Ohrana
Encyclopedia
Ohrana; were armed collaborationist detachments organized by the former Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) structures, composed of Bulgarian (Slavophone pro-Bulgaria
n oriented part of the population) in Nazi-occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II
and led by Bulgarian officers. from Macedonia. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring Thessalonica and Western Macedonia, under Italian and German occupation and hopped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Slavs who lived there at the time. The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Italians to allow the formation of these collaborationst detachments.
The “Macedonian Question,” became especially prominent after the Balkan wars
in 1912-1913, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire
and the subsequent division of the Region of Macedonia between Greece
, Bulgaria
and Serbia
.
During the Middle Ages Slavs in South Macedonia were mostly defined as Bulgarians and this continued also during 16th and 17th centuries by Ottoman historians and travellers like Hoca Sadeddin Efendi
, Mustafa Selaniki
, Hadji Khalfa and Evliya Celebi
. The majority of Slav—speakers after 1870 were under the influence of the Bulgarian Exarchate
and its education system, thus considered themselves as Bulgarians
. Part of them were influenced by the Greek Patriarchate
, which resulted in the formation of Greek
consciousness. Greece, like all other Balkan states, adopted restrictive policies towards its minorities, namely towards its Slavic
population in its northern regions, as a result of the aftermath of Second Balkan war
and the potential threat that Bulgaria could pose in the fear of using the pro-Bulgarian oriented minority in Greece as a "5th Phalanx". After the Balkan Wars and especially after the First World War more than 100,000 Bulgarians from Greek Macedonia moved to Bulgaria.
During 1930s a new identity parallel to the Greek and Bulgarian ones began to arose in the region of Macedonia, the Slav Macedonian (Greek: Σλαβομακεδόνας) and was initially supported by IMRO (United). In 1934 the Comintern
issued a declaration supporting the development of the new Macedonian identity, which was admitted by the Greek Communist Party. During the 1930s under the Metaxas Regime, the government endorsed violence by nationalist bands, which sowed the seeds of bitterness that kept brewing within the local Slav-speaking population which found the opportunity to come into effect during the Second World War and the occupation of Greece by the Axis forces.
In 1941 Greek Macedonia was occupied by German, Italian and Bulgarian troops. The Bulgarians occupied the whole of Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, where they were greeted from the greater part of the Slav-speakers as liberators. At that time most of them felt themselves to be Bulgarians. Only a small part espoused a pro-Hellenic feelings. The same year, The German High Command approved the foundation of a Bulgarian military club in Thessaloníki
. The Bulgarian organised supplies of food and provisions for the Slavic-speaking population in Greek Macedonia, aiming to gain the hearts and minds of the local population that was in the German- and Italian-occupied zones. The Bulgarian clubs soon started to gain support among parts of the population. In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the High Command in organising armed units among the Slavic-speaking population in northern Greece. For this purpose, the Bulgarian army, under the approval of the Commander of the German forces in the Balkans - Field Marshal
List sent a handful of officers from the Bulgarian Army, to the zones occupied by the Italian and German troops (central and west Greek Macedonia) to be attached to the German occupying forces as "liaison officers". All the Bulgarian officers brought into service were locally-born Macedonians who had immigrated to Bulgaria with their families during the 1920s and 30's as part of the Greek-Bulgarian treaty of the Neuilly which saw 90,000 Bulgarians migrating to Bulgaria from Greece and 50,000 Greeks moving the opposite direction. Most were members of pro-Bulgarian IMRO and followers of Ivan Mihailov
and envisioned a Greater Bulgaria as had almost came into fruition during the Treaty of San Stefano
.These officers were given the objective to form armed Slavophone militias.
