Crimes of the Yugoslav Partisans

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
madner
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#31

Post by madner » 12 Apr 2004, 22:55

Regarding Serbia and WWI industry. Prior to WWI it might have been developed, but the occupation took his tool. After WWI Serbia was hardly capable of any domestic production. Besides, the Serbian aramament industry couldn't produce guns, nor enough ammunition for the French guns.

In the interwar period the garganuan army was kept alive by French loans. The industrial development was close to zero.

On the italian units, at full strenght, the two regiment division would have had somethng like 10 000 men.

As for Chetniks being the true fighters versus Nazis, which territory did they free? How many German/Italian offensives were directed toward them? Last but not least, how came Chetnik particpated in the German/Italian/Ustashe offensive versus the partisans?

Ostuf Charlemagne
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#32

Post by Ostuf Charlemagne » 12 Apr 2004, 23:20

Madner : My dear ,I think you miss the point about a fact (" which territory do they free") . Not only it is discutable to use the verb " to free" ( by Titists or Tchetniks ??? !!!) talking about croatian territories ,but anybody with military experience will tell you that the goal of a guerilla is not "to free" and hold territories (that's the job of a regular army ) but to harass the enemy with hit and run tactics to make him feel unsafe and to comply him to divert lot of units to hold this ground ....


Ostuf Charlemagne
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#33

Post by Ostuf Charlemagne » 12 Apr 2004, 23:22

And your question was already answered (tchetniks / germans "collaboration") by Mills ans myself .Read all the thread before to post .

Lloyd
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#34

Post by Lloyd » 13 Apr 2004, 00:43

David Thompson wrote:Lloyd -- Please read my message above to Chetnik, and document your opinions next time.
I agree with you and I hope that this will be good documentation of mine opinion about chetniks and axis.
NERETVA: BATTLE FOR SAVING THE WOUNDED
Paul Neumann


Neretva. In March 1943 in the valley of Neretva (Herzegovina) the main operation group of NOVJ waged heavy fights with invaders' forces and collaborationist troops. During the fights about 3500 partisans were wounded.
Battle of Neretva

Reorganized and enlarged popular forces fought since 20 January till April 1943 with prevailing German and Italian forces as well as chetniks, ustaši and domobrani, who carried out so-called fourth offensive (operation Weiß). Invaders had concentrated altogether about 80 thousand soldiers and sought recapturing of partisan-liberated territories of Yugoslavia. Their concern was to secure their subsidiaries in case of possible allied landing in Balkans. NOVJ forces did not enter frontal fights. They were keeping a persistent defence in various areas - Serbia, Macedonia, Voivodina, and Slovenia - applying guerrilla tactics.

As invaders unfolded a full scale effort the General Headquarter decided to defend liberated areas with forces of two corps, whereas the forces of the Main Operation Group had to strike in south-eastern direction with a view to pierce to Montenegro, and then through Sanjak to Serbia. This operation was carried out in extremely difficult ground and weather conditions. The group was accompanied by the General Headquarter, Central Committee of CPY and AVNOJ and Central Hospital of NOVJ with some 4 thousand wounded. Together with troops also tens of thousands of refugees took the road.

Since 20 January lasted German advance on liberated regions in western Bosnia and in the neighbouring part of Croatia. Partisans lost many hamlets, including Bihac, but they managed to hold important communication routes. Meanwhile the Main Operation Group had crushed the Italian Division Murge and in the third decade of February reached Neretva River. Its eastern bank though was occupied by prevailing enemy forces. Despite of heavy fights partisans failed to force the river and to seize town Konjic and bridge. To a particular danger were exposed the wounded and ill carried in carts and on stretchers by ice-covered, steep mountain roads under the enemy's fire. The operation group's command decided to wage a pitched battle with chasing forces. On 3 to 5 March an efficient counter-attack in vicinity of Gornji Vakuf halted the enemy. Next night the operation group, reinforced with the 2nd NOVJ Division, forced Neretva after a bold attack and seized a bridgehead on the eastern bank. Then started crossing further groups with heavy weapons. After a night-long march at dawn 8 March the central hospital of NOVJ with the wounded and ill, as well as the column of refugees, had reached suspension bridge built by engineers on Jablanica. Saša Božoviæ, a staff officer and doctor, who assisted the central hospital of NOVJ, recalls her reminiscences in her book For you, my Dolores:

