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. Hitler wished to irrevocably dismantle Yugoslavia, which he dubbed a "Versailles construct". Hitler was known to be a virulent Serbophobe. He and other senior German leaders considered the Serbs to be subhuman (). Thus, in Hitler's conception of the New Order of Europe, they were to be collectively punished. Serbia was reduced to its pre-Balkan War borders, becoming the only country in the Western Balkans to be directly occupied by the Germans. Serb-inhabited territories west of the Drina River were incorporated into the Axis puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (; NDH), which included most of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of modern-day Serbia. The establishment of the NDH had been announced over the radio by Slavko Kvaternik, a former Austro-Hungarian Army officer who had been in contact with Croatian nationalists abroad, on 10 April.