by Bulgarian agent Andon Kalchev
with the support of the head of the Italian
occupation authorities in Kastoria, leutanant Ravali, who armed the local villages to help combat the growing communist threat presented by the ELAS raiding the Italian occupation forces in the district. The name given to the bands armed was 'Ohrana' which in Bulgarian is defined as 'security'. The uniforms of the Ohranists were supplied by the Italians and were resplendent with shoulder patches bearing the inscription "Italo-Bulgarian Committee — Freedom or Death". The Kastorian unit was called the Macedonian Committee. The reasons of locals for taking arms varied. Some of the men were pre-war members of IMRO, and thus harbored deep nationalistic convictions, others because of pro-Nazi sentiments, some to avenge wrong doings inflicted on them by Greek authorities during the Metaxas
regime, and many took arms in order to defend themselves from the attacks of other Greek paramilitary and resistance movements as the latter saw them as collaboratives with the Italian, Bulgarian and German forces.
, Kalchev
went to the German occupied zone in order to start arming villages in Edessa
region. In Edessa, with the help of the German occupation authorities, Kalchev created the Ohrana para-military unit. In 1943, Ohrana detachments counted a total of around 3,000 members and organized guerrilla activity. In the tradition of the IMRO Komitadji
s, these bands pursued the local Greek
population, including Greek-identifying Slavophones, Aromanians
, and Pontic Greeks
, seeing them as an obstacle to an all-Bulgarian Macedonia. The main leaders during the early phase of activity from 1941 to 1942 were Tsvetan Mladenov and Andon Kalchev in the Florina
prefecture, where there were 600 men under arms.
Ohrana was also fighting pro-communist Slavic Macedonians. and Greek
communists — members of the ELAS.A part of the Slavophone population, with the help of the Greek Communist Party, organized itself into SNOF, and their prime objective was to struggle occupation forces and pro-Bulgarian agents in the Ohrana, and try to persuade its members to join ELAS and fight against the occupation. Nevertheless in the summer of 1944, members of the Macedonian faction of the Communist Party of Greece
were unable to distinguish friend from foe in Slav Macedonian villages. Mass involvement of the population was one of the tactics of Ohrana, which thus aims to provide good cover for its activities.
. From German information, it is apparent that Mihailov received consent to create battalions consisting of volunteers armed with German weapons and munitions. Moreover, these battalions were to be under the operative command and disposal of Reichsfuhrer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler
. Additionally, in Sofia talks were held between high-ranking functionaries of the SS and the IMRO Central Committee members. Despite the confidential character of the negotiations between Mihailov and the Sicherheitsdienst
, the Bulgarian government obtained certain information about them. In this connection to the village companies in these counties, there was also formed three volunteer battalions in Kastoria
, Florina and Edessa. These were organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and were to carry the name "IMRO Volunteer Battalions". They were formed after the arrival of the IMRO cadres from the Sofia.
in September 1944 Ivan Mihaylov arrived in German-occupied Skopje
, where the Germans hoped that he could form a Macedonian puppet-state with their support. Seeing that Germany had lost the war he refused. Ohrana was dissolved in late 1944 after their German and Bulgarian protectors were forced to withdrew from Greece. In autumn 1944 Anton Kalchev escaped northern Greece, and tried to flee with the retreating German army, but was captured in the vicinity of Bitola
by communist partisans from Vardar Macedonia
, and was apprehended to ELAS officials. In Thesaloniki, Kalchev was put on trial as military criminal and was sentenced to death by the Greek authorities.
After World War II the ruling Bulgarian Communists declared the Slav-speaking population in Macedonia (inclunding the Bulgarian part) as ethnic Macedonians. The organizations of the IMRO in Bulgaria were completely destroyed. Also the internment of those people disagreeing with these political activities was organized at the Belene labor camp. Tito and Georgi Dimitrov
worked about the project to merge the two Balkan countries Bulgaria and Yugoslavia into a Balkan Federative Republic according to the projects of Balkan Communist Federation
. This led to the 1947 cooperation and signing of Bled Agreement
. It foresaw unification between Yugoslav ("Vardar") and Bulgarian ("Pirin") Macedonia, as well as a return of the so-called Western Outlands to Bulgaria. They also supported the Greek Communists and especially Slavic-Macedonian National Liberation Front in the Greek Civil War
with the idea of unification of Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace
to the new state under Communist rule.
