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. They focused on obtaining a ceasefire and establishing a prisoner exchange. The negotiations were accompanied by an informal ceasefire that lasted about six weeks before being called off on orders from Adolf Hitler. Details of the negotiations were little known by historians until the 1970s, despite being mentioned by several authors from 1949 on.
About German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations in brief
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. They focused on obtaining a ceasefire and establishing a prisoner exchange. Details of the negotiations were little known by historians until the 1970s, despite being mentioned by several authors from 1949 on. The key Partisan negotiator, Milovan Đilas, was first named in Walter Roberts’ Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945 in 1973. 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. Continuing negotiations between the Germans and Partisans re-commenced in late 1943 and continued until the end of the war. The German ambassador to the NDH, SA-Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kasche, sent a telegram to the Reich Foreign Ministry advising of the proposed exchange and asked the Ministry to intercede with the Italians. In September 1943, a prisoner swap was completed in an area between Duvno and Livno where 38 Partisans and family members were exchanged for one senior German officer who had been captured during the Battle of Livno in December 1942. On the day of the second prisoner exchange, the Partisan headquarters delivered a letter to the German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia, General der Infanterie Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, explaining that they were independent military force with an agglomerated military force.
The Partisans were not armed with an armed force and were not agglebitated with the German military force on the German side, and Ott was involved on theGerman side on the side of the Germans, and was also a member of the Partartisan Headquarters. The exchange was completed on the second day of December 1942, and resulted in a further prisoner exchange on 17 November 1942. The prisoner exchange resulted in the death of one German officer, Hans Ott, who was also an officer of the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht’s intelligence organisation. Ott was sent to Zagreb on parole, where he met with the Germans to discuss the possibility of exchanging him for ten Partisans who were being held by Germans, Italians and NDH authorities. In August 1942, Josip Broz Tito’s Partisans captured a group of eight Germans from the civil and military engineering group Organisation Todt near Livno. Following their capture, Ott told his captors that he had an important message to deliver to Partisans headquarters, and after he had been taken there he suggested to thepartisans that his group be exchanged for Partisans held by the Germans in jails inZagreb. The number of Germans in Partisan custody had been increasing, and this made some sort of prisoner swap agreement more likely. The leader of the captured group was a mining engineer,. Hans Ott had been identifying new sources of metal and timber.
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