Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who began the Third Balkan War and fathered ethnic cleansing, is a Christian with Nazi family roots.

Wartime Nazi movements in Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Romania have been gone underground � but Serbia's home-grown brand of WWII Nazism has not been - for three reasons, a) it hid under the mantle of Slav nationalism. Because Serb Nazis were anti-Jew, they were exempt from censure, b) Serbia was a close, useful ally of Britain, France and Russia, and 3) Serb Nazism has always been amorphous, concealed in the shadows, and linguistically unintelligible to outsiders.

Serb Slav Nazism began around 1900 and flourished in the 1920's after the creation of unstable, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. Numerous influential Serb writers and academics, notably Vaso Cubrilovic and Radivoje Pesic, proclaimed Serbs racial superiority, and Serbia the true cradle of western civilization. .

Serb Nazis urged ethnic cleansing of all `racially inferior' Hungarians, Croats, Jews, Albanians, Catholics and Muslims from a purified Greater Serbia, stretching from Italy to the Aegean. Some elements of the Serb Orthodox Church eagerly cooperated - and still do - with these ideas.

Mother Theresa, an Albanian from southern Yugoslavia, ended up in Calcutta because her family was driven from its home by Serb Nazis in the 192O's during a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Back then, as now, Serb Nazis warned of the fertility of non-Serb women, and called for the mass expulsion, extermination or sterilization of `racial inferiors.'

The Serb Slavo-Nazi, Cubrilovic, wrote, If Germany could deport tens of thousands of Jews, the expulsion of a few hundreds of thousands of Albanians would not lead to a world war.

Milosevic rekindled Serb Nazism after Tito had suppressed it for two decades. Serb paramilitary gangsters, like Arkan and Seselj, who spearheaded ethnic cleansing and mass murder, are direct descendants of Hitler's Brownshirt thugs. The Serb army - shades of the SS- was ordered to ethnically cleanse Bosnia of `Muslim filth' on a `sacred historic mission for the Motherland.'

Serb Nazis now denounce Milosevic for failing to accomplish this goal. A significant part of the current ruling-class is made up of Nazis, or rightwing extremists. Unless ripped out by the roots, Nazism may continue its grip on Serbia.