Posted on 09/19/2004 8:01:49 PM PDT by Nepalis
I think we should support Serbia, deport all the Balkan Muslims to Arabia and liberate Constantinople.
I hope before I die to see Hagia Sophia once more cleansed of its Islamic pollution and converted BACK into a great Christian Cathedral.
ping
Another twisting of history.
Italy occupied Albania in 1938 and annexed Albania April 12 1940.
So, in the 1940's Albania was Italian territory, under Italian control. Laurels for saving Jews go to Italians who saved Jews from Nazi persecution on all territories under their control - Italy, Dalmazia, and Albania.
Albanians have nothing with it. They were not calling the shots in Albania at that time. Albanian main contribution to saving Jews is Albanian Waffen SS Skenderbeg Division and extermination of Jews in Kosovo.
Nice try, GeraldP, but do not try to sell rotten fish here. DU is your marketplace.
>>>Italy occupied Albania in 1938 and annexed Albania April 12 1940.
April 7 1939
>>>Nice try, GeraldP, but do not try to sell rotten fish here. DU is your marketplace
You claim that all the nations around Serbia including Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary and though you haven't said so, probably Bulgaria and Romania, were allied with the Nazis and that Serbia was the sole oasis of resistance, and you accuse me of selling "rotten fish"?
And quite frankly, I grow weary of the way you attack people in your posts just because they don't agree with your rather eccentric view of history.
1. Albania WAS under Italian occupation in the 1940s.
2. The countries you mentioned were AXIS allies, some until 1943 (Italy), some until 1944 (Romania, Bulgaria), some till spring 1945 (Hungary), some to the last day of Nazism (Croatia).
This is historical fact. If you can not accept it, it is your problem, not mine.
My rather eccentric view is called ANTI-NAZISM. This may sound odd to you, but there are still people who believe in it.
Italy surrendered in 1943 and the Germans occupied the areas which had been under Italian control, including Albania. Once the Germans came in, they immediately started implementing their "Final Solution" and going after those Jewish populations previously spared by the locals.
You don't know much, and what you do know is taken out of the Serb nationalist playbook, wherein everybody else is a liar, with even the historical records of the USAAF having been doctored to hide imagined American perfidy during World War II.
Get a grip.
Have you found anything regarding that "Happy Easter" incident you alluded to?
I doubt it. Just as much as I doubt your ability to own up to mistakenly making that assertion in the event you can't find anything to back it up.
L8R
Allied bombing of Belgrade was a taboo subject in communist Yugoslvia. Even during Tito's brush with U.S. during Trieste crisis it was never brought up. Therefore, the documentation about bombing is scarce and only recently it started to resurface.
Methinks Tito had a very sound reason to keep mum about bombing -the documents in U.S. archives.
The records of Easter bombing exists in German archives as well because Germans made great propaganda show out of it - state funeral for victims and rejoiced about the civilian targets destroyed - maternity wards, hospitals, hospices, orphanage etc.
Bombing came as a gift to Germans - at the time of bombing, Chetniks were fighting agaist the Nazis only some 50 miles from Belgrade.
Big difference between having an installed collaborationist government and actually having mass support for fascism/Nazism (Vichy). Your insinuation that all the peoples you mention were pro-Nazi, is simply absurd and ridiculous. Moreover it is indicative of a type of mentality-forming propaganda still widespread among Serb nationalists.
Just for your info, there are two graves that bear the same last name as mine in Tirana's "Deshmoret e Kombit" WW2 memorial cemetery, so don't go off telling me about Albanian collaborationists.
Which is it?
'This is how it lies buried in the memories of the people of Belgrade to this day. That bombing aroused a double bitterness in us: emotional, because we pitied a city of legendary suffering which Hitler had turned into ruin and a place of torment; political, for we suspected - and at times believed - that the Allies were carrying out bombings in order to make postwar rehabilitation and administration harder for us Communists.'
Milovan Djilas, Wartime 1977.
Interesting quote, isn't it DTA. Puts your claims of who we were helping with our bombing into perspective.
As to it being a gift to the Germans, did the citizens of Belgrade switch sides or something?
