THE Yugoslavia it had achieved its independence in 1918 after the decay of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, since 1929, it had been ruled by a monarchist dictatorship. The so-called Kingdom of Yugoslavia was ruled by Prince Paul when the Second World War it began in 1939 and grouped together a series of ethnic groups, such as Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, who fed great rivalry among themselves.
The war that broke out in the Balkans as a result of the Nazi invasion was more a struggle between internal ethnic groups than a movement in opposition to the Nazi invaders. Thus, the internal groups that led the struggle, while opposing Nazism, fought among themselves for the political control of the region.
Nazi invasion
Partisans armed for combat. Date of photo is unknown
In early 1941, Germany Nazi coerced the Yugoslav government to ally itself with the Axis (an alliance formed by Germany, Italy and Japan from the Tripartite Pact 1940) to be able to move his troops through Yugoslav territory in order to help the Italians in Greece and ensure control of Yugoslav resources. Prince Paul, unable to react, accepted the agreement.
Acceptance of the agreement with the Axis prompted a group of Serbian nationalists to carry out an attempted coup on March 27 to regain power and prevent the agreement with the Nazis. The German response to the Serbian coup came about a week later with the German invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. The Yugoslav government fled to London after this invasion.
From then on, the division of the Yugoslav territory with the members of the Axis followed, as reported by historian Max Hastings:
Northern [northern] Slovenia was incorporated into the Reich. Croatia gained independence, and its fascist militia, Ustaše, took on a powerful and bloody role in maintaining control. of the country by the Axis, unleashing, in May 1941, a reign of terror designed to cleanse Croatia of its two million Serbs. Simultaneously, Dalmatia and southern [southern] Slovenia were handed over to Italy. Macedonia, given to Bulgaria […] |1|.
Thus, in addition to the division of Yugoslav territory among the members of the Axis, a puppet state - allied with the Nazis - emerged in the region: The Independent State of Croatia, governed by Before Pavelić, leader of the fascist group Use. Croatia has carried out an ethnic cleansing project in the region to eradicate the Serb population from the territories under its control.
Resistance to the Croats from the Ustaše and, in part, to the Germans were carried out by two large groups, which often fought each other in the war:
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Movement chetnik: Serb nationalist defenders of the monarchic government that had been overthrown with the Nazi invasion. were led by Draža Mihailović;
Communists "partisans”: they were Yugoslavs of all nationalities who sided with communism and were fighting for the establishment of a communist republic. were led by Josip Broz Tito.
Memorial to the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Croatia *
The fight against the Nazis was mainly carried out by the partisans, since the Chetnik resistance was quite timid, as many feared German reprisals. In addition, chetniks and partisans were fighting each other for power in the region when the expulsion of the Nazis took place.
The conflict in Yugoslavia was marked by the ethnic cleansing initiated by Croats from the Ustaše against Serbs and which was soon carried out by Serb Chetniks against Croats and Bosnians. Partisans also took part in massacres against the peasant population who opposed communist ideals. Nazi troops also took part in the violence in the Balkans.
The culmination of this process of ethnic cleansing was the creation of a concentration camp by the Ustaše in jasenovac. This concentration camp was responsible, on low estimates, for the death of 100 thousand people between Serbs, gypsies, Jews and muslims. Estimates of the fighting in Yugoslavia say at least a million people died, most of them victims of massacres and genocides. Hastings says 1.2 million dead |2|, while Niksic and Rodrigues point to 1.7 million dead in Yugoslavia |3|.
1982 Soviet stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Josip Broz Tito **
At the end of the conflict, in 1945, Tito's partisans prevailed, defeating Nazis and Chetniks. With the support of the British and Soviets, the partisans occupied the power of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, they had founded two years earlier, in 1943. Despite ethnic rivalries, Tito managed to maintain control of nationalisms in a dictatorial way until his death in 1980.
|1| HASTINGS, Max. The world at war 1939-1945. Rio de Janeiro: Intrinsic, 2012, p. 485.
|2| Idem, p.484.
|3| NIKSIC, Stevan and RODRIGUES, Pedro Caldeira. The Balkan virus: the case of Yugoslavia. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1996, p. 30.
*Image credits: Rndms and Shutterstock
**Image credits: Joymsk140 and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History