By this situation the Macedonian section of the Greek Communist Party created the SNOF and some of the former collaborators enlisted in the new unit. and took part in the Greek Civil War
on the side of the Democratic Army of Greece
. To an extent the collaboration of the peasants with the Germans
, Italians, Bulgarians or ELAS was determined by the geopolitical position of each village. Depending upon whether their village was vulnerable to attack by the Greek communist guerrillas, or the occupation forces, the peasants would opt to support the side in relation to which they were most vulnerable. In both cases, the attempt was to promise "freedom" (autonomy or independence) to the formerly persecuted Slavic minority as a means of gaining its support.
many from these people were expelled from Greece. Although the People's Republic of Bulgaria originally accepted very few refugees, government policy changed and the Bulgarian government actively sought out ethnic Macedonian refugees. It is estimated that approximately 2,500 children were sent to Bulgaria and 3,000 partisans fled there in the closing period of the war. There was a larger flow into Bulgaria of refugees as the Bulgarian Army pulled out of the Drama-Serres region in 1944. A large proportion of Slavic speakers emigrated there. The "Slavic Committee" in Sofia helped to attract refugees that had settled in other parts of the Eastern Bloc
. According to a political report in 1962 the number of political emigrants from Greece numbered at 6,529. The policy of communist Bulgaria towards the refugees from Greece was, at least initially, not discriminative with regard to their ethnic origin: Greek- and Slav-speakers were both categorized as Greek political emigrants and received equal treatment by state authorities. However, certain institutions of communist Bulgaria, charged with the national policy, tried progressively to promote certain selection among them privileging Slav-speakers, frequently named ethnic Macedonians and to prescribe special measures for the attainment of their “ethnic” loyalty. Unlike the other countries in the Eastern Bloc there were no specific organizations founded to deal with specific issues relating to the child refugees, this caused many to cooperate with the "Association of Refugee Children from the Aegean part of Macedonia", an association based in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. However, the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s was marked by adecisive turn in the “Macedonistic” policy of Bulgaria, which did not recognize anymore the existence of a Macedonian ethnicity different from the Bulgarian one. As a result, the trend to a discriminative policy, the refugees from Greece – more targeted at the Slav-speakers and less to “ethnic Greeks
” – was given a certain proselytizing aspect. In 1960, the Bulgarian Communist Party
voted a special resolution explained “with the fact that almost all of the Macedonians have a clear Bulgarian national consciousness and consider Bulgaria their homeland. Eventually many of these migrants were assimilated into Bulgarian society.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n oriented part of the population) in Nazi-occupied Greek Macedonia during 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...
and led by Bulgarian officers. from Macedonia. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring Thessalonica and Western Macedonia, under Italian and German occupation and hopped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Slavs who lived there at the time. The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Italians to allow the formation of these collaborationst detachments.
Background
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
in 1912-1913, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and the subsequent division of the Region of Macedonia between Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
.
During the Middle Ages Slavs in South Macedonia were mostly defined as Bulgarians and this continued also during 16th and 17th centuries by Ottoman historians and travellers like Hoca Sadeddin Efendi
Hoca Sadeddin Efendi
Hoca Sadeddin Efendi was an Ottoman scholar, official, and historian, a teacher of Ottoman sultan Murad III . His name is transcribed differently: Sa'd ad-Din, Sa'd al-Din, Sa’adeddin, Sadeddin, etc...
, Mustafa Selaniki
Mustafa Selaniki
Mustafa Selaniki was a Turkish scholar and chronicler, whose Tarih-i Selâniki described the Ottoman Empire of 1563–1599.- See also :*Salonica...
, Hadji Khalfa and Evliya Celebi
Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi was an Ottoman traveler who journeyed through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years.- Life :...
