Nedic's Serbia
Encyclopedia

Occupied territory

Map
Name of territory
Name
A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name...

 
Serbia
Србија
Srbija
Serbien
Occupying power  Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

Historical era 6 April, 1941 - October, 1944
Supreme authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

 
German Military administration
Military Administration (Nazi Germany)
During World War II, Nazi Germany created military-led regimes in occupied territories which were known as a Military Administration . These differed from Reichskommissariats which were led by Nazi Party officials...

Puppet governments  Commissary Government
Commissary Government
Commissary Government was the first puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from April 30, 1941 to August, 1941...

 followed by Government of National Salvation
Government of National Salvation (Serbia)
Government of National Salvation , also known as Nedić regime was the second puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from August 29, 1941 to October, 1944...

Capital
Capital City
Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....

 
Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

Languages  Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

Religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 
Serbian Orthodox
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

,
Roman Catholicism,
Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

,
Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

Population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 
3,810,000 (1941)
Currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

 
Serbian Dinar
Serbian dinar
The dinar is the currency of Serbia. An earlier currency also called dinar was used in Serbia between 1868 and 1918. The earliest use of the dinar date to 1214. Today's Serbian dinar is a continuation of the last Yugoslav dinar...


Serbia under German occupation refers to an administrative area in occupied Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

 established by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 following the invasion and dismantling of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...

 in April of 1941. The territory was placed under the authority of the German Military Administration in Serbia , which set up Serbian Quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...

 civil governments: initially the short-lived Commissary Government
Commissary Government
Commissary Government was the first puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from April 30, 1941 to August, 1941...

  (Komesarska vlada, Комесарска влада) under Milan Aćimović
Milan Acimovic
Milan Aćimović was a Serbian politician and Axis collaborator.Aćimović was an attorney by profession. He was at one point chief of the Belgrade police and minister of internal affairs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia government....

 and subsequently the Government of National Salvation
Government of National Salvation (Serbia)
Government of National Salvation , also known as Nedić regime was the second puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from August 29, 1941 to October, 1944...

 (Vlada Nacionalnog Spasa, Влада Националног Спаса) under Milan Nedić
Milan Nedic
Milan Nedić was a Serbian general and politician, he was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities...

, which remained in power until 1944. The territory included most of present-day Central Serbia
Central Serbia
Central Serbia , also referred to as Serbia proper , was the region of Serbia from 1945 to 2009. It included central parts of Serbia outside of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. The region of Central Serbia was not an administrative division of Serbia as such; it was under the...

, the northern part of Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

 (around Kosovska Mitrovica
Kosovska Mitrovica
Kosovska Mitrovica , is a city and municipality in northern Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous district....

), and Banat, which was an autonomous region governed by its German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 minority.

In some sources, the territory is known as "Nedić's Serbia". Despite the ambitions of the Nedić government to establish an independent state, the area remained subordinated to the German military authorities until the end of its existence.

History

In April 1941, Germany and its allies invaded and occupied Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...

. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

 was then carved up, the territory that was not annexed by Germany or given to the surrounding Axis neighbors, including the new Nazi-puppet Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

 in the west, Italian-occupied territories in the south, Hungarian-occupied territories in the north-west, and Bulgarian-occupied territories in the south-east, became part of a German-created puppet state, governed by a Serbian collaborationist administration. The former Yugoslav King, the teenage Peter II
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...

 headed the Pro-Allied Royal Yugoslav Government-In-Exile).

On 30 April, a pro-German Serbian administration was formed under Milan Aćimović
Milan Acimovic
Milan Aćimović was a Serbian politician and Axis collaborator.Aćimović was an attorney by profession. He was at one point chief of the Belgrade police and minister of internal affairs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia government....

. During the summer of 1941, two resistance factions were formed: Serb royalist Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...

