On April 6th, the German 2nd and 12th Armies, Italian 2nd and 9th Armies, and the Hungarian 4th, 5th and Mobile Corps invaded Yugoslavia from Italy, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. Few of the Royal Yugoslav Army's 30 divisions actively resisted, and after 11 days the Yugoslav High Command surrendered. In Croatia, a puppet state was installed. Axis forces quickly occupied the principal towns and patrolled the main road and rail links, but in the villages, countryside and mountains, a vicious and complex guerrilla war was brewing. This title takes a close look at the German, Italian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Slovenian units that fought for the Axis powers in Yugoslavia during World War II.

This volume tells the almost unknown story of Yugoslav tankers from training to the Second World War. The formation of the first armored units of the Army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia dates back to the late 1920s, when military authorities felt the need to equip the units with an armored component, on the basis of the experiences lived during the Great War by the armies engaged in trench warfare. Contrary to what happened with many other European armies at that time, these armored units did not develop as an extension of the cavalry divisions but were instead formed as independent departments, officially called "Combat Units". With these departments, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia faced the Second World War. After the Italian-German invasion of 1941, Independent Croatia and Slovenian collaborative forces formed armored units, employed in the anti-partisan struggle, and the Wehrmacht formed 3 Armored Divisions formed by Croatian volunteers.

Examining archival material and post-war scholarly and popular literature, Kranjc describes the often sharp divide between Communist-era interpretations of collaboration and those of their émigré anti-Communist opponents.

This powerful study offers a vivid and often disturbing account of the Italian army's occupation of Slovenia during World War II. It moves from the decision of the Italians to annex Slovenia in 1941, through local resistance and brutal reaction against civilians, to the army's ultimate collapse following Italy's defection from the Axis.

This is a meticulously researched history of the rule of the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia, along with the role of the other groups that collaborated with them—notably the extremist Croatian nationalist organization known as the Ustashas.