Terror in the Balkans (37 page)

Serb population with their military effectiveness, and its Muslim popu-

lation with their growing ability to protect it from Chetnik attacks. In

August 1942, the Partisans liberated the Croatian town of Livno and its

surrounding area. In doing so, they absorbed a large portion of the Croa-

tian population into the Partisan movement for the fi rst time. Even though

they had to withdraw in October, they were to return two months later.44

Moreover, the actions of the Ustasha and the Chetniks were boosting

Partisan support north as well as south of the River Sava. Tito therefore

felt emboldened to expand his borders northward, as well as in the south-

erly direction into which the Partisans had been expanding hitherto. By

October 1942 Tito would command ten times more experienced troops

than he had a year previously.45 By early November, the Partisan-liberated

area centered on Bosanska Krajina had joined with smaller enclaves to

form an area of about 250 kilometers long and forty to seventy kilometers

wide, largely in what was supposedly still the Italian occupation zone.46

The summer had revealed just how destabilizing the ethnic rivalries

within the NDH were becoming. By autumn, the Partisans were reap-

ing the rewards. Serbia Command remarked that “the extent of the

regions that need securing, in relation to the strength of available troops,

The Morass
199

gendarmerie, and police, makes any permanent occupation impossible.

This creates for the insurgents, especially in Croatia, the opportunity

to gather up escaped groups and form new ones.”47 Matters were made

worse by problems with the harvest, which in turn were exacerbated

by the scale of the requisitions which the Axis war economy was now

demanding: “if a lack of provisions sets in, large parts of the population

will go into the forests und exist on the fringes through robbery.”48 In

time, the inundation would be further driven by many young Croat men

anxious to escape conscription to the eastern front.49

The Partisans amassed the support of this multitude with the promise

not just of protection, but also of a patriotic people’s struggle that would

abolish the country’s destructive ethnic divisions. This process would

culminate, in November, in the formation of the Anti-Fascist Council

of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in Bihac´. AVNOJ was

an assembly of representatives of most of the core Yugoslav lands, with

Communist and non-Communist fi gures at its head. It was intended to

further coordinate the liberation struggle on a national level. Moreover,

although Tito fell short of proclaiming it a government, AVNOJ was a

further development in the administration both of the liberated areas

and of the Partisan army. The region around Bihac´ became a showcase

liberated area, with NOOs extended to its territory and new military

commands and units founded also.50

By now, the NDH’s inability to master the security situation was

increasingly clear. A measure of its desperation was a directive issued

by the Directorate for Public Order and Security of the Ministry of the

Interior issued on 9 October 1942. This directive drew up—admittedly

limited—guidelines for negotiations between Chetniks groups and the

NDH civilian and military authorities.51 Indeed, the fact that numerous

Chetnik groups were willing to negotiate was a measure of their own

mounting anxiety at the Partisan threat.

October and November also saw fundamental changes to the NDH’s

military structure. Glaise prevailed upon Pavelic´ to approve the division

of the NDH north of the Italo-German demarcation line into a series of

defensive areas. Each would have both a German and a Croatian com-

mander, but the Croats were not to commence major operations on their

own initiative. German troops would guard those transport and economic

200
terror in the balk ans

installations deemed essential to the Reich. Glaise was also empowered,

unlike before, to provide the Croats with military advice even if he had

not been asked for it fi rst.52 Important also was Pavelic´’s sacking of his

Minister of Defense, Slavko Kvaternik, a fi gure whom many German offi -

cials reviled as corrupt, incompetent, and possibly defeatist.53

November 16, meanwhile, saw an end to the unsatisfactory situation

whereby a German general in Belgrade had had operational command of

German formations in the NDH. Lieutenant General Rudolf Lüters was

appointed Wehrmacht Commander in Croatia. Under him were all Ger-

man military forces in the NDH between the River Sava and the Italo-

German demarcation line—the 718th Infantry Division in eastern Bosnia,

the 714th to the west, the 187th Reserve Division in the area around Agram,

and a regiment stationed in Syrmia that had been transferred from the

717th Infantry Division in Serbia.54 On Glaise’s request to Pavelic´, Lüt-

ers also enjoyed extensive power over the deployment and organization

of Croatian army units, over Croatian military appointments, and over

Croatian military justice in cases dealing with actions that went against

Wehrmacht regulations.55 The Germans could now also take full oper-

ational command, whenever it was deemed necessary, of all Croatian

army units north of the demarcation line. As a cosmetic concession to

the Pavelicŕegime, Glaise and not Lüters would have formal command

of those units.56 But whilst all this made it harder for the Ustasha to com-

mit atrocities against the Bosnian Serbs, it could not halt those atrocities

completely. And Glaise’s rather belated call for more stringent measures to

rein in the Ustasha’s corruption as well as its brutality came to nothing.57

The 718th’s autumn operations demonstrated that the division, like the

Germans across the NDH, faced in the Partisans an increasingly acute

military threat—and this at a time when, following major Allied victo-

ries in North Africa, the threat of an Allied invasion of southeast Europe

made overcoming the Partisans an increasingly urgent task. The Ger-

mans’ response—including the 718th’s this time—showed little apprecia-

tion of the need for restraint.

