World War II in the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans. You will find a wide range of political and social views in these articles. This website does not support any 'isms or 'ists! It is solely for educational purposes.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

A German military officer converses with Kosta Pecanac (the pre-war president of the Chetniks) and Dazafer Deva (a collaborator from Kosovo) in Podvjevo.

Pećanac Chetniks. The Pećanac Chetniks, also known as the Black Chetniks were a Chetnik irregular military force which operated in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia under the leadership of vojvoda Kosta Pećanac. They were loyal to the German-backed Serbian puppet government and fought against Yugoslav Partisans and the Chetniks of Draža Mihailović from 1941 to 1943.

From the beginning Tito's claim to lead Yugoslav resistance
was challenged by Col. Dragoljub ('Draza') Mihailović, who formed in mid-I941
his mainly Serbian 'Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army' ('chetnik' is the
traditional Serbian name for guerilla) on Ravna Gora Mountain in Western
Serbia, although until March 1943 Kosta Pecanać controlled 8,000 rival Chetniks
in Macedonia. Mihailović's Chetniks had mobile (active) and territorial
companies, formed into battalions and brigades led by civilians styled
'chieftain' (vojvoda) or by Army officers. Some 10,000 Chetniks fought
alongside the Partisans in July 1941, and by 1943 there were 30,000 mobile
troops. After November 1941 Partisan-Chetnik cooperation deteriorated into
armed hostility; for Mihailović, now Minister of War to the Yugoslav
government-in-exile, and receiving Allied aid, saw in Tito a deadly rival, and
Communism as anathema to his Serbian' nationalism. After January 1943 his
troops were re-designated 'Yugoslav Army of the Homeland', fighting Germans,
Italians, Croats and Partisans alike.

Throughout 1942 Chetnik fortunes steadily improved. In
January 1943 they were re-organised, and based on a three-man 'trojka' cell.
Between 15 and 30 Trojke formed a company, three companies a battalion, three
battalions a brigade, three to five brigades a 'corps', named after a local
river or mountain and often only 2,500 strong. Troops were under ten Area
Commands-Serbia (Corps I to 37); Stari Ras (38 and 39); Montenegro-Sandjak (40
to 45); cast Bosnia-Herzegovina (46 to 54); Western Bosnia (55 to 57); Dalmatia
& Coast (58 to 63); Slovenia-Istria (64 to 67): Southern Serbia (i.e.
Macedonia) (68); Backa-Baranja; Srem. Mobile forces were extracted from these
units and designated 'Flying Brigades' and 'Shock Corps'.

With early 1943 came disaster. The Chetniks were badly
mauled by Tito at the Neretva River, and retreated from Bosnia and Montenegro
into Serbia to defend the Chetnik heartland. Meanwhile Allied aid was switched
to the Partisans, whom King Petar now recognised. In March 1944 Mihailović
re-formed his corps into 'Groups of Corps' 1 to 12, and 'Groups of Shock
Corps'. The elite 4th Group of Shock Corps, with 9,000 men, defended South-West
Serbia, but after initial success was forced back. The arrival of Soviet troops
compelled a dispirited Mihailović, now totally isolated, to retreat in October
with his depleted forces to take refuge in the Bosnian mountains. His hostility
to the Partisans had led his movement along a dangerous path, beginning with a
simple disagreement over immediate objectives, but leading in many cases to
outright collaboration with Axis forces against the Partisans. This had robbed
the Chetniks of their credibility, both at home and with the Allies.

The historical and political precedents for
the creation of a greater Sqiperia or Greater Albania was set during World War
II when the Kosovo and Metohija regions along with territory Southwest of lake
Skutari from Montenegro and the western region of Southern Serbia, or Juzna
Srbija (now part of Macedonija), were annexed to Albania by the Axis powers led
by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, under a plan devised by Benito Mussolini and
Adolf Hitler to dismember and to destroy the Serbian Nation and people, which
the Germans and Italians perceived as the main threat to the axis powers and to
the Third Reich in the Balkan.

On April 7, 1939, Italian troops invaded
and occupied Albania forcing the Albanian ruler King Zog I Ahmed Bey Zogu, to
flee to Greece. Italy formally annexed into the Kingdom of Italy under the
Italian king Victor Immanuel and established a military government and viceroy.
The Italian began a program to colonize the country when thousands of settlers
immigrated to Albania. An Albanian Fascist Party was established with Albanian
Black skirts based on Italian models. The Albanian Army consisted of three
infantry brigades of 12 000 men.

On October 28 1940, Italy invaded Greece
from Albania with 10 Italian divisions and the Albanian Army but were driven
back.

