44°49′N 20°27′E / 44.817°N 20.450°E / 44.817; 20.450
200-838: The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia ( German : Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien ; Serbian : Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији , romanized : Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji ) was the area of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that was placed under a military government of occupation by the Wehrmacht following the invasion, occupation and dismantling of Yugoslavia in April 1941. The territory included only most of modern central Serbia , with
400-483: A corps of three divisions of poorly-equipped occupation troops. The German military commander in Serbia appointed two Serbian civil puppet governments to carry out administrative tasks in accordance with German direction and supervision. The first of these was the short-lived Commissioner Government which was established on 30 May 1941. The Commissioner Government was a basic tool of the occupation regime, lacking in any powers. In late July 1941, an uprising began in
600-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
800-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
1000-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
1200-552: A Serb who was both well-known and highly regarded by the population who could raise some sort of Serbian armed force and who would be willing to use it ruthlessly against the rebels whilst remaining under full German control. These ideas ultimately resulted in the replacement of the entire Aćimović administration at the end of August 1941. In response to a request from Benzler, the Foreign Office sent SS-Standartenführer Edmund Veesenmayer to provide assistance in establishing
1400-478: A collaborationist political police organisation that had been established in mid-May by Jovanović, who was now the German-appointed administrator of Belgrade. The conference decided to undertake a comprehensive preemptive campaign against the communists. The camp was formally established prior to 22 June 1941, documented by a letter of that date from Turner to Aćimović. Responsibility for establishing
1600-615: A concentration camp to hold known communists and other persons. Following the invasion and defeat of Yugoslavia, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had begun organising for an armed struggle against the occupiers and their local collaborators. On 19 June, the MUP held a conference with senior German police and members of the Belgrade Special Police (Serbo-Croatian: Specijalna policija Uprave grada Beograda , SP UGB),
1800-619: A full regiment, and the divisions were short of all aspects of motorized transport, including spare tyres. The 15th Wave divisions were usually equipped with captured motor vehicles and weapons, and were formed using reservists, usually older men not suitable for front line service, whose training was incomplete. The commanders at battalion and company level were generally veterans of World War I , and platoon commanders usually between 27 and 37 years old. The troops were conscripted from those born between 1907 and 1913, so they ranged from 28 to 34 years of age. The three divisions had been transported to
2000-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
2200-463: A junior officer to Belgrade to advise Ljotić of his progress, and to provide assurances that he had no plans to attack the Germans. One of the first tasks of the administration was to carry out Turner's orders for the registration of all Jews and Romani in the occupied territory and implementation of severe restrictions on their activities. While the implementation of these orders was supervised by
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#17327729693862400-615: A lack of transport. While the commissioners were quite experienced in their portfolio areas or in politics or public administration generally, the Aćimović administration itself was in an extremely difficult position because it lacked any power to actually govern. The three main tasks of the Aćimović administration were to secure the acquiescence of the population to the German occupation, help restore services, and "identify and remove undesirables from public services". Refugees escaping persecution in
2600-610: A meeting in Belgrade where they resolved that Nedić should form a Government of National Salvation (Serbian Cyrillic: Влада Националног Спаса , Serbian: Vlada Nacionalnog Spasa ) to replace the Commissioner Government, and on the same day, Nedić wrote to Danckelmann agreeing to become the Prime Minister of the new government on the basis of five conditions and some additional concessions. Two days later,
2800-410: A minimum of 382 Jews—died at the camp. Of these, 3,420 were men and 429 were women. Prisoners were mostly Serbian by origin, 73% of them, the others were Jews, Roma, and citizens of Soviet Union and several Western European countries. From the partially preserved archive of the camp which was not destroyed, data for 3,849 executed have been saved. Among them was 3,420 men and 429 women, while by age
3000-562: A more targeted operation around Mount Cer, where the insurgents targeted in the Mačva operation had withdrawn. During this operation, the division was further reinforced with most of the captured French tanks of I/202nd Panzer Regiment. After a few days break, on 19 and 20 October the 342nd Infantry Division conducted its third major operation, aimed at clearing the Jadar region and the main centre of insurgent activity in that area, Krupanj. It retained
3200-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
3400-500: A new puppet government that would meet German requirements. Five months earlier, Veesenmayer had engineered the proclamation of the NDH. Veesenmayer engaged in a series of consultations with German commanders and officials in Belgrade, interviewed a number of possible candidates to lead the new puppet government, then selected former Yugoslav Minister of the Army and Navy General Milan Nedić as
3600-489: A noted sadist who collaborated enthusiastically with the Germans, interrogated prisoners and devised a number of humiliating torture techniques. Vujković had been a high-ranking official in the pre-war Belgrade police. He was involved in the persecution of Yugoslavia's communists even before the outbreak of World War II . Executions occurred frequently at Vujković's whim and he rarely asked for approval from German or Serbian authorities to carry out murders. He purportedly ordered
3800-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
4000-683: A population of 3.8 million. Even before the Yugoslav Army surrendered, German military authorities ordered the registration of all Serbian Jews. On 30 May 1941 the German Military Commander in Serbia , Helmuth Förster, issued the main Race Laws, which excluded Jews and Roma from public and economic life, seized their property and required them to register for forced labor. On July 7, 1941 Partisan-led armed resistance broke out in Serbia, quickly spreading and leading to
4200-464: A position to seize power when the Germans withdrew or were defeated. Hitler had briefly considered erasing all existence of a Serbian state, but this was quickly abandoned and a search began for a suitable Serb to lead a collaborationist regime. Consideration was given to appointing former Yugoslav Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković , former Yugoslav Foreign Minister Aleksandar Cincar-Marković , former Yugoslav Minister of Internal Affairs Milan Aćimović ,
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#17327729693864400-552: A proclamation to the population under German occupation, detailing laws that applied to all German-occupied territory. When the Germans withdrew from the Yugoslav territory that was annexed or occupied by their Axis partners, these laws applied only to the part of modern-day Slovenia administered by the two Reichsgau, and the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This latter territory "was occupied outright by German troops and
4600-420: A purge of the bureaucracy. The lack of success achieved by this approach was evident when one battalion of gendarmes refused to fight the insurgents and another surrendered to them without firing a shot. When Bader objected to a dispersed deployment of the 125th Infantry Regiment, Danckelmann insisted it was necessary to send a battalion to Šabac to disarm the gendarmerie battalion there, who refused to fight. After
4800-506: A range of force elements, including the 64th Reserve Police Battalion of the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police, Orpo ), an engineer regiment consisting of a pioneer battalion, a bridging column and a construction battalion, and several military police units, comprising a Feldgendarmerie (military police) company, a Geheime Feldpolizei (secret field police) group, and a prisoner of war processing unit. The occupation force