, and communist and unionist Partisans. They began small-scale operations and diversions against local loyalist forces and German military. The uprising became a serious concern for the Germans as most of their forces were deployed to Russia; only three divisions of which were in the country. On 13 August, 546 Serbs, including many of the country's most prominent and influential leaders, issued an appeal to the Serbian nation which called for loyalty to the Nazis and condemned the Partisan resistance as unpatriotic. Two weeks after the appeal, seventy-five prominent Serbs convened a meeting in Belgrade where it was decided to form a Government of National Salvation
Government of National Salvation (Serbia)
Government of National Salvation , also known as Nedić regime was the second puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from August 29, 1941 to October, 1944...

under Serbian General Milan Nedić
Milan Nedic
Milan Nedić was a Serbian general and politician, he was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities...

 to replace the existing Serbian administration. On 29 August, the German authorities installed General Nedić and his government in power. Real power resided with the German occupiers rather than under Nedić's government.

The Germans were short of police and military forces in Serbia, and as a result came to rely on armed Serbian formations to maintain order. By October, 1941, Serbian forces under German supervision had become increasingly effective against the resistance. They were armed and equipped by the Germans. Serbian collaborationist forces supported by the Serbian government included the Serbian State Guards
Serbian State Guards
The Serbian State Guard , also known as Nedićevci after Serbian pro-axis leader Milan Nedić, was the name of the force that was used to complement the civil police units within Nedić's Serbia...

, the Serbian Volunteer Corps (whose members were largely members of the Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor"
ZBOR
Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor" , commonly known simply as ZBOR, was a Yugoslav fascist and conservative nationalist movement formed in 1935 by Dimitrije Ljotić. ZBOR's ideology was a blend of Italian Fascism, Nazism, and Serbian Orthodox Christian fundamentalism...

 (Jugoslovenski narodni pokret "Zbor") or ZBOR
ZBOR
Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor" , commonly known simply as ZBOR, was a Yugoslav fascist and conservative nationalist movement formed in 1935 by Dimitrije Ljotić. ZBOR's ideology was a blend of Italian Fascism, Nazism, and Serbian Orthodox Christian fundamentalism...

 party of Dimitrije Ljotić
Dimitrije Ljotic
Dimitrije Ljotić was a Serbian politician and Nazi German collaborationist during World War II.Although born in Belgrade he spent most of his life in Smederevo. His ancestors came to Serbia from the village of Blace in what is today Greek Macedonia during the first half of 19th century...

), and the rogue Chetnik faction
Chetniks of Kosta Pecanac
The Pećanac Chetniks, also known as the Black' Chetniks were a Chetnik force which operated in Nedić's Serbia under the leadership of Kosta Pećanac. They were loyal to the fascist government and fought against Yugoslav Partisans and the Chetniks of Draža Mihailović.At the time of the invasion of...

 of Kosta Pećanac
Kosta Pecanac
Kosta Milovanović Pećanac was a Chetnik voivoda during the Second World War.-Origin:Kosta Milovanović was born in 1879, the exact date is not known as his military paper only has the year of birth. His father was a guardian of the Visoki Dečani monastery. His parents both died during an attack by...

. Some of these formations wore the uniform of the Royal Yugoslav Army
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17, 1941...

 as well as helmets and uniforms purchased from Italy, while others from Germany. These forces were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the mass killings of Jews, Roma and those Serbs who sided with any anti-German resistance or were suspects of being a member of such. According to one single source (Jasminka Udovički, James Ridgeway; Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, 1997), these forces were also responsible for the killings of many Croats and Muslims, but this data is not confirmed by other sources. According to other source, the Croats who took refuge in Nedić's Serbia were not discriminated against. After the war, the Serbian involvement in many of these events and the issue of Serbian collaboration were subject to historical revisionism.
Several concentration camps were formed in Serbia and at the 1942 Anti-Freemason Exhibition
Anti-Freemason Exhibition
Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition was the name of an antisemitic exhibition that was opened in Belgrade, in Nazi-occupied Serbia, on October 22, 1941. This exhibition was part of a propaganda campaign by the Germans to "unmask the Jewish freemason and communist conspiracy that is behind all the...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 the city was pronounced to be free of Jews (Judenfrei
Judenfrei
Judenfrei was a Nazi term to designate an area free of Jewish presence during The Holocaust.While Judenfrei referred merely to "freeing" an area of all of its Jewish citizens, the term Judenrein was also used...

