When German troops occupied Sarajevo on April 15, 1941, one of the first actions they took was to remove the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque erected in 1930 to commemorate the June 28, 1914 assassination.

The memorial plaque was removed on April 19, 1941 and sent to Adolf Hitler in Berlin for his 52nd birthday.

A group of Yugoslav volksdeutsche, or ethnic Germans, wearing white shirts and ties, were photographed and filmed marching in formation carrying a banner to the the site of the assassination. They are shown carrying two ladders which they use to climb to the plaque, mounted on the wall of the building. They have erected a scaffold under the plaque. Two German soldiers, part of a military band, stand with a bass drum and cymbals in front of the façade. Two volksdeutsche remove the screws and dismantle the plaque, which they hand down to another member on the ladder. They then bring the plaque down. Two volksdeutsche members are photographed holding the plaque as two Wehrmacht officers look on. The removal ceremony was filmed for the German newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau. The photo of the scene was taken by Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann on April 19, 1941. The photo was published by the Berliner Volkszeitung on April 24, 1941. Subsequently, the plaque is given to German Army troops who are photographed holding the plaque. It was brought to the Fuehrer headquarters in Mönichkirchen in Styria in Austria from where it was sent to Hitler in Berlin.

Adolf Hitler examines the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque removed from Sarajevo by German troops and presented to him on his 52nd birthday on April 20, 1941, Berlin. The photograph was taken by Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque commemorated the assassination by characterizing the event as ushering in “sloboda” or “freedom”, “freiheit” in German. The Serbian Cyrillic script on the plaque reads:

“Na ovom istorijskom mjestu Gavrilo Princip Navijesti slobodu na Vidov-Dan 15. [28.] Juna 1914.”

“At this historical place Gavrilo Princip pronounces freedom on Vidov Dan 15th [28th] June 1941.”

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque was given to Adolf Hitler by three Kriegsberichter, or German war correspondents. A photograph of Hitler examining the plaque was taken by Heinrich Hoffman. The photograph first appeared in the German magazine Illustrierter Beobachter, No. 18, in 1941. The photograph was reprinted in 1966 in the book Das blieb vom Doppeladler: auf den Spuren der versunkenen Donaumonarchie by Ernst Trost (Vienna: Verlag Fritz Molden, 1966). In English, the title is The Remains of the Double-Headed Eagle: On the Trail of the Lost Monarchy.

The plaque was kept in the Berlin Zeughaus, or German Military Historical Museum, along with the railroad coach from Compiegne. The railroad coach was blown up by German forces in 1945. The plaque also disappeared after the war.

The 1930 plaque represented a symbol of anti-German sentiment in the Balkans. It was an insult and a provocative symbol from World War I which was unacceptable in the New Order. It represented triumphalism which memorialized the German defeat in World War I. For this reason, the plaque was one of the first objects targeted by German occupation forces in Sarajevo.

Hitler had welcomed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand because he perceived him as pro-Slavic and not a genuine German nationalist but “the most mortal enemy of Austrian-Germanism” and the “patron of Austria’s Slavicization”. Franz Ferdinand was perceived by Hitler as promoting the “Slavicization” of Austria-Hungary. His wife Sophie of Hohenberg was Czech. She was a Slav. Their three children could not inherit the throne but Franz Ferdinand could. He was the heir to the Habsburg throne.

Hitler vehemently opposed any attempt to unite the German and Slavic populations of Austria. He opposed any conception of adding a Slavic component to the Austro-Hungarian state, a policy known as “trialism”, creating a German-Hungarian-Slavic country. Hitler supported the opposite. He wanted a German state with no mixing or uniting with the Slavic populations. He promoted “Germanization”.

So Hitler saw the assassination as a god-send which with one fell swoop destroyed the rapprochement and community with the Slavic populations. The resulting war against the two Slavic countries, Russia and Serbia, Hitler welcomed as a means to restore German identity and dominance. Hitler was photographed in Vienna in 1914 at the outbreak of the war amidst a cheering and exuberant crowd. Hitler seized the opportunity to fight in the war to vindicate German history and culture.

Hitler was photographed in pensive thought examining and contemplating the plaque with two German officers in the room. The assassination was the event that set in motion the decisions that led to the first world war which resulted in the defeat of Germany and the post-war collapse and devastation. Hitler had emerged as a political leader whose mission was to redress and to right the wrongs and grievances that resulted from that event. So there was some ambivalence and ambiguity about the plaque. The event it memorialized had triggered the events that shaped his life and career.

To Hitler, the plaque represented an affront or snub and a reminder of what the war was about. Like the Compiegne railroad car, it was a symbol and avatar of Germany’s humiliation and defeat. Hitler had satisfaction that the insult or indignity could be erased and Germany’s image restored, denigrated by the Versailles Treaty and the Guilt Clause. The plaque and the railroad car impugned and vilified the valor and sacrifices of German and Austrian troops.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote at length about the Sarajevo assassination. He characterized Gavrilo Princip and the other assassins as “Slavic fanatics”. He ultimately saw the assassination as a positive outcome because it would allow the re-emergence and restoration of German power in Europe.

The 1930 plaque had stirred international controversy and outrage when it was first erected in 1930. The Yugoslav government maintained that the monument or memorial was private, not endorsed or funded by the Yugoslav government.

The London Times was critical of the memorial and editorialized in 1930 that the assassination was “an act which was the immediate cause of the Great War, of its attendant horrors, and of the general suffering which has been its sequel.”

The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung called the plaque “a monstrous provocation which cannot be suffered.”

Winston Churchill was highly critical of commemorating the assassination by Gavrilo Princip. Churchill wrote in his 1932 book The Unknown War that it represented “infamy”: “Princip died in prison, and a monument erected in recent years by his fellow-countrymen records his infamy and their own.” British historian R.W. Seton-Watson wrote that the memorial to Gavrilo Princip was “an affront to all right-thinking people.”

Ironically, Adolf Hitler endorsed and guaranteed the Versailles borders of Yugoslavia in 1941 when Germany signed the pact with the Yugoslav government in Vienna on March 25, 1941. With regard to Yugoslavia, Hitler had no territorial demands and accepted and validated the results of the Treaty of Versailles.

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque was kept in the Berlin Zeughaus, or German Military Historical Museum, along with the railroad coach from Compiegne.

The plaque was displayed in Germany in 1941 on a wall of the museum. Like the Compiegne railroad car brought from France, the plaque became a museum exhibit in Berlin. The plaque was photograph on April 28, 1941. German spectators were shown looking at the plaque which was on display in Berlin.

The Compiegne railroad car was blown up by German forces in 1945. Some fragments were later recovered. Presumably the same fate befell the Gavrilo Princip plaque. In 1945, the Communist regime of Yugoslavia erected a new memorial in Sarajevo at the site of the assassination to Gavrilo Princip who became a “national hero” of Yugoslavia. In 1953, a new plaque was erected by the Communist regime with Gavrilo Princip’s footprints encased in cement. This 1953 plaque and memorial were destroyed by Bosnian Muslim forces in 1992.

In 1995, the Bosnian Muslim government erected a new Gavrilo Princip plaque in Sarajevo in Bosnian and in English in the Latin script. This plaque states that Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie at that site on June 28, 1914.

The Gavrilo Princip plaque in Sarajevo in 2014 is in Bosnian and in English. It reads in English:

“From this place on 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia [sic].”

During the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia that began on April 6, 1941, Adolf Hitler established his forward command headquarters in his personal train known as the Fuehrersonderzug Amerika, the Fuehrer’s Special Train “Amerika”, or FHQu Mönichkirchen. The train was stationed in the Austrian town of Monichkirchen during the Yugoslav campaign. The headquarters was codenamed “Spring Storm” or Frühlingssturm.

Mönichkirchen was a market town with a population of approximately 600 in 1941 located between Graz and Vienna. Hitler’s private train arrived in the town on April 12, 1941 during the Balkans campaign, the Axis attacks on Yugoslavia and Greece, known as Operation Marita. It stood at the exit of a tunnel, near a hotel called the Mönichkirchnerhof. Hitler stayed there for fourteen days.

The Balkanfeldzug or Balkan Campaign was coordinated from here. There is a tunnel located near the station, that could be used as a shelter if there was an air attack, but an attack never occurred. Hitler stayed in the Sonderzug or took a walk to the small hotel or hof in the town.

King Boris III of Bulgaria, Admiral Miklos Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, and the Hungarian ambassador to Germany, Hungarian ambassador Dome Sztojay , and German Admiral Erich Raeder were all guests at the train headquarters to discuss the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

On April 20, Hitler’s 52nd birthday was celebrated here with a concert in front of the train.

Hitler left Mönichkirchen on April 26, 1941 to travel to Graz and Marburg an-der-Drau, or Maribor, Slovenia, in northern Yugoslavia, before he returned to Berlin.

Adolf Hitler stands in front of the Sonderzug Amerika train, the Special Train “Amerika”.

The name was later changed to “Brandenburg”. The Führersonderzug can be considered the first of his field headquarters. During the 1941 Balkan campaign, the train was Hitler’s command and control headquarters stationed in Monichkirchen between Vienna and Graz. This was the only time it was a headquarters. After the Balkans Campaign, Hitler travelled on the train between Berlin, Berchtesgaden, Munich and other headquarters.

Spring Storm: Adolf Hitler in a cabin of the Sonderzug Amerika train examining the 1930 Gavrilo princip plaque on his 52nd birthday, April 20, 1941 stationed in Monichkirchen, Austria, southwest of Vienna, north of Graz. Amerika was Hitler’s command and control headquarters during the invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece. The train’s closed curtains can be seen on the left as well as its low ceiling.

The Fuehrersonderzug Amerika, the Fuehrer’s Special Train “America”, can be seen in the background.

The Amerika train was well equipped to function as a mobile headquarters or forward command and control center. The components of the train were ascertained when each car was listed from June 22 to 24, 1941. The individual 17 components of the train in order were:

1)   Two BR52 Class locomotives

2)   a special Flakwagen armored anti-aircraft train flatbed car with two anti-aircraft guns, most often a pair of Flakvierling cannon batteries, one at each end of the car

3)    a baggage car

4)    the Führerwagen, which Hitler used

5)    a Befehlswagen or command car, including a conference room and a communications center

6)   a Begleitkommandowagen, for the accompanying Reichssicherheitsdienst

7)   two cars for guests

8)    a dining car

9)    a Badewagen or bathing car

10)               A second dining car

11)                two sleeping cars for personnel

12)                A Pressewagen

13)                a second baggage car

14)                A second Flakwagen.

Heinrich Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Hermann Goering also had special trains, as well as the OKW chief, Luftwaffe and Navy commanders, and OKH staff.

Adolf Hitler in front of the Monichkirchnerhof or hotel in April, 1941.

Benito Mussolini did not visit Hitler in April, 1941 while Hitler was at his headquarters  in Monichkirchen. Hitler met with Mussolini on June 2, at the Brenner Pass. Their previous meeting was on October 4, 1940, also at the Brenner Pass. Mussolini was against plans to invade the Soviet Union. He was not informed of Operation Barbarossa by Hitler at the June 2 meeting.

In Hitler: A Chronology of his Life and Time, Second Revised Edition (2008 Palgrave Macmillan edition), Milan Hauner detailed Adolf Hitler’s timeline of events for April, 1941.

Adolf Hitler in front of the Amerika train at Monichkirchen in April, 1941.

From April 1 to 10, Hitler was in Berlin. He left that evening for Munich to go to his destination, which was the command and control headquarters known as Spring Storm in Monichkirchen, Austria, aboard his special train Amerika, to coordinate the attacks against Yugoslavia and Greece.

From April 12 to 25, Hitler is aboard his train Amerika in Monichkirchen and the hotel in the town.

On April 13, Hitler issued Directive 27 for the occupation and dismemberment of Yugoslavia as German troops enter Belgrade.

Adolf Hitler in Monichkirchen in April, 1941.

On April 15, Hitler sent a telegram to Ante Pavelic congratulating him and Slavko Kvaternik on the proclamation of the NDH.

On April 19, King Boris III of Bulgaria visited Hitler at the Amerika train. Count Dome Sztojay of Hungary also was a guest. Sztojay was the Hungarian ambassador to Germany. Their discussions centered on the coming dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the spoils which would accrue to Bulgaria and Hungary.

On April 20, Hitler’s 52nd birthday, Hitler is visited by Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister under the Mussolini regime from 1936 to 1943. Hitler was photographed by Heinrich Hoffmann examining the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque given to him as a gift by German forces who had removed it after seizing Sarajevo. Count Ciano congratulated him on the surrender of Greece. German Admiral Erich Raeder is also a guest.

On April 24, Admiral Miklos Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, is a guest to discuss the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

The German newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau, The German Weekend Show, Nr. 556 for April 30, 1941, captured the visits by King Boris, Count Ciano, and Admiral Horthy, to Hitler’s train headquarters.

On April 26, Hitler traveled to Graz, Klagenfurt, and Maribor, Slovenia, in northern Yugoslavia.

On April 28, Hitler returned to Berlin where he stayed until May 4.

Adolf Hitler walking beside the America special train in April, 1941, in Monichkirchen.

The Balkan campaign was over. Yugoslavia and Greece had surrendered. Hitler then focused on the planning for the next offensive, Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union, scheduled for June 22.

Adolf Hitler in Maribor, Slovenia, in northern Yugoslavia, after the region was annexed by Germany, April 26, 1941.

On Sunday, June 15, 1941, following his June 6 meeting with Adolf Hitler at Bechtesgaden in Bavaria at Hitler’s Berghof residence, Ante Pavelic attended a conference in Venice in which the newly-created Independent State of Croatia, Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska (NDH), formally joined the Axis. Pavelic was personally welcomed by Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, at the train station where he saluted an Italian Naval honor guard. Croatian and Italian flags draped the station. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop later joined Ciano and Pavelic at the meeting. The Japanese representative, Zembei Horikiri, the Japanese Ambassador to Italy, attended on behalf of Japan.

Croatia signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Axis Powers, becoming a junior partner in the Axis. The Axis also included Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria by 1941. Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Tripartite Pact to regain territory. Hungary and Bulgaria sought to regain land from Yugoslavia which they lost following World War I, the Bachka region and Macedonia respectively. Hungary received northern Transylvania from Romania. Romania sought land from the Soviet Union, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Croatia and Slovakia were newly-created states after the German occupation and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The location for the meeting was the Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, The Doge’s Palace, in Venice, built in 1340. The structure had been a museum since 1923. The meeting took place in the hall of the palace.

From Croatia, Pavelic and Slavko Kvaternik, the vojskovoda and doglavnik, chief of the NDH military forces, attended. Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, and the Marquis d’Ajeta and Count Pietromarchi, two high-ranking Italian officials, represented Italy. Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, and the Japanese representative, Zembei Horikiri, the Japanese Ambassador to Italy, acting on behalf of the Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, were also in attendance.

Zembei Horikiri, the brother of Zenjiro Horikiri, a Japanese cabinet minister and former mayor of Tokyo City, was a former Vice Minister of Finance (1931-1932), who became ambassador to Italy in September, 1940. He was replaced in December, 1942. He died on November 26, 1946.

Yosuke Matsuoka was the Japanese Foreign Minister from 1940 to 1941. He was one of the major proponents of the Tripartite Pact. Although he signed the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact in April, 1941, he advocated a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union, which the Japanese army and navy, as well as Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, opposed. He also was confrontational with the U.S. He died in 1946 before his war crimes trial began.

The meeting was photographed and filmed for Italian and German newsreels. The arrivals of Ribbentrop and Pavelic at the train station in Venice were photographed as they were greeted by Ciano. The assembled delegations in the senate hall of the palace were also photographed. Kvaternik and Pavelic sat on the left side of the podium while Ribbentrop and the Japanese representative sat on the right. Ciano was in the center as the host. Both Ciano and Pavelic spoke at the conference with the latter reading from a prepared text. Ciano and Pavelic were photographed on a boat on the canals of Venice.

The Venice Conference was featured in the German newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau, No. 564, June 25, 1941.

A gondola on the canals of Venice was shown in the opening shot of the newsreel. “In the colorful city of Venice, the ceremony for the entry of Croatia into the three-party agreement is completed.” Cheering crowds are shown greeting the Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano. The Palazzo Ducale is shown along with other buildings in the city. There is an Italian Naval honor guard that welcomes them. The Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs von Ribbentrop is shown entering. The Croatian head of state, Dr. Pavelic, giving a fascist salute with upraised right arm, is shown arriving. The camera pans down the façade of the palace which features a Gothic edifice.  Ciano is shown at the hall speaking. “The senate hall of the palace” is shown. Pavelic shakes hands with Ribbentrop as Ciano looks on. They give a “heil Hitler!” salute. “In this speech, Count Ciano describes the three-power pact as the enduring foundation of co-operation between those nations which seek a world of justice and peace.” Ciano and Ribbentrop are shown conferring. They are then shown signing the documents. Pavelic signs for Croatia, Ciano for Italy, Ribbentrop for Germany, and the Japanese representative, Zembei Horikiri, for Japan.

An Italian newsreel showed Count Galeazzo and Ante Pavelic boarding a motor boat, getting in the cabin, and passing under a bridge over the Venice canals. In a photograph, Ante Pavelic gives a fascist salute as he boards a motor boat in Venice with Count Galeazzo Ciano with the flags of Croatia, Italy, Japan, and Germany hoisted on the dock surrounded by cheering spectators.

Current Biography, in its 1942 issue featuring Pavelic, described the Venice meeting as cementing Croatia to the Axis alliance: “Dr. Pavelic went to Venice for the induction of Croatia into the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo military alliance. On June 15 he put his signature to a protocol giving his country the right to be represented at any tripartite discussion which might affect Croatia. Replying to Count Ciano’s address of welcome, Pavelic was quoted as saying: ‘Croatia gives its full adherence to the principles and reasons which inspire a united front for creation of a new order in the European and Asiatic world.’ “

The meeting was also significant because it had ramifications for the Holocaust: “Croatia’s induction into the military alliance of the Axis powers had immediate effect on its ‘Jewish problem.’ Dr. Ante Pavelic announced that it would be solved ‘in a radical way under the German order.’ Also ordered by Hitler to put a ‘river of blood’ between the Serbian and Croatian nations, Pavelic did so by carrying out the slaughter of some 300,000 Serbs living in Croatia and the destruction of scores of their communities.”

The Milwaukee Journal on Monday, June 16, 1941 featured on page 2 an AP news story on the meeting, “Croatia Joins Axis as Minor Partner”. The article emphasized that the NDH was a “minor” or “secondary” member of the Axis: “Croatia, the new state carved from part of Yugoslavia, Sunday joined the ranks of secondary members of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.” The “Poglavnik” signed a protocol that assured that Croatia would be consulted on any measures that affected the country. Croatia had been personally invited by Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano to join the Axis. Pavelic was quoted as saying that he fully supported and endorsed the new order which the Axis sought to create in Europe and Asia.

British press accounts reported: “Croatia Joins Axis. London, Monday. Croatia joined the Axis Pact with great ceremony at Venice yesterday. Those present included the Nazi Foreign Minister (Herr von Ribbentrop) and the Italian Foreign Minister (Count Ciano). The Australian Associated Press reported: “Croatia Joins Axis. London, June 15. Croatia, the German puppet State carved out of Northern Yugoslavia, has signed an Axis three-power pact. The German. Foreign Minister (Herr von Ribbentrop) signed for Germany, and presided.”

Germany and Italy had established the Berlin-Rome Axis or alliance on November 1, 1936, after a treaty of friendship had been signed between the two countries. Germany and Japan signed an agreement creating an alliance on November 25, 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-Communist and anti-Soviet alliance. Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937. Germany signed the Pact of Steel agreement with Italy on May 22, 1939. This agreement tied the countries to a formal military alliance.

Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin on September 27, 1940 known as the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis, or the Axis alliance. They were the three Axis powers known collectively as the Axis. To secure the Balkans region for the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler sought to bring in the countries of eastern Europe into the Pact. Hungary joined on November 20, 1940, Romania on November 23, 1940, Slovakia on November 24, 1940, and Bulgaria joined on March 1, 1941. Yugoslavia joined on March 25, 1941 at a meeting in Vienna. Yugoslav accession was followed by a coup that replaced the Prince Paul regime with a pro-British government under King Peter II led by Air Force General Dusan Simovich. This overthrow resulted in the German invasion, occupation, and dismemberment of Yugoslavia that began on April 6, 1941. Following Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Finland joined the Axis powers on June 26, 1941, as a “co-belligerent” but did not sign the Tripartite Pact. Like Romania, Finland sought to gain territory from the Soviet Union.

Benito Mussolini had allowed Ante Pavelic and his Ustasha organization sanctuary in Italy during the 1930s where training camps were set up for terrorist attacks against Yugoslavia. Mussolini supported an independent or sovereign Croatian state but only if territorial concessions were made to Italy. Mussolini annexed a large section of the Dalmatian coast and Adriatic islands, seizing territory around Split (Spalato), Zadar (Zara), and Kotor (Cattaro). Pavelic agreed to these concessions in exchange for Italian support of Croatian sovereignty. Moreover, Italy supported the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina by Croatia as well as territory from Serbia. The NDH was subordinated to Italy and to Italian interests. Conflict also developed over Italian opposition on the ground to the genocidal policies of the NDH against Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Italian forces provided safe havens and refuge for Serbian, Jewish, and Roma civilians fleeing Ustasha forces.

Pavelic retained Hitler’s unwavering and staunch support during World War II. Although German military and civilian commanders in the NDH and in the Balkans called for Pavelic’s removal, he was able to preserve his regime until the end of the war. The genocidal policies of his regime had alienated segments of the Croatian population and the Serbian populations of the NDH, resulting in armed opposition and resistance to his government. This instability necessitated an increased German military presence. As a committed and dedicated supporter of Adolf Hitler and of Nazism, however, Pavelic was able to sustain his regime in power.

Italy would surrender on September 3, 1943 to Britain and the U.S., while Romania and Bulgaria would surrender in 1944 to the Soviet Union. Croatia, however, would remain a German ally and a part of the Axis until the end of the war in Europe. In fact, the NDH would outlive the Third Reich by a day. Ante Pavelic would also survive the war, fleeing to Rome and the Vatican where he was allowed to escape by British and American occupation forces.

The statements that Gavrilo Princip made to Dr. Martin Pappenheim during his conversations from February to June in 1916 reveal a contradiction. The picture presented is contrary to the accepted perception that Gavrilo Princip was in ill health his entire life. Gavrilo Princip told Pappenheim that he was always healthy. There was no history of illness in the family. This contradicts the accepted view that he was “sickly” and had “tuberculosis”.  Two contradictory views emerge. Princip was in perfect health. Princip was ill and diseased. Which view is accurate?

The contradiction in what Princip told Pappenheim and the accepted view obfuscates a key issue: How was Gavrilo Princip treated in prison? How did he die? How did the other plotters fare?

Was there a cover-up? Was Gavrilo Princip murdered? Was the accepted historical view meant as a smokescreen or deception? Eight of the thirteen plotters died in prison. This was all in the space of several years. They died before the end of the war in 1918. What could account for such an unusually high mortality rate among the prisoners? Were they all sickly and diseased? Or were they slowly murdered, through starvation, abuse, neglect, and mistreatment?

Gavrilo Princicp told Pappenheim at his first meeting: “Was always healthy. … No illness in the family.” This appeared in Gavrilo Princip’s Confessions in 1926, translated as Princip o Sebi in Serbo-Croat and published in Zagreb that same year. This is what Gavrilo Princip told Pappenheim in 1916. He was in perfect health. He had always been so.

In the news story “Gavrilo Princip: His Life and Death”, Saturday, July 9, 1927, Townsville Daily Bulletin, Australia, page 4, an account of the Pappenheim booklet, Princip is described as being in perfect health: “Princip did not drink, had always good health, and no serious injuries until after the outrage; then he had wounds on his head, and wounds everywhere.” In the February 19, 1916 conversation, Pappenheim described his health and the family history of illness: “Was always healthy. Had no serious injuries until assassination. … Father is a peasant, and is also in business. Father is a calm man, doesn’t drink; lives in Grahovo, Bosnia. No illness in the family.” He was “an intelligent youth, mentally normal.”

He had been rejected by Serbian Major Vojislav Tankosic when he wanted to join a guerrilla band but this was because he was “small” and “weak”, not because he was “sickly” or diseased or unhealthy.

The accepted or orthodox view of his health is succinctly expressed on the historywiz.com website: “Gavrilo Princip was a sickly man his whole life who died in prison from tuberculosis.” Variations or permutations of this conclusion permeate all the standard accounts that relate to Princip’s health. The implication is that he was sick or ill all his life. He was always in poor health. Therefore, it is not surprising that he died in prison. His illness was only exacerbated in prison but it was not due to his imprisonment. This orthodox view, however, is challenged by what Princip told Pappenheim.

Where did this perception of Princip as sickly emerge from? Was it meant to preclude an examination of his treatment in prison? Was it meant to hide the fact that he was slowly starved to death in prison, that he was murdered?

But if he was, on the other hand, always healthy, how did the accepted view gain acceptance that he was sickly and always in ill health?

How did the prisoners fare as a whole in prison? The trial lasted from October 12 to October 23, 1914 and was held in Sarajevo. The verdicts and sentences were announced on October 28, 1914.

The interior of Gavrilo Princip’s cell in the Theresienstadt prison. Source: The Holocaust Education Foundation.

Gavrilo Princip, sentenced to 20 years, died in prison on April 28, 1918, aged 23. The cause of death given was tuberculosis.

Nedjelko Cabrinovic, also sentenced to 20 years, died in prison on January 20, 1916, aged 20. His cause of death was also tuberculosis.

Trifun Grabez, who also received a sentence of 20 years, died in prison on October 21, 1916, aged 21. The cause of death was tuberculosis.

All three thus died of tuberculosis only after a short period of incarceration. Did all three suffer from tuberculosis? Was the disease the result of their imprisonment?

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by strains of mycobacteria, most commonly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The most common form of the infection is of lungs, known as pulmonary tuberculosis. But other areas of the body can be infected, such as the bones and nervous system. High risk factors are malnutrition. Untreated wounds and illnesses are also risk actors as are unsanitary conditions and overcrowded areas. It is highly unlikely that all three had tuberculosis before their imprisonment or that all contracted the disease randomly. That they all died of tuberculosis is highly suspicious and raises obvious red flags.

Lazar Djukic died on March 19, 1917 in Prague. He had received a 10 year sentence. He was a student who did not accept Danilo Ilic’s offer to participate in the assassination but directed him to other plotters. He was also sent to Theresienstadt. His remains were never found.

Nedjo Kerovic died in prison. His original sentence had been death by hanging which was commuted to 20 years in prison by Kaiser Franz Joseph based on the Finance Minister’s recommendation.

Jakov Milovic died in prison. His original sentence had also been death by hanging which likewise was commuted to life in prison by Kaiser Franz Joseph based on the court and Finance Minister’s recommendation.

Mitar Kerovic died in prison. He had received a life sentence.

Marko Perin died in prison. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

Five of the prisoners survived their captivity and were released after the war.

Vaso Cubrilovic was released in November, 1918. He had received a sentence of 16 years in prison. He died in 1990.

Cvjetko Popovic also survived. He had received a sentence of 13 years in prison. He was released in November, 1918.

Ivo Kranjcevic survived as well. He had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Cvijan Stjepanovic also survived. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Branko Zagorac served his sentence of three years in prison.

Three of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging and were executed on February 2, 1915. They were Danilo Ilic, Veljko Cubrilovic, and Mihaijlo Jovanovic.

Nine of the defendants were acquitted: Jovo Kerovic, Blagoje Kerovic, Nikola Forkazic. Dragan Kalenber, Miko Micic, Obren Milosevic, Ivan Momcinevic, Franjo Sadilo, and Angela Sadilo.

The deaths were all due to the following causes: Starvation, exhaustion, diseases contracted in prison, and untreated wounds, ailments, and injuries. Their deaths were due to the conditions of their imprisonment and their treatment or lack thereof.

How was Princip treated in prison? During his conversations, Pappenheim recorded his physical and mental states very succinctly.

On February 19, 1916, he told Pappenheim: “Here since 5 XII 1914. The whole time in solitary confinement. Three days ago, chains off.” Princip was in solitary confinement and he was chained against the wall. He most lamented the lack of books.

Princip had to be tight-lipped about his treatment in the prison: “Will say no more in the presence of the guard. Is not badly treated. All behave properly toward him.” He could not safely reveal to Pappenheim his real treatment in the prison.

Princip tried to kill himself: “Admits attempt at suicide a month ago. Wanted to hang himself with the towel. It would be stupid to have a hope. Has a wound on the breast and on the arm.”

On May 12, 1916, Princip was in the prison hospital. He again spoke with Pappenheim. He told him that he was hungry and that he was being starved. Here we have evidence that he was, indeed, being starved. Starvation was being used to slowly kill him. This was also being done to the other prisoners.

Pappenheim described this meeting: “He recognizes me immediately and shows pleasure at seeing me. Since 7 IV here in hospital. Always nervous. Is hungry, does not get enough to eat. Loneliness. Gets no air and sun here; in the fortress took walks. Has no longer any hope for his life. There is nothing for him to hope for. Life is lost.”

Pappenheim revealed that Princip was ill during their meetings: “For two months has heard nothing more of events. But it all is indifferent to him, on account of his illness and the misfortune of his people.”

He described how Princip wrote down his responses to his queries. He revealed that “for two years he has not had a pen in hand.”

Princip could not continue writing because he was ill: “Broke off here, feeling ill. My thoughts are already—I am very nervous.”

He was weak and could barely write: “The time before he wrote ten lines and one word. Now after this talk he continues writing again. Stops often and reflects. Complains himself that it is difficult for him. Ceases writing again after fifteen lines.”

In his entry for May 18, 1916, Pappenheim describes vividly the deterioration of his wound. Princip’s injuries were never treated. They were allowed to fester and worsen.

Pappenheim described his physical and mental state: “Wound worse, discharging very freely. Looking miserable. Suicide by any sure means is impossible. ‘Wait to the end.’ Resigned, but not really very sad.”

He noted his isolation: “Does not speak to anybody for a month.”

The final entry was on June 5. This was their last meeting. Only a few sentences were written on this date. Princip reveals that his condition had deteriorated to the point where his arm had to be amputated: “When permission comes, arm is to be amputated.”

The Theresienstadt fortress became a Nazi concentration camp in 1941 after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1940. The treatment that Gavrilo Princip and the other plotters received is similar to the slow murder that was a key component of the concentration camps. Inmates would be deprived of required and necessary nutrients and sustenance. They would gradually weaken and wither and sicken. How did concentration camps inmates die? From malnutrition and disease.

Princip’s statements to Pappenheim in 1916 raise questions about how he was treated in prison. They challenge the accepted view that Princip and the others were always sickly, unhealthy, and diseased. A contrary view presented in the conversations is that he was always healthy and there was no history of disease or ill health. Was he thus slowly murdered in prison, along with the other plotters? The accepted view has the result of precluding or preventing an examination of this question.

King Peter II arrived in Washington, DC on June 21, 1942 to begin his meetings with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The goal was to secure aid for the Yugoslav guerrilla resistance movement in occupied Yugoslavia. He had come at the invitation of the U.S. government.

He had arrived in Detroit, “the arsenal of democracy”, on June 30, to inspect war production plants. He met Ford Motor Company president Edsel Ford and Michigan Governor Murray Van Wagoner. He toured the River Rouge complex and the Ford Bomber Plant in Willow Run. He was photographed with Edsel Ford in a jeep during his tour.

From Detroit, he travelled by train to Canada, for a two day stay in Ottawa with a stop in Montreal.

“A Royal Marksman Fires an R.C.A.F. Machine-Gun: King Peter of Jugoslavia tries his hand on a Browning aerial machine-gun during his visit to No. 2 Service Flying Training School at Uplands Airport, near Ottawa. Looking on at the king’s left is Wing Commander W.R. MacBrien, commanding officer of the R.C.A.F. school while in the background is Flight Lieutenant W.H.S. O’Brien, aide-de-camp to His Excellency the Earl of Athlone, the Governor General of Canada.” Photograph dated: July 17, 1942. Source: Director of Public Information, Royal Canadian Air Force.

He came at the invitation of the Canadian government. The occasion was an official state visit by an ally during World War II.

Peter made history as the first reigning monarch to sit in the speaker’s gallery of the Canadian House of Commons. He toured the Parliament Building in Ottawa with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Speaker of the House of Commons James Allison Glen. He also met with R.B. Hanson, the Conservative party leader and J.H. Blackmore, the leader of the Social Credit party. He was applauded by House members when he appeared in the gallery.

He arrived in Ottawa on Friday, July 10, by train. He told the Canadian reporters during a press conference that the Yugoslav guerilla army led by Draza Mihailovich would continue fighting “as long as it can — as long as it has something to fight for”. He stated that “very little” in terms of supplies had reached the approximately 100,000 strong Yugoslav guerrilla army. He explained the nature of the guerrilla conflict: “We get quite a lot of news from them. You probably have read that we recently made an attack on Italy. But first you have to understand that kind of warfare. Our men can go anywhere they like. They come up and attack the enemy. And then simply disappear. Then they turn up behind the enemy.”

He was asked about the exile Yugoslav government. He told them that it was based in London. He was also asked about his entourage, which included the seven ministers of the exile government along with his aides and staff. He responded: “Well, we have a big cabinet.”

A female reporter queried him about his opinion of Canadian women. He replied: “Well, I haven’t seen many yet.”

Canadian Prime Minister King asked the last question. He wanted to know what Peter thought of the U.S. and the U.S. relationship with Canada. Peter replied: “The people of the United States have a wonderful spirit, which is getting stronger and stronger.” His visits to the war plants in Detroit had convinced him that the war would be brought to a speedy end. He perceived the U.S. and Canada as one country without a border. He told them how easy it had been for him to cross the border and visit Niagara Falls several days earlier.

When queried about the economic agreement that had been signed between Yugoslavia and Greece, Momcilo Nincic, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister replied that “only the beginning of a great union of the peoples and the nations of the Balkans.” With the aid of the United Nations, he envisioned a post-war Europe where the countries of Middle Europe would be united, stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

“Royal Visitor Inspects Squadron”, King Peter II of Yugoslavia at the Uplands air force training base in Ontario, Canada, Saturday, July 11, 1941. R.C.A.F. Wing Commander W.R. MacBrien, the commander of the base, is behind Peter and the R.C.A.F. flight lieutenant. Director of Public Information, Royal Canadian Air Force. R.C.A.F. Official Photograph.

When a reporter asked about his uniform, he replied: “Really, it’s just small. It’s the rank of a captain. It makes me look like an admiral. But I’m not.”

He revealed that he was in contact with Draza Mihailovich by wireless and other means. His goal was to secure military and financial aid for the guerrillas which Mihailovich led.

The headlines in the July 11, 1942 Ottawa Evening Citizen newspaper revealed his objectives, to sustain the Yugoslav resistance forces with military and economic aid: “Says Yugoslavian Army Will Continue Hitting. Young King Peter Tells Press Conference That Getting Supplies to the Fighting Men in His Country Is Big Problem. Monarch Makes History by Sitting in Speaker’s Gallery of Commons.”

In the article “Rousing Welcome Given King Peter On Visit To Hill”, The Evening Citizen, Ottawa, Ontario, Saturday, July 11, 1942, page 7, the favorable reception he received is detailed. Like in Washington, DC, and Detroit, he was greeted and welcomed as a staunch ally of the Wesern countries fighting the Axis.

He entered Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday afternoon, July 10, at 3:45 PM. He was greeted enthusiastically with 200 members pounding their desks. He received an ovation that lasted five minutes. He stood and bowed to the MPs. He stayed in the House of Commons chamber for fifteen minutes. He was accompanied by seven ministers in exile and his aides. They toured the building. He visited the Peace Tower, the Senate chamber, the portrait gallery in the corridors, and the library. He spent 90 minutes in the building.

Afterwards a dinner was held in his honor hosted by PM Mackenzie King at the Country Club. Those in attendance included the Governor-General, Earl of Athlone, Canadian and Yugoslav cabinet ministers, House Speaker Glen, Sir Lyman Duff, the Chief Justice of Canada, and members of the opposition parties.

On Saturdy, July 11, Peter went on inspection tours of Canadian military installations in the vicinity of Ottawa. “Uplands Show Features King Peter’s Busy Day”, an article in the Monday, July 13 issue of The Evening Citizen, Ottawa, page 8, recounted his visit to the Uplands Canadian Air Force base.

“First Photo of King Peter After Taking Throne”, The Evening Citizen, Tuesday, April 8, 1941, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, page 2, an NEA Radiophoto from Berlin to the U.S.

On that Saturday morning, he had first visited the Petawawa military base to observe artillery maneuvers. In the news article “Peter Scores Direct Hits in ‘Gun Play’ at Petawawa”, The Evening Citizen, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Monday, July 13, 1942., page 8, his tour of the military facility was detailed. He had arrived at the base in a twin-engine amphibious aircraft at Lake Alumette. He was greeted by the commander of the Petawawa district, Brigadier A.V. Tremaine, Col. F.E. Wootton, Col. S.M. Polson, and Major M. Darling. Peter fired a high-velocity anti-tank gun at decoy tank and truck targets at the camp. Captain P.S. Fitzgerald of the ‘E’ company battery told him: “Well done, sir. That was a direct hit.” Peter had struck the decoy tank directly on target. Peter replied: “I would like to try again.” He also rode a jeep with Izidor Cankar and his aide. He also watched artillery target practice from a shelter and barbed wire surmounting exercises.

He then had lunch with the 1^st Earl of Athlone, Alexander Cambridge, the Governor-General of Canada since 1940 and PM King at the Yugoslav legation. At 4:00 PM, he visited the Uplands air base for two hours. He toured the hangars, the classrooms, and the grounds. He fired a new Browning machine gun and rode in a Link trainer. He also visited the tower. He saluted as troops marched past. He then inspected the planes and witnessed a flyover. He also inspected a Harvard single-engine training plane in the hangar. Wing Commander W. MacBrien, the commanding officer at the base, accompanied him on the tour along with Canadian Royal Air Force Vice Air-Marshal Ernest Walter Stedman.

At 6:30 he made a 10 minute speech over the CBC in an address to the Canadian people. He spoke in English, French, and Serbo-Croatian.

Peter had studied at Claire College at Cambridge University in the UK. Aviation and mechanics were his major interests. He spent the war years in London.

Peter had escaped German troops in a plane which was attacked by German fighters. En route from Yugoslavia to Greece, his plane was machine gunned. Marko Dakovich, a Minister Without Portfolio from Montenegro, was killed. The seven members of his Cabinet of the Yugoslav Government in exile accompanied him on his visit to the U.S. and Canada. His cabinet consisted of: M. Nincic, Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Trifunovic, Minister of Education, B. Cubrilovic, the Ban of Croatia, I. Subasic, the former President of the Cabinet and currently Minister of State, B.D. Jevtic, Minister of State, B. Markovic, Minister of State, S. Kosanovic, Minister of State, F. Snoj, Minister of State, and R.L. Knezevic, a top aide to Peter. During his tour, he was escorted by Slovenian-born Izidor Cankar, who was appointed by the exile Yugoslav government in 1942 as the ambassador to Canada.

At the Seigniory Club the next day he rowed a boat on the Ottawa river for an hour. He showed reporters his hands which were covered with blisters.

On that Sunday, July 12, Peter left for Montreal where he attended a dinner held in his honor. This was his last destination in Canada. From here he traveled to New York.

The Canadian visit had been a success. From Montreal he traveled to New York where he would be greeted by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Nikola Tesla.

