# German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944)/Chapter 10

MAP 4.—German dispositions in the Balkans as of mid-August 1944.
CHAPTER 10
OPERATIONS IN 1944
I. General
The Italians had been eliminated from a major role on the military scene, except for individuals and small units fighting on either side, and the Balkan occupation by the beginning of 1944 had become a heavy burden to the Germans. The Wehrmacht was bleeding to death in Russia, and the invasion of France was but a few months away; United States, British, and other Allied forces were firmly established in Italy. The Bulgarians, formerly reliable allies and assigned a responsible part in the occupation, were growing acutely concerned with the possibility of Turkey's entering the war on the Allied side; a Turkish attack through Thrace had become a nightmare to the Bulgarian leaders.
The lesser satellite and puppet forces, including the Ustascha and national army of Croatia, the Serbian State Guard and Volunteer Corps, and various Yugoslav, Greek, and Albanian security and auxiliary units, had begun to desert in increasing numbers to the Partisans and ELAS, and a few to the Chetniks and EDES. The Russian Guard Corps, as well as such Russian-German formations as the 1st Cossack Division, which had arrived in Yugoslavia in late 1943, remained loyal to the Germans. However, the dilution of the Guard Corps with former prisoners of war and the excesses of the Cossack Division against the civilian population reacted to the disadvantage of the Germans. The former prisoners, brought up in the Soviet mold, were completely alien to the older Russians, and the Guard Corps lost some of its Czarist flavor. The 1st Cossack Division, which included Kuban, Terek, Don, and Siberian Cossacks who had seen hard service against Soviet guerrillas, left a trail of burned villages and terror-stricken peasants in its wake.
The German units, however, despite this weakened support, still presented a formidable military force to the irregulars, and, could march into and occupy any part of Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia at any time, an argument often given to justify their treatment of captured guerrillas as illegal combatants. Moreover, strong and seasoned reserves were available in the 1st Mountain Division, as well as several others less well known, to be rushed to the scene of any protracted rising. (Map 4.)
To keep as many as possible of its better-trained troops available as a mobile striking force to counter Allied landings in Greece, Army Group E had already received a number of "Eastern" battalions, composed of Russians, Ukranians, Poles, and other Slavic groups, to supplement its German security units. Too, thousands of Italians, after a few months in German internment camps, found a more tolerable existence in labor and other auxiliary units. Known to the Germans as Hiwis (Hilfswillige), the labor troops relieved combat units by building coastal fortifications, constructing strongpoints, and repairing the extensive damage done by Allied bombing, now increasing in intensity; the Kawis (Kampfwillige) assisted by performing various guard and security duties. The heterogeneous collection of foreign troops proved insufficient for the maintenance of law and order in Greece, however, and the commander of Army Group E requested and received permission to raise and equip a battalion of Greek security troops, knowing approval for more would be forthcoming if the new unit could make any substantial contribution to the German defense plan.
This pilot model was known as the Laocoon Volunteer Battalion, after Laocoon of Greek mythology, and had approximately 700 men. Arms were limited to rifles and machine guns, and the first mission of the battalion was to participate in the clearing of the Peloponnesus. The fair success attained in the operation convinced the Germans of the advisability of organizing two additional battalions.
The practice of replacing German units with foreign troops had its disadvantages, however. For example, it had become necessary for General Loehr to warn all Russian members of the Eastern battalions against desertion. The worsening German war situation had prompted Stalin to call on all Soviet citizens in German service to obstruct operations in any way they could, and a number had done so by deserting, spreading rumors, and inciting the troops against their German officers and noncommissioned officers.
Next, the general reluctance among the Italians in the German auxiliary services caused the army group commander to require an oath of allegiance from each man. A full 30 percent of the Italians refused to take the oath, and rumors were rife among the 70 percent who did that they would be called upon for front-line service. According to other rumors, each man taking the oath of allegiance in the German cause would be imprisoned for 10 years if he were ever to return to Italy. The already low morale and lukewarm support of the Italians sank to new depths when this news became general knowledge among the labor and security units.
