Bulgaria during World War II

As an ally of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria participated in the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of 11,343 Jews from the occupied territories in Greece and Yugoslavia. Though its native 48,000 Jews survived the war, they were subjected to discrimination.^[3] However, during the war, German-allied Bulgaria did not deport Jews from the core provinces of Bulgaria. Bulgaria's wartime government was pro-German under Georgi Kyoseivanov, Bogdan Filov, Dobri Bozhilov, and Ivan Bagryanov. It joined the Allies under Konstantin Muraviev in early September 1944, then underwent a coup d'état a week later, and under Kimon Georgiev was pro-Soviet thereafter.

Initial neutrality (September 1939 – 1 March 1941)[edit]

The government of the Kingdom of Bulgaria under Prime Minister Georgi Kyoseivanov declared a position of neutrality upon the outbreak of World War II. Bulgaria was determined to observe it until the end of the war; but it hoped for bloodless territorial gains in order to recover the territories lost in the Second Balkan War and World War I, as well as gain other lands with a significant Bulgarian population in the neighbouring countries. Bulgaria had been the only defeated power of 1918 not to have received some territorial award by 1939.^[4] However, it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both World War II factions. Turkey had a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria. This recovery of territory reinforced Bulgarian hopes for resolving other territorial problems without direct involvement in the War.


Bulgaria, as a potential beneficiary from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939, had competed with other such nations to curry favour with Nazi Germany by gestures of antisemitic legislation. Bulgaria was economically dependent on Germany, with 65% Bulgaria's trade in 1939 accounted for by Germany, and militarily bound by an arms deal.^[5][6] Bulgarian extreme nationalists lobbied for a return to the enlarged borders of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano.^[7] The Bulgarian officer class were mainly pro-German while the population at large was predominantly Russophile.^[4] On 7 September 1940, after the Second Vienna Award in August, Southern Dobruja, lost to Romania under the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, was returned to Bulgarian control by the Treaty of Craiova, formulated under German pressure.^[5] A citizenship law followed on 21 November 1940, which transferred Bulgarian citizenship to the inhabitants of the annexed territory, including to around 500 Jews, alongside the territory's Roma, Greeks, Turks, and Romanians.^[8][5] Bulgaria had earlier briefly re-acquired Southern Dobruja between 1916 and 1918.


In October 1940 the Law for the Protection of the Nation was introduced to parliament. The bill made legislative progress through the winter of late 1940, with parliament reviewing it on the 15, 19, and 20 November. The week before the debates over the bill continued to second reading on 20 December 1940, a ship carrying 326 Bulgarian Jewish and other Jewish refugees heading to British-administered Palestine, the Salvador, was wrecked in the Sea of Marmara on 14 December with 230 lives lost.^[5] Of the 160 seats in the National Assembly, a majority of between 115 and 121 members voted with the government.^[5] The parliament ratified the bill on Christmas Eve, 1940. It received royal assent from Tsar Boris III on 15 January the following year, being published in the State Gazette on 23 January 1941.^[5][9] The law forbade the granting of Bulgarian citizenship to Jews as defined by the Law.^[9][5] The Law's second chapter ordered measures for the definition, identification, segregation, and economic and social marginalization of Jews.^[5] The law had been proposed to parliament by Petar Gabrovski, Interior Minister and former Ratnik leader in October 1940. His protégé, government lawyer and fellow Ratnik, Alexander Belev, had been sent to study the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in Germany and was closely involved in its drafting. Modelled on this precedent, the law targeted Jews, together with Freemasonry and other intentional organizations deemed "threatening" to Bulgarian national security.^[5]


The Law introduced restrictions on foreign Jews as well. In late 1938 and early 1939 Bulgarian police officials and the Interior Ministry were already increasingly opposed to the admittance of Jewish refugees from persecution in Central Europe.^[10][11][5] In response to a query by British diplomats in Sofia, the Foreign Ministry confirmed the policy that from April 1939, Jews from Germany, Romania, Poland, Italy, and what remained of Czechoslovakia (and later Hungary) would be required to obtain consent from the ministry to secure entry, transit, or passage visas.^[11][12] Nevertheless, at least 430 visas (and probably around 1,000) were issued by Bulgarian diplomats to foreign Jews, of which there were as many as 4,000 in Bulgaria in 1941.^[6][13][5] On 1 April 1941 the Police Directorate allowed the departure of 302 Jewish refugees, mostly underage, from Central Europe for the express purpose of Bulgaria "freeing itself from the foreign element".^[14][15] After April 1941, the Law's jurisdiction was extended beyond Bulgaria's pre-war borders to territories in Greece and Yugoslavia occupied by the Bulgarian army and claimed and administered by Bulgaria.^[5]


Bulgaria had been mooted as a possible member of the Soviet sphere in the Molotov-Ribbentrop discussions in November 1939; the significance of Bulgaria's position increased after the British Empire intervened in the Balkans campaign and Hitler's plans to invade the Soviet Union progressed.^[4] Pressure built on Boris to join the Axis, but he vacillated, and the government committed to joining – but at an unspecified date.^[4] In the planning of Operation Marita, the Germans sought to cross Bulgaria to invade Greece. Bogdan Filov travelled to Vienna to sign the Tripartite Pact at the beginning of March.^[4]