Free Republic

Why did the following Serbian Chetniks flee alongside the Germans?

Dobrosav Jevdjevic, Momcilo Djujic, Brane Bogunovic (KIA), Uros Drenovic, Pavle Djurisic (KIA).

Chronology without dates is what U peddle.

Would you like me to start a new thread will all the documented sources? It's up to you.

The date of the Mihailovic-Tito WANTED poster is 21 July 1943.

I'm aware of that. It doesn't change the fact that Mihailovic (and his forces in Sumadija specifically) slid into collaboration after that date.

Operation Halyard q.v. - From 9-10 August 1944 the first rescue of Allied airmen, was executed by Mihailovic and the OSS. Rescued fliers were 241 USAAF, 6 RAF, 12 Russians, 4 French, 9 Italians. Subsequent rescue missions were conducted by Mihailovic’s Chetniks and OSS under the nose of the Germans in occupied Serbia (Pranjani) from an airstrip improvised on a cow pasture. Operation Halyard was shut down by the OSS on 27 December 1944. The Red Army was already in Belgrade.

In the meantime, Mihailovic played a double game and collaborated with the Germans to gain an advantage against Tito's Partisans.

In the ranks of the Soviet forces were Croatian Nazis captured at Stalingrad in 1943.

Croatians weren't Nazis. Nor was the 369th Legion an Ustasha force. It was a Domobran force within the German Wehrmacht. A small fraction of that obliterated force was gang-pressed into a propaganda "Yugoslav" force by the Soviet Red Army.

The heroes wore snazzy new uniforms and traveled on new GMC trucks suppied by the USA to the USSR. Tito did not de-Nazify his Yugoslavia.

That's because Yugoslavia wasn't Nazi.

Croatia was de-Ustashized, however. The killings at Bleiburg and the Death Marches went hand in hand with Tito's statement that "for Yugoslavia to survive, the Ustashe must be destroyed!".

Croatia’s Nazis simply put on the Red Star

AN ABSOLUTE LIE.

FEEL FREE TO NAME ONE USTASHA THAT BECAME A PARTIZAN.

WHY DID TITO ACCORD AMNESTY TO SERBIAN CHETNIKS THAT JOINED THE PARTIZANS, BUT NEVER ALLOWED USTASHA TO JOIN THE PARTIZANS?

Mihailovic was captured by Tito forces in Eastern Bosnia in March 1946. Unlike Croatia’s heroes he didn’t flee to Austria and Germany, like U Nazi Croats did. — A collaborator would have.

I guess you missed the 500 Croatian Ustashi that were captured from 1946-1948 in Yugoslavia who returned to start a rebellion against the communist regime as "Krizari"...men like Bozidar Kavran and Rafael Boban.

Your knowledge of history is pathetic and like a snake you refuse to answer direct questions.

Good analogy and this holds true especially with Croatia. The Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) had the support of 90% of the Croatian electorate during the decade up until WW2. When Hitler marched into Yugoslavia, they rejected his offer of power and it instead went to a group with around 5% of the country's popular support.

The HSS sat out the war (with tiny fragments joining either the resistance or the Axis collaborators) and were swept up in the whirlwind as Europe tore itself apart.

I don't hang out with Chetniks.

If you would like the actual sources, I am willing to provide all the documentation necessary on a new thread that will discuss Chetnik collaboration with the Nazis and Italians.

Are you interested?

What does that have to do with Chetnik collaboration with the Italians and Nazi Germans?

Since I use Chetnik sources, German and Italian sources, I can hardly be reiterating "communist propaganda". Sorry, but your smear doesn't hold water.

As stated before, Mihailovic played a double game with the Allies and Axis, collaborating with the Axis to stop the Partisans, and hoping for an Allied landing in Dalmatia at which point he'd switch.

Facts are facts, Boka. And the fact that these facts come from Chetnik sources in the West post-war make them all the more solid.

Incorrect. Mihailovic (specifically his small group in Serbia proper and not those west of the Drina River) didn't begin to openly collaborate until much later in the war. The Germans naturally viewed him as in irritant up until that point, which is why he was a wanted man.

But that all changed once he began openly collaborating.

His followers west of the Drina River and in Montenegro began open collaboration much sooner, many from the summer of 1941.

