FEUILLETON: Dissolution of Yugoslavia, NATO aggression, and the seizure of Kosovo (3): Germany's scenario with the Vatican in a leading role

Writing for Kosovo Online: Miroslav Stojanovic

The recent release of secret documents from the office of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (archives of the Washington-based Wilson Center) is explained in a completely different way from how it was done in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", politically crafted "hesitation" of the official Bonn to recognize the secession of Slovenia and Croatia.

Chancellor Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher evidently did not hesitate at all (strategically) whether to do it. Their concern was only how to achieve it (tactically) without reviving the "ghost of history" with this act.

It was necessary, namely, at all costs to avoid a situation in which the forces (infamous) "Axis" from 1941 - Germany, Italy, and Hungary - which had shattered and (during the war) dismembered the first Yugoslavia, would be the first to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.

This was Kohl's and Genscher's leitmotif and rationale that runs through and is emphasized, in all secret meetings and discussions. And in the documents of the Wilson Center, conversations with (then) President Milan Kucan are most often mentioned.

At the meeting in Bonn on October 8, 1991, Chancellor Kohl still spoke to his guest, the Slovenian President, about the reasons for hesitation. Although the day of the final (and hasty) German decision to recognize Slovenia and Croatia was already looming.

Besides Kohl and Kucan, the meeting was attended (participating less in the conversation) by Foreign Ministers Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Dimitrij Rupel.

Kohl's assessment of the situation

According to the published "summary" (notes) aimed at explaining the stance of the federal (German) government, Chancellor Kohl remarked how there was "no need to say where (and towards whom) our (German) sympathies lie." This was "evident everywhere in Germany."

However, Kohl reminded that they were in a situation "where history is catching up with the peoples of Europe once again. The bills from the beginning of the century are before us again." Therefore, the Germans, the chancellor noted, were "in a special position."

It's only been a year since we've been united. And that, as I recalled, hasn't been easy for our neighbors both from the east and from the west. The economic situation itself (German power) makes that clear. And for us, Kohl continued, it's important not to be isolated (lonely) in our stance (towards the independence of Slovenia and Croatia). The president (Kucan) knows that for weeks there has been talk of “old fronts from 1941".

Genscher chimed in, “That's not the case (that such discussions and warnings are happening) only in Belgrade...“

Chancellor Kohl says that, for him, it's also an internal political problem. Some in Germany, he laments, haven't understood what the problem is with the creation of a new "coalition similar to the one from 1941."

Kohl: "We cannot, and I kindly ask President Kucan to understand this, be the only ones (to recognize Slovenia). Ideally, the entire European Community would be ready to do so." However, for the Chancellor, it would even be acceptable if only five members did so. His interest is "to break through the lines from 1941." This is also important in the case of Slovenia: it also needs to think about "the day after."

The same "caution" the Chancellor showed the day before, he also expressed in his conversation with (then) Croatian Foreign Minister Zvonimir Separovic.

We are ready, Kohl said, "to do everything humanly possible to help Croatia." However, he warned his guest, "Croatia must understand: regarding the recognition of Croatia (and because of it), we must not revive the coalition from 1941. The one that would (again) consist of Germany, Italy, and Hungary...

The German head of government conveyed the same "considerations" to Kucan during their new meeting and conversation on December 3, a few days before announcing the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia "by (Catholic) Christmas" at a meeting of his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Once again, the Chancellor warned his guest (Kucan) how it is "very important" for Germans to avoid two dangers: being isolated when it comes to recognizing Slovenian (and also Croatian) secession and the second danger is that it would be done "by repeating the constellation from 1941."

Kucan complained that French President Mitterrand "reluctantly supports (when it comes to the determination to recognize the independence of Slovenia) German policy."
A historian by education, Kohl explained to the Slovenian President how "we all carry the history of our nations on our backs." With the remark: "The treaties at the end of the First World War were concluded in Paris, not elsewhere."

The notion that "history on our shoulders" determines policy and the behavior of statesmen, the German Chancellor explained (and assured him of this) once again to another guest (in 1993), US Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Erasing the traces of Versailles

The perspectives (positions) of certain European countries in this conflict (Yugoslav) have been shaped and determined historically. The entire (post-war) territorial and national system created in Paris in 1919, connected with the area of southern Europe, still influences national positions.

