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The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian
fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...
and
ultranationalist Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific ...
organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement (). From its inception and before the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...
, including collaborating with
IMRO The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; ; ), was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1893 in Salonica, it init ...
to assassinate King
Alexander I of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karađorđević (, ; – 9 October 1934), also known as Alexander the Unifier ( / ), was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 16 August 1921 to 3 October 1929 and King of Yugoslavia from 3 October 1929 until his assassinati ...
in 1934.The Assassination of Europe, 1918-1942: A Political History, Howard M. Sachar, University of Toronto Press, 2014, , pp. 251–258. During
World War II in Yugoslavia World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was Invasion of Yugoslavia, invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis powers, Axis forces and partitioned among Nazi Germany, Germany, Fascist Italy (1922–1943), It ...
, the Ustaše went on to perpetrate
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
and
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
against its
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Serb The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history, and language. They primarily live in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...
and Roma populations, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
and Croat political dissidents. The ideology of the movement was a blend of
fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
,
Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and Croatian
ultranationalism Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...
. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span the
Drina The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long river in the Balkans, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Al ...
River and extend to the border of
Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...
. The movement advocated a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs—due to the Ustaše's
anti-Serb sentiment Anti-Serb sentiment or Serbophobia ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, србофобија, srbofobija, separator=" / ") is a generally negative view of Serbs as an ethnic group. Historically it has been a basis for the persecution of ethnic Serbs. A distinctiv ...
—and Holocaust against Jews and Roma via Nazi racial theory, and persecution of
anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were op ...
or dissident Croats and Bosniaks. The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as " Muslim Croats", and as a result, Bosniaks were not persecuted on the basis of race. The Ustaše espoused
Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
as the religions of the Croats and condemned
Orthodox Christianity Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
, which was the main religion of the Serbs. Roman Catholicism was identified with Croatian nationalism,Kent, Peter C. ''The lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: the Roman Catholic Church and the division of Europe, 1943–1950'', McGill-Queen's Press (MQUP), 2002 p. 46;
"''Fiercely nationalistic, the Ustaše were also fervently Catholic, identifying, in the Yugoslav political context, Catholicism with Croatian nationalism...''"
while Islam, which had a large following in
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...
, was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats." It was founded as a nationalist organization that sought to create an independent Croatian state. It functioned as a
terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
organization before World War II. After the
invasion of Yugoslavia The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, was a Nazi Germany, German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was put fo ...
in April 1941, the Ustaše came to power when they were appointed to rule a part of
Axis An axis (: axes) may refer to: Mathematics *A specific line (often a directed line) that plays an important role in some contexts. In particular: ** Coordinate axis of a coordinate system *** ''x''-axis, ''y''-axis, ''z''-axis, common names ...
-occupied Yugoslavia as the
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia (, NDH) was a World War II–era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist Italy. It was established in parts of Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, occupied Yugoslavia on 10 April 1941, ...
(NDH), a quasi-
protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...
puppet state A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a State (polity), state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside Power (international relations), power and subject to its ord ...
established by
Fascist Italy Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. Th ...
and
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
.Yugoslavia
''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website; accessed 25 April 2014.
The
Ustaše Militia The Ustaše Militia () was the military branch of the Ustaše, established by the Fascism, fascist and Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, genocidal regime of Ante Pavelić in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis pow ...
() became its military wing in the new state. The Ustaše regime was militarily weak and failed to ever attain significant support among Croats. Therefore, terror was their means of controlling the "ethnically disparate" population. The Ustaše regime was initially backed by some parts of the Croat population that in the
interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...
had felt oppressed by the Serb-led Yugoslavia, but their brutal policies quickly alienated many ordinary Croats and resulted in a loss of the support they had gained by creating a Croatian national state. With the German surrender,
end of World War II in Europe The end of World War II in Europe occurred in May 1945. Following the Death of Adolf Hitler, suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April, leadership of Nazi Germany passed to Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and the Flensburg Government. Soviet Union, Soviet t ...
, and the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia in 1945, the Ustaše movement and their state totally collapsed. Many members of the Ustaše militia and Croatian Home Guard who subsequently fled the country were taken as
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
and subjected to forced marches and executions during the Bleiburg repatriations. Various underground and exile successor organisations created by former Ustaše members, such as the
Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
and the Croatian Liberation Movement, tried to continue the movement to little success.


Name

The word ''ustaša'' (plural: ''ustaše'') is derived from the intransitive verb ''ustati'' (Croatian for ''rise up''). "" () was a military rank in the Imperial Croatian Home Guard (1868–1918). The same term was the name of Croatian third-class infantry regiments () during World War I (1914–1918). Another variation of the word ''ustati'' is ''ustanik'' (plural: ''ustanici'') which means an
insurgent An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregular forces face a large, well ...
, or a rebel. The name ''ustaša'' did not have fascist connotations during the early years of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the term "ustat" was itself used in
Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical Regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia (reg ...
to denote the insurgents from the Herzegovinian rebellion of 1875. The full original name of the organization appeared in April 1931 as the or UHRO (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Organization). In 1933 it was renamed the (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement), a name it kept until World War II. In English, Ustasha, Ustashe, Ustashas and Ustashi are used for the movement or its members.


Ideology


Ideological roots

One of the major ideological influences on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše was 19th century Croatian activist
Ante Starčević Ante Starčević ( ; 23 May 1823 – 28 February 1896) was a Croatian politician and writer. His policies centered around Croatian state law, the integrity of Croatian lands, and the right of Croats, his people to self-determination. As an import ...
, an advocate of Croatian unity and independence, who was both anti-
Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...
and anti-Serbian in outlook. He envisioned the creation of a Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by
Bosniaks The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
,
Serbs The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of Serbia, history, and Serbian lan ...
, and
Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( ), are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, Slovenian culture, culture, and History of Slove ...
, considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
and
Orthodox Christianity Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
, and considered the Slovenes "mountain Croats". Starčević argued that the large Serb presence in territories claimed by a Greater Croatia was the result of recent settlement, encouraged by Habsburg rulers, and the influx of groups like
Vlachs Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula ...
who took up Orthodox Christianity and identified themselves as Serbs. Starčević admired Bosniaks because in his view they were Croats who had adopted Islam in order to preserve the economic and political autonomy of Bosnia and Croatia under the Ottoman occupation. The Ustaše used Starčević's theories to promote their own annexation of
Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...
and Herzegovina to Croatia and recognized Croatia as having two major ethnocultural components: Catholics and Muslims. The Ustaše sought to represent Starčević as being connected to their views.
Josip Frank Josip Frank (; 16 April 1844 – 17 December 1911) was a Croatian lawyer and politician, a noted representative of the Party of Rights in the Croatian Parliament, and a vocal advocate of Croatian national independence in Austria-Hungary. Early ...
seceded his extreme fraction from Starčević's
Party of Rights The Party of Rights () was a Croatian nationalism, Croatian nationalist political party in Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and later in Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was founded in 1861 by Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik, two influ ...
and formed his own, the Pure Party of Rights, which became the main pool of members of the subsequent Ustaše movement. Historian John Paul Newman stated that
Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...
officers' "unfaltering opposition to Yugoslavia provided a blueprint for the Croatian radical right, the Ustaše". The Ustaše promoted the theories of Milan Šufflay, who is believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when the nation of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918. Šufflay was killed in Zagreb in 1931 by government supporters."Einstein accuses Yugoslavian rulers in savant's murder"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 6 May 1931
mirror
/ref>mirror
/ref> The Ustaše accepted the 1935 thesis of Krunoslav Draganović, a Catholic priest who claimed that many Catholics in southern Herzegovina had been converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to justify their own policy of forcible conversion of Orthodox Christians to
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. The Ustaše were heavily influenced by Nazism and fascism. Its leader, Ante Pavelić, held the position of ''Poglavnik'', which was based on the similar positions of ''Duce'' held by Benito Mussolini and ''Führer'' held by Adolf Hitler. The Ustaše, like fascists, promoted a corporatist economy. Pavelić and the Ustaše were allowed sanctuary in Italy by Mussolini after being exiled from Yugoslavia. Pavelić had been in negotiations with Fascist Italy since 1927 that included advocating a territory-for-sovereignty swap in which he would tolerate Italy annexing its claimed territory in
Dalmatia Dalmatia (; ; ) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Through time it formed part of several historical states, most notably the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (925 ...
in exchange for Italy supporting the sovereignty of an independent Croatia. The Ustaše ideology has also been characterized as clerical fascism by several authors, who emphasize the importance the movement attached to Roman Catholicism. Mussolini's support of the Ustaše was based on pragmatic considerations, such as maximizing Italian influence in the Balkans and the Adriatic. After 1937, with the weakening of French influence in Europe following Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland and with the rise of a quasi-fascist government in Yugoslavia under
Milan Stojadinović Milan Stojadinović ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Стојадиновић; 4 August 1888 – 26 October 1961) was a Serbs, Serbian and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav politician and economist who was the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. ...
, Mussolini abandoned support for the Ustaše from 1937 to 1939 and sought to improve relations with Yugoslavia, fearing that continued hostility towards Yugoslavia would result in Yugoslavia entering Germany's sphere of influence. Van Creveld, Martin L. ''Hitler's Strategy 1940–1941: The Balkan Clue''. 2nd ed. London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974. pp. 6–8 The collapse of the quasi-fascist Stojadinović regime resulted in Italy restoring its support for the Ustaše, whose aim was to create an independent Croatia in personal union with Italy. However, distrust of the Ustaše grew. Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian foreign minister Count
Galeazzo Ciano Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944), was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law ...
noted in his diary that "The Duce is indignant with Pavelić, because he claims that the Croats are descendants of the Goths. This will have the effect of bringing them into the German orbit".Galeazzo Ciano, Count;
Malcolm Muggeridge Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was a conservative British journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, i ...
(translator). ''Ciano's diary, 1939–1943''. W. Heinemann, 1950, p. 392.
Hungary strongly supported the Ustaše for two aims. One, in order to weaken Yugoslavia,
Little Entente The Little Entente was an alliance formed in 1920 and 1921 by Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia from 1929 on) with the purpose of common defense against Hungarian revisionism and the prospect of ...
, in order to ultimately regain some of its lost territories. The other, Hungary also wished to establish later in the future a strong alliance with the Independent State of Croatia and possibly enter a personal union. Nazi Germany initially did not support an independent Croatia, nor did it support the Ustaše, with Hitler stressing the importance of a "strong and united Yugoslavia". Nazi officials, including
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which gov ...
, wanted Yugoslavia stable and officially neutral during the war so Germany could continue to securely gain Yugoslavia's raw material exports. The Nazis grew irritated with the Ustaše, among them Reichsfuhrer SS
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
, who was dissatisfied with the lack of full compliance by the NDH to the Nazis' agenda of extermination of the Jews, as the Ustaše permitted Jews who converted to Catholicism to be recognized as "honorary Croats", thus putatively exempt from persecution.


