ANTI-SEMITIC HISTORICAL REVISIONISM IN THE INDIE
A disgraceful piece of anti-Semitic historical revisionism appears in today’s Independent newspaper, which tries to rehabilitate the Slovenian Nazis, or Domobrantsvo/ (Slowenische Landeswehr) as misunderstood patriots, betrayed by the British. The Domobrantsvo are shown here in the picture swearing an oath of allegiance on Hitler’s birthday in 1945.
Yugoslavia had emerged as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural state out of territories that had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The second world war saw ethnic tensions deliberately exacerbated by the German and Italian fascist invaders. Croatia became an independent fascist state, and the initially pro-allied Serbian monarchist Chetniks drifted into alliance with the fascists as the war proceeded. Carnage and atrocities were committed by all nationalities.
The only exception was the pan-Slavic and internationalist Communist guerrilla movement, led by the Croatian socialist Josip Broz Tito. The partisans united working people and peasants of all nationalities in a united campaign to drive out the fascists, and at the same time carry out extensive and radical land reform to liberate the peasantry. In 1943 the conference at Jajce established a vision of a post war federal and socialist Yugoslavia.
This was a war where the two sides were not morally equivalent, whatever tragedies may have happened in the socialist countries, the motivation and dream was of human liberation. In contrast the Nazis made an ideological justification for destroying and enslaving whole peoples, they turned the miracles of modern industry into instruments of horror and mass butchery. They literally tortured and murdered small children, made soap out of human fat, and lampshades out of human skin. Fascism was the complete defeat of hope and the human spirit, and the victory of bestiality.
Everyone knew, what fascism was. Those volunteers from the occupied lands who joined the fascist armies knew what they were fighting for, and were complicit with the most brutal sadism and atrocity
This is certainly true of the domobrantsvo. One domobranec, the General Leon Rupnik made constant anti-Semitic speeches:
“[The Jews’] straight dogmatic hatred of all who are not Jewish is finally challenged everywhere by a revolt by the home nation that sooner or later removes all parasites from their country or limits by law their economic, religious and political activity”
Another domobranec , their chief propagandist, Ljenko Urbančič (who after the war became a prominent right wing politician in the Australian Liberal Party) broadcast on Radio Ljubljana in June 1944 to say:
“All those Anglophiles – that word is actually wrong, as they are not Anglophiles, but fruitcakes – must bear in mind that our anti-Communist battle would be all in vain if we were to make such a fatal mistake and take today’s Anglo-American invasion troops for anything other than what they are, a Jewish-communist tool. … it is not important that I speak to you as the youngest Slovene journalist . . . (what is important is that) the truth which is older than I, which is centuries old (be proclaimed). That is, the truth about all the vile intentions of the chosen people, the 15 million Israeli race roaming the world”. …. “We went to war for Jewish interests, for the benefit of international communism”, and the responsibility rested “with those ‘allies’, the British, Soviets and Masons, and above all, and I stress the words above all, the Jews - sworn enemies of Christianity and all the non-Jewish world”.
According to today’s Independent, these fascists were “uniformed Slovenians … who had been supplied and armed by the Germans, but who claimed allegiance not to the Nazis but to the Catholic Church and an independent Slovenian state.”
Now this is certainly a direct lie, because the Slovenian domobrantsvo swore allegiance to the German Fuehrer. This was their oath:
“I swear by almighty God that I will be loyal, brave and obedient to my superiors, that I will stand in common struggle with the German armed forces, stand under the command of the leader of Greater Germany, SS troops and police against bandits and communism and their allies; this duty I will carry out conscientiously for my Slovenian homeland as part of a free Europe. For this struggle I am also ready to sacrifice my life. So help me God!”
The omobrantsvo were active and conscious Nazis whose leaders were specifically motivated by gross anti-Semitism, at a time when their German allies were actually carrying out mass murder of the Jews on an industrial scale. Wartime Yugoslavia were a killing fields, and it is inconceivable that anyone was unaware what the war was about, or what atrocities German troops were engaged in. It is anti-Semitic to try to revise history to minimise the racial crimes of Hitler’s armies, and pretend that they were themselves the victims.
