Partisans (Yugoslavia)
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The Yugoslav Partisans,
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
,
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, Slovene: ,
or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослободителна војска (НОВ); sl, Narodnoosvobodilna vojska (NOV) officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odredi Jugoslavije (NOV i POJ), Народноослободилачка војска и партизански одреди Југославије (НОВ и ПОЈ); mk, Народноослободителна војска и партизански одреди на Југославија (НОВ и ПОЈ); sl, Narodnoosvobodilna vojska in partizanski odredi Jugoslavije (NOV in POJ) was the
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
-led
anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers wer ...
resistance to the
Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
(chiefly
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
) in occupied Yugoslavia during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Led by
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...
, the Partisans are considered to be Europe's most effective anti- Axis
resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...
during World War II. Primarily a guerilla force at its inception, the Partisans developed into a large fighting force engaging in
conventional warfare Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primari ...
later in the war, numbering around 650,000 in late 1944 and organized in four
field armies A field army (or numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, and wit ...
and 52 divisions. The main stated objectives of the Partisans were the liberation of Yugoslav lands from occupying forces and the creation of a federal, multi-ethnic socialist state in Yugoslavia. The Partisans were organized on the initiative of Tito following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, and began an active guerrilla campaign against occupying forces after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June. A large-scale uprising was launched in July, later joined by
Draža Mihailović Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović ( sr-Cyrl, Драгољуб Дража Михаиловић; 27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Ar ...
's
Chetniks The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royali ...
, which led to the creation of the short-lived Republic of Užice. The Axis mounted a series of offensives in response but failed to completely destroy the highly mobile Partisans and their leadership. By late 1943 the Allies had shifted their support from Mihailović to Tito as the extent of Chetnik collaboration became evident, and the Partisans received official recognition at the
Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...
. In Autumn 1944, the Partisans and the Soviet
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
liberated
Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...
following the Belgrade Offensive. By the end of the war, the Partisans had gained control of the entire country as well as
Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...
and
Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carin ...
. After the war, the Partisans were reorganized into the regular armed force of the newly established
Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
.


Objectives

One of two objectives of the movement, which was the military arm of the Unitary National Liberation Front (UNOF) coalition, led by the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...
(KPJ) and represented by the
Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia,, mk, Антифашистичко собрание за народно ослободување на Југославија commonly abbreviated as the AVNOJ, was a deliberat ...
(AVNOJ), the Yugoslav wartime
deliberative assembly A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Etymology In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became ...
, was to fight the occupying forces. Until British supplies began to arrive in appreciable quantities in 1944, the occupiers were the only source of arms. The other objective was to create a federal multi-ethnic
communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...
in Yugoslavia. To this end, the KPJ attempted to appeal to all the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia, by preserving the rights of each group. The objectives of the rival resistance movement, the
Chetniks The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royali ...
, were the retention of the Yugoslav monarchy, ensuring the safety of ethnic
Serb The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language. The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
populations, and the establishment of a Greater Serbia through the
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
of non-Serbs from territories they considered rightfully and historically Serbian.: "From the summer of 1941, the Chetniks increasingly gained control over Serb insurgents and carried out gruesome crimes against Muslims of eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Massacres of Muslims, usually by cutting the throats of the victims and tossing the bodies into various water-ways, occurred especially in eastern Bosnia, in Foča, Goražde, Čajniče, Rogatica, Višegrad, Vlasenica, Srebrenica, all in the basin of the Drina river, but also in eastern Herzegovina, where individual villages resisted Serb encirclement with ferocious determination until 1942. Chetnik documents – for example the minutes of the Chetnik conference in Javorine, district of Kotor Varoš, in June 1942 – speak of a determination to 'cleanse Bosnia of everything that is not Serb'. It is difficult to estimate the number of Muslim victims of this original ethnic cleansing, but it can be counted in the tens of thousands." Relations between the two movements were uneasy from the start, but from October 1941 they degenerated into full-scale conflict. To the Chetniks, Tito's pan-ethnic policies seemed anti-Serbian, whereas the Chetniks' royalism was anathema to the communists. In the early part of the war Partisan forces were predominantly composed of Serbs. In that period names of Muslim and Croat commanders of Partisan forces had to be changed to protect them from their predominantly Serb colleagues. After the German retreat forced by the Soviet-Bulgarian offensive in Serbia, North Macedonia, and Kosovo in the autumn of 1944, the conscription of Serbs, Macedonians, and Kosovar Albanians increased significantly. By late 1944, the total forces of the Partisans numbered 650,000 men and women organized in four
field armies A field army (or numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, and wit ...
and 52 divisions, which engaged in
conventional warfare Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primari ...
. By April 1945, the Partisans numbered over 800,000.


Name

The movement was consistently referred to as the "Partisans" throughout the war. However, due to frequent changes in size and structural reorganizations, the Partisans throughout their history held four full official names: *National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilački partizanski odredi Jugoslavije (NOPOJ), Народноослободилачки партизански одреди Југославије (НОПОЈ); mk, Народноослободителни партизански одреди на Југославија (НПОЈ); sl, Narodnoosvobodilni partizanski odredi Jugoslavije (NOPOJ) (June 1941 – January 1942) *National Liberation Partisan and Volunteer Army of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka partizanska i dobrovoljačka vojska Jugoslavije (NOP i DVJ), Народноослободилачка партизанска и добровољачка војска Југославије (НОП и ДВЈ); mk, Народноослободителна партизанска и волонтерска војска на Југославија (НОП и ВВЈ); sl, Narodnoosvobodilna partizanska in prostovoljna vojska Jugoslavije (NOP in PVJ) (January – November 1942) *National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (November 1942 – February 1945). Increasingly from November 1942, the Partisan military as a whole was often referred to simply as the National Liberation Army (''Narodnooslobodilačka vojska,'' NOV), whereas the term "Partisans" acquired a wider sense in referring to the entire resistance faction (including, for example, the
AVNOJ The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia,, mk, Антифашистичко собрание за народно ослободување на Југославија commonly abbreviated as the AVNOJ, was a deliberat ...
). *Yugoslav Army sh-Latn-Cyrl, Jugoslavenska armija (JA), Југословенска армија (ЈА); mk, Југословенска армија (ЈА); sl, Jugoslovanska Armada (JA) – on 1 March 1945, the National Liberation Army was transformed into the regular armed forces of Yugoslavia and renamed accordingly. The movement was originally named National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (''Narodnooslobodilački partizanski odredi Jugoslavije,'' NOPOJ) and held that name from June 1941 to January 1942. Because of this, their short name became simply the "Partisans" (capitalized), and stuck henceforward (the adjective "Yugoslav" is used sometimes in exclusively non- Yugoslav sources to distinguish them from other partisan movements). Between January 1942 and November 1942, the movement's full official name was briefly National Liberation Partisan and Volunteer Army of Yugoslavia (''Narodnooslobodilačka partizanska i dobrovoljačka vojska Jugoslavije,'' NOP i DVJ). The changes were meant to reflect the movement's character as a "volunteer army". In November 1942 the movement was renamed into the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (''Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odredi Jugoslavije,'' NOV i POJ), a name which it held until the end of the war. This last official name is the full name most associated with the Partisans, and reflects the fact that the proletarian brigades and other mobile units were organized into the National Liberation Army (''Narodnooslobodilačka vojska''). The name change also reflects the fact that the latter superseded in importance the partisan detachments themselves. Shortly before the end of the war, in March 1945, all resistance forces were reorganized into the regular armed force of Yugoslavia and renamed Yugoslav Army. It would keep this name until 1951, when it was renamed the
Yugoslav People's Army The Yugoslav People's Army (abbreviated as JNA/; Macedonian and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian and bs, Jugoslavenska narodna armija; sl, Jugoslovanska ljudska ar ...
.


