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Independent State of Croatia
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The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was a puppet state of Nazi Germany. It was established on April 10, 1941, after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was attacked by the Axis forces. It was technically a monarchy and Italian protectorate under its Italian-born King Aimone, Duke of Aosta ("Tomislav II") from the signing of the Rome agreements on May 19, 1941 up until the Italian capitulation on September 8, 1943, but the state was controlled by the governing fascist Ustaše movement which in turn was under significant German influence.
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The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was a puppet state of Nazi Germany. It was established on April 10, 1941, after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was attacked by the Axis forces. It was technically a monarchy and Italian protectorate under its Italian-born King Aimone, Duke of Aosta ("Tomislav II") from the signing of the Rome agreements on May 19, 1941 up until the Italian capitulation on September 8, 1943, but the state was controlled by the governing fascist Ustaše movement which in turn was under significant German influence. Italy exercised significant influence in areas under Italian military forces, including central Dalmatia which was made an Italian territory according to irredentist claims and Italy forbade the country from building any significant navy as a means to promote the Italian Fascist agenda of Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) that would ensure Italian naval supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. Italian influence collapsed in 1943, with the ousting of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
Government
The absolute leader of the NDH was Ante Pavelic, who was known by his Ustaše title, "Poglavnik" (Head-man), throughout the war, regardless of his official government post. From 1941 - 1943, while the country was a de jure monarchy, Pavelic was its powerful Prime Minister (or "President of the Government"). After the capitulation of Italy, Pavelic became the head of state in the place of Aimone, Duke of Aosta ("Tomislav II") and retained the position of Prime Minister until early 1944, when he appointed Nikola Mandic to replace him.
Monarchy
Upon formation of the NDH, Pavelic conceded to accession of Aimone, the 4th Duke of Aosta, as a figurehead King of Croatia under his new royal name, Tomislav II. Tomislav II was not interested in being the figurehead King of Croatia, never actually visited the country and had no influence over the government. In the summer of 1941, Tomislav II declared that he would accept his position as King, only if certain demands were met:
- that he should be informed about all Italian activities on NDH territory;
- that his reign should be confirmed by the NDH Croatian State Parliament; and
- that politics should play no part in the Croatian armed forces.
The demands for German and Italian military departures were obviously impossible to be met by the Italian and German governments, and Tomislav II thus avoided taking up his position in Croatia.
Following the dismissal of Italian leader Benito Mussolini on 25 July 1943, Tomislav II abdicated on 31 July on the orders of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Shortly after the armistice with Italy in September 1943, Ante Pavelic declared that Tomislav II was no longer King of Croatia . Tomislav II formally abdicated in October 1943 after the birth of his son Amedeo, to whom he gave the name Zvonimir II.
Tomislav II's full title was "King of Croatia, Prince of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Voivode of Dalmatia, Tuzla and Knin, Duke of Aosta (from 1942), Prince of Cisterna and of Belriguardo, Marquess of Voghera, and Count of Ponderano."
Parliament
The NDH Parliament was established by the Legal Decree on the Croatian State Parliament on January 24, 1942. The parliament members were not elected and meetings were convened just over a dozen times after the initial session in 1942. Its president vas Marko Dosen.
This decree established five categories of individuals who would receive an invitation to be a member of parliament from the Ustaše-appointed government: living Croatian representatives from the Croatian Parliament of 1918, living Croatian representatives elected in the 1938 Yugoslavian elections, members of the Croatian Party of Rights prior to 1919, certain officials of the Supreme Ustaše Headquarters and two members of the German national assembly. The responsibility for assembling all eligible members of parliament was given to the head of the Supreme Court, Nikola Vukelic, who found 204 people to be eligible. In accordance with the decree, Vukelic ruled that those who had received the position of senator in 1939, had been part of Dušan Simovic's government, or had been part of the Yugoslav government-in-exile forfeited their eligibility. Two hundred and four people were declared eligible for the parliament, with 141 actually attending parliamentary meetings. Of the 204 eligible parliament members, 93 were members of the Croatian Peasant Party, 56 of whom attended meetings.
The Parliament was only a deliberatory body and was not empowered to enact legislation. However, during the eighth session of the parliament in February 1942, the Ustasha regime was put on the defensive when a joint Croatian Peasant Party-Croatian Party of Rights motion, supported by 39 members of parliament, questioned about the whereabouts of the Peasant Party's leader Vladko Macek. The following session, Ante Pavelic responded that Macek was being kept in isolation to prevent him from coming into contact with Yugoslav government officials. In less than a month, Macek was moved from the Jasenovac concentration camp to house arrest at his property in Kupinec. Macek was later called upon by foreigners to take a stand and counteract the Pavelic government, but he refused. Macek fled the country in 1945, with the help of Ustaše General Ante Moškov.
