German historical revisionism in the Balkans at the turn of the 21st century

(The mechanism of ideologically motivated virtual reality [Theory of
Definitionism] in the service of hegemony)

In the second half of the 1990s I first put forth the view that the Federal
Republic of Germany (prior to unification of the two Germanys) de-
served the name “European Germany”, but that after unification the
term “German Europe” became much more appropriate for the new
socio-political and economic reality. This is evident when we look at
Balkan history. From the beginning of the acute phase of the crisis in
the former Yugoslavia, the civil conflicts that followed, and the ultim-
ate collapse of the country, German politicians, media, and education-
al institutions were extremely active players in the entire affair. With
this we witnessed the proclamation of a “New World Order” in Europe,
to say nothing about the rest of the world.
Further analysis shows that German universities and academic
institutions played a central role in the systematic attempt to revise
the history of the Balkan Peninsula. This new trend in the German
social sciences is not limited to recent history and the Yugoslav Civil
Wars of the 1990s, in the context of which the Serbs are unequivocally
portrayed as the “sole culprits, aggressors, genocide fuelled maniacs,
ethnic cleansers, mass rapists, and founders of concentration camps,
etc.” This particular time period is not the focus of this paper. What’s
more, this revisionist trend is not limited to the 20th century, but
rather it extends to the time of the Ottoman occupation of Serbian
lands, and even further to the first migrations of Slavic peoples to the
Balkans. It is widely known that:

“Who controls the past, controls the present, and the future.”

Table of Contents:
I. Revisionism of Balkan history by German universities and academ
ic institutions with regards to the 20th century, with an emphasis on
the recently actualized thesis that “There was no genocide commit
ted against the Serbs by the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia
(ISC) from 1941-1945.”
II. Revisionism of Balkans history by German universities and aca
demic institutions with regards to the time of the Ottoman occupa
tion of Serbian lands and the time of the first migrations of Slavs to
the Balkan Peninsula.
III. The linguistic and philosophical approach to historical revisionism
in the Balkans by German universities and academic institutions
at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. (Theory
of Definitionism).

I
Revisionism of Balkans history by German universities and academ-
ic institutions with regards to the 20th century, with an emphasis on
the recently actualized thesis that “There was no genocide committed
against the Serbs by the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (ISC)
from 1941-1945.”

Young American historian Alexander Korb successfully defended his
doctoral dissertation at Berlin’s Humboldt University entitled: “In the
Shadow of the World War: Mass Violence by the Croatian Ustashe
against the Serbs, Jews, and Roma.” The professors who were in charge
of evaluating his work (Dr. Jorg Baberowski, Dr. Kiran Klaus Patel, and
Dr. Michael Wildt) decided unanimously to award him the highest
grade possible, summa cum laude. In his assessment, Prof. Baberow-
ski wrote, among other things, that “Korb’s dissertation is one extra-
ordinary contribution to the research of genocide and violence. No
one will be able to write on this topic in the same way again.”
What is so revolutionary and new about Korb’s socio-historical
treatment of the Croatian state between 1941-1945, a state which was
artificially carved out of the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia by Adolf
Hitler and Benito Mussolini? The thing that undoubtedly and decid-
edly differentiates Alexander Korb from the greatest part of the pre-
vious (positive) historical science and research done on this period of
Balkans history aside from those done by Croatia itself, that is to say
the crimes of genocide in the aforementioned Croatian state, are his
fundamental claims and final conclusions. He claims that:

1. “No genocide was committed against the Serbs” in the Independent
State of Croatia from 1941-1945. (pg. 34, 114, 205, 352, 373, 374.)
2. The Croatian clergy and the Vatican “played no important role” in
the mass violence against Serbs in the Croatian state from 1941-
1945. As such, even the forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism
had an “exclusively secular character.” (pg. 29, 73, 248, 285, 286, 363.)

This is without a doubt a radical shift in the historical research of the
ISC, and the phenomenon of genocide, because – as Korb asserts – the
Jasenovac concentration camp alone was, up to the year 1999, the sub-
ject of 1,188 monographs and scientific publications, as well as 1,544
academic articles and contributions (pg. 297). Korb disagrees with
the vast majority of these scientific works and their conclusions. His
dissertation, after which “no one will be able to write on this topic in
the same way again,” as previously mentioned, is primarily compatible
with Croatian historiography and its persistent relativism and denial
of the genocide that took place in the ISC between 1941-1945, as well
as the denial of any wrongdoing on the part of the Catholic Church
during this period.
For example, Korb’s conclusions are in line with the views of one
important Croatian intellectual and theological authority by the name
of Ivo Omrcanin, (Doctor Theologiae, Juris, Juris Canonici, Advocatus
Sacrae Romanae Rota, Procurator Sacrae Congregationis Rituum, A.
Iurisprudens and Professor of Philosophy of Law), who barely 20 years
after the end of the Second World War claimed not only that the Cro-
atian state did not commit genocide against the Serbs between 1941-
1945, but rather that “Serbs committed genocide against Croatians.”
The thing that is revolutionary and new with Korb’s views – if Prof.
Baberowski was indeed correct – is that his work has ushered in a rad-
ical paradigm shift in German historical research, and that in and of
itself is more than enough reason to pay close attention to this work.
Sine ira et studio (Without anger and study).

Tacitus
First, what is it that Korb denies in the previous historical and scientific
studies? In short, the state of genocide research in 20th century Europe
(before Korb). Three great genocides were committed in Europe in
the 20th century (the Turkish genocide of Armenians between 1915-1919
belongs not only geopolitically but, in my opinion, culturally and
socio-psychologically to a completely different historical and socio-
moral heritage. Research into this chronologically the first great geno-
cide of the 20th century thus genuinely belongs to Europe’s immediate
neighbourhood, the sphere of Turkish studies):
• The genocide committed by the Nazis and all of their – German
and non-German – allies against the Jews (Holocaust, Shoah) is,
despite the efforts of the tireless promoters of the so-called “Ausch-
witz-Lügen” (Lies about Auschwitz), probably the most closely re-
searched genocide in the history of mankind. That was certainly not
only the result of many scientific analyses and studies, but also the
long, tireless, and difficult process of the multidisciplinary discovering
and unravelling of these terrible events. Taking part in this process
are not only the descendents of the victims but also the descendents of
those who committed the crimes. The number of victims is estimated
at around 6 million.
• Genocide against the Sinti and Roma, which is unfortunately still
inadequately researched. However, it is common knowledge that the
Nazis and their allies killed more than 500,000 members of this ethnic
group.
• During the Second World War, Adolf Hitler and Benito Musso-
lini constructed a Nazi satellite state in the Balkans, the so-called In-
dependent State of Croatia. Its leaders were the clerical fascist Ustasha
regime. They are responsible for the third great genocide in Europe in
the 20th century against the Sinti and Roma (around 40 thousand cas-
ualties), against Jews (around 30 thousand casualties), and, most prom-
inently, against the Serbs (Serbocide), who were persecuted under the
state-sanctioned and publically stated program to ethnically cleanse
one third of the Serbs from Croatia, to convert one third to Catholi-
cism, thereby “Croatianizing” them, and to exterminate the final third.