The communist purges in Serbia in 1944–1945 are war crimes"Most of these people were murdered without a trial" (talking about at least 20,000) "...There is not even a smallest of doubt that these were war crimes." quoted from: Istina o streljanjima važnija od sudskih progona (PDF, in Serbian) that were committed by members of the Yugoslav Partisan Movement and the post-war communist authorities after they gained control over Serbia, against people perceived as war criminals, quislings and ideological opponents. Most of these purges were committed between October 1944 and May 1945. During this time, at least 55,973 people died of various causes, including death by execution or by illness in retention camps. The victims – the vast majority of them deliberately summarily executed, without a trialQuote: "Armed persons murdered unarmed civilians" p. 32 from Mészáros Z. (2012): Az 1944–45-os esemenyek minositesei (I) – Qualifications of the 1944-45 Events (I). Létünk 2012/1. (PDF, in Hungarian)Translated quote: "Besides unintentional, accidental killings, which were minimal in numbers, the number of executed after regular trial is low, most victims were liquidated as a reprisal, without any court proceeding." p. 5 from Mačković, S. (2017): Szabadka és a felszabadulás után (1944-1945) áldozatul esett polgári személyek – Subotica and the civilian victims after the liberation (1944-1945). Subotica History, official page of the Historic Archive.Quote: "For just a few days matter, all of them were murdered, mostly from our village. I personally buried them in the grave-hole." from Stijačić, M. (2018): Vreme je! – article published in Slobodni Srbobran 10 December 2018, archived using Google cache here (in Serbian) (in Hungarian)"These works negotiated the start of historical remembrance of the innocent persons' tragic fate, those that suffered cruel reprisal." Quote translated from p. 1. of A. Sajti E. (2018): A vajdasági helytörténetírás és a magyarok elleni megtorlások a Délvidéken – source. (PDF, in Hungarian) – were of different ethnic backgrounds, but were mostly Germans, Serbs, Albanians and Hungarians. Some contend that the killings were not planned, but were unorganised vendettas of individuals during the post-war chaos, or that those considered victims of execution instead died in battle against the Partisans.
The exact number of victims remains controversial, as the investigation is ongoing.Report on the stage of investigation, year 2011 (in Serbian)Agenda of the round-table held in Belgrade, 2015 (in Serbian) There are different estimates regarding the number of victims. According to one source, at least 80,000 people were executed in the whole of Serbia, while another source states that the number of victims was more than 100,000. The names of about 4,000 individual Germans who were killed by the Partisans are known, but it is estimated that many more ethnic Germans were executed.Ulrich Merten: Forgotten Voices: The Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe After World War II, Transactions Publisher, New Jersey, USA, 2012 These events during the fall of 1944 are referred to as "bloody autumn" by some sources.Kathryn Schaeffer Pabst, Douglas Schaeffer Pabst: Taken: A Lament for a Lost Ethnicity, iUniverse Books, 2006 Georg Wildmann, Hans Sonnleitner, Karl Weber: Genocide of the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, 1944–1948, Danube Swabian Association of the USA, 2001 In 2009, the government of Serbia formed a State Commission to investigate the secret burial places of victims after 12 September 1944. The Commission compiled a registry of names, basic biographical data, and details of persecution. The registry contains a total of 55,973 names, including 27,367 Germans, 14,567 Serbs and 6,112 Hungarians.State Commission Registry, accessed on 22 June 2014
Background During World War II, in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. Central Serbia was put under the Military Administration in Serbia (MAS), Kosovo was annexed by the Italian protectorate of Albania, and eastern Serbia was occupied by Bulgaria. The Vojvodina region was divided into three occupation zones: Banat was placed under direct German control as an autonomous region within the area governed by the MAS, Bačka was annexed by Horthy's Hungary and Syrmia was annexed by the Independent State of Croatia.
The Axis powers found it difficult to combat the Yugoslav partisan uprising led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, due to a shortage of manpower and the rough terrain, and relied heavily on auxiliary anticommunist forces drawn from various Yugoslav peoples. In Serbia they used the Serbian Volunteer Corps, Serbian State Guard, and the Chetniks of Kosta Pećanac and Dragoljub Mihailović. From the German minority in Banat, Germany organized the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. Some Hungarians in Bačka and Baranja joined the Turan Hunters. From the ranks of White Russian emigres, Germany recruited the Russian Protective Corps.
Aside from military and paramilitary formations, many national organizations that weren't originally fascist or irredentist, such as the German Kulturbund and the DMKSZ (, ) also showed support to the occupying armies.
From the beginning of the occupation, the occupying powers committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population of the region, especially against Serbs, Jews and Roma.Zvonimir Golubović, Racija u Južnoj Bačkoj, 1942. godine, Novi Sad, 1991. Therefore, many citizens of Yugoslavia of all ethnic groups joined the partisan resistance movement to fight against the occupation.Milorad Grujić, Vodič kroz Novi Sad i okolinu, Novi Sad, 2004. The victims of the Axis troops were mostly civilians, while some were the fighters of the partisan resistance movement.Slobodan Ćurčić, Broj stanovnika Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 1996. Vojvodina was a region with an ethnically mixed population.
