Partisans in Yugoslavia

By late 1941, the first partisan bands were attacking German and Italian troops throughout the country. The Yugoslav partisan movement was at first split between royalist groups of mainly Serbian origin and the communists led by Josip Broz, better known as Marshal Tito. Skilful manoeuvrings by the Germans brought many of the royalists, or Chetniks, over to their cause, which led Hitler to think he had little to worry about in Yugoslavia. The Croats had been pro-German since before the 1941 invasion, and they proved some of the most loyal allies during the anti-partisan campaign in Yugoslavia. Tito's communist partisans soon proved highly effective, and their nationalist ideals inspired an increasing number of Yugoslavs to resist their occupiers. His partisans became a thorn in the side of German occupation forces in the Balkans. In three years of war, Tito managed to raise a large partisan force in the mountainous interior of Yugoslavia, tying down 700,000 German and allied troops by early 1944.

The Prinz Eugen Division

In early 1942, the growing partisan threat and the apparent inability of the Wehrmacht garrison to deal with it led Himmler to take a greater interest in events in Yugoslavia. The Waffen-SS was ordered to raise a division specifically to help in the anti-partisan effort. The 7th SS Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was mobilized in Serbia in March 1942, recruited mainly from so-called ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from Southeastern Europe, with a core of Austrians to provide the mountaineering expertise. Its first commander, Artur Phleps, would become a key figure in the German Yugoslav campaign. A few dozen captured French Renault and Soviet tanks were provided to give the division some armoured firepower. Higher SS and Police Leaders also set about recruiting Croats into the local police, including some moulded into a pseudo SS-style unit dubbed the Einsatzstaffel, and 15,000 auxiliary policemen who formed 15 Schuma-style battalions. Some 10 Serbian auxiliary battalions and 2 Albanian police regiments were created. These men formed the nucleus of future Waffen-SS divisions recruited from Yugoslavia.

The Prinz Eugen Division took part in a series of German search-and-destroy operations in the mountains along the Serbian-Montenegrin border during the autumn of 1942. These were aimed at surrounding suspected partisan bases, and then sweeping through them to capture or kill any partisans and civilians suspected of aiding them. At first the operations were small-scale affairs involving a few battalions, but as the size of the partisan bands began to expand the Germans had to resort to multi-divisional operations.

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