Terror in the Balkans (30 page)

operations. But such operations, if they were to enjoy decisive theater-

level success, needed far more long-term resourcing than the German

high command was prepared to commit. Even so, German commanders

on the spot might have made more use of them than they did. Instead,

whether due to pressure for more rapid and spectacular results, or to

their own predilection for maximum force and maximum terror, they

relied all too often on large-scale encirclement operations. Here a des-

ignated area was cordoned off. Then, with some troops assigned the

task of holding the perimeter to prevent breakouts, the rest advanced

to a central point, in theory combing the area for Partisans as they went

and vetting the villages for suspect elements. This phase saw the most

encounters with insurgents, if any, and the most German casualties. But

the designated daily targets were frequently beyond the capabilities of

the often insuffi cient troop numbers committed to such operations.

Thus, all too often, the insurgents and “suspect elements” who were

the ostensible target of such operations slipped the cordon. Then the

Germans, whether through frustration, pressure from above for results,

or the belief that cowing the population was at least one means of com-

bating the insurgents, turned on civilians. But any “benefi t” gained from

such operations usually proved transitory. Their insuffi cient manpower

160
terror in the balk ans

rendered the Germans incapable of occupying a recently cleansed area

over a lengthier period and ensuring that the insurgents did not reestab-

lish themselves there. This pattern would repeat itself numerous times

during the German counterinsurgency campaign in the NDH. Only

from 1943, as the Germans refi ned their tactics and sometimes deployed

high-quality formations, such as the 1st Mountain Division and the Prinz

Eugen Division, did they achieve some successes.62

Despite the so often horrendous civilian casualties such operations

infl icted, Wehrmacht commanders sought to distinguish their “good”

brand of violence from the “bad” violence of the Ustasha. In the words

of the historian Jonathan Gumz, “in the eyes of German staff offi cers,

cool technocrats, not angry men, produced Wehrmacht violence.”63

They saw their own violence as systematic and organized, controlled in

such a way as to prevent the troops from degenerating into savagery, and

executed in the cause of restoring and maintaining order. Ustasha vio-

lence, by contrast, was barbaric, chaotic, and a guarantor of ever greater

support for the Partisans amongst those sections of the population who

were imperiled by it. Accurate though the Wehrmacht’s general assess-

ment of Ustasha violence undoubtedly was, however, Wehrmacht com-

manders certainly had a vested interest in demonizing it. By contrasting

it with their own “proper” terror methods, they could fall back on atavis-

tic Ustasha savagery as an explanation for their own failure to maintain

order and stability.64

The following two chapters focus mainly upon the 718th Infantry

Division. This formation possesses by far the largest source base of any

of the German army occupation divisions that operated in the NDH in

1942. It thus offers a particularly rich insight into how a German army

division conducted its campaign in the face of the mounting, increas-

ingly intractable challenges which the NDH presented to its German

occupiers that year.

c h a p t e r 8

Glimmers of Sanity

The 718th Infantry Division in Bosnia

The 718th infantry division was formed in the Eighteenth

Military District in the Eastern March in spring 1941. The units it

commanded—consisting primarily of the 738th and 750th Infantry Regi-

ments and the 668th Artillery Section—originated from the southern

part of the old Reich as well as from the Eastern March.1 Its commander,

Major General Johann Fortner, was born in Zweibrücken in the Rhine-

land Palatinate in 1884. He spent the fi rst two years of the Great War with

the 5th Bavarian Infantry Regiment on the western front, before being

captured by the British in September 1916. He served in the police during

the 1920s, before retiring and then later resuming his military career. He

took up a post as a training commander in Landeck, in the Eastern March,

before assuming command of the 718th Infantry Division in May 1941.2

The 718th spent the whole of 1942, as well as periods before and after, in

the NDH. It thus not only carried out mobile operations. It also had oppor-

tunity between operations to cultivate popular support, through both

restrained conduct and, as far as practicable, propaganda and construc-

tive engagement. This was, after all, the population of a country to which

Germany was offi cially allied. Nevertheless the 718th did not tread a con-

sistent path during 1942: it sometimes exercised terror more than restraint,

at other times restraint more than terror. What helped shape the division’s

161

162
terror in the balk ans

behavior at any one time, as with other formations, were the particular cir-

cumstances it faced and the particular standpoint of its commander.

Not that any of this was apparent when the 718th began campaigning

that year. Contending with a resourceful opponent, debilitating fi ghting

conditions, and its own substandard fi ghting power, it initially reacted

with what was in many ways textbook ruthlessness.

A trio of mobile operations, taking place between mid-January and mid-

February, were the division’s introduction to the 1942 counterinsurgency

campaign. These operations were part of a larger effort, titled the “Second

Enemy Offensive” by the Partisans. It employed between thirty thousand

and thirty-fi ve thousand troops, the bulk of whom were provided by the

718th Infantry Division and, for the fi rst operation, by the 342d Infantry

Division also. The latter formation had arrived from Serbia after Bulgar-

ian troops had been deployed there. General Bader, having witnessed

the almost complete destruction of the Partisans in Serbia, now sought

to replicate the feat against the Partisans in eastern Bosnia. But the Ger-

man forces in Yugoslavia, subordinated as they were to the needs of their

comrades fi ghting in the Soviet Union, lacked the strength to destroy the

insurgents in eastern Bosnia on their own. Their need instead to rely on

their Croatian and Italian allies would impede the operations’ success con-

siderably. But other factors impeded the operations also. Among other

things, the operations took place in temperatures of minus thirty.3 And the

units prosecuting them, German units included, were seriously lacking in

the kinds of equipment that mountainous, wintry conditions demanded.

