Post by radovic on Aug 25, 2008 14:09:40 GMT -5
Tito’s Communist Partisans Collaborated with Nazis
In his seminal 1973 biography of Draza Mihailovich and the World War II conflict in Yugoslavia, Tito, Mihailovic, and the Allies, 1941/1945, Walter R. Roberts was able to show that Tito’s Communist Partisans had collaborated with the Nazis. The Communist Partisan collaboration with the Nazis was long-covered up and suppressed by the Communist dictatorship which took over Yugoslvaia in 1945.
Walters described the meeting as follows:
“Within the framework of negotiating … prisoner exchanges, a meeting was arranged … between the commanding general of the German 717th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Benignus Dippold, and three high-ranking representatives of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation: Milos Markovic, Vladimir Petrovic and Koca Popovic. Only Popovic, an army commander, used his real name. Markovic was in reality Milovan Djilas, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPY, and Petrovic was an alias for Vladimir Velebit, in whose house in Zagreb the radio transmitter was hidden through which the CPY and the Comintern had exchanged messages in 1941.
A German memorandum states that the German-Partisan conversation took place in Gornji Vakuf (west of Sarajevo) on March 11, 1943, from 9:30 to 11 A.M. . . . During the March discussions, the Partisan delegation stressed that the Partisans saw no reason for fighting the German Army - they added that they fought against German troops only in self-defense - but wished solely to fight the Chetniks; that they were oriented toward the propaganda of the Soviet Union only because they rejected any connection with the British; that they would fight the British should the latter land in Yugoslavia; that they did not intend to capitulate, but inasmuch as they wanted to concentrate on fighting the Chetniks, they wished to suggest respective territories of interest.
The content of this German memorandum of conversation is confirmed by a document which the Partisan delegation left behind and which bears the signatures of the three Partisan emissaries. In it Djilas, Velebit and Popovic proposed not only further prisoner exchanges and German recognition of the right of the Partisans as combatants but, what was more important, the cessation of hostilities between German forces and the Partisans. The three delegates confirmed in writing that the Partisans ‘regard the Chetniks as their main enemy.’
. . . . A few days later, on March 17, the German Minister in Zagreb, Kasche, sent a telegram to Berlin in which, clearly referring to the German-Partisan talks, he reported the possibility ‘that Tito and supporters will cease to fight against Germany, Italy and Croatia and retire to the Sandzak in order to settle matters with Mihailovic’s Chetniks.’
Meanwhile in the wake of the discussions between the three high Partisan representatives and Lieutenant General Dippold, further talks were arranged at Zagreb. . . . Velebit and Djilas passed again through the German lines and were brought by a German military plane from Sarajevo to Zagreb on March 25, 1943. There they had talks with Glaise von Horstenau and his staff.
Not having received a reply from Ribbentrop to his message of March 17, Kasche sent another telegram to his Foreign Minister on March 26, 1943, in which he reported that two duly authorized representatives of Tito had arrived in Zagreb for the purpose of discussions with German, Italian and Croatian military representatives. One of them, Kasche said, was Dr. Petrovic, a Croat, and the other a Montenegrin by the name of Markovic These people, he added, again offered to stop fighting if they could be left in peace in the Sandzak. . . .
On March 29, Ribbentrop sent Kasche a telegram in which he prohibited all contact with the Partisans and asked on what Kasche based his optimism. . . .
The discussions between the Partisan representatives and the Germans in Zagreb regarding a possible cessation of hostilities got nowhere, not only because the Partisan proposals were unacceptable to the Germans but, above all, because Berlin utterly opposed any accommodation with the Partisans. When apprised of the Zagreb contacts, Hitler reportedly said: ‘One does not negotiate with rebels - rebels must be shot.’”
. . . . The fact remains, however, that the Partisans, who labeled Mihailovic and the Chetniks traitors for their accommodation with the enemy, sent two high-ranking officers to the German general in Zagreb with the purpose of arranging a cease-fire, after having declared in writing that their main enemies were the Chetniks and not the occupying Axis forces.
