Conclusion: The Death and Rebirth of Yugoslavia

Abstract

This concluding chapter discusses Yugoslavia, by the time that it had been destroyed, and how all Balkan governments became part of the Nazi New Order. It analyses the ideologies and occupation policies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy and the historical justification of Yugoslavia. What German plans were made for the Balkans reveal a future of toil, subsistence standards of living and political impotence. Their purpose was to provide the Reich with the material means to pursue the war, and then to ensure the continued oppression of the non-Germanic subject populations. By the time Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia had been well and truly conquered, destroyed, partitioned, 'revisioned' and subjugated. The chapter then takes a look at how Yugoslavia survived as a nominal legal entity in the Allied camp, upheld by its government in exile, and acknowledged and supported by Britain, the US and the USSR. The chapter also introduces the concept of 'national liberation', which became the predicate of Tito's KPJ movement — Narodnooslobodilački pokret (NOP) and Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV).