on Yugoslavia to join the Axis. On 25 March 1941, after some delay, the Yugoslav government conditionally signed the Pact. Two days later, a group of pro-Western, Serbian nationalist Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers deposed the country's regent, Prince Paul, in a bloodless coup d'état, placed his teenaged nephew Peter on the throne, and brought to power a "government of national unity" led by General Dušan Simović. The coup enraged Hitler, who immediately ordered the country's invasion, which commenced on 6 April 1941. Occupation Yugoslavia was quickly overwhelmed by the combined strength of the Axis powers and surrendered in less than two weeks. The government and royal family went into exile, and the country was occupied and dismembered by its neighbours. The German-occupied territory of Serbia was reduced to the Kingdom of Serbia's pre-Balkan War borders and was kept under directly military occupation by the Germans due to the key rail and riverine transport routes that passed through it, as well as its valuable resources, particularly non-ferrous metals. The occupied territory covered about 51,000 km2 and had a population of 3.8 million. Resistance and repression Even before the Yugoslav Army surrendered, German military authorities ordered the registration of all Serbian Jews. On 30 May, 1941 the German Military Commander in Serbia, Helmuth Förster, issued the main Race Laws, which excluded Jews and Roma from public and economic life, seized their property and required them to register for forced labor. On July 7, 1941 Partisan-led armed resistance broke out in Serbia, quickly spreading and leading to the establishment of the first liberated territory in occupied Europe, the Republic of Užice. On Hitler’s personal orders to crush the resistance in Serbia, the German military started shooting 100 hostages for every German killed, and 50 for every wounded. The Germans thus killed 30,000 Serbian civilians, including 3,000 in a mass execution at Kragujevac, and 2,000 at Kraljevo. Among the executed were thousands of Jewish men. To crush the resistance and exterminate Jews, Germans also established concentration camps – at Banjica, Niš (Crveni krst), Sajmište, etc – in which they interred Serb antifascists, Jews and Roma. Additionally, to fight the resistance, the Germans set up a quisling administration, under Milan Nedić, but he was given very limited powers, and was unable to establish order. German occupation authorities In order to establish the military occupation of the territory, the German Military Commander in Serbia was