The column before us starts to wave. One can hear clutter of shoes and falling stones. They moved. I command: march. Soldiers relay the order down to the end of the column. We move slowly. We are crowded, we can only make small steps. Those before us set the pace. I am afraid, that we will be caught by dawn, and with it by rabid air raids and bombardments. I am not sure, whether the whole group has moved. (...) The more we advance the more the soil becomes muddier. The fog's doughy humidity overwhelms the column. Visibility is minimal. We scarcely look out for comrades going in front of us. Buzz. First hardly audible, resembling an underground roar, gradually intensifies. The road becomes more and more abrupt and difficult, it simply drowns in mud. Slippery stones slide down, every now and then we stumble and fall onto cold, sticky soil.
Finally Neretva. The bridge. Approach even more difficult, more slippery. The ground is not steep but it is incredibly rocky. These are not hitherto tiny, gravel shingles but large, sharp rocks, on which we nearly break our legs. The most difficult is the task of Banyates, whose whole unit is attached to help the hospital. They carry stretchers. Actually one stretcher takes four of them, but it is still a horrendous effort. They stumble at every step. They are tired, sleepy, and hungry... (...)
Flashes around. The enemy shoots. Ours shoot too. Flares sometimes resemble real torches. The roar strengthens as well. Everything explodes in the air. Then comes a relative stillness and only the rumble of Neretva breaks the silence. Dull, annoying like a roar from the abyss. I can hear human voices. They are muffled, unpleasant, clamoured by the water's noise. Stronger and weaker sounds of shots alter. We move untiringly. Finally one can see the bridge. Now it resembles a wounded beast, which groaning stubbornly resists the pressure of the flow. And the water pushes, crushes with rumble and racket, ebbs away just to attack even more impetuously, more fiercely. It does not give up. The bridge ruined, askew sunk with its middle in the river's bed and dug in its depth. This broken iron thread is already bound by our people's heat hands. They have done this inconceivable work with a superhuman effort. Firmly tied wooden logs stand the stress of combat units, the wounded, refugees, trains, packed horses. Here and there the logs have spread under enormous weight. One must be very careful, for they are wet and slippery. One walks along them like along the ice. There is an improvised rail by the side, but overloaded horses repeatedly damage it. Here and there holes are so big, that even a horse can easily fall through them. And underneath the raging Neretva seethes, foams, whirls in large craters, transforms in a huge watery bore, stresses, seizes and swallows. With impetus, noise and rage crushes on rocks. It does not spare the broken bridge, which resists waves, beats them back with cracking and roaring, till the water falls in another whirl. It whirls in many directions and unrestrained runs on swallowing everything it manages to seize. Its huge, furious strength makes me tremble. I have an impression, that like an evil spirit it only waits to seize and devour us. (...) Neretva interferes our passage on every step, it lays traps.

My column passes through the bridge. We call one another, but without an effect. Voices immediately vanish in the noise caused by Neretva. (...) We go on. Silence. Now I am too at the end of the column. Again wet rocks, again falling and slipping, but it is not like on Neretva. The road is difficult. Rapid elevation. We start crawling like lizards, grasping the least plants, stones. The most important is that we have to move on. I watch Banyates, who lift and carry the wounded. I watch and I simply cannot understand that fortitude, that inflexibility. One lays down onto the ground and lifts stretchers up, another one crawls behind him along a solid rock on all fours with the stretcher's handles leaned against his shoulders. Thus they crawl a metre after a metre. Without an order. (...)