). On 1 April 1942, a Serbian Gestapo
Serbian Gestapo
Serbian Gestapo officially 1st Belgrade Special Combat detachment was a special police unit which was established in World War II Serbia by the German Gestapo without the knowledge of Milan Nedić.-External links:*...

 was formed. It is estimated that approximately 80,000 people were killed from 1941 to 1944 in the German-run concentration camps in Nedić's Serbia. Serbia was proclaimed one of the Judenfrei
Judenfrei
Judenfrei was a Nazi term to designate an area free of Jewish presence during The Holocaust.While Judenfrei referred merely to "freeing" an area of all of its Jewish citizens, the term Judenrein was also used...

 (free of Jews) countries in Europe.
In 1941, Harold Turner (1941–1942), Walter Uppenkamp (1942), Egon Bönner (1942–1943), and Franz Neuhausen (1943–1944) were the German military governors. Böhme was given emergency powers to govern the territory since July 1941 and served as a defacto governor of the region even before the administration was solidified in August. Böhme was relieved of the position later in 1941. Staatsrat (privy councillor) Harold Turner
Harold Turner (German SS commander)
Harald Turner was an SS commander and Staatsrat in the German-imposed and led military regime in Serbia called the Military Administration of Serbia. In 1942 in Serbia, in a letter to Karl Wolff, chief of the personal staff of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler...

 and SS Untersturmfuhrer Fritz Stracke handled most of the affairs of the administration while Nedić served as a nominal local leader and as a symbol of legitimization of the German presence there. The regime was unsuccessful in detracting Serbs from rebelling against the occupiers of Yugoslavia and had little support amongst Serbs. This was due to acts of extreme violence and ethnic persecution of Serbs by the German occupiers and Ustashe extreme nationalists in Croatia, most Serbs associated with opposition forces who fought against both the German occupation forces and the Ustashe regime of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

. The regime attempted to reduce the large Serbian resistance against the German military occupation of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, but continued atrocities by German occupation authorities.

Internal affairs

The internal affairs of Serbia were affected by Nazi racial laws. These were introduced in all occupied territories with immediate effects on Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 and Roma people, as well as causing the imprisonment of those opposed to Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

. The region of Banat was ruled by its local minority German population. Despite domination by the German occupiers across the military administration, it maintained its own currency, the Serbian dinar which replaced the Yugoslav dinar which existed until 1945, when the Germans and the collaboratists were defeated and replaced by the Yugoslav communist state, which scrapped the Serbian dinar and other currencies of the Independent State of Croatia and Montenegro in 1945.

The administration's first Serbian government leader was Milan Aćimović. In late August Aćimović stepped down and was replaced by Milan Nedić, who hoped that his collaboration would save what was left of Serbia and avoid total destruction by Nazi reprisals, he personally kept in contact with Yugoslavia's exiled King Peter, assuring the King that he was not another Pavelić (the Croatian Ustashe leader), and Nedić's defenders claimed he was like Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...

 of Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

 (who was claimed to have defended the French people while accepting the occupation), and denied that he was leading a weak Quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...

 regime. The Serbian collaborationist government failed to win the favour of Serbs, who largely associated with the two key opposition groups, the Serb nationalist Chetniks and the communist Yugoslav Partisans.

The real power rested with the administration's Military Commanders, who controlled both the German armed forces and Serb collaborationist forces in the administration. In 1941, the administration's Military Commander, Franz Böhme
Franz Böhme
Franz Friedrich Böhme was an Austrian who later went on to become a military officer...

, responded to Serb attacks on German forces by ordering reprisal attacks in which 100 Serbs would be killed for each German killed and 50 Serbs killed for each wounded German. The first set of reprisals were the massacres in Kragujevac
Kragujevac massacre
The Kragujevac massacre was the murder of men and boys in Kragujevac, Serbia, by Nazi German soldiers between 20–21 October 1941. All males from the town between the ages of sixteen and sixty were assembled, including high school students, and the victims were selected from amongst them...

 and in Kraljevo
Kraljevo
Kraljevo is a city and municipality in central Serbia, built beside the river Ibar, 7 km west of its confluence with the Western Morava. It is located in the midst of an upland valley, between the mountains of Kotlenik in the north, and Stolovi in the south.In 2011 the city has population of...

 by the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. These proved to be counterproductive to the German forces in the aftermath, as it ruined any possibility of gaining any substantial numbers of Serbs to support the collaborationist regime of Nedić. Additionally, it was discovered that in Kraljevo, a Serbian workforce group which was building airplanes for the Axis forces had been among the victims. The massacres caused Nedić to urge that the arbitrary shooting of Serbs be stopped, Böhme agreed and ordered a halt to the executions until further notice. Approximately 14,500 Serbian Jews - 90 percent of Serbia's Jewish population of 16,000 - were murdered in World War II.

