The cut-off heads of partisans

A prize equalling the average two-year wages of an employee was paid for killing or betraying a partisan. Public executions were carried out in order to intimidate the people. The cut-off heads of partisans stuck on poles were shown around the villages. Partisan helpers were shot on the spot without trial, their houses were burnt and their near ones left without shelter and food, were interned in far-away places. Thousands of partisans, partisan helpers and members of combat groups died in the fierce struggle, tens of thousands of anti-fascists were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps.

Nazi Germany and fascist Italy

The armed struggle of the Bulgarian people against monarcho-fascism and Nazism was part of the struggle of progressive mankind for the routing of the Nazi aggressors. Its value stands out still more in view of the circumstance that, unlike the situation in the occupied countries, the German troops came to Bulgaria as allies and did not behave openly as occupiers. What is more, after the defeat of Greece and Yugoslavia, a Bulgarian ad-ministration was introduced in Macedonia and Aegean Thrace which created the illusion that the unification of the Bulgarian nation had been implemented at last. In this connection the monarcho-fascist government launched an unbridled chauvinistic propaganda which at first scored certain successes. This fascist propaganda concealed, of course, the fact that the final settlement of the territorial questions had been left for after the war, i. e. that it had been left entirely dependent upon the interests and intentions of nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

After the historic victories of the Red Army at Stalingrad (repsentday Volgograd) and Kursk in 1943, and the increasingly successful operations of the Anglo- American troops on all fronts, the inevitable defeat of the forces of the Axis became evident to all. The ‘symbolic war’ which the Bulgarian monarcho-fascist government had declared so light-heartedly on Britain and USA, acquired real dimensions. Sofia was subjected more than once to massive bombings which caused great destructions and many casualties. Bulgaria’s territory and economy had been placed entirely at the disposal of the Wehrmacht. The country was subjected to a real plunder on the part of nazi Germany and its material resources were thawing away at disastrous rates.