WWII PM Nedic ‘Saw Himself as Serbia’s Petain’
This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp
Belgrade Higher Court. Photo: BIRN. |
Historian Milan Ristovic told the rehabilitation hearing at Belgrade Higher Court on Monday that a report by the WWII-era German Foreign Ministry official in Serbia, Felix Benzler, said that Nedic considered himself to be the Serbian version of the Vichy French collaborationist leader, Marshal Philippe Petain.
“Benzler’s report shows what tasks Nedic took upon himself [by agreeing to be prime minister in the collaborationist government],” said Ristovic, a professor in the history department of the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy.
In the report, Benzler said that Nedic pledged to “act as harshly as possible towards Jews and freemasons”, as well as against resistance fighters, Ristovic said.
Benzler, the German foreign ministry’s plenipotentiary in Serbia, also reported that Nedic identified so much with Nazi policies that his public speeches, which had to be sanctioned by Benzler, required almost no interventions.
Nedic headed the so-called Government of National Salvation, a puppet administration in Serbia during World War II that operated from August 1941 to October 1944.
After the war, the Yugoslav Communist authorities charged him with collaboration with the Germans and treachery, but the legal process was cut short when he committed suicide in a prison cell in February 1946.
The rehabilitation hearings began in December 2015 on the request of Nedic’s family.
They claim that he was not a traitor who was guilty of causing suffering during the Nazi occupation of the country, as the Yugoslav Communist authorities insisted when they prosecuted him after WWII.
Nedic’s great-grandson and his allies argue that the Nazi-backed premier gave refuge to 600,000 Serbs from across the Balkan region who fled to Serbian territory during WWII, thus ensuring their safety.
At Monday’s hearing, the plaintiffs’ lawyer asked historian Ristovic about individual cases in which Nedic allegedly intervened to help save Jews and Serbs, but was repeatedly interrupted by the presiding judge for not presenting evidence of these interventions.
Ristovic said that he was not familiar with these alleged attempts by Nedic.
The lawyer also asked if Nedic tried to use his position to end Nazi repression against the civilian population, which was being carried put in retaliation for attacks by the resistance movement.
“He asked for the repressions to end. Nothing of the kind was promised to him, but he still took office [as prime minister],” Ristovic said.
He added that Nedic threatened suicide or resignation over the issue, but ultimately did nothing about it.
The policy of killing 100 civilians for each German soldier killed by the resistance, or 50 for each one wounded, stopped when Germans realised it was “counterproductive”, and not because of Nedic, Ristovic added.
The next hearing is scheduled for March 26.