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A Critical Reappraisal in 2008 by Carl Savich

posted 16 years ago by Ravnagora
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Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas (1943): A Critical Reappraisal

By Carl Savich

On January 11, 1943, during the height of World War II, Twentieth Century Fox released the movie Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas on the guerrilla movement headed by Draza Mihailovich in German-occupied Yugoslavia. The movie starred Philip Dorn as Draza Mihailovich and Anna Sten as his wife. The movie was the Hollywood chronicle of the Chetnik resistance movement.

Draza Mihailovich launched a resistance movement against the Nazi occupation forces of Yugoslavia in 1941. This was unprecedented and created a sensation in Europe and in America. In America, Draza Mihailovich became one of the most popular figures in the news. In the May 25, 1942 issue of Time Magazine, Mihailovich was on the cover under the heading, “Mihailovich: Yugoslavia’s Unconquered.” He was one of the major contenders for the title of Time’s Man of the Year. Time was inundated by letters of support. Joseph Stalin, however, ended up the Man of the Year in 1942 because the Red Army was able to halt the German advance on Moscow. But Mihailovich received massive media coverage in the US, garnering very favorable popular support and acclaim.

As a result of this wide acclaim, in 1942, a Hollywood movie was made by a major studio, Twentieth Century-Fox, called Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas, which showed Draza Mihailovich and his forces as allies of the US. The film starred Dutch-born actor Philip Dorn, who played Papa Lars Hanson in the 1948 classic, nominated for 5 Academy Awards, I Remember Mama, as Draza Mihailovich and Russian-born Anna Sten, Samuel Goldwyn’s answer to Greta Garbo, as his wife, Lubitca Mihailovitch. Dorn had appeared in Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) with John Wayne, and the sequel or follow-up to Casablanca, Passage to Marseille (1944) directed by Michael Curtiz with Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. Born in the Netherlands as Hein van der Niet, Dorn had been a screen actor in the Netherlands and in Germany during the 1930s. He continued to act until the 1950s when poor health forced him to retire. He died in 1975.

Anna Sten had been born in Kiev as Anel Stenski Sudakevich. She appeared in Russian and German movies such as The Bothers Karamazov and Trapeze in 1931 in Germany. She was discovered by Konstantin Stanislavsky who encouraged her to try out for the Moscow Film Academy. Samuel Goldwyn brought her to Hollywood and sought to make her into a Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich type of female lead. Sten was even satirized in Cole Porter’s musical Anything Goes (1934): "If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction / Instruct Anna Sten in diction / Then Anna shows / Anything goes." She starred in the Goldwyn film Nana (1934), which failed at the box-office, as did subsequent releases We Live Again (1934) and The Wedding Night (1935). She was also in the 1943 movie They Came to Blow Up America about a planned attack on the American homeland by German saboteurs. She continued to make films and appeared on TV in the 1960s. She died in 1993.

Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas was produced by Bryan Foy and Sol M. Wurtzel, who had been one of the top executives at William Fox’s studio and remained a prominent producer when Fox merged with Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935.

The movie was directed by Louis King, best known for directing the My Friend Flicka sequels, based on the Mary O’Hara novels, in the 1940s, Thunderhead--Son of Flicka (1945) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1948), which received an Academy Award nomination, the Bulldog Drummond series of films, Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) with Warner Oland and Rita Hayworth, and a series of low budget B westerns in the 1920s and early 1930s, the most notable of which were made at Joseph P. Kennedy’s Film Booking Offices of America movie studio (FBO) in the 1920s.

The screenplay was written by Jack Andrews and Edward E. Paramore, Jr., based on the original story by Andrews. The movie was well-written, derived from events of Draza Mihailovich’s life. The movie is factual although some facts were changed. Mihailovich was based in Ravna Gora in Serbia, while in the movie the action takes place in Kotor in Montenegro. Mihailovich had four children, while the movie only showed two. Mihailovich’s wife was named Jelica Lazarevich, while in the movie she is called Lubitca. The cast also occasionally has difficulty pronouncing the “z” sound in “Draza”, mispronouncing it as a “j” sound while the actual sound is more like the “z” in the word “azure”. Nevertheless, diligent effort was made to rely as closely as possible to the facts and to recreate the Yugoslavian landscape.