Nor had the situation with the Bulgarians improved. Reports from the liaison officer with the II Bulgarian Corps stressed the defeatist ​attitude of the corps commander and his staff, who despaired of holding the Thracian coast against a determined Anglo-American landing in force. Rather, the Bulgarians preferred to build a defense line along the Rhodope Mountains, just inside their own country. Believing an invasion would be preceded by a large-scale airborne landing to their rear, they feared the cutting of communications with the Bulgarian zone of the interior.
Respecting the Bulgarians as hardy and willing soldiers, the Germans pointed out that the Bulgarian lack of experience in modern military operations had caused them to overestimate the Allies, and that a strong coastal defense organization would discourage any landing in an area so exposed to a German flank attack from the Greek peninsula. The Bulgarians, temporarily reassured, expanded their construction of coastal defenses and agreed to send a number of their commanders and staff officers to observe German operations in Italy.
The German units, bearing the brunt of the antiguerrilla effort, had difficulties of their own, chief among them a shortage of personnel. To supplement the trickle of replacements, General Loehr directed all service organizations to make their able-bodied men available for transfer to combat units. The commander of Army Group E also had to overcome some lethargy on the part of subordinate headquarters, and on one occasion sent a sternly worded directive ordering the abolishment of such terms as "Sunday duty" from the staff duty rosters of the corps and area commands.
A number of operations were undertaken by units of Army Group E during the opening months of 1944 in an attempt to clear guerrilla-infested areas of Greece. Though not on the large scale of operations in Yugoslavia to the north, they nonetheless diverted thousands of troops from the preparation of coastal defenses and transfer to other theaters of war. In addition, they involved extensive use of vehicles and an expenditure of gasoline the Germans could ill afford.
The first operation of significance, in the Salonika-Aegean area, was called WOLF; both German and Bulgarian troops participated. A total of 254 enemy dead was counted, and over 400 prisoners taken. Operation HORRIDO followed, with units of the XXII Mountain Corps participating. Guerrilla casualties totalled 310 dead and 15 captured, while the German troops suffered 18 dead, wounded, and missing.
During this period the economic situation worsened steadily, with the value of the Greek drachma reduced to a point where it required 500,000 to purchase a pound of butter on the widespread black market. As a result, large numbers of Greeks fled to join the guerrillas, particularly the communist group. General Loehr, for this reason, found it ​necessary to direct the troops to desist from interfering with food shipments and neutral relief agencies, in the hope the gap in security his order created would be offset by an improved level of subsistence for the bulk of the population.
The Germans still had some supporters from the anticommunist elements of the Greek population, among them EDES. For keeping the Yannina–Arta road and a large part of the Pindus Mountains area cleared of ELAS forces, EDES was supplied with small arms and ammunition by local German commanders, a practice approved by the army group commander. According to revised German estimates, Zervas' main force at this time comprised only 2,500–3,000 men, but these were well disciplined, adequately armed, and organized into properly balanced units, with sufficient heavy weapons for support in their particular type of combat. ELAS, by contrast, had grown to 20,000 men, uniformly armed only to battalion and lacking heavy weapons in sufficient numbers or the more rigid organization and discipline of Zervas' nationalists.
Started the end of February, Operation RENNTIER was concluded in March, with a total of 96 guerrilla dead and 100 prisoners. The Germans suffered 2 and the Bulgarians 7 casualties in the operation. A second operation in the Salonika-Aegean area, with the code name ILTIS, cost the guerrillas an additional 15 men.
A communist-inspired strike in the Piraeus area in March was put down by the Germans only after security troops fired on the demonstrators, killing 21; an additional 132 strikers were taken into custody. Immediately following this, a German truck column on the Sparta–Tripolis road in the Peloponnesus was attacked, and a total of 18 Germans killed and 44 wounded. In reprisal, 200 communist suspects were executed, 10 villages burned, and martial law declared throughout the Peloponnesus. Both of these events worsened relations between the Greek civilian population and the German occupiers.
Another measure taken by Army Group E was the establishment of a restricted zone on either side of the railroad lines used by the German forces. In open country, this extended to 5 kilometers (approx. 3 miles) on either side of the track; in populated areas, to 200 meters (220 yds.). Within this zone, civilians were warned, they would be fired upon on sight.
