(Two 30-minute segments)

This pro­gram pro­vides infor­ma­tion sup­ple­men­tal to that pre­sented in pre­vi­ous broad­casts on the Balkans conflicts.

Begin­ning with a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally excel­lent arti­cle by Diana John­stone, the dis­cus­sion high­lights aspects of the re-emergence of fas­cism in Croa­tia. Dis­play­ing an open nos­tal­gia for Hitler and the mur­der­ous Ustashe col­lab­o­ra­tionist regime of Ante Pavelic, con­tem­po­rary Croa­t­ians have embar­rassed some vis­it­ing Ger­mans by greet­ing them with “Sieg Heil,” accom­pa­nied by the fas­cist salute. Such sen­ti­ments have boosted Mein Kampf and other fas­cist and Nazi titles to the top of the best seller list in Croatia.

Reflect­ing the views of Pres­i­dent Franjo Tudj­man, fas­cism, anti-Serb sen­ti­ment, and anti-Semitism are resur­gent among sig­nif­i­cant ele­ments of the Croa­t­ian pop­u­la­tion. That country’s eth­nic cleans­ing of hun­dred of thou­sands of Kra­jina Serbs in 1995 was greatly assisted by Ger­man and Amer­i­can sup­port and weaponry, notably expert train­ing pro­vided by a “pri­vate” Amer­i­can com­pany, MPRI (Mil­i­tary Pro­fes­sional Resources Inter­na­tional). (For more on the Croa­t­ian offen­sive, see also FTR-48.)

Offer­ing a wide vari­ety of mil­i­tary sup­port and advi­sory ser­vices, the orga­ni­za­tion is headed by retired, for­mer high-ranking mil­i­tary offi­cers. Work­ing on behalf of Amer­i­can polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary objec­tives in the Balkans, MPRI has most recently been involved in train­ing the KLA, despite that organization’s ter­ror­ist, crim­i­nal and fas­cist antecedents.

In that capac­ity, MPRI has been part of a con­cert of ele­ments uti­lized on behalf of the KLA, includ­ing (appar­ently) ele­ments of the CIA. The broad­cast dis­cusses alle­ga­tions sur­fac­ing in the South African trial of an Apartheid regime assas­si­na­tion tech­ni­cian. These alle­ga­tions entail Vat­i­can sup­port for the pur­chase of weapons by the Croa­t­ian mil­i­tary dur­ing the civil war that cul­mi­nated in Croa­t­ian seces­sion. (For more on Croa­t­ian seces­sion, see FTR-154.) The dis­cus­sion sets forth a series of break-ins and harass­ment directed at the U.S. diplo­matic per­son­nel and their depen­dents. These break-ins accom­pany an anti-American pro­pa­ganda cam­paign by fas­cist ele­ments in Croa­tia. The pro­gram doc­u­ments the go instal­la­tion of “ex”-KLA mem­bers as the Kosovo Corps, the civil guard of Kosovo. Next, the pro­gram exam­ines grow­ing signs of dis­en­chant­ment with the KLA on the part of Alban­ian Koso­vars. In addi­tion to occa­sion­ally vio­lent sup­pres­sion of polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, the KLA has used their polit­i­cal ascen­dance in the wake of the NATO air offen­sive to appro­pri­ate the best real estate, auto­mo­biles and con­sumer goods. The KLA’s activ­i­ties received a boost when Scopeland Soft­ware, a Ger­man soft­ware com­pany, donated state-of-the-art com­puter equip­ment to Hasim Thaci and his orga­ni­za­tion. The dis­cus­sion high­lights the adop­tion of the D-Mark as the offi­cial cur­rency of both Kosovo and Mon­tene­gro, both nom­i­nally parts of Yugoslavia! The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at Gen­eral Klaus Rein­hardt. Appointed mil­i­tary com­man­der of the NATO forces in Kosovo. Rein­hardt is the son of Fritz Rein­hardt, the deputy finance min­is­ter of the Third Reich and a “Class A” war crim­i­nal. The real power behind fig­ure­head Count Von Krosigk at the finance min­istry, Rein­hardt lent his name to and par­tic­i­pated in “Aktion Rein­hardt” (the liq­ui­da­tion of Pol­ish Jewry and the appro­pri­a­tion of their prop­erty). More impor­tantly, since he occu­pied his posi­tion in the finance min­istry until the end of the war in 1945, Rein­hardt undoubt­edly worked closely with Mar­tin Bor­mann and his flight cap­i­tal pro­gram, the gen­e­sis of the Bor­mann organization.

Excerpt­ing FTR-155, the dis­cus­sion high­lights the late Paul Manning’s research on the con­tem­po­rary make-up of the Bor­mann group. Com­posed of the sons, daugh­ters and sons-in-law of SS offi­cers and top Nazi offi­cials, the group is allegedly headed by Adolf Mar­tin Bor­mann and his sis­ter Neumi. Under the cir­cum­stances, it is not unfair to ask whether Rein­hardt might be affil­i­ated with the Bor­mann group, despite his osten­si­ble estrange­ment from his father. (Recorded on 11/14/99, 11/21/99.)