5000-796: A recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
5200-647: A requirement for the registration of all printing equipment, restrictions on the press, operation of theatres and other places of entertainment, and the resumption of production. He also disestablished the National Bank of Yugoslavia , and established the Serbian National Bank to replace it. In mid-May, Aćimović's administration issued a declaration to the effect that the Serbian people wanted "sincere and loyal cooperation with their great neighbor,
5400-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
5600-455: A revolt. In May, the KPJ outlined its policy of "unity and brotherhood among all peoples of Yugoslavia, [and] relentless struggle against the foreign enemies and their domestic helpers as a matter of sheer survival". On 4 June, the military committee was titled Partisan Chief Headquarters . In late April, Yugoslav Army Colonel Draža Mihailović and a group of about 80 soldiers, who had not followed
5800-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
6000-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
6200-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
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6400-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
6600-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
6800-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
7000-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
7200-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
7400-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
7600-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
7800-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
8000-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
8200-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
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8400-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
8600-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
8800-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
9000-681: The Appeal to the Serbian Nation , which was published in the German-authorized Belgrade daily newspaper Novo vreme on 13 and 14 August. Those that signed included three Serbian Orthodox bishops, four archpriests , and at least 81 professors from the University of Belgrade , although according to the historian Stevan K. Pavlowitch , many of the signatories were placed under pressure to sign. The appeal called upon
9200-486: The Aranđelovac district, northwest of Topola. On 10 July, Aćimović's administration was re-organized, with Ranislav Avramović replacing Kostić in the transportation portfolio, Budimir Cvijanović replacing Protić in the food and agriculture area, and Velibor Jonić taking over the education portfolio from Jojić. In mid-July, Mihailović sent Lieutenant Neško Nedić to meet with a representative of Aćimović's to ensure he
9400-457: The Chetniks . Resistance continued at a low level until 1944, accompanied by frequent reprisal killings, which for some time involved the execution of 100 hostages for every German killed. The Nedić regime had no status under international law, no powers beyond those granted by the Germans, and was simply an instrument of German rule. Although German forces took the leading and guiding role of
9600-402: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian : Komunistička partija Jugoslavije ; KPJ) or participants in that summer's anti-fascist uprising. The majority of prisoners were Serbs. The camp held men and women of all ages, as well as young children. A sizeable number of inmates were Jews and Roma . Rafael Israeli notes that of the 23,637 inmates, 688 were Jews, of whom 382 were killed by
9800-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
10000-536: The Eastern Front . On 10 April, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian Latin : Komunistička partija Jugoslavije , KPJ) had appointed a military committee headed by its secretary-general, Josip Broz Tito . From April, the KPJ had an underground network right across the country, including military committees that were preparing for an opportunity to initiate
10200-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
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#173277296938610400-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
10600-608: The Gestapo in the camp, 186 were transferred to the main Nazi concentration for Serbian Jews at Sajmište , and 103 more were taken from the camp by the Gestapo and killed or used as force labor. The Jewish inmates hailed from Belgrade, Banat , Central Serbia , and various European countries. Before arriving at the camp, inmates would spend several days in the custody of the Gestapo and SP UGB, where they were tortured and beaten. By
10800-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
11000-690: The Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as
11200-754: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia , which was then partitioned. Some Yugoslav territory was annexed by its Axis neighbors, Hungary , Bulgaria and Italy . The Germans engineered and supported the creation of the puppet state , the Independent State of Croatia ( Croatian : Nezavisna Država Hrvatska , NDH), which roughly comprised most of the pre-war Banovina Croatia , along with the rest of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and some adjacent territory. The Italians, Hungarians and Bulgarians occupied other parts of Yugoslavian territory. Germany did not annex any Yugoslav territory, but occupied northern parts of present-day Slovenia and stationed occupation troops in
11400-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
11600-498: The Reich Security Main Office ( German : Reichssicherheitshauptamt , RSHA), including Gestapo (Secret State Police), Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police, or Kripo ), and Ausland- Sicherheitsdienst (Foreign Security Service, or Ausland-SD ). Einsatzgruppe Serbien also controlled the 64th Reserve Police Battalion. While he was formally responsible to Turner, Fuchs reported directly to his superiors at
11800-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
12000-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
12200-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
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#173277296938612400-410: The military administration of the Third Reich established after the Invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II . In response to escalating resistance, the German army instituted severe repressive measures – mass executions of civilian hostages and the establishment of concentration camps. Located in the Banjica neighborhood of Dedinje —a suburb of Belgrade —it was originally used by
12600-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
12800-449: The 11th Company. In total, despite air support, the two companies suffered nine dead, 30 wounded and 175 missing. On 4 September, List instructed Böhme to release the rest of the 433rd Infantry Regiment of the 164th Infantry Division to Bader. Ultimately, Böhme transferred the 125th Infantry Regiment and a battalion from the 220th Artillery Regiment instead. Bader had also taken control of the 220th Panzerjaeger (Anti-tank) Battalion from
13000-560: The 12th Panzer Company zbV, initially equipped with about 30 captured Yugoslav Renault FT tankettes , and a motorized signals battalion. The four Landesschützen battalions fell far short of the numbers needed for guarding tasks throughout the territory, which included; bridges, factories, mines, arms dumps of captured weapons, and shipping on the Danube . Consequently, the battalions of the occupation divisions were given many of these tasks, and were in some cases stationed 120 kilometres (75 mi) apart, linked by poor roads and hampered by
13200-429: The 164th Infantry Division. The following day, Danckelmann asked that if a front line division was not available to reinforce Bader's troops, that a division from the Replacement Army be provided. In the following week, insurgents carried out 81 attacks on infrastructure, 175 on the Serbian gendarmerie, and 11 on German troops, who suffered another 30 dead, 15 wounded and 11 missing. During that week, List advised OKW that
13400-485: The 704th Infantry Division's 724th Infantry Regiment was travelling from Valjevo when his staff car was fired on near the village of Razna, wounding one occupant. In response, the district command executed 52 Jews, communists and others, with the assistance of the Serbian gendarmerie and Einsatzgruppe Serbia . Also in July, the German military government ordered the Jewish community representatives to supply 40 hostages each week who would be executed as reprisals for attacks on