It dawns. One can already hear bombers. Soon stukas will shower us with black pears. I hate their whistle. I turn to Neretva. It still remains in fog and darkness. Only its rumble, racket and clangour reach us. (...) During the passage only one thought used to absorb my mind: to pass the hospital through the bridge.1

The battle of Neretva, called the battle for saving the wounded, became an extraordinary exploit of Yugoslavia's national liberation forces. But despite successful passage through the river to its eastern bank partisans' situation was still difficult. Crowded on ice-covered rocky mountain slops, without food, without medicines for the wounded and ill, they were incessantly attacked by the aircraft. On 14 to 23 March the 2nd and 3rd NOVJ Divisions skilfully manoeuvring made several blows to the Germans and Italians, providing the operation group with possibility to leave the valley of Neretva and further march to Sanjak and Montenegro. Next obstacle to that march made Drina River, where the Italians had organized a strong defence. Partisans with a part of forces crossed the river and seized a bridgehead, then main forces of the operation group passed through the river. After four months lasting fights the operation group and concurrent civilian trains had got to the river Lim. The enemy temporarily ceased activities. However the supreme command's (the General Headquarter) intention to let the troops to rest and to deploy the wounded and ill in safer places were upset by the enemy's fifth offensive under the codename Weiß-2 (later - operation Schwartz).
During the battle of Neretva in clashes with partisans big losses were inflicted to chetniks, who collaborated with the Germans and Italians. They lost about one thousand killed and wounded (out of 7 thousand).2 After that defeat they played no role in further fights, especially in Montenegro and Herzegovina.


С.Божовић: Ратне \лубави. Теби, моја Долорес.

M.Coliæ, Pregled operacija na jugoslovenskom ratištu 1941-1945.

Lloyd
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#35

Post by Lloyd » 13 Apr 2004, 00:50

FIRST CLASHES: SHUMADIA
Paul Neumann


In October in German advance through Shumadia (south to Belgrade) took part armed units of Milan Nediæ's collaborationist government, formed in the end of August, and about 25 thousand strong altogether.2 The fights against detachments of NOPOJ were also supported by some groups of chetniks of Colonel (appointed to General by the government in exile) Dragoljub (Draža) Mihajloviæ, who had created a rightist resistance formation called the Army of the Homeland. Chetnik in Serbo-Croatian means a fighter, a militant. The name originated in the end of 19th century during the national liberation struggle against Turkey. In 1941 the name of chetniks was adopted by nationalist, pro-monarchist military formations created in Ravna Gora (western Serbia) and loyal to the former régime. Chetniks constituted the Army of the Homeland headed by appointed by the government in exile Colonel of the General Staff of the former royal Yugoslav army Draža Mihajloviæ (since 7 Dec. 1941 - a Brigadier General, since 19 Jan. 1942 - a Division General and the Minister of the Army, Navy and air Force in Slobodan Jovanoviæ's government, and since 17 Apr. 1942 - a General of the Army). They attacked partisan rears in Ivanica and Uzicka Pozega. They also had concentrated near Uzice, intending to strike on the General Headquarters of NOPOJ. Partisans drove back the blows struck by chetniks and passed on to a counter-attack in the valley of lower Morava. In effect of a pursuit they reached on 19 November and menaced Mihajloviæ's headquarters deployed in the mountains south-east to Struganik. In that situation the leader of chetniks addressed Josip Broz (Tito) with a proposal to cease hostilities and enter into negotiations. When on 20 November Gen. Franz Böhme, the commander-in-chief of occupation troops in Serbia, launched a new advance against partisans, he faced a joint partisan-chetnik defence.

