German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944)/Chapter 9

by Robert M. Kennedy

CHAPTER 9

OPERATIONS TO THE END OF 1943

I. General

Exhausted by long marches and intermittent fighting to gain the areas vacated by the Italians, the German troops were in no condition to pursue the guerrillas into the mountains. Instead, German commanders hurried to set up a defense against Allied landings, allocated units specific areas of responsibility, and organized mobile forces to seek out and destroy the guerrilla bands.

Experience already gained in operations in the Balkans and in Russia enabled the Germans to devise more effective antiguerrilla measures than had their Italian predecessors. With the forces at hand, they set about to contain the guerrillas and keep up the flow of bauxite and other strategic raw materials produced in the Balkans to the German war machine.

On the passive defense side, the occupiers set up a network of Stuetzpunkte (strongpoints) to secure vital rail and road arteries and important installations. These strongpoints were actually small forts, heavily armed with automatic weapons, mortars, antitank guns, and even light field pieces, and situated in the vicinity of such guerrilla targets as bridges, tunnels, and portions of the rail and road lines difficult to keep under observation from the air or by roving patrols. Strongpoints were first occupied by a minimum of one squad, later by a platoon, when the smaller garrisons began to invite attack by the increasingly aggressive enemy. Some were of the field type, with earthen trenches and bunkers reinforced and revetted with logs and sandbags; others were elaborately constructed concrete fortifications with accommodations for a permanent garrison. They were situated to deliver all-round fire, and usually had radio communication with the next higher headquarters and adjacent strongpoints. Approaches to the positions were heavily mined, and the lanes through the mine fields were changed frequently. Barbed wire obstacles were also constructed, but were seldom effective against determined attackers.

Armored car patrols, a platoon or more in strength and equipped with searchlights and heavy weapons, made frequent and irregular runs between strongpoints; the same was done with armored trains along the vulnerable rail lines. In addition, mobile and heavily armed reserves were held on the alert at battalion and higher headquarters, ready to move immediately to the relief of strongpoints under attack.

Personnel limitations made it necessary to place strongpoints an average of 6 miles or more apart, requiring long patrols even on the anain highways. The guerrillas were quick to take advantage of the situation and made extensive use of a pressure-type mine apparently supplied by the Western Allies or Russians. Disguised to resemble a stone, this mine had a nonmetallic casing and could not be discovered readily even with a mine detector. Placed on the rock-strewn mountain roads, the mine disabled numerous vehicles, leaving the German crews afoot and at the mercy of the roving guerrillas. Other devices put to extensive use were land mines, demolitions, and special nails designed to puncture tires. The last, easily transportable, could be dropped along the road at frequent intervals by shepherds moving their flocks from one grazing area to another.

A highly effective offensive weapon was found in the Jagdkommando (ranger detachment), designed to seek out and destroy guerrilla bands. Personnel of the detachments were usually young and combat-wise veterans of German campaigns on other fronts. Physically hardy and trained to live in the open for extended periods of time, they depended little on supply columns and could pursue the guerrillas, often burdened down with wounded, families, and impedimenta, into the most inaccessible areas. When the situation required, the rangers would put on civilian clothing, disguising themselves as Chetniks or Partisans, to work their way closer to their wary enemy. In the event they came upon major guerrilla forces, the ranger detachments, seldom more than a company in strength, would keep them under observation and inform battalion or other higher headquarters. While awaiting reinforcements, they would attempt to gather additional information on the guerrilla strength and dispositions. As successful as they were in many small-scale operations, however, the ranger detachments were not numerous enough to affect decisively the outcome of the antiguerrilla campaign.

A directive from the German Armed Forces High Command on 19 September made Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Rommel and Army Group B, in conjunction with the Commander-in-Chief, Southeast, responsible for destroying the large guerrilla forces on the Istrian Peninsula bordering Croatia.^[1] Further, to strengthen the German Forces in the Balkans, the Commander-in-Chief, South, was to turn over to Marshal von Weichs all captured tanks and other armored vehicles unsuitable for use against the Allies in Italy.^[2] This ambitious plan to eliminate the guerrilla scourge in northwestern Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav-Italian border area, and a contemplated transfer of several divisions from Army Group B to the Commander-in-Chief, Southeast, was thwarted by developments in Italy and the departure of Marshal Rommel and his staff to France. Marshal von Weichs also lost the 1st Panzer Division, ordered to the Russian front in August.

German forces continued to move into the Balkans in the months following the defection of the Italians. By the end of September 1943, the number of German divisions had increased to 14. Total strength was approximately 600,000 military personnel, a serious drain on the Reich's dwindling manpower resources.^[3] Opposing them, the Germans estimated the rapidly growing guerrilla forced in the theater at 145,000, the bulk of them, some 90,000, under Tito's command.

By early November the German forces in the Balkans comprised 17 divisions. The Armed Forces High Command then directed a search of all cities and centers of population in the Balkan Peninsula as a preliminary to major operations to destroy the guerrillas. Despite the strenuous objections of the theater commander, who protested the personnel available to him were far too few, the search operation was carried out on schedule, but with completely unsatisfactory results.

The Bulgarians also became a problem during November, with whole units disaffected by communist agitators. On one occasion, the 24th Bulgarian Division had to be withdrawn from an operation against the Partisans when it refused to obey the orders of the German task force commander. Desertions to the guerrillas became more frequent, and several communist bands of Bulgarian deserters were organized to operate against German forces and their own government in southern and western Bulgaria from bases on Yugoslav soil.

