Tito - war criminal?

[Kingdom of Montenegro]

You are simplifing thinks to mach here.Whole ww2 was conflict betwen fashist and anti-fashist powers.Democratic world recognised that Tito was anti-fashist,unlike NDH which was creation of the nazi Germany.I don't see what is offending in my atitude that I like someone who was anti-fashist.

[Spy]

@ Kingdom of Montenegro

You said:

Yes,I don't think he ordered that.He (Tito) probbably found out about it,but to late.

Put up evidence or shut up! In spite of your claims, Tito knew and ordered these massacres. Didn't you read the texts that I've posted:

As soon as Tito was in power, he set up concentration and slave labor camps throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of all ages, sexes, and from every walk of life were imprisoned, tortured, and finally liquidated. Croatia became and immense graveyard - her ditches, ravines, forests and rivers all crowded with corpses

And look here what I've found:

Bleiburg i križni put hrvatskog naroda je zloèin engleskih vojnih vrhova i partizanskog komandanta maršala Josipa Broza Tita. Tito je naredio ubijanje hrvatskih civila i razoružanih hrvatskih domobrana i ustaša, nakon što su ih razoružane predali Englezi partizanima 15. svibnja 1945. Naime deset dana kasnije, toènije 26. svibnja 1945. Tito je javno istakao na mitingu u Ljubljani: “Što se tièe ovih izdajica kojih je bilo u svakom narodu, meðu svim ljudima, to je sada stvar prošlosti. Ruka pravde, osvetnièka ruka naroda, veæ je stigla veæinu; samo manjina izdajica uspjela je pobjeæi i staviti se pod inozemno zaštitnièko krilo. Ta manjina nikada više neæe zuriti u naše lijepe planine, naša cvjetna polja. Ako se to i dogodi, trajat æe kratko vrijeme”.

I know it's in Croatian but I haven't found an english site with such informations, I hope some good english and croatian speaking members could translate the underlined text (Allen Milcic could you please).

Source:

http://www.ganganet.net/karlorotim/zrtv ... enzija.htm

[Spy]

You are simplifing thinks to mach here.Whole ww2 was conflict betwen fashist and anti-fashist powers.Democratic world recognised that Tito was anti-fashist,unlike NDH which was creation of the nazi Germany.I don't see what is offending in my atitude that I like someone who was anti-fashist.

So the slaughtering of more than 150 000 innocent people is a "Anti-fascistic" and "Democratic" way to solve problems?! Tito wasn't an anti-fascist like some partizans, Tito was a communist. There is a great difference between anti-fascism and communism.

[yerbamatt]

Yerbamatt -- We don't permit national insults here such as:

could you give us a complete list of "positive accomplishments of the Croatian people during the war" - I would be more than happy to have a glance at it.

and

if Croats, as you're saying, were "singled out and vilified", they can mostly blame themselves for it.

The rules for posting in this section of the forum may be found at:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=47046

I beg your pardon - what national insults ? (BTW, both my quotes very conveniently cut out of context - congratulations!)

I've just asked another moderator, Allen Milcic, a question to confirm his previous well-founded claims about "positive accomplishments of the Croatian people" - that's all. I can see some rules ot this apolitical forum (I still believe in it) are freely used to shut some critics and nonconformists down.

Anyway, it's never to late to learn, I guess - I'd rather try to contact the Simon Wiesenthal Center to get a straight answer in the above matter.

Regards...

[Kingdom of Montenegro]

Spy,Why should I belive in your sources,which are procroat and says nothing about Croat crimes in ww2.It is strange that I can't find anything about Bleiburg in reliable sites like Simon Wiesenthal Center.

It is evidentiall that it is somehow popular to reverse truth nowdays.It is popular to defend nazi Germany,Ustaše and other forces of evil and to acuse people who fought against that evil.When I see threads like Polish brutality against German civilians,Tito war criminal,Brutality against SS soldiers...it got me sick.You are really trying to equal systematic extermination done by Germans and Ustaše with some rare cases of allied crimes against them.Well,I am sorry that they didn't win the war,to see how would they deal with their enemies.

[David Thompson]

Yerbamatt -- You said:

I beg your pardon - what national insults ? (BTW, both my quotes very conveniently cut out of context - congratulations!)

Neither of your quotes were taken out of context. Your remarks were oafish and insulting national slurs, easily recognizable as such to anyone of average intelligence.

You then said:

I've just asked another moderator, Allen Milcic, a question to confirm his previous well-founded claims about "positive accomplishments of the Croatian people" - that's all.

