To take revenge on neighbors and avoid participation in the meat grinder of war - Bulgaria in WWII

The part of Europe where Bulgaria is located was hit particularly hard by the steamroller of World War II. Its neighbors in the Balkans suffered enormous losses. Greece lost 800 people (mostly victims of famine caused by the occupation of the country by German, Italian and Bulgarian invaders); Romania lost more than 000 (mostly soldiers killed at the front); Yugoslavia – about 500 million (mostly killed by terror of the occupiers and local Nazis).
The topic of Bulgaria in WWII is of interest due to its ambiguity, which allows for various interpretations. There are publications in which this topic is presented with such bias that their style can be described by the term "hype". The term should be understood not as a combination of hi + pathos, but as a fusion of hype + pathos, since the style it designates combines their features. This style is brought closer to hype by manipulations with history – some of its moments are emphasized, but others are hushed up, which as a result leads to a distortion of the overall complex picture. An example of such a distortion: focusing on a detachment of 700 Bulgarians that fought several battles against our army at the very end of the war, while ignoring the fact that from September 1944 on our side the Bulgarian army, at its peak reaching 300 people, fought.
The relevance of the topic is also facilitated by the fact that it can be found parallels with the history of the USSR in WWII. In this history, too, there are moments that have become objects of both external and, to some extent, internal hype. This is especially true of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact and subsequent cooperation.
prehistory
Bulgaria's policy in WWII was largely determined by its relations with neighboring countries. Relations with them were spoiled by a conflict over disputed territories. Moreover, Bulgaria was the losing party in this conflict. In 1913, in the Second Balkan War, its neighbors (Serbia, Greece, Romania, Turkey) seized lands that the Bulgarians considered their own.
The desire to regain lost lands, the bitterness against neighboring countries, which were invaders for the Bulgarians, led Bulgaria to enter WWI on the German side in 1915. The Germans pledged to help return the territories captured by their neighbors. And at first they succeeded. But in 1918, like Germany, Bulgaria found itself on the losing side of WWI. But as a result of the defeat, Germany did not lose its own German regions. But Bulgaria again lost lands that were ancestral to it, lands that had been Bulgarian since the very formation of Bulgaria and populated mainly by Bulgarians.
The Bulgarians were left with the pain of losses; regaining the lost lands was their national aspiration. But they did not plan to fight for this in Bulgaria. Apparently, after the catastrophes of the 2nd Balkan and 1st World Wars, the Bulgarians were very cautious about war.
After WWI, Bulgaria's neighbors formed an alliance (the Little Entente) directed against Bulgaria, with the goal of preserving the post-war borders – that is, preserving their conquests. But in the second half of the 1930s, the Little Entente fell apart, since participation in the alliance began to threaten a clash not with Bulgaria, but with a strengthened Germany. Rapprochement with the latter was a natural thing for the Bulgarian leadership for both foreign policy and economic reasons. In 1939, two-thirds of Bulgarian trade was with Germany.
In the summer of 1940, the situation in Europe changed dramatically. France dropped out of the ranks of the great powers, Germany assumed the position of European hegemon. One of the consequences was the isolation of Romania. In 1913, this country seized the vast territory of southern Dobrudja from Bulgaria. Germany took the side of the Bulgarians in their territorial dispute with Romania. In September 1940, a demand from Berlin forced the Romanians to return southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria.
Since autumn 1940, Germany has been expanding into the Balkans. The final goal was Greece. But Greece had to be reached through other countries. Hungary and Romania quickly agreed to let German troops pass through their territory. In October, Berlin demanded the same from Bulgaria along with an alliance treaty. In November 1940, the USSR proposed that Bulgaria enter into an alliance with it.
The Bulgarian leadership rejected the Soviet proposal. They did not reject the German proposal, although they did not accept it right away. Germany repeated it as an ultimatum; a large German army was concentrated near the Bulgarian border. The Germans also guaranteed to give Bulgaria part of Greek territory. More precisely, to resolve the old Greek-Bulgarian territorial dispute in favor of Bulgaria. In 1919, the Greeks, relying on the power of the Entente, resolved this dispute in their favor, seizing part of Bulgarian territory. In 1941, the Bulgarians had the opportunity to take revenge, to return the lands seized by the Greeks, relying on the power of Germany.

