Boris III
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 Formal portrait,c. 1918–19 | |||||
| Tsar of Bulgaria | |||||
| Reign | 3 October 1918[1] –28 August 1943 | ||||
| Predecessor | Ferdinand I | ||||
| Successor | Simeon II | ||||
| Born | (1894-01-30)30 January 1894 Royal Palace,Sofia,Bulgaria | ||||
| Died | 28 August 1943(1943-08-28) (aged 49) Sofia, Bulgaria | ||||
| Burial | |||||
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| Issue | |||||
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| Bulgarian | Борис III | ||||
| House | Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry | ||||
| Father | Ferdinand I of Bulgaria | ||||
| Mother | Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma | ||||
| Religion | |||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Boris III (Bulgarian:Борѝс III; Boris Treti; 30 January [O.S. 18 January] 1894 – 28 August 1943)[a][b] was theTsar of theKingdom of Bulgaria from 1918 until his death in 1943.
The eldest son ofFerdinand I, Boris assumed the throne upon theabdication of his father in the wake ofBulgaria's defeat in World War I. Under the 1919Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria was forced to cede various territories, pay cripplingwar reparations, and greatly reduce the size of its military. That same year,Aleksandar Stamboliyski of theBulgarian Agrarian National Union became prime minister. After Stamboliyski was overthrown ina coup in 1923, Boris recognized the new government ofAleksandar Tsankov, who harshly suppressed theBulgarian Communist Party and led the nation through abrief border war withGreece. Tsankov was removed from power in 1926, and a series of prime ministers followed until 1934, when thecorporatistZveno (Bulgarian:Звено) movement stageda coup and outlawed all political parties. Boris opposed theZveno government and overthrew them in 1935, eventually installingGeorgi Kyoseivanov as prime minister. For the remainder of his reign, Boris would rule as ade factoabsolute monarch, with his prime ministers largely submitting to his will.
Following the outbreak ofWorld War II, Bulgaria initially remained neutral. In 1940,Nazi sympathizerBogdan Filov replaced Kyoseivanov as prime minister, becoming the last prime minister to serve under Boris. In September 1940, with the support ofNazi Germany, Bulgaria received the region ofSouthern Dobrudja fromRomania as part of theTreaty of Craiova. In January 1941, Boris approved theanti-SemiticLaw for Protection of the Nation, which denied citizenship toBulgarian Jews and placed numerous restrictions upon them. In March 1941, Bulgaria joined theAxis and allowed German troops to use Bulgaria as a base from which toinvade Yugoslavia andGreece. Bulgaria then received large portions ofYugoslav Macedonia,Pirot County in eastern Serbia andGreek Thrace, which were key targets ofBulgarian irredentism. Bulgaria opted out of participation in theGerman invasion of the Soviet Union, as allowed by the provisions of the Axis alliance. As part of theHolocaust, Bulgarian authorities deported most Jews from occupied Greek and Yugoslav territories and transferred them to the German extermination camp ofTreblinka. Under public pressure, Boris cancelled the deportation of Bulgarian Jews while expelling almost 20,000 Jews to the Bulgarian countryside to be deployed in forced labour camps. In 1942,Zveno, the Agrarian National Union, the Bulgarian Communist Party, and other far-left groups united to form aresistance movement known as theFatherland Front, which went on tooverthrow the government in 1944. In August 1943, shortly after returning from a visit to Germany, Boris died at the age of 49. Following his death, he was succeeded as Tsar by his six-year-old son,Simeon Borisov Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Bulgarian: Симеон Борисов Сакскобургготски), who ascended the throne under the regnal nameSimeon II.
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Boris was born on 30 January 1894 inSofia toFerdinand I, Prince of Bulgaria, and his wifePrincess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma.
In February 1896, his father paved the way for the reconciliation of Bulgaria andRussia with the conversion of the infant Prince Boris fromCatholicism toEastern Orthodoxy, a move that earned Ferdinand the frustration of his wife, the animosity of his Catholic Austrian relatives (particularly his uncleFranz Joseph I of Austria) andexcommunication byPope Leo XIII. In order to remedy this difficult situation, Ferdinand had his subsequent children baptised in theCatholic Church.Nicholas II of Russia stood as godfather to Boris and later met the young boy during Ferdinand's official visit toSaint Petersburg in July 1898.