What you said is here on this e-board for all to read, and contrast with your mischaracterization of your remarks.

Next you said:

I can see some rules ot this apolitical forum (I still believe in it) are freely used to shut some critics and nonconformists down.

The rule of civility applies to everyone here -- including you. When it comes to civility, we're not interested in "nonconformists." The rule is obligatory. If you can't or won't be civil, be gone.

You concluded:

Anyway, it's never to late to learn, I guess - I'd rather try to contact the Simon Wiesenthal Center to get a straight answer in the above matter.

Adios.

[yerbamatt]

Spy,Why should I belive in your sources,which are procroat and says nothing about Croat crimes in ww2.It is strange that I can't find anything about Bleiburg in reliable sites like Simon Wiesenthal Center.

It is evidentiall that it is somehow popular to reverse truth nowdays.It is popular to defend nazi Germany,Ustaše and other forces of evil and to acuse people who fought against that evil.When I see threads like Polish brutality against German civilians,Tito war criminal,Brutality against SS soldiers...it got me sick.You are really trying to equal systematic extermination done by Germans and Ustaše with some rare cases of allied crimes against them.Well,I am sorry that they didn't win the war,to see how would they deal with their enemies.

You're perfectly right, Kingdom. Read other threads here about wartime Poland (time to start blaming Czechs for war crimes, too) and you'll see victims made of villains and villains made of victims.

PS. We're talking about Bleiburg, we saw monuments in memoriam of all those killed. I do hope things got really changed in today's Jasenovac - a few years ago there was nothing there to commemorate victims of another side.

http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domai ... enovac.htm

Best regards, Kingdom...

[David Thompson]

A post from Yerbamatt which added nothing to the thread was deleted by the moderator.

[Spy]

@ Kingdom of Montenegro and yerbamatt

You're both very strange?!
Who defends nazi germany and other criminals?! OMG you're so narrow!
Tito's partisans murdered at Bleiburg and "Križni put" more than 150 000 POW, women and children . And that's a fact, that you can not accept...I'm not the problem, you're the problem.
This topic is called "Tito - war criminal", so why are you talking about Jasenovac. I beg they're a lot of other topics on this site where you can write about Jasenovac and other concetration camps during WW2.
But please we're here talking about innocent croatian people (and not criminals) murdered by Tito's army after WW2. Why people like you just can not accept the truth.

Kingdom of Montenegro, what does this mean that my sources are "Procroat", maybe they are "procroat" but they're off course true.

[Kingdom of Montenegro]

Kingdom of Montenegro, what does this mean that my sources are "Procroat", maybe they are "procroat" but they're off course true.

They are maybe true,but I don't see anything about Jasenovac and other concetracional camps which led to crimes commited by Partizans.
It is always easy to blame another.
Best Regards to you Yerbmatt.

[Spy]

Sorry, but the text is only speaking about the end of the war in Croatia, and that's the whole truth. Why should I talk about Jasenovac in this topic called "Tito - war criminal", if you want to discuss about the concentarion camps in NDH they're other topics.
BTW how can civilians and members of the croatian homeguard be connected with camps like Jasenovac. Some Ustashas "worked" in Jasenovac and other camps, but I can hardly believe that more than 70 000 Ustashas were "serving" in Jasenovac and other camps.
You said:

It is always easy to blame another.

What does this mean?!

[Kingdom of Montenegro]

.
You said:

It is always easy to blame another.

What does this mean?!

Znači:Lako je krivit druge.Možda to nijesam dobro napisao na Engleskom.

[Marcus]

Znači:Lako je krivit druge.Možda to nijesam dobro napisao na Engleskom.

Please write in English and also post a translation of the above.

/Marcus

[Locke]

Kingdom first wrote his statement in english and then he translated it

Znači:Lako je krivit druge.Možda to nijesam dobro napisao na Engleskom.

"It means: It's easy to blame others. Maybe I haven't written that good enough in english."

Regards,
Polona

[Allen Milcic]

First, as of persecution of Croatians in pre-war Yugoslavia - please, provide us with names of any concentration camps, number of razed Croatian villages and a total number of Croatians slaughtered by Serbs before April 6, 1941.

- Kruscica Camp (near Vitez in today's BiH) was a concentration camp used by the Yugoslav monarchy for the internment of Croatians deemed to be 'state enemies';
- Lepoglava Camp, originally founded during Austria-Hungary, was used by the Yugoslav monarchy for the internment of Croatian activists as well as Communists;
- I never claimed 'razed Croatian villages', but rather persecution of Croats on the basis of their nationality by Serbs during the SHS/Yugoslav Kingdom. Off the top of my head I can mention the muder of Croatian representatives in the Yugoslav parliament, including HSS leader Radic, by a Serb nationalist; the disproportionate representation of Serbs compared to ALL other nationalities in all state services, especially the police, military and diplomatic corps of Yugoslavia.

