No. 144

REVIEW OF EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORTS BY THE GERMAN MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE COMMANDS ON THE BRUTAL KILLINGS OF THE SERB POPULATION BY USTASHAS AND MUSLIM LEGIONARIES IN THE BOSNIAN PODRINJE AREA FROM APRIL 1 TO 22, 1942.^[1]

Review of excerpts from the reports

on the atrocities in Croatia (1. – 22. 4. 42).

9.4. 714. J.D.^[2]

Near Zelinja (4 /SO^[3] Drinjača), Serb women refugees were first raped and then slaughtered by the Croatian legionaries. (Report of the Serbian officer) – German troops considered that it was legionnaires who left the bridgehead without the knowledge of their commander.

10.4. 714. J.D.

On the Croatian bank, at the elevation of Ljubovija, the shooting of Serbian refugees by Croatian legionnaires. The commander of the motorized Drina reconnaissance unit wanted to allow the refugees to cross to the Serbian side, in order to prevent further bloodshed. Despite the calls: “Don’t shoot, German army here”, the legionnaires opened fire on the motorized Drina reconnaissance unit.

10.4. 714. J.D.

At the elevation of Grabovica, the shooting of Serb refugees by the Croatian legionnaires was noticed, and the bodies were thrown into the Drina.

4. Ast.^[4]

Near Krasanovići on the left bank of the Drina, the Croats fired from a car at a school and inn in Uzovnica (7/NNW^[5] Ljubovija), on the right bank of the Drina.

4. Ast.

In Bjelovac (4/SO Ljubovija), 30 Serb refugees were slaughtered and thrown into the Drina by the Croats. The number of women and children killed by the Croats on the road Bjelovac – Tegara^[6] (9/SO Ljubovija) should be significantly higher.

12.4. 717. J.D.^[7]

On the bend of the Drina, about 3,500 refugees, women with children, were found to have poor accommodation and food circumstances.

4. Ast.

The number of refugees killed by the Croats near Bjelovac (compare the report Ast. 9. 4.) was reported to be 60. 200 refugees were thrown into the Drina from the Ljubovija bridge. In Zelinja (4/Municipality of Drinjača), the Croats overturned a boat with refugees. Number of victims 64.

One Croat demanded that a Serb refugee join the Partisans and fight alongside the Croats.

After cleaning the left bank of the Drina, the Croats allegedly want to move to the right bank of the Drina in order to further slaughter the Serbs.

4. Ast.

As seen from the Zvornik bridge, 39 bodies of women and children were counted in the Drina river.

A peasant from Grabovac^[8] reported that his sixth son had been killed by the Ustashas so far.

Croatian Lieutenant Colonel Francetić^[9] is not fighting with the Partisans anywhere.

Near Šekovići (14/NO^[10] Kladanj), the Partisans and Ustashas are fighting together against the Chetniks.^[11]

4. Ast.

Near Vrhpolje (8/SO Ljubovija) about 50 Serb families were killed by Croats.

4. Ast.

After the arrest of Major Dangić,^[12] there was an immediate change of mood against the Reich and the Wehrmacht, which is especially justified by pointing out the atrocities of the Ustashas that the German Wehrmacht tolerated.

4. 714. J. D.

In addition to the report of April 10, the 1st Armored Regiment 202 reports that at the elevation of Culine, the Croatian legionnaires shot at about 25 women and children. Before their escape, they even slaughtered a woman with her five children with knives. On the same day, a motorized Drina reconnaissance unit noticed at the elevation of Vrhpolje how Croatian legionnaires slit the necks of 11 Serb refugees, and threw the corpses into the Drina.

In Drinjača, 35 Serbs were allegedly stabbed to death by the legionnaires, and the bodies were thrown into the Drina.

4. 714. J.D.

On April 9, First Class Sergeant Klaus Buhr noticed near Bjelovac that the Croats were firing mortars and artillery at the Serbian coast, in order to prevent the crossing of Serb refugees. The Serb women, who were partially running along the banks of the Drina with very small children in their arms, were attacked by the Croats and the necks of 4 women and more children were cut, whereafter the corpses were thrown into the Drina. A total of 13 women and children were killed in this way at this place. On April 10 (supplement to the report of April 15), Second Class Lieutenant Hanf saw the Croats kill two women and five children.

4. G.[erman] general in Zagreb.

In Zirovac^[13] (NW^[14] Bosanski Novi), large-scale violence by militia soldiers against the population (Croatian report).

4. Tuzla City Command.

Jeginov Lug (9/SO Tuzla) was set on fire by the Legion of Major Hadži-Efendić.^[15] 250-300 inhabitants, men, women and children killed. The village looted, the cattle driven away.

4. Tuzla City Command.

In the village of Požarnica and the surrounding villages, about 70-80 men, women and children (Serb inhabitants) were killed on 8.2., 8.3., 1.4. Mass killings are now taking place in other villages.

4. Chief Medical Corp Officer with the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia.

reports the information by the Commander of Ljotić’s^[16] group in Bajina Bašta (there are photos of the mentioned mutilated corpses, etc.): Near the village of Bjelovac (near Ljubovija), the Ustashas killed women and children, and threw the corpses into the Drina. In front of the village, a large area where traces of murders can be found all around. In one place lay the remains of a female corpse and of one of a small child, they were thrown to the dogs to devour them (Fig. 1).

Many pieces of women’s and children’s clothing lay in one place. Earth soaked in blood (Fig. 2).

In one bush, an overturned cradle, beds and a child’s shirt (Fig. 3).

On the bank of the Drina, the remains of a female corpse that was eaten by a dog (Fig. 4).

The mutilated corpse of a woman was excavated (Figures 5 and 6).

These horrific murders were committed by the Ustashas, among whom were several of those, who did not wear a “U” on their hats, but a five-pointed Soviet star. These Partisans obeyed the orders of the Ustashas.

In addition, the Chief Medical Corps Officer notes:

It cannot be understood in Serbian circles that the Germans are watching the Ustasha crimes so calmly and thereby expecting the Serbs to be on their side.

The commander of Dangić’s men there stated that all Serbs would like to maintain sincere friendship with Germany, but the earlier trust in German assurances does not exist anymore.

^[1] АВ, Ф. 562, 3.1.1.2, 507-509.

^[2] 714. I. D. abbreviated from 714. Infanteriedivision (714th Infantry Division).

^[3] Abbreviation: Südost, Southeast.

^[4] Military Intelligence Office, Abwehr (Abwehrstelle, abbreviated Ast.).

^[5] International abbreviation: North-Northwest.

^[6] Tegare.

^[7] 717. Ј. D. abbreviation of 717. Infanteriedivision (717. Infantry division).

^[8] Grabovica.

^[9] Jure Francetić.

^[10] Abbreviation: Nordost, Northeast.

^[11] See also: Ten-day report of the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia, to the Commander of the Armed Forces in the Southeast on March 31, 1942, Zbornik NOR, XII, Book 2, 266-269.

^[12] Jezdimir Dangić.

^[13] Žirovac.

^[14] Nordwest, Northwest.

^[15] Muhamed Hadžiefendić.

^[16] Dimitrije Ljotić.

Subeditor’s Note

This – English – edition of the book is a translation of the one in the Serbian language, published in 2022 under the title Ustaška zverstva: Zbornik dokumenata (1941–1942). As far as the corpus of the Dossier from the personal fonds of Slavko Odić is concerned – and it makes the essential body of this book – the translation team worked from its Serbian version given in the said book and not from the German original.

The Serbian edition, with the documents translated from German, was printed in the Cyrillic alphabet, which necessitated some explanations provided by the Editor, Dr. Milan Koljanin, with regard to the linguistic traits, orthography and punctuation resorted to by the translators from German into Serbian (Tatjana Janićijević, Akademija Oxford) and the Editor. Naturally enough, numerous clarifications referring to the Serbian edition do not apply on the English one in most of the aspects of translation work. Hence the need to write this Note.

To begin with, the translators basically opted for the varieties of the American English rather than British English.

Personal names in the officially processed documents are most often written in what is today considered inverse order: family name/surname first, followed by one’s first/Christian name, without a comma in between.

Originally, the documents (letters, reports, statements etc.) were written (typed) in bureaucratic style and with a page layout practised by German offices, so these traits have been retained herein, and so have the obvious spelling and/or typing errors (personal names, toponyms); the latter have been corrected in the footnotes. The parts of text/sentences which are underlined or written with spaces between letters as means of emphasis correspond to the German original and its Serbian/Croat counterpart. The same applies to whole words or lines written in capital letters.

Punctuation has been kept almost completely, except when the meaning demanded comma (usually related to the rules of word order in an English sentence). Some marks, such as hyphens, dashes or slashes may impress the Reader as outdated or misplaced. Earlier typewriters did not have buttons with parentheses, and the slash was used instead of them.

Dates are written with differing uses or omissions of period (full stop), whereby month is written in three ways: fully in letters (20 January), in Arabic numerals (e.g. 20.1.) or Roman numerals (e.g. 20.I.). In rare cases, the slash can be found in dates (e.g. 12./X. 1941), but not as a regular separator between their constituents. Years are occasionaly written without the first digit, e.g. 942 instead of 1942, which is a frequent occurrence in oral communication.

Abbreviations, other than official identification means for offices, titles or codenames (VB, MA, RSHA etc.), have been translated (e.g. ’etc.’). The translators chose to retain the Croat/Serbian abbreviation for the name of the wartime ’state’, that is, ’NDH’ is standing for Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia) instead of the less known English name (ISC). Some words were written in a shortened form for the reason of economy of expression, and the habit has been transferred to the translation, including the Editor’s intervention in the Serbian edition: Reg.[ister], Gend.[armerie], Gor[nja] Tuzla.

Footnotes in the English edition partially differ from those in the Serbian version. Some proved to be unnecessary (those that provided original names which were transliterated into the phonetical Cyrillic alphabet). New footnotes have been added by the Subeditor in order to explain/clarify the specific, locally used, words or phrases with which the Reader may not be familiar (such as slava, din, sokolski dom), or to indicate some nuances in the meaning (student, profesor). Here and there, the Reader will find notes in brackets inserted into the main body of the text by translators or the Editor where immediate understanding was needed.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the above-mentioned bureaucratic style of the presented documents mirrors the established conventions of communication in Central Europe and the Balkans of the first half of the 20th century, particularly in state and military affairs, yet also illustrates the specific ’hierarchy’ of various authorities on the occupied territories during World War Two, accentuating the relations between the German organs/institutions in power and the various offices subordinated to the administrative and military system of the Third Reich. As to the information, facts and accounts of events recorded in these documents, they are the subject of the history science and studies related thereto.

A. Č. P.