Andrews and Paramore are able to capture what motivates Mihailovich in the following dialogue from the movie:

Lubitca Mihailovitch: The Germans say, “It is only a matter of time until we catch you!”

Draja Mihailovitch: You don’t believe that, do you?

Lubitca: They’re strong. They have so much.

Draja: Yes, but we are stronger because we have something they never had: The will to be free. You see, our people don’t like to be conquered. So they never will be.

Lubitca: That is the truth, isn’t it?

Draja: Yes, my dear.

The film opens with a written statement after the opening credits by Twentieth Century Fox that the film is dedicated to Draza Mihailovich and the Serbian Chetnik guerrillas:

“This picture is respectfully dedicated to Draja Mihailovitch and his fighting Chetniks—those fearless guerrillas who have dedicated their lives with a grim determination that no rest shall prevail until the final allied victory, and the liberation and resurrection of their beloved fatherland--Yugoslavia has been achieved.”

In the opening scene, German bombers attack Yugoslavia and bomb Belgrade in 1941. German tanks and armored vehicles are shown invading and occupying Yugoslavia. Then Chetnik guerrillas are shown attacking German occupation troops and resisting the occupation by sabotage. A German officer who predicts an easy occupation and imminent conquest of Yugoslavia is shown being shot by Chetnik guerrillas.

After Yugoslavia is invaded and occupied by Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria in 1941, Draza Mihailovich, a Serbian army colonel, forms a resistance movement to the Axis occupation. His guerrilla forces are known as Chetniks, a Serbian term for guerrillas, insurgents, or resistance fighters. Mihailovich’s forces attack German and Italian occupation troops and engage in sabotage, forcing the Axis to commit seven divisions against them. In the first action scene in the movie, the Chetniks capture an Italian supply convoy in Montenegro. Mihailovich calls the German headquarters in Kotor proposing to free the captured Italian troops if he is given gasoline in exchange. When German General von Bauer refuses, Mihailovich reveals that he will contact the Italian High Command to reveal the details of the offer. In order to prevent conflict between the Axis powers, Bauer is forced to agree after pressure from Wilhelm Brockner, the Gestapo Colonel.

Natalia, played by Virginia Gilmore, is the secretary to Gestapo chief Brockner. Natalia, however, works for the Chetniks and reveals confidential information to them. She reveals that 2,000 Yugoslavs will be transported by train to Germany. The Chetniks are able to intercept and attack the train and to release the prisoners. They send one of the German POWs to Bauer to thank him for providing them with more guerrillas. They place a Nazi swastika on his back.

Brockner responds by threatening to starve the people of Kotor. He orders that no food will be distributed unless Mihailovich’s wife Lubitca surrenders along with their two children, Mirko, played by Merrill Rodin, and Nada, played by Patricia Prest. Natalia prevents Lubitca from surrendering.

Mihailovich agrees to come to German military headquarters under a truce. Once in German custody, General Bauer announces that under international law and the customs of war, he can have Mihailovich summarily executed as a bandit and guerrilla. Yugoslavia officially and legally surrendered to Germany and thus the insurgency was illegal. Mihailovich was an outlaw. This forces Mihailovich to reveal his hand. He discloses that Chetnik guerrilla forces have captured Bauer’s wife and daughter as well as Brockner’s concubine. They will be freed only if food is restored to the people of Kotor. General Bauer is forced to release Mihailovich.

After the identity of Mirko is disclosed, Lubitca and Mirko are seized by German forces and taken to Mihailovich’s mountain hideout to force him to surrender. Every man, woman, and child in Kotor will be executed by German troops unless Mihailovich surrender within eighteen hours. Mihailovich announces that he will not surrender.