Germany sought to assist the
Italian-Albanian offensive by operation Alpine Violet, a plan to move a corps
of tree German mountain divisions to Albania by air and sea. Instead German
built up a heavy concentration of the German Twelfth Army on the northwest
Greek Border with Bulgaria, from where the German invasion was launched.

On April 6, 1941, Nazi Germany and the axis
powers invaded Yugoslavia, Operation Punishment, and Greece forcing the
capitulation of Yugoslavia on the 17th, and Greece on the 23rd. Yugoslavia was
subsequently occupied and dismembered. The Axis powers established a greater
Albania or greater Shqiperia at the expense of Serbia and Montenegro. Territory
from Montenegro was annexed to Greater Albania. From Serbia, the Kosovo and
Metohija were ceded to greater Albania, along with the western part of Southern
Serbia (Juzna Srbija), now part of Macedonia, an area which was part of Stara
Srbija (Ancient Old Serbia). This Kosovo-metohija region and the surrounding
territory annexed to Greater Albania was called "New Albania".

To create an ethnically pure Shqiptar
Kosovo, which Albanian called "Kosova", the Shqiptari (Albanians)
launched a wide scale campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Ethnic Serbs
in the Kosovo-Metohija regions were massacred, and their homes were burned, and
survivors were brutally driven out and expelled in policy of ethnic cleansing
and genocide.

The Balli Kombetar (BK or National Union)
was an Albanian nationalist group led by Midhat Fresheri and Ali Klissura whose
political objective was to in incorporate Kosovo-Metohija into a Greater
Albania and to ethnically cleanse the region of Orthodox Serbs

The Abanian Committee of Kosovo organized
massive campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian
inhabitants of Kosovo- Metohuja. A contemporary report described the ethnic
cleansing and genocide of Serbs as follows:

Armed with material supplied by the
Italians, the Albanians hurled themselves against helpless settlers in their
homes and villages. According to the most reliable sources, the Albanian burned
many Serbian settlements, killing some of the people and driving out others who
escaped to the mountains. At present other Serbian settlement are being
attacked and the property of individuals and of communities is either being
confiscated or destroyed. It is not possible to ascertain at the present time
the exact number of victims of those atrocities, but it may be estimated that
at least between 30.000 and 40.000 perished.

Bedri Pejani, the Muslim leader of the
Albanian National committee, called for the extermination of Ortodox Serbian
Christians in Kosovo Metohija and for a union of a Greater Albania with Bosnia
and Herzegovina and the Rashka (Sandzak) region of Serbia, into a great Islamic
state. The grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El Husseini was presented to
Pejani a plan which he approved as a being in the interest of Islam. The
Germans however rejected the plan.

On September 3, 1943, Italy capitulated by
signing an armistice with the Allies. The German were now forced to occupy
Albania with the collapse of the Italian forces. The Germans sent the 100th
Jaeger Division from Greece and the 297th Infantry Division from Serbia and the
German 1st Mountain Division to occupy Albania. These troops were organized
into the XXI Mountain Corps which was under the command of General Paul Bader.

Additional security forces for the interior
were needed, however, to free up Germans troops for defense of the coastline.
The decision was made to form an Albanian SS mountain division for this
purpose. In April in 1944, recruitment for the Albanian SS division began under
direction of the newly formed Albanian Nazi party, which has been formed
through the efforts of Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Acting upon instructions of
Reichsfuehrer SS Henrich Himmler, the SS main office ordered the formation of
an Albanian volunteer mountain division on April 17, 1944. SS Brigadefuehrern
and Generalmajor of the Waffen SS Josef Fitzhum, who headed the Higher SS and
Police Command in Albania, oversaw the forming and training of the division.

The SS high Command planned to create a
mountain division of 10.000 men. The Higher SS and Police Command in Albania,
in conduction with the Albanian National Committee, listed 11.398 possible
recruits for the Waffen SS mountain division. Most of these recruits were
"kossovars", shqiptar Ghegs from Kosovo Metohija in Serbia. The
Shqiptar Tosks were found mainly in southern Albania. Most of the Shqiptar
collaborators with the Nazi forces were the Nazi forces were the so-called
Kossovars, ethnic Shqiptars from the Kosmet of Serbia. The Nazi
German-sponsored Albanian gendarmes, special police and para-military units
were made up by Kossovars. The Kossovars were under the direct control of the
Albanian Interior Minister Xhafer Deva.

