The Commissioner Government (, Komesarska vlada) was a short-lived Serbian collaborationist puppet government established in the German-occupied territory of Serbia within the Axis-partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. It operated from 30 April to 29 August 1941, was headed by Milan Aćimović, and is also referred to as the Commissars Government or Council of Commissars. Of the ten commissioners, four had previously been ministers in various Yugoslav governments, and two had been assistant ministers. The members were pro-German, antisemitic and anti-communist, and believed that Germany would win the war. The Aćimović government lacked any semblance of power, and was merely an instrument of the German occupation regime, carrying out its orders within the occupied territory. Under the overall control of the German Military Commander in Serbia, supervision of its day-to-day operations was the responsibility of the chief of the German administrative staff, SS- and State Councillor Harald Turner. One of its early tasks was the implementation of German orders regarding the registration of Jews and Romani people living in the territory, and the placing of severe restrictions on their liberty.
In early July, a few days after a communist-led mass uprising commenced, Aćimović reshuffled his government, replacing three commissioners and appointing deputies for most of the portfolios. By mid-July, the Germans had decided that the Aćimović regime was incompetent and unable to deal with the uprising, and began looking for a replacement. This resulted in the resignation of the Commissioner Government at the end of August, and the appointment of the Government of National Salvation led by former Minister of the Army and Navy, Milan Nedić, in which Aćimović initially retained the interior portfolio. The members of the Commissioner Government collaborated with the occupiers as a means to spare Serbs from political influences that they considered more dangerous than the Germans, such as democracy, communism and multiculturalism. They actively assisted the Germans in exploiting the population and the economy, and took an "extremely opportunistic" view of the Jewish question, regarding their own participation in the Holocaust as "unpleasant but unavoidable". There is no evidence that the collaboration of the Commissioner Government moderated German occupation policies in any way.
Background
In April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded and quickly defeated by the Axis powers. Yugoslavia was partitioned, and as part of this, the Germans established a military government of occupation in an area roughly the same as the pre-1912 Kingdom of Serbia, consisting of Serbia proper, the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica), and the Banat. The Germans did this to secure two strategic lines of communication – the Danube river, and the railway line that connected Belgrade with Salonika in occupied Greece, and thence by sea to North Africa. The German occupied territory of Serbia was also rich in non-ferrous metals such as lead, antimony and copper, which Germany needed to support its war effort.
Even before the Yugoslav surrender on 17 April, the German Army High Command (, or OKH) had issued a proclamation to the population under German occupation which included severe penalties for acts of violence and sabotage; the surrender of military firearms and radio transmitters; a list of acts punishable according to military law, including unauthorised public meetings; the continuation of the operation of government agencies including police, businesses and schools; prohibition of hoarding; fixing of prices and wages; and the use of occupation currency. The exact boundaries of the occupied territory had been fixed in a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 12 April 1941, which also directed the creation of the military administration. This directive was followed up on 20 April 1941 by orders issued by the Chief of the OKH which established the Military Commander in Serbia as the head of the occupation regime, responsible to the Quartermaster-General of the OKH. In the interim, the staff for the military government had been assembled in Germany and the duties of the Military Commander in Serbia had been detailed. These included safeguarding the lines of communication, executing the economic orders issued by Hermann Göring, and establishing and maintaining peace and order. In the short-term, he was also responsible for guarding the huge numbers of Yugoslav prisoners of war, and safeguarding captured weapons and munitions.
The military commander's staff was divided into military and administrative branches. He was allocated personnel to form four area commands and about ten district commands, which reported to the chief of the administrative staff, and the military staff allocated the troops of the four local defence battalions across the area commands. The first military commander in the occupied territory was Helmuth Förster, a Luftwaffe officer, appointed on 20 April 1941, assisted by the chief of his administrative staff, SS- and State Councillor Harald Turner. Other than military commander's staff, there were several senior figures in Belgrade who represented key non-military arms of the German government. Prominent among these was NSFK- Franz Neuhausen, who had been initially appointed by Göring as plenipotentiary general for economic affairs in the territory on 17 April. A further key figure in the initial German administration was SS- Wilhelm Fuchs, who commanded Einsatzgruppe Serbia, which consisted of (Security Service, or SD) and (Security Police, or SiPo), and (Secret State Police, or Gestapo) detachments, and controlled the 64th Reserve Police Battalion of the (Order Police, or Orpo). While he was formally responsible to Turner, Fuchs also reported directly to his superiors in Berlin.
