World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia

For other uses of terms redirecting here, see Macedonian struggle.

World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia
Part of World War II in Yugoslavia

Map of Vardar Macedonia during World War II. The area was divided between Albania and Bulgaria and the frontier between them run approximately along the line: Struga – Tetovo – Gjilan – Vranje.
(3 years, 7 months, 1 week and 5 days)
Location
parts of the wider region of Macedonia
Result
Territorial
changes		 Part of Vardar Banovina (Vardar Macedonia) became SR Macedonia as part of SFR Yugoslavia
Belligerents

Democratic Federal Yugoslavia Yugoslav Partisans

Bulgaria (from Sep. 1944)
LANÇ		 Chetniks Chetniks
Commanders and leaders
Strength
1,000 (1941)
2,000 (1942)
8,000 (Sep. 1944)[9][10]
66,000 (Dec. 1944)[11]
110,000 (April 1945)[12][unreliable source?]
340,000 Bulgarian soldiers in Southern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia (October – December 1944)

~32,000 Bulgarian soldiers in Southern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia (May 1941 – September 1944)[13]
~300,000 (Army Group E in October 1944)[14]

~8,000 Chetniks
Casualties and losses
Total casualties: 24,000
By nationality:
7,000 Jews, 6,724 ethnic Macedonians, 6,000 Serbs, 4,000 Albanians
1,000 Bulgarians, Aromanians, Roma and Turks[15]
By affiliation:
2,000 Civilians, 1,000 Collaborationists, 11,000 Soldiers and Partisans
7,000 victims of Concentration Camps
  1. ^ Limited influence and control, de jure Commander
  2. ^ Link between Mihajlo Apostolski and Josip Broz Tito, Supervisor
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World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia started with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. Under the pressure of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, part of the Macedonian communists began in October 1941 a political and military campaign to resist the occupation of Vardar Macedonia. Officially, the area was called then Vardar Banovina, because the use of very name Macedonia was avoided in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.[16][17] It was occupied mostly by Bulgarian, but also by German, Italian, and Albanian forces.

Initially, there was no organised resistance in the region because the majority of the Macedonian Slavs nurtured strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments, although this could've been an effect from the previous Kingdom of Yugoslavia rule which had negative impact on the majority of the population.[18] Even the local Communists, separated from the Yugoslav and joined the Bulgarian Communist Party.[19] However, even those Macedonians who felt that they were Bulgarians soon discovered that the Bulgarians from Bulgaria were suspicious of them and considered them second-class Bulgarians.[20] In fact, Bulgarian authorities began a process of Bulgarianization as they realised that only part of the Macedonian population felt Bulgarian or was pro-Bulgarian.[20]

Communist resistance started to grow only in 1943 with the capitulation of Italy and the Soviet victories over Nazi Germany.[21][22] The role of the Bulgarian communists, who avoided organizing mass armed resistance, was also a key factor.[23] Their influence over the Macedonian Committee remained dominant until 1943, when it became obvious that Germany and Bulgaria would be defeated.

At that time Tito's special emissary Svetozar Vukmanović arrived in Macedonia.[24] Vukmanović had to activate the struggle and give it a new ethnic Macedonian facade. This led to the rise of younger generation anti-Bulgarian oriented partisan leaders, who were loyal to Yugoslavia.[25] They formed in 1943 the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia and the Macedonian Communist Party. In the western part of the area, the Albanian Partisans also participated in the resistance movement.

After Bulgaria switched sides in the war in September 1944, the Bulgarian 5th. Army stationed in Macedonia, moved back to the old borders of Bulgaria. In the early October the newly formed Bulgarian People's Army together with the Red Army reentered occupied Yugoslavia to blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Yugoslav Macedonia was liberated in end of November. After the German retreat forced by the Bulgarian offensive, the conscription of Macedonians in the People's Liberation Army increased significantly.

The operation was commonly called by the Yugoslav Marxist historiography the National Liberation War of Macedonia (Macedonian: Народноослободителна борба на Македонија, Narodnoosloboditelna borba na Makedonija) in Yugoslavia, similarly to the greater Yugoslav People's Liberation War. Some of the combatants also developed aspirations for independence of the region of Macedonia, but were suppressed at the end of the war by the communist authorities.

It marked the defeat of Bulgarian nationalism and the victory of the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian nationalism in the area. As result the new Communist authorities persecuted the former collaborationists with the charges of "Great Bulgarian chauvinism" and cracked down on pro-Bulgarian organisations that supported ideas of Greater Bulgaria and those which opposed the Yugoslav idea and insisted on Macedonian independence.

