100 Serbs Executed for Every Dead German Soldier

In the summer of 1941, Serbian guerrillas launched an uprising in central Serbia against the German occupation. The Serbian uprising spread and increased in intensity threatening the German military occupation of Serbia and endangering the German southern flank in Europe. The Serbian uprising came at the time of the German invasion of the USSR. Adolf Hitler immediately perceived the danger that the Serbian insurrection posed to the stability of the Balkans region and for German control. Swift action was taken. Hitler ordered that brutal measures be taken to suppress the Serbian revolt. Hitler ordered that the rebellion be quelled "by the most rigorous methods". Pursuant to these instructions, Wilhelm Keitel ordered that for every German occupation soldier killed in Serbia, a hundred Serbian civilians would be executed, while fifty Serbian civilians would be killed for every wounded German soldier. This unprecedented order, that 100 Serbs would be shot for every German soldier killed, was given to quell the Serbian insurgency. This order would result in one of the most brutal massacres of civilians during World War II, the Kragujevac Massacre, when an estimated 5,000 Serbian civilians were executed.

Serbia was a hotbed of opposition and resistance to the Nazi New Order in Europe. The first organized resistance movement in Europe was launched in Serbia under the command of Serbian Colonel Draza Mihailovic at Ravna Gora. By the summer of 1941, the first major popular uprising to German occupation occurred in Serbia. Hitler was appalled at this unprecedented act of defiance to the New Order in Europe. To terrorize the Serbian population and resistance, Hitler ordered that Serbian civilians be rounded up and executed as reprisals for Serbian resistance. Thousands of Serbian civilians would be executed. One of the most brutal acts of reprisal occurred in the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, where to fulfill the hundred to one quota, thousands of civilians were killed. The Kragujevac Massacre became one of the most notorious and tragic events of World War II. Like the massacres at Lidice, Babi Yar, Oradour, and Nanking, Kragujevac symbolized the horrors of war and occupation and the cost of resistance to military occupation.