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.
The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the communist-led anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. Led by Josip Broz Tito, the Partisans are considered to be Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II.
To arms, everyone!, a Partisan propaganda poster
Partisan fighter Stjepan "Stevo" Filipović shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!" seconds before his execution by a Serbian State Guard unit in Valjevo, occupied Yugoslavia. These words became the Partisan slogan afterwards.
Josip Broz Tito in Bihać, 1942
Sixteen blindfolded Partisan youth await execution by German forces in Smederevska Palanka, 20 August 1941