In 1942, the British movie studio Ealing began filming the wartime film Chetnik in Wales. The subject was the Chetnik guerrilla movement in German-occupied Yugoslavia under Draza Mihailovich. As British support for Mihailovich dwindled, however, by the time of its release in 1943 the title had been changed to Undercover. Moreover, references to the Chetniks were removed. The movie became a fictionalized account of the guerrilla resistance in Yugoslavia without a specific reference to the Chetniks or the Communist Partisan guerrillas.

The British Picture Post magazine, similar to LIFE in the U.S., was an illustrated magazine which featured the movie in a front page story in the October 10, 1942 issue, Vol 17, No. 2, pp. 17-19. The editor was Tom Hopkinson. The magazine was founded by Edward Hulton and was published by Hulton Press, Ltd., 43-44 Shoe Lane, London, E.C.4. The title of the feature was “How Jugoslavia Fights Back” which began on page 17. The Yugoslav resistance was described in glowing terms of superlatives and hyperbole: “A struggle that will live for ever in heroic legend. It will be brought home to the world in the film ‘Chetnik.’”

Chetnik guerrilla activity under Draza Mihailovich is described. The scenes in the film are modeled and based on actual and reported Chetnik operations in Yugoslavia: “Jugoslav patriots blow up a German military train carrying troops on the way to join Rommel. They work havoc among the Nazi soldiers on the train. They destroy large quantities of the German war material. And the Germans, as a reprisal, shoot every man in four villages, send every woman and child to concentration camps.”

The guerrillas are under the command of Yugoslav General Draza Mihailovich: “Such is the latest incident in the epic struggle that is ceaselessly waged under General Mihailovitch, Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces resisting the Axis in Yugoslavia, leader of between 80,000 and 150,000 ‘Chetniks,’ who have pinned down for over a year no less than 36 Axis divisions.”

The film was made to chronicle and to dramatize the resistance activities of the Chetniks: “The gallantry, courage and resolution of the Chetniks will live for ever in the annals of mankind, and already a film is being made which will display their amazing story to the world.”

The origins of the film and the plot are delineated. The story began with Dr. Milosh Sekulich, “Sokulic” in the article, who was a physician in Belgrade when the Germans bombed and occupied the city. German occupation troops searched his clinic but he was allowed to work in the hospital. Sekulich was secretly working with the underground. He was described as “an intimate friend of General Mihailovitch”. The clinic became a center for the underground and for the resistance movement.

The decision was made to send someone from Yugoslavia to London to make contact with the exile Yugoslav government. Two earlier attempts failed. Sekulic succeeded.

Sekulich wrote the original plot outline or synopsis for the story. He worked as an adviser to the film’s producer, émigré Russian screenwriter, director, and producer Sergei Nolbandov. His goal was to make the movie “realistic and authentic in its detail”. He sought to recreate the Chetnik guerrilla movement under Mihailovich.

The photos on the set in the magazine were shot during the climactic scene in the film when Yugoslav guerilla leader Milosh Petrovitch, played by John Clements, and the Chetnik guerrillas organize an ambush of German troops who have to pass through a village. Milosh fires a machine-gun at German troops as they cross the bridge. During a pitched battle, the German convoy is defeated and forced to retreat, suffering heavy casualties. Constantine, one of the Chetnik guerrilla leaders, played by Michael Wilding, is killed during the operation.

Mary Morris played Milosh’s wife Anna who is apprehended by German forces. She escapes and joins the guerrilla movement. Stephen Murray played the role of Dr. Stephan Petrovitch, modeled on Milosh Sekulich. Godfrey Tearle played the German General von Staengel while Robert Harris played German Colonel von Brock. Tom Walls plays Kossan Petrovitch, Milosh’s father, who joins the guerrillas.

Dr. Stephan Petrovitch goes undercover as a German collaborator. She is able to obtain information which he passes on to the guerrillas. He is able to blow up a vital railway tunnel in the mountains. To deter resistance activity, the German occupation troops execute six students. Von Staengel orders that “one hundred Yugoslavs for every German” will be killed and orders retaliatory strikes against the guerrillas. German retaliation only spurs the resistance on.

The impact and effect of the movie was described. The film would serve primarily to show the opposition and resistance to German and Axis occupation in the Balkans. The goal was to galvanize anti-German and anti-Axis sentiment. The focus was on building and sustaining morale and highlighting the struggle against German forces: “Vast opportunities are opening up to use the screen as a medium for displaying conditions in Nazi-occupied Europe and the struggle of the people against their overlords. If this opportunity is taken in the right way, the cinema will have a potent effect as an instrument for helping forward the common struggle. The production of this new film ‘Chetnik’, is a notable step in this direction.”

All references to the Chetniks were taken out of the film. Nevertheless, the uniforms, the caps, hats, the characters, and setting reveal the actual source for the film.

The film is notable for showing the vagaries and ambivalence of Allied support during World War II. In late 1942, Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas were wholly supported and lauded in the United Kingdom. Within six months, however, by the time the movie was released, Mihailovich and the Chetniks would be in disfavor and support for them would be waning. Indeed, by the end of 1943 they would be abandoned and rejected in favor of the Communist partisan resistance under Josip Broz Tito.

The events in Sekulic’s life are well-depicted in the film as are the sabotage and infiltration operations of the Chetnik guerrillas. The character of Yugoslav Captain Milosh Petrovitch is modeled on Draza Mihailovich.

Michael Wilding as Constantine on a 1944 Columbia Pictures lobby card for the U.S. release of the movie under the title Underground Guerrillas.

The history of the film demonstrates the vicissitudes of the war. Within the span of a single one year period, 1942 to 1943, Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas were built up and lionized to impossible and improbable proportions and then deconstructed and vilified to the opposite extreme.

Ealing Studios released the movie under the title Undercover on July 27, 1943 in the UK. The film was re-released in the U.S. in 1944 by Columbia Pictures under the title Underground Guerrillas.

German occupation troops committed horrific atrocities and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia during World War II. The country was dismembered and ceased to exist in 1941. In Serbia, the Pancevo and Kragujevac mass executions of civilians were the most brutal and shocking atrocities and war crimes. German occupation forces resorted to reprisals and punitive measures against the civilian population due to the guerrilla movements which were causing casualties for German occupation forces. The magnitude and scope of the Yugoslav resistance was unprecedented and came as a surprise to German forces. The German occupation forces had the law on their side as the victors. Under international law, the guerrillas had virtually little if any legal protections and could be summarily shot. They were technically not “legal combatants” under international laws and customs of war. They were what could be termed “terrorists”. The Germans took full advantage of their rights as occupiers. German forces were brutal against the resistance movements.

One of the most brutal actions was the execution of two 20-year-old Slovenian guerrillas who were killed on a farm in the Slovenian village of Idrijske Krnice west of Idrija in Slovenia on June 11, 1944. These executions are notable because German forces photographed the killings. The way the prisoners were killed was also noteworthy. The German troops used an axe to behead them.

Were the executions war crimes and murders of POWs? As guerrillas, it could be argued that they were not “legal combatants” but were what was then called “free shooters” who could be summarily killed. As such, they would not be afforded the customary rights of POWs.  The issue would revolve around whether they were civilians or combatants and whether they shot at or endangered the lives of the German occupation troops. In the photos, the two guerrillas are wearing civilian clothes. One is wearing a white shirt. There are no signs of a military uniform of any kind.

The two captured prisoners were beheaded by members of the SS Volunteer Karstwehr Battalion during the anti-guerrilla operation codenamed Annemarie in the summer of 1944. The soldiers in the photos are Waffen SS troops. The insignia on the sleeve of one soldier is a Waffen-SS chevron designating the rank of SS-Rottenführer. The insignia is a double silver-aluminum sleeve chevron on a black wool base. Their uniforms are those of mountain troops of the Waffen SS.

Slovenia ceased to exist as a country after the German invasion of Yugoslavia which began on April 6, 1941. The Axis allies divided up the spoils. Germany annexed the north region. Hungary annexed the eastern section. The southern section was annexed by Italy. The newly formed Independent State of Croatia occupied some towns as well. The Slovenian town of Idrija was occupied by Italian troops from 1941 to 1943. It is in the Slovenian Littoral region. German troops occupied the region after Italy surrendered in 1943.

The German goal was to resettle the northern section of Slovenia with ethnic Germans and to expel the Slovenian Slavic population to Serbia, Croatia, and Germany. Italy formed the Province of Ljubljana in its zone.

The troops who committed the executions were members of the SS Volunteer Karstwehr Battalion which was made up primarily of ethnic Germans or Volksdeutsche from the Balkans and the South Tyrol region of Italy. It was engaged in several anti-guerrilla operations: Zypresse, Märzveilchen, Maulwurf, Hellblau, Osterglocke, Liane, and Annemarie. It was eventually downsized to a brigade as the Waffen Mountain Karstjaeger Brigade of the SS in December, 1944. The brigade retreated into Austria between Villach and Klagenfurt where it surrendered to the British 6th Armored Division on May 9, 1945.

The formation was initially organized in 1942 as an anti-guerrilla unit as a company based in the Karst region of the former Yugoslavia, Italy, and Austria. The Karst area was a limestone region that was barren and mountainous. The company was established at the Dachau SS training base on July 10, 1942. The core of the men were taken from the supply services training and replacement battalion of the Bosnian Muslim 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS “Kama” , officially designated as the 2^nd Croatian division. On July 18, 1944, the Battalion was upgraded to the 24. Waffen-Gebirgs-(Karstjaeger-) Division der SS on the orders of Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler. SS Standartenfuehrer Hans Brand was the first commander in 1942 until June, 1944 when he was replaced by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Josef Berschneider.

In February, 1944, the battalion conducted Operation Ratte, Rat, against guerrilla forces in the area during which it burned down the villages of Komen and Rihenberg and resettled the population in camps. In one operation in Cividale del Friuli, in northern Italy, 15 members of the battalion were captured, tortured, and killed. Their bodies were found with their decapitated heads placed on bayonets.

In Slovenia, the guerrillas were part of the Chetnik guerrilla movement, the Yugoslav Army of the Homeland, led by Draza Mihailovich, and the Communist National Liberation Front, a Partisan movement. The two guerrillas in the photos are believed to be Slovenian Communist Partisans.

The two guerrillas had been tortured before they were beheaded. They were beaten with logs, kicked, and dragged by the hair. Reportedly one SS member had a knife with which he cut out their eyes. They were taunted: “Do you see now the Allies?” They were laughed at and mocked.

They were then taken to a chopping block. A large group of members from the battalion gathered around the execution site and watched. Two SS members held the victims by the arms. Another member with rolled up sleeves then beheaded them with an axe. Some of the SS troops smoked cigarettes. Some are wearing tropical uniforms.  Their uniforms are clearly and unmistakably those of Waffen SS mountain troops. Some are wearing Waffen SS mountain caps and camouflage jackets and belts and buckles.

The German troops put the two decapitated heads on a table with a note next to it. It was written in Slovenian: “Warm greetings from SS KWB – the men in green jackets!” The “SS KWB” abbreviation stood for “SS Karst-Wehr-Bataillon”, “SS karst defense battalion”. The objective was to terrorize the local population and to deter them from supporting or aiding the resistance movement.

In one of the series of photographs of the execution, two SS troops hold the prisoner down with his neck on a chopping block which appears to be a tree stump. A third SS soldier is shown bringing the axe to the neck of the prisoner. The SS troops are shown watching in the background smoking cigarettes.

In a second photograph, an SS soldier with rolled up sleeves brings the axe down on the neck of the prisoner. The executioner has a satisfied grin on his face. A second SS soldier is holding the prisoner. His Waffen SS uniform is clearly visible with SS collar tabs and rank insignia on the left arm. On the left, one SS soldier is wearing shorts as part of the Waffen SS tropical uniform.

In the third photograph, an SS soldier who is shirtless has swung the axe and beheaded the prisoner. A second SS soldier, who held the prisoner down, grimaces and steps back.

In the fourth photograph, the decapitated head of the prisoner is shown dangling from the body on the stump. The SS soldier who held the prisoner is shown smiling broadly. His Waffen SS uniform and SS runes collar tab can be seen and the rank insignia on his left arm.

In the firth photograph, the two decapitated heads are shown. The one on the right is mutilated and shows signs of torture.

No one was brought to trial or prosecuted for the executions. SS Standartenfueher Hans Brand who initially created the formation and commanded it, died in 1959. Josef Berschneider, a commander of the SS Volunteer Karstwehr Battalion at that time, was the military officer in charge at the time. Karl Weiland, a former SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer in the formation, was questioned but denied any involvement. One of the SS soldiers wielding the axe was identified as the former SS-Oberscharfuehrer Walter W. from Pforzheim in Germany. He had died, however, in 1989.

The executions remain as shocking images of World War II in the Balkans. They are merely the norm in war. What made them special in this instance was that there was a photographer present who preserved the images.

What did the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque in Sarajevo represent? Was it just a rotting piece of wood with rain smears running down it?

Winston Churchill wrote that it represented “infamy” in 1931 and demonstrated the infamy of the Serbian people.

The Nazis, as revealed in the May 1, 1941 Illustrierter Beobachter, the official illustrated magazine of the Nazi Party, wrote that it represented a “shame” or “Schande” that had to “disappear”.

Hitler ordered that it be put on display at the Berlin military museum, the Zeughaus.

It was given to Hitler by Yugoslav ethnic Germans or Volksdeutsche and the families of German Wehrmacht troops. The German Army was thus involved in its removal.

Hitler apparently did not ask for it and may not have even known about it. It was placed high on the wall of the former Moritz Schiller delicatessen where the assassination occurred. It was hard to see from the ground and was weather beaten. It was easy to overlook. It was a present that was sent to him for his 52^nd birthday on April 20, 1941.

What must have struck Hitler was the word “sloboda” or “freiheit” in German, “freedom”, when it was translated to him. The word “freiheit” also appears in the German newsreel that was shot by Die Deutsche Wochenschau. So Hitler is contemplating that message on the plaque, Gavrilo Princip brought “freiheit” or “freedom” by the assassination, by the political murder of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Hohenberg.

The cover of the May 1, 1941 Illustrierter Beobachter, No. 18, featuring Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering congratulating Fuehrer Adolf Hitler on his 52nd birthday in front of the Amerika train in Austria.

Adolf HitlerWhat did the pre-Hitler German Weimar Republic think of the 1930 plaque in 1930? Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung characterized the plaque as “a monstrous provocation”.

British historian R. W. Seton-Watson, who was staunchly pro-Serb, wrote that the plaque represented “an affront to all right thinking people”.

The plaque represented “infamy”, was “shameful” or a “shame”, “an affront”, a “monstrous provocation”, and was inappropriate. This was the general consensus in the Western countries in 1930 after the plaque was erected on February 2, 1930, the 15th anniversary of the executions by hanging of three of the conspirators in the assassination. The international reaction was one of rebuke and consternation.

Why were so many people offended and shocked by the plaque? What are we missing here? What were they missing? What didn’t they get? What don’t we get?

Why did German occupation forces remove the plaque? Why was it one of the first objects targeted by German troops in Sarajevo in 1941? Why and how was Adolf Hitler photographed with the plaque?

The photograph of Adolf Hitler examining the plaque was first published in the German magazine Illustrierter Beobachter, The Illustrated Observer, No. 18, in the May 1, 1941 issue, on page 542. The photograph was featured in only some issues of the magazine while other editions had different photos showing the German entry in Zagreb. The Illustrierter Beobachter was published by the Nazi Party in Munich by the publisher Franz Eher Verlag, which also published the party newspaper Volkischer Beobachter from 1920 and editions of Mein Kampf from 1925. Max Amman headed the publishing firm in the 1930s. The illustrated magazine, edited by Hermann Esser, was published from 1926 to 1945.

This alternate page 542 appeared in some issues of the May 1, 1941 magazine, while other editions contained the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque photograph on the same page.

Why is the photograph in only some issues and not in others of the magazine? It appears that the plaque photograph was inserted later. The alternate edition has photos of German General Field Marshals Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm List, as well as photos of German troops being received with “joy” or “jubilation” by cheering crowds in Zagreb. These were taken on April 10. The Hitler plaque photo was taken on April 20. Most likely the latter was unavailable when the magazine was printed and was added later in subsequent printings. It is the only page that is different in the two editions of the magazine.

The photograph was taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer and the official photographer of the Nazi Party. Hoffman took a series of at least three photographs in rapid succession of Hitler examining the plaque.

In the first published photo, Hitler’s head is slightly bowed as he contemplates the plaque. The scene shows Hitler with two German Wehrmacht officers on the left and a third officer on the far right barely in the frame. All three officers have Iron Crosses. Hitler is contemplative, pensive, and thoughtful in examining the plaque. This is in stark contrast to his examining the Compeigne railway car memorial in France in 1940 where he was in a rage, furious, and disdainful. He left the Ferdinand Foch statue standing but had the train sent to Berlin and the Alsace-Lorraine memorial dismantled. A second, different photograph of the same scene was taken by Hoffmann with a different pose by Hitler. In the second photo, Hitler is standing straight and upright. He is more detached and sober in this shot. He is looking directly at the plaque. The third German officer is not in the scene on the right. A third photograph of the same scene by Hoffmann shows Hitler with his back to the camera. The third officer on the far right can be clearly seen wearing a Wehrmacht uniform and collar tabs and an Iron Cross. In all three photos, Hitler’s arms are crossed.

What was the original reaction to the plaque by the Nazis and by Adolf Hitler in 1941? Can we ever know?

Adolf Hitler in front of the Amerika train on his 52md birthday greeted by Hermann Goering, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Field Marshal Walther Brauchitsch, and OKW chief Wilhelm Keitel.

The original publication of the photograph contained a caption. This can be assumed to be an accurate interpretation or understanding of the plaque by Hitler and the German Nazi Party.

The title of the caption was: “The glorification of a shame disappears.” The objection to the plaque was that it “glorified” a political murderer, an assassin. This is how the Germans perceived the plaque. A murderer was deemed a “hero” who deserved to be on an “honor roll”. The assassination was blamed on the Serbs and was seen as the spark that ignited World War I. The assassination was “an atrocity”. It was “shameful” or a “shame” to honor a mass murderer. This was the German take on the plaque.

Volksdeutsche in Sarajevo removing the plaque as a German Army band plays in the foreground.

The original caption in German read as follows:

“On June 28, 1914, the Archduke couple was murdered by the Bosnian Serb Princip in Sarajevo. By this atrocity the Serbian conspiracy circles inflamed the World War. The Serbs attached at the murder site this ‘honor roll’ in memory of this bloody deed which has now been removed by ethnic Germans and family members of the Wehrmacht who have passed it to the Fuehrer’s headquarters. Adolf Hitler decreed its transfer to the armory.”

In his 1931 book The Unknown War, Winston Churchill wrote that the 1930 plaque represented “infamy” and showed the infamy of the Serbian people.

The plaque was subsequently placed in the Berlin Zeughaus or military museum where it was viewed by spectators. At least two photographs exist of the plaque on display in the museum. It was removed and disappeared after 1945. There is no trace of it after the war.

What does the plaque represent? Infamy or freedom? On the one hundred year anniversary of the end of World War I, do we now know in 2014? Or is this still an open question? What are the lessons, if any?

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque in Sarajevo had been put up on February 2, 1930 amid controversy and international censure. The Yugoslav government made a point of the fact that it was a private memorial to Gavrilo Princip.

The plaque was, nevertheless, attacked and vilified. Critics maintained that the plaque represented “infamy”, was “shameful” or a “shame”, “an affront”, a “monstrous provocation”, and “a barbarous record”.

In Sarajevo: The Story of a Political Murder (New York: Criterion Books, 1959), Joachim Remak cited Winston Churchill’s remarks on the memorial to Princip: “Perhaps the cruelest comment on it all was made by an old friend of the Austrian monarchy, Sir Winston Churchill, who wrote (in The Unknown War [New York, 1932], p. 54): ‘He [Princip] died in prison, and a monument erected in recent years by his fellow countrymen records his infamy, and their own.’”