Gen. Böhme intended to annihilate the main forces of NOPOJ and their General Headquarters concentrated in the region of Uzice, Cacak, Gornji Milanovac and Kraljevo. To this end the units of the 342nd Infantry Division struck against Valjevo through Pecka and Ljubovija. In heavy fights partisans with the General Headquarters retreated to Zlatibor. On 29 November the Germans entered Uzice. Two days before the newly reinforced from eastern front Germans' 113th Division launched an advance from Kraljevo area. A day after it dislodged partisans from spots Cacak and Uzicka Pozega as well as the town of Gornji Milanovac. The NediФ's detachments participating in the operation seized Rudnik. On 7 December the 113th Division occupied Novi Pazar. In effect of those activities main forces of NOPOJ with Tito's staff had retreated from western Serbia to north-eastern Montenegro (Sanjak), and then to eastern Bosnia. Partisans lost the areas liberated in July and August but they did not get destroyed. In a new place of accommodation in Bosnia, the General Headquarters started the reorganization of partisan forces. On 22 December 1941 out of the troops, which retreated from Serbia and two Montenegrin battalions was formed the 1st Proletarian Brigade - the first regular unit of popular military forces of Yugoslavia. In van of it were: Koèa Popoviæ - the commander and Filip (Fiæa) Kljajiæ - the commissar. By the end of the year 1941 popular forces of Yugoslavia were composed of 48 partisan detachments, 15 independent battalions and one proletarian brigade, 80 thousand soldiers and partisans altogether.3


V.Strugar, Jugoslavija.

David Thompson
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#36

Post by David Thompson » 13 Apr 2004, 03:43

Chetnik -- You wrote:
If you think the Serbs wanted the Germans out because they wanted their property, then ask yourself why didn't we also kick the Hungarians out and take their property too? The reason is because the Hungarians were communist and the Yugo commies who kicked out the Germans didn't want to offend Hungary, a fellow commie country. There is no proof that these Germans collaborated with the Nazis, at least not on any greater scale than the Hungarians in Vojvodina did. (emphasis added - DT)
The Serbs did "also kick the Hungarians out and take their property too." You must not be familiar with Tibor Cseres' work Serbian Vendetta in Bacska: Titoist Atrocities in Vojvodina 1944-1945, available online from the Corvinus Library at: http://www.hungary.com/corvinus/lib/cseres/index.htm

Lloyd -- Thanks for those sources.

michael mills
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#37

Post by michael mills » 13 Apr 2004, 04:33

David Thompson wrote:
The Serbs did "also kick the Hungarians out and take their property too." You must not be familiar with Tibor Cseres' work Serbian Vendetta in Bacska: Titoist Atrocities in Vojvodina 1944-1945, available online from the Corvinus Library at: http://www.hungary.com/corvinus/lib/cseres/index.htm
David,

I think it would be fairer to say that the Titoist government in Yugoslavia kicked out the Hungarians and took their property.

The Titoist Government did settle ethnic Serbs from Bosnia and Serbia, many of them former partisans, in Vojvodina and Slavonia on land confiscated from the former ethnic German and Hungarian inhabitants.

But the Titoist Government was in no way a Serb nationalist regime, and did not pursue a Serb nationalist agenda. Rather it was pursuing a Communist agenda which sometimes favoured one of the Yugoslav nationalities, at other time another.

Furthermore, the treatment of ethnic Germans and ethnic Hungarians differed. While practically all the ethnic Germans were driven out, a large Hungarian minority remained in Vojvodina and is there to this day. The existence of substantial Hungarian and Croat minorities in Vojvodina is the reason why Tito gave that region autonomy from the Republic of Serbia.

I personally would exercise care in the use of tendentious material produced by the various parties to the ethnic conflicts in former Yugoslavia. In my experience, they all present themselves exclusively as victims and their rivals exclusively as perpetrators.

David Thompson
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#38

Post by David Thompson » 13 Apr 2004, 04:53

Michael -- You said:
I think it would be fairer to say that the Titoist government in Yugoslavia kicked out the Hungarians and took their property.
I've never seen any evidence showing that the Titoist government commanded or directed the disorders in Bacska (Vojvodina) during the chaotic 1944-1945 period. If you have, I'd be very interested in any references.

As for the advice:
I personally would exercise care in the use of tendentious material produced by the various parties to the ethnic conflicts in former Yugoslavia. In my experience, they all present themselves exclusively as victims and their rivals exclusively as perpetrators.
I think it is apt. I have not forgotten our exchange on the "Grain of Salt" thread at:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=19424

in which you asked me a number of questions, to which I responded:
Michael --

(1) You asked:
"Does the "grain of salt" only apply to claims about Croatian Ustasha atrocities?"