  1. ^ Ivan Laković, Dmitar Tasić, The Tito–Stalin Split and Yugoslavia's Military Opening toward the West, 1950–1954: In NATO's Backyard, The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series Authors, Lexington Books, 2016, ISBN 1498539343, p. 203.
  2. ^ Until the Soviet-Yugoslav rift in 1948, a trilateral military-political alliance between the U.S.S.R, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria dominated the strategic situation in the Balkans. As a direct consequence of the Moscow talks, Tito met with a delegation from the Bulgarian government's Fatherland Front on October 5, 1944, in Krajova, and on the same day, concluded an agreement on the participation of the new battles on Yugoslav territory. The three armies took part in the Belgrade Operation, which was launched in late September 1944, and Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations flourished with the patronage of the Soviet Union. Southeastern Europe's fate was effectively secured. For more see: Norman Naimark, The Establishment Of Communist Regimes In Eastern Europe, 1944–1949, Routledge, 2018, ISBN 0429976216, p. 60.
  3. ^ By the end of November, almost all of Macedonia and Serbia had been liberated and cleansed of German units. The Bulgarian army is largely responsible for achieving this goal. A military contingent of more than 450,000 troops participated in the campaign. Even though the Bulgarian offensive was undertaken with the cooperation of the Yugoslav Liberation Army, as all observers at the time noted, the latter's forces were absolutely insufficient and without Bulgarian participation, defeating the enemy would have been impossible. Another thing noted at the time was the wholly upright behavior of Bulgarian troops in Macedonia and Serbia. After conquering a given territory, the army turned over control to the new administration that was being formed from the ranks of the Yugoslav opposition. In contradiction to preliminary expectations, it was found that on the whole the local population, especially in urban areas, calmly accepted the Bulgarian military presence in the region. This generally positive attitude was connected to the idea of a future federation between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria that was beginning to be promoted. For more see: Ivaylo Znepolski et al., Bulgaria under Communism, Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe, Routledge, 2018, ISBN 1351244892.
  4. ^ Military realities, however, made this incident look very ironic indeed, for Skopje was liberated by Bulgarian forces, while the Macedonian Partisans remained in the surrounding hills, and came down only to celebrate their entrance to the city. Similar scenes occurred in many other towns of Macedonia and Serbia, pointing to the fact that, from a military perspective the Russians were right: the Bulgarian army was the only force capable of driving the Germans quickly from Yugoslavia. Needless to say, the official Macedonian historiography, written mainly by Apostolski himself, understandably played down the crucial role of the Bulgarians. The glorification of the Partisan movement, an essential component of the post-war Yugoslav political culture-and more personal Partisan considerations left little room for such “technicalities” ... For information on the military situation in Macedonia and Serbia and the role of the Bulgarian army see FO 371/43608, R17271, 24/11/1944; FO 371/44279, R16642,14/10/1944; FO 371/43630, R19495, 24/11/1944; WO 208, 113B, 12/9/1944. The sources, which contain intelligence reports from BLOs, confirm the decisive role of the Bulgarian army in the liberation of Skopje, Nis, Prilep, and the Morava Valley. For more see: Dimitris Livanios, The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939–1949, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008; ISBN 9780199237685, p. 134.
  5. ^ For a detailed description of the German withdrawal from Greece through Macedonia and the central Balkans to Bosnia... see the account by one of the participants, Erich Schmidt-Richberg, „Der Endkampf auf dem Balkan“. General Schmidt-Richberg was chief of staff of Army Group E, deployed in Greece... The Yugoslavs' main criticism of the book was that it did not mention the Partisan units that fought the Germans as soon as they entered Yugoslav territory in Macedonia. Schmidt-Richberg only mentioned Bulgarian divisions, which had changed camps and were now fighting the Germans. But the Yugoslavs claimed that the main burden of fighting the Germans was theirs and that the Bulgarians did not have their heart in fighting their erstwhile allies. The claim applies to Partisan operations in the area between the Greek frontier on the south and the Drina River on the northwest – Macedonia, Southern Serbia, Kosovo and Sndjak. It is interesting to note that in a series of maps from Army Group E on its withdrawal through Macedonia and Serbia toward the Drina River and Bosnia, there is almost no indications on Yugoslav Partisan units... The contribution of Bulgarian troops in fighting the Germans in the fall of 1944 in Macedonia and Serbia is still much debated between Yugoslav and Bulgarian military historians. For more see: Jozo TomasevichWar and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Vol. 2, Stanford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0804779244, pp. 751–752.
  6. ^ Soviet arrogance was evident at all levels of the Red Army, beginning with its commander in chief. Stalin told Tito at a meeting that the Bulgarian army (which switched sides in the war in September 1944) was superior to Partisans, praising the professionalism of its officers. This was a pure provocation from the Soviet leader. The Bulgarians were Partisan wartime foes, and regardless of whether it was true, Stalin meant to put the assertive Yugoslav leadership in its place by insulting Tito's proudest achievement: his army. Furthermore, the Red Army's operational maps often excluded Partisan units, indicating the command's failure to even acknowledge that Yugoslavs played any role in the defeat of the Germans in the country. Further below in the chain of command, Partisan commanders had to appeal to the Red Army's political departments to include in their public statements the fact that Belgrade was liberated jointly by the Red Army and Partisans and not just by the Soviets, as well as to cease treating the Partisans as unknowledgeable and as a second-rate army. For more see: Majstorović, Vojin. “The Red Army in Yugoslavia, 1944–1945.” in Slavic Review, vol. 75, no. 2, 2016, pp. 396–421, [414]. JSTOR 10.5612/slavicreview.75.2.396. Accessed 24 Oct. 2020.
