Why were the Yugoslav Partisans so Effective? Documentary
video description
Chetniks are a very broad term. You probably mean the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, which was also multinational.
The Partisans (from the end of 1941) were in fact the People's Liberation Army and the Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia. And in 1944 they had over 60 divisions, air force and rudimentary navy.
The Germans kept more troops in Yugoslavia than in Western Europe and North Africa combined. Until the Western Allies came out of the beaches of Normandy. Only then did Yugoslavia become the third largest battlefield in Europe. Before this, Yugoslavia was in second place.
The fact that thousands of German soldiers and officers demanded a transfer to the Eastern Front, only to leave Yugoslavia, shows how serious and dangerous this battlefield was.
The only comparable resistance movement was the Belarusian partisans. But you probably don't know anything about them.
It is tragicomic to talk about any resistance movement in Europe and compare it with the Yugoslav, Belarusian and Greek ones.
France? They really had a resistance movement - really?
In Yugoslavia, you had countless different organizations that were at the level of the French resistance movement, and almost no one knows that they even existed.
Date: 2022-07-19
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Comments and reviews: 19
Samuel
Something left out for the reason why the Chetniks weren't as aggressive is because the Germans had a policy where for every German officer killed by partisans, they would butcher a village of Serbs. Tito being a communist didn't give a shit about Serbian peasants and so he carried on not caring about the consequences. Mihailovic and the Chetniks still fought, but they had to use more clever methods like timed bombs on trains that would go off after the train left Yugoslavia so that it couldn't be blamed on them.
One of the greatest things the Mihailovic and the Chetniks did was rescuing and hiding about 500 allied airmen at enormous risk to themselves. The book The Forgotten 500 talks about their story and the heroic rescue operation mounted to save the allied soldiers. It was basically Dunkirk, but with Planes, and I'd highly recommend reading it.
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Something left out for the reason why the Chetniks weren't as aggressive is because the Germans had a policy where for every German officer killed by partisans, they would butcher a village of Serbs. Tito being a communist didn't give a shit about Serbian peasants and so he carried on not caring about the consequences. Mihailovic and the Chetniks still fought, but they had to use more clever methods like timed bombs on trains that would go off after the train left Yugoslavia so that it couldn't be blamed on them.
One of the greatest things the Mihailovic and the Chetniks did was rescuing and hiding about 500 allied airmen at enormous risk to themselves. The book The Forgotten 500 talks about their story and the heroic rescue operation mounted to save the allied soldiers. It was basically Dunkirk, but with Planes, and I'd highly recommend reading it.
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Sephikong
Something that wasn't hammered enough here was the role the Ustasha played in this, they were so brutal and virulent in their ethnic cleansing that a LOT of people took up arms to rebel against them (again, a quarter of a million is a huge number for such a sparsely populated country as Yugoslavia, and that's without counting the Chetniks as well, which is ironic considering the Germans set them up so that they could better administer the region. and they set it ablaze to the point where both the Germans and especially Italians condemned the regime (when even Heydrich is appalled by what you do, you know something isn't right)
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Something that wasn't hammered enough here was the role the Ustasha played in this, they were so brutal and virulent in their ethnic cleansing that a LOT of people took up arms to rebel against them (again, a quarter of a million is a huge number for such a sparsely populated country as Yugoslavia, and that's without counting the Chetniks as well, which is ironic considering the Germans set them up so that they could better administer the region. and they set it ablaze to the point where both the Germans and especially Italians condemned the regime (when even Heydrich is appalled by what you do, you know something isn't right)
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John
My understand that the French leadership in exile in London ordered that part of the resistance that answered to them so cease from sabotage and only gather intelligence. That was partially rescinded on D-Day and when the allies were about to enter Paris.
The allies didn't want to accept the cost in reprisals, the execution of hostages, and even mass executions the Germans would do after an event.
The communists were more willing to consider the German reprisals as the cost of doing business.
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My understand that the French leadership in exile in London ordered that part of the resistance that answered to them so cease from sabotage and only gather intelligence. That was partially rescinded on D-Day and when the allies were about to enter Paris.
The allies didn't want to accept the cost in reprisals, the execution of hostages, and even mass executions the Germans would do after an event.
The communists were more willing to consider the German reprisals as the cost of doing business.
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Gypsyslayer4
My Great Grandad fought for the Chetniks. They Partisans did some awful things to them. My grandads family were all murdered and he has a particular story when he was on a train fleeing the country to Trieste and the train stopped just before Italy and they said that they weren't going to be killed anymore so everyone got off the train except my grandad. they opened fire on all of the people and soldiers whilst my grandad was hiding under the seat.
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My Great Grandad fought for the Chetniks. They Partisans did some awful things to them. My grandads family were all murdered and he has a particular story when he was on a train fleeing the country to Trieste and the train stopped just before Italy and they said that they weren't going to be killed anymore so everyone got off the train except my grandad. they opened fire on all of the people and soldiers whilst my grandad was hiding under the seat.
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Free
Chetniks are serious fasists too, similar to ustase. Tito was ruling with iron fist same as North Korean ruler.
Bosnian fight the most occupation and all real fighting was conducted in Bosnia. For a long time Bosnia remained only Yugoslavia while serbia and Croatia became fasists again.
