Influences on the rise of the Ustaše In 1915 a group of political emigres from Austria-Hungary, predominantly Croats but including some Serbs and a Slovene, formed themselves into a
Yugoslav Committee, with a view to creating a South Slav state in the aftermath of World War I. They saw this as a way to prevent Dalmatia being ceded to Italy under the
Treaty of London (1915). In 1918, the
National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs sent a delegation to the Serbian monarch to offer unification of the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the
Kingdom of Serbia. The leader of the
Croatian Peasant Party,
Stjepan Radić, warned on their departure for Belgrade that the council had no democratic legitimacy. But a new state, the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was duly proclaimed on 1 December 1918, with no heed taken of legal protocols such as the signing of a new
Pacta conventa in recognition of historic Croatian state rights. Croats were at the outset politically disadvantaged with the centralized political structure of the kingdom, which was seen as favouring the Serb majority. The political situation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was fractious and violent. In 1927, the
Independent Democratic Party, which represented the
Serbs of Croatia, turned its back on the centralist policy of King Alexander and entered into a coalition with the Croatian Peasant Party. On 20 June 1928, Stjepan Radić and four other Croat deputies were shot while in the Belgrade parliament by a member of the
Serbian People's Radical Party. Three of the deputies, including Radić, died. The outrage that resulted from the
assassination of Stjepan Radić threatened to destabilise the kingdom. In January 1929,
King Alexander responded by proclaiming a royal dictatorship, under which all dissenting political activity was banned and the state was renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia". The
Ustaša was created in principle in 1929. One consequence of Alexander's 1929 proclamation and the repression and persecution of Croatian nationalists was a rise of support for the Croatian extreme nationalist,
Ante Pavelić, who had been a Zagreb deputy in the Yugoslav parliament, He was later implicated in Alexander's assassination in 1934, went into exile in Italy and gained support for his vision of liberating Croatia from Serb control and racially "purifying" Croatia. While residing in Italy, Pavelić and other Croatian exiles planned the Ustaša insurgency.
Establishment of the NDH and
Serbs to surrender their weapons at the risk of being severely condemned Following the attack of the Axis powers on the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, and the quick defeat of the
Royal Yugoslav Army (
Jugoslavenska Vojska), the country was occupied by Axis forces. The Axis powers offered
Vladko Maček the opportunity to form a government, since Maček and his party, the Croatian Peasant Party () had the greatest electoral support among Yugoslavia's Croats – but Maček refused that offer. On 10 April 1941 the German army took control in Zagreb. With their support, retired lieutenant-colonel
Slavko Kvaternik, deputy leader of the Ustaše, declared the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska – NDH) "in the name of Croats and the header (poglavnik) Ante Pavelić". A few days later on 15 April 1941, Ante Pavelić returned to Zagreb from exile in Italy, and on 16 April 1941 he took power as the State Leader, or the "Leader" (Poglavnik), holding the office of prime minister. He never visited the NDH and had no influence over the government, which was dominated by Pavelić. From a strategic perspective, the establishment of the NDH was an attempt by Mussolini and Hitler to pacify the Croats, while reducing the use of Axis resources, which were more urgently needed for
Operation Barbarossa. Meanwhile, Mussolini used his long-established support for Croatian independence as leverage to coerce Pavelić into signing an agreement on 18 May 1941 at 12:30, under which central Dalmatia and parts of
Hrvatsko primorje and
Gorski kotar were ceded to Italy. Under the same agreement, the NDH was restricted to a minimal
navy and Italian forces were granted military control of the entire
Croatian coastline. After Pavelić signed the agreement, other Croatian politicians rebuked him. Pavelić publicly defended the decision and thanked Germany and Italy for supporting Croatian independence. After refusing leadership of the NDH, Maček called on all to obey and cooperate with the new government. The
Roman Catholic Church was also openly supportive of the government. According to Maček, the new state was greeted with a "wave of enthusiasm" in Zagreb, often by people "blinded and intoxicated" by the fact that the Nazi Germany had "gift-wrapped their occupation under the euphemistic title of 'Independent State of Croatia'." But in the villages, Maček wrote, the
peasantry believed that "their struggle over the past 30 years to become masters of their homes and their country had suffered a tremendous setback". On 16 August 1941, the
Ustaše Surveillance Service was established, consisting of four departments, the
Ustasha Police, the
Ustasha Intelligence Service,
Ustasha Defense, and
Personnel, for the suppression of activities against the Ustasha, the Independent State of Croatia, and the Croatian people. The Service was eliminated as a separate agency in January 1943 and functions were transferred to the Ministry of Interior under the
Directorate of Public Order. Dissatisfied with the Pavelić regime in its early months, the Axis Powers in September 1941 asked Maček to take over, but Maček again refused. Perceiving Maček as a potential rival, Pavelić subsequently had him arrested and interned in the
Jasenovac concentration camp. The Ustaše initially did not have an army or administration capable of controlling all the territory of the NDH. The Ustaše movement had fewer than 12,000 members when the war started. While the Ustaše's own estimates put the number of their sympathizers even in the early phase at around 40,000. To act against Serbs and Jews with genocidal measures, the Ustase introduced widespread measures that Croats themselves were victim to. Jozo Tomasevich in his book,
War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941–1945, states, "never before in history had Croats been exposed to such legalized administrative, police and judicial brutality and abuse as during the Ustasha regime." Decrees enacted by the regime 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) were all thrown out except for some deemed specifically needed by the government. This left a multitude of jobs to be filled by Ustashas and pro-Ustasha adherents and led to government jobs being filled by people with no professional qualifications.
Italian influence ''
Ante Pavelic (left) with Italy's
Duce Benito Mussolini (right) in Rome, Italy on 18 May 1941, during the ceremony of Italy's recognition of Croatia as a sovereign state under official Italian protection, and to agree upon Croatia's borders with Italy Mussolini and Ante Pavelić had close relations prior to the war. Mussolini and Pavelić both despised the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Italy had been promised, in the Treaty of London (1915), that it would receive Dalmatia from Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. The peace negotiations in 1919, however, influenced by the
Fourteen Points proclaimed by US President
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), called for national self-determination and determined that the Yugoslavs rightfully deserved the territory in question. Italian nationalists were enraged. Italian nationalist
Gabriele D'Annunzio raided
Fiume (which held a mixed population of Croats and Italians) and proclaimed it part of the
Italian Regency of Carnaro. D'Annunzio declared himself "
Duce" of Carnaro and his
blackshirted revolutionaries held control over the town. D'Annunzio was known for engaging in passionate speeches aimed to draw Croatian nationalists to support his actions and to oppose Yugoslavia. Croatian nationalists, such as Pavelić, opposed the border changes that occurred after World War I. Not only was D'Annunzio's symbolism copied by Mussolini but also D'Annunzio's appeal to Croatian support for the dismantling of Yugoslavia, as a foreign policy approach to Yugoslavia by Mussolini. Pavelić had been in negotiations with Italy since 1927 that included advocating a territory-for-sovereignty swap in which he would tolerate Italy annexing its claimed territory in Dalmatia in exchange for Italy supporting the sovereignty of an independent Croatia. In the 1930s, upon Pavelić and the Ustaše being forced into exile by the Yugoslav government, they were offered sanctuary in Italy by Mussolini, who allowed them to use training grounds to prepare for war against Yugoslavia. In exchange for this support, Mussolini demanded that Pavelić agree that Dalmatia would become part of Italy if Italy and the Ustaše successfully waged war on Yugoslavia. Although Dalmatia was a largely Croat-populated territory, it had been part of various Italian states, such as the