The Skanderbeg Division was formed and
trained in Kosovo and was made up mostly of Muslim Shqiptar Kossovars. There
were only a small number of Albanians from Albania proper in the division. The
Skanderbeg Mountain Division of the Waffen SS was thus essentially a Kosovo or
Kosmet Division. The Division was stationed and operated in Kosovo and other
Serbian regions almost exclusively.

Of the 11.398 recruits listed for the
Division, 9.275 were ascertained to be suitable to draft in the Waffen SS. Of
those suitable to be drafted, 6.491 Albanian were chosen and inducted into the
Skanderbeg Division. To this Albanian core were added veteran German troops
primarily Reichdeutsche from Austria and Volkdeutcshe officers, NCOs, and
enlisted men, transferred from the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz
Eugen" which was stationed in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Kosovo Albanian 21st
Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" consisted in total of
8.500 - 9.000 men of all ranks. The 6.491 Shqiptar recruits were assembled at
depots in Kosovo where the formation and the training of the division began.

The official designation for the division
was 21 Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" (Albanische Nr 1).
The SS Main Office designed a distinctive arm patch for the division,
consisting of a black double-headed eagle on a red background, the national
symbol of Albania. The word "Skanderbeg", embroidered in white,
appeared above the eagle and was warn on the left sleeve. The right collar
patch consisted of a helmet with a goat's head on top, the helmet supposedly
worn by George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, after whom the division was named. The
Shqiptars recruits in the division wore a white skullcap, the national attire
of the Shqiptar Ghegs. The SS main office also issued gray skullcaps with the
Totenkopf (death's head) insignia sewn on the front below the Hoheitszeichen
(the national symbol of Nazi Germany, consisting of a white eagle over a Nazi
swastika).

Division was named after George Kastrioti,
or Gjergj Kastriota, also as Kastriotis (1405-1468), national hero of Albania,
who fought for the Ottoman Turks. As a child, Kastrioti was given as a hostage
to Sultan Murat II to be brought as a Muslim at Adrianople (Edrine). Kastrioti
became an officer in the Ottoman Turkish army and led the Turkish forces in
many victories over Christian troops. Murat II was impressed with his valor and
bravery in his battle for Islam and gave him the name Iskander Bey in Turkish,
from "Iskander", Aleksander the Great, or prince Aleksander, and
"bey", master. The name was shortened to Skanderbeg, beg being the
local variant of bey. Later Kastrioti renounced Islam and converted to Christianity
and attacked his former Ottoman Turkish masters. He captured the Albanian
capital Kroja from the Turkish governor and proclaimed a revolt against the
Turks in 1442. Sultan Mohammed II sent Turkish armies to defeat the renegade
Kastrioti, but he was able to defeat Turkish forces, which besieged Kroja but
could not capture it. Kastrioti died in 1468. Kroja surrendered in 1479 and the
Turks occupied Albania.

The Albanians in the Skanderbeg Division
were mostly Muslims, of the Bektashi and Sunni sects of Islam. The division
contained several hundred Albanian Catholics, followers of Jon Marko Joni.

The first commander of the Skanderbeg
division was SS Brigadefuehrer Generalmajor of the Waffen SS Josef Fitshum, who
commanded the division from April to June 1944. After the Juli 20,
assassination plot against Hitler, Fitzhum was appointed supreme commander in
Albania. In June, SS Stardentenfuehrer August Schmidhuber was appointed
division commander, a post would hold until August 1944. On June 21, 1944, Schmidhuber
was promoted to SS Oberfuehrer and later in the war, he would be promoted to SS
Brigadefuhrer. SS Oberstrumbannfuhrer Alfred Graf commanded the reorganized
remnants of the Skanderbeg Division from August 1944, to may, 1945.

The Shultzstaffel or SS was created in the
period 1923-1925 and was initially known as the Stosstrupp (Shock troop)
"Adolf Hitler". On January 16, 1929, Hitler appointed Heinrich
Himmler leader of SS, Reichsfuehrer SS. The SS was envisioned as an elite troop
of the Party, a praetorian bodyguard to Hitler and the Nazi leadership. The SS
was a formation "composed of the best physically, the most dependable, and
the most faithful men in the Nazi movement. In 1940, combat units of the SS
were formed, collectively termed the Waffen SS. Approximately 30-40 Waffen SS
divisions were formed during the war, divided into three groupings, Waffen
divisions made by Germans, those made up of ethnic Germans outside the Reich,
and those made up of non-Germans. "Divisions der SS", Divisions of the
SS.

On September 27,1939, Reichsfuehrer SS
Heinrich Himmler as Chief of German Police consolidated the Gestapo, Kripo, and
SD under an SS Main Office of Reich Security, or the RSHA. The RSHA was the
actual body entrusted with the overall administration of the final solution at
the Jewish Problem, what became known as the Holocaust. The SS Economic and
administrative Main Office or WVHA, run the concentration camp system. Nazi
concentration camp personnel and guards, although not under the command of the Army
or the Kommandoamt der Waffen SS, nevertheless, wore Waffen SS uniforms and
received Waffen SS pay books. Reichfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler oversaw a
program that resulted in the extermination of millions of men, women and
children. Himmler was the Architect of genocide and of the Holocaust and the
Waffen SS was his "private army", the black angels".

In Jun,1944, The Skanderbeg Waffen SS
Mountain Division engaged in large-scale field manoeuvres in the area between
the towns of Berane and Adrijevica in Monte Negro (Crna Gora). Garrisons of
Skanderbeg division were established in Kosovo towns of Pec, Jakova, Prizren,
and Pristina. Further training of the division continued in August as new
recruits were inducted in the division. An artillery battalion of the division,
consisting of two batteries, was located in Gnjilane.

The first major action of the division
occurred in August, 144 in Kosovo. In September, 1944, the Skanderbeg division
occupied the Southern Serbia (Juzna Srbija) region now part of the communist
created republic of Macedonia, and helped to garrison the region. The
Skanderbeg division was ordered into the areas surrounding the towns Skoplje
(or Skopje), Kumanovo Presevo and Bujanovac. Sanderbeg operated in Stara
Serbija (old and Ancient Serbia) region, in the towns of Pec,
Gnjilane,Djakovica, Tetovo Gostivar, and Kosovska Mitrovica, then part of
Kosovo Metohija and Southern Serbia.

In November, 1944, when the German armies
in the Balkan were retreating from Yugoslavia and the Balkans, the Skanderbeg
division remnants were reorganized into Regimentegruppe 21 SS Gebirgs
"Skanderbeg" and was transferred to Skoplje, according to one account
of the movements of the Battle group. This SS Kampfgruppe
"Skanderbeg", along with the Prinz Eugen Division, defended the
Vardar valley. The battle group "Skanderbeg" and Prinz Eugen held the
Vardar area because it was the sole corridor of escape for the retreating
German armies in Alexander Loehr's Army Group E, which was retreating from
Greece and Aegean Islands.

The Skanderbeg Battle Group along with the
Prinz Eugen Division retreated to the to the Brcko region of Bosnia-Herzegovina
by mid-January 1945. At this time the remaining Skanderbeg personnel were
incorporated into the 14th SS Volunteer Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 7th
SS division Prinz Eugen. The remnants of the Skanderbeg Division fought in this
formation until the end of the war, retreating to Austria in May, 1945.

The Skanderbeg division engaged in a policy
of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Serbian Orthodox Christian
populations of the regions under occupation by the division in Kosovo Metohija,
Montenegro, and southern Serbia. Balkan Historian Robert Lee Wolff, in the
"Balkans in Our time", described the genocide committed against
Kosovo Serbs by the Shqiptar 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS Skenderbeg as
follows:

In the regions annexed by the Albanians,
their so-called Skanderbeg division, made up of members of the Albanian
minority in Yugoslavia, massacred Serbs with impunity.

Historian L.H. Stavrianos, in "The
Balkan Since 1453", described the genocide committed against Orthodox
Serbs by the Shqiptar Skanderbeg Division in these terms: Yugoslav Albanians,
organized in their fascist Skanderbeg Division, conducted an indiscriminate
massacre of Serbians.

The Skanderbeg Division played a role in
the Holocaust, the genocide if European Jewry, by rounding up scores of Kosovo
Jews in a group roughly 500 persons deemed enemies of the Third Reich when the
division occupied Prizren in Kosovo Metohija. The division sought to create
ethnically pure Kosovo, ethnically cleansed of Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies
the untermenschen (subhuman), who were targeted for extermination.

The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared
the Shutzstaffel or SS criminal organization and every individual member of SS
was found to be a war criminal guilty of "planning and carrying out crimes
against humanity". The Shqiptar Kosovars in the 21st Waffen Gebirgs
Division "Skanderbeg" committed war crimes and genocide against the
Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The Shqiptar planned and carried out
crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Orthodox Serbians of Kosovo were the victims
of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This genocide would contribute in the Shqiptar
goal and policy to create an ethnically pure, Shqiptar Kosovo, in an attempt to
create a greater Shqiperia or greater Albania. Following World war II, the
Yugoslav Communist dictatorship allowed the policy of ethnic cleansing and
genocide against the Orthodox Serbs to continue, and indeed, gave greater
impetus and legitimacy to the policy.