You wish to cite international law when it comes to Kosovo, but you reject international law when it comes to Croatia. That's a double standard.

Enjoy your vacation.

Boka: it's not a "silly Croat argument". It's a legal position enshrined in international law.

Secondly, NDH has nothing to do with the Republic of Croatia because they are two totally different states. RH is the legal successor to the SRH, not NDH since RH is based on ZAVNOH and SRH.

Those are the facts. If you don't like it, you can file a suit with the UN. Even the Slovenes have rejected this position cited in the article since it shoots themselves in the foot in regards to Slovene pro-Axis forces during WW2.

If we are to extend your logic, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo can all sue the Republic of Serbia for Chetnik crimes committed in those countries.

Thank you for proving my point:

Croatia has taken a clear stand on the matter. This is confirmed by its most important document, the Constitution, which states that the foundations of the Republic of Croatia sovereignty in the time of World War II were established on the decisions of the Anti-Fascist Council of People's Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH 1943) and then in the Constitution of the People`s Republic of Croatia (1947) etc.

Yeah, nice move there -- it avoided Croatia having to pay WWII reparations to those they murdered, even if it meant calling communists their "daddy"!

You have zero understanding of international law.

Of the two dozen ethnic groups in Yugoslavia all had some collaborators with the Germans, except the Turks, but in contrast to the massive Croatian alliance with the Germans people like Jevdjevic were bit players.

Jevdjevic was far from a "bit player".

Dobrosav Jevdjevic, a former member of the Skupstina, was made the official liason with the Italian forces by Draza in the Italian-occupied sector and therefore was the political head of all Chetnik units in the Italian zone alongside Ilija Trifunovic-Bircanin (who died during the war). Jevdjevic (who later fled to the USA after the war) was protected by the Italians from the Ustashi and was the main point man in regards to the legalization of the Chetniks as Italian MVAC units. Jevdjevic was next to Draza Mihailovic the most important Chetnik figure on the ground during WW2.

Ljotic is no hero to the mass of Serbs; his motivation in any case was not to build a Third Reich but to prevent Germany’s decimation of the Serbs. Nedic is as disgraced in Serbian eyes as Petain in France. Neither Petain nor Nedic were Nazis.

The point is that all these men collaborated from the get go after the capitulation, putting paid to the notion that Serbs were all anti-fascists.

Ljotic in particular is an interesting case because he kept ties to the Ravna Gora Movement and some of the leaders of that movement such as Djujic were his followers. In the dying days of the war, Ljotic and Mihailovic agreed to form a combined force that would approach Pavelic to create a "pan anti-communist front" against Tito since all three thought that the West would never allow Tito to gain power since he was a Commmunist.

Pecanac is reviled by Serb Partizani.

Kosta Pecanac was the head Chetnik during the interwar period and began collaboration from day one after the capitulation in 1941.

Djujic’s goal was not to join the Axis powers, but to prevent extermination – by Nazi Croatia – of the Serbs of Krajina, a territory which was never ethnically Croatian but subordinated to Croatian administration by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, to placate the Croats and forestall German domination.

LOL. Djujic never once fought the Axis and began collaboration from day one. He was an out and out collaborator. His units were made into Italian MVAC units. As for "extermination", that's funny since the Ustashi weren't allowed in those areas under Italian rule and the Chetniks instead were allowed to rule.

Plus, much of what you call "Krajina" was annexed by the Italians: places like Obrovac, Benkovac, Kistanje, etc. meaning that they were under Italian and not Croatian rule. Djujic was the most prominent outright collaborator of the Axis during WW2 which is why he had to be evacuated by the Nazis after the Partizans took Knin in 1944.

Italian generals supplied weapons to the Krajina Chetniks, who were not under Mihailovic’s command. He was in far-off Serbia, not Bosnia or “Croatia”.

They were under his nominal command as part of the JVuO. A lot of confusion stems from this fact. Serb propagandists want their cake and to eat it too when it comes to this issue. Jevdjevic and Trifunovic-Bircanin were the bridge between Draza and Djujic.

Croat babies today are baptized with the name of their Nazi Fuehrer (Poglavnik) Ante Pavelic.

