World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia

World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia
	Part of World War II in Yugoslavia
	; Map of Vardar Macedonia during World War II. The area was divided between Albania and Bulgaria and the frontier between them run approximately along the line: Struga – Tetovo – Gjilan – Vranje. ; (3 years, 7 months, 1 week and 5 days)
Location	parts of the wider region of Macedonia
Result	Soviet strategic offensive in the area backed by the reorganised Bulgarian Army and aided by the Yugoslav, Albanian and Greek Partisans.; Formation of communist states after the German retreat:;
Territorial; changes	Part of Vardar Banovina (Vardar Macedonia) became SR Macedonia as part of SFR Yugoslavia
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
1,000 (1941); 2,000 (1942); 8,000 (Sep. 1944); 66,000 (Dec. 1944); 110,000 (April 1945)[unreliable source?]; 340,000 Bulgarian soldiers in Southern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia (October – December 1944)	~32,000 Bulgarian soldiers in Southern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia (May 1941 – September 1944); ~300,000 (Army Group E in October 1944) ~8,000 Chetniks
Casualties and losses
	Total casualties: 24,000; By nationality:; 7,000 Jews, 6,724 ethnic Macedonians, 6,000 Serbs, 4,000 Albanians; 1,000 Bulgarians, Aromanians, Roma and Turks; By affiliation:; 2,000 Civilians, 1,000 Collaborationists, 11,000 Soldiers and Partisans; 7,000 victims of Concentration Camps
	^ Limited influence and control, de jure Commander ; ^ Link between Mihajlo Apostolski and Josip Broz Tito, Supervisor ;

World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia started with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. Under the pressure of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, part of the Macedonian communists began in October 1941 a political and military campaign to resist the occupation of Vardar Macedonia. Officially, the area was called then Vardar Banovina, because the use of very name Macedonia was avoided in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.^[9]^[10] Most of its territory was occupied by Bulgaria, while its westernmost part was ceded to Albania, both aided by German and Italian troops. Initially, there was no organised resistance in the region because the majority of the Macedonian Slavs nurtured strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments, although this was an effect from the previous repressive Kingdom of Yugoslavia rule which had negative impact on the majority of the population.^[11]^[12]^[13] Even the local Communists, separated from the Yugoslav and joined the Bulgarian Communist Party.^[14] However, even those Macedonians who felt that they were Bulgarians soon discovered that the Bulgarians from Bulgaria were suspicious of them and considered them "backward Bulgarians" or second-class Bulgarians. In fact, Bulgarian authorities began a process of oppressive Bulgarianization as they realised that only part of the Macedonian population felt Bulgarian or was pro-Bulgarian. The occupation troops acted just as viciously and arrogantly toward the local population as did the officials. Thus, they soon became an object of disgust from the population, especially the great majority that felt themselves Macedonians developed strong resentment towards the Bulgarian regime as it acted the same way as the Serbian one before.^[15]^[16]

The wartime national chauvinism and suffering backlash generated sizable support for the Communist Partisans, whose power started to grow only in 1943 with the capitulation of Italy and the Soviet victories over Nazi Germany, which turned the tide in the war and the partisans actions became more successful.^[17]^[16]^[18] The role of the Bulgarian communists, who avoided organizing mass armed resistance, was also a key factor, their influence over the Macedonian Committee remained dominant until 1943.^[19] Another key factor was the main goal of the Yugoslav Partisans which could not inspire and attract Macedonians who saw it as a reestablishment of Yugoslavia and the Serbian rule. This changed, when in the beginning of 1943, Tito's special emissary Svetozar Vukmanović arrived in Macedonia.^[20] Vukmanović had to activate the struggle and give a Macedonian "facade" to the form and content, as well as to the aims and aspirations of it in order to secure mass participation of Macedonians.^[21] He was supposed to set up a Macedonian Communist Party within the framework of the Yugoslav one, which would include only activists loyal to the Yugoslav agenda. They formed in 1943 the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia and the Macedonian Communist Party in the western part of the area, where the Albanian Partisans also participated in the resistance movement. The Macedonian Communist Party would lead the effort, not for the restoration of the old Yugoslavia, but above all for the liberation and unification of Macedonia and a new federal union of Yugoslav peoples with an extension of its prewar territory. This appeal attracted more and more young people to the armed resistance.^[21] All of the previous led to the rise of an younger anti-Bulgarian oriented generation of partisan leaders, who were loyal to Yugoslavia.^[22]

After Bulgaria switched sides in the war in September 1944, the Bulgarian 5th. Army stationed in Macedonia, moved back to the old borders of Bulgaria. In the early October the newly formed Bulgarian People's Army together with the Red Army reentered occupied Yugoslavia to blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Yugoslav Macedonia was liberated in the end of November.