While clearing operations, restrictions on movement in the area of the rail lines, and the active assistance of EDES and the Greek volunteer battalions restored a measure of security to the German supply routes, guerrilla forces increased their activities in more remote areas. On Euboea, elements of the LXVIII Corps and Greek auxiliaries had to be committed in a clearing operation that cost the guerrillas 85 dead and 69 prisoners. A concurrent small-scale opera​tion in the Salonika-Aegean area cost the Greek resistance forces 13 casualties and the Germans 12. Continuously engaged in operations, the occupational command for the Salonika-Aegean area became the Salonika Corps Group, and was raised to tactical corps status.
Friction again developed with the Bulgarians at this time. Contrary to the wishes of the Germans, to whom they were now subordinated tactically, the Bulgarians assigned fully a quarter of the troops of their II Corps to the task of securing the interior of Thrace, up to the mountain passes into Bulgaria. The Germans protested this weakening of the coastal garrisons, already reduced to a point where only 11 heavy batteries were left available for coast artillery support for an exposed sea front of almost 200 miles. In reply, the Bulgarians stated they considered it necessary to secure a route for reinforcements in the event of an Allied landing.
Despite the dissatisfaction of Army Group E, the Bulgarians maintained their position, widening the breach in relations. The irritation grew with some activities of Bulgarian units operating in German-occupied areas. Reluctant to leave after the completion of a mission, the Bulgarians frequently had to be ordered to return to their own zone. In turn, these units resented the German requirement that they turn over all weapons and booty taken in joint operations. Bulgarian minorities in German-occupied Greece also played a part in the dissension. Allowed to form home guard-type companies at the insistence of the Bulgarian II Corps, the minorities used these armed units to dominate their Greek neighbors, who in turn blamed the German authorities for placing them in such a position.
Operations in early April involved the clearing of a number of mountain passes in northern Greece, a preliminary movement to Operation MAIGEWITTER, a large-scale effort to destroy ELAS forces in that part of the army group area. The total guerrilla loss in the operation was 339 dead and 75 captured, with 200 suspects arrested.
Repeated Allied commando and air raids on the Greek islands made necessary the issuance of special instructions to the captains of the small vessels making the hazardous supply runs to isolated garrisons in the Aegean and Ionian Seas areas. Gun crews were to stand by at action stations when their vessels approached island anchorages, and supplies were to be unloaded only after the garrisons had been identified. Movement was to be at night where possible, with gun crews ready for sudden air attacks even in port. The excellent intelligence net of the guerrillas and Allies made it difficult for the Germans to maintain security of ship movements, however; this was well illustrated by the sinking of a ship carrying large stocks of small arms and machine gun ammunition to Crete and other island outposts.
​On several occasions British commando troops managed to remain on various Greek islands for periods of several days, making detailed reconnaissance and taking prisoners for interrogation at Middle East headquarters. Perhaps the best known of these prisoners was Generalmajor (Brigadier General) Karl Kreipe, commanding the 22d Airborne Division on Crete, and captured on 26 April by a party that penetrated the coastal defenses and succeeded in evacuating the general past a number of security outposts. This persistent Allied interest in Greece tended to keep the German occupying forces constantly on the alert, a strain on commanders, staffs, troops, and communications. The mounting number of suicides on Crete alone, from 11 in 1942 to 41 in 1943, perhaps best exemplified the slump in morale and spirit occasioned by this type of duty. The garrison of Crete was evacuated before the end of 1944, hence no figures are available for that year. However, the situation became serious enough to be called to the attention of General Loehr by his chief medical officer.
The situation in Greece became more tense during May and June. The army group commander, to provide additional armed men in the event of emergency, directed the conscription of all able-bodied, male Germans resident in Greece, including civilians attached to the economic and diplomatic missions, the Organization Todt (construction workers), and employees of the various armed services. Practice alerts were held frequently, and rear area troops, as well as the provisional units of new conscripts, were given intensive instruction in the use of small arms.
The guerrillas, meanwhile, emboldened by the prospect of an impending German withdrawal, increased the tempo of their attacks. During the first week of May, Generalleutenant (Major General) Krech, commanding the 41st Fortress Division on the Peloponnesus, was killed in a surprise attack, with 3 enlisted men of his headquarters; 325 communist suspects were shot in reprisal. Other attacks were made on German supply lines, and sabotage extended even to armed vessels at anchor in Greek harbors.
Apparently oblivious to the situation in which the German forces in Greece now found themselves, the Armed Forces High Command, through the headquarters of Marshal von Weichs, directed the securing of the Greek sea areas and the defense of the peninsula to the last. Operation NEPTUN, later compromised and changed to KORALLE, was undertaken to clear the Sporades Islands area and adjacent waters in compliance with this order, but succeeded only in drawing superior British naval forces to the scene of battle. EINHORN, also compromised and changed to GEMSBOCK, was completed by the XXII Mountain Corps in early June; the purpose of the operation was to inflict a decisive defeat on the growing guerrilla forces in the Greek-​Albanian border area. Quite successful, GEMSBOCK was followed three weeks later by Operation STEINADLER, to destroy ELAS units in the Pentalofon area.
While the XXII Mountain Corps conducted GEMSBOCK in western Greece and southern Albania, the LXVIII Corps in the Peloponnesus and eastern Greece pursued several operations of its own. The results in the numbers of guerrillas killed and captured, however, were considerably less than in GEMSBOCK.
An increasing number of desertions by the Ossets, a Caucasus Mountains race well represented in the Eastern battalions, caused the army group commander to direct that all Ossets be disarmed and detained as prisoners of war. From' a support to German manpower, the "Eastern" battalions now became an increasing liability. A watch also had to be kept on the Italian volunteers dispersed throughout the German security battalions in a ratio of one "company" of 40 men per battalion. Reports of disaffection among such units under German command in northern Italy caused considerable concern over the matter at army group headquarters. A number of Bulgarian volunteers serving in Wehrmacht units also had to be disarmed in June, as did part of the 814th Armenian Battalion, adding to the enormous number of prisoners of war and internees in German custody in Greece.
Early July brought a realinement of German combat strength in Greece when the 4th SS Police Division, which had then been in Greece almost a year, was alerted for movement to the north. The consequent shifting of forces made it necessary for the 41st Fortress Division, a static unit composed in large part of former general military prisoners, to take over the defense of the entire Peloponnesus. The 11th Luftwaffe Field Division, in Attica, was given an added area of responsibility, which included Thessaly, infested by ELAS and EKKA forces. Units of the air force field division lost control of much of the area to the guerrillas in a matter of days, and had difficulty maintaining the major north-south roads and rail lines.
On 3 July EDES abruptly reopened hostilities with the occupation forces, seizing 10 kilometers (6½, miles) of coastline in the vicinity of Parga. (Map 4.) Two days later, during the night of 5–6 July, EDES forces attacked German troops in the vicinity of Arta. To defend themselves, the Germans undertook several small-scale countermoves, meanwhile trying to determine the intentions of Zervas prior to any major offensive to eliminate him. Intelligence reports at first supported the theory that British liaison officers had seized command' of the Zervas organization, in conjunction with a group ​of anti-German commanders led by Colonel Kamaras of the 10th EDES Division. Later, several clandestine meetings between Zervas and representatives of the German forces made it obvious that the Greek leader had been influenced by the Allied liaison mission to renege on his agreement with the occupation forces. The coastal area Zervas had seized, with its easy access to the EDES-controlled Pindus Mountains, permitted the landing of 5,000 reinforcements from the Greek units under British command in Egypt. These units were immediately distributed throughout the Zervas organization and represented a substantial increase in effective troop strength. (Map 5.)
Since a reinforced and hostile EDES represented a threat to his forces, the commander of Army Group E directed the destruction of the Zervas. organization after the completion of Operation STEINADLER. General Loehr also directed additional changes in coastal defense, based on German experiences in the Normandy operation. Beach defenses were to be manned only by troops of the static fortress battalions, while the reduced mobile forces of the 104th Light and other divisions were to be assembled in areas to the rear to counter Allied landings.
