehme and focused on the Macva valley between the Sava and Drina rivers, Sabac. Boehme, a Roman Catholic born in Steiermark, Austria and a former Austrian military officer who was a veteran of World War I, focused on collective punishment of the entire Serbian civilian population. Boehme rationalized or justified the executions as revenge for the Serbian role in World War I. The Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip had precipitated World War I by the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Austrian troops suffered high casualties against the Serbian army during the first year of World War I. Boehme saw the mass executions of Serbian civilians as retribution for Austrian deaths during the Great War. Boehme issued orders to the military units under his command on September 25 and October 10, 1941, in which he ordered that "the whole population" of Serbia was to be hit severely. Boehme ordered that for one German solider or Volksdeutsche killed, a hundred Serbs were to be executed. Keitel had made a vague reference to "the death penalty for 50 to 100 communists". Boehme now had ordered that for every German soldier or ethnic German outside of the Reich, a Volksdeutsche, killed, a hundred Serbs would be executed:

If losses of German soldiers or Volksdeutsche occur, the territorial competent commanders up to the regiment commanders are to decree the shooting of arrestees according to the following quotas: (a) For each killed or murdered German soldier or Volksdeutsche (men, women or children) one hundred prisoners or hostages, (b) For each wounded German soldier or Volksdeutsche 50 prisoners or hostages.

"In all commands in Serbia, all Communists, male residents suspicious as such, all Jews, a certain number of nationalistic and democratically inclined residents are to be arrested as hostages, by means of sudden actions."

On October 4, List issued to following order to General Paul Bader for treatment of the Serbian population:

The male population of the territories to be mopped up of bandits is to be handled according to the following points of view: Men who take part in combat are to be judged by court martial. Men in the insurgent territories who were not encountered in battle, are to be examined and, If a former participation in combat can be proven of them to be judged by court martial. If they are only suspected of having taken part in combat, of having offered the bandits support of any sort, or of having acted against the Wehrmacht in any way, to be held in a special collecting camp. They are to serve as hostages in the event that bandits appear, or anything against the Wehrmacht is undertaken in the territory mopped up or in their home localities, and in such cases they are to be shot.

Following List's order, the executions of Serbian civilians and hostages increased and reprisals against the Serbian population were conducted based on the ratio of "a hundred to one", the 100 to 1 ratio, 100 hundred Serbs killed for one German soldier killed. There was a reprisal killing of Serbian civilians outside the Serbian town of Topola. General Boehme ordered on October 4 and October 9 that Serbian civilians be shot. Boehme sent List the following report of the executions by shooting of about 2,000 Communists and Jews in reprisal for 22 murdered of the Second Battalion of the 421st Army Signal Communication Regiment in progress." List also received reports of reprisal shootings of Serbian civilians conducted by the Security Police and S.D. The Topola mass shooting was mentioned in the War Crimes Judgment at Nuremberg. List believed that the way to deal with the insurgency in Serbia was to bring more troops to the area. Hitler and Keitel, however, argued that terrorism and intimidation of the population would suppress the resistance movement without significant additional German occupation troops. List was thus not in agreement with many of the pacification programs and policies of the German High Command. Illness on October 15 forced the retirement of List from active service.

The central Serbian town of Kragujevac had a pre-war population of 27,249, located in the political, cultural, educational, and industrial center of Serbia known as Shumadija at the Lepenica river, a tributary of the Morava. Kragujevac was first mentioned in the Turkish Tapu Defter as Kragujevdza in 1476 as a village with 32 houses. By 1822, it had 283 houses with a population of 2,000. Kragujevac was the capital of the Serbian Principality when Milos Obrenovic proclaimed it the capital from 1818 to 1839. The first Serbian court was established in Kragujevac in 1820, the first high school in 1833, the first theater in 1835, the first Lycee in 1838, the first cannons in 1853, and the first electric power station in 1884. By 1851, the town had become the industrial center of Serbia. In 1853, the oldest Serbian military plant was established with French assistance to produce cannons. The military technical institute (Vojno Tehnicki Zavod) was established in Kragujevac which oversaw Serbian military armaments and weapons production. In 1929, a railroad line between Kragujevac and Kraljevo was established. The town produced military vehicles. Ford trucks were built in the late 1930s for the Yugoslav army.

