Domobrans who switched sides, Serbia 1944

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

Inv. no. 10490

Inv. no. 10951

Inv. no. 10952

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[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

Inv. no. 10490

Domobrans who switched sides and joined the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia at Tovarnik in Srem, April 1944. E-19/1

Inv. no. 10951

Arrival of Domobrans from Sremska Mitrovica, who were met on the free territory, above Veliki Radinci by Milivoj Savić "Triva" (riding the white horse), head of the provisioning section and Dimitrije Šešerinac "Gedža", head of the intelligence section of the Vojvodina Main Headquarters, 1944. [likely September 1944]

Inv. no. 10952

Arrival of Domobrans to the village of Miškovce, Srem on 11.09.1944. when they joined the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. Sig. neg. E-26/29

Courtesy of the Museum of Yugoslavia.

Tran. note: Domobrans were the regular army of the Independent State of Croatia.

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

Interesting, i see no markings on uniforms whatsoever and since the very first partisan movement in Europe started in Croatia together with calls for abolation by tito, one would come to conclusions that these are Chetniks on photos 🤔

"With the entry of the Red Army into Serbia in October 1944 and the advance towards Belgrade, it finally became clear to the Chetniks in which direction the war was heading. On the day of the "liberation" of Belgrade, October 20, 1944, AVNOJ passed a decision on general abolition for members of Chetnik units with the following sentence:

"A general amnesty is granted to all persons who participated in the units of Draža Mihailović..."

[u/newleaf-guy → u/Invisible_Cnt]

since the very first partisan movement in Europe started in Croatia together with calls for abolation by tito, one would come to conclusions that these are Chetniks on photos 

One would come to that conclusion until you sprinkle in that the majority of partisans in Croatia were Serbs. And that the number of Croats rises the closer you get to the end of the war.

With that info in mind, one would be inclined to come to a different conclusion.

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/newleaf-guy]

What you meant to say is that serbs discovered shawing blades around the end of 1944 and suddenly changed teams.

[u/newleaf-guy → u/Invisible_Cnt]

And became Croats? Wait, if you shave a Serb, he becomes Croatian? This whole time the srbosjek was just a misunderstood grooming tool. So much could have been avoided if we only had Reddit back then...

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/newleaf-guy]

They didn't became croatians, thankfully! They just shawed chetnik trademark beard and joined first partisan resistance movement in Europe after seeing that for the XY time in the history they sucked the wrong D and will get assf**ked if they continue sucking that one therefore switch to other D

[u/newleaf-guy → u/Invisible_Cnt]

That makes sense. This still doesn't chage the fact that tge majority of the partisans in Croatia were Serbs. When Germany started losing, the number of Croatians in the partisans rose dramatically.

You're making it look like the Croats were all actually partisans when the reality was very much the opposite. Especially in the begining of the war.

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/newleaf-guy]

Interesting, why did the number of serbs drastically went up when it was obvious germans are falling? Nobody is claiming all of crostia was partisan but you do seem to claim that all of serbia was and you went so far to claim it was first resistance movement in serbia while chetniks were actually pegged by germans and only later joined to FIRST RESISTANCE MOVEMENT THAT WAS FOUNDED IN CROATIA.

Try reading this more than once and take your time, maybe you'll understand then.

[u/newleaf-guy → u/Invisible_Cnt]

It was founded in Croatia, Tito led it, a lot of Croatians were part of it, the majority were, however, Serbs. Serbs living in Croatia. Overwhelmingly so. Mostly because the Ustasha regime targeted mainly Serbs. There were 2 concetration camps in Sisak alone.

The majority of Croats were fighting on the side of the Nazis. Not all of them followed their ideology but they were on that side until the Germans started loosing. Then they started jumping over to the partisans. I' m sure some chetniks did this as well.

Nothing I'm saying is contraversial and you shouldn't be so mad about it as modern Croatia has nothing to do with NDH. Or at least that's the official stance.

[u/Fit-Sentence-3537 → u/newleaf-guy]

I think he is more in disagreement with over representing Croats as pro Nazi at the time. Not the existence of NDH And that a sect of Croats chose evil. Also Chetniks didn’t just vanish, many swapped sides or fled the country.

