Terror in the Balkans (97 page)

thought they had thoroughly encircled the area beforehand. They had

employed several artillery batteries and ten Croatian infantry battal-

ions, and checked the cordon’s impenetrability every night. But Serbia

Command realized that the operation had overlooked the enemy’s abil-

ity to escape in small groups through supposedly impassable terrain. It

also believed that many other insurgents, even if they had not actually

escaped, had been able to disappear into the mountains using the snow

prints of the men in front to conceal their true numbers, and that they

would resurface and reestablish themselves after the operation.40

The 718th lacked the sort of specialist mountain troops who might

have been able to pursue escaping insurgents successfully. LXV Corps

urged that each regiment convert and equip one of its companies as such

troops. It also urged more time to prepare for operations in future, so

that the Germans could ready specialist troops, properly assemble com-

munications, and set smaller and more realistic daily targets. Otherwise,

it asserted, such operations were pointless.41

Operation Prijedor, meanwhile, brought a further worrying develop-

ment. The insurgents stopped trying merely to escape, and began to

show not just themselves but their teeth also—not, however, in a way

that enabled the Germans to get to grips with them. They frequently

fi red upon the Germans from skillfully concealed positions:

Glimmers of Sanity
169

They often let our own troops approach to within 20 meters before

opening fi re. Single rifl emen also often fi re from great distances,

with carefully targeted fi re from very well concealed positions,

whereby they avoid using even houses, but rather dig themselves

into the landscape . . . The rifl emen, scattered across the landscape,

hide in their nests until they can escape under cover of darkness.

These lone rifl emen often fi re for just a few minutes, and even then

only with a few, carefully targeted shots. For this reason, locating

these lone rifl emen is very diffi cult.42

The 750th Infantry Regiment described the Partisans’ appearance, as

well as their very diverse composition:

According to an ethnic German whose property is next to the rail

bridge on Height 127, and who allegedly spent a week as a hostage of

the insurgents, the insurgents are, overall, well uniformed, with black-

colored Yugoslavian uniforms, and equipped with rifl es and hand gre-

nades. They consist of fi fteen to twenty per cent Communists, ten per

cent Muslims and the rest Serbs and Croats. On their caps the Serbs

wear Serbian national colors, the Croats their provincial colors, the

Muslims the Crescent and the Communists the Soviet star.43

These winter operations whittled down the 718th’s manpower alarm-

ingly. During Operation Prijedor, for instance, the 750th Infantry Regi-

ment’s combat strength fell from 692 offi cers, NCOs, and men, to 564.

Total losses for Prijedor were severe, the Germans suffering thirty-four

dead and the Croats seventeen, for ninety-seven Partisan dead.44 There

were major gaps in the 738th Infantry Regiment’s manpower also;

according to its roll call of March 1, its second battalion now possessed

319 offi cers, NCOs, and men, as against the fi rst battalion’s 376.45

Yet the 718th Infantry Division, and its subordinate units, showed restraint

as well as ruthlessness during these operations. In a display of moderation

during Operation Southeast Croatia, the 718th relayed orders from the

342d Infantry Division declaring that “women and children will not be

170
terror in the balk ans

shot or carried off, unless they demonstrably have taken part in combat

or message-carrying.”46 Perhaps it was this provision alone that led both

divisions to proclaim, apparently without irony, that “Croatia is a country

that is friendly to us. The troops must be aware of this, and avoid any

exceeding of their duties.”47 For Operation Ozren, the division directed

that Chetniks were to be treated as prisoners, not shot, if they surrendered

unconditionally with their weapons.48

Much impetus for these particular measures seems to have come from

General Bader. Bader, it appears, had begun to see the wisdom of some

restraint even as he spurred his troops to ruthlessness. On January 21 he

had ordered that, while armed opponents who resisted the Germans in

the course of Operation Southeast Croatia were to be shot, those who

gave themselves up were to be treated as prisoners of war. Villagers in

whose houses weapons were found, but who had not themselves partici-

pated in the fi ghting, were to be treated similarly.49 This order contrasts

with Bader’s ferocious exhortation of just days previously, when on Janu-

ary 8 he had announced that any person encountered in the area being

cleansed was to be viewed as an enemy.50 Bader’s likeliest motive for the

change was more calculating than enlightened. Deescalating the opera-

tion’s violence would enable the DangicĆhetniks, whom Bader would be

courting assiduously by the end of the month, to come out of it relatively

unscathed. Dangic´, for his part, ordered his followers to avoid encounters

with the Germans during the operation, and to surrender themselves and

their weapons immediately should such encounters prove unavoidable.51

Because the 718th Infantry Division found itself interspersing these

more measured orders with much harsher ones, its troops may well have

felt they were receiving confl icting signals. But the signs are that, overall,

such orders were beginning to put at least some check on their troops’

brutality. On January 20, during Operation South-East Croatia, the

738th Infantry Regiment secured the Rnovica-Podomanija railway line

in the face of minor resistance, together with thirty prisoners—of whom

only one was shot. Certainly, the 718th dealt out some dreadful brutal-

ity during Operation Ozren. On February 19, for instance, it ordered

the annihilation of the villages of Jasenje, Celebinci, and Vlaskovici “by

the strongest possible combat methods.”52 But the overall body count

its troops infl icted in this operation was less fearful than it might have

Glimmers of Sanity
171

been. The division and its Croatian collaborator units suffered fi ve dead

and eleven wounded, together with over forty men reported frostbitten

or sick. The enemy, by contrast, lost 206 dead and 347 wounded, from

whom 106 rifl es and one pistol were seized.53 These fi gures indicate that

many of the enemy, 107 of them at least, were genuine combatants, even

though many clearly were not.

