Terror in the Balkans (32 page)

courting assiduously by the end of the month, to come out of it relatively

unscathed. Dangic´, for his part, ordered his followers to avoid encounters

with the Germans during the operation, and to surrender themselves and

their weapons immediately should such encounters prove unavoidable.51

Because the 718th Infantry Division found itself interspersing these

more measured orders with much harsher ones, its troops may well have

felt they were receiving confl icting signals. But the signs are that, overall,

such orders were beginning to put at least some check on their troops’

brutality. On January 20, during Operation South-East Croatia, the

738th Infantry Regiment secured the Rnovica-Podomanija railway line

in the face of minor resistance, together with thirty prisoners—of whom

only one was shot. Certainly, the 718th dealt out some dreadful brutal-

ity during Operation Ozren. On February 19, for instance, it ordered

the annihilation of the villages of Jasenje, Celebinci, and Vlaskovici “by

the strongest possible combat methods.”52 But the overall body count

its troops infl icted in this operation was less fearful than it might have

Glimmers of Sanity
171

been. The division and its Croatian collaborator units suffered fi ve dead

and eleven wounded, together with over forty men reported frostbitten

or sick. The enemy, by contrast, lost 206 dead and 347 wounded, from

whom 106 rifl es and one pistol were seized.53 These fi gures indicate that

many of the enemy, 107 of them at least, were genuine combatants, even

though many clearly were not.

And in Operation Prijedor particularly, the ferocity of its orders not-

withstanding, the 718th Infantry Division’s troops did not kill large

numbers of civilians. This may have been because the 750th Infantry Reg-

iment, together with its affi liated and subordinate units, did not get the

opportunity, but it may also have been because the 750th increasingly saw

the sense in keeping the population on its side. For, though the regiment

wrote in early March that the population felt intimidated by the Partisans

and sometimes openly sympathized with them, it also reported that other

villages were requesting German protection from them.54

All this fell far short of a comprehensive, conciliatory effort to secure

the population’s hearts and minds. But compared with the savagery the

342d Infantry Division had infl icted upon north-west Serbia in 1941, it

was a step in a more conciliatory direction. It was a small step, certainly,

but one the civilians on the receiving end would have appreciated.

Meanwhile, on January 25, Tito set up headquarters in the eastern Bos-

nian town of Focˇa, where he aimed to regroup and reorganize. The

Partisans stepped up their military organization by forming growing

numbers of select troops into disciplined and mobile “proletarian bri-

gades.” The fi rst, founded on December 29, 1941, was followed by the

formation of the 2nd Proletarian Brigade on March 1 1942.55

The Partisans also began announcing their presence in other ways.

As early as February 20, Serbia Command was reporting that the groups

scattered by the 342d and 718th in Operation Southeast Croatia had

regrouped and were active once more. By early March the Tuzla-Doboj

railway line in eastern Bosnia was threatened by the same Partisans

whom the 718th had scattered during Operation Ozren. By late March,

Partisan activity was threatening road and rail communications across

much of eastern Bosnia, not least around Sarajevo.56

172
terror in the balk ans

The Axis might yet have dealt the Partisans a killer blow in early

1942. Unfortunately for them, they were too busy falling out amongst

themselves. In December 1941, Hitler had been intensely preoccupied

with the protracted struggle against the Soviet Union. He had resolved

to transfer the Wehrmacht’s entire occupation force in Yugoslavia to

the eastern front, and to hand over all occupation duties in Croatia

to the Italians. Mussolini, Army Chief of Staff Roatta, and Second

Army Commander Ambrosio—Ambrosio and Roatta having yet to

swap commands at that point—all welcomed this proposal, seeing in

it a swift means of extending Italian infl uence in the region. However,

beseeched by both the Nedicánd Pavelicŕegimes, Hitler then moder-

ated his proposal. Rather than relinquish the Wehrmacht’s Yugoslav

commitment entirely, he now elected to scale it down. The incensed

Italians, Mussolini in particular, suspected a German–Ustasha plot.