By late 1941, with each attack by Chetniks and Partisans, brought more reprisal massacres being committed by the German armed forces against Serbs. The largest Chetnik opposition group led by Colonel Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...

 decided that it was in the best interests of Serbs to temporarily shut down operations against the Germans until the possibility of decisively beating the German armed forces looked possible. Mihailović justified this by saying "When it is all over and, with God's help, I was preserved to continue the struggle, I resolved that I would never again bring such misery on the country unless it could result in total liberation". Mihailović then reluctantly decided to allow some Chetniks to join Nedic's regime to launch attacks against Tito's Partisans. Mihailović saw as the main threat to Chetniks and, in his view, Serbs, as the Partisans who refused to back down fighting, which would almost certainly result in more German reprisal massacres of Serbs. With arms provided by the Germans, those Chetniks who joined Nedic's collaborationist armed forces, so they could pursue their civil war against the partisans without fear of attack by the Germans, whom they intended to later turn against. This resulted in an increase of recruits to the regime's armed forces. One of Mihailović's closest personal friends and collaborators, Pavle Đurišić, simultaneously held a command for Nedić, and in 1943 tried to exterminate the Muslims, Croats, and pro-Partisans of the Sandžak
Sandžak
Sandžak also known as Raška is a historical region lying along the border between Serbia and Montenegro...

 region. The massacres he carried out were compared to the Croatian Ustashe and Muslim massacres of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

 in 1941.

Notable politicians

See also: Commissary Government
Commissary Government
Commissary Government was the first puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from April 30, 1941 to August, 1941...

 and Government of National Salvation
Government of National Salvation (Serbia)
Government of National Salvation , also known as Nedić regime was the second puppet Serbian government of German-occupied Serbia during World War II. It operated from August 29, 1941 to October, 1944...

.

Prime Ministers of the puppet governments

  • Milan Aćimović
    Milan Acimovic
    Milan Aćimović was a Serbian politician and Axis collaborator.Aćimović was an attorney by profession. He was at one point chief of the Belgrade police and minister of internal affairs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia government....

     (1941)
  • Milan Nedić
    Milan Nedic
    Milan Nedić was a Serbian general and politician, he was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities...

     (1941-1944)

Other key politicians were

  • Dimitrije Ljotić
    Dimitrije Ljotic
    Dimitrije Ljotić was a Serbian politician and Nazi German collaborationist during World War II.Although born in Belgrade he spent most of his life in Smederevo. His ancestors came to Serbia from the village of Blace in what is today Greek Macedonia during the first half of 19th century...

  • Velibor Jonić
    Velibor Jonic
    Velibor Jonić was a Serbian fascist politician and government minister in World War II Serbia.Jonić was by profession a professor and worked at the University of Belgrade...

  • Dr. Milorad Nedeljković
    Milorad Nedeljkovic
    Milorad Nedeljković was a Serbian economist and Axis-collaborating politician.He graduated and got his Ph.D. from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics...

  • Dragomir Jovanović
    Dragomir Jovanovic
    Dragomir Dragi Jovanović was a Serbian politician and Axis collaborator.Jovanović finished a law degree at the University of Belgrade's Law School. He received a job as a police officer in the city...

  • Vladimir Velmar-Janković
    Vladimir Velmar-Jankovic
    Vladimir Velmar-Janković was a Serbian writer and member of Serbia's World War II Axis government.He finished elementary school in Varaždin, attended the Serb Tekelijanum in Buda and finished university in...


Administrative divisions

Serbia was divided into 14 Okruzi
Okrug
Okrug is an administrative division of some Slavic states. The word "okrug" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "district", or "region"....

 (districts) and 101 Srezovi (municipalities). The Okrug of Veliki Bečkerek (also known as The Banat) was formally part of Serbia, but was effectively run as an autonomous state by the local ethnic German population.

