Dobroslav Jevđević (, ; 28 December 1895 – October 1962) was a Bosnian Serb politician and self-appointed Chetnik commander (, војвода) in the Herzegovina region of the Axis-occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a member of the interwar Chetnik Association and the Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists, a Yugoslav National Party member of the National Assembly, and a leader of the opposition to King Alexander between 1929 and 1934. The following year, he became the propaganda chief for the Yugoslav government.
Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he became a Chetnik leader in Herzegovina and joined the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović. Jevđević collaborated with the Italians and later the Germans in actions against the Yugoslav Partisans. Although Jevđević recognised the authority of Mihailović, who was aware of and approved of his collaboration with Axis forces, a number of factors effectively rendered him independent of Mihailović's command, except when he worked closely with Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, Mihailović's designated commander in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, western Bosnia and southwestern Croatia.
During the joint Italian–Chetnik Operation Alfa, Jevđević's Chetniks, along with other Chetnik forces, were responsible for killing between 543 and 2,500 Bosnian Muslim and Croat civilians in the Prozor region in October 1942. They also participated in one of the largest Axis anti-Partisan operations of the war, Operation Weiss, in the winter of 1943. His Chetniks later merged with other collaborationist forces that had withdrawn towards the west, and were put under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik of the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral. Jevđević fled to Italy in the spring of 1945, where he was arrested by Allied military authorities and detained at a camp in Grottaglie. He was eventually set free, having received considerable Allied support. Yugoslavia's requests for extradition were ignored. Jevđević moved to Rome and lived under an assumed name. In the years following the war, he collected reports for various western intelligence services and printed anti-communist publications. He resided in Rome until his death in October 1962.
Early life and political career Dobroslav Jevđević was born on 28 December 1895 in the hamlet of Miloševac in Prača, near the town of Rogatica, in the Austro-Hungarian-occupied Bosnia Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, to Dimitrije and Angela Jevđević ( Kosorić). Jevđević's father was a Serbian Orthodox priest, and the family was of Montenegrin Serb origin. Jevđević was raised in the Christian faith and attended secondary school in Sarajevo. There, he joined the revolutionary organisation known as Young Bosnia and became a friend of Gavrilo Princip, who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914. The day of the assassination, Jevđević's father was arrested by the Austro-Hungarian police for his connections with the Serb revolutionary organisation Narodna Odbrana (National Defence). He was charged with high treason, sentenced to death by hanging in April 1916 and executed in Banja Luka.
Jevđević was a successful writer and poet in his youth. He studied law at the universities of Zagreb, Belgrade, and Vienna and spoke Serbian, Italian, German and French. Jevđević's political career began in 1918. During the interwar period, he was one of the most influential Serb politicians in Bosnia. He was a member of the Chetnik Association, an aggressively Serb-chauvinist political movement of over 500,000 members led by Kosta Pećanac. He was also one of the leaders of the Independent Democratic Party of Yugoslavia and headed the movement's military wing, the Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists, which terrorised those Serbs in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Croatia who refused to join the party. Jevđević later became a parliamentary candidate of the opposition Yugoslav National Party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was elected to the Yugoslav Parliament a total of four times, representing the district of Rogatica then Novi Sad, and was an opposition leader during King Alexander's dictatorship of 1929–34. His tendency to cooperate with various Yugoslav political factions earned him the reputation of "being willing to sell himself to any political group in return for personal favours or advancement". In 1935, he was appointed as the Yugoslav government's propaganda chief by Prime Minister Bogoljub Jevtić. Jevđević approved of the creation of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939 and advocated a large Serb counterpart that would include most of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This advocacy drew him close to the various Chetnik associations that existed during the interwar period. In 1941, his cousin, Colonel Dušan Radović, left Yugoslavia and joined the Royal Air Force.
World War II Jevđević fled to Budva on the Montenegrin coast following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. That month, the Germans and Italians created a puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (; NDH), which implemented genocidal policies against Serbs, Jews and Romanis. The Serb population began to resist, and Jevđević became a prominent leader of the Chetnik uprising against NDH authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1941.
He was known for his pro-Italian sympathies prior to the war, and Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović jokingly described him as "an Italian who likes Serbs". Jevđević and pre-war Chetnik leader Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin sought to work with the Italians in the belief that an Italian occupation of both Bosnia and Herzegovina would limit the ability of the NDH to carry out its anti-Serb policies. Jevđević reportedly hoped that the Italians would allow the formation of a Serbian state of Bosnia and Herzegovina under their protection, but they were more interested in obtaining the practical assistance of his Chetniks in fighting the Partisans than helping him achieve his political aims. In the summer of 1941, Jevđević established links with the Italians, promoting Trifunović-Birčanin and himself as civilian intermediaries for the eastern Bosnian Chetniks of Jezdimir Dangić.
