Performance "nationalist musician Marko Perković" it was a great success, all things considered number of visitors, writes the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), writes Deutsche Welle (DW).
The German daily adds that that concert, which FAZ ranks among the largest events of its kind in European history, precisely because of such a large number of people present "says more about Croatia than that country can be pleased with".
Photo: Tanjug/HINA/Damir SenčarMarko Perković Thompson's concert at the Zagreb Hippodrome
"For decades, Perković's business model has been to use his reputation as a patriotic patriot, in addition to making money, for the rehabilitation of the Croatian Ustasha regime," writes journalist Mihael Martens in the text.
The author calls the Ustasha regime and its "chief" Anta Pavelić Hitler's "junior partner" in the Balkans.
Citing statements from historian Alexander Korb's book "In the Shadow of the World War", FAZ reminds readers of the dimensions of Ustasha crimes: "Almost half a million people, that is, approximately as many as came to Thompson's concert, fell as victims of five years of Ustasha terror."
Most of them, as FAZ further states, were Serbs (more than 300.000), but 115.000 Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Jews and thousands of Roma were also killed, Martens notes: "In Jasenovac, the largest death camp of the Second World War that was not managed by the Germans was built. More than 80 thousand people were killed there."
"One of the main slogans of the Ustasha was 'For home - ready'. It is the Croatian version of 'Heil Hitler'," writes FAZ. And he adds that Perković's most famous song "Bojna Čavoglava" begins with that cry. "At the Zagreb concert, it was performed in a duet between the artist and the audience," writes FAZ.
Explaining the context in which the song was written, FAZ states that the Croats were defending themselves from Serbian aggression, that a third of the country was occupied, that Croatia was on the edge of the abyss - and that the song spread very quickly among the defenders of that time and became their support in difficult times.
"Perković's later claim that 'Za dom - spremni' is a historical slogan that was used long before the takeover of power by the fascists is just an excuse. It is true that there are older examples of its use, but that does not change the fact that the context from 1941 to 1945 can no longer be separated from that slogan," adds FAZ.
Photo: Tanjug/HINA/Lana Slivar DominicOn the eve of Thompson's concert in Zagreb
Nemački list cites the findings of a study by the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, which stated a few years ago that a third of young people in Croatia believed that the fascist Croatian state was only defending the "interests of the Croats". FAZ concludes: "That's what Perković could have said as well."
"Perković's method is simple: he says something, then says that he didn't mean it. He insinuates what his audience might think until the end. He uses Ustasha slogans, only to then claim that he knew nothing about their history, or to claim that they were indeed used by Croatian fascists, but that they had nothing to do with them," writes the German newspaper.
At the same time, as the newspaper further states, he benefits from the fact that "in Croatia there really are big topics that have been taboo for decades, above all the massacre committed by communist partisans in Blajburg in 1945. But Perković fills those holes in the debate by distorting history."
"In a country where the National Academy of Sciences and Arts 'washes' Ustasha iconography (...) the Ustasha symbol at Thompson's concerts is no longer a scandal, but part of the process of institutional normalization of historical revisionism," the Frankfurt newspaper quotes the statement of Lada Duraković, which the music historian from Pula gave to DW a few days ago.
In that interview, she called that iconography a part of "cultural policy for which the state gave permission."
And those connections are obvious, adds FAZ. As an example, he cites Prime Minister Andrej Plenković from the conservative HDZ who "doesn't want to risk having Thompson against him", so he came to the dress rehearsal at the Hippodrome and took a photo with the "people's hero", this paper adds.
The text concludes with the statement that the debate surrounding this "record concert" will continue to entertain Croatia for some time for a simple reason:
"In Croatia, in contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Perković's fans, there is a similar number of people who are resolutely opposed to his mix of kitsch, war romance, Catholicism and the rehabilitation of fascism."
Source: Deutsche Welle (DW)