Background and origins

On 6 April 1941, the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 191 ...
was
invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
from all sides by the Axis powers, primarily by
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
forces, but also including Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian formations. During the invasion, Belgrade was bombed by the ''
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
''. The invasion lasted little more than ten days, ending with the unconditional surrender of the
Royal Yugoslav Army The Yugoslav Army ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Jugoslovenska vojska, JV, Југословенска војска, ЈВ), commonly the Royal Yugoslav Army, was the land warfare military service branch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (originally Kingdom of Serbs, ...
on 17 April. Besides being hopelessly ill-equipped when compared to the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
, the Army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available. The terms of the capitulation were extremely severe, as the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Germany occupied the northern part of
Drava Banovina The Drava Banovina or Drava Banate ( Slovene and Serbo-Croatian: ''Dravska banovina''), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of most of present-day Slovenia and was named for the Dr ...
(roughly modern-day
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...
), while maintaining direct military occupation of a rump Serbian territory with a puppet government. The
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...
(NDH) was established under German direction, which extended over much of the territory of today's
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...
and as well contained all the area of modern-day
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and ...
and
Syrmia Syrmia ( sh, Srem/Срем or sh, Srijem/Сријем, label=none) is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia and Croatia. Most of the region is flat, with the exc ...
region of modern-day
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
. Mussolini's
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
occupied the remainder of Drava Banovina (annexed and renamed as the Province of Lubiana), much of
Zeta Banovina The Zeta Banovina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Zetska banovina, Зетска бановина), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of all of present-day Montenegro as well as ...
and large chunks of the coastal
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...
region (along with nearly all its
Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to the ...
islands). It also gained control over the newly created Italian governorate of Montenegro, and was granted the kingship in the Independent State of Croatia, though wielding little real power within it.
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
dispatched the Hungarian Third Army and occupied and annexed the Yugoslav regions of Baranja, Bačka, Međimurje and Prekmurje.
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
, meanwhile, annexed nearly all of Macedonia, and small areas of eastern Serbia and Kosovo. The dissolution of Yugoslavia, the creation of the NDH, Italian governorate of Montenegro and Nedic's Serbia and the annexations of Yugoslav territory by the various Axis countries were incompatible with international law in force at that time. The occupying forces instituted such severe burdens on the local populace that the Partisans came not only to enjoy widespread support but for many were the only option for survival. Early in the occupation, German forces would hang or shoot indiscriminately, including women, children and the elderly, up to 100 local inhabitants for every one German soldier killed. While these measures for suppressing communist-led resistance were issued in all German-occupied territory, it was only strictly enforced in Serbia. Two of the most significant atrocities by the German forces were the massacre of 2,000 civilians in Kraljevo and 3,000 in Kragujevac. The formula of 100 hostages shot for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages shot for every wounded German soldier was cut in one-half in February 1943 and removed altogether in the fall of that same year. Furthermore, Yugoslavia experienced a breakdown of law and order, with collaborationist militias roaming the countryside terrorizing the population. The government of the puppet Independent State of Croatia found itself unable to control its territory in the early stages of the occupation, resulting in a severe crackdown by the
Ustaše militia The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Move ...
s and the German army. Amid the relative chaos that ensued, the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...
moved to organize and unite anti-fascist factions and political forces into a nationwide uprising. The party, led by
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...
, was banned after its significant success in the post-World War I Yugoslav elections and operated underground since. Tito, however, could not act openly without the backing of the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
, and as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was still in force, he was compelled to wait.


Formation and early rebellion

During the April invasion of Yugoslavia, the leadership of the Communist Party was in
Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
, together with Josip Broz Tito. After a month, they left for
Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...
. While the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...
between Germany and the Soviet Union was in effect, the communists refrained from open conflict with the new regime of the
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...
. In these first two months of occupation, they extended their underground network and began amassing weapons. In early May 1941, a so-called
May consultations The May consultations were an underground gathering of the Central Committee (Politburo) of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and leaders of its regional branches held after World War II in Yugoslavia started, on the initiative of Josip Broz T ...
of Communist Party officials from across the country, who sought to organize the resistance against the occupiers, was held in Zagreb. In June 1941, a meeting of the Central Committee of KPJ was also held, at which it was decided to start preparations for the uprising.
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941. The extent of support for the Partisan movement varied according to region and nationality, reflecting the existential concerns of the local population and authorities. The first Partisan uprising occurred in Croatia on 22 June 1941, when forty Croatian communists staged an uprising in the Brezovica woods between Sisak and Zagreb, forming the
1st Sisak Partisan Detachment The Sisak People's Liberation Partisan Detachment ( sh, Sisački narodnooslobodilački partizanski odred), also known as the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment (''1. Sisački partizanski odred''), was the first Partisan armed anti-fascist resistance un ...
. The first uprising led by Tito occurred two weeks later, in Serbia. Cohen 1996, p. 94. The
Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...
formally decided to launch an armed uprising on 4 July, a date which was later marked as Fighter's Day – a public holiday in the
SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
. One
Žikica Jovanović Španac Živorad "Žikica" Jovanović ( sr-cyr, Живорад „Жикица" Јовановић; 17 March 1914 – 13 March 1942), nicknamed Španac (, "The Spaniard") was a Yugoslav partisan, Spanish-trained commando and republican volunteer in th ...
shot the first bullet of the campaign on 7 July in the
Bela Crkva incident Bela Crkva incident was an event that took place in village Bela Crkva near Krupanj on 7 July 1941, when a group of Partisans led by Žikica Jovanović Španac killed two gendarmes, who were enforcing the ban on political rallies after the Germ ...
. The first Zagreb-
Sesvete Sesvete () is the easternmost city district of Zagreb, Croatia. With a total population of 70,009 (as of 2011) it is the most populated district as well as the largest by area (165.255 km2). The settlement population is 54,085. Administrative ...
partisan group was formed in Dubrava in July 1941. In August 1941, 7 Partisan Detachments were formed in
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...
with the role of spreading the uprising. On 26 August 1941, 21 members of the 1st Split Partisan Detachment were executed by firing squad after being captured by Italian and Ustashe forces. A number of other partisan units were formed in the summer of 1941, including in Moslavina and Kalnik. An uprising occurred in Serbia during the summer, led by Tito, when the Republic of Užice was created, but it was defeated by the Axis forces by December 1941, and support for the Partisans in Serbia thereafter dropped. It was a different story for Serbs in Axis occupied Croatia who turned to the multi-ethnic Partisans, or the Serb royalist Chetniks. Cohen 1996, p. 95. The journalist Tim Judah notes that in the early stage of the war the initial preponderance of Serbs in the Partisans meant in effect a Serbian civil war had broken out. A similar civil war existed within the Croatian national corpus with the competing national narratives provided by the Ustaše and Partisans. In the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the cause of Serb rebellion was the Ustaše policy of genocide, deportations, forced conversions and mass killings of Serbs, as was the case elsewhere in the NDH. Resistance to communist leadership of the anti-Ustasha rebellion among the Serbs from Bosnia also developed in the form of the Chetnik movement and autonomous bands which were under command of Dragoljub Mihailović. Whereas the Partisans under Serb leadership were open to members of various nationalities, those in the Chetniks were hostile to Muslims and exclusively Serbian. The uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina started by Serbs in many places were acts of retaliation against the Muslims, with thousands of them killed. A rebellion began in June 1941 in Herzegovina. On 27 July 1941, a Partisan-led uprising began in the area of
Drvar Drvar (, ) is a town and municipality located in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 2013 census registered the municipality as having a population of 7,036. It is situated in western Bos ...
and
Bosansko Grahovo Bosansko Grahovo ( sr-cyr, Босанско Грахово) is a town and municipality located in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in western Bosnia and Herzegovina along ...
. It was a coordinated effort from both sides of the Una River in the territory of southeastern
Lika Lika () is a traditional region of Croatia proper, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east b ...
and southwestern Bosanska, and succeeded in transferring key NDH territory under rebel control. On 10 August in Stanulović, a mountain village, the Partisans formed the Kopaonik Partisan Detachment Headquarters. The area they controlled, consisting of nearby villages, was called the "Miners Republic" and lasted 42 days. The resistance fighters formally joined the ranks of the Partisans later on. At the September 1941
Stolice conference Stolice conference was a military-political conference of the leadership of the Yugoslav Partisans, held on 26 September 1941 in the village of Stolice (now part of Brštica), near Krupanj in present-day Serbia. The conference was led by the ge ...
, the unified name ''partisans'' and the
red star A red star, five-pointed and filled, is a symbol that has often historically been associated with communist ideology, particularly in combination with the hammer and sickle, but is also used as a purely socialist symbol in the 21st century. I ...
as an identification symbol were adopted for all fighters led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. In 1941 Partisan forces in Serbia and Montenegro had around 55,000 fighters, but only 4,500 succeeded to escape to Bosnia. On 21 December 1941 they formed the 1st Proletarian Assault Brigade (''1. Proleterska Udarna Brigada'') – the first regular Partisan military unit, capable of operating outside its local area. In 1942 Partisan detachments officially merged into the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOV i POJ) with an estimated 236,000 soldiers in December 1942. Partisan numbers from Serbia would be diminished until 1943 when the Partisan movement gained upswing by spreading the fight against the axis. Increase of number of Partisans in Serbia, similarly to other republics, came partly in response to Tito's offer of amnesty to all collaborators on 17 August 1944. At that point tens of thousands of Chetniks switched sides to the Partisans. The amnesty would be offered again after German withdrawal from Belgrade on 21 November 1944 and on 15 January 1945.


