Activities in Yugoslavia In August 1939, Ljotić's cousin,
Milan Nedić, was appointed Yugoslav
Minister of Defense. Later that year, almost all Zbor publications, including
Otadžbina,
Buđenje,
Zbor,
Naš put (Our Path) and
Vihor (Whirlwind), were prohibited. Ljotić exploited the connections he had with Nedić to ensure that the banned Zbor-published journal
Bilten (Bulletin) was distributed to members of the
Royal Yugoslav Army. The journal was published illegally in a military printing house and distributed throughout the country by military couriers. Ljotić was the journal's main contributor and editor-in-chief. Fifty-eight issues of
Bilten were published from March 1939 until October 1940, in which Ljotić advocated a pro-Axis Yugoslav foreign policy and criticized Belgrade's tolerance of Jews. As many as 20,000 copies each were printed of later issues of the journal. Ljotić was particularly pleased with being able to exert his ideological influence over young military academy trainees as well as older officers. With the outbreak of World War II, Ljotić supported Yugoslavia's policy of neutrality in the conflict while promoting the position that Yugoslav diplomacy should focus on relations with Berlin. He vehemently opposed the August 1939
Cvetković–Maček Agreement and repeatedly wrote letters to
Prince Paul urging him to annul it. In these letters, he advocated an immediate re-organization of the government according to Zbor ideology, the abolishment of Croatian autonomy, the division of the Royal Yugoslav Army into contingents of mostly ethnic Serbs, with some Croat and Slovene volunteers, who would be armed, and contingents of most Croats and Slovenes in the armed forces, who would serve as labour units and would be unarmed. Effectively, the purpose of all these points was to reduce non-Serbs in Yugoslavia to the status of second-class citizens. By this point, Zbor was infiltrated by the German
Gestapo, the
Abwehr (German military intelligence), and the
Schutzstaffel (SS). In 1940, the Royal Yugoslav Army purged its pro-German elements and Ljotić lost much of the influence he held over the armed forces. Ljotić's followers responded to the Cvetković–Maček Agreement with violence, clashing with the youth wing of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). These incidents attracted as many as 5,000 new members to Zbor and led to the formation of a Zbor student wing known as the
White Eagles (). In July 1940, Ljotić expressed his bitter opposition to the diplomatic recognition of the
Soviet Union by Belgrade, which was meant to strengthen Yugoslavia internally in the case of war. On 23 October 1940,
White Eagles members massed outside the campus of the University of Belgrade. University president Petar Micić was a Zbor sympathizer. The Belgrade police, who were alleged to have had foreknowledge of the riots, withdrew from the area before violence erupted. The
White Eagles members then threatened faculty and students with pistols and knives, stabbed some of them, hailed
Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini as their heroes and shouted "down with the Jews!" Members of
Slovenski Jug (
Slavic South), a Serbian nationalist movement, participated in the riots, which were orchestrated by Ljotić to provoke
martial law and bring about a more centralized system of control in the university. The Serbian public responded to the riots with outrage. On 24 October, the Yugoslav government revoked Zbor's legal status. On 2 November, the Ministry of Interior sent a list of Zbor members to all municipal administrators in Serbia. The government cracked down on Zbor by detaining several hundred members, forcing Ljotić into hiding. One of the only public figures in Serbia to speak in favour of Ljotić during this period was Serbian Orthodox Bishop
Nikolaj Velimirović, who praised his "faith in God" and "good character". Although a government investigation found Zbor guilty of high treason for accepting German funds, the authorities were careful not to arrest Ljotić in order to not provoke the Germans. Ljotić was placed under government surveillance but authorities quickly lost track of him. He hid with friends in Belgrade and remained in contact with Nedić and Velimirović. On 6 November, Nedić resigned from his post to protest the government crackdown on Zbor. Additional issues of
Bilten continued to be printed despite his resignation. These supported a pro-Axis Yugoslav foreign policy, criticized the government's tolerance of Jews and Freemasons and attacked pro-British members of the government for their opposition to Yugoslavia signing the
Tripartite Pact. Ljotić remained in hiding until April 1941.
