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WWII On This Day: March 27

What happened on March 27 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1941, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
German paratroops descending over Crete, May 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 141-0864 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
The Balkans and Crete

The coup in Belgrade

The Yugoslav government had signed the Tripartite Pact two days earlier. Air force officers overthrew it overnight, and crowds in Belgrade spat at the German legation car. The new government tried to reassure Berlin that it would honour the pact. Hitler ordered the destruction of Yugoslavia as a state that same day, in a directive written in a fury. It postponed Barbarossa, and whether that postponement cost Germany Moscow in December is one of the longest-running arguments about the war.

Demonstrators in Belgrade on 27 March 1941 after the military coup and change of government.
Demonstrators in Belgrade on 27 March 1941 after the military coup and change of government. Milan Roglić / Digital Library of Slovenia, FZXOQL6Q · public domain Source
Invasion of Yugoslavia, April 1941

Military officers overthrow the regency

In the early hours of 27 March, a group of Royal Yugoslav Air Force and army officers seized key government and communications sites in Belgrade, removed the regency and installed General Dušan Simović as prime minister. Seventeen-year-old King Peter II was declared of age. The officers sought to replace a government associated with accession to the Tripartite Pact while preserving the state’s ability to manoeuvre diplomatically. Simović’s government avoided an immediate formal repudiation of the pact because it still faced German military power on several borders and had no secure…

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A reconnaissance detachment of the German 5th Panzer Division entering Athens on 27 April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-123-32 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

The Yugoslav coup changes the northern approach to Greece

The military coup in Belgrade removed the Yugoslav regency and brought Dušan Simović to power. Hitler responded by ordering the military destruction of Yugoslavia and integrating that new operation with the attack already prepared against Greece. For the Greek and British commands, Yugoslavia had been a potential shield and possible partner. The new German plan turned the same territory into an approach route. Mobile forces could now move through Skopje toward the Vardar valley and Monastir instead of meeting only the Greek positions facing Bulgaria. The change exposed the western…

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A German Panzer IV of the 11th Panzer Division advancing into Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-770-0280-20 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Invasion of Yugoslavia, April 1941

Hitler orders Yugoslavia destroyed as a military power

At a conference in Berlin on 27 March, Hitler ordered preparations for the rapid military defeat of Yugoslavia and for the political breakup of the state. Directive No. 25 translated that decision into an operational requirement. German forces were already committed to the planned attack on Greece and to preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Yugoslav operation therefore had to be assembled quickly from formations already in southeastern Europe and units redirected from other tasks. German planners also sought Hungarian, Italian and Bulgarian cooperation and expected political…

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