Serbia. Second War Serbian Chetnik Guerilla/Partisan Badge, Rare

In aluminum, manufactured in Italy in 1945, illustrating a sword in the center and incorporating a skull immediately above the grip, with a crown surmounting a monogram at the top of the badge just below the sword's point, reverse numbered in black "004106", measuring 37.3 mm (w) x 50.5 mm (h), vertical pinback, extremely fine.

Footnote: This a rare guerilla/anti-partisan badge for the Serbian Chetniks, a Serbian nationalist group dating to before the First World War. Although the Chetniks supported the Allies early in the war, even aiding downed airmen, the Allies chose to side with the communist and more ethnically heterogeneous "Partisans" instead. The Allies purportedly gathered evidence of a reluctance by the Chetniks to fight the Germans. At the end of the war many Chetniks were exiled or executed by the victorious Partisans.