Terror in the Balkans (85 page)

subordinate divisions had between them shot thirty-three Communists

and arrested another twenty-nine. These Communists, one assumes,

were unarmed civilians rather than actual insurgents, because LXV

Corps recorded the ninety-three insurgents its hunter groups had report-

edly killed under the separate category of “bandits.” LXV Corps also

distinguished between Communists and “suspects” more generally; the

hunter groups, it reported, had arrested one hundred and thirty-eight

such persons. 112

It is distinctly possible that Jews were being mixed in with any or all of

these categories. The particularly strong suspicion arises that the hunter

groups, in line with the practice of the SS and police in Serbia, were

using the term “Communist” as a covering label for Jews.113 Indeed, this

consideration arouses a more general suspicion as to the racial identity

of a great many of the “Communists” who were being killed during the

summer months.

However, the majority of killing operations which divisional troops

carried out—the majority of these, in turn, being the work of those same

hunter groups on whom LXV Corps compiled its October 10 report—

were smaller than those in which the
Kommandanturen
were involved.

This was due, if nothing else, to the easier access to interned Jews and

Communists which town- and city-based
Kommandanturen
possessed.

Some examples of large-scale reprisals involving the
Kommandanturen

have been cited already. A further example is the actions of the area com-

mand in Belgrade during August and September. Over the course of these

two months, the area command cooperated with the SS and police in a

sequence of major raids on suspect Communists, Communist leaders, and

Communist Party offi ces. On September 29, the day after one such raid,

an “attack” on German soldiers in Belgrade—the report makes no men-

tion of whether any German soldier had actually died as a result—brought

the execution of one hundred and fi fty Communists in reprisal.114

Yet by October, the Serbian national uprising having mushroomed

alarmingly and German attitudes having hardened further, divisional

troops were themselves more extensively involved in the seizing and kill-

ing of increasingly large numbers of Jews and Communists.115 Those

104
terror in the balk ans

summer Wehrmacht decrees that had victimized such groups, directed

army units to collude ever more extensively with the SS and police, and

already bloodied the hands of some units among both the
Kommandan-

turen
and the occupation divisions, helped lay the groundwork for this

later murderous escalation.

More generally, meanwhile, the 704th Infantry Division, like its fellow

divisions, strove ever more desperately to stave off the occupation edi-

fi ce’s collapse. The division had help from Reserve Police Battalion 64,

which dispatched a car-borne company to Užice in July.116 But it faced

a thankless task nonetheless. The insurgents were infi ltrating and co-

opting the population with ease. In late July, for example, Reserve Police

Battalion 64 committed a company to no fewer than eleven seek-locate-

destroy missions that, launched as they were on the basis of imprecise

tip-offs from locals, proved an utter waste of time. The insurgents were

invariably able to slip away, and the battalion was certain that civilians

had forewarned them.117 A little later, a battalion of the 724th Infantry

Regiment judged that the insurgents “possess an excellent and far-reach-

ing information service which works very rapidly and reliably . . . its

timely warnings always make it possible (for the insurgents) to escape

encirclement.”118

Co-opting the population so easily also enabled the Partisans to move

undetected within it. LXV Corps reported that a band of Communists

had attacked a town by disguising themselves as farmers in order to

smuggle their weapons through the marketplace.119 The Germans’ own

efforts in intelligence-gathering were limited among other things by the

paltry Luftwaffe forces available. There were no operative units in the

Yugoslav theater, so Wehrmacht Command Southeast was reduced to

imploring the High Command to transfer a Luftwaffe training school to

Serbia, even if it was equipped only with primitive machines.120

The insurgents also targeted pro-Axis collaborators with ease. So

reported the 724th Infantry Regiment on August 20: “the district head-

man of Gucˇa appeared today in the regimental offi ce . . . He had been

a prisoner of war, and would rather be one again than remain district

headman in Gucˇa if the Wehrmacht were not there. He claims that the

Islands in an Insurgent Sea
105

Serbian gendarmerie commands no respect and is in no fi t state to pro-

tect the place. He also claims that there are a large number of Commu-

nists in Gucˇa itself, and that there are numerous mayors who sympathize

with the bandits.”121 More anguished still was the cry for help from the

collaborator Danilac Kostic´: “I ask the German Wehrmacht and German

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.

106
terror in the balk ans

“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

108
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