executions of Serbs to be ineffectual and counterproductive, as they tended to drive the population into the arms of insurgents. The massacres caused Nedić to urge that the arbitrary shooting of Serbs be stopped, Böhme agreed and ordered a halt to the executions until further notice. The ratio of 100 executions for one soldier killed and 50 executions for one soldier wounded was reduced by half in February 1943, and removed altogether later in the year. 1944 The first six months of 1944 were marked by heavy fighting in western and southern parts of the country, as the Yugoslav Partisans made several incursions across the Drina and Lim Rivers. These were made in order to augment the local detachments with veteran forces from Bosnia and Montenegro, defeat the Chetniks, and strengthen the NOVJ positions in anticipation of the arrival of the Soviet forces from the east. Collapse By the fall of 1944, the Eastern Front had nearly reached the territory. Most of Serbia was liberated from the Germans over the course of the Belgrade Offensive carried out by the Red Army, Yugoslav Partisans and Bulgarian forces. With the onset of the Belgrade Offensive by the Red Army and the Partisans, the administration was evacuated from Serbia to Vienna in October 1944. The puppet governments established by the Germans were little more than subsidiary organs of the German occupation authorities, looking after some of the administration of the territory and sharing the blame for the brutal rule of the Germans. They had no international standing, even within the Axis. Their powers, quite limited from the beginning, were further reduced over time, which was frustrating and difficult for Nedić in particular. Despite the ambitions of the Nedić government to establish an independent state, the area remained subordinated to the German military authorities until the end of its existence. The real power rested with the administration's Military Commanders, who controlled both the German armed forces and Serb collaborationist forces. In 1941, the administration's Military Commander, Franz Böhme, responded to guerrilla attacks on German forces by carrying out the German policy towards partisans that 100 people would be killed for each German killed and 50 people killed for each wounded German. The first set of reprisals were the massacres in Kragujevac and in Kraljevo by the Wehrmacht. These proved to be counterproductive to the German forces in the aftermath, as it ruined any possibility