OPERACIJE CRVENE ARMIJE U SJEVERNOJ JUGOSLAVIJI 1944–1945. IZ SOVJETSKIH DOKUMENATA
RED ARMY OPERATIONS IN NORTHERN YUGOSLAVIA 1944 – 1945 ACCORDING TO SOVIET DOCUMENTS

Summary/Abstract: From October 1944 to April 1945, the Red Army operated in Serbia proper, but also in other parts of Yugoslavia: Vojvodina, Podravina, Baranja, Međimurje, and Prekmurje. The Belgrade and Batina operations have received adequate historiographical coverage owing to their scale and importance; others are almost forgotten. The relevant, recently digitized Red Army documentsinclude, among other things, a large amount of information on casualties incurred in Yugoslavia, reveal some new details on the plans to capture Belgrade from the north in the first days of October 1944, and also confirm the old thesis about Yugoslavia's secondary importance in Soviet strategic considerations. Fixated on their main axis of advance through the Pannonian Basin and further northwest, local commands proved unwilling to commit resources for the operations on Yugoslav territory, even when these could have had serious consequences for the Wehrmacht forces deployed there (e.g. the thrusts towards Maribor or Zagreb in April 1945). The reader will also notice the peculiar treatment of NOVJ units in these documents. Although formally accepted as partners, in reality the Soviet headquarters often considered them merely as auxiliaries who could be simply utilized for finishing off tactical and operational tasks. The Partisans, for their part, were seemingly happy to oblige, and their commanders were not as proud in their dealings with the ”big brother from the east”, as their memoirs, written after the Yugoslav­Soviet split of 1948, would have us believe. Finally, it should be said that the documents of the Red Army – like those of any other army – contain their fair share of contradictory and incorrect information, as well as self­aggrandizing falsehoods. Despite this, they are an extremely valuable source for the history of the Second World War in the Western Balkans.

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