Political programme and main agendas

In 1932, an editorial in the first issue of the ''Ustaše'' newspaper, signed by the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić, proclaimed that violence and terror would be the main means for the Ustaše to attain their goals:
The KNIFE, REVOLVER, MACHINE GUN and TIME BOMB; these are the idols, these are bells that will announce the dawning and THE RESURRECTION OF THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA.
In 1933, the Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles" that formed the official ideology of the movement. The Principles stated the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights and declared that people who were not Croat by "
blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood is com ...
" would be excluded from political life. Those considered "undesirables" were subjected to mass murder. These principles called for the creation of a new economic system that would be neither
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
nor
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
and which would emphasize the importance of the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and the patriarchial family as means to maintain social order and morality. (The name given by modern historians to this particular aspect of Ustaše ideology varies; " national Catholicism", "
political Catholicism The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics. The Catholic Church's views and teachings have evolved over its history and have at times been significant political influences ...
" and "Catholic Croatism" have been proposed among others.) In power, the Ustaše banned
contraception Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...
and tightened laws against
blasphemy Blasphemy refers to an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of Reverence (emotion), reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred, or something considered Sanctity of life, inviolable. Some religions, especially Abrahamic o ...
.Atkin, Nicholas and Frank Tallet. ''Priests, Prelates and People: A History of European Catholicism since 1750''. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2003. p. 248. The Ustaše accepted that Croats are part of the Dinaric race,Caccamo, Francesco and Trinchese, Stefano. ''Rotte adriatiche. Tra Italia, Balcani e Mediterraneo''. FrancoAngeli, 2011. p. 158. but rejected the idea that Croats are primarily Slavic, claiming they primarily come from Germanic roots with the
Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...
. The Ustaše believed that a government must naturally be strong and authoritarian. The movement opposed
parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...
for being "corrupt" and
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
and
Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...
for interfering in family life and the economy and for their
materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
. The Ustaše considered competing political parties and elected parliaments to be harmful to its own interests. The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as national religions of the Croatian people but initially rejected Orthodox Christianity as being incompatible with their objectives. Although the Ustaše emphasized religious themes, it stressed that duty to the nation took precedence over religious custom.Greble, Emily. ''Sarajevo, 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Hitler's Europe''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2011. p. 125. In power, the Ustaše banned the use of the term "Serbian Orthodox faith", requiring "Greek-Eastern faith" in its place. The Ustaše forcefully converted many Orthodox to Catholicism, murdered and expelled 85% of Orthodox priests, and plundered and burnt many Orthodox Christian churches. The Ustaše also persecuted Old Catholics who did not recognize
papal infallibility Papal infallibility is a Dogma in the Catholic Church, dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Saint Peter, Peter, the Pope when he speaks is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "in ...
. On 2 July 1942 the Croatian Orthodox Church was founded, as a further means to destroy the
Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...
, but this new church gained very few followers and was abolished in 1945.


Antisemitism

While initial focus was against Serbs, as the Ustaše grew closer to the Nazis they adopted antisemitism. In 1936, in "The Croat Question", Ante Pavelić placed Jews third among "the Enemies of the Croats" (after Serbs and
Freemasons Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
, but before Communists): writing:
″Today, practically all finance and nearly all commerce in Croatia is in Jewish hands. This became possible only through the support of the state, which thereby seeks, on one hand, to strengthen the pro-Serbian Jews, and on the other, to weaken Croat national strength. The Jews celebrated the establishment of the so-called Yugoslav state with great joy, because a national Croatia could never be as useful to them as a multi-national Yugoslavia; for in national chaos lies the power of the Jews... In fact, as the Jews had foreseen, Yugoslavia became, in consequence of the corruption of official life in Serbia, a true Eldorado of Jewry."
Once in power, the Ustaše immediately introduced a series of Nazi-style racial laws. On 30 April 1941, the Ustaše proclaimed the "Legal Decree on Racial Origins", the "Legal Decree on the Protection of Aryan Blood and the Honor of the Croatian People", and the "Legal Provision on Citizenship". These decrees defined who was a Jew, and took away the citizenship rights of all non-Aryans, i.e. Jews and Roma. By the end of April 1941, months before the Nazis implemented similar measures in Germany and over a year after they were implemented in occupied Poland, the Ustaše required all Jews to wear insignia, typically a yellow
Star of David The Star of David (, , ) is a symbol generally recognized as representing both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the Seal of Solomon was used for decora ...
. The Ustaše declared the "Legal Provision on the Nationalization of the Property of Jews and Jewish Companies", on 10 October 1941, and with it they confiscated all Jewish property. Already on their first day, 10–11 April 1941, Ustaše arrested a group of prominent Zagreb Jews and held them for ransom. On 13 April the same was done in
Osijek Osijek () is the fourth-largest city in Croatia, with a population of 96,848 in 2021. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja ...
, where Ustaše and
Volksdeutsche In Nazi Germany, Nazi German terminology, () were "people whose language and culture had Germans, German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." The term is the nominalised plural of ''wikt:volksdeutsch, volksdeutsch'', with denoting ...
r mobs also destroyed the synagogue and Jewish graveyard. This process was repeated multiple times in 1941 with groups of Jews. Simultaneously, the Ustaše initiated extensive antisemitic propaganda, with Ustaše papers writing that Croatians must "be more alert than any other ethnic group to protect their racial purity, ... We need to keep our blood clean of the Jews". They also wrote that Jews are synonymous with "treachery, cheating, greed, immorality and foreigness", and therefore "wide swaths of the Croatian people always despised the Jews and felt towards them natural revulsion". In May 1941, the Ustaše rounded up 165 Jewish youth in Zagreb, members of the Jewish sports club Makabi, and sent them to the
Danica concentration camp Danica was the first concentration and extermination camp established in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. It was established in Koprivnica (located in modern-day Croatia) on 15 or 20 April 1941 in the deserted building of form ...
. All but three were later killed by the Ustaše. The Ustaše sent most Jews to Ustaše and Nazi concentration camps—including the notorious, Ustaše-run
Jasenovac concentration camp Jasenovac () was a concentration camp, concentration and extermination camp established in the Jasenovac, Sisak-Moslavina County, village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia durin ...
—where nearly 32,000, or 80% of the Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, were killed. In October 1941, the Ustaše mayor of Zagreb ordered the demolition of the Zagreb Synagogue, which was completely demolished by April 1942. The Ustaše persecuted Jews who practiced
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
but authorized Jewish converts to Catholicism to be recognized as Croatian citizens and be given honorary Aryan citizenship that allowed them to be reinstated at the jobs from which they had previously been separated. After they stripped Jews of their citizenship rights, the Ustaše allowed some to apply for Aryan rights via bribes and/or through connections to prominent Ustaše. The whole process was highly arbitrary. Only 2% of Zagreb's Jews were granted Aryan rights, for example. Also, Aryan rights did not guarantee permanent protection from being sent to concentration camps or other persecution.