13600-430: The 718th Infantry Division, and by a company of the 64th Reserve Police Battalion. The second phase involved clearing of the wider area from 28 September – 9 October, supported by air reconnaissance, with limited dive-bomber support also available. The Mačva operation was followed immediately by an operation aimed at clearing the insurgents from the Mount Cer area. From 10–15 October, the 342nd Infantry Division conducted
13800-595: The Aćimović administration appealed for rebels to return to their homes and announced bounties for the killing of rebels and their leaders. The Aćimović administration had suffered 246 attacks between 1 July and 15 August, killing 82 rebels for the loss of 26. The Germans began shooting hostages and burning villages in response to attacks. On 17 August, a company of the 704th Infantry Division's 724th Infantry Regiment killed 15 communists in fighting near Užice, then shot another 23 they rounded up on suspicion they were smuggling provisions to interned communists. The bodies of 19 of
14000-411: The Aćimović administration so that it might subdue the rebellion itself. The Germans considered the Aćimović administration incompetent and by mid-July were already discussing replacing Aćimović. On 29 July, in reprisal for an arson attack on German transport in Belgrade by a 16-year-old Jewish boy, Einsatzgruppe Serbien executed 100 Jews and 22 communists. By August, around 100,000 Serbs had crossed into
14200-412: The Banjica Concentration Camp, first opened in 1969, is dedicated to the memory of those who were detained in the camp and the victims of other Nazi concentration camps. It contains an exhibition of over four hundred items relating to the camp and its operation. Prominent intellectuals and artists who were imprisoned or killed at Banjica or killed at Jajinci: The Museum of the Banjica Concentration Camp
14400-578: The Commissioner Government on 29 August 1941. Although it enjoyed some support, the regime was unpopular with the majority of Serbs. This failed to turn the tide however, and the Germans were forced to bring in front line divisions from France, Greece and even the Eastern Front to suppress the revolt. Commencing from late September 1941, Operation Uzice expelled the Partisans from the occupied territory, and in December, Operation Mihailovic dispersed
14600-413: The Commissioner Government to maintain control the Serbian gendarmerie, and ordered that they be re-organized into units of 50 to 100 men under the direction of local German commanders. He also directed the three divisional commanders to have their battalions form Jagdkommandos , lightly armed and mobile "hunter teams", incorporating elements of Einsatzgruppe Serbien and the gendarmerie. The following day,
14800-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
15000-534: The Final Solution in Serbia, and the Germans monopolized the killing of Jews, they were actively aided in that role by Serbian collaborators. The Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade was jointly controlled by Nedic's regime and the German army. The one area in which the puppet administration did exercise initiative and achieve success was in the reception and care of hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees from other parts of partitioned Yugoslavia. Throughout
15200-748: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
15400-755: The German authorities appointed Nedić and his government, although real power continued to reside with the German occupiers. There is no written record of whether Danckelmann accepted Nedić's conditions, but he did make some of the requested concessions, including allowing the use of Serbian national and state emblems by the Nedić government. The Council of Ministers comprised Nedić, Aćimović, Janković, Ognjen Kuzmanović , Josif Kostić , Panta Draškić , Ljubiša Mikić , Čedomir Marjanović , Miloš Radosavljević , Mihailo Olćan , Miloš Trivunac , and Jovan Mijušković . The ministers fell into three broad groupings; those associated closely with Nedić, allies of Ljotić, and Aćimović. There
15600-480: The German government. Prominent among these was NSFK - Obergruppenführer , Franz Neuhausen , who was initially appointed by Göring as plenipotentiary general for economic affairs in the territory on 17 April. Another was Envoy Felix Benzler of the Foreign Office , appointed by Reichsminister Joachim von Ribbentrop who was appointed on 3 May. A further key figure in the initial German administration
15800-483: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
16000-516: The German military government, Aćimović and his interior ministry were responsible for carrying them out. The primary means for the carrying out of such tasks was the Serbian gendarmerie , which was based on elements of the former Yugoslav gendarmerie units remaining in the territory, the Drinski and Dunavski regiments. The acting head of the Serbian gendarmerie was Colonel Jovan Trišić. During May 1941, Förster issued numerous orders, which included
16200-429: The German people". Most of the local administrators in the formerly Yugoslav counties and districts remained in place, and the German military administration placed its own administrators at each level to supervise the local authorities. Förster was subsequently transferred to command Fliegerkorps I , and on 2 June was succeeded by General der Flakartillerie Ludwig von Schröder , another Luftwaffe officer. On 9 June,
16400-451: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
16600-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
16800-698: The Germans and the Aćimović authorities. This was a response to appeals from both Joseph Stalin and the Communist International for communist organisations across occupied Europe to draw German troops away from the Eastern Front , and followed a meeting of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party in Belgrade on 4 July. This meeting resolved to shift to a general uprising, form Partisan detachments of fighters and commence armed resistance, and call for
17000-453: The Germans as a center for holding hostages. The camp was later used to hold anti-fascist Serbs , Jews , Roma , captured Partisans , Chetniks and other opponents of Nazi Germany. By 1942, most executions occurred at the firing ranges at Jajinci , Marinkova Bara and the Jewish cemetery . Banjica was operational from July 1941 to October 1944. It was jointly run by German occupiers under
17200-506: The Germans by singing Partisan songs, shouting their support for Tito and Stalin , and by holding lectures, discussions, one-act plays, recitals, and even folk-song and dance performances on the campgrounds. Most of the killings at camp were carried out by the Gestapo. Those committed by the SP UGB and the SDS were carried out under the orders of Belgrade police commissioner Svetozar Vujković ,
17400-456: The Germans until decisively beating the German armed forces looked possible. Mihailović justified this by saying "When it is all over and, with God's help, I was preserved to continue the struggle, I resolved that I would never again bring such misery on the country unless it could result in total liberation". Mihailović then reluctantly decided to allow some Chetniks to join Nedić's regime to launch attacks against Tito's Partisans. Mihailović saw as
17600-456: The Germans, but also by the SDS . 186 Jewish inmates were transferred to Sajmište. Of these, 103 were taken from the camp by the Gestapo, and a small number of those who survived were either sent to forced labor, were transferred to another camp, or were unaccounted for. After the war, Banjica's German commander, Willy Friedrich, was tried by a Yugoslav military court in Belgrade on 27 March 1947, and
17800-597: The Germans, with the assistance of the Serbian State Guard. In the spring of 1942 the Germans used a gas van brought from the Sajmište to murder Jewish inmates on two separate occasions. A number of Chetnik guerrillas were imprisoned in the camp that autumn. Executions continued throughout the war, and many inmates were shot as hostages. By September 1944, collaborationists of the Serbian State Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and Chetniks captured about 455 of
18000-525: The Gestapo section of the camp. Most of those detained at the camp were arrested by either the Gestapo or by the SP UGB acting as agents of the Gestapo. Some groups of prisoners were sent to the camp by Wehrmacht units or the SS who had rounded them up during counter-insurgency operations. Others were arrested by the German Feldgendarmerie (military police), mainly for minor offences against
