Jezdimir Dangić

Major Jezdimir Dangić
Native name	Јездимир Дангић
Nickname(s)	Jezda King of Romanija
Born	(1897-05-04)4 May 1897 Bratunac, Bosnia Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died	22 August 1947(1947-08-22) (aged 50) Sarajevo, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia
Allegiance	Kingdom of Yugoslavia (until 1941) Chetniks (1941–1942) Government of National Salvation (1942–1942) Nazi Germany (1942)
Service/branch	Gendarmerie
Years of service	–1942
Rank	Major
Commands	Chetniks in Eastern Bosnia
Battles/wars	Yugoslav Front of World War II

Jezdimir Dangić (Serbian Cyrillic: Јездимир Дангић; 4 May 1897 – 22 August 1947) was a Bosnian Serb Chetnik commander during World War II. Born in the town of Bratunac, he became an officer in the gendarmerie of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the beginning of 1928 and was appointed to lead the gendarmerie detachment stationed at the Yugoslav royal palace in 1940. With the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, Dangić commanded the gendarmerie unit that escorted King Peter II out of the country. In August of that year, General Draža Mihailović appointed him commander of the Chetnik forces in eastern Bosnia. Here, Dangić and his men launched several attacks against the forces of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). In August, Dangić's Chetniks captured the town of Srebrenica. Afterwards, they became largely inactive in fighting the Germans, choosing instead to avoid confrontation. In December, Chetniks under Dangić's command massacred 1,370 Bosnian Muslims in the town of Goražde.

In January 1942, Dangić ordered his forces to not resist German and NDH troops during the anti-Partisan offensive known as Operation Southeast Croatia. Afterwards, he was invited to Belgrade to negotiate the terms of proposed Chetnik collaboration with the Germans with Milan Nedić and General der Artillerie (lieutenant general) Paul Bader. Although a deal was struck, it was vetoed by the Wehrmacht Armed Forces Commander in Southeast Europe, General der Pioniere Walter Kuntze, who remained suspicious of Dangić. Despite this, Dangić's Chetniks collaborated with German forces in eastern Bosnia over a period of several months in beginning in December 1941. In April, Dangić was arrested on Kuntze's orders and was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in German-occupied Poland after he travelled to Serbia despite promising to operate only within the territory of Bosnia. After the war he was extradited to Yugoslavia, where he stood accused of being responsible for the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. In 1947, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for war crimes.

Early life and career

Jezdimir Dangić was born on 4 May 1897 in the town of Bratunac, Bosnia Vilayet, Ottoman Empire. In his youth, he was a member of the revolutionary organisation known as Young Bosnia ([Mlada Bosna, Млада Босна] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)). He became an officer in the gendarmerie of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on 3 January 1928 when, as a reserve cavalry sub-lieutenant, he was promoted to active service. In 1940, he was appointed to lead the gendarmerie detachment stationed at the Yugoslav royal palace.

World War II

1941

On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and poorly trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated. At this time, Dangić was assigned to command the gendarmerie unit that escorted King Peter II to Nikšić Airport as he left the country.

After the invasion, Yugoslavia was dismembered, with Serbia being reduced to its pre-1912 borders and placed under a government of German military occupation. Milan Nedić, a pre-war politician who was known to have pro-Axis leanings, was then selected by the Germans to lead the collaborationist Government of National Salvation in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. Meanwhile, the extreme Croat nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed Poglavnik (leader) of an Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH, from the Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska). The NDH combined almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate." NDH authorities, led by the Ustaše militia, subsequently implemented genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Roma population living within the borders of the new state. As a result, two resistance movements emerged – the royalist Serb Chetniks, led by General Draža Mihailović, and the multi-ethnic, Communist Yugoslav Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito.

A map showing the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia from 1941–43, including the demarcation line between the German and Italian zones.

Early on, Mihailović designated Dangić as one of three men who were to succeed him as leaders of the Chetnik movement should anything happen to him. By the end of August, Dangić was sent by Mihailović to eastern Bosnia to bring this region under Chetnik control. In the beginning, his operations were directed primarily against the Ustaše and the Bosnian Muslim population of the area, where Dangić exercised considerable influence over the Serb population. During this time, he and his men cooperated with the Partisans in accordance with Chetnik policy at the time. Chetnik–Partisan cooperation in areas under Dangić's command continued to some extent even after the two groups began clashing. On 18 August, a 400-strong Chetnik force led by Dangić captured the town of Srebrenica. Here, the Chetniks confiscated all weapons that were in the hands of the local inhabitants and began recruiting local Serbs to join the Chetniks. In the village of Zaklopača, they barricaded a group of Muslims in a local mekteb (Muslim religious school) which was then set alight, killing eighty-one people.