German military commanders

Commanders of the German Military Administration were:
  • Franz Böhme
    Franz Böhme
    Franz Friedrich Böhme was an Austrian who later went on to become a military officer...

     (1941)
  • Harald Turner (1941-1942)
  • Walter Uppenkamp (1942)
  • Egon Bönner (1942-1943)
  • Franz Neuhausen (1943-1944)

Collaborationist armed forces

Aside from German armed forces which were the dominant Axis military in the territory, there were two Serbian collaborationist military forces, the Serbian State Guards
Serbian State Guards
The Serbian State Guard , also known as Nedićevci after Serbian pro-axis leader Milan Nedić, was the name of the force that was used to complement the civil police units within Nedić's Serbia...

 (Srpska Državna Straža) and the Serbian Volunteer Command both formed in 1941. In 1943, the Serbian Volunteer Command was renamed the Serbian Volunteer Corps (Srpski Dobrovoljački Korpus), with Kosta Mušicki
Kosta Mušicki
Kosta Mušicki was a general of the Serbian Volunteer Corps during World War II.Mušicki finished gymnasium in Zagreb and served Austria-Hungary in the First World War...

 as the operational leader.

Initially, the recruits were largely paramilitaries and supporters of the fascist Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor"
ZBOR
Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor" , commonly known simply as ZBOR, was a Yugoslav fascist and conservative nationalist movement formed in 1935 by Dimitrije Ljotić. ZBOR's ideology was a blend of Italian Fascism, Nazism, and Serbian Orthodox Christian fundamentalism...

 (Jugoslovenski narodni pokret "Zbor", or ZBOR
ZBOR
Yugoslav National Movement "Zbor" , commonly known simply as ZBOR, was a Yugoslav fascist and conservative nationalist movement formed in 1935 by Dimitrije Ljotić. ZBOR's ideology was a blend of Italian Fascism, Nazism, and Serbian Orthodox Christian fundamentalism...

) party of Dimitrije Ljotić
Dimitrije Ljotic
Dimitrije Ljotić was a Serbian politician and Nazi German collaborationist during World War II.Although born in Belgrade he spent most of his life in Smederevo. His ancestors came to Serbia from the village of Blace in what is today Greek Macedonia during the first half of 19th century...

. In late 1941, troops from the Mihailović Chetnik formations dispersed following conflicts with Partisan and German forces, and many of those troops join Nedić's legalized Chetnik. Nedić's forces fought Communist Partisans
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...

 as well as Royalist
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...

 Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...

 who were not willing to sign an agreement of cooperation.

Recruits to the collaborationist forces increased in numbers following joining of Chetnik groups loyal to Kosta Pećanac
Kosta Pecanac
Kosta Milovanović Pećanac was a Chetnik voivoda during the Second World War.-Origin:Kosta Milovanović was born in 1879, the exact date is not known as his military paper only has the year of birth. His father was a guardian of the Visoki Dečani monastery. His parents both died during an attack by...

. By their own postwar account, these Chetniks joined with the intention to destroy Tito's Partisans, rather than supporting Nedić and the German occupation forces, whom they later intended to turn against.

The Serbian Volunteer Corps were formed in the spring of 1943. At the end of 1944, the Corps and its German liaison staff were transferred to the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...

 as the Serbian SS Corps and comprised a staff from four regiments each with three battalions and a training battalion.

In addition to Serbian collaborations forces, members of the Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...

 (ethnic German minority) from Serbia and Banat were serving in the armed forces of the Reich, most of them in the Prinz Eugen Division. This division was responsible for war crimes committed against the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Demographics

The population of this state was composed primarily of the Serbs (up to 3,000,000) and Germans (around 500,000). Other nationalities have been separated from Serbia and included within their respective ethnic states- f.e. the Croats, Bulgarians, Albanians, Hungarians etc. Most of the Serbs however ended up outside the nazi Serbian state, as they were forced to join other states.

Of the 16,700 Jewish people in Serbia and the Banat, 15,000 were killed. In total, it is estimated that approximately 80.000 people were killed from 1941 to 1944 in concentration camps in Nedić's Serbia.