. The majority of Slav—speakers after 1870 were under the influence of the Bulgarian Exarchate
Bulgarian Exarchate
The Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953....
and its education system, thus considered themselves as Bulgarians
Macedonians (Bulgarians)
Macedonians or Macedonian Bulgarians , sometimes also referred to as Macedono-Bulgarians or Macedo-Bulgarians is a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or originating from Macedonia...
. Part of them were influenced by the Greek Patriarchate
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople , part of the wider Orthodox Church, is one of the fourteen autocephalous churches within the communion of Orthodox Christianity...
, which resulted in the formation of Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
consciousness. Greece, like all other Balkan states, adopted restrictive policies towards its minorities, namely towards its Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
population in its northern regions, as a result of the aftermath of Second Balkan war
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...
and the potential threat that Bulgaria could pose in the fear of using the pro-Bulgarian oriented minority in Greece as a "5th Phalanx". After the Balkan Wars and especially after the First World War more than 100,000 Bulgarians from Greek Macedonia moved to Bulgaria.
During 1930s a new identity parallel to the Greek and Bulgarian ones began to arose in the region of Macedonia, the Slav Macedonian (Greek: Σλαβομακεδόνας) and was initially supported by IMRO (United). In 1934 the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
issued a declaration supporting the development of the new Macedonian identity, which was admitted by the Greek Communist Party. During the 1930s under the Metaxas Regime, the government endorsed violence by nationalist bands, which sowed the seeds of bitterness that kept brewing within the local Slav-speaking population which found the opportunity to come into effect during the Second World War and the occupation of Greece by the Axis forces.
The Thessaloníki Bulgarian club
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
. The Bulgarian organised supplies of food and provisions for the Slavic-speaking population in Greek Macedonia, aiming to gain the hearts and minds of the local population that was in the German- and Italian-occupied zones. The Bulgarian clubs soon started to gain support among parts of the population. In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the High Command in organising armed units among the Slavic-speaking population in northern Greece. For this purpose, the Bulgarian army, under the approval of the Commander of the German forces in the Balkans - Field Marshal
Field Marshal
Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...
List sent a handful of officers from the Bulgarian Army, to the zones occupied by the Italian and German troops (central and west Greek Macedonia) to be attached to the German occupying forces as "liaison officers". All the Bulgarian officers brought into service were locally-born Macedonians who had immigrated to Bulgaria with their families during the 1920s and 30's as part of the Greek-Bulgarian treaty of the Neuilly which saw 90,000 Bulgarians migrating to Bulgaria from Greece and 50,000 Greeks moving the opposite direction. Most were members of pro-Bulgarian IMRO and followers of Ivan Mihailov
Ivan Mihailov
Ivan Mihailov Gavrilov , was a Bulgarian revolutionary in Ottoman and interwar Macedonia, and leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization after 1924.-Early years:...
and envisioned a Greater Bulgaria as had almost came into fruition during the Treaty of San Stefano
Treaty of San Stefano
The Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano was a treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78...
.These officers were given the objective to form armed Slavophone militias.
The Kastorian Italo-Bulgarian Committee
The initial detachments were formed in 1943 in the district of KastoriaKastoria
Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the periphery of West Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria peripheral unit. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains...
by Bulgarian agent Andon Kalchev
Andon Kalchev
Andon Kalchev was a Bulgarian Axis-collaborationist paramilitary leader active in northern Greece during the country's occupation by the Axis in the Second World War. He was one of the leaders of the Bulgarian-backed Ohrana, a paramilitary formation of Bulgarians in Greek Macedonia during World...
with the support of the head of the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
occupation authorities in Kastoria, leutanant Ravali, who armed the local villages to help combat the growing communist threat presented by the ELAS raiding the Italian occupation forces in the district. The name given to the bands armed was 'Ohrana' which in Bulgarian is defined as 'security'. The uniforms of the Ohranists were supplied by the Italians and were resplendent with shoulder patches bearing the inscription "Italo-Bulgarian Committee — Freedom or Death". The Kastorian unit was called the Macedonian Committee. The reasons of locals for taking arms varied. Some of the men were pre-war members of IMRO, and thus harbored deep nationalistic convictions, others because of pro-Nazi sentiments, some to avenge wrong doings inflicted on them by Greek authorities during the Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...
regime, and many took arms in order to defend themselves from the attacks of other Greek paramilitary and resistance movements as the latter saw them as collaboratives with the Italian, Bulgarian and German forces.