No. The exchanges of WWII atrocity allegations between the Croats and Serbs are what I had in mind with my "grain of salt" advice -- not just the claims of Croatian savagery.

There appears to be no shortage of truly appalling atrocities on both sides, but it has been difficult for me to find reliable figures which might put the acts into perspective.

The nature of the alleged atrocities tends to throw this reader into a state of shock. Furthermore, many debates over and writings on these atrocities are characterized by a strident and vehement nationalism so strong as to call into question the objectivity of the accounts. The fevered nature of the allegations, in my opinion, requires extra effort on the part of the reader to remain impartial.

(2) You asked:
"Was the Titoist Government of Yugoslavia the only one that put out questionable claims about atrocities?"


The only claims of the Titoist government of which I am aware are those aired in the Tugoslav war crimes trials. These involved charges of treason, disproportionate reprisals, etc. I have never seen any official translations of the full proceedings in these Yugoslav cases. My knowledge of them is based on contemporary newspaper reports, and the statements and evidence from Yugoslav proceedings used in the Eichmann trial.

The exchanges of hair-raising atrocity allegations between the Serbs and Croats have been made, as far as I have seen, by scholars whose efforts were unofficial.

(3) You wrote: "
Are claims by the Titoist Government only to be taken with a grain of salt in relation to Croatian atrocities, or are that government's claims in relation to atrocities by Germans and Italians also to be subject to the same scepticism?"


Many of the Yugoslav claims about the behavior of the German armed forces track the findings of the US military tribunal in Nuernberg in its trial of the "Hostage case" (Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals vol. XI). I haven't read very much about Yugoslav claims of Italian atrocities.

(4) You concluded:
"These are not smart-arse questions. If we accept that claims made by the Titoist government be dubious, then we should be prepared to be critical about similar claims put forward by similar non-democratic governments (which of course does not mean blanket rejectionism)."


I didn't think your questions were "smart-arse", but to the point. Generally, my thought is that the serious reader owes to himself, and the serious writer owes to others, the duty to review the evidence on atrocities before accepting them as factual accounts. Where allegations abound and evidence is largely or entirely unavailable, skepticism is prudent.
To this you replied:
I think you are right.

And I think that the same clash of fevered nationalisms is also apparent in relation to other events during the Second World War.

michael mills
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#39

Post by michael mills » 13 Apr 2004, 05:03

David,

I have now had a chance to skim through some of the Hungarian book to which you provided a link, and it appears to me that it is strongly Hungarian-nationalist and anti-Serb in flavour, ie not a dispassionate historical work that tries to analyse a particular event without favouring one side at the expense of another.

Some of the flavour of the work is evident from the following excerpt from the preface:
They were especially cruel to priests and monks. In most cases, they stripped them naked and cut a strap in the shape of a cross from their backs. Then, for the sake of the toughest partisan women [my emphasis], they started to deal with their genitals, tearing their testicles with pliers, cutting off the penis.
The motif of the women of the other side as sadists who either attack their male enemies in a sexual way, or else enjoy watching such attacks, is a very common one in propaganda. For example it appears in early American images of the savage American Indian, it White propaganda about the Russian Bolsehviks (and vice versa), and of course most famously in regard to certain German women, eg Ilse Koch.

The motif, although used in chauvinist propaganda, most likely does not have its origin in inter-ethnic conflict, but rather in universal male sub-conscious fears about women.

You will note that this publication almost always refers to the "partisans" who persecuted ethnic Hungarians in 1944-45 as "Serbian". But no doubt you will also have noted that your fellow moderator, Allen Milcic, a person of self-declared Croat ethnic origin, continually makes the point that Tito's partisans were not exclusively of Serb nationality, but were drawn from all the Yugoslav nationalities, with a large Croat component.

