Operation Southeast Croatia

Operation Southeast Croatia
Part of World War II in Yugoslavia
The Mount Igman plateau that the 1st Proletarian Brigade crossed to escape destruction
Date 15–23 January 1942 Location Eastern Bosnia Result Partisan withdrawal
Belligerents
Germany  Independent State of Croatia  Italy	Partisans
Commanders and leaders
Paul Bader Paul Hoffman Johann Fortner	Josip Broz Tito Koča Popović Slaviša Vajner †
Units involved
342nd Infantry Division 718th Infantry Division Luftwaffe support seven Croatian Home Guard battalions nine Croatian Home Guard artillery batteries ZNDH support one Alpini battalion	1st Proletarian Brigade Romanija, Zvijezda, Birač and Ozren Partisan Detachments
Strength
30,000–35,000 troops	8,000 troops
Casualties and losses
25 dead 131 wounded 1 missing c. 300 cases of frostbite 50 dead and seriously wounded	521 dead 1,331–1,400 captured 172 cases of frostbite

Operation Southeast Croatia (German: Unternehmen Südostkroatien) was a large-scale German-led counter-insurgency operation conducted in the southeastern parts of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina) during World War II. It was the first of two German-led operations targeting mainly Yugoslav Partisans in eastern Bosnia between 15 January and 4 February 1942. Several days after the conclusion of Operation Southeast Croatia, a follow-up operation known as Operation Ozren was carried out between the Bosna and Spreča rivers. Both operations also involved Croatian Home Guard and Italian troops and are associated with what is known as the Second Enemy Offensive (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Druga neprijateljska ofenziva) in post-war Yugoslav historiography. The Second Enemy Offensive forms part of the Seven Enemy Offensives framework in Yugoslav historiography.

The insurgents in the area of operations included some groups of the communist-led Partisans and some of Serb–chauvinist Chetniks. Although the Partisans and Chetniks had already irrevocably split in the German-occupied territory of Serbia following Operation Uzice in late 1941, this had not yet happened in eastern Bosnia, and in some areas they were still cooperating. As a result, differentiating between the rank and file of the two groups was difficult, as even the communist-led insurgent groups consisted mainly of Serb peasants who had little understanding of the political aims of their leaders. While there were 20,000 Chetnik insurgents located within the area of operations, they offered no resistance to the German–NDH forces and many withdrew east across the Drina river to avoid being engaged. This contributed to the complete unravelling of Chetnik–Partisan cooperation in eastern Bosnia. The Partisan main force was able to evade the Germans, infiltrate through the Italian cordon to the south and establish itself around Foča.

The failure of the Axis forces to decisively engage the Partisans during these operations necessitated a further major offensive, Operation Trio, in the area immediately south of where Operations Southeast Croatia and Ozren had taken place.