The Edessa and Florina Ohrana detachments
After their initial success in arming several villages in KastoriaKastoria
Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the periphery of West Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria peripheral unit. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains...
, Kalchev
Andon Kalchev
Andon Kalchev was a Bulgarian Axis-collaborationist paramilitary leader active in northern Greece during the country's occupation by the Axis in the Second World War. He was one of the leaders of the Bulgarian-backed Ohrana, a paramilitary formation of Bulgarians in Greek Macedonia during World...
went to the German occupied zone in order to start arming villages in Edessa
Edessa, Greece
Edessa , is a city in northern Greece and the capital of the Pella regional unit, in the Central Macedonia region of Greece. It was also the capital of the defunct province of the same name.-Name:...
region. In Edessa, with the help of the German occupation authorities, Kalchev created the Ohrana para-military unit. In 1943, Ohrana detachments counted a total of around 3,000 members and organized guerrilla activity. In the tradition of the IMRO Komitadji
Komitadji
The term Komiti meaning "a rebel, member of a secret revolutionary society", refers to members of rebel bands operating in the Balkans during the final period of the Ottoman Empire, fighting against Turkish authorities in Macedonia...
s, these bands pursued the local Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
population, including Greek-identifying Slavophones, Aromanians
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
, and Pontic Greeks
Pontic Greeks
The Pontians are an ethnic group traditionally living in the Pontus region, the shores of Turkey's Black Sea...
, seeing them as an obstacle to an all-Bulgarian Macedonia. The main leaders during the early phase of activity from 1941 to 1942 were Tsvetan Mladenov and Andon Kalchev in the Florina
Florina
Florina is a town and municipality in mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'. It is also the Metropolitan seat for the region. It lies in the central part of Florina peripheral unit, of which it is the capital. Florina belongs to the periphery of West...
prefecture, where there were 600 men under arms.
Ohrana activity
In the summer of 1944, Ohrana constituted some 12,000 local fighters and volunteers from Bulgaria charged with protection of the local population. During 1944, whole Slavophone villages were armed by the occupation authorities to counter balance the emerging power of the resistance and especially of Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS).Ohrana was also fighting pro-communist Slavic Macedonians. and Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
communists — members of the ELAS.A part of the Slavophone population, with the help of the Greek Communist Party, organized itself into SNOF, and their prime objective was to struggle occupation forces and pro-Bulgarian agents in the Ohrana, and try to persuade its members to join ELAS and fight against the occupation. Nevertheless in the summer of 1944, members of the Macedonian faction of the Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Greece
Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
were unable to distinguish friend from foe in Slav Macedonian villages. Mass involvement of the population was one of the tactics of Ohrana, which thus aims to provide good cover for its activities.
Ohrana and Mihailov's plans for Macedonia
Ohrana was supported from Ivan Mihaylov too. In August 1943, Ivan Mihailov left Zagreb incognito for Germany where he was to visit the main headquarters of the SicherheitsdienstSicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
. From German information, it is apparent that Mihailov received consent to create battalions consisting of volunteers armed with German weapons and munitions. Moreover, these battalions were to be under the operative command and disposal of Reichsfuhrer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
. Additionally, in Sofia talks were held between high-ranking functionaries of the SS and the IMRO Central Committee members. Despite the confidential character of the negotiations between Mihailov and the Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
, the Bulgarian government obtained certain information about them. In this connection to the village companies in these counties, there was also formed three volunteer battalions in Kastoria
Kastoria
Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the periphery of West Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria peripheral unit. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains...
