Liberation Day (Albania)

Map of Albania during WWII

The Liberation Day (Albanian: Dita e Çlirimit) is commemorated as the day, November 29, 1944, in which Albania was liberated from Nazi Germany forces after the Albanian resistance during World War II.^[1]

Background

German soldiers in Albania.

After Italy was defeated by the Allies, Germany occupied Albania in September 1943, dropping paratroopers into Tirana before the Albanian guerrillas could take the capital, and the German army soon drove the guerrillas into the hills and to the south. Berlin subsequently announced it would recognize the independence of a neutral Albania and organized an Albanian government, police, and military. Many Balli Kombëtar units collaborated with the Germans against the communists, and several Balli Kombëtar leaders held positions in the German-sponsored regime.^[2]

The partisans entirely liberated Albania from German occupation on November 29, 1944. The National Liberation Army, which in October 1944 consisted of 70,000 regulars, also took part in the war alongside the antifascist coalition. The Albanian partisans also liberated Kosovo, and assisted Tito's communist forces in liberating part of Montenegro and southern Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[3] By that time, the Soviet Army was also entering neighboring Yugoslavia, and the German Army was evacuating from Greece into Yugoslavia.

Controversy

There is controversy in Albania in regards to the date: several opinion makers think that the date was chosen by the Communist Party of Albania fictitiously in order to have the same liberation date as Yugoslavia's.^[4]

References

1. Pearson, Owen (2006). Albania as dictatorship and democracy: from isolation to the Kosovo War. IB Taurus. p. 221. ISBN 1-84511-105-2.
2. "Albania - The Communist and Nationalist Resistance". countrystudies.us. U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved 29 March 2015.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
3. Socialist Albania since 1944: domestic and foreign developments, Author Peter R. Prifti Edition illustrated Publisher MIT Press, 1978 ISBN 0-262-16070-6, ISBN 978-0-262-16070-4 p. 198
4. Koha Jone (28 November 2008). "Me 29 u clirua Jugosllavia". Koha Jone.

Sources

• Colonel David Smiley. Albanian Assignment, Foreword by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Chatto & Windus, London, 1984. The SOE in Albania by a brother-in-arms of Julian Amery and Neil "Billy" McLean. With numerous photographs.
• Colonel David Smiley. Irregular Regular, Michael Russell, Norwich, 1994 (ISBN 0 85955 202 0). Translated in French in 2008. Au coeur de l’action clandestine. Des Commandos au MI6, L’Esprit du Livre Editions, (ISBN 978-2-915960-27-3).The Memoirs of a SOE officer in Albania and Thaïland (Force 136), then a MI6 agent (Poland, Albania, Oman, Yemen).
• Library of Congress Country Study of Albania
• Brigadier Edmund Frank "Trotsky" Davies. Illyrian venture: The story of the British military mission to enemy-occupied Albania, 1943–44, Bodley Head, 1952.
• Biçoku,Kasem (2001). 28 nëntor 1944 dita e çlirimit të Shqipërisë. Rilindja Demokratike.