The fi rst operation, code-named Southeast Croatia, was the largest

of the three. It took place between January 15 and 23, 1942, in the area

between Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zvornik, and Visegrad in the NDH’s south-

eastern corner.4 The area was viewed by the 718th’s intelligence section

as an “ethnic mishmash of a region.” It consisted overwhelmingly of

Muslims and Orthodox Serbs, but also contained a Catholic Croatian

minority, generally hostile to “Old Serbia” and predominantly employed

on the land.5 Serbia Command viewed it as a major center of hostile activ-

ity, in which the enemy had set up winter quarters and was endangering

important transport routes.6 That enemy, it was reported, comprised up

Glimmers of Sanity
163

to eight thousand Communist Partisans, some of whom were fugitives

from Serbia, and—offi cially classed as the enemy, at least—about twenty

thousand Bosnian Chetniks.7 General Bader was clear about the opera-

tion’s aims. He planned an encirclement with all persons encountered in

the area to “be viewed as the enemy.”8

During the operation the 718th fell under the temporary overall com-

mand of the 342d Infantry Division. Alongside the two divisions were

seven Croatian infantry battalions and nine Croatian artillery batteries,

while the Luftwaffe committed reconnaissance aircraft and a combat

squadron.9 The 718th was strengthened for the operation. The 738th

Infantry Regiment, ordered to strike from Sarajevo through the Praca

Valley towards Rogatica, received pioneer troops, four Croatian bat-

talions, four Croatian artillery batteries, and two and a half German

mountain artillery batteries sent from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

The 750th Infantry Regiment, moving out from southwest of Tuzla

towards Olovo, was accompanied by a German artillery battery, and a

Croatian infantry battalion and mountain battery.10 But the extra forces

allotted to the division would be of limited help. Indeed, the Croats

would prove more of a hindrance.

The operation was called off on January 23, having failed to destroy

the insurgents as planned. On its heels a few days later came Opera-

tion Ozren, which lasted until February 4. The 718th, advancing from

Kladanj, was tasked with clearing the area between the Rivers Bosna

and Spreca of the circa two-thousand-strong Partisan forces there.11 The

division had been further strengthened by the time of this operation.

Alongside its core infantry and artillery regiments it was now allocated

an armored train and fi ve Panzer platoons. Sixteen territorial compa-

nies, meanwhile, reduced the pressure on the 718th, largely by assum-

ing static security duties in its jurisdiction.12 To the operation itself the

718th committed its full infantry and artillery strength, together with an

Ustasha battalion. It was also loaned the 697th Infantry Regiment from

the 342d Infantry Division.13 Ten Croatian battalions and an unspecifi ed

number of Croatian artillery batteries were tasked with cordoning off

the Spreca and the Bosna valley to prevent the Partisans from escaping,

while the main body of the 718th advanced from the north and west.14 In

the event, however, the great majority of Partisans managed to escape.15

164
terror in the balk ans

Mid-February, fi nally, brought Operation Prijedor. Here, in north-

west Bosnia, the 718th committed the 750th Infantry Regiment, advanc-

ing from Dubica, to pulling Territorial Battalion 923 and numerous

Croatian units out of trouble after they had been isolated in Prijedor fol-

lowing Partisan attacks on the surrounding railway lines. This operation

achieved its limited aims, the 718th committing four battalions together

with two artillery batteries, two additional artillery platoons, and pio-

neer and signals troops.16 The Croatian army committed four infantry

battalions, a gendarmerie battalion, four artillery batteries and two artil-

lery sections, and a further twenty-nine companies of various types.

Most of the Croatian units were assigned to guarding the roads and the

cordon around the operational area. But the Croatian units’ already lim-

ited effectiveness was further curtailed by the fact that fi ve of the compa-

nies consisted of low-quality replacements or recruits.17

The orders the 718th issued during these operations, relayed in South-

east Croatia’s case from the 342d Infantry Division, remained true to the

German military’s harsh counterinsurgency tradition and drew little

distinction between combatant and noncombatant. On January 9, in

advance of Operation Southeast Croatia, the 718th ordered its regiments

to view as hostile anyone falling into one of the following, very much

all-encompassing groups: all nonresidents and residents who had been

absent from their localities until recently; all identifi able “Mihailovic´

people” with or without weapons or ammunition; all identifi able DangicĆhetniks—a group with whom the Germans were not yet supposed to be offi cially dealing—with or without weapons or ammunition; all Communists who could be identifi ed in any way, with or without weapons or

ammunition; and, fi nally, anyone concealing, supplying, or informing

the above groups. No distinction was to be made between members of

the different ethnic groups.18

When it came to how to treat captured insurgents, the directives were

predictably fi erce. A brief interrogation or examination, followed by

summary shooting, was to be the fate of all Communists, and of anyone

who had participated in combat or been caught carrying ammunition or

messages. Anyone resisting or fl eeing was likewise to be shot. The 718th,

Glimmers of Sanity
165

though interestingly not the 342d, extended the same treatment to all

“Serbian Chetniks”—a reference, one assumes, to MihailovicĆhetniks.

Finally, houses from which shots were fi red, unless useful as accommo-

dation, were to be burned down.19 The division’s orders for Operation

Ozren were similarly merciless, sparing again neither Communist Parti-

sans nor “Serbian Chetniks,” and its regiments entered into the spirit of

things. The 750th Infantry Regiment, for instance, ordered that villages

from which shots had been fi red, and that were not needed for accom-