Ejecución de 2000 Nazis: Desnudados y Fusilados por Matar a 428 Yugoslavos
April 6, 1941. The skies over Belgrade gradually begin to fill with hundreds of German planes while bombs relentlessly rain down on the city. Nazi Germany thus begins its invasion of Yugoslavia, which it names Unternehmen Strafgericht (Operation Retribution).
The objective is clear and direct: to secure control of the Balkans and guarantee the protection of the southern flank before the attack against the Soviet Union begins . Nineteen German divisions, backed by Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces, ended up crushing the Yugoslav resistance in just eleven days. Following the surrender, local partisan forces continued the fight, and the occupiers responded by establishing a brutal reign of terror throughout the region.
One of the worst massacres would take place in the village of Velika, in the northern region of Montenegro, then part of the territory occupied by Germany. On July 28, 1944, Nazi and collaborator forces entered the village and, for almost two hours, carried out the massacre of hundreds of civilians, mainly women, children and the elderly, burning homes and murdering entire families.
Even so, this crime will not go unpunished, and those primarily responsible will end up paying with their lives. World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany proceeded to invade Poland. When Italy, an ally of Germany, failed in its attempt to conquer Greece in late autumn and during the winter of 1940-1941, Germany became increasingly concerned about the need to secure its southeastern flank in the Balkans.
Greece’s success in repelling the Italian forces, in turn, allowed its ally, Great Britain, to establish itself more firmly on the European continent. With the aim of subduing Greece and expelling the British from the mainland, Nazi Germany sought to incorporate Yugoslavia and Bulgaria into the Axis alliance, a military coalition led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.
On March 25, 1941, Yugoslavia finally joined the Axis and agreed to allow the transit of German troops through its territory en route to Greece. However, the announcement of the agreement proved to be extremely unpopular in many parts of the country, especially in Serbia and Montenegro. Faced with growing internal pressure, the Yugoslav government soon declared that it would not fulfill its obligations under the pact.
Hitler, naturally, was furious. Although the prime minister, General Dušan Simović, tried to back down a few days later, Hitler did not hesitate to order the invasion of Yugoslavia on the night of March 27. The invasion, involving German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces, began on April 6, 1941.
By the 17th of that month, the Yugoslav army had surrendered, and the country was occupied and divided by the Axis powers. In the division of the conquered territory, Montenegro fell under Italian fascist control. When Italy surrendered in September 1943, German forces quickly mobilized and occupied the region.
By the end of 1944, they were retreating under pressure from the advancing Allied and partisan troops. In some parts of Montenegro, some units of the Chetnik royalist movement, a Serbian nationalist group , collaborated with the Germans and Italians. In the north, groups of local ethnic Albanians and Bosnian Muslims also joined the occupiers, either through an Albanian nationalist organization called Balli Kombëtar or through local Muslim militia units.
In July 1944, the German army launched the so-called Operation Draufgänger (meaning “Daredevil”) against the Yugoslav partisans who had firmly entrenched themselves along the Lim River in northeastern Montenegro. The operation was centered especially around the small town of Andrijevica, where German forces were joined by elements of the 21st SS Waffen Mountain Division Skanderbeg, composed mainly of ethnic Albanians, as well as local auxiliary fighters.
As they advanced, they set fire to at least sixteen villages and caused the death of several hundred inhabitants. The operation ultimately culminated in a partisan victory and, at the same time, a significant military defeat for the Germans and their allies.
As immediate retaliation, the occupiers decided to severely punish the civilian population of Velika, a small village located near Andrijevica. The main perpetrators of the massacre were members of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, who had additional support from soldiers of the 21st SS Waffen Mountain Division Skanderbeg.
The Prinz Eugen Division had already become famous for the extreme brutality it inflicted on the civilian population in the Balkans. Formed in 1941, its ranks were filled with ethnic German volunteers from Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania. For its part, the Skanderbeg Division, formed in Kosovo, was mainly composed of Albanians who saw the German occupation as an opportunity to pursue their nationalist goals.
Collectively, these forces turned their weapons mercilessly against a completely unarmed population. On the morning of July 28, 1944, the village of Velika was surrounded. The attackers went from house to house, setting homes on fire and killing anyone they encountered. Hundreds of civilians were killed, mostly women, children and the elderly. Many were burned alive inside their homes.
The survivors later described scenes of unimaginable cruelty. Milunka Vucetić personally witnessed the murder of three-year-old Serbian boy Tomislav Vucetić, who was skinned alive by troops of the Skanderbeg Division. He stated the following: “I went to Milovan Vucetić’s house. In the afternoon, soldiers from Ivanpolje entered the area.
We decided to approach them to bring them the bread and salt we had available. As they approached, I saw little Tomislav, Milovan Vucetić’s son, playing peacefully in the olive grove. Suddenly, two soldiers grabbed him, while a third ran quickly toward him. One of them pulled out a knife and began to skin the child alive, from the eyes down. I couldn’t bear the sight.
I started screaming, and his mother, Leposava, ran to try to protect him, but, sadly, they killed her too.” Another survivor, Radoje Knežević, gave a chilling account of the role played by Nazi divisions in the massacre. He recalled: He was only eleven years old when the divisions of Hitler, Skanderbeg and Prinz Eugen burned down the village of Velika and killed hundreds of civilians.
My family paid a high price that day. My mother, Stojanka, died and her body was burned. My two brothers, one five years old and the other only eleven months old, suffered the same fate. My eighteen-year-old sister Raba died trying to protect them. She also died in the fire. Divna Vucetić, another survivor, recalled that same day in detail: ” I learned of massacres that were happening in nearby villages, so I immediately feared for the safety of my children.” I sent my two older children into the forest and held
my one-year-old son, Boža, in my lap. My daughter Persida, just three years old, appeared at the door, followed by my two nieces, Kata, four years old, and Nata, three years old, as well as my daughters Cvete and Dušana Vucetić. A soldier approached carrying a pistol.
I told him I wanted to bring him bread, just as we had been instructed. He replied coldly: “Germany has bread.” He spoke our language perfectly. Then he shot me, killing my son who was in my arms and wounding me in the hand. The massacre lasted almost two hours. After the massacre ended, the village of Velika was left in ruins. A total of 428 civilians were killed, including entire families wiped out in a single day.
Despite the fact that the Nazis and their collaborators had murdered hundreds of civilians, German military reports described the operation as a “success”. In his daily command report, dated July 25, 1944, August Schmidhuber, commander of the Skanderbeg Division, wrote with cold pride the following: “Operation Draufgänger was a resounding success.
It confronted powerful enemy forces and prevented the partisan leaders from carrying out their planned operations. The army expressed its gratitude for the efforts of the participating troops and their commanders.” However, this massacre was not forgotten, and justice, or even revenge, would eventually catch up with the perpetrators of the Velika massacre.
Among them were the men of the 21st SS Skanderbeg Division, whose collapse began just months later. After only six months of existence, the 21st SS Skanderbeg Division disintegrated. Plagued by mass desertions, poor combat performance and a history of atrocities, it was officially dissolved on November 1, 1944 by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS.
August Schmidhuber blamed the Albanian soldiers under his command, bitterly stating that “during the attack, they only go as far as they find something to steal or loot.” Despite this failure, in January 1945, Schmidhuber was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS, a rank equivalent to that of brigadier general in the US Army.
That same month, as the German army withdrew from Albania, he replaced Otto Kumm as commander of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division, Prinz Eugen. The remaining German and ethnic German elements of the Skanderbeg Division were absorbed into their new unit, which received the honorary title of “Skanderbeg” in memory of its predecessor.
Under Schmidhuber’s command, the Prinz Eugen division continued to commit numerous war crimes, especially in the cities of Split and Dubrovnik, in what is now Croatia. As an integral part of Army Group F, the division was involved in desperate rearguard actions against Yugoslav partisans and also against Soviet forces.
World War II came to an end on May 8, 1945. Just three days later, on May 11, Schmidhuber was captured by Yugoslav partisans and handed over to the authorities in Belgrade. A Yugoslav military tribunal tried him for his involvement in massacres, deportations, and various atrocities committed against civilians, and finally sentenced him to death by hanging.
He was executed in February 1947 in Belgrade. Schmidhuber’s execution brought an end to his own personal story, although at least he had the opportunity to be tried before a military tribunal. His men, on the other hand, had a much more tragic fate. In the final weeks of the war, the remnants of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen retreated north through Bosnia and Croatia, attempting to reach Austria to surrender to the Western Allies.
On May 10, 1945, they arrived in the Slovenian city of Celje and, the following day, laid down their arms before units of the Yugoslav People’s Army, just three days after the German capitulation. All personnel of the Prinz Eugen Division taken prisoner by the Yugoslav army were killed.
Most were executed en masse, without receiving any trial, and eliminated by various methods immediately after their surrender. These murders, which were never punished, were ordered by local Yugoslav commanders who apparently acted in direct violation of Marshal Tito’s instructions, which stated that captives should be held in prisoner-of-war camps and examined to determine whether they had committed war crimes.
In 2010, a large mass grave was discovered near the Slovenian village of Brežice, containing the remains of approximately two thousand soldiers from the Prinz Eugen Division. The bodies had been stripped naked, bound with telephone wire, shot, and buried in a trench during a mass summary execution carried out on May 22, 1945.
Many of the relatives of these soldiers later perished during the expulsion and murder of German-speaking civilians in various regions of Eastern Europe. It is estimated that, during the entire Second World War, around 1.2 million people died in Yugoslavia, of which approximately 581,000 were civilians. Thank you for watching World History Channel.
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