Second, could you give us a complete list of "positive accomplishments of the Croatian people during the war" - I would be more than happy to have a glance at it.

A few examples:
- 72 Croatian detachments in the anti-Fascist NOVJ;
- Partizan leader Tito + Hebrang, Ribar, Bakaric etc in the leadership of the anti-Fascist NOVJ;
- Over 160,000 Croatians within the NOVJ by March 1945;
- Croatians helping to save Jews from the Holocaust:
http://www.hr/darko/etf/jews.html

And third - if Croats, as you're saying, were "singled out and vilified", they can mostly blame themselves for it. Strangely, it was Croatia only, which got awarded with independence in that area during the war, apparently she fully deserved it. Get yourself a copy of "Kaputt" by Curzio Malaparte and read its Croatian chapter - you will get to know, how zealots all over their NDH wanted to please and earn favours from their "poglavnik" and his German masters.

At no point have I claimed that some Croats did not commit horrible deeds - key word being SOME. My point is that crimes committed by an extremist group within a nation was not endemic to Croatia, but that crimes were equally committed by groups within the neighbouring states and by other nationalities as well. It seems to me that it is only the Croats, and the Croatian nation AS A WHOLE no less, that are being singled out as evil doers. The Ustase were not alone in having bloody hands - on top of that, NOTHING the Ustase did could or ever will excuse the wholesale slaughter of innocent Croats at Bleiburg or thereafter.

As for Curzio Malaparte - please, sir, read the following excerpt from 'Croatia - Myth & Reality' by C. Michael McAdams before using that quack as a source for historic data:

"MYTH: "THE BASKET OF HUMAN EYEBALLS"
Myth: The Croatian wartime Chief-of-State Ante Pavelic routinely maintained a basket containing twenty kilos of human eyeballs at his desk side.

Reality: This statement is literally a work of fiction taken from the novel Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte (Kurt Suckert, also known as Gianni Strozzi). The book was written as fiction, sold as fiction, and is cataloged in every library in the world as fiction. To cite Kaputt as a source about World War II is analogous to citing Gone With the Wind as an authoritative history of the American Civil War.

That this tired tale is still being retold is the second most amazing part of this myth. More amazing is that anybody, no matter how blinding their hatred of Croatians, could believe it. And yet this myth was quoted as fact as recently as 1991 in official publications printed in Belgrade by the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Serbia and repeated by naive journalists in Britain and North America.

Kaputt
The myth survived and was given renewed life by the Serbian government, journalists and politicians because it came with quotation marks. The legend had a footnote, a citation, an author and all the trappings of fact. The author was often cited as "the most famous Italian writer," "the Italian journalist" and even the "famed Italian historian," Curzio Malaparte. His famous quote from the 1946 English translation of the novel Kaputt reads:

While he spoke, I gazed at a wicker basket on the Poglavnik's* desk. The lid was raised and the basket seemed to be filled with mussels, or shelled oysters -- as they are occasionally displayed in the windows of Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly in London.

Casertano looked at me and winked, "Would you like a nice oyster stew?"

"Are they Dalmatian oysters?" I asked the Poglavnik.

Ante Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and revealed the mussels, that slimy and jelly-like mass, and he said smiling, with that tired good-natured smile of his, "It is a present from my loyal ustashis. Forty pounds of human eyes.
* Poglavnik was Ante Pavelic's title.

Kaputt and its author both had fascinating stories to tell. In the original press release for the book, Malaparte claimed that the manuscript was started in the Ukraine in 1941 and smuggled throughout Europe in secret coat linings and in the soles of his shoes. Finally, the manuscript was divided into three parts and given to three diplomats, to be reunited in 1943 on Capri where it was finished.

The book chronicled Malaparte's movements around Europe in 1941 and 1942 when he visited every front and knew every head of state, usually on a first name basis. Malaparte apparently spoke every language and shared the charms of every beautiful princess on the continent.

According to his own preface to Kaputt, his personal friendships with Mussolini, Hitler and others did not save him from being thrown into jail in July 1943 for being anti-German. Miraculously, he was soon freed and was working for the Allies by September of that year. It was while working as a propagandist for the Allies that Malaparte completed Kaputt, a book which he described as "...horribly gay and gruesome."