Despite these organs of military occupation, and the orders issued by OKH, regulating as they did a wide range of administrative, political, economic, cultural and social matters, the Germans still needed to establish a public administrative body that would implement their directives. It was decided to form a puppet government for that purpose.
Establishment
A search began for a suitable Serb to lead a collaborationist regime. From the date of the Yugoslav capitulation, pro-German politicians, including the president of the fascist Zbor movement, Dimitrije Ljotić, former Belgrade police chief and Minister of the Interior, Milan Aćimović, the current Belgrade police chief, Dragomir Jovanović, along with Đorđe Perić, Steven Klujić and Tanasije Dinić met almost daily to assist in this process. The Germans would have preferred the pro-Axis former prime minister, Milan Stojadinović, but he had been sent into exile before the coup. Several high-profile men were considered by the Germans, including former Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković, former Foreign Minister Aleksandar Cincar-Marković, Aćimović, Ljotić, and Jovanović.
Hitler preferred someone who was both flexible and had some local popularity to lead a puppet government in German-occupied Serbia. The Germans passed over Ljotić as they believed that he had a "dubious reputation among Serbs". Cincar-Marković did not want to be part of a collaborationist administration. He was also in poor health. Cvetković was suspected of being pro-British and harbouring sympathies towards Freemasonry. He was also believed to have had Roma ancestry, which the Germans deemed unacceptable. Aćimović, a virulent anti-communist, had been in close contact with the German police and security services before the war. This included being appointed deputy to the German head of Interpol, Reinhard Heydrich, who was also the chief of the SD. Aćimović was also in close contact with the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller.
Förster decided on Aćimović, who in early 1939 had briefly been Minister of the Interior in Stojadinović's pro-Axis government. With Förster's approval, he formed his Commissioner Government between 27 April and 1 May, consisting of ten commissioners. Some sources refer to it as the Commissars Government, or Council of Commissars.
The other nine commissioners were Risto Jojić, Dušan Letica, Dušan Pantić, Momčilo Janković, Milisav Vasiljević, Lazo M. Kostić, Stevan Ivanić, Stanislav Josifović and Jevrem Protić; each commissioner ran one of the former Yugoslav ministries, except for the Ministry of Army and Navy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had been abolished. According to the author Philip J. Cohen, Aćimović, Vasiljević and Ivanić were German agents prior to the invasion of Yugoslavia. In addition to being vehemently pro-German and antisemitic, the commissioners were also strongly anti-communist, and believed that Germany would win the war. They represented a wide spectrum of pre-war Serbian political parties: Vasiljević and Ivanić both had close links to Zbor; Pantić, Kostić and Protić being members of the centre-right People's Radical Party; and Josifović was a member of the Democratic Party. No representatives of the outlawed Communist Party or the British-backed Serbian Agrarian Party were included.
The new administration was experienced; like Aćimović, Jojić, Letica and Pantić had all served as ministers in various cabinets, Josifović and Protić had been assistant ministers, Kostić was a university professor, and others were experts in their respective fields. Aćimović maintained the existing Yugoslav government apparatus and staff, recalling personnel to their duties, and former Yugoslav officials played important roles in the administration. Despite the fact that Serbs dominated government positions in interwar Yugoslavia, there were some non-Serb officials in Belgrade, those who left the occupied territory had to be replaced, and most Serbian officials known or suspected to be anti-German either resigned or were removed. The administration manifested German intentions to make best use of those who were willing to collaborate and save the available German administrative staff for higher priority work.
+Composition of the first Commissioner Government Ministry Commissioner Head of the Council of CommissionersInterior Education Finance Post and Telegraph Ministry of Justice National Economy Transport Social Policy Construction Agriculture
Operation Initial tasks
During May, the earlier proclamation of the OKH was followed by orders issued by Förster, requiring the registration of printing presses and imposing restrictions on the press within the occupied territory. Orders were also issued regarding the operation of theatres and other places of entertainment, and imposing German criminal law in the occupied territory. Förster also ordered the resumption of production, disestablished the National Bank of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and established the Serbian National Bank to replace it. From the outset, the Aćimović government lacked any semblance of power. It was effectively a low-grade and basic instrument of the German military occupation regime, which performed administrative duties within the occupied territory on behalf of the Germans. The three main tasks of the Aćimović administration were to secure the acquiescence of the population to the German occupation, help restore services, and "identify and remove undesirables from public services". This included Jews, Roma and "unreliable" Serbs.