The Government of National Salvation (; , VNS), also referred to as Nedić's government or Nedić's regime, was the colloquial name of the second Serbian collaborationist puppet government established after the Commissioner Government in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II in Yugoslavia. Appointed by the German Military Commander in Serbia, it operated from 29 August 1941 to 4 October 1944. Unlike the Independent State of Croatia, the regime in occupied Serbia was never accorded status in international law and did not enjoy formal diplomatic recognition of the Axis powers.Tomasevich (2001), p. 78.
Although the regime was tolerated by many Serbs living in the occupied territory and even actively supported by a part of the Serb population, it was unpopular with a majority of the population who supported one of the two factions which at first were perceived as connected to the Allied Powers, the Yugoslav Partisans or the royalist Chetniks. The Prime Minister throughout was General Milan Nedić. The Government of National Salvation was evacuated from Belgrade through Budapest to Kitzbühel in the first week of October 1944, before the German withdrawal from the occupied territory was complete.
History Formation
Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Germany put Serbia proper under the authority of a military government to maintain control over important resources. Those included two major transportation routes, the Danube River waterway and the railroad line connecting Europe with Bulgaria and Greece, along with the nonferrous metals that Serbia produced. The Germans set up a puppet government to avoid tying up too much German manpower.Tomasevich (2001), p. 175 The first puppet government was the short-lived Commissioner Government, established on 30 May 1941 under Milan Aćimović. He was an anti-communist and had been in contact with the German police before the war. His cabinet consisted of nine members, many of whom were former cabinet members under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and were known to be pro-German. The regime lacked any real power and was no more than an instrument of the Germans. The Commissioner Government collapsed after Dimitrije Ljotić withdrew two of his ministers from the government. However, Aćimović entered Nedić's government as minister of interior. As communist partisans began an insurgency against the German occupiers and the Aćimović government, Harald Turner, an SS commander in the German military administration, suggested strengthening and reforming the administration. General Milan Nedić, formerly chief of general staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army, was selected to be the head of the new government.
On 29 August 1941, Nedić was installed as the prime minister following the resignation of the Commissioner Administration. The Germans threatened to bring in Bulgarian troops to occupy the whole of Serbia, including Belgrade, if he did not accept.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 177-80 Nedić agreed only after the Germans persuaded Kosta Pećanac to place himself and his detachments at the disposal of the occupation regime. The regime was tolerated by a significant portion of the population and even enthusiastically supported by a part of the population and certain social strate, while it remained unpopular with a majority of the Serb people. Those who supported the regime came from the military class, the state bureaucracy, the Serbian intelligentsia and part of the general population. The popularity of the regime in part of the population was downplayed in the post-war era both by Serb nationalists and the official Yugoslav discourse. His first cabinet included fifteen members. The Germans were particularly impressed with his reputation as a man of authority, although the regime did not have any international standing even among the Axis powers. Although Heinrich Danckelmann, the Military Commander in Serbia, promised to give Nedić and his government a high degree of authority and independence, the deal was never written down, so the oral agreements were void after Danckelmann was replaced by General Franz Böhme. Although Turner attempted to convince Danckellmann's successors to grant the Government of National Salvation more power, his requests were ignored. They did allow him to organize a Serbian State Guard, unifying the Serbian gendarmerie and other formations.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 182-85
Waning power In his first radio address on Radio Belgrade, Nedić condemned the communist-led resistance and gave them an ultimatum to put down their arms. Nedić soon lost control of the State Guard, when, on 22 January 1942, General August Meyszner, the Higher SS and Police Leader in Serbia, took command of it. The Government of National Salvation gradually lost more power to the Germans, who intervened in even the smallest decisions that it made. Nedić's already small following among Serbians declined even further as a result of this weakness. He attempted to resign twice, but each time he ended up changing his mind and withdrawing the resignation. Nedić also ended up reorganizing his cabinet, removing two ministers in October 1942 and several more in November 1943, at which point he also took over as the interior minister.
Dimitrije Ljotić, the leader of one of the most effective anti-partisan detachments, the Serbian Volunteer Corps, maintained some degree of influence over the prime minister, although he refused to take a government position himself. Nedić once told Turner that Ljotić would make a good successor in the event of his departure. The SDK was at first not part of the SS or the Wehrmacht. Instead, it was nominally directed by the puppet government, and was paid for by the government.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 187-90 In 1944, it officially became part of the Waffen-SS, and since the end of the war was nearing, there was neither enough time nor supplies to equip it with SS uniforms, so the SDK stayed with mainly Italian/Yugoslav uniforms.