He received his initial education in the so-called Palace Secondary School, which Ferdinand had founded in 1908 solely for his sons. Later, Boris graduated from the Military School inSofia, then took part in theBalkan Wars. During theFirst World War, he served asliaison officer of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army on theMacedonian front. In 1916, he was promoted tocolonel and attached again as liaison officer toArmy Group Mackensen and the BulgarianThird Army for the operations againstRomania. Boris worked hard to smooth the sometimes difficult relations betweenField MarshalMackensen andLieutenant GeneralStefan Toshev, the commander of the Third Army. Through his courage and personal example, he earned the respect of the troops and the senior Bulgarian and German commanders, even that of theGeneralquartiermeister of the German Army,Erich Ludendorff, who preferred dealing personally with Boris and described him as excellently trained, a thoroughly soldierly person and mature beyond his years.[2] In 1918, Boris was made amajor general.
In September 1918, Bulgaria was defeated in theVardar Offensive andforced to sue for peace. Ferdinand abdicated in favour of Boris, who became Tsar on 3 October 1918.
A year after Boris's accession,Aleksandar Stamboliyski (alsoStambolijski) of theBulgarian Agrarian National Union was elected prime minister. Though popular with the large peasant class, Stambolijski earned the animosity of the middle class and military, which led tohis toppling in a military coup on 9 June 1923 and assassination. On 14 April 1925, an anarchist group attacked Boris's cavalcade as it passed through theArabakonak Pass. Two days later, a bomb killed 213 members of the Bulgarian political and military elite in Sofia as they attended the funeral of a murdered general in theSaint Nedelya Church terror assault[3]. Following a further attempt on Boris's life the same year, military reprisals killed several thousand communists and agrarians, including representatives of the intelligentsia. Finally, in October 1925, there was a short border war with Greece, known as thePetrich Incident, which was resolved with the help of theLeague of Nations.
In thecoup on 19 May 1934, theZveno military organisation established a dictatorship, abolished political parties, and reduced Boris to apuppetfigurehead.[4] The following year, he staged a counter-coup and retook control of the country. The political process was controlled by the Tsar, but a semi-parliamentary system was re-introduced without restoration of political parties.[5]
With the rise of the "King's government" in 1935, Bulgaria entered an era of prosperity and astounding growth, which deservedly qualifies it as the Golden Age of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom. It lasted nearly five years.[6] According toReuben H. Markham, former Balkan correspondent forThe Christian Science Monitor, writing in 1941, "As a ruler, Boris is competent; as a citizen exemplary; as a personality inspiring.... His country is to a large extent indebted to him for the comparatively favorable situation it has held in the Balkans, during the last two decades."[7] Markham added, "King Boris is very accessible. He constantly comes into contact with persons of every sort. He drives his car up and down the country with no special guards and often stops to converse with peasants, workers or children. He gives lifts to the humblest pedestrians. Rare is the Bulgarian township that does not boast of at least one person who has ridden with the King." "He is without question one of the best kings in Europe."[8]
Boris visited the United Kingdom in 1927 and 1932, staying with his childhood friendNadejda Stancioff at her home inBlair Drummond,Doune,Stirling, Scotland.[9] During another visit to the United Kingdom in 1937, Boris made international news for taking thethrottle of a London Midland Scotland RailwayCoronation Class steam locomotive.[10]
Boris marriedGiovanna of Savoy, daughter ofVictor Emmanuel III of Italy, and as he remained Orthodox, it was a Catholic nuptial ceremony outside ofMass. It was held at theBasilica of Saint Francis of Assisi inAssisi, Italy, on 25 October 1930.[11]Benito Mussolini registered the marriage at the town hall immediately after the liturgy.[12]
Their marriage produced two children: a daughter,Maria Louisa, on 13 January 1933, later head of theHouse of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, and a son and heir to the throne,Simeon, on 16 June 1937, who was the lastTsar of Bulgaria as Simeon II (1943-1946).
