Head of Yugoslavian Intelligence in WW2 – Agent Dr Ranko Brasic – Pavelic & Mihailovic collaboration 1945

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This exceptional lot of IDs and documentation is phenomenally rare, nothing has been seen like this on the open market related to the topic. Brasic was a key player in the final days, acting as an agent between key players in the last days.

Dr Ranko Brasic (Lawyer) (Royal Yugoslavian Army Officer) (Named: Agent) (Named head of Intelligence during WW2) (Political and Legal Adviser to King Peter II 1962 -1967).

Chetnicks and Ustaša Colaboration

(1945), Mihailovic had been eager to cooperate with the forces of the Croatian puppet state “because the common goal was the annihilation of the Communists”

He sent his own emissary, a lawyer named Dr. Ranko Brasic, not only to Dr. Pavelic, the head of the Croatian puppet state, but also to the head of the Catholic Church in Croatia, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, and also to Dr. Macek, the head of the Croatian Peasant Party, who had passively opposed the quisling government.

Although Mihailovic stated at his trial that Brasic was only empowered to contact representatives of the Croatian Peasant Party, it has been well established that Brasic saw Pavelic and Stepinac as well. (The Trial of Draza Mihailovic, pp. 289-96, 453-56).

It should be noted that as early as 1943 representatives of Mihailovic and of the Croatian Peasant Party (to which in time many of the Domobran officers gave their support) had some discussions about the future of Yugoslavia. No agreements were reached, however, because the CPP would not recognize Mihailovic as commander in chief of all Yugoslav forces including the Domobrans, and Mihailovic would not agree to disown the Chetnik groups that had been responsible for mass terror against the Croatian population.

Pavelic gave Brasic a supply of medicines for the treatment of typhus, which was widespread among the Chetnik troops in Bosnia. Besides Dr. Brasic:, Chetnik Major Zika Andric seems to have been a sort of steady contact with the Croatian military authorities in Zagreb during the last few months of the war.

Finally, in mid-April 1945, Mihailovic sent General Svetomir Djukic supposedly on a mission to establish contact with the advancing Allied armies in northern Italy, but at the same time, while passing through Zagreb, to see Pavelic and discuss with him the possibility of cooperation between the Chetniks and Croatian troops and to obtain from him a series of concessions. To assist Djukic in his efforts in Zagreb, Mihailovic sent with him Vladimir Predavec, who had been for a long time a member of the Chetnik Central National Committee. Djukic, accompanied by Predavec and also Brasic and Andric, had two conferences with Pavelic, on April 17 and 22. In them, he asked for the following: release of a Chetnik hospital and its inmates captured by the Ustashas on Vucjak Mountain; release of 1,200 Serb civilians captured by the Ustashas and held in the town of gamac; medical supplies, ammunition, and food for the Chetniks; and free passage of Chetnik troops through Croatia on their way to Slovenia (but without Mihailovic, who would stay behind in the mountains).

More information:

Captain Nesko Nedic, the official commander of the Valjevo Chetnik Corps, otherwise Mihailovic’s emissary for negotiations with the Germans, traveled with them to Slavonski Brod. In Slavonski Brod they were accepted by the Ustasha Grand Prefect Sobalic. After completing his work, Nedic returned to Draza Mihailovic’s headquarters, and Djukic and Predavac Sobalic drove him to Zagreb in his official car, where they arrived on April 17. Djukic was welcomed by Ustasha generals Ante Maskov and Jozo Rukavina.

Soon, Djukic was joined by lawyer Dr. Ranko Brasic, Mihailovic’s permanent representative to Pavelic, and Major Zika Andric, “a kind of Draza’s military attache to the Ustasha” (Karapandzic, 438).

On the same day, a meeting was held in the old Ban Palace in Gornji Grad between representatives of the Chetniks, that is, Djukic and Predavac, and Ustasha officials Pavelic and Andrije Artukovic. The next day, a second meeting was held in Pavelic’s castle in Tuskanec.

