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The UN Srebrenica resolution and Germany’s historic failure

Just over two months ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, without the support of the majority of its member states (84 voted in favour, 68 abstained, 19 voted against and 22 countries, including Israel, were absent from the vote), declaring July 11 as the “International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide” and condemning genocide denial and the glorification of war criminals.

Why, of all the many massacres of modern times, was this heinous war crime classified as genocide? The UN General Assembly did so despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Bosniaks who fled to Srebrenica, officially declared a haven for Bosnian Muslims, were unharmed by Republika Srpska forces. In fact, all the women, children and old men who made up the vast majority of the 25,000 refugees were released unharmed.

Such an absurd decision is not unusual at the United Nations, where politics is the game and certain political allies automatically have the majority. Under these circumstances, Serbia had no chance to prevent the adoption of this resolution. Israelis can pity Serbia, because Israel too has been a victim of obviously politically motivated resolutions and unjustified criticism adopted in the General Assembly. The most famous and outrageous of these was the resolution “Zionism is racism”.

While Serbia can take comfort in the fact that a majority of the General Assembly members did not support the resolution, one of the most vexing aspects was that the resolution was proposed and co-sponsored by Germany. While German responsibility for the cruel “Final Solution” that the Nazis implemented to completely exterminate Europe's Jews is well known, few people outside the former Yugoslavia are aware of the extent and cruelty of the Nazi crimes against the Serbs during World War II.

SEFTON DELMER (centre) reports from a German reception camp for refugees from Eastern Europe, 1958. Delmer was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940 to organize “black propaganda” broadcasts to Nazi Germany. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The brutality of the Nazis was evident from the very first day of the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, when they launched a murderous bombing raid on Belgrade, completely destroying the National Library and its valuable collection of books, some of which dated back to the 12th century. This was followed by the establishment of notorious Nazi concentration camps in the German-occupied territories, such as Banjica in Belgrade and the infamous Crveni Krst (Red Cross) in Niš, where some 14,000 innocent people, mostly Serbs, were murdered.

Black Octobers everywhere

This was accompanied by massive reprisals against the Serbian civilian population, far more drastic than the measures taken in other occupied countries (100 civilians, in some cases children, were executed for the death of a German soldier, 50 for a wounded one). The most notorious massacre of innocents took place in Kragujevac in the aptly named “Black October” of 1941.

A significant number of ethnic Germans living in Yugoslavia formed the fifth column in the years before the war and then joined the Nazi invaders. Many of them volunteered for the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen”.

In the annexed areas of Yugoslavia, the Germans' allies, with the full permission and support of the Nazis, committed cruel crimes against the Serbian civilian population. The worst perpetrators in this regard were the Croatian Ustaše, who launched a genocidal campaign against the Serbs, massacred them in rural areas and in the concentration camps they established throughout the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which the Germans had established after the occupation of Yugoslavia. Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croats were tortured in the most cruel ways and finally murdered in Jasenovac, the camp that became a symbol of the Ustaše's cruelty and depravity.

“Nazi Germany bore full responsibility”

Even Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, the German military envoy in Zagreb, strongly criticized the Ustaše's terrible atrocities and warned that they would trigger an uprising of the native Serbian population. Nazi Germany also bore full responsibility for this. It not only created the conditions but also conceived the NDH. Nazi Germany never attempted to contain the Ustaše's genocidal campaigns set in motion by NDH dictator Ante Pavelic. On the contrary, Hitler told it that if the NDH wanted to be stable, it would have to pursue an intolerant nationalist policy for 50 years, as too much tolerance could only create problems.

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, Michael Roth, described the negative reactions from Belgrade to the adoption of the resolution on Srebrenica as “shameful and disappointing”. He added that the proposal to adopt a similar resolution on Jasenovac in response seemed to be an attempt to divert attention. “It is not about some pointing the finger at others.”

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Even if one understands what Roth wanted to say, the lack of a basic expression of regret and remorse is unacceptable. This is certainly not a question of not honouring the victims as such, but of the lack of special consideration for their fate, which would be expected from Germany, which also bears full responsibility for Jasenovac. To this day, however, there is no sense in the Balkans that Germany has ever expressed remorse or regret for the crimes committed against the Serbs.

Instead, for political reasons, people have all too often sided with those who acted to Serbia's detriment. Germany is one of Serbia's most important investors and foreign trade partners. It is undoubtedly one of the key countries in the European Union and therefore of great importance for Serbia. For this very reason, it would be only natural to expect an expression of historical responsibility towards the Serbian people and respect for their victims.

Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter and director of the Israel Office and the Department of Eastern European Affairs. Aleksandar Nikolic is Honorary Consul of the Republic of Serbia in Israel.



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