Mihailovich then prepares an ambush for the German forces. He orders his forces to pretend that they are retreating and surrendering. The German troops attack and are ambushed in the mountains. An aide to Mihailovich, Lt. Aleksa Petrovitch, played by Shepperd Strudwick, who appears as John Shepperd, also seeks to infiltrate the German command, but is captured. Other Chetnik guerrillas, under Maj. Danilov, played by Frank Lackteen, attack the town of Kotor where they defeat the German forces..

The entire action in the movie takes place in the mountainous coastal city of Kotor in Montenegro. In the major scenes, Draza Mihailovich and his Chetnik guerrillas are able to ambush and capture Italian and German occupation troops and officers. Mihailovich is portrayed as a real-life Zorro, who is able to outwit the Nazi war machine. A German occupation teacher is shown instructing and indoctrinating Serbian children to sing the Horst Wessel Song, which was the anthem of the Nazi Party and was part of the German national anthem during the Nazi regime, composed by an SA officer, a Brown shirt storm trooper in 1929, who was later assassinated by Communists. Mihailovich’s son Mirko is in this class. The teacher is able to discover his identity and to reveal it to the Gestapo. A Gestapo officer, Col. Wilhelm Brockner, played by Martin Kosleck, is able to then uncover the identity of Mihailovich’s two children, Mirko and Nada, and his wife, Lubitca. German forces then take them into custody to extort Mihailovich to surrender. The Chetniks are able to capture a high ranking German officer, Klausewitz, as well as the relatives of German occupation leaders. In the climax, Mihailovich is able to draw the German forces, led by Gen. von Bauer, played by Austrian-born actor Felix Basch, into an ambush in the surrounding mountains where they are defeated. Mihailovich emerges victorious. In the final scene, he is shown triumphant in front of a Serbian Orthodox Church flanked by two Orthodox priests, vowing to fight on until total victory is achieved.

The original musical score was by Hugo W. Friedhofer, who won the Academy Award for Best Musical Score for the classic World War II movie The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Friedhofer had also been the musical arranger on Casablanca and Now, Voyager in 1942 when he worked with Max Steiner. The cinematography was by Glen MacWilliams. The film editing was by Alfred Day.

The film was shot from September 17 to October 19, 1942, while additional scenes were filmed in the middle of November. The movie was 73 minutes long on 8 reels on 6,577 feet of black and white film with mono sound. An alternate title was The Seventh Column.

The movie was well-received by the American public and was shown in movie theaters all across America, in the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, California on May 7, 1943, the Tower Theatre in Bastrop, Texas in June, 1943, and at the Globe in New York City. In the February 23, 1943 Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper in Massachusetts, it was announced that “‘Chetniks’ Unconquerable Guerrilla Heroes” was playing in local movie theaters. In the April 15, 1943 Lima News newspaper in Ohio, it was reported that the movie played at the Quilna Theater: “Guerrilla heroes come into their own in the new picture, ‘Chetniks’, which commences at the Quilna theatre Friday night.” In the June 3, 1943 Mansfield Sentinel Journal newspaper in Ohio, an advertisement for the movie appeared: “Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas, the story of the fighting guerrillas, continues today at the Ritz. Philip Dorn is seen as the leader of the Chetniks. It is upon his orders that the fighting guerrillas move down from the hills to blast enemy ammunition dumps, blow up bridges.”

The New York Times reviewed the movie favorably on March 19, 1943 after it was shown in New York at the Globe in a review by “T.M.P.”, Thomas M. Pryor. The New York Times called the movie “splendidly acted” and that it had “the right spirit”. Hal Erickson of All Movie Guide (AMG) reviewed the movie favorably as well, noting how Mihailovich was vindicated. Erickson wrote that the movie portrayed Mihailovich as “a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WWII”.

The film has been unavailable and has not been reissued in the US in large part because the role of Mihailovich in World War II was rewritten and revised and falsified after the war. The movie is no longer politically correct.

