Radoje Knežević (Serbian Cyrillic: Радоје Кнежевић; 20 August 1901 – 22 June 1983) was a key member of the group that organised the Yugoslav coup d'état of 27 March 1941 that deposed the regency of Prince Paul, Dr. Radenko Stanković and Dr. Ivo Perović, along with the government of Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković. Following the coup he was appointed as the Minister of the Royal Court, and after the resulting invasion of Yugoslavia, he accompanied the King and government into exile in Cairo then London. Along with his brother Živan Knežević, he was a member of the so-called "League of Majors", which was at the centre of the ill-fated Greater Serbian agenda of the Yugoslav government-in-exile and who was instrumental in having Draža Mihailović appointed as Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Supreme Command. He was sidelined in June 1943 when he was appointed to the Yugoslav legation in Portugal. He remained in exile after the war, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour in absentia during the Belgrade Process conducted by the country's newly-established communist authorities, and emigrated to Canada where he lived until his death in 1983.
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Radoje Knežević in the context of Yugoslav coup d'état
The Yugoslav coup d'état took place on 27 March 1941 in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, when the regency led by Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was overthrown and King Peter II assumed full monarchical powers. The coup was planned and conducted by a group of pro-Western Serbian nationalist Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers formally led by the Air Force commander, General Dušan Simović, who had been associated with several putsch plots from 1938 onwards. Brigadier General of Military Aviation Borivoje Mirković, Major Živan Knežević of the Yugoslav Royal Guards, and his brother Radoje Knežević were the main organisers in the overthrow of the government. In addition to Radoje Knežević, some other civilian leaders were probably aware of the takeover before it was launched and moved to support it once it occurred, but they were not among the organisers. Peter II himself was surprised by the coup, and heard of the declaration of his coming-of-age for the first time on the radio.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia played no part in the coup, although it made a significant contribution to the mass street-protests in many cities that signalled popular support for it once it had occurred. The putsch was successful and deposed the three-member Yugoslav regency (Prince Paul, Radenko Stanković and Ivo Perović) and the government of Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković. Two days prior to its ousting, the Cvetković government had signed the Vienna Protocol on the Accession of Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Pact (Axis). The coup had been planned for several months, but the signing of the Tripartite Pact spurred the organisers to carry it out, encouraged by the British Special Operations Executive.