By now, the highest German command levels were responding increas-

ingly ferociously to the burgeoning Partisan threat in both eastern and

The Morass
201

southeastern Europe. Hitler’s Directive No. 46, which the dictator issued

on August 18, made some nods to constructive engagement. But it also

directed that the troops execute reprisals even more severely than before,

and guard against any “misplaced confi dence” in the population. Simi-

larly, the Commando Order of October 18 declared that “only where the

struggle against the partisan nuisance was begun and carried out with

ruthless brutality have successes been achieved.”58 Glaise, together with

the Austrian-born Luftwaffe general Alexander Löhr, who succeeded

General Kuntze as Wehrmacht Commander Southeast in August 1942,

mooted the idea of trying to open some kind of dialogue with the Parti-

sans. But this suggestion found no support from Hitler. The Führer was

already vexed by the fact that, as he put it, too many prisoners were being

taken in counterinsurgency operations in the NDH already.59

But Hitler need not have worried, because Löhr, for one, generally

subscribed even more strongly than his predecessor to the virtues of

maximum terror and maximum concentrated force.60 In late October

he issued a Balkan-specifi c version of Hitler’s Commando Order, with

ruthless additions of his own. “All visible enemy groups are, under all

circumstances, to be exterminated to the last man,” Löhr decreed. “Only

when every rebel realises that he will not escape with his life under any

circumstances can the occupation troops expect to master the rebel

movement . . . I expect every commander to commit his entire person to

ensuring that this order, without exception and in a brutally harsh spirit,

is executed by the troops. I will investigate every transgression and bring

those responsible to account.”61

And even before this, the ferocious tone being set by higher command

was increasingly suffusing the directives of General Bader’s Serbia Com-

mand also. So read its war diary on October 2:

In order to achieve an effective deterrent effect (sic), those punish-

able deeds . . . which are directed against the Wehrmacht are to be

punished more severely, the punishment to be executed ruthlessly.

Aiding and abetting the enemy and unauthorized possession of arms

(are) to be paid for with death . . . The ideas of the (military) judges

are much too clement for the fourth year of the war. In cases of sus-

pected espionage most severe measures must be employed . . . Our

202
terror in the balk ans

divisions frequently seem to have a too pro-Serbian attitude. The SS

will offer example.62

Then on October 10, Serbia Command issued an order, signed by Gen-

eral Bader himself, directing that “the established reprisal measures for

dead and wounded may also be extended in the future in accordance

with the situation to
missing
German soldiers.”63

And General Löhr’s efforts also undoubtedly made it harder still

for units in the fi eld to contemplate the kinds of measures that might

de-escalate the campaign’s brutality. The effect of the welter of harsh

directives upon the 718th Infantry Division was unmistakable. It was

probably also out of its own mounting alarm at the burgeoning Partisan

threat, and its failure thus far to extinguish that threat through popular

engagement and small-unit tactics, that the division now came increas-

ingly to rely on brute force and terror. Its operations around the town of

Jajce between October and December demonstrate this clearly.

Partisan units, in the course of Tito’s northward expansion of his territory,

captured Jajce on September 25; advance parties of the 718th moving on

Jajce from the southeast the following day were met by withering machine-

gun and rifl e fi re.64 Jajce, it seems, had been ripe for a Partisan takeover for

some time, and for a depressingly familiar reason. The division remarked

that, “according to the reliable part of the population, the foremost cause

of the situation in Jajce was the behaviour of the Ustasha.”65 The 718th

aimed fi rstly to attack the Partisan group that had just crossed the River

Vrbas, driving it back to Jajce. It would then combine with elements of the

714th Infantry Division advancing from the northwest to destroy the Parti-

sans. This operational phase was to be completed by October 2.66

The Jajce Partisans presented a mixed picture to the 718th. The divi-

sion considered their state of supply less than impressive. It also believed

that the Partisans’ commanders often plied their troops with alcohol

before they attacked, and concealed the scale of their losses from them.67

But they were organized to effective military standard. They were dis-

tributed across three battalions, each consisting of three companies of

between sixty and one hundred men, and commanded by Communist

The Morass
203

Party commissars. They usually attacked at night, especially when it was

raining and the moon was hidden.68 “(Partisan) raiding parties are sent

in with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails,” according to the 718th’s

intelligence section. “Firing lines follow behind them.”69 The Partisans

also possessed penal battalions, antitank battalions, mining sections,

and an excellent communications network utilizing “mostly beggars,

adolescents, and Dalmatian peddlers” as its couriers.70

With all its other proliferating responsibilities, the 718th could only

commit limited forces to the operations. The lineup of divisional forces

for the fi rst operation, assembled on September 28, included only two

battalions each from the 738th and 750th Infantry Regiments, a battery

and an additional platoon from the 668th Artillery Section, two platoons

of Panzers, and an armored train. The rest comprised elements of three

different Croatian infantry regiments, an Ustasha company, and Croa-

tian artillery batteries of various types.71 This was hardly the most for-

midable array the 718th had yet assembled.

In the event, the 718th only retook Jajce on October 4. Even then, it failed

to encircle the Partisans properly.72 By mid-October, Partisan forces were

massing west and southwest of Jajce to attack the town again.73 The 718th

resolved to attack them fi rst, conducting a preemptive operation between

October 24 and November 5. Its main force was divided between Battle

Group Suschnig, formed around the three battalions of the 738th Infan-

try Regiment, and Battle Group Wüst, formed around the three battalions

(minus one company) of the 750th Infantry Regiment. Battle Group Wüst

was only granted two German infantry battalions (plus an additional com-

pany) against Battle Group Suschnig’s three, and three Croatian artillery

batteries against Battle Group Suschnig’s four. It was, however, assigned