The offensive against EDES, for which the already alerted 4th SS Division was made available, was the responsibility of the XXII Mountain Corps. Called by the code name of KREUZOTTER, the operation, beginning 5 August, was only moderately successful. EDES lost a total of 298 dead and 260 prisoners, as against German casualties of 20 dead, 112 wounded, and one missing.
More important events, on the international scene, soon eclipsed antiguerrilla operations in the area of Army Group E. The Romanians surrendered to the advancing Russians on 24 August, and Soviet forces were perilously close to the Bulgarian frontier. Though not at war with the Soviet Union, the Bulgarians feared imminent invasion by either Russians or Turks, and government leaders met to consider ending the alliance with Germany. As a result, orders were given Bulgarian frontier troops to disarm German units withdrawing from Romania, and the II Corps, in Thrace, was directed to prepare for movement home during the first week in September. The German liaison missions with higher Bulgarian headquarters remained on in their assignments, however, and Wehrmacht units scattered throughout Thrace and in Bulgaria itself organized themselves into small combat groups to resist any attempt by the Bulgarians to disarm them. Hitler, furious at what he considered Bulgarian duplicity, ordered all German troops moving into Bulgaria to remain under arms and all units to defend their positions in Bulgaria and Bulgarian-occupied areas to the last cartridge (an order now somewhat timeworn in the Fuehrer's directives to his field commanders).
Map 5. German estimate of guerrilla strength and disposition in Greece as of mid-August 1944.
While resigned to the loss of Thrace, the Bulgarian Government, despite the imminent crisis with the Soviet Union, had no intention of relinquishing its status in Yugoslavia. Accordingly, since it lay directly across the main axis of communications between Army Group E and German headquarters for all the southeast at Belgrade, it was necessary for the Germans to make plans to secure Yugoslav Macedonia and southeastern Serbia, the former occupied by the Bulgarian V Corps and the latter by the I Corps. Plan TREUBRUCH assigned the 1st Mountain Division the mission of seizing Skoplje, largest city and rail center of the area; Plan HUNDESSOHN involved the movement of the 4th SS Police Division into Bulgaria in the direction of Sofiya, the capital; Plan JUDAS was the disarmament of the Bulgarian forces in Thrace and Macedonia. Arrangements were made with Army Group F for units of Army Group E to move into its area of responsibility.
While German units prepared for their respective parts in the operations planned in event of hostilities with Bulgaria, fighting with the guerrilla forces increased in intensity. For the 2-month period ending in August, the Germans suffered a total of 936 dead, 1,235 wounded, and 275 missing, meanwhile inflicting casualties on the guerrillas amount to 5,394 dead and 768 captured. Personnel casualties in air attacks on trains, convoys, and troop areas also reached a high during this period, with 32 dead and 26 wounded for the week ending 4 August alone. To improve the air defense of their rail lines and installations, Luftwaffe units were directed to fly high over the railroads and to avoid flying parallel to them. Antiaircraft crews and troops defending the trains and lines were then free to open fire on any aircraft approaching at a low altitude.
The situation by the end of August made it necessary for Army Group E to order the evacuation of all troops in Greece, with the exception of the garrisons of Crete and Rhodes, to the area north of the line Corfu–Yannina–Kalabaka–Olympus. The withdrawal was to be orderly, and measures taken to prevent German intentions becoming known to the Greek population. The troops on railroad security duty were reinforced, and Corps Group Salonika, a provisional organization formed from the administrative command for the Salonika-Aegean area, was merged with an existing skeletal staff to form the ​XCI Corps headquarters and control units in the Salonika region, through which all forces from the south would have to pass.
On 8 September, Bulgaria declared war on Germany and immediately dispatched strong forces from Sofiya in the direction of the Yugoslav frontier. Lacking the strength to put their ambitious HUNDESSOHN and JUDAS plans into effect, the Germans hurried the 1st Mountain Division to Skoplje, where it operated temporaril under control of the Second Panzer Army, to implement Plan TREUBRUCH. While 5,000 Bulgarians at Bitolj laid down their arms after a brief show of resistance, the garrison at Prilep and Bulgarian units in the Skoplje area fought stubbornly. However, the 1st Mountain Division eventually managed to seize and hold the city of Skoplje and the vital railroad along the Vardar River. Bulgarian units bypassed in the fast German move to the north succeeded in breaking the line at a number of points and had to be driven off by combat groups formed from troops moving northward from Greece to join the 1st Mountain Division.
