WEST GERMAN MEDIA ON THE ASSASSINATION OF STJEPAN ÐUREKOVIĆ IN 1983

• Published in: Istorija 20. veka (1983) no. 1; p. 221
• Main Author: Dragišić, Petar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Croatian; English
• Published: Belgrade Institut za Savremenu Istoriyu 01-01-2024
• Subjects: Assassinations & assassination attempts; International relations; Lobbying; Mass media; National security; Propaganda; Terrorism; World War II; Yugoslavia; Germany
• ISSN: 0352-3160; 2560-3647
• DOI: 10.29362/ist20veka.2024.1.dra.221-232

One of the most difficult problems faced by socialist Yugoslavia was the activities of Yugoslav émigrés in the West. After World War II, organizations of émigrés fought against the Yugoslav regime in different ways. They organized propaganda campaigns, lobbying, demonstrations, but also terrorist attacks on Yugoslav interests in Yugoslavia and abroad. Prior to his escape to the FR Germany in 1982, Stjepan Ðureković was one of the directors of the Croatian oil concern INA. In the FR Germany, Ðureković connected with Croatian émigrés and published books in which he fiercely criticized the Yugoslav regime. He was killed in July 1983 in Wolfratshausen, not far from Munich. Considering Ðureković's political backgroung, the Western press, especially the West German media, paid great attention to his assassination in the summer of 1983. Most of the West German media made assumptions about the involvement of the Yugoslav secret police (State Security Service/Služba državne bezbednosti) in the assassination of Ðureković and many other Croatian political émigrés in West Germany, thus damaging the image that the Yugoslav regime was persistently creating for itself. The largest part of the research is based on the analysis of documents from the Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia.