Terror in the Balkans (20 page)

commander for weapons so I can protect my own life against the red mob

and the Communist bands.”122

Able to secure and harness growing popular support, and unmolested

by a German occupation force preoccupied with clinging on to the main

transport arteries and urban centers, the Partisans were able to build

up their organization across the country. On September 10 Lieutenant

Klemm, of the 724th Infantry Regiment’s twelfth company, wrote that:

the enemy clearly no longer consists of isolated bands, but consti-

tutes a well-organized uprising in which the general population,

most of whom are well-armed, are taking part. Within the impen-

etrable landscape, with troops often restricted only to the one road,

proper retaliation against a rebellious population is only possible

with the help of the Luftwaffe.123

And that help, at least to any meaningful degree, had yet to be forthcom-

ing. All this meant, of course, that the Partisans could ravage the occu-

piers’ supply and communications with alacrity. A late August report

from District Command (I) 847 in the 704th’s jurisdiction, for instance,

reported that rebels had blown bridges on the Šabac-Banjani road and

over the River Tamnava in Koceljevo, blocked roads between Šabac,

Kocekjevo, Ub, and Valjevo, crippled the Šabac-Lesnica-Losnica rail

line, and plunged a whole area north and northwest of Šabac into a state

of uprising. The district command knew that the cutting of the transport

arteries between its towns placed the towns themselves in peril. “The

moment this bridge is severed, the entire district command, the town

(Šabac) and the area will be cut off from the outside world. If strong

forces are not fi nally deployed and the center of defense shifted to Šabac,

the catastrophe could happen any time.” The 724th Infantry Regiment

saw the danger too; conditions were worsening so much, it reported, that

the safety of the troops in Užice and Požega was seriously under threat.

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“Previously the bandits were only appearing occasionally and in small

numbers,” the regiment maintained. “Now they are drawing ever nearer

to Užice and Požega. Their strength can often be counted in the hun-

dreds, and their equipment is often better than that of our own troops.”124

In the face of the escalating chaos, the Germans scrapped a pledge

to allow the collaborationist government control of the Serbian gendar-

merie. On August 13 LXV Corps announced it was reorganizing the

Serbian gendarmerie into large units of fi fty to one hundred men under

local German army commanders.125 The 704th Infantry Division wanted

the gendarmerie to bear the main burden of the counterinsurgency cam-

paign, with the German army used only sparingly. It urged that the gen-

darmerie be bolstered by more reliable elements, and receive proper pay

and equipment and motor vehicles seized from civilians.126

But relying on the Serbian gendarmerie brought its own problems.

The 724th Infantry Regiment reported one engagement, albeit from a

later time, November 1941, in which the gendarmerie had not suffered

the massive losses it was claiming, but had simply withdrawn in disar-

ray. “On our own march back,” the regiment recorded, “we encountered

only one gendarme, who had disguised himself as a farmer in order to

escape.”127 The gendarmerie, the regiment believed, was incapable of

resisting the enemy energetically.128 The gendarmerie was not always

the byword for ineptitude that scapegoat-seeking German commanders

often painted it as.129 But the 704th’s reliance on it probably refl ected not

faith on the division’s part so much as desperation. The gendarmerie’s

defects were also recognized higher up the command chain. Major Jer-

sak, Wehrmacht Command Southeast’s liaison offi cer with LXV Corps,

had little faith in it: he believed that neither arming it further nor increas-

ing its numbers in particular trouble spots such as Šabac would hinder

or halt the uprising.130

The occupation divisions were compelled to take the fi ght to the

insurgents somehow or other, then, but it was an immensely diffi cult

task. And as a federal German investigation during the 1970s revealed, it

was a task to which at least some of the 704th Infantry Division’s senior

offi cers were unequal. In 1972, Max Koehler, from the second company

of the fi rst battalion of the 724th Infantry Regiment, was questioned

by the Central Offi ce of Land Administration as part of a preliminary

Islands in an Insurgent Sea
107

investigation, later abandoned, into possible war crimes by that unit. He

spoke warmly of his company commander, but described Major König,

the battalion commander, as “arrogant and full of himself . . . with a cyn-

ical character, the chronic need to push himself to the forefront, and no

understanding of the civilian population.” The regimental commander,

General Lontschar, he described as “pedantic in military matters, and in

tactical questions unequal to his rank.”131

The 704th Infantry Division, like its fellow occupation divisions, was

nonetheless obliged to prosecute mobile counterinsurgency operations

to the best of its ability. Yet as well as possessing an offi cer contingent of

at best variable quality, the division also possessed insuffi cient troops to

encircle and annihilate the insurgents.132 Further problems facing encir-

clement attempts were recounted in mid-August by the 714th Infantry

Division: it suffered from a shortage of hand grenades and small-arms

ammunition, delays in its rail transport, and unreliable Serbian gendar-

merie units.133 But the 714th was not simply scapegoating the Serbian

gendarmerie. Of its own substandard troops it wrote that “sadly (they)

do not always recognize how serious the situation is.”134 In the 704th

Infantry Division, similarly, the twelfth company of the 724th Infantry

Regiment described the “
exhausted and indifferent impression
” its own

men were making by late August.135

Key to success in smaller counterinsurgency operations were the

hunter groups. But the 704th’s efforts at forming such groups, like

those of LXV Corps’ divisions in general, were blighted by problems.

