Why is Novak Djokovic courting Nazis?
World number 1 tennis star and magnet for controversy Novak Djokovic has kicked off his recent Australian Open win by sharing selfies with fans holding a flag of a paramilitary group that collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War 2.
Known as the Serbian Chetniks, this group was known for its barbaric mass killings of non-Serb civilians throughout Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia and was allied to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945.
Australian supporters of these Chetniks holding their Nazi collaborationist flag took turns snapping pictures with Djokovic at the start of the Australian Open, which is held every January in Melbourne.
Novak Djokovic has kicked off the Australian Open tennis tournament by sharing selfies with fans holding the Chetnik so-called ‘pirate’ flag, a symbol of a paramilitary group that collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War 2. Source: Twitter
They were later rewarded by the tennis superstar with autographs, according to a number of eyewitnesses.
As for the Chetniks, their Nazi pedigree and brutality are well-documented.
(Left) Chetnik warlord and nazi collaborator Momcilo Djujic and (right) Serbian Chetniks at Anzac Day celebrations, Sydney, 2016, carrying the Chetnik so-called ‘pirate’ flag. Source : Facebook
Israel’s Yad Vashem states that: “As the Chetniks increased their cooperation with the Germans, their attitude toward the Jews in the areas under their control deteriorated, and they identified the Jews with the hated Communists. There were many instances of Chetniks murdering Jews or handing them over to the Germans”, while the Canadian-based Institute for the Research of Genocide notes: “The Chetniks became collaborators and joined the forces fighting the partisans. After the occupation of Serbia by the partisans and the Red Army, the Chetniks were hunted down. Shortly after the end of the war, Mihajlovic and his men were captured and brought before a Yugoslav national tribunal. Most of them were hanged.”
This is not the first time Djokovic has publicly celebrated his support for the Chetniks. In 2020, he was photographed with a type of brandy named “Draža,” named after their notorious leader and convicted Nazi collaborator, Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović.
In 2020, he was photographed with a type of brandy named “Draža,” named after their notorious leader and convicted Nazi collaborator, Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović.
There are reports of modern-day Chetniks having formed alliances with modern day neo-Nazi groups such as Greece’s Golden Dawn, Vladimir Putin-aligned Russian Cossacks on ASIO watchlists and well-known local far-right extremists and allegedly even Christchurch mass murderer, Brenton Tarrant.
Therefore, it’s quite disturbing that an athlete and global brand like Novak Djokovic has literally chosen to tie their Nazi-aligned flag to his tennis-playing mast as it were.
However, for Australia, the issue of the Chetniks being honoured and allowed to march in public has long been a festering wound for both anti-fascists as well as members of the country’s relatively large diaspora from the former Yugoslavia.
Recently, the Goldman Report uncovered 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 Chetnik unit known as the Dinara Division, (or Dinarska Divizija) that was under direct German SS command for the last 18 months of the war.
Known more for massacring and raping of innocent civilians than 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.
Chetniks with Italian Fascist officers, 1942
While no country on earth, not even the Republic of Serbia regards the Dinara Division as an Allied unit, 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.
On April 25 2019, in a rare act of common sense, an attempt was made to ban the Chetniks from all Anzac Day activities by the Victorian RSL, however, the branch’s leadership lost its nerve and quickly reversed this decision, allegedly due to legal threats.
The question remains as to why one of the world’s best (and wealthiest) tennis players and a man who is instantly recognisable wherever he goes would tarnish his brand fraternising with those who celebrate and promote a group that not only collaborated with Hitler’s troops, but one that also committed appalling war crimes during the 1990s Balkan Wars.
Source: Twitter
After Djokovic’s deportation 12 months ago from Australia for breaching Covid vaccination rules, this latest gaffe by the player called ‘The Joker’ may be a case of a double fault leading to game, set and match for his already shaky relationship with Australia’s tennis-loving public.
By David Goldman