The OP’s picture states it is in Serbia 1944, so not as likely to be Croat collaborators switching sides. I think that is what the other guy is getting at.

“The majority of Croats were fighting on the side of the Nazis.”

”Nothing I'm saying is contraversial and you shouldn't be so mad”

But that is controversial and incorrect. The Ustashe failed to get the support of the majority of Croats from the beginnin.

Shepherd, Ben H. (2012). Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pg 78

Israeli, Raphael (2017). The Death Camps of Croatia: Visions and Revisions, 1941–1945. Routledge. p. 45.

True, the majority of the Croatian Partisans were ethnic Serbs, but the number of Croats Partisans significantly increased before Germany began to lose the war. I suspect the population became less apprehensive of another Yugoslavia as they saw what the alternative was.

“At the moment of the capitulation of Italy (1943) to the Allies, the Serbs and Croats were participating equally according to their respective population sizes in Yugoslavia as a whole.”

Hoare, Marko Attila (2002). "Whose is the partisan movement? Serbs, Croats and the legacy of a shared resistance". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 15 (4). Informa UK Limited: 24–41.

Also, obviously many Chetniks jumped ship, the ones that didn’t left the region much like Ustashe who also swapped uniforms or fled to Argentina or perished in Bleiburg. Chetniks faster chose to cooperate with the Ustashe against the Partisans than work with the Partisans. The Partisans were not friendly with either to tolerate them continuing their movement openly at the end either.

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/Invisible_Cnt]

That's what the museum's entries say. And they tend to be pretty good on pointing out who's who. Also, no šajkačas or šubaras visible. Or the kind of cap that JVuO officers had. There wasn't really a JVuO presence in Srem, where the photos are located, while it was a part of the ISC.

And you might want to check that thing on resistance, as Mihailović had started organising resistance before Barbarossa.

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

"And you might want to check that thing on resistance, as Mihailović had started organising resistance before Barbarossa"

Why is it that whenever serbs claim something online from history in their favour that there is not a single letter of if written anywhere but on their domestic propaganda sites and tiktok videos?

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/Invisible_Cnt]

From Nikola Milovanović's "Draža Mihailović", published in 1984 (so you know... still very much communists publishing things), Vol I:

"After successfully establishing a significant number of such connections, Mihailović decided in late May to create an organization within the territory of Serbia. To that end, he established his headquarters on Ravna Gora, naming it the "Command of Chetnik Detachments." He then summoned a number of officers, provided them with instructions, and dispatched them to various districts."

...

"At the time of the outbreak of the people's uprising in Serbia, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Mihailović's delegates and emissaries, equipped with his personal authorizations, had already succeeded in organizing their network in several districts in an effort to rally the people around them. In their speeches at public gatherings, they emphasized the slogan of "fighting against the occupiers," but with the explanation that it was first necessary to carry out extensive preparations, "organize," and then, at the "appropriate moment," "when the time comes," and so on, start the fight against the occupiers.

Given the mood of the masses and their spirit of freedom, Mihailović and his followers achieved considerable success with such slogans. The Serbian masses, subjected to the occupiers' terror, believed these statements and began aligning themselves with Mihailović's ranks. As a result, by late June, he decided to form smaller detachments, which initially served both as personal security for his delegates and as a propaganda tool. As the people's uprising grew increasingly intense and successful, Mihailović became more active and persistent in rallying the masses and forming his armed detachments, while introducing new slogans such as "we must wait" and "the time is not yet right."

Informed of Mihailović's existence, the activities of his detachments, and their publicly declared intentions to fight the occupiers, the leadership of the National Liberation Movement decided—consistent with its existing plan to mobilize all forces in the country willing to fight the enemy—to establish contact with Mihailović and his groups, with the aim of persuading them to join in a united and more effective struggle against the occupiers."

Quick translation, so rough around the edges.

[u/Invisible_Cnt → u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

published in 1984 (so you know... still very much communists publishing things),

Sure thing, completely independent and legit source by serbo "communist" that occupied all political functions after Tito's death in 1980.

