NINE GERMANS CAPTURE BELGRADE

The Magician, Balkans, 11th April 1941 by David Pentland.
Hauptsturm fuhrer Fritz Klingenberg, and the men of 2nd SS Divisions Motorcycle Reconnaissance battalion stop at the swollen banks of the River Danube. The following day he and six men, a broken down radio, and totally unsupported were to capture the Yugoslavian capital of Belgrade.

Early in 1941, the mighty German Wehrmacht was stalled in the west at the English Channel, but Adolf Hitler and his generals were already putting the final touches on Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Führer was planning on conquering North Africa to reach his dream of a Teutonic empire in the Middle East.

Success in these two huge endeavors hinged on the nations of the Balkans, and Hitler wooed Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary into his fold. Then, through only slightly veiled threats, Prince Peter of Yugoslavia agreed to become Hitler’s ally, signing a pact with the Third Reich on March 24, 1941.

In London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was both furious and worried. Prince Peter had assured the British leader that Yugoslavia would remain neutral. So British agents in the capital of Belgrade coerced anti-Nazi Yugoslavian army and air force officers into launching an armed rebellion. Key points were seized in Belgrade, including the palace, where King Peter II was arrested and hustled off to exile in Greece.

General Dusan Simovic´, whose office in the Air Ministry had been the core of opposition to German penetration of Yugoslavia, took over the reins of government. When the sun set that day, the coup had been accomplished without bloodshed.

In Berlin, Hitler was fuming. He ordered his generals to “destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a national unit.” He directed that the Luftwaffe bomb Belgrade with “unmerciful harshness.”

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the diminutive, white-haired chief of the Abwehr who was in league with the British, learned of the forthcoming bombardment, code-named Operation Punishment, and secretly warned Yugoslav leaders. Consequently, Belgrade was declared an open city, for centuries a term meaning a place that was not going to be defended; therefore, it should be spared destruction.

On the morning of April 6, 1941, the Luftwaffe struck. In an action that lasted for three days and nights, Belgrade was devastated. Some 17,000 civilians were dead in the rubble. A sickening stench of death hovered over the once beautiful city of about a half-million population.

Hard on the heels of the massive Luftwaffe assault, German panzer and infantry divisions surged into Yugoslavia from three sides and raced toward Belgrade.

On the morning of April 12, a motorcycle assault company of the SS Das Reich Panzer Division approached the city along the northern bank of the Danube River at the eastern outskirts. The flood-swollen river seemed a barrier to the ravaged capital because the bridge over which the motorcycle vanguard had hoped to move had been blown up by the Yugoslavs.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hauptsturmführer (SS Captain) Fritz Klingenberg could see the prize off in the distance, and he was determined to try to reach it even though he was far out in front with only a relative handful of men.

A diligent search turned up one motorboat, and in mid-afternoon, Klingenberg, along with a platoon leader, two sergeants, and five privates, scrambled into the small boat and headed for the far bank. Although nearly swamped by the raging river several times, the craft made the crossing. The SS men jumped onto the sandy shore, and Klingenberg waved his men onward, bound on a seemingly impossible task—capturing the sprawling capital with only himself and eight men.

Klingenberg banked on two factors—stealth and surprise. The Yugoslavs were still bogged down in confusion from the Luftwaffe bombing, and they wouldn’t be expecting to encounter a tiny band of German soldiers in the center of the city. The scenario unfolded almost precisely as the SS captain had envisioned.

Soon after leaving their motorboat, the SS group ran onto a contingent of twenty Yugoslavian soldiers. Shocked to encounter an enemy force in Belgrade, they surrendered without firing a shot. Minutes later, several military trucks loaded with soldiers approached the Germans, who fired a few rounds, and the mesmerized Yugoslavians capitulated.

The gods of war were still smiling on Klingenberg. One of the prisoners was an ethnic German who volunteered to be a guide and interpreter.

Taking over the captured trucks, Klingenberg and his eight soldiers headed for the Yugoslavian war ministry, but they found it an empty shell: the high command apparently had fled. So the SS men drove to the German legation, where the military attaché, who had remained during the Luftwaffe bombardment, greeted the newcomers enthusiastically. He was astonished, however, to learn that Klingenberg and only a few men had been masquerading as the entire potent Das Reich Panzer Division.

If the military attaché was stunned, no doubt Yugoslavian civilian authorities would also believe that an entire German division had penetrated the city. So Klingenberg launched a bold bluff. A Nazi swastika flag was run up the legation’s flagpole, and Klingenberg sent a Yugoslavian civilian to contact the mayor and tell him that Belgrade was in control of the Das Reich Division.

Two hours later, the mayor and several of his top officials arrived at the German legation to formally surrender. The trick had worked magnificently. It was not until the next day that panzers roared into Belgrade to back up Klingenberg and his eight men.

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There was some confusion over who had captured Belgrade since three separate attacks were converging on the Yugoslav capital. The 8th Panzer Division, part of the German 2nd Army, was off the air for nearly 24 hours and then at 11.52 on April 15 the division's operations officer reported: "During the night the 8.Panzer-Division drove into Belgrade, occupied the city, and hoisted the Swastika flag".

However, the 2nd Army had better communications with Panzergruppe 1, who signalled before the 8th Panzer Division: "Panzergruppe von Kleist has taken Belgrade from the south. Patrols of Infanterie-Regiment 'Gross Deutschland' have entered the city from the north. With General von Kleist at the head, the 11 Panzer-Division has been rolling into the capital since 06.32".

The Salonika Campaign

In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them. The government aligned Bulgaria with Germany and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant also becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Britain and France) were all in possession of lands heavily populated by Bulgarians and thus perceived as Bulgarian.

Bulgaria, recuperating from the Balkan Wars, sat out the first year of World War I. When Germany promised to restore the boundaries of the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria, which had the largest army in the Balkans, declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria.

Although Bulgaria, in alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Southern Serbia (taking Nish, Serbia's war capital in November 5), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from the Romanians in September 1916, the war soon became unpopular with the majority of Bulgarian people, who suffered enormous economic hardship. The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had a significant effect in Bulgaria, spreading antiwar and anti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities.
In September 1918 the Serbs, British, French, Italians and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian front. While Bulgarian forces stopped them in Dojran and they didn't succeed to occupy Bulgarian lands, Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace.

In order to head off the revolutionaries, Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his son Boris III. The revolutionaries were suppressed and the army disbanded. Under the Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919), Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline in favour of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (transferred later by them to Greece) and nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the new state of Yugoslavia, and had to give Dobruja back to the Romanians (see also Dobruja, Western Outlands, Western Thrace).

The railway from the strategically important port city of Salonika (Thessaloniki) in northern Greece to Belgrade via Skopje (Uskub) offered a direct route to embattled Serbia. In September 1915, with Bulgaria mobilising for an attack on Serbia, Britain and France accepted an offer from the pro-Entente Greek prime minister Eleutherios (Elephferios) Venizelos to land troops at Salonika. The force at Salonika was initially composed of Anglo-French units, many of which had come from Gallipoli. It was reinforced by the Serbian army in exile on Corfu, Italians and a small Russian contingent. It remained until the war’s end.

The force landed on 5 October 1915, the same day that the pro-German Greek king, Constantine I – who was married to the Kaiser’s sister – forced Venizelos to resign. On 6 October 1915, the Central Powers invaded Serbia. Anglo-French units at Salonika pushed north up the Vardar (Axios) river valley to help the Serbs. It was too little, too late. The Serbs retreated through Albania to the Adriatic coast while the Salonika force retired back to the city. Bulgarian and German forces (with some Turkish units) then gathered along the Greek– Serbian and Greek–Bulgarian borders, while the Greek army, supposedly neutral, handed Greece’s Fort Ruppel, which commanded the Struma (Strimón) valley, to the Bulgarians (26 May 1916). In response to these threats, the supreme commander at Salonika, the French general Maurice Sarrail, transformed the city into a fortress surrounded by fieldwork defences. He took full control of the city from the Greeks in mid-1916, establishing the city as an alternative centre for pro-Entente Greek forces and politicians, a policy that embroiled the garrison in internal Greek politics.

While France was keen on the Salonika operation, senior British military advisers to the British government, such as William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, were never convinced of the usefulness of peripheral operations such as Salonika, which took troops away from the main western front. By early 1916 the number of British troops at Salonika exceeded 150,000. Robertson vigorously urged a withdrawal from Salonika but political factors made this difficult. The defeat at Gallipoli had lowered Anglo-French prestige in the Balkans and the Entente could ill-afford for Greece to join the Central Powers.

Sarrail’s record of military achievement against the Central Powers was not impressive. On 10 August 1916, Entente troops began preliminary attacks at Lake Dorian (Dojran) before a general autumn 1916 offensive. German- Bulgarian forces pre-empted this with attacks on the western and eastern extremities of Sarrail’s line. In the west, the reconstituted Serbian army in the Flórina sector retreated to Lake Ostrovo (Vegorrítis). Fighting then continued along the Crno (Crna) river east of Flórina. In the eastern sector of the front, the Bulgarians took the Greek town of Serres (Sérrai) in the Struma valley on 25 August, threatening the port of Kavala (Kaválla) whose Greek garrison surrendered without a fight on 14 September 1916. Under pressure, Sarrail put a halt to the faltering offensive at Lake Dorian.

When Sarrail’s troops did finally attack towards Skopje in September 1916, he hoped that this would relieve the hard-pressed Rumanians. Sarrail’s forces took Monastir (Bitola) in the western sector of the front on 19 November 1916 but they advanced no further. As the British struggled up the Struma valley, operations descended into western front-style trench deadlock. Checked, allied troops sat out the winter doing little. By early 1917, Sarrail had some 600,000 men at his disposal – a mixture of French, British, Serbians, Italians and Russians that made command and control difficult. This force was more nominal than real as the unhealthy, swampy climate of Salonika was a breeding ground for diseases such as malaria, paratyphoid and dysentery, which left much of Sarrail’s force in hospital and reduced his fighting strength to about 100,000.

Sarrail attacked again in March 1917. A Franco-Serbian force advanced on a line between Monastir and Lake Prespa, while the British spearheaded an attack at Lake Dorian. Advances were minimal: a few hundred metres were won at the cost of some 15,000 casualties. By the end of May, with Russian units in mutiny, Sarrail called off the offensive, and the front became static. Marie Guillaumat replaced the unpopular Sarrail in December 1917. In July 1918, another French commander, Louis Franchet d’Esperey, replaced Guillaumat. In June 1917, with Venizelos back in power, Greece entered the war (29 June 1917), adding 250,000 men to the Salonika force. On 15 September 1918, at the war’s end, the Salonika force launched the Vardar offensive against weary and ill-equipped Bulgarian opposition. The Bulgarians broke, and by 25 September their retreat had become a rout. The Salonika force advanced deep into enemy territory, reaching the Danube by the armistice. Serbian forces re-occupied Belgrade on 1 November 1918, by which time Bulgaria had surrendered (30 September).

This final victory should not overshadow the fact that the Salonika expedition did very little, except tie up large numbers of Entente troops that could have been used more fruitfully elsewhere. Although battle casualties were low – a reflection of the general inactivity of the front for most of the war – casualties from disease, notably malaria, invalided some 400,000 men. The Germans were right to dub the front ‘the greatest internment camp in the world’.

Czechs on the decks of their Majesty’s navy – exhibit sheds light on Czech sailors’ life at sea

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country, and as such, life at sea is not the first thing that comes to mind. But before and during World War I, many sailors from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia served for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Imperial and Royal War Navy. An exhibition currently on in the Roudnice nad Labem town museum explores this relatively obscure chapter of Czech history.

It all started with a postcard, sent by sailor Jaroslav Marcin to his native town of Roudnice nad Labem from Croatia. Jan Mrázek, the director of the Roudnice nad Labem museum and the curator of the exhibit “Czechs on the decks of their Majesty’s navy” explains what inspired this show, which runs through September.

“In 2008, we had an exhibit devoted to the role of Czechs in World War I, and one of the pieces on display was a color postcard, which sailor Jaroslav Marcin sent to Roudnice from the Croatian harbor of Malinska. That sparked the idea to organize an entire show devoted to the life of Czech sailors at sea, especially those who served in the Adriatic Sea in World War I. This chapter of history is relatively little known, even today. So the postcard and the fact that there were quite a few Czech sailors at the time inspired us to organize this exhibition.”

At one point, up to ten percent of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal War Navy was made up of Czech sailors. Czech participation in the navy is also the subject of academic research. Historian Jindřich Marek of the Military History Institute Prague explains how Czechs became sailors.

“They started serving in the Adriatic Sea around 1905, when the Austro-Hungarian navy was being modernized. Back then, qualified sailors were in demand, and Czechs, along with Germans, were among the most skilled within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And briefly before World War I erupted, the number of Czechs in the navy reached its peak; some ten percent of its sailors were Czech.”

When the First World War erupted in 1914, the Austro-Hungarian navy expanded its fleet to include U-boats. One of the empire’s U-boats torpedoed the flagship of the French Mediterranean fleet, the Jean Bart, at the start of the war, in 1914, causing serious damage to it. Soon, the underwater boats of the Austro-Hungarian navy were feared by their enemies. But of course these very complicated pieces of machinery had to be operated by highly skilled sailors. Jindřich Marek again.


“The Austro-Hungarian fleet was mostly made up of modern German boats, and about a third of the men who served on them were Czech. That is because those sailors had to be very skilled and well-trained, engineers for example, or radio operators. But sadly, the U-boat war was a cruel one and there were many more fatalities below water than on the surface. A lot of Czech sailors were killed at sea. Serving on those U-boats was physically and psychologically difficult, and very taxing on their health. The air was bad and there was a lack of provisions. So those sailors had to be strong and determined men.”

Czechs also worked as engineers and musicians in the navy band – but also Czech doctors were eager to join the navy, says Jindřich Marek.

“Of course, we have to keep in mind that Czech doctors were also represented in the Austro-Hungarian navy. For example the doctors’ choir of the navy was mostly made up of Czechs. I think it was because we have this hang-up, we are tormented by the fact that the sea isn’t nearby. Everyone loves the far sea, there is a certain romance attached to it. And especially those young Czechs who had studied medicine and came from rather poor families were looking for options for their future at sea, and they hoped that the doctors’ choir of the navy would fulfill their wish to get away. Among them were some important personalities, such as Dr. Robert Lím, who was the commander of the doctors’ choir in 1918.”

Even though they came from a landlocked country, Czech sailors did not find it difficult to get used to serving in the Austro-Hungarian navy, says Jindřich Marek. Not even the fact that German was the official language presented a problem for them.

“They were able to pick up the special skills they needed very quickly, and even swimming was not a big problem for them. There is a nice story about this actually: A lot of Croatians who grew up by the sea were not able to swim when they were adults and had to learn it during their military service, while the Czech men learned swimming in our various fish ponds and lakes and had no problem with that. Even German, which was the official language of the navy, did not cause them difficulties. And for some nations that were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the language would have presented an obstacle.”

However, the war took its toll on the thousands of men who served in the Imperial and Royal War Navy. By 1918, fatigue with the war and desperation were quickly growing within its ranks. Following the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, strikes and insurgencies were on the rise. On February 1st, 1918, sailors serving on some 40 war ships in the Bay of Kotor hissed the red flag in what later became known as the Bay of Kotor mutiny. One of its central figures was a sailor from Moravia, Franz Rasch. He was not the only Czech involved in it, however.


“Another Czech participant in the mutiny was Rudolf Kreibich, a Prague resident who had been a musician on the SMS Sankt Georg. He was a hot-blooded leader and tried to organize the sailors. Some of the temperamental Italians and Croatians destroyed and looted during the first part of the mutiny, whereas the Bohemian sailors were aiming for a more organized and rational approach.”
While the mutiny was interpreted as a rebellion of the oppressed Slavic nations against their German leaders at first, it turned out to be an effort to finally arrive at peace or at least be given better provisions. Among those who participated in the mutiny also was Jaroslav Marcin, the mariner from Roudnice. Curator Jan Mrázek explains his involvement.

“Jaroslav Marcin recorded his experiences meticulously. He kept a diary during his time at sea and the entries in it, to this day, are valuable sources of information. He served on up to ten different ships during the war. He took part in several special courses of training, for example in artillery and on using mines. Towards the end of the war, he ended up in the Bay of Kotor. There, he participated in the mutiny, which was less a result of the revolution in Russia, than a reaction to the lack of provisions for navy members during the end of the war, and that was a situation across the entire monarchy.”

The mutiny ended within three days. Franz Rasch and other mariners involved in it were sentenced to death by a military court. While the legions were still fighting in France, Italy and Russia up until the downfall on October 28, 1918, some 80 to 120 mariners had returned home, deserted the navy or been sent back after participating in the mutiny. They then formed the basis for the first active army of the newly established state of Czechoslovakia, which was founded in October 1918 .

Czech Soldiers in World War I

The Czechoslovak legions occupy an almost legendary place in Czech history. They comprise the armed forces that fought during and after World War I on the allied side in pursuit of an independent Czechoslovakia. The biggest force, and most potent myths, centre on the Russian force, which became embroiled in the civil war, spending three years and travelling thousands of miles before returning home. We look at the myths and facts about their exploits.

At the outbreak of World War I, the Czechs and Slovaks showed little enthusiasm for fighting for their respective enemies, the Germans and the Hungarians, against fellow Slavs, the Russians and the Serbs. Large numbers of Czechs and Slovaks defected on the Russian front and formed the Czechoslovak Legion. Masaryk went to western Europe and began propagating the idea that the Austro-Hungarian Empire should be dismembered and that Czechoslovakia should be an independent state. In 1916, together with Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik (a Slovak astronomer and war hero), Masaryk created the Czechoslovak National Council. Masaryk in the United States, Štefánik in France, and Beneš in France and Britain then worked to gain Allied recognition. When secret talks between the Allies and Austrian emperor Charles I collapsed, the Allies recognized the Czechoslovak National Council in the summer of 1918 as the supreme organ of a future Czechoslovak government.

In early October 1918, Germany and Austria proposed peace negotiations. On October 18, while in the United States, Masaryk issued a declaration of Czechoslovak independence. Masaryk insisted that the new Czechoslovak state include the historic Bohemian Kingdom, containing the German-populated Sudetenland. On October 21, however, German deputies from the Sudetenland joined other German and Austrian deputies in the Austrian parliament in declaring an independent German-Austrian state. Following the abdication of Charles I on November 11, Czech troops occupied the Sudetenland.

Hungary withdrew from the Habsburg Empire on November 1. The new liberal-democratic government of Hungary under Count Mihály Károlyi attempted to retain Slovakia. With Allied approval, the Czechs occupied Slovakia, and the Hungarians were forced to withdraw. The Czechs and Allies agreed on the Danube and Ipeľ rivers as the boundary between Hungary and Slovakia; a large Hungarian minority, occupying the fertile plain of the Danube, would be included in the new state.

Small armed units were organized from 1914 onwards by volunteer Czechs and Slovaks. Their purpose was to help the Entente and win their support to the creation of an independent country of Czechoslovakia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Later, many Czech and Slovaks captured during the war joined these units; with help of émigré intellectuals and politicians (Tomáš Masaryk, Milan Rastislav Štefánik and others) the Legions grew into a force of tens of thousands. The independence of Czechoslovakia was finally obtained in 1918.

Czechoslovak Legions

Czechoslovak Legions in Russia were created in 1917, in France in December 1917 (including volunteers from America), and in Italy in April 1918. Their membership consisted of Czech and Slovak prisoners of war in Russia, Serbia and Italy, and Czech and Slovak emigrants in France and Russia who had already created the "Czech company" in Russia and a unit named "Nazdar" in France in 1914.

The Legions were actively involved in many battles of World War I, including Vouziers, Arras, Zborov, Doss Alto, Bakhmach, and others. The fact that the Czechoslovaks fielded military units on three fronts was critical in convincing the Allies to recognize of the right of the Czechs and Slovaks to an independent nation.

The term "Legions" was not widely used during the war but was adopted shortly afterwards.

Battle Honours for Czechs fighting in France : Alsace, Argonne, Peronne and L.E. (Légion EtrangËre - the Foreign Legion), for actions in Russia : Zhorov, Bachmac, Sibir (Siberia) and C.D. (Czech Brigade) and for actions in Italy : Doss'Alto and Piave.

Siberian Legion

Perhaps the best known of this period comes from the Czechoslovak Legions in Siberia and its forerunners. The first Czech unit in Russia was the Cheshskaya Druzhina, a unit of the Imperial Army largely staffed by Czechs and Slovaks living in Russia. As the war progressed large numbers of Czechs serving in the Austro-Hungarian army units surrendered, often entire units crossing the line en mass. Originally recruitment of prisoners for Czechoslovak military units were allowed only among new POWs in one sector of the Russian front, but eventually it was also permitted in the prisoner of war camps. After the success of Czechoslovak units during the Kerensky offensive, Russian authorities permitted unlimited recruitment of Czech and Slovak POWs which led to the expansion of the Legion until it consisted of 70,000 troops. Most of the units were located in the cities along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and its spur lines where Czechoslovak units were headquartered.

Legion in France

The center for Czechoslovak opposition to the Central Powers was embodied in the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris. Following the recognition of the Council as a co-belligerent, three Czechoslovak regiments, the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, were formed on the Western Front. Prior to the creation of these independent units, a smaller unit comprised of Czechs and Slovaks served in the "Nazdar" company of the French Foreign Legion. The Czechoslovak regiments in France were stationed in one sector of the front. The French units were among the first to return to Czechoslovakia following independence, mainly in Slovakia where many of these units were sent to help defend the boarders of the new state.

Legion in Italy

Like the Czechoslovak military units formed in Siberia, those in Italy were formed predominately from Czech and Slovak prisoners of war. However, the Italian government was slow in allowing Czech and Slovak prisoners of war into combat units. Most of the former prisoners spent time in construction or guide units supporting Italian units before combat units were permitted.