Macedonia: it's not just the name

Mihailoff had close links to Ante Pavelic, whom he assisted in the formation of the Ustashe (the Croatian Nazis, whose ardour and cruelty embarrassed even their German allies) and, with Heinrich Himmler, to whom he introduced the Croat leader.

Mihailoff co-operated with Pavelic in the spectacular assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles in 1934. The triggerman, Vlado Chernozemski, a close associate of Mihailoff, had been attached to the Ustashe on his order for the preceding two years. Between 1941-1944 Mihailoff settled in Zagreb, using it as his base of operations.

Meanwhile, the region of western Macedonia in Greece was occupied by the Italians, who were still smarting from their defeat by the Greek forces. They developed a policy of exploiting the grievances of linguistic minorities, of which some members of the Slavophone group proved most responsive.

This was the result of a visit to Rome by Pavelic, who personally persuaded Mussolini and Ciano of the wisdom of such a policy and of the intention of Mihailoff to implement it. Thus the Italians were assisted by VMRO, which sent out agents of its irredentist “Kostour [Kastoria] Brotherhood” headed by a Spiro Vasilieff to Kastoria in order to set up the foundations.

Detachments of Slavophone volunteers were first formed in 1943 and they accompanied Italian units searching for arms from the stores of the retreating Greek forces, which the country people often were hiding.

These volunteers joined the Italian sponsored the “Axis Macedonian-Bulgarian Committee,” which became better known as the “Komitato” (or “Komitet”). It was first founded in the Kastoria by Anton Kaltchev, a Bulgarian officer of Slavo Macedonian antecedents connected to Mihailoff’s VMRO, who enjoyed the respect of the Germans. Soon, a military arm of this organisation was formed and came to be known as the “Macedonian Bulgarian Command,” or less formally the “Ohrana”.

Led by Kaltchev, the Ohrana was able was able to mobilise significant forces, recruited from Kastoria, Florina and Edessa and the surrounding villages, i.e. central and west Macedonia. This probably fielded about 5,000 men by mid 1943. These forces assisted the Italians in operations against the Greek resistance organisations, and in intimidating and terrorising the local population opposed to the Axis occupation.

Mihailoff travelled to Berlin in early August 1943, where he was received by Reichsführer-SS Himmler at the Sichercheitsdienst (Security Service) headquarters: he also appears to have met with Hitler. Mihailoff apparently received consent to create two to three battalions of volunteers which would be armed and supported by the Germans and be under the command and disposal of Himmler’s organisation (i.e. the SS). There is extensive evidence that Himmler’s office followed up in order to implement the terms of this agreement, appointing SS Major (Hauptbahführer) Heider to co-ordinate the arming and equipping the VMRO volunteers.

In March 1944 the village companies of Kastoria, were reorganised into militias, and were armed and prepared for service by the Germans; and Kaltchev’s loyalists based in around Edessa and Florina also were included in this project. After some initial skirmishes with the Greek ELAS resistance forces, beginning on May 4 several VMRO volunteer companies from Kastoria and Edessa participated in the anti-guerrilla “Operation May Thunderstorm”, as part of the “Battle Group Lange,” spearheaded by elements the Nazi 4th SS Mechanised Infantry Division.

The German forces assisted by their Slavophone collaborators launched the last co-ordinated attack against organised Greek resistance from July 3 to July 17. The “Operation Stone Eagle” took place in the northern Pindus area with the objective of containing elements the Greek Resistance forces’ ELAS 8th and 9th Divisions. According to testimonies of the time the objective was partly achieved.

When the Germans withdrew from Greece, and Bulgaria declared war on Germany, the Ohrana and the Slavophone collaborationist effort collapsed. Anton Kaltchev fled Greece, but was apprehended by Yugoslav communist partisans and delivered to ELAS. He ended up in Thessalonica, where he was tried by the Greek government for war crimes and was executed.

It is ironic, but not altogether surprising, that FYROM, the present successor state to the People’s Republic invented by Tito, is ruled by one of VMRO’s factions. While the Skopje regime formally rejects Mihailoff, it has resumed a not-so-couched irredentist, nationalist, extremist, rhetoric reminiscent of the discourse of its collaborationist predecessor namesake. It draws much of its support from the Slavomacedonian diaspora in the US, Canada and Australia. The regime is the ideological inheritor of Ivan Mihailoff, close friend and ally of Anton Pavelic and Heinrich Himmler.

In this reality, borne of a bitter historical experience, is to be sought the reason for the nearly instinctive reaction of Greek popular feeling (cutting across party lines) against FYROM’s claims, whether as to its name or its revived irredentist claims about minorities and properties. The Slavomacedonian collaborators and their children, who fought twice against the Greek state, should no more expect recompense by that state than the children of the Germans of the Sudetenland expect from the Czech Republic or those of Danzig from Poland. When they accept that truth, it will be the first step for a genuine rapprochement with the Greek people.

Realism however dictates that we should not be optimistic in the short term. Hijacking the name of Macedonia, arbitrarily seizing cultural symbols (i.e. Philip II, Alexander the Great, Saints Cyril and Methodius, among others) and now claiming “minorities” and properties in Greece, demonstrates that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevsky, heading the present day VMRO and the Skopjan leadership, have inherited Mihailoff’s nationalist extremist vision.

Meanwhile, Bush and those of his supporters in Washington and elsewhere who have been studiously ignorant until now, should come to understand that the Greek people (supported not only by most Greek-Americans, but many other people who experienced the wrath of totalitarian extremists) are not likely to agree to terms proposed by a regime which revives the discourse of its dark past.