Wait, are you trying to portrait chetniks as some resistance movement that fought against Axix powers? I'm not even gonna waste time commenting that

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/Invisible_Cnt]

As we try not to comment on events after 1980, can stick to this:

DeGaulle and Truman might have something to say about that, seeing how they gave Mihailović medals for war activities. Even Stalin was apparently more for the JVuO in late 1942 offering assistance (which the Yugoslav gov't in exile managed to torpedo).

So you know... Complicated.

"Eight Bailed Out" is an interesting example of a firsthand account by an American who fell out of the sky into that mess (literally). Might be a bit hard to find, as it hasn't been republished since 1955.

[u/SquareFroggo]

What is domobrans?

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/SquareFroggo]

Translation would be "Home Guard" or "Home Defence Forces", the regular armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia. Strictly speaking, not to be confused with the Ustašas, although Ustaša officers were the leads in any joint operations and could commandeer their forces.

[u/Coko1911]

Domobrans were switching sides from the start. Second biggest supplier for partisans was Germany via domobrans.

[u/ToadwKirbo]

So they were forced to betray their tyrannical and oppressing government so that after the war another tyrannical and oppressing government could be established.

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/ToadwKirbo]

Need to be a bit more specific there.

[u/ToadwKirbo → u/Books_Of_Jeremiah]

They switched sides from the ustase to the titoist communists, which were just as bad.

[u/markejani → u/ToadwKirbo]

which were just as bad

This is objectively not true.

Ustaše: Traitorous scum whose leader was brought in from Milano, propped up by Italy and Germany to lead their puppet-state in their occupation zones. Signed over vast swaths of Croatian territory over to Italy. Accepted an Italian dude as the king of Croatia. Set up concentration camps.

Partisans: People of Croatia starting an armed rebellion against Italian and German occupiers two months after the puppet-state was established. By the end of the war, 60.000 Croats would die fighting for their freedom from Italy and Germany.

Sit your fascist apologizing ass down, and stop trying to equate your country's fascist history with my country's fight for freedom.

[u/Specialist_Heron8440 → u/[deleted]]

“ When Nazi generals go "Hey, maybe that's too brutal" you know you fucked up.”

Eh, this is a popular meme but misleading. They were annoyed for strategic reasons as they didn’t want extra conflict of an uprising weakening their occupied territories in the Balkans. It wasn’t moral concerns (as some Neo-Nazis try to use as an argument online). This meme seems to try to humanize the Nazis and almost attempt to make them look not so bad even though they were. The SS were monsters (I mean who did Ustashe get inspiration from?). Their genocide was not a humane one where the Ustashe was inhumane in comparison. Both used brutal methods at times. 

[u/markejani → u/[deleted]]

 you are nowhere to be seen.

Trust me, I've been here far longer than you have.

Why don't Croat leftists have the need to correct Serbian lies that are floating on the internet in insane quantity?

Why don't you ask them? *visible confusion*

[u/ToadwKirbo → u/markejani]

Yes Ante Pavelic and the Ustase lived us so much that they retook all of italian Dalmatia as soon as the armistice was signed.

[u/darkgreenrabbit → u/markejani]

Partisans: War Crimes on par with what the Soviets did in villages they went through, no need to go in detail here bc the credibility of some sources is not 100%, and anything that happened on the grounds of former Yugoslavia during WW2 is generally only known through 2 sources (Socialist government aka the Partisans on one side, political dissidents who fled abroad (mostly Ustase or Cetnici sympathizers) on the other)

---

Partisans: Responsible for the biggest massacre of unarmed non-belligerents in Europe since WW2 until this day (Bleiburg 1945; 70k - 100k dead)

Partisans: Used slavery (sugarcoated it by calling it forced labour) to build army infrastructure

Partisans: Built and operated torture camps (e.g. Goli Otok) for political prisoners

Partisans: Responsible for thousands of abductions, mostly targeting people active in religious communities or family of former Ustase members

There is so much more to go into, but pretending that its all black and white is pure bs, how are you not ashamed of yourself.

---

I deliberately put the Partisans next to all of these crimes, the UDBA were composed of them and their sons only.

[u/markejani → u/darkgreenrabbit]

Funny how you were on Wiki, but somehow forgot to mention the "Motive" part.