After its February 1942 session, the Parliament met only a few more times, and the decree was not renewed in 1943.
Court system
The NDH retained the court system of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but restored the courts' names to their original forms. The state had 172 local courts (kotar), 19 district courts(judicial tables), an administrative court and an appellate court (Ban's Table) in both Zagreb and Sarajevo, as well as a supreme court (Table of Seven) in Zagreb and a supreme court in Sarajevo.
Military
The NDH founded the Croatian Home Guard in April 1941 with the consent of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). The Home Guard had an air force and a minimal navy. The NDH also created the Ustaška Vojnica, which was conceived as an elite militia and a Croatian gendarmerie.
Under the terms of the Rome Agreement with Italy, the NDH navy was restricted to a few coastal and patrol craft, which mostly patrolled inland waterways. When established in 1941, the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia (ZNDH), consisted of captured Royal Yugoslav aircraft (seven operational fighters, 20 bombers and about 180 auxiliary and training aircraft) as well as paratroop, training and anti-aircraft artillery commands. During the course of the war on the Yugoslav Front it was supplemented with several hundred new or overhauled German, Italian and French fighters and bombers, until receiving the final deliveries of new aircraft from Germany in March 1945.
Because of low morale among Home Guard conscripts and their increasing disaffection with the Ustaša regime as the war progressed, partisans came to regard them as a key element in their supply line. According to William Deakin, who led one of the British missions to the partisan commander-in-chief Josip Broz Tito, in some areas, partisans would release Home Guard soldiers after disarming them, so they could come back into the field with replacement weapons, which would again be seized. Other Home Guard soldiers either defected or actively channelled supplies to the partisans — particularly after the NDH ceded Dalmatia to Italy. Home Guard troop numbers dwindled from 130,000 in early 1943 to 70,000 by late 1944, at which point the NDH government amalgamated the Home Guard with the Ustaše Army and was organised into sixteen divisions, including artillery and armoured units.
Despite these difficulties, the Croatian Army, with the help of the German-commanded XV Cossack Corps and other Wehrmacht formations, held its lines in Syrmia, Slavonia and Bosnia against the combined Soviet, Bulgarian and Partisan offensives from late 1944 to shortly before the NDH collapse in May 1945. By the end of March, 1945, it was obvious to the Croatian Army Command that, although the front remained intact, they would eventually be defeated by sheer lack of ammunition. For this reason, the decision was made to retreat into Austria, in order to surrender to the British forces advancing north from Italy. The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia provided some level of air support (attack, fighter and transport) right up until May 1945, encountering and sometimes defeating opposing aircraft from the British Royal Air Force, United States Air Force and the Soviet Air Force. The final deliveries of up-to-date German Messerschmitt 109G and K fighter aircraft were still taking place in March 1945.
The Croatian Army remained engaged in battle a week after the capitulation of Germany on May 8, 1945. At that time, the combined fighting forces numbered some 200,000 troops.
Currency
The NDH currency was the Croatian kuna. The Croatian State Bank was the central bank, responsible for issuing currency.
Railways
The NDH formed Croatian State Railways after Yugoslav Railways was dissolved, and Serbian State Railways in Serbia was devolved.
Politics
Foreign relations
NDH wasn't granted full recognition only by the Axis Powers and by countries under Axis occupation. The state maintained diplomatic missions in several countries, all in Europe. Embassies of Nazi Germany, Italy, Tiso's Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Spain, and Japan, as well as the consulates of Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Argentina and Vichy France were located in Zagreb.
In 1941, the county was admitted to the Universal Postal Union. On August 10, 1942 an agreement was signed at Brijuni which re-established the Society of Railways Danube-Sava-Adriatic between the Independent State of Croatia, Germany, Hungary and Italy. After the December 11, 1941 declaration of war by the Germany against United States, the Independent State of Croatia declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom on December 14.
The Independent State of Croatia signed the Geneva Conventions on January 20, 1943.
Economy
German influences
In the Independent State of Croatia, which the Germans formally treated as a sovereign state, most, if not all, industrial and economic activity was either monopolized, or given a high priority for exploitation, by Germany.