The critics agreed. Malaparte's two major books, Kaputt and Skin were labeled "Best selling Nausea" by Time magazine which christened Malaparte as "...a sort of Jean Paul Spillane." Malaparte's writings contained page after page of sordid tales about the evil world of Fascist Europe. Malaparte's basket of human eyeballs must be taken in context, as Time magazine wrote in 1952:

He shows mothers who sell their children into prostitution; but then, says Malaparte with a smirk, there are also the children who would gladly sell their mothers. He dwells for part of a chapter on a street peopled with twisted female dwarfs, who fed, he asserts gleefully, on the unnatural lust in the American ranks. Another chapter is concerned with a visit to a shop that sells blonde pubic wigs. U.S. soldiers, Malaparte explains, like blondes.

These offensive themes only scratch the surface of Malaparte's sick writings. That the Allies won the War through the devices of a "homosexual maquis," flags of human skin, and an Allied general who served his guests a boiled child are all included in Malaparte's fare.

Suckert-Malaparte-Strozzi
"Malaparte" himself was an enigma. He was born Kurt Erich Suckert in 1898 in Prato, Italy of Austrian, Russian and Italian descent. He attended the Collegio Cicognini and the University of Rome. He joined the Fascists at an early age and soon became the darling of the Fascist Propaganda Ministry where he wrote glowing volumes and even a work of poetry in praise of Mussolini. He served as a journalist for Corriere della Sera and travelled to Ethiopia in 1939.

What happened after that depends upon which "Malaparte" is read. The world-travelling statesman fictionalized in his novels spent the war years in almost constant meetings with the likes of Mussolini, Count Ciano, Ante Pavelic and the rich and powerful of Europe. Interestingly, Pavelic's name was misspelled "Pavelich" (harder sounding ch instead of softer sounding ch) in all of his writings.

Later, Malaparte claimed to have been one of "three Italian officers who organized the Italian Army of Liberation which fought for the Allies." After the fall of Mussolini he began writing under the name Gianni Strozzi for the Communist daily L'Unita. That year he applied for, but was refused, Communist Party membership. Still later, he went to work for the Allied Fifth Army Headquarters as a minor liaison officer. Just as he had served the Fascists and the Communists, Malaparte sought to ingratiate himself with his new masters. "The American Army is the kindest army in the world...I like Americans...and I proved it a hundred times during the war...their souls are pure, much purer than ours," Malaparte gushed.

In November of 1952 a far different Malaparte wrote that in fact he had fallen out with Mussolini in 1934. Not only did he never meet most of the great leaders he wrote about, he admitted: "In 1938 I still remained under police control and was put in prison as a preventive measure every time a Nazi chief visited Rome...and from 1933 until the liberation, I was deprived of a passport..."

Once called "Fascism's Strongest Pen," Malaparte angered Hitler with a book written in 1931 about the techniques of the coup d' etat. He was jailed by Mussolini from 1933 to 1938 and kept on a very short leash for the remainder of the Fascist era. The Italian Defense Ministry did confirm that he once served as a liaison officer to the Allies, but flatly denied that he had anything to do with organizing Italy's Army of Liberation.

A prolific author of short stories and fictionalized accounts of Fascist victories, Suckert-Malaparte-Strozzi did interview Ante Pavelic during the War. The interview recounted in Kaputt, in Pavelic's office, was recorded on film. There is no basket or any conversation regarding a basket to be seen.

After the War, Malaparte continued to write, as well as direct and produce movies, and was active in the Communist Party. In the Spring of 1957 the Party sent him on a comradely visit to China. Shortly after his return, he died on July 19, 1957. An enigma to the end, the viciously anti-Catholic Malaparte renounced Communism and converted to Catholicism on his death bed. Later, Malaparte's friend and fellow journalist Victor Alexandrov let it be known that Malaparte had admitted the story was fiction. Thus Curzio Malaparte and his unpleasant fiction have been relegated to the dust bin of literary history in all of the world except Belgrade.

Time to repent, not to force others to do that - better late than never.

Very touching - however, Croatia HAS made whatever amends can be made for the sins of some of its people - I wonder when the other guilty parties will follow suit?

Just a note - you mention the Jasenovac memorial in one of your postings. Please be advised the the old monument was destroyed, and the museum plundered, during the occupation of that area of Croatia by Serb nationalist forces during the 91-95 war. The goverment of Croatia has built a new monument in its place after the area was liberated (opened March 16, 2004). See:

http://www.vlada.hr/default.asp?ru=344& ... d=&jezik=1 (in Croatian only)

Allen/