Josip Broz Tito - Historical Criticism

Historical Criticism

Numerous accusations of culpability in the atrocities after the repatriations at Bleiburg have been raised at the Yugoslav leadership under Tito. At the time, Josip Broz Tito repeatedly issued calls for surrender to the retreating column, offering amnesty and attempting to avoid a disorderly surrender. On 14 May he dispatched a telegram to the supreme headquarters Slovene Partisan Army prohibiting "in the sternest language" the execution of prisoners of war and commanding the transfer of the possible suspects to a military court.

You are to undertake the most energetic measures to prevent at all costs any killing of prisoners of war and of those arrested by military units, state organs or individuals. If there are persons among the prisoners and arrestees who should answer for war crimes, they are to be handed over immediately to military courts pending due process. —Josip Broz Tito, telegram of 14 May 1945 to the Partisan command in Slovenia

Tito has been named by historians as responsible for systematic eradication of the ethnic German (Danube Swabian) population in Vojvodina by expulsions and mass executions following the collapse of the German occupation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, in contrast to his inclusive attitude towards other Yugoslav nationalities.

On 4 October 2011, the Slovenian Constitutional Court found a 2009 naming of a street in Ljubljana after Tito to be unconstitutional. The court ruled that the name Tito symbolizes human rights violations, and that naming a street after him "glorifies a totalitarian regime and violates human dignity".