In the early days of theSecond World War, Bulgaria was neutral, but powerful groups in the country swayed its politics towards Germany (with which Bulgaria had been allied in the First World War). As a result of peace treaties that ended the First World War (theTreaty of Versailles and theTreaty of Neuilly), Bulgaria, which had fought on the losing side, lost two important territories to neighboring countries: theSouthern plain of Dobruja toRomania, andWestern Thrace to Greece. The Bulgarians considered these treaties an insult and wanted the lands restored. WhenAdolf Hitler rose to power, he tried to win Bulgarian Tsar Boris III's allegiance. In the summer of 1940, after a year of war, Hitler hosted diplomatic talks between Bulgaria and Romania in Vienna. On 7 September, anagreement was signed for the return ofSouthern Dobruja to Bulgaria. The Bulgarian nation rejoiced. In March 1941, Boris allied himself with theAxis powers, thus recovering most ofMacedonia and AegeanThrace, as well as protecting his country from being crushed by the GermanWehrmacht like neighboringYugoslavia andGreece. For recovering these territories, Tsar Boris was called the Unifier (Bulgarian: Цар Обединител). Tsar Boris appeared on the cover ofTime on 20 January 1941 wearing a full military uniform.[13][14]
Despite this alliance, and the German presence inSofia and along the railway line which passed through the Bulgarian capital to Greece, Boris was not willing to provide full and unconditional cooperation with Germany. He refused to send regular Bulgarian troops to fight the Soviet Union on theEastern Front alongside Germany and the other Axis belligerents, and also refused to allow unofficial volunteers (such as Spain'sBlue Division) to participate, although the German legation in Sofia received 1,500 requests from young Bulgarian men who wanted to fight againstBolshevism.[15]
But there was a price to be paid for the return of Dobrudja. This was the adoption of the anti-Jewish "Law for Protection of the Nation" (Закон за защита на нацията – ЗЗН) on 24 December 1940. This law was in accordance with theNuremberg Laws inNazi Germany and the rest of Hitler's occupied Europe. Bulgarian Prime MinisterBogdan Filov and Interior MinisterPetur Gabrovski, both Nazi sympathisers, were the architects of this law, which restricted Jewish rights, imposed new taxes, and established a quota for Jews in some professions. Many Bulgarians protested in letters to their government.[citation needed]
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In early 1943, Hitler's emissary,Theodor Dannecker, arrived in Bulgaria. Dannecker was anSS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and one ofAdolf Eichmann's associates who guided the campaign for the deportation of theFrench Jews to concentration camps. In February 1943, Dannecker met with the Commissar for Jewish Affairs in Bulgaria,Aleksandar Belev, notorious for his antisemitic and strong nationalist views. They held closed-door meetings and ended with a secret agreement signed on 22 February 1943 for the deportations of 20,000 Jews – 11,343 fromAegean Thrace andVardar Macedonia, and 8,000 from Bulgaria proper. These were the territories conquered by Germany, but being under Bulgarian occupation and jurisdiction at the time, although this occupation was never recognized internationally. The Jewish people in these territories were the only ones who were not awarded Bulgarian citizenship in 1941–1942, unlike the rest of the population. The remaining 20,000Bulgarian Jews were to be deported later.[citation needed]
The initial roundups began on 9 March 1943, during that month, Bulgarian military and police authorities deported 11,343 Jews from the Bulgarian-occupied regions ofVardar Macedonia,Pomoravlje inoccupied Yugoslavia andAegean Thrace toAuschwitz-Birkenau andTreblinka.[16]
Boxcars were lined up inKyustendil, a town near the western border. But as the news about the imminent deportations leaked out, protests arose throughout Bulgaria. On the morning of 9 March, a delegation from Kyustendil, composed of eminent public figures and headed byDimitar Peshev, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly, met with Interior MinisterPetur Gabrovski. Facing strong opposition from within the country, Gabrovski relented. The same day, he sent telegrams to the roundup centers in the pre-war territory of Bulgaria, postponing the deportations to a future, unidentified date. In a report of 5 April 1943, Adolph Hoffman, a German government adviser and police attache at the German legation in Sofia from 1943 to 1944 wrote: "The Minister of Interior has received instruction from the highest place to stop the planned deportation of Jews from the old borders of Bulgaria".[17] In fact, Gabrovski's decision was not taken on his own personal initiative, but had come from the highest authority – Tsar Boris III, who decided under pressure to temporarily stop the deportation of the rest of the Jews. While Jews living inBulgaria proper were saved, almost all the Jews from Vardar Macedonia and Aegean Thrace perished in thedeath camps ofTreblinka andMajdanek.[16] A telegram dated 4 April 1943 fromGermany's foreign minister,Joachim von Ribbentrop, indicated the readiness of King Boris to hand over half of the Jewish population:
