Terror in the Balkans (92 page)

ceedings and praised his men fulsomely for their “enthusiastic fulfi lment

of what was demanded of them.”109

But Hoffmann’s conduct in the Ukraine does show that, at the very

least, he was less likely to actually surpass General Boehme’s calls for

vengeful terror in the way Hinghofer did. This does not amount to any-

thing remotely approaching moral exoneration for his actions in Yugo-

slavia. But the actions of the 342d under his command, abhorrent as

many of them were, fell within the boundaries of Boehme’s directives.

The 342d’s actions under Hinghofer’s command did not.

Settling Accounts in Blood
141

But perhaps the most decisive reason why General Hinghofer com-

bated the 1941 uprising even more truculently than his fellow divisional

commanders was that, of all them, he was the only Austrian.110 Thus,

even though Hinghofer himself did not actually serve in Serbia during

the Great War—something common to him and General Boehme—he

was more likely than his German-born colleagues to feel the decades-old

anti-Serb sentiment that Boehme exploited in the cause of crushing the

1941 uprising.111

Such are the source limitations that it is impossible to know how whole-

heartedly the 342d Infantry Division’s rank-and-fi le troops adhered to

Hinghofer’s pitiless approach. The fact that many were not Austrian

meant that they may not have felt such intense hatred towards the

Serbs.112 Indeed, some did fail to follow their commander’s directives as

enthusiastically as he would have wished. But the overall record is clear.

Of all the German army counterinsurgency divisions fi ghting in Serbia

during 1941, the 342d Infantry Division was the most ferocious by some

way. It behaved not just according to directives from above or to the

conditions it faced, but also according to its commander’s standpoint.

Hinghofer’s particular pattern of service during the Great War may well

have helped incubate his extreme obduracy. He was also Austrian-born,

and thus more likely than his German-born fellows to comport himself

viciously against the Serbs. This may also help explain why General

Borowski’s 704th Infantry Division did not comport itself as viciously as

it might have in summer 1941.

The behavior of Hoffmann, Borowski, and Stahl needs keeping fi rmly

in perspective. They had no compunction in unleashing their formations

upon the Serbian population in autumn 1941 with the full force of Gen-

eral Boehme’s directives. Indeed, there is no indication that any of them

saw fi t even to question those directives. And here it should be remem-

bered that, though it was rare in the extreme for offi cers to directly ques-

tion indiscriminately terroristic orders, it could and did happen. Two

examples demonstrate this.

In August 1941 the area commandant in Niš, Freiherr von Bothmer,

not only objected to indiscriminately shooting innocent Serbs en masse.

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terror in the balk ans

He also used moral and legal arguments when he refused to shoot Com-

munists in his custody against whom no wrongdoing had been proved.

Even though he acknowledged that they would probably be executed by

the SD, he refused to endorse even that action.113 Then in October the

district commandant in Kragujevac, Captain von Bischofshausen, pre-

vailed upon the fi rst battalion of the 724th Infantry Regiment to execute

reprisal victims from “Communist-infested” villages, rather than from

Kragujevac itself, because “not a single Wehrmacht member or ethnic

German has been wounded or shot there.”114 Bischofshausen does not

appear to have been acting out of a sense of morality here, though it is

possible he was disguising moral objections with pragmatic arguments

because he felt such arguments might be more likely to be heeded.115 Yet

whatever his motive, he was showing some grasp, however compromised

it may have been, of the need to make some distinction between “guilty”

and “innocent.”

That relatively junior offi cers saw fi t to question indiscriminate bru-

tality offi cially—whether on moral, legal, or pragmatic grounds—but

divisional commanders did not, suggests that those divisional com-

manders approved of such methods. After all, Borowski, Hoffmann, and

Stahl served in an institution whose leadership had chosen to revive a

profoundly harsh strain of counterinsurgency, and which had over the

years become suffused by ideological, careerist, and technocratic ruth-

lessness. The social backgrounds, Great War experiences, and broader

career paths of all three men were in many respects similarly conducive

to such attitudes. The troops they commanded comported themselves

with according ruthlessness in 1941, be it against Jews, Communists,

or—most devastatingly—the general population. The difference, how-

ever, is that Hinghofer’s 342d comported itself with a ruthlessness even

more extreme.

As it turned out, General Hoffmann’s 342d Infantry Division began tem-

pering its ferocity just as the Germans began landing serious blows upon

the Serbian national uprising. By late October, Serbia Command was

reporting that German mobile operations against the insurgents were

helping to relieve the pressure elsewhere. Rebels and population had

Settling Accounts in Blood
143

been surprised by the ferocity of the German operations and the repri-

sals that accompanied them.116 The SD opined that, though there was

no room for complacency, the number of rebel attacks had fallen. It also

asserted that Boehme’s 1:100 order had created “clear guidelines” for the

practice of reprisals.117

The most serious blow of all was Operation Užice. This operation,

involving the 342d together with the temporarily assigned 113th Infantry

Division and parts of the 714th, commenced on November 25, a fortnight

after the 342d’s divisional command had changed hands, and concluded

on December 4.118 The divisional order for the operation conveyed the

moderation, albeit moderation blended with harshness, that the 342d

had begun to practice under General Hoffmann:

a) Any burning down (of dwellings) is strictly prohibited and pun-

ishable. It is applicable only if arms and ammunition are found or

if fi re is levelled from houses.

b) To be shot to death are all men carrying arms, using them or

concealing them, women and children (sic), however, only if they

actively participate in the fi ghting. In any case children are to be

spared.

c) All Chetniks and Communists who surrender are to be made

prisoners and are to be disarmed.119

But Operation Užice’s greater importance was military: while the Ger-

mans failed to encircle and annihilate the Partisans, they infl icted serious

losses and drove Tito’s staff southward into Italian-occupied Sandzak.

