People's Liberation Army (Yugoslavia)

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Propaganda picture of the People's Liberation Army with the slogan “All take up arms!” (Between 1941 and 1945).

The People's Liberation Army ( Serbo-Croatian  Narodnooslobodilačka vojska / Народноослободилачка војска , Slovenian Narodnoosvobodilna vojska , November ) was founded in 1941 and belonged to the military part of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and Josip Broz Tito led People's Liberation Movement ( Serbo-Croatian  Narodnooslobodilački Pokret , NOP). Their relatives were therefore called Tito partisans .

During the Second World War , the People's Liberation Army fought in Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945 against the Nazi and fascist occupying powers of Germany and Italy . Their struggle was also aimed at the local collaborators , especially the Croatian armed forces , the Slovenian Home Guard and the Serbian Draža-Mihailović-Chetniks . Later she also fought the organizations of the Italian, German ( AVNOJ resolutions ) and the Hungarian minority ( Délvidéki vérengzések ).

The asymmetrical warfare actually waged by the People's Liberation Army gave way long before the end of the war to a combination of frontal and partisan warfare, which later became the official defense doctrine of socialist Yugoslavia . The People's Liberation Army was part of the Yugoslav People's Army ( Jugoslovenska narodna armija , JNA) in 1945 .

founding

On June 27, 1941, almost three months after the start of the German Balkan campaign , the Central Committee of the CPJ decided at a meeting in Belgrade to found the main staff of the people's liberation movement under Tito's leadership.
The Yugoslav People's Liberation Army was a communist- dominated popular movement that consisted of an alliance of different groups and parties. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPJ) assumed an organizational leadership role from the start, not least because of its extensive experience as an underground movement . As early as 1934, the CPY had campaigned for a federal state order with equal rights for all peoples, which probably made it easier for members of different nationalities to unite under their leadership.

On July 4, 1941, Tito called a general uprising and set up partisan units. The first offensive and supraregional active all-Yugoslav combat unit, the First Proletarian Brigade , was founded on December 21, 1941 in Rudo , Eastern Bosnia . After Serbia was conquered by the occupying powers at the end of 1941, the partisans under Tito fled to eastern Bosnia. There it was possible to transform the initially Serbian-Montenegrin uprising into a multinational people's liberation movement. The second unit was founded on March 1, 1942, and by the end of the year 21 additional combat units, 500 to 600 men strong, followed. On November 19, 1942, the associations were given the designation "People's Liberation Army".

Fight against the occupiers

Under the leadership of Josip Broz , known as Tito, the partisans, in the shadow of the Allied air strikes, fought for liberation from fascism and the restoration of Yugoslavia in a new form as a socialist federal state ( Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia ) .

At first the partisans were poorly equipped and mostly only equipped with shotguns , later this changed with captured weapons, defectors and the support of the Allies, who dropped equipment and weapons. While the partisans only controlled small areas in 1941, these areas grew larger and larger until 1943. The partisans' combat tactics were war of attrition and sabotage against the enemy. Counterattacks and clean-up operations by the Wehrmacht and Ustaša units mostly had little success, as the partisans avoided losses as much as possible by quickly evading.

Relations with the Allies

The Western Allies initially saw the Yugoslav royal government- in- exile in London and the Chetniks loyal to the king as legitimate representatives of occupied Yugoslavia. Only when the military successes of the partisans and the collaboration of the Chetniks with the occupiers became known did this lead to extensive recognition and support by the Allies. Between 1942 and 1943 Great Britain also gradually switched to support the Tito partisans, whom it now saw as the stronger resistance group.

In October 1944, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill agreed on a 50 percent influence each in Yugoslavia . A month earlier, however, Tito had discussed the modalities of the entry of the Red Army with Stalin . On October 20, 1944, Belgrade was taken by surprise by Yugoslav troops after Tito had previously used a ruse to prevent the Soviet allies from marching into the capital. In Croatia and Slovenia, the fighting against the Slovenian and Croatian Home Guard of the Ustasha regime lasted until the spring of 1945. Zagreb was on 7/8. Taken May 1945.

Yugoslavia's self-confidence that it had liberated the country essentially on its own enabled Tito to break with Stalin in 1948.

Establishment of Yugoslavia

Even during the war, the partisans controlled large parts of Yugoslavia. In 1943, at the second meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia ( Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije , AVNOJ for short) in Jajce ( Bosnia-Herzegovina ), the foundations of the later Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia were decided. The partisans liberated Yugoslavia largely without Soviet help, albeit with great losses. German retaliation against the civilian population, the Ustaša genocide and fighting in general resulted in an estimated at least 500,000 victims.