The communist resistance is called by the Macedonian historiography the National Liberation Struggle (Macedonian: Народноослободителна борба (НОБ), Narodnoosloboditelna borba (NOB)).^[22] Some of the combatants also developed aspirations for independence of the region of Macedonia, but were suppressed at the end of the war by the communist authorities. It marked the defeat of Bulgarian nationalism and the victory of the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian nationalism in the area. As result the new Communist authorities persecuted the former collaborationists with the charges of "Great Bulgarian chauvinism" and cracked down on pro-Bulgarian organisations that supported ideas of Greater Bulgaria and those which opposed the Yugoslav idea and insisted on Macedonian independence.

^ The eastern parts of Yugoslavia were the site of savage fighting between October and December 1944, as the German Army Group E tried to force its way out of an almost desperate situation it had found itself in following the evacuation of Greece. Against all odds, this huge German formation managed to best three Allied armies, rugged terrain, and autumn rains and reach the relative safety of the Independent State of Croatia, where it joined the remainder of the Axis front in the Balkans. Although this dramatic episode had been extensively written about in the former Yugoslavia and Germany, it received next to no attention in the English-speaking academic community. The article at hand will provide an overview and an analysis of military operations based on a wide plethora of primary and secondary sources of all sides. It will also argue that the ultimate success of the breakthrough was as much due to the unwillingness of the Soviet high command to devote more resources to the Balkan Front, and the structural weaknesses of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Partisans' armies, as it was to the battlefield prowess of the Wehrmacht. For more see: Gaj Trifković (2017) 'The German Anabasis': The Breakthrough of Army Group E from Eastern Yugoslavia 1944, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 30:4, 602–629, doi:10.1080/13518046.2017.1377014.
^ Bulgaria During the Second World War, Marshall Lee Miller, Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 202.
^ Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000. p. 104.
^ The Slavonic and East European review, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1991, p. 304.
^ Зимските операции на Македонска војска 1943/44 – Раде Гогов, носител на "Партизанска споменица 1941".
^ Александър Гребенаров, Надя Николова. Българското управление във Вардарска Македония (1941–1944). Кн. No. 63 от поредицата „Архивите говорят" на Държавна агенция „Архиви", 2011, .стр. 512.
^ Klaus Schönherr: Der Rückzug aus Griechenland. In: Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schmider, Klaus Schönherr, Gerhard Schreiber, Krisztián Ungváry, Bernd Wegner: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 8, Die Ostfront 1943/44 – Der Krieg im Osten und an den Nebenfronten. Im Auftrag des MGFA hrsg. von Karl-Heinz Frieser. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2, pp. 1089–1099; (in German).
^ Zerjavic, Vladimir. Yugoslavia Manipulations With the Number of Second World War Victims. Croatian Information Centre, ISBN 0-919817-32-7 [1] Archived 5 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine
^ Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide, OUP Oxford, 2009, ISBN 0199550336, p. 65.
^ Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 76.
^ "The warm reception accorded the Bulgarian soldiers was in large part the result of Macedonian resentment at three decades of Serbian dominance. Administrative brutality, Serbian chauvinism, political corruption, and economic exploitation were more flagrant in Macedonia than in any other part of Yugoslavia. It was therefore not surprising that many Macedonians cheered the entering Bulgarians. One resident of Skopie later explained, "Of course we cheered; we had no way of knowing then that the Bulgarians would just repeat all the mistakes the Serbs had made." For more see: Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-8047-0870-3, p. 123.
^ Cite error: The named reference Hugh Poulton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Boškovska, Nada (2017). Yugoslavia and Macedonia Before Tito: Between Repression and Integration. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 282–284. ISBN 9781786730732.
^ "The Bulgarian occupation forces in the Serbian part of Macedonia were received as liberators and pro-Bulgarian feeling ran high in the early stages of the occupation. Neither the Communist position regarding a separate Macedonian nation nor the idea of a Yugoslav federation met with much response from the Slav population, which nurtured pro-Bulgarian sentiments. The local Communists, led by M. Satorov, splintered off from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and joined the Bulgarian Labour Party (which was Communist), with the slogan "One state, one party". The subsequent dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities was due to social factors, rather than national ones. This was also why Tito's resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia failed to develop." For more see: Spyridon Sfetas, "Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944: The Attitude of the Communist Party of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border". Balkan Studies 1995; 36 (2): pp. 297–317.
^ Tomasevich, Jozo (2002). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945. Stanford University Press. pp. 163–165. ISBN 0804736154.
^ ^a ^b Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-8047-0870-3, pp. 123-133.
^ Roth, Klaus; Brunnbauer, Ulf (2008). Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 144. ISBN 978-3-8258-1387-1.
^ Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956 introduction Ixiii.
^ Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 1134665113, p. 181.
^ Dejan Djokić, Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea, 1918–1992, Hurst, 2003, ISBN 1850656630, p. 120.
^ ^a ^b Andrew Rossos (2008) Macedonia and the Macedonians, A History. Hoover Institution Press, ISBN 9780817948832, pp. 189-194.
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference Roumen Daskalov 2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[P2-2] Limited influence and control, de jure Commander

