Terror in the Balkans (33 page)

the 718th apprehended seven Ustashe under the terms of this particu-

lar directive.76 The 718th’s divisional command, meanwhile, directed

that the troops distinguish between those found guilty and those merely

under suspicion, and that civilians who had aided the insurgents be

interned rather than shot. It also stressed that it was essential to glean

information from villagers rather than simply kill or terrorize them.77

176
terror in the balk ans

Following on the heels of the combat troops was the Wehrmacht’s

own Field Gendarmerie, strengthened by the Croatian army and the

Croatian gendarmerie. The Field Gendarmerie’s operations, according

to General Bader, went a considerable way towards quieting the pop-

ulation. After only a short time, the population was “placing limitless

trust in the measures of the German Wehrmacht.”78 A large proportion

of the inhabitants, who for fear of the Ustasha had fl ed into the woods,

now returned. Leafl ets and proclamations called on all inhabitants to

return to their homes and work peacefully. When the livestock the 718th

Infantry Division had gathered during the operations was redistributed

among the population, including refugees, it had “a particularly benefi -

cial effect upon the population’s mood.”79 The 718th was confi dent that

such measures could, among other things, counter some of the propa-

ganda messages the Partisans were spreading. “The Partisan commis-

sars,” according to the division’s intelligence section, “are telling their

followers that the Germans will soon leave the country because Turkey

has declared war on Germany. Our soldiers are easily able to dismiss

these rumors as nonsense.”80

And the 718th’s own troops were following the lead from above. The

738th Infantry Regiment’s second battalion, for example, burned down

houses and settlements on the way to Borovrat and arrested their male

inhabitants, but shot “only” fi ve suspect civilians.81 Brutal conduct

indeed, but it might have been more brutal still. Battle Group Wüst went

into detail over its tribulations, but showed that it too realized that lashing

out in response was less sensible than seeking to win the population over:

4/24/42: The poorest progress by night, through heavy rain and on

softened ground. The women and children left behind display great

anxiety over the Ustasha. The area gradually becomes steeper and

more lined with cliffs, the differences in altitude increase.

4/26/42: The differences in altitude on the route of march exceed

anything hitherto encountered in this operation . . . The population

claims that during the two days previously the Ustasha systemati-

cally plundered the villages, abducting people and cattle and laying

houses to waste.

Glimmers of Sanity
177

4/27/42: The population (of Rogatica) was cut off for months and

has suffered massive hunger. There have been accounts from all

sides that people have been eating grass. There was a heartfelt recep-

tion for the German troops, refl ecting the hopes of a better future

in the people’s emaciated faces. All inhabitants turned out onto the

streets to greet their liberators.82

Though this may be an overly rosy account of the reception the Germans

received, the inhabitants’ relief that the Germans’ presence could pre-

vent the Ustasha from slaughtering them was probably profound. Mind-

ful of this, on April 25 the 718th Infantry Division ordered Battle Group

Wüst to send out patrols to identify which Croatian units were burning

down villages behind Axis lines.83

Operation Trio II/Focˇa—in which the 718th was also involved—fi nally

put enough pressure on Tito’s Partisans to push them into embarking

on a “long march” from eastern to western Bosnia. The trek, beginning

on June 24, involved four thousand Partisans. The leadership blamed

the need for withdrawal not just on the military pressure from the opera-

tions, but also on the damage to morale caused by “Nedicíte” fi fth col-

umnists.84 Ultimately, however, the Trio operations, like the winter

operations before them, failed to actually destroy Partisan forces to a

decisive extent. Serbia Command admitted as much in a report that nev-

ertheless tried to talk up the operations’ success:

Through the actions of Combat Group General Bader in “Trio I and

Focˇa,” the
uprising
in the German area of
eastern Bosnia
has been

smashed,
and is now limited only to small local attacks. The pur-

suit of the bandit remnants is in full swing. The pacifi cation opera-

tions are beginning to take effect. The population is returning to its

homes and has to an extent begun to work again. But only German

leadership, the presence of German troops and the proper imple-

mentation of German administrative measures can ensure that the

limited successes achieved so far can be fully exploited.85

178
terror in the balk ans

In other words—reading between the lines—the Partisans had not been

destroyed and were still active, and in trying to destroy them the Ger-

mans faced a colossal task they were unable to entrust to anyone else.

The 718th conceded that the best it could do was either to try to prevent

the Partisans from returning to the region or to hinder their attempts to

slip away to the relative safety of the Italian zone.86

The operations’ failure to achieve more had many other causes also:

the Partisans’ elusiveness and, increasingly, their combativeness; the

defective state of the Croats’ fi ghting power, and the paltry “assistance”

rendered by the Italians.87 To Trio II/Focˇa, for instance, the Italians com-

mitted three divisions, but they were too slow to close the ring around

the Partisans as directed.88

But this time, the operations’ shortcomings seem to have further ener-

gized German efforts to cultivate the population rather than rely entirely

on military measures and terror measures.89 Bader pleaded for more con-

structive policies. He wanted the German forces in the NDH to induce

the Croatian government to ensure religious freedom, resettle refugees,

prevent Ustasha attacks, and punish the perpetrators of the crimes the

Ustasha had already committed.90 Fortner, for the 718th, went even fur-

ther; on at least one occasion he authorized the release of enemy deserters

irrespective of which particular insurgent movement they belonged to.91

In June, the Italians struck a deal with the Croats whereby the Croats

assumed responsibility for civilian and police administration in Zone II

and for civilian and military administration in Zone III. The Italians’