Hitler and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Bulgarian Tsar
With Germany
On March 1, 1941, Bulgaria signed an agreement with Germany and allowed German troops to enter its territory. In April 1941, German troops attacked Yugoslavia and Greece from Bulgarian territory. The German aggression caused enormous casualties to these countries. The Bulgarians themselves did not participate in the attack. The Bulgarians provided their country to the Germans as a springboard for aggression against their neighbors - Greece and Yugoslavia. But for Bulgaria, these were not good neighbors, but direct enemies, invaders.
Having defeated Yugoslavia and Greece, the Germans redrawn their borders. Bulgaria received large territories at the expense of these countries. However, these territories became Greek and Serbian in 1913 and 1919 – after fierce wars with the Bulgarians. This should be remembered for greater objectivity in perceiving the events of 1941.

Bulgarian troops enter Greek settlement
In the occupied Greek territory the Bulgarians established a brutal occupation regime. But this territory was captured by Greece in the wars of 1913 and 1919. During the capture the Greeks carried out an ethnic cleansing of this territory with all cruelty, and the Bulgarian population that had previously predominated there completely disappeared. This does not automatically justify the Bulgarian actions in 1941-44, but such a background of events should be taken into account.
Subsequent Bulgarian cooperation was of benefit to Germany. However, Bulgaria has no significant amounts of minerals, agriculture is unproductive, and industry is poorly developed. Bulgaria could not supply the Reich with significant amounts of ore or food, much less industrial products. The Bulgarian army occupied the Balkan regions, where the partisan movement was not yet developed. This freed up some German forces – not front-line, but security and police.
On June 22, Germany attacked the USSR. Bulgaria refused to participate in this war. Its leadership rejected German demands to send troops to the Soviet front, did not allow the Germans to gather volunteers in Bulgaria. Tsar Boris declared that he would not send troops, since sympathies for Russia were widespread in the country and a war with it was simply unthinkable for most Bulgarians. Yes, it was also against the interests of Bulgaria itself - to participate in real military actions, to lose its soldiers. Sympathies for the Russians were a pretext for the Tsar to avoid sending his soldiers to a real war.
In December 1941, Bulgaria, as a German ally, declared war on the USA and Britain. This war was called "symbolic" in Bulgaria - the country was separated from the Anglo-American forces by a large distance, which excluded real military action. This was also excluded by the fact that the Bulgarian leadership did not send its troops against the Anglo-Americans. But in 1943, the American-British air force bases came closer, and the war became not entirely symbolic. In the autumn of 1943, the Americans and British began bombing Bulgaria. More than 4 thousand civilians died.
The political regime of Bulgaria at that time is called monarcho-fascist. This means that it was not actually fascist. But it was partly so, there was suppression of rights and freedoms, dominance of official propaganda, etc. It was impossible to fight the pro-German course legally. And already in the summer of 1941, partisans and underground fighters emerged in Bulgaria. Their actions show with whom and for whom they were fighting. For example: they burned down a sawmill where timber was being prepared for shipment to Germany; they destroyed a factory that made bandages for Germany; in another raid, they burned several dozen tons of hay - fodder prepared for the German army, etc.
In socialist Bulgaria, it was stated that 30 partisans and their helpers died in the internal war against the pro-German regime. There were also many killed on the government side. In post-socialist Bulgaria, they declared that such figures of the dead were incorrect - exaggerated by an order of magnitude within the framework of communist propaganda. But perhaps the current Bulgarian government is also not entirely free of propaganda, only now anti-communist.
On our side
Thus, at the beginning of the war, Bulgaria managed to avoid participation in military actions and significantly expand its territory. But the ongoing world war had a negative impact on Bulgaria's position. From the end of 1942, Germany began to suffer losses, and the war turned. In 1943-44, the Bulgarian leadership was increasingly faced with the question of choice: to remain with Germany or break with it and go over to the anti-German side? But the Bulgarian government did not dare even to have any complications with Germany.