The Independent article claims that Britain committed an injustice by handing over 12000 domobrantsvo to the Communists. The author, Andy McSmith, claims that because they surrendered they were entitled to be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva convention. So they were, and as the Geneva convention requires, at the earliest opportunity they were returned to their own country, Yugoslavia to face justice for their war crimes and treason. In any event, both the figure of 12000 and the assumption that they were all executed is unsubstantiated - although many certainly were killed.
And make no mistake, any executions that did take place of Nazi collaborators was justice, especially given the terrible ethnic slaughter that the fascists had unleashed in Yugoslavia. We need to understand the terrible context of a society traumatised by years of killing, where violence was too readily turned to as a solution. Killing the domobrantsvo was rough justice, and the communist partisans maybe should have found a more compassionate solution, but the domobrantsvo themselves deserve no tears from us.
It must be mentioned in this context that the Yugoslavian government acted no differently from the British government. John Amery, the leader of British volunteers in the Waffen SS (the British Free Corps) was tried for treason and hung in 1945. The Nazi propagandist, William Joyce was hung for treason, even though he was not a British citizen!
It is inexplicable that a usually liberal paper, the Independent, has given space to what is effectively holocaust denial.
“effectively holocaust denial” - I am not sure failing to mention a particular oath to Hitler taken by a group of collaborators is really in the same league.
And even if they were Nazi collaborators, and horrible anti-semites, which it sounds like lots of them were, it doesn’t change the fact that the British army handed them over to be slaughtered by the communists.
A couple of hangings for treason following a trial don’t really compare to mass slaughter of everyone leading to mass graves.
But as long as “the motivation and dream was of human liberation” when revenge was taken and no-one is making any “ideological justification for destroying” people…
This was a war where the two allies were not morally equivalent, and we should have done as much as practical to stand up to Stalin and Tito, whose mass murder was not vastly morally superior to Hitler’s just because you find their ideological justification more palatable.
Comment by The Secret Person — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:15 am
The point about the “usually liberal paper” The Indie is that the old editor Simon Kelner has gone and the new editor is the execrable Roger Alton, the man responsible for turning The Observer into a load of total shite.
At The Observer, Alton used to faithfully reproduce New Labour spin & propaganda so uncritically that even Alistair Campbell thought he was a joke. And I’m pretty sure Andy McSmith was on his political staff there.
So, sadly, The Indie is over as something worth reading until Alton goes, just as The Observer was.
Comment by Strategist — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:49 am
William Joyce was not “hung”, he was hanged. As for his not being a “British citizen”, the really, truly, deeply pedantic response would be that until 1948 nobody was a British citizen - they were subjects of (flourish of trumpets) His Majesty the King-Emperor, don’t you know, old chap.
More seriously, though, Joyce did travel on a British passport, and under international law at that time (and maybe even now?) he owed a duty of loyalty to the state that had issued the passport to him.
Also, if the British hadn’t hanged him, the Americans would have. He richly deserved it either way, and is no more to be pitied or excused than the Slovenian Nazis you discuss in this excellent post.
Comment by pedantic footnote freak — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:06 am
I don’t know what McSmith is playing at, or (more to the point) who’s been leaning on him. This is a pretty alarming story (in terms of what it omits), and you’ve done well to expose it.
But I’m afraid I agree with our Secret friend, at least on one point - A couple of hangings for treason following a trial don’t really compare to mass slaughter of everyone leading to mass graves. The foibe (mass executions by Slovenian Partisans) are a blot on the history of the Partisan war & remain a live issue today, both in Slovenia and in Italy. (Toni Negri’s older brother fought for Mussolini’s “Italian Social Republic” and was captured & executed by Yugoslav Partisans. I’ve always wondered if that memory contributed to Negri’s lifelong anti-Communism.)
And make no mistake, any executions of Nazi collaborators was justice, especially given the terrible ethnic slaughter that the fascists had unleashed in Yugoslavia.
No, I’m not buying that. You can’t restore justice after a massacre with another massacre.
