Talk:List of World War II puppet states

Reminder

Hey, just commenting that any puppet states added should be backed up by at least one source, as it is with all of the others. Cnd474747 (talk) 04:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Inaccuracies, confusion and sourcing

This list has several significant problems just regards Yugoslavia, and the sources are not sufficiently academic for MILHIST A-Class. For example, there was no "Independent State of Montenegro" (it was an Italian occupied territory under a military governor, then a German occupied territory under field command post 1040), there has never been a country called "Italian Croatia", and neither the Commissioner Administration or Government of National Salvation were puppet states (they were quisling entities in an occupied territory). There appears to have been some conflation between an occupied territory, annexed territories and puppet states. The Independent State of Croatia was a puppet state. The list is not ready for MILHIST A-Class review, I suggest you withdraw it, revise it completely and improve the referencing, then take it to WP:MHAR for BL assessment as a first step. Great initiative in developing it as far as you have, but it needs a lot more work. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

the Government of National Salvation was never controlled by Italy. Neither it nor the Commissioner Administration were puppet states. They were mere tools of the military occupation regime in most of what is now Serbia. This is very clear from Tomasevich. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

As there has been no response here, I'm going to remove the occupied Yugoslav territories from the puppet state lists. The academic sources such as Lemkin and Tomasevich are crystal clear that the only puppet state in Yugoslavia during WWII was the Independent State of Croatia. The rest were occupied territories or were annexed to Axis states with Hitler's approval. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 23:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Montenegro

As regards Montenegro, the Italians intended to revive the monarchy, and the day after they declared it (13 July 1941), there was an uprising which caused them to rethink it. They subsequently established a governorate under a military governor (Biroli). There was no "Independent State of Montenegro", it was a military occupied territory from the time of the invasion until the Germans withdrew. The relevant scholars on this topic are Lemkin, Pavlowitch and Tomasevich just for starters. They are cited in the Italian governorate of Montenegro#Administration section of the article in question. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67:Thanks for all the help, and I apologize for not responding. In the future, could you please notify me by either pinging me like I just did, or simply using my user page ([[User:Cnd474747]])? Thanks again for the help; it's impossible for one person to know it all, and I've really been the only one working on it so far. Nice to see someone else doing some major editing.Cnd474747 (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

East Germany as a Puppet State

2 years ago a user removed East Germany with no prior discussion because they said it was not during WWII and because it was a satellite government and not a puppet state. While there is an argument to be made that it was a satellite government, it was commonly believed at the time to be a puppet state and there are certainly arguments to be made for its inclusion in the list. Cnd474747 (talk) 05:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No, there are no arguments for its inclusions. The only "sources" you could provide are a couple of articles of anti-soviet propaganda. No serious scholar has ever denied that it was a sovereign state between 1949 and 1990.--Ihohh (talk) 11:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Describing my edit as "unsourced nonsense" is simply churlish first of all, as it included two links to academic journals and respected authors. Peyton V. Lyon held multiple professorships in Political Science (University of Western Ontario and Carleton University). Lawrence L. Whetten is an even more laughable claim: he published 28 books, several in peer-reviewed sources such as Cambridge Press and Oxford Press, as wells as writings in at least 128 journals. Any claim that he is not a "serious scholar" is simply incorrect and misguided by your own biases. I invite you to actually read my edit, as it emphasized that contemporary scholars claimed the state was a puppet state but left your (so far unfounded) claims open to discussion.