On October 15, Mihailovic's forces captured a German platoon. The next day, the commander of the 920th German regiment in Kragujevac sent his third battalion to free the platoon. This rescue regiment was ambushed by both Mihailovic’s and Tito’s forces. Ten German soldiers were killed and 26 wounded. On October 19, 300 civilians were executed in three surrounding villages in retaliation or as reprisals. All roads leading out of Kragujevac were blocked. All houses were searched. All males between 16 and 60 were taken to district military headquarters for identification, then to huts overlooking the town. Civil servants were rounded up from offices and 300 students over 16 were taken from the high school along with 18 teachers. The roundup continued into the afternoon. 100 were shot on October 20. 10,000 were assembled. On October 20, 2,300 were executed according to the official German report by Boehme. Laza Pantelic, the headmaster of the First Boys High School was shot. When he observed 35 of his students being led away to execution, he asked the German soldier: "Where are they being taken?" "To be shot" answered the German soldier. "I'm their headmaster. Let them go, and take me instead." "That's impossible", replied the German soldier. "My place is not here---it's with my boys." He joined the students where they embraced and faced the firing squad together. "Shoot, I am still in class." The students from the Kragujevac high school were reported to have said: "We are Serbian children. Shoot." The Germans reportedly spared a few hundred townsmen so that the horror could be spread to terrorize the population. Approximately 600 were kept at the execution site in Shumarica where they buried the dead for the next 4 days. The bodies were buried in shallow graves, which allowed dogs unearthed the bodies and ate them. The graves were later marked by Serbian Orthodox crosses which the Communist regime later had removed.

An announcement from the local German command office in Kragujevac on October 21, 1941, was as follows:

For every dead German soldier, 100 residents have been executed, and for every wounded German soldier, 50 residents have been executed, and before all others, Communists, bandits, and their assistants were targeted, all totaling 2,300.

In the past week there have been executions of a large number of Serbs, not only in Kraljevo but also in Kragujevac, as reprisals for the killing of members of the Wehrmacht in the proportion of 100 Serbs for one German. In Kraljevo 1,700 male Serbs were executed, in Kragujvac 2,300.

The town of Rudnik was subsequently razed. In Gornji Milanovac, the town was systematically destroyed with incendiary bombs by the German forces, 72 houses out of 464 were left standing. In Kraljevo, railway and aircraft factory workers were executed and the Germans reportedly shot one member of each family in the town.

In the villages of Meckovac, Grosnica, Milatovac, 427 civilians were executed. In Draginac and Loznica, 2,950 hostages were killed, for guerrilla activity around Kraljevo. In Kraljevo, 1,736 civilians were killed.

A telegram between the Plenipotentiary of the German Foreign Ministry and the military commander in Serbia explained the reason why civilians from Kragujevac were chosen for execution:

"The executions in Kragujevac occurred although there had been no attacks on members of the Wehrmacht in this city, for the reason that not enough hostages could be found elsewhere."

The executions in Kragujevac were indiscriminate. Serbian civilians were selected merely to fill the quota of 100 hundred Serbs for every German soldier killed. The German military command in Serbia listed the number of executed at Kragujevac at 2,300. The Communist regime manipulated and inflated the figures to 7,000 killed after the war for propaganda purposes. A more accurate and objective number for the total number of Serbian civilians executed in Kragfujevac and in the neighboring villages and towns for the entire period is approximately 5,000.

On October 24, Walter Kuntze was assigned Deputy Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army. This was a temporary or interim appointment to last until List could return to duty. On October 31, Boehme submitted a report to Kuntze in which he detailed the shootings in Serbia:

Shooting: 405 hostages in Belgrade (total up to now in Belgrade, 4,750). 90 Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac. 1,700 hostages in Kraljevo."

Executions of Serbian civilians continued. Kuntze in a directive of March 19, 1942:

The more unequivocal and the harder reprisal measures are applied from the beginning the less it will become necessary to apply them at a later date. No false sentimentalities! It is preferable that 50 suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his life.If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according to a definite ratio (for instance, one German dead---100 Serbs, one German wounded---50 Serbs).

The Kragujevac massacre had a profound effect on Mihailovic. The Kragujevac Massacre convinced Mihailovic that he was correct in avoiding attacks on the German occupation forces that would lead to executions of Serbian civilians. He told British officer Christie Lawrence:

You have heard of the result of my revolution last autumn? Of the hundreds of villages burned and the terrible reprisals that the Germans inflicted on our innocent people? When it was over I resolved that I would never again bring such misery on the country, unless it could result in our total liberation.

