Mostar operation

Mostar Operation
Part of World War II in Yugoslavia
Date February 6–15, 1945 Location Mostar, Herzegovina Result Partisan victory
Belligerents
Yugoslav Partisans	Nazi Germany  Independent State of Croatia
Commanders and leaders
Petar Drapšin	Georg Reinicke
Casualties and losses
515 killed 336 missing 1,600 wounded[1]	several thousand killed, wounded or captured[1]

The Mostar Operation was a series of Yugoslav Partisan military operations in Herzegovina from February 6–15, 1945.

Most of central Herzegovina was part of the District of Hum in the Independent State of Croatia. Mostar was also home to an air field of the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia.

Partisans took the Ustaše bastion of Široki Brijeg from the Germans on February 7, and captured the Chetnik stronghold of Nevesinje on the night of February 13/14.^[2] They took Mostar without resistance on February 14. Upon entering the city, the Partisans took seven Franciscans, including the head of the Franciscan Province Leo Petrović, from the Church of Saint Peter and Paul and executed them.^[3] Their bodies were subsequently dumped into the Neretva river.

Order of battle

Axis

• 369th (Croat) Infantry Division
• 9th Croatian Mountain Division
• Nevesinje Chetnik Corps (approximately 600 troops)^[4]

See also

• Partisan cemetery in Mostar

Notes

1. Mostarska operacija
2. Hoare 2013, pp. 268–269.
3. Father Leo Petrović
4. Anić 2004, pp. 211–212.

External links

• Mostar Operation

References

• Anić, Nikola (2004). Povijest Osmog korpusa narodnooslobodilačke vojske Hrvatske 1943-1945. [History of the Eighth Corps of the National Liberation Army of the Croatia]. Zagreb: Dom i svijet. ISBN 978-95-39-93721-6. OCLC 61441941.
• Hoare, Marko Attila (2013). Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-936543-2.
• Komnenović, Danilo; Kreso, Muharem (1979). 29. hercegovačka divizija [29th Herzegovina Division]. Beograd: Vojnoizdavački zavod. OCLC 6943302.
• Schraml, Franz (1962). Kriegsschauplatz Kroatien. Die Deutsch-kroatischen Legions-Divisionen-369., 373., 392. Inf.-Div., Kroat., -ihre Ausbildungs- und Ersatzformationen. Neckargemünd: Kurt Vowinckel Verlag. OCLC 4215438.