Numbers and Letters
by Ada Beier
ARKzin, Zagreb, Croatia, Issue 84, February 14 1997
Unfortunately, the connections between Croatia and Germany are not limited to
somewhat similar history, but also encompass certain statistical coincidences.
Recently, a panic spread through Germany after the most recent unemployment
figures had been published; the unemployment figure is easy to remember:
4.6 million, exactly the same as the population of Croatia before she
expelled several hundred thousands of its citizens. The most recent statistical data
about the enormous increase in the number of unemployed pushed all other scandals
on the back burner; the two of the scandals are directly related to the current
situation in Croatia: the first one has to do with racism while the other
one is related to the understanding of the country's history under Nazism. The German or
the British origin of a BSE infected cow Cindy, because of
whom Croatia has forbidden the import of German beef, had been discussed and
dissected for days in main news programs in an almost Monthy Python like
manner, with various tables and interviews; I will never forget the statement by
one of the officials in the Ministry of ecology: "We know who Cindy is,
we know her parents and grandparents". The other scandal also provoked an unanimous
outrage from the German public: the catalyst was a tasteless "open letter" by
Hollywood stars to German chancellor Kohl; among the
signatories were for example Oliver Stone, Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn.
The letter compared the "prosecution" of scientologists with nothing less then
the preparations for the Holocaust. The movie starts attacked the refusal of
German courts to approve the status of a religious organization for the scientology
religious sect with all perks which follow that status with the following words:
"In the thirties Jews, today scientologists...", which was equally offensive for the Jews
and Germans.
Sympathy for Poglavnik!
This is where the joke regarding anecdotal Croatian-German connection ends and
the serious differences regarding the attitude with respect to the past begin.
Germans, actually their representatives which make up the so-called "public opinion"
are not hurt primarily because the whole world still looks upon them as
Nazis although that is an important element of the whole wave of protests provoked by
the mentioned letter. On the contrary, the main argument in all public responses
to the generalized and superficial claims by the American defenders of religious
freedom was common to Jewish organizations and German media: they agreed that
the mentioned claims are blasphemous, that they are a disgusting comparison which
offends the memory of millions of innocent victims. Do not, state the Germans,
distort our history; do not reduce the crimes of National socialists by comparing the real
victims with pseudo-victims.
A part of Croatian public has adopted a totally opposite logic. To alleged
accusations by the Serb side of "Ustashe spirit" (or, as formulated by Fr. Vejkoslav
Lasic, "in the eyes of Belgrade, all of us are Ustashe" (Globus, January 24 1997)),
Lasic, who has celebrated a mass for poglavnik, responds with a decisive YES.
Thus, they accuse us of being Ustashe, and that's who we are, we can even "pray
to poglavnik" who, claims this man of God, at this moment "together with innocent
children looks at the face of God"! Because, here the new scientific results
are revealed: "Luburic [commander of the main Ustashe
concentration camp during W.W.II] treated some prisoners very humanely,"
and "the Serbs are responsible for the slaughter of Jews" about which "many
books have been written".
Serbien ist Judenfrei
Totally different books are published in the country which made conditions for,
planned and implemented the Holocaust of Jews. Doctoral thesis by
Walter Manoschek, defended in Vienna under the title "Serbien ist
Judenfrei", received in 1992 the award Fraenkel, awarded by the Institute of
Contemporary History and Wiener Library London; its German edition was published
by Military Historical Research Institute (first edition in 1993, second in 1995,
Oldenbourg Verlag, Munchen). In that scientific portrayal of the German, actually
German-Austrian military occupation of Serbia during the first years of the war, 1941-42,
when the "final solution" of the Jewish problem was implemented in that part of
the Balkans, Dr. Manoschek mercilessly analyses, based on military
and political documents, the shameful role of the German army in massacres of
Jews, Romani, Communists, partisans and Serb civilians murdered in "reprisals".