Operations


Resistance and retaliation

The Partisans staged a guerrilla campaign which enjoyed gradually increased levels of success and support of the general populace, and succeeded in controlling large chunks of Yugoslav territory. These were managed via the "People's committees", organized to act as civilian governments in areas of the country controlled by the communists, even limited arms industries were set up. At the very beginning, Partisan forces were relatively small, poorly armed and without any infrastructure. They had two major advantages over other military and paramilitary formations in former Yugoslavia: #A small but valuable cadre of Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War who, unlike anyone else at the time, had experience with modern war fought in circumstances quite similar to those of World War II Yugoslavia #They were founded on ideology rather than
ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
, which meant the Partisans could expect at least some levels of support in any corner of the country, unlike other paramilitary formations whose support was limited to territories with Croat or Serb majorities. This allowed their units to be more mobile and fill their ranks with a larger pool of potential recruits. Occupying and quisling forces, however, were quite aware of the Partisan threat, and attempted to destroy the resistance in what Yugoslav historiographers defined as seven major enemy offensives. These are: *The First Enemy Offensive, the attack conducted by the Axis in autumn of 1941 against the " Republic of Užice", a liberated territory the Partisans established in western
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
. In November 1941,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
troops attacked and reoccupied this territory, with the majority of Partisan forces escaping towards
Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...
. It was during this offensive that tenuous collaboration between the Partisans and the royalist
Chetnik The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
movement broke down and turned into open hostility. *The Second Enemy Offensive, the coordinated Axis attack conducted in January 1942 against Partisan forces in eastern
Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...
. The Partisan troops once again avoided encirclement and were forced to retreat over
Igman Igman ( sr-cyrl, Игман, ) is a mountain plateau in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Geologically, Igman is part of the Dinaric Alps and formed largely of secondary and tertiary sedimentary rock, mostly Limestone. It is located southwest of ...
mountain near
Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
. *The Third Enemy Offensive, an offensive against Partisan forces in eastern Bosnia,
Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = ...
,
Sandžak Sandžak (; sh, / , ; sq, Sanxhaku; ota, سنجاق, Sancak), also known as Sanjak, is a historical geo-political region in Serbia and Montenegro. The name Sandžak derives from the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a former Ottoman administrative dis ...
and
Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia. It has never had strictly defined geogra ...
which took place in the spring of 1942. It was known as ''Operation TRIO'' by the Germans, and again ended with a timely Partisan escape. This attack is mistakenly identified by some sources as the
Battle of Kozara The Kozara Offensive (also known as Operation West-Bosnien) was fought in 1942 on and around the mountain of Kozara in northwestern Bosnia. It was an important battle of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement in World War II. It later becam ...
, which took place in the summer of 1942. *The Fourth Enemy Offensive, against " Republic of Bihać", also known as the Battle of the Neretva or ''Fall Weiss'' (Case White), a conflict spanning the area between western
Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...
and northern
Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia. It has never had strictly defined geogra ...
, and culminating in the Partisan retreat over the
Neretva The Neretva ( sr-cyrl, Неретва, ), also known as Narenta, is one of the largest rivers of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. Four HE power-plants with large dams (higher than 150,5 metres) provide flood protection, power and water s ...
river. It took place from January to April 1943. *The Fifth Enemy Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Sutjeska or ''Fall Schwarz'' (''Case Black''). The operation immediately followed the Fourth Offensive and included a complete encirclement of Partisan forces in southeastern Bosnia and northern Montenegro in May and June 1943. *The
Sixth Enemy Offensive Operation Kugelblitz ("ball lightning") was a major anti- Partisan offensive orchestrated by German forces in December 1943 during World War II in Yugoslavia. The Germans attacked Josip Broz Tito's Partisan forces in the eastern parts of the I ...
, a series of operations undertaken by the ''
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
'' and the ''
Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
'' after the
capitulation of Italy The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 and made public on 8 September between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was signed by Major General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Briga ...
in an attempt to secure the
Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to the ...
coast. It took place in late 1943 and early 1944. *The
Seventh Enemy Offensive Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season ep ...
, the final attack in western Bosnia in the second quarter of 1944, which included ''Operation Rösselsprung'' (Knight's Leap), an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate
Tito Tito may refer to: People Mononyms *Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), commonly known mononymously as Tito, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman *Roberto Arias (1918–1989), aka Tito, Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat, and journal ...
and annihilate the leadership of the Partisan movement. Partisans operated as a regular army that remained highly mobile across occupied Yugoslavia. Partisan units engaged in overt acts of resistance which led to significant reprisals against civilians by Axis forces. The killing of civilians discouraged the Chetniks from carrying out overt resistance, however the Partisans were not fazed and continued overt resistance which disrupted Axis forces, but led to significant civilian casualties.


Allied support

Later in the conflict the Partisans were able to win the moral, as well as limited material support of the western
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
, who until then had supported General
Draža Mihailović Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović ( sr-Cyrl, Драгољуб Дража Михаиловић; 27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Ar ...
's Chetnik Forces, but were finally convinced of their collaboration fighting by many military missions dispatched to both sides during the course of the war. To gather
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...
, agents of the western Allies were infiltrated into both the Partisans and the Chetniks. The intelligence gathered by liaisons to the resistance groups was crucial to the success of supply missions and was the primary influence on Allied strategy in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
. The search for intelligence ultimately resulted in the demise of the
Chetniks The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royali ...
and their eclipse by Tito's Partisans. In 1942, although supplies were limited, token support was sent equally to each. The new year would bring a change. The Germans were executing Operation Schwarz (the Fifth anti-Partisan offensive), one of a series of offensives aimed at the resistance fighters, when F.W.D. Deakin was sent by the British to gather information. On April 13, 1941, Winston Churchill sent his greetings to the Yugoslav people. In his greeting he stated: His reports contained two important observations. The first was that the Partisans were courageous and aggressive in battling the German 1st Mountain and 104th Light Division, had suffered significant casualties, and required support. The second observation was that the entire German 1st Mountain Division had traveled from Russia by railway through Chetnik-controlled territory. British intercepts (ULTRA) of German message traffic confirmed Chetnik timidity. All in all, intelligence reports resulted in increased Allied interest in Yugoslavia air operations and shifted policy. In September 1943, at Churchill's request, Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean was parachuted to Tito's headquarters near Drvar to serve as a permanent, formal liaison to the Partisans. While the Chetniks were still occasionally supplied, the Partisans received the bulk of all future support. Thus, after the
Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...
the Partisans received official recognition as the legitimate national liberation force by the Allies, who subsequently set up the RAF Balkan Air Force (under the influence and suggestion of Brigadier-General Fitzroy Maclean) with the aim to provide increased supplies and tactical air support for Marshal Tito's Partisan forces. During a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
Combined Chiefs of Staff The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the supreme military staff for the United States and Britain during World War II. It set all the major policy decisions for the two nations, subject to the approvals of British Prime Minister Winston Church ...
of 24 November 1943,
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
pointed out that:


Activities increase (1943–1945)

