Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or Socialist Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, breaking up as a consequence of the Yugoslav Wars. Spanning an area of 255,804 square kilometres (98,766 sq mi) in the Balkans, Yugoslavia was bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west, Austria and Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east, and Albania and Greece to the south. It was a one-party socialist state and federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and had six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Within Serbia was the Yugoslav capital city of Belgrade as well as two autonomous Yugoslav provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Marshal Josip Broz Tito led Yugoslavia from 1944 to 1980.
Yugoslav ration stamps for milk, 1950
Tito in 1973
U.S.–Yugoslavia summit, 1978
World War II in Yugoslavia
World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans, on orders from Moscow, launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.
Clockwise from top left: Ante Pavelić visits Adolf Hitler at the Berghof; Stjepan Filipović hanged by the occupation forces; Draža Mihailović confers with his troops; a group of Chetniks with German soldiers in a village in Serbia; Josip Broz Tito with members of the British mission
Adolf Hitler in Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941. He later ordered his officials "to make these lands German again".
Italian armored cars in the Balkans.
German forces with French-made H39 tanks fording a river.