main aim, alongside a desire to placate the Croats, was to reduce their

military commitment to more manageable levels.92 This was symptom-

atic of an Italian anti-Partisan “campaign” marked by increasing caution,

the abandonment of important strongpoints, and the arming of increas-

ingly uncontrollable Chetnik groups. While the deal gave the Croats a

freer hand in these areas initially, it ultimately created an administra-

tive void that would eventually be fi lled by the Partisans. The Croatian

civilian commissar in Glaise’s offi ce perceived that Roatta was simply

trying to pacify his jurisdiction on the cheap, and spin it as some kind

of success to his rival Italian generals.93 Serbia Command reported that

Glimmers of Sanity
179

a vacuum ensued in these regions as soon as the Italians implemented

their plan.94

But the Partisans’ eventual triumph was still not assured. Quite apart

from anything else, they still faced enormous obstacles to overcoming

their Chetnik opponents. Chetnik propaganda, though disorganized,

peddled what was for many Bosnian Serbs a potent as well as chauvin-

istic message.95 Back in January, in a misguided attempt to entice waver-

ing elements and split the Chetnik movement, the east Bosnian Partisans

had resolved to form “volunteer units” of Chetniks, under Partisan com-

mand but with a degree of autonomy. Yet these units proved of dubious

loyalty at best. Indeed, the Axis offensives of April to June 1942 embold-

ened some “volunteer” Chetniks to attempt coups in several Partisan for-

mations.96 Individual Partisan units, at odds with the more sensible line

now directed by their central leadership, also weakened their support

by continuing to commit the kinds of brutal sectarian excesses—pur-

portedly against fi fth columnists—that could cripple their wider appeal.

In eastern Herzegovina in particular, all these factors eroded the Parti-

san movement’s strength to such a degree that the Trio/Focˇa offensives

merely provided the fi nal push that destroyed it there.97

Yet, overall, the Partisans took more steps forward than backward

during spring and summer 1942. Even the losses they had sustained

in battle came to their aid. For the destruction of poorer-quality units

enabled them to concentrate more committed fi ghters in elite units.98

Proletarian brigades, as mobile forces without affi liation to any particu-

lar region, gave them an edge in combat, even though, as “outsiders,”

they were often viewed with hostility in Bosnian Serb areas. The Par-

tisans also imported the NOOs onto Bosnian territory and intensifi ed

their propaganda campaign.99

One aim of the Partisans’ propaganda effort was to wean their Serb

rank and fi le off the Great Serbian idea. To this end, they also imported

workers and students from the towns and thereby increased the element

within the Partisans that harbored civic, multinational, “Bosnian” val-

ues. They also increasingly engaged with religious groups. In order to

attract support from Croats, Muslims, and Serbs, the Partisans often

employed language designed to pit the “working masses” against the

bourgeoisie in all three ethnic groups. A further perennial theme of

180
terror in the balk ans

Partisan propaganda was the treacherous and reactionary nature of the

government-in-exile with which the Mihailovic´ movement was so closely

associated. Organization and control improved at the Partisans’ lower

levels also. From June 1942, they made ever greater use of “mobile” bat-

talion- and detachment-level commissars. These were usually of consid-

erably higher quality than the company-level commissars. The following

month, in order to drive home the advantage that this measure created,

the movement’s Operational Staff decreed that all new recruits must

undergo political instruction.100

Further, given that the Partisans’ burgeoning combat effectiveness

increasingly enabled them to protect the population against the Ustasha,

the Ustasha’s murderous persecution of the Serbs was increasingly likely

to feed the fl ow of Partisan volunteers. The dire state of Croatian admin-

istration, and the Germans’ own thinly-stretched manpower, made it

harder still for the Germans to keep the Ustasha’s barbaric conduct in

check. In June and July’s German-led Operation Kozara, for instance,

the SS reported that the Ustasha was killing the old, orphaned, and

chronically ill among the deportees. In August, the Ustasha was able

to wage a campaign of mass killing in the Syrmian lowlands by taking

advantage of the absence of German troops busily combating Partisans

in the Fruška mountains.101

Meanwhile, German army commanders responded to the burgeoning

Partisan threat by reasserting their faith in “systematic and organized”

terror. Operation Kozara was executed by Combat Group West Bosnia,

headed by General Stahl of the 714th Infantry Division. The immediate

spur for the offensive was the Partisans’ capture of Prijedor and its mine

works, and the severe disruption to communications that had followed.

Kozara saw thirty thousand German and Croatian troops, including

four battalions of the 714th Infantry Division newly arrived from Ser-

bia,102 pitted against thirty-fi ve hundred Partisans. But this was also an

operation against civilians. No serious attempt was made to distinguish

between “guilty” and “innocent,” and in a new and unusual develop-

ment for the Yugoslav campaign, all men over fourteen seized during the

operation were to be held in camps or deported as labor to the Reich. In

the event, the Ustasha murdered huge numbers of civilians seized in the

operation in its concentration camp at Jasenovac.103

Glimmers of Sanity
181

Operation Kozara, which also had support from the air and from the

Hungarian Danube Flotilla, infl icted very heavy losses on the Partisans

in western Bosnia.104 But it failed to pacify the region permanently. Once

the bulk of German and Croatian troops had been withdrawn after the

operation, no effective attempt was made to keep the region pacifi ed with

comprehensive hearts and minds measures, a permanent German troop

presence, or frequent and numerous hunter group patrols. Other opera-

tions which the Germans executed in western Bosnia that summer, even

those which enjoyed some short-term success, similarly failed to achieve