Balkans Conflicts Research

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Our blog recollects and recontextualises the events in the former Yugoslavia for a modern audience, who will no doubt see 21st century parallels in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and beyond.

German Foreign Minister calls for permanent German troop occupation of Yugoslavia – AP, 11 October 2000

 

Note
To fully appreciate and understand the following article, it is helpful to briefly recall its well documented historical context:
Germany had much to gain from the breakup of Yugoslavia. It was an opportunity to bury its Nazi past, reinvent itself as a leading power in the newly formed European Union and boost its economy.
It was also a long-awaited chance to both punish its wartime enemy and brand Serbia as the new European pariah. 
Serbia’s fierce resistance to the Nazis had tied up 8 German divisions, crucially delaying by 5 weeks Hitler’s assault on the Soviet Union – Operation Barbarossa. The delay almost certainly lost Germany the war.  
The Serbs themselves paid a terrible price. More than one and a half million died defending democracy and resisting German aggression. Hundreds of thousands were exterminated by the Nazi backed Croatian Ustase in notoriously brutal camps like Jasenovac. 
The lesson of history is clear.  Fischer’s notion of troops from Germany occupying Serbia to impose democracy was shameless opportunism and unparalleled hypocrisy. 

 

Fischer states that Yugoslavs Must Acquire Democratic Culture in order to be able to Relate to Germany

(Berlin), AP, Oct. 11, 2000

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, addressing Parliament on Wednesday, expressed his opinion that Germany should not only provide material help to Yugoslavia but that the Bundeswehr [German Armed Forces] and non-military organizations should establish a permanent presence there. He declared that this was a unique chance to create a democracy in the context of further European unification.

Reunited Germany has a special responsibility for stabilizing democracy in Serbia. Democracy, said Mr. Fischer, is the basis for a lasting peace in the Balkans. But the priority is for the moment that the democratic changes be carried out peacefully and that justice prevail. The Western Balkans is a part of the European comprehensive responsibility.

It was truly correct at the time to stop Slobodan Milosevich’s policy of Greater Serbia and to engage oneself on the side of the democratic opposition, says Joschka Fischer. Now the bloody murdering in the Balkans can be stopped. The Stability Pact has to be used, among other things, for the clearing of the Danube. Also democratic culture has to be built up [in Serbia] to make possible the normalization of relations between Germany and Serbia.

The first steps have been taken through the lifting of the oil and the flight embargoes by the European Union. Now Serbia can be accompanied on its route toward Europe. In the words of Fischer, all those who have made themselves guilty of grave crimes have to be brought to justice.