With Allied air support (''Operation Flotsam'') and assistance from the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
, in the second half of 1944 the Partisans turned their attention to Serbia, which had seen relatively little fighting since the fall of the Republic of Užice in 1941. On 20 October, the Red Army and the Partisans liberated
Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...
in a joint operation known as the Belgrade Offensive. At the onset of winter, the Partisans effectively controlled the entire eastern half of Yugoslavia – Serbia, Vardar Macedonia and
Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = ...
, as well as the
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...
n coast. In 1945, the Partisans, numbering over 800,000 strong defeated the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia and the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
, achieving a hard-fought breakthrough in the
Syrmia Syrmia ( sh, Srem/Срем or sh, Srijem/Сријем, label=none) is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia and Croatia. Most of the region is flat, with the exc ...
n front in late winter, taking
Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
in early April, and the rest of the NDH and Slovenia through mid-May. After taking
Rijeka Rijeka ( , , ; also known as Fiume hu, Fiume, it, Fiume ; local Chakavian: ''Reka''; german: Sankt Veit am Flaum; sl, Reka) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located in Primor ...
and
Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; ist, Eîstria; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian, Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; formerly in Latin and in Ancient Greek) is the larges ...
, which were part of Italy before the war, they beat the Allies to
Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...
by two days. The "last battle of World War II in Europe", the
Battle of Poljana The Battle of Poljana (Monday May 14 – Tuesday May 15, 1945) was a battle of World War II in Yugoslavia. It started outside of Poljana, near the village of Prevalje in Yugoslavia (now Slovenia), and was the culmination of a series of engageme ...
, was fought between the Partisans and retreating
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
and quisling forces at Poljana, near
Prevalje Prevalje (; German language, German: ''Prävali'') is a settlement in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Prevalje. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia, Slovenia, Carinthia. Prevalje lies in a valley wh ...
in
Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...
, on 14–15 May 1945.


Overview by post-war republic


Serbia

The Axis invasion led to the division of Yugoslavia between the Axis powers and the
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...
. The largest part of Serbia was organized into the
Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (german: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien; sr, Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији, Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji) was the area of the Kin ...
and as such it was the only example of military regime in occupied Europe. The Military Committee of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party for Serbia was formed in mid-May 1941. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia arrived in Belgrade in late May, and this was of great importance for the development of the resistance in Yugoslavia. After their arrival, the Central Committee held conferences with local party officials. The decision for preparing the struggle in Serbia issued on June 23, 1941 at the meeting of the Provincial Committee for Serbia. On July 5, a Communist Party proclamation appeared that called upon the Serbian people to struggle against the invaders. Western Serbia was chosen as the base of the
uprising Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...
, which later spread to other parts of Serbia. A short-lived republic was created in the liberated west, the first liberated territory in Europe. The uprising was suppressed by German forces by 29 November 1941. The
Main National Liberation Committee for Serbia The Main National Liberation Committee for Serbia ( sr, Главни народноослободилачки одбор за Србију/Glavni narodnooslobodilački odbor za Srbiju) was the body of the "National Liberation Movement" (the Commu ...
is believed to have been founded in Užice on 17 November 1941. It was the body of the Partisan resistance in Serbian territory. The Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Serbia was held 9–12 November 1944. Tito's post-war government built numerous
monuments and memorials A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...
in Serbia after the war.


Bosnia and Herzegovina

Serbian Partisan detachments entered Bosnian territory after the Operation Uzice which saw the Serbian uprising quelled. The Bosnian Partisans were heavily reduced during
Operation Trio Operation Trio ( sh-Latn, Operacija Trio) was the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation of World War II conducted in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which included modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was ...
(1942) on the resistance in eastern Bosnia.


Croatia

The
National Liberation Movement in Croatia The Croatian Partisans, officially the National Liberation Movement in Croatia ( hr, Narodnooslobodilački pokret u Hrvatskoj; NOP), were part of the anti-fascist National Liberational Movement in the Axis-occupied Yugoslavia which was the most ...
was part of the anti-fascist National Liberational Movement in the Axis-occupied Yugoslavia which was the most effective anti-Nazi
resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...
Jeffreys-Jones, R. (2013): ''In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence'', Oxford University Press,
p. 87
/ref>Adams, Simon (2005): ''The Balkans'', Black Rabbit Books,
p. 1981
/ref> led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists during the Second World War. NOP was under the leadership of the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...
(KPJ) and supported by many others, with
Croatian Peasant Party The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
members contributing to it significantly. NOP units were able to temporarily or permanently liberate large parts of Croatia from occupying forces. Based on the NOP, the Federal Republic of Croatia was founded as a constituent of the
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, also known as Democratic Federative Yugoslavia (DF Yugoslavia or DFY), was a provisional state established during World War II on 29 November 1943 through the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Nation ...
.


Services

Aside from ground forces, the Yugoslav Partisans were the only
resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objective ...
in occupied Europe to employ significant air and naval forces.


Partisan Navy

Naval forces of the resistance were formed as early as 19 September 1942, when Partisans in
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...
formed their first naval unit made of fishing boats, which gradually evolved into a force able to engage the Italian Navy and
Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...
and conduct complex amphibious operations. This event is considered to be the foundation of the
Yugoslav Navy The Yugoslav Navy ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска ратна морнарица, Jugoslavenska ratna mornarica, Yugoslav War Navy), was the navy of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1992. It was essentially a coastal defense force with the miss ...
. At its peak during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans' Navy commanded 9 or 10 armed ships, 30 patrol boats, close to 200 support ships, six coastal batteries, and several Partisan detachments on the islands, around 3,000 men. On 26 October 1943, it was organized first into four, and later into six, Maritime Coastal Sectors (''Pomorsko Obalni Sektor'', POS). The task of the naval forces was to secure supremacy at sea, organize defense of coast and islands, and attack enemy sea traffic and forces on the islands and along the coasts.


Partisan Air Force

The Partisans gained an effective air force in May 1942, when the pilots of two aircraft belonging to the
Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia ( hr, Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske; ZNDH), was the air force of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a puppet state established with the support of the Axis Powers on the territory ...
(French-designed and Yugoslav-built Potez 25, and
Breguet 19 Breguet or Bréguet may refer to: * Breguet (watch), watch manufacturer **Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Swiss watchmaker ** Louis-François-Clement Breguet (1804–1883), French physicist, watchmaker, electrical and telegraph work * Brégue ...
biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
s, themselves formerly of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force),
Franjo Kluz Franjo Kluz (19 September 1913 – 14 September 1944) was a Yugoslav pilot from Bosnia and a People's Hero of Yugoslavia. He is best known as one of the founders of the Partisan air force, and served as an officer in No. 352 Squadron RAF. Earl ...
and
Rudi Čajavec Rudi Čajavec (1 April 1911 – 2 July 1942) was a Yugoslav pilot (from Zgošća, Bosnia and Herzegovina), best known as the first airman of Partisan air force. Rudi Čajavec was born in Zgošća, Kakanj municipality, Bosnia to a family that o ...
, defected to the Partisans in Bosnia. Later, these pilots used their aircraft against Axis forces in limited operations. Although short-lived due to a lack of infrastructure, this was the first instance of a resistance movement having its own air force. Later, the air force would be re-established and destroyed several times until its permanent institution. The Partisans later established a permanent air force by obtaining aircraft, equipment, and training from captured Axis aircraft, the British
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
(see BAF), and later the
Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
.