No wonder that there is great sensitivity in Yugoslav Communist circles about that chapter in history. None of the official Yugoslav documents mentions the Velebit-Djilas trip to Zagreb, while every possible Chetnik Axis meeting is duly recorded. [pp 107-112]
Notes:
53. NOKW 1088, Record Group 238, World War II War Crimes.
55. Paul Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence, p.151.
56. Walter Hagen, Die Geheime Front, p.268.
Ther is one facet of the history of
Tito’s partisans that the Yugoslav Communists have never publicly
discussed: the negotiations with the German Wehrmacht in Zagreb
in March 1943. The situation of Tito’s partisans was grave: attacked
from many sides — by the Germans, the Italians, the Chetniks, the
Croatian Ustash — the partisans suffered heavy losses and barely
survived. During various skirmishes they captured about a dozen
Germans whom they then offered to exchange; this was accepted, and
Djilas, Koca Popovic, and Vladimir Velebit were sent to make the
arrangements. Tito’s aim was not only to exchange prisoners and the
wounded, but also to negotiate the cessation of hostilities between
the German forces and the partisans. When Walter Roberts, in his book
Tito, Mihailovic, and the Allies, 1941-1945, [7] first revealed this
hitherto unknown fact, the Yugoslav reviewer of Roberts’s book claimed
that the American author had “falsified history” as part of “a general
American effort” to slander President Tito’s wartime partisans and
uphold the followers of his rival, Mihailovic. [8]
——————————–
(7) New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1973, pp. 406.
(8) Borba, 14 October 1973.
[page 6]
Djilas’s book confirms for the first time that Roberts
was correct and that negotiations between the Germans and
Tito’s partisans actually took place. After Koca Popovic
returned to Tito’s headquarters in Bosnia, Djilas and Velebit
were transported by a German plane from Sarajevo to Zagreb for
negotiations that could have led to the end of hostilities.
Hitler’s foreign minister (Ribbentrop), however, refused to
participate in any further talks; so the prisoners and wounded
were duly exchanged but the envisaged partisan-German agreement
to resist any British landing in the Adriatic came to nothing.
Hitler said at the time: “One does not negotiate with rebels –
rebels must be shot.” And that was the end of the affair.
Djilas explained the collaboration as follows:
“Neither I nor the other Central Committee members
had any pangs of conscience that by negotiating
with the Germans we might have betrayed the Soviets,
internationalism, or our ultimate aims. Military
necessity compelled us. The history of Bolshevism –
even without the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the
Hitler-Stalin Pact ?” offered us an abundance of precedents.
The negotiations were held in great secrecy. There
were no differences among the top leaders, except that
Rankovic and I were more dubious of the outcome than
Tito. As for a more permanent truce and broader
agreement, no one really believed in that.”
Tito was familiar with
the Serbian area because in 1914 and 1915 he had fought as an
Austro-Hungarian sergeant against the Serbs The love of the Montenegrins for “Mother
Russia” was deep-seated, “but Russia was far away,” Djilas
says, suffering from Hitler’s invasion.
Finally, the Communist Partizans “collaborated” with the Nazis from the time of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact from 1939. When Hitler attacked Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the Communist partizans did not resist the invasion. It was only when the Soviet Union was attacked on June 22, 1941, that the Partisans change this collaborationist policy. The decision to begin an armed struggle against the Nazi occupation forces was not made until a July 4, 1941 meeting held in Belgrade on 4 July 1941. The Communists celebrate the Day of Uprising on July 7, when a Communist murdered two Serbian officials. The Partizan resistance began with the murder of two Serbs, not with any resistance against Nazi troops. According to Djilas, in 1945 Communist partisan leaders decided that was it decided that July 7 should be the anniversary for the beginning of resistance, when shots were fired “at gendarmes and not at the
Germans.” From April 6, 1941 to July 7, 1941, the Partizans collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces. Only when the Soviet Union was attacked were they reluctantly forced to began a resistance. Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik forces had launched a resistance movement from the start of the German invasion of Yugoslavia.
