Terror in the Balkans (35 page)

and impenetrable than much of the landscape of Serbia. This clearly

rendered the Germans’ task more arduous, particularly given their own

troops’ defi ciencies. But because the situation they faced was less directly

perilous than the one they had faced in Serbia, some German army units

were more likely to try employing more considered, imaginative solu-

tions to the challenge confronting them. Overall, the Germans did not

rely enough upon hunter group–size actions, or accordingly scale down

their reliance upon massive operations of annihilation—operations of a

sort far less certain to succeed amid such terrain. But some units did at

least try to handle the civilian population with more restraint. Among

Glimmers of Sanity
187

other things, the information they gained from a more responsive popu-

lace was bound to ease the herculean task of locating insurgent groups.

Finally, a more “enlightened” approach was further compelled by

the actions of the Ustasha. The Ustasha was the single greatest threat

to the NDH’s stability during the early months of 1942. Many German

units on the ground recognized, even if higher command levels did not,

that combating that threat, not to mention the rival mayhem perpetrated

by the Chetniks, was essential. This meant among other things that

the Germans must offer the threatened sections of the population less

coercion and more protection. Granted, the Wehrmacht’s condemna-

tion of the havoc the Ustasha was wreaking was partly motivated by the

Wehrmacht’s need to rationalize its own failure to maintain order. But

healthy skepticism should not blind one to the carnage and chaos the

Ustasha was infl icting in the NDH.

For all these reasons, German divisions were facing a situation that

called for more constructive, conciliatory forms of counterinsurgency

warfare.

Even so, German army units rose to the challenge in ways that were

fi tful and uneven, and fell well short of a truly comprehensive hearts

and minds campaign. Commanders were still clearly infl uenced by

the German army’s utilitarian, ideologically colored predilection for a

counterinsurgency campaign of maximum force and maximum terror.

Consequently neither the 718th Infantry Division nor its subordinate or

superior formations were subjecting the Wehrmacht’s traditionally bru-

tal way of operating to more fundamental questioning. And from Opera-

tion Kozara onward, higher-level commands again placed increasing

faith in maximum force and maximum terror. Underpinning much of

this conduct, probably, was the frustration felt by commanders whose

troops, due to higher-level dictates, were lacking in training, resources,

and numbers.

Yet the 718th Infantry Division, for one, still held to the more restrained

course it had started pursuing. It was left out of Operation Kozara, the

largest and bloodiest anti-Partisan operation of summer 1942. Instead,

it operated for much of the time in a region that, for a time at least, was

more pacifi ed than many other parts of the NDH. The 718th’s location,

and its now augmented order of battle, together reduced that pressure for

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immediate and dramatic results that bore down on divisions participat-

ing in those larger operations. This enabled the 718th to pursue a more

incremental, yet rather effective approach that combined constructive

engagement with smaller-scale hunter group operations.

The 718th Infantry Division was probably also infl uenced by the atti-

tudes of its commander, General Fortner. These attitudes, as with other

commanders, may well have been shaped by the general’s experiences

earlier in his life. In complete contrast to General Hinghofer, who had

directed the 342d Infantry Division’s murderous conduct in Serbia in

1941, Fortner spent his entire Great War serving on the western front, a

service cut short on his capture in 1916. Perhaps more importantly still,

Fortner was born not in Austria but in central western Germany.132 Nei-

ther aspect automatically imbued him with the character of a dove. But

it was General Hinghofer’s Austrian origins, and the lengthy duration

and particular character of the service he had undergone on the eastern

front during the Great War, which had distinguished him from his fel-

low divisional commanders in autumn 1941. And it was Hinghofer who,

of all of them, had been counterinsurgency warfare’s most savage prac-

titioner. That Fortner’s experience of the Great War had been markedly

different to Hinghofer’s may well help explain why he did not comport

himself as brutally.133

Moreover, Hinghofer’s Habsburg prejudice towards the Serbs is likely

to have been the decisive factor that set the predominantly German-born

troops of his division down a singularly ferocious path. Conversely, Fort-

ner’s non-Habsburg background may well have infl uenced his efforts to

rein in the predominantly Austrian-born troops of his division. Fortner

too, it seems, had no love for Serbs; after all, the 718th Infantry Division

had been particularly merciless towards the MihailovicĆhetniks dur-

ing its January 1942 operations. But the relative restraint which Fortner’s

division increasingly showed to all the region’s ethnic groups as the year

progressed was the mark of a commander who, unlike Hinghofer, was

able to place a check on his anti-Serb prejudice

But in autumn 1942 the 718th Infantry Division, like the German

forces across the NDH, would face steeper challenges. The ethnic com-

plexities within its jurisdiction became more labyrinthine, so much so

that any measure of constructive engagement was no longer enough to

Glimmers of Sanity
189

master them. And the Partisans themselves became an ever more formi-

dable adversary. Now, such commitment to hearts and minds measures

as the 718th had displayed would be tested to destruction—and this at a

time when the German army command in the NDH continued to radi-

calise its general effort against the Partisans ever more brutally.

c h a p t e r 9

The Morass

Attitudes Harden in the 718th Infantry Division

Constructive as some of the 718th Infantry Division’s counter-

insurgency measures of 1942 were, there was a limit to what they

could achieve as long as the failings in the division’s fi ghting power

remained. And of failings, irrespective of the division’s bolstered bat-

tle order, there were plenty. They would prove increasingly telling as

summer turned to autumn and the 718th faced a resurgent, burgeon-

ing Partisan movement across its jurisdiction. The frustration that

now increasingly gripped the division, and the welter of increasingly

severe directives emanating down to it from above, would harden its

conduct markedly.

