Prelude Anti-German uprising Nedić's inability to crush the Partisans and Chetniks prompted the Military Commander in Serbia to request German reinforcements from other parts of the continent. In mid-September, they transferred the 125th Infantry Regiment from Greece and the 342nd Infantry Division from France to help put down the uprising in Serbia. On 16 September, Hitler issued Directive No. 312 to Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Wilhelm List, the Wehrmacht commander in Southeast Europe, ordering him to suppress all resistance in that part of the continent. That same day, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht; OKW) issued Hitler's order on the suppression of "Communist Armed Resistance Movements in the Occupied Areas", signed by Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel. This decree specified that all attacks against the Germans on the Eastern Front were to be "regarded as being of communist origin", and that 100 hostages were to be shot for every German soldier killed and 50 were to be shot for every German soldier wounded. It was intended to apply to all of Eastern Europe, though an identical policy had already been implemented in Serbia as early as 28 April 1941, aimed at deterring guerrilla attacks. Attacks against the Germans increased in the first half of the year and Serbia once again became a war zone. German troops fanned through the countryside burning villages, taking hostages and establishing concentration camps. The first mass executions of hostages commenced in July. The strengthening of Germany's military presence in Serbia resulted in a new wave of mass executions and war crimes. The commanders who bore the most responsibility for these atrocities were primarily of Austrian origin and had served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. Most were ardently anti-Serb, a prejudice that the historian Stevan K. Pavlowitch links to the Nazis' wider anti-Slavic racism. On 19 September, (Lieutenant General) Franz Böhme was appointed as Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia, with direct responsibility for quelling the revolt, bringing with him the staff of XVIII Mountain Corps. He was allocated additional forces to assist him in doing so, reinforcing the three German occupation divisions already in the territory. These divisions were the 704th Infantry Division, 714th Infantry Division and 717th Infantry Division. Böhme boasted a profound hatred of Serbs and encouraged his predominantly Austrian-born troops to exact "vengeance" against them. His primary grievances were the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and subsequent Austro-Hungarian military