Yugoslavia in World War II exemplifies the conflict between Nazism and Communism and the struggle of Eastern European countries to maintain their independence during this period. In an effort to save Yugoslavia from oppression, General Draza Mihailovich and his Chetnik supporters (from četa, meaning “band” or “troop”) fought both the Nazi invaders and Tito’s Communist Partisans, who were backed by the Soviet Union. The Chetniks were royalist and nationalist forces and, therefore, did not want to see Yugoslavia come under the control of a foreign power. By challenging both Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time, Mihailovich and the Chetniks took on two of the 20th century’s most brutal authoritarian powers simultaneously.

Nazism and Communism were two major opposing ideologies during WWII, and it is critical to differentiate between them. Nazism is the ideology of the National Socialists, called Nazis, who ruled Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. At its core, Nazism is a racial ideology based on the pseudoscience of eugenics, from the Greek meaning “well-born” or “well-bred.” The architects of Germany’s Nazi regime celebrated German blood and German soil. Hitler’s Third Reich adopted racial laws designed to protect German “purity” from “contamination” by Jewish blood.