Who is this

[Reece]

Just a picture I came across and wondered who this was sitting next to Hitler?

[Eichhörnchen]

It was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (travelling from the Lehrter Bahnhof Station to Bellevue Castle)

[Reece]

Thanks E.

[Jimbuna]

Here's a translation from a war diary site:

https://translate.google.com/transla...cercan-la.html

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Here's a translation from a war diary site:

https://translate.google.com/transla...cercan-la.html

El Príncipe Pablo , regente de Yugoslavia, se ha presentado hoy en el Berghof de manera secreta ante el Führer, quien le ha expuesto la gravedad de la situación que atraviesa los Balcanes en estos momentos y la necesidad imperiosa de que Yugoslavia se decante del lado alemán ante la inminente intervención británica

Muchas gracías Compadre! Actually Prince Paul, technically the regent for Peter II played his cards 'close to the vest' with the Füher on his nine day visit in 1939. During the late 1930s, the regent and his envoys looked on with increasing dismay as Germany rearmed. They begged for British and American help in preparing Yugoslavia’s defence but, for all Prince Paul’s Anglophilia and youthful friendships, none was forthcoming. Then, at the beginning of 1941, Britain changed tack. Churchill and Eden wanted a united Balkan front, and Yugoslavia was expected to drop her neutrality and fight. Prince Paul faced an intractable dilemma. If he did what Churchill asked, a German offensive against Yugoslavia would become almost inevitable—not only that, but he would essentially sacrifice the north, including Croatia and Slovenia, since these areas would be impossible to defend. Germany, meanwhile, was marshalling troops across the border in Romania, and Italy’s forces, having overrun Albania, threatened to invade from the south and west. On March 4th, Prince Paul was summoned to Berchtesgaden where, in a five-hour meeting, Hitler tried once more to force him to join the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact. Paul returned home; the cabinet argued. Hitler had offered a special clause honouring Yugoslav sovereignty, and stipulating that German troops should not travel through Yugoslavia, and that it would not be obliged to enter the war and fight.

When World War II broke out in 1939, Yugoslavia declared its neutrality. On March 25, 1941, the Yugoslav government signed the Axis Tripartite Pact, with significant reservations as three notes were appended. The first note obliged the Axis powers to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia. In the second note the Axis powers promised not to ask Yugoslavia for any military assistance, and in the third they promised not to ask permission to move military forces across Yugoslav territory during the war.
Paul's foreign policy, including the signing of the Tripartite Pact, aimed to give his country as much leeway as possible in thoroughly adverse circumstances. After the fall of France in 1940 left the British Empire essentially alone to face the Axis, Paul saw no way of saving Yugoslavia except through adopting policies of accommodation to the Axis powers. But even under those circumstances Paul, outwardly neutral, remained determinedly pro-Allied. He aided Greece after Italian forces had invaded that country on 28 October 1940; he fostered military collaboration between the Yugoslav Army and the French and spent almost three years parrying the Axis thrust toward Yugoslavia. Nonetheless, the signing of the pact did not sit well with several elements of the Yugoslav army. On 27 March 1941, two days after Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, Yugoslav military figures with British support forcibly removed Paul from power
and declared Peter II of age.

History often gets rewritten and Prince Paul is seen now in a more favorable light, due in large part to his daughter Elizabeth. In December 2011, her efforts were rewarded: the Serbian Supreme Court ruled that Prince Paul was neither a war criminal nor an enemy of the state as declared by Communists. He was reburied with honors in Serbia. https://www.1843magazine.com/content/ideas/emma-williams/princess-elizabeth-yugoslavia

[Reece]

Thanks for the info, I read the link Aktungbby, an amazing part of history, I knew nothing about. Elizabeth (Paul's daughter) was a wonderful person and good to read about her persistence and family reinstatement into the Serbian royal history. It would have been an emotional time having the bodies exhumed and transported back to Serbia.
They could make a movie about the Serbian history, a lot has happened that most people would know nothing about, but then again maybe there is a fairly modern English version made.