Yet Operation Užice was successful partly because of wider forces.

For one thing the German reprisals, abhorrent as they were, were from

September helping to drive a wedge between the Chetniks and the Parti-

sans. Mihailovic´’s already lukewarm commitment to the national uprising

thus dwindled further. He was already disheartened by the fact that the

Serbian gendarmerie, many of whom had some sympathy with his move-

ment, had been a prime target for the Communists from the uprising’s

earliest days. He also perceived that the Germans’ intransigence towards

the Nedic´ government made it much harder for his own movement to ben-

efi t from its earlier contact and communication with that government.120

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terror in the balk ans

Haunted by the memory of Serbia’s trauma during the Great War, the

reprisals led Mihailovic´ to conclude that continuing to resist the Ger-

mans openly would precipitate Serbia’s “national suicide.”121 The repri-

sals’ severity would eventually diminish in effect as the war continued.

Indeed, the number of hostages needed to feed them was already begin-

ning to render them unworkable. But they had immense shock effect in

autumn 1941.122 As Milovan Djilas wrote:

The tragedy gave to Nedic´ “convincing proof” that the Serbs would

be biologically exterminated if they were not submissive and loyal,

and to the Chetniks “proof” that the Partisans were prematurely

provoking the Germans and thus causing the decimation of Serbs

and the destruction of Serbian culture . . . If there was treason, and I

hold that there was, it justifi ed itself with biological survival.123

But the Germans failed to fully recognize that Operation Užice also suc-

ceeded for political reasons. For one thing, it was not just fi erce German

reprisals that had driven Mihailovic´ to sever his links with the Partisans,

but the man’s increasing confi dence also. Mihailovic´ felt increasingly

assured of the active support of the British, and the royal government-

in-exile. He fi rst obtained British material aid in November 1941. The

government-in-exile, which was almost identical to the Simovicádmin-

istration the March 1941 coup had propelled into power, and which was

almost entirely composed of Serbs, backed Mihailovic´ to the hilt. In

January 1942, it would appoint him Minister for War. By contrast, the

Partisans found themselves extensively frozen out by the British in late

1941, and scolded by Moscow for lacking the constructive coalition men-

tality necessary for wartime alliances.124

But probably the most important reason for the Chetnik–Partisan split

was that the two movements’ aims fundamentally confl icted. The Chet-

niks’ program went well beyond the agenda of the government-in-exile;

they sought not only to restore the old monarchical system, but also to

extend Serbian power within Yugoslavia. The most grandiose form this

ambition would take was a plan for a “Great Serbia.” The blueprint for

Great Serbia was proposed in a memorandum produced on June 30, 1941,

by Stevan Moljevicóf the Chetniks’ Central National Committee. Great

Settling Accounts in Blood
145

Serbia would incorporate Bosnia and much of Croatia into a greatly

enlarged Serbia, which would then dominate postwar Yugoslavia even

more emphatically than before.125

The Partisans, by contrast, sought a revolution against the old order

and the foundation of a new state based on the principles of Communism

and Yugoslavism. Moreover, the Partisans had loudly declared their

intent by using the liberated area around Užice as a laboratory for revolu-

tionary measures. NOOs had been rapidly established, for instance, tax

and land records burned, and women deployed in the Partisans’ ranks.

More ominously, the Partisans had eliminated local politicians who had

criticized them.126 All this, of course, rendered impossible anything but

the most short-term cooperation between Partisans and Chetniks.

What had united the two movements in 1941, then, was far less impor-

tant than what divided them. This, more than anything else, guaranteed

their split that autumn and their deadly antagonism over the following

years. By late October, amid halfhearted and soon-to-be-abandoned

attempts by Tito and Mihailovic´ to stave off armed confrontation, Parti-

san and Chetnik units were openly fi ghting one another.

There were now opportunities for the Axis to co-opt the MihailovicĆhetniks, if only temporarily.127 Some of Mihailovic´’s forces did come to an arrangement with the Nedicŕegime. The two parties shared common anti-Communist ground, and many of their leading fi gures were

connected by strong personal links. At the end of November, though

there was no formal agreement between the Mihailovic´ movement and

the Nedic´ government, many of Mihailovic´’s commanders aligned their

men with Nedic´’s “legal” Chetnik formations in exchange for offi cial

protection.128 This agreement, and the Mihailovic´’s Chetniks’ relative

quiescence more generally, would ensure that occupied Serbia, at least,

remained comparatively peaceful for the rest of the war.

But the Germans, though their distrust of Mihailovic´ was under-

standable, missed an opportunity for an active temporary alliance

against the Partisans. They believed Mihailovic´ was cooperating with

Nedic´ to play the general and themselves off against one another, and

that any approach Mihailovic´ might make to them would be made out of

sheer military necessity.129 Mihailovic´ did indeed approach the Germans

in November 1941, following one of his failed meetings with Tito. He

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requested guns and ammunition in return for his help in “(purging) the

Serbian area once and for all of the Communist bands.”130 But the Ger-

mans rebuffed him, demanded his unconditional surrender, and then

narrowly failed to capture him when they overran his headquarters at

Ravna Gora in early December.131

Spurned by the Germans, Mihailovic´’s forces within Serbia would

now restrict their actions to low-key subversion and sabotage against

the occupation. Ostensibly this was so they could await the time when,

their strength and organization suffi ciently developed, they could rise