Composition

Yugoslav Partisans were predominantly Serb in composition into 1943. Also, it should be kept in mind that until the middle of the war the Partisans were in control of relatively large liberated areas only in parts of Bosnia. Over the entirety of the war according to the records of recipients of Partisan pensions from 1977, the ethnic composition of the Partisans was 53.0% Serb, 18.6% Croat, 9.2% Slovene, 5.5% Montenegrin, 3.5% Bosnian Muslim, and 2.7% Macedonian. Much of the remainder of the NOP's membership was made up of Albanians, Hungarians and those self-identifying as Yugoslavs. At the moment of the capitulation of Italy to the Allies, the Serbs and Croats were participating equally according to their respective population sizes in Yugoslavia as a whole. According to Tito, by May 1944, the ethnic composition of the Partisans was 44% Serb, 30% Croat, 10% Slovene, 5% Montenegrin, 2.5% Macedonian and 2.5% Bosnian Muslim. Ramet 2006, p. 153. Italians were also in the army: more than 40,000 Italian fighters were in several military formations such as
9th Corps (Yugoslav Partisans) The Partisan 9th Corps ( sl, IX Korpus), was a formation of the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. It consisted of division and brigade-size units, and operated in the Italian-annexed Province of Ljubljana, in Yugoslav territories under Germ ...
,
Partisan Battalion Pino Budicin First Partisan battalion Pino Budicin was a military unit of the” Vladimir Gortan” Brigade, 43rd Division of the 4th Army Corps of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army during World War II. The battalion was almost entirely made up of Italia ...
, Partisan Division "Garibaldi" and Division Italia (Yugoslavia) later and others. Following the Soviet-Bulgarian offensive in Serbia and North Macedonia in the autumn of 1944, mass Partisan conscription of Serbs, Macedonians and eventually Kosovo Albanians increased. The number of Serbian Partisan brigades went up from 28 in June 1944 to 60 by the end of the year. In regional terms, the Partisan movement was therefore disproportionately west Yugoslav, particularly from Croatia, while until the autumn of 1944, Serbia's contribution was disproportionately small. During 1941 until September 1943 from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina 1,064 of Jews joined the Partisans, and largest part of Jews joined the Partisans after the capitulation of Italy in 1943. At the end of the war 2,339 of Jewish Partisans from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina survived while 804 were killed. Most of the Jews who joined the Yugoslav Partisans were from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and according to Romano this number is 4,572 while them 1,318 were killed. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
In partitioned Yugoslavia, partisan resistance developed among the Slovenes in German-annexed Slovenia, engaging mostly in small-scale sabotage. In Serbia, a cetnik resistance organization developed under a former Yugoslav Army Colonel, Draža Mihailovic. After a disastrous defeat in an uprising in June 1941, this organization tended to withdraw from confrontation with the Axis occupying forces. The communist-dominated Partisan organization under the leadership of Josef Tito was a multi-ethnic resistance force – including Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Jews, and Slovenes. Based primarily in Bosnia and northwestern Serbia, Tito's Partisans fought the Germans and Italians most consistently and played a major role in driving the German forces out of Yugoslavia in 1945.
By April 1945, there were some 800,000 soldiers in the Partisan army. Composition by region (ethnicity is not taken into account) from late 1941 to late 1944 was as follows: According to Fabijan Trgo in the summer of 1944 the National Liberation Army had about 350,000 soldiers in 39 divisions, which were grouped into 12 Corps. In September 1944 about 100,000 soldiers in 17 divisions were ready to enter the final phase of the battle for the liberation of Serbia, overall in all Yugoslav areas the National Liberation Army had about 400,000 armed soldiers. That is, 15 corps, ie 50 divisions, 2 operational groups, 16 independent brigades, 130 partisan detachments, the navy and the first aviation formations. At the beginning of 1945, the number of soldiers was about 600,000. On March 1, the Yugoslav Army had more than 800,000 soldiers, grouped in 63 divisions. The Chetniks were a mainly Serb-oriented group and their Serb nationalism resulted in an inability to recruit or appeal to many non-Serbs. The Partisans played down communism in favour of a
Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...
approach which appealed to all Yugoslavs. In Bosnia, the Partisan rallying cry was for a country which was to be neither Serbian nor Croatian nor Muslim, but instead to be free and brotherly in which full equality of all groups would be ensured. Nevertheless, Serbs remained the dominant ethnic group in the Yugoslav Partisans throughout the war. Italian collaboration with Chetniks in northern Dalmatia resulted in atrocities which further galvanized support for the Partisans among Dalmatian Croats. Chetnik attacks on
Gata Davionte Ganter, known professionally as GaTa, is an American rapper and actor known for his role in the FXX TV series ''Dave'', as well as for being the hype man for rapper Lil Dicky throughout his career as well as on the show. Early life an ...
, near
Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, entertai ...
, resulted in the slaughter of some 200 Croatian civilians. In particular, Mussolini's policy of forced
Italianization Italianization ( it, italianizzazione; hr, talijanizacija; french: italianisation; sl, poitaljančevanje; german: Italianisierung; el, Ιταλοποίηση) is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or a ...
ensured the first significant number of Croats joining the Partisans in late 1941. In other areas, recruitment of Croats was hindered by some Serbs' tendency to view the organisation as exclusively Serb, rejecting non-Serb members and raiding the villages of their Croat neighbours. A group of Jewish youths from Sarajevo attempted to join a Partisan detachment in Kalinovnik, but the Serbian Partisans turned them back to Sarajevo, where many were captured by the Axis forces and perished. Attacks from Croatian
Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
on the Serbian population was considered to be one of the important reasons for the rise of guerrilla activities, thus aiding an ever-growing Partisan resistance. Following the capitulation of Italy and subsequent Belgrade Offensive, many members of the Ustaše joined the partisans.


Bosnia and Herzegovina

At the beginning of the war, the dominant Serb composition of the Partisan rank and file and alliance with the Chetniks, who were engaged in atrocities and killing of Croat and Muslim civilians, forced Croats and Muslims not to join the Bosnian Partisans. Until early 1942, the Partisans in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were almost exclusively Serbs, cooperated closely with the Chetniks, and some Partisans in eastern Herzegovina and western Bosnia refused to accept Muslims into their ranks. For many Muslims, the behavior of these Serb Partisans towards them meant that there was little difference for them between the Partisans and Chetniks. However, in some areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina the Partisans were successful in attracting both Muslims and Croats from the beginning, notably in the
Kozara Kozara ( sr-cyrl, Козара) is a mountain in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the town of Kozarac and in the Bosanska Krajina region, bounded by the Sava River to the north, the Vrbas to the east, the Sana to the south, and the Una to the ...
Mountain area in north-west Bosnia and the
Romanija Romanija ( sr-cyrl, Романија) is a mountain, karst plateau, and geographical region in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, including numerous villages and towns, such as Pale, Sokolac, Rogatica and Han Pijesak. Its highest point is Veliki ...
Mountain area near Sarajevo. In the Kozara area, Muslims and Croats made up 25 percent of Partisan strength by the end of 1941. According to Hoare, by late 1943, 70% of the Partisans in Bosnia and Herzegovina were Serb and 30% were Croat and Muslim. Hoare 2006, p. 10. At the end of 1977, Bosnian recipients of war pensions were 64.1% Serb, 23% Muslim, and 8.8% Croat.


