"Tito's Murder Squads": A DW-BR coproduction makes explosive revelations

The film is a coproduction by Deusche Welle and Bavarian TV, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR).

Yugoslav agents liquidated at least 29 people in former West Germany from the end of the 1960s to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The victims were mainly Croats living in exile and fighting against the regime in their home country. The Communist regime in Yugoslavia kept track of its opponents all over the world: in Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the US. Belgrade's main focus, however, was on Croatian opposition forces among migrant workers from the former Yugoslavia in the then West Germany.

A year's research has resulted in a 45-minute film containing tense scenes, exclusive revelations and very emotional moments. Authors Frank Hofmann (DW) and Philipp Grüll (BR) managed to track down a man on the top of the German authorities' list of most wanted criminals for murder in the Federal Republic. He lives free and fearless of prosecution in Bosnia. In addition, a former high-ranking Yugoslav agent candidly told them how he helped to organize terrorist attacks in Germany. Despite the monstrous scope of these criminal acts, this is a topic that remains little known to the German public.

Deutsche Welle will air "Tito's Murder Squads – the Killing of Yugoslav Exiles in Germany" worldwide for the first time ever in English and German on October 16. The film will also be available in Arabic and Spanish. The German version of the documentary premiered nationwide on ARD on September 30.

Explosive secret files

The film's leitmotiv is Robert Zagajski's search for truth. In 1983, his father was murdered in Munich. During the making of the film, he uncovers who was spying on his father. The authors catch on film how they confront one agent living in the German town of Fürth with explosive secret police files. The documents show that the man possessed numerous weapons and collected detailed information about the victims' daily routines shortly before the attacks.

For the first time, former members of the government, ex-Interior Minister Gerhart Baum and Klaus Dohnanyi, former senior official in the Federal Foreign Office, publicly admit that by the end of the 1970s, Bonn was already fully aware that the Yugoslav secret service was committing murders in Germany. But in order to avoid angering the strategically important Yugoslavia during the Cold War, the cases were not discussed in public.

At the end of the film, Robert Zagajski watches in agitation as the former Yugoslav intelligence chief is extradited to Germany and arrested by police at Munich Airport. This man, along with another high-ranking former intelligence official, will appear in court in Munich on October 17, accused of aiding and abetting the murder of exiled Croat Stjepan D. in Wolfratshausen, near Munich. This could mark the first step in finally coming to terms with an unprecedented crime spree decades after it happened.