As early as August 1941, Mihailović urged Chetniks to "avoid clashes with the Germans for as long as possible." Dangić likewise sought to avoid conflict with the Germans and began to pursue a policy of "self-defence against the Ustaše and revenge against the Croats and Muslims." At the end of September, the Abwehr (German military intelligence) reported that Dangić was supported by and was in contact with the Nedić administration. It also reported that "[Dangić] has had good relations with the Germans and does everything in order to avoid collision between his troops and the Germans." Although his original objective was solely to protect the Serb population against the Ustaše, Dangić quickly became an important factor in the conflict between the two groups in eastern Bosnia. As such, the Germans sought to win Dangić over to collaboration in order to strengthen anti-Partisan operations in the region, where Dangić's Chetniks numbered over 10,000 men.

On 9 November 1941, Mihailović ordered Dangić to attack Partisan forces in the Serbian town of Užice and to retain only his "most necessary units" in Bosnia. His order claimed that the Partisans were led by the Ustaše and were pursuing a "fratricidal war" amongst Serbs to "prevent the Chetniks from taking their revenge against the Croats." However, Dangić failed to carry out the order and it is unclear as to why he did this. Historian Enver Redžić suggests that it was likely that Dangić considered the strengthening of Chetniks in eastern Bosnia a greater priority. On 16 November, a joint Partisan-Chetnik conference was held in Vlasenica where the two sides failed to come to an agreement. Partisan representatives wished to fight Axis forces and sought a policy of brotherhood and unity among Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, whereas Dangić and his Chetniks pinned Serb suffering on Croats and Muslims and wanted to carry out revenge. The next day a separate Chetnik conference was held where a 14-article resolution was created in support of Dangić’s views.

On 1 December, the town of Goražde was occupied by Dangić and his Chetniks. Upon arrival, Dangić gave a speech to a group of Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims which contained references to Greater Serbia and ended with Dangić proclaiming that Serbs and Bosnian Muslims could no longer live together. Following the speech, Chetnik bands spread through the town and began killing, raping, pillaging and torching homes. Approximately 1,370 Muslims were killed in the ensuing violence. Chetnik forces in Bosnia, including those of Dangić, then set about pursuing an anti-Muslim campaign to recompense for the persecution experienced by ethnic Serbs in the NDH. Between December 1941 and April 1942, Dangić engaged in direct negotiations with the Germans. During the latter half of December he met with Abwehr representatives numerous times in an effort to reach an agreement.

1942

In January 1942, Dangić and other Chetnik leaders met with Renzo Dalmazzo, the commander of the Italian 6th Army Corps. By this time, Dangić's cooperation with the Germans came to be seen as being even more valuable because of the arrival of Tito and his First Proletarian Brigade to eastern Bosnia. When the Germans and Croats launched Operation Southeast Croatia on 17 January 1942, Dangić ordered Chetnik forces under his command to offer no resistance. Within a few days, the Germans and Croats succeeded in pushing the Partisans out of eastern Bosnia and southward into the Italian-occupied zone of the NDH. In the same month Dangić's staff had declared that the Partisans "are led by the Kike Moša Pijade, the Turk Safet Mujić, the Magyar Franjo Vajnert, and that so-and-so Petar Ilić whose real name nobody knows [emphasis in the original]" and announced the shared goal of the Partisans and Ustaše was "to break up and destroy Serbdom. That, and that alone! [emphasis in the original]". In February, Dangić and other former Royal Yugoslav Army officers reentered eastern Bosnia from the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, where some of them had withdrawn to avoid Operation Southeast Croatia. They started to re-form Chetnik units in eastern Bosnia and began agitating against the Partisans on a "conservative, Serb-nationalist and anti-Muslim basis".

In order to enlist further Chetnik aid and to intensify the Chetnik–Partisan split, Dangić was invited to Belgrade in late January by Nedić and General der Artillerie (lieutenant general) Paul Bader. There, a meeting between Dangić and Bader was held from 30 January to 2 February 1942. Eventually, the two reached an agreement. The terms of the agreement stipulated that:

1. Dangić and his detachments bordered by the Drina, Sava and Bosna rivers in the east and the Italian–German Demarcation Line to the south were to place themselves immediately under the command of Generalleutnant Johann Fortner, commander of the 718th Infantry Division and holder of executive power in the area.
2. Dangić's Chetniks were to remain aligned with the Germans, even in the event of a general uprising.
3. The town of Zvornik was to be Dangić's assigned seat of command.
4. Dangić's Chetniks were to help pacify northern Bosnia by ensuring that each Serb, Croat and Muslim there was to live in peace.
5. Murder was to be punishable by death.
6. The presence of NDH authorities was to be maintained.
7. Dangić was to spread news of the agreement, fight the Yugoslav Partisans, and protect German industrial and mining enterprises in eastern Bosnia according to Fortner's instructions.
8. Ammunition for Dangić's Chetniks was to be provided by Bader.
9. All prisoners held by Dangić's forces were to be released.

However, despite the concurrence of both parties, the agreement was not signed because negotiations had not been cleared in advance by General der Pioniere Walter Kuntze, the Wehrmacht Armed Forces Commander in Southeast Europe. Kuntze believed and informed Bader that "Major Dangić is a Serb and will remain one. He has only made the offer in order to use East Bosnia as his troop training ground, to overcome the winter months, and to make preparations to gain East Bosnia for Serbia." Thus, he vetoed the conclusion of the agreement on 12 February. The agreement was also opposed by representatives of the NDH and the German Foreign Ministry. This opposition led Bader to change his mind and not sign it. Despite this, Dangić's Chetniks collaborated with German forces in eastern Bosnia over a period of several weeks and with the understanding that Dangić and his forces would operate only inside Bosnia.

The Ustaše authorities were concerned about negotiations between the German and Italian commanders and Dangić, and were particularly worried that the Germans would permit the Italians and Chetniks to use Sarajevo as a base. On 31 March, Jure Francetić, commander of the Ustaše Black Legion, launched a pre-emptive offensive primarily against Dangić's Chetniks. Francetić captured Vlasenica, Bratunac and Srebrenica, meeting limited resistance from the Partisans, and then scattered the more numerous Chetniks while inflicting significant losses and committing atrocities against segments of the Bosnian Serb population.

In early April, Dangić made the mistake of travelling to Serbia, where he met one of Nedić's representatives and various other Chetnik leaders. Shortly afterwards, Kuntze ordered Dangić's arrest. Dangić was then seized and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in German-occupied Poland, being replaced by Stevan Botić as the Chetnik commander in eastern Bosnia.

Death

In 1945, after the liberation of Poland, Dangić was captured by the Red Army and extradited to Yugoslavia's new Communist authorities. Accused of being responsible for the deaths of 8,000 Muslims, he was immediately arrested and charged with committing war crimes. Dangić was then tried, found guilty by a court in Sarajevo and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, he was visited by the politician Rodoljub Čolaković. He was shot and killed on 22 August 1947.

References

Books

• Banac, Ivo (1996). "The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: From Religious Community to Statehood, 1919–1992". In Pinson, Mark (ed.). The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-93288-512-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Becherelli, Alberto (2012). Italia e stato indipendente croato, 1941–1943 (in Italian). Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura. ISBN 978-8-86134-780-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bušić, Bruno (1983). Samo Hrvatska: Sabrani spisi (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: ZIRAL. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cohen, Philip J. (1996). Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-760-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Colić, Mladen (1973). Takozvana Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrade: Delta-press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dedijer, Vladimir; Miletić, Antun (1990). Genocid nad Muslimanima, 1941–1945 (in Serbo-Croatian). Sarajevo: Svjetlost. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dizdar, Zdravko; Sobolevski, Mihael (1999). Prešućivani četnički zločini u Hrvatskoj i u Bosni i Hercegovini 1941–1945 (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dulić, Tomislav (2010). "Ethnic Violence in Occupied Yugoslavia: Mass Killing from Above and Below". In Djokić, Dejan; Ker-Lindsay, James (eds.). New Perspectives on Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-20384-601-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Goldstein, Ivo (1999). Croatia: A History. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-2017-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hoare, Marko Attila (2006). Genocide and Resistance in Hitler's Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941–1943. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-726380-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hoare, Marko Attila (2007). The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day. London: Saqi. ISBN 978-0-86356-953-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Locke, Hubert G.; Littell, Marcia Sachs (1996). "Victims and Perpetrators in the Yugoslav Genocide, 1941–1945: Some Preliminary Observations". Holocaust and Church Struggle: Religion, Power, and the Politics of Resistance. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-76180-375-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Markus, Tomislav (2002). Predstavke županija i gradova banske Hrvatske, 1861–1867: izbrani dokumenti (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest. ISBN 978-9-53649-184-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miletić, Antun, ed. (1976). Dokumenti Nemačkog Rajha 1941–1945. Zbornik dokumenata i podataka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu naroda Jugoslavije (in Serbo-Croatian). Vol. XII, 2. Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2008). Hitler's New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-1-85065-895-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34656-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Redžić, Enver (2005). Donia, Robert (ed.). Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War. Abingdon: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-5625-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Singleton, Fred (1985). A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27485-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tomasevich, Jozo (1975). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0857-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Virtue, Nicolas Gladstone (2011). "Occupation Duty In The Dysfunctional Coalition: The Italian Second Army And Its Allies In The Balkans, 1941–43". Journal of Military and Strategic Studies. 14 (1). Centre of Military and Strategic Studies: 344–373. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Žanić, Ivo (2007). Flag on the Mountain: A Political Anthropology of War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1990–1995. London: Saqi. ISBN 978-0-86356-815-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Websites

• Toljaga, Daniel (18 November 2010). "Prelude to the Srebrenica genocide". Bosnian Institute.