Velibor Jonić

Velibor Jonić (Serbian Cyrillic: Велибор Јонић; 12 February 1892 – 17 July 1946) was a Serbian fascist politician and government minister in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia during World War II. He taught at the Military Academy in Belgrade and at the Yugoslav royal court before the war. He was also the secretary-general of Zbor. He became the Serbian Commissioner of Education on 10 July 1941. He was tried of collaboration by the communists following the war and was sentenced to death. He was executed in July 1946.

Velibor Jonić was born on 12 February 1892 in Krnjevo, Kingdom of Serbia to Krsta and Sofia Jonić (née Veljković). Before World War II, he taught at the Military Academy in Belgrade and worked as a journalist. He joined the Yugoslav National Movement (Serbian: Jugoslovenski narodni pokret, Zbor) before the war and became its secretary-general. He also worked as a teacher in the royal court. He was married and had one child.

Jonić was appointed Commissioner of Education within the Serbian puppet administration on 10 July. With his encouragement, 545 prominent Serbs signed the Appeal to the Serbian Nation on 13 August and called for collaboration with the Germans. On 29 August, the Germans put Milan Nedić in charge of the Serbian puppet administration. Jonić became Minister of Education on 7 October, having replaced Miloš Trivunac. As Minister of Education, he was given jurisdiction over the Serbian Orthodox Church. He attempted to win the church over to collaboration with the Germans, with little success. He was the chief editor of the weekly Srpski narod (1943–44).

On 28 August 1944, Nedić appointed Jonić to manage the evacuation of the Serbian puppet government to Germany. Jonić suggested that the 5,000 Serbian intellectuals who had expressed support for the German occupation be hidden in Serbian Orthodox monasteries or transferred to Germany along with the government ministers. The Government of National Salvation stopped operating on 3 October, when the Red Army entered Belgrade and handed power over to the Yugoslav Partisans. Jonić fled Yugoslavia towards the end of the war. He and other exiled members of the Serbian puppet government met with Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo V and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović in Vienna in December 1944. After the war, Jonić was accused of collaborating with the Germans and was tried in Belgrade. He was found guilty of collaboration and executed in Belgrade on 17 July 1946.