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Civil War Relics
Lothar Pankosk
NAME- Lothar Pankosk
NATION- Croatia
DATE (S) OF INTERVIEW (S)- 1984
LOCATION OF INTERVIEW (S)- Sarajevo, Yugoslavia - Garmisch, West Germany
LANGUAGE (S) CONDUCTED- English/German
SIGNIFICANCE OF SUBJECT- -Pro-German Chetnik during World War II
OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE- None
FORMAT- Q & A Standard
Q- Where are you from originally?
A- I was born in October 1922 a small village near Zagreb, although my parents were Catholics from Sarajevo. They left because of the problems that were starting due to the Communists and the difficulty in finding work. My father was a skilled carpenter and my mother was a piano teacher. I had only one sister, no brothers, and I was the oldest.
Q- What was your military background?
A- I was in the Yugoslav National Army, which at that time was a mixture of many different peoples from all over the country. We were not a country until after the end of the First World War, and everyone was thrown together. The military and especially the officer class were dominated by the Serbs, and had always been that way. I trained as an artilleryman.
Q- Did you see any action during the German invasion?
A- Yes. I had just finished training at age eighteen when we were sent to support the defence of Belgrade, but we were too late. German troops had occupied the capitol before we arrived in April 1941. The Army surrendered and the Tito government went into the mountains, while the rest went into prisoner of war camps.
A- How did you begin fighting with the Germans?
Q- I was in a POW camp in Austria when a German officer came around asking for volunteers, but I don’t remember his name. There were perhaps four hundred of us in this camp, mostly Croats, as we were segregated by ethnicity. I think that all but a couple of dozen joined, and we were released. We went to a training camp in Doeberitz for six weeks, then deployed in Croatia. Our job was to act as an anti-partisan auxiliary force, wearing German uniforms if assigned directly to German units; otherwise we wore distinctive civilian clothing. The Germans placed us under the command of a senior officer, and many of the men defected and went to join Colonel [later General] Draza Mihailovic’s forces, who were fighting Tito as well as the Germans.
Q- How did you feel fighting fellow Yugoslavs?
A- I personally had no problem with it, since I had witnessed what Tito’s Communists had done to the churches and civilians in parts of the country. I personally believed that the Germans were a much lesser evil than Tito. Although we had fought against Tito’s guerrillas as pro-fascist guerrillas, we could respect Tito for maintaining autonomy for Yugoslavia from all Soviet control. This showed the country that he cared about Yugoslavia rather than just the Communist Party. However, I do know that it was the activities of the Soviet military in Eastern Europe and the greedy Stalin wanting to conquer as opposed to liberate nations. Those fears were proven accurate, as history has proven.
Q- Did not the German invasion create fear in the Croats as well?
A- No, not at all. President [Dr. Ante] Pavelic had an understanding with Hitler, and Hitler made it quite clear that he had no interest in dominating and occupying Croatia, which he considered an ally. However, we as ethnic Serbs and Bosnians were initially opposed to the German invasion, and we Chetniks were nationalists who wanted a Yugoslavia of our own. When the Germans invaded and the war increased the division within our ethnic peoples, we soon learned that Tito was requesting support for his Communists from Russia. This was not what we wanted, since we knew that any Soviet assistance meant a possible Soviet government, or at least a Soviet controlled govern-ment, and this was completely unacceptable. Our decision to fight with the Germans stemmed from our belief that we would cease to exist as nationalists if the Communists won. I have no regrets in my decision to fight the Titoists. I also fought them after the war, and went to Greece to fight the Communists there in the civil war, and I was not alone. It is ironic that historians discuss the Genocide of the Jews and Serbs under German rule, yet they conveniently forget the millions killed by the Communists; people killed who simply wanted to be free and determine their own destiny. We fought for our lives, our land, and our people. Nothing else.
Q- What was the greatest motivation in your fight, since you fought both the Germans and Tito’s forces at various times?
A- Survival, and a country of our own. Tito’s people would definitely kill us, while the Germans were concerned about our loyalty on occasion; we could usually count on good treatment.
Q- How long did fight with the Chetniks?
A- I was with the Chetniks for the entire war, from September 1941 until May 1945.
Q- Were you involved in any of the major activity and operations?
A- Yes, Operation White in January 1943 and Operation Black in May 1943, as well as operating as a support unit during Operation Roesselsprung, the last great attempt to catch Tito and his headquarters in January 1944.
Q- What was Operation White like?
A- It was a terrible series of running battles, they all were. During Operation White I was assigned to a unit supporting the ‘Prinz Eugen’ Division, and both sides took heavy casualties at the Battle of the Neretva River. The SS unit had to basically abandon their armoured support and use foot infantry, and that was a battle the partisans preferred. They knew the terrain better than the Germans, which was why they wanted us to help. We had better weapons and supplies, but the partisans could move faster and were elusive. The Luftwaffe bombed them from the air, blocking their escape routes while we outflanked them. We caught several hundred and a pitched night battle ensued, and the confusion cannot be underestimated. Many soldiers were apparently hit by friendly fire, and some of the Chetniks decided that it was better to attack alone and in their smaller groups. This infuriated the German commander, General [Artur] Phleps, and he ordered all auxiliary units to return to their staging areas. I am not sure what ever came of that.