18200-527: The Independent State of Croatia, and others fleeing Bulgarian-annexed Macedonia, Kosovo and Hungarian-occupied Bačka and Baranja had begun to flood into the territory. In late June 1941, the Aćimović administration issued an ordinance regarding the administration of the Banat which essentially made the region a separate civil administrative unit under the control of the local Volksdeutsche under
18400-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
18600-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
18800-640: The Pact. The following day, German troops entered Bulgaria from Romania , closing the ring around Yugoslavia . Intending to secure his southern flank for the impending attack on the Soviet Union , Adolf Hitler began placing heavy pressure on Yugoslavia to join the Axis. On 25 March 1941, after some delay, the Yugoslav government conditionally signed the Pact. Two days later, a group of pro-Western, Serbian nationalist Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers deposed
19000-664: The Quartermaster-General of the OKH. In the interim, the staff for the military government had been assembled in Germany and the duties of the Military Commander in Serbia had been detailed. These included "safeguarding the railroad lines between Belgrade and Salonika and the Danube shipping route, executing the economic orders issued [by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring ], and establishing and maintaining peace and order". In
19200-657: The RSHA in Berlin. The Germans began a search for a suitable Serb to lead a collaborationist regime in the occupied territory. Consideration was given to appointing Belgrade police chief Dragomir Jovanović , but the German Military Commander in Serbia selected former Yugoslav Minister of Internal Affairs Milan Aćimović . Aćimović formed his Commissioner Government (Serbo-Croatian: Komesarska vlada ) on 30 May 1941, consisting of ten commissioners. Aćimović
19400-658: The Reich border in the west to the point where the boundaries of German-occupied Serbia met the borders of the Bulgarian- and Albanian-annexed Yugoslavian territories. To the north of the line, the Germans held sway, with the Italians having prime responsibility to the south of the line. Even before the Yugoslav surrender, the German Army High Command ( German : Oberkommando des Heeres , or OKH) had issued
19600-488: The SP UGB. Members of the Serbian State Guard ( Serbo-Croatian : Srpska državna straža ; SDS) acted as prison staff. The SDS were the military arm of the collaborationist Government of National Salvation led by Milan Nedić , a pre-war politician who was known to have pro-Axis leanings, who had been selected to lead the puppet government by the Germans. Most of the inmates were individuals affiliated with
19800-666: The Serbian population to help the authorities in every way in their struggle against the communist rebels, and called for loyalty to the Nazis, condemning the Partisan-led resistance as unpatriotic. The Serbian Bar Association unanimously supported the Appeal. Aćimović also gave orders that the wives of communists and their sons older than 16 years of age be arrested and held, and the Germans burned their houses and imposed curfews. On 13 August, Bader reneged on Danckelmann's pledge to allow
20000-526: The Serbian staff were required to obtain approval from the Gestapo for nearly all actions they took. While the Gestapo were often harsher on the inmates than their quislings, on some occasions the Serbian staff were worse than the Gestapo. In the camp, Vujković together with the Germans selected prisoners for execution. On 19 February 1943 Vujković selected 215 prisoners of Banjica camp for execution. Hostages held to be killed in reprisal for attacks on German or Serbian collaborationist forces were generally held in
20200-636: The Wehrmacht and German police. Subsequently, when reprisal killings of hostages were announced, most referred to the killing of "communists and Jews". In late July, Schröder died after being injured in an aircraft accident. When the new German Military Commander in Serbia, Luftwaffe General der Flieger Heinrich Danckelmann , was unable to obtain more German troops or police to suppress the revolt, he had to consider every option available. As Danckelmann had been told to utilise available forces as ruthlessly as possible, Turner suggested that Danckelmann strengthen
20400-513: The Wehrmacht deployed the headquarters of the LXV Corps zbV to Belgrade to command four poorly-equipped occupation divisions , under the control of General der Artillerie Paul Bader . The 704th Infantry Division , 714th Infantry Division and 717th Infantry Division were deployed in the occupied territory, and the 718th Infantry Division was deployed in the adjacent parts of the NDH. The three occupation divisions had been raised during
20600-502: The addition of the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica ), and the Banat . This territory was the only area of partitioned Yugoslavia in which the German occupants established a military government. This was due to the key rail and the Danube transport routes that passed through it, and its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals . On 22 April 1941, the territory
20800-435: The administration of a German military government. This was due to the key rail and riverine transport routes that passed through it, and its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals . Some sources describe the territory as a puppet state , or a "special administrative province", with other sources describing it as having a puppet government. A demarcation line, known as the "Vienna Line", ran across Yugoslavia from
21000-474: The area does not united with Serbia. At that time it seems that the Chetnik movement had succeeded in creating initial basis for "Greater Serbia" but with diplomatic activity of the NDH authorities toward Berlin attempt to change state borders of the NDH were prevented. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in
21200-545: The area. One of the companies was surrounded and cut-off at Koviljača , southwest of Loznica on the banks of the Drina, and had to be evacuated by air. But the German situation took a serious turn for the worse when the garrison of the antimony works at Krupanj were isolated on 1 September. Over the next day, the outlying posts of the 10th and 11th companies of the 704th Infantry Division's 724th Infantry Regiment were pushed into Krupanj by insurgent attacks. The rebels demanded that
21400-402: The armed group. He also directed the taking of hostages. On 19 May, he issued an ominous decree, ordering that from that point on, 100 Serbs were to be shot for every German soldier that was harmed in any Serb attack. Almost as soon as the success of the invasion was assured, all front line German corps and divisions began to be withdrawn from Yugoslavia to be reconditioned or directly allocated to
21600-471: The best available. The Germans had to apply significant pressure to Nedić to encourage him to accept the position, including threats to bring Bulgarian and Hungarian troops into the occupied territory and to send him to Germany as a prisoner of war . Unlike most Yugoslav generals, Nedić had not been interned in Germany after the capitulation, but instead had been placed under house arrest in Belgrade. On 27 August 1941, about seventy-five prominent Serbs convened
21800-416: The camp fell to Turner's deputy, SS- Sturmbannführer Georg Kiessel, who was responsible for overseeing Jovanović. In addition to his role as the administrator of Belgrade , Jovanović was also the chief of Serbian State Security for Aćimović's puppet regime. A three man committee was created to determine the site for the camp. The committee consisted of Jovanović's deputy city administrator, Miodrag Đorđević,
22000-443: The camp would belong to the Serbian authorities, and the rest they took for their prisoners". Initially the Gestapo and Serbian State Guard jointly guarded the camp, but this was later delegated to the Serbian State Guard alone. While Vujković was the administrator of the camp, he and his staff were at all times subject to the supervision of the Gestapo. The Germans often took decisions without reference to Vujković and his staff, but
22200-517: The chief engineer of Belgrade, Milan Janjušević, and an unnamed representative of the Gestapo. The committee chose the former barracks of the Royal Yugoslav Army 's 18th Infantry Regiment, located in the Belgrade suburb of Banjica . Once the site was identified, the buildings had to be prepared for receiving a large number of prisoners, and secured against escape. Jovanović had overall responsibility for this work, with Janjušević managing