On the night of 8–9 September, a general rising made it obvious that German units below the line Corfu–Yannina–Kalabaka–Olympus would have to fight their way north. Moving down from the mountains in force, both ELAS and EDES attempted to block the major roads and railways to the north. In western Greece, troops of the XXII Mountain Corps had to fight hard to keep the Arta–Yannina road open in order to evacuate the Cephalonia garrison and units in southwestern Greece. In eastern Greece, the LXVIII Reserve Corps, having already lost its 11th Luftwaffe Field Division to the defense of Macedonia, managed to regain long stretches of the rail line to Salonika only after a series of seesaw actions with strong ELAS units.
To reinforce the units already heavily engaged in the north and threatened by an estimated three Bulgarian armies moving west to cut off the withdrawal of Army Group E, General Loehr directed an airlift of combat troops from Crete and Rhodes. A total of 11,500 men evacuated from Crete alone in this operation, most of them from the 22d Airborne Division, proved to be a substantial addition to the hard-pressed units north of Salonika. However, fighter aircraft from Allied carriers now operating in force in Greek waters made impossible the completion of the airlift. As of 12 October, some 26,500 service and combat troops were still stranded on Crete, Rhodes, and other German-held islands, with little or no prospect of escape. Instructed to fight to the end and destroy all installations and materiel of value to the enemy, the bulk of these troops, representing all three services, were left to their fate.
​Its success in holding open the route of withdrawal to the north could not obscure the fact that Army Group E was in a difficult position. All available troops had been thrown into the fighting against the Russians and Bulgarians along a line roughly paralleling the southeastern Yugoslav border. In the rear areas in Yugoslav Macedonia, Albanian guerrillas and Partisan units roamed almost at will off the main roads and rail lines, and the Partisans had established contact with Bulgarian irregulars operating with their own army as reconnaissance and screening forces. Accordingly, Army Group E directed the complete evacuation of Greece and the establishment of a new defense along the line Scutari–Skoplje–Negotin. (Map 4.) On 14 October headquarters of Army Group E moved to Yugoslav Macedonia, where it estimated it had the equivalent of four German divisions holding a line of 375 miles against 131/2 Soviet and Bulgarian divisions. While the rugged country allowed them to confine their efforts to holding the mountain passes and other avenues of approach, this advantage was more than offset by the German inferiority in numbers and lack of air support and by the activities of the guerrillas. Information from prisoners revealed the Third Ukrainian Front (Army Group) to be in Sofiya directing operations, with the Thirty Seventh and Fifty Seventh Soviet Armies under its control. The Bulgarian armies were the First, Second, and Fourth. The use of Stuka aircraft by the Bulgarians, who had obtained them under the Axis equivalent of lend-lease during the period of the alliance with Germany, was particularly exasperating to the troops of Army Group E.
The few units still remaining in Greece, comprising mostly supply and other service troops, now found themselves in a position similar to that of the island garrisons. Lacking adequate transportation and the fire-power of combat units, these troops were ordered to fight to the last and to destroy all stocks and equipment of any value to the guerrillas. While some carried out the destruction as ordered, in a number of cases installation commanders turned critically needed food, medicines, and clothing over to agencies of the Greek Government. As British troops landed in southern Greece and the occupation rapidly approached its end, ELAS and EDES became engaged in a civil war that prevented both them and the British from participating in the pursuit of the Germans. On 2 November the last organized German units to evacuate Greece crossed the border into Yugoslavia, and German control of Greece was history.
III. The Area of Army Group F
The German command structure in Yugoslavia as of the first of the year was an anomaly. Army Group F, which controlled all German ​forces in Yugoslavia and Albania, was also Supreme Headquarters, Southeast. As Commander-in-Chief, Southeast, Marshal von Weichs controlled Army Group E as well, in effect placing Army Group F in the position of being the headquarters to which Army Group E was responsible.
