The Balkans Campaign 1941 – The Nazi Invasion of Yugoslavia

The Führer and the Duce in München on June 18 1940

Waffen-SS officers of the Reich Division in April 1941

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had signed the Axis Treaty in 1936, and the Rome–Berlin Axis became a military alliance in 1939 under the so-called Pact of Steel. Officially, the Pact of Steel obliged Germany and Italy to aid the other country militarily and economically in the event of war, and to collaborate in wartime production. The Balkans Campaign was the invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941. It began with Benito Mussolini's ill-fated invasion of Greece on October 28 1940. Mussolini surprised everyone with this move against Greece; even his ally, Adolf Hitler, was caught off-guard. Hitler denounced the move as a major strategic blunder and it proved to be a disastrous military campaign for the Duce's forces. To make matters worse, virtually half the Italian fleet at Taranto had been crippled by a British carrier-based attack. Germany intervened on April 6 1941 and invaded Greece after a successful invasion of Yugoslavia. Hitler had already begun planning to invade Greece in November 1940, after the British occupied Crete and Lemnos. The aim of the operation was to prevent the British from getting air bases within striking range of the Romanian oilfields. Breaking through the Yugoslav lines in southern Yugoslavia allowed Germany to send reinforcements to the battlefields of northern Greece. Credit: History. Top image: the two dictators Hitler and Mussolini in München about four months before Italy's surprise attack against Greece. National Archives. Bottom image: according to British military historian Gordon Williamson the photo shows officers of the elite SS-Division Reich during the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. Commons: Bundesarchiv.