22400-652: The command of Gestapo official Willy Friedrich and the Milan Nedić 's puppet government , which was under full control of the occupational forces. However although German forces took the leading and guiding role of the Final Solution in Serbia, and the Germans monopolized the killing of Jews, they were actively aided in that role by Serbian collaborators. Later, Friedrich was tried, found guilty and executed for war crimes by Yugoslavia's post-war communist authorities. 23,697 individuals were detained in Banjica throughout
22600-669: The commander of the German 12th Army , Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm List , was appointed as the Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief Southeast Europe. Three territorial commanders reported directly to him; Schröder, the Military Commander in the Saloniki-Aegean Area, and the Military Commander in Southern Greece. After the withdrawal of all front line formations from Yugoslavia, the only front line formations remaining under
22800-906: The control of List's headquarters in Salonika were; the Headquarters of XVIII Army Corps of General der Gebirgstruppe Franz Böhme , the 5th Mountain Division on Crete , the 6th Mountain Division in the Attica region around Athens , and the 164th Infantry Division and 125th Infantry Regiment in Salonika and on the Aegean Islands . From his headquarters in Belgrade, Schröder directly controlled four poorly-equipped local defence (German: Landesschützen ) battalions, consisting of older age men. In late June, they were deployed as follows: These occupation forces were supplemented by
23000-663: The control of the Higher SS and Police Leader , and essentially functioned as German auxiliaries until the German withdrawal in October 1944. The Germans also raised several other local auxiliary forces for various purposes within the territory. In order to secure the Trepča mines and the Belgrade-Skopje railway, the Germans made an arrangement with Albanian collaborators in the northern tip of present-day Kosovo which resulted in
23200-435: The country was occupied and dismembered by its neighbours. The German-occupied territory of Serbia was reduced to the Kingdom of Serbia 's pre- Balkan War borders and was kept under directly military occupation by the Germans due to the key rail and riverine transport routes that passed through it, as well as its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals . The occupied territory covered about 51,000 km and had
23400-488: The country's regent , Prince Paul , in a bloodless coup d'état , placed his teenaged nephew Peter on the throne, and brought to power a "government of national unity" led by General Dušan Simović . The coup enraged Hitler, who immediately ordered the country's invasion , which commenced on 6 April 1941. Yugoslavia was quickly overwhelmed by the combined strength of the Axis powers and surrendered in less than two weeks. The government and royal family went into exile, and
23600-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
23800-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
24000-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
24200-510: The economy), and Reichsminister Joachim von Ribbentrop (for foreign affairs). The Germans used Bulgarian troops to assist in the occupation, but they were at all times under German control. Sources variously describe the territory as a puppet state , a protectorate , a "special administrative province", or describe it as having a puppet government. The military commander in Serbia had very limited German garrison troops and police detachments to maintain order, but could request assistance from
24400-426: The effective autonomy of the region from the puppet government in Belgrade, which later formalized the German arrangement. The Government of National Salvation remained in place until the German withdrawal in the face of the combined Red Army , Bulgarian People's Army and Partisan Belgrade Offensive . During the occupation, the German authorities killed nearly all Jews residing in the occupied territory, by shooting
24600-494: The end of 1941 the camp held between 2,000 and 3,000 prisoners. By 1942, most Jews in occupied Serbia were taken to Banjica and shot at Jajinci , Marinkova Bara and the Jewish cemetery. Thousands were killed at those execution sites. According to survivors, the SP UGB and Serbian State Guard were responsible for executions including the killing of children, but records indicate that the majority of executions were carried out by
24800-494: The establishment of a concentration camp for communists and others considered "dangerous to public order" within Belgrade itself was a 26 May 1941 report of the Serbian Gendarmerie Command, which indicated that such a camp was being considered. In the same month, an order from Aćimović's Ministry of Internal Affairs (Serbo-Croatian: Ministarstvo unutrašnjih poslova , MUP) also mentioned a plan to establish
25000-506: The establishment of the first liberated territory in occupied Europe, the Republic of Užice . On Hitler's personal orders to crush the resistance in Serbia, the German military started shooting 100 hostages for every German killed, and 50 for every wounded. The Germans thus killed 30,000 Serbian civilians, including 3,000 in a mass execution at Kragujevac , and 2,000 at Kraljevo . Among the executed were thousands of Jewish men. To crush
25200-522: The executed men were hung at the Užice railway station. At the end of August, the Salonika-based 164th Infantry Division's 433rd Infantry Regiment was ordered to detach a battalion to Bader's command. During August, there were 242 attacks on the Serbian administration and gendarmerie, as well as railway lines, telephone wires, mines and factories. The Belgrade-Užice- Ćuprija - Paraćin -Zaječar railway line
25400-497: The first two months of its operation, the camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. As this was considered inadequate to prevent escape, Jovanović ordered Janjušević to build a masonry wall around the camp. In early September, construction commenced on the wall and a guardhouse. The wall was completed within a month, and was 5 metres (16 ft) high, enclosing the camp in the form of a pentagon, with towers set at each corner in which machine guns and searchlights were mounted. The camp
25600-410: The garrison surrender, and when the deadline expired, launched a series of attacks on the main positions of both companies between 00:30 and 06:00 on 3 September. By that evening, both companies realized they were in danger of being overrun, and attempted to break out of the encirclement the following day. Of the 10th Company, only 36 men were able to make their way to Valjevo, and 42 men were missing from
25800-414: The gendarmerie, and increased its size from 2–3,000 to 5,000. He had also set up an auxiliary police force and a type of militia. Danckelmann had also provided Nedić with 15,000 rifles and a significant number of machine guns to equip his forces. On 15 September, Nedić used a radio address to demand that the insurgents lay down their arms and cease all acts of sabotage. He established special courts, and began
26000-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
26200-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
26400-895: The killing of prisoners even in cases where the Ministry of Interior decided against execution. Vujković is reported to have begged the Germans to "personally shoot twenty young girls who were ordered for shooting" on one occasion. Despite this, neither he nor any other Serbs holding positions of power in the camp were reprimanded or removed from their posts by the Serbian collaborationist government. When prisoners complained of lack of food, Vujković and his associates replied by saying: "[You] didn't come here for spa therapy and food, but to be executed. To eat more or less will not save your lives." The Belgrade Circuit Court sentenced him to death in November 1949. The first mass execution in Banjica occurred on 17 December 1941, when 170 prisoners were shot. By
26600-479: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Banjica concentration camp The Banjica concentration camp ( German : KZ Banjica , Serbian : Бањички логор , Banjički logor ) was a Nazi German concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia ,
26800-460: The leadership of Sepp Janko . While the Banat was formally under the jurisdiction of the Aćimović administration, in practical terms it was largely autonomous of Belgrade and under the direction of the military government through the military area command in Pančevo . In early July 1941, shortly after the launching of Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union , armed resistance began against both