Roman Empire and the
Republic of Venice in prior centuries and was part of
Italian nationalism's irredentist claims. In exchange for this concession, Mussolini offered Pavelić the right for Croatia to annex all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had only a minority Croat population. Pavelić agreed. After the invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia, Italy annexed numerous
Adriatic islands and a portion of Dalmatia, which all combined to become the Italian
Governorship of Dalmatia including territory from the provinces of
Split,
Zadar, and
Kotor. Although Italy had initially larger territorial aims that extended from the
Velebit mountains to the
Albanian Alps, Mussolini decided against annexing further territories due to a number of factors, including that Italy held the economically valuable portion of that territory within its possession while the northern Adriatic coast had no important railways or roads and because a larger annexation would have included hundreds of thousands of Slavs who were hostile to Italy, within its national borders. In 1942, Germany suggested Italy take military control of all of Croatia out of a desire to redirect German troops from Croatia to the
Eastern Front. Italy, however, rejected the offer as it did not believe that it could on its own handle the unstable situation in the Balkans. After the
ousting of Mussolini and the Kingdom of Italy's
armistice with the Allies, Tomislav II abdicated from his Croatian throne: the NDH on 10 September 1943 declared that the Treaties of Rome were
null and void and annexed the portion of Dalmatia that had been ceded to Italy. The NDH attempted to annex
Zara (modern-day
Zadar, Croatia), which had been a recognized territory of Italy since 1920 and long an object of Croatian irredentism, but Germany did not allow it.
Influence of Nazi Germany , outside the
Berchtesgaden, Germany At the time of the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany,
Adolf Hitler was uneasy with Mussolini's agenda of creating a puppet Croatian state, and preferred that areas outside of Italian territorial aims become part of
Hungary as an autonomous territory. This would appease Nazi Germany's ally Hungary and its nationalist territorial claims. Germany's position on Croatia changed after its
invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. The invasion was spearheaded by a strong German invasion force which was largely responsible for the
capture of Yugoslavia. Military forces from other Axis powers, including
Italy,
Hungary, and
Bulgaria made few gains during the invasion. '' (SS) recruitment propaganda poster used in the NDH The invasion was precipitated by the need for German forces to reach Greece to save Italian forces, which were failing on the battlefield against the
Greek armed forces. Upon rescuing Italian forces in Greece and having conquered Yugoslavia and Greece almost single-handedly, Hitler became frustrated with Mussolini and Italy's military incompetence. Germany improved relations with the Ustaše and supported the NDH claims to annex the Adriatic Coast in order reduce Italy's planned territorial gains. Nevertheless, Italy annexed a significant central portion of Dalmatia and various Adriatic Islands. This was not what had been agreed with Pavelić prior to the invasion; Italy had expected to annex all of Dalmatia as part of its irredentist claims. Hitler sparred with his army commanders over what policy should be undertaken in Croatia regarding the Serbs. German military officials thought that Serbs could be rallied to fight against the Partisans. Hitler disagreed with his commanders, but pointed out to Pavelić that the NDH could create a completely Croat state only if it followed a constant policy of persecution of the non-Croat population for at least fifty years. According to reports by General Glaise-Horstenau, Hitler was angry with Pavelić, whose policy inflamed the rebellion in Croatia, thwarting any prospect of deploying NDH forces on the Eastern Front. Moreover, Hitler was forced to engage large forces of his own to keep the rebellion in check. For that reason, Hitler summoned Pavelić to his war headquarters in
