handle them, headed by Toma Maksimović, a former factory boss from Borovo. While the committee had difficulties in finding enough food, housing, and other supplies for them, the refugees were well received by the Serbian population. Food was especially difficult to provide due to the Germans exporting it to the Reich or to German forces in Greece. Most of the able-bodied refugees were employed, while children were either placed into different households or orphanages. German officials pointed out that transfers of people from the NDH to Serbia increased the unrest in the territory, due to the fact some refugees joined the Partisans or the Chetniks. The Serbian government, and some German officials, wanted to repatriate some Serbs to the places that they came from, but this was denied by the military administration, due to the difficulties that would be present for them in the NDH. Final days of the regime As the tide turned against Germany during the war, the German occupational administration sought to ally all anti-communist forces to fight against the partisans, including Mihailović's Chetniks. Hermann Neubacher was made the special envoy of the German foreign ministry in Belgrade in 1943. He had formerly worked in Romania and Greece, and sought to improve the German military position in the region by increasing the power of the Nedić regime. He planned to form a "Greater Serbian Federation", which would have included Serbia and Montenegro. He also attempted to curtail the authority of the German military in Serbia, return command of the SDS to Nedić, and to reopen the University of Belgrade. None of his ideas came to fruition, due to the fact that they had no support from foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, nor from anyone else in the German government. Hitler himself had no wish to strengthen the puppet government as he thought that it was unreliable. As Nedić's power decreased even further, more members of his government started working for the Chetniks. The Germans' workings with the Chetniks angered Nedić, who wrote a nine-page list of complaints to the Germans on 22 February 1944. The list included complaints that the Germans were now giving Mihailović more power than he had. Nedić criticized the large burden of occupation costs and German interference at even the lowest levels of his administration, and the fact that none of his proposals for improving the situation were accepted. After that, the Military