Posted on 04/04/2009 4:02:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A mass grave dating from World War II and containing the remains of up to 4,500 people, including German officers and their Croatian allies, has been found near Zagreb, media reports said Saturday.
Bones were found in six caves at Harmica, in the Zapresic region, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the capital, close to the border with Slovenia, newspapers and state television said.
The website of the daily Jutarnji List said they included soldiers of the Croation Ustachi regime allied to the Nazis and some 500 German army officers.
It quoted an official of the Croatian branch of the Helsinki Committee human rights organisation, Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, as saying they were probably members of the German army's 39th Division, which comprised Croatian troops commanded by Germans.
The division surrendered to communist partisans loyal to Josip Broz Tito near the town of Rijeka in early 1945. They appeared to have been executed and their bodies were thrown into the Harmica caves.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Murdered by the commies.....
Nazis, Croats and Muslims on one side,
Communists partisans and Soviets on another side,
Serbs and the western allies on another side.
Proof that even Communists can do the right thing some times. Not a whole lot of sympathy here for dead Nazis.
In WWII, nobody was very concerned about taking prisoners in that part of the World
World War II in then Yugoslavia made the Soviet-German front seem civil by comparison.
Nazi's were socialists.. Communists are also socialists..
"WE"(americans) also are now socialists..
If you're going to be outraged be outraged about the right stuff..
Socialism is a murderous political bent..
Socialists murderered about 300 million people in the last century..
God knows how many Billions they made MISERABLE...
They(WE) might murder BILLIONS in this century..
** Italian fascists were also socialists..
You wrote:
“Proof that even Communists can do the right thing some times. Not a whole lot of sympathy here for dead Nazis.”
So, did the Nazis do something right when they murdered already surrendered communists?
bump for later read
The schools some how like to teach that the Nazi’s were right wing. They Commies helped vote Hitler in to power because he was close to their thinking. They planned on bumping him off and taking over. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Sherman said it best: War is cruelty and can not be refined.
Murder is murder.
Seems the Serbian apologists are out in force today.
The Communists had already murdered 30 million in the concentration camps of the Soviet Union during the 1930s before the beginning of WWII. So what is a few more thousand? Just a statistic according to Joseph Stalin.
Nobody said WW II was a neat, clean thing. Refer to General Patton’s notes for proper disposal of both Nazis and Communists.
Good reminder to folks that the Croats, Bosnians and albanians were allies of Hitler.
Can’t be the 39th Division, folks...
AHF lists the 39th as being destroyed at Kursk and the Dniepr River battles, with the remnants being absorbed in to the 106th Division in late 1943.
This is most likely the 369th “Tuefel” Division, a mixed German, Croatian unit, that comprised the 369th and 370th Reinforced Cration Infantry Regiments.
From AHF:
On 17th April the Division’s remnants – described as being a Kampfgruppe of the 369th - arrived in an area north of Brod, as the entire Axis front line fell back towards the west. Sarajevo had been evacuated on the 6th of April, 1945, and Tito’s forces, now over 650,000 strong, were on an offensive everywhere against the weak German and NDH defenders. The remnants of the Division moved with the retreating forces of the NDH westward, hoping to secure a final line of defence around Karlovac (the “Zvonimir” Line), and, once this was abandoned, around the Croatian capital Zagreb.
On the 28th of April, 1945, the entire 370th Infantry Regiment of the 369th Division comprised no more than 515 men, and other regiments of the Division were no better off. On May 6th, 1945, the German military command surrendered control of the Divisional remnants to the Croatian (NDH) Armed Forces in Velika Gorica just south of Zagreb. On May 7th heavy fighting occurred around Ljeskovac and Jastrebarsko near Zagreb, and members of the Division were in the thick of it, attempting to keep open the retreat route towards Austria for Axis forces. On May 8th, remaining members of the Division retreated to Samobor (just west of Zagreb), and on the 9th and 10th joined the columns of the Croatian (NDH) Armed Forces, various collaborationist units from Serbia and Montenegro, as well as masses of civilians attempting to reach Allied (British) troops and surrender, expecting better treatment at the hands of the Western Allies than at the hands of Tito’s Communist troops.
It would appear that members of the Division split up in this time period, as reports of surrender by units of the 369th are reported at various locations in Slovenia and Austria after May 10th. For example, on May 11th, 1945, elements of the 369th ‘Devils’ Division are reported to have surrendered and were disarmed by the British 6th Armoured Division between Loricica and Prosenisko. According to the memoirs of Milan Basta, a Political Commissar in the NOVJ, a battalion strength force of the 369th reached the Austrian border west of Dravograd on May 16th, 1945, scaring the wits out of the weak local detachment of the NOVJ as it moved to surrender to British forces. Members of the Division are also reported to have surrendered at Bleiburg, Austria, where the majority of the Croatian Armed Forces troops laid down their arms on May 15th, 1945.
Altogether, 160 Officers and 2,876 NCO’s and men managed to surrender to the British. Their relief at not having fallen into Partisan (or even Soviet hands) was, however, short-lived. The British forces, in an act of apparent deceit, retribution, or possibly simple ignorance, had promised the Croats that they would be given asylum in Italy if they surrendered peacefully. Instead, they were promptly handed over to Tito’s Communist Partisans - the terribly predictable outcome being that most of them were brutally executed. Most members of the 369th shared the fate of their NDH comrades-in-arms.
The last Commander of the 369th, Lt. General Neidholt, survived the war, but was extradited to Yugoslavia and tried by a military court in Belgrade for alleged massacres of civilians and other atrocities committed by his men. Neidholt was sentenced to death, and hanged on 27th February 1947; with him finally perished the last of the 369th Division.
“Seems the Serbian apologists are out in force today.”
Hey MD, I hear this will be the new Croatian national hymn!
Issat right.
That is, it seems that certain individuals (around here) that like to demonize Serbs are out and about today too.
isnt that 100 million dead - I can see 300 million casualties tho.
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