IF you find a source to back up the narrative you're peddling, I'll gladly accept your edits, but given that I've found with relative ease two sources to back my claim and none for yours, that seems unlikely. Further reversions will result in a request for it to be protected from your edits. Cnd474747 (talk)

I hold no objections to the credentials of the above mentioned sources, I do question whether or not East Germany, established in 1949, properly fits into this page's subject matter and if so why not also include the many other eastern european puppet states formed by the USSR after the war. OgamD218 (talk) 05:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I am open to adding any puppet states created by the Soviet Union after the war if their creation is a direct consequence of the war. I am not familiar with those states, though; could you direct my attention to a few? Cnd474747 (talk) 18:42, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Surely the GDR is out of scope for this article? It was created four years AFTER the war ended. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:56, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Peacemaker67 I think we should wait and see if any other editors weigh in on this matter,

Cnd474747 (talk) especially, but it is my position as well that the GDR should be removed. OgamD218 (talk) 21:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Since we haven't heard back from Cnd474747 yet (who it seems only contributes to wiki every few months-which is fine but we can't wait to proceed based on that kind of schedule) and considering that consensus both now and in the past from all other editors who've ever weighed in on this issue (going back years), has been that the German Democratic Republic should not be included/listed as a World War II puppet state for multiple reasons, most compelling of which being Peacemaker67 the simple fact the GDR did not come into exist until years after the war had ended. OgamD218 (talk) 05:06, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Concur, obviously. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:28, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response time. I don't check every discussion page on a regular basis; if you want to get me please continue to ping my name like you did above. The reason I've included it is that it was created as a direct consequence of the war. It was obviously not a puppet state during the course of the war but would not have existed had it not been for the war. Do you care to flesh out the other reasons? I am open to discuss. Cnd474747 (talk) 18:42, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Cnd474747 (talk) I delve deeper into this in my response to your inquiry on my talk page where I pinged you earlier. I can copy and paste that message here if you think that would be easier. But for now, in short I think the biggest issue is a firm determination as to what exactly this is supposed to be a list of. Right now it is a very disorganized list of puppet states under the influence of major participants of WWII within some general undefined time period of "before, during after". Relevant puppet states are arguably excluded as well irrelevant ones being included depending on what exactly this is supposed to be a list of. If I'm understanding your last message currently you consider this a list of Puppet States created BECAUSE of World War II? OgamD218 (talk) 02:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

OgamD218 (talk) thanks, I just read that response, as I had forgotten about that message. The intent of the page to me when I created it was to be a list of puppet states that were in existence during WWII, primarily because of the war. Truthfully when I created it I had a loose understanding of what a puppet state was and I agree that some of the pre-war states, such as the Tuvan People's Republic, could easily be removed. I have a harder time removing the Japanese-created puppet states, as they were a direct result of their pre-war movements into China; though truthfully they are more properly included as part of the Second Sino-Japanese War, there is some overlap between their actions in China and WWII in general. I feel the same about the German puppet states, as well as Italy's Albanian one; I think those go without saying, personally. As for your inclusion of British puppet states, I welcome you to include your knowledge here on the page, as the British states in the far east and their status as puppet states has always been somewhat murky to me, as some people consider them to be puppet states and others do not. Finally, on the inclusion of post-war puppet states, I feel they are relevant because they were created because of the war; if there is a strong community opinion to remove them I am ok with that but I think the correlation between the War and these states is fairly clear, personally. Cnd474747 (talk) 12:26, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

@Cnd474747: Sorry I responded below before I saw you also answered to this thread as well. I cover most of what you're saying in my response to your original post on my talk page if you wish to reference there. For now to make everything easier let's limit all discussions re-this article to the thread below. OgamD218 (talk) 05:38, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Cnd474747: I saw you added new language covering the Soviet Union's acquisition of two puppet states stemming from but not inherently during World War II. I take issue with this specific language because it fails to cover the total scope of Soviet expansion due to the immediate aftermath of World War II. The German Democratic Republic is one of at least five eastern european states to fall under Soviet dominance. If East Germany, not established until 1949, then why not also include the Polish People's Republic (est 1947), Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (est 1948), Socialist Republic of Romania (est 1947), People's Republic of Bulgaria (est 1946) and Hungarian People's Republic (est early in 1949, months before East Germany). I do not agree with including any of these states on the list, just that they either warrant mention or stand show that any mention of East Germany is unnecessary. I would also further note that calling any of these countries "puppet states", most historians have considered all of them, including East Germany to be "satellite states", a similar but still distinct status. OgamD218 (talk) 04:35, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@OgamD218: I posed the question about the inclusion of that change several days ago and went ahead and made it given there were no rebuttals. I have linked several sources in now-removed edits which described East Germany as a puppet state; they were all scholarly sources, though the view is dated. I frankly see no problem with mentioning it in passing; the year is irrelevant since it is not in the official 'list'. If you can find evidence the other states you listed were or are considered puppet states by a scholarly source, again, please feel free to include them. This is a group effort, after all. Cnd474747 (talk) 13:43, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The reason East Germany is mentioned as opposed to those other states is because historically it has been viewed as a puppet state, whereas none of those were as far as I know. What differences to you delineate it into being a satellite state rather than a puppet state? Cnd474747 (talk) 17:18, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Scope issue

