Xhafer Deva

Xhafer Ibrahim Deva
Minister of the Interior
In office 5 November 1943 – 16 June 1944
President	Regency Council
Prime Minister	Rexhep Mitrovica
Head of the local administration in Mitrovica
In office 1941 – 5 November 1943
Personal details
Born	21 February 1904 Mitrovica, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died	25 May 1978 (aged 74) San Francisco, California
Nationality	Albanian
Political party	Balli Kombëtar
Occupation	Merchant Entrepreneur
Religion	Islam
Military service
Allegiance	Albanian Kingdom (1943–44)

Xhafer Ibrahim Deva (21 February 1904 – 25 May 1978) was a Kosovo Albanian fascist politician during World War II. A notable local politician in Kosovo and in Axis-occupied Albania, he took charge German-occupied Mitrovica and worked with the Germans to establish a pro-German Albanian government in Kosovo. Following the capitulation of Italy from the war, he helped form a provisional government under German occupation and set up the Second League of Prizren alongside other Albanian nationalists. On 5 November 1943, he was appointed Minister of the Interior of Albania and was effectively given direct command of the forces of the newly formed Albanian government. On 4 February 1944, police units subordinate to him massacred 86 residents of Tirana suspected of being anti-fascists. Deva was later involved in recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join the 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian). He lost his position as Minister of the Interior with the dissolution of the Albanian government on 16 June, and subsequently became leader of the Second League of Prizren and led anti-Partisan operations around Prizren in September. Soon after, he fled to Croatia and then to Austria with the help of the Germans, where he joined other anti-Communist Albanians. After the war, he moved via Italy to Damascus, where he helped publish an exile newspaper entitled Bashkimi i Kombit (Albanian: Unity of the Nation). In 1956, he immigrated to the United States and briefly lived in New York and Boston before moving to Calaveras County, California in 1960. Here, he worked as an assistant supervisor at the mailing department of Stanford University in Palo Alto until his retirement in 1972. During this time, he led the Third League of Prizren and played an active role in organizing anti-Communist resistance until his death on 25 May 1978. Files released after his death showed that he had been recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) while living in the United States.

Early life

Xhafer Ibrahim Deva was born in Mitrovica, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire on 21 February 1904. He was the seventh son of Ibrahim Deva, a wood merchant from Đakovica. Prior to the Balkan Wars, he attended a German-language school in Salonika. Afterwards, he studied commerce at Robert College, an American private boarding school in Istanbul's Arnavutköy neighbourhood. He graduated in 1922 and travelled to Egypt, where he briefly worked for a bank in Alexandria. Suffering from rheumatism, he left Egypt and sought treatment in Austria. He studied forestry in Vienna before returning to Mitrovica in 1933 and setting up a lumber business that lasted until 1941.^[1]

World War II

The Kingdom of Italy invaded the Albanian Kingdom on 7 April 1939, and deposed its monarch, King Zog I. Afterwards, they re-established the Albanian state as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy,^[2]

By 1941, Deva was the first Kosovo Albanian political leader to declare himself ready to collaborate with the Germans in the event of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. Having been in contact with the Abwehr (the German military intelligence) for some time, he met Hermann Neubacher, the German special representative for southeastern Europe, in Belgrade prior to the invasion and had given the latter his support.^[3]

The Axis powers invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941.^[4] Afterwards, the country was dismantled and the Wehrmacht established the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia^[5] under a military government of occupation. The territory included most of Serbia proper, with the addition of the northern portion of Kosovo and the Banat.^[6] Italian Albania was expanded to include adjacent parts of Yugoslavia incorporated mainly from the Yugoslav banovinas (regional subdivisions) of Vardar and Morava.^[7] Most of Kosovo was annexed to Albania and in the beginning Albanians living there enthusiastically welcomed the Italian occupation.^[8] Although officially under Italian rule, the Albanians controlled the region and were encouraged to open Albanian language schools,^[9] which had been banned by the Yugoslav government.^[10] The Italians also gave the inhabitants Albanian citizenship and allowed them to fly the Albanian flag.^[9]

Later that year, Deva worked with the Balli Kombëtar and the Germans to establish a pro-German Albanian government in Kosovo linked to the Albanian nation.^[1] He quickly became the Balli Kombëtar's most powerful figure,^[11] instructing members to follow a militant interpretation of Islam.^[12] The most capable Kosovo Albanian politician of the war,^[13] he was then appointed head of the local administration in German-occupied Mitrovica.^[1] After the capitulation of Italy, Deva and Bedri Pejani, assisted by the German emissary Franz von Schweiger,^[14] set up the Second League of Prizren on 16 September 1943.^[11] The league, whose aim was to defend the borders of Greater Albania,^[1] declared jihad (holy war) against Slavs, Gypsies and Jews and sought to create an ethnically cleansed Greater Albania.^[15] Deva subsequently placed the newly established units of Balli Kombëtar under the command of the Germans.^[11]

Together with Pejani and Ibrahim Biçakçiu, a landowner from Elbasan, he later helped create a national committee of twenty-two Albanian and Kosovo Albanian leaders which declared Albania independent and which elected an executive committee under Biçakçiu to form a provisional government. On 5 November,^[16] Deva was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Tirana Government of Rexhep Mitrovica and collaborated with the Germans to oppose the spread of Communist forces in the north,^[14] effectively giving him direct command over the forces of the new government.^[17]