Draza Mihailovich continued to make history after the movie was released. In 1944, his Chetnik guerrillas rescued over 500 US airmen shot down behind enemy lines over Serbia by German forces. This was one of the largest rescue operations in US military history. In recognition, after the war, Mihailovich received a posthumous Legion of Merit award given to him by US President Harry S. Truman upon the recommendation of Allied Supreme Commander in Europe General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas documents and dramatizes a remarkable and unique moment in the history of World War II. It captures a special moment in time. This is a movie that deserves to be recognized as an important film of World War II.

***********

[–] cudak31177-1 16 years ago

Bravo Ravnogorac!

[–] bosnian_flatdog 16 years ago

Yeah bravo, except for the part where the Chetniks cooperated with the Nazis in order to defeat Tito's Partizans, and made it hard for the Partizans to defeat the Nazis. Pretty stupid move by the Chetniks, I can understand why you left that part out.

[–] carlsavich 16 years ago

Bosnian flatdog,

it was the Stalin-supported and Stalin-backed Communists who were the Nazi collaborators. Josip Broz Tito was a hardcore Communist who was trained and educated in the Soviet Union. Broz, an ethnic Croat-Slovenian, was a Stalinist and a hardcore Bolshevist. This mindless hypocrisy is disgusting. From one side of your mouth you attack Stalin, from the other you praise Stalin, by lauding his proxy and Communist puppet, Josip Broz. Tito was a fanatical Stalinistic Communist who even married a Russian Communist.

Here is some history you need to learn. When Nazi Germany attacked Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, it was Draza Mihailovich and the Chetniks who resisted, even after the Yugoslav surrender. Croat Josip Broz Tito was a Nazi "collaborator" at that time, abiding by the Stalin-Hitler Non-Aggression Pact of 1939. You need to learn some facts and get that filthy Ustasha propaganda out of your diseased brain. So it was Tito and his Stalinist Communist Reds who were the actual Nazi collaborators. They allowed the Germans to destroy Yugoslavia and did not lift a finger to resist. It was only when Hitler attacked Communist Russia, the bastion of Stalinism, that Tito launched his phony resistance.

Tito's Communist collaboration with the Nazis has been documented in major histories of World War II. In Tito, Mihailovich, and the Allies, the historian documented and proved that the Red Bolshies, Tito's Stalinist Communists, collaborated with the Nazis. Why did you leave this out of your account.

Moreover, Bosnian Muslims formed two Nazi SS Divisions which Heinrich Himmler reviewed in a famous newsreel from 1943. Bosnian Muslims formed the Handzar and Kama Nazi SS Divisions. How many Jews did these Bosnian Muslims murder in their genocide? Or how many Jews died in the genocide because of these infamous Bosnian Muslim Nazi SS troops?

I find these Ustasha and Bosnian Muslim allegations false but also disingenuous. Croats ran the largest concentration camp in the Balkans at Jasenovac where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma were murdered in a brutal Croat/Bosnian Muslim genocide. The Croat Ustasha was one of the most genocidal and fanatical Nazi movements made up of Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Croats and Bosnian Muslims committed a genocide against Serbs and Jews and Roma.

Finally, Mihailovich and his Chetniks rescued over 500 US airmen shot down over Yugoslavia, while Croats and Bosnian Muslim Nazis were hunting them down for the German occupation forces. US President Harry Truman awarded Mihailovich a Medal of Merit after the war. In 2005, US Secretary of State Colin Powell approved the delivery of that award to Draza's daughter in Belgrade totally and completely vindicating Draza Mihailovich and the Chetniks. The US State Department had officially recognized Mihailovich as a US ally and a hero worthy of US recognition.

You need to expunge your mind of that poisonous Ustasha propaganda. You should document the Ustasha genocide committed by Croats and Bosnian Muslims against Serbs. And you need to study a little more about the Bosnian Muslim Nazi SS Divisions Handzar and Kama. You need to learn your own history. Your ignorance is appalling. That Ustasha propaganda damages the brain.

[–] Nemanja_Gajic 15 years ago

You seem to have more problems with communists than with nazis.

[–] gbozic-2 15 years ago

Nemanja,
The word Nazi is based on the first two syllables of the German word Nationalialsozialist. (In German 'ti' as in 'National' is pronounced /tsi/).

The term 'Nazi' was in widespread use in Germany as a mildly derogatory term in the early 1930s. It was inspired by the use of 'Sozi' for socialists. (Compare with 'Commie' for 'Communist'). Rival gangs of young kids in German school playgrounds in the early 1930s called themselves 'Nazis' or 'Sozis' and fought one another.

In German the word is a noun only, and cannot be used as an adjective.
In some dialects in southern Bavaria the word predates the rise of any National Socialist party or ideolgy, and means a (comically) clumsy man, buffoon.

So the intelligent gentleman you responded to is essentially in disagreement with them both.

But just for educational purposes let's pose this question:
What is the difference between socialism and communism?

Socialism and communism are alike in that both are systems of production for use based on public ownership of the means of production and centralized planning. Socialism grows directly out of capitalism; it is the first form of the new society. Communism is a further development or "higher stage" of socialism.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his deeds (socialism). From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs (communism).

The socialist principle of distribution according to deeds— that is, for quality and quantity of work performed, is immediately possible and practical. On the other hand, the communist principle of distribution according to needs is not immediately possible and practical—it is an ultimate goal.

Obviously, before it can be achieved, production must reach undreamed of heights—to satisfy everyone’s needs there must be the greatest of plenty of everything. In addition, there must have developed a change in the attitude of people toward work—instead of working because they have to, people will work because they want to, both out of a sense of responsibility to society and because work satisfies a felt need in their own lives.

Socialism is the first step in the process of developing the productive forces to achieve abundance and changing the mental and spiritual outlook of the people. It is the necessary transition stage from capitalism to communism.

It must not be assumed, from the distinction between socialism and communism, that the political parties all over the world which call themselves Socialist advocate socialism, while those which call themselves Communist advocate communism. That is not the case. Since the immediate successor to capitalism can only be socialism, the Communist parties,-like the Socialist parties, have as their goal the establishment of socialism.

Are there, then, no differences between the Socialist and Communist parties? Yes, there are.

The Communists believe that as soon as the working class and its allies are in a position to do so they must make a basic change in the character of the state; they must replace capitalist dictatorship over the working class with workers’ dictatorship over the capitalist class as the first step in the process by which the existence of capitalists as a class (but not as individuals) is ended and a classless society is eventually ushered in. Socialism cannot be built merely by taking over and using the old capitalist machinery of government; the workers must destroy the old and set up their own new state apparatus. The workers’ state must give the old ruling class no opportunity to organize a counter-revolution; it must use its armed strength to crush capitalist resistance when it arises.

The Socialists, on the other hand, believe that it is possible to make the transition from capitalism to socialism without a basic change in the character of the state. They hold this view because they do not think of the capitalist state as essentially an institution for the dictatorship of the capitalist class, but rather as a perfectly good piece of machinery which can be used in the interest of whichever class gets command of it. No need, then, for the working class in power to smash the old capitalist state apparatus and set up its own—the march to socialism can be made step by step within the framework of the democratic forms of the capitalist state.

The attitude of both parties toward the Soviet Union grows directly out of their approach to this problem. Generally speaking, Communist parties praise the Soviet Union; Socialist parties denounce it in varying degrees. For the Communists, the Soviet Union merits the applause of all true believers in socialism because it has transformed the socialist dream into a reality; for the Socialists, the Soviet Union deserves only condemnation because it has not built socialism at all—at least not the socialism they dreamed of.

Instead of wanting to take away people’s private property, socialists want more people to have more private property than ever before.