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#40

Post by David Thompson » 13 Apr 2004, 05:24

Michael -- Your point doesn't address the topics we were discussing, namely:

(1) whether the Serbian population of the Bacska (Vojvodina) "kicked out the Hungarians and took their property;" or

(2) whether there is any evidence that the Titoist government commanded or directed such acts.

Instead, you are focusing on a peripheral matter. If you want to wrangle about the truth or falsehood of these atrocity stories, I will gladly leave the field to you. I have no way of knowing whether the details of such accounts are true, so I didn't use them to make my point. Such atrocity stories are almost completely unrelated to the assertion that there was an "ethnic cleansing" of Hungarians, as well as ethnic Germans, from the Bacska (Vojvodina) district.

By way of analogy, there are a number of works dealing with the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland after WWII. Some of them have their pages adorned with some ferocious atrocity stories. I might well question the objectivity of an account of an atrocity written at or about the time of those expulsions, but that doesn't address the question of whether the expulsions actually occurred.

Finally, if you can find a "a dispassionate historical work that tries to analyse a particular event without favouring one side at the expense of another" about 20th century ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, please recommend it to our readers. I'm sure we'd all be relieved.

michael mills
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#41

Post by michael mills » 13 Apr 2004, 05:36

There may well have been attacks on ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina in 1944-45.

At that time, the area had fallen under the control of the Soviet Army, which handed it over to Tito's forces. The attacks on ethnic Hungarians may have been carried out by local Serb civilians only, or by Titoist forces, or by a mixture of Titoist forces and local civilians, including ethnic Serbs but perhaps also including other nationalities, eg Croats,Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks. The Vojvodina was and is an ethnically very diverse region, due to the colonising activity of the Habsburg Empire from the late 17th century onward.

Given the repressive activities of the Hungarian army in the region, some Serb civilians may well have had a grudge against Hungarians in general, and may well have taken private reprisals in 1944.

But the ethnic Hungarian population of Vojvodina certainly was not driven out in its entirety. The article on Yugoslavia in my ancient (1966) Colliers Encyclopedia states that in 1953 ethnic Hungarians constituted almost 26% of the total population of Vojvodina.

madner
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#42

Post by madner » 13 Apr 2004, 09:18

Ostuf Charlemagne wrote:Madner : My dear ,I think you miss the point about a fact (" which territory do they free") . Not only it is discutable to use the verb " to free" ( by Titists or Tchetniks ??? !!!) talking about croatian territories ,but anybody with military experience will tell you that the goal of a guerilla is not "to free" and hold territories (that's the job of a regular army ) but to harass the enemy with hit and run tactics to make him feel unsafe and to comply him to divert lot of units to hold this ground ....
Ostuf Charlemagne wrote:And your question was already answered (tchetniks / germans "collaboration") by Mills ans myself .Read all the thread before to post .

That is non sense. The goal of guerillas is to defeat the enemy. As the enemy is usually stronger they often have to resort to harrasing tactcs, making it expenisve for the enemy to continue the occupation. But the ultimative goal is to eject the enemy from the territory. Harrasing tactics are a way (low intesity) to wage a guarila war.
However when the guarila movement grows, so do the huarila bands, and at the end they form an army.
This is precisely what happend, the guarila bands boecame brigades and divisions (and at the end an army) which fred and held considarable territory.
Why is it discutable to use the verb "to free"? In they eyes they did it, and it a certain messure of success. Would you prefer occupy instead, and how does it change the point, besides semantics?
Besides, both Titoist and Thetnicks laid claim to the pre war Yugoslavian borders, and it is save to say they did free it.

I have read the thread from the begin, and the question remains, if chetnicks were allies, why did they cooperate with fascist forces? how come they participated in a joint offensive versus partisans? Why was there no large scale offensives to destroy them, despite some dozen larger and several dozen smaller operations versus partisan formations?
Why did they conclude a ceasefire with ustasha forces to fight partisans if ustashas were fascist?

Ostuf Charlemagne
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#43

Post by Ostuf Charlemagne » 14 Apr 2004, 04:54

Madner : yes ...when the partisans convert to a regular army ,they hold territories ...but then they are a regular army and not partisans anymore.
And in the case of the titists it happened in 1945. In the case of the tchetniks it never happened ,they always remained a guerilla force ...

