Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 24:722725, 2011

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1351-8046 print/1556-3006 online
DOI: 10.1080/13518046.2011.624879

Downloaded by [T&F Internal Users], [Ms Charlene Brooke] at 10:51 21 November 2011

Letter to the Editor

Failed Counterinsurgency in Wartime
Yugoslavia: An Answer

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Schmider for his comments on my
article. Being a newcomer to the world of scholarly writing, drawing the
attention of a renowned an expert on WW2-Yugoslavia such as himself does
me credit indeed.
Now I shall try to address the issues Mr. Schmider raised in his letter.
I believe a somewhat unfortunate choice of the title Ive chosen for the
article is responsible for at least one of them. I concur with Mr. Schmider
completely on the deeper reasons for the failure of German operations in
winter and spring of 1943inadequacy of Italian anti-partisan efforts and
suicidal internal policy of the Ustasha. Then as now, politics lay in the heart
of every counterinsurgencyachieving victory with military means alone has
been proven nigh impossible on countless occasions in history. In Yugoslav
terms the political problem boiled down to two words: Ustasha regime. For
no matter how many large operations the Axis launched and no matter how
close they came to destroying a large part of Partisan Movement (as in the
Operation Schwarz), Serb peasants from the Independent State of Croatia
would certainly not lay down their arms without comprehensive political
reform in Croatia.
As General Warlimont correctly observed, by 1943 the lines were firmly
drawn and no amount of promises or propaganda would convince them that
1941 would not be repeated once more. This problem was recognized1 by
the German commands in the field, from divisional level onwards as well,
but their reports and suggestions fell on deaf ears. The regime in Zagreb
had only one ally but that was all it needed: Adolf Hitler wasnt willing to
swap horses in the middle of the race.2
1

NAW, T501, Roll 265, German Plenipotentiary General in Zagreb, daily report to 12th Army
Command, 10 August 1941. See also T315, Roll 2271, 000069 and 000075, 718th Infantry Division,
Intelligence Sections reports for the period 2031 July and 110 August 1942.
2
Hitler was the one who made decisions in the end but one must also not underestimate the
influence of the German Ambassador in Zagreb, Siegfried Kasche, who was allegedly nicknamed Bigger
Croat than Pavelic: Slavko Odic, Neostvareni planovi (Zagreb, 1961), p. 61.

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