Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare by Shepherd Ben

Author:Shepherd, Ben [Shepherd, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780674065130
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2012-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

Though this may be an overly rosy account of the reception the Germans received, the inhabitants’ relief that the Germans’ presence could prevent the Ustasha from slaughtering them was probably profound. Mindful of this, on April 25 the 718th Infantry Division ordered Battle Group Wüst to send out patrols to identify which Croatian units were burning down villages behind Axis lines.83

Operation Trio II/Foča—in which the 718th was also involved—finally put enough pressure on Tito’s Partisans to push them into embarking on a “long march” from eastern to western Bosnia. The trek, beginning on June 24, involved four thousand Partisans. The leadership blamed the need for withdrawal not just on the military pressure from the operations, but also on the damage to morale caused by “Nedićite” fifth columnists.84 Ultimately, however, the Trio operations, like the winter operations before them, failed to actually destroy Partisan forces to a decisive extent. Serbia Command admitted as much in a report that nevertheless tried to talk up the operations’ success:

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