Pleaaaaaaaaaaase ,read my messages or the ones of Mills at the beginning .Here we explain how ,being allies ,the tchetniks went on in joint operations ,first with italians ,then with germans ...sometimes .And never with their lethal enemies ,the Ustashis.

Ostuf Charlemagne
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#44

Post by Ostuf Charlemagne » 14 Apr 2004, 04:56

LLOYD : I’m really tired . Most of you guys ,read just the recents messages and answer in an emotional fashion . In your case ,Lloyd ,you missed my point entirely and by far .( It seems as if I would have to send the same message again and again ; it’s OK if you disagree with me . That’s what the forum is all about,but at last ,please,
READ ALL THE THREAD before to answer !!! )

So let’s make my point clear for a last time .After that I will answer only to the ones who knows what we are talking about .

1. They are not MY tchetniks . I’m pro –Ustasha ( even if it make puke most of you ,guys ) . Back in 1991 many of my friends from my regiment joined the Croatian army ,and some the HOS (today Ustashis). One of my best friends had a price put on his head by the tchetniks and the Yougoslav federal army . I wanted to join the ustashis too,but I was “busy” with a war against communism in Centralamerica ,who was just finishing . And my wife wasn’t very happy with my idea to join my comrades back in Europe. I had already children and all that ...you know .Today I always regret not to have been there .... So I have certainly no sympathy for tchetniks and titists . The martyrdom of the croatian and bosnian people have ,instead ,all my sympathy .

2. Now what I am talking there is that I am currently writing a book about allies war crimes . Allen Milcic disagree with some of my numbers and we are talking facts and sources ,either if we like them or not . According to my sources 175.000 volksdeutschen were slaughtered either by titists or tchetniks (and by russians ,too ).
Milcic disagree with my sources so I want to know “his” number ,either if I agree or not .This way ,I remember him that some tchetniks were ,as POWs,murdered by the titists ( in this case , we are talking of “allies war crimes against the allies”,either if you agree or not ,the tchetniks were allies – if you don’t think so ,go to the messages of Thompson about the trial of Mihailovic ,in the same war crimes section .Here you will see how US airmen who have been shot down in Yougoslavia were assisted by tchetniks and wanted to testify for Mihailovic .Enough said .Besides Mihailovic was under orders of the king of Yougoslavia in exile in London ,not in Berlin or Roma ,my dear ...)

3. Then the talks went on about if the tchetniks had collabored with the Axis or not .My point ,supported with evidences by Mills , is that both the tchetniks and titist were more interested to fight a civil war between them .Before 1943 most of the operations of resistance were tchetniks ops ,not titists ones .(Read my post about how the tchetniks were betrayed by the western allies thanks to the group of homosexuals british intelligence agents – Kilby ,Klugman and Burgess – who were in fact soviet agents . Milcic denied it .My infos comes from Donovan .Donovan worked in the Cairo station to help the yougoslavian resistance and was one of the fathers of the later to be CIA and I think that this guy knew what he said...at last more than many readers of this thread .But some readers just don’t know who is who ) .Then the tchetniks had to join forces with italians , sometimes ,to defend themselves of titists attacks .At this time the germans put everybody to agree attacking both of them .Even the italian Venezia division attacked the tchetniks in 1942 ( and the tchetniks attacked the italian city of Gorizia as late as in 1945 ,as I evidenced ,) both facts that not even Milcic was able to deny (since they happened ...) and for me it show that tchetniks were not collaborating ,but they sometimes joined forces with axis troops in self-defense against communists . They joined to – sometimes with the germans after 1943 ( in particular with the 7thSS which was the spearhead of most counterinsurgence ops ). But what we are arguing there with Milcic is the date : 1941 or 1943 .Not the facts . (but dates have a tremendous effects on facts ...yes ,I know it is complex.War is complex .Life is complex .Death is a lot simpler by herself ...) By this time ( 1943) the italian armistice reforced really the titists which started ops – by their own -against the germans only by 1943 (before that the titists just limited to defend themselves against germans attacks .)