Croatia

In 1941–42, the majority of Partisans in Croatia were Serbs, but by October 1943 the majority were Croats. This change was partly due to the decision of a key
Croatian Peasant Party The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
member, Božidar Magovac, to join the Partisans in June 1943, and partly due to the surrender of Italy. At the moment of the capitulation of Italy to the Allies the Serbs and Croats were participating equally according to their respective population sizes in Yugoslavia as a whole. According to Goldstein, among Croatian partisans at the end of 1941, 77% were Serbs and 21.5% were Croats, and others as well as unknown nationalities. The percentage of Croats in the Partisans had increased to 32% by August 1942, and 34% by September 1943. After the capitulation of Italy, it increased further. At the end of 1944 there were 60.4% Croats, 28.6% Serbs and 11% of other nationalities (2.8% Muslims, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Italians, Hungarians, Czechs, Jews and ''
Volksdeutsche In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
'') in Croatian partisan units. According to
Ivo Banac Ivo Banac (; 1 March 1947 – 30 June 2020) was a Croatian-American historian, a professor of European history at Yale University and a politician of the former Liberal Party in Croatia, known as the Great Bard of Croatian historiography. , Banac ...
, the Croatian Partisan movement in the second half of 1944 had about 150,000 combatants under arms, while 100,070 were in operative units where Croats numbered 60,703 (60.66%), Serbs 24,528 (24.51%), Slovenes 5,113 (5.11%), and others. The Serb contribution to Croatian Partisans represented more than their proportion of the local population. Croatian Partisans were integral to overall Yugoslav Partisans with ethnic Croats in prominent positions in the movement since the very beginning of the war; According to some researchers writing during 1990s, like Cohen, by the end of 1943, Croatia proper, with 24% of the Yugoslav population, provided more Partisans than Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Macedonia combined (though not more than Bosnia and Herzegovina). In early 1943 Partisans took steps to establish
ZAVNOH The State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (''Zemaljsko antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Hrvatske''), commonly abbreviated ZAVNOH, was first convened on 13–14 June 1943 in Otočac and Plitvice as the ...
(National Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Croatia) to act as a parliamentary body for all of Croatia – the only one of its kind in occupied Europe. ZAVNOH held three plenary sessions during the war in areas which remained surrounded by Axis troops. At its fourth and last session, held on 24–25 July 1945 in Zagreb, ZAVNOH proclaimed itself as the Croatian Parliament or
Sabor The Croatian Parliament ( hr, Hrvatski sabor) or the Sabor is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of Croatia. Under the terms of the Croatian Constitution, the Sabor represents the people and is vested with legislative power. The Sabo ...
. By the end of 1941 in the territory of the NDH, Serbs comprised approximately one-third of the population but about 95% of all Partisans. This numerical dominance lessened later, but until 1943 Serbs formed a majority of Partisans in Croatia (including Dalmatia). Territories in Croatia proper with a substantial number of Serb inhabitants (Lika, Banija, Kordun) formed the most important source of manpower for the Partisans. In May 1941 the Ustasha regime ceded northern Dalmatia to Fascist Italy, which caused increasingly massive support for the Partisans among the Croats of Dalmatia. In other parts of Croatia Croat support toward the Partisans gradually increased due to Ustasha and Axis violence and misrule, but much more slowly than in Dalmatia. There were only 1,492 Partisans from Serbia out of the 22,148 Partisans of Tito's Main Operational Group at the Battle of the River Sutjeska in June 1943, and 8,925 were from Croatia (of which 5,195 were from Dalmatia), but in ethnic terms, 11,851 were Serbs against 5,220 Croats. At the end of 1943 all 13 Dalmatian Partisan brigades had a Croat majority, but among the 25 Partisan brigades from Croatian proper (without Dalmatia) only 7 had a Croat majority (17 had a Serb majority and one had a Czech majority). According to historians Tvrtko Jakovina and Davor Marijan the main reason for massive participation of Croats in Battle of the Sutjeska in June 1943 was ongoing terror of Italian fascists. According to Tito, one-quarter of
Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
's population (i.e. more than 50,000 citizens) participated in the Partisan struggle during which over 20,000 of them were killed (half of them as active fighters). As Partisan combatants 4,709 citizens of Zagreb were killed while 15,129 were killed in Ustasha and Nazi prisons and concentration camps, and another 6,500 were killed during anti-insurgency operations. In the final offensive for the liberation of Yugoslavia, from Croatia was engaged 165,000 soldiers mostly for the liberation of Croatia. On Croatian territory after 30 November 1944 in combat with the enemy participated 5 corps, 15 divisions, 54 brigades and 35 Partisan detachments, a total of 121,341 soldiers (117,112 men and 4239 woman) which at the end of 1944 made up about third of the entire armed forces of the National Liberation Army. At the same time, on the territory of Croatia there was 340,000 of German soldiers, 150,000 of Ustasha and Home Guard soldiers while the Chetniks at beginning of 1945 withdrew towards Slovenia. According to the ethnic composition of Partisans, most were Croats 73,327 or 60.40%, followed by Serbs 34,753 or 28.64%, Muslims 3,316 or 2.75%, Jews 284 or 0.25% and Slovenes, Montenegrins and others with 9,671 or 7.96%, (number of Partisans and ethnic composition does not include 9 brigades which were engaged outside of Croatia).


Serbia

By the end of September 1941, 24 detachments have been established with approximately 14,000 soldiers. By the end of 1943, 97 Partisan brigades existed overall, while in the eastern parts of Yugoslavia (Vojvodina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia) 18 Partisan brigades existed. In Serbia during the spring and summer of 1944, many Chetnik deserters and prisoners joined Partisans units. When the Soviets liberated Serbia at the end of 1944, mass Partisan mobilization of Serbians, Macedonians and eventually Kosovo Albanians began, which led to a balanced geographical contribution between the eastern and western Yugoslav Partisan movements. Serbia’s contribution to the Partisan movement prior to the autumn of 1944 was disproportionately small. At the end of September 1944, Serbia had about 70,000 soldiers under the command of the Main Staff of Serbia of which in the 13th Corps were about 30,000 soldiers, in the 14th Corps 32,463 soldiers and in the 2nd Proletarian Division 4,600 soldiers.


Slovenia

During World War II, Slovenia was in a unique situation in Europe. Only Greece shared its experience of being trisected; however, Slovenia was the only country that experienced a further step – absorption and annexation into neighboring
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
Germany, Fascist
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, and
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. As the very existence of the Slovene nation was threatened, the Slovene support for the Partisan movement was much more solid than in Croatia or Serbia. An emphasis on the defence of ethnic identity was shown by naming the troops after important Slovene poets and writers, following the example of the
Ivan Cankar Ivan Cankar (, ) (10 May 1876 – 11 December 1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet, and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slo ...
battalion.Štih, P.; Simoniti, V.; Vodopivec, P. (2008) ''A Slovene History: Society, politics, culture''
, Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino. Ljubljana, p. 426.
At the very beginning the Partisan forces were small, poorly armed and without any infrastructure, but Spanish Civil War veterans amongst them had some experience with
guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...
. The Partisan movement in Slovenia functioned as the military arm of the
Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation The Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation ( sl, Osvobodilna fronta slovenskega naroda), or simply Liberation Front (''Osvobodilna fronta'', OF), originally called the Anti-Imperialist Front (''Protiimperialistična fronta'', PIF), was a Slovene ...
, an Anti-Fascist resistance platform established in the Province of Ljubljana on 26 April 1941, which originally consisted of multiple groups of left wing orientation, most notable being Communist Party and Christian Socialists. During the course of the war, the influence of the
Communist Party of Slovenia The League of Communists of Slovenia ( sl, Zveza komunistov Slovenije, ZKS; sh, Savez komunista Slovenije) was the Slovenian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the sole legal party of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1989. It was establis ...
started to grow, until its supremacy was officially sanctioned in the Dolomiti Declaration of 1 March 1943. Some of the members of Liberation Front and partisans were ex-members of the
TIGR TIGR, an abbreviation for ''Trst'', ''Istra'', ''Gorica'', and ''Reka'', full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. ( sl, Revolucionarna organizacija Julijske krajine T.I.G.R.), was a militant anti-fascist and insurgent or ...
resistance movement. Representatives of all political groups in Liberation Front participated in Supreme Plenum of Liberation Front, which led the resistance efforts in Slovenia. Supreme Plenum was active until 3 October 1943 when, at the Assembly of the Slovenian Nation's Delegates in Kočevje, the 120-member Liberation Front Plenum was elected as the supreme body of the Slovenian Liberation Front. The plenum also functioned as Slovenian National Liberation Committee, the supreme authority in Slovenia. Some historians consider the Kočevje Assembly to be the first Slovene elected parliament and Slovene Partisans as its representatives also participated on 2nd session of the AVNOJ and were instrumental in adding the self-determination clause to the resolution on the establishment of a new federal Yugoslavia. The Liberation Front Plenum was renamed the
Slovenian National Liberation Council The Slovene National Liberation Committee (SNOS) ( sl, Slovenski narodnoosvobodilni svet; sh, Slovensko narodnooslobodilačko vijeće, Словеначко народноослободилачко веће) was formed as the highest governing organ ...
at the conference in Črnomelj on 19 February 1944 and transformed into the Slovenian parliament. The Slovene Partisans retained their specific organizational structure and
Slovene language Slovene ( or ), or alternatively Slovenian (; or ), is a South Slavic languages, South Slavic language, a sub-branch that is part of the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family ...
as the commanding language until the last months of World War II, when their language was removed as the commanding language. From 1942 till after 1944, they wore the '' Triglavka'' cap, which was then gradually replaced with the '' Titovka'' cap as part of their uniform. In March 1945, the Slovene Partisan Units were officially merged with the
Yugoslav Army The Yugoslav People's Army (abbreviated as JNA/; Macedonian and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian and bs, Jugoslavenska narodna armija; sl, Jugoslovanska ljudska ar ...
and thus ceased to exist as a separate formation. The partisan activities in Slovenia started in 1941 and were independent of Tito's partisans in the south. In autumn 1942, Tito attempted for the first time to control the Slovene resistance movement. Arsa Jovanović, a leading Yugoslav communist who was sent from Tito's Supreme Command of Yugoslav partisan resistance, ended his mission to establish central control over the Slovene partisans unsuccessfully in April 1943. The merger of the Slovene Partisans with Tito's forces happened in 1944. In December 1943,
Franja Partisan Hospital Franja Partisan Hospital ( sl, Partizanska bolnica Franja) was a secret World War II hospital at Dolenji Novaki near Cerkno in western Slovenia. It was run by the Slovene Partisans from December 1943 until the end of the war as part of a broad ...
was built in difficult and rugged terrain, only a few hours from Austria and the central parts of Germany. The partisans broadcast their own radio program called ''Radio Kričač'', the location of which never became known to occupying forces, although the receiver antennas from the local population had been confiscated.