Views on Muslims

Islam, which had a large following in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats." The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as " Muslim Croats", and as a result, they were not persecuted on the basis of race. However, Muslims were not free from Ustaše persecution and atrocities, even if they were not targeted on a religious or ethnic basis. The majority of Muslims preferred a return to autonomy under Habsburg rule and were reportedly either neutral or opposed to the Ustaše regime. Despite Pavelić’s promises of equality between Catholics and Muslims, many Muslims became dissatisfied with Croat rule. Muslims (Bosniaks) comprised approximately 12% of the civil service and armed forces of the NDH.


Other measures

Economically, the Ustaše supported the creation of a corporatist economy.Griffin, Roger. ''The Nature of Fascism''. Digital Printing edition. New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 120. The movement believed that natural rights existed to
private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership ...
and ownership over small-scale means of production free from state control. Armed struggle, revenge and terrorism were glorified. Decrees enacted by the regime formed the basis that allowed it to get rid of all unwanted employees in state and local government and in state enterprises, the "unwanted" being all Jews, Serbs and Yugoslav-oriented Croats who were all thrown out except for some deemed specifically needed by the government. This would leave a multitude of jobs to be filled by Ustašes and pro-Ustaše adherents and would lead to government jobs being filled by people with no professional qualifications. Dalmatian-American historian Jozo Tomasevich in ''War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941–1945'' remarks "never before in history had Croats been exposed to such legalized administrative, police and judicial brutality and abuse as during the Ustaša regime."


History


Before World War II

During the 1920s, Ante Pavelić, a lawyer, politician and follower of Josip Frank's Pure Party of Rights, became the leading advocate for Croatian independence. In 1927, he secretly contacted
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
, dictator of
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
and founder of
fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
, to present his
separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
ideas. Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia covering the entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats. Historian Rory Yeomans claimed there were signs appearing as early as 1928 that Pavelić was considering the formation of a nationalist insurgency group. In October 1928, after the assassination of leading Croatian politician Stjepan Radić, (
Croatian Peasant Party The Croatian Peasant Party (, HSS) is an agrarianism, agrarian List of political parties in Croatia, political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun Radić, Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The ...
President in the Yugoslav Assembly) by radical Montenegrin politician
Puniša Račić Puniša Račić ( sr-cyr, Пуниша Рачић; 12 July 1886 – 16 October 1944) was a Montenegrin Serb, Serb leader and People's Radical Party (NRS) politician. He assassinated Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) representatives Pavle Radić and Đ ...
, a youth group named the Croat Youth Movement was founded by Branimir Jelić at the
University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...
. A year later, Pavelić was invited by the 21-year-old Jelić into the organization as a junior member. A related movement, the Domobranski Pokret—which had been the name of the legal Croatian army in Austria-Hungary—began publication of ''Hrvatski Domobran'', a newspaper dedicated to Croatian national matters. The Ustaše sent ''Hrvatski Domobran'' to the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
to garner support from Croatian-Americans. The organization around the ''Domobran'' tried to engage with and radicalize moderate Croats, using Radić's assassination to stir up emotions within the divided country. By 1929 two divergent Croatian political streams had formed: those who supported Pavelić's view that only violence could secure Croatia's national interests, and a much larger group supporting the Croatian Peasant Party, led then by
Vladko Maček Vladimir Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure ...
, successor to Stjepan Radić.Đilas, Aleksa. ''The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919–1953'', Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 114–115, 129. Various members of the
Croatian Party of Rights The Croatian Party of Rights (, HSP) is an Extra-parliamentary opposition, extra-parliamentary Croatian nationalism, nationalist and Neo-fascism, neo-fascist List of political parties in Croatia, political party in Croatia. The word "right(s)" i ...
contributed to the writing of the ''Domobran'', until around Christmas 1928 when the newspaper was banned by authorities of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...
. In January 1929 the king banned all national parties, and the radical wing of the Party of Rights was exiled, including Pavelić, Jelić and Gustav Perčec. This group was later joined by several other Croatian exiles. On 22 March 1929, Zvonimir Pospišil,
Mijo Babić Mijo Babić (1 September 1903 – 3 July 1941), nicknamed Giovanni, was a deputy of the Croatian fascist dictator Ante Pavelić, and the first commander of all concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia. He was head of the Third Bure ...
, Marko Hranilović, and Matija Soldin murdered Toni Šlegel, the chief editor of newspaper '' Novosti'' from Zagreb and president of ''Jugoštampa'', which was the beginning of the terrorist actions of Ustaše. Hranilović and Soldin were arrested and executed for the murder. On 20 April 1929 Pavelić and others co-signed a declaration in
Sofia, Bulgaria Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...
, with members of the Macedonian National Committee, asserting that they would pursue "their legal activities for the establishment of human and national rights, political freedom and complete independence for both Croatia and Macedonia". The Court for the Preservation of the State in
Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...
sentenced Pavelić and Perčec to death on 17 July 1929. The exiles started organizing support for their cause among the Croatian diaspora in Europe, as well as North and South America. In January 1932 they named their revolutionary organization "''Ustaša"''. The Ustaše carried out terrorist acts intended to maximize damage to Yugoslavia. From their training camps in fascist Italy and Hungary, they planted time bombs on international trains bound for Yugoslavia, causing deaths and material damage. In November 1932 ten Ustaše, led by Andrija Artuković and supported by four local sympathizers, attacked a gendarme outpost at Brušani in the
Lika Lika () is a traditional region of Croatia proper, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by t ...
/
Velebit Velebit (; ; ) is the largest, though not the highest, mountain range in Croatia. The range forms a part of the Dinaric Alps and is located along the Adriatic coast, separating it from Lika in the interior. Velebit begins in the northwest near ...
area, in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Yugoslav authorities. The incident has sometimes been termed the " Velebit uprising".


Assassination of King Alexander I

The Ustaše's most infamous terrorist act was carried out on 9 October 1934, when, working with the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; ; ), was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1893 in Salonica, it initia ...
(IMRO), they assassinated King
Alexander I of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karađorđević (, ; – 9 October 1934), also known as Alexander the Unifier ( / ), was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 16 August 1921 to 3 October 1929 and King of Yugoslavia from 3 October 1929 until his assassinati ...
in Marseille, France. The perpetrator, Bulgarian revolutionary
Vlado Chernozemski Vlado Chernozemski (Bulgarian language, Bulgarian: Владо Черноземски; born Velichko Dimitrov Kerin, ; 19 October 1897 – 9 October 1934) was a Bulgarians, Bulgarian revolutionary and assassin. He is also known as "Vlado the Cha ...
, was killed by French police. Three Ustaše members who had been waiting at different locations for the king— Mijo Kralj, Zvonimir Pospišil and Milan Rajić—were captured and sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court. Following the German invasion of France, the men were released from prison. Ante Pavelić, along with Eugen Kvaternik and Ivan Perčević, were subsequently sentenced to death ''in absentia'' by a French court, as the real organizers of the plot. The Ustaše believed that the assassination of King Alexander had effectively "broken the backbone of Yugoslavia" and was their "most important achievement." Soon after the assassination, all organizations related to the Ustaše as well as the ''Hrvatski Domobran'', which continued as a civil organization, were banned throughout Europe. Under pressure from France, the Italian police arrested Pavelić and several Ustaše emigrants in October 1934. Pavelić was imprisoned in
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
and released in March 1936. After he met with Eugen Dido Kvaternik, he stated that assassination was "the only language Serbs understand". While in prison, Pavelić was informed of the 1935 election in Yugoslavia, when the coalition led by Croat Vladko Maček won. He stated that his victory was aided by the activity of Ustaše. By the mid-1930s, graffiti with the initials ''ŽAP'' meaning "Long live Ante Pavelić" () had begun to appear on the streets of Zagreb. During the 1930s, a split developed between the "home" ''Ustaše'' members who stayed behind in Croatia and Bosnia to struggle against Yugoslavia and the "emigre" ''Ustaše'' who went abroad. Emigre ''Ustaše'' who had a much lower educational level were viewed as violent, ignorant and fanatical by the home ''Ustaše'', who were in turn dismissed as "soft" by the emigres, seeing themselves as a "warrior-elite". After March 1937, when Italy and Yugoslavia signed a pact of friendship, Ustaše and their activities had been banned. This attracted the attention of young Croats, especially university students, who became sympathizers or members. In 1936, the Yugoslav government offered amnesty to those ''Ustaše'' abroad provided they promised to renounce violence; many of the emigre faction accepted the amnesty.  In the late 1930s, the ''Ustaše'' began infiltrating the para-military organizations of the Croat Peasant Party, the Croatian Defense Force and the Peasant Civil Party. At the University of Zagreb, an ''Ustaše''-linked student group become the largest single student group by 1939. In February 1939 two returnees from detention, Mile Budak and Ivan Oršanić, became editors of the pro-Ustaše journal ''Hrvatski narod'', known in English as ''The Croatian Nation''.


