Dragoljub Draza Mihajlovic

Born Apr 27, 1893, in Ivanjica; died July 17, 1946, in Belgrade. Serbian general (attained rank in 1942) who headed the counterrevolutionary profascist Četnik forces from 1941 to 1945.

After graduating from the Higher Military Academy in Belgrade in 1925, Mihajlović served as an officer of the General Staff from 1925 to 1928 and as a deputy commander and commander of divisions in the Yugoslav Army from 1928 to 1934. He was the Yugoslav military attaché in Sofia in 1934 and in Prague in 1936.

Soon after the occupation of Yugoslavia by fascist troops, Mihajlovic began forming Četnik detachments, chiefly from monarchist elements; these units then opened an armed struggle against the Partisans, and later against the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. In January 1942 he was appointed minister of war of the Yugoslav émigré government in London and established contact with M. Nedić’s puppet government in Serbia, as well as with the Italian and German occupation authorities. In hiding after 1944, Mihajlović was arrested in 1946 and executed as a war criminal upon a sentence of the People’s Court of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.