Summit Gist

Sixteen blindfolded partisan youth await execution by German forces in Smederevska Palanka, Serbia A German soldier was widely reported to have been executed along with the partisans for refusing to take part in the action. However, in actuality he died from wounds he suffered the previous day. On October 21,1941, Nazi soldiers killed about 4,000 people as part of an "atonement exercise" in occupied Serbia. The victims came from all walks of life. Children were among them. Serbia does not play much of a role in Germany's historical recollection of World War II. That is despite the fact that from April 6, 1941, when the Nazis invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, until their full retreat in 1945, hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were stationed in the Balkan country. The remains of more than 15,400 slain Germans are buried at 719 cemeteries across Serbia. Evidence of atrocities committed by occupying German forces can be found in the countless graves that hold the rema...

An Ottoman prisoner doing wudhu for his final prayer before being hanged by the Bulgarians during The Balkan War 1913. The Second Balkan War was a conflict that broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counterattacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria's also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania and the bulk of Bulgarian forces engaged in the south, the prospect of an easy victory incited Romanian intervention against Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to regain some lost territories from the previous war. When Romanian troops approached the capital Sofia, Bulgaria asked for an armistice, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest, in which Bulgaria had to cede portions of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece and Romania. In the Tre...