World War II

The
Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...
invaded Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. Vladko Maček, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), which was the most influential party in Croatia at the time, rejected German offers to lead the new government. On 10 April the most senior home-based Ustaše,
Slavko Kvaternik Slavko Kvaternik (25 August 1878 – 7 June 1947) was a Croatian military general and politician who was one of the founders of the ultranationalist Ustaše movement. Kvaternik was military commander and Minister of the Armed Forces ('' Domobrans ...
, took control of the police in Zagreb and in a radio broadcast that day proclaimed the formation of the
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia (, NDH) was a World War II–era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist Italy. It was established in parts of Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, occupied Yugoslavia on 10 April 1941, ...
(''Nezavisna Država Hrvatska'', NDH). The name of the state was an attempt to capitalise on the Croat struggle for independence. Maček issued a statement that day, calling on all Croatians to cooperate with the new authorities. Meanwhile, Pavelić and several hundred Ustaše left their camps in Italy for Zagreb, where he declared a new government on 16 April 1941. He accorded himself the title of "Poglavnik"—a Croatian approximation to "Führer". The Independent State of Croatia was declared on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory", what is today Republic of Croatia (without
Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; ; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian: ; ; ) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at th ...
),
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...
,
Syrmia Syrmia (Ekavian sh-Latn-Cyrl, Srem, Срем, separator=" / " or Ijekavian sh-Latn-Cyrl, Srijem, Сријем, label=none, separator=" / ") is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is div ...
and the
Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Boka kotorska, Бока которска, separator=" / ", ), also known as the Boka ( sh-Cyrl, Бока), is a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea in southwestern Montenegro and the region of Montenegro concentrated a ...
. However, a few days after the declaration of independence, the Ustaše were forced to sign the
Treaty of Rome The Treaty of Rome, or EEC Treaty (officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community), brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the best known of the European Communities (EC). The treaty was signe ...
where they surrendered part of Dalmatia and
Krk Krk (; ; ; ; archaic German: ''Vegl'', ; ) is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending o ...
, Rab,
Korčula Korčula () is a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea. It has an area of , is long and on average wide, and lies just off the Dalmatian coast. Its 15,522 inhabitants (2011) make it the second most populous Adriatic island after Krk. The populat ...
, Biograd,
Šibenik Šibenik (), historically known as Sebenico (), is a historic town in Croatia, located in central Dalmatia, where the river Krka (Croatia), Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea. Šibenik is one of the oldest Croatia, Croatian self-governing cities ...
,
Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...
,
Čiovo Čiovo (pronounced ) is an island located off the Adriatic coast in Croatia with an area of (length , width up to ), population of 5,908 inhabitants (2011). Its highest peak is the 218 m Rudine. The centre of the island has geographical coord ...
,
Šolta Šolta (; ; ) is an island in Croatia. It is situated in the Adriatic Sea in the central Dalmatian archipelago. Geography Šolta is located west of the island of Brač, south of Split (city), Split (separated by Split Channel) and east of the D ...
, Mljet and part of
Konavle Konavle () is a municipality and a small Dalmatian subregion located southeast of Dubrovnik, Croatia. The region is administratively part of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County and the center of the municipality is Cavtat. Demographics The total muni ...
and the
Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Boka kotorska, Бока которска, separator=" / ", ), also known as the Boka ( sh-Cyrl, Бока), is a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea in southwestern Montenegro and the region of Montenegro concentrated a ...
to
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. ''De facto'' control over this territory varied over the course of the war, as the
Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...
grew more successful, while the Germans and Italians increasingly exercised direct control over areas of interest. The Germans and Italians split the NDH into two zones of influence: the southwest, controlled by the Italians, and the northeast, controlled by the Germans. As a result, the NDH has been described as "an Italian-German quasi-protectorate". In September 1943, after Italian capitulation, the NDH re-occupied the whole territory annexed by Italy through the Treaty of Rome. The decline in support for the Ustaše regime among ethnic Croats of those initially for the government began with the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy, considered as the heartland of the state and worsened with the internal lawlessness from Ustaše persecutions.


Ustaše militia

The Army of the Independent State of Croatia was composed of enlistees who did not participate in Ustaše activities. The Ustaše Militia was organised in 1941 into five (later 15) 700-man battalions, two railway security battalions and the elite Black Legion and Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (later Brigade). They were predominantly recruited among uneducated population and working class. On 27 April 1941 a newly formed unit of the Ustaše army killed members of the largely Serbian community of Gudovac, near
Bjelovar Bjelovar (, , Czech language, Czech: ''Bělovar'' or ''Bělovár,'' Kajkavian dialect, Kajkavian: ''Belovar,'' Latin: ''Bellovarium'') is a city in central Croatia. In the Demographics of Croatia, 2021 census, its population was 36,316 . It is ...
. Eventually all who opposed and/or threatened the Ustaše were outlawed. The HSS was banned on 11 June 1941, in an attempt by the Ustaše to take their place as the primary representative of the Croatian peasantry. Vladko Maček was sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp, but later released to serve a
house arrest House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...
sentence due to his popularity among the people. Maček was later again called upon by foreigners to take a stand and oppose the Pavelić government, but refused. In early 1941 Jews and Serbs were ordered to leave certain areas of Zagreb. In the months after Independent State of Croatia has been established, most of Ustaše groups were not under centralized control: besides 4,500 regular Ustaše Corps troops, there was some 25,000–30,0000 "Wild Ustaše" (hrv. "divlje ustaše"), boosted by government-controlled press as "peasant Ustaše" "begging" to be sent to fight enemies of the regime. After mass crimes against Serb populace committed during the summer months of 1941, the regime decided to blame all the atrocities to the irregular Ustaše—thoroughly undisciplined and paid for the service only with the booty; authorities even sentenced to death and executed publicly in August and September 1941 many of them for unauthorized use of extreme violence against Serbs and Gypsies. To put an end to Wild Ustaše uncontrolled looting and killing, the central government used some 6,000 gendarmes and some 45,000 newly recruited members of regular "Domobranstvo" forces. Pavelić first met with Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941. Mile Budak, then a minister in Pavelić's government, publicly proclaimed the violent racial policy of the state on 22 July 1941. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, a chief of the secret police, started building
concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...
s in the summer of the same year. Ustaše activities in villages across the
Dinaric Alps The Dinaric Alps (), also Dinarides, are a mountain range in Southern Europe, Southern and Southcentral Europe, separating the continental Balkan Peninsula from the Adriatic Sea. They stretch from Italy in the northwest through Slovenia, Croatia ...
led the Italians and the Germans to express their disquiet. According to writer/historian Srđa Trifković, as early as 10 July 1941 Wehrmacht Gen. Edmund Glaise von Horstenau reported the following to the German High Command, the
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht The (; abbreviated OKW ː kaːˈveArmed Forces High Command) was the Command (military formation), supreme military command and control Staff (military), staff of Nazi Germany during World War II, that was directly subordinated to Adolf ...
(OKW):
Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation. .. I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustaše crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with the available forces, I could not ask for such action. Ad hoc intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the past.
Historian Jonathan Steinberg describes Ustaše crimes against Serbian and Jewish civilians: "Serbian and Jewish men, women and children were literally hacked to death". Reflecting on the photos of Ustaše crimes taken by Italians, Steinberg writes: "There are photographs of Serbian women with breasts hacked off by pocket knives, men with eyes gouged out, emasculated and mutilated". A
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, dated 17 February 1942, stated: In September 1942 an Ustaše Defensive Brigade was formed, and during 1943 the Ustaše battalions were re-organised into eight four-battalion brigades (1st to 8th). In 1943 the Germans suffered major losses on the Eastern Front and the Italians signed an armistice with the Allies, leaving behind significant caches of arms which the Partisans would use. By 1944 Pavelić was almost totally reliant on Ustaše units, now 100,000 strong, formed in Brigades 1 to 20, Recruit Training Brigades 21 to 24, three divisions, two railway brigades, one defensive brigade and the new Mobile Brigade. In November 1944 the army was effectively put under Ustaše control when the
Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia The Croatian Armed Forces were formed in 1944 with the uniting of the Croatian Home Guard (World War II), Croatian Home Guard and the Ustaše Militia in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). It was established by the fascist Ustaše regime of ...
were combined with the units of the Ustaše to form 18 divisions, comprising 13 infantry, two mountain and two assault divisions and one replacement division, each with its own organic artillery and other support units. There were several armored units. Fighting continued for a short while after the formal surrender of German Army Group E on 9 May 1945, as Pavelić ordered the NDH forces to attempt to escape to Austria, together with a large number of civilians. The Battle of Poljana, between a mixed German and Ustaše column and a Partisan force, was the last battle of World War II on European soil. Most of those fleeing, including both Ustaše and civilians, were handed over to the Partisans at Bleiburg and elsewhere on the Austrian border. Pavelić hid in Austria and Rome, with the help of Catholic clergy, later fleeing to
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
.