The pre-Adolf Hitler German Weimar Republic newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung characterized the plaque as “a monstrous provocation”.

Not everyone, however, was critical of the memorial. British author Rebecca West wrote in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (New York: Penguin Books, 1994, pp. 351-352), published in 1941, that the 1930 plaque was appropriate: “I had read much abuse of this tablet as a barbarous record of satisfaction in an accomplished crime. Mr. Winston Churchill remarks in his book on The Unknown War (The Eastern Front) that “Princip died in prison, and a monument erected in recent years by his fellow country-men records his infamy and their own.” It is actually a very modest black tablet, not more than would be necessary to record the exact spot of the assassination for historical purposes, and it is placed so high above the street-level that the casual passer-by would not remark it. The inscription runs, “Here, in this historical place, Gavrilo Princip was the initiator of liberty, on the day of St. Vitus, the 28th of June, 1914.” These words seem to me remarkable in their restraint, considering the bitter hatred the rule of Austria had aroused in Bosnia. The expression ‘initiator of liberty’ is justified by its literal truth: the Bosnians and Herzegovinians were in fact enslaved until the end of the war which was provoked by the assassination  of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. To be shocked at a candid statement of this hardly becomes a subject of any of the Western states who connived at the annexation of these territories by Austria.”

Richard Holbrooke commented on the 1930 plaque in To End a War (New York: Modern Library, 1999), Prologue, page xx, although he confused that plaque with the 1953 Communist or Josip Broz Tito era one: “According to Rebecca West in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the inscription, engraved on ‘a very modest black tablet,’ actually read, ‘Here, in this historical place, Gavrilo Princip was the initiator of liberty, on the day of St. Vitus, the 28th of June, 1914.’ In The Unknown Wan Winston Churchill referred to this inscription as ‘a monument erected by his fellow countrymen [which] which records his infamy and their own.’ West, pro-Serb throughout her famous book, objected to Churchill’s characterization, and described the words on the plaque as ‘remarkable in their restraint … [and] justified by their literal truth.'” He also failed to realize that one plaque was erected under a monarchist regime while the second was erected by a Communist or Socialist regime. They were two different plaques by two different and completely opposite regimes or governments politically.

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque had replaced the 1917 Franz Ferdinand and Sophie plaque on the wall of the Moritz Schiller delicatessen. The Ferdinand and Sophie plaque was removed and the Princip plaque was put in its place, in the same location. The location for both plaques was above the last window near the bridge, closest to the Appel Quay. This plaque was removed in 1918 by officials of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

After German troops entered Sarajevo on April 15, volksdeutsche or ethnic Germans who lived in Yugoslavia marched to the site and removed the plaque. The volksdeutsche in Yugoslavia lived in areas that had been part of the Austria-Hungary before 1918 when these territories were incorporated into the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later becoming Yugoslavia. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the Banat region had all been a part of Austria before the Versailles Treaty made them a part of the new Yugoslav state in 1919. They retained their own cultural customs and traditions, spoke German, and had their own newspapers and organizations. As Germans, they had looked to Vienna as their political center. Moreover, the ethnic Germans of the Banat had been settled by the Habsburg Austrian state. They were known as Schwabian Germans after the region in Germany where they originated from.

For them, the Princip plaque was a symbol of the loss of their national identity and ethnic affiliation. It was the assassination and subsequent war that had deprived them of their German identity. As part of a Slavic state, they became a minority and peripheral population. They preferred a return to the pre-1918 period when they were part of a German state, Austria. So they obtained satisfaction and redemption in removing the plaque.

The removal of the plaque was part of an elaborate ceremony. A German military band played on the occasion. German war correspondents were photographed holding the plaque. Wehrmacht Leutnant Kurt Mittelmann was a kriegsberichter or military reporter who took the plaque to Monichkirchen and personally presented it to Adolf Hitler on his 52^nd birthday. Mittelmann was photographed in front of the plaque with other German officers when it was removed in Sarajevo. He was also photographed in the cabin of the Amerika train talking to Hitler as the latter viewed the plaque.

The photograph of that presentation first appeared in the May 1, 1941 Nazi Party magazine, Illustrierter Beobachter, No. 18. The magazine editors characterized the plaque as a “shame”, or “shameful”, “Schande”. The Serbian people were glorifying a crime and the criminal who committed it. It had to “disappear”. They noted that it was volskdeutsche or ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia and the families of Wehrmacht members who had taken the plaque down. It was their present to him on his 52nd birthday. Adolf Hitler had ordered that that it be placed in the Zeughaus military museum or Armory in Berlin.

This is where the plaque was taken and put on display. During the war, spectators were photographed examining it.

The museum also contained Polish and French war trophies in 1940, brought back from the successful campaigns in those countries in 1939 and 1940.

The Zeughaus had been begun in 1695 by the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick III on Unter den Linden in Berlin. It had been completed in 1730. The structure was built to house artillery weapons from Brandenburg and Prussia. In 1875, the building was changed into a military museum.

During the war, Hitler had visited the museum on several occasions. Hitler visited the Zeughaus on March 15, 1942, to make a speech on Germany’s Heroes’ Memorial Day celebration. There was a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1943. On March 21, 1943, Rudolf von Gersdorff attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Zeughaus military museum during the opening of an exhibition. Hitler had come to the museum to inspect captured Soviet weapons. The top echelon of the German government was in attendance that day, including Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and Grand Admiral Karl Donitz. Gersdorff was to be a guide for Hitler on a tour of the exhibition. After Hitler entered the museum, von Gersdorff set off two ten-minute delayed fuses on explosives hidden in his coat pockets. His plan was to throw himself around Hitler.

The structure was severely damaged by Allied bombing during the war. After the war, the building was in the German Democratic Republic or GDR sector of the city which converted it to the Museum of German History, Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, in 1952. After 1989, the building was transformed again into the German Historical Museum, Deutsches Historisches Museum.

The plaque was photographed in the museum in situ in 1941. The plaque was placed on a wall slightly above eye level with a placard on top of it and one beneath it. The title of the exhibit was Serbische Gedenkplatte, Serbian Memorial Plaque.

Two German officers and a soldier were shown examining the plaque. On the left there was a Serbian sajkaca or cap with a military uniform. On the right there was a British helmet and uniform. That appeared to be a separate exhibit. To the right and left are rifles. There also was a large bass drum underneath the plaque. This photograph first appeared in the German Nazi Party daily newspaper the Volkischer Beobachte, the People’s Observer, Nr. 120, issue 120, April 30, 1941. Adolf Hitler was the owner of the Volkischer Beobachter newspaper. Within ten days after the presentation of the plaque to Hitler, it had been installed in the Zeughaus as an exhibit. The source for the first photograph is the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Bavarian State Library.

In a second photograph, the lower small plaque can be seen but not the top plaque and the uniform is not in front of it. A civilian spectator is examining the plaque wearing a hat. The sajkaca cap can be seen on the top far left corner but it has been moved farther to the left. This photo is most likely from 1941.

In a third photo from 1945 by Austrian photographer Albert W. Hilscher, the plaque underneath is placed lower on the wall away from the plaque. German spectators, two men wearing hats and a child wearing a hat, are shown viewing the plaque, crouching to read the lower placard underneath the plaque. The source for the third photograph is the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Austrian National Library.

After the war, the plaque disappeared and all traces of it were lost. There is only photographic evidence of its placement and display in the museum.

A new plaque honoring Gavrilo Princip was erected in 1945 by the new Communist regime that emerged after the war. The new plaque, like the 1930 plaque, venerated Princip as ushering in freedom, as the earlier plaque had done. The 1953 plaque, likewise, glorified Gavrilo Princip as bringing freedom to the Balkans.

The site of the plaque in Sarajevo has undergone a transformation during the 20th century. The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque was photographed with a Kralja Petra street sign underneath. The former Franzjosefstrasse or Franz Joseph street had been renamed King Peter street in 1919 by the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. After 1945, the Communist regime renamed it JNA street, or Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija street. After the 1992-1995 civil war, the Bosnian Muslim government renamed the street Zelenih Beretki street, or Green Beret street, after a Bosnian Muslim paramilitary formation.

The Appel Quay, which intersects the street, was renamed Obala Vojvoda Stepa Stepanovich street in 1919. From 1941 to 1945, the street was named Obala Adolfa Hitlera, or Adolf Hitler street. After 1945, the street was renamed Vojvoda Stepa. After the 1992-1995 civil war, the street was renamed Obala Kulina Bana, or Ban Kulin street. The 1953 Mlada Bosna or Young Bosnia Museum was renamed the Museum of Sarajevo, 1878-1918 by the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina following the 1992-1995 civil war. The Princip Bridge or Principov Most in Sarajevo is now named Latin Bridge or Latinska Cuprija. This was its pre-1918 name under Austria-Hungary

In 2004, the government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina erected a new plaque at the site of the assassination, now turned into the Museum of Sarajevo, 1878-1918, covering the period under Austro-Hungarian administration. Gavrilo Princip is still mentioned on the plaque, but this time in neutral and matter-of-fact terms. The new plaque notes that he committed the assassination on that spot. The 20th century history of Sarajevo shows that nothing is permanent and enduring except change

Gavrilo Princip was sentenced to 20 years in prison. This was because under Austro-Hungarian criminal law, he could not receive the death penalty because he was under twenty years of age at the time of the assassination. There was some dispute about his age. He was born on July 13, 1914. So at the time of the assassination, he was 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old. He was two weeks short of his twentieth birthday. Investigators sought to show that he was born on June 13 based on an entry in the civil registry.

In the Serbian Orthodox Church registry of baptisms, Princip’s date of birth is recorded as July 13, 1894. The date of birth in the civil register, however, was recorded as June 13, 1894. This would make Prinicp over twenty at the time of the assassination. He would be subject to the death penalty. The Austro-Hungarian criminal court, however, accepted the July 13 date.

Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, and Trifko Grabez, all under twenty, escaped the death penalty. Instead, they were subjected to a slow and excruciating death, a “slow murder”. The sentence they received was twenty years of hard labor, the deprivation of food for one day each month, and being forced to lie on a hard surface in a darkened cell on June 28 each year. Of the 13 conspirators sentenced to prison in Austria-Hungary, nine would be dead in a matter of 3 and a half years. Many were in their twenties. Moreover, many of them went into prison in a perfect state of health. Gavrilo Princip told Martin Pappenheim that he had always been healthy.

He did sustain serious head and back injuries and to other parts of his body after the assassination. Princip had an untreated wound to his chest, back, and arm. At least one rib had been broken and his arm had been smashed. These wounds were never treated. They were allowed to fester and to grow worse and to become infected and septic. His right arm reportedly had so deteriorated that it was held together by wire. His lower right arm was amputated in 1916.

They were all sent to the Theresienstadt prison. Princip was placed in a cell marked “1”. He was photographed at the door of the cell in what is the most reproduced photograph of his likeness.

Theresienstadt, or Teresa’s City, Terezin in Czech, is located northwest of Prague and Lidice in northern Bohemia along the Ohre River near the Elbe River. It was a military fortress and a walled garrison town 30 miles or 48 kilometers from Prague. The military fortress was known as “the Small Fortress” or Kleine Festung. This is where Gavrilo Princip was imprisoned. The town is in the Sudetenland region, which was a majority German region annexed in 1938 by Germany following the Munich Crisis. It was a German transit and concentration camp during World War II, established in 1940.

It was constructed by Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1780, who named it after his mother, Empress Maria Teresa. It was a fortress town to defend against Prussian attacks.

Gavrilo Princip arrived at the prison on December 5, 1914. He was in Terezin from that day until his death on April 28, 1918. He was in solitary confinement during the entire time of his incarceration. The only time he was out of his cell was when he was taken to the hospital.

Martin Pappenheim had four meetings with Princip, on February 19, May 12, May 18, and June 5, 1916. Entry for February 19, 1916. These records give an accurate and starkly vivid picture of his time there.

Princip found it difficult in solitary confinement. He was not given anything to read. He was chained to the wall. There was no air or sunlight in his cell. He usually only slept for four hours each night.

Princip revealed to Pappenheim that he did not receive adequate food. He was beginning to show the effects of malnutrition. He was slowly being starved to death. In this respect, the prison would function like the later Nazi concentration camps which slowly starved their inmates to death. There were many ways to slowly kill an inmate. Starvation was one.

Martin Pappenheim’s accounts in Gavrilo Princips Bekenntnisse: Ein Geschichtlicher Beitrag Zur Vorgeschichte Des Attentates Von Sarajevo, published by Rudolf Lechner and Son in Vienna in 1926, and in Zagreb in a Serbo-Croat translation, record Princip’s imprisonment during the crucial year of 1916 when his health and state of mind deteriorated drastically.

On February 19, 1916, Pappenheim recorded that his chains were removed when he was transported to the hospital: “Three days ago, chains off. …Always has been healthy. Knew nothing of serious injuries before the assassination. At that time injuries on the head and all over. At that time senseless. Scarlet fever. … Never had attacks of unconsciousness… not particularly religious. … The love for the girl did not vanish, but he never wrote her. Relates that he knew her in the fourth class; ideal love, never kissed; in this connection will reveal no more of himself. … At the time of the assassination was injured on the head and back and all over. Took cyanide of potassium, but was weak and vomited. … It is very hard in solitary confinement, without books, with absolutely nothing to read and intercourse with nobody. Always accustomed to read, suffering most from not having anything to read. Sleeps usually only four hours in the night. … Is not badly treated. All behave properly toward him. … Admits attempt at suicide a month ago. Wanted to hang himself with the towel. … Has a wound on the breast and on the arm. A life like mine, that’s impossible. At that time, about 12 o’clock, he could not eat, was in bad spirits, and on a sudden came the idea to hang himself. If he had opportunity he would do it. Thinks of his parents and all, but hears nothing of them.”

Princip was in the Prison Hospital in Teresienstadt when Pappenheim wrote the entry for May 12, 1916: “He recognizes me immediately and shows pleasure at seeing me. Since 7 IV here in hospital. Always nervous. Is hungry, does not get enough to eat. Loneliness. Gets no air and sun here; in the fortress took walks.” From April 7 to May 12, Princip was in the hospital. … For two months has heard nothing more of events. But it all is indifferent to him, on account of his illness and the misfortune of his people. … On being requested to write something on the social revolution, he writes on a sheet of paper the following, saying that for two years he has not had a pen in hand. Translates. … Broke off here, feeling ill. My thoughts are already—I am very nervous. … The time before he wrote ten lines and one word. Now after this talk he continues writing again. Stops often and reflects. Complains himself that it is difficult for him. Ceases writing again after fifteen lines. Again translates. …”

Princip’s injury had deteriorated by May 18, 1916: “Wound worse, discharging very freely. Looking miserable. Suicide by any sure means is impossible. ‘Wait to the end.’ Resigned, but not really very sad.”

Pappenheim described Princip’s mood and state of mind. He had lengthy political and philosophical discussions with Princip: “Sometimes in a philosophical mood, sometimes poetical, sometimes quite prosaic. Thinks about the human soul. What is the essential in human life, instinct or will, or spirit—what moves man? … Thought that as a result of repeated attempts at assassination there could be built up an organization such as Ilic desired, and that then there would be general revolution among the people. Now comprehends that a revolution, especially in the military state of Austria, is of no use. What he now thinks the right thing he would not say. Has no desire to speak on the matter. It makes him unquiet to speak about it. When he thinks by himself, then everything is clear, but when he speaks with anybody, then he becomes uncertain. … If he had something to read for only 2-3 days, he could then think more clearly and express himself better. Does not speak to anybody for a month. Then when I come he wants to speak about ideas, about dominating thoughts. He considered that if he prepared the atmosphere the idea of revolution and liberation would spread first among men of intelligence and then later in the masses. Thought that thereby attention of the intelligentsia would be directed upon it. As for instance Mazzini did in Italy at the time of the Italian liberation. Thought that the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro should be united.”

The final entry was for June 5, 1916. “When permission comes, arm is to be amputated. His usual resigned disposition.”

This was the last entry in Pappenheim’s notes. Princip’s arm was subsequently amputated. Princip hung on to life for almost two years longer after this final meeting.

British author Rebecca West described Princip’s imprisonment in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (New York: The Viking Press, 1941, 1968 printing of the 1943 One Volume edition, page 378). West had travelled to Yugoslavia in 1936, 1937, and 1938. Her accounts were published in October, 1941.

An obelisk monument marks the grave where Gavrilo Princip was secretly buried in Theresienstadt in 1918. Photograph by Vova Pomortzeff.

She described the mistreatment and abuse which Princip received at Theresienstadt succinctly and graphically: “Princip appears to have suffered greatly under his imprisonment, though with courage. In his death, as in everything we hear reported of his life, there was a certain noble integrity of experience. He offered himself wholly to each event in order that he might learn in full what revelation it had to make about the nature of the universe. How little of a demented fanatic he was, what qualities of restraint and deliberation he brought to his part in the attentat [italics], is revealed by the testimony of the Czech doctor who befriended him in prison. From the court records one would suppose him to be without personal ties, to be perhaps an orphan, at any rate to be wholly absorbed in politics. Yet to the Czech doctor he spoke perpetually of his dear mother, of his brothers and their children, and of a girl whom he had loved and whom he had hoped to marry, though he had never kissed her.”

West argued that Gavrilo Princip and the other prisoners were subjected to what amounted to a “slow murder”: “Thirteen conspirators were sent to Austrian prisons. Before the end of the war, which came three and a half years later, nine of them had died in their cells. How this slow murder was contrived in the case of Princip is known to us, through Slav guards and doctors. He was taken to an eighteenth-century fortress at Theresienstadt between Prague and Dresdem. The Austrians would not leave him in Sarajevo because they already saw that the war was not as they had hoped, and they feared that Bosnia might fall into Serbian hands. He was put in in an underground cell filled with the stench of the surrounding marshes, which received the fortress sewage. He was in irons. There was no heating. He had nothing to read. On St. Vitus’s Day he had sustained a broken rib and a crushed arm which were never given proper medical attention. At Theresienstadt the arm became tuberculous and suppurated, and he contracted a fungoid infection on the body. Three times he tried to commit suicide. But in his cell there lacked the means either of life or of death. In 1917 his forearm became so septic that it had to be amputated. By this time Chabrinovitch and Grabezh were both dead, it is said of tuberculosis. Grabezh at any rate had been a perfectly healthy boy till his arrest. Princip never rallied after his operation. He had been put in a windowless cell, and though he could no longer be handcuffed, since the removal of his arm, his legs were hobbled with heavy chains. In the spring of 1918 he died. He was buried at night, and immense precautions were taken to conceal the spot. But the Austrian Empire had yet to make the last demonstration of Schlamperei in connection with the Sarajevo attentat. One of the soldiers who dug the grave was a Slav, and he took careful note of its position; he came forward after the peace and gave his information to the Serbs. They were able to identify the body by its mutilations.”

Gavrilo Princip’s death certificate noted that he died on April 28, 1918 at 6:30 p.m. of tuberculosis of the bone in the Theresienstadt Hospital. At the time of his death, ravaged by disease and starvation, Princip only weighed 88 pounds. He was buried secretly in an unmarked grave.

After the war, a guard revealed the location of the grave. An Austro-Hungarian soldier of Czech nationality, Frantisek Lobl, buried the body with four other guards. Lobl noted the location on a map which he sent to his father. After the war ended, Princip’s burial site was located. Princip’s remains were identified and his body was transported to Sarajevo for reburial in 1920. He and the other conspirators were reburied in the Sarajevo cemetery in a common grave on July 7, 1920.

On July 7, 1939, the Chapel of the Holy Archangel was built and dedicated to them. The assassination had occurred on June 28, the Orthodox holiday Vidovdan or St. Vitus’ Day, so the conspirators were called the “Vidovdan Heroes”.

The Patriarchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Sarajevo had the Chapel of the Vidovdan Heroes built in Koševo in the St. Mark cemetery. The memorial was designed by Aleksandar Deroko, a Serbian architect and veteran of World War I.