Xhafer Deva's house in Mitrovica

On 4 February 1944, police units under his authority massacred 86 residents of Tirana suspected of being anti-fascists.^[14][18] Later, Deva began recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join the 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian).^[19] In May, he visited Germany with Ago Agaj, the Albanian Minister of National Economy.^[20] On 16 June, Mitrovica's government was dissolved and Deva lost his position as Minister of the Interior.^[1] He was then appointed leader of the Second League of Prizren,^[14] and took charge of anti-Partisan operations around the town in September.^[21]

With the Allied victory in the Balkans imminent, Deva was also involved in a last-ditch attempt to set up an anti-Communist government in Kosovo, and received large caches of weapons and ammunition from SS General Josef Fitzthum and Neubacher's special representative, Karl Gstottenbauer.^[1] He and his men also engaged in collecting food and radio equipment from withdrawing German soldiers^[21] and attempted to purchase further weapons from them in order to organize a "final solution" of the Slavic population of Kosovo. Nothing came of this as the powerful Yugoslav Partisans prevented any large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs from occurring.^[22] According to German reports from November 1944, Deva had a force of about 20,000 armed men at his disposal. Historian Jozo Tomasevich writes that this number is likely exaggerated, but concedes that large groups of Kosovo Albanians were active in the region at the time.^[21]

Exile and death

As the war in Albania drew to a close, Deva fled to Croatia and then to Austria in December,^[1] where he was resettled with the help of the Reich Foreign Ministry as the Germans evacuated Albania and Kosovo.^[23] There, he joined other anti-Communist Albanians in exile and took care of the ailing Rexhep Mitrovica. From late 1945 until early 1947, he lived in western Austria, at a safe distance from Soviet forces. In 1947, Deva moved via Italy to Damascus in Syria, where he helped publish an exile newspaper entitled Bashkimi i Kombit (Albanian: Unity of the Nation). In 1956, he immigrated to the United States and briefly lived in New York and Boston. In 1960, he moved to Calaveras County, California,^[14] and worked as an assistant supervisor at the mailing department^[24] of Stanford University in Palo Alto until his retirement in 1972. In his years in exile, Deva led the Third League of Prizren and played an active role in organizing anti-Communist resistance. He died on 25 May 1978, aged 74.^[14] Files released after his death showed that Deva was one of 743 suspected fascist war criminals recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War.^[25]

Notes

1. Elsie 2012, p. 108.
2. Fischer 1999, pp. 21–57.
3. Fischer 1999, p. 161.
4. Ramet 2006, p. 111.
5. Hehn 1971, p. 350, official name of the occupied territory.
6. Tomasevich 2001, pp. 63–64.
7. Lemkin 2008, pp. 260–261.
8. Judah 2002, p. 27.
9. Ramet 2006, p. 141.
10. Judah 2002, p. 28.
11. Bideleux & Jeffries 2007, p. 525.
12. Simeunović & Dolnik 2013, p. 94.
13. Meier 1999, p. 24.
14. Elsie 2012, p. 109.
15. Frank 2010, p. 97.
16. Pearson 2006, pp. 301–302.
17. Pearson 2006, p. 302.
18. Pearson 2006, p. 326.
19. Fischer 1999, p. 215.
20. Elsie 2012, p. 5.
21. Tomasevich 2001, p. 154.
22. Yeomans 2006, p. 31.
23. Fischer 1999, p. 237.
24. Tomasevich 2001, p. 155.
25. Breitman et al. 2005, p. 374.

References

Books

• Bideleux, Robert; Jeffries, Ian (2007). The Balkans: A Post-Communist History. London, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-96911-3.
• Breitman, Richard; Goda, Norman J.W.; Naftali, Timothy; Wolfe, Robert (2005). U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-61794-9.
• Elsie, Robert (2012). A Biographical Dictionary of Albanian History. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78076-431-3.
• Fischer, Bernd Jürgen (1999). Albania at War, 1939–1945. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue Research Foundation. ISBN 978-1-55753-141-4.
• Frank, Chaim (2010). Petersen, Hans-Christian; Salzborn, Samuel, eds. Antisemitism in Eastern Europe: History and Present in Comparison. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-59828-3.
• Judah, Tim (2002). Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09725-2.
• Meier, Viktor (1999). Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-18595-5.
• Pearson, Owen (2006). Albania in the Twentieth Century, A History: Albania in Occupation and War, 1939–45 2. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-104-5.
• Lemkin, Raphael (2008). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Clark, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange. ISBN 978-1-58477-901-8.
• Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34656-8.
• Simeunović, Dragan; Dolnik, Adam (2013). "Security Threats of Violent Islamist Extremism". In Cross, Sharyl; Kentera, Savo; Nation, R. Craig; et al. Shaping South East Europe's Security Community for the Twenty-First Century: Trust, Partnership, Integration. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-01020-9.
• Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.
• Yeomans, Rory (2006). Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul, eds. World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-940-9.

Journals

• Hehn, Paul N. (1971). "Serbia, Croatia and Germany 1941–1945: Civil War and Revolution in the Balkans". Canadian Slavonic Papers (University of Alberta) 13 (4): 344–373. JSTOR 40866373.

External links

• Media related to Xhafer Deva at Wikimedia Commons