You have not studied properly so I wander how accurate are other history lessons that you provided here.
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Chetniks are serious fasists too, similar to ustase. Tito was ruling with iron fist same as North Korean ruler.
Bosnian fight the most occupation and all real fighting was conducted in Bosnia. For a long time Bosnia remained only Yugoslavia while serbia and Croatia became fasists again.
You have not studied properly so I wander how accurate are other history lessons that you provided here.
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Fuad
History Matter forgets that the leader of Yugoslav partisans Tito was a head of Yugoslav communists. He was sent to Yugoslavia by Communist International - organisation widely used by USSR for promotion of it's interests abroad. So partisans were supported by Soviet Union with arms and money. And this support played an important role in effectivity of partisan movement.
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History Matter forgets that the leader of Yugoslav partisans Tito was a head of Yugoslav communists. He was sent to Yugoslavia by Communist International - organisation widely used by USSR for promotion of it's interests abroad. So partisans were supported by Soviet Union with arms and money. And this support played an important role in effectivity of partisan movement.
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Филип
Partisans were communist, which after Soviets came to Yugoslavia and helped came to power. Communist/Socialist regime lasted for another 40ish years so you might imagine that all official stories glorified Partisans rather than others and often exaggerate and take credit for others achievements.
No matter what's you think this should go in to consideration
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Partisans were communist, which after Soviets came to Yugoslavia and helped came to power. Communist/Socialist regime lasted for another 40ish years so you might imagine that all official stories glorified Partisans rather than others and often exaggerate and take credit for others achievements.
No matter what's you think this should go in to consideration
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Hamza
Mostly fought in Bosnia, cause we own most of the mountains, our holy mountains that saved us for generations. Another thing to keep in mind is that while everyone was fighting the germans, also everyone was fightinh between themselves. Kind of paradoxal if you ask me
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Mostly fought in Bosnia, cause we own most of the mountains, our holy mountains that saved us for generations. Another thing to keep in mind is that while everyone was fighting the germans, also everyone was fightinh between themselves. Kind of paradoxal if you ask me
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Lovro
My mom once told me that one of my great grandfathers joined the partisans, though after a few months when he was in Lika (west Croatia) his group fell in a trap set up by the Croatian fascists and they were all massacred. His remains were eventually found though.
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My mom once told me that one of my great grandfathers joined the partisans, though after a few months when he was in Lika (west Croatia) his group fell in a trap set up by the Croatian fascists and they were all massacred. His remains were eventually found though.
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TheMoosePad
The fact that the partisans didn't spend the entire time murdering other slavs and wiping out entire villages shows a level of unparrelled saint like restraint by them. We all know how hard it is for a slav to not murder another slav.
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The fact that the partisans didn't spend the entire time murdering other slavs and wiping out entire villages shows a level of unparrelled saint like restraint by them. We all know how hard it is for a slav to not murder another slav.
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buddermonger2000
The partisans just managed to get so many people that they outnumbered the occupiers 5 to 2 making an entire army in effect. That is a LOT of people.
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The partisans just managed to get so many people that they outnumbered the occupiers 5 to 2 making an entire army in effect. That is a LOT of people.
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Noah
I decided to start a Royalist/Monarchist Resistance Movement based on the Partisans, and One resistance movement you didn't mention was the Norwegian Resistance
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I decided to start a Royalist/Monarchist Resistance Movement based on the Partisans, and One resistance movement you didn't mention was the Norwegian Resistance
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Mladen
You got it right all to the point what happened and why commies got support from the west. All that is made up history written by commies in Yugoslavia.
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You got it right all to the point what happened and why commies got support from the west. All that is made up history written by commies in Yugoslavia.
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Andi
Oh, it's Tito.
Did Tito's work leading the partisans have any impact on his degree of popular support as President/dictator of the socialist republic?
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Oh, it's Tito.
Did Tito's work leading the partisans have any impact on his degree of popular support as President/dictator of the socialist republic?
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George
1: 06. da duck is this map? Bulgaria ruled only east thrace not Macedonia regio ( it was under germany control. Not clear the rest of balkans as well
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1: 06. da duck is this map? Bulgaria ruled only east thrace not Macedonia regio ( it was under germany control. Not clear the rest of balkans as well
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Devils
Chetniks were not really anti german their existence consisted of killing Croats and bosniaks. Most of the time they worked with Germans.
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Chetniks were not really anti german their existence consisted of killing Croats and bosniaks. Most of the time they worked with Germans.
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Einund
The saddest thing is that, what they got from defending their country against fascist occupation, was just another type of dictatorship.
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The saddest thing is that, what they got from defending their country against fascist occupation, was just another type of dictatorship.
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Marcel
if tito had a good person following him up yugoslavia would have probally still existed and no serbian warcime jokes would have existed
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if tito had a good person following him up yugoslavia would have probally still existed and no serbian warcime jokes would have existed
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Vladimir
Im kinda concerned of his kinda did ethnic cleansing there is no kinda, it happened, serbs know, and croats are not ashamed i think
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Im kinda concerned of his kinda did ethnic cleansing there is no kinda, it happened, serbs know, and croats are not ashamed i think
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