98 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
make even closer agreements with the Chetniks.”^259 Kasche tried to insist,
noting that General Glaise von Horstenau favored a “political settlement” with
the Partisans, but Ribbentrop replied: “The statements in your telegram of 17
April lead me to comment that we cannot, by clever tactics, play off the Chet-
niks and Partisans against each other, because it is matter of destroying both of
them. Since we have succeeded in bringing the Duce round to our view that
both the Chetniks and Partisans must be liquidated, we cannot now, on our
part, agree to a move which is not altogether different from the Italian method
of using the Chetniks against the Partisans.”^260 Hitler was even more emphatic,
wrongly convinced by his secret services that the Chetniks were as dangerous
as the Partisans. He stated: “One does not negotiate with rebels; rebels must
be shot!”^261
With this, the political framework of the negotiations was exhausted, al-
though Kasche tried to defend his point of view again, in August and Sep-
tember 1943, during his talks with Hitler. Hans Ott’s role as a middleman
continued until the end of the year, however, in spite of his obvious dependency
on the German secret services and the Ustaša. He even tried to plan a kidnap-
ping of Tito with the help of Spezialeinheiten. At the close of the war, he was
arrested by the Yugoslav Service for the Defense of the People (Organizacija
za zaščito naroda; OZNA) and thoroughly interrogated—so thoroughly that,
after that, any trace of him was lost.^262
Since a hagiographic image of the national liberation struggle had to be
preserved, after the war the “March negotiations” long remained taboo, until
Tito himself mentioned them on the occasion of the thirty-fifth anniversary
of the Neretva battle. But even then he did not tell the whole truth, accusing
Djilas, Popović, and Velebit of having misinterpreted his instructions. The first
two were in disgrace at the time and could not reply. Velebit, who had gone on
to a brilliant career in the UN European Economic Commission in Geneva,
was indignant, but preferred to keep silent.^263
In the dispatch of 30 March 1943, in which he informed Moscow about the
exchange of prisoners, Broz mentioned that “the German envoy in Zagreb...
wishes to meet me.” Stalin, informed of this cable, immediately realized what
was happening and instructed Grandpa to give Tito a real talking to. Dimitrov
asked how it could be possible that the Yugoslavs, until then a heroic example
to a subjugated Europe, could think of abandoning the fight with the enemy of
the entire human race, adding: “I want an explanation.”^264 But this time Tito
was not ready to bow his head; without wavering, he answered that if they
could not help him the Russians had no right to stop him. “That was the first
time,” Djilas commented later, “that a Politburo member—and it was Tito
himself—so vehemently expressed any disagreement with the Soviets.”^265