Australia caught honouring alleged SS-led ‘Nazi collaborators’

Fresh from the scandal into war crimes allegedly committed by Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan over the last two decades, Australia’s peak national veteran’s body the Returned and Services League (RSL) has now been caught honouring what is thought to be alleged World War Two ‘Nazi collaborators’ with Life Membership as a reward for their money-raising skills.

Documents received exclusively by the Goldman Report, show that on October 2, 2017, the Victorian branch of the RSL bestowed Life Membership on two brothers, Toma and Marko Banjanin, who according to their own testimony, were members of a World War Two unit known as the Dinara Division, (or Dinarska Divizija) a Nazi collaborationist Serbian Chetnik militia that was armed and supplied by Mussolini’s Italian fascists from April 1942, and that was under direct German SS command for the last 18 months of the war.

Note, the the British Army documents stating Toma Banjanin was a member of the ‘1st Lika Corpus of the Dinara Division’.

Known more for its massacring and raping of innocent civilians than any military prowess, as of late 1944, the Dinara Division combined with a bevy of other Nazi collaborationist groups such as Dobroslav Jevđević's Chetniks, Ljotić's Serbian Volunteer Corps, and the remnants of Nazi quisling Milan Nedić's Serbian Shock Corps to form a single unit under the command of SS Leader Odilo Globocnik.  

Information like the above on the Nazi-collaboration of the Chetnik Dinara Division is both widely and freely-available, although Victoria’s RSL seems blind to all of it.

As both a loyal German as well as an Italian ally, in December 1944, the Dinara Division’s commander, Momćilo Đujić, sent a plea to General Gustav Fehn of the German 264th Infantry Division with the following message: “The Chetnik Command with all of its armed forces has collaborated sincerely and loyally with the German Army in these areas from September last year. This collaboration has continued to the present day. The Chetnik Command wishes to share the destiny of the German Army in the future.”

In response, General Fehn organised the safe transport of Đujić's wounded Chetniks to the Third Reich, where they received medical help, weapons, ammunition and fresh supplies.

While the entire Serbian Chetnik movement is classified as being a ‘Nazi collaborationist’ force, their Dinara Division was inextricably linked to the Nazi war machine as it was under direct German and Italian command.

Victoria RSL head Dr. Robert Webster (left) awarding life membership to the Banjanin brothers, who were members of the SS-led Serbian Chetnik Nazi collaborationist Dinara Division.

Officially listed by Australia as being part of the 18th Corp of Mussolini’s army under the Italian acronym, MVAC (Milizia Volontaria Anti Comunista), according to the Australian War Memorial’s military records, in May 1945 after Germany capitulated, Đujić personally oversaw the surrender of his entire ‘division’ to Allied forces in northern Italy.

UN Document describing the Dinaric Division of Momcilo Dujic

Dressed in Italian battle fatigues and carrying German and Italian weapons, Đujić and nearly 6000 or so surviving members of his militia were interred in Prisoner of War camps by British troops from 1945 until 1949 as ‘enemy forces’, eventually being released at the onset of the Cold War.

Marko Banjanin in 1943-44, carrying his Italian-issued Berreta 38A sub-machine gun.

In 1947, Đujić was tried and convicted of war crimes in absentia by Yugoslavia's communist government. He was found guilty of mass murder, torture, rape, robbery, and forcible confinement, as well as collaborating with the Germans and Italians.

However none of these facts seem to bother Victoria’s RSL, which in October 2017 decided that the Banjanin brothers, despite both publicly bragging for years about their roles as members of this collaborationist Nazi-aligned unit, were worthy of being made Life Members of the RSL after they helped raise $1 million for the RSL’s charity drive.

Screenshot from a post on the Facebook page of the Serbian Nation Centre boasting about Toma Banjanin’s membership of the Nazi-collaborationist Dinara Division during WW2.

At the same time, their ‘exploits’ are celebrated by extremist elements within Australia’s Serbian community who openly boast about the Banjanin’s role in this Nazi-aligned group. In one post from the official Facebook page of the Serbian National Centre, the group proudly honours Marko Banjanin and his service in the Dinara (Dinarska) Division during World War Two.

Toma Banjanin's Australian Immigration records clearly state that 'he was a POW'.

Although numerous requests have been sent to Victoria’s RSL and its head, Dr. Robert Webster asking why members of an SS-led Nazi collaborationist military unit that fought on the side of Nazi Germany against the Allies such as Australia for most of World War Two were being honoured and rewarded by the RSL, at the time of publishing, no reply had been received.

WW2 Dinara Division member Toma Banjanin, then and now.

No country on earth, not even the Republic of Serbia regards the Dinara Division as being an Allied unit, while at the same time, Australia’s RSL openly rewards and honours these Nazi collaborators, signalling that it regards them as being morally equivalent to Australian troops that fought in Gallipoli, Ypres, the Somme, the Kokoda Track, Normandy or Tobruk.

Allied document from 1946 listing Momcilo Djujic as a ‘Jugoslav Quisling’ that is wanted by the Allies for questioning.

So despite thousands of Australians dying or being wounded fighting the Nazis during the Second World War, this act by the Victorian RSL shows that for at least its leadership, our Digger’s sacrifice amounts to virtually nothing and that it really only cares about the money.

Lest we Forget.