By saying "No!" - straight to Hitler's face the Serbs made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazis in World War II.

Hitler's most catastrophic mistake

Excerpts from: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
A History of Nazi Germany
by William L. Shirer
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1960

NOTE: Mr. Shirer, a distinguished foreign correspondent, news commentator and historian, reported on the rise of the Nazis from Berlin for the Universal News Service and for CBS.

Page 823:

...Yugoslavs were not so accommodating. But their stubbornness only spurred on the Germans to bring them into camp too. On March 4-5 [1941], the Regent, Prince Paul [of Yugoslavia], was summoned in great secrecy to the Berghof by the Fuehrer, given the usual threats and, in addition, offered the bribe of Salonika [Greece]. On March 25, the Yugoslav Premier, Dragisha Cvetkovic, and Foreign Minister Aleksander Cincer-Markovic, having slipped surreptitiously out of Belgrade the night before to avoid hostile demonstrations or even kidnapping, arrived in Vienna, where in the presence of Hitler and Ribbentrop they signed up Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Pact... The Yugoslav leaders were given two letters from Ribbentrop confirming Germany's "determination" to respect "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia at all times" and promising that the Axis would not demand transit rights for its troops across Yugoslavia "during this war".

The Yugoslav ministers had no sooner returned to Belgrade than they, the government and the Prince Regent were overthrown on the night of March 26-27, by a popular uprising... [...]

Page 824:

...During the delirious celebrations in Belgrade, in which a crowd spat on the German minister's car, the Serbs had shown where their sympathies lay.

The coup in Belgrade threw Adolf Hitler into one of the wildest rages of his entire life. He took it as a personal affront and in his fury made sudden decisions which would prove utterly dissastrous to the fortunes of the Third Reich.

He hurriedly summoned his military chieftans to the Chancellery in the Berlin on March 27 - the meeting was so hastly called that Brauchitsch, Halder and Ribbentrop arrived late - and raged about the revenge he would take on Yugoslavs... He was therefore determined,... "to destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a nation. No diplomatic inquiries will be made," he ordered, "and no ultimatums presented." Yugoslavia, he added, would be crushed with "unmerciful harshness." He ordered Goering then and there to "destroy Belgrade in attacks by waves," with bombers operating from Hungarian air bases. He issued Directive No. 25 for the immediate invasion of Yugoslavia and told Keitel and Jodl to work out that very evening the military plans. He instructed Ribentrop to advise [the German allies] Hungary, Rumania and Italy that they would all get a slice of Yugoslavia, which would be divided up among them, except for a Croatian state.

And then, according to an underlined passage in the top-secret OKW notes of the meeting (1), Hitler announced the most fateful decision of all.

"The beginninig of the Barbarossa opreration [attack on Russia]," he told his generals, "will have to be postponed up to four weeks." (It had originally been set for May 15 in the directive of December 18, 1940).

This postponment of the attack on Russia in order that the Nazi warlord might vent his personal spite against a small Balkan country which had dared to defy him was probably the most catastrophic single decision in Hitler's career. It is hardly too much to say that by making it that March afternoon in the Chancellery in Berlin during a moment of convulsive rage he tossed away his last golden opportunity to win the war and to make of the Third Reich, which he had created with such stunning if barbarous genius, the greatest empire in German history and himself the master of Europe. Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, the Commander in Chief of the German Army, and General Halder, the gifted Chief of the General Staff, were to recall it with deep bitterness but also with more understanding of its consequences than they showed at the moment of its making, when later the deep snow and subzero temperatures of Russia hit them three of four weeks short of what they thought they needed for final victory. For ever afterward they and their fellow generals would blame that hastly, ill-advised decision of vain and infuriated man for all the disasters that ensued.

Page 826:

...At dawn on April 6, [Hitler's] armies in overwhelming strength fell on Yugoslavia and Greece, smashing across the frontiers of Bulgaria, Hungary and Germany itself with all their armor and advancing rapidly against poorly armed defenders dazed by the usual preliminary bombing from the Luftwaffe.

Belgrade itself, as Hitler ordered, was razed to the ground. For three days and nights Goering's bombers ranged over the little capital at rooftop level - for the city had no antiaircraft guns - killing 17,000 civilians, wounding many more and reducing the place to a mass of smoldering rubble. "Operation Punishment," Hitler called it, and he obviously was satisfied that his commands had been so effectively carried out...

(1) OKW minutes of the meeting, "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression"; part of the Nuremberg Documents, VI, pp. 275-278 (Nuremberg Documents 1746-PS, Part II).

See also:

Variety of sources on the reaction of the world leaders
What did Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler say about the Serbian bravery? The reaction of the Serbian spiritual leader - Patriarch Gavrilo.

MS. Ruth Mitchell "The Serbs chose war" (New York, 1943).
"In a war aimed just as much at America as at Europe, The Serbs gave us without price the three most vital months in the annals of civilization. Serbia at the end would present no bill - that I knew - because the Serbs are like that..."

Today, the fueheres of the Newest "New World Order", Imperial America and their German helpers, show the same fury toward the disobedient Serb people. In 1991, just like in 1941, the Serbs dare challenge Mighty Fascist Rullers of the Universe. Because, if it was not clear from the above text who were the "Yugoslavs"; who dared say "No!" to Hitler - it is crystal clear from all other literature. It were the Serbs! The Croats (and their Muslim helpers) eagerly awaited the "liberating" troops of the New World Order.

Germans did not forget or forgive the Serbs for their role in destroying the beloved Third Reich. The price of more than one million lives that the small but brave Serbian nation have payed was not enough for the blood thirsty Germans. They rage for more today.

It is shocking to what detail the history repeat itself. Once again, Croats and Muslims are servants of a "World Order", once again Serbs are labelled "thugs, criminals and bandits" just like in 1941.

The difference is that the Americans (the new Masters of the Planet) "forgot" that during the last gigantic struggle the Serbs sacrificed their own lifes in order to rescue more than 500 American Airmen. This was the largest rescue of American lives from behind enemy lines in American history.

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Last revised: March 25, 1997