Visarion Belojević

**Visarion Belojević** 25 May 1894 – 14 March 1947) was Croatian politician, demagogue, and Pan-Yugoslavic revolutionary, who was the leader of the National Socialist Balkan Worker's Party (NSBWP), Prime Minister of the Balkan League from 1929 to 1947 and Prvak ("Leader") of the Balkan League from 1929 to 1947. As dictator, Belojević initiated the Second World War in Europe with the invasion of Hungary, South German Confederation, and the Vizantiyan Empire on April 5th 1941.

Belojević was born in Sofia, in the province of Bulgaria. When World War I started in 1912 he joined the Serbian Army and enjoyed exceptional service on the South German front becoming well decorated. In 1920 he joined the Balkan Workers Party (BWP), the precursor of the NSBWP, and was appointed leader of the NSBWP in 1923. In 1929 he seized power from the Balkan Republic in a successful coup resulting in a short Serbian Civil War. Belojević gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Vienna and promoting Pan-Yugoslavism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and National Socialist Propaganda.

In 1930 the Hvalimirski Zamak passed the Enabling Act of 1930, which began the process of transforming the Balkan Republic into a National Socialist Balkan League, a one-party dictatorship based on totalitarian and autocratic rule. Belojević aimed at re-uniting the South Slavic people under one flag and establishing a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of a post-World War I international order dominated by South Germany, Britain, and France. His first 10 years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Serbia after Wold War I and the annexation of the former Serbian North Africa colony.

Belojević sought to re-unite all the former Serbian Empire territories and his aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on April 5th 1941 invaded South Germany, resulting in Hungary, Vizantiyan Empire, France, Netherlands, and Britain declaring war on the Balkan League. In July 1942, Belojević ordered the invasion of the Russian Empire. By the end of 1942, Serbian forces and the League Alliance powers occupied most of Europe. By 1943 he formally declared war on the United States, bringing them directly into the conflict. Failure to defeat the now Syndicalist Russia and the entry of the Untied States into the war forced Serbia on the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Beograd in 1947 he constantly planned out new battle plans for his generals attempting to make a come back however by 14th March, 1947 being notified that the fall of Beograd was imminent Belojević chose death rather than being captured and his corpse was burned.

Under Belojević's leadership and vengeance motivated ideology, the Balkan League was responsible for millions of deaths as a result of the war it started. Belojević and the National Socialist regime were also responsible for the killing of 15 million prisoners of war. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare and the casualties constituted the deadliest conflict in human history.