After the war

After World War II, many of the Ustaše went underground or fled to countries such as
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and some countries in
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
, notably Argentina, with the assistance of Roman Catholic churches and their own grassroots supporters. For several years some Ustaše tried to organize a resistance group called the
Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
, but their efforts were largely foiled by the Yugoslav authorities.Ladislaus Hory und Martin Broszat. ''Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat'', Deutsche Verlag-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 2. Auflage 1965, pp. 13–38, 75–80. With the defeat of the Independent State of Croatia, the active movement went dormant. Infighting fragmented the surviving Ustaše. Pavelić formed the Croatian Liberation Movement, which drew in several of the former state's leaders.
Vjekoslav Vrančić Vjekoslav Vrančić (25 March 1904 – 25 September 1990) was a high-ranked Croats, Croatian Ustashe, Ustaše official who held different positions in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II in Yugoslavia. After the proclamation, he ...
founded a reformed Croatian Liberation Movement and was its leader. Maks Luburić formed the Croatian National Resistance. Branimir Jelić founded the Croatian National Committee. Former Crusader and Ustaša mobile police officer, Srecko Rover, helped establish Ustaše groups in Australia. Blagoje Jovović, a Montenegrin, shot Pavelić near
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
on 9 April 1957; Pavelić later died of his injuries.


Ethnic and religious persecution

The Ustaše intended to create an ethnically "pure" Croatia, and they viewed the Serbs living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the biggest obstacle to this goal. Ustaše ministers Mile Budak, and Milovan Žanić declared in May 1941 that the goal of the new Ustaše policy was an ethnically pure Croatia. The strategy to achieve their goal was:Jacobs, Steven L
''Confronting Genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam''
pp. 158–159, Lexington Books, 2009
# One third of the Serbs were to be killed # One third of the Serbs were to be expelled # One third of the Serbs were to be forcibly converted to Catholicism The NDH government cooperated with Nazi Germany in
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
and exercised their own version of the
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
against Serbs, Jews and Roma inside its borders. State policy towards Serbs had first been declared in the words of Milovan Žanić, a minister of the NDH Legislative council, on 2 May 1941: The Ustaše enacted race laws patterned after those of the
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
, which persecuted
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, Romani and Serbs, who were collectively declared to be enemies of the Croatian people. Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian and Bosniak dissidents, including Communists, were interned in concentration camps, the largest of which was Jasenovac. By the end of the war the Ustaše, under Pavelić's leadership, had killed an estimated 30,000 Jews and 26,000–29,000 Roma, while estimates of Serb victims range from 200,000 to 500,000, with historians generally listing between 300,000 and 350,000 deaths. The history textbooks in the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...
cited 700,000 as the total number of victims at Jasenovac. This was promulgated from a 1946 calculation of the demographic loss of population (the difference between the actual number of people after the war and the number that would have been, had the pre-war growth trend continued). After that, it was used by
Edvard Kardelj Edvard Kardelj (; 27 January 1910 – 10 February 1979), also known by the pseudonyms Bevc, Sperans, and Krištof, was a Yugoslav politician and economist. He was one of the leading members of the Communist Party of Slovenia before World War II ...
and Moša Pijade in the Yugoslav war reparations claim sent to Germany. In its entry on Jasenovac, the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...
says: The USHMM notes that estimates on the number of Serb victims, the Ustaše's primary victims, vary tremendously but "the most reliable figures place the number between 330,000 and 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in Jasenovac." The Jasenovac Memorial Area maintains a list of 83,145 names of Jasenovac victims gathered by government officials in Belgrade in 1964, as well as names and biographical data for the victims identified in recent inquiries. As the gathering process was imperfect, they estimated that the list represented between 60%–75% of the total victims, putting the number of killed in that complex at roughly 80,000–100,000. The previous head of the Memorial Area, Simo Brdar, estimated at least 365,000 dead at Jasenovac. The analyses of statisticians Vladimir Žerjavić and
Bogoljub Kočović Bogoljub Kočović (1920 – February 2013) was a Serbian jurist and statistician. He undertook the first objective examination of the number of people killed during World War Two in Yugoslavia and published his findings in the 1985 book ''Žrtve ...
were similar to those of the Memorial Area. In all of Yugoslavia, the estimated number of Serb deaths was 487,000 according to Kočović, and 530,000 according to Žerjavić, out of a total of 1.014 million or 1.027 million deaths (respectively). Žerjavić further stated there were 197,000 Serb civilians killed in NDH (78,000 as prisoners in Jasenovac and elsewhere) as well as 125,000 Serb combatants. The Belgrade Museum of Holocaust compiled a list of over 77,000 names of Jasenovac victims. It was previously headed by Milan Bulajić, who supported the claim of a total of 700,000 victims. The current administration of the museum has further expanded the list to include slightly over 80,000 names. During World War II various German military commanders and civilian authorities gave different figures for the number of Serbs, Jews and others killed inside the territory of the Independent State of Croatia. Historian Prof. Jozo Tomasevich has posited that some of these figures may have been a "deliberate exaggeration" fostered to create further hostility between Serbs and Croats so that they would not unite in resisting the Axis. These figures included 400,000 Serbs (
Alexander Löhr Alexander Löhr (20 May 1885 – 26 February 1947) was an Austrian Air Force (1927–1938), Austrian Air Force commander during the 1930s and, after the Anschluss, annexation of Austria, he was a Luftwaffe commander. Löhr served in the Luftwaff ...
); 500,000 Serbs ( Lothar Rendulic); 250,000 to March 1943 (Edmund Glaise von Horstenau); more than "3/4 of a million Serbs" (Hermann Neubacher) in 1943; 600,000–700,000 in concentration camps until March 1944 (Ernst Fick); 700,000 (Massenbach)..


Concentration camps

The first group of camps was formed in the spring of 1941. These included: * Danica near
Koprivnica Koprivnica () is a city in Northern Croatia, located 70 kilometers northeast of Zagreb. It is the capital and the largest city of Koprivnica-Križevci County. In 2011, the city's administrative area of 90.94 km2 had a total populati ...
* Slana and Metajna on the Island of Pag * Jadovno near Gospić * Kruščica near
Vitez Vitez ( sr-cyrl, Витез) is a town and municipality located in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the 2013 census, the town has a population of 6,329 inhab ...
and
Travnik Travnik ( cyrl, Травник) is a town and a municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the administrative center of the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, ...
in Bosnia *
Đakovo Đakovo (; , , sr-Cyrl, Ђаково) is a town in the region of Slavonia, Croatia. Đakovo is the centre of the fertile and rich Đakovo region ( ). Etymology The etymology of the name is the (diákos) in Slavic form đak (pupil). The Hungar ...
* Loborgrad in
Zagorje Hrvatsko Zagorje (; Croatian Zagorje; ''zagorje'' is Croatian language, Croatian for 'backland' or 'behind the hills') is a cultural region in northern Croatia, traditionally separated from the country's capital Zagreb by the Medvednica mount ...
* Tenja near Osijek These camps were closed by October 1942. The Jasenovac complex was built between August 1941 and February 1942. The first two camps, Krapje and Bročica, were closed in November 1941. The three newer camps continued to function until the end of the war: * Ciglana (Jasenovac III) * Kozara (Jasenovac IV) * Stara Gradiška (Jasenovac V) – concentration camp for women and children There were also other camps in: * Sisak concentration camp * Jastrebarsko Children's Concentration Camp * Gospić * Kerestinec prison near Zagreb * Lepoglava near Varaždin Numbers of prisoners: * between 300,000 and 350,000 up to 700,000 in Jasenovac (disputed) * around 35,000 in Gospić * around 8,500 in Pag * around 3,000 in Đakovo * 1,018 in Jastrebarsko * around 1,000 in Lepoglava


Massacres of Serb civilians

Beyond mass killings in concentration camps, the Ustaše perpetrated many massacres of civilians in the field. The first mass killing of Serbs was carried out on 30 April 1941, when the Ustaše rounded up and killed 196 Serb villagers at Gudovac. Many other massacres soon followed, including at Blagaj, Glina, Korita, Nevesinje, Prebilovci, Metkovic, Otočac, Vočin,
Šargovac Šargovac ( sr-cyrl, Шарговац) is a village in the municipality of Banja Luka (present-day Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina). During World War II, on 7 February 1942, Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised version ...
, etc. Croatian Catholic Bishop of
Mostar Mostar () is a city and the administrative centre of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina. Mostar is situated on the Neretva Riv ...
,
Alojzije Mišić Alojzije Mišić (10 November 1859 – 26 March 1942) was a Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Croat Order of Friars Minor, Franciscan and prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the List of Roman Catholic bishops of Mostar-Duvno ...
, described mass killings of Serb civilians in one small area of
Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical Regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia (reg ...
during the first six months of the war:


