Original scientific paper
THE „ZBOR“ MOVEMENT IN THE LAST PHASE OF WORLD WAR II
Zoran Janjetović
; Institute for recent history of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
The „Zbor“ movement was a pan-Yugoslav extreme right-wing movement. This enabled it to participate in the collaborationist government that was established after the occupation of Serbia in April 1941. As the situation of the Germans and their collaborators worsened after Italy’s capitulation, Zbor and its leader Dimitrije Ljotić increased their activities in the fields of propaganda and military. Ljotić held lectures explaining the origins of World War II and worked politically towards the unification of Serbian anti-communist forces.
These efforts were particularly strong during spring and summer 1944. The final, but short-lived alliance was achieved in early September 1944, just a month-and-a-half before Serbia’s liberation.
After the evacuation of his Serbian Volunteer Corps to Slovenia in October 1944, Ljotić strove to gather Serbian, Slovenian, and Croatian anti-communist forces in Slovenia. He expected German defeat and a subsequent split among the Allies. In his plans Slovenia was to serve as a base for the „liberation“ of the rest of Yugoslavia with the aid of the Western Allies. His efforts were cut short by his death in car crash in late April 1945. His Volunteers took part in the final clashes of World War II in Yugoslavia. After that they surrendered to the British in Italy and Austria. A part of them was extradited to Tito’s partisans and summarily shot while the rest eventually settled in European and overseas countries.
Keywords
Dimitrije Ljotić; Zbor; anti-communism; Milan Nedić; Draža Mihailović; Serbian Volunteer Corps
Hrčak ID:
171373
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2016.
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