Summary
In June 1944, the communist leadership of the Albanian National Liberation Army, following Yugoslav directives, launched a campaign to subdue northern Albania under the slogan “Ta nënshtrojmë Veriun” (“Let us Subdue the North”). Orders issued on 1 June 1944 to the First Assault Division instructed forces to strike nationalist groups, liquidate bases such as “Bazi i Canit”, destroy communication lines, and “cleanse” regions including Mat, Dibër, Çermenikë, and Zaranikë. Captured gendarmes and officers were to be executed as traitors, while houses of defined enemies could be burned and property confiscated.The operation triggered brutal massacres, torture, and repression against Albanian nationalists and civilians who opposed communist rule, marking a bloody chapter of internal conflict and civil war elements during the final phase of World War II in Albania.
Archival documents, which prove the orders of communist leaders, according to the orientations of the Yugoslavs, to subjugate the entire north of Albania with weapons, thus inciting civil war
June 1, 1944, is officially the date when partisan brigades were ordered to march towards northern Albania and subdue it by force of arms. The document, where this order is given, bears this exact date, and is preserved in the Central State Archive in fund 41, file 53.
This march of partisan forces from the South towards Central and Northern Albania was made on the orders of the Yugoslav partisan army, which, on May 18, 1944, in a letter to the General Staff, which is preserved in the AQSH, fund 41, file 135, writes: “With the arrival of the Wehrmacht division in Central Albania, with the creation of joint action plans of the Wehrmacht and our units, we can quickly and surely break the reaction and the German occupier.
Breaking the reaction in Central Albania and in the terrain of Dibra, Kiçevo, Struga, Tetovo and Gostivar, means isolating the German occupier and attacking him when you want and how you want.”
13 days after this letter, the General Staff of the National Liberation Army issued the order cited above (June 1, 1944) for the partisan brigades to subdue the north and fight the Albanian reaction (nationalist forces).
The order, which the General Staff of the National Liberation Army issued to move to the north on June 1, ’44, states, among other things:
“We assign the 1st attacking division the task of marching towards central Albania. The objectives of the division:
1. To strike the enemy forces.
2. To destroy his communication routes.
3. To strike and liquidate the Cani Base, the legality and the various forces of reaction and the quisling government of Tirana.
4. To clear the areas of Çermenika, Zaronika, the districts of Tirana, Mat and Dibër.
5. To establish and strengthen the National Liberation Power in the liberated areas.
6. To mobilize the people in the war…..
The above order bears the number 5. On this day, a series of orders were sent to the 1st Division. In the same file with no. 53, there is another order that precedes the massacres that would occur in the north, order no. 8, also sent on June 1, 1944. It reads:
“As a general rule, gendarmes, mercenaries of the quisling government, when they are attacked, are shot, but when you see that they do not fight and that they surrender in large numbers, when you understand that they have been wrong people and that there is a desire among them to join the ranks of our army, or when you are convinced that they are not such as have mercenaryism as a profession, you can even forgive them by ordering them not to take up arms against the National Liberation Army.
Gendarmerie officers who fight with crowds of such gendarmes are shot as traitors. The burning of houses should be used only against the traitors we defined above; this should not be a measure that is generalized against all those who are in the ranks of the reaction. In confiscating the property of traitors, you should always keep in mind that a sufficient portion should be left for the family to live on and that a correct attitude should be maintained towards them. Avoid the robbery…”
After this, on June 14, 1944, the General Staff wrote to the Macedonian Staff (fund 41, file 135) that: “ Our 1st Division is moving into northern and central Albania to undertake military and political actions. This part of Albania presents itself in very difficult conditions for our war… In the sector of Dibra and Peshkopi, our forces will encounter the Germans and the reactionaries, and their liquidation requires close military and political cooperation of both sides…
We are convinced that joint undertakings will yield good results, will give a new impetus to the war in those sectors, will mobilize the people of those regions around the National Liberation Front of Yugoslavia and Albania, and these joint actions will have profound repercussions in Kosovo, where broad war perspectives and more active participation in the war of the peoples of Kosovo in the National Liberation Front will open up. yours and in the Glorious Army of the peoples of Yugoslavia…”.
The real picture of events was 10 times more criminal than can be imagined from these documents. The numerous testimonies coming from families in the north of the country, who were massacred during this bloody campaign, which the communists undertook against their Albanian brothers in the north, testify to hundreds of crimes: murders, torture, burning of houses, looting of property and cleansing of entire villages.
The numerous reports sent to the General Staff by the heads of this division that was operating in the entire northern area, prove that their main enemy were the Albanians of the north who did not like communism and did not accept the establishment of power by them. They reported that they encountered Germans few, and most of the time not at all.
This campaign of violence and cleansing continued until the end of the War and intensified immediately after the communists established their power.
Note: The central photograph shows the partisan searches in December 1944 in the homes of Shkodra citizens. They searched for gold and any other valuables that caught their eye.
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