In their struggle against the Axis forces, the partisans viewed the Chetniks as misled and continuously called on them to defect. A similar policy was conducted toward members of the Croatian Home Guard. Those who defected were included in the partisan ranks or were given amnesty. On 17 August 1944, Josip Broz Tito proclaimed a general amnesty for Chetniks and members of the Croatian Home Guards on condition that they did not commit any crimes and join the partisans before 15 September 1944. Members of voluntary anticommunist or quisling formations (Serbian Volunteer Corps, Ustashe Militia and Russian Protective Corps) were excluded from the offer. This amnesty, as well as the proclamation of King Peter II on 12 September 1944, that all armed formations should come under the command of Marshal Tito, led to a fall in the numbers of the Chetnik and the Croatian Home Guard. Another amnesty was proclaimed on 21 November 1944, and again by the adoption of the Amnesty and Pardoning Act of 6 July 1945. Between 10,000-15,000 Chetniks were amnestied in this way, which accounted for about a third to a half of the Chetniks in Serbia at that time.
Central Serbia The number of victims in Central Serbia is estimated at 30,000. According to Milovan Đilas, before communist forces entered Belgrade, their leaders decided that followers of Serbia's former pro-Axis puppet Government of National Salvation should be liquidated immediately. According to communist leaders, Belgrade was the main center of Serbian reaction and, due to that, it was designed to be "very carefully cleansed from anti-communist elements". The establishment of communist administration was, therefore, followed by a brutal showdown with notable participants in the cultural, political and public life of the German-occupied territory of Serbia, and also with members of the rival Chetnik resistance movement who were defeated in a civil war.
Vojvodina
In Vojvodina (which then included Bačka, Banat, Baranja and Syrmia regions), most of the executions were performed during Military Administration in Banat, Bačka and Baranja, between October 1944 and January 1945.
Background
At the end of 1944, Axis troops were defeated by the Red Army and the whole of Vojvodina came under the control of the Yugoslav partisan forces. On 17 October 1944, by the order of Josip Broz Tito, the Banat, Bačka and Baranja regions were placed under military administration. About the establishment of this military government, Josip Broz Tito said the following: "The liberation of Bačka, Banat and Baranja requires the quickest possible return to normal life and the establishment of the people's democratic power in these territories. The specific circumstances under which these territories had to live during the occupation, and a mission to fully avert all adversities inflicted to our people by the occupying forces and foreign ethnic elements colonized here, requires that, in the beginning, we concentrate all power in order to mobilize the economy and carry on the war of liberation more successfully".Jelena Popov, Vojvodina i Srbija, Veternik, 2001.
The partisan troops in Bačka had a very strict order, they had to "show the strongest possible determination against fifth columnists.
The term "fifth column" is applied to the subversive and resistant forces and organizations left behind by a retreating enemy. The National Committee for People's Liberation and the Red Army had agreed on the necessary cooperation in due time.
Brigadier General Ivan Rukavina was appointed commander of the military administration. He was in constant and direct contact with Tito, the supreme commander. In his first decree, he ordered his troops to "protect the national future and the South Slavic character of the territories" .
In the 28 October 1944 issue of Slobodna Vojvodina, the newspaper of the People's Liberation Front in Vojvodina, one member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia summarized the intentions suggested from above, with the obvious aim to raise spirit for revenge by exaggerations and distortions: Although we destroyed the occupying German and Hungarian hordes and drove them back to the west, we have not yet eradicated the roots of the poisonous weeds planted by them... The hundreds of thousands of foreigners who were settled on the territories where our ancestors had cleared the forests, drained the swamps, and created the conditions necessary for civilized life. These foreigners still kept shooting at our soldiers and the Soviet soldiers from the dark. They do everything they can to prevent the return to normal life, preparing, in the midst of this difficult situation, to stab us in the back again at the appropriate moment... The people feel that determined, energetic steps are needed to ensure the Yugoslav character of Bačka.
Ethnic composition of victims
Germans (Danube Swabians) The estimated number range of Germans victims in Vojvodina is between 17,000 and 59,335.Dieter Blumenwitz, Rechtsgutachten über die Verbrechen an den Deutschen in Jugoslawien 1944–1948, Sonderausgabe: Juristische Studien, München 2002, S. 64. According to Friedrich Binder, the total number of the German victims in Yugoslavia was 56,736, of which 240 died while escaping in October 1944, 8,049 were executed by the Yugoslav partisans and 48,447 died in prison camps from starvation, illness and in the coldness.Nenad Stefanović, Jedan svet na Dunavu, Beograd, 2003, page 133.
Serbian State commission formed in 2009 established the list of 27.367 German victims in total.