27000-455: The local people, and toleration by the gendarmerie in the area, Mihailović created a relatively safe area in which he could consider his future actions. Soon after arriving at Ravna Gora, Mihailović's troops took the name " Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army ". By the end of May, Mihailović had decided that he would adopt a long-term strategy aimed at gaining control over as many armed groups as possible throughout Yugoslavia, in order to be in
27200-403: The loss at Krupanj, the three occupation divisions were brought closer together and concentrated in greater strength, to reduce the threat of more companies being destroyed piecemeal. The 718th Infantry Division closed up on the west side of the Drina, the 704th near Valjevo, the 714th near Topola, and the 717th near the copper mines at Bor . The dispersal of the 125th Infantry Regiment meant Bader
27400-525: The main threat to Chetniks and, in his view, Serbs, as the Partisans who refused to back down fighting, which would almost certainly result in more German reprisal massacres of Serbs. With arms provided by the Germans, those Chetniks who joined Nedić's collaborationist armed forces, so they could pursue their civil war against the Partisans without fear of attack by the Germans, whom they intended to later turn against. This resulted in an increase of recruits to
27600-692: The man responsible for erasing traces of German atrocities throughout German-occupied Europe. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust : In November 1943 SS- Standartenführer Paul Blobel, the officer in charge of Aktion 1005 , came to Belgrade in order to set up a unit that would disinter the bodies of the murder victims and burn them. The unit, consisting of fifty members of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and German military police, as well as 100 Jewish and Serbian prisoners
27800-449: The men as part of reprisals conducted in 1941, and gassing the women and children in early 1942 using a gas van . After the war, several of the key German and Serbian leaders in the occupied territory were tried and executed for war crimes. While the official name of the territory was Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, sources refer to it using a wide variety of terms: In April 1941, Germany and its allies invaded and occupied
28000-500: The military staff allocated the troops of the four local defence battalions across the area commands. The first military commander in the occupied territory was General der Flieger Helmuth Förster , a Luftwaffe officer, appointed on 20 April 1941, assisted by the chief of the administrative staff, SS- Brigadeführer and State Councillor, Dr. Harald Turner . Outside of the military commander's staff, there were several senior figures in Belgrade who represented key non-military arms of
28200-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
28400-573: The nation. Institutions that were formed by the Nedić government were similar to those in Nazi Germany, while documents signed by Milan Nedić used racist terminology that was taken from national-socialist ideology. The propaganda glorified the Serbian "race", accepting its "aryanhood", and determined what should be Serbian " living space ". It urged the youth to follow Nedić in the building of the New Order in Serbia and Europe. Nedić aimed to assure
28600-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
28800-480: The northern half of the NDH. The German-occupied part of Slovenia was divided into two administrative areas that were placed under the administration of the Gauleiters of the neighboring Reichsgau Kärnten and Reichsgau Steiermark . The remaining territory, which consisted of Serbia proper , the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica ), and the Banat was occupied by the Germans and placed under
29000-578: The occupation divisions lacked the mobility and training for counter-insurgency . On 4 August, Danckelmann requested that the OKW reinforce his administration with two additional police battalions and another 200 SD security personnel. This was rebuffed due to the needs of the Eastern Front, but before he had received a reply, he had made a request for an additional Landesschützen battalion, and had asked List for an additional division. List had supported
29200-516: The occupation regime, but peasants were also arrested for failing to meet farm production quotas set by the German occupation authorities. Nearly 9,000 of the inmates were brought to the camp by Serbian collaborators. A detailed account of the organisations that arrested and brought inmates to the Banjica concentration camp is as follows: It was run by the German Gestapo and commanded by Gestapo official Willy Friedrich, in cooperation with
29400-404: The occupation, the Banat was an autonomous region, formally responsible to the puppet governments in Belgrade, but in practice governed by its Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority. While the Commissioner Government was limited to the use of gendarmerie, the Nedić government was authorized to raise an armed force, the Serbian State Guard , to impose order, but they were immediately placed under
29600-489: The occupied territory between 7 and 24 May, and were initially tasked with guarding the key railway lines to Bulgaria and Greece. By late June, Bader's headquarters had been established in Belgrade, and the three divisions in the occupied territory were deployed as follows: The status of Bader's command was that the military commander in Serbia could order him to undertake operations against rebels, but he could not otherwise act as Bader's superior. Bader's command also included
29800-560: The occupied territory from the NDH, fleeing persecution by the Ustaše. They were joined by more than 37,000 refugees from Hungarian-occupied Bačka and Baranja, and 20,000 from Bulgarian-annexed Macedonia. At the end of July, two battalions of the 721st Regiment of the 704th Infantry Division were sent to suppress rebels in the Banat region, who had destroyed large wheat stores in the Petrovgrad district. Such interventions were not successful, as
30000-436: The occupied territory was General der Flieger Helmuth Förster , a Luftwaffe officer, appointed on 20 April 1941, assisted by the chief of the administrative staff, SS- Brigadeführer and State Councillor, Dr. Harald Turner . A further key figure in the initial German administration was SS- Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs , who commanded Einsatzgruppe Serbia , which was a grouping that included various detachments of
30200-402: The occupied territory, which quickly swamped the Serbian gendarmerie , German police and security apparatus, and even the rear area infantry force. To assist in quelling the rebellion, which initially involved both the communist -led Yugoslav Partisans and the monarchist Chetniks , a second puppet government was established. The Government of National Salvation under Milan Nedić replaced
30400-454: The orders to surrender, crossed the Drina river into the occupied territory, having marched cross-country from the area of Doboj , in northern Bosnia , which was now part of the NDH. As they passed near Užice on 6 May, the small group was surrounded and almost destroyed by German troops. His force fragmented, and when he reached the isolated mountain plateau of Ravna Gora , his band had shrunk to 34 officers and men. By establishing ties with
30600-433: The outbreak of World War II, the Yugoslav government declared its neutrality . Between September and November 1940, Hungary and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact , aligning themselves with the Axis, and Italy invaded Greece . From that time, Yugoslavia was almost completely surrounded by the Axis powers and their satellites, and her neutral stance toward the war became strained. In late February 1941, Bulgaria joined
30800-444: The populace to rise up against the occupiers throughout Yugoslavia. This also coincided with the departure of the last of the German invasion force that had remained to oversee the transition to occupation. From the appearance of posters and pamphlets urging the population to undertake sabotage, it rapidly turned to attempted and actual sabotage of German propaganda facilities and railway and telephone lines. The first fighting occurred at
31000-443: The president of the 'quasi-fascist' United Active Labour Organization ( Serbian : Združena borbena organizacija rada , or Zbor ) Dimitrije Ljotić , and the Belgrade police chief Dragomir Jovanović . Förster decided on Aćimović, who formed his Commissioner Government (Serbian: Komesarska vlada ) on 30 May 1941, consisting of ten commissioners. He avoided Ljotić as he believed he had a 'dubious reputation among Serbs'. Aćimović
31200-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
31400-407: The public that the war was over for Serbia in April 1941. He perceived his time as being "after the war", i.e., as a time of peace, progress and serenity. Nedić claimed that all deeds of his government were enabled by the occupants, to whom people should be grateful for secured life and "honorable place of associates in the building of the new World". Nedić hoped that his collaboration would save what
31600-418: The rebellion. The Nedić government ostensibly had a policy of keeping Serbia quiet to prevent Serbian blood from being spilled. The regime carried out German demands faithfully, aiming to secure place for Serbia in the New European Order created by the Nazis. The propaganda used by the Nedić regime labeled Nedić as the "father of Serbia", who was rebuilding Serbia and who had accepted his role in order to save
31800-461: The regime's armed forces. In December 1941 and early January 1942 Chetnik leaders from Eastern Bosnia including Jezdimir Dangić in alliance with the government of Milan Nedić and the German military leadership in Belgrade negotiated about secession of 17 districts of eastern Bosnia and their annexation to Nedić's Serbia. During this negotiations was formed temporary Chetnik administration in eastern Bosnia with intention of establishing autonomy while
32000-444: The remaining Jews in the occupied territory who were sent to the camp where they were killed immediately. In late 1944 the Germans forced a chain gang of Yugoslav prisoners to incinerate the remains of those killed in Banjica. A surviving member of the chain gang, Momčilo Damjanović, testified that the incineration of the corpses was organized by a unit of the Kommando 1005 , headed by SS-Standartenführer [Colonel] Paul Blobel ,
32200-475: The requests for more Landesschützen battalions, so on 9 August OKH authorized the raising of two additional companies for the Belgrade-based 562nd Landesschützen Battalion. On 11 August, unable to obtain significant reinforcements from elsewhere, Danckelmann ordered Bader to put down the revolt, and two days later Bader issued orders to that effect. In response to the revolt, the Aćimović administration encouraged 545 or 546 prominent and influential Serbs to sign
32400-424: The resistance and exterminate Jews, Germans also established concentration camps – at Banjica, Niš (Crveni krst) , Sajmište , etc – in which they interred Serb antifascists, Jews and Roma . Additionally, to fight the resistance, the Germans set up a quisling administration, under Milan Nedić , but he was given very limited powers, and was unable to establish order. In order to establish the military occupation of
32600-415: The short-term, he was also responsible for guarding the huge numbers of Yugoslav prisoners of war , and safeguarding captured weapons and munitions. In order to achieve this the military commander's staff was divided into military and administrative branches, and he was allocated personnel to form four area commands and about ten district commands, which reported to the chief of the administrative staff, and
32800-441: The spring of 1941, as part of the German Army's 15th Wave of conscription . The 704th was raised from the Dresden military district , the 714th from Königsberg , and the 717th from Salzburg . The 15th Wave divisions consisted of just two infantry regiments, one less than front line divisions, with each regiment comprising three battalions of four companies each. Each company was equipped with just one light mortar , rather than
33000-492: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
33200-423: The support of two Panzer companies, and had fire support available from Hungarian patrol boats from their Danube Flotilla. By late 1941, with each attack by Chetniks and Partisans, brought more reprisal massacres being committed by the German armed forces against Serbs. The largest Chetnik opposition group led by Mihailović decided that it was in the best interests of Serbs to temporarily shut down operations against
33400-444: The surrender of all weapons and radio transmitters, restrictions on communication, meetings and protests, and the requirement for German currency to be accepted, as well as imposing German criminal law on the territory. In a sign of things to come, on the day after the capitulation of Yugoslavia, the SS Motorised Infantry Division Reich had executed 36 Serbs in reprisal for the killing of one member of that formation. Three days later,
33600-415: The territory, the German Military Commander in Serbia was allocated a staff, divided into military and administrative branches, and he was allocated personnel to form four area commands and about ten district commands, which reported to the chief of the administrative staff, and the military staff allocated the troops of the four local defence battalions across the area commands. The first military commander in
33800-486: The territory. On 31 August, the town of Loznica was captured by the Jadar Chetnik Detachment as part of a mutual co-operation agreement signed with the Partisans. List was surprised at the appointment of Nedić, as he had not been consulted. The fait accompli was accepted, although he held some reservations. On 1 September, he issued orders to Danckelmann and Bader for the suppression of the revolt, but did not share Danckelmann's optimism about Nedić's capacity to suppress
34000-449: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
34200-704: The time they were transferred from these detention centers to Banjica, some of the prisoners would already have displayed signs of serious mutilation. Throughout the camp's operation, guards would regularly beat and mistreat prisoners. The camp was notorious for its brutality and executions were frequent and random. Inmates were expected to follow the standard rules of conduct that were implemented in other German camps. These rules prohibited singing, speaking loudly, having conversations on political subjects, possessing writing utensils and paper, and all other personal belongings. The infraction of any of these rules would result in execution. Despite this, imprisoned anti-fascists defied
34400-471: The troops at hand, including those recently transferred from Böhme's command, would not suffice to put down the rebellion. He recommended that at least one powerful division be transferred to Serbia as soon as possible, along with tanks, armoured cars and armoured trains, and asked that a single commander be appointed to direct all operations against the insurgents. By 9 September, with Danckelmann's approval, Nedić had recruited former Yugoslav Army soldiers into
34600-417: The usual three. The supporting arms of these divisions, such as engineer and signals elements, were only of company size, rather than the battalion-strength elements included in front line formations. Their supporting elements did not include medium mortars, medium machine guns , or anti-tank or infantry guns . Even their artillery was limited to a battalion of three batteries of four guns each, rather than
34800-407: The village of Bela Crkva on 7 July, when gendarmes tried to disperse a public meeting, and two gendarmes were killed. At the end of the first week in July, List requested the Luftwaffe transfer a training school to the territory, as operational units were not available. Soon after, gendarmerie stations and patrols were being attacked, and German vehicles were fired upon. Armed groups first appeared in
35000-498: The village of Donji Dobrić just east of the Drina river had been razed in response to the killing of a German officer. The killing of German troops after the capitulation drew a strong reaction from the commander of the German 2nd Army , Generaloberst Maximilian von Weichs , who ordered that whenever an armed group was seen, men of fighting age from that area were to be rounded up and shot, with their bodies hung up in public, unless they were able to prove they had no connection to
35200-486: The war, at least 3,849 of whom perished. After the war, a small monument dedicated to the victims of the camp was constructed. The site is now a museum. Following the 1938 Anschluss between Germany and Austria , Yugoslavia shared a border with the Third Reich and came under increasing pressure as her neighbours aligned themselves with the Axis powers . In April 1939, Italy opened a second frontier with Yugoslavia when it invaded and occupied neighbouring Albania . At
35400-405: The work at the camp. The former chief of the anti-communist section of the interwar Belgrade General Police, Svetozar Vujković , was appointed as the administrator of the camp, and he, his staff, and his German supervisors took over the camp on 5 July. The camp admitted its first inmates on 9 July, while building works were still ongoing. The first prisoners were held in one large basement room. For
