Storms over the Balkans during the Second World War

by Alfred J. Rieber

In a new interpretation of the history of the Balkans during the Second World War, Alfred J. Rieber explores the tangled political rivalries, cultural clashes, and armed conflicts among the great powers and the indigenous people competing for influence and domination. The study takes an original approach to the region based on the geography, social conditions, and imperial rivalries that spans several centuries, culminating in three wars during the first half of the twentieth century. Against this background, Rieber focuses on leadership - personified by Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Tito - as the key to explaining events. For each one the Balkans represented a strategic prize vital for the fulfilment of their ambitious war aims. For the local forces the destabilization of the war offered the opportunity to reorder societies, expel ethnic minorities, and expand national borders.

Storms over the Balkans during the Second World War illustrates how the leaders of the external powers were forced to improvise their tactics and compromise their ideologies under the pressure of war and the competing claims of their allies and clients. Neither the Axis nor the Allied camps were uniform blocs, and deep divisions ran through the ranks of the resistance and those collaborating with the occupying powers. These tensions contributed to the failure of all the participants in the struggle to achieve their aims. The complexities of the wartime experiences help to explain the persistence of memories and unfulfilled aspirations that continue to haunt the region. The study is based on extensive research in new sources in seven languages.

306 pages, Hardcover

Published July 22, 2022

About the author

Alfred J. Rieber has been teaching and writing Russian and Soviet history for more than fifty years. He was a participant in the first year of the Soviet-American cultural exchange in 1958-59 and has returned to the Soviet Union and Russia many times to lecture and conduct archival research. He began teaching at Northwestern and then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he taught for twenty–five years and chaired the History Department for ten years, now holding the title of Professor Emeritus. For the past twenty-two years he has taught at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary where he was also chair of the History Department for four years, and upon retirement was elected by the university Senate as University Professor Emeritus. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. In 1966 he was awarded the E. Harris Harbison Prize of the Danforth Foundation as one of the ten best teachers in the U.S. He has won additional teaching awards at Penn and CEU where he was elected professor of the year by the entire student body in 1997 and 1998. The American Philosophical Society awarded him the Henry C. Moe Prize in 1985.