Try to keep the nonsense not quite so obvious, m'kay?
you might as well be quoting Alexander Rankovic
Milovan Djilas was interesting fella - Communist party executioner with the bloodstains on his own hands, guerilla commander, diplomat, politician, writer, pet dissident, with high sense of humor. His name is an excellent example of nomen est omen -Djilas means "defrocked priest", exactly what he became in Communist nomenclatura.
His books are treasure trove of information, if read properly. He wrote only things that will not harm him at the time of publishing - he deliberatelly chose to keep silent, until it was convenent to him to speak up.
For example, he kept his personal view of Stalin until he fell in grace with the Tito regime (and Tito's regime already fell in grace with Stalin) so there was no personal harm to him, only personal gain by sellilng the book (Conversations with Stalin). He enjoyed the privileges and loot like other criminals from Tito's inner circle but chose to speak openly ("The New Class") only when he was kicked out.
In 1977, Djilas was Tito's pet dissident (real ones were murdered or languished in jails or mental institutions) with an income comming from the West from the lectures and publishing rights. At the same time, Tito was American pet dictator in the Eastern Europe.
It is higly unlikely that Djilas in 1977 did not know about Koca Popovic requests for bombing of Serbian towns. It is more likely that he chose what to remember. Today, we have documents from Serbian archives (there must be papertrail in U.S. archives as well) to show how selective Comrade Djilas memory was.
Btw. Koca Popovic, surrealist writer, must have a thrill of his life watching American White Star raining hell on Serbia, on behalf of Red Star. Capitalism in the service of Communism (or vice versa).
Why should I care what you say?
You've demonstrated that you're all about making your facts up and then refusing to face reality when called to account.
In short, your opinion doesn't matter.
Happy Easter.
Hoplite, what you think is irelevant on FR because it has no effect on the historical fact.
Enjoy your Commie literature.
Actually, I have demonstrated I know what I am talking about.
Here is an "easter egg" for you Here is an excerpt from the book piublished in U.S.A. in 1948, long before I was born:
"The military and political support given by the Allies to Tito included collaboration of the Allied air forces with Tito's operations. The Allies proceeded to bomb targets in Yugoslavia which were obstacles in Tito's political path, though their destruction had no military value whatever. On April 16, 1944,Orthodox EasterSunday, Belgrade, already severely damaged by Nazi bombings, was bombed by the American Air Force at high noon. More than four thousand churchgoers were killed in the streets while cheering the appearance of the American planes, which they believed were proceeding to bomb enemy targets in Rumania and Hungary. I reported this tragic incident to the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, on April 18. With a map of the city of Belgradein my hands, I showed him that military objectives around Belgrade,such as bridges over the Sava and Danube Rivers, and railroad triangles to the north and south, could have been bombed without damaging the city itself, which contained no such objectives. The Secretary of State showed deep concern and promised that he would use his influence to avoid repetition. of the incident, but the city continued to be bombed by the Allies. Even its outskirts, which had no military installations of any kind, and where many residents had sought refuge from the Allied bombardments, were mercilessly bombed.
In Montenegro, the city of Podgorica, a national stronghold, was repeatedly bombed until it was completely demolished.
Mr. Churchill knew that the immense majority of Serbs would consider the abandonment of Mihailovich as a betrayal, but he refused to be deterred. He simply said, "We do not know what is happening in the Serbian part of Yugoslavia." Advised by his son, Randolph, and by his friends, Brigadier General MacClean and Colonel Deakin, who in their efforts were supported by a strong leftist group in the Middle East High Command, Mr. Churchill had irretrievably committed himself to a policy which would remain the major blunder in the long and shining career of a great war leader."
CONSTANTIN FOTITCH : YUGOSLAVIA'S TRAGEDY AND THE FAILURE OF THE WEST
NEW YORK: THE VIKING PRESS 1948
16 April 1944 - Belgrade Marshalling Yard, Yugoslavia.
I'm not really posting this for your sake, DTA. This is just so anybody else following the thread can figure it out for themselves. The Railyard is dead center of Belgrade on the river, and the limitations of bombing accuracy in 1944 have already been explained.
yawn, still trying to spin Clinton's misguided support of Bosnian Jihadists ?
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