I propose that this list be limited to puppet states created during WWII (ie between 1 September 1939 and 2 September 1945). Many of current inclusions appear to have no rationale, and rightly belong elsewhere. Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with @Peacemaker67: that this page's scope needs to both clarified and limited. I would however suggest maybe expanding the dates to include puppet states created through conflicts leading up to World War II. To be more specific, I'm referring to puppet states such as Manchukuo, created in 1932 in the early stages of what would escalate into the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would become a major theatre of the Pacific War. I still feel that East Germany should remain excluded as it would not come into being until late 1949. OgamD218 (talk) 14:10, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree that Second Sino-Japanese War states in China should stay, as well as Italian and German pre-war states in Albania and Slovakia, as these movements immediately preceded the war. I am perfectly ok removing the Tuvan People's Republic. Aside from East Germany, the only post-war state currently on the list is Russia's Azerbaijan People's Government, which was a state post-war because the Soviets were too slow to leave following the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran and the eventual victory. Is this state problematic? If not, I don't see why East Germany is an issue, as the impetus for its creation was fairly similar, though delayed by four years due to international deliberations. In other words, the Soviets occupied both territories only because of their involvement in the war. Cnd474747 (talk) 12:33, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

The "slow" pace of the Soviet withdrawal from northeastern Iran does not change the fact they never established a puppet state government until the war was definitely over. In actuality, The People's Republic of Azerbaijan was created in the late 1940s for the same reason as East Germany and that was-to serve the post-War interests of the USSR. In 1946, the Soviets reneged on the Allied promise to withdraw from Iran once the war ended, the Soviets withdrew only after a harsh diplomatic standoff with the US, leaving the Azerbaijan People's Government in their place (this is even mentioned briefly in the article's summary of the APG). While there is of course a World War 2 connection, these states as puppet governments, played no role whatsoever in the war's course and were both political constructs of the post-war world, neither belongs here in my opinion. @Peacemaker67: what say you? We are in agreement regarding the inclusion of the Tuvan People's Republic so I will remove it. OgamD218 (talk) 04:40, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

What if we just limit it to puppet states that existed on 1 September 1939 and those created between that date and 2 September 1945, that were in any way involved in the war. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:13, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: I don't think that that's a terrible idea but I don't think it would be the most encyclopedic approach. We tend to forget the fact that while World War II began for Western Europe on September 1 1939, for the 500 million people living in China it began in 1937 at the very latest, arguably as early as 1931. The puppet states Japan set up starting in 1932 had a profound impact on the pacific theatre of the war and are equivalent to the puppet states created during the war by Germany in Europe. I would favor removal of some puppet states currently present such as the Baltic puppets the Soviet Union set up during wars that began ended but were still separate conflicts from World War II, and furthermore these states were de-established before the Soviet Union even entered World War II. OgamD218 (talk) 05:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't think these two ideas are mutually exclusive. If a puppet state was created by Japan pre-1939 and not disestablished before 1 September 1939, it is included under the scope I am suggesting. When are you suggesting the Soviet Union entered WWII? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:48, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