In his seminal 1973 biography of Draza Mihailovich and the World War II conflict in Yugoslavia, Tito, Mihailovic, and the Allies, 1941/1945, Walter R. Roberts was able to show that Tito’s Communist Partisans had collaborated with the Nazis. The Communist Partisan collaboration with the Nazis was long-covered up and suppressed by the Communist dictatorship which took over Yugoslvaia in 1945.
Walters described the meeting as follows:
“Within the framework of negotiating … prisoner exchanges, a meeting was arranged … between the commanding general of the German 717th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Benignus Dippold, and three high-ranking representatives of the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation: Milos Markovic, Vladimir Petrovic and Koca Popovic. Only Popovic, an army commander, used his real name. Markovic was in reality Milovan Djilas, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPY, and Petrovic was an alias for Vladimir Velebit, in whose house in Zagreb the radio transmitter was hidden through which the CPY and the Comintern had exchanged messages in 1941.
A German memorandum states that the German-Partisan conversation took place in Gornji Vakuf (west of Sarajevo) on March 11, 1943, from 9:30 to 11 A.M. . . . During the March discussions, the Partisan delegation stressed that the Partisans saw no reason for fighting the German Army - they added that they fought against German troops only in self-defense - but wished solely to fight the Chetniks; that they were oriented toward the propaganda of the Soviet Union only because they rejected any connection with the British; that they would fight the British should the latter land in Yugoslavia; that they did not intend to capitulate, but inasmuch as they wanted to concentrate on fighting the Chetniks, they wished to suggest respective territories of interest.
The content of this German memorandum of conversation is confirmed by a document which the Partisan delegation left behind and which bears the signatures of the three Partisan emissaries. In it Djilas, Velebit and Popovic proposed not only further prisoner exchanges and German recognition of the right of the Partisans as combatants but, what was more important, the cessation of hostilities between German forces and the Partisans. The three delegates confirmed in writing that the Partisans ‘regard the Chetniks as their main enemy.’
. . . . A few days later, on March 17, the German Minister in Zagreb, Kasche, sent a telegram to Berlin in which, clearly referring to the German-Partisan talks, he reported the possibility ‘that Tito and supporters will cease to fight against Germany, Italy and Croatia and retire to the Sandzak in order to settle matters with Mihailovic’s Chetniks.’
Meanwhile in the wake of the discussions between the three high Partisan representatives and Lieutenant General Dippold, further talks were arranged at Zagreb. . . . Velebit and Djilas passed again through the German lines and were brought by a German military plane from Sarajevo to Zagreb on March 25, 1943. There they had talks with Glaise von Horstenau and his staff.
Not having received a reply from Ribbentrop to his message of March 17, Kasche sent another telegram to his Foreign Minister on March 26, 1943, in which he reported that two duly authorized representatives of Tito had arrived in Zagreb for the purpose of discussions with German, Italian and Croatian military representatives. One of them, Kasche said, was Dr. Petrovic, a Croat, and the other a Montenegrin by the name of Markovic These people, he added, again offered to stop fighting if they could be left in peace in the Sandzak. . . .
On March 29, Ribbentrop sent Kasche a telegram in which he prohibited all contact with the Partisans and asked on what Kasche based his optimism. . . .
The discussions between the Partisan representatives and the Germans in Zagreb regarding a possible cessation of hostilities got nowhere, not only because the Partisan proposals were unacceptable to the Germans but, above all, because Berlin utterly opposed any accommodation with the Partisans. When apprised of the Zagreb contacts, Hitler reportedly said: ‘One does not negotiate with rebels - rebels must be shot.’”
. . . . The fact remains, however, that the Partisans, who labeled Mihailovic and the Chetniks traitors for their accommodation with the enemy, sent two high-ranking officers to the German general in Zagreb with the purpose of arranging a cease-fire, after having declared in writing that their main enemies were the Chetniks and not the occupying Axis forces.