Even though Operation S had showcased the success of the 718th

Infantry Division’s hearts and minds measures, its aftermath also pro-

duced more unsettling conclusions. The 718th reported that there had

been ongoing communication problems during the operation,1 and

that its pioneer company was severely stretched: “the mountainous

region of eastern Bosnia offers the enemy so many possibilities for sev-

ering roads, paths (and) railways, that one company is not enough to

get everything in order in the necessary time.”2

190

The Morass
191

The division also bemoaned its state of supply. Leaders of supply col-

umns had had no point of contact with the quartermaster during opera-

tions, and supplies had often arrived too late.3 The troops had frequently

had to seize hay and straw during an operation itself. This meant that no

payment was handed over to civilians, and no form made out. Clearly

the division preferred to requisition supplies from the population in an

orderly fashion, rather than plunder them. But what was happening was

that “(we) later receive a countless mass of bills. It can be months before

people receive payment. Such goings-on damage the image of the Ger-

man Wehrmacht.”4 And as with supply, so with clothing and equipment,

which the 718th judged totally inadequate for mountain warfare.5 Above

all, the division could not ignore the fact that most of the Partisans had

not been killed in its operations, but merely “expelled.” In other words,

they had been able to regroup and fi ght another day. And the 718th was

fully aware that, so execrable was the fi ghting power of the Croatian army

and the Ustasha, combating the Partisans effectively would in future be

down to itself alone.6

The 718th believed that the only viable long-term solution was its

wholesale conversion into a proper mountain division, a process already

begun but far from fi nished.7 But it would be months before the divi-

sion would receive resources and equipment to anything like that stan-

dard. Meanwhile, the chagrin it felt would begin to seriously erode the

restraint it had shown in its operations.

Furthermore, even though the clash between Chetniks and Partisans

might bring dividends to the occupiers, it was only one face of a myriad

interethnic confl ict that was growing ever more tortuous for the 718th to

negotiate. There were no fewer than four groups the division needed to

include in its calculations. The fi rst was the Chetniks, the second the

Partisans, the third the Bosnian Muslims. The fourth, principal root of

so many of the evils bedeviling the occupiers and, much more lethally,

the population, was the Ustasha. Now that Tito’s principal Partisan force

had retreated from eastern Bosnia, the Ustasha had been quick to rees-

tablish itself in the region.

As early as June 20, the 718th Infantry Division acknowledged that its

pacifi cation effort was still blighted by Ustasha outrages. “Undisciplined

Ustasha units robbed and murdered,” it reported. “The Ustasha believes

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it has the right to exterminate everything Pravoslavic. In several places

Serbs were bestially murdered. One Ustasha company, found guilty of

such attacks by the German Field Gendarmerie, was disarmed.”8 In July,

in an attempt to exercise greater control over the Croats, the 718th sought

for General Fortner to be granted power over all Croatian military courts

in the German operational area. But the NDH War Ministry was able to

block the move.9 By August, nothing had changed:

The question of a genuine pacifi cation of eastern Bosnia is, in the

division’s opinion, only possible via a German military adminis-

tration with many German police and gendarmerie. This must be

strong enough also to maintain a constant vigil over the Ustasha.

Our current strength is insuffi cient to prevent the constant fl aring

up of small-scale uprisings, and there can be no expectation of a

genuine resolution to the current situation.10

Here as elsewhere, Catholic priests were working hand in glove with the

Ustasha; “in the Brod district, Dr. Subolic´’s mob has unleashed a reli-

gious witch hunt . . . The Pravoslavic population are being forced on

pain of a concentration camp to convert to the Catholic faith.”11

Again, even though Wehrmacht expressions of detestation for the

Ustasha should be approached cautiously, the Ustasha undoubtedly had

played a central part in creating a horrendous state of affairs. The 718th’s

view was shared by Serbia Command, which in September 1942 reported

that “in Croatia, current conditions have led the function of state law and

administration to practically cease in many parts of the land. The Usta-

sha terror and the mass slaughter in Syrmia have heralded a new wave

of unrest which has thrown into question all attempts at pacifi cation.”12

The Chetniks made great propaganda play of the ongoing Ustasha

massacres. Serbia Command reported in October that “references to the

innocent victims of the Serb ethnic group will unleash a vengefulness

which can have an immensely powerful propagandistic effect upon the

population.”13 Yet Serbia Command soon recognized that, ultimately,

the Partisans stood to benefi t from this even more than the Chetniks:

“the cruel and unjust behavior of the Ustasha has turned the population

towards Communist mastery.”14

The Morass
193

By now the Ustasha’s depravities were increasingly rivaled by those

of the Bosnian Muslim militias. Muslims had sought to found an armed

movement for their own protection as early as autumn 1941. This was

despite the fact that the Ustasha, rhetorically at least, made much of Mus-

lim “equality” in the NDH. In fact, the Ustasha needed to depict the

Bosnian Muslims in such terms if the idea that Bosnia was a prime NDH

heartland was to have any credibility.15 The stress on Bosnia may also

have helped defl ect the Croatian population’s attention from the fact that

the NDH had been forced to relinquish Dalmatia to the Italians.16 Nev-

ertheless, such was the Ustasha’s fanaticism that many Muslims feared

that what the Ustasha was doing to the Serbs it might do to them next.17