Comment by Phil — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:32 am
This incident is nothing new. It’s already been covered in a TV documentary before.
Anti-semitism was very much a minority issue in Yugoslavia. The collaborationist movements, including the Slovene pro-Nazis, the Croat Ustashe, the Bosnian Muslim allies of the SS and the Serb Chetniks were primarily either anti-Serbian and anti-Communist.
Tito’s Partisans were consciously internationalist and included Mosa Pijade in their leadership. Anti-semitism in postwar Yugoslavia was non-existent.
The state published the famous Sarajevo Hagaddah and their were functioning Synagogues in places like Dubrovnik for the small Jewish community. Muslims were also not religiously opressed, the mosques were open and members were allowed to make the Haj.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened to these collaborators, they have to be set against the background of the vicious atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators throughout Yugoslavia during the war.
The Independent article laid great stress on the fact that Slovenia is now prosperous. But this is very misleading. It had a high standard of living when it was part of the Yugoslav Federal Republic. Since breaking away the living standards of workers have, if anything been declining and the Unions are increasingly active there.
Being a small Republic, bordering Austrian Carinthia, it’s highly susceptible to cross border influence. This includes numerous tourists, the economy and language.
This is one of the main reasons that the secessionists gained a foothold there first. But it doesn’t mean that Slovenia will benefit from its independence in the long run. If anything, the world recession will make things considerably worse.
Comment by prianikoff — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:43 am
Well the simple fact is that the British government did execute traitors after the second world war, including John Amery, William Joyce, and others. And this was without atrocities being committed on British soil by these traitors. (incidently, I doubt whether the Americans would have executed Joyce, given the fact that they scandallously didn’t bring Ezra Pound to trial)
In Yugoslavia, the nazi collaborationists had been complicit in appalling atrocities that had torn the fabric of society apart.
This is the context within which that the executions must be considered - the “autonomy of violence” if you like - that war creates a moral shift among participants whereby the peace time social consensus against violence is ruptured.
Whether or not the executions were justified or not is in any event a secondary question for why a national british newspaper seeks to rehabilitate Nazi volunteers as the victims.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:31 am
In Yugoslavia, the nazi collaborationists had been complicit in appalling atrocities that had torn the fabric of society apart.
I agree - but I can’t see how the Slovenian massacres were anything other than one more atrocity.
Comment by Phil — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:18 am
Bit by bit, bourgeois ideology is trying to rehabilitate anyone who was part of the “bulwark against Bolshevism”. It may stop short of making excuses for Einsatzgruppen, though even in their case it might approve their initial orders, which were to exterminate Soviet commissars etc. When the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941, Jews were targeted but so were members of the Communist Party, and being found with a CP membership book virtually constituted a death sentence if you were searched by German troops or their collaborators, the local equivalent of these Slovenians.
A certain Lithuanian named Gecas fetched up in Scotland after the war, and decades later was accused of involvement in the Holocaust as part of a pro-Nazi battalion of Lithuanian militia. He denied it, saying he only killed Russians and Reds, which might be nearly a commendation in today’s climate. (Gecas passed to his reward years ago - I don’t believe he was even jailed.)
Comment by Trotsky was a Menshevik — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
#8 TwaM, Shame about your silly moniker, which makes an ahistorical and false insinuation against Trotsky. It spoils your more substantive points.
Yes of course the anti-communist nature of nazism tended to be kept quiet once the Cold War developed. It’s also well-known that Britain allowed in quite of lot of Ukrainian collaborators with Nazism, who were never prosecuted.
OTOH, Stalinist policy towards alleged collaborators was incredibly heavy handed at times, including deporting virtually the entire Chechen population!
Not only that, but even people who loyally fought with the Red Army during the war sometimes faced deportation and imprisonment. I know that’s true, because it happened to the father of a distant relative of mine. Not suprisingly, when he was released he felt totally pissed off with the socialist motherland and emigrated to Israel. Later on, his son refused to fight in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980’s.
