By: mag. Igor Omerza
First of all, I would like to emphasise that Roter’s immediate family was deeply immersed in UDBA. In addition to him, both his wife Zofka and his brother Rado (with the UDBA Department for Clergy) were agents, while his brother Zoro was engaged by the military secret political police (popularly known as KOS), but he also reported to the Slovenian UDBA. “Wherever you go, UDBA–the Roter family is everywhere!”
In his two books about himself, Padle maske and Pravi obraz, Zdenko Roter paradoxically revealed very little, too little, about his 15 years of work with UDBA, and far too much about his long-term collaboration with Milan Kučan. Too much, because in doing so, he disclosed certain illegalities and thus seriously compromised himself!? It is a pity that he did not act similarly regarding UDBA. In any case, in his books, he did not discard the UDBA mask nor reveal his true, UDBA face.
There is little UDBA and memoir material about him, but enough to know that he interrogated priests, Ljubo Sirc, Boris Fakin, and spied on cultural figures (e.g., Kocbek) through informant Piette (Jože Javoršek), and that besides his work in the Department for Clergy, he later became head of the Ljubljana UDBA, which handled two-thirds of the work of the Slovenian UDBA. In this “Ljubljana” capacity, he signed numerous reports that then went to the top of the Slovenian UDBA. I have only found one of these reports, though there must have been hundreds.
He played a vile role in the Nagode trial (1947). Here, the innocent Boris Furlan – through the active assistance of UDBA interrogator Roter – was sentenced to death, then “pardoned” to 20 years in prison, but was effectively “medically” killed there. Alenka Puhar brilliantly revealed this in the concluding remarks of her book about Boris Furlan (Skozi gosto noč). Among other things, she wrote that Furlan was diligently interrogated by Zdenko Roter, who repeatedly recorded: “The interrogated refuses to answer the question. The interrogated again refuses to answer. The interrogated foolishly claims never to have thought about this…”
In his book Padle maske (2013), Zdenko Roter writes that Dachau interrogators were particularly brutal, but he does not name them to protect their children from being stigmatised. Hm, who protected the children of publicly slandered and judicially murdered or imprisoned Dachau defendants? Moreover, Roter had close contact with the UDBA brutalist Verij Winkler, who killed Dachau defendant Janez Peranič during interrogation. I will reveal more about Dachau interrogators and other aspects of the Dachau trials in my upcoming book on these trials.
Most media uncritically reported that he was the founder of the sociology of religion, while omitting that his basic knowledge of religion came from interrogations and secret surveillance of priests. As a professor at FSPN, he further reinforced his knowledge of religion with UDBA secret documentation sent exclusively to him (e.g., in March 1967, UDBA chief Silvo Gorenc sent him 23 pages of strictly confidential material about “the clergy”).
The Slovenian Sociological Society published a shameful text upon Roter’s death. His long-term work with UDBA was euphemised as undefined “post-war assignments in the security service.” Do sociologists really not know that this was a criminal secret political police? They also wrote: “Upon the death of Professor Roter, we honour his scholarly opus, his indelible social commitment, and personal integrity.” A more accurate statement would be: “We are appalled by the knowledge he gained through UDBA and his indelible surveillance and destruction of others’ lives.”
Master William Shakespeare, through Antony’s speech over the slain Caesar, says: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” The same will be true of Zdenko Roter. He will sink into oblivion as the founder of the sociology of religion and as an ardent Kučan supporter, remembered only occasionally when something nefarious from the dark depths of UDBA (e.g., the opening of Belgrade archives) comes to light.
This is not something a normal person would wish for before, during, or after their passage into eternity.