A- I suppose that Operation Black was quite similar?
Q- Schwarz was different; this was a mission designed solely to capture Tito, and we almost did at Kolasin. During the push there were over 100,000 German, Italian, Chetnik and other volunteers involved, and we apparently trapped over 25,000 of Tito’s partisans. This erupted into the largest single battle of the entire war in Yugoslavia, I think. Tito still managed to escape, but he left thousands of dead and wounded behind. This was where I was wounded the only time during the war.
Q- How were you wounded?
A- The Germans to our left flank were moving in under artillery fire, and we were to push in from the right, a double envelopment. We caught most of the enemy in a large defilade and fired down into the valley with mortars, machine guns, rifles, everything. After four hours we swept down into the valley to kill any survivors unless they were clearly surrendering, which was actually against standing orders. There were to be no prisoners to be taken, except Tito. Even though we were carrying photographs of Tito for ident-ification purposes, it is unrealistic to expect men in battle to be looking into the face of every enemy to see if he was a certain person. This was crazy, and we decided that capturing someone, anyone, might increase our chances of locating him and his headquarters. This was also difficult because, like a good partisan leader Tito changed his headquarters all the time, maintaining mobility. Yet we did manage to kill thousands of his followers. I was rolling over dead partisans looking into their faces, although I did not need the photograph. One of the ‘corpses’ I turned over fired a pistol into my shoulder, so I killed him. Unfortunately at the end of the operation in March the German commander, General Leuthers ordered all Chetnik units disarmed. They were going to take away all of our weapons because they did not trust us. Many Chetniks deserted after that, and that was when many of us, myself included began fighting the Germans. Later we were able to patch things up somewhat, but neither side trusted the other very much.
Q- When did you return to duty?
A- About three months later, after I healed. I was placed in a convalescent home on Lake Balaton in Hungary, a beautiful place.
Q- You mentioned Roesselsprung. Tell me about that operation.
A- This was the January 1944 German mission led by Skorzeny to finally capture Tito. SS and paratroops landed in gliders and parachutes near his cave headquarters. Tito was wounded and the Germans exchanged heavy casualties with the partisans. We Chetniks were also involved, although independently, and were trying the same thing, although Germans would occasionally fire on Chetnik units once they were identified. This was what made General Mihailovic so angry, but he was able to negotiate a couple of truces. It was these activities that would have him branded a traitor, and later executed by Tito once the war was over. Many brave Germans died when they were trapped in the mouth of the cave where Tito was hiding, and the battle lasted for a couple of days. Once again I was back with the Germans following a negotiation by Mihailovic and the German commander, and was assigned to ‘Prinz Eugen’. We were to relieve the trapped commandos on the mountain, but we had problems of our own and fought a lengthy battle, unable to get to the men in time.
Q- How did the war end for you?
A- I was captured by British forces near the Adriatic while trying to escape a group of Tito’s men who were hunting for us. We were out of ammunition, and so we decided to take our chances with the British. The officer we spoke with was very understanding of our desire not to be taken by the Comm-unists, and he managed to quietly allow us to obtain German SS uniforms, which was not exactly a move in a better direction. All of the Germans were to be taken either to Czechoslovakia, Austria, or Greece, and I went to Austria. There I managed to remove the SS insignia and eventually get a regular Army tunic. I spoke German well enough and convinced the interrogators that I was half German and a conscript. I was out of the camp in six months and relocated to Germany. I only returned to Yugoslavia after Tito died four years ago, but I still have a home here.
A- Did you ever meet Mihailovic?
Q- Yes, several times, and I liked him as a professional soldier, but I don’t think he had the requirements for politics and diplomacy that was necessary in that war. I was also concerned at his ability to shift allegiances to and from the Germans, but respected him for his constant refusal to relinquish his position towards Tito.
Q- What about Ante Pavelic?
A- Pavelic I never met, but he was a hero to us; fighting as a politician to prevent the Communists from dominating Croatia, and he will always be remembered as a man who did whatever was necessary to get the job done.
Q- Pavelic did support and even ordered the killings of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, to include women and children; even the German records confirmed this. What was your position on this methodology?
A- Tito had done the same to us, as well as the Bosnians, killing most of the Catholic and Orthodox clergy, so Pavelic retaliated in kind. Terrible things happen in war and some tragedies occur. However, we were not the Germans, and did not actively do the things against Jews and others, so I don’t think that we should be placed in the same category.
Q- What did you do after the war and your release?
A- I knew enough carpentry from working with my father, and there was much work and rebuilding after the war in Germany. As long as you were com-petent and came to work on time, few questions were asked if you spoke with an accent.
Q- What do you think will happen to the Yugoslavia of the future?
A- I think that it will tear itself apart again, since there is no unifying factor. Tito may have been a tyrant, but he kept the nation together and free from Moscow’s influence, and even criticised their activities in 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia and the Afghanistan invasion. He was an outspoken critic, and for that he should be remembered as well as his past evil deeds.
Q- Do you have any regrets about the war and your role?
A- I regret that we were not granted independent status, which would have happened under a German victory. At least the Allies might have been more sensitive to the individual peoples, but politics is not always to the benefit of everyone. With Tito leaning towards the west his neutrality was a guarantor of NATO and United Nations support. We will see if this remains the case, but I don’t think so.