Currency

After the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

, the Serbian civil government had the National bank of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This was transformed into the Serbian National Bank. It introduced the Serbian Dinar as the only legal currency and disabled the circulation of other currencies in the territories of Serbia occupied by neighboring countries. The traditional Obrenović coat of arms
Coat of arms of Serbia
The coat of arms of Serbia is based the family arms of the former Obrenović dynasty and features the white bicephalic eagle of the Nemanjić dynasty. An ermine cape of the style once worn by kings is featured in the background. The double-headed eagle has been used since Byzantine era, the Serbian...

 was found on bills and coins minus the royal crown.

Culture

Media

With the dissolution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, many newspapers went out of print while new papers were formed. On 16 May 1941 the first new daily, Novo vreme (New Times), was formed. The weekly Naša borba (Our Struggle) was formed by the fascist ZBOR party in 1941, its title echoing Hitler's Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...

(My Struggle). The regime itself released the Službene novine (Official Gazette) which attempted to continue the tradition of the official paper of the same name which was released in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Film

The state of film in Serbia was somewhat improved compared to the situation in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

. During that time, the number of cinemas in Belgrade was increased to 21, with a daily attendance of between 12,000 and 15,000 people. The two most popular films were 1943's Nevinost bez zaštite and Golden City which were watched by 62,000 and 108,000 respectively.

Sport

With the dissolution of the Yugoslav First League
Yugoslav First League
The Yugoslav First League was the premier football league in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and socialist Yugoslavia...

 in the spring of 1940, Serbia had its own national football competition. Competing teams included BSK Belgrade, SK 1913 (SK Jugoslavija) and FK Obilić
FK Obilic
Fudbalski klub Obilić is a football club based in Belgrade, Serbia. Named after legendary Serbian medieval hero Miloš Obilić, the club currently competes in the Druga beogradska liga - grupa Dunav .The club's stadium is also named accordingly; to venerate the Serbian knight it is called the...

.

Theatre

The Serbian National Theatre
National Theatre in Belgrade
The National Theatre was founded in the latter half of the 19th century. It is located on Republic Square, in Belgrade, Serbia.The National Theatre was declared a Monument of Culture of Great Importance in 1983, and it is protected by the Republic of Serbia....

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 remained open during this time. Works performed during this period included La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...

, The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...

, Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...

, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

, Dva cvancika and Nesuđeni zetovi.

Transportation

The Serbian State Railways (Srpske državne železnice, SDŽ) was the national railway company of the state.

Legacy

In 2008, the non-parliamentary Serbian Liberal Party
Serbian Liberal Party
The Serbian Liberal Party was a political party in Serbia. It was founded by a group of 10 members of the Democratic Party who left their former party only a few days prior to the 1990 parliamentary elections...

 launched a proposal to the County Court in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 to rehabilitate the Serbian leader Milan Nedić
Milan Nedic
Milan Nedić was a Serbian general and politician, he was the chief of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, minister of war in the Royal Yugoslav Government and the prime minister of a Nazi-backed Serbian puppet government during World War II.After the war, Yugoslav communist authorities...

. This has met no support from any political party and also met opposition from the Jewish community of Serbia.

Concentration camps

  • Sajmište concentration camp
    Sajmište concentration camp
    Sajmište concentration camp was a German run Nazi concentration camp located on the outskirts of Belgrade whilst part of NDH . It was established in December 1941 and shut down in September 1944...

     (Belgrade
    Belgrade
    Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

    )
  • Banjica concentration camp
    Banjica concentration camp
    Banjica concentration camp was a quisling and Nazi German concentration camp in occupied Serbia from June 1941 to September 1944 in World War II, located in the eponymous suburb of Belgrade. It started as a center for holding hostages, but later included Jews, Serbs, Roma, captured partisans, and...

     (near Belgrade
    Belgrade
    Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

    )
  • Crveni krst concentration camp
    Crveni krst concentration camp
    Crveni Krst concentration camp , also known as logor Crveni Krst or Lager Niš , was a concentration camp located in Crveni Krst, in the industrial zone of the Serbian city of Niš, and operated by the Nazis during the Second World War.It is estimated that around 30,000 persons went through this...

     (Niš
    Niš
    Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...

    )
  • Topovske Šupe
    Topovske Šupe
    Topovske Šupe was a concentration camp located in the Belgrade neighbourhood of Autokomanda in Serbia which was operated by Nazi Germany with the help of Milan Nedić's quisling government during the Second World War....

     (Belgrade)
  • Dulag 183
    Dulag 183
    Dulag 183 was the name of the German transit camp for POWs in WWII Serbia located in the town of Šabac. This camp was opened in September 1941, and it closed in September 1944. This camp was also used for partisan POWs, members of their families, and the extermination of Jews and Roma people...

     (Šabac
    Šabac
    Šabac is a city and municipality in western Serbia, along the Sava river, in the historic region of Mačva. It is the administrative center of the Mačva District. The city has a population of 52,822 , while population of the municipality is 115,347...

    )

Symbols

Symbols used by the Serbian puppet government were the flag, the coat of arms, and the anthem Oj Srbijo, mila mati
Oj Srbijo, mila mati
Oj Srbijo, mila mati is a Serbian patriotic song based on a longer song of similar title, shortened in 1909 by Vladimir Brzak...

(Oh Serbia, dear mother).

See also

  • Banat (1941–1944)
  • Republic of Užice
    Republic of Užice
    The Republic of Užice was a short-lived liberated Yugoslav territory and the first liberated territory in World War II Europe, organized as a military mini-state that existed in the autumn of 1941 in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, more specifically the western part of Serbia...

  • Kingdom of Montenegro (1941-1944)
    Kingdom of Montenegro (1941-1944)
    The Kingdom of Montenegro or the Independent State of Montenegro existed from 1941 to 1943 as a puppet protectorate of Fascist Italy, a component of the envisioned Italian Empire...

  • Independent State of Croatia
    Independent State of Croatia
    The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

  • Military history of Hungary during World War II
  • Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
    Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
    The military history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 9 September 1944 and a period of alignment with the Allies until the end of the war. Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy during...

  • Military history of Albania during World War II
    Military history of Albania during World War II
    The Albanian Resistance of World War II was a movement of largely Communist persuasion directed against the occupying Italian and then German forces in Albania, which led to the successful liberation of the country in 1944....

  • World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

  • Anti-Freemason Exhibition
    Anti-Freemason Exhibition
    Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition was the name of an antisemitic exhibition that was opened in Belgrade, in Nazi-occupied Serbia, on October 22, 1941. This exhibition was part of a propaganda campaign by the Germans to "unmask the Jewish freemason and communist conspiracy that is behind all the...

  • Balkans Campaign
  • People's Liberation War
    People's Liberation War
    The Yugoslav FrontThe Yugoslav Front, is also known as the National Liberation War . started in April 1941 when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was quickly overrun by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and client regimes in Serbia with German Banat.The war was...

  • Quisling
    Quisling
    Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...


Further reading

  • Bailey, Ronald H. 1980 (original edition from 1978). Partisans and guerrillas (World War II; v. 12). Chicago, Illinois, USA: Time-Life Books.
  • Browning, Christopher H. 2004. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Comprehensive History of the Holocaust). Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.
  • Dobrich, Momcilo. 2001. Belgrade's Best: The Serbian Volunteer Corps, 1941-1945, Axis Europa Books. ISBN 1-891227-38-6
  • Kostić, Boško N. Za istoriju naših dana, Lille, France, 1949.
  • Kostić, Lazo M. Armijski đeneral Milan Nedić, Novi Sad, 2000.
  • Wolff, Robert Lee. 1956. Balkans in Our Time. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard University Press.
  • Valter Manošek, Holokaust u Srbiji, Beograd, 2007.
  • Аleksandar Nedić, Milan Nedić - majka ili maćeha, Beograd, 2009.
  • Venceslav Glišić, Užička republika, Beograd, 1986.
  • Dr Rajko Đurić - mr Antun Miletić, Istorija holokausta Roma, Beograd, 2008.
  • Miloslav Samardžić, Krvavi vaskrs 1944 - Saveznička bombardovanja srpskih gradova, Beograd, 2011.
  • Bojan Đorđević, Srpska kultura pod okupacijom, Beograd, 2008.
  • Simo C. Ćirković, Ko je ko u Nedićevoj Srbiji: 1941-1944, Beograd, 2009.
  • Olivera Milosavljević, Potisnuta istina - Kolaboracija u Srbiji 1941-1944, Beograd, 2006.

External links

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