We could just discuss which ones might fall outside the proposed scope and see whether it works? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:08, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I would argue the Soviet Union entered WWII on June 22, 1941 at the start of Operation Barbarossa. While it is true the Soviet Union invaded Poland a week or so after the Nazis-the Allies rather than declare war on the USSR merely issues strongly worded statements and even recognized the Soviet Annexation of the territory is conquered, thus the USSR was not involved in WWII until the Nazi invasion. This is at least my interpretation of the events. I would say avoid created before 1939 as a catch all because that would open up countless other Colonies and Mandates under the thumb of Western States. Just so we can get closer to the same page, what exactly are you suggesting? OgamD218 (talk) 06:49, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

You would be pretty isolated on that interpretation. The Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, no declaration of war is irrelevant. They then annexed their bit. This article is about puppet states that are described as such by reliable sources, not colonies and mandates. For example, the Independent State of Croatia (Germany and Italy), but not the Territory of Papua or British India. I'm not seeing a lot of entities on this list that are going to far foul of my suggested redefinition. What ones are you concerned about? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:06, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

With regards to the commentary of @Peacemaker67: regarding the lack of direct impact in the war, I can understand this line of thought. Could we perhaps remove Azerbaijan and keep Germany removed and include them in the introduction with a note such as: "Though created after the war, the APG and GDR are puppet states that were created as a direct result of the actions of World War II"? @OgamD218: As for including territories of East Africa under British rule, I am open to including them but have little knowledge of them and do not wish to embark in the research to include them here myself; at the moment I have other focuses. If you can find scholarly sources that either directly call them puppet states or clearly draw the similarities through 'victors' verbiage, feel free to add any you feel are relevant. Cnd474747 (talk) 17:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: Which opinion would I be pretty isolated in? Regardless I would strongly disagree with you that the fact the allies declared war on Germany-but not on the USSR for invading Poland in September in 1939 is irrelevant? This is an important distinction with regards to states currently included on this page. If the USSR "entered the war" starting in September 1939 and not June 1941, then all of the Baltic puppet states now included, belong, but if not they should be deleted. To be specific, the states I'm referring to are The Finnish Democratic Republic, The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. As reflected on the page currently, all of these Soviet Puppet States were established and dissolved during World War II but all came into existence after Poland surrendered in October 1939 and seized to exist before Operation Barbarossa. With regards to the Allied puppet states, I may have spoken too broadly calling them "Mandates and Colonies", I am aware of the distinction. When referring to British Puppet States not created during WWII but still relevant to the conflict I mean the many Indian princely states that were never formally absorbed as colonies of the British Empire but governed as British puppets over the local population. The same arguably could be said for Egypt and some other parts of the Middle East. While it is true that the expression "Puppet State", is not traditionally used to refer to Allied holdings but this has more to do with the fact that the expression came into common use in the West and has long been used largely as a pejorative. OgamD218 (talk) 12:38, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The World War II article (of which this is effectively a child list), uses the dates I have specified while acknowledging there are some with different views. This is a long-standing consensus position on that article and on en WP in general, and it is my view that those dates should be used here. It would make no sense whatsoever to use a different set of dates for this list. WP uses what the reliable (and as Cnd474747 says, scholarly) sources say, so if you have such sources that state that the Indian princely states were "puppet states", then perhaps you could identify those sources here. Same goes for any others. All of the current entries need their sources verified to ensure that the consensus academic position is that they are "puppet states". Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:18, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: So to be clear, absolutely no where in the World War II article does it specify that the Soviet Union was in the war prior to the launch of Barbarossa, I fail to see what point you were/are trying to make anymore in that regard but we did discuss at length the reasons for clarifying dates/making exceptions. Though I'm not necessarily all that interested in the topic, I have never heard of their being any serious academic dispute over whether or not the 502 princely states of British India were anything more than puppet states. OgamD218 (talk) 03:09, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Tabular format very hard to navigate

