Civil War in the Former Yugoslavia During World War II

Looking at the remnants of what was once Yugoslavia it is hard to understand the hatred and violence that has ripped that nation apart, engendering mass atrocities and policies of genocide not seen in Europe since the days of Adolph Hitler. First Slovenia, Croatia and now Bosnia-Herzegovina have sunk into a brutal civil war, which defies every effort to end the violence. While some causes of this war are as ancient as the centuries-old split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, one need only travel as far back as the Second World War to find more recent and vivid reasons for the peoples of the former Yugoslavia to wish death and destruction upon each other.

The Second World War came to Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941; two weeks after a group of anti-German military officers overthrew the pro-Axis government of the royal regent Prince Paul and placed the seventeen-year-old King Peter upon the throne. A massive invasion by powerful Nazi German armored and air force...