Stratsin-Kumanovo operation

It was held from 8 October to 14 November 1944 and was conducted in parallel with tree another Bulgarian offensive operations in Yugoslavia: the Niš operation; the Kosovo operation and the Bregalnitsa-Strumica operation. The operation was conducted in order to cross the road to retreat to a group of German armies "E" from Greece to central Europe. Bulgarian troops began an offensive on 8 October and the day entered into Kriva Palanka. Consistently they keep fighting for the Ridge of Stražin (October 18) and the Stracin position, that was seized on October 25. Support was provided also by the Bulgarian Air Force. The battles for Stražin were fierce, and the enemies were German paratroopers. Thus Stražin was captured with a Bulgarian paratroopers' attack.[3] However 35 of them were killed, and 64 were injured, that was 1/4 of the Parachute Druzhina. Battles continued on the river Pčinja and in the city of Kumanovo (11 November) where parts of the Wehrmacht were defeated again. The Bulgarians developed their advance towards Skopje into a large-scale offensive, which gave rise to the danger for Army Group E of being cut off. The situation was desperate and the town was evacuated urgently at the night of 13/14 November.[4] As result on 13 and 14 November parts of the First and Fourth Bulgarian Armies entered Skopje, which performed their task.[5][6][7][8] The onslaught continued as part of the Kosovo operation and on 19 November Bulgarian troops captured Pristina.[9]

In the autumn of 1944, the Bulgarian army was the real force behind the driving the Germans out of North Macedonia. However the official Yugoslav and later Macedonian historiography, has played down its role by political grounds, actually at the cost of historical deceptions. For example, because of the symbolic importance of the capital Skopje, according to Macedonian sources, Bulgarians did not participate in the operations for its capture, even as observers. Per Mihajlo Apostolski, Skopje was liberated by the Yugoslav partisans after several days of heavy fightings. Nevertheless the city was seized with the decisive role of the Bulgarian troops.[10][11][12] In fact on a series of maps from Army Group E, showing its withdrawal through North Macedonia and Southern Serbia, as well as in the memoirs of its chief of staff, there is almost no indication of Yugoslav Partisan units, but only Bulgarian divisions.[13]

Per the British commissioner in the Allied Commission in Sofia — General Walter Oxley, Skopje was seized after weak German resistance with Bulgarian Army concentric attacks, while the partisans stood waiting on the surrounding hills. They went just in time to support the Bulgarian entry into the city. The Bulgarians retained the POW-s, but they submitted the abandoned from the Germans weapons to the Tito's partisans.[14] Bulgarian sources maintain that the first unit, which entered Skopje on November 13, was the intelligence platoon of the Second infantry division of the 4th Bulgarian army at 6.30pm. In fact the city was already left from the main German forces. Afterwards the Second infantry division of the First Bulgarian Army took its southern and the eastern areas at 11pm. At the midnight the Bulgarians seized its center.[15] Because all the bridges and approaches to the city were blown up by the Germans, only infantry and cavalry units entered the city first.