Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo

The Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo (Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood), HRB for short , was a terrorist organization formed by Croats in exile and active worldwide . It was founded in Sydney in September 1961 and trained terrorists in Australia who were smuggled into Yugoslavia in 1963 and 1972 . Their goal was to establish a Greater Croatian state independent of socialist Yugoslavia .

The German branch of the HRB, which had its headquarters in Stuttgart, was banned on June 24, 1968 by Federal Interior Minister Ernst Benda . The number of HRB members in Germany was estimated at 20 to 50 well-trained and determined lone fighters . According to the findings of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 1975, the HRB still had a core of fanatical supporters who continued their underground work on German soil, years after the ban . She is supported by the leadership of the organization outside of the Federal Republic with money and propaganda material.

activities

Australia

In Australia she committed several attacks against Yugoslav institutions. She is also said to have planned an attack on the Yugoslav Prime Minister Džemal Bijedić when he visited Australia in March 1973.

Germany

The HRB was believed to be responsible for the assassination attempt carried out by the asylum seeker Franjo Goreta on August 30, 1966 on the Yugoslav consul in Stuttgart , Sava Milovanović.

On August 1, 1972, three Yugoslav asylum seekers tried to kidnap a judge in Ravensburg who, in the spring of 1970, had sentenced five members of the banned HRB to prison terms of between five and twelve years for attempted murder, incitement to murder and unauthorized possession of weapons.

“ The right-wing brothers who fled to the West after 1945 as supporters of the fascist Croat organization Ustascha, disguised as harmless citizens, tried on their own to wage the armed struggle against Tito's Yugoslavia. The innkeeper Dane Sarac temporarily stacked explosives worth 300,000 marks in the cellar of his bar between Überlingen and Friedrichshafen . One of the lone fighters armed on Lake Constance, the Bosnian Ivan Jelic, was caught in 1968 by the Yugoslav secret police Udba on the way to Zagreb . During interrogation, he admitted to having deposited two time bombs at Belgrade Central Station , which exploded on May 23, two days before Tito's birthday, injuring twelve people. "

- (Der Spiegel, September 18, 1972)

Yugoslavia

In June 1972, 19 exiled Croatian terrorists invaded Yugoslavia with the aim of sparking a popular uprising in the Bugojno area ( SR Bosnia and Herzegovina ). The paramilitary group had the code name " Planinske lisice " (mountain foxes), the planned action the code name " Feniks " ( phoenix ). A large part of the group had previously been sent to Europe from Australia in order to enter Yugoslavia after a short training camp in Garanas, Austria, via today's Austrian-Slovenian border near Lavamünd / Dravograd . The military equipment was provided from own circles in Germany. The group of 19 was led by brothers Adolf and Ambroz Andrić. Other members were Nikola Antonac, Petar Bakula, Filip Bešlić, Vidak Buntić, Vilim Eršek, Ilija Glavaš, Đuro Horvat, Vejsil Keškić, Viktor Kancijanić, Vinko Knez, Ilija Lovrić, Stipe Ljubas, Ivano Miletić, Ludvig Vlolasnć, Mirko Prlišnć, Mirko Prlišnić and Pavo Vegar. Seven of the 19 terrorists had previously lived in West Germany, most of them were members of the HRB.

On June 20, 1972, she entered the Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. The goal was the Raduša mountain range between Bugojno and Gornji Vakuf. After the terrorist group shot and killed seven members of the territorial defense in the village of Rumboci, between Prozor and Šćita, the Yugoslav state forces reacted. According to media reports, more than 30,000 soldiers from the JNA , police and territorial defense were deployed to catch the terrorists. 15 members of the military police, territorial defense and civilians were killed. On July 28, 1972, within 38 days, the last member was captured. Of the group, eight members were killed in combat and seven members were killed without trial after their capture. Only four captured members were sentenced to death after due process and three were executed . The death sentence against Ludvig Pavlović was converted because of its youth, a 20-year sentence.

In the literature, the group received the name "Bugojanska grupa / skupina" (Bugojner group) or "Feniks grupa / skupina" (Phoenix group) and was processed in 1979 in the novel " Dvadeseti čovjek " (The Twentieth Man). In 1985, the TV series on the incident came under the title "Brisani prostor" (loosely translated "deleted space", but means "free field of fire"). In 2011 the documentary Akcija Feniks '72 came out.

On September 27, 2014 , a memorial for the 19 group members killed by the action was inaugurated in Posušje with the participation and participation of official representatives from politics and the military. The group members Petar Bakula and Filip Bešlić came from Posušje and Ludvig Pavlović died there in 1991 in an armed conflict with the Yugoslav People's Army.

Others

Also associated with the HRB were:

• the murder of the Yugoslav Ambassador Vladimir Rolović in Sweden in 1971
• the 1972 airplane hijacking, by means of which Rolović's murderers were released,
• the assassination of the Uruguayan ambassador Carlos Abdala in Paraguay in 1976 (the assassins thought he was a Yugoslav diplomat)
• the hostage-taking in the German Consulate General in Chicago in 1978, with which the terrorist Stjepan Bilandžić, imprisoned in the FRG , was supposed to be released.

Known members

• Brothers Ambroz (1939–1972) and Adolf Andrić (1942–1972), co-heads of HRB headquarters in Victoria (Australia) and leaders of the “Feniks” campaign; Adolf wrote the HRB sabotage instructions "The Avengers of Bleiburg " under the pseudonym "Apostol Plemić "
• Blaž Kraljević (1947–1992), commander of the HOS militias in the Bosnian war
• Ludvig Pavlović (1951–1991), involved in the “Feniks” campaign, fell shortly after his almost 20-year imprisonment as a member of the Croatian National Guard

See also

• List of organizations in exile directed against socialist Yugoslavia

literature

• Bože Vukušić: HRB Hrvatsko Revolucionarno Bratstvo: Rat prije rata . Zagreb 2010, ISBN 978-953-97963-7-0 .
• Jochen Waldmann, Croats in Exile in the Federal Republic , in: Minorities in the Federal Republic , ed. v. Bernhard Doerdelmann , 1969
• Tony Griffiths, Contemporary Australia , 1977, ISBN 0-85664-427-7 , pp. 138f
• Peter Janke, Richard Sim, Guerilla and terrorist organizations. A world directory and bibliography , 1983, ISBN 0-7108-0013-4 , p. 113
• Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Ed.): Verfassungsschutz report (until 1982: Verfassungsschutz. Left-wing extremism, German left-wing extremist terrorism, right-wing extremism, security- endangering and extremist efforts by foreigners, counter-espionage ), ISSN  0343-690X , various volumes, see individual records

Web links

• Documentary Akcija Feniks '72 (Croatia, 2011) on YouTube

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Janke / Sim
2. ↑ Prohibition
3. ↑ The Arab - he is not to be trusted , in: Der Spiegel, September 18, 1972; on Ivan Jelić and Dane Sarac see also Waldmann p. 210 u. 216f
4. ↑ Verfassungsschutz report , year 1975, p. 132
5. ↑ Griffiths; Janke / Sim
6. ↑ Janke / Sim; Shots in Stuttgart , in: The time of September 9, 1966; Brotherly fight , in: Die Zeit, May 5, 1967.
7. ↑ Verfassungsschutz report , year 1975, p. 133
8. ↑ Bugojanska grupa na 24sata.info ( Memento from July 18, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
9. ↑ Dičimo se svojim, a cijenimo tuđe: U Posušju otkriven spomenik Bugojanskoj skupini. Retrieved April 19, 2015 (Croatian). 
10. ↑ Janke / Sim