The very useful and comprehensive information here is almost entirely negated by its formatting as a table, with narrative and explanations squeezed into very narrow, very long columns. This no doubt happened during successive edits (e.g. adding flags) but this article was awkward (nearly impossible) to navigate. It also means that an ordinary reader can't easily locate and visit an individual state (Croatia, Slovakia) from the Table of Contents, only an occupier of several puppet states. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah,impossible to read on a mobile. Good example of when not to use a table. See what you think of the format change in the Soviet Union section. Also, question: Is the color coding working for anyone else? Cause I don't see it, but maybe it's just an Android thing. Elinruby (talk) 09:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree about the colour codes; I replaced them with more-relevant headings in the Soviet section. I approve of your other re-formatting so far. —— Shakescene (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I got through the Japan section, which is the one you want to work with right now, right? A couple of things: if it is important to sort by what happened before the war vs what happened after the war, the problem with that is that we run out of header levels. I'd suggest losing "Allies" and "Axis" as unnecessary for most readers, and adjusting down the line, but I am really tired of this right now and if you have a better idea then hip hip hurray. I'll come back and do Germany sometime soon. Also, I moved the flags inside their respective sections and did some fiddling with the wrap to give acceptable results on both landscape and portrait in mobile view; not up to cranking up Windows right now, so you tell me. I usually like your changes and I agree that somebody was probably going to get upset about the flags going away. Last, I did some copyediting on things that annoyed me, like the extra space after the period, and anything egregious that I saw, but it's probably worth reading through for English as I definitely saw some stuff that wasn't, and I wasn't looking for that. And last of all, since Wikipedia has a tendency to blame the last person to touch something, I want to specify that I was there for format and did absolutely no fact-checking Elinruby (talk) 02:13, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

United Kingdom

Sentence 1. "widely seen as a puppet state" Sentence 2. "not traditionally seen as a puppet state"

Just saying Elinruby (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby:The first sentence refers to Iraq, and the second sentence excludes Iran. That threw me too.

I've tried to fix this typographically; I hope that makes that sufficiently clear.

—— Shakescene (talk) 04:10, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll look later. Thinking about that article makes me tired. Going to have to look up the definition of a puppet state. I take it that UN mandates don't count? Elinruby (talk) 04:53, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

thanks Elinruby (talk) 20:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Iraq

Kind of hard to believe that it didn't have a name in Farsi. Is it possible that somebody conflated Farsi and Arabic? Elinruby (talk) 02:29, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Resolved by Shakescene's edit Elinruby (talk) 20:32, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Confused organisation of Albania & Hellenic State

Currently, two German puppet states (Albania and the Hellenic State) are just the successors to the puppet states held by Italy before she made peace with the Allies. This leads to a confused chronology and broken logic for any non-expert wandering onto the page.

Should German and Italian puppets be merged under a common heading, with the Hellenic State and Kingdom of Albania each merged (and explained)? Or is there some other way of cleaning this up? —— Shakescene (talk) 04:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC) @Elinruby:

I think you need a topic matter expert and that is not me. Peacemaker67 works with Yugoslavia and might have an opinion about this, or know someone who would.Elinruby (talk) 06:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby:

¶ I've made a stab or a start at reshuffling Italy and Germany to put this in clearer logical and chronological order. But the text still needs some elucidation and cleanup by a subject-matter expert like @Peacemaker67:

—— Shakescene (talk) 13:49, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Albania

