The Later Years 421
given to her by Tito himself: “I called her that because she reminded me of a
brook, a perpetual spring of clear and fresh water, a spring that gushes from
beneath a stone and enhances the view, just with its appearance. Zdenka was an
infinite source for my ideas, intellectual, revolutionary, and political. She
inspired me and gave me physical pleasure. And until the end of her short life
she was a strong source of spiritual support for me.”^155
In Zagreb, Zdenka took a radiotelegraphy course to be able to communicate
with Moscow, where she was connected to the Russian secret service. She met
Tito in the home of Stella and Josip Kopinič. By the time he had decided to
go with the Politburo members to Belgrade, they were already intimately con-
nected. They lived together during the war, while Zdenka worked as Tito’s
secretary, although she was not particularly suited to this job. She was nervous,
frequently neurotic, and disliked by all but Tito, who was madly in love with
her. She was beautiful, slim, bronzed, with extraordinary green eyes. “She had a
smile, a glance I cannot forget,” recalled Josip Kapičić, her first boyfriend.^156
When Tito and Zdenka arrived in Belgrade in 1941, the party was practicing
a strict puritanism as preached by Djilas and Ranković. Tito adapted to this,
hiding their romantic relationship. The comrades became aware of it only in
the spring of 1942 when Zdenka wanted to be treated as a wife, leading to a very
tense atmosphere at the Supreme Staff meetings. Consequently, everybody
tried to avoid her, wondering how it was possible that she was able to seduce a
man like Tito. Marjan Stilinović, secretary of the party cell at the Supreme
Staff, decided at a certain point to say openly what he and his comrades thought
about Zdenka. “I know Marjan,” said Tito, “and I am ashamed, but I cannot live
without this woman. Not a moment.”^157
Apparently, in the spring of 1942 Zdenka had a child who was given to foster
parents. It was then that the situation became extremely critical. A session
was convened at Foča with just one order of the day: Tito’s relationship with
Zdenka Paunović. One of the comrades threatened the secretary general with
expulsion for immoral conduct. But Tito was firm: “I cannot live without her.
Do what you wish!”^158 He was not the only one to have a mistress during the
war, however. Other members of the Supreme Staff had them too. “Step
by step, I understood how things were,” Dedijer wrote. “In the Partisan group,
all those who surrendered to the lure of sex were severely punished. But not
those who had established those punishments.”^159
As for Tito, everyone in his circle hoped that he would renew his relation-
ship with Herta Haas. She was arrested in 1943 by the Germans and impris-
oned in an Ustaša concentration camp. Some months later she was freed thanks
to an exchange of prisoners, and at the end of this tragic experience, which