Albania at War

Chapter One
Albania at War

 

On April 7, 1939, Albania was invaded by Italian military forces and a week later the entire country was occupied by Italian soldiers. The Italians arrived at the Albanian ports and met little resistance. The Italian King took the crown of Albania and incorporated Albania into the Italian Empire.

The invasion of Albania was not without risks to the Italians. The mountainous nature of the country and the possibility of the Albanian King Zog arming the populous presented the danger of long guerrilla warfare. This necessitated lightning action. In the first week in April, 1939, the combined air, sea, and land forces of the Italians were too much for the Albanians who were already preparing themselves for guerrilla warfare.

King Zog and most of the “royalty” fled first to Greece and then to England. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to create a government in Exile like those created by other governments of occupied countries.

 

Greece

For the Italians, Albania was the road to Greece and a rocky road it was. On October 28, 1940, the Italians occupying Albania crossed the Albanian-Greco border and attacked Greece. The Greeks defeated the Italians in just 10 days. By November 22, there wasn’t a single Italian soldier in Greece.

On two occasions Mussolini came to Albania to conduct the campaign against the Greeks, but he had no more success than his generals.

The Greeks went on the offensive and captured one of the Italian Naval bases, and held the key point of Korça, in Albania, until the Germans entered the conflict in April, 1941. The German invasion caused the withdrawal of Greek forces from Albania.

Neither side was sure about the Albanian army. The Greeks were suspicious of the 3,000 armed Albanians fighting at their side against the Italians and didn’t cooperate with them. The Albanian army became part of the Italian army, but these were unreliable troops because of their anti-Italian attitudes.

By 1942 there was a steady increase in Albanian guerrilla activity and by the end of the year the Italians were no longer in complete control of the country.

There is no denying that there were quisling types in Albania as there were every place else and there was a collaborationist Albania Fascist Party. The collaborators were only a handful, while the guerrillas numbered in the tens of thousands. Nothing was found that would indict the collaborators insofar as specific Jewish interests were concerned.

In Albania there were many people who admired German culture and education but had no use for or connection with Nazis, in fact they had a deep antipathy towards them. There were families who sent their children to Germany or Austria (prewar) for their education, but they had no connection with Nazi ideology or Nazis invaders.

There were 33 known families of Albanian Jews on the eve of the invasion. The greater part of the population (15 families) lived in Vlora. The remainder were scattered around the country.

There was also an unknown number of foreign Jews in Albania, mostly in transit. This later group changed in number from day to day but measured in the hundreds.

Jews were not eligible to become members of the Albanian Fascist Party and it’s doubtful that any would have joined even if eligible. Jews were not eligible to serve in the Albanian army during these years. That made sense as the Albanian army was part of the Italian army which was allied with the German army.

Albanian Jews served in the guerrilla armies, mostly with the partisans. Pepe Biro Kantos served as a partisan and stayed in the Albanian army after the war and became one of the highest ranking army officers. Dario Zhak Artiti was a partisan, so were David Koen, Ruben Zhak, Josef Bivas, and others.

In August, 1943, the Allies were contemplating the invasion of Albania and and an analysis was prepared of the scene in Albania before and during the Italian occupation. The situation changed rapidly when Italy capitulated. The displaced Italian soldiers were divided, some joining the Germans and some joining the partisans. The invasion plans were canceled.

The Germans arrived in September, 1943, and replaced the Italian puppet government with a Regency of four men headed by Mehdi Frashëri a former Prime Minister.

The Regency abided by an agreement with Nazi Germany that allowed the free movement of the German army across Albania. In return, the Germans were not to interfere with Albanian internal affairs. This phrase “internal affairs ” was important when the Germans later asked the Regency to provide a list of the Jews in Albania.

The agreement did not deter Albanian guerrillas from harassing the Germans, sometimes with dire results. In July, 1943, Albanian partisans attacked a German convoy and killed 60 German soldiers. The Germans retaliated by destroying the nearest village and killing 107, including women and children. During the war Albania suffered 28,000 killed and 12,600 wounded.

In November, 1944, the National Liberation Army defeated the Germans and on November 17, Tirana was liberated. On November 28, the liberation of Albania was complete. When the Second World War ended, the Regency was replaced by Communist partisans who took credit for forcing the Germans out of the country.

 

Civil War

There were various political and social philosophies among the anti-fascists which clouded an already complex picture. Two essential points are that the guerrillas of all denominations far out numbered the collaborationists, and the outcome of the inter-denomination conflict was that the Communist partisans became the new political power. The periods of democracy, royalty, and occupation were over. The fascist puppet Regency government was replaced with a home grown dictatorship that was to last for nearly half a century.

There was a three sided civil war; The National Liberation Army, who were known as the partisans (Communist), the National Front, and the Royalists (Legality Party). The National Liberation Army prevailed. 

While the Nationalists, Royalists, and Communists (partisans) were concentrating on fighting the Germans, the Communists were also preparing in advance for the postwar period. The Communists had the advantage of support from Tito and his appreciable partisan force in Yugoslavia.

The Communists decided to liquidate the Nationalists, and there was a civil war in southern Albania that lasted about a year. Things got more complicated when some of the Nationalists, perhaps motivated by the massacres and atrocities by the Communists, went over to the German side. After the Nationalist were defeated, the Communists started a civil war with the Royalists in the north, and in a few weeks eliminated them as a military or political force.