Utter horseshit! Ante has long been one of the three most popular names in Croatia because St. Anthony of Padua (Sv. Ante Padovanski) is the patron saint of southern Croatians.

What an absolutely disgraceful smear from you.

Serb halls in America have no paintings of any of the collaborators, while Croatian Cultural Centers are plastered with images of WW II Nazi Croats.

Of course they do: Mihailovic, Djujic, Djurisic, etc.

Remember the WANTED posters? The Germans in occupied Serbia offered the same big rewards for the capture of Mihailovic as for Tito — “Captured Dead or Alive”.

And that ended when Draza began his overt collaboration later in the war.

Now, when is Croatia going to sign a peace treaty with the USA? U declared war aginst America in 1941. U lost, but now U are back.

The Republic of Croatia is the legal successor of the Socialist Republic of Croatia founded by ZAVNOH (WW2 Croatian Partisans) and not NDH.

The precise number killed are a difficult thing

Actually it isn't since we have the numbers of Zerjavic, Kocovic, and the suppressed numbers from the Yugoslav gov't study (they chose to publish the inflated numbers for various political and financial reasons even after Djilas blew the whistle).

You are attempting to equivocate the level of German collaboration when, in fact, the two sides were not "equal" then -- nor is it equal today!

Are you implying that collaboration with Nazi Germany is going on even today? Wow.

Bokababe: how do you square the fact that Momcilo Djujic, head Chetnik of the Serbs in Dalmatia and Lika during WW2 (who then lived in exile in the USA) and part of the Ravna Gora Movement under Draza was a follower of Dimtrije Ljotic and Zbor?

No, that's not Serbian propaganda.

Serbian propaganda is that Mihailovic was an anti-Axis fighter throughout the war when in fact the Chetniks collaborated in varying degrees.

Serbian propaganda is that the Serbs were anti-Axis and that Croatians were pro-Axis when the fact is that both sides had collaborators and both sides had those that opposed the Nazis.

Serbian propaganda is that 700,000 Serbs were killed by the Ustashi when the fact is that only 530,000 Serbs were killed throughout the whole of Yugoslavia during that war from fighting in all conflicts.

etc. etc. etc.

Would you like me to post Serbian Nazi gear being sold in Belgrade today?

No one here even brought up WWII Yugoslavia with reference to today's Croatia, except the Dragic letter to the editor.

That's precisely the point. Ravnagora for some reason decided to post a letter that once again brought up WW2.

Americans are not so gullible today to just soak up innuendo and propaganda like sponges.

Which is why they shouldn't lap up Serbian propaganda about WW2, I agree.

Again, you’re misrepresenting my position. Most of my sources come directly from the Chetniks in emigration post-WW2. Were they liars?

Jatras’ words aren’t relevant to the discussion at hand.

Himmler is no doubt a credible source, but look at the years in discussion. At that point, the Chetniks under Mihailovic's direct control (those in Serbia proper and not in Bosnia, Hercegovina, Montenegro, Croatia) were yet to collaborate with the Germans. That came later.

At that point in time in Serbia proper, the Germans were still banking on Nedic's forces as well as Pecanac's Chetniks. This all changed in the second half of 1943 in Serbia proper.

As for Mihailovic's Chetniks outside of Serbia proper in 1942, those in the Italian occupation zone (Dalmatia, Lika, Montenegro, Western Bosnia, Hercegovina) were already in full collaboration with the Italians and many had been legalized by them as MVAC units (anti-communist auxillaries) and were being supplied and sheltered by them and engaged in actions alongside the Axis.

Eastern Bosnia was in the German occupation zone and Draza's man there, Major Dangic, had already concluded a deal with the Germans in December 1941 to receive supplies and to fight the Partisans together with the Germans in what became known as the "Dangic Affair".

The Chetniks under Mihailovic's direct control i.e. those in Serbia proper, didn't collaborate until much later. Those Chetniks outside of Serbia proper but under Mihailovic's nominal control were a completely different story.

A lot of confusion about this stems from this fact.

None of what you said is incorrect, nor is anything I said incorrect. They complement each other.

I’m not presenting the communist argument. I’m presenting the facts based on Chetnik sources and military documents found in the German and Italian archives post-war.