35600-438: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
35800-415: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
36000-474: Was SS- Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs , who commanded Einsatzgruppe Serbia , consisting of Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, or SD) and Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police, or SiPo), the 64th Reserve Police Battalion, and a detachment of Gestapo . While he was formally responsible to Turner, Fuchs reported directly to his superiors in Berlin. The proclamations of the Chief of the OKH in April ordered severe punishments for acts of violence or sabotage,
36200-605: Was 22 children up to 7 years, from 7 to 14 years was 27 children, from 14 to 17 years was 76 persons, from 17 to 21 years was 564 persons, from 21 to 35 years was 1,703 persons, from 35 to 50 was 1,074 persons and over 50 years was 348 persons. Preserved data also show informations about who sent the prisoners to the camp, German SS troops sent 2,392 persons, German army sent 105 persons, Belgrade city administration sent 977 persons, Criminal police sent 93 persons, Serbian military detachments sent 141 persons and Districts of Serbia and Police Headquarters sent 241 persons. Most were killed by
36400-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
36600-443: Was abolished. Several of the commissioners had held ministerial posts in the pre-war Yugoslav government, and Ivanić and Vasiljević were both closely linked to Zbor . The Commissioner Government was "a low-grade Serbian administration... under the control of Turner and Neuhausen, as a simple instrument of the occupation regime", that "lacked any semblance of power". Soon after the formation of the Aćimović administration, Mihailović sent
36800-461: Was also supported by a military hospital and ambulances, veterinary hospital and ambulances, general transport column, and logistic units. The chief of the military administrative staff was responsible for the staffing of the four area commands and nine district commands in the occupied territory. In late June 1941, these comprised: Area Commands District Commands In addition to the occupation troops directly commanded by Schröder, in June 1941
37000-430: Was also transferred to Bader's command. The 342nd Infantry Division commenced its first major operation in late September in the Mačva region west of Šabac between the Drina and Sava. The targeted area was approximately 600 square kilometres (230 sq mi) in size. The first phase of the operation was the clearance of Šabac from 24–27 September, for which the division was reinforced by II/750th Infantry Regiment of
37200-407: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
37400-476: Was aware that Mihailović's forces had nothing to do with the "communist terror". The Germans then encouraged Aćimović to make an arrangement with Mihailović, but Mihailović refused. Nevertheless, neither the Germans nor Aćimović took effective action against Mihailović during the summer. On 17 July, Einsatzgruppe Serbien personnel were distributed among the four area commands as "security advisors". The following day, Generalmajor Adalbert Lontschar , commander of
37600-406: Was divided into sections, with one part for Gestapo prisoners, another for those arrested by the SP UGB, and a third area which held a mixed group of prisoners when either or both of the other two sections were at capacity. After the war, while he was being interrogated, Jovanović explained that this division had come about when "the Gestapo arrived one day without warning and decreed that one-third of
37800-424: Was engaged in its gruesome task of obliterating the traces of the murders up to the fall of 1944. All Germans left Banjica on October 2. All the camp prisoners of the second and third category were set free on October 3. The last 31 prisoners (the first category) were released on October 4, 1944. Throughout the war, 23,697 individuals were detained in Banjica, including 688 Jews. At least 3,849 inmates—including
38000-427: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
38200-434: Was hardest hit. A sign of the rapid escalation of the revolt was that 135 of the attacks occurred in the last 10 days of the month. The German troops themselves had lost 22 killed and 17 wounded. By the end of the month, the number of communists and Jews shot or hanged had reached 1,000. The number of Partisans in the territory had grown to around 14,000 by August. To strengthen the puppet government, Danckelmann wanted to find
38400-399: Was leading a weak Quisling regime. Soon after the appointment of the Nedić regime, the insurgency reached a crisis point. At the beginning of September, the area north of Valjevo, between the Drina and Sava rivers, was the centre of activity of well-armed and well-led insurgent groups. Six companies were committed against snipers that were targeting German troops and Serbian gendarmerie in
38600-403: Was left of Serbia and avoid total destruction by German reprisals. He personally kept in contact with Yugoslavia's exiled King Peter, assuring the King that he was not another Pavelić (the leader of the Croatian Ustaše), and Nedić's defenders claimed he was like Philippe Pétain of Vichy France (who was claimed to have defended the French people while accepting the occupation), and denied that he
38800-421: Was no foreign minister or minister for the Army and Navy. The Nedić regime itself "had no status under international law, and no power beyond that delegated by the Germans", and "was simply an auxiliary organ of the German occupation regime". The Nedić government was appointed at a time when the resistance was escalating quickly. On 31 August alone, there were 18 attacks on railway stations and railway lines across
39000-414: Was placed under a military government". The exact boundaries of the occupied territory were fixed in a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 12 April 1941, which also directed the creation of the military administration. This directive was followed up on 20 April 1941 by orders issued by the Chief of the OKH which established the Military Commander in Serbia as the head of the occupation regime, responsible to
39200-501: Was placed under the supreme authority of the German military commander in Serbia, with the day-to-day administration of the territory under the control of the chief of the military administration staff. The lines of command and control in the occupied territory were never unified, and were made more complex by the appointment of direct representatives of senior Nazi figures such as Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (for police and security matters), Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (for
39400-422: Was sentenced to death. Police Commissioner Vujković survived the war; he was captured and tried for war crimes by Yugoslavia 's new communist government. He was eventually found guilty, sentenced to death, and shot. Historian Jozo Tomasevich calls Banjica the most notorious concentration camp in Serbia during World War II. A small monument dedicated to the victims of the camp exists in Belgrade. The Museum of
39600-475: Was unable to mount a planned offensive against Valjevo. By this time, the Germans had no effective control of the area west of a line Mitrovica -Šabac-Valjevo-Užice. On 14 September, List's request for reinforcement was finally agreed by OKH. The 342nd Infantry Division was ordered to deploy from occupation duties in France, and I Battalion of the 202nd Panzer Regiment of the 100th Panzer Brigade, equipped with captured French SOMUA S35 and Hotchkiss H35 tanks,
39800-457: Was virulently anti-communist and had been in contact with the German police before the war. Upon capturing Belgrade, the Germans ordered the city's 12,000 Jews to report themselves to the occupational authorities, and 9,145 did so. Jews were removed from all official posts by 14 May, and a series of anti-Jewish laws were passed prohibiting them from activities ranging from going to restaurants to riding streetcars. The earliest written reference to
40000-413: Was virulently anti-communist and had been in contact with the German police before the war. The other nine commissioners were Steven Ivanić , Momčilo Janković , Risto Jojić , Stanislav Josifović , Lazo M. Kostić , Dušan Letica , Dušan Pantić , Jevrem Protić and Milisav Vasiljević , and one commissioner was in charge of each of the former Yugoslav ministries except the Ministry of Army and Navy which
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