The King has declared that up to now he has only given his consent for deportation of Jews from Macedonia and Thrace to areas in Eastern Europe. He only wants to deport a limited number of Bolsheviks-Communists from Bulgaria itself. The other 25,000 Jews will be concentrated in camps within the country.[18]
Still reluctant to comply with the German deportation request, the royal palace used Swiss diplomatic channels to inquire whether it was possible to deport the Jews to British-controlled Palestine by ship rather than to concentration camps in German-occupied Poland by boat and train.[citation needed] This was blocked by the British Foreign Secretary,Anthony Eden.[19]
Aware of Bulgaria's unreliability on the Jewish matter, the Nazis grew more suspicious about the activities of an old friend of Tsar Boris, Monsignor Angelo Roncalli (the futurePope John XXIII), thePapal Nuncio inIstanbul, who was attempting to help European Jews threatened by the Nazis and their allies. Reporting on the humanitarian efforts of Roncalli, his secretary inVenice and in theVatican, MonsignorLoris F. Capovilla wrote: "Through his intervention, and with the help of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria, thousands of Jews fromSlovakia, who had first been sent toHungary and then to Bulgaria, and who were in danger of being sent toNazi concentration camps, obtained transit visas forPalestine signed by him."[20]
However, regarding his actions during the Holocaust, "like Prime Minister Filov, Boris III seems to have been motivated mainly by considerations ofRealpolitik",[21] and "appears to have played a less heroic role than his admirers ascribe to him ... What motivated him was national interest as he understood it, not humanitarian concerns."[21]
Nazi pressure on Tsar Boris III continued for the deportation of the Bulgarian Jewry. At the end of March, Hitler invited the Tsar to visit him. Upon returning home, Boris ordered able-bodied Jewish men to join hard labor units to build roads within the interior of his kingdom. Some claim that this was the Tsar's attempt to avoid deporting them.[22]
During May 1943, Dannecker and Belev, the Commissar for Jewish Affairs, planned the deportation of more than 48,000 Bulgarian Jews, who were to be loaded on steamers on theRiver Danube. Boris continued the cat-and-mouse game that he had long been playing; he insisted to the Nazis thatBulgarian Jews were needed for the construction of roads and railway lines inside his kingdom. Nazi officials requested that Bulgaria deport its Jewish population to German-occupiedPoland. The request caused a public outcry, and a campaign whose most prominent leaders were Parliament's deputy speakerDimitar Peshev[23] and the head of theBulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, was organised. Following this campaign, Boris refused to permit the extradition of Bulgaria's nearly 50,000 Jews.[24]
On 30 June 1943, Apostolic Delegate Angelo Roncalli wrote to Boris, asking for mercy for "the sons of theJewish people."[25] He wrote that Tsar Boris should on no account agree to the dishonorable action that Hitler was demanding. "On the copy of this letter, Roncalli wrote, by hand and in Italian ... "The king has acted ('Il Re ha fatto qualche cosa') ... but he also has his own difficulties, which he asks us to understand. To deal with individual cases arouses the jealousy of others. But I repeat, he has acted ('Però, ripeto, ha fatto')."[20]
An excerpt from the diary ofRabbiDaniel Zion, the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Bulgaria during the war years, reads:
Do not be afraid, dear brothers and sisters! Trust in the Holy Rock of our salvation ... Yesterday I was informed by Bishop Stephen about his conversation with the Bulgarian king. When I went to see Bishop Stephen, he said: "Tell your people, the King has promised, that the Bulgarian Jews shall not leave the borders of Bulgaria." When I returned to the synagogue, silence reigned in anticipation of the outcome of my meeting with Bishop Stephen. When I entered, my words were: "Yes, my brethren, God heard our prayers."Bjoraker, Bill (2015), Snodderly, Beth (ed.),Agents of International Development and Shalom, Pasadena: William Carey International University Press, p. 79
