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WorldWar2.ro Forum > WW2 in General > Bulgaria in ww2

Posted by: Claudiu1988 March 15, 2005 08:41 pm

Did the bulgarians fought with the germans in ww2 ? Were they allies?
Did the turks fought in ww2 ?

Posted by: Carol I March 15, 2005 09:16 pm

QUOTE (Claudiu1988 @ Mar 15 2005, 09:41 PM)

Did the bulgarians fought with the germans in ww2 ? Were they allies?

Yes, Bulgaria and Germany have been allies since 1 March 1941.

QUOTE (Claudiu1988 @ Mar 15 2005, 09:41 PM)

Did the turks fought in ww2 ?

No, Turkey has remained neutral.

Posted by: Claudiu1988 March 16, 2005 07:48 am

Thank you very much.

Posted by: Dénes April 07, 2005 09:00 pm

Does anyone recognize the make and model of this aviation fuel truck, used in Bulgaria during WW2?

Gen. Dénes

Posted by: Imperialist April 07, 2005 09:22 pm

QUOTE (Dénes @ Apr 7 2005, 09:00 PM)

Does anyone recognize the make and model of this aviation fuel truck, used in Bulgaria during WW2?

Gen. Dénes

Denes, I think thats a milk truck converted to fuel truck...

p.s. just a joke, sorry; but why are you interested in that kind of detail?

take care

Posted by: Dénes April 07, 2005 09:50 pm

QUOTE (Imperialist @ Apr 8 2005, 03:22 AM)

why are you interested in that kind of detail?

A Bulgarian researcher asked me about it.
I would like to help him out.

Gen. Dénes

Posted by: Benoit Douville May 23, 2005 05:14 pm

Claudiu,

Bulgaria Faced with choosing between military confrontation with Germany and accession to the Axis powers, King Boris III had Bulgaria join the fascist in 1941.

On September 5 1944, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and on September 8, the Red army invaded the territory of Bulgaria. The Bulgarian army had been ordered to offer no resistance. The Red Army occupied the northeastern end of the country and its two major harbors, Varna and Burgas. In this situation, on the eve of September 9, Sofia garrison detachments under the command of Zveno-supporting officers, acting under orders of the Fatherland front, entered strategic key-points in Sofia, overthrew the Government and placed the ministers under arrest. Nazi Germany hastily sent small divisions to invade Bulgaria at several points of entry but these were quickly repulsed!

Regards

Posted by: sid guttridge May 27, 2005 02:27 pm

Hi Benoit,

Apart from a couple of border incursions, I don't think that the Germans seriously tried to invade Bulgaria in September 1944 (unless you are including Macedonia in wartime Bulgaria). They only tried to hold the border passes with 11th Luftwaffe Field Division and 7th SS Mountain Division to buy themselves time to withdraw from Greece, which they did successfully.

Cheers,

Sid.

Posted by: Sturmpionier September 07, 2005 04:02 pm

Not only....

From september 1944 to 15.05 1945 Bulgarian army fought on the territory of Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria for the liberation of Europe. Bulgarian army was part of the great Balaton defence operation, defeating the german 91 corps and 13 SS division "Handshar".The bulgarian armored brigade annihilated 7 SS Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen" and defeated 21 SS division "Skenderbeg".
The heroism of Bul. soldiers is not disputable. For example:Corporal N. Paskalev from the Paraschute battalion destroyed german bunker like a kamikadze!

Posted by: Zayets September 07, 2005 04:16 pm

QUOTE (Dénes @ Apr 7 2005, 09:00 PM)

Does anyone recognize the make and model of this aviation fuel truck, used in Bulgaria during WW2?

Gen. Dénes

Looks like an Opel to me.But I am not 100% sure

Here's a photo from http://www.autogallery.org.ru/blitz36.htm

user posted image

There were so many variants (for fuel truck as well) that is hard to believe it is anything else than a Blitz.Afterall,more than 100.000 were built.