German accounts of Ustaše massacres

German officers in Croatia and Bosnia repeatedly expressed abhorrence at Ustaše mass killings of Serbs, using words like "slaughter", "atrocities", "butchery" and "terror", while citing hundreds of thousands of victims. Major Walter Kleinenberger, officer with the 714th division, complained Ustaše brutality "was in defiance of all laws of civilization. The Ustaše murder without exception men, women and children". German Captain Konopatzki called the slaughter of Serb civilians in Eastern Bosnia by the Ustaše Black Legion "a new wave of butchery of innocents". Ustaše "wholesale butchery" (Abschlachtung) of Serbs in Srem, in ISC-occupied Serbia, triggered German concerns of Serb uprisings. Lieutenant Colonel von Wedel wrote that in western Bosnia Ustaše killed women and children "like cattle" in a series of "bestial executions". Hitler's Plenipotentiary to Croatia, General von Horstanau, described the aftermath of slaughter committed by Jasenovac concentration camp guards in a nearby village: The German military even took the extraordinary step of trying the Ustaše chaplain,
Miroslav Filipović Miroslav Filipović (5 June 1915 – 29 June 1946), also known as Tomislav Filipović and Tomislav Filipović-Majstorović, was a Croatian Franciscan friar and Ustaše military chaplain who participated in atrocities during World War II in ...
, for the massacre of 2,300 civilians in three villages around Banja Luka in February 1942, including 52 children at a school. On 3 March, 1943, General von Horstanau, wrote "Thus far 250,000 Serbs have been killed". General Lothar Rendulić wrote how in August 1942 he remarked to an Ustaše official that he could not conceive how 500,000 Serbs had been killed, to which the Ustaše replied "Half-a-million is a slanderous accusation, the number is not higher than 200,000". Other German sources put the total Serb victim numbers in the ISC as high as 600,000 to 700,000.


Religious persecution

As part of their policy to eliminate Serbs entirely, by killing one-third, converting one-third and expelling one-third, the Ustaše conducted forcible conversions of Christian Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism, with the participation of Catholic priests. On occasion the prospect of conversion was merely a ruse to gather Serbs so they could be murdered, such as in Glina. On 18 May 1943, Archbishop Stepinac wrote a letter to the pope, in which he estimated 240,000 conversions had occurred. The Ustaše killed 157 Orthodox priests, among them three Serb Orthodox bishops (cutting the throat of the bishop of Banja Luka and killing the archbishop of Sarajevo), while they jailed and tortured the Orthodox archbishop of Zagreb. The Ustaše expelled to Serbia 327 Orthodox priests and one bishop, while two other bishops and 12 priests left on their own. According to NDH laws only uneducated Serbs were eligible for conversion; educated people, including merchants, intelligentia, and particularly Orthodox clergy were to be exterminated or expelled. Thus 85% of the Orthodox priests in the Independent State of Croatia were either killed or expelled by the Ustaše, in order to "leave the Orthodox population without spiritual leadership so the Ustašas' policy of forced or fear-induced conversions to Catholicism would be easier to carry out". The Ustaše destroyed and desecrated numerous Orthodox churches, forbade the use of
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...
and the
Julian calendar The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts ...
(both officially used by the Serbian Orthodox Church) and even prohibited the term "Serbian Orthodox Church". Orthodox schools were shut down, and the Church was prohibited from collecting donations, robbing it of income. Church properties were confiscated, some were turned over to the Croatian Catholic Church. Finally, to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Ustaše tried to create its own alternative Croatian Orthodox Church, with an imported Russian
hieromonk A hieromonk,; Church Slavonic, Slavonic: ''Иеромонахъ''; ; ; ; ; Albanian language, Albanian: ''Hieromurg'' also called a priestmonk, is a person who is both monk and Priest#Roman Catholic and Orthodox, priest in the Eastern Christianity ...
, Germogen Maximov, reigning as "
patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...
", but it failed to gain adherents. Despite these many actions by the Ustaše to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Church, the historian Jozo Tomasevich found no condemnations of these crimes, public or private, by Catholic Archbishop Stepinac or any other members of the Croatian Catholic Church. On the contrary, he states that this massive Ustaše attack on the Serbian Orthodox Church "was approved and supported by many Croatian Catholic priests", and that the Croatian Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and the Vatican "regarded Ustaše policies against the Serbs and Serbian Orthodox Church as advantageous to Roman Catholicism".


