Jezdimir Dangić

Jezdimir Dangić (Srebrenica, May 5 1897 - 1947) was a Bosnian Serb Chetnik major in the Chetnik movement.

Early life

Jezdimir was born May 5, 1897 in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then part of Austria-Hungary) in the family of an Orthodox priest. He went to gymnasium in Tuzla and as a member of the organization Mlada Bosna was sentenced to three and a half years in jail due to treason against the empire. He served the sentence in Tuzla and Zenica over the course of the First World War.

King of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Kingdom of Yugoslavia

After the war, he studied law in Tuzla and worked as an officer and a reserve mounted vicelieutenant. On January 3, 1928 he entered the Žandarmerija with the rank of vicelieutenant.

Second World War

Dangić began the Second World War as a major. During the April War of 1941, Dangić led a Žandarmerija unit which followed king Petar II. Karađorđević from Belgrade to Nikšić. Dangić escaped capture by German forces and with the help of the Todorović brothers - active majors in the Yugoslavian Royal Army - entered into contact with Chetnik leader colonel Draža Mihailović in Ravna Gora, Serbia. Mihailović sent him to Bosnia with the intent of forming and spreading the Chetnik organization in that area.

After the recognition of the Chetnik army, the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, by the Allies, Mihailović declared Dangić the commander of all Chetnik units in eastern Bosnia. Dangić had a thousand troops, positioned in the area between Višegrad and Bijeljina. He began mobilizing Serbian villagers. In October 1941 Dangić signed an agreement with the Yugoslav Partisans relating to collaboration against attacks of the local Serb population from the Ustasha government of the then Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

The Chetniks did not intend to uphold this agreement for very long, but they did not want to fight a three way war against both Partisan and NDH forces. In August 1941, Dangić had also entered into discussion with German forces. At the start of February, 1942 he had talks with Erich Kewisch, head of the operational department of the commission of the German command for Serbia, about a ceasefire between his Chetnik troops and the Germans. Dangić was ready to recognize German military administration in eastern Bosnia with the intent of destroying the Partisans. In return, he sought that Ustasha and Home Guard troops leave the area. German general Bader, commissioned commander of Serbia was ready to allow Dangić to assume defence of the NDH in the region between the rivers Sava, Drina and Bosna. On February 2, 1942 Bader invited a member of the NDH government, minister Vjekoslav Vrančić, and Home Guard colonel Fedor Dragojlov to Belgrade for a meeting with Dangić's representatives. Vrančić and Dragojlov refused any possible transfer of authority to the Chetniks in eastern Bosnia and the talks ended without result. In April 1942, Dangić himself travelled to Belgrade to meet with Serbian leader Milan Nedić. He sought material aid for his troops and in return offered the 17 kotars which were under the contol of his troops to be annexed by Serbia. Upon his return to Bosnia he stopped at Valjevo where he called for a wide-ranging uprising of the Serbs within the territory of the NDH against the Ustasha government. When he returned to his own troops, a large Ustasha-German operation (Operation Trio) was being carried out in which his forces suffered heavy losses from the elite Crna Legija ("Black Legion").

Ustasha formations brust through to the Drina and reclaimed the NDH border with Serbia. As the Germans found pacifying the NDH internally of great importance, they saw Dangić as a great nuisance. Because of this he was captured on the night of April 10/11 1942 in Rogatica near Bajina Bašta by men from the 714th Wehrmacht division.

He was sent to a prison camp in Poland. He remained here until the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. He joined the uprising under Polish general Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski until it was set down. He was captured by the Red Army and ended up in a prison camp in Moscow

Post-war

In 1947 the Soviets turned Dangić over to communist Yugoslavia. He was tried in February of that year in Sarajevo for war crimes by a military court of the Third Yugoslavian Army. He was accused of collaboration with the Germans, Italians, the quisling Serbian regime, carrying out massive crimes and treason. He was found guilty and in that same month he was hanged.

References

*Kisić Kolanović, Nada: NDH i Italija-Političke veze i diplomatski odnosi