The names of those who died are inscribed on black marble at the front of the memorial: Gavrilo Princip, Bogdan Žerajic, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, Danilo Ilic, Trifko Grabež, Nedeljko Cubrilovic, Mihajlo-Miško Jovanovic, Mitar Kerovic, Nedjo Kerovic, Jakov Milovic and Marko Perin. The memorial contains verses by the Montenegrin poet Petar II Petrovi? Njegoš: “Blessed are those who live forever, they were not born in vain.”

Gavrilo Princip was dead but his impact and influence on the twentieth century, for good or ill, were immeasurable and would endure.

Gavrilo Princip was first buried in secret in an unmarked grave at the Theresienstadt or Terezin prison following his death on April 28, 1918. His remains were exhumed and transferred to Sarajevo on July 7, 1920. This was Gavrilo Princip’s grave until 1939 when a Chapel was built to replace the grave.

The Grave of Gavrilo Princip, Sarajevo cemetery, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Yugoslavia, 1939. (Photo by IBL Bildbyra/Heritage Images/Getty Images).

The other conspirators were also interred in this grave. Bogdan Zerajic’s remains were also reburied here.

The assassination occurred on the Orthodox holiday, Vidovdan or St. Vitus’ Day, Sunday, on June 28, 1914. For this reason the conspirators were called the “Vidovdan Heroes” and the Chapel memorial was named “The Tomb of the Vidovdan Heroes”.

After the war, the remains of the conspirators were located and exhumed by the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and brought back to Sarajevo from the burial sites within Austria-Hungary. They had been buried in unmarked graves in the vicinity of the prisons where they had been incarcerated. They were reburied in the common grave in Sarajevo on July 7, 1920. Exactly 19 years later, on July 7, 1939, the Chapel of the Holy Archangel was built and dedicated to them. This was the grave of Gavrilo Princip that remained up to the time of the centennial in 2014.

But for 19 years, from 1920 to 1939, Gavrilo Princip’s grave was a three-layered stone tombstone. There were three tiers or slabs arranged in an oblong shape. The grave was near the cemetery fence. The palings of the cemetery fence can be seen in photographs to the left of the grave made of black metal spikes or stakes. The grave itself was surrounded by large chains which were attached to short columns. There were round bushes in the corners. This is the grave that Rebecca West described in 1937 in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) before the Chapel was built in 1939. The old grave had a slab on top with a Serbian or tetragrammatic cross with the Cyrillic letter “c”, “s” in Latin, in the four corners. They stand for the motto: Samo sloga Srbina spasava. Only unity saves the Serbs. This was the national symbol, coat of arms, or crest of Serbia. The crest appeared on the royalist Serbian flag from 1882 to 1918 and was the coat of arms of Yugoslavia along with the Croatian checkerboard symbol on the right and the Slovenian symbol on the bottom. The tetragrammatic cross is also the symbol of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937 by Rebecca West. First Edition, 1941. 2 Volumes. London: Macmillan, 1941. 652 + 586 p. Illustrated. First edition, first printing in original dust jackets.

In Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937, Rebecca West, the pen name of British author and journalist Cicely Isabel Fairfield, sought to understand the country and its people. West had visited Yugoslavia with her husband in 1936, 1937, and 1938. Her 1937 trip, which took her across Yugoslavia, was the subject of her book, which was first published in 1941 by Macmillan in London. One of the major themes of her travels was to determine the legacy and influence of Gavrilo Princip. Throughout the book there are lengthy discussions and analyses of his life and death and the Sarajevo assassination. She grapples with his role in history and attempts to come to a conclusion. In that regard, one purpose of her travels was to search for Gavrilo Princip’s lasting impact on Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Yugoslavia was the end product of Princip’s assassination, constructed in the aftermath. It was a fragmented country that emerged from World War I, a war triggered by the assassination.

In her quest to pinpoint Princip’s legacy in and on Yugoslavia, in 1937 she made a visit to his grave in the Orthodox cemetery in the Kosevo section of Sarajevo. She described not only what she saw but also tried to ascertain its meaning and implications for the present.

She had visited Sarajevo in her journey that year. She discussed Gavrilo Princip and the assassination in the course of her travels in Bosnia and Hercegovina. This led her to visit the historic places in the city that touched on the assassination. Her companion Constantine suggested that they go to see Gavrilo Princip’s grave in the Sarajevo cemetery.

“‘You must come up to the Orthodox cemetery and see the graves of these poor boys,’ said Constantine. ‘It is very touching, for a reason that will appear when you see it.’ Two days later we made this expedition, with the judge and the banker to guide us. But Constantine could not keep back his dramatic climax until we got there. He felt he had to tell us when we had driven only half-way up the hillside. ‘What is so terrible,’ he said, ‘is that they are there in that grave, the poor little ones, Princip, Chabrinovitch, Grabezh, and three other little ones who were taken with them. They could not be hanged, the law forbade it. Nobody could be hanged in the Austrian Empire under twenty-one. Yet I tell you they are all there, and they certainly did not have time to die of old age, for they were all dead before the end of the war.'”

“The judge and the banker said, ‘Look, they are here.’ Close to the palings of the cemetery, under three stone slabs, lie the conspirators of Sarajevo, those who were hanged and five of those who died in prison; and to them has been joined Zheraitch, the boy who tried to kill Bosnian Governor General Vareshanin and was kicked as he lay on the ground. The slab in the middle is raised. Underneath it lies the body of Princip. To the left and the right lie the others, the boys on one side and the men on the other, for in this country it is recognized that the difference between old and young is almost as great as that between men and women. The grave is not impressive. It is as if a casual hand had swept them into a stone drawer. There was a battered wreath laid askew on the slabs, and candles flickered in rusty lanterns. This untidiness means nothing… After all, a stone with a green stain of weed on it commemorates death more appropriately that polished marble. … It does not imply insensibility. The officer swaying in front of the cross on the new grave might never be wholly free of his grief till he died, but this did not mean that he would derive any satisfaction at all in making the grave look like part of a garden. And as we stood by the shabby monument an old woman passing along the road outside the cemetery paused, pressed her face against the railings, looked down on the stone slab, and retreated into prayer. Later a young man who was passing by with a cart loaded with vegetables stopped and joined her, his eyes also set in wonder on the grave, his hand also making the sign of the cross on brow and breast, his lips also moving.”

“On their faces there was none of the bright acclaiming look which shines in the eyes of those who talk of, say, Andreas Hofer. They seemed to be contemplating a mystery, and so they were, for the Sarajevo attentat is mysterious as history is mysterious, as life is mysterious. Of all the men swept into this great drawer only one, Princip, had conceived what they were doing as a complete deed.” (West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Sarajevo VII, pages 380-381. New York: The Viking Press, December, 1968 11th printing, One Volume Edition.)

She noted the ambiguity and ambivalence that visitors to the grave exhibited. She described the grave as “shabby” and “not impressive”. What she noticed was the “untidiness” of the memorial. There was, however, a sense of “wonder” and of “mystery”. For West, only Gavrilo Princip was committed to the assassination and only he had grasped the gravity and the consequences of the act. The other conspirators stumbled into the plot in a haphazard and irresolute manner. Only Princip had the determination and the conviction to carry it through to its logical conclusion.

“At the cemetery we forgot for a moment why we were there, so beautifully does it lie in the tilted bowl of the town. It is always so in Sarajevo. Because of the intricate contours of its hills it is forever presenting a new picture, and the mind runs away from life to its setting. And when we passed the cemetery gates, we forgot again for another reason. Not far away among the tombs there was a new grave, a raw wound in the grass. A wooden cross was at its head, and burning candles were stuck in the broken clay. At the foot of it stood a young officer, his face the colour of tallow. He rocked backwards in his grief, though very slightly, and his mouth worked with prayer. His uniform was extremely neat. Yet once, while we stared at him in shocked distress, he tore open his skirted coat as if he were about to strip; but instantly his hand did up the buttons as if he were a nurse coolly tending his own delirium.” (Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. NY: Viking, 1968 printing, p. 379.)

West attempted to come to a conclusion or to reach a judgment on Gavrilo Princip and on the assassination. But she could not. Was he a hero? Was he a terrorist? Was he a liberator? Was he a murderer? Did he bring on the war? Was he responsible for the carnage and the deaths of millions? Was it appropriate and morally correct to see him as a person who ushered in freedom and liberty? Was he a martyr? Was he a criminal? In the end, West concluded that a final judgment that was unanimous and accepted by all was impossible. There could only be subjective and self-interested and self-serving interpretations based on which perspective or viewpoint you consulted or relied on. For “Westerners”, the assassination is incomprehensible and is seen as a crime. But for Serbs, the assassination has been transmogrified and adapted to fit in with Serbian national identity and history. He is needed to rationalize and to justify that history. The ultimate judgment and final assessment, thus, depends on who you ask.

“What these youths did was abominable, precisely as abominable as the tyranny they destroyed. … It shows also that moral judgment sets itself an impossible task. … I write of a mystery. For that is the way the deed appears to me, and to all Westerners. But to those who look at it on the soil where it was committed, and to the lands east of that, it seems a holy act of liberation.”

Gavrilo Princip’s grave in 2014: The Chapel of the Vidovdan Heroes. https://triptape.wordpress.com/

In 1939, the Gavrilo Princip grave was transformed into a Chapel in Sarajevo constructed by the Serbian Orthodox Church with a red cross on the front wall in the center. The Chapel also contains the remains of the other conspirators and of Bogdan Zerajic. The Chapel was built in Kosevo, in the centuries-old Orthodox cemetery of Archangel Michael, at the behest of the Patriarchy of the Orthodox Church in Sarajevo. It was designed by Aleksandar Deroko, a Serbian architect who had been a volunteer pilot during World War I.

At the front of the Chapel is a marker with the names of the conspirators. They are described as Vidovdan Heroes. There is a cross above their names. At the bottom is the date “1914”. Above the portal their names are inscribed in Serbian Cyrillic: Gavrilo Princip, Bogdan Zerajic, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, Danilo Ilic, Trifko Grabez, Nedeljko Cubrilovic, Mihajlo-Misko Jovanovic, Mitar Kerovic, Nedjo Kerovic, Jakov Milovic, and Marko Perin. There are also verses from The Mountain Wreath (1847) by the Montenegrin poet, Petar II Petrovic Njegos, which are written in Serbian Cyrillic across the top: “Blago tome ko dovijek zivi, imao se rasta I roditi.“ In English, the lines are: “Blessed are those who live forever, they were not born in vain.”

Both the 1920 grave and the 1939 Chapel survived the vicissitudes of the more politically oriented plaques and memorials erected at the assassination site. The 1930 and 1945 plaques were removed and replaced while the 1953 memorial was destroyed during the Bosnian civil war which began in 1992. A politically neutral memorial was erected in 2004 at the site by the Bosnian Muslim government.

The post-1918 government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which became Yugoslavia in 1929, transformed Gavrilo Princip’s image from an atheistic anarchist and revolutionary to a nationalist. In the process of mythopoesis and idealization, he was added to the Serbian historical narrative and made a part of the nationalist palingenesis and teleology. For the Serbian Orthodox Church, he was made a part of the Kosovo saga or mythos. He was compared to Milos Obilic who had killed Murad in 1389 during the Battle of Kosovo. Concomitantly with his political or nationalist transformation, there was a religious one as well.

The Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito that emerged in 1945 recast and reformulated Gavrilo Princip’s image as a proto-Communist and as a key founder and proponent of Yugoslavism, of brotherhood and unity. As a consequence, he was incorporated into the Partisan or Communist national ideology and depicted as a “national hero”, a symbol of Communist Yugoslavia.

During the 1992-1995 civil war, the Chapel was neglected and vandalized. Bosnian Muslims used it as a public lavatory.

In 2014, on the 100th anniversary of the assassination and the start of the war, many visited the Chapel and placed flowers on the grave. Others condemned Gavrilo Princip as a terrorist and murderer. After a hundred years, Gavrilo Princip’s legacy remains unsettled and in flux. Like Rebecca West in 1937, historians and commentators have grappled with his legacy. But also like West, they could not come away with any definite conclusion or judgment.

Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler arrived in Kraljevo, German-occupied Serbia on Thursday, October 15, 1942 to inspect the 7th Waffen SS Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”. Himmler spent four days in Serbia, leaving on Sunday, October 18. The first offensive or operation of the Prinz Eugen division, the anti-guerrilla military operation against the Kopaonik region of central Serbia, was to attack the Chetnik guerrillas under Draza Mihailovich in the Kopaonik, Goc and Jastrebac mountains of central Serbia. Prinz Eugen attacked Chetnik troops under Chetnik Major Dragutin Keserovic.

Himmler was photographed arriving in an air field in a German Junkers Ju 52 transport plane. Te arrival was photographed by German war reporter or Kriegsberichter Beinhauer, who shot a series of three. Himmler was coming from a trip to Italy. August Meyszner, the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPL) in Serbia, appointed by Himmler in January, 1942, greeted him as he departed from the plane.

Otto Kumm, who commanded Prinz Eugen from January 30, 1944 to January 20, 1945, wrote: “From 15 to 18 October the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler, visited the division. He was pleased by the attitude and state of training and, besides stating his recognition, promoted several of its soldiers: Eberhardt, Schmidt, Vollmer, Kaserer and Antelmann to Stubaf, Neumann to Hstuf.” (Kumm, Otto. The History of the 7 SS Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”. 1995 U.S. printing by J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Calgary, Manitoba, Canada edition, page 28.).

Himmler promoted the following officers in the division during his inspection tour:

Chief of Staff of the division, SS-Hauptsturmführer Erich Eberhardt (March 1, 1942 – June, 1943); Quartermaster, SS-Hauptsturmführer Walter Schmidt (March 1, 1942 – July 2, 1943): SS-Sturmbannführer Eggert Neumann, Kdr. SS-Aufkl.Abt. 7: Ostuf. Herbert Vollmer, SS-Pi.Ausb.Btl.1; and, Richard Kaserer, the commander of the 1 battalion, regiment 2.

On his arrival, Himmler was greeted by SS Gruppenfuehrer Artur Phleps, the commander of the Prinz Eugen Waffen SS division. Behind Himmler SS Obergruppenfuehrer Karl Wolff, Himmler’s liaison officer, is seen climbing down the stairs from the plane. Artur Phleps gives a “Heil Hitler!” salute to Himmler as he steps off the plane. With his back to the camera SS Gruppenfuehrer August Meyszner was photographed during the arrival. Meyszner was the head of all the police in Serbia and was put in charge of recruiting volksdeutsche for the Waffen SS. Kraljevo is approximately 31 miles southwest of Kragujevac and 20 miles southeast of Cacak. In 1941, Serbian civilians of the city had been executed en masse as reprisals for resistance.

In October, 1942, the Prinz Eugen SS Division engaged in its first large-scale military operation, against Serbian forces under Draza Mihailovich’s commander Major Dragutin Keserovic in the Kopaonik Mountains in the region of Kriva Reka. On October 5, 1942, Phleps issued his first commitment order for the attack on the Kriva Reka area:

1. The organization center of the senior rebel commander of middle-Serbia, Major {dragutin] Keserovic, is located in the Kopaonik Mountains (center of Kriva Reka). Its strength cannot be determined. However, the entire population of this area must be considered rebel sympathizers.

2. SS Division “Prinz Eugen,” in cooperation with elements of the Bulgarian 9th Infantry Division, has to destroy this enemy under my command….

12. …Every man in Division “Prinz Eugen” will fight victoriously wherever the combat takes them. We now lay the groundwork for future operations. The division must fight to destroy our enemy, eliminate his headquarters and maintain the peace. “Forward, Prinz Eugen!”

The Division Commander, Phleps, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen SS

According to Otto Kumm in his history of the division, this first military engagement of the Prinz Eugen SS Division against General Draza Mihailovich’s guerilla forces was a failure:

“The operation brought the troops untold difficulties and ended (if one considers the enemy contact) without any success. The Chetniks had their spies in every town and were warned long beforehand. The only success was that the troops (advancing out of various departure positions) were able to conduct the reconnaissance, maintain communications, and cooperate during maneuvers. The operation proved the division’s readiness for commitment.”

During the latter part of October, the Prinz Eugen Division attacked Mihailovich’s guerilla forces in Gorni Milanovac and Cacak.The II Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Prinz Eugen was transferred to Topola.

Phleps ordered the anti-guerrilla offensive on October 5 in the Kraljevo, Užice, Ivanjica, ?a?ak, Raška, Kosovska Mitrovica, and Novi Pazar regions. The Bulgarian 9th Infantry Division participated in the operation. The Prinz Eugen Division had approximately 20,000 troops available for the attack. They attacked the Chetnik Rasina Corps under Dragutin Keserovic, who had approximately 1,500 men under his command.

The offensive was launched on October 12, three days before Himmler’s visit. The area was of vital strategic military value because of the railway and road and communications links to Greece and North Afrika, where Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps needed to be supplied. The Trepca mine in northern Kosovo was also vulnerable to attack.

Keserovic had prior information on the offensive and where the German units were positioned. He was able to disperse his troops into small units which were able to escape the intended encirclement. The Prinz Eugen troops attacked from four corners in an attempt to encircle and trap Keserovic’s men. The operation was a failure.

The Axis forces retaliated by targeting civilians. There are reports that the Waffen SS troops and Bulgarian forces executed Serbian civilians and burned down villages.

In Kriva Reka, 120 Serbian civilians were reported killed. The report claimed that 120 civilians were locked in the Orthodox Church and burned alive. The most recent estimate is at least 46 were killed. Kriva Reka had been Keserovic’s HQ. This atrocity was attributed to members of the Prinz Eugen Waffen SS Division.

In Kopaonik, 300 civilians were reported killed.

In Mount Goc, the report was that 250 Serbian civilians had been shot.

The claim was that the German and Bulgarian forces killed 670 Serbian civilians during the failed offensive.

August Schmidthuber, a commander of the 14th SS Regiment of the Prinz Eugen Waffen SS Division, was tried by the Communist Yugoslav government under Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade in a trial from February 5-16, 1947. At least 50 civilians were allegedly blown up in the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kriva Reka by 14th SS Regiment. Schmidthuber repeatedly accused the commander of the 1st Batallion, Richard Kaaserer or Kaserer, as being responsible for this war crime. Kaserer accused Schmidthuber as being the commander responsible.

The Prinz Eugen Waffen SS Division developed a reputation for committing atrocities and was cited at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

Klaus Schmider, in his account “Auf Umwegen zum Vernichtungskrieg” in: Rolf-Dieter Mueller/ Hans-Erich Volkmann, Die Wehrmacht, Mythos und Realitat, The Wehrmacht: Myth and Reality, Munich, 1999, p. 911, wrote:

”During its first deployment even the Commanding General in Belgrade noticed Prinz Eugen’s striking propensity for violence. On the merest pretext, they resorted to disproportionate reprisals. After a few weeks the General had to request that they avoid in future unnecessary brutality towards unarmed civilian population, such as shooting women and children and burning villages.”

Like Hitler, Himmler was determined to destroy the guerrilla movement led by Draza Mihailovich. None of the German leaders had any trust or faith in any of the Serbian leaders they installed in Serbia, not even in the State Guard. Jozo Tomasevich from the posthumously published 2002 book Occupation and Collaboration: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945, noted that both Hitler and Himmler were anti-Serbian: “But both Hitler and Himmler detested all Serbs…” He cited a letter from Himmler to Harald Turner, the head of the German military administration in Serbia, dated August 23, 1942:

“In Serbia there should be only the State Guard, which should be supplie with foreign rifles and machine guns that cannot use either German or former Yugoslav ammunition, so that the ammunition can be strictly rationed by us. All other formations, such as the Chetniks and similar ones, should be disarmed, gradually and in a planned fashion.

Never forget that the Serbs remain Serbs, and that the Serbian people are a people who have been in armed resistance for centuries and are trained for it, and that we should do nothing except what is necessary at the moment to maintain our own strength. Anything that would in any way contribute to the strengthening of the Serbian government and thus of the Serbian people must be avoided.” None of the German leaders had any trust or faith in any of the Serbian leaders they installed in Serbia, not even the State Guard.” Tomasevich, Jozo. Occupation and Collaboration: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945, page 213.

