Map of Albania in WW2 by Nakko for Wikipedia “World War II in Albania” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(11) ALBANIA – OCCUPATION & RESISTANCE

(1939 – 1944)

Everyone forgets about Albania in the Second World War – or that it was occupied by Italy in April 1939.

It’s easy to forget Italy’s occupation of Albania among the higher profile German occupations of Austria or Czechoslovakia, particularly the latter as Germany had effectively finished it off only the month before in March 1939, prompting Britain’s guarantee to Poland in April 1939.

It’s easy to forget even for Italy, overshadowed as it is by Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia or intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

That everyone forgets about Albania is striking because it had important knock-on effects for the course of the whole war as it provided the platform or springboard for Italy’s ill-considered and ill-fated invasion of Greece. Without Albania as a base right next to Greece, it is difficult to see that Italy would have had the motive, means or opportunity for its invasion of Greece.

However, apart from its role in the Italian invasion of Greece, Albania was a backwater of Italian occupation, effectively as its own separate corner of the war.

There was Albanian resistance to occupation, which everyone also forgets about because it essentially followed the same lines as Yugoslavia, just on a smaller scale. Again, that everyone forgets about Albania is striking because it is the only nation other than Yugoslavia that can claim to have liberated itself through its own resistance, except even more so than Yugoslavia. Also, the Albanian resistance achieved the rare feat of saving most of Albania’s Jews.

Like Yugoslavia, it had a royal government-in-exile but the communist partisans and their political leader Enver Hoxha emerged as predominant among the rival resistance movements. Also like Yugoslavia, the Albanian resistance got a boost from the Italian surrender and desertion to it of Italian soldiers, only more so due to Italy’s larger and exclusive occupation, as well as Germany’s more pressing priorities than maintaining the occupation of Albania after that. The Albanian resistance liberated Albania from German occupation by 29 November 1944.

After the war, Albania and its communist government went from being its own strange separate corner of the Second World War to being its own strange separate corner of the Cold War – firstly with a ‘split’ from Yugoslavia aligning itself with the Soviets, then splitting off from the Soviets to align itself with China, before the inevitable Sino-Albanian split and aligning itself with no one.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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