Last modified: 2010-01-30 by ivan sache
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Macedonia was annexed in 1941 by Bulgaria and the Bulgarian flag was used there
Željko Heimer, 14 October 1995
Flag of the Independent Macedonian State, 1944 - Image by António Martins, 19 February 1999
On September 5, 1944 the Bulgarian troops began to abandon their positions in Macedonia after the Red Army invaded their country. Ivan Mikhailov, the leader of IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization - VMRO) who refused to live in Macedonia under Bulgarian control and was conspiring with Hitler and Himmler on the creation of Macedonian military units, returned to Skopje and the Germans offered him a job of the Führer of the new Independent Macedonian State. Smartly concluding that the Germans lost the war already, he declined and left for Italy. His follower and mayor of Skopje, Spiro Kitanchev took the job and became the President of the Administration of the Independent Macedonian State. As it was proven later, Mikhailov made the right move as he managed to live until 1990 in Rome while Kitanchev was soon captured by the Tito's partisans, tried, sentenced to death and promptly executed.
The English and Russian versions of Wikipedia claim that the flag of the Independent Macedonian State of 1944 was the flag of IMRO (VMRO) - a flag horizontally divided red-black.
Christian Kretowicz, 26 September 2009