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CLOSE TO THE “GERMAN CAUSE”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One of the earliest secret reports discussing Tito\u2019s identity was compiled in September 1942, based on the interrogation of German officers captured after a Partisan attack on a Nazi metal factory in Livno and later released in a prisoner exchange. During their captivity, the German officers had a unique opportunity to talk with Tito, and one of them provided the following testimony:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It can be said about Tito that after the ban on the Communist Party in Yugoslavia, he was its unofficial leader. It should be noted that he held a high position in the Spanish Civil War and commanded a unit larger than a brigade. After the war ended, he went to Russia, and in the fall of that year (1939, author\u2019s note), accompanied by an English and a Yugoslav General Staff officer, he arrived on the Dalmatian coast via submarine. From them, he received a radio transmitter through which he maintained communication abroad to exchange intelligence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the assumption that Tito was deliberately transferred to Yugoslavia by an English submarine (as clarified in a 1943 document), the double or even multiple political games that marked his postwar era had already begun during the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The captured German officers were shocked by Tito\u2019s stance that, due to the “horrific bloodshed on the Eastern Front, a truce between the Germans and the Russians must be negotiated, as there was a danger that England and America would once again emerge as the victors.” Tito believed that the victory of capitalist regimes dominating the Anglo-American world would mean disaster, or rather enslavement, for the working class. His statement leads to two possible implications. The first is that Tito\u2019s remarks were intended to weaken the Germans’ fighting morale\u2014convincing them of the futility of their struggle against the Soviets, thereby swaying them in his favor. On the other hand, there is a possibility that Tito was much closer to the “German cause” than previously thought. Supporting this theory is a statement in the report noting that Tito “knew the Germans very well from before” and that he was “surprised they were capable of the crimes they had committed in Belgrade at that time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The German officer to whom Tito said this dismissed his remarks, stating that these were “English lies, as they were in World War I,” evidently playing along with Tito\u2019s game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, during a lengthy conversation, Tito provided the Germans with a detailed description of the Austro-Hungarian military organization in World War I, demonstrating “very extensive professional knowledge and flawless command of the German language,” leading to the assumption that Tito had been an Austrian officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These statements and details about the “bandit leader,” as he was frequently called, led the Germans to question who Tito really was and to invest significant resources in finding an answer\u2014extending their search far beyond Yugoslavia to Paris, Prague, and Soviet Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a document submitted in October 1942, German intelligence services began examining Tito\u2019s origins for the first time, suspecting\u2014primarily due to his accent\u2014that he was Slovenian or Czech, a theory later confirmed in an interrogation by a certain Dr. Levi Kurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paradoxically, as the number of people providing testimonies about Tito increased, so did the number of contradictions. “We have no clear information about his profession. Sometimes he was described as an intellectual, and at other times he was considered a metallurgical worker from the Ljubljana region. In any case, he is highly intelligent. We are not certain whether he participated in the Spanish War. We cannot determine that based on the materials available to us,” stated a report from October 13, 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Nazi services across Europe searched archives for Tito\u2019s true identity, intelligence officers in occupied Yugoslavia focused on the only tangible aspect of the elusive Marshal\u2014his physical appearance, which remained unknown to the Germans until the end of 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only in the interrogation report of Belgrade\u2019s Communist Party Central Committee member Svetozar Markovi\u0107 from January 1943 did the Germans insist on a detailed description of Tito. In addition to physical traits such as “broad shoulders, dark thick hair combed back, a strikingly chiseled and clean-shaven face,” Markovi\u0107 noted that Tito dressed exceptionally elegantly and that he had “very well-maintained hands, despite his supposed occupation as a locksmith.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comments on this document reveal that Markovi\u0107\u2019s testimony piqued the Germans’ curiosity, especially after Gestapo received testimony that same month from officer Mitterhamer, who suggested that Tito “could very well be the same person as Croatian Kamilo Horvatin,” who, before traveling to the USSR in 1925, worked as a journalist in several communist publications in Zagreb. As evidence, Mitterhamer provided a photograph of Tito, based on which a separate report concluded that Tito and Horvatin were identical individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How the German secret services\u2014renowned for their precision and thoroughness\u2014managed to confuse Josip Broz with the well-known Croatian communist and editor of the workers’-peasants’ newspaper Borba<\/em>, who in 1937 and 1938 accused Tito from Moscow of “giving a completely false picture of the state of the party,” remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HE WAS A SERB AFTER ALL<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Gestapo did not dwell long on this mistaken assumption and, within two weeks, pursued further speculation. A document from the German embassy in Zagreb first mentioned the name Ivan Brozovi\u0107 as a potential identity for Tito. “Tito\u2019s real name, based on found photographs and verified sources, is Ivan Brozovi\u0107. He is a metallurgical worker and was imprisoned until 1934 for communist activities. After his release, he traveled to the USSR for business and, during the Spanish Civil War, went to Spain via France. After that, he took over the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CK KPJ), where he remains in charge, and his chief of staff is Arso Jovanovi\u0107.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although further reports from Usta\u0161e services claimed that Ivan Brozovi\u0107 (referred to as Brosovi\u0107 in Usta\u0161e documents) allegedly replaced a certain Gorki\u0107 as secretary of the CK KPJ in France\u2014organizing the transfer of Yugoslav communists to Spain\u2014the Gestapo quickly determined that Ivan Brozovi\u0107 was not Tito, but rather his associate and a lawyer from Herzegovina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Due to their failure to locate Brozovi\u0107, the Germans turned to information from the Ljoti\u0107 movement. From these circles, an unnamed German officer presented a controversial version of Tito\u2019s origins, different from all previous ones, which was noted with caution in the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CHICAGO SERBS SHOW BIG HEARTS: Fundraiser for the first Serbian Orthodox church in the Caribbean a big success! (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n NETFLIX FINALLY RELEASED THE WHOLE SPEECH: Here\u2019s what Pe\u0161i\u0107 told the Eagles before the match with the Americans at the Olympics! (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n SERBIAN WINES FROM CHICAGO SPEAK 100 LANGUAGES! The diaspora from Dalmatia and Herzegovina preserved the tradition and showed class! (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Tito-i-Kenedi-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWELL-MAINTAINED HANDS OF A LOCKSMITH<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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