The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, commonly abbreviated as the AVNOJ, was a deliberative and legislative body that was established in Bihać, Yugoslavia, in November 1942. It was established by Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, an armed resistance movement led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to resist the Axis occupation of the country during World War II.
The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the communist-led anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. Led by Josip Broz Tito, the Partisans are considered to be Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II.
The Order of the People's Hero or the Order of the National Hero, was a Yugoslav gallantry medal, the second highest military award, and third overall Yugoslav decoration. It was awarded to individuals, military units, political and other organisations who distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroic deeds during war and in peacetime. The recipients were thereafter known as People's Heroes of Yugoslavia or National Heroes of Yugoslavia. The vast majority was awarded to partisans for actions during the Second World War. A total of 1,322 awards were awarded in Yugoslavia, and 19 were awarded to foreigners.
Operation Uzice was the first major counter-insurgency operation by the German Wehrmacht on the occupied territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. The operation was directed against the Užice Republic, the first of several "free territories" liberated by the Yugoslav Partisans. It was named after the town of Užice, and is associated with the First Enemy Offensive in Yugoslavian historiography. The security forces of the German-installed puppet regime of Milan Nedić also participated in the offensive.
Operation Trio was the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation of World War II conducted in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which included modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was carried out in two phases within eastern Bosnia from 20 April to 13 May 1942, with Ustaše militia and Croatian Home Guard forces taking part on the Axis side. The aim of the operation was to target all insurgents between Sarajevo and the Drina river in eastern Bosnia. These included the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and Serb nationalist Chetniks. Differentiating between the rank and file of the two insurgent factions was difficult, as even the communist-led insurgent groups consisted mainly of Serb peasants who had little understanding of the political aims of their leaders.
Ljubo Novaković was a Montenegrin officer in the Royal Yugoslav Army who became a Chetnik commander during World War II. He initially fought for the Chetniks of Draža Mihailović and those of Kosta Pećanac, but became disillusioned with both movements. He went to eastern Bosnia in late 1941, and raised Chetnik bands to fight Yugoslav Partisans there. He was captured by the Partisans in January 1942 and taken to Foča, where he was kept under constant surveillance. Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito likely believed that Novaković could be used to counteract Mihailović's influence among Chetniks in eastern Bosnia. Novaković left Foča with a British mission in April 1942 and returned to Montenegro with the intention of reassembling the disorganized Chetnik formations there. He was killed in late 1943, either by the Partisans or Mihailović's Chetniks.
The Slovene Partisans, formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia, were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans. Since a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of total population of 1.3 million Slovenes were subjected to forced Italianization after the end of the First World War, and genocide of the entire Slovene nation was being planned by the Italian fascist authorities, the objective of the movement was the establishment of the state of Slovenes that would include the majority of Slovenes within a socialist Yugoslav federation in the postwar period.
Lieutenant Colonel Zaharije Ostojić was a Montenegrin Serb and Yugoslav military officer who served as the chief of the operational, organisational and intelligence branches of the Chetnik Supreme Command led by Draža Mihailović in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force prior to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, and was involved in the coup that deposed Prince Paul of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1941. After the coup, he escorted Prince Paul to exile in Greece, and was in Cairo during the invasion in April. In September 1941, he was landed on the coast of the Italian governorate of Montenegro along with the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Hudson and two companions. He escorted Hudson to the German-occupied territory of Serbia and introduced him to the Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito at Užice, then accompanied Hudson to Ravna Gora to meet Mihailović. Ostojić soon became Mihailović's chief of staff, and after the German attempt to capture the Chetnik leader during Operation Mihailovic in December 1941, brought the Chetnik Supreme Command staff to Montenegro where they were re-united with Mihailović in June 1942. During the remainder of 1942, Ostojić launched a counter-attack against Ustaše troops of the Independent State of Croatia returning to the eastern Bosnian town of Foča where they were expected to continue their genocidal anti-Serb policies. As many as 2,000 local Muslims were subsequently killed in the town by forces under Ostojić's command. Ostojić later oversaw large-scale massacres of civilians and burning of Muslim villages in the border region between Montenegro and the Sandžak.
The Battle of Pljevlja, was a World War II attack in the Italian governorate of Montenegro by Yugoslav Partisans under the command of General Arso Jovanović and Colonel Bajo Sekulić, who led 4,000 Montenegrin Partisans against the Italian occupiers in the town of Pljevlja.
The German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations were held between German commanders in the Independent State of Croatia and the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans in March 1943 during World War II. The negotiations – focused on obtaining a ceasefire and establishing a prisoner exchange – were conducted during the Axis Case White offensive. They were used by the Partisans to delay the Axis forces while the Partisans crossed the Neretva River, and to allow the Partisans to focus on attacking their Chetnik rivals led by Draža Mihailović. The negotiations were accompanied by an informal ceasefire that lasted about six weeks before being called off on orders from Adolf Hitler. The short-term advantage gained by the Partisans through the negotiations was lost when the Axis Case Black offensive was launched in mid-May 1943. Prisoner exchanges, which had been occurring between the Germans and Partisans for some months prior, re-commenced in late 1943 and continued until the end of the war.
Vicko Krstulović was a Croatian Yugoslav communist revolutionary, the most prominent Partisan military commander from Dalmatia during World War II, and a post-war communist politician. He was an illegal communist activist during the 1920s and 1930s in Split at a time when communist sympathizers were brutally persecuted by the Yugoslav monarchy. As an officer in the Partisans during World War II, he was in charge of creating and organising the resistance movement in Dalmatia. In Socialist Yugoslavia, he worked in various government offices and was remembered for his work and contribution to his native Split.
Rudolf Perhinek was Yugoslav military officer with the rank of Captain in the Royal Yugoslav Army who, soon after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, joined Chetniks of Draža Mihailović. He was a member of the Supreme Command of Mihailović's Chetniks and received the rank of Major. Perhinek, also referred as Mihailović's right hand, organized Chetniks in Montenegro at the end of 1941. In period October 1941 — September 1943 he was a special envoy of Mihailovic's Chetnik staff for Montenegro who was also responsible for the intelligence service in Montenegro and Albania. Some sources describe him as an agent of Gestapo. For some time he was the Chief of Staff of Chetnik forces under command of Vojislav Lukačević. Perhinek was an ethnic Slovene. Yugoslav Government in Exile awarded him with Order of the Star of Karađorđe.
The Partisan Long March was the redeployment of Josip Broz Tito's Partisan Supreme Headquarters and the major fighting elements of the Yugoslav Partisans across the Independent State of Croatia, from south-eastern to north-western Bosnia that commenced in late June 1942. The march followed the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation in the NDH, Operation Trio, and the combined Italian-Montenegrin Chetnik offensive in Montenegro and eastern Herzegovina.
Boško Todorović was a Chetnik commander and delegate of the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović in eastern Bosnia during World War II. During the interwar period he was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army. Following the April 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia he joined Mihailović's Chetnik movement. Initially considered a moderate, he was responsible for negotiating the transfer of parts of eastern Bosnia from Italian to Chetnik administration in November 1941, after which the Chetniks massacred hundreds of Muslim civilians in the region. He also signed a collaboration agreement with the Italians to protect the Serb population in Italian-occupied areas. He was killed by the Yugoslav Partisans in February 1942, either trying to evade capture, or he was executed after a brief trial when captured in possession of compromising documents regarding collaboration with the Italians.
The Croatian Partisans, officially the National Liberation Movement in Croatia, were part of the anti-fascist National Liberational Movement in the Axis-occupied Yugoslavia which was the most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement. It was led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists during the World War II. NOP was under the leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and supported by many others, with Croatian Peasant Party members contributing to it significantly. NOP units were able to temporarily or permanently liberate large parts of Croatia from occupying forces. Based on the NOP, the Federal Republic of Croatia was founded as a constituent of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia.
Mane Rokvić was a Serb guerrilla commander and collaborator with the Axis occupation forces during the Second World War. Rokvić briefly became commander of the Yugoslav Partisan 4th detachment of the Sloboda Battalion during the 1941 Drvar uprising, a spontaneous resistance by the Serbian population to the genocidal activities of the Independent State of Croatia in Western Bosnia. Later and most notably, Rokvić left the communist cause to join the royalist Dinara Chetnik Division to command the King Alexander I regiment. He went on to collaborate with the Germans to fight against the Yugoslav Partisans.
Mitar Bakić, was a Yugoslav politician, general and People's Hero of Yugoslavia. During World War II, he was political commissar of the 4th Montenegrin brigade, 2nd Proletarian Division and 2nd Corps. After the war, he was the chief of staff of Josip Broz Tito, secretary-general of the Yugoslav government and member of Yugoslav mission in United Nations. He also had rank of reserve lieutenant general of Yugoslav People's Army.
Stolice conference was a military-political conference of the leadership of the Yugoslav Partisans, held on 26 September 1941 in the village of Stolice, near Krupanj in present-day Serbia. The conference was led by the general secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the commander of the Chief Headquarters Josip Broz Tito. It was attended by representatives of military and party leaders from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and commanders of the nearest partisan detachments from Serbia.
The 6th Proletarian Assault Lika Division "Nikola Tesla" was a Yugoslav Partisan division formed on 22 November 1942. It was formed from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Lika Brigades. On 11 November 1943, it became part of the 4th Corps and later a part of the 1st Corps. It operated in Dalmatia until November 1943 when it crossed into Bosnia, later it fought in Serbia and on the Syrmian Front. From October 1944, the 22nd Serbian Kosmaj Brigade also fought as part of the division, and in December 1944 an Artillery Brigade was formed within the division.
![Tito (far right) and members of the Supreme Headquarters in front of the Tito's cave [sr] in Drvar on 14 May 1944, days before Operation Rosselsprung. Marshal Tito during the Second World War in Yugoslavia, May 1944.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Marshal_Tito_during_the_Second_World_War_in_Yugoslavia%2C_May_1944.jpg/220px-Marshal_Tito_during_the_Second_World_War_in_Yugoslavia%2C_May_1944.jpg)