With the mediation of Great Britain, a new Yugoslav government was formed in 1944 as a coalition government made up of representatives of the partisans and the government in exile. Since the communists, under the leadership of Tito, exercised the actual power with the supreme command of the People's Liberation Army, they were also able to occupy other key positions and thus gain the upper hand in the new government. With the establishment of regular armed forces, the People's Liberation Army was absorbed into the Yugoslav People's Army ( Jugoslovenska narodna armija , JNA).

National composition

The People's Liberation Army was composed of members of all Yugoslav nations. According to Titos, in the spring of 1944 the People's Liberation Army was represented by 44% Serbs, 30% Croats, 10% Slovenes, 4% Montenegrins and 2.5% Bosnian Muslims. The rest were made up of members of other nationalities. Tito explained:

“I have to emphasize the fact that in the ranks of our People's Liberation Army and the partisan detachments of Yugoslavia from the beginning to the present day there have been a vast majority of Serbs, instead of the other way around. […] The Serbian people gave and still give the greatest blood toll in the struggle against the occupiers and their treacherous servants, not only against Pavelić , Nedić , Pećanac , but also against Draža Mihailović and his Chetniks, for the full freedom and independence of all peoples Yugoslavia. "

Foreign fighters in NOV i POJ

There were numerous associations of different nationalities that joined the liberation struggle of the Yugoslav partisan associations. The French fighters provided the partisan unit Liberté, which consisted primarily of French prisoners from the Loibl concentration camp and Polish and Russian forced laborers from the “Kompania Stary”. Volunteers from Austria and Germany fought in the NOV i POJ (People's Liberation Army and Partisan Associations of Yugoslavia). 5 Austrian Freedom Battalions (ÖFB) set up by the Austrian Freedom Front were deployed in Slovenia in the NOV i POJ, including the 3rd Austrian Battalion in Carinthia, Austria, which suffered heavy losses in the fighting after the surrender date.

Thälmann Brigade in Yugoslavia

On August 8, 1943 defectors from the Wehrmacht and Danube Swabians living in Slavonia set up the 200-man Thälmann Brigade within Tito's partisan army . The unit called "Telmanovci" by the Yugoslavs was equipped with black, red and gold cockades and fought alongside other international brigades such as "Garibaldi" (Italian), "Jan Žižka" (Czech) and "Sandor Petöfi" (Hungarian). The commanding officer was the former Spanish fighter Hans "Ivan" Pichler , the political commissar was the Danube Swabian communist Johann Mucker , whose son had been murdered on March 13, 1942 by the Ustasha. According to Tito's instructions, the brigade should not be used against German units, but mainly fight against Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Croatian units. In 1943 the brigade in Mikleuš suffered a crushing defeat. 60 German partisans are buried in a mass grave in Mikleuš.

Little is known about most of the German partisans. In the Federal Republic they were regarded as defectors and traitors, in the GDR they were hushed up after Tito's break with the Soviet Union. Yugoslav historiography avoided mentioning the German partisans to legitimize the expulsion legislation within the AVNOJ resolutions . The authors Franz-Karl Wärme and Heinz Kühnrich mention the names Gerhard Reinhard, Wilhelm Hansen, Robert Hermann, Erich Klose, Franz Oberweger and Rudolf Schiller in their book “Germans with Tito's Partisans 1941–1945”. Commissioner Johann Mucker died in Yugoslavia at the age of 84.

Human rights violations and war crimes

Propaganda picture of the People's Liberation Army with the slogan "To the last attack: All - all!"

The partisans and their role were mythologized in post-war Yugoslavia and represented an important part of the self-image of socialist Yugoslavia. The revenge on the former occupiers and the collaborators, as which all who were not actively involved in the resistance, and thus those were seen attendant, dispossession, detention and murder of Gottscheers and Donauschwaben , Hungarian and Italian minorities ( foibe massacres ) and the crimes committed by the people's liberation army after the war crimes such as the executions of Croats, Slovenes and Serbs, as a massacre of Bleiburg were known, were mostly silent. Places with mass graves such as in the Gottscheer Hornwald (Kočevski Rog) , in Tezno near Maribor or the Barbara tunnel in Huda Jama were protected from the public as military restricted areas.

Other partisan groups

On June 22, 1941, the first partisan unit was founded in the Brezovica forest near Sisak in Croatia. This was the first anti-fascist military unit not only in Croatia, but also in all of later Yugoslavia. Even today this day is a public holiday in Croatia ( day of the anti-fascist struggle ). However, this group had no documented connection with the establishment of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army.

Commemoration

The partisan was thought extensively in Yugoslavia. Various monuments were erected, for example the monument to the revolution of the inhabitants of Moslavina or the monument to the revolution in the Kozara National Park .

2 euro commemorative coin Slovenia 2011

The Order of the People's Hero was founded in 1943 ; one of the first recipients was the general of the Slovenian partisans, Franc Rozman , who died in November 1944 . The Republic of Slovenia honored Rozman in 2011 with a commemorative coin.

See also

literature

  • Sabine Bade: Antonija Cec (1896-1943) deported to Auschwitz as a "shotgun woman", in: Florence Hervé (Ed.): With courage and cunning. European women in the resistance against fascism and war, Cologne 2020, p. 157ff., Papy Rossa Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89438-724-2 .
  • Barbara N. Wiesinger: Partisans. Resistance in Yugoslavia 1941–1945 (=  L'homme Schriften 17). Böhlau, Vienna [a. a.] 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-77736-6 (At the same time dissertation at the University of Salzburg 2005: "... because freedom doesn't come by itself." ).
  • Klaus Schmider : Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941–1944 . ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8132-0794-3 .
  • Heinz Kühnrich , Franz-Karl Wärme: Germans with Tito's partisans 1941–1945. The fortunes of the war in the Balkans in eyewitness reports and documents. GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 3-929994-83-6 . ( Review )
  • Vlado Strugar: The Yugoslav People's Liberation War: 1941–1945 . German Military Edition, Berlin (East) 1969.
  • Barbara N. Wiesinger: Partisans. Resistance in Yugoslavia (1941-1945), Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2008, Böhlau Verlag, ISBN 978-3205777366 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Vlado Strugar: Rat i revolucija naroda Jugoslavije, 1941–1945. Vojno-istorijski institut, Belgrade 1962, p. 357.
  2. Othmar Nikola Haberl : The emancipation of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from the control of the Comintern / CPSU 1941–1945 (=  studies on contemporary studies of Southeastern Europe 8). Oldenbourg, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-486-47861-3 , p. 28.
  3. ^ Holm Sundhaussen : History of Yugoslavia. 1918-1980. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [a. a.] 1982, ISBN 3-17-007289-7 , p. 132.
  4. ^ Klaus Schmider: Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941–1944 . ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8132-0794-3 , p. 185 .
  5. ^ Franz Schraml: Theater of War Croatia: The German-Croatian Legion Divisions - 369th, 373rd, 392nd Inf.-Div. (Croatian) - their training and replacement formations . Neckargemünd 1962.
  6. ^ Josip Broz Tito : Borba za oslobodjenje Jugoslavije, 1941–1945. Kultura, Beograd 1947, p. 194.
  7. ^ Tito: Nacionalno pitanje u Jugoslaviji u svjetlost narodno-oslobodilačke borbe . Agitprop Centralnog Komiteta Komunističke Partije Hrvatske, oO 1943, oS
  8. Janko Tišler , Christian Tessier: The Loibl concentration camp. The history of the Mauthausen satellite camp on the Loiblpass / Ljubelj. Federal Ministry of the Interior, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-9502183-6-7 .
  9. ^ Heinz Kühnrich, Franz-Karl Wärme: Germans with Tito's Partisans 1941–1945. The fortunes of the war in the Balkans in eyewitness reports and documents. GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz 1997, ISBN 3-929994-83-6 .
  10. ^ Willibald Ingo Holzer: The Austrian battalions in the association of the NOV i POJ. The combat group Avantgarde / Styria. The partisan group Leoben-Donawitz. The Communist Party of Austria in the militant political resistance. Volume 1. Vienna 1971 (Vienna, phil. Diss. May 30, 1972).
  11. Florian Thomas Rulitz: The tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring. Partisan violence in Carinthia using the example of anti-communist refugees in May 1945. New edition. Hermagoras Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7086-0616-3 .
  12. ^ Franz-Karl Wärme, Heinz Kühnrich : Germans with Tito's Partisans 1941–1945. War fates in the Balkans in eyewitness reports and documents , GNN-Verlag Schkeuditz, 1997, ISBN 3-929994-83-6 .
  13. ^ Dragutin Pavličević, Povijest Hrvatske, Naklada Pavičić, Zagreb, 2007., ISBN 978-953-6308-71-2 , str. 441-442
  14. Nikola Anić , Antifašistička Hrvatska: Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odredi Hrvatske 1941-1945. , Multigraf marketing-Savez antifašističkih boraca i antifašista Republike Hrvatske, Zagreb, 2005., ISBN 953-7254-00-3 , str. 34.: “Prvi partizanski odred, koji je osnovan u Hrvatskoj, odnosno u okupiranoj Jugoslaviji, formiran je 22. lipnja 1941., u šumi Žabno kod Siska. (...) Nije to bio prvi partizanski odred u okupiranoj Europi, niti prvi antifašistički partizanski odred u Europi, kako se dugo govorilo. Prve oružane partizanske postrojbe u okupiranoj Europi pojavile su se još 1939., u okupiranoj Poljskoj, onda u Norveškoj, Francuskoj, zemljama Beneluksa, u Grčkoj itd. Sisački NOP odred je prvi antifašistički partizanski odred u okupiranoj Jugoslaviji, u Hrvatskoj. "