Casualties

Despite their success, the Partisans suffered heavy casualties throughout the war. The table depicts Partisan losses, 7 July 1941 – 16 May 1945: According to
Ivo Goldstein Ivo Goldstein (; born 16 March 1958) is a historian, author and ambassador from Croatia. Goldstein is a recipient of the Order of Danica Hrvatska (2007) and the City of Zagreb Award (2005). Biography Education Ivo Goldstein graduated from ...
, 82,000 Serbs and 42,000 Croats were killed on NDH territory as partisan combatants.


Rescue operations

The Partisans were responsible for the successful and sustained evacuation of downed Allied airmen from the Balkans. For example, between 1 January and 15 October 1944, according to statistics compiled by the US Air Force Air Crew Rescue Unit, 1,152 American airmen were airlifted from Yugoslavia, 795 with Partisan assistance and 356 with the help of the Chetniks. Yugoslav Partisans in Slovene territory rescued 303 American airmen, 389 British airmen and prisoners of war, and 120 French and other prisoners of war and slave laborers. The Partisans also assisted hundreds of Allied soldiers who succeeded in escaping from German POW camps (mostly in southern Austria) throughout the war, but especially from 1943 to 1945. These were transported across Slovenia, from where many were airlifted from
Semič Semič (; german: Semitsch,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna. formerly also Semenič) is a settlement in southeastern Slovenia. It is the ad ...
, while others made the longer overland trek down through Croatia for a boat passage to
Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...
in Italy. In the spring of 1944, the British military mission in Slovenia reported that there was a "steady, slow trickle" of escapes from these camps. They were being assisted by local civilians, and on contacting Partisans on the general line of the River , they were able to make their way to safety with Partisan guides.


Raid at Ožbalt

A total of 132 Allied prisoners of war were rescued from the Germans by the Partisans in a single operation in August 1944 in what is known as the
Raid at Ožbalt The Raid at Ožbalt was the most successful known prison break of the Second World War. It was an operation on 31 August 1944 in which 105 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) were rescued by Slovene Partisans, Special Operations Executive (SOE), and M ...
. In June 1944, the Allied escape organization began to take an active interest in assisting prisoners from camps in southern Austria and evacuating them through Yugoslavia. A post of the Allied mission in northern
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...
had found that at
Ožbalt Ožbalt () is a village on the left bank of the Drava River in the Municipality of Podvelka in Slovenia. Name The name of the settlement was changed from ''Sveti Ožbalt'' (literally, 'Saint Oswald') to ''Ožbalt'' (literally, 'Oswald') in 1952. T ...
, just on the Austrian side of the border, about from
Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...
, there was a poorly guarded working camp from which a raid by
Slovene Partisans The Slovene Partisans, formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia, (NOV in POS) were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement Jeffreys-Jones, R. (2013): ''In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western ...
could free all the prisoners. Over 100 POWs were transported from
Stalag XVIII-D Stalag XVIII-D (also known as Stalag 306) was a German prisoner-of-war camp located in Maribor in German-occupied Yugoslavia (today in Slovenia). It opened in the spring or early summer of 1941, operating until the end of the war.Sources put the ...
at
Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...
to Ožbalt each morning to do railway maintenance work, and returned to their quarters in the evening. Contact was made between Partisans and the prisoners with the result that at the end of August a group of seven slipped away past a sleeping guard at 15:00, and at 21:00 the men were celebrating with the Partisans in a village, away on the Yugoslav side of the border. The seven escapees arranged with the Partisans for the rest of the camp to be freed the following day. Next morning, the seven returned with about a hundred Partisans to await the arrival of the work-party by the usual train. As soon as work had begun the Partisans, to quote a New Zealand eye-witness, "swooped down the hillside and disarmed the eighteen guards". In a short time prisoners, guards, and civilian overseers were being escorted along the route used by the first seven prisoners the previous evening. At the first headquarters camp reached, details were taken of the total of 132 escaped prisoners for transmission by radio to England. Progress along the evacuation route south was difficult, as German patrols were very active. A night ambush by one such patrol caused the loss of two prisoners and two of the escort. Eventually they reached
Semič Semič (; german: Semitsch,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna. formerly also Semenič) is a settlement in southeastern Slovenia. It is the ad ...
, in
White Carniola White Carniola ( sl, Bela krajina; german: Weißkrain or ''Weiße Mark'') is a traditional region in southeastern Slovenia on the border with Croatia. Due to its smallness, it is often considered a subunit of the broader Lower Carniola region, alt ...
, Slovenia, which was a Partisan base catering for POWs. They were flown across to
Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...
on 21 September 1944 from the airport of Otok near Gradac.


Post-war

SFR Yugoslavia was one of only two European countries that were largely liberated by its own forces during World War II. It received significant assistance from the Soviet Union during the liberation of Serbia, and substantial assistance from the Balkan Air Force from mid-1944, but only limited assistance, mainly from the British, prior to 1944. At the end of the war no foreign troops were stationed on its soil. Partly as a result, the country found itself halfway between the two camps at the onset of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. In 1947–48, the Soviet Union attempted to command obedience from Yugoslavia, primarily on issues of foreign policy, which resulted in the
Tito–Stalin split The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
and almost ignited an armed conflict. A period of very cool relations with the Soviet Union followed, during which the U.S. and the UK considered courting Yugoslavia into the newly formed
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. This however changed in 1953 with the Trieste crisis, a tense dispute between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies over the eventual Yugoslav-Italian border (see
Free Territory of Trieste The Free Territory of Trieste was an independent territory in Southern Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, facing the north part of the Adriatic Sea, under direct responsibility of the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath ...
), and with Yugoslav-Soviet reconciliation in 1956. This ambivalent position at the start of the Cold War matured into the non-aligned foreign policy which Yugoslavia actively espoused until its dissolution.