As subordinate commands in Yugoslavia and Albania, Army Group F had the Second Panzer Army, with headquarters at Kragujevac, and the Military Command, Southeast, with headquarters at Belgrade. Actually, the titles of both headquarters were inaccurate, since the Second Panzer Army had no armored divisions at the time and but one or two tank battalions as army troops, while the Military Commander, Southeast, was the area commander in Serbia, and commanded the tactical troops in the area in the dual role of Army Commander, Serbia. Although the Second Panzer Army retained its designation until the end, it might have been more properly called the Second Mountain Army. Attached to these two commands and Army Group F were the I Bulgarian Corps of four divisions; four German corps, with eleven infantry, one cavalry (Cossack), one mountain, and one SS mountain division; and army and army group troops.
Facing a better-armed and more numerous enemy than the German forces in Greece, Army Group F was all but forced on the defensive in the opening months of 1944. While the Chetniks still maintained an uneasy peace, the Partisans had grown to a force able to hold a large area of the country by themselves, including even transportation and communications facilities, and to set up a provisional government. Small-scale operations by the various divisions and smaller units met with some success, but the center of the Partisan movement, in the Knin–Jajce–Bihac–Banja Luka area, remained a refuge to which Tito's units could withdraw when German pressure became too great in any other particular area. (Map 3) Accordingly, to regain the initiative now all but lost, and to strike the Partisans a blow from which they would not soon recover, Marshal von Weichs ordered the Second Panzer Army to destroy the Tito forces in their main stronghold. The operation was known as ROESSELSPRUNG, and it was planned to commit elements of the 1st Mountain Division, elements of the Division Brandenburg (designation of a special demolitions and sabotage unit), the 202d Tank Battalion, the 92d Motorized Infantry Regiment (Separate), an SS parachute battalion, and a number of Croatian units.
The parachutists and glider troops were dropped on Tito's headquarters at Dvar on 25 May, while tank and infantry units converged from Bihac, Banja Luka, and Livno. Though Tito himself managed to escape, the Partisan headquarters was captured, with its extensive ​communications system. The 1st and 6th Partisan Divisions were badly mauled in the fighting, suffering a total of 6,000 casualties, and an enormous stock of booty taken. Though not a fatal blow, the operation did achieve its purpose in that the Partisan chain of command was temporarily broken until Tito could establish himself on the island of Vis under British protection, and the heavy personnel and materiel losses forced the guerrillas to withdraw from operations in the area to reorganize and regroup. The German satisfaction over the results of the operation was somewhat tempered, however, with the losses inflicted on the attackers when United States and British aircraft surprised them in the process of combing and clearing the Hvar area.
Strong concentrations of Partisans in Montenegro made it necessary to plan another large-scale operation, called RUEBEZAHL. However, before RUEBEZAHL could be launched, the movement of Partisans toward the Macedonia region required immediate and effective action. Aware of the impending German withdrawal from. Greece and the Soviet advance to the west, the Partisans rushed the first of an estimated thirteen divisions in the direction of the strategic area north of Skoplje. Operation ROESLEIN cost the attackers almost a thousand casualties, but could not prevent a strong force from seizing a stretch of the highway north of Skoplje on 2 August; a hastily formed task force, with a reconnaissance battalion as its nucleus, managed to drive the Partisans off after heavy fighting. To the north, Operation FEUERWEHR inflicted more casualties on the Partisans, but could not prevent their movement into the upper valley of the Morava River.
On 12 August Operation RUEBEZAHL finally got underway, with the 1st Mountain Division and other German forces holding the major part of the advancing Partisan divisions and then driving them back across the Lim River. The results of the operation, though satisfactory in that the Partisans had been stopped from moving into Macedonia in force, were limited by the lack of a German parachute battalion, prevented by a shortage of gasoline from participating in the undertaking in its normal role. Also, the worsening situation with the Bulgarians and Romanians caused the German command to withdraw the 1st Mountain Division as soon as the operation had been completed, preventing exploitation of its success. Too, Partisan units that had managed to move to the east were now in position to threaten all road and rail transportation to the north and Belgrade. (Map 6.)
