It is well known to any reasonably professional historian that the history of Yugoslavia during and after the Second World War was—in a planned, systematic, and, above all, highly successful manner—tailored to favor the victors of the war, who “liberated” Belgrade and Serbia in 1944, and subsequently the rest of Yugoslavia as well (e.g., Хронологија револуционарне делатности Јосипа Броза Тита, 1978 [Chronology of the Revolutionary Activity of Josip Broz Tito, 1978]).

The central ideological figure within Titoist history was certainly Josip Broz Tito (1892‒1980), whose biography—according to researcher Pero Simić (Tito i Srbi, knjiga 1, 1914‒1944, 2016 [Tito and the Serbs, vol. I, 1914‒1944, 2016) —was deliberately both falsified and mystified, a process to which Broz himself consciously contributed. The former was done to provide formal legitimacy to the (communist-partisan) victors of the civil war over their sole adversary: ​​the royalist Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland (YAF), led by General Dragoljub Draža Mihailović. The latter served to create a psychological aura of divine mystery around Broz’s person—a conditio sine qua non for such figures to be accepted as deities by the broad masses of the people.

In the following lines, we shall briefly touch upon a “mystical” episode from the revolutionary biography of “our greatest son of all our nations and nationalities” (unofficial, but everyday in use, title of Josip Broz Tito as a President [dictator] of socialist Yugoslavia).

It is well known that there exists a photograph of J. B. Tito taken on June 9, 1943, during the German offensive “Schwarz” (or, „The Fifth Enemies Offensive“, May 15‒June 15, 1943) at the Sutjeska River in Eastern Herzegovina, showing him with his wounded left arm in a bandage. Official Titoist historiography has claimed that Broz’s loyal German Shepherd, Lux, saved his life by shielding him with its own body—sacrificing itself—during a German bombardment; a large piece of shrapnel allegedly struck and killed the dog instead of Broz, while the future Yugoslav President for life sustained only a minor wound to his left arm. This is the famous photograph in which Broz poses with his left arm wrapped in a bandage (e.g., Vojna enciklopedija, drugo izdanje, tom 6, Beograd, 1973 [Military encyclopedia, second edition, vol. 6, Belgrade, 1973]). 

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Sutjeska 1943, Tito and Lux

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However, according to several researchers, this photograph was made not in 1943 but after the war. In 1943, in Sutjeska, Tito’s uniform in the photograph with Lux was different from the uniform with the bandage, probably made after the war for propaganda use. Nevertheless, Yugoslav political propaganda skillfully exploited this incident to portray the leader of the Yugoslav (communist) revolution as the only anti-fascist wartime commander to have been wounded during the conflict itself—implying that he had fought on the front lines against the enemy, much like a medieval ruler, which was not the case in reality. Even, there does not exist (at least not publicly known) any WWII-era photograph of J. B. Tito with any kind of guns. But there is a photograph of Broz from 1914 in the uniform of the Austro-Hungarian army (as a corporal) with a rifle in a trench in Western Serbia (if we are speaking about the same person born in 1892 in Kumrovec, Croatia, died in 1980 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, buried in Belgrade, Serbia). 

In 1973, the Yugoslav film industry produced a feature film about the so-called “Battle of the Sutjeska”—the most expensive film ever made in Yugoslavia. It was directed by Stipe Delić; it starred Richard Burton as Broz, alongside a host of prominent local actors, including Velimir “Bata” Živojinović, Ljuba Tadić, Ljubiša Samardžić, Milena Dravić, and Boris Dvornik. The famous Hollywood actor of Welsh origin, Richard Walter Burton (1925‒1984), received the largest fee—approximately one million US dollars. During the shoot, Broz personally provided guidance to Burton (effectively keeping him under control) on how to portray him, ensuring that no unintended slips occurred; nevertheless, Burton was well aware of the kind of man he was dealing with.

However, certain historical sources (M. Stefanović, Podpis: Tito [Signature Tito]; L. Adamič, Orel in korenine) state that the poor dog (Lux) was terrified by the bombing and kept hovering around its master—climbing onto his head in search of protection—to the point that Broz, trying to push the animal away (Lux, incidentally, “stank to high heaven” and was infested with fleas), was in the process of doing so when a piece of shrapnel struck him. In reality, Lux likely did not save Broz’s life on this occasion (through self-sacrifice); rather, Tito sustained a wound to his left arm because he had used it to shield his head from the shrapnel (G. Nikoliš, Korijen, stablo, pavetina: Memoari [G. Nikoliš, Root, tree, pavement: Memoirs]; and Архив Србије, Тито о свом рањавању на Сутјесци  [the Archives of Serbia, Tito on his wounding at Sutjeska]).

Yet, a crucial question arises here—one to which Yugoslav historiography has not yet provided a definitive or final answer: just how many “Titos” were there, after all? If there was, in fact, only one Broz—the same man from Kumrovec and the Battle of the Sutjeska—then his body should bear clear, visible traces of at least two scars from wartime wounds: one from the First World War (sustained in the Carpathians in 1915, when a Russian Cossack pierced his chest near the heart with a long lance while Broz was wearing an Austro-Hungarian uniform) and another from the Second World War (at the Sutjeska in 1943), caused by German shrapnel on his left arm. However, in post-war photographs of Broz (for instance, from the summer-time in his private resort on the Island of Brioni in Croatia, when, for example, the Italian film diva Sofia Loren spent 15 days on Brioni as a guest of Josip Broz Tito and his wife Jovanka Broz in summer 1969), these scars are simply nowhere to be seen.

How many Broz-es were there? According to a report by the Belgrade Special Police dated March 16, 1944 (held in the Archives of Yugoslavia), there were three Josip Broz-es. In 2013, the American CIA published a document on its website stating that Yugoslav President Tito spoke Serbo-Croatian as officially his native language, yet with a foreign accent—implying he was not an authentic South Slav. In this context, particular attention should be paid to the writings of Vladimir Dedijer, who noted that “something” happened to Tito in Drvar (Bosnia) in May 1944 during the German offensive. Vyacheslav Molotov, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, claimed that in 1937, the Soviets had installed their own operative as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia; this individual, who assumed the identity of Josip Broz from Kumrovec, was, in fact, a Jew from Odesa. Finally, General Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović maintained that the wartime leader of the Partisans—with whom he had held two private, face-to-face meetings in 1941, in Brajići and Struganik (Western Serbia)—was not the same person as the post-war Yugoslav President and (self-proclaimed) “Marshal” of Yugoslavia.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Josip Broz left with the gun as Austro-Hungarian soldier in 1914 in Western Serbia / All images in this article are from the author

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