There are two kinds of private property. There is property which is personal in nature, consumer’s goods, used for private enjoyment. Then there is the kind of private property which is not personal in nature, property in the means of production. This kind of property is not used for private enjoyment, but to produce the consumer’s goods which are.

Socialism does not mean taking away the first kind of private property, e.g. your suit of clothes; it does mean taking away the second kind of private property, e.g. your factory for making suits of clothes. It means taking away private property in the means of production from the few so that there will be much more private property in the means of consumption for the many. That part of the wealth which is produced by workers and taken from them in the form of profits would be theirs, under socialism, to buy more private property, more suits of clothes, more furniture, more food, more tickets to the movies.

More private property for use and enjoyment. No private property for oppression and exploitation. That’s socialism.

Huberman and Sweezy, "Introduction to Socialism," Monthly Review

The Chetniks fought against National Socialist other wise known as Nazi's and Communist whose base is Socialist... Razumes? Eh, Super!

[–] enbilal 14 years ago

They slaughtered 9000 civilians in the town where I come from in 1943. I know you Serbs don't care about it because you regard non-Serbs as lower race. But the world doesn't think so.
Chetniks collaborated with Nazis and Italians. Their project was ethnically clean Greater Serbia (essentially a fascist idea). Chetniks were Serb fascists. Just like Ustashas were Croatian fascists, Nazis were German fascists and so on. This film was based on outdated news from the first months of the war. One of the tinsel town anomalies. In their innitial confusion they also made films which glorified Stalinists. But it later all got sorted out.

E.

[–] dusan-22 14 years ago

You are right, things got sorted out later - first by Sarl De Gol in 1943 who higly decorated Draza with Croix de Guerre and American President Truman in 1948 who decorated him with Legion of Merit, the only United States decoration which may be issued in award degrees and the highest decoration given to the non-American citizen. Americans cleared things out even more when giving this decoration posthumously to Draza's daughter in 2005. On the other hand, Ante Pavelic leader of the Ustashe regime was taken to power by Hitler's personal decision and remained his friend until the end visiting him in Bergkofgarden. Admittedly, there was the time when Germans got in conflict with Ustashe regime and that was when German officers themselves were dismayed by the atrocities committed by the Ustaše against the Serbian civilians, to the extent that they occasionally intervened to stop the bloodshed (Jasenovac, 1941), arrested one of the most notorious Ustaše (Friar Miroslav Filipovic/Majstorovic;, Banja Luka, 1942) and disarmed an Ustaše detachment (Eastern Bosnia, 1942). Today, around 700.000 Croats live in Serbia, but Draza Mihailovic never put even a single one in the concentration camp as there was none during the WWII in Serbia formed by Chetniks, while Ustashe killed 700.000 people in Jasenovac camp only. As for your comments on Great Serbia, have you ever heard or seen Draza telling something as Great Serbia? Any evidence whatsoever? Pavelic formed Great Croatia, he did not stay on words. Draza called himself the Yugoslav Leader, not Serbian, had many Muslims and Croats in his forces loyal to the Yugoslav King and he even signed in Latin letters, not Cyrlic which is Serbian official letter. So, now I know what world are you talking about, but that part of the world lost the war 65 years ago. We can only presume your reasons to equalize great European anti-fascists with Ustashe fascists which were much greater than any Nazis during WWII.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] milosdimic 14 years ago

Please tell me which town is that and i will search for it.. if your ancients lied to you, its not your fault.
Yes, chetniks were collaborated in Croatia (Dalmatia) with Italians so they can protect Serbian population from Ustashe (you remember them, should i say how much Serbs and Jews they have killed?). There were divisions of Chetniks led by Kosta Pecanac who was a duke and was not under control of Draza Mihajlovic.
And one more thing, Chetniks were called "Yugoslav guerrilla army".. and please, if you look at the first part you will see that they did not fight for the Greater Serbia, they fought for Yugoslavian King which represents Kingdom of Yugoslavia, not Serbia.
As for the "outdated news", the general received post-hum medal from US President Truman for contributing the fight for democracy and freedom.. and after the war.. that means after the movie was made.

[–] rhogan4444 14 years ago

"Yes, chetniks were collaborated in Croatia (Dalmatia) with Italians so they can protect Serbian population from Ustashe (you remember them, should i say how much Serbs and Jews they have killed?)."

That makes no sense whatsoever; armies fight for the people they are supposedly defending them from, they do not collaborate with them.

"(you remember them, should i say how much Serbs and Jews they have killed?)."

Care to guess who also killed Jews and Croats? Your beloved chetniks of course, then there is the matter of the Serbian SS unit, Milan Nedic and the role Serbia played in the Holocaust.

"and please, if you look at the first part you will see that they did not fight for the Greater Serbia, they fought for Yugoslavian King which represents Kingdom of Yugoslavia, not Serbia."

Mihailovic's mission statement says otherwise:

"The cleansing of all national minorities and anti-state elements from state territory;
The creation of direct common borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Serbia and Slovenia by cleansing the Muslim population from Sandžak, and the Muslim and Croat populations from Bosnia and Herzegovina;"

"As for the "outdated news", the general received post-hum medal from US President Truman for contributing the fight for democracy and freedom.. and after the war.. that means after the movie was made."

Even more fiction:

"Draza Mihailovic was the only NAZI fascist to be awarded the Legion of Merit for his "contribution" to the Allied victory. So, how did he receive this medal? According to the respected British historian and world renowned scholar of Balkan history, Dr. Marko Attila Hoare, quote:

Mihailovic continued his opportunistic game of seeking to collaborate with both Axis and Allies. In this context, he assisted the US airborne evacuation of about two-hundred and fifty airmen from Chetnik territory in August 1944. This simply meant that the Chetniks allowed the Americans to use their airstrip for the evacuation - scarcely a particularly heroic action - while at the same time, Mihailovic sent a delegation along with the departing US planes in a fruitless effort to win back Allied support. Yet it was for the rescue of US airmen that Mihailovic would posthumously receive the Legion of Merit. On other occasions, however, Mihailovic’s Chetniks rescued German airmen and handed them over safely to the German armed forces - were he so inclined, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder could follow Washington’s example and decorate Mihailovic for saving the lives of his country’s servicemen. Yet none of Mihailovic’s intrigues saved him or his Chetnik movement from destruction at the hands of the victorious Partisans: the revolution in the western Balkans - Europe’s second and last successful Communist revolution - succeeded thanks to British and American military intervention, which enabled the reestablishment of Yugoslavia. This is a fact that Milosevic’s left-wing supporters usually prefer not to mention. The Left Revisionists, November 2003]

Draza Mihailovich's apologists like to point out that: "an independent American commission concluded in 1946, these Allied airmen were instructed by their American and British superiors to look for any signs of collaboration, they were given freedom of movement by Mihailovic forces, and yet not one of these hundreds testified of Mihailović collaboration with the Axis."

In fact, this was far from so called "independent American commission" and the medal for Nazi collaborator Draza Mihajlovic was result of intensive lobbying by Serbian-Americans who were part of Chetnik forces. These included Lieutenant Nick Nikola Lalich (an American of Serbian heritage), Captain George Musulin (also an American of Serbian heritage), Pro-Serbian US Army Colonel Robert H. McDowell (friend of Nikola Lalich) and Ruth Mitchell, the sister of the late Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell. They lobbied for Draza Mihajlovich's medal, and he got it as a result of their lobbying, and as a result of testimonies of many other pro-Serb oriented members of Chetnik forces who emigrated as "refugees" to the USA and other countries to avoid prosecution for war crimes."

http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2007/12/forgotten-1943-genocide-by-nazi-chetnik.html

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] dottir466 13 years ago

How does a "critical reappraisal" manage to avoid pointing out that the film was pure, unabashed political propaganda, as opposed to a film principally interested in "documenting" or producing a creative "dramatic" work of art.

Doubt is good for the human soul.