The Government of the Republic of Serbia announced that, following its recent acquisition of a piece by Paja Jovanović titled “The Rest of the Bashibazouk,” the Republic of Serbia has today, in the afternoon, purchased the infamous Directive No. 25 dated 27th March 1941.
This directive, issued by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, ordered the attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece.
Based on an initiative from the Museum of Genocide Victims directed to the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and at the request of the President, the Government of the Republic of Serbia secured the necessary funds to acquire one of the most significant documents in the entire history of the Serbian people this afternoon.
Directive No. 25, signed by Adolf Hitler, was produced in thirteen original copies, one of which is now owned by the Republic of Serbia.
This document, marking the beginning of World War II across the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, comparable in significance to the telegram declaring war on the Kingdom of Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire on July 28, 1914, was acted upon in the early hours of April 6, 1941.
By issuing the order for combined military actions against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler marked the beginning of four years of dramatic battles and immense suffering of the civilian population, particularly the Serbian people.
Among other things, this document contains an explicit order for conducting brutal air raids and continuous bombing of Belgrade, readiness to transfer parts of Yugoslav territory to Bulgaria and Hungary after occupation, and plans to “intensify internal political tension in Yugoslavia with political promises to the Croats.”
The contents of this directive led, among other things, to creating all necessary conditions for establishing the Independent State of Croatia, and the commencement of genocide against the Serbian people throughout its territory.
This invaluable document and historical source, now in the possession of the Republic of Serbia, also represented an ominous forewarning of numerous dramatic, tragic, but also heroic events that marked the period of World War II in the entire area of occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Photo: Wikimedia/Bundes Archive