, Florina and Edessa. These were organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and were to carry the name "IMRO Volunteer Battalions". They were formed after the arrival of the IMRO cadres from the Sofia.
Re-organization and clashes with ELAS
In spring 1944, the Germans taking up where the Italians left off, reformed, re-organized and re-armed the village companies in the Kastoria district. Soon after the villages in the Edessa and Florina districts were also armed and prepared for service. The militiamen from the Kastoria and Edessa districts were actively involved in the German anti-guerilla sweep operations. In June 1944 delegation of IMRO cadres met up with the German Commander in Edessa with whom they discussed the formation of the volunteer corps. This was in accordance with the agreement Ivan Mihailov and IMRO struck with Hitler and Himmler, which envisaged that these battalions would form the avant-garde of the whole Macedonian military effort in Western Macedonia and would spearhead the drives and sweeps against the ELAS forces. However, the guerrilla bands of EAM/ELAS soon forced Ohrana to retreat and disbanded many of its groups. In one report of Colonel Mirchev to the staff of the army on 5 June 1944, it was reported that the ELAS fighters took captive the local band consisting 28 militiamen. On 21 August 1944 ELAS successfully attacked the IMRO stronghold at the village of Polikerason. During the battle, 20 IMRO militiamen were reported killed in action and 300 militiamen were captured. In September, two IMRO companies were wiped out in the defense of Edessa by an ELAS attack.The dissolution of Ohrana
After the declaration of war by Bulgaria on Nazi GermanyNazi 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...
in September 1944 Ivan Mihaylov arrived in German-occupied Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, where the Germans hoped that he could form a Macedonian puppet-state with their support. Seeing that Germany had lost the war he refused. Ohrana was dissolved in late 1944 after their German and Bulgarian protectors were forced to withdrew from Greece. In autumn 1944 Anton Kalchev escaped northern Greece, and tried to flee with the retreating German army, but was captured in the vicinity of Bitola
Bitola
Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...
by communist partisans from Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
, and was apprehended to ELAS officials. In Thesaloniki, Kalchev was put on trial as military criminal and was sentenced to death by the Greek authorities.
After World War II the ruling Bulgarian Communists declared the Slav-speaking population in Macedonia (inclunding the Bulgarian part) as ethnic Macedonians. The organizations of the IMRO in Bulgaria were completely destroyed. Also the internment of those people disagreeing with these political activities was organized at the Belene labor camp. Tito and Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
worked about the project to merge the two Balkan countries Bulgaria and Yugoslavia into a Balkan Federative Republic according to the projects of Balkan Communist Federation
Balkan Communist Federation
The Balkan Federation was a project about the creation of a Balkan federation or confederation, based mainly on left political ideas.The concept of a Balkan federation emerged at the late 19th century from among left political forces in the region...
. This led to the 1947 cooperation and signing of Bled Agreement
Bled agreement
The Bled agreement was an agreement signed on the 1st August, 1947 in Bled, Slovenia. The agreement was signed between Bulgaria under Georgi Dimitrov and Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito which paved the way for future unification between the states in a new Balkan Federative Republic...
. It foresaw unification between Yugoslav ("Vardar") and Bulgarian ("Pirin") Macedonia, as well as a return of the so-called Western Outlands to Bulgaria. They also supported the Greek Communists and especially Slavic-Macedonian National Liberation Front in the Greek Civil War
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
with the idea of unification of Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
to the new state under Communist rule.
By this situation the Macedonian section of the Greek Communist Party created the SNOF and some of the former collaborators enlisted in the new unit. and took part in the Greek Civil War
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
on the side of the Democratic Army of Greece
Democratic Army of Greece
This article is based on a translation of an article from the Greek Wikipedia.The Democratic Army of Greece , often simply abbreviated to its initials DSE , was the army founded by the Communist Party of Greece during the Greek Civil War, 1946–1949...
