World War II - Bombardments of Belgrade

In the period between April 6–12 of 1941, the Germans dropped around 600 tons of bombs during the air attacks. According to official data, 2.271 people died in the bombardment, and the number of those who were wounded was huge. A large number of the inhabitants left Belgrade immediately after the bombardment.

In the city, 714 buildings were completely destroyed, 1.888 were drastically damaged, and 6.615 were slightly damaged, which amounted to almost 50 percent of Belgrade’s overall residential spaces.

The water supply and sewage systems were damaged, along with electrical and tram installations, and more than half of the city’s transportation means were disabled.   The bridges over the Sava and Danube Rivers were destroyed, and the railroad and river traffic routes were cancelled. A number of military and civilian buildings were destroyed.

German incendiary bombs hit the National Library. Around 350.000 books and as many as 500.000 volumes of other texts were burned. Amongst those books was a large number of unique samples, collections of medieval manuscripts, charters, incunabulums and many other old books and newspaper collections of enormous cultural and historic value.

In the allied bombardment of Belgrade in 1944, the city was covered with bombs dropped from great heights, without any specific targets. Those carpet bombs caused massive human casualties in the city. The city was bombed on a number of occasions, starting from April 16, Orthodox Easter, until April 18, 1944. More than 1100 planes took part in the bombing, the bombs had large destructive powers, weighing form 500 to 1.500 kilograms, and the destruction was intense. 1.267 people were killed and 5.758 citizens were injured.

More than 1.100 buildings were totally destroyed. All six state hospitals were hit. In the maternity ward, nine mothers were killed along with their newborn babies. The water supply and sewage systems were destroyed together with the power network. In this bombardment, the parts around the Bajlonijeva and Kaleniceva green markets were damaged, as well as Pasino brdo, Cukarica and a part of Zvezdara, Terazijski plateau and parts of the city lying next to the rivers. Zemun was bombed on a number of occasions, as well as the concentration camp in Sajmiste, where over 100 people were killed and 150 were wounded.