  7. ^ The eastern parts of Yugoslavia were the site of savage fighting between October and December 1944, as the German Army Group E tried to force its way out of an almost desperate situation it had found itself in following the evacuation of Greece. Against all odds, this huge German formation managed to best three Allied armies, rugged terrain, and autumn rains and reach the relative safety of the Independent State of Croatia, where it joined the remainder of the Axis front in the Balkans. Although this dramatic episode had been extensively written about in the former Yugoslavia and Germany, it received next to no attention in the English-speaking academic community. The article at hand will provide an overview and an analysis of military operations based on a wide plethora of primary and secondary sources of all sides. It will also argue that the ultimate success of the breakthrough was as much due to the unwillingness of the Soviet high command to devote more resources to the Balkan Front, and the structural weaknesses of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Partisans' armies, as it was to the battlefield prowess of the Wehrmacht. For more see: Gaj Trifković (2017) 'The German Anabasis': The Breakthrough of Army Group E from Eastern Yugoslavia 1944, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 30:4, 602–629, doi:10.1080/13518046.2017.1377014.
  8. ^ Stefan Troebst sees the Macedonian process of nation building as a perfect example of Gellner's theory of nationalism. Since the foundation of the Yugoslav Macedonia this construction was conducted in haste and hurry: "National language, national literature, national history and national church were not available in 1944, but they were accomplished in a short time. The south-east-Slavic regional idiom of the area of Prilep-Veles was codified as the script, normed orthographically by means of the Cyrillic Alphabet, and taken over immediately by the newly created media. And the people have been patching up the national history ever since. Thus, they are forming more of an "ethnic" than a political concept of nation. For more, see: One Macedonia With Three Faces: Domestic Debates and Nation Concepts, in Intermarium; Columbia University; Volume 4, No. 3 (2000–2001 One Macedonia With Three Faces: Domestic Debates and Nation Concepts, in Intermarium; Columbia University; Volume 4, No. 3 (2000–2001), pp. 7–8;
  9. ^ Bulgaria During the Second World War, Marshall Lee Miller, Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 202.
  10. ^ Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000. p. 104.
  11. ^ The Slavonic and East European review, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1991, p. 304.
  12. ^ Зимските операции на Македонска војска 1943/44 – Раде Гогов, носител на "Партизанска споменица 1941".
  13. ^ Александър Гребенаров, Надя Николова. Българското управление във Вардарска Македония (1941 – 1944). Кн. No. 63 от поредицата „Архивите говорят“ на Държавна агенция „Архиви“, 2011, .стр. 512.
  14. ^ Klaus Schönherr: Der Rückzug aus Griechenland. In: Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schmider, Klaus Schönherr, Gerhard Schreiber, Krisztián Ungváry, Bernd Wegner: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 8, Die Ostfront 1943/44 – Der Krieg im Osten und an den Nebenfronten. Im Auftrag des MGFA hrsg. von Karl-Heinz Frieser. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2, pp. 1089–1099; (in German).
  15. ^ Zerjavic, Vladimir. Yugoslavia Manipulations With the Number of Second World War Victims. Croatian Information Centre, ISBN 0-919817-32-7 [1] Archived 5 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide, OUP Oxford, 2009, ISBN 0199550336, p. 65.
  17. ^ Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 76.
  18. ^ Boškovska, Nada (2017). Yugoslavia and Macedonia Before Tito: Between Repression and Integration. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 282, 284. ISBN 9781786730732.
  19. ^ "The Bulgarian occupation forces in the Serbian part of Macedonia were received as liberators and pro-Bulgarian feeling ran high in the early stages of the occupation. Neither the Communist position regarding a separate Macedonian nation nor the idea of a Yugoslav federation met with much response from the Slav population, which nurtured pro-Bulgarian sentiments. The local Communists, led by M. Satorov, splintered off from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and joined the Bulgarian Labour Party (which was Communist), with the slogan "One state, one party". The subsequent dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities was due to social factors, rather than national ones. This was also why Tito's resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia failed to develop." For more see: Spyridon Sfetas, "Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944: The Attitude of the Communist Party of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border". Balkan Studies 1995; 36 (2): pp. 297–317.
  20. ^ a b Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945. Stanford University Press. pp. 163–164.
  21. ^ Bulgaria During the Second World War, Marshall Lee Miller, Stanford University Press, 1975, ISBN 0804708703, pp. 132–133.
  22. ^ Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956 introduction Ixiii.
  23. ^ Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 1134665113, p. 181.
  24. ^ Dejan Djokić, Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea, 1918–1992, Hurst, 2003, ISBN 1850656630, p. 120.
  25. ^ Roumen Daskalov, Diana Mishkova ed., Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Vol. Two, Brill, 2013, ISBN 9004261915, p. 534.