Connections with the Catholic Church

The historian Mark Biondich observes that the Catholic Church had historically been on the fringes of Croatian politics and public life, and that Church influence had further eroded during the
interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...
due to the royal dictatorship and the popularity of the anti-clerical Croatian Peasant Party. During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Catholic Clergy was deeply dissatisfied with the regime: "... a massive press campaign was launched to mobilize Croatia's nearly three million Catholics against the central government's measures penalizing Saint Peter's apostolate. First of all its inequality in treatment was denounced: 'the budget for religion totals 141 million dinars, 70 of which go to the Serbian Church, and 34 to the Catholic one.(...) Pašić's government is kind in Serbia, where each citizen pays 55 dinars in yearly taxes, while it is cruel in Croatia and Slovenia, largely Catholic districts, where each citizen pays 165 dinars in taxes.'" Croatian Catholic Church antagonism toward the Orthodox Church became an important part of Ustaše antagonism toward Serbs, with fateful consequences during the war. The Ustaše supported violent aggression or force to convert
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
speaking Orthodox believers to Roman Catholicism. The Ustaše held the position that
Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...
, as a symbol of Serbian nationalism, was their greatest foe and never recognized the existence of a Serb people on the territories of Croatia or Bosnia—they recognized only "Croats of the Eastern faith". Under the Ustaše policy of eliminating Serbs, the Catholic Church in Croatia participated in the forced conversion of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. However, even conversion did not necessarily protect Serbs and Jews from slaughter. Bishop
Alojzije Mišić Alojzije Mišić (10 November 1859 – 26 March 1942) was a Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Croat Order of Friars Minor, Franciscan and prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the List of Roman Catholic bishops of Mostar-Duvno ...
of
Mostar Mostar () is a city and the administrative centre of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina. Mostar is situated on the Neretva Riv ...
described how while Serb converts to Catholicism "were at Church attending holy Mass, they (Ustaše) seized them, the young and the old, men and women, drove them like cattle...and soon sent them to eternity, ''en masse''." The Ustaše called Bosniaks "Croats of the Islamic faith" and in general tolerated Muslims; in turn the Bosniak community did not demonstrate any particular hostility to the Ustaše government. Many Muslim conscripts served in the armed forces of Independent State of Croatia and its police forces; only a very small number of Muslims served in the ranks of the communist Partisans until the closing days of the war. The October 12, 1941, Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims by 108 notable Muslims condemned Ustaše atrocities against Serbs. On 28 April 1941, the head of the Catholic Church in Croatia, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, issued a public letter in support of the new Ustaše-led Independent State of Croatia and asked the clergy to pray for Pavelić. This despite the fact that the Ustaše had already proclaimed measures prohibiting Serbs, Jews and Roma to serve as policemen, judges and soldiers, and making easy for the state officials to fire members of those ethnic/religious groups from the public administration, and he knew they were preparing Nazi-style racial laws, which Pavelić signed only two days after. While Stepinac later objected to certain Ustaše policies and helped some Jews and Serbs, he continued to publicly support the survival of Independent State of Croatia until its very end, served as the state's War Vicar, and in 1944 received a medal from Pavelić. During the ongoing war, Stepinac publicly objected to Ustaše policies—in fact, as regards for the relations with head of the Ustaše regime Ante Pavelić, "it is generally agreed that they thoroughly hated each other... archbishop also opposed Fascist and Nazi ideologies, especially Nazi racist ideology, and many Ustasha policies", unlike some other members of the Croatian Catholic clergy. According to Historian
Martin Gilbert Sir Martin John Gilbert (25 October 1936 – 3 February 2015) was a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works on Winston Churchill, the 20th century, and Jewish history inc ...
, "Aloysius Stepinac, who in 1941 had welcomed Croat independence, subsequently condemned Croat atrocities against both Serbs and Jews, and himself saved a group of Jews in an old age home." The vast majority of Catholic clergy in Croatia supported the Ustaše at the moment they succeeded in forming Independent State of Croatia; but later when it was clear the Allies would win, the Catholic hierarchy tried to distance the Church from the regime and its war crimes. Yet in its pastoral letter of 24 March 1945, the Croatian Catholic Church still proclaimed its support for the puppet state and its rulers, despite the fact that most senior
regime In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic. A key similarity acros ...
figures were preparing to flee the country. The Catholic press also maintained its support of Pavelić right to the end, and Stepinac himself performed a final
Te Deum The ( or , ; from its incipit, ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to a date before AD 500, but perhaps with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin ...
to the NDH on the anniversary of its founding, on 10 April 1945, while the NDH was carrying out the final mass killings to liquidate the Jasenovac concentration camp. Some priests, mostly
Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...
, particularly in, but not limited to, Herzegovina and Bosnia, took part in the atrocities themselves. Priests like Ivan Guberina served as Pavelić's bodyguards, while Dionizije Juričev, responsible for the forced conversion of Serbs in the Ustaše government, wrote that it was no longer a crime to kill seven-year-olds if they stood in the way of the Ustaše movement. In his diocesan newspaper, the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Šarić, published that the "liberation of the world from the Jews is a movement for the renewal of humanity". In Bosnia the Ustaše largely ruled through the Catholic clergy, with the priest Božidar Bralo serving as a chief Ustaše delegate for Bosnia.
Miroslav Filipović Miroslav Filipović (5 June 1915 – 29 June 1946), also known as Tomislav Filipović and Tomislav Filipović-Majstorović, was a Croatian Franciscan friar and Ustaše military chaplain who participated in atrocities during World War II in ...
was a Franciscan friar (from the
Petrićevac Petrićevac is a part of the city of Banja Luka in Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today there are about 25,000 inhabitants in Petrićevac. The place is the location of a Roman Catholic church of Saint Anthony and a Franci ...
monastery) who allegedly joined the Ustaše as chaplain and, on 7 February 1942, joined in the massacre of roughly 2730 Serbs of the nearby villages, including some 500 children. He was allegedly subsequently dismissed from his order and defrocked, although he wore his clerical garb when he was hanged for
war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...
. He became Chief Guard of Jasenovac concentration camp where he was nicknamed ''"Fra Sotona"'' (Friar
Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
) by fellow Croats. Mladen Lorković, the Croat minister of foreign affairs, formulated it like this: ''"In Croatia, we can find few real Serbs. The majority of Pravoslavs .e. Orthodox Christiansare as a matter of fact Croats who were forced by foreign invaders to accept the infidel faith. Now it's our duty to bring them back into the Roman Catholic fold."''Berenbaum, Michael (editor), ''A Mosaic of Victims. Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis'', NYU Press, pp. 74–79 (1992); For the duration of the war, "in accordance with Vatican's long-term diplomatic practice of not recognizing new states in wartime before they were legitimized by peace treaties, the
pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
did not send a
nuncio An apostolic nuncio (; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international organization. A nuncio is ...
or diplomat to Croatia as requested, but an apostolic visitor, the abbot Giuseppe Marcone, who was to represent the Vatican to Croatian Catholic Church, not to the government. The government ignored this nuance, bestowing a prominent place for Marcone at all official functions". After World War II ended, the Ustaše who had managed to escape from Yugoslav territory (including Pavelić) were smuggled to South America."Tied up in the Rat Lines"
''Haaretz'', 17 January 2006.
This was largely done through ratlines operated by Catholic priests who had previously secured positions at the
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...
. Some of the more infamous members of the Illyrian College of San Girolamo in Rome involved in this were Franciscan friars Krunoslav Draganović and Dominik Mandić, and a third friar surnamed Petranović (first name unknown). The Ustaše regime had deposited large amounts of gold—including the gold plundered from Serbs and Jews during World War II—into Swiss bank accounts. It seems a substantial quantity of gold was additionally transported by Ustaše to Austria at the end of the WWII. Out of a total, by some estimates, of 350 million
Swiss franc The Swiss franc, or simply the franc, is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) iss ...
s, an intelligence report estimated 200 million (ca. $47 million) reached the Vatican. The question remains unclarified. Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb, was accused and sentenced to prison after the end of World War II by Yugoslav communist authorities of supporting the Ustaše and of exonerating those in the clergy who collaborated with them and were hence complicit in forced conversions. Stepinac stated on 28 March 1941, noting early attempts to unite Croatians and Serbs:
"All in all, Croats and Serbs are of two worlds, northpole and southpole, never will they be able to get together unless by a miracle of God. The schism (between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy) is the greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than
Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
. There is no moral, no principles, no truth, no justice, no honesty."
On 22 July 2016, the Zagreb County Court annulled his post-war conviction due to "gross violations of current and former fundamental principles of substantive and procedural criminal law". In 1998 Stepinac was
beatified Beatification (from Latin , "blessed" and , "to make") is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name. ''Beati'' is the ...
by
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...
. On 22 June 2003 John Paul II visited
Banja Luka Banja Luka ( sr-Cyrl, Бања Лука, ) or Banjaluka ( sr-Cyrl, Бањалука, ) is the List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city in Republika Srpska. Banja Luka is the tr ...
. During the visit he held a
Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...
at the aforementioned Petrićevac monastery. This caused public uproar due to the connection of the monastery with Filipović. At the same location the Pope proclaimed the beatification of a Roman Catholic layman Ivan Merz (1896–1928), who was the founder of the "Association of Croatian Eagles" in 1923, which some view as a precursor to the Ustaše. Roman Catholic
apologist Apologetics (from Greek ) is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and recommended their fa ...
s defend the Pope's actions by stating the convent at Petrićevac was one of the places that went up in flames, causing the death of 80-year-old Friar Alojzije Atlija. Further, it was claimed by the apologists that the war had produced "a total exodus of the Catholic population from this region"; that the few who remained were "predominantly elderly"; and that the church in Bosnia then allegedly risked "total extinction" due to the war.


Ustaše-Chetnik collaboration

Despite representing opposing nationalisms, when confronted with the growing strength of their common enemy (i.e. the partisans), Ustaše and Chetniks throughout the Independent State of Croatia signed collaboration agreements in the spring of 1942, which for the most part held until the very end of the war. The introduction to these agreements stated:
As long as there is a danger of armed partisan gangs, Chetnik formations will voluntarily cooperate with the Croatian armed forces in fighting and destroying the partisans and will be under the command of the Croatian armed forces in these operations.
Beyond that, the agreements specified that the NDH military will supply Chetniks with arms and ammunition, Chetniks wounded in anti-partisan operations will be treated at NDH military hospitals, and widows and orphans of killed Chetnik soldiers, will receive state financial aid equal to aid received by widows and orphans of NDH soldiers. The NDH authorities arranged for Serbs in Ustaše concentration camps to be released, but only on the special recommendation of Chetnik commanders (thus, not partisans and their sympathizers). On 30 June 1942, the Chief Headquarters of the Poglavnik (i.e.
Ante Pavelić Ante Pavelić (; 14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and was dictator of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fasc ...
), sent a statement, signed by Marshall Slavko Kvaternik, to other NDH ministries, summarizing these agreements with NDH Chetniks. The Ustaše signed collaboration agreements with key NDH Chetnik commanders, in the following order: *
Momčilo Đujić Momčilo Đujić ( sh-Cyrl, Момчилo Ђујић, ; 27 February 1907 – 11 September 1999) was a Serbian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox priest and Chetnik . He led a significant proportion of the Chetniks within the northern Dalm ...
(commander of Chetnik Dinara Division), Brane Bogunović (commander of Gavrilo Princip Corps, Dinara Division), Mane Rokvić (commander of King Alexander I Corps, Dinara Division), Pajica Omčikus (King Petar II Corps, Dinara Division) and Pajo Popović (commander of Onisin Popović Corps, Dinara Division) in December 1941 first started negotiations with the Ustaše mayor of Knin, David Sinčić, in
Knin Knin () is a city in the Šibenik-Knin County of Croatia, located in the Dalmatian hinterland near the source of the river Krka (Croatia), Krka, an important traffic junction on the rail and road routes between Zagreb and Split, Croatia, Split. ...
. * Uroš Drenović, the commander of the Chetnik »Kočić« detachment, signed an agreement with the Ustaše in Mrkonjić Grad on 27. April, 1942. * Lazar Tešanović, commander of the Chetnik battalion, »Mrkonjić«, signed an agreement with the NDH on 23. May, 1942. * Cvijetin Todić and Savo Božić, commanders of the Chetnik Ozren and Trebava detachments, signed agreements with the NDH on 28. May 1942. in the village Lipac * Representatives of the Majevica Chetnik detachment, signed agreements with the NDH on 30 May 1942. * Rade Radić, commander of the Chetnik detachment, "Borja", reached agreement with the NDH authorities on 9 June 1942. * Slavko Bjelajac and Jovan Dabović, Chetnik commanders from the Otočac area, signed agreements with the NDH on 17 December 1942. On 26 May 1942, the Ustaše minister, Mladen Lorković, wrote in a communique to local NDH authorities, that pursuant to these agreements "
Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting ...
Headquarters agrees with your proposal to grant one million kuna aid to the leaders of the Greek-Eastern community .e. Serb Orthodox Momčilo Djujić, Mane Rokvić, rankoBogunović, Paja Popović and Paja Omčikus, 200 Yugoslav guns and 10 machine guns". Ustaše and Chetniks simultaneously participated, alongside German and Italian forces, in major battles against the Partisans in the NDH: the Kozara Offensive, Case White, Operation Rösselsprung, the Battle for Knin (1944), etc. In 1945, the Chetnik commander, Momčilo Djujić and his troops, with Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić's permission, escaped across the NDH to the West. In April 1945, by his own admission, Ante Pavelić received "two generals from the headquarters
Draža Mihailović Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović ( sr-Cyrl, Драгољуб "Дража" Михаиловић; 27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslavs, Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetniks, Chetnik Detachments ...
and reached an agreement with them on a joint fight against Tito's communists", while in the first days of May, Chetnik units passed through Ustaše-held Zagreb, on their way to Bleiburg, after which Chetniks and members of the Ustaše army, were killed by the Partisans in various sites, including Tezno near Maribor.