No wonder that there is great sensitivity in Yugoslav Communist circles about that chapter in history. None of the official Yugoslav documents mentions the Velebit-Djilas trip to Zagreb, while every possible Chetnik Axis meeting is duly recorded. [pp 107-112]
Notes:
53. NOKW 1088, Record Group 238, World War II War Crimes.
55. Paul Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence, p.151.
56. Walter Hagen, Die Geheime Front, p.268.
Ther is one facet of the history of
Tito’s partisans that the Yugoslav Communists have never publicly
discussed: the negotiations with the German Wehrmacht in Zagreb
in March 1943. The situation of Tito’s partisans was grave: attacked
from many sides — by the Germans, the Italians, the Chetniks, the
Croatian Ustash — the partisans suffered heavy losses and barely
survived. During various skirmishes they captured about a dozen
Germans whom they then offered to exchange; this was accepted, and
Djilas, Koca Popovic, and Vladimir Velebit were sent to make the
arrangements. Tito’s aim was not only to exchange prisoners and the
wounded, but also to negotiate the cessation of hostilities between
the German forces and the partisans. When Walter Roberts, in his book
Tito, Mihailovic, and the Allies, 1941-1945, [7] first revealed this
hitherto unknown fact, the Yugoslav reviewer of Roberts’s book claimed
that the American author had “falsified history” as part of “a general
American effort” to slander President Tito’s wartime partisans and
uphold the followers of his rival, Mihailovic. [8]
——————————–
(7) New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1973, pp. 406.
(8) Borba, 14 October 1973.
[page 6]
Djilas’s book confirms for the first time that Roberts
was correct and that negotiations between the Germans and
Tito’s partisans actually took place. After Koca Popovic
returned to Tito’s headquarters in Bosnia, Djilas and Velebit
were transported by a German plane from Sarajevo to Zagreb for
negotiations that could have led to the end of hostilities.
Hitler’s foreign minister (Ribbentrop), however, refused to
participate in any further talks; so the prisoners and wounded
were duly exchanged but the envisaged partisan-German agreement
to resist any British landing in the Adriatic came to nothing.
Hitler said at the time: “One does not negotiate with rebels –
rebels must be shot.” And that was the end of the affair.
Djilas explained the collaboration as follows:
“Neither I nor the other Central Committee members
had any pangs of conscience that by negotiating
with the Germans we might have betrayed the Soviets,
internationalism, or our ultimate aims. Military
necessity compelled us. The history of Bolshevism –
even without the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the
Hitler-Stalin Pact ?” offered us an abundance of precedents.
The negotiations were held in great secrecy. There
were no differences among the top leaders, except that
Rankovic and I were more dubious of the outcome than
Tito. As for a more permanent truce and broader
agreement, no one really believed in that.”
Tito was familiar with
the Serbian area because in 1914 and 1915 he had fought as an
Austro-Hungarian sergeant against the Serbs The love of the Montenegrins for “Mother
Russia” was deep-seated, “but Russia was far away,” Djilas
says, suffering from Hitler’s invasion.
Finally, the Communist Partizans “collaborated” with the Nazis from the time of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact from 1939. When Hitler attacked Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the Communist partizans did not resist the invasion. It was only when the Soviet Union was attacked on June 22, 1941, that the Partisans change this collaborationist policy. The decision to begin an armed struggle against the Nazi occupation forces was not made until a July 4, 1941 meeting held in Belgrade on 4 July 1941. The Communists celebrate the Day of Uprising on July 7, when a Communist murdered two Serbian officials. The Partizan resistance began with the murder of two Serbs, not with any resistance against Nazi troops. According to Djilas, in 1945 Communist partisan leaders decided that was it decided that July 7 should be the anniversary for the beginning of resistance, when shots were fired “at gendarmes and not at the
Germans.” From April 6, 1941 to July 7, 1941, the Partizans collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces. Only when the Soviet Union was attacked were they reluctantly forced to began a resistance. Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik forces had launched a resistance movement from the start of the German invasion of Yugoslavia.