I might also point out that over 4,500 Yugoslav Jews fought with the Partisans in the Liberation war, from a pre-war population of less than 80,000 and suffered a high level of combat casualties. Unlike in Stalin’s Russia, there were no state sponsored campaigns against Yugoslav Jews after the war and no antisemitism.
Comment by prianikoff — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
As you say the issue of the massacre is of secondary importance here in the context of this post. However, I can’t help noting the tension between your rather brusque, casual attitude towards the mass execution of fascist soldiers and the more sensitive and humanistic piece below called ‘Talking to Fascists’. I prefer the latter - in fact I was quite moved by that post.
Comment by Ed — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Re 9 - my moniker happens to be true, whether considered “silly” or not. In 1903, he did not support the Bolsheviks in the Bolshevik/Menshevik split. In subsequent years, he was pretty much a freelancer, but then the essence of the Mensheviks was that they allowed organisational indiscipline to a greater degree than the Bolsheviks did. No doubt the moniker annoys Trotskyists, but it is meant to.
As to “heavy-handedness”, the Paris Commune might have lasted more than 70 days if it had been more heavy-handed than it was. The left in Britain can afford to be sensitive and humanistic - revolution is not round the corner and the state senses little threat from the left and does not persecute it (friends of mine have been killed or died in prison in another country, where the left does not enjoy this kind of “comfort zone”).
A successful revolution would have to worry about counter-revolutionaries (possibly armed and funded from abroad), fascists and their collaborators.
Comment by Trotsky was a Menshevik — 23 October, 2008 @ 10:03 am
#11
I really DIDN’T want to get drawn into this any further, but sorry, I can’t resist!
Apparently for our resident Stalinist, the fact that Trotsky *joined* the Bolsheviks in 1917 is irrelevant.
On the other hand, the record of Andrei Vyshinsky is above reproach for such people.
Vyshinksy was a Menshevik from 1903 and signed an ORDER for Lenin’s arrest in 1917!
Yet he was the spittle flecked chief prosecutor of old Bolsheviks during the Moscow trials in the late 30’s. Where he was able to settle accounts with his old enemies courtesy of the Stalinist bureaucracy.
This, presumably is what you mean by being more “heavy-handed”.
Of course it’s a myth for simpletons and any gains won a purely temporary.
People like you seem to think Socialism is about permanent fear.
Comment by prianikoff — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
I think Trotskyism is about permanent naivete, especially as regards social democracy, and permanent foam-flecked abhorrence to “Stalinism” (a definition oddly fitting most of the political left, including nearly all those parts of it that are most militant or have enjoyed state power). Sufficiently so that some end up in the arms of the USA, or Papa Zion. After all, if the left is evil, apart from a few pathetic sects going nowhere, all you are really left with is the right. Though not strictly a Trot, Orwell was reflecting this iron law when he started informing on Communists at the end of his life.
You are both naive and blind, the hallmarks of the Trotskyist. And naivete and blindness never made a revolution in one country, never mind the world revolution that is all that the Trotskyist supposedly considers valuable.
Comment by Trotsky was a Menshevik — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Whether or not the massacre of Slovenian nazis was an atrocity or not, I always feel suspicious about the motives of those who want us to feel sympathy for these “victims”, because it’s almost always done in the service of nazi rehabilitation and anti-communist propaganda rather than a genuine outrage about a decades old crime. It’s mean to slander both the USSR and excuse the Holocaust by finding examples of crimes that are “just as bad” on the side of the Allies.
The story Andy talks about is a classic example of the genre: murdering and torturing nazis are reclassified as honest but misguided patriots, accepting German patronage as the lesser of two evils, caught between Hitler and Stalin, little or no mention is made of their own crimes or any clue why they had earned such hatred. The massacre is presented as morally equivalent to the (unstated) crimes of the Nazis while the west is castigated for delivering these poor people into the hands of their killers. As such the whole sordid episode becomes an allegory for how the West “betrayed” Eastern Europe at Yalta. Sometimes there’s the unspoken notion that the west should’ve taken up the nazis on their offer to fight together against the USSR.
It’s all crocodile tears.
Comment by Martin Wisse — 26 October, 2008 @ 12:06 pm