Agreements between the two governments in mid 1941 regulated foreign trade and payments and the export of Croatian labour to Germany. Germany already controlled a large number of industrial and mining enterprises in Croatia that were owned in part or in full by German citizens or citizens of German-occupied countries. Many other enterprises in Croatia, especially in the bauxite mining and timber industries, were leased to the Germans for the duration of the war. The Germans also held large interests in Croatian commercial banks, exercised either directly by banks in Berlin and Vienna, or indirectly, by German banks that had large interests in Prague and Budapest banks.
From the beginning, the Germans showed great interest in the high-quality iron ore mines of Ljubija in northwest Bosnia, in the industrial complex (steel, coal and heavy chemicals) in the Sarajevo-Tuzla-Zenica triangle in northeast Bosnia, and in bauxite. As the war advanced and German military involvement in Croatia expanded, more and more Croatian industry was put to work for the Germans. The bauxite mines in Hercegovina, Dalmatia and western Bosnia, were in the Italian zone of occupation, but their total production was earmarked for German needs for the duration of the war under the German-Italian agreement of 1941.
Other Croatian industrial assets utilized by the Germans included the production of brown coal and lignite, cement (major plants in Zagreb and Split), oil and salt.
Crude oil production, from fields to the east of Zagreb developed by the American Vacuum Oil Company, only started in November 1941 and never reached a high level, averaging 24,000 barrels a month in mid 1944.
The most important commodities manufactured in Croatia for German use were prefabricated barracks (utilizing the large Croatian timber industry), clothing, dry-cell batteries, bridge construction parts and ammunition (grenades).
The Vares iron ore mine supplied the steel mill at Zenica, which had a capacity of 120,000 tons of steel annually. The Zenica mill, in turn, supplied the state arsenal in Sarajevo and the machinery and railroad car factory in Slavonski Brod, both of which produced various items for the Wehrmacht during the war, including grenades and shell casings. Some Vares iron ore was also exported to Italy, Hungary and Romania.
Italian influence
The region of the NDH controlled by Italy had few natural resources and little industry. There were some important timber stands, several cement plants, an aluminium plant at Lozovac, a carbide and chemical fertilizer plant at Dugi Rat, and a ferromanganese and cast iron plant near Sibenik, ship building operations in Split, a few brown coal mines supplying fuel to railways, shipping and industry, and rich bauxite fields.
Geography
Geographically, the NDH encompassed most of modern-day Croatia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and part of modern-day Serbia. It bordered the Third Reich to the north-west, Kingdom of Hungary to the north-east, Military Administration of Serbia (a joint German-Serb government) to the east, Montenegro (an Italian protectorate) to the south-east and Italy along its coastal area.
Establishment of borders
The exact borders of the Independent State of Croatia were unclear when it was established. Approximately one month after its formation, significant chunks of Croat-populated territory was surrendered to its Axis allies, the Kingdoms of Hungary and Italy.
- On May 13, 1941, the NDH government signed an agreement with Nazi Germany which demarcated their borders.
- On May 19, the Rome contracts were signed by diplomats of the NDH and Italy. Large parts of Croatian lands were occupied (annexed) by Italy, including most of Dalmatia (including Split and Šibenik), nearly all the Adriatic islands (including Rab, Krk, Vis, Korcula, Mljet), and some smaller areas such as the Boka Kotorska bay, parts of the Hrvatsko Primorje and Gorski kotar areas.
- On June 7, the NDH government issued a decree that demarcated its eastern border with Serbia.
- On October 27, the NDH and Italy reached an agreement on the Independent State of Croatia's border with Montenegro.
- On September 8, 1943, Italy capitulated and the NDH officially considered the Rome contracts to be void, along with the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920 which had given Italy Istria, Rijeka and Zadar. German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop approved of the NDH retaking the territory from the Rome contracts. By now most of the territory was controlled by the Yugoslav Partisans, since the secessions of these areas made them strongly anti-NDH (a third of the total population of Split is documented to have joined the Partisans). By September 11, 1943, NDH foreign minister Mladen Lorkovic received word from German consul Siegfried Kasche that the NDH should wait before moving on Istria. Germany's central government had already annexed Istria and Rijeka into the Operational Zone Adriatic Coast a day earlier. Zadar was occupied solely by the Germans, and was probably considered a part of the puppet Italian Social Republic.
Medimurje and southern Baranja were annexed (occupied) by the Kingdom of Hungary. NDH disputed this and continued to lay claim to both, naming the administrative province centred in Osijek as Great Parish Baranja, despite none of the region lying within its control. This border was never legislated, although Hungary may have considered the Pacta conventa to be in effect, which delineated the two nation's borders along the Drava river.
When compared to the republican borders established in the SFR Yugoslavia after the war, the NDH encompassