Terror in the Balkans [electronic resource] : German armies and partisan warfare / Ben Shepherd.
Shepherd, Ben.
2012
D766.6 .S44 2012eb
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Title Terror in the Balkans [electronic resource] : German armies and partisan warfare / Ben Shepherd.
Author Shepherd, Ben.
ISBN 9780674065130 electronic book
0674048911
9780674048911
Imprint Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (vi, 342 p.) : ill., maps.
Call Number D766.6 .S44 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 940.53/497
Summary Germany's 1941 seizure of Yugoslavia led to an insurgency as bloody as any in World War II. The Wehrmacht waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in response, and by 1943 German troops in Yugoslavia were engaged in operations that ranked among the largest of the entire European war. Their actions encompassed massive reprisal shootings, the destruction of entire villages, and huge mobile operations unleashed not just against insurgents but also against the civilian population believed to be aiding them. Terror in the Balkans explores the reasons behind the Wehrmacht's extreme security measures in southern and eastern Europe.Ben Shepherd focuses his study not on the high-ranking generals who oversaw the campaign but on lower-level units and their officers, a disproportionate number of whom were of Austrian origin. He uses Austro-Hungarian army records to consider how the personal experiences of many Austrian officers during the Great War played a role in brutalizing their behavior in Yugoslavia. A comparison of Wehrmacht counter-insurgency divisions allows Shepherd to analyze how a range of midlevel commanders and their units conducted themselves in different parts of Yugoslavia, and why. Shepherd concludes that the Wehrmacht campaign's violence was driven not just by National Socialist ideology but also by experience of the fratricidal infighting of Yugoslavia's ethnic groups, by conditions on the ground, and by doctrines that had shaped the military mindsets of both Germany and Austria since the late nineteenth century. He also considers why different Wehrmacht units exhibited different degrees of ruthlessness and restraint during the campaign.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Available in Other Form Terror in the Balkans.
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All Resources
Before the Great War : changes in the officer corps
Forging a wartime mentality : the impact of World War I
Bridging two Hells : the 1920s and 1930s
Invasion and occupation : Yugoslavia, 1941
Islands in an insurgent sea : the 704th Infantry Division in Serbia
Settling accounts in blood : the 342d Infantry Division in Serbia
Standing divided : the independent state of Croatia, 1942
Glimmers of sanity : the 718th Infantry Division in Bosnia
The morass : attitudes harden in the 718th Infantry Division
The Devil's Division : the 369th Infantry Division in Bosnia, 1943.

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