Free Republic

Between October 19th and 21st 1941, the most infamous Nazi massacre in Serbia during the Second World War took place at Šumarice, just outside the town of Kragujevac, and in local villages. The event had a marked effect on the course of the war in the Balkans. The Nazis decreed that 100 people should be shot for every German killed, and 50 for every German wounded. One of the most shocking aspects of the massacre was that more than 200 pupils from local schools were taken out of their classes and shot. There are several stories of extraordinary individual sacrifice...

Following the successful organized uprising, the first of its kind in occupied Europe, by the Serbian resistance forces under the command of Serbia’s General Draza Mihailovich that not only threatened Germany’s southern flank in Europe and her occupation of Serbia after Yugoslavia fell to Hitler in April of 1941, but critically delayed Hitler’s planned attack on the Soviet Union that summer, the Germans retaliated. But it wasn’t in the usual way, man to man, soldier to soldier. The method of Nazi retaliation initiated against the Serbs was unprecedented, and the target was the civilian population. Hitler’s aim was to suppress...