Most irritating for Hitler was the Tsar's refusal to declare war on theSoviet Union or send Bulgarian troops to the Eastern Front. On 9 August 1943, Hitler summoned Boris to a stormy meeting atRastenburg,East Prussia. Boris arrived by plane fromVrazhdebna on 14 August. The Tsar again asserted his unwillingness to send Bulgarian Jews to death camps in occupied Poland or Germany. While Bulgaria had declared a "symbolic" war on the distant United Kingdom and United States, the Tsar was not willing to do more than that. At the meeting, Boris once again refused to get involved in the war against the Soviet Union, giving two major reasons for his unwillingness to send troops to Russia. First, many ordinary Bulgarians had strong pro-Russian sentiments; and second, the political and military position of Turkey remained unclear.[citation needed] The "symbolic" war against the Western Allies turned into a disaster for the citizens ofSofia, as the city was heavily bombarded by theUS Army Air Force and the BritishRoyal Air Force in 1943 and 1944. (Thebombardment of Bulgarian cities was started by the BritishRoyal Air Force in April 1941 without declaring a war.)
Bulgaria's opposition came to a head at this last official meeting between Hitler and Boris. Reports of the meeting indicate that Hitler was furious with the Tsar for refusing either to join the war against the USSR or to deport the Jews within his kingdom.[26] At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that "the Bulgarian Jews were not to be deported, for Tsar Boris had insisted that the Jews were needed for various laboring tasks including road maintenance."[citation needed]
Shortly after returning to Sofia from a meeting with Hitler, Boris died of apparent heart failure on 28 August 1943, at approximately 16:22.[27] Due to its timing and suddenness, as "soon as the news of the king's illness and death appeared abroad, rumours of assassination spread throughout the world."[28] The American newspapers even stated that Hitler had gotten into an argument with the Tsar and attacked him, with the latter suffering a heart attack as a result,[29] with theNew York Times going so far as to publish the "bizarre story of a police inspector shooting Boris in the Sofia railway station."[28]
One theory is that Boris was poisoned on the orders of Hitler, who was greatly irritated after his last meeting with the Bulgarian ruler because of his refusal to hand over the Bulgarian Jews and to send troops against the USSR.[30] However, according to the Bulgarian Prime Minister,Bogdan Filov, "the discussion between Hitler and Boris involved the use of Bulgarian troops only in the Balkans, not in the Soviet Union".[31] Hitler "had asked Bulgaria to supply two divisions to fight in northern Greece and eventually inAlbania",[32] but "Boris promised only one."[32] Not only is it "doubtful that an argument over the use of one division in the Balkans would have provided Hitler with sufficient motive to have Boris assassinated",[31] there is also "no evidence that Hitler planned this alleged assassination. In fact, all things point to the contrary: that he was surprised by the king's death."[31]
His son,Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, did not reject the theory of a German assassination outright, but pointed out as probable the hypothesis that the USSR was also interested in the Tsar's death, in which case he argued that theNKVD may have been responsible.[33][34]Princess Marie Louise of Bulgaria stated in an interview that there was no definitive version of what had happened, but that she was convinced that her father had not been poisoned by theNazis or the British, but by the Russians.[35]
In his personal diary,Joseph Goebbels expressed his belief that the Italian government, in the person of Prime MinisterPietro Badoglio, was responsible for Boris III's death. On 10 September 1943, Goebbels wrote:
"The Fuehrer told me that it must now be regarded as certain that King Boris was poisoned. The German doctors have reached the conclusion that he was killed by snake poison. It is not yet known who mixed the poison. The German doctors wanted to perform an autopsy; the Bulgarian government agreed, but the royal family refused. I would not regard it as impossible that the poisoning was engineered by the Italians. After their latest act of treachery, I am ready to credit the Badoglio regime and the Italians generally with anything."