The author proves not only that the Wehrmact, the regular Army and its "plain soldiers"
was involved in numerous war crimes, but also demystifies the nature of the German
"denazification" which took place after the war; he lists many examples of officers
who issued orders for or took part in executions and after the war peacefully continued
their military careers or, on the other hand, avoided any punishment. For example
colonel Max Pemsel, who issued an order for execution of 2100 hostages,
reached retirement as a General of Bundeswehr; unfortunately,
he wasn't the only one. One of the worst war criminals, SS officer
Herbert Andorfer, who deserves credit for the solution of the "Jewish
problem" in Serbia was arrested in 1967 in Munchen and sentenced as an "accomplice
to a crime" to two and a half years in jail(!), while his orderly, although also sentenced
as "an accomplice" didn't serve any time in jail.
In footnotes Manoschek touches on other problems as well, for
example the interpretation of the Balkan war operations in an Austrian military
textbook published in 1976: "After the attack on Yugoslavia is described in the
official textbook for the training of Austrian soldiers as 'marvelous success',
it is possible to recognize at least implicit distancing from the massacres in Kraljevo and Kragujevac: 'The operations against the members of the
Wehrmacht which were against the international law(sic!), led to additional reprisals
directed against innocent civilians'." What was the character of these "additional
reprisals"? Only in one week, between October 16 and 24 1941, members of the Wehrmacht
shot 4 to 5 thousand persons in the town of Kraljevo and villages around it.
Manoschek corrects the number of victims executed in Kragujevac
on October 21 in another reprisal, which was estimated by Yugoslav historians
at 7,000 victims, to 2,300 although he agrees with the traditional estimate
of the total number of war casualties: in only several months, between the end of June
and the beginning of December, the German army had slaughtered around 35,000 people
in Serbia. The extermination of Jews in Serbia was brought to its conclusion with
mass poisoning of Jewish women and children in [trucks converted to] gas
chambers as early as the Spring of 1942; after the massacre of Estonian Jews,
Serbia was the second territory in Europe with resolved "Jewish problem".
Manoschek emphasizes vengeful character of German-Austrian
terror in Serbia: General Franz Bohme, in charge of eradication
of partisan resistance, was an Austrian, as well as more than third of soldiers
under his command. "They demonstrated extreme revanchism of racist character
with respect to Serbs who were considered 'undertakers of Austro-Hungarian monarchy'".
In order to prepare the troops for their mission, general Bohme issued
an order in which he emphasized that in W.W.I "streams of German blood [had been]
spilled in Serbia" and that the Wehrmacht had a duty to "avenge our casualties from W.W.I".
Down with German Beef
This doctoral thesis proves criminal character of the Wehrmacht, shameful
racist policy of the occupier, establishment of concentration camps, merciless
reprisal actions (on the basis of 100 hostages executed for one German casualty),
and later carelessness of German authorities in their pursuit of war criminals;
at the same time the thesis emphasizes the liberation character of the partisan
resistance movement and the role of the Communist party in its organization.
In the country whose favorable attitude we like to recall, it is not unusual that
a preface to book was signed by the director of the Military Historical Research Institute,
Brigadier General dr. Roth. Because the attitude toward fascism
in Germany is not left to the free estimate of the democratic public, which partly
also exists in Croatia. Our press also condemned a priest who dared to call
Ustashe criminal Pavelic a Croatian great, and butcher Luburic
his political role model; however, in Germany such a priest would be thrown by his pants
out of the church, and then had to bear legal consequences for his words.
Antifascism is not a matter for the public opinion, although it undoubtedly plays an important role,
but for the institutions of the system. Military conscripts, serving their
mandatory military service in Bundeswehr, have very little theoretical instruction,
just enough to explain to them that they do not have to follow orders if they
are against their own conscience, or if they are asked to do something which is
considered a war crime according to the international law.
I suppose that the situation in the Croatian Army is the same. Davor
Lazovic, participant in the Patriotic War and the recipient of the
military medal "Storm" for the participation in the eponymous operation, is certainly
lying when he says that he "may have by chance killed a few Serb kids" (Dan, January 26).
Perhaps, the number of inhabitants in Croatia is still the same as that of unemployed in Germany.
Besides, it doesn't matter, these are just numbers and letters. What matters is health:
one must not eat German veal.
translated on 10/30/97
