Abstract: The topic of this article, mostly based on the materials of the Military Archive and the Historical Archive of Belgrade, is the analysis of the private and everyday life of members of the Serbian State Guard. As in similar formations, the life of its members was strictly conditioned by its character, which meant that privacy was largely under the control of superior officers and the Command itself. This was especially true during the occupation, when the occupying authorities played a significant role in controlling the overall activities of the Guardsmen.

Keywords: Serbia, Second World War, Serbian State Guard, Nazi occupation, everyday life, privacy, discipline, punishments

Summary 

Military everyday life, unlike civilian life, has a specific dynamic in wartime occupation conditions. This is also the case with the most numerous collaborationist military formation in occupied Serbia in the Second World War - the Serbian State Guard, founded in February 1942. The lack of diaries and memoirs of its members is compensated by personal files, but we lack a personal experience of the service. Also, we lack knowledge about the ways in which they overcame existential fear for their own lives and the lives of their families, took care of their health, etc. Officially, the guards, as authorities, took care of maintaining public security in Serbia under the German occupation. Some of them served in rural areas, others in urban areas or on the border. However, the guards often had a problem with poor physical fitness, work and moral discipline, attitude towards the population, and often their combat value was low. Their material status, resolved through salaries, was significantly higher than that of other civil servants only in the first months of their existence due to the stimulation and danger of the job. Most of them were barracked, but those who were married lived outside the barracks with their families. Their salary was insufficient to cover their basic needs. Special attention was paid to controlling their private lives, requiring them to be unmarried and childless. However, under the pressure of reality, the government neglected that condition. That’s why it tried to influence the choice of spouses of unmarried members, who had to get a marriage license from their superiors. Th rough prohibitions and fines, the authorities controlled the members’ bodies, especially personal hygiene, bodily pleasures (sexual urges and alcohol consumption), as well as very limited forms of entertainment and leisure.  It should still be said that the government continued its pre-war policy of interfering in the private life of its military and police officers with these forms of power display. To conclude, although the life of the SSG members was difficult, due to lack of resources, they did not manage to be the main force among the collaborators for maintaining security.