Soldier-diplomat who pushed for the German alliance in Berlin and, as prime minister under occupation, sped up the Jewish deportations
Born Dimitrije Stojaković into a Serb family in Versec (Vršac), he served in the First World War as an intelligence officer of the Austro-Hungarian general staff. After the war he specialised in counter-espionage in Horthy’s counter-revolutionary army, was military attaché in Berlin from 1927 to 1933 and, from 1935 to 1944, Hungary’s minister in Berlin, where he pressed for alliance with Germany. Prime minister and foreign minister after the German occupation of March 1944, he legalised the Arrow Cross, dissolved the trade unions, jailed opponents and sharply accelerated the deportation of Jews. Forced out by Horthy’s pressure in August, he was captured by American troops after the war, handed over to Hungary, sentenced to death by a People’s Tribunal and shot in 1946.
Career timeline
- 1917–1918Intelligence officer, Austro-Hungarian general staff
- 1919–1925Intelligence and counter-espionage officer, National Army
- 1927–1933Military attaché in Berlin
- 1935–1944Minister in Berlin
- 1944Prime minister and foreign minister
- 1946Sentenced by a People’s Tribunal and executed
A Serbian nationalist commander who sought to restore the monarchy
In 1941 he rejected Tito's call for a general uprising as premature, and the two resistance movements soon turned their struggle into armed conflict.
Draža Mihailović was a Royal Yugoslav Army officer who led the Chetnik movement, seeking to restore the monarchy and a Serbian nationalist order after the Second World War. He built an organization at Ravna Gora in 1941, but chose to prepare for postwar power and avoid a general uprising rather than follow Tito's Partisans into sustained open resistance, bringing the movements into conflict. Parts of the Chetnik organization and Mihailović's command network collaborated with Axis and collaborationist forces, a choice that weakened the movement in multi-ethnic Yugoslavia and contributed to the Allies shifting support to the Partisans. Captured after the war, he was executed for treason and war crimes, while Serbia's Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2015 as politically motivated.
Career timeline
- 1912–1913Serbian Army cadet, Balkan Wars
- 1914–1918Serbian Army officer, First World War
- 1935–1936Military attaché in Bulgaria
- 1936–1939Military attaché in Czechoslovakia, staff officer
- 1941Deputy chief of staff, Yugoslav Second Army
- 1941–1945Commander of the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army
- 1946Tried for treason and war crimes, executed