Three German doctors had been sent "to help the Bulgarian physicians"[28] after Boris fell ill. According to the diary of the German attaché in Sofia at the time,Carl-August von Schoenebeck, two of the three German doctors who attended the King – Sajitz andHans Eppinger – both believed that "poisoning was a possibility ... although they were reluctant to give a scientific opinion without an autopsy."[31] According to Schoenebeck, they speculated that he had died from the same poison that Eppinger had allegedly found two years earlier in the postmortem examination of the Greek Prime MinisterIoannis Metaxas. They claimed that this slow poison takes weeks to do its work, and causes the appearance of blotches on the skin of its victim before death.[36][better source needed] However, "no solid evidence has ever emerged to definitively prove that Metaxas was murdered. The official medical records are consistent with his death being caused by a severe throat infection, and no forensic investigation or autopsy at the time pointed to foul play."[37]
Hitler was convinced that the Italian royal court arranged for the poisoning of Boris III, as he believed thatPrincess Mafalda of Savoy, sister of Joan of Bulgaria, had visited Bulgaria four weeks before the monarch's death, and that her stay had coincided with the events of 25 July 1943,[38][39] whenItalian Fascist dictatorBenito Mussolini was removed from power byKing Victor Emmanuel III.[citation needed] However, Princess Mafalda "arrived in Bulgaria onlyafter King Boris's death, to attend the funeral",[20] as contemporary newspaper reports and photographs attest, and "Hitler's allegation that she came to Bulgaria before the king's illness is absolutely false and has never been taken seriously."[20]
Ultimately, there is "no firm proof"[40] that Boris's death was "due to foul play",[40] and the "story of an unidentified poison which induces a heart attack a week after its administration leaves one somewhat skeptical. Furthermore, the questions of both motive and culprit cannot be answered with satisfactory"[31] evidence. However, according to author Robert Bideleux, many Bulgarians "have no doubt wanted to believe that Boris was poisoned, because that would put both their former tsar and their country in a better light, by suggesting that they were really 'victims' of (rather than 'collaborators' with) Nazism."[21]
Following Boris's death, his six-year-old son,Simeon II, acceded to the throne, with a Regency Council appointed to exercise royal authority, headed by Boris’s brother,Prince Kiril of Bulgaria.[citation needed]
Following a large, impressive state funeral at theAlexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, where the streets were lined with weeping crowds, the coffin of Tsar Boris III was taken by train to the mountains and buried in Bulgaria's largest and most important monastery, theRila Monastery. After taking power in September 1944, the Communist-dominated government had his body exhumed and secretly buried in the courtyard ofVrana Palace, near Sofia. At a later time, the Communist authorities moved the zinc coffin from Vrana to a secret location, which remains unknown to this day. After the fall of communism, an excavation was made at Vrana Palace. Only Boris's heart was found, as it had been put in a glass cylinder outside the coffin. The heart was taken by his widow in 1994 to Rila Monastery, where it was reinterred.[citation needed]
A wood carving is placed on the left side of his grave in Rila Monastery, made on 10 October 1943 by inhabitants of the village ofOsoj,Debar district. The carving bears the following inscription:
To its Tsar Liberator Boris III, from grateful Macedonia.
 Arms of Boris as Prince of Tarnovo (1894–1918) |  Arms of Boris III as Sovereign of Bulgaria (1929–1943) |
TheLos Angeles Times reported in 1994 that theJewish National Fund's Medal of the Legion of Honor was being awarded posthumously to Tsar Boris III, "the first non-Jew to receive one of the Jewish community's highest honors".[70]
In 1996, Bulgarian Jews in the United States and the Jewish National Fund erected a monument in "The Bulgarian Forest" in Israel to honor Tsar Boris as a savior of Bulgarian Jews.[71] In July 2003, a public committee headed by Israeli Chief JusticeMoshe Bejski decided to remove the memorial because Bulgaria had consented to the delivery of 11,343 Jews from occupied territory of Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot to the Germans.[72]
Borisova gradina, the largest park in Sofia and one of the city's biggest boulevards are named after him.
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Boris III of Bulgaria Cadet branch of theHouse of Wettin Born: 30 January 1894 Died: 28 August 1943 | ||
| Regnal titles | ||
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| Preceded by | Tsar of Bulgaria 3 October 1918 – 28 August 1943 | Succeeded by |
