page_title: Momčilo Đujić
section_title: Collaboration agreements with the Italians
hierarchical_section_title: Momčilo Đujić / World War II / Collaboration agreements with the Italians
caption_attribution_description: English: Locator Map of the German and Italian Occupation Zones in NDH 1941. Dashed line is the demarcation between German and Italian troops. Dotted line is the boundary of the Croatian demilitarised zone.
context_page_description: Momčilo Đujić was a Serbian Orthodox priest and Chetnik commander who led a significant proportion of the Chetniks within the northern Dalmatia and western Bosnia regions of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II.
  Following the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in 1934, he joined the Chetnik Association of Kosta Pećanac. After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he defended local Serbs against the Croatian fascist Ustaše regime and collaborated with the Axis powers against the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans throughout the remainder of the war as the commander of the Chetnik Dinara Division. He survived the war, surrendering to the western Allies and eventually emigrating to the United States. He was tried and convicted in absentia for war crimes by the new Yugoslav communist government, which found him guilty of mass murder, torture, rape, robbery, and forcible confinement, as well as collaborating with the German and Italians. Included in these charges was responsibility for the deaths of 1,500 people.
context_section_description: Đujić's emergence as a Chetnik leader in the region around Knin was rapid. Commencing in April, the Ustaše implemented a policy of widespread incarcerations, massacres, forced emigration, and murder of Serbs within the territory they controlled. Around this time, Đujić's Chetniks began killing and mutilating Croat civilians. According to Italian reports, Đujić had around 300 Chetniks under his command in April, centered mainly around Knin. The first Ustaše atrocity in the Knin area occurred on 29 May, when a group of Serbs were killed. Around the same time, a group of Ustaše surrounded Strmica with the aim of capturing Đujić, but he was forewarned and escaped to Kistanje in Zone I where he sought Italian protection. Between late May and 27 July, the Ustaše killed more than 500 Serbs in the Knin district. On 13 July, the Ustaše had ordered the arrest of all Serbian Orthodox priests in the district and the confiscation of their property, but Đujić was already beyond their reach. While they generally stood by as the Ustaše committed atrocities, the Italians also opened up the border crossings into the Governorate of Dalmatia to Serbs fleeing the Ustaše. Refugees from Knin and nearby regions were taken into Italian-run camps located in Split, Obrovac, Benkovac, Kistanje and Šibenik. Đujić was a principal organiser within the Kistanje camp, which held around 1,500 refugees, and from mid-July was recruiting them for the Chetnik cause.
  In August, once a general uprising against the Ustaše had begun, Đujić went to the centre of the revolt in Drvar with another Chetnik leader and sought approval from the leadership of the uprising to take leadership of the rebellion in the Knin region. Đujić then established his Chetniks around Knin and coordinated with Chetniks in the Bosansko Grahovo district. Đujić's Chetniks successfully kept the Ustaše out of Knin and its surroundings, sparing the local Serb population from further massacres. As summer approached, Đujić's Chetniks captured Drvar from the Ustaše. By early summer, he and Chetnik commander Stevo Rađenović had contacted the Italians and asked them to put a halt to the Ustaše mistreatment of Serbs, enable the return of Serb refugees, and repeal a decree that enabled the confiscation of Serb-owned property in the NDH. The Italians obliged in the hope that doing so would win the Chetniks over to collaboration and seriously weaken any future uprising in the area, which would have further disrupted rail traffic along the Split–Karlovac railway line. On 13 August, at a meeting in the village of Pađene northwest of Knin, Đujić and several other Serb nationalists agreed to collaborate with the Italians. They secretly signed a pact of non-aggression with the Italian military, and in exchange, the Italians approved Đujić raising a force of up to 3,000 Chetniks. On 31 August, at a Drvar assembly, Đujić was given the task of stopping the Italian advance on the town. Immediately afterwards, he made an agreement with the Italians granting them free passage. Recruiting for Chetnik formations in the region was assisted by the so-called leftist errors of the Partisans, which drove undecided Serbs to join the Chetniks.
caption: Map of the NDH showing the three Italian zones of occupationdark grey for Zone Imid-grey for Zone IIlight grey for Zone III The locations of Knin and Drvar are also marked.
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