On that occasion, Predavac, Brasic and Andric were with Djukic, and with Pavelic were Ustasa generals Djordje Gruic and Vjekoslav Maks Luburic, the former commander of the Ustasa camp Jasenovac – the greatest strategist of the Serbs. The third meeting between Djukic and Pavelic was held only on April 22. The break was caused by the fact that Max Luburic traveled to Bosnia, where the Ustase massacred the Chetniks of Pavle Djurisic.

The result of the negotiations between Mihailovic’s envoy, divisional general Djukic, and Chief Pavelic was that the greatest executioner of the Serbian people promised the Chetniks and did everything that Djukic asked for. As Djukic writes in his memoirs, Pavelic “according to our request, sent trucks with medicines and ammunition, and in addition issued the necessary orders to the competent authorities to allow Draza’s group to pass through Croatia in the direction of Slovenia”.

A series of articles by General Djukic about his mission to Pavelic appeared in the monthly newspaper Srpska zastava (Buenos Aires) between December 1954 and May 1955 under the title “From the Forests into Emigration.” Djukic was answered by Ustasha General Luburic in an “Open Letter to the Serbian General Svetomir Djukic,” in Drina (Madrid) in December 1955. Pavelic also, in 1949 , published his recollections of these conferences.

However, the events unfolded in their own way, everyone saved his own head, so Svetomir Djukic, Ranko Brasic and Zika Andric benefited the most from the negotiations with Pavelic. They, helped by the Ustas and together with them, fled abroad without hindrance. Society for the truth about the anti-fascist national liberation struggle in Yugoslavia 1941-1945.

The Trial of Mihailović

Brasic is mentioned numerous times in the trial, he was explicitly called an agent.

Interestingly, the full trial in which Brasic is mentioned explicitly around 20 times can be downloaded online for free.

Here are some extracts from the trial mentioning Brasic:

THE CONNECTION OF THE ACCUSED MIHAILOVIC WITH PAVELIC AND ARCHBISHOP STEPINEC FOR THE PURPOSE OF A JOINT STRUGGLE AGAINST THE NATIONAL LIBERATION FORCES

Defendant is Mihailović

President: Now please tell me, accused Mihailovic, who is
Ranco Brasic?
Defendant: I did not know Ranko Brasic until he came with
General Trifunovic. He was a lawyer from Belgrade.
President: From Belgrade? Was he at your headquarters?
Defendant: Not at mine, but with General Trifunovic. I had
never seen him until he came to see me one day, at Trifunovic’s sug-
gestion.
President: Did you ever send the lawyer Brasic, to Zagreb?
Defendant: I did.
President: Who managed the sending of Brasic to Zagreb?
Defendant: I think Father Savo.
President: Why was Brasic sent to Zagreb?
Defendant: He himself asked to go. He came with General
Trifunovic and he made the suggestion, as I needed very badly to
get in contact with Zagreb. He told me that it was not right that 1
should be so little in touch with (Macek, .and then he told me that he
could go to Zagreb. When I mentioned that he had a spot on his face’
— he had a big red spot — he said that he could go because he had
friends there and that he would certainly be able to live in Zagreb.

…

President: Did Brasic go to Zagreb?
Defendant: Yes.
President: What report did he send in?
Defendant: He informed me that he had established contact
with the Macek men, that they were very vague, that they demanded
that the Central National Committee should send representatives for
talks and they also, demanded that they should be Serbs, and not
from other regions.
President: And what report did he submit to you regarding
contact with the former guard officers?
Defendant: I do not remember what he sent me. I only remember that, as he had to legailise his position,! he probably had contact
with Matija Canic, through his ‘brother Nikola Canic. Matija was
in the Ustasa staff.
President: Did Brasic ever go to Zagreb again?
Defendant: I gave the exact details at the investigation. He
used to come and go.
President: When he went for the^ second time, what was
his task?
Defendant: He had to carry on with the job. He had told me
that it was possible to create in the northern regions on the Slovene- Croatian frontier …
I had one idea, to bring the Home Guards over to my side and to protect them, together with Macek’s supporters; I gave them instructions in the course of 1943 through a special delegate of Macek’s men, ask to how they should work.

