Auf Umwegen zum Vernichtungskrieg? Der Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien, 1941-1944.

Lessons Learned by Yugoslav Military Experts from the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 1979-1981

“…В 1941-1945 гг. Коммунистической партии Югославии удалось развязать, вести, а затем и победить в наиболее масштабной и интенсивной партизанской войне на всей территории оккупированной нацистами Европы (Schmider 2002). Этот опыт прославлялся и превратился в общенациональный нарратив, от которого трудно было делать отступления с момента его кодификации в конце 1950-х гг.…”

With the Devil in Titoland: A Wehrmacht Anti-Partisan Division in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1943

“…On one occasion, for example, the 718th's divisional command ordered the disarming and then releasing of partisan deserterssomething that went considerably beyond the 'measured' call by the then Wehrmachtbefehlshaber South-East, Lieutenant-General Walter Kuntze, for partisan deserters to be deported to Norway for forced labour rather than shot. 67 Impetus to this more thoughtful approach to anti-partisan warfare may have come from the fact that, during 1942, the division realized that it actually needed to use whatever measures necessary to protect the Serb and Muslim sections of the population from the ravages of Ustasha units if order in the region were to be maintained. 68 Such an experience inevitably would lend the 718th's divisional command a greater appreciation of the wartime pressures the occupied population was facing, and the role these played -rather than any 'Bolshevik infection' -in compelling many of its number to join the partisans.…”

“…26 Coupled with this initiative was Hitler's particular displeasure at what he saw as the excessively high numbers of prisoners taken in anti-partisan operations in the NDH during 1942. 27 Two directives were issued by Croatia Command as a precursor to Operation Weis I, which ran from 20 January to 15 February 1943 and was the first of the mobile operations envisaged for the first half of 1943. The directives convey the extreme severity of purpose clearly.…”

“…The negotiations took place against a background in which officers higher up the command chain were also seeing the wisdom of reining in brutality; among other things, Lieutenant-General Lüters himself now approved measures to place hostages in reserves rather than shoot them immediately. 45 The divisions' readiness to enter into negotiations seems also to have been founded in part on a belief, which a number of senior officers within the region seem to have been sharing by 1943, that the partisans should actually be granted proper combatant status. Major-General Benignus Dippold, commander of the 717th, conveyed this view when he argued, with apparent admiration for the partisans' fighting qualities, that 'one must view the enemy as poorly equipped troops, but not as bandits'.…”

“…The delay this created helped enable Tito and large numbers of partisans to escape once more, albeit under heavy Axis pressure, across the River Neretva. 54 With respect to the quality of its troops also, the 718th Infantry Division contrasts with the 369th. Admittedly, the 718th's substandard equipment and manpower did bring its share of the problems experienced by all the core Wehrmacht anti-partisan divisions in Yugoslavia.…”