Vinnytsia (Ukraine) on 23 September 1942. Consequently, Pavelić replaced his minister of the Armed Forces, Slavko Kvaternik, with the less zealous Jure Francetić. Kvaternik was sent into exile in Slovakia – along with his son
Eugen, who was blamed for the persecution of the Serbs in Croatia. Before meeting Hitler, to appease the public, Pavelić published an "Important Government Announcement" (»Važna obavijest Vlade«), in which he threatened those who were spreading the news "about non-existent threats of disarmament of the Ustashe units by representatives of one foreign power, about the Croatian Army replacement by a foreign army, about the possibility that a foreign power would seize the power in Croatia [...] " General Glaise-Horstenau reported: "The Ustaše movement is, due to the mistakes and atrocities they have committed and the corruption, so compromised that the government executive branch (the home guard and the police) shall be separated from the government – even for the price of breaking any possible connection with the government." Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler is quoted characterizing the Independent State of Croatia as "ridiculous": "our beloved German settlements will be secured. I hope that the area south of Srem will be liberated by [...] the
Bosnian division [...] so that we can at least restore partial order in this ridiculous (Croatian) state." The Ustaše gained German support for plans to eliminate the Serb population in Croatia. One plan involved an exchange in 1941 between Germany and the NDH, in which 20,000 Catholic Slovenes would be deported from
German-held Slovenia and sent to the NDH where they would be assimilated as Croats. In exchange, 20,000 Serbs would be deported from the NDH and sent to the German-occupied territory of Serbia. The Nazi regime demanded that the Ustaše adopt
antisemitic racial policies, persecute
Jews and set up
several concentration camps. Pavelic and the Ustaše accepted Nazi demands, but their racial policy focused primarily on eliminating the Serb population. When the Ustaše needed more recruits to help exterminate the Serbs, the state broke away from Nazi antisemitic policy by promising honorary Aryan citizenship, and, thus, freedom from persecution, to Jews who were willing to fight for the NDH. As this was the only legal means allowing Jews to escape persecution, a number of Jews joined the NDH's armed forces. This aggravated the German SS, which claimed that the NDH let 5,000 Jews survive via service in the NDH's armed forces. German anti-Semitic objectives for Croatia were further undermined by Italy's reluctance to adhere to a strict antisemitic policy, which resulted in Jews in Italian-held parts of Croatia avoiding the same persecution facing Jews in German-held eastern Croatia. After Italy abandoned the war in 1943, German forces occupied western Croatia and the NDH annexed the territory ceded to Italy in 1941. Within just a few days of the creation of the NDH, Croatian workers were requisitioned by the Reich for cheap forced labour and slave labour. From 1942 onward, German and Croat authorities cooperated more closely in deporting "unwanted" Croats and Serbs to concentration camps in the Reich and Norway for forced labour, such people were to be rounded up and deported by the General
Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment to the Reich (
Arbeitseinsatz). Between 1941 and 1945, some 200,000 Croatian citizens of the NDH (including ethnic Croats as well as ethnic Serbs with Croatian nationality and Slovenes) were sent to Germany to work as slave and forced labourers, mostly working in mining, agriculture and forestry. It is estimated that 153,000 of these labourers were said to have been "voluntarily" recruited, however in many instances this was not the case, as the workers that may have initially volunteered were forced to work longer hours and were paid less than their contracts had stipulated, they were also not allowed to return home after their yearly contract had ended, at which point their labour was no longer voluntary, but forced. Forced and slave labour were also conducted in Nazi concentration camps, such as in
Buchenwald and
Mittelbau-Dora. The Federal State of Croatia also had the highest number of detachments and brigades among the federal units, and together with the forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Partisan resistance in the NDH made up the majority of the movement's military strength.