A year later, during a visit to the White House, he complained to the host, Bill Clinton, how, "unfortunately," the policy of official Paris (read: Mitterrand's), in terms of support for the Serbs, was shaped by French positions from Paris in 1919."

German politicians, incidentally, did everything to erase and destroy all traces and consequences of (Parisian) Versailles. Including, above all, the existence of the "Versailles Yugoslavia."
To mention, in the context of this entire story about the "effect (and consequences) of history," a detail from the conversation between French President Francois Mitterrand and British Prime Minister John Major.

The best way to solve the Yugoslav crisis, the old cynic said, of course in jest, would be for the Turks, Germans, and Hungarians to send an army to support the Croats, and for Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France to send (military) aid to Serbia.

Major didn't understand the joke, or didn't want to understand it in that context: Great Britain, he said, would not send an army...

The job was done, to the detriment of Yugoslavia and the Serbs, even without an army. To this, alongside the Germans and Germany, the Vatican contributed greatly (perhaps even crucially).
Stories about this, which were once often labeled as products of famous "conspiracy theories," gain weight with the publication of secret documents.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke about the "use" of the Vatican with Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. He repeated what he had told his Slovenian and Croatian counterparts: the job would be done if five to six states recognized Slovenia and Croatia. Only that "this group doesn't resemble the coalition from 1941."

It would be very important, Kohl told Andreotti, to "have France on our side." Perhaps even Spain. He immediately brought the Vatican into the "game." As Andreotti knows, he said, the Vatican was "working intensively" towards the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia.

Andreotti apparently had the latest and more reliable information: the Vatican doesn't want to be the first; it wants to "push someone else."

And the Vatican will succeed in that. With strong "assistance" from Hans-Dietrich Genscher and - Stipe Mesic.

Mesic tried to be convincing

A certain Bozo Dimnik, a Slovenian businessman and president of the Slovenian-Croatian Friendship Society, claims that Mesic is "eighty percent responsible" for the official recognition of Croatian independence.

In a newspaper interview, Dimnik revealed how he "smuggled" Mesic, then the President of the Presidency of the SFRY, in complete secrecy ("he carried his head in a bag; if the Serbs had found out about it, he would have been condemned as a traitor") across the Slovenian, Austrian, and German borders. Without any control or hindrance. Politicians and intelligence services did their job. He brought him to Bonn for a meeting with Genscher.

A lunch was organized. Genscher "received them reluctantly." "It seemed like he wasn't even listening to us." Mesic tried hard to be convincing. And supposedly succeeded.

Another Slovenian, at the time the Ambassador of the SFRY, Boris Frlec, was persuading the German Foreign Minister (Genscher received him at his home) that the Yugoslav People's Army was no longer "the people's army, there are no Slovenes and Croats in it..."

Genscher explained to Mesic, despite his "convincing arguments," that Germany couldn't do much. (Although it did). The reason: we collaborated with you in the Second World War.

He recommended to Mesic and the Croats to go to Iceland (which was neutral in the war), to Vaclav Havel, and, especially, to the Vatican.

Only Havel didn't receive us, despite Genscher's recommendation, Dimnik complained. He doesn't know why. Mesic had already met with the pope on December 6th. Tudjman sent Foreign Minister Separovic to Iceland.

The German scenario, with the Vatican playing a major role, was successfully played out and achieved. Iceland listened to the Vatican. It was the first to recognize Slovenia and Croatia on December 19th. The Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, promptly followed.

The main initiator (and director) of the entire operation, Germany, agreed to postpone Kohl's "Christmas promise" until January 15th, 1992, under great pressure not to "rush," when all members of the European family (albeit some reluctantly) did so.

Washington waited until April to recognize it. Then, the country that played a decisive role (President Woodrow Wilson) in the creation of the first Yugoslavia at Versailles in 1919 (a year that was a political "thorn in Kohl's side") also contributed to the dissolution of the second.

To be continued tomorrow: Seizure of the Serbian province