Atrocities

The Partisans massacred civilians during and after the war. On 27 July 1941, Partisan-led units massacred around 100 Croat civilians in
Bosansko Grahovo Bosansko Grahovo ( sr-cyr, Босанско Грахово) is a town and municipality located in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in western Bosnia and Herzegovina along ...
and 300 in Trubar during the
Drvar uprising The Drvar uprising ( sr, Устанак у Дрвару) was the World War II uprising of the Serb population of Bosnian Krajina (modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina). Italy supported it, both politically and in arms, in its struggle against the fas ...
against the NDH. Between 5–8 September 1941, some 1,000-3,000 Muslim civilians and soldiers, including 100 Croats were massacred by the Partisan Drvar Brigade. A number of Partisan units, and the local population in some areas, engaged in mass murder in the immediate postwar period against
POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
s and other perceived Axis sympathizers, collaborators, and/or fascists along with their relatives, including children. These infamous massacres include the Foibe massacres,
Tezno massacre The Tezno massacre ( hr, Pokolj u Teznom) was the mass killing of POWs and civilians of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) that took place in Tezno near Maribor, after the end of World War II in Yugoslavia. The killings were perpetrated by ...
, Macelj massacre,
Kočevski Rog massacre The Kočevski Rog massacre was a series of massacres near Kočevski Rog in late May 1945 in which thousands of members of the Nazi Germany–allied Slovene Home Guard were executed, without formal charges or trial, by special units of the Yugoslav ...
,
Barbara Pit massacre The Barbara Pit massacre ( sl, Pokol v Barbara rovu, hr, Pokolj u Barbarinom rovu), also known as the Huda Jama massacre, was the mass killing of prisoners of war of Ante Pavelić's NDH Armed Forces and the Slovene Home Guard, as well as civi ...
and the communist purges in Serbia in 1944–45. The
Bleiburg repatriations The Bleiburg repatriations ( see terminology) occurred in May 1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, during which Yugoslavia had been occupied by the Axis powers, when tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians associated with the Axis ...
of retreating columns of the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia,
Chetnik The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
and
Slovene Home Guard The Slovene Home Guard ( sl, Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; german: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti- Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljub ...
troops, thousands of civilians heading or retreating towards Austria to surrender to western Allied forces, resulted in mass executions. The "foibe massacres" draw their name from the "foibe" pits in which Croatian Partisans of the
8th Dalmatian Corps The 8th Dalmatian Shock Corps ( sh, 8. dalmatinski korpus) was a corps of the Yugoslav Partisans formed on 7 October 1943. It was formed from the 9th, 19th, 20th, and 26th Dalmatian divisions, and was named after the region of Dalmatia. Upon crea ...
(often along with groups of angry civilian locals) shot Italian fascists, and suspected collaborationists and/or separatists. According to a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, which investigated only on what happened in places included in present-day Italy and Slovenia, the killings seemed to proceed from endeavors to remove persons linked with fascism (regardless of their personal responsibility), and endeavors to carry out mass executions of real, potential or only alleged opponents of the communist government. The 1944-1945 killings in Bačka were similar in nature and entailed the killing of suspected Hungarian, German and Serbian fascists, and their suspected affiliates, without regard to their personal responsibility. During this purge, a large number of civilians from the associated ethnic group were also killed. The Partisans did not have an official agenda of liquidating their enemies and their cardinal ideal was the "
brotherhood and unity Brotherhood and unity was a popular slogan of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia that was coined during the Yugoslav People's Liberation War (1941–45), and which evolved into a guiding principle of Yugoslavia's post-war inter-ethnic poli ...
" of all Yugoslav nations (the phrase became the motto for the new Yugoslavia). The country suffered between 900,000 and 1,150,000 civilian and military dead during the Axis occupation. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the partisan purges and at least 30,000 people were killed in the Bleiburg killings, according to Marcus Tanner in his work, ''Croatia: a Nation Forged in War''. This chapter of Partisan history was a taboo subject for conversation in the
SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yug ...
until the late 1980s, and as a result, decades of official silence created a reaction in the form of numerous data manipulation for nationalist propaganda purposes.


Equipment

The first small arms for the Partisans were acquired from the defeated
Royal Yugoslav Army The Yugoslav Army ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Jugoslovenska vojska, JV, Југословенска војска, ЈВ), commonly the Royal Yugoslav Army, was the land warfare military service branch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (originally Kingdom of Serbs, ...
, like the M24 Mauser rifle. Throughout the war the Partisans used any weapons they could find, mostly weapons captured from the
Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...
,
Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...
, Army of the NDH,
Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
and the
Chetniks The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royali ...
, such as the
Karabiner 98k The Karabiner 98 kurz (; "carbine 98 short"), often abbreviated Karabiner 98k, Kar98k or K98k and also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a K98 (a K98 is a Polish carbine and copy of the Kar98a), is a bolt-action rifle chambered for the 7.92×5 ...
rifle,
MP 40 The MP 40 (''Maschinenpistole 40'') is a submachine gun chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge. It was developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Axis powers during World War II. Designed in 1938 by Heinrich Vollmer with in ...
submachine gun,
MG 34 The MG 34 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 34'', or "machine gun 34") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun, first tested in 1929, introduced in 1934, and issued to units in 1936. It introduced an entirely n ...
machine gun,
Carcano Carcano is the frequently used name for a series of Italian bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating military rifles and carbines. Introduced in 1891, this rifle was chambered for the rimless 6.5×52mm Carcano round (''Cartuccia Modello 1895''). ...
rifle and carbine, and
Beretta Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta (; "Pietro Beretta Weapon Factory") is a privately held Italian firearms manufacturing company operating in several countries. Its firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and milita ...
submachine gun. The other way that the Partisans acquired weapons was from supplies given to them by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and the United Kingdom, including the PPSh-41 and the
Sten The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost ...
MKII submachine guns respectively. Additionally, Partisan workshops created their own weapons modelled on factory-made weapons already in use, including the so-called "Partisan rifle" and the anti-tank "Partisan mortar".


Women

The Yugoslav Partisans mobilized many women. The Yugoslav National Liberation Movement claimed 6,000,000 civilian supporters; its two million women formed the Antifascist Front of Women (AFŽ), in which the revolutionary coexisted with the traditional. The AFŽ managed schools, hospitals and even local governments. About 100,000 women served with 600,000 men in Tito's Yugoslav National Liberation Army. It stressed its dedication to women's rights and gender equality and used the imagery of traditional folklore heroines to attract and legitimize the partizanka (Partisan Woman). After the war, women returned to traditional gender roles, but Yugoslavia is unique as its historians paid extensive attention to women's roles in the resistance, until the country broke up in the 1990s. Then the memory of the women soldiers faded away.


Partisan legacy


Political

The Partisan legacy is the subject of considerable debate and controversy due to the rise of
ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Historical revisionism following the
breakup of Yugoslavia The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
has rendered the movement ideologically incompatible within the
post-communist Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economi ...
sociopolitical framework. This revisionist historiography has caused the Partisans' role in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
to be generally ignored, disparaged or attacked within successor states. Despite social changes commemorative tributes to the Partisan struggle are still observed throughout the former
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, and are attended by veteran associations, descendants, Titoists,
leftists Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and sympathisers. The successor branches of the former Association of War Veterans of the People's Liberation War (SUBNOR), represent Partisan veterans in each republic and lobby against political and legal rehabilitation of war collaborators, along with efforts to renamed streets and public squares. These organisation's also maintain monuments and memorials dedicated to the People's Liberation War and
anti-fascism Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
in each respective nation.


Cultural

According to
Vladimir Dedijer Vladimir Dedijer ( sr-Cyrl, Владимир Дедијер; 4 February 1914 – 30 November 1990) was a Yugoslav partisan fighter during World War II who became known as a politician, human rights activist, and historian. In the early postwar ye ...
, more than 40,000 works of folk poetry were inspired by the Partisans.


See also

*
Balkans Campaign (World War II) The Balkans campaign of World War II began with the Italian invasion of Greece on 28 October 1940. In the early months of 1941, Italy's offensive had stalled and a Greek counter-offensive pushed into Albania. Germany sought to aid Italy by d ...
* Bombaši *
Leftist errors Leftist errors ( sh, leva/lijeva skretanja) was a term used by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) to describe radical policies and strategies – described as the Red Terror (''Crveni Teror'') by others – pursued by self-described Left-wi ...
*
Order of the People's Hero The Order of the People's Hero or the Order of the National Hero ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Orden narodnog heroja, Oрден народног хероја; sl, Red narodnega heroja, mk, Oрден на народен херој, Orden na ...
*
Po šumama i gorama The "March of the Siberian Riflemen" (russian: Марш сибирских стрелков, Marsh sibirskikh strelkov), or alternatively the "Siberian Riflemen's March", is a Russian Empire, Russian war song from World War I and the Russian Civil ...
*
World War II persecution of Serbs The Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Genocid nad Srbima u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj, separator=" / ", Геноцид над Србима у Независној Држави Хрватској) was the sys ...
*
Yugoslav World War II monuments and memorials The authorities of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia established many World War II memorials during its existence. Several memorial sites were established between 1945 and 1960, though widespread building started after the founding of t ...


Footnotes


Notes


References

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Further reading

* * * *


External links


The German Campaigns in the Balkans (Spring 1941)
reprinted by the
United States Army Center of Military History The United States Army Center of Military History (CMH) is a directorate within the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Institute of Heraldry remains within the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Arm ...
{{Authority control Partisans Partisans Partisans Articles containing video clips Guerrilla organizations Military units and formations disestablished in 1945 Military units and formations established in 1941 Military wings of socialist parties National liberation armies Yugoslav Resistance Partisans