Relations with the Chetniks ,
Ustaše, and
Croatian Home Guard meet in occupied Bosnia After the 1941 split between the Partisans and the
Chetniks in Serbia, the Chetnik groups in central, eastern and northwestern Bosnia found themselves caught between the German and Ustaše (NDH) forces on one side and the Partisans on the other. In early 1942 Chetnik Major
Jezdimir Dangić approached the Germans in an attempt to arrive at an understanding, but was unsuccessful, and the local Chetnik leaders were forced to look for another solution. Although the Ustaše and Chetniks were rival nationalists (Croatian and Serbian), they found a common enemy in the Partisans, and thwarting Partisan advances became the overriding reason for the collaboration which ensued between the Ustaše authorities of the Independent State of Croatia and Chetnik detachments in Bosnia. The first formal agreement between Bosnian Chetniks and the Ustaše was concluded on 28 May 1942, in which Chetnik leaders expressed their loyalty as "citizens of the Independent State of Croatia" both to the state and its Poglavnik (Ante Pavelić). During the next three weeks, three additional agreements were signed, covering a large part of the area of Bosnia (along with the Chetnik detachments within it). By the provision of these agreements, the Chetniks were to cease hostilities against the Ustaše state, and the Ustaše would establish regular administration in these areas. The main provision, Article 5 of the agreement, states as follows:As long as there is danger from the Partisan armed bands, the Chetnik formations will cooperate voluntarily with the Croatian military in fighting and destroying the Partisans and in those operations they will be under the overall command of the Croatian armed forces. [...] Chetnik formations may engage in operations against the Partisans on their own, but this they will have to report, on time, to the Croatian military commanders. The necessary ammunition and provisions were supplied to the Chetniks by the Ustaše military. Chetniks who were wounded in such operations would be cared for in NDH hospitals, while the orphans and widows of Chetniks killed in action would be supported by the Ustaše state. Persons specifically recommended by Chetnik commanders would be returned home from the Ustaše concentration camps. These agreements covered the majority of Chetnik forces in Bosnia east of the German-Italian demarcation line, and lasted throughout most of the war. Since Croatian forces were immediately subordinate to the German military occupation, collaboration with Croatian forces was, in fact, indirect collaboration with the Germans.
End of the war In August 1944, there was an attempt by the NDH Foreign
Minister Mladen Lorković and Minister of War
Ante Vokić to execute a
coup d'état against Ante Pavelić so as to separate from the Axis and align with the Allies. The
Lorković-Vokić coup failed and its conspirators were executed. By early 1945, the NDH army withdrew towards Zagreb with German and
Cossack troops. They were overpowered and the advance of Tito's Partisan forces, joined by the
Soviet Red Army, caused a mass retreat of the Ustaše towards Austria and effectively an end to the Independent State of Croatia. Pavelić himself, too, fled, even though he had vowed to fight in Zagreb till the bitter end. In May 1945, a large column composed of NDH Home Guard troops, Ustaša, Cossacks,
Serbian State Guard, some Chetniks and the
Slovene Home Guard, as well as numerous civilians, retreated from the Partisan forces heading northwest towards Italy and Austria. The
German Instrument of Surrender was signed on 8 May, but the Germans put Pavelić in sole command of NDH forces, and he ordered to continue fighting as the columns tried to reach the British forces to negotiate passage into
Allied-occupied Austria. The British Army, however, refused them entry and turned them over to the Partisan forces. The
Bleiburg repatriations from Austria resulted in mass executions. On 25 May 1945, the final battle of the Second World War in Europe, the
Battle of Odžak, ended with the fall of the Independent State of Croatia, whose territory became part of the
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, and the demise of the Independent State of Croatia. Meanwhile, Pavelić had detached from the group and fled to Austria, Italy,
Argentina and finally Spain, where he would die in 1959. Several other members of the NDH government were captured in May and June 1945, and sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment in the
trial of Mile Budak. The end of the war resulted in the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Yugoslavia, which later became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with the
Constitution of 1946 officially making the
People's Republic of Croatia and the
People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina two of the six constituent republics of the new state.
Aftermath Although
far right movements in Croatia inspired by the former NDH reemerged during the
Croatian War of Independence, the current
Constitution of Croatia does not officially recognize the Independent State of Croatia as the historical or legitimate
predecessor state of the current Croatian republic. Despite this, upon declaring independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Republic of Croatia rehabilitated the
Croatian Home Guard, whose veterans have since received state pensions. German soldiers who died on Croatian territory were not commemorated until Germany and Croatia reached an agreement on marking their grave sites in 1996. The
German War Graves Commission maintains two large cemeteries, in Zagreb and Split. ==Government==