They then essentially sulked for the next three months, further sty-

mieing effective anti-Partisan operations in eastern Bosnia.57 With

hindsight, the breathing space this provided Tito’s Partisans proved

crucial. They used it to reorganize and replenish themselves to a point

where they would be considerably harder to kill off completely when

the Axis united against them once more.58

Amid all this, on February 18, the 718th Infantry Division was handed

long-term occupation responsibility for eastern Bosnia. Its jurisdic-

tion was bordered by the Rivers Sava and Bosna to the north, the River

Drina to the east, and the Italian demarcation line to the south. A cen-

tral principle of the occupation, Serbia Command directed, must be that

“in German-infl uenced areas, Croats, Serbs, and Muslims can live qui-

etly and securely next to one another as fully entitled citizens.” To help

ensure this, General Fortner was to be assigned command of all German

and Croatian troops in eastern Bosnia.59 But during March and April,

following the departure of the more effective 342d Infantry Division at

the end of January, the less formidable 718th was only able to mount lim-

ited, largely ineffective operations against the Partisans.60 An NCO of

the 717th Infantry Division could identify with this, describing in a letter

how “we’ve been hunting the bandits in the mountains and forests and

have had to exert ourselves a great deal in doing so. All winter, when it

Glimmers of Sanity
173

was cold, they crept off and hid themselves, (but) now the brothers are

showing themselves again. God grant us the day when we wipe them all

out, then we can have peace and quiet.”61

Meanwhile, German–Italian relations grew ever more convoluted. In

March 1942 General Roatta, in addition to arming the Chetniks, also

announced that he wished to extend the German–Italian demarcation

line up to and including Sarajevo. The general may simply have been

airing this intention in order to increase his leverage over the Chetnik

question, but it alarmed both Croats and Germans nevertheless. Were

the Italians to extend their territory so far north, into an area with sig-

nifi cant Croat and particularly Muslim populations, the Chetniks they

brought with them were wont to cause precisely the kind of havoc from

which ultimately only the Partisans could benefi t.62

In late April, however, this particular problem was solved by an

operation in which the 718th Infantry Division took part. Together with

three Italian divisions—the Italo-German impasse of early 1942 having

now been resolved—and Italian and Croatian gendarmerie forces and

aircraft, the division was committed to relieving Rogatica and cleans-

ing the surrounding area in Operation Trio I.63 However, only a fraction

of the manpower the Italians had originally pledged actually arrived in

time to participate in the operation at all.64 General Bader, anxious to

exploit the window of opportunity created by the successful attack of the

Ustasha’s elite Black Legion against the region’s Partisans, commenced

the operation anyway. Trio I relieved Rogatica, but otherwise achieved

little militarily. Politically, however, it would prove useful. Its success-

ful conclusion would enable Bader to claim that Bosnian territory north

of the demarcation line was now even more extensively cleansed than

before, and in no need of Italian troop garrisons there.65

Trio I also enabled the 718th Infantry Division to further develop the

more restrained approach that had taken embryonic form during its

operations of January and February. By mid-April, according to Ser-

bia Command, the Rogatica region contained ten thousand Partisans,

some of whom were former Chetniks, well equipped with rifl es, machine

174
terror in the balk ans

guns, and grenade launchers, but of uneven fi ghting value overall.66 The

718th’s combat strength was signifi cantly boosted in time for Trio I. This

eased the pressure it was under, and almost certainly helped it to con-

template more constructive measures.

The division still suffered weaknesses. At the end of March, for

instance, it failed to provide suffi cient clothing with which to equip one

company per infantry regiment as a mountain company.67 But by the

end of April it commanded a core artillery section and two infantry regi-

ments in their entirety, four Panzer platoons, four armored trains, and

ten territorial companies. At one point, on April 10, it had commanded

four entire Panzer companies. This was double the number commanded

by each of the other three German army occupation divisions in Yugo-

slavia at that time.68 The 718th was to commit the whole of its combat

strength to Trio I. It was further buttressed by two Ustasha battalions;

four additional tanks; four Croatian artillery batteries; and twelve infan-

try, rifl e, and border guard companies from the Croatian army.69 While

not the most formidable host yet assembled, it was a reasonable fi ghting

force for the purposes of the operation.

Trio I’s overall commander, General Bader, also sought to ensure that

the operation would be conducted on a saner basis than operations past.

On April 10, he announced that the operations must “exterminate the

insurgents in the Bosnian region, and pacify Bosnia through the estab-

lishment of public peace, order, and security.” But Bader had drawn

lessons from past operations. The aim for Trio I was to seal the areas

to be cleansed, and then for each unit to rapidly overwhelm the sector

assigned to it. In order to maintain close contact with one’s neighbor and

cleanse each area thoroughly, commands were urged to keep their daily

targets as small and manageable as possible. In other words, the 718th

was committing forces of similar strength to those it had used for Opera-

tion Southeast Croatia, within a comparable space of time, but over a

much smaller area and in markedly better weather. Further, to reduce

both communication problems and the danger of being bombarded by

one’s own side, the Italian aircraft committed to the operation were to

go nowhere near German ground units. They were to assist only Italian

troops, while German and Croatian troops would cooperate with Ger-

man and Croatian airpower.70

Glimmers of Sanity
175

The 718th advanced from its assembly points in Sarajevo, Olovo, and

Tuzla on April 20. The operation ended on April 30 with all targets

reached, even though many Partisans had escaped.71 The Axis forces

lost sixteen dead, the Partisans eighty, with eighty-seven rifl es captured.

Such fi gures indicate that the Axis forces had had a proper fi ght on their

hands instead of just slaughtering civilians. Copious amounts of livestock

were seized, but the vast majority was distributed among the peaceable

sections of the population.72 Reinforcements, realistic daily targets, and

effective air-ground coordination all gave the operation an easier passage

and relieved the pressure on the 718th. And a formation under less pres-

sure was likely to exercise more restraint.

Orders from on high fostered such restraint further. General Roatta—

no dove when it came to counterinsurgency—prevailed upon Bader to

consent that all insurgents who gave themselves up in the course of the

fi ghting be allowed to surrender as prisoners of war.73 This countered

a profoundly punitive order that General Kuntze, Wehrmacht Com-

mander Southeast, had issued on March 19. Kuntze had directed that the

troops conduct themselves more ruthlessly than the insurgents and thus

make the population fear them more. Though Kuntze left the specifi cs

to the commanders on the spot, he strongly indicated that the policy of

shooting one hundred hostages for every German soldier killed, and fi fty

for every German soldier wounded, should be resumed. And in contrast

with Bader and Roatta, he made no allowance for sparing captured reb-

els, declaring instead that “captured rebels are in principle to be hanged

or shot. If they are to be used for intelligence purposes, this should only

be a brief postponement of their death.”74

In another considered move, General Bader also commanded that

“
actual or attempted atrocities
by members of allied units (were) to be

dealt with on the spot using the
sharpest measures
.”75 During Operation

Trio II, Trio I’s successor operation (also referred to as Operation Focˇa),