[P3-3] Link between Mihajlo Apostolski and Josip Broz Tito, Supervisor

[1] The eastern parts of Yugoslavia were the site of savage fighting between October and December 1944, as the German Army Group E tried to force its way out of an almost desperate situation it had found itself in following the evacuation of Greece. Against all odds, this huge German formation managed to best three Allied armies, rugged terrain, and autumn rains and reach the relative safety of the Independent State of Croatia, where it joined the remainder of the Axis front in the Balkans. Although this dramatic episode had been extensively written about in the former Yugoslavia and Germany, it received next to no attention in the English-speaking academic community. The article at hand will provide an overview and an analysis of military operations based on a wide plethora of primary and secondary sources of all sides. It will also argue that the ultimate success of the breakthrough was as much due to the unwillingness of the Soviet high command to devote more resources to the Balkan Front, and the structural weaknesses of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Partisans' armies, as it was to the battlefield prowess of the Wehrmacht. For more see: Gaj Trifković (2017) 'The German Anabasis': The Breakthrough of Army Group E from Eastern Yugoslavia 1944, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 30:4, 602–629, doi:10.1080/13518046.2017.1377014.

[Second_World_War_1975,_p._202-4] Bulgaria During the Second World War, Marshall Lee Miller, Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 202.

[Hugh_Poulton_2000._p._104-5] Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000. p. 104.

[6] The Slavonic and East European review, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1991, p. 304.

[7] Зимските операции на Македонска војска 1943/44 – Раде Гогов, носител на "Партизанска споменица 1941".

[8] Александър Гребенаров, Надя Николова. Българското управление във Вардарска Македония (1941–1944). Кн. No. 63 от поредицата „Архивите говорят" на Държавна агенция „Архиви", 2011, .стр. 512.

[9] Klaus Schönherr: Der Rückzug aus Griechenland. In: Karl-Heinz Frieser, Klaus Schmider, Klaus Schönherr, Gerhard Schreiber, Krisztián Ungváry, Bernd Wegner: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 8, Die Ostfront 1943/44 – Der Krieg im Osten und an den Nebenfronten. Im Auftrag des MGFA hrsg. von Karl-Heinz Frieser. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2, pp. 1089–1099; (in German).

[10] Zerjavic, Vladimir. Yugoslavia Manipulations With the Number of Second World War Victims. Croatian Information Centre, ISBN 0-919817-32-7 [1] Archived 5 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine

[13] Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide, OUP Oxford, 2009, ISBN 0199550336, p. 65.

[14] Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 76.

[MLM-15] "The warm reception accorded the Bulgarian soldiers was in large part the result of Macedonian resentment at three decades of Serbian dominance. Administrative brutality, Serbian chauvinism, political corruption, and economic exploitation were more flagrant in Macedonia than in any other part of Yugoslavia. It was therefore not surprising that many Macedonians cheered the entering Bulgarians. One resident of Skopie later explained, "Of course we cheered; we had no way of knowing then that the Bulgarians would just repeat all the mistakes the Serbs had made." For more see: Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-8047-0870-3, p. 123.

[Hugh_Poulton-16] Cite error: The named reference Hugh Poulton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Boskovska282284-17] Boškovska, Nada (2017). Yugoslavia and Macedonia Before Tito: Between Repression and Integration. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 282–284. ISBN 9781786730732.

[18] "The Bulgarian occupation forces in the Serbian part of Macedonia were received as liberators and pro-Bulgarian feeling ran high in the early stages of the occupation. Neither the Communist position regarding a separate Macedonian nation nor the idea of a Yugoslav federation met with much response from the Slav population, which nurtured pro-Bulgarian sentiments. The local Communists, led by M. Satorov, splintered off from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and joined the Bulgarian Labour Party (which was Communist), with the slogan "One state, one party". The subsequent dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities was due to social factors, rather than national ones. This was also why Tito's resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia failed to develop." For more see: Spyridon Sfetas, "Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944: The Attitude of the Communist Party of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border". Balkan Studies 1995; 36 (2): pp. 297–317.

[:0-19] Tomasevich, Jozo (2002). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945. Stanford University Press. pp. 163–165. ISBN 0804736154.

[Lee_Miller-20] Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-8047-0870-3, pp. 123-133.

[Roth-21] Roth, Klaus; Brunnbauer, Ulf (2008). Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 144. ISBN 978-3-8258-1387-1.

[22] Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956 introduction Ixiii.

[23] Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 1134665113, p. 181.

[24] Dejan Djokić, Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea, 1918–1992, Hurst, 2003, ISBN 1850656630, p. 120.

[Andrew_Rossos_2008-25] Andrew Rossos (2008) Macedonia and the Macedonians, A History. Hoover Institution Press, ISBN 9780817948832, pp. 189-194.

[Roumen_Daskalov_2013-26] Cite error: The named reference Roumen Daskalov 2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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