The Communist Partisans, by contrast, were indifferent to the losses of the civilian population in Serbia. The Partisans were motivated by an ideology that prevented them from seeing that German occupation troops in Serbia were not Nazi party members but recruits who had no choice but to serve in the German Army. The senseless murder of German occupation troops would invite reprisals that would lead in the loss of innocent civilian lives. The Partisans, however, were also guided by a political agenda. Their goal was to control territory and set the stage for a Communist takeover of the country. Edvard Kardelj said:

"Some comrades have a fear of reprisals---destruction of villages, executions, and so on. In war we must not be afraid of whole villages being destroyed."

Tito replied to Mihailovic's assertion that large-scale attacks against the Germans would result in reprisals that would lead to the destruction of those units and the loss of innocent civilian lives:

"That's of no importance. I'm looking further ahead." The terror will unquestionably lead to armed action"

Communist leaders reacted to the bewilderment caused by their callousness toward suffering by saying that if the Serbs perished in this war, there were enough Chinese to settle Serbian lands. In other words, the goal was in achieving political power. This was what the partisans wanted. They were not concerned if innocent civilians were killed. The ends justified the means. So long as a Communist dictatorship was created in Serbia and Yugoslavia, the cost in human life was irrelevant.

Franz Boehme (1885-1947) was captured on May 9, 1945 in Norway. Boehme was placed on trial by the U.S. Military Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Serbia for the mass executions of Serbian civilians in Kragujevac and adjoining towns and villages. This trial was the "Hostages Trial", Case No. 47, which was held from July 8, 1947 to February 19, 1948. He committed suicide prior to his arraignment on May 29, 1947 by jumping off the fourth floor of the prison building in Nuremberg, Germany. The defendants in the Hostages Trial were German military commanders who had ordered reprisal killings against civilians or hostages in order to maintain order in occupied territories under attack from guerrillas. Franz Boehme, Wilhelm List, Walter Kundze, Maximilian von Weichs, Hermann Foertsch, Lothar Rendulic, Helmuth Felmy, Hubert Lanz, Ernst Dehner, Ernst von Leyser, Wilhelm Speidel, and Kurt von Geitner were charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, and Norway. They were charged in a four count indictment that charged them with will unlawfully, willfully and knowingly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity under Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 "with being principals in and accessories to the murder of thousands of persons from the civilian population of Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway and Albania between September 1939 and May 1945 by the use of troops of the German Armed Forces under the command of and acting pursuant to orders issued, distributed and executed by the defendants." They were further charged in participating in "a deliberate scheme of terrorism and intimidation wholly unwarranted and unjustified by military necessity by the murder, ill-treatment and deportation to slave labour of prisoners of and the civilian populations."

Under the first count, they were charged with the murder of hundreds of thousands of persons by mass executions of civilians, that they "issued, distributed and executed orders for the execution of 100 hostages in retaliation for each German soldier killed and fifty hostages in retaliation for each German soldier wounded." Under count two, they were charged with destroying cities, towns, and villages by burning and leveling them. Under count three, they were charged with the summary execution of POWs and the murder of relatives of those combatants. Under the fourth count, they were charged with the murder, torture, and systematic terrorization and imprisonment in concentration camps of the civilian populations in the occupied territories. These acts were held to violate the 1907 Hague Regulations, international conventions, the laws and customs of war, general principles of criminal law, and the internal penal laws of the occupied countries which were "declared, recognized and defined as crimes" by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 which was promulgated by the US, USSR, France, and the UK. The Nuremberg court found Wilhelm List guilty on counts one and three and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Walter Kuntze was found guilty on counts one, three, and four and received a life sentence. Hermann Foertsch was acquitted and released. Maximilian von Weichs was severed from the case due to illness. Generalfeldmarschall Ewald von Kleist was extradited by Yugoslavia on August 16, 1946, was tried for war crimes, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Kleist was extradited by the USSR in 1948 where he was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. Kleist died in the Vladimir POW camp in 1954 in the USSR.