Occupation of Yugoslavia With the
Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, several dozen Royal Yugoslav Army officers affiliated with Zbor were captured by the
Wehrmacht but were quickly released. The Germans sent Ljotić a written notice assuring his freedom of movement in German-occupied Serbia. Not long after German forces entered Belgrade, Ljotić's followers were given the task of selecting an estimated 1,200 Jews from the city's non-Jewish population. When they first occupied the country, the Germans prohibited the activity of all Serbian political parties except Zbor. Although they originally intended to make Ljotić the head of a Serbian
puppet government, both Ljotić and the Germans realized that his unpopularity would make any government led by him a failure. The Germans believed that Ljotić had a "dubious reputation among Serbs". Ljotić told Gestapo officer
Karl Wilhelm Krause that "[an] uncompromised man with generally recognized authority and force of personality ... [is] needed to convince the people that the Germans are their friends, that they want the best for the people and that they are the saviours of humankind from Communism." The Germans soon invited Ljotić to join the initial Serbian puppet government, the Commissioner Administration of Milan Aćimović. Ljotić was offered the position of economic commissioner but never took office, partly because he disliked the idea of playing a secondary role in the administration and partly because of his unpopularity. He resorted to indirectly exerting his influence over the Serbian puppet government through two of his closest associates, Stevan Ivanić and Miloslav Vasiljević, whom the Germans had selected as commissioners. The only official function Ljotić held in
German-occupied Serbia was administrator of Smederevo. He helped in the town's reconstruction after large parts of it were destroyed in an
ammunition depot explosion in June 1941. In July and August, the Germans gave Ljotić permission to broadcast three of his speeches over
Radio Belgrade and consulted him prior to appointing Nedić as leader of the
Government of National Salvation in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. In one of his July speeches, Ljotić proclaimed that the ultimate aim of the Soviet Union was "the destruction of the national and Christian order, which would be followed by the rule of Jews over all nations."
Formation of the Serbian Volunteer Detachments In response to the
Communist uprising that had erupted in the aftermath of the German occupation of Serbia, hundreds of prominent and influential Serbs signed an "Appeal to the Serbian Nation" which was published in major Belgrade newspapers on 11 August. The appeal called upon the Serbian population to help the authorities in every way in their struggle against the Communist rebels, and called for loyalty to the Nazis and condemned the Partisan resistance as unpatriotic. Ljotić was one of 546 signatories. The Germans trusted Ljotić more than any other ethnic Serb in occupied Yugoslavia. In need of a reliable collaborationist force to combat the Communists, they gave him permission to form the Serbian Volunteer Detachments (, SDO) in September 1941. The SDO initially launched public appeals calling for volunteers "in the struggle against the Communist danger" and eventually grew to consist of 3,500 armed men. These appeals failed to mention guerrilla leader
Draža Mihailović or his
Chetniks. By November, Ljotić was openly denouncing Mihailović. In one newspaper article, he accused him of being responsible for the deaths of many Serbs and for causing widespread destruction as a result of his "naïve" cooperation with the Communists. In direct response to the Communist uprising, the Germans decreed that 100 Serbian civilians would be executed for every German soldier killed and 50 would be executed for every German soldier wounded. This policy culminated in the
Kragujevac massacre of October 1941, in which a division of Ljotić's volunteers was involved. Earlier that month, the Chetniks and Partisans had ambushed a column of German soldiers near
Gornji Milanovac, killing 10 and wounding 26. The Germans turned to Kragujevac for retaliation, not because of anti-German activity in the town but because not enough adult males could be found otherwise to meet the required quota for executions. According to eyewitnesses, SDO commander Marisav Petrović and his men entered barracks in which hostages were being held and, with German approval, freed those whom they recognized as supporters of Ljotić and Nedić, as well as those whose political attitudes they considered to be "nationally correct". Petrović accused those whom he had failed to free of supporting the Communists and spreading Communist propaganda, thus "infecting" Serbian society with their leftist ideas. Most of those who remained in German hands and were subsequently executed were high school students. According to the post-war testimony of
Kosta Mušicki, another high-ranking SDO commander, Petrović also ordered the arrests of countless
Romani civilians from surrounding villages and handed them over to the Germans for execution. More than 3,000 citizens of Kragujevac were killed during the massacre.
Serbian Volunteer Corps and propaganda efforts On 22 October, the
Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition opened in Belgrade, organized by Zbor with German financial support. The exhibition sought to expose an alleged Judeo-Masonic/Communist conspiracy for
world domination through several displays featuring
anti-Semitic propaganda. Serbian collaborationist newspapers such as
Obnova (
Renewal) and
Naša Borba (
Our Struggle) wrote positively of the exhibit, declaring Jews to be "the ancient enemies of the Serbian people" and that "Serbs should not wait for the Germans to begin the extermination of the Jews." The latter newspaper,
Naša Borba, had been established by Ljotić earlier in the year and its title echoed that of Hitler's
Mein Kampf (
My Struggle). Most of its contributors were well educated and included university students, teachers, lawyers and engineers. Ljotić and his associates were responsible for the printing of fifty antisemitic titles between 1941 and 1944. He also founded the
Radna Služba (
Labour Service), a youth movement similar to the
Hitler Youth. In November, Ljotić intervened on behalf of 300–500 men detained by the Germans as suspected
Freemasons. He persuaded German military administration chief
Harald Turner that the captured men were not Freemasons and told him that they were not to be shot as hostages. According to his personal secretary, Ljotić also asked Turner to not order the killing of Jews, stating "[I am] against Jews ruling my country's economy, but I am against their murder." He added that "their innocently-spilled blood cannot bring any good to the people who do this." Turner was reportedly surprised by Ljotić's statements, given his history of antisemitism. , in which Ljotić's forces participated. On 28 March 1942, Nedić indicated to Turner that, in the event of his departure, Ljotić was the only person who could be considered his successor as leader of the Government of National Salvation. Turner remarked that "[Nedić] could not [have been] serious about this because Ljotić was a prophet and visionary, not a leader and statesman." In December 1942, the SDO was renamed the
Serbian Volunteer Corps (, SDK) and placed under the command of
General der Artillerie (lieutenant general)
Paul Bader. Although not formally part of the
Wehrmacht, the SDK received arms, ammunition, food and clothing from the Germans. Like the
Serbian State Guard (, SDS), the SDK was under the direct command of the
Higher SS and Police Leader August Meyszner and the Commanding General in Serbia. During operations its units were put under the tactical command of German divisions. It was the only group of armed Serbs that the Germans ever trusted during the war, its units often being praised for valour in action by German commanders. The SDK helped the Gestapo track down and round up Jewish civilians who had managed to evade capture by the Germans and was involved in sending Jewish prisoners to the
Banjica concentration camp. SDK units were not allowed to move from their assigned territory without German authorization. Members took an oath in which they pledged to fight to the death against both Communist forces and the Chetniks, to stay in the SDK for at least six months and to "serve the cause of the Serbian people." Ljotić himself had no control over the SDK, which was directly commanded by Mušicki. Most officers in the SDK came either from the ranks of the disbanded Royal Yugoslav Army or the Yugoslav gendarmerie. Morale was high amongst the volunteers, with education officers similar to those employed by the Soviets and the
Yugoslav Partisans being assigned to each company, battalion and regiment to teach and indoctrinate soldiers and help maintain high levels of morale. According to SDK ideology, Ljotić was a "guiding spirit" in his "political and philosophical pronouncements". In his instructions to unit commanders, Ljotić stressed the importance of volunteers believing in and having respect for God. He urged them to pray regularly and warned that poor battlefield results and failure to gain the support of the Serbian public came as a result of the "wavering religiosity and faith" of commanders and their frequent cursing of God's name. Ljotić criticized the widespread practice of alcoholism, gambling and sexual decadence found among volunteers. He condemned acts of unnecessary violence when they were reported to him. On 15 July 1942, Mihailović sent a telegram to the Yugoslav government-in-exile asking them to publicly denounce Ljotić, Nedić and the openly collaborationist Chetnik leader
Kosta Pećanac as traitors. The Yugoslav government-in-exile responded by doing so publicly over
BBC Radio. In October, Ljotić was forced to withdraw his two representatives in the Serbian puppet government in order to avoid being held responsible for the unpopular and difficult economic measures and food policies enacted by Nedić that month. With the
surrender of Italy in September 1943, Montenegrin Chetnik commander
Pavle Đurišić established ties with Ljotić. Ljotić later provided Đurišić with weapons, food, typewriters, and other supplies.
Retreat and death In February 1944, the 2nd Battalion of the 5th SDK Regiment was sent to Montenegro to assist Đurišić's Chetniks, in accordance with Ljotić's plans. Of the 893 men who were sent, 543 were killed in action fighting the Partisans. On 6 September, Mihailović took control of several Serbian collaborationist formations, including the SDK. Ljotić sent
Ratko Parežanin, a Zbor member and editor of
Naša Borba, and a detachment of 30 men to Montenegro to persuade Đurišić to withdraw his Chetniks towards German-held
Slovenia, where Ljotić had a plan to mass Serbian forces and launch an attack against the NDH. On 4 October, Ljotić, along with Nedić and about 300 Serbian government officials, escaped from Belgrade with German officials. In early October, the SDK was tasked to defend the
Šabac bridgehead on the
Sava River against the Partisans, together with some German units under the command of Colonel Jungenfeld, head of the 5th Police Regiment. The battle for Belgrade commenced on 14 October, and the Germans decided to evacuate the SDK to a location where it could be used in guarding duties and anti-Partisan actions, since it was considered unsuitable for conventional operations. Hitler ordered that the SDK be moved to the
Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, and placed it under the command of the Higher SS and Police Leader
Odilo Globocnik. The commander of
Army Group F ordered the evacuation of the SDK from the railway station in
Ruma on 17 October. Between 19–21 October, the High Command of the Southeast cleared the SDK for transport west. At the end of October, Ljotić and the SDK arrived in the city of
Osijek. It was here that German official
Hermann Neubacher agreed to arrange their safe passage towards the Slovenian coast. While the retreat of collaborationist troops through the NDH was easy, there were exceptions. In November, the Ustaše removed between thirty and forty SDK officers from transports moving through Zagreb, after which they were summarily executed. In December, Ljotić arranged for the release of
Nikolaj Velimirović and Serbian Orthodox Patriarch
Gavrilo Dožić from the
Dachau concentration camp. Velimirović had been imprisoned by the Germans in July 1941 on the suspicion that he was a Chetnik sympathizer and Ljotić had written several letters to German officials that summer, urging them to release the Bishop on account that he had allegedly praised Hitler before the war. Velimirović was transferred to Dachau alongside Dožić via
Budapest and
Vienna in September 1944 and was held there as an "honorary prisoner". Upon being released, he and Dožić were relocated to a tourist resort and then to a hotel in Vienna as guests of the German government, where they met with Ljotić and other Serbian collaborationist officials. Discussions between the Serbian side and the Germans took place here. Ljotić and Nedić petitioned Neubacher so that the forces of Chetnik commander
Momčilo Đujić could be allowed passage to Slovenia, as did Slovene collaborationist General
Leon Rupnik. The Germans urged Nedić to raise a force of 50,000 men to fight advancing Soviet forces. Nedić agreed in principle to the creation of such an army, but insisted that it could not be used to fight the Soviets. He also demanded that any new collaborationist government include Mihailović. Ljotić stood vehemently opposed to the creation of a new Serbian government in any form, insisting that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia be re-established under
Peter II. This plan received the support of both Dožić and Velimirović. In early 1945, Đurišić decided to move to the
Ljubljana Gap independent of Mihailović, and arranged for Ljotić's forces already in Slovenia to meet him near
Bihać in western Bosnia to assist his movement. In order to get to Bihać, Đurišić had to make a safe-conduct agreement with elements of the
Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia and with Montenegrin separatist
Sekula Drljević. He was captured by the
Ustaše and Drljević's followers in April 1945 and killed along with other Chetnik leaders, some Serbian Orthodox priests and others. Between March and April 1945, Ljotić and Mihailović exchanged messages concerning a last-ditch alliance against the Partisans. Although the agreement was reached too late to be of any practical use, the forces of Ljotić and Mihailović came together under the command of Chetnik General
Miodrag Damjanović on 27 March. Together, they tried to contact the western
Allies in Italy in an attempt to secure foreign aid for a proposed anti-Communist offensive to restore royalist Yugoslavia. In mid-April, at Ljotić's request, Dožić and Velimirović blessed approximately 25,000 members of the SDS, SUK, Serbian Border Guard, and the Special Police, as well as Đujić's and
Dobroslav Jevđević's Chetniks and Slovene collaborators, who had gathered on the Slovenian coast. On 22 April, Đujić contacted Ljotić and requested to meet with him in the town of
Postojna to coordinate a general Chetnik–SDK withdrawal towards Italy. Ljotić left from the village of
Dobravlje the following day to meet with Đujić. His
chauffeur, Ratko Živadinović, had very poor eyesight and, on approaching a bridge on the Hubelj River, failed to notice that it had been partially destroyed by Partisan saboteurs. Ljotić was killed on 23 April 1945 in the ensuing car accident in
Istria near Bistrica. He was buried in a Hungarian count's abandoned crypt in the town of
Šempeter pri Gorici. His funeral was held in the chapel of the Chetnik
Dinara Division, conducted jointly by Dožić and Velimirović, with the latter eulogizing Ljotić as "the most loyal son of
Serbdom." Velimirović added that "Ljotić did not belong only to Serbs he belonged to humanity, Europe and the world" and went on to describe him as "a politician bearing a cross" and an "ideologue of religious nationalism" whose importance "[transcended] the boundaries of Serbian politics".
Aftermath In early May, Damjanović led most of the troops under his command into northwestern Italy, where they surrendered to the British and were placed in detention camps. Many were extradited to Yugoslavia, where between 1,500 and 3,100 were executed by the Partisans and buried in mass graves in the
Kočevski Rog plateau. Others immigrated to western countries, where they established émigré organizations intended to promote Zbor's political agenda. Many of Ljotić's followers settled in
Munich, where they ran their own publishing house and printed a newspaper called
Iskra (
Spark). In 1974, Ljotić's brother was shot and killed by agents of the Yugoslav
State Security Service (
Uprava državne bezbednosti, UDBA). The antagonism between pro-Ljotić groups and those affiliated with the Chetniks continued in exile. Following the war, Ljotić's body was removed from the tomb in which it was buried. Two theories exist about what happened to it. One claims it was removed by Ljotić's followers and taken to an unknown location following the creation of the
Free Territory of Trieste in 1947. The other theory holds that Ljotić was buried in Šempeter pri Gorici until the signing of the
Treaty of Osimo in 1977, when his followers removed his body from the tomb in which it was buried and took it to an unknown location outside Yugoslavia, possibly to Italy. ==Views==