From 1939 to 1943, Albania was in a personal union with Italy in the person of the Italian king and had an Italian vice-regent in residence wielding his powers, so the description of it as a "kingdom" is only accurate in the sense that the Italian king was the "King of Italy and Albania, and Emperor of Ethiopia". Raphael Lemkin said that "a protectorate was established over Albania by Italy in the course of a prolonged belligerent occupation". The article title Italian protectorate of Albania (1939–1943) is descriptive and accurate. There was a local administration, but it was completely controlled by the Italians. The Germans merely occupied the existing protectorate, the personal union with Italy was dissolved, along with most of the Italian-imposed laws, and they empowered those who were willing to administer it (mainly Kosovar Albanians) within certain limits. Fischer, who is probably the best source in English, states that after they declared independence (with German encouragement and guidance), the situation was akin to the Independent State of Croatia or the Slovak State, both of which were quasi-protectorates or client states. The supreme leadership was officially a regency council representing the Albanian king ousted by the Italians in 1939, Zog I. Zog, who lived in exile during the war, wasn't formally deposed until after the war, so de jure it was the Kingdom of Albania again, but really it was largely an anti-Zog puppet government in a country under German occupation. I would prefer Italian-occupied Albania (1939–1943) and German-occupied Albania (1943–1944), because they were both under German belligerent occupation. Given the significant differences between the two, I don't think merging them makes sense. I'll do some digging in refs about Greece and post below. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

So the term puppet state is correct with respect to these states? statelets? Also, it seems like we have two different sections titled "Kosovo"? Any reality checking you have time for in this area would be very welcome Elinruby (talk) 10:43, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Kosovo question applies to Collaboration with the Axis powers, but still interested in your answer if you have one. No rush, though, I am pretty preoccupied with something else right now Elinruby (talk) 10:50, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

bulgarian puppet state

Independent Macedonia (1944) {?) Elinruby (talk) 19:18, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

this is not military history

The article appears to have suffered from the misconception that everything that happens in a time of war is military. I suggest setting a terminology section with some (referenced) definitions that distinguish puppet states vs occupied territory vs colonies. Elinruby (talk) 01:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Obscure sentence added to lead section

@Elinruby:

I could not make sense of this sentence added to the lead:

Local governments took responsibility, for actions of the puppet government taken in the interest of the foreign puppet-master power.

What are "local governments" in this sentence? What is intended by the comma? Is a verb missing? Would a sentence like the following convey the desired meaning?

Puppet governments took at least nominal responsibility for many measures that were in fact decided and directed by the foreign occupation authorities.

—— Shakescene (talk) 03:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Comma is an oversight. This text was edited down from the lede of puppet government (since we don't mention Persia and I think it's the wrong period anyway). But then I was interrupted by a short power outage and forgot to come back to it and re-read. Your edit is fine with me, assuming you agree with it. I think the issue of responsibility might be important, no? Elinruby (talk) 04:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

(some time later) I think maybe I mean perceived responsibility. Or perceived autonomy Elinruby (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

edited this some more, sorry about that. Elinruby (talk) 10:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Puppet state is also a list

I realize that there is a difference in scope, but shouldnt we either call it a list or rewrite it somewhat? Elinruby (talk) 10:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is there a government instead of a puppet state?

The Axis section of the article shows the National Salvation government as a puppet state, that’s not true. I’m pretty sure the National Salvation government did not control any land as the territory of Serbia was administered by the German military. Correct me if I’m wrong. KurdîSerbexo (talk) 23:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Well... I don't know if you are wrong, but Government of National Salvation seems to think so. It does explicitly use the term. But ok, that's Wikipedia and Wikipedia can be wrong (although we try to prevent that).

But a quick skim of that article says that the Germans told Nedić that if he didn't take over, they would just let the Bulgarians do whatever. This sounds a lot like the German telling Pétain that if he didn't cooperate that would put the actual anti-Semites in power. French ones in that case, but the argument sounds similar, and Vichy France *is* considered a puppet régime.

This being Wikipedia, all of this is discussable starting from "what is a puppet state", but if you want to take issue with something, bring some academic sources. A lot of times people want to argue that something historical is wrong because it isn't what they learned in school, and that doesn't cut it. They don't talk much about Vichy in schools in France either. Feel free to ask any other questions that you may have.Elinruby (talk) 09:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)