Structure

At the top of the command was the '' Poglavnik'' (meaning "head") Ante Pavelić. Pavelić was appointed the office as Head of State of Croatia after Adolf Hitler had accepted Benito Mussolini's proposal of Pavelić, on 10 April 1941. The Croatian Home Guard was the armed forces of Croatia, it subsequently merged into the Croatian Armed Forces. The Ustaše command structure was further broken down into administrations at a ''stožer'' (district), ''logor'' (country) and ''tabor'' (county) level.


Symbols

The symbol of the Ustaše was a
capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...
blue letter "U" with an exploding grenade emblem within it. The flag of the Independent State of Croatia was a red-white-blue horizontal tricolor with the shield of the coat of arms or Croatia in the middle and the U in the upper left. Its currency was the NDH kuna. The Ustaše greeting was "'' Za dom – spremni!''": : ''Salute:'' Za dom! ''For home(land)!'' : ''Reply:'' Spremni! ''(We are) ready!'' This was used instead of the Nazi greeting '' Heil Hitler'' by the Ustaše. Today it is associated with Ustaše sympathisers. On the internet, it is sometimes abbreviated as ZDS.


Legacy


In popular culture

The Ustaše plays an important role in
Harry Turtledove Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his ...
's short
alternate history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history, allohistory, althist, or simply A.H.) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As ...
story ''Ready for the Fatherland''. It plays a brief background role in '' In the Presence of Mine Enemies'', an unrelated work by the same author. In both these works, the regime founded by Pavelić lasted several decades beyond the 1940s. Popular Croatian singer Marko Perković regularly starts his concerts with the Ustaše salute. The Wiesenthal Center has protested this, along with other attempts at revisionism and Holocaust-denial in Croatia.


Modern-day Croatia

Seeking to unify support for Croatia's independence,
Franjo Tuđman Franjo Tuđman (14 May 1922 – 10 December 1999) was a Croatian politician and historian who became the first president of Croatia, from 1990 until his death in 1999. He served following the Independence of Croatia, country's independe ...
, Croatia's first president, in the late 1980s advocated "pomirba", i.e. national reconciliation between Ustaše and Partisans. This led to a revival of pro-Ustaše views, symbols and salutes among the Croatian political right. Following Croatia's Independence in the 1990s, streets were renamed to carry the name of Ustaše leaders, such as Mile Budak and
Jure Francetić Jure Francetić (3 July 1912 – 27/28 December 1942) was a Independent State of Croatia, Croatian Ustaša Commissioner for the Bosnia (region), Bosnia and Herzegovina regions of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II, and co ...
. Although some of these were later removed,
Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
noted that of some 20 streets dedicated to Mile Budak in the '90s, half still remained in Croatia in 2019. Jewish and Serb organizations, Croat historians and antifascists, as well as international observers, have repeatedly warned of revisionism in Croatia, which seeks to minimize Ustaše crimes and even celebrates the Ustaše regime. Recent examples include the publication of a book celebrating "the Croatian knight" Maks Luburić, who as head of Ustaše concentration camps was responsible for over 100,000 deaths, during Ustaše genocides against Jews, Serbs and Roma, and a documentary minimizing children's deaths in Ustaše concentration camps. The Luburić book was promoted with the assistance of the Croatian Catholic Church, and Church sources minimized children's deaths in concentration camps. Croat historians have noted that the Church has been a leader in promoting revisionism and minimizing Ustaše crimes. In 2013, the newspaper of Croatian Catholic archdioceses, ''Glas Koncila'', published a series on Jasenovac, by the Jasenovac-denier Igor Vukić, who claims Jasenovac was a "mere work-camp," where no mass executions took place. In 2015, the head of the Croatian Bishops' Conference asked that the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute be adopted by the Croatian army. Croatian soccer fans have repeatedly chanted the Ustaše " Za dom spremni" salute, for which
FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...
and
UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...
have repeatedly leveled penalties against the Croatian soccer federation for fascist outbursts. In 2014, the Croatian soccer player
Josip Šimunić Josip "Joe" Šimunić (; born 18 February 1978) is a retired footballer and current president of NK Rudeš. Born in Australia to Bosnian Croat parents, Šimunić started his career at Melbourne Knights then moved to Germany where he spent ...
was banned from the
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...
for leading a stadium full of fans in the Ustaše salute. In 2014 the then-mayor of Split, Croatia, unveiled a monument dedicated to the 1990s HOS brigade named "The Knight Rafael Boban", after the Ustaše commander, which includes the HOS emblem with the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute. Since then the HOS organization has organized annual commemorations at the memorial on 10 April (the anniversary of the founding of the Independent State of Croatia), during which the black-uniformed participants shout the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute. In 2016 the Croatian HOS war veterans' organization posted a plaque at Jasenovac concentration camp with the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute. Despite protests by Jewish and other organizations, this was allowed to remain until criticism by the US State Department special envoy on Holocaust issues, forced the government to move it to a nearby town. As a result of this, and allegations of the government's tolerance for the minimization of Ustaše crimes, Jewish, Serb and Croat WWII resistance groups refused to appear with government representatives at the annual Jasenovac commemoration. In 2019 the Austrian government passed a law forbidding the display of Ustaše symbols, along with previously banned Nazi symbols, largely as a result of the display of same by Croatian nationalists at the annual, Croatian government-sponsored Bleiburg commemoration, where Austrian police have repeatedly arrested Croat nationalists for Nazi and fascist salutes. Three Austrian EU parliamentarians declared the Bleiburg ceremony, which tens-of-thousands of Croat nationalists attend, "the largest fascist gathering in Europe." The Austrian Catholic Church banned a Mass by the Croatian Catholic Church at Bleiburg because, as they stated, "the Mass at Bleiburg has become part of a manifestation that is politically instrumentalised and is part of a political-national ritual that serves to selectively experience and interpret history," adding that it misuses "a religious service for political purposes while not distancing itself from the Fascist worldview."


Modern usage of the term "Ustaše"

After World War II, the Ustaše movement was split into several organizations and there is presently no political or paramilitary movement that claims its legacy as their "successor." The term ''Ustaše'' is today used as a derogatory term for Croatian
ultranationalism Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...
. ''Ustaše'' is sometimes used among Serbs to describe Serbophobia or more generally to defame political opponents.


Use by Serbian nationalists

Since the end of World War II, Serbian historians have used the Ustaše to promote that Serbs resisted the Axis, while Croats and Bosniaks widely supported them. However, the Ustaše lacked support among ordinary Croats and never accrued any significant support among the populace. The Ustaše regime was backed by parts of the Croatian population that during the interwar period had felt oppressed in the Serbian-led Yugoslavia. Most of the support it had initially gained by creating a Croat national state was lost because of the brutal practices it used. In the 1980s, Serbian historians produced many works about the forced conversion during World War II of Serbs in Ustaše Croatia. These debates between historians openly became nationalistic and also entered the wider media. Historians in Belgrade during the 1980s who had close government connections often went on television during the evenings to discuss real or invented details about the Ustaše genocide against Serbs during World War II. Serb clergy and nationalists blamed all Croats for crimes committed by the Ustaše, and for planning a genocide against Serb people. These propagandistic activities were aimed at justifying planned crimes and ethno-demographic engineering in Croatia.


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * Aarons, Mark and Loftus, John: ''Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. 372 pages; . * * * * * Neubacher, Hermann. ''Sonderauftrag Suedost 1940–1945'', Bericht eines fliegendes Diplomaten, 2. durchgesehene Auflage, Goettingen, 1956. * * * * * * * * * * Srdja Trifkovic: ''Ustaša: Croatian Separatism and European Politics 1929–1945'' Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, London, 1998. * Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Israel Gutman (editor-in-chief), Vol. 4, "Ustase" entry. Macmillan, 1990. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
at Google Booksat znaci.net
* * * * *


External links


Holocaust era in Croatia: Jasenovac 1941–1945
, an on-line museum by the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...

Fund For Genocide Research, Jasenovac death camp
guskova.ru

, nizkor.org
Lawsuit against the Vatican Bank and Franciscans for return of the Ustaše Treasury by Holocaust victims
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