In late August, for instance, the 724th Infantry Regiment’s fi rst battal-

ion bewailed the fact that, though hunter groups could be assembled

quickly, the plundered trucks they had been assigned could not negoti-

ate mountainous winding roads and were plagued by frequent tire and

motor failure.136 The 717th Infantry Division, too, was constantly frus-

trated at the Partisans’ knowledge of the area in which it faced them.137

The Germans were still mindful of the lessons in moderation afforded

by the French campaign and its aftermath; indeed, their more measured

conduct at this time recalls that relatively balanced counterinsurgency

campaign the German army had waged in the Ukraine in 1918. Hunter

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terror in the balk ans

groups were instructed to cultivate the population, not just terrorize it,

relying on help from the Serbian gendarmerie and reliable sightings of

Partisans by civilians. Though it did order the seizure of hostages, Ser-

bia Command also ordered more nuanced punishments, such as impos-

ing fi nes and compelling the population to forced labor and security

duty. It also stressed that the troops must distinguish between innocent

and guilty.138 In mid-August, the 704th Infantry Division urged that pro-

paganda be used to convince the population of the Wehrmacht’s will to

win. There was little in the way of a well-resourced propaganda infra-

structure to aid this effort. Rather, the division’s units were themselves

urged to “seek out and realise new opportunities” for propaganda.139 But

at least the intention was there.

And at least some of the 704th’s subordinate units were showing

restraint. The 734th Infantry Regiment recounted a relatively moderate

reprisal its men exacted on August 23. In one house, they found a sackful

of rifl es and a duplication machine with Communist appeals produced

on it, obtained the names of fi fteen absent villagers who were known

Communists, and ordered the police to burn down three of their homes.

This was a harsh measure indeed, but less harsh than an indiscriminate

mass shooting.140

There were also displays of genuine humanity by the 704th’s men. On

one occasion a sixteen-year-old who had been shot trying to evade capture

had his wounds bound by German soldiers, who left him with two local

women to take care of him.141 Even as late as September, relations with the

population could be positively convivial—too convivial, in fact, for divi-

sional command’s liking. “There is greater need than ever,” it proclaimed

on September 16, “for members of the Wehrmacht to keep themselves

fully distanced from the Serbian population.” The division particularly

bemoaned the “unworthy” practice of “sitting round the kitchen table or

in private quarters, chatting with Serbs over cups of coffee.”142

But overall, throughout July and August, in line with the mounting repri-

sal activity across all Serbia, the 704th Infantry Division exacted a grow-

ing death toll of civilians. Some of the killings in its jurisdiction, such

as the reprisal carried out by the local district command following the

Islands in an Insurgent Sea
109

attack on General Lontschar’s car near Razna on July 18, were the work

of units outwith the division’s own command chain.143 Elsewhere, how-

ever, it was the 704th’s troops themselves who exacted the death tolls.

From the death toll of thirty-eight, cited earlier in this chapter, that the

fi rst company of the 724th Infantry Regiment exacted on August 17, only

three machine-guns and twelve rifl es were seized. The only Axis casu-

alty was an Albanian gendarme shot in the head.144 On that same day, the

regiment had ten farmsteads burned down and another fi fteen destroyed

by artillery.145 And in a fi refi ght near the railway station at Dublje, west

of Šabac, in late August, men of the eighth company of the 750th Infantry

Regiment, temporarily under the 704th Infantry Division’s command,

killed twenty-fi ve “bandits” at a loss to themselves of just one dead.146

It is clear from such instances that not just insurgents, but civilians

also, were perishing in ever greater numbers at the 704th Infantry Divi-

sion’s own hands. The 704th might be failing to crush the uprising in its

area, then, but it was certainly exacting a mounting death toll. And the

fact that it felt increasingly impotent and frustrated may have been one

of the very forces fueling its brutality. Indeed, some units were spilling

too much blood even for divisional command’s liking. While the 704th

urged its units to inform the divisional intelligence section if any Ser-

bian offi cials were suspected of sabotage, contacting Communists, or

tolerating illegal activities, it also stressed that Serbian offi cials generally

should not be taken hostage.147 LXV Corps detected a wider malaise,

declaring on August 23 that:

It is understandable that troops fi red upon in the back by Commu-

nist bands will cry out for vengeance. This often results in people

found in the fi eld being arrested and shot. But in most cases it is not

the guilty who are caught, but the innocent, and this only results in

the hitherto loyal population being driven into the arms of the ban-

dits by fear or bitterness.148

Tellingly, LXV Corps also stressed that it was better that the Serbian gen-

darmerie or the Serbian authorities apprehend insurgents. Presumably

LXV Corps preferred this to leaving the job to German soldiers who might

themselves kill informers or other members of the “loyal” population.149

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terror in the balk ans

It also reminded its troops that the “loyal” population included women

also: “It goes without saying that no woman, except when she goes armed

against the troops, should under any circumstances be shot without due

legal process.”150 Clearly higher Wehrmacht offi ces were still seeking

to keep the general population onside. Similarly, on September 5 Weh-

rmacht Command Southeast, Field Marshal List’s skepticism toward

Serb–German collaboration notwithstanding, urged “active, intensifi ed

propaganda in the Serbian language with every means available (wireless,

leafl ets, newspapers, posters and so on) . . . increased use of informers . . .

full use of the infl uence of the Serbian government.”151

In September the Germans’ situation grew even more alarming. For it

was now that Tito and Mihailovic´ temporarily made common cause.

Mihailovic´ felt he could no longer remain on the sidelines of such a wide-

spread revolt. Tito saw a Partisan–Chetnik alliance as a means of cultivat-

ing potential Partisan support among the Serb peasantry and politicians.

He also sought to utilize the Chetniks’ assistance, at least for a period,

in training Partisans. However calculating the two men’s motives, the