Relations between the Serbian government and the Bulgarian occupation forces in Serbia were strained. A colonel in the Bulgarian 6th Division noted that the local population hated the Bulgarians as much as they hated the Germans.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 200-01 Nedić frequently complained about their presence to the Germans and demanded that the Bulgarians withdraw from Serbia. In the Banat, a special regime was established, administered by the local German minority. The Serbian puppet government recognized it as the civilian administration of the region, under Belgrade's nominal control. A detachment of the SDS was created there, the Banat State Guard, which recruited its members from the local ethnic Germans. It had 94 officers and 846 privates as of March 1942.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 205-07
In March 1942, in the face of the government's growing unpopularity, Nedić sent a memorandum to the Germans with suggestions to improve its standing. They included having elections for a head of state, forming a single national political party, giving the head of state command of the SDS, only interfering with the higher levels of the Serbian government to give them more freedom to work with the Serbian people, and withdrawing Bulgarian forces from Serbia. General Paul Bader, the new Military Commander in Serbia, had Turner speak with Nedić, pressuring the prime minister to withdraw the memorandum. Backed by the entire cabinet, Nedić refused to withdraw it and asked for the memorandum to be sent to Berlin for consideration. It was sent, where the German high command ignored it. Nedić tried again in September 1942, this time threatening to resign for greater effect. The Germans declined it but persuaded him to remain in office. German Wehrmacht officers in Serbia nonetheless still considered Nedić to be loyal and praised him for being a dependable man.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 210-12
Relations with the Chetniks Cooperation between the Serbian puppet government and the Chetniks began in the fall of 1941, during a major German operation in western Serbia against the partisans. The Chetniks wanted to minimize Serbian casualties from German reprisals by defeating the partisans, and later wanted to gain a solid base in the Nedić regime's military and administrative apparatus, so that they could seize control of the government before the partisans at the end of the war. Many members of the Serbian government maintained contact with the Chetniks, including interior minister Milan Aćimović. He later served as the liaison between the Germans and the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović. Several Chetnik units "legalized" themselves by serving with the quisling forces of the Serbian puppet government, but at the same time, Chetniks also took part in activities against the Germans and their auxiliaries. The government's armed forces gave weapons and other supplies to the Chetniks and provided them with intelligence.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 212-16
Legalized Chetnik forces included the Pećanac Chetniks, who fought against the partisans with the Serbian government forces beginning in August 1941. The Germans did not trust them. At the peak of their strength in May 1942, the legalized Chetniks numbered at 13,400 officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. Chetnik detachments were, as with the other Serbian forces, under German command. Most legalized Chetnik detachments were dissolved in late 1942, with the last being dissolved in March 1943. Some of them joined the SDS or SDK, but the majority returned to Mihailović's illegal Chetniks.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 194-95 The Chetniks made a number of agreements with the Germans in 1943, bypassing the Serbian puppet government, which resulted in Nedić and his regime losing what support it had left among the people. Many members of his administration, including government officials, as well as military and police officers, made secret deals with the Chetniks themselves. Those included Aćimović, Belgrade's mayor, Dragomir Jovanović, and General Miodrag Damjanović of the State Guard.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 222-28
Accepting refugees One area in which the Government of National Salvation did have success was the acceptance of Serb refugees that fled from neighboring states, most notably the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The Germans transferred some Slovenes to the Serbian rump state as that territory was incorporated into Nazi Germany. Other sources of refugees included Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia and the Italian governorate of Montenegro. Franz Neuhausen, the German plenipotentiary for economic affairs, estimated that there were about 420,000 refugees in Serbia. The Nedić regime created a Committee for Refugees in May 1941 to handle them, headed by Toma Maksimović, a former factory boss from Borovo. While the committee had difficulties in finding enough food, housing, and other supplies for them, the refugees were well received by the Serbian population. Food was especially difficult to provide due to the Germans exporting it to the Reich or to German forces in Greece.
German officials pointed out that transfers of people from the NDH to Serbia increased the unrest in the territory, because some refugees joined the Partisans or the Chetniks. The Serbian government, and some German officials, wanted to repatriate some Serbs to the places that they came from, but this was denied by the military administration, due to the difficulties that would be present for them in the NDH.Tomasevich (2001), pp. 217-21
Final days of the regime