Belgrade Special Police
The Belgrade Special Police (
Background
Following the 1938
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 the country was occupied and dismembered by its neighbours. The
Establishment
On 21 April 1941, the German military area commander for Belgrade,
On 30 April 1941, the Germans settled on a leader for the Serbian puppet administration, Milan Aćimović, a staunch anti-communist who served as Yugoslavia's Minister of Internal Affairs during the winter of 1939–40.[11] However, the SP UGB did not come under the control of Aćimović's Commissioner Government, and remained under Gestapo control.[12] Two resistance movements emerged following the invasion: the communist-led Partisans, and the royalist, Serbian nationalist Chetniks. The Partisans were led by the revolutionary Josip Broz Tito, while the Chetniks were led by Colonel Draža Mihailović, an officer in the interwar Royal Yugoslav Army. The two movements had widely diverging goals. Whereas the Partisans sought to turn Yugoslavia into a communist state under Tito's leadership, the Chetniks sought a return to the pre-war status quo, whereby the Yugoslav monarchy—and by extension, Serb political hegemony—would be restored.[13] The Banjica concentration camp was established on 22 June 1941,[14] by order of the head of the German military occupation administration in Serbia, Harald Turner, to the leader of the Serbian collaborationist administration, Milan Aćimović. The purpose of the camp was to hold communists arrested by the Gestapo and SP UGB. The staff of the camp, led by Vujković, took over the camp on 5 July, and it admitted its first inmates on 9 July.[15] Communist resistance commenced in early July, shortly after the invasion of the Soviet Union, targeting both the Germans and the puppet authorities.[11] By the time of the communist-led uprising, the SP UGB was receiving praise from von Kaisenberg, as well as knives, rubber truncheons, rifles and handguns.[8] There was a rapid increase in the size of the SP UGB after the uprising began.[16] The SP UGB operated a network of informants who reported on the arrival of suspicious persons, meetings and conversations, and conducted regular inspections of companies, factories, institutions and hospitals.[17]
Structure and headquarters
With minor changes, the SP UGB mirrored the organisation of the Belgrade General Police. It consisted of five sections:[10]
- Section I – Administration, led by Bora Mirković
- Section II – Foreigners, commanded by Josip Vučinić
- Section III – Chetniks of Draža Mihailović, led by Nikola Gubarev
- Section IV – Communists, commanded by Boško Bećarević
- Section V – Central Registry, led by Đorđe Đorđević
The remit of Section II was severely restricted, as the Gestapo maintained responsibility for monitoring and dealing with all foreigners in the occupied territory. During the occupation, 15,000 communist suspects from Belgrade were processed by Section IV, with that section responsible for over eighty per cent of all tasks undertaken by the SP UGB. The SP UGB was housed in a building at the corner of Takovska and Dalmatinska Streets. Belgrade. Although the SP UGB was tied to the administration of the City of Belgrade, it began to send teams of agents to regional centres, such as Niš, Kragujevac, Šabac, Valjevo, Požarevac and Leskovac. Šterić was sent to head the SP UGB office in Kragujevac. Formally, these teams were subordinated to the area and district chiefs of the puppet administration, which mirrored the military area and district commands, but they were in regular contact with the local offices of the Gestapo in the various towns, and also sent reports to SP UGB headquarters. The SP UGB even tried to extend its reach to Yugoslav forced labourers and prisoners of war held in Germany.[18]
Operations
The SP UGB operated on its own initiative to arrest, torture and interrogate communists, but was sometimes ordered by the Gestapo to arrest specific people. For example, in November 1941, the head of Einsatzgruppe Serbien directed the SP UGB to conduct an investigation into the "Snaga i svetlost" power station, where, according to German information, there was a grouping of communists. The SP UGB subsequently arrested several suspected communists and sent them to the Banjica concentration camp. However, while the SP UGB had a certain amount of autonomy in the arrest of people, they did not have any such autonomy in the release of prisoners from the Banjica camp. The SP UGB would make a recommendation, often accompanied by the views of the puppet regime, but only the Gestapo could approve release. In some cases, the Gestapo would refuse such requests without an explanation.
Footnotes
- ^ a b Roberts 1973, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Pavlowitch 2007, p. 8.
- ^ Roberts 1973, p. 12.
- ^ Pavlowitch 2007, pp. 10–13.
- ^ Roberts 1973, p. 15.
- ^ Ramet & Lazić 2011, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Cohen 1996, p. 36.
- ^ a b c Begović 1989a, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 46.
- ^ a b Begović 1989a, p. 47.
- ^ a b Tomasevich 2001, pp. 177–178.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 45.
- ^ Pavlowitch 2007, pp. 59–60.
- ^ Mojzes 2011, p. 81.
- ^ Begović 1989a, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Begović 1989a, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Begović 1989a, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Begović 1989a, pp. 47–48.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 51.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 50.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 54.
- ^ Begović 1989a, p. 55.
References
- Begović, Sima (1989a). Logor Banjica 1941–1944 [Banjica camp 1941–1944] (in Serbo-Croatian). Vol. 1. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Institut za Savremenu Istoriju. ISBN 978-0-86740-329-9.
- Begović, Sima (1989b). Logor Banjica 1941–1944 [Banjica camp 1941–1944] (in Serbo-Croatian). Vol. 2. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Institut za Savremenu Istoriju. ISBN 978-0-86740-329-9.
- ISBN 978-0-89096-760-7.
- Mojzes, Paul (2011). Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the 20th Century. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-0665-6.
- ISBN 978-1-85065-895-5.
- Ramet, Sabrina P.; Lazić, Sladjana (2011). "The Collaborationist Regime of Milan Nedić". In Ramet, Sabrina P.; Listhaug, Ola (eds.). Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-23034-781-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-0773-0.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.