On 20 October 1941, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin met and agreed to collaborate with the head of the information division of the Italian VI Corps. In late January 1942, Jevđević offered to assist the Italians if they occupied Bosnia, and to organise Chetnik detachments to work alongside Italian units in their fight against the communist-led Partisans. These contacts involved General Renzo Dalmazzo, commander of the Italian VI Corps, and Chetnik leaders Stevo Rađenović, Trifunović-Birčanin, Dangić and Jevđević. In February, Jevđević consulted with one of Dangić's supporters, Boško Todorović, who instructed him to negotiate with the new commander of the Italian Second Army, Mario Roatta, to arrange the withdrawal of NDH and German troops from eastern Bosnia, to be replaced by an exclusively Italian administration. Both Jevđević and Todorović impressed Dalmazzo with the influence they were able to exert over the eastern Bosnian Chetniks, but Todorović was killed by the Partisans in Herzegovina in late February. The influence Jevđević had was demonstrated when Serb nationalist armed groups in the Goražde and Foča districts swung over to an anti-Partisan and pro-Italian attitude when they were informed of Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin's ties with VI Corps headquarters. In March, the plans for Italian expansion into eastern Bosnia were discussed between Jevđević and NDH State Secretary Vjekoslav Vrančić.
Dalmazzo urged Roatta to expand Italian links with Serb nationalist groups into an alliance with them. At this time, the Italians were looking for allies to restore order, fight the Partisans, and support their political claims to NDH territory, and were under the impression that the various Serb nationalist groups were far better organised than they actually were. For example, Roatta was under the impression that Jevđević represented the Herzegovinian Chetniks, and that they were aligned with Dangić. In early March, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin suddenly told the Italians that they were effectively in control of a Chetnik movement, and were ready to collaborate with the Italians on the latter's terms. Jevđević sent a message to Dalmazzo explaining that the Herzegovinian Chetniks wanted to avenge Todorović and were concentrating around Nevesinje ready to demonstrate their loyalty to the Italians. Despite their statements, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin faced significant difficulties; the Serb nationalist groups had yet to demonstrate their military value to the Italians, and not all of the armed groups even acknowledged their leadership.
In the spring and summer of 1942, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin regularly toured villages in the Goražde, Kalinovik and Foča districts, encouraging the local civilians and Chetnik detachments to behave loyally towards the Italians. The Italians were unable to gain German support for their plan to use Chetnik groups as auxiliaries during the joint Italian-German anti-Partisan Operation Trio in April–May. In May, Jevđević met with German intelligence officers in Dubrovnik and was asked whether he would cooperate in the pacification of Bosnia. Mihailović was aware of and condoned the collaborationist arrangements entered into by Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin. Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin frequently met with Chetnik commander Momčilo Đujić in Split, and the three men quarrelled over how to divide the financial assistance they were receiving from the Italians.
In an internal Chetnik report of June 1942, Jevđević claimed that the Partisan proletarian brigades contained many "Jews, Gypsies and Muslims". In July 1942, he issued a proclamation to the "Serbs of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina" claiming that:
Jevđević charged the Partisans with having "destroyed Serb churches and established mosques, synagogues and Catholic temples". In mid-1942, the Chetniks became aware that the Italians were planning to largely withdraw from significant parts of the NDH that they had been occupying in force up to that time. Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin told the Italians that in response to this, Mihailović was considering evacuating Serb civilians from Herzegovina to Montenegro and moving Montenegrin Chetniks north to meet the Ustaše, who were expected to unleash a new wave of violence on Serb civilians. Over 22–23 July 1942, Mihailović chaired a conference with Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin in Avtovac, Herzegovina. On the second day of the conference, Jevđević and Trifunović-Birčanin traveled to nearby Trebinje where they conferred with Herzegovinian Chetnik leaders Radmilo Grđić and Milan Šantić. The German consulate in Sarajevo reported that this meeting established the ultimate goals and immediate strategy of the Herzegovinian Chetniks as:
Under the auspices of the Italians, the Chetniks thoroughly ethnically cleansed eastern Herzegovina of its Croats and Muslims in July and August 1942. In response to a massacre of non-Serbs in Foča in August, Jevđević issued a proclamation to the Muslims in eastern Herzegovina demanding that they join the Chetniks in their struggle against the Ustaše. He stated: "I personally believe that in a future state the Muslims have no other choice but to finally and definitely accept Serb nationality and renounce their speculative maneuvering between the Serb and Croat nations, above all because all the lands in which the Muslims live will indisputably and inviolably become part of the Serb state entity." That month, Roatta contacted Jevđević and "legalised" 3,000 of his Chetniks, formally authorising them to operate in eastern Herzegovina.