by Milan GAVROVIC
Unlike them, the defendants at the International Tribunal for War Crimes, which 54 years ago worked in Nuremberg (and became a model for the present day tribunal in the Hague), tried to prove with all they might that they did not know anything. For example: "I stated in the hearing that I did not know about the killing of the Jews. During the questioning, justice Jackson (one of British prosecutors) and the Soviet prosecutor on several occasions brought into doubt my claim. Did they really think that I was lying? It is wrong to think that the leaders, during their infrequent meetings, boasted with their misdeeds". Hitler's architect and armaments industry minister Albert Speer wrote that on December 9, 1946 in his diary while being held at the Berlin prison Spandau. When almost 30 years later that diary was published (in the meantime Speer served 20 years in prison), he was still trying to convince at least a few naïve or uninformed readers that "he did not know". How could he know when, for example, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, during their infrequent meetings, did not boast about his activities?
Another example. Certain Ms. Moskowich, a Jew, who was saved with assistance of one of the defendants General-Colonel Alfred Jodl. As it turned out in the trial, he was an anti-Semite, but only to the extent it was customary at the time. Today, we may say that he did not abnormally hate Serbs. He was accused of being aware, as the chief of the operational headquarters of the Chiefs of Staff, of the purpose of the military plans he worked on. He was aware of everything, among other, because he was "a member of the Defense Council of the Third Reich", as is stressed in the verdict which sentenced him to death by hanging. Today, we would say that he knew because he was a member of VONS [Croat Council for Defense and National Security].
Later, many claimed, probably rightfully so, that the verdict would have not been as harsh if he was tried only a few months later, and the French judge Donnedie de Vabres wrote that in his opinion the verdict in Jodl's case was wrong. But one of the officers of the court, A. Neave (took care of the defendants), who himself favored Jodl, says the following: "Although the verdict can be disputed, it is the fact that Jodl, like many other senior officers who served Hitler, turned a blind eye when he heard what was being done with Jews and Russian prisoners of war".
The years of the worst nationalist terror were the end of 1991 and 1992, when the Government of National Unity, the so-called wartime government, was in charge in Zagreb. Germans also knew what was happening to the Jews, but after WWII invested a lot of effort in trying to convince everyone the opposite. In the old movie "Trial in Nuremberg" (which would be a good choice for the Croatian TV), Marlen Dietrich in the role or the widow of a German General sentenced to death by hanging, asks an American judge: "Do you really believe that we knew about that?"
Members of the wartime government, however, have no chance of hiding behind (alleged) ignorance. Former deputy Prime Minister of the wartime government Zdravko Tomac during the last few years stated on several occasions that he had intervened and asked that some "disappeared" Serbs be found. Now precisely he, many believe, is one of the chief advocates of the collective defense from a possible Hague indictment, with assistance of arguments such as that those who demand that the members of the wartime government be held responsible for their actions (or lack thereof) are trying to rewrite the truth about the Homeland War. Juzbasic assumes "that Zdravko Tomac initiated a reunion of the wartime government, in which he was a deputy Prime Minister, in order to soothe his consciousness". "All of them are scared...," says Juzbasic, repeating that there is no reason for that, because all ministers, led by Prime Minister Franjo Greguric, were powerless.
They probably were. However, their silence and turning of a blind eye cannot be compared with the silence of people who had to watch (frequently also fearful), how their Serb colleagues were fired or evicted from their apartments. Ministers carry a different responsibility. One must wonder why they accepted that responsibility if they had no power to change anything? Because they knew that when a tree falls, wood chips fly? Each one of them probably has his own explanation, and only they know how they feel watching on TV current exhumation of those wood chips, i.e. human remains. "While the indictment was read and horrible crimes were listed, I saw beads of sweat on Ribbbentrop'sbrow, while Keitel hung his head in shame. Funk cried. Was he crying for the victims whose golden teeth were kept in the safes of the Reichsbank?" writes A.Neave.
Joachim Ribbentrop was the Nazi minister of foreign affairs. It was proven that he participated in all the important meetings, so that he clearly knew what Hitler's policies were and what he was participating in. Feldmarshal Wilhelm Keitel was the Chief of Staff and consequently also knew everything, while Walter Funk was the governor of the national bank. The last Keitel's words were: "I give everything for Germany, I would not betray Germany for anything!"
Although no one has accused (all of this are still speculations of a journalist) them of anything, the most prominent members of the wartime government have already outlined the most important points of their defense. For example, Drazen Budisa says that "this is the attack on all those who defended Croatia", while Zdravko Tomac stated that the reunion of the wartime government, the first coalition government, should "publicly testify about consensus which existed about the important national issues, both in the past just as it does today".
The immediate response could be the question what "important national issues" Tomac was talking about? Camps for torture and mass executions? But the key plank in the defense is not "national interest" but "consensus". It is not true that only them turned a blind eye to crimes. There was a national consensus to do so. It is not true that only Tudman claimed that it is impossible to create a state with nuns. There was an all-Croat consensus that criminals were welcome to assist in that project. If anyone is guilty, all of us are guilty. In other words, no one is guilty, because we were implementing our thousand-years-old dream at the time. And on important historical crossroads, when a tree falls, wood chips fly.
Those who watched Banja Luka TV (which can be done in Zagreb) on the day Biljana Plavsic flew to the Hague, could observe strikingly similar argumentation. If they want her, then they could indict all of us, to the last one in the Republic of Srpska; that is directed against the Serb nation, in whose interest and based on the general consensus she acted etc. nothing about the kisses exchanged with Arkan, about her statement that it is necessary to fight for national interests, because even if one half of Serbs dies, the rest will still be more than any other nation in the former Yugoslavia, about three years of destruction of Sarajevo and killing of its inhabitants, even nothing about the leading trio including besides her Momcilo Krajisnik (already in the Hague prison) and Radovan Karadzic.
At one point it was generally accepted that the Democratic Unity Government, led by HDZ's Dr. Franjo Greguric was the most glorious phenomenon from the time of the establishment of the independent Croatian state. Some of its members wrote books about that stellar year and their role in those historical days. Now, however, it turned out that that was also another ugly HDZ episode. Political commentators (Srecko Jurdana in Nacional or Ines Sakor for Radio Free Europe) concluded that at the time Tudman used politicians from other parties, together with moderate politicians from his own ranks, to temporarily stop the HDZ right wing faction, which in its impatience endangered him personally. Once he stabilized his own position, he rejected "the tragicomic government, whose tenure is marked by a series of wartime and terrorist scandals, which went by the government without any visible reaction" (Jurdana). Then Tudman grabbed the chance to become the leader of the radical nationalist right, whose member he also was, and shift towards his true goals - division of Bosnia-Hercegovina, reduction of the number of Serbs in Croatia to at most three percent of the total population - and at the same time accelerated looting of his own nation.
In the first commentaries after the HDZ lost power (after the death of Franjo Tudman) Ines Sakor advocated that precisely those elements of his policies be tried. For Racan and his coalition partners that was far too radical a concept. But life demands the truth and rejection of failed policies and crimes committed in their name. That is why the number of incidents that are provoking panic in the ranks of the HDZ leaders is increasing. Both those who are still in the party and those who have left it. "They want to criminalize the HDZ, which is the same as criminalizing the Homeland War," they shout in outrage. However, that does not imply the criminalization of either the Homeland War or the party, but a certain policy and those who planned and implemented that policy. That is the only way to stop those who are trying to hide behind national interests and general consensus. Contrary to a widely held belief, Nacionalsocialist party was not proclaimed for a criminal organization in Nuremberg. But its leadership was condemned for its crimes.