Map 6.—German estimate of guerrilla strength and dispositions in Yugoslavia and Albania as of mid-August 1944.
On 8 September, Bulgaria was at war with Germany and the Bulgarian I Corps was already in contact with the Partisan forces that had managed to infiltrate east to the Morava. Awaiting heavy Soviet and Bulgarian reinforcements from the Sofiya area, the I Corps held in place. Farther south, the V Corps was in defensive positions east of Skopije, though units in and about the city itself put up a stubborn struggle against the 1st Mountain Division on its arrival in TREUBRUCH. North of Skoplje, the 2d, 5th, and 17th Divisions of the Partisan II Corps had been identified. Immediately engaging both Bulgarians and Partisans, the 1st Mountain Division cleared the main routes to the north and secured the city of Skoplje itself. However, the division lacked the strength to destroy the guerrilla and Bulgarian forces or to drive them from the area.
It is important to note, at this point, that the Germans had begun to use the Partisan and other guerrilla designations for the irregular units. Before this time, the usual reference in German reports had been to "bands." But from mid-1944, operations orders and the war diaries of the German units committed against the guerrillas began to carry the guerrilla forces as brigades, divisions, and corps, with numerical designation when known. In a conference on 21 September, Marshal von Weichs expressed the view that the size, armament, organization, and operations of the Partisan units justified the Germans' considering them as an enemy on the same plane with the regular forces of the other nations with which the Reich was at war.
To keep the various small units and administrative detachments scattered over Yugoslavia intact while the fighting to secure the Skoplje area was in progress, Army Group F directed their concentration in central locations and the organization of an all-round defense. All female personnel were ordered evacuated, and plans drawn up to destroy all supplies that could not be moved. Outlying garrisons were stripped of combat units to build up the mobile force assembling under Second Panzer Army in the area south of Belgrade.
CHART No. 4—GERMAN GROUND FORCES IN OCCUPIED YUGOSLAVIA AND ALBANIA AS OF THE FALL BELGRADE 20 OCTOBER 1944
Chart 4.
By late September Soviet forces were fighting north of Belgrade, in an encircling move to capture the city. The Second Panzer Army lacked the forces to implement German plans for an overpowering counterattack, and withdrew its weakened units into western Croatia. On the 27th of the month, Marshal von Weichs directed the impressment of all residents of Belgrade in the building of fortifications. However, threatened with encirclement, the command post of Army Group F had to be displaced to the north and west.
Belgrade fell to the Russians and the I Partisan Corps on 20 October. (Chart 4.) In the south, the rear guard of the German forces was approaching the Greek-Yugoslav frontier, leaving Greece in the hands of ELAS, EDES, and the British. Still in good order, the units of Army Groups E and F made their way to the northwest, keeping open secondary rail and road lines to evacuate the last of their forces from Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. Thousands of Chetniks, Serb auxiliaries, Croatian soldiers, and individuals who had assisted the occupation forces in one way or another joined the columns of withdrawing German troops.
The guerrilla movement at this point can be considered at an end. The resistance forces, with the assistance of the Allies and aided by the worsening German strategic situation, had finally been able to emerge as an organized force, be recognized as such by the Germans, and contribute materially to the liberation of their respective countries. In turn, these resistance forces had speeded the breaking of German power by tying down well over one-half million German troops and preventing their commitment on other fronts. In Yugoslavia, Tito was to become de-facto chief of state and crush his Chetnik opponents; in Albania, civil war was to ensue until Enver Hoxha and his communist faction could seize control of the country. With the military operations shifting to the north and west, the hinterlands of Albania and Yugoslavia and a large part of Greece became the scene of even more savage fighting as the communists made their ruthless bid for power.
* ↑ The headquarters of the Bulgarian II Corps replaced the headquarters of the Bulgarian Aegean Corps in control of the divisions in Thrace at the turn of the year.
* ↑ For a detailed discussion of Operations GEMSBOCK and STEINADLER, see Chapter 11.