. To an extent the collaboration of the peasants with the Germans
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....
, Italians, Bulgarians or ELAS was determined by the geopolitical position of each village. Depending upon whether their village was vulnerable to attack by the Greek communist guerrillas, or the occupation forces, the peasants would opt to support the side in relation to which they were most vulnerable. In both cases, the attempt was to promise "freedom" (autonomy or independence) to the formerly persecuted Slavic minority as a means of gaining its support.
Aftermath
After the Greek Civil WarGreek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
many from these people were expelled from Greece. Although the People's Republic of Bulgaria originally accepted very few refugees, government policy changed and the Bulgarian government actively sought out ethnic Macedonian refugees. It is estimated that approximately 2,500 children were sent to Bulgaria and 3,000 partisans fled there in the closing period of the war. There was a larger flow into Bulgaria of refugees as the Bulgarian Army pulled out of the Drama-Serres region in 1944. A large proportion of Slavic speakers emigrated there. The "Slavic Committee" in Sofia helped to attract refugees that had settled in other parts of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. According to a political report in 1962 the number of political emigrants from Greece numbered at 6,529. The policy of communist Bulgaria towards the refugees from Greece was, at least initially, not discriminative with regard to their ethnic origin: Greek- and Slav-speakers were both categorized as Greek political emigrants and received equal treatment by state authorities. However, certain institutions of communist Bulgaria, charged with the national policy, tried progressively to promote certain selection among them privileging Slav-speakers, frequently named ethnic Macedonians and to prescribe special measures for the attainment of their “ethnic” loyalty. Unlike the other countries in the Eastern Bloc there were no specific organizations founded to deal with specific issues relating to the child refugees, this caused many to cooperate with the "Association of Refugee Children from the Aegean part of Macedonia", an association based in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. However, the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s was marked by adecisive turn in the “Macedonistic” policy of Bulgaria, which did not recognize anymore the existence of a Macedonian ethnicity different from the Bulgarian one. As a result, the trend to a discriminative policy, the refugees from Greece – more targeted at the Slav-speakers and less to “ethnic Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
” – was given a certain proselytizing aspect. In 1960, the Bulgarian Communist Party
Bulgarian Communist Party
The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when the country ceased to be a communist state...
voted a special resolution explained “with the fact that almost all of the Macedonians have a clear Bulgarian national consciousness and consider Bulgaria their homeland. Eventually many of these migrants were assimilated into Bulgarian society.
See also
- Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)
- Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia
- Macedonian Question
- Military history of Bulgaria during World War IIMilitary history of Bulgaria during World War IIThe 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...
- Axis occupation of Greece during World War II
- National Liberation Front (Macedonia)
External links
- OHRANA and persecution of Bulgar-Macedonians by Greeks
- България и Беломорието (октомври 1940 - 9 септември 1944 г.) Военнополитически аспекти. Димитър Йончев (“Дирум”, София, 1993)
- Във и извън Македония - спомени на Пандо Младенов, Македонска Трибуна.
- Southwestern Macedonia 1941 - 1944
- "OHRANA" in Aegean Macedonia (1942-1944)- a comparative analysis.
- Modern and Contemporary Macedonia, vol. II, 64-103.Macedonia in the 1940s - Yiannis D. Stefanidis
- http://books.google.com/books?hl=bg&lr=&id=IPknoQzKm9sC&oi=fnd&pg=PA8&dq=Opfer,+Bj%C3%B6rn:+Im+Schatten+des+Krieges.&ots=62JUxHCQt7&sig=lssVcRniX56TXsCSvaFVYC1b2EM Im Schatten des Krieges. Besatzung oder Anschluss - Befreiung oder Unterdrückung?. Eine komparative Untersuchung über die bulgarische Herrschaft in Vardar-Makedonien 1915-1918 und 1941-1944 Reihe: Studien zur Geschichte, Kultur und Gesellschaft Südosteuropas Jahr: 2005 ISBN 3-8258-7997-6]