And in Operation Prijedor particularly, the ferocity of its orders not-

withstanding, the 718th Infantry Division’s troops did not kill large

numbers of civilians. This may have been because the 750th Infantry Reg-

iment, together with its affi liated and subordinate units, did not get the

opportunity, but it may also have been because the 750th increasingly saw

the sense in keeping the population on its side. For, though the regiment

wrote in early March that the population felt intimidated by the Partisans

and sometimes openly sympathized with them, it also reported that other

villages were requesting German protection from them.54

All this fell far short of a comprehensive, conciliatory effort to secure

the population’s hearts and minds. But compared with the savagery the

342d Infantry Division had infl icted upon north-west Serbia in 1941, it

was a step in a more conciliatory direction. It was a small step, certainly,

but one the civilians on the receiving end would have appreciated.

Meanwhile, on January 25, Tito set up headquarters in the eastern Bos-

nian town of Focˇa, where he aimed to regroup and reorganize. The

Partisans stepped up their military organization by forming growing

numbers of select troops into disciplined and mobile “proletarian bri-

gades.” The fi rst, founded on December 29, 1941, was followed by the

formation of the 2nd Proletarian Brigade on March 1 1942.55

The Partisans also began announcing their presence in other ways.

As early as February 20, Serbia Command was reporting that the groups

scattered by the 342d and 718th in Operation Southeast Croatia had

regrouped and were active once more. By early March the Tuzla-Doboj

railway line in eastern Bosnia was threatened by the same Partisans

whom the 718th had scattered during Operation Ozren. By late March,

Partisan activity was threatening road and rail communications across

much of eastern Bosnia, not least around Sarajevo.56

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terror in the balk ans

The Axis might yet have dealt the Partisans a killer blow in early

1942. Unfortunately for them, they were too busy falling out amongst

themselves. In December 1941, Hitler had been intensely preoccupied

with the protracted struggle against the Soviet Union. He had resolved

to transfer the Wehrmacht’s entire occupation force in Yugoslavia to

the eastern front, and to hand over all occupation duties in Croatia

to the Italians. Mussolini, Army Chief of Staff Roatta, and Second

Army Commander Ambrosio—Ambrosio and Roatta having yet to

swap commands at that point—all welcomed this proposal, seeing in

it a swift means of extending Italian infl uence in the region. However,

beseeched by both the Nedicánd Pavelicŕegimes, Hitler then moder-

ated his proposal. Rather than relinquish the Wehrmacht’s Yugoslav

commitment entirely, he now elected to scale it down. The incensed

Italians, Mussolini in particular, suspected a German–Ustasha plot.

They then essentially sulked for the next three months, further sty-

mieing effective anti-Partisan operations in eastern Bosnia.57 With

hindsight, the breathing space this provided Tito’s Partisans proved

crucial. They used it to reorganize and replenish themselves to a point

where they would be considerably harder to kill off completely when

the Axis united against them once more.58

Amid all this, on February 18, the 718th Infantry Division was handed

long-term occupation responsibility for eastern Bosnia. Its jurisdic-

tion was bordered by the Rivers Sava and Bosna to the north, the River

Drina to the east, and the Italian demarcation line to the south. A cen-

tral principle of the occupation, Serbia Command directed, must be that

“in German-infl uenced areas, Croats, Serbs, and Muslims can live qui-

etly and securely next to one another as fully entitled citizens.” To help

ensure this, General Fortner was to be assigned command of all German

and Croatian troops in eastern Bosnia.59 But during March and April,

following the departure of the more effective 342d Infantry Division at

the end of January, the less formidable 718th was only able to mount lim-

ited, largely ineffective operations against the Partisans.60 An NCO of

the 717th Infantry Division could identify with this, describing in a letter

how “we’ve been hunting the bandits in the mountains and forests and

have had to exert ourselves a great deal in doing so. All winter, when it

Glimmers of Sanity
173

was cold, they crept off and hid themselves, (but) now the brothers are

showing themselves again. God grant us the day when we wipe them all

out, then we can have peace and quiet.”61

Meanwhile, German–Italian relations grew ever more convoluted. In

March 1942 General Roatta, in addition to arming the Chetniks, also

announced that he wished to extend the German–Italian demarcation

line up to and including Sarajevo. The general may simply have been

airing this intention in order to increase his leverage over the Chetnik

question, but it alarmed both Croats and Germans nevertheless. Were

the Italians to extend their territory so far north, into an area with sig-

nifi cant Croat and particularly Muslim populations, the Chetniks they

brought with them were wont to cause precisely the kind of havoc from

which ultimately only the Partisans could benefi t.62

In late April, however, this particular problem was solved by an

operation in which the 718th Infantry Division took part. Together with

three Italian divisions—the Italo-German impasse of early 1942 having

now been resolved—and Italian and Croatian gendarmerie forces and

aircraft, the division was committed to relieving Rogatica and cleans-

ing the surrounding area in Operation Trio I.63 However, only a fraction

of the manpower the Italians had originally pledged actually arrived in

time to participate in the operation at all.64 General Bader, anxious to

exploit the window of opportunity created by the successful attack of the

Ustasha’s elite Black Legion against the region’s Partisans, commenced

the operation anyway. Trio I relieved Rogatica, but otherwise achieved

little militarily. Politically, however, it would prove useful. Its success-

ful conclusion would enable Bader to claim that Bosnian territory north

of the demarcation line was now even more extensively cleansed than