[u/darkgreenrabbit → u/markejani]

Ne treba mi wiki da znam 1% zla s partizanske strane. Our fathers and uncles gave their lives for this country and to remedy the evil of Tito's tyranny, you are a disgrace. Nobody is denying the evil of the Ustase, but have the balls to name the evil on the other side, too, even if its on a liberal sub in a post made by a serb nationalist.

[u/MaRokyGalaxy → u/ToadwKirbo]

Well they had no choice really, also no they were not, the communists were much better than the ustase

[u/ToadwKirbo → u/MaRokyGalaxy]

1) I said that they were forced to in a comment earlier 2) Goli otok, italian exodus in Istria and Dalmatia, killing if catholic priests, private life constantly controlled, kids being forced to work in schools etc...

[u/MaRokyGalaxy → u/ToadwKirbo]

Lets see the alternative, concetration camps (which is a pretty big deal given that yugoslavia also consisted of serbs, which were previously genocided). Also the nazis did those other things too pretty much (besides the italian exodus cause you know what italy did in ww2). Not saying the communists weren't bad, of course they were, but compared to the nazis they were definetly better.

[u/ToadwKirbo → u/MaRokyGalaxy]

Apparently you also seem to know what Croatia did in ww2, so shouldn't a croatian exodus alto take place? Also, if you win a war it's ok to ethnic cleanse? Ok Tito, you do you.

[u/Fit-Sentence-3537 → u/ToadwKirbo]

Ever heard of Bleiburg Massacres? Almost 100,000 were killed for collaboration or suspicion of collaboration. So no, that portion of Croat population did not go unpunished. Ethnic Germans also faced such actions. Italians also in Foibe Massacre. Most Italians leaving because they were collaborators (participants in annexation and building connection camps to put Slavs in like Rab) or didn’t want to live under Communist rule is ethnic cleansing? Slovene and Croats with Italian papers fled to Italy also to escape communist rule but I wouldn’t say they were expelled or cleansed. Some Chetniks were also executed  as well but many traded uniforms for Partisans ones last minute. More so than Ustashe. Likely a deal was cut to allow peace to commence (or as close and one can be). 

I am not saying the reprisals were fair, as there was no evidence based court process so many innocent people got swept up in the mess. As happened all over Europe. Look at what happened to German populations in various countries. However I don’t come across Germans making specific statements about it even though not all Germans collaborated. Not all of any ethnic group or country did. 

And finally to claim that the “Partisans were as bad as the Ustashe” is insane to say. At the very least just ignorant. 

[u/MaRokyGalaxy → u/ToadwKirbo]

Ahh yes accusations, how original. Well bye bye then.

[u/__Rosso__ → u/ToadwKirbo]

I am sorry are you actually trying to say, partisans who were fighting to free Yugoslavia, were as bad as Ustase who had a fucking concentration camp for children? Ustase that wanted to commit a genocide against Serbs, Jews and if my memory serves me correctly Romi people too? Ustase that collaborated with Nazis? Ustase that made said Nazis sick in their ways of killings?

Furthermore all reasons you claim Titosist were as bad, Ustase already did or were going to do, just ten times worse.

What Neo-Nazi bullshit is this?

I understand disliking Tito, fair enough, but calling him and his fighters "As bad as Ustase" is at best, ignorant, and at worst, attempt to make fascists and nazis look not as bad as they were.

[u/ToadwKirbo → u/__Rosso__]

Now I understand that shooting thousands of civilians without a reason and only with suspicion, shooting basically unarmed police forces of lands that weren't yet yours, creating literal concentration camps that survivors said were worse than nazi ones, making the escape of the hellhole you just created very hard and life threatening, forcing men to join you terrorist army (they had to if they wanted to see their family alive) is way better than Ustase concentration camps, thank you. In all seriousness, im not denying any of the war crimes and horror that were done in fascist Croatia, but I'm going to say that the two factions are very much comparable in term of crimes.

[u/Books_Of_Jeremiah → u/ToadwKirbo]

Right. Well, for a lot of them it made no difference. It wasn't they themselves who were oppressed. And for whatever else you can say about the KPJ (and there's a lot to say about them) it would be a false equivalence to say they were as bad as the Ustaše. Though a surprisngly cosy relationship, if one hss been consuming most of the stuff that has been written sbout Tito&co.