German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations

The German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations (Serbo-Croatian: Martovski pregovori, lit. 'March negotiations') were held between German commanders in the Independent State of Croatia and the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans in March 1943 during World War II. The negotiations – focused on obtaining a ceasefire and establishing a prisoner exchange – were conducted during the Axis Case White offensive. They were used by the Partisans to delay the Axis forces while the Partisans crossed the Neretva River, and to allow the Partisans to focus on attacking their Chetnik rivals led by Draža Mihailović. The negotiations were accompanied by an informal ceasefire that lasted about six weeks before being called off on orders from Adolf Hitler. The short-term advantage gained by the Partisans through the negotiations was lost when the Axis Case Black offensive was launched in mid-May 1943. Prisoner exchanges, which had been occurring between the Germans and Partisans for some months prior, re-commenced in late 1943 and continued until the end of the war.

Details of the negotiations were little known by historians until the 1970s, despite being mentioned by several authors from 1949 on. The key Partisan negotiator, Milovan Đilas, was first named in Walter Roberts' Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945 in 1973. Roberts' book was met with protests from the Yugoslav government of Josip Broz Tito. The objections centred on claims that Roberts was effectively equating the German–Partisan negotiations with the collaboration agreements concluded by various Chetnik leaders with the Italians and Germans during the war. Roberts denied this, but added that the book did not accept the mythology of the Partisans as a "liberation movement" or the Chetniks as "traitorous collaborators". Subsequently, accounts of the negotiations were published by Yugoslav historians and the main Yugoslav protagonists.