Posted by: Sturmpionier September 07, 2005 05:21 pm

This truck,how I see hat a cammo paint and therefor I think that it is not used in the Bulgarian army.

Posted by: Dénes September 07, 2005 05:29 pm

At the right side of the photo, the wing of a Bulgarian Ju 87D Stuka can be seen (after Sept. 1944).

Gen. Dénes

Posted by: Sturmpionier September 08, 2005 05:11 am

QUOTE (Dénes @ Sep 7 2005, 05:29 PM)

At the right side of the photo, the wing of a Bulgarian Ju 87D Stuka can be seen (after Sept. 1944).

Gen. Dénes

You are right-this is bul .Stuka after 18 september,because the end of the wing is white.But the truck,I think is just present from the germans,or is taken by Bulgarian army. I am sure,that it is not painted in Bulgaria...

Posted by: Iamandi September 08, 2005 06:47 am

Off topic:
Sturmpionier, can you give some links related to bulgarian military sites and/or forums dedicated to ww2? Preferable in english, if not in romanian...

Thanks in advance,

Iama

Posted by: Dani September 08, 2005 07:00 am

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/4555/ww2.html

http://members.tripod.com/~marcin_w/index-bul.html

http://odin.prohosting.com/~vstoyano/FighterPilotAceWW2Stoyanov.htm

http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/stojanov/stojanov.htm

More will follows

Posted by: Dani September 08, 2005 07:08 am

A quite old book:

http://books.stonebooks.com/cgi-bin/foxweb.exe/feedback/feedback?1001725

Edited: Armistice agreement with Bulgaria:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/bulgaria.htm

Posted by: Sturmpionier September 08, 2005 08:58 am

QUOTE (Iamandi @ Sep 8 2005, 06:47 AM)

Off topic:
Sturmpionier, can you give some links related to bulgarian military sites and/or forums dedicated to ww2? Preferable in english, if not in romanian...

Thanks in advance,

Iama

http://forum.boinaslava.net/forumdisplay.php?f=265 is the international forum of the bulgarian military history forum "Boina slava".Free to ask in english

See also http://members.aol.com/bogdanovaslava/

Best regards

Posted by: Kiwi December 30, 2008 10:38 am

Bulgaria was officially neutral and maintained diplomatic relations with Russia until the Soviets invaded in September 1940.

Because of it's neutrality, Japan did not object to Deutsch Luft Hansa Ju-290 flights between Bulgaria and Ningxia in China from May to September 1944.

If anyone can help me identify airfields used or dig up information for me please about Ju-290 flights to or from Bulgaria in 1944 I would greatly appreciate it.

Simon

Posted by: Petre September 10, 2009 05:17 pm

QUOTE

The Bulgarians … rendering aid to the fantastic voyage of the Rear-Admiral Zieb in his amazing escape from Romania.
The German naval commander had assembled everything that could float and was German or pro-German, and determined to make his way with this ramshackle flotilla of surviving Black Sea units and various military and commercial river craft, in all some 200 wildly heterogenous vessels. Zieb's unwieldy command made a procession 25 miles long, on to which were crammed 8,000 people, among them many civilians including women and children, and whose military elements included a penal battalion (which performed well after Zieb promised to destroy the criminal records of its members who did their duty). They had only one river pilot, a Greek who spoke no German, and no charts except for a tourist map of the Danube.
Nonetheless, they headed upriver on August 25th, having to fight their way past Cernavoda in a costly battle, and then bluff their way past Romanian 150-mm shore batteries guarding the beginning of the stretch of the river that formed the Romanian-Bulgarian border (Zieb did this by claiming that 200 Stukas were on the way to bomb the Romanian batteries if they resisted, despite the fact that there were nowhere near 200 German bombers in all of Romania at this time).
Despite the recent decision to disarm German units fleeing Romania, the Bulgarians in fact provided Zieb's little navy several days of respite. The Germans were able to stop at two places on the Bulgarian side of the river, at the first taking on needed supplies of drinking water, bread (a group of barges in Zieb's armada contained 2,000 tons of almonds and plums, so some food reserves were available), and especially coal, as many vessels had been reduced to burning wood in their boilers, thus managing a bare crawl through the water. At the second stop in Bulgaria, Zieb put ashore 300 women and children, as well as 700 wounded, mostly casualties from the fight at Cernavoda.
Zieb would endure more trials as he plowed up the Danube along the Romanian-Yugoslav border (172 vessels made it as far as Yugoslavia, but this was the end of the line, as the advancing Soviets already controlled the cataracts of the Danube known as the "Iron Gates" up ahead, and Zieb concluded his epic journey with a dangerous five-week (?) trek through Yugoslavia on foot). I cite his incredible story here as an example of aid rendered by the Bulgarians to the Germans as late as the end of August, despite the "official" position in Sofia.
Mike Yaklich (BG?/USA?)

