Milan Nedic

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Milan Nedić (around 1939)

Milan Nedić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Милан Недић ; born September 2, 1878 in Grocka , † February 4, 1946 in Belgrade ) was a Serbian officer and politician . He was Serbian Prime Minister in the initial puppet government (officially: " Government of National Salvation "; Serbian Влада Националног Спаса Vlada Nacionalnog Spasa ) of the armed forces occupied Serbia .

Career

After finishing high school in Kragujevac , Nedić entered the Niš Military Academy in 1895 and after graduation became a sub-lieutenant in the royal army. As a first lieutenant he attended the higher military academy in order to be accepted into the Serbian general staff in 1904 after completing general staff training. He was promoted to major in 1910 and lieutenant colonel in 1913 after receiving a number of awards and medals of bravery during the First Balkan War . In 1915 he was promoted to colonel . During the First World War he served on the General Staff as the youngest colonel in the Serbian army. From November 1915 to January 1916 his troops covered the Serbian withdrawal from Montenegro and Albania . In 1916 he was appointed orderly officer of King Peter I of Serbia . In September 1918 he commanded the Timok Division's infantry brigade during the Serbian breakthrough near Thessaloniki .

Nedić (front left) in 1934

After the war he was Chief of Staff of the 4th and 3rd Armies and Commander of the Drava Division. In 1923 he was promoted to division general and in 1930 he was promoted to army general. Between 1934 and 1935 he was Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army.

On August 26, 1939, Nedić became Minister of War of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . Regarding a possible entry into the war of Yugoslavia against the Nazi-ruled Germany, he was unwilling, although the most important ally, France , was defeated and occupied. According to Nedić, Yugoslavia did not have enough soldiers and weapons to survive an armed conflict with Germany or fascist Italy . He was also of the opinion that Yugoslavia must collaborate with the Axis powers , also at the cost of territorial losses in Dalmatia , Vojvodina and Macedonia . This brought him into opposition with the generals who did not surrender without a fight and wanted to evade to Greece and North Africa if necessary , whereupon Prince Regent Paul dismissed him as Minister of War on November 6, 1940.

Dominion over Serbia

After his appointment as Serbian military commander in July 1941, General Heinrich Danckelmann decided to entrust Nedić with the administration of the country. Although Dimitrije Ljotić offered to collaborate, Danckelmann decided, also at the suggestion of Serbs willing to collaborate , for a person who had a certain reputation among the people. Nedić initially refused, but after long negotiations he finally agreed. Shortly before, Nedić had lost his only son and pregnant daughter-in-law in an ammunition explosion in Smederevo , but on August 29, 1941, he accepted the post of prime minister in the so-called "government of national rescue". On September 1, 1941, Nedić gave a speech on Radio Belgrade in which he explained his government intentions: In order to “save the biological preservation of the Serbian people”, he accepted the occupation; therefore he worked with the Germans. He also rejected any resistance to the foreign occupying power. Together with Ljotić, Nedić wanted to pacify Serbia and eliminate the communist partisans and Chetniks unwilling to collaborate . To this end, he was assured of 50,000 men as state guards in the negotiations with Danckelmann , which the German side was reluctant to comply with.

The Serbian government under Nedić took in numerous refugees: around 600,000 adults and 86,000 children of Serbian descent from the western part of Yugoslavia (today's Croatia and Bosnia ), which was under the control of the Ustasha regime , as well as 150,000 Serbs from Kosovo i Metohija , 10,000 Serbs from Syrmia and the Hungarian-controlled Batschka and up to 30,000 Croatians and Slovenes , including the young Milan Kučan . However, over 200,000 people were also killed in Serbia: 67,000 partisan fighters, 69,000 Chetniks and 70,000 civilians who were killed in concentration camps and through German “expiatory measures”. For example, for every German soldier killed, a hundred Serbs were murdered, for example in the Kraljevo and Kragujevac massacres .

In mid-1942, the Germans declared Serbia " free of Jews ". In occupied Serbia 6,478 libraries, 1,670 schools, 30 universities, 19 museums, seven theaters, 52 Orthodox churches and monasteries, 216 mosques, 63 synagogues and over 60 different educational institutions were destroyed or looted.

In 1943, Hitler forbade the German authorities to influence the internal political affairs of the country. However, military affairs remained firmly in German hands, and every military action by the Serbian state guard had to be examined and approved by German military commanders. Nedić gained a confidante in Hermann Neubacher , the special representative of the Foreign Office at the German military commander. Together with Neubacher, he wanted to draw a new line in favor of Serbia with Hitler, but the latter refused.

On October 4, 1944, the Nedić government was dissolved. On October 6th, he and several members of the government fled Belgrade to Kitzbühel, Austria . On January 1, 1946, the British forces delivered him to what was now communist Yugoslavia . Nedić was imprisoned in Belgrade and subjected to regular interrogations, led by Major Milo Milatović , using torture and drugs .

On February 5, 1946, a message was published in Yugoslav newspapers that Milan Nedić had committed suicide by jumping out of a window in an unguarded moment.

Fonts

  • Srpska vojska na albanskoj golgoti [The Serbian Army on the Albanian Golgotha ] . Belgrade 1932.

literature

  • Milan Ristović: General M. Nedić - Dictatorship, Collaboration and the Patriarchal Society of Serbia . In: Erwin Oberländer (Ed.): Authoritarian Regime in East Central and Southeast Europe 1919–1944 . Paderborn 2001, p. 633-687 .
  • Franz W. Seidler: The collaboration. 1939-1945 . Herbig Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-7766-1908-2 .
  • Holm Sundhaussen: Nedić, Milan Dj. In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, pp. 298-301

Web links

Commons : Milan Nedić  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Nenad Petrovic: Politička propaganda u Srbiji okupiranoj: Well primerima Milana Nedića, Velibora Jonica i Dimitrija Ljotića. August 19, 2003