4. Even so the tchetniks never sided with the ustashis ,as you write (and I think that even if they had wanted to ,the Ustasha command would never accept !)– since their main ennemy were the croatians,the bosnians and the communists (italians and germans came far after that ) .Tchetniks were slaughtering croatian and bosnian people , and if you read all the thread you will see that I am the one who posted a picture of tchetniks torturing a croatian farmer .That’s my point and the point of Mills – who is pretty well documented too .

Then some readers like Milcic and you shows up pointing a legend : All bosnians and croatians were antifascists and the tchetniks were Axis collaborators . You even said that the tchetniks were “fascists”. Do you know what is fascism ? Instead to use a word in a pejorative way ,( like those journalists who explained us that Milosevic was a “fascist” or a “conservator” when he is a communist rascal ) , better learn the meaning of the word : Where the tchetniks favourable to a third way corporative economy ? Did they salute with a raised arm ? Was it a tchetnik representation at the international fascist congress of Montreux in 1934 ? Was a tchetnik present at the huge meeting of the European Youth in Germany in 1942 ? No ? But there were present groups of the HJ ,the italian Balilla , the french JEN (maybe the PPF and francists too) ,the belgian Jeunesses Rexistes ,the flemish and dutch and danish ,and the Youth of the norwegian Hird ,the slovak Hlinka Youth ,the bulgarian youth ,the rumanian Youth , the “Falanges Juveniles de Franco” ,the portuguese ,and the Ustashi Youth ...tchetniks wasn’t there ( if some serbians were maybe present ,they were the ones from Neditch ,not from Mihailovic ) ..... c’mon ,Lloyd !

Other thing : Some of you posted that Ustashas were collaborating with the nazis .They weren’t collaborating ,I beg your perdon ,because the independent state of Croatia ( the Greatest Croatia which included Bosnia-Herzegovina ) was the ally of Germany .So they weren’t collaborating with the “enemy” since their enemies were the enemies of Croatia : the tchetniks ,the communists ,the russians etc ...... And those ones were also the enemies of Germany ,by the way . Think with logic ,guys ...

And I think that today croatians must not be ashamed of their ustashis who fought for their homeland ,just as the bosnians volunteers of the “Handschar”. Of course ,that’s my personal point of view and everybody is free to disagree ,but we are not talking about that ,neither are we talking about who was right ,or who was nice ...nobody is right and nobody is nice in the middle of a war .. In fact ,Milcic ,Mills and myself are not arguing the reality of some facts that everybody knows , but the importance of a date (1943) as explaination of a situation ( And it is about the motives and date of this situation that we are arguing . So far the war is over .Nobody is gone to win it again ,uh ??)

Of course I agree with you that many tchetniks passed over to Tito .
And I don’t need to be “yougoslavian” to know about the Neretva battle (even a movie was made in 1967 .You were surely to young and maybe unborn to see it .I don’t believe in Hollywood movies to show History ,but this one was pretty well done ,with Orson Welles as an Ustasha catholic chaplain ,and a group of the 7.SS lost in a snowstorm .)

I think by now we know what my talks are ,either if we agree or not .By the way ,as a bosnian ,if you have some unpublished anecdotes of bosnian slaughtered by titists or tchetniks (maybe in your own family ?) or pictures ,etc ... ( I earch a story about hundreds or thousands bosnians civilians drowned in a river by the titists ,do you have numbers and or details ???) It may help me for my book .In this case ,please ,p.m. me .

Regards .

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Bergmolch
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#45

Post by Bergmolch » 20 Nov 2006, 14:16

There are thousands of thousands of corpses still buried in Slovenia forests.
We of course know who these corpses belongs to.
The people who lives there knows that as all the metaldetector guys from italy and slovenia do.
I've seen them, al lot of people that I know have seen them.
The only problem is: for some clear reasons we cannot talk about that yet.

Cheers
T

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