On July 17, 1942, Himmler wrote a letter to the chief of the Gestapo, Heinrich “Gestapo” Mueller, that Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas were the main targets in the Balkans:

“The basis of every success in Serbia and in the entire southeast of Europe lies in the annihilation of Mihailovich. Concentrate all your forces on locating Mihailovich and his headquarters so that he can be destroyed. Any means may be used to achieve this end. I expect the smoothest cooperation between all agencies concerned, from the Security Police and Security Service to all other branches of the SS and police. The head of the SS and police Meissner [Martin misspelled the name of August Meysner, HSSPL in Serbia] has already received instructions from me in this regard. Please let me know which clues we already have of Mihailovich’s whereabouts. Please inform me weekly about the progress of this action.” (Martin, David. Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailovich: Proceedings and Report for the Commission of Inquiry of the Committee for a Fair Trial for Draja Mihailovich (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace Press, 1978), page 46, and T-175-140-2668302.)

The core of the Prinz Eugen Waffen SS Division was made up of Volksdeutsche from the Serbian Banat, ethnic Germans known as Schwabian Germans. The troops in the division targeted Serbian guerillas as shown in a song the members of the division sang, as related by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer of the Prinz Eugen Division Sepp Krombholz:

“Prinz Eugen, the noble troop,
it must scuffle with Serbs,
our trash division!
And many Serbian skulls
and many Serbian maids
will I soon see fallen …”

The first offensive of the Waffen SS division against Draza Mihailovich’s forces in Serbia in 1942 was a total failure. They retaliated against Serbian civilians by executions and massacres.

Nazi Germany enshrined the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque at the Zeughaus military museum in Berlin in an elaborate military ceremony. The plaque assumed a dominant and central place in the museum as one of the most symbolic and meaningful war trophies of the war. The plaque was more than just a war trophy. It was a symbol. It represented the anti-thesis of the New Order. For that reason it was the showpiece exhibit at the Zeughaus museum during the war and was one of Adolf Hitler’s top war trophies.

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque was removed in an elaborate ceremony shortly after German troops seized Sarajevo on April 15, 1941. The removal ceremony was filmed and photographed by German media.  Wehrmacht Kriegsberichter Kurt Mittelmann then had the plaque taken to Adolf Hitler’s Amerika train HQ. Mittelmann and another PK officer from Sarajevo then presented the plaque to Hitler on his 52^nd birthday on April 20. Hitler ordered that the plaque be placed in the Zeugheus military museum or armory in Berlin. By the end of the month the plaque was in place in the museum, as a central showpiece. A photograph of the plaque in the museum was published in the Nazi Party daily newspaper Volkischer Beobachter, in issue Nr. 120, on April 30, 1941.

There was an official presentation ceremony of the Sarajevo 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque as a trophy in the Zeughaus armory located on Unter den Linden, in Berlin, Germany, in May, 1941. This is something totally new. There have never been any analyses on the significance or meaning of the plaque in Nazi Germany. There was a special ceremony in May, 1941 when the plaque was unveiled at the Berlin Museum. Just as there was a ceremony in Sarajevo to remove the plaque, there was a similar one to present it as an exhibit.

A column of German Wehrmacht troops were photographed marching in front of the Zeughaus in an official ceremony. Crowds can be seen on the side of the streets observing the procession. There was a military band that played. They played drums, tubas, and trumpets.

In another photo, German Wehrmacht troops are marching in a military parade in front of the museum. They are holding rifles and have backpacks. This was the military honor guard for the ceremony.

In photographs of the exhibit, on the top left corner is a captured French flag with the phrase “Honneur et Patrie”, “Honor and Country”. There is a Yugoslavian military uniform with a sajkaca cap on the left. On the right is a British military uniform with a Brodie helmet.

A photograph of the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque at the Zeughaus in Berlin in August, 1941, reveals that captured Soviet battle flags were added directly above and behind the plaque. Remarkably, the plaque remained as the central war trophy in the exhibit at the museum. It was the core around which the other exhibits were anchored to.

Behind the plaque are captured battle flags from the 1939 Polish campaign, 1940 Belgian campaign, the 1940 French campaign, and the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa: 1. French 2. French 3. Soviet 4. Soviet 5. Soviet 6. Unidentified 7. Belgian 8. Unidentified regimental flag 9. Polish 10. Polish. In 1945, Soviet Red Army troops captured the museum and seized whatever war trophies remained. This raises the possibility that Soviet troops took the plaque to the USSR after the war, assuming it survived the Allied bombing raids.

A German officer on the lower right is shown examining the display in the photograph. The Gavrilo Princip plaque is directly in front of him and in his line of sight in the middle of the exhibit.

In the photographs of the plaque, both German soldiers and officers are shown examining the plaque, along with civilians. The photos show a queue or lines of German civilians wearing hats and suits and overcoats. Women as well as children were also shown waiting to view the plaque.

The plaque was placed in the middle of a wooden wall or barricade that extended in front of the staircase. On the right, a captured artillery piece is prominent. Cannons and mobile guns as well as other captured weapons can also be seen. The British and Belgian helmet and uniform exhibits had been added in 1940. The plaque and the Yugoslavian cap and uniform exhibit were the newly-added attractions. From the photographs of the plaque in situ in the museum, this was a popular exhibit.

Hitler had delivered a speech at the Zeughaus in March, 1941, a month before trhe plaque was installed there. He was photographed examining the British and Belgian helmet and uniform exhibits along the wall. He was also later photographed viewing captured Soviet weapons in a special exhibition along with Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and Wilhelm Keitel.

The Gavrilo Princip plaque retained a central position in the Zeghaus museum until the end of the war. Special exhibitions were set up featuring captured Soviet weapons. Nevertheless, the plaque had a central place in the museum. Why was this so?

The plaque had symbolic value for the Nazi regime. It was as a symbol that the plaque had most meaning for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. What did it symbolize?

The plaque represented all that Adolf Hitler found abhorrent. First of all, it was a “shameful” glorification of victory. It was a triumphalist statement. It enshrined the victory of the Allied Powers in World War I. It rubbed it in the noses of Germany and the former Austria-Hungary as a permanent reminder of their defeat. To Hitler, it was like the Compiegne train, a symbol of victory for France and utter defeat for Germany. As such, both were unacceptable to Hitler.

The plaque celebrated the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie of Hohenberg. It celebrated and glorified an assassination that had started the Great War, World War I. The result of that war was the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Hitler sought to reverse that result. The Nazi movement had emerged to right the wrongs of World War I. That was their raison d’etre. Their goal was to restore Germany’s position.

The plaque, more significantly, represented the Versailles Treaty, a treaty that represented “victor’s justice”, a Carthaginian peace or settlement. Austria-Hungary was destroyed as a state and dismembered. Germany was stripped of territory and shackled with reparations that destroyed the economy of the country. Germany’s armed forces were restricted. The Ruhr industrial center was occupied by French and Belgian troops.

The Sarajevo assassination was the nominal causus belli of World War I. It was at the core of World War I. It was at the center of German grievances. It was the big bang or genesis of the conflict that led to Germany’s defeat and destruction. For these reasons, it had especial meaning and symbolic significance for Hitler and the Nazi regime.

This photograph showing German Wehrmacht officers examining the newly-installed Gavrilo Princip plaque exhibit, Serbische Gedenkplatte, Serbian Memorial Plaque, was published in the Nazi Party newspaper Volkischer Beobachter on April 30, 1941, in issue Nr. 120. Within ten days from its presentation to Hitler, the plaque had been set up in the museum.

Throughout the the war, the Gavrilo Princip plaque retained its central position in the exhibition of war trophies at the Zeughaus. It was the key showpiece around which other trophies were arrayed and arranged. Symbolically, the plaque represented German defeat in World War I. Indeed, it unapologetically celebrated and glorified Allied victory. That is why it was one of the major war trophies coveted by the Nazi regime.

Following the June 28, 1914 assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg, the Austro-Hungarian government erected a plaque to commemorate their deaths. The marble plaque was placed above the last window on the right of the Moritz Schiller delicatessen on Franz Josef Strasse at the corner intersection on the Appel Quay. In 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes removed the plaque and the monument that was erected in 1917. All traces of the original plaque disappeared.

On February 2, 1930, a new plaque was erected at the exact same place. This was a plaque dedicated to Gavrilo Princip. This plaque was smaller than the original one. The Yugoslav government stated that the plaque was a private memorial which was funded by donations.

How was this complete reversal of fortune to be explained and understood? The assassin was now honored. All references to the victims of the assassin were removed.

The original Sarajevo plaque to commemorate the assassination was finished in 1916. The inscription on the plaque read, in Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian, in Latin script:

“28.VI. 1914.

Poginuse na ovom raskrscu mucenickom smrcu od ubojnicke ruke prijesttolo nasljednik nadvojvoda Franjo Ferdinand i supruga mu vojvotkinja Sofija Hohenberg.”

The English translation is:

“June 28, 1914

They fell at this place to martyrdom of murdering hand the heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess Sophie Hohenberg.”

In German translation:

„28.VI.1914

Es erlitten an dieser Kreuzung den Märtyrertod durch Mörderhand der Thronerbe Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand und seine Gattin Herzogin Sophie Hohenberg.“

In between the date there was a Roman Catholic cross. Above the cross there was a crown representing the monarchy.

The 1917 plaque was removed in 1918. The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque replaced this 1916 plaque. The Gavrilo Princip plaque was put in the exact same location.

From photographic evidence, the Franz Ferdinand and Sophie plaque was finished and in place by the spring of 1916. A photograph dated January 15, 1916 from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Austrian National Library, shows scaffolding as the plaque neared completion. A post-1917 postcard revealed that an Austro-Hungarian black and yellow flag representing Imperial Austria and the Habsburg dynasty was placed left of the plaque nearer to street level. The flag pole mount remained when the Gavrilo Princip plaque was erected although the flag was obviously changed.

That year the Sarajevo city council commissioned a new memorial. This would be erected by the Latin Bridge which was across from the Moritz Schiller delicatessen where the assassination occurred, “the murder site”, “die Mordstelle”. The monument would be designed by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Jeno Bory (1879-1959). It was the “atonement monument in Sarajevo for Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Duchess of Hohenberg”. It was unveiled in a public ceremony on June 28, 1917, the third anniversary of the assassination. Roman Catholic priests officiated at the religious ceremony which was attended by high ranking Austro-Hungarian government and military officials in Bosnia.

The memorial consisted of two columns made of Silesian granite, 12 meters high. The base was similar to an altar where there was a space for prayer ceremonies. In front of the columns was a bronze medallion with relief images of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. The monument featured the coat of arms reliefs and bronze crowns. Across from the columns a bench was constructed as a viewing point.

The 1916 plaque was removed in 1918 by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which occupied Bosnia and Hercegovina following the defeat of Austria-Hungary. The space where the plaque had stood was restored and left blank.

The two columns of the memorial were also taken down in 1918. The bronze medallion was removed and put in storage in the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Hercegovina. It was subsequently placed in the newly constructed Museum of Sarajevo or Muzej Sarajeva, which was dedicated to preserving the history of the 1878-1918 period when Bosnia and Hercegovina were occupied by Austria-Hungary. The bench was the only part of the memorial that remained. It has remained in place since 1917 to the present. Even sections of the two columns have been located. The columns reportedly were first stored at the State Museum. Then one column was sent to Trebinje and the other kept in Sarajevo. The assumption was that both were cut up and destroyed with no trace left of them. Remnants or fragments, however, have been found.

There was also a third object at the June 28, 1917 unveiling: “A rectangular ornamented metal plate the size of a car was set in Franz Josef’s Gasse at the spot where the shooting had occurred.”

The Latin Bridge, Latinska cuprija, Lateiner Brucke, was renamed the Princip Bridge, Principov most, Princip Brucke, in 1918 in honor of Gavrilo Princip. In 1992, the Bosnian Muslim faction restored it to its pre-1918 name.

There were plans in 1917 by the Austro-Hungarian government to build several memorial projects to commemorate Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. Jeno Bory was to be the designer of these as well. The memorial plans were put under the control of Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, the “Most High Protectorates”. The finance committee which oversaw the funding was headed by Obersthofmeister Konrad Prinz zu Hohenlohe. These were to consist of a complex of several buildings. One was to be the “Archduke Franz Ferdinand Memorial Church”. The other was to be “Sophie’s Home”. The cost was set at three million Austro-Hungarian Kronen or crowns. The funding was to be secured by “generous” contributions by the citizens of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the Austria-Hungary. The government solicited donations by maintaining that support for the memorial projects was “a matter of honor of all walks of life”.

The Memorial Church was to have three naves in a neo-Romanesque pattern which would “offer a capacity for 4,000 people and by a square-shaped tower at the intersection of the main and side aisles outside a monumental appearance, inside a great room effect obtained with highly effective central lighting.”

At the entrance was to be erected a semicircular arcade “intended to be a Hall of Fame for the main characters of the World War and for the indefinite multitude of our soldiers who have sacrificed their lives on the battlefields of this war for sovereign and country.”

In the arch or dome of the church in front of a small altar kneeling figures of the Archduke and the Duchess were planned, which were meant to memorialize the church service they attended an hour before the assassination.

Sophie’s Home was to be a building connected to the church in memory of the Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg. It was planned to be a youth center or youth home for males, students, and workers of Bosnia and Hercegovina.

These projects were never realized because the war ended before they could be started.

The 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque placed on the wall where the Franz Ferdinand and Sophie plaque had stood in 1916-1918.

Nothing better illustrates the vicissitudes and permutations of history than the attempt to commemorate the 1914 Sarajevo assassination. In 1916, a plaque was erected to honor the victims of the assassination. Fourteen years later, in 1930, a plaque was erected to honor the assassin who killed them. Which plaque should commemorate the assassination? The 1916 plaque? The 1930 plaque? Neither? Or should the plaque erected in 1945 by the Communist regime be the acceptable one? Should the 1953 plaque be the one? Or should the 2004 plaque that replaced it be the one?

The answer to these questions is subjective. Ultimately, it rests on which position or perspective one takes. We learn that history is not static or transcendent. History evolves and is in a constant state of flux. It is futile to try to control or manipulate history and our remembrances, recollections, or perceptions of it. Like a cloud, history changes its shape and structure constantly. The cloud is gaseous in one phase, liquid in another, and solid in yet another. We can control these metamorphoses and transformations as much as we can control history. It is ultimately an exercise in futility.

A Bosnian Muslim soldier and a civilian wall past the destroyed 1953 Gavrilo Princip plaque.

In 1992, at the start of the civil war in Bosnia, one of the earliest objects targeted for destruction was the 1953 Communist Yugoslavia era monument to Gavrilo Princip. Bosnian Muslim forces under the Alija Izetbegovic regime demolished the memorial. Based on photographic evidence, the plaque was destroyed purposefully and intentionally. Bosnian Muslims forces targeted for destruction all traces of Serbian culture or history in Sarajevo. The footprints memorial was removed from the sidewalk in front of the plaque but was not destroyed. It has resurfaced and is in the renamed museum.

Although the plaque was constructed by the Yugoslav Communist regime, the writing was in Serbian Cyrillic. The building was known as the Museum of Young Bosnia or Muzej Mlade Bosne. The footprints, an artistic creation by a Bosnian Serb artist, were not destroyed, but were removed and placed in the museum. They still survive. From the Bosnian Muslim perspective: The plaque was a Serbian symbol, regardless of its Communist or Tito regime origins. It was in Serbian Cyrillic. How were Bosnian Muslims and Croats supposed to read it? Their writing was in the Latin script. It is clear and incontrovertible from this color photograph that the plaque was purposely and intentionally destroyed by Bosnian Muslim forces. There is no bomb damage on that side of the wall. Only the plaque was damaged. Bosnian Muslim Government forces maliciously and willfully demolished the plaque. This has not received in coverage in the mainstream media in the U.S. or internationally because it exposes the ultra-nationalist animus and enmity of the Bosnian Muslim faction. They were not always victims but victimized others.

The destruction of the 1953 monument was largely suppressed and covered up or even falsified in the U.S. and the mainstream Western press and even in historical accounts. A certain portion can be ascribed to lack of knowledge and unavailable facts. There was also a conscious and systematic goal to implicate the Bosnian Serb faction in the destruction of the plaque and of the footprints. Tony Fabijancic claimed that the footprints had been destroyed by Bosnian Serb shelling. He did note, however, that the Mlada Bosna or Young Bosnia bas-relief of figures and the name itself in Serbian Cyrillic letters were removed by the Bosnian Muslim government officials. Greg King and Sue Woolmans noted that the plaque was “sandblasted” by Bosnian Muslim forces

Richard Holbrooke commented on the 1953 Gavrilo Princip plaque in To End a War (New York: Modern Library, 1999): “When I reached the war-torn city [Sarajevo], I ran into John Burns, the great war correspondent of the New York Times, and asked if he could take me to Princip’s footprints in the pavement. Impossible, he said with a laugh: they had been destroyed by the Bosnian Muslims. But the spirit behind their inscription had been revived — murderously so.” John Burns was wrong about the destruction of the footprints. They were not destroyed, but removed. The plaque, however, was destroyed by Bosnian Muslim Government forces.

Richard Holbrooke confused the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque with the 1953 Communist one in his book. He also failed to distinguish that one plaque was erected by a monarchist regime while the second was erected by a Communist or Socialist regime. They were two different plaques by two different and completely opposite regimes or governments politically.

The “footprints” were preserved. They are in the Sarajevo 1878-1914 Museum. This is a 2014 photo. Photo by Midhat Poturovic. RFE/RL.

The footprints were designed by local artist Vojo Dimitrijevi?. Gavrilo Princip’s footprints were removed in 1992 by Bosnian Muslim forces. They were returned in the late 1990s. They were then removed a second time and put inside the Sarajevo museum. The footprints were set in the sidewalk in 1951, two years before the memorial went up. Needless to say, these are not Gavrilo Princip’s actual footprints nor are they intended to be but are meant to be a memorial to the assassination created during the Communist Yugoslavia or Josip Broz Tito era reflecting the Communist Yugoslavia image of Gavrilo Princip as a “national hero” of Yugoslavia. It is an artistic conception of the event.

Sarajevo-born artist Vojo Dimitrijevic constructed the Gavrilo Princip footprints memorial in 1951/1952. Two factors that explain why the Bosnian Muslim government did not destroy the footprints memorial: First, they were an artistic work. Second, the work was created by a recognized Bosnian artist.

The 1953 Gavrilo Princip plaque and the footprints memorial in 1960 at the height of the Communist Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito era.

The new 1953 plaque had been erected in 1953 by the Communist government Yugoslav regime of Josip Broz Tito era as a memorial to Gavrilo Princip. It consisted of red lettering on a white side panel of the wall of the then newly constructed Young Bosnia or Mlada Bosna Museum which had formerly been the Moritz Schiller delicatessen at the time of the assassination. It had replaced the 1945 plaque put in the same location as the 1930 plaque. The 1945 plaque had a Communist Partisan red star or crvena zvezda above it which sought to encapsulate and to vindicate the Partisan victory. The memorial represented or symbolized the Communist government of Josip Broz Tito’s consensus on Gavrilo Princip, regarded as a Yugoslav nationalist, proto-Communist revolutionary.

Ambiguity, however, existed because he was born an Orthodox Serb. The Tito regime portrayed him as a “Yugoslav”, someone who worked for the unification of all Slavs. This view of Princip was supported by his statements at his trial and those made in 1916 to Martin Pappenheim.

The Communist consensus was fragile. It represented a precarious balance. But it was a balancing act which the Tito regime pulled off successfully.

The 1953 plaque or memorial reflected the Brotherhood and Unity credo of the Tito regime, the Yugoslav idea which Tito espoused and which was embodied in the Partisan Movement of World War II.

The plaque read in Serbian Cyrillic in red lettering: “From this place on June 28 1914 Gavrilo Princip with his shooting expressed the protest of the people against tyranny and the centuries-long aspirations of our people for freedom.” “Sa ovoga mjesta 28 Juna 1914 godine Gavrilo Princip svojim pucnjem izrazi narodni protest protiv tiranije i vjekovnu težnju naših naroda za slobodom.” This was the Josip Broz Tito or Communist Partisan interpretation of the assassination and Princip’s role in it. Remarkably, it was not much different from the Serbian monarchist Karadjordjevic plaque erected in 1930. The Serbian monarchist plaque extolled Princip as bringing “freedom” by assassinating the Archduke and Duchess. The Tito plaque was couched in more Communistic terminology, but the conclusion was the same. Princip was a Communist “national hero” of Yugoslavia. The Serbian Orthodox Church had also elevated the assassin Princip to hero status. Paradoxically, the atheistic Communist government of Josip Broz Tito and the Serbian monarchist Karadjordjevic government as well as the Serbian Orthodox Church perceived and characterized Gavrilo Princip and the assassination in almost identical terms. All used Gavrilo Princip to legitimize their rule and their history.

The assassination was perceived by the Communists as a “protest” against the occupation of Bosnia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Gavrilo Princip’s motives and goals were characterized as those of a patriotic nationalist who sought to free the South Slavs from a foreign oppressor or from an illegal occupation.

History is a picture or conception we agree on. It is a perception, judgment, or assessment that there is a consensus on.  Not everyone agrees with it but enough believe or acquiesce in it that it becomes the official, dominant, or the generally accepted paradigm, the accepted or conventional wisdom.

That consensus can change. Not everyone sees an event in history the same way. How we remember or perceive the event is determined or dictated by the uses we make of it.

With the collapse of Yugoslavia and of the Yugoslav idea, the assessment or perception of Gavrilo Princip’s role or place in history changed.

For Serbs, he retained his significance as seeking the end of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia. For non-Serbs, however, his role was now perceived differently. He was seen in negative terms. His role was now contrary to the national aspirations of non-Serbs who wanted to establish their own nations and states. The Yugoslav idea, which the 1953 memorial represented, was, thus, antithetical to that objective.

Very simply, for Bosnian Muslims and Croats, Gavrilo Princip had no use. He represented the Yugoslav idea, the unification of all South Slavs. In 1992, that idea was dead on arrival. It died with Communism and with Yugoslavia. With that Yugoslavism patina removed, he was exposed as a Serb. As such, any traces of Princip had to disappear. That is why Bosnian Muslim troops demolished the 1953 plaque in 1992. That is why Croatian Army troops burned down Gavrilo Princip’s house in the Grahovo Valley in 1995 during Operation Storm.

Gavrilo Princip’s role has changed from “national hero” of Yugoslavia to “national hero” of Serbia. Statues are erected to him in Republika Srpska and in Serbia. But he is no longer a “national hero” to non-Serbs. The destruction of the 1953 plaque is the physical manifestation of this fact.

Adolf Hitler gave Ante Pavelic a Mercedes Benz limousine in 1942 as a present for the Croatian contribution to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. The NDH contributed ground troops as well as naval troops and pilots. Croatian Ustasha troops fought fanatically on the Eastern Front. The Germans rewarded them with Iron Cross awards. They were picked to participate in the battle for Stalingrad, arguably the most important battle of World War II. Ante Pavelic emerged as one of Hitler’s most committed allies and fervent supporters. Hitler returned this dedication to the Poglavnik.

Adolf Hitler’s gift to Ante Pavelic was for the courage and honor of Croatian and Bosnian Muslim troops fighting in Russia during Operation Barbarossa. Croatian and Bosnian Muslim troops distinguished themselves at Stalingrad. The car was a Mercedes Benz 770K four door convertible model similar to Adolf Hitler’s own 770K.

There was a Croatian newsreel that documented the delivery of the Mercedes from Berlin to Zagreb.

Ante Pavelic was shown giving the “Heil Hitler!” salute in Zagreb as he received delivery of his Mercedes Benz 770K. The camera zoomed in on the front of Ante Pavelic’s Mercedes Benz 770K in the square in downtown Zagreb. The Daimler Star on the grille of Ante Pavelic’s Mercedes Benz 770K was also highlighted in a close-up shot.

The Mercedes Benz 770K model was also owned by Adolf Hitler, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, Finnish Marshal Gustav Mannerheim, and Vidkun Quisling.

Ante Pavelic was shown inspecting his Mercedes Benz 770K with a German Nazi swastika flag and an NDH flag on a building in the background. Siegfried Kasche, Slavko Kvaternik, and Mladen Lorkovic were also in attendance.

Ante Pavelic was shown with Siegfried Kasche as he leaves the building to inspect the car.

There was also a German newsreel in 1943 which showed Ante Pavelic standing in the back seat of the car with the top down during a parade in Zagreb. Ante Pavelic gives a facist/Nazi salute as the car passes cheering crowds.

Ante Pavelic’s Mercedes Benz 770K can be seen in a color photo at the reception of a foreign high delegation on the Borongaj military airfield in Zagreb. The Poglavnik’s car is in front with his personal standard, a red checkerboard flag, attached on the right fender. The front license plate reads “NDH – Zagreb”.

The 770 was first produced in 1930. The car was redesigned in 1938 as the W150. The chassis was reconfigured consisting of oval section tubes. It was suspended from coil springs with front independent suspension and a rear de Dion axle.

The engine retained the structure of the superceded W07. It produced 155 brake horsepower (116 kW) at 3000 rpm and 230 brake horsepower (170 kW) at 3200 rpm. The transmission had five forward ratios with a direct fourth gear and an overdrive fifth.

The 770 model was considered the most expensive German passenger car by 1938 although no price was listed, the price being offered as “’auf Anfrage” or “by request”.

The car was a favorite of Adolf Hitler’s. Hitler used the 770 model, known as the Grosser Mercedes, the Large Mercedes, in parades. The car had Hitler’s personal standard on the right fender, a Nazi swastika flag. Ante Pavelic modeled his car on Adolf Hitler’s limo. Like Hitler, Ante Pavelic’s personal standard was attached to his Mercedes Benz 770K. It consisted of a checkerboard flag with white and red squares with the letter “U” in the top, left hand corner.

The NDH had at least two 770K limousines. In the 1943 German newsreel of the parade, Pavelic’s 770K follows another 770K at the front of the parade. From the photographic evidence, Pavelic is seen in the car that Adolf Hitler gave him and in another 770K.

Like Hitler, Pavelic used his car for parades and public appearances. He was photographed in what appears to be the Mercedes Benz 770K he received from Adolf Hitler with the top down at the mosque in downtown Zagreb that he constructed for the Muslim community of the NDH. The minarets that the NDH constructed can be seen on the left and in the center.

Production of the car ended in 1943. By that time, 88 W150 series cars had been produced. The last cars were delivered in March, 1944.The whereabouts of the car after World War II are not known. There were reports that it was placed in the Technical Museum in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1987. There was a request made by the Croatian Ministry of Culture in 2008 that the car be returned to Zagreb. Subsequently, no information has emerged on the location or even the existence of the car.

In 1945, flush with victory, the Communist Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito put up a memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip on the same spot where the 1930 and the 1916 plaques stood, on the facade of the former Moritz Schiller delicatessen where the assassination occurred. This plaque was replaced by the 1953 plaque which was a panel of the wall at street level.

This plaque had a Communist Partisan red star or crvena zvezda or petokraka on top. In other respects, it was a replica of the 1930 plaque.

Like the 1930 plaque, this one was also dedicated to Gavrilo Princip. It was in Serbian Cyrillic. The immediate goal was to restore the memorial to Gavrilo Princip which German occupation forces had removed in 1941. That had been the 1930 plaque which volksdeutsche had taken down after German troops occupied Sarajevo. That plaque had been presented to Adolf Hitler who ordered that it be placed in the Zeughaus or German Military Armory in Berlin where it remained during the war. That plaque was presumed destroyed and irrecoverable. The 1945 plaque was its replacement.

This plaque read: “The youth of Bosnia and Hercegovina dedicate this plaque as a symbol of eternal gratitude to Gavrilo Princip and his comrades, to fighters against the Germanic conquerors.” The date on the plaque read May 7, 1945

This was the inscription on the 1945 plaque in the original Serbo-Croat: “U znak vjecite zahvalnosti Gavrilu Principu i njegovim drugovima borcima protiv Germanskih osvajacaposvecuje ovu plocu omladina Bosne i Hercegovine. Sarajevo 7. maja 1945. godine.”

There were ceremonies when the plaque went up and the event was covered by the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobodjenje. As an official Party newspaper of the new Communist or Partisan regime, the newspaper presented Gavrilo Princip as a founder and precursor of the brotherhood and unity movement, bratstvo i jedinstvo, which guided the Communist or Partisan cause. Gavrilo Princip became a central figure for the Partisan movement. The unveiling of the new memorial was sponsored by the First Youth Congress.

The official unveiling of the new memorial took place on May 7, 1945 at 4:00PM in the afternoon. The ceremony was held at the Park of the Emperor Dusan. It had been known as At Mejdan and had been a horse track located on the left bank of the Miljacka River, between Cumurija Bridge and the Latin Bridge, then known as Principov most, Princip’s Bridge. The park was across the river from the former Moritz Schiller delicatessen where the assassination had occurred. “At Mejdan” is Turkish for “horse square”. It had been renamed the Park of Emperor Dusan. Oslobodjenje characterized Gavrilo Princip as “the great national hero and martyr, fighter for freedom and brotherhood of all peoples of Yugoslavia”.

There was a large crowd of youth with flags and banners who portrayed Gavrilo Princip as a role model and example to the Partisan guerrillas who had fought the German occupation since 1941: “They had deservingly followed ideals of our young hero, Gavrilo Princip, and members of the organization Mlada Bosna.”

The highest level Partisan and Communist leaders of Bosnia attended the unveiling. Those present included Vojislav Kecmanovic, President of the National Assembly of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Rodoljub Colakovic, the Vice President of the Peoples’ Government of Bosnia and Hercegovina, members of the National Assembly, representatives of the USAOBiH, or United Alliance of Antifascist Youth of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Communist youth groups from Greece and Bulgaria.

The first speaker was Braco Kosovac. Then Dragoslav Ljubibratic spoke. He had known and worked with Gavrilo Princip and had himself been a member of the revolutionary organization Young Bosnia, Mlada Bosna. He would write biographies of Gavrilo Princip and Vladimir Gacinovic. He emphazied the crucial role that the radicalized and revolutionary youth movements of Bosnia had played and noted that Gavrilo Princip was inspired and motivated by the ideas of brotherhood and unity of all the peoples of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the unity of all Yugoslavs. He concluded by declaring that the Partisans had achieved the goal in 1945 which Gavrilo Princip had sought in 1914: “By his ideas, Gavrilo Princip belongs to the young generation of today, which has finally and completely realized the same aspirations Gavrilo Princip initiated in his time.”

Bosnian Serb Cvijetin “Majo” Mijatovic spoke to the gathering. He was the Organisational Secretary of the Communist League of Bosnia and Hercegovina after the war and would be the 3rd President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia in 1980-1981. The next speaker was a Croat, Mile Cacic, followed by a Bosnian Muslim, Nadja Biser. This was meant to show that Gavrilo Princip was a national hero and role model not only for Serbs, but for Croats and Bosnian Muslims as well.

After the ceremony, those gathered walked in a long line to the place of the assassination at the bridge renamed Principov most, or Princip’s Bridge. They declared: “Glory to the undead national hero Gavrilo Princip and his comrades!'”

The Sarajevo newspaper Oslobodjenje saw the Communist Partisan victory in 1945 and the erection of the new plaque as a culmination of the assassination by Gavrilo Princip, who was perceived as a national hero and martyr: “The Gavrilo Princip memorial plaque, removed by the hated occupier in the first days of the occupation, was replaced by a new memorial plaque in the same place. It was unveiled by comrade Borko Vukobrat, a youth from Bosansko Grahovo, with the words: ‘I am proud and greatly honored as a countryman of Gavrilo Princip to have this opportunity to unveil this memorial plaque to his name at this first day of the First Youth Congress of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Ferdinand, was only the first in a line of many national heroes. Gavrilo Princip showed heroism when he leapt at the car with gun in hand. Grahovo also gave birth to new heroes of today, who leapt at the tanks in the same way. On their arrival to Sarajevo, the Schwabe gangs removed the memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip. But those heroes, inspired by ideas of Gavrilo Princip and his comrades from Young Bosnia, fought and struggled once again to liberate our dear city of Sarajevo and all of our homeland. The ideas for which Gavrilo Princip fought, became reality, and today we are again unveiling this memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip and other heroes. May there be eternal glory and thanks to the national hero Gavrilo Princip’.”

Gavrilo Princip’s “dream” and vision were not fulfilled by the royalist Yugoslav government that emerged in 1918, according to the Communist view. It was only realized by the Partisans and “Tito’s Army” in 1945.

Oslobodjenje also enunciated how Gavrilo Princip would be perceived in Communist Yugoslavia and how the assassination would be viewed: “On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip killed the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph, the heir to the throne Ferdinand and his wife, announcing the uncompromising fight of the people of Bosnia and Hercegovina against the Austro-Hungarian conquerors. The vindictive shot fired on the bank of the Miljacka River spoke of inextinguishable hatred toward the foreign power and love for the enslaved homeland borne in the hearts of the progressive Bosnian-Hercegovinian youth. The heroic accomplishment of Gavrilo Princip inspired hundreds and thousands of young sons of Bosnia and Hercegovina to join the liberation war against fascist conquerors and their servants to fight for a better future and for a happier, brotherly Bosnia and Hercegovina like the one Gavrilo Princip had also wanted, and for which he gave his life.”

Gavrilo Princip was perceived and enshrined as the founder of brotherhood and unity, bratstvo i jedinstvo, becoming a national hero and unifying symbol of Communist Yugoslavia. The 1945 plaque was the physical manifestation of this fact. In 1953, a new Communist plaque embedded in the wall of the building would replace it with the same message. The image and perception created by the Communist Partisan movement would last from 1945 until 1992 when it would suffer the same fate as the 1916 and 1930 plaques. It would be removed and disappear from history without a trace.

October 6, 1943, Bolling Field, Washington, DC. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Yugoslav Ambassador to the U.S. Constantin Fotich watch as four Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers are presented to 40 Yugoslavian airmen.

In June, 1942, King Peter II of Yugoslavia began an official state visit to the United States to seek military and humanitarian aid for the Yugoslav guerrillas led by Draza Mihailovich. In Washington, DC, Peter spoke before the U.S. House of Representatives and attended a dinner at the White House as a guest of the President. As part of the negotiations then and subsequently, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pledged to give four Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers to the exiled Yugoslav Government to help the Chetnik resistance forces in German-occupied Yugoslavia.

“King Peter of Yugoslavia (left) on rostrum with Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, as he addressed House of Representatives this PM.” Acme Newspictures, Inc./Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives, Photography Collection.

Forty Yugoslav airmen would fly combat missions as a Yugoslav detachment as part of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II.

The story of the Yugoslav airmen who flew with the U.S. Army Air Force began in April, 1941. When Yugoslavia surrendered to Germany, there was a group of Yugoslav pilots who managed to escape capture. The Royalist Yugoslav Air Force fleet consisted of British-made Blenheim aircraft, Italian-made Savoia-Marchetti medium bombers, the German-made Dornier Do 17 light bpmber, and the U.S.-made commercial Lockheed 10 models. Peter and his staff escaped from Yugoslavia aboard a Savoia-Marchetti which was flown to a Britsh base in Paramythia in northwestern Greece on April 14, 1941. From here, the airmen were able to fly King Peter II and the members of the cabinet to Cairo, Egypt after German forces seized Belgrade.

Four Savoia Marchetti aircraft escaped by flying to airfields in Ukraine and the Black Sea in the Soviet Union. The Yugoslav Royal Government had a pact of friendship and alliance with the USSR. Joseph Stalin had signed the agreement in Moscow just days before the German invasion. A crew of 23 Yugoslav men were taken to Moscow where they remained in limbo for four months. A Yugoslav Government-In-Exile had been established in London. Stafford Cripps, the British Ambassador to the USSR, was able to secure their transfer to British forces in August, 1941. The total number of exiled Yugoslav airmen of approximately 300 men joined the Britsh Royal Air Force in the Middle East. Cairo, Egypt was a major British base. Moreover, King Peter and his cabinet transferred the headquarters of the Yugoslav Government-In-Exile from London to Cairo on September 28, 1943, only months before the arrival of the airmen.

A total of 40 exiled Yugoslav airmen stationed in Egypt were chosen to fly the four Liberator bombs as part of the U.S. Air Force, 26 officers and 14 enlisted men, consisting of former Yugoslav Royal Air Force pilots, navigators, and mechanics.

They were brought for training to military bases in the United States in November, 1942. Their military training began in December at the gunnery school at the base east of Ft. Myers in Florida. They were then sent to training bases in Salinas, California. They finished their training in August, 1943 at the Blythe base also in California.

Fotich wanted the airmen to fly as a separate Yugoslav unit. Instead, they were supposed to receive commissions and be incorporated into the U.S. Army Air Force. Fotich worked to have this changed. On June 28, 1943, he contacted the Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. On July 28, he contacted Assistant Secretary Adolf Berle. Fotich filed a memorandum on August 3 and called on Welles on August 11 and contacted the State Department on August 14. The issue was eventually discussed by President Roosevelt, Bill Donovan of OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, General Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces, General George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and Admiral William D. Leahy, the Chief of Staff to the President. Donovan was able to convince them to create a separate Yugoslav detachment.

On September 7, the Yugoslav Ambassador called on Roosevelt and asked him to make the presentation of the four Liberators “personally, with an appropriate ceremony, instead of sending the Yugoslav airmen in a routine way to their new assignment.” FDR was “very interested” as was Harry Hopkins.

The presentation ceremony was held at Bolling Field, Washington D.C., on October 6, 1943. President Roosevelt and Ambassador Fotich were in attendance. The four Liberator bombers were lined up in the background with the airmen standing at attention in rows. Both President Roosevelt and Fotich spoke at the ceremony using stand-up microphones.

President Roosevelt watched from his automobile as the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers were dedicated and turned over to the first Yugoslav combat unit in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Constantin Fotich sopke at a microphone positioned near the hood of the car on the far left. U.S. Army Major General Barney M. Giles, Chief of Staff, Army Air Forces, also spoke at the ceremony. Major Milivoje Misovic or Mishovich was in the front of the assembled Yugoslav airmen. Because of his polio, Roosevelt was only able to move around in a wheelchair or with crutches. He spoke from his Packard Twelve convertible limousine which had the top down using a microphone which had been placed beside the car.

“Mr. Ambassador, General Giles, members of the first Yugoslav air force trained in this country:

I am very happy to take part in this most interesting ceremony. I am happy also that you gentlemen are going to wear as members of the Yugoslav air force the wings of the United States air force.

May these planes fulfill their mission under your guidance. They are built with two great objectives. The first is to drop bombs on our common enemy successfully and at the right points. The second is to deliver to your compatriots in Yugoslavia the much-needed supplies for which they have waited for so long — food, medicine — yes, arms and ammunition.

And so you fare forth on one of the greatest odysseys of this war. I count on you to bear yourselves well. And I am sure you will have every success in this great mission that you are undertaking. Remember always that we are comrades in arms.”

General Barney M. Giles pinned wings on the airmen and spoke at the ceremony: “They will fly from airdromes in North Africa and from our newly-won bases in Italy which adjoin their homeland. They will drop supplies to their fighting countrymen and engage in combat in their native skies. … [T]hey symbolize Yugoslavia’s determination to continue the fight until victory has been achieved.” He commended their commander, Major Milivoje Mishovich. Mishovich and the Yugoslav pilots were given U.S. Army Air Force wings.

In his speech to the Yugoslav airmen which he had cleared by the U.S. State Department, Fotich told them that “they would have the privilege of carrying supplies to Mihailovich and his courageous fighters.” By this time, Allied support for Draza Mihailovich was waning. The British Government was putting increasing pressure on the U.S. to abandon Mihailovich. Fotich’s statement of support for Mihailovich was, however, allowed to stand.

The four bombers were assigned to the 376th Bombardment Group based in the Middle East. The day after the ceremony, they flew out to the Middle Eastern Theater of Comabt.

Peter II and Air Force General Dusan Simovic after the March 27, 1941 coup.

Following the March 27, 1941 coup against the pro-German government of Regent Prince Paul, Adolf Hitler vowed to destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a country. On March 25, the Yugoslav government had joined the Axis with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Vienna by Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic and Foreign Minister Aleksandar Cincar Markovic. Peter II, who was 17 years old at the time, emerged as the head of the new government, which was recognized by Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin signed a treaty of friendship and alliance with the regime in Moscow. One of the key organizers and leaders of the coup was Royalist Yugoslav General Dusan Simovic who became the Prime Minister in the new government and the Chief of the General Staff.

Yugoslavia was attacked and invaded on April 6 by German troops in multi-pronged offensives. Belgrade was bombed the same day. On April 11, Italy and Hungary invaded the country. German troops advanced rapidly on Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Belgrade. With defeat imminent, Peter and his cabinet were forced to flee the country.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opposed the plan to flee the rapid German advance. He sent a telegram to the British Minister in Belgrade, Ronald Ian Campbell, who had lost contact with Peter and the Yugoslav Government by that time, in which he stated his objections:

“We do not see why the King or Government should leave the country, which is vast, mountainous, and full of armed men. German tanks can no doubt move along the roads and tracks, but to conquer the Serbian armies they must bring up infantry. Then will be the chance to kill them. Surely the young King and the Ministers should play their part in this.”

Churchill underestimated the speed of the German advance on Belgrade. Belgrade had been taken by German troops the day before on April 12. Zagreb had been taken on April 10, at which time an Independent State of Croatia had been proclaimed which was sponsored by Adolf Hitler. If Peter and the cabinet remained in Belgrade they faced certain capture by German occupation troops. Churchill did not want to accept the fact that Operation Punishment and Operation Marita were Allied military and political disasters of Dunkirk proportions. The British military disaster in Greece would follow the Yugoslav debacle.

Like Hitler, Churchill perceived that the military resistance in Yugoslavia was mainly by the “Serbian armies”. Croatian troops had largely deserted and had offered no meaningful resistance. The resistance was essentially Serbian. He also highlighted that the objective for the Yugoslav resistance was to kill German soldiers. Even if this achieved no military purpose, this was what Churchill emphasized throughout the war in Yugoslavia. Finally, after supporting regime change in Belgrade, he did not want to accept responsibility for the consequences or aftermath. Instead, he placed the blame on Peter and the Yugoslav Government, who were in an untenable position. If they stayed and fought, they would face almost certain capture or death. If they escaped, they would be seen as uncommitted to the struggle. Churchill was unwilling to accept blame for the Yugoslav and Greek disasters, which were on the order of the Dunkirk disaster in 1940 and the Gallipoli disaster in World War I.

Peter left Belgrade with staff by automobile headed for Zvornik in eastern Bosnia. They passed through Banja Koviljaca en route. In Zvornik he was briefed by General Simovic, who informed him that German aircraft had continued to bomb Belgrade and that German troops were on the outskirts of the city. He also met with Vladko Macek who had arrived from Uzice, where the government had been evacuated. Next Peter traveled to Han Pijesak where he stayed until departing for Sarajevo. En route, his party was diverted to Niksic in Montenegro.

On Monday, April 14, 1941, Peter arrived in Kopino Polje airport in Niksic, Montenegro from where he left for the British base in Paramythia in northwest Greece. Peter escaped to Greece aboard an Italian-made Savoia-Marchett SM.79K Sparviero or Sparrowhawk medium bomber which was part of 7 Puk of the Royalist Yugoslav Air Force. He was accompanied by the Minister of Court, his adjutant Colonel Miodrag Rakic, his aide, his physcian, and his bodyguard Iager Zizic. Peter was met by RAF Flight Lieutenant William Patrick Griffin, the senior British officer and commander of the base. Prime Minister Dusan Simovic and Yugoslav Air Force chief Borivoje Mirkovic would also flee Yugoslavia by air. Peter’s plane was preceded by a German-made Royalist Yugoslav Air Force Dornier Do17K of 209 eskadrila which had arrived in the morning. Peter and the members of his government arrived safely at Paramythia where they were received by British Royal Air Force airmen. Peter was photographed exiting the plane at the airfield, bareheaded and wearing a tweed jacket. The new Yugoslav Prime Minister Dusan Simovic would meet up with Peter in Athens.

Peter arrives at the secret British airbase at Paramythia, Greece on an Italian-made Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparrowhawk. He is fourth from the left facing the camera. R.J. Dudman.

Paramythia was a secret British air base located near the Albanian and Yugoslav border. In 1941, the RAF 211 Squadron was deployed in Paramythia, located in a valley 3,000 feet on a mountain range in the northwestern part of the country. The base was established to support military action over Albania after the invasion of Greece by Italy in 1940. Greek forces were able to counterattack and to advance into Albania, which Italy had occupied in 1939. British forces sought to exploit the Greek breakthrough. The base was only a make-shift installation. Only tents had been set up to accommodate the crews and personnel. It was a brief stopover for Peter and the members of his government. British forces had augmented the base as the war between Italy and Greece intensified. RAF Wing Commander Paddy Coote had arrived on February 19 to establish an Advanced Operations Wing. The airfield was a strategically important installation during the early phases of the war which was visited by British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, the Commander of Middle East forces, in February, 1941.

The day before Peter II’s plane arrived on April 14, there had been an engagement of the RAF and the Luftwaffe. Paddy Coote was killed in the battle.

Peter leaves his plane at the Paramythia airbase in northwestern Greece. He is first on the left. R.J. Dudman.

On the morning of April 13, 1941. 211 Squadron attacked Axis vehicles and troop concentrations in the Florina area near the northern Greek border escorted by Hurricane fighters.

King Peter II made his escape in this aircraft, a Savoia Marchetti S79K “White 12” of 7 Puk JKRV, to Paramythia, Greece, on April 14, 1941.

Six Bristol Blenheim light bombers attacked advancing German troops. Hurricane fighter escorts did not support this attack against the Wehrmacht. The formation was led by Squadron Leader Anthony Irvine, the commanding officer.

The Bristol Blenheim light bombers approached Lake Prespa at the nexus of the borders of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italian-occupied Albania. They were intercepted by three Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf109E fighter planes of 6/JG27 based at Gazala in Libya. The German fighter planes shot down all 6 RAF Bristol Blenheim aircraft in less than 4 minutes. Coote was killed in this attack. Only two of the 18 RAF airmen survived.

Prince Regent Paul followed a pro-German and pro-Italian foreign policy which enabled him to purchase state-of-the-art German and Italian aircraft for the Yugoslav Air Force. Yugoslavia had purchased 40 Savoia-Marchetti bombers from Italy. Yugoslavia also had the state-of-the-art German Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3a fighters in its air fleet. Yugoslavia had also purchased 69 Dornier Do 17K light bombers from Germany in the late 1930s which were outfitted and customized in Yugoslavia. The Dornier Do 17 had been superceded by the Junkers Ju 88 in the Luftwaffe fleet, but remained a core light bomber in the Yugoslav fleet. The Luftwaffe had destroyed 26 of the Yugoslav Dornier Do 17 aircraft on the ground in Yugoslavia during the initial attacks. The remaining Yugoslav Dornier Do 17 aircraft attacked German and Bulgarian forces. By the end of the invasion, the total number of Yugoslav Dornier Do 17 aircraft lost was 4 destroyed in air battles and 45 destroyed on the ground.

On the left is Yugoslav pilot Dusan Milojevic of the Royalist Yugoslav Air Force. On the right is a British airmen of the RAF 211 Squandron at Paramythia on April 14, 1941.

On April 14-15, the seven remaining Do 17K flew to Niksic airfield in Montenegro and took part in the evacuation of King Petar II and members of the Yugoslav government to Greece. During this operation, Yugoslav gold reserves were also transported to Greece by the seven Dornier Do 17 bombers, as well as by SM-79K and Lockheed 10 Electra aircraft. Italian attack aircraft destroyed five Yugoslav Dornier Do 17K light bombers on the ground when they bombed the Paramythia airfield. Only two Dornier Do 17Ks escaped destruction in Greece and later joined the RAF in Egypt.

British troops examine a Royalist Yugoslav Air Force Dornier Do 17K light bomber, 3363, at the British air base at Paramythia, Greece. April 14, 1941.

Peter’s escape route took him from Niksic, Montenegro in Yugoslavia to the British air base in Paramythia, Greece, then to Athens, then to Alexandria, Egypt, then to Jerusalem in British Mandate Palestine, finally to the British base in Cairo, Egypt. From Cairo he went to the UK, arriving on June 21, 1941. He had escaped Hitler. He would spend the remainder of the war as the leader of the Yugoslav Government-In-Exile based in London.

King Peter II of Yugoslavia, fourth from left, and Major General Ralph Royce, Commanding General, U.S. Air Force in the Middle East (USAFIME), fifth from left, under the propeller of one of the U.S. B-24 Liberator bombers presented to the King by General Royce, on a tour of inspection at John Payne Airport, Cairo, Egypt, 1943.

Following the presentation of the four B-24 Liberator bombers by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Bolling Field in Washington, DC, on October 6, 1943, the aircraft were flown to Cairo, Egypt the next day where they were presented to Peter II.

The Yugoslav government had moved from London to Cairo on September 28, 1943. The Greek government in exile was already based there. Peter had proposed the move in a letter to Winston Churchill on March 31, 1943. The government was now headed by Bozidar Puric after the resignation of Slobodan Jovanovic in July, 1943. Lincoln MacVeagh was appointed the new U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia and to Greece on November 12, 1943 after the move to Cairo, replacing Anthony Biddle.

Peter thought that the “likelihood of an Allied landing in Yugoslavia to be strong” in early 1943. The move of the exile Yugoslav government from London to Cairo “seemed to me to be the first step back to Yugoslavia”. He felt that the time for “action” had come and was “ready to give the whole of my energies” to the effort. On March 31 he wrote a letter to Winston Churchill about the proposed move to Cairo. Peter also proposed to Churchill that he be parachuted into Yugoslavia to join up with Draza Mihailovich’s troops. In his view, this would be “of great moral help” and would contribute to “rally all resistance forces in the country”.

Churchill replied on April 15 stating that he saw the move to Cairo as a good plan that would encourage Yugoslav troops there and the people in Yugoslavia as well. Churchill did not, however, support Peter’s plan to return to Yugoslavia, arguing that he should wait until liberation and then return.

British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden informed the Yugoslav cabinet that a major offensive was being planned and that landings in Yugoslavia were “under preparation”. Eden also suggested that the government should move to Cairo. Peter agreed. Peter had been considering this earlier and saw the move as “more effective action” on the part of himself and the government. He saw the liberation of Yugoslavia as imminent.

The Croat Banovina issue, however, divided the government. Vice-President Juraj Krnjevic, a Croat member, refused to go to Cairo until the Banovina issue was resolved. There was thus a divide between the Serbian and Croatian members of the government.

Peter set off for Cairo by ship from Liverpool. He arrived at Port Said in Egypt from where he set off along the Suez Canal by car to Cairo.

When he arrived at the airport, Peter was welcomed by Major General Ralph Royce, Commanding General, USAFIME, at the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers presentation ceremony held at John Payne Airport, Cairo, Egypt, in October, 1943. Peter was photographed exiting a car with insignia on the door of the Yugoslavian Royal Air Force. The B-24 Liberator bombers were assigned to the 376th Bomber Group of the U.S. Army Air Force, to be flown by Yugoslavian flight crews. The Yugoslav detachment was under the command of the U.S. Army Air Force. It was attached to a B-24 Liberator squadron of the 15th American Air Force. The Yugoslav detachment was integrated into the American squadron with the Yugoslav airmen living and flying together with the American crews.

John Payne Field was developed by the USAAF as an air base for the Air Transport Command in 1943 located 13 miles east of Cairo. The land was obtained from the RAF. The U.S. Air Force in the Middle East (USAFIME) was based in Cairo, Egypt, originally set up by General George C. Marshall in 1942 during the Egypt and Libya operations in North Africa.

The Royal Yugoslav Air Force (RYAF) crews were assigned to the 376 Bomber Group (BG)/512 Bomber Squadron (BS) in October, 1943. This detachment of the Yugoslav Air Force continued to operate under the operational control of the North-West African Air Forces and flew on equal terms with American bombers.

An inspection tour was part of the presentation ceremony of the Liberator bombers. The Yugoslav detachment was under the command of the U.S. Army Air Force. It was attached to a B-24 Liberator squadron of the 15th American Air Force. The Yugoslav detachment was integrated into the American squadron with the Yugoslav airmen living and flying together with the American crews.

The presentation ceremony was featured in a British War Pictorial News newsreel, November 15, 1943, No. 132. The film segment was entitled “Egypt” with commentary by Rex Keating.

The national flags of the United States and Yugoslavia were shown at Heliopolis Airport in Cairo during the aircraft presentation ceremony attended by King Peter II of Yugoslavia and Major-General Ralph Royce, Commander United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in the Middle East. A USAAF guard of honor was shown standing at attention armed with M1903 Springfield .30-in rifles and holstered M1911A1 .45-in automatic pistols.

King Peter is shown getting out of an official 4X2 Ford 21A Light Sedan automobile accompanied by Major-General Royce. A parked and chocked Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber can be seen in the background. The bomber is equipped with an Emerson defensive nose turret. No national markings are visible.

Peter delivered his acceptance speech from a free-standing podium in thanks for the generous presentation of four Liberator bombers to the Yugoslavian people by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Peter was shown speaking to a Royal Yugoslavian Air Force aircrew officer, part of the team of ferry pilots who collected the aircraft from the United States.

Peter and Major-General Royce posed for photographs in the defensive waist gun position of a B-24. The air-cooled .50-in Browning heavy machine gun is not mounted and has been stowed away prior to the aircraft’s ferry flight.

Peter and Major-General Ralph Royce were photographed as Peter arrived at the airport. The American national anthem was played at the start of the ceremony.

Peter was photographed reading his acceptance speech behind a microphone at the air field. Behind him were Major-General Royce and the American and Yugoslav officers.

American troops of the U.S. 835 Engineer Battalion were photographed passing in review before King Peter II of Yugoslavia and U.S. Major General Ralph Royce, Commanding General of USAFIME, at the B-24 Liberator bomber presentation ceremony in Cairo, 1943. Both Peter and General Royce were shown saluting the troops.

Peter was photographed in the cockpit of a U.S. Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber at John Payne Airport in Cairo, Egypt, 1943. King Peter of Yugoslavia was photographed in the pilot seat of B-24J 42-73085 for a briefing during acceptance ceremonies for Yugoslavian flight crews of the 376th BG at Cairo Airport.

The RYAF Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers flew as #20 through #23. #23 was the only one to survive the war. The planes were manned by Yugoslav crews with an American crewman as part of the team. The insignia of the Royal Yugoslavian Air Force was painted on the side of the aircraft left of the number “23”. The insignia of the 512th Squadron was on the right, a skull in front of propellers.

Peter described the Cairo ceremony in his account from the 1954 autobiography A King’s Heritage:

“Earlier in the year [1943] ten Liberator (B-24’s) had been presented to members of the Yugoslav forces in Washington by President Roosevelt in person. Our men subsequently flew these planes to Cairo and as I was there at the time yet another ceremony was held, at which General Ralph Royce and [U.S.] Ambassador [to Egypt, Alexander] Kirk presented me with these planes officially.”

Peter had envisioned the role of the planes as supplying and supporting Draza Mihailovich and his guerrilla troops. The bombers were used instead on missions outside of Yugoslavia:

“I had hoped that they would be used in Yugoslavia to help Mihailovich. However, this was not to be their function. We were informed that as part of the Mediterranean Command they were vitally needed elsewhere. These planes were stationed at Foggia in Italy and were used in the first bombing of the Ploeshti oil fields, and later to raid Munich. Less than half of them came back.”

There was to be a leaflet-dropping sortie using the Liberator bombers. The British Foreign Office objected and prevented this because of the designation of “High Command of the Yugoslav Army”. This was seen as recognizing Draza Mihailovich’s guerrilla headquarters. This was in November, 1943. The Foreign Office was concerned that Tito and the Communist Partisans would be offended. The U.S. State Department was notified. The U.S. ambassador was advised that “further gifts of this character might best be avoided”. The U.S. Office of War Information in Washington agreed that leaflets “issued independently by the Yugoslav government should not be dropped by Yugoslav aviators acting on their own initiative and under their own direction”. The OWI stated that it did not want to do anything that might antagonize “one of the bravest and most effective fighting groups in occupied Europe, namely the PLA”. The PLA was the People’s Liberation Army, Tito’s Communist Partisans. It was initially recommended to issue the leaflets in Peter’s name. But this too was rejected after the British ambassador opposed it.

The Yugoslav Communist Partisans under Josip Broz Tito immediately voiced their opposition to the granting of the bombers. On the Free Yugoslavia radio station, Josip Broz Tito and Ivan Ribar attacked the presentation of the four Liberator bombers by FDR as a “blunder” because they assumed they would be going to Draza Mihailovich. “Resent ‘Gift’ of Bombers”, The Milwaukee Journal, October 19, 1943, page 2. This was what Peter and Constantin Fotich wanted. FDR was somewhat ambiguous on this point. In fact, they were not used to supply and support the guerrillas under Draza Mihailovich.

On November 2, 1943, Peter sent a cable to FDR, thanking him for the bombers, stating that the Liberators are “truly magnificent machines”. Peter wrote: “I take this opportunity to renew my personal and my people’s warmest thanks to you Mr. President and to the American nation for this generous gift.”

The arrival of Peter and his government to Cairo was also featured in a British Movietone News newsreel, “Personalities: King Peter — Lord Wavell”, October 21, 1943. King Peter of Yugoslavia was shown exiting out of a car, greeted by Mr. Richard G. Casey, UK Minister of State, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, at Cairo, Egypt. He was the Air Officer Commanding in Chief of RAF Middle East Command in January, 1943. Also present was British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, whom Peter also was shown greeting. The group was shown walking into the camera. King Peter was shown on steps saluting.

Peter met with King Farouk, King George II of Greece, and General Bernard Montgomery in Egypt. He had discussions with all three. Monty informed him that a Salonika front as in World War I was “impossible” because “it was too long and too difficult to approach” and was unnecessary because the Allies had established a landing in Italy.

Peter also met with FDR during the Cairo Conference of November 22-26. Puric and Peter were invited to Alexander Kirk’s residence. “I thanked him for handing the B-24s to our contingent in Washington — the first real aid we had received from the U.S. Air Force.” Peter asked him about a possible Allied landing in Yugoslavia. FDR was vague. Peter argued that the Allies should attack the “soft underbelly” in the Balkans as an ideal target. FDR vehemently disagreed. FDR believed that Germany should be attacked in France. This was where Germany was strongest. Moreover, France was a steadfast and longstanding ally of the U.S. Most importantly, FDR still supported Draza Mihailovich at this time according to Peter. FDR wanted the rival guerrilla groups to divide the country into a western and eastern zone. FDR wanted to reconcile or unite the Partisan and Chetnik guerrilla movements and said it was possible. Puric, however, disagreed.

At the Teheran Conference held from November 28 to December 2, 1943, the Allies recognized Tito. Peter recalled: “Mihailovich was thus denied and abandoned.”

On November 8, 1943, the Yugoslav flying personnel were attached to the 376th Bombardment Group, stationed in Enfidaville, Tunisia. After a week of training the Yugoslavs flew their first combat mission on November 15 to strike the Eleusis Airport, Athens. The Yugoslav airmen would fly missions over Greece, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.