The Nuremberg court found that hostages could not be taken and then executed during a military occupation based on military expediency. "Every available method to secure order" must be used before hostages can be taken. The court found that the Serbian/Yugoslav guerrillas were not entitled to be classed as "lawful belligerents." The court found that the guerrillas were franc tireurs, from French for "free shooters". Thus, they were not entitled to POW status. As franc tireurs, upon capture the guerrillas could be "subjected to the death penalty", that is, summarily shot. The court, however, rejected the defendant's defense of "superior orders". The defendants argued that they were not responsible because they were only following orders of those superior to them in rank and power. In following superior orders, the court held that one must show "excusable ignorance of the illegality" of the orders to be excused. If one knows that the order is illegal and follows it, one cannot use the defense. An order is illegal if it "violates International Law and outrages fundamental concepts of justice." The court held that following "superior orders" is not a defense in the commission of a criminal act. The court found that Wilhelm List and Walter Kuntze were following orders they knew to be illegal and criminal because the orders from Hitler and Keitel violated international law and fundamental concepts of justice. The executions of Serbian civilians at Kragujevac were thus found by the Nuremberg Tribunal to constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This is an error - and the person who wrote it should change it straightaway:

Mihailovic opposed attacks on German troops because he did believe the sacrifice in Serbian lives was worth the cost. Mihailovic maintained that it was not worth sacrificing fifty Serbs for "a single German or a section of railway line."

did believe... should read did not believe...

Thank you, elenil21, for pointing out the error! I'm not able to correct it in the original post, but at least it has been pointed out. I wanted to include a piece here by following up on the issue of Mihailovich's attitude toward the German reprisal policy against the Serbs.

Nazi Reprisal Policy in Serbia Shamelessly Exploited by the Yugoslav Communists

On September 6, 1941, following the successful attacks by Mihailovich forces against the Germans in Western Serbia, Adolph Hitler issued the decree that for every German killed, 100 Serbian hostages would be shot. For every German wounded, 50 Serbs would be shot. This decree would be posted throughout Belgrade, Serbia on September 13, 1941. The Germans were not kidding.

General Boehme, the German Commanding General of the occupation forces in Serbia from September 16 to December 2 of 1941, issued three orders to supplement Hitler’s decree. These orders were dated September 25, October 14, and November 10 of 1941. “Order to the German Army in Serbia” was the first of Boehme’s orders, and it was unequivocal in its lack of mercy:

“As a result of the Serbian rebellion, hundreds of German soldiers have been killed. Our losses will be enormous unless we crush the rebellion without mercy.

Your task always is to be in total control in every village in this country in which German blood was shed also in 1914.

The heavy hand of our retribution must be felt by the entire population of Serbia. Those who show them pity, thereby, deny pity to their own. Any such person will be court martialed, whoever he may be.”[1]

Thousands of Mihailovich’s followers would pay with their lives in the German reprisals that followed each successful action against the Nazi forces in Serbia by the Chetnik forces. Posters listing the names of the executed were put on display throughout Belgrade. Tito’s Serbian followers were also included as targets of the reprisals, however there were two primary differences in sacrifice. Tito’s followers were highly mobile, while those civilians that followed Mihailovich tended to be tied closely to their homes and families.[2] The second, and most significant difference, was that when it came to reprisals against the Serbian civilian population, Tito did not care. He was more than willing to sacrifice Serbian lives, while General Draza Mihailovich did care, so much so, that it would greatly affect how he would conduct his resistance actions against the Nazi enemy in the future. This concern would end up being used against him by the communists.

Still, General Mihailovich and his forces would continue the resistance against the Germans. General Bader, who succeeded General Boehme as the Commander of the German Army in Serbia, would publish his own proclamation on January 29, 1943:

“A band of outlaws, led by the former Colonel Draza Mihailovich, goes on fighting. These outlaws misrepresent themselves as the regular Yugoslav army with the intention of continuing the war which was lawfully ended by authorized officials a long time ago.”

General Bader was referring to the quick capitulation of the official Yugoslav Army in April of 1941 when the Germans attacked Yugoslavia, successfully occupying the country, and the subsequent Nedich administration established in Serbia. General Mihailovich did not surrender, but took his people into the hills to mount the first successful resistance to the Nazis in all of occupied Europe through the guerrilla warfare made legendary by the Chetniks in previous wars.

Bader, like Boehme, like Hitler, was merciless. One of the methods used by the Germans to punish Mihailovich’s “outlaws” was to imprison their families and close relatives.

General Mihailovich addressed the atrocities being committed by the German army, addressing the German commander, directly:

“It is now a year and a half since I began a life and death battle to rid the country of occupation forces. Our fighting spirit is based on our traditional love of freedom and unshakable faith in the victory of our allies…For every German soldier killed or missing in action, you are executing a hundred innocent Serbian victims. I warn you of the impending judgment for your misdeeds. I will subject German soldiers to the same treatment unless you suspend your bestial reprisals.”

General Mihailovich’s response to the German reprisals, though made in Lipovo, reached Hitler. Hitler took Mihailovich seriously for he was well aware of the damage the Chetniks had done and could do in sabotaging his plans. On February 16, 1943, just days after Mihailovich’s declaration, Hitler wrote to his colleague in the fascist cause, Mussolini, whose Italian forces had occupied western Yugoslavia:

“In addition to the current operations against the communists I see, Duce, I perceive a particular long term danger in the plans of Mihailovich’s followers to destroy or disarm your own forces in Hercegovina and Montenegro [Yugoslavia]…Being conscious of the danger posed by Mihailovich’s movement, I ordered my forces to destroy all his detachments in the occupied territory. I would consider it desirable for your Second Army similarly to treat Mihailovich and his officers as sworn enemies of the Axis.

"I ask you, Duce, to instruct your military commanders accordingly. It goes without saying that the liquidation of Mihailovich’s detachments will not be a simple task, considering the forces at his disposal…The territories occupied by these bands should be cordoned off carefully and resistance should be stifled by starvation and interdiction of supplies. The remnants of those forces will then be destroyed definitively in a concentric attack.”

Hitler’s Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop delivered Hitler’s message to Mussolini in Rome and the Duce replied on March 13, 1943, agreeing with the German appraisal:

“Minister von Ribbentrop has surely informed you, Fuehrer, about the conversations we had concerning the Partisans and the Chetniks. We totally agree that the Partisans and the Chetniks are equally hostile to the Axis and that in case of an Allied landing they will assist the invasion forces to our grave detriment. Although the Partisan radio treats Mihailovich as a traitor, he is therefore no less an enemy of ours…”

As it would turn out, Mussolini’s appraisal of Partisan hostility toward the Axis gave too much credit to Tito’s communists, who would become far more hostile toward the Chetniks than they ever were toward the Germans.

The reprisal policy of the Germans against Serbian civilians would come to haunt even their own generals. After the war, testifying before the Yugoslav communist court in November 1947, General Meisner, another German commander in Serbia, perhaps in an attempt to cleanse his soul, regretted how the orders from Berlin were expedited. His testimony before the communist court would include condemnation of the extent to which the German reprisal policy was shamelessly exploited by the Yugoslav communists and its consequence:

“The seeds of tragedy were sown by the communists who would descend from the mountains into the towns and villages of Serbia, ambush some German officer, and then again disappear in the mountains, lacking courage to join in battle with German troops and to accept the consequences of their raids. As soon as German troops would appear in the area, they would sneak back into the forest leaving the defenseless people behind to pay the price for their acts.”

This German appraisal came sixteen months after General Mihailovich had been executed, not by German hands but by Yugoslav hands, the very same that had exploited the German reprisal policy against their own brothers and sisters in Yugoslavia.

A tragic fratricidal war developed in Yugoslavia shortly after the Axis occupied the country. This fratricidal war would ultimately prove to be far more destructive in its consequences for the future of that country and its people than the occupation itself. Long after Hitler and his people were gone, Tito and his people, those that would come to power following the exit of the Nazis, would do more damage than the Germans had ever done in Yugoslavia.

Innocent Serbian civilians, said General Meisner, paid the price for communist exploitations. General Mihailovich, too, paid with his life, and ironically it was the Germans who provided the most honest testament to his dedication to the fight for freedom in Yugoslavia.

Who knows how things would have gone in Yugoslavia during World War II had the German reprisal policy not been a factor. General Mihailovich certainly considered it a primary factor in planning his actions against the enemy. His policy was simple: Consider the benefit and effectiveness of the action against the enemy in proportion to the human cost it would entail against your own people. Mihailovich would wage his resistance accordingly. Tito’s policy, too, was simple, brutally simple: He did not care about human cost.

The Germans understood this. As history would prove, the British did not, and their lack of understanding and appreciation for this very simple fact about Tito would effectively enable him to fulfill his agenda and rise to power with the help and support of the very Allies whom he disdained.

By Aleksandra Rebic

[1] Danau Zeitung, German newspaper.

[2] Vukcevic, Dr. Radoje. General Mihailovich The Trial and Great Injustice, “Njegos”, Chicago, IL 1984.

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