By the end of the year, German troop strength had climbed to 700,000 men, and a total of 20 infantry, SS, and mountain divisions. Despite this impressive total, however, and the attention the theater was receiving from the Armed Forces High Command, the southeast still held a secondary place in order of priority. Troop replacements were invariably older men or those returned to duty after long periods in the hospital. Vehicles, including tanks, were often obsolescent or war booty from the 1940 campaign in western Europe. (Chart 3.)

 

II. Yugoslavia and Albania

Major anti-Partisan operations planned for late 1943 included KUGELBLITZ, SCHNEESTURM, and HERBSTGEWITTER. The first of these, executed by the V SS Mountain Corps, had as its purpose the destruction of the Partisan units in eastern Bosnia. The German troop units had to comb too large an area to be thorough, however, and the bulk of the Partisan force slipped through their narrowing ring. The Partisans suffered 9,000 casualties in the course of the operation, and were immediately pursued in Operation SCHNEESTURM, twin drives to the west and northwest. Concluded by the end of December, SCHNEESTURM cost the Partisans an additional 2,000 men. Though badly battered in these operations, the major Partisan units retained their cohesion and Tito's Army of National Liberation could still be considered an effective fighting force.

HERBSTGEWITTER involved the clearing of the island of Korcula, off the Dalmatian Coast, an excellent waystation for bringing supplies in by sea from Italy. The Partisans lost 1,000 men in the operation. However, perhaps more significant than this loss was the matter of a reprisal inflicted on the Partisan garrison. The Commander-in-Chief, Southeast, had received a report on the shooting of 3 German officers and 26 enlisted men captured by the 29th Partisan Division near Mostar. (Map 3.) One of the officers was a holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (the German equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross), which further incensed Marshal von Weichs. Accordingly, he ordered the execution of 220 prisoners from Korcula in reprisal, giving the Partisans additional ammunition for their propaganda campaign.

As of the end of the year, the headquarters of Second Panzer Army, which had arrived from Russia in August to assume control of the major striking force of Army Group F, had 14 divisions in Yugoslavia and Albania. The 367th Infantry Division, hastily formed in Germany in October, was assigned to garrison duty in Croatia while completing its organization and training. The Military Command, Southeast, had operational control over the I Bulgarian Corps in Serbia and a number of police and security units of regimental and battalion size.

It was at this time that a number of the Allied liaison officers were withdrawn from the Chetniks, and with their departure the supply of weapons and equipment from the Middle East forces and Italy was considerably reduced. With much of their portion of Allied military

CHART No. 3—GERMAN AND BULGARIAN GROUND FORCES IN OCCUPIED GREECE, YUGOSLAVIA AND ALBANIA
AS OF 26 DECEMBER 1943

Chart 3.

assistance diverted to the Partisans and under constant attack by Tito's forces, the position of the Chetniks began to deteriorate. Though they still held Serbia and some of the Adriatic coastal regions, their strength waned with battle losses and desertions.

No doubt existed as to the loyalty of Mihailovitch himself to the royal Yugoslav Government-in-Exile. However, there is ample evidence that a number of his subordinates made armistice arrangements with the occupation forces and even assisted them on occasion. Certain the Germans and their allies would eventually be forced to withdraw from the Balkans, Mihailovitch regarded the Partisans, under the aegis of Moscow, as the greater of the two threats to the restoration of the former government.

 

III. Greece

With its more homogeneous population and a central government, however weak and collaborationist, Greece did not pose the occupation problem that Yugoslavia did during this period. The average German had considerable respect for the culture of ancient Hellas, and was better disposed toward the Greek population than toward the various Yugoslav peoples, whom he regarded as offshoots of the Russians and Slavic barbarians. Too, the economic situation in Greece, unable to raise enough food to sustain even its own population and reduced to abject poverty by the complete loss of its world-wide foreign trade of prewar years, did much to keep the Greeks under the control of the occupation forces and the puppet regime.

Major operations undertaken by the Germans during the period were the clearing of the Edessa–Florina road, west of Salonika, accomplished in conjunction with Bulgarian forces moved west for the purpose, and PANTHER, the elimination of guerrilla bands in the Metsovan Pass, Yannina–Arta, and Mount Olympus areas. (Map 4.) In the Edessa-Florina operation, the guerrilla forces melted away into the mountains, and neither side sustained casualties comparable to those suffered in the fighting in Yugoslavia. In Operation PANTHER, the guerrillas lost 1,400 men, 3 field pieces, and a considererable stock of small arms.

As of the end of the year, Army Group E had attached to it the XXII Mountain and LXVIII Corps, the former responsible for western Greece and the Peloponnesus and the latter for eastern Greece. In addition, Fortress Crete, raised to corps status and no longer under the theater headquarters, was directly responsible to the army group commander. A total of 6 divisions, 1 of them Bulgarian, formed the combat nucleus of the army group. In the event of major Allied landings, the 2 divisions from the Bulgarian corps in Thrace would also come under the control of Army Group E.

1. Army Group B controlled operational and occupation forces in northern Italy until November, when it was replaced by Army Group C.
2. The Commander-in-Chief, South, controlled all German forces in the Italian theater. The position at this time was held by Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Albert Kesselring.
3. This figure includes labor and administrative troops of all types. Also, at the time, there were an assault gun brigade, several regiments of security troops, a motorized infantry regiment, (reinforced) and a number of security and fortress battalions of army group troops.