---

During World War II, the Axis powers
dismembered and occupied Yugoslavia and created a greater Albania by annexing
the Serbian region of Kosovo-Metohija by Nazi Germany, Germany formed a
Shqiptar "Kosovar" Waffen SS Division, the 21st Waffen Gebirgs
Division der SS "Skanderbeg" which engaged in a policy of ethnic
cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The
result was that the Shqiptars, with the help of Germany, were able to virtually
exterminate the Serbian and Jews populations of Kosovo, thereby creating an
ethnically pure, Nazi German-sponsored Greater Albania or Greater Shqiperia.

In the Balkans (Yugoslavia and Greece) German forces were
supplemented by sizable Italian forces and by equally strong Croatian and
Bosnian collaborationist contingents (about eight to ten divisions' worth).
This increased the number of occupying troops to about the same as those in
France. Despite these additional forces, the Balkans were the most restless
area in the Nazi empire, and about 24,000 German troops died there during the
war, plus many more Italians and pro-Axis locals (who also kept large parts of
the Balkans relatively pro-German and quiet). In contrast, only about 12,000
Germans were killed during the North African campaign.

The Germans invaded Yugoslavia in early 1941, but Italians
(who had attacked Albania in 1939) comprised most of the occupation troops
until 1943, abetted by locally recruited Croat and Bosnian collaborators. A
Resistance formed immediately, but because of the multicultural composition of
Yugoslavia, and the enmity between Communists and monarchists, there was more
fighting between partisans than with the occupying Italians.

The Invasion of Yugoslavia (code-name Directive 25 or Operation 25) was the Axis powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The invasion ended with the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April 1941, the annexation and occupation of the region by the Axis powers and the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH).

The Italian Second Army crossed the border soon after the Germans. They faced the Yugoslavian Seventh Army. The Italians encountered limited resistance and occupied parts of Slovenia, Croatia, and the coast of Dalmatia. In addition to the Second Army, Italy had four divisions of the Ninth Army on the Yugoslavian border with Albania. These formations were so situated against a Yugoslav offensive on that front. Around 300 Ustaše volunteers under the command of Ante Pavelic accompanied the Italian Second Army during the invasion; about the same number of Ustaše were attached to the German Army and other Axis allies.

The Independent State of Croatia was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. The state was technically a monarchy and Italian protectorate from the signing of the Rome agreements on 19 May 1941 until the Italian capitulation on 8 September 1943; but the king-designate, the Prince Aimone of Savoy-Aosta, refused to assume the kingship in opposition to the Italian annexation of the Croat-populated Yugoslav region of Dalmatia.

After Italy left
the war in 1943, German troops took over the occupation. The partisans grabbed
many of the Italians' weapons, and many anti-Fascist Italians even joined the
partisans: One whole division more or less went over to them intact. While the
Italians had usually been relatively easygoing during their occupation, the
Germans were a lot tougher. Many of the non-Communist partisans collaborated
with the Italians, and then with the Germans, to gain advantage over the
Communist groups. Moreover, the Communist partisans were largely Serbs, while
the monarchists were largely Croats. The other ethnic groups in Yugoslavia also
tended to take sides against each other rather than against the occupying army.
The Germans took advantage of this; to the extent that they raised two SS
divisions comprised of Muslim Yugoslavs and then turned them loose on Christian
civilians and partisans. Still, the partisans were a tough bunch and the
Germans managed to assist the guerrillas by butchering suspected partisan
sympathizers. This turned more of the population, and partisans, against the
Germans. By this time, the Allies realized that, although they had been sending
most of their aid to the non-Communist partisans, it was the Communist
partisans led by Josip Broz (Tito) who were most energetically fighting the
Germans. So by late 1943, the Allies got behind Tito and his Communist
partisans. Throughout 1944, the partisans became stronger and stronger, and
eventually, the Yugoslavs earned the distinction of being the only partisan
army to liberate its own country without the aid of Allied troops. The Yugoslav
partisans were even able to keep the Red Army out of the country. Meanwhile, by
the end of the war, the non-Communist groups in the country were disarmed (and
many killed) and a Communist government set up.

About Me

Mitch Williamson is a technical writer with an
interest in military and naval affairs. He has published articles in
Cross & Cockade International and Wartime magazines. He was
research associate for the Bio-history Cross in the Sky, a book about
Charles 'Moth' Eaton's career, in collaboration with the flier's son,
Dr Charles S. Eaton. He also assisted in picture research for John
Burton's Fortnight of Infamy.
Mitch is now publishing on the WWW various specialist websites combined
with custom website design work.