Albania and its people have coursed this century in relative obscurity. That they have attracted so little attention stems in part from the country’s small size, population, and economy. Another reason is that Albania is the only nation-state in all of central Europe to have remained neutral in both world wars. Its abstention stemmed in large part from its immaturity as a political entity.

At its creation in 1913, it was in many respects an artifcial state, inspired by Austria–Hungary’s determination to block Serbia’s access to the sea, rather than by the natural evolution of a common national identity,...

It is becoming increasing difficult to justify yet another book dealing with some aspect of World War II. Of all the armed conflicts of past centuries, World War II has engendered the most interest as well as an exhausting amount of written material. The opening of the Soviet archives and the recent commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the many defining moments of the war have resulted in yet another spate of books and films that examine the conflict in retrospect. But most of the research and interest naturally concentrate on the major theaters of war and the major figures...

The Italian invasion of April 1939, which began the war in Albania, was the culmination of centuries of Italian interest and twenty years of direct, if unsuccessful, economic and political involvement in Albania, principally under Benito Mussolini. The Straits of Otranto, which separate Albania and southern Italy by forty miles of the Adriatic Sea, have always served more as a bridge than a barrier, providing escape, a cultural span, and a convenient invasion route. The proximity between the two areas facilitated numerous connections, including classical Roman and Venetian contacts and the establishment of large Albanian colonies in southern Italy following...

The Albania of 1939, which Ciano intended to make bloom and Mussolini hoped to use as a bulwark, presented a considerable challenge. There certainly had been some development since independence in 1912, particularly in terms of political stability and internal cohesion. But Zog’s limited constructive talent, his inability to grasp modern economics or find advisers who could, and his failure to comprehend the true magnitude of the peasant problem left his country far behind the rest of the continent. In 1939 Albania remained the poorest, most isolated, and most backward state in Europe.

Agriculture and animal husbandry were the occupation...

Ciano was willing to exaggerate Italian popularity in Albania in order to convince Mussolini to invade. Ciano could delude Mussolini, but he found self-deception, particularly following his first visit to Albania after the invasion, more difficult. Rather than receiving the warm welcome his agents had assured him, he saw overt hostility. Once the Italians had established their occupation, therefore, Ciano made every effort to improve the dismal reputation the Italians had traditionally experienced and to win over the populous, or at least, some of the populous. A carrot-and-stick approach was adopted, with, at least during the first year, considerably more...

The Italians made many mistakes in Albania, not the least of which was assuming that they could win over a majority of Albanians at all. The Albanian attitude toward the Italians in 1939 ranged from indifference to suspicion to passive antipathy to hatred;by late 1940 the latter was the prevailing emotion. Unlike with their feelings about the Germans after 1943, the Albanians never respected the Italians, although with increased repression came fear. The Albanian attitude toward the Italians was guided in part by the mistaken assumption that Albanian arms had actually driven Italian armies into the sea in 1920. This...

By the end of 1941, German diplomats reported that the security situation in Albania was becoming difficult. By the early summer of 1942, they reported anarchy in the open land, with Italian control restricted to the major towns, the major roads, and military installations.¹ One year later the occupation system was in tatters, and by August 1943 it had collapsed entirely. A series of events explains these developments, with the most important occurring outside of Albania, involving the general course of World War II. But events inside of Albania did much to contribute to the Italian collapse. And the most...

The Germans watched Italy’s decline with some alarm, recognizing that in the event of a complete collapse, their own responsibilities would increase significantly. Italian-occupied territories everywhere, including Albania, would have to be invaded and held, straining an already overburdened Wehrmacht. The Germans also realized that they had perhaps been overcautious of Italian sensibilities with regard to interference in Albania, overcautious to the extent that, in July 1943, as action seemed increasingly imminent, the foreign ministry and the Wehrmacht realized that they knew next to nothing about Albania, a problem that had plagued the Italians—although Rome had no good reason...

The story of Albanian resistance to the Germans is one of complexity and controversy. Although the resistance picture in Albania was by no means simple under the Italians, the arrival of the German forces contributed to the further splintering of the movement. And astute German policy did much to reduce the effectiveness of the many pieces as well as help insure the failure of various efforts aimed at reconciliation. The Germans succeeded in pitting the various elements of the resistance against each other, ultimately co-opting all but the partisans. It is reasonable to argue that in doing so the Germans...

The collapse of Romania and the imminent fall of Bulgaria encouraged the German high command to finalize plans for the withdrawal of army group E and part of army group F from the Balkans. Headquarters in Belgrade ordered all units, including the Twenty-first Corps, to prepare for withdrawal, so as not to be caught between the advancing Soviets and the growing partisan forces.As the German military situation became more precarious, the veneer of a friendly occupation in Albania began to wear away, but only slowly. With Dine’s resignation, Neubacher continued to insist that at least outwardly the Albanian political structure...

Albania’s wartime experience began with the Italian invasion of April 1939 and ended with the German withdrawal of November 1944 and the construction of the Stalinist republic. The intervening five and a half years produced three different “Albanias“— Italian, German, and Stalinist—all of which were built, to a certain extent, on elements of artificiality. The war also produced considerable suffering and hardship, which were not soon forgotten. Even had the Albanians wanted to, Enver Hoxha would not have allowed it. He saw it in his interest to overemphasize the war to the point of creating a national myth, like...