Posted by: Dénes September 11, 2009 04:54 am

Very interesting, and little known, story. Thanks for sharing.

Gen. Dénes

Posted by: Petre October 12, 2015 08:25 am

It is more about Romania ...
From the memory book of admiral N. Kuznetsov (Sov. Fleet CO WW2) „The Victorious advance”
[ ... ]
On sept. 3, the troops of the 3.Ukrainian Front reached the the romanian-bulgarian border.
Though Romania had withdrawn from the Nazi bloc, the reactionary Bulgarian government continued to pursue a pro-German policy ... they aided the Nazis ... the Soviet Government declared war on Bulgaria on Sept. 5.
According to Stavka instructions, the 3. Ukr. Front prepared to enter Bulgarian territory.
Stavka gave a special importance to the liberation of Bulgaria.
Marshal Gh. Jukov was to fly to the 3. Ukr. Front Headquarters. I was ordered to go with him. On board the airplane he told me he had a talk with G. Dimitrov. The latter assured him that there would not be any war with the bulgarians.
On Aug. 30, Marshal Jukov and I arrived at the 3.Ukr. Front Headquarters, situated in Feteşti, not far from Chernavodsky Bridge.
Marshal S.Timoshenko, the responsible person coordinating the actions of the 2. & 3. Ukr. Fronts, was here too.
I found the moment to go and look the Chernovodsky Bridge. Recently The Black Sea Fleet aircraft had made several attacks on it ... I have asked rear-admiral S. Belousov ( naval liason officer at the Front Headquarters ) to clarify the results of the bombings ... Its findings have been contradictory ...
The talk with F. Tolbukhin, CO of the 3. Ukr. Front was precise and practical ... he promised to inform me about the D-day when the decision from Stavka will be received.
Jukov remained in Feteşti while I left for Constantsa where the operative group of the Black Sea Fleet Staff (rear-admiral I. Azarov) had established there.
I remained in Constanta awaiting the signal from the Front Staff. On Sept. 7, I called Marshal Jukov by phone, but he still had no information on the D-day.
The Front Staff informed me only on Sept. 8 : "We are beginning."

Posted by: Florin October 13, 2015 01:59 am

QUOTE (Petre @ October 12, 2015 03:25 am)

....................
Jukov remained in Feteşti while I left for Constantsa where the operative group of the Black Sea Fleet Staff (rear-admiral I. Azarov) had established there.
I remained in Constanta awaiting the signal from the Front Staff. On Sept. 7, I called Marshal Jukov by phone, but he still had no information on the D-day.
The Front Staff informed me only on Sept. 8 : "We are beginning."

What meant "D-Day" from the point of view of the Soviet high rank officers ?

I guess the invasion of Bulgaria.

Posted by: Petre October 13, 2015 09:25 am

It is from the english version of the text, that I used for easy work.
From the rus. version - the begining of the actions.