Bulgaria during World War II

Bulgaria during World War II
  Post-WWII territory of Bulgaria
//           // Southern Dobruja, restored from Romania following the Treaty of Craiova, 1940
  Vardar Macedonia, Southern Pomoravlje, Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace annexed in 1941
//           // Bulgarian military administration in Central Macedonia from 1943
  Borders in 1941
  Borders today
German Wehrmacht officers in Bulgaria in 1939.
Bulgarians entering Southern Dobruja in Romania per the Treaty of Craiova (1940).
Bulgarian invasion of southern Yugoslavia (Vardar Macedonia, April 1941).
Bulgarian invasion of eastern Serbia (Western Outlands, April 1941).
Bulgarian troops entering a village in northern Greece in April 1941.

The history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 8 September 1944, and a period of alignment with the Allies in the final year of the war. With German consent, Bulgarian military forces occupied parts of the Kingdoms of Greece and Yugoslavia which Bulgarian irredentism claimed on the basis of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano.[1][2] Bulgaria resisted Axis pressure to join the war against the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, but did declare war on Britain and the United States on 13 December 1941. The Red Army entered Bulgaria on 8 September 1944; Bulgaria declared war on Germany the next day.

As an ally of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria participated in the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of 11,343 Jews from the occupied territories in Greece and Yugoslavia. Though its native 48,000 Jews survived the war, they were subjected to discrimination.[3] However, during the war, German-allied Bulgaria did not deport Jews from the core provinces of Bulgaria. Bulgaria's wartime government was pro-German under Georgi Kyoseivanov, Bogdan Filov, Dobri Bozhilov, and Ivan Bagryanov. It joined the Allies under Konstantin Muraviev in early September 1944, then underwent a coup d'état a week later, and under Kimon Georgiev was pro-Soviet thereafter.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Megargee, Geoffrey P.; White, Joseph R. (2018). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. III: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-02386-5.
  3. ^ Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor, eds. (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press. pp. 98–104. ISBN 978-0-300-13811-5.