The situation changed only by the beginning of September 1944, when the Soviet army reached the Bulgarian border. The USSR was not going to tolerate the ongoing Bulgarian-German cooperation and declared war on Bulgaria as a German ally. On September 8, the Soviet army entered Bulgarian territory. And then it became clear on whose side the sympathies of the Bulgarian people lay. The Bulgarian troops did not engage in battles with the Soviet army, and on September 9, units of the capital's garrison rose up in rebellion, overthrowing the government.
The new government decisively sided with the anti-Hitler coalition. The Bulgarian army, subordinated to the 3rd Ukrainian Front, went to fight against Germany. According to the German side, the Bulgarians "showed enormous enthusiasm, which they did not show when they were allies of Germany."

The Medal "For the Victory over Germany", which was awarded to 120 Bulgarian soldiers
A 700-strong SS brigade was formed from the Bulgarians who remained on the German side. This unit fought several battles with the Soviet army in the last days of the war. On the side of the USSR, the Bulgarian army fought for 8 months, reaching its peak of 300 people (out of 000 in the total number of Bulgarian armed forces).
In the photographs of the Bulgarian army of that time, its weapons are striking - they are of German manufacture. Germany supplied Bulgaria with its weapon. At the same time, German industry could not fully equip its army. This means that the weapons supplied to Bulgaria were actually torn away from the German army. And then used against it.
Results
Bulgaria was lucky to go through the crucible of WWII with minimal human losses – about 25 dead. In some places, circumstances worked out well for Bulgaria, in others, its leadership was cautious. At the same time, the country even received a significant territorial increase by Bulgarian standards – Southern Dobrudja remained Bulgarian.
Another result of the war was that the communists took hold in the country and immediately began terror against the representatives of the previous government; about 3 thousand people were killed. Bulgaria found itself in the Soviet zone of influence. Now there is a tendency to believe that this had only negative consequences. However, there are reasons to doubt this. Bulgaria was a relatively poor country even before the war. The example of its southern neighbors shows that it would not necessarily have become richer if the communists had not taken hold.
Greece and Turkey suppressed their communists bloodily, and the countries found themselves in the US sphere of influence. But Greece and Turkey did not become an example of democracy, economic development, and prosperity. The communists have not ruled in Bulgaria for over 30 years. So, if Bulgaria is not an example of development and general prosperity now, it is not the communists who are to blame.
Bulgaria's history in WWII was ambiguous because in 1941-44 the country cooperated with the Germans. On our, anti-Hitler, side it came out rather late. But before making accusations, let's remember that the USSR also avoided participating in the war as best it could. In WWII, everyone maneuvered in their own way, not just Bulgaria. The USSR, too, trying to avoid a clash with Germany, concluded a pact with it, cooperated economically, supplying various materials. In the situation at the end of August 1939, the USSR leadership considered this decision to be in the best interests of the country.
Bulgaria is a much smaller country than the USSR, with a much smaller military capability to counter Germany. And the USSR also took advantage of the defeat of another country by the Germans. We are talking about Poland - the USSR, by agreement with the Germans, occupied and annexed its eastern part. Moreover, Poland was also not just a hostile neighbor for the USSR, but also an invader (as a result of the war of 1920).
The purpose of the article is not to justify Bulgaria, but to show the complexity of its history (with its prehistory) in WWII, which does not fit into any unambiguous framework. There are two possible approaches to historical events - with or without taking into account the context of these events. For example, for the agreement between the USSR and Nazi Germany in August 1939, there is a tendency not to give the Soviet side a discount on the circumstances (although the circumstances were quite justifying), but to blame the USSR with heart-rending hype. It seems that this is also an incorrect approach for Bulgaria. What should be taken into account for it is the historical context, which will contribute to a more objective understanding of the events and their assessment.
Of course, one should not take this approach when meeting those in Bulgaria itself who have a negative hype about our history in WWII. There is such a thing in Bulgaria, but it still does not have such intensity and comprehensive systemic nature as in some other countries.
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