…

President: All right. When Brasic returned from Zagreb what
‘uniform was he wearing?
Defendant: A German uniform.

…

President: Let us first get this point clear. Did they surrender
to Lohr?
Defendant: They did not.
President: What did Nesko Nedic and Brasic report when they
returned from German-fascist Zagreb?
Defendant: That they had not succeeded.
President: Did they establish contact?
Defendant: They were in contact with Lohr’s Chief of Staff.
President: Did Lohr know they were Cetniks?
Defendant: Certainly.
Prosecutor: And nothing happened, they just parted like good
friends.
Defendant: Yes, they did.
Prosecutor: They asked him to surrender and he answered: »I don’t want to«.
Defendant: Yes. just like that.
President: In March and April 1945 when you sent Brasic to
Zagreb, did you entrust him with the task of establishing contact
with Pavelic and Alojzfije Stepkiec?

The prosecutor presents a letter in which Michailovic blames Dr Ranko Brasic for creating.

Letter from Mihailovic to B (to Ranko Brasic, agent) in connection with the talks of Cetnik representatives with »His Excellency« — the bloodthirsty tyrant Ante Pavelic. All the national forces of the Croat people in the struggle against the Bolsheviks.

Who was Lohr?

Alexander Löhr was born in Romania, to a German father and a Russian mother. During WW1, he served as a platoon commander in a pioneer battalion of Austro-Hungarian 85th Infantry Regiment. After the split of Austria-Hungary, he remained in the army of Austria, from the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1921 to the commander of the Austrian Air Force in 1938. Upon the German annexation of Austria, he retained control of the Austrian Air Force, albeit now a part of the German Luftwaffe; he was given the rank of lieutenant general in the Luftwaffe to serve in this role. Between May 1939 and Jun 1942, he was the commanding officer of Luftflotte 4 (Air Fleet 4), during which time Luftflotte 4 conducted the bombing of Warsaw, Poland in Sep 1939 and Belgrade, Yugoslavia in Apr 1941. Between Jul and Dec 1942, he commanded German 12th Army. On 1 Jan 1943, he was made the Commander-in-Chief of the South East, in which role he oversaw the Dodecanese Campaign. He remained in Southeastern Europe through the end of the war, surrendering to Yugoslavian partisans at Topolsica in the Slovenia region of Yugoslavia on 9 May 1945. He was tried in Yugoslavia starting on 15 May 1945; found guilty for the bombing of civilians of Belgrade, he was executed by firing squad on 26 Feb 1947.

After the war, Brasic made it to the USA with his family. Interestingly Brasic was employed with the French Army in 1946, although after moving through various displaced persons camps in Austria, he ends up in the USA by boat along with his wife, daughter and son via Camp Kilmer. It seems Brasic lived in New York, and it is unknown if the authorities in the USA knew how involved Brasic was with the top brass, or how deep he was involved with the Chetniks or Ustasha. What we can find out is that Brasic later was the honorary president of the International Committee of the former Yugoslavian Army and hosted former Generals and Officers of the Royal Yugo Army in the 1970s. According to Brasic New York Times Obituary – Brasic (spelt Brashich) was also the personal political and legal adviser to King Peter II

Context and further reading and links mentioning Brasic.

Trial of Michailovic :

https://archive.org/stream/trialofdragoljub027481mbp/trialofdragoljub027481mbp_djvu.txt

Report of the German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia of Dec. 24, 1944, referring to the statement of one of his reliable agents. Microcopy No. T-311, Roll 196, Frame 427

Autobiography

https://ia800902.us.archive.org/32/items/trialofdragoljub027481mbp/trialofdragoljub027481mbp.pdf

Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and served as dictator of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), a fascist puppet state built out of parts of occupied Yugoslavia by the authorities of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, from 1941 to 1945. Pavelić and the Ustaše persecuted many racial minorities and political opponents in the NDH during the war, including Serbs, Jews, Romani, and anti-fascists, becoming one of the key figures of the genocide of Serbs, the Porajmos and the Holocaust in the NDH.

Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović (27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army (Chetniks), a royalist and nationalist movement and guerrilla force established following the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941.