The Serbian Volunteer Corps (, , SDK for short; ), also known as Ljotićevci (), was the paramilitary branch of the fascist political organisation Zbor, which collaborated with the forces of Nazi Germany in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, while loyal to the King of Yugoslavia Peter II, during World War II.

In July 1941, following a full-scale rebellion by communist Yugoslav Partisans and royalist Chetniks, the German military commander in Serbia pressured Milan Nedić's collaborationist government to deal with the uprisings under the threat of letting the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia, Hungary, and Bulgaria occupy the territory and maintain peace and order in it. A paramilitary militia called the Serbian Volunteer Detachments was formed, the unit, never formally part of the German armed forces, numbered about 3,500 men, mostly Serbian but also included some Croats and Slovenes. It was reorganised as the Serbian Volunteer Corps, at the end of 1942, and placed under the command of Colonel Kosta Mušicki. By 1944, the majority of the Serbian Volunteer Corps recruits were draftees as opposed to volunteers and reached a peak strength of 9,886 men.

After the Red Army entered Serbia and Belgrade was liberated in October 1944, the corps retreated with the Germans into the Slovene Lands. In November it was taken over by the Waffen-SS, and incorporated into the SFK: (Serbian Volunteer Corps), an infantry unit composed of the various Nedić's collaborationist groups on the run. The surviving members of the three SFK regiments, retreated into Austria where they surrendered to the British on 12 May 1945 near Klagenfurt. Most of the men were returned to Yugoslavia where they were executed on charge of treason.

Formation On 14 September 1941, at a government meeting, minister Mihailo Olćan proposed that the puppet government should call upon the Serbian population to form anti-communist units. The next day 234 members of Yugoslav National Movement (ZBOR), Ljotić's and Olćan's pre-war political party enlisted as the first volunteers. On 6 October, Milan Nedić, the Prime Minister of the Axis-installed puppet Government of National Salvation, appointed Mušicki to lead the Serbian Volunteer Command. The command consisted of 12 companies, each 120-150 men strong. It had 153 officers and 1,779 other ranks. Many volunteers came from the student ZBOR organization and others were refugees from the Independent State of Croatia. The men wore olive green uniforms or, in the case of officers, the uniform of the former Yugoslav armed forces, with the Cross of St. George on the right breast. Ranks or grade designations were for all practical purposes those of the former Royal Yugoslav Army. Weapons were mixed; besides German arms which were eventually supplied, foreign rifles and machine guns, especially those seized as war booty from the defeated Yugoslav forces were used. Mortars and light artillery were also on hand in varying quantities. The command also had an educational department whose task was to educate fighters ideologically. The head of the educational section was journalist Ratko Parežanin. It also had an intelligence section which had centres all over Serbia. The corps often operated in close alliance with the Russian Corps.

The Serbian Volunteer Corps was formally under Nedić's Command of Gendarmerie, but it was, like SDS and SGS, under direct control of SS and Police Leader August Meyszner and Commanding General in Serbia. In operations in the field, its units were put under tactical command of German divisions. Ljotić himself had no control over SDK. SDK units were not allowed to move from the assigned territory without German authorization.

Uniform Serbian Volunteer Corps received Yugoslav or Italian olive green uniforms on which they wore black cloth collar patches (dark blue after 1943), rank badges on the shoulder straps, and a metal corps badge on the right breast. Their helmets were either Italian or Czechoslovak.

Active duty

The volunteers saw their first action on 17 September 1941 in Dražanj village near Grocka, clearing the area of communists with four Yugoslav Partisans and two SDK members killed. In November before an offensive in the Republic of Užice Milan Nedić ordered that the SDK, Serbian State Guard and Kosta Pećanac's Chetniks should be put under joint command. On 22 November a joint military formation called the Šumadija Corps was formed under the command of Mušicki. The Corps was put under the command of the German 113th Division with which they fought between 25 and 29 November after the majority of Partisan troops had escaped to the Italian zone.

After defeating Partisan troops, the Germans turned to fighting Draža Mihailović's Chetniks. Konstantin Mušicki informed Mihailović of the German plans and Mihailović managed to evade capture. Due to this Mušicki was arrested on 9 December in Čačak and replaced by Brigadier Ilija Kukić. Nedić intervened to secure Mušicki's release and he was back in command as soon as those Germans that were familiar with the case had left Belgrade at the end of 1942.

By 15 February 1942, the Corps had a strength of 172 officers and 3,513 men, which was very close to the planned strength for the five battalions. During 1942 SDK clashed with Partisans in southern Serbia. Although they inflicted considerable losses on the Partisans they didn't manage to crush them completely in southern Serbia. In western Serbia, SDK with gendarmerie, Germans and Chetniks attacked the Kosmaj, Valjevo and Suvobor Partisan battalions who had returned from Bosnia. They managed to defeat all except the Valjevo unit which escaped through enemy lines. At the end of 1942 there were 12 companies in 5 battalions and Germans granted them formal recognition on 1 January 1943, by officially changing its designation to the Serbian Volunteer Corps.

In 1943, the SDK clashed with the Partisans near Požarevac, Kruševac, Aranđelovac and in Mačva. They also clashed with Mihailović's Chetniks. On 28 September, Chetniks killed Dušan Marković, commander of the 4th volunteer battalion with 20 of his volunteers and soon after Miloš Vojnović Lautner, commander of the 3rd volunteer battalion. On 15 May the Wehrmacht captured 4000 Chetniks under Major Pavle Đurišić in Montenegro. Đurišić was to be sent to Strij camp in Poland but managed to escape and was in Belgrade in November that year. Đurišić was soon captured by the Gestapo but under guarantees of Nedić and Ljotić was released on the condition that he put his troops under SDK command. Đurišić accepted the offer, formed three SDK regiments and became Mušicki's second in command.

The Partisans had meanwhile grown to an army of considerable strength, and by the summer of 1943 were once again active throughout Serbia. This renewed activity greatly worried the responsible German commanders, since the strength of the occupation forces had declined considerably during the relatively peaceful months of 1942. Nedić was also aware of this problem, and went to see Adolf Hitler at Obersalzberg in the hope of finding a solution. The meeting was on 15 September 1943, and Nedić managed to secure an agreement for the reinforcement of the SDK by five additional battalions, with a further five to follow as circumstances permitted. These measures were immediately carried out, and by 20 October each of the five independent battalions had become a regiment with a strength of two battalions. Training for the five new battalions took place at the respective regimental garrison locations: SDK 1st Regiment in Valjevo, 2nd Regiment in Kragujevac, 3rd in Šabac, 4th in Smederevo, and 5th in Kruševac. Corps headquarters stayed in Belgrade.

From March to May 1944, the 2nd and 5th Partisan divisions were pushed back from Western Serbia by a large heterogeneous force. On June 21 Milan Nedić ordered the formation of the Iron Regiment in Leskovac but during its formation most troops escaped to the Chetniks. By 21 August 1944 the five-regiment SDK had reached a strength of 9,886 officers and men, and from its inception to September 1944 had suffered 700 killed and 1,800 wounded in action.

According to report by state commission set by post-war authorities dated December 25, 1945, SDK members killed 618 people, mostly men, outside combat, beat up around 5 thousand people, raped 49 women, arrested around 10 thousand people, sent around thousand people to forced labour and razed 136 houses and other objects. While this report is methodologically flawed, it does represent the bases for research of crimes of occupiers and their collaborators in Serbia.

Retreat and demise

In September the Partisans with Red Army support began their final offensive in Serbia. In mid-September 1944, a corps unit saved Draža Mihailović and the Chetnik Supreme Command in northwest Serbia from capture by the Partisans.

The major battle was on 9 September when the Partisans totally defeated joint SDK and Chetnik forces. SDK was in early October given a task to defend the Šabac bridgehead and Sava river against Partisans, together with some German units and under the command of Colonel Jungenfeld, the commander of the 5th Police Regiment. On 14 October the battle for Belgrade started, and Germans decided to evacuate SDK to some place where it can be used in guarding duties and anti-partisan actions, since SDK was considered unsuitable for full frontal combat. Hitler ordered to move SDK to Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, and to put it under Higher SS and Police Leader of OZAK, under Commander in Chief South-West. Army Group F Commander ordered boarding of SDK for the evacuation on 17 October on railway station Ruma, as the clearance from High Command of the South-West was received for transport on 19–21 October. On its new position SDK participated in anti-Partisan operations.

The withdrawal began on 8 October during the final joint Partisan and Soviet assault on Belgrade when the 1st volunteer regiment under Major Ilija Mićašević and 4th volunteer regiment under Major Vojislav Dimitrijević crossed the Sava river. The 3rd regiment under Major Jovan Dobrosavljević delayed crossing the Sava as they were fighting the Partisans in Šabac and met up with the others later in Ruma. The 2nd Regiment under Major Marisav Petrović crossed the Sava near Obrenovac. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 5th Regiment were still on the ground. When they reached Niš they learned that the Red Army had taken Aleksinac and their way to Belgrade was blocked. The commander of 5th Regiment was forced to change the withdrawal plan and moved across the Raška mountains with the Wehrmacht towards Bosnia. The 1st Battalion of 5th Regiment under Captain Vasa Ogrizović held Zaječar but as soon as the Russians crossed the Danube they moved to Belgrade and crossed the Sava and they became a temporary part of the 4th Regiment. Most troops met each other at Sremska Mitrovica where they awaited trains for transfer to Slovenia.

Meanwhile, major changes in Berlin affected many non-German volunteers fighting with German forces. There was a branch-of-service redistribution by ethnic group, and the Serbian volunteers now found themselves under the authority of the Waffen-SS. The order effecting the transfer was dated 9 November, but not formally recognized until 27 November. At this time the SDK composition on paper was a corps staff, five regiments each with three battalions, a signal company, a mountain supply detachment and German liaison staff. It is important to point out at this time that the SDK's relationship with the Waffen-SS was official, but not on the ground. The troops never wore SS uniforms, and it is doubtful whether the relationship ever went beyond the simple exchange of a limited amount of paperwork. The SDK's situation was quite similar to that of the XV. Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps, which was also absorbed into the Waffen-SS at about the same time.