1990
In order to break the gap between Laibach's albums Mute Records released Macbeth. Featuring the music commissioned by the Deutsches Schauspielhaus back in 1987 for their production of the Shakespeare play. It drew some parallels with Rudolf Hess who died while Laibach were performing the play in Germany. The track 10.5.1941 was the date Hess flew from Germany into Scotland crashing just outside Glasgow. On the sleeve there is a cartoon by Hess of a man on a parachute with a smiling sun. The Hess incident was one of the biggest mystery of WW2. The record sleeve was one of the most popular amongst Laibach fans and Mute released a limited edition LP which included a print of the cover, around the same period for a limited spell there was also a sleeve print in the LPs of Opus Dei and Let it Be. The Macbeth press release announced that Laibach were currently recording in Paris for a new album which was due to be released in the autumn.
In Yugoslavia the Slovene delegation walked out the League of Communist of Yugoslavia and began the process of converting to an independent democracy. Socialist was deleted from the name of the republic, multiparty elections were held; forming a non-communist government and twenty-seven federal laws are nullified by the new Slovene Assembly.
October 3rd, Germany is reunited after nearly fifty years. Laibach contributed to the occasion by releasing the 3.Oktober single in Germany, this was a reworked version of Geburt Einer Nation using Kraftwerk samples. However no new album was presented and no official reason was given. Unofficial stories later emerged that Laibach had recorded material in Paris but there was a major dispute over the way it should be released with Laibach objecting to the joint credits on the record sleeve. Meanwhile Laibach reappears for the Industrial Cities Tour in Yugoslavia, starting with Maribor on October 6th. The tour took them through places such as Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Mostar and Osijek; one concert took place in Prague. On December 23rd Slovenia voted on the issue of independence, three days later the Slovene parliament declares independence. On the same day Laibach celebrates 10 years with the concert titled '10 years of Laibach - 10 years of Slovene Independence', it took place in the disused power station in Trbovlje. Before the concert, outside at the gates in the freezing cold, a full marching brass band played to herald the ending of Laibach's ten years hometown ban.
Having voted for independence, the Slovene Assembly began preparing for legal separation, Serbia responded with a raid on the Yugoslav monetary system, stealing nearly two billion dollars. Croatia were attempting to take a more cautious approach looking at ways of adjusting the constitution without breaking up Yugoslavia, however the Serbian press became more ominous, reports leading to the fear that Croatia was returning to the days of the Ustashe (a Croatian Nazi group formed in WW2). Serbian television contained regular, sometimes daily, films and programmes on Croatian nationalists especially during the war, and Catholics persecutions of the Christian Orthodox religions. Events were often making it easy for the Serbian press to portray these views when the Croatian Nationalists led by Franjo Tudjman won the 1990 multi-party elections and began calling for a reduction in ethnic Serb representation in the Croatian police. Franjo Tudjman was jailed follow the Croatian Mass Movement in the late sixties, which was the most serious challenge during Tito's regime.
Part 10
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Rudolf Hess's cartoon
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