1918-1941 1945-1974







History of Kosovo, 1941-1944


In April 1941, German forces, in combination with Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces, launched the invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia.
The territory which in 1945 was to be constituted as the Kosovo Autonomous Region within Serbia, to the larger part (central, southern region) was annexed into Albania by Italy. The northern region formed part of German-occupied Serbia, while some stretches in the east came under Bulgarian administration.
In 1943 Germany occupied the area previously held by Italy. The Germans attempted to exploit the tension between Serbs and Albanians and used an Albanian militia, the Vulnetari, to keep Serb resistance in check. In 1943 the Germans supported the establishment of the Second League of Prizren, which aimed at the establishment of a Greater Albania. The Albanian Skanderbeg Division fought alongside the Germans. In August 1944 German troops began to withdraw from Greece.
The war (mainly between collaborators and resistance) had caused a significant number of civilian casualties, at least 10,000 killed and close to 100,000 displaced, mostly ethnic Serbs.






EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Timeline Kosovo, from BBC News
Kosovo : Modern History, from Wikipedia
Pristina after World War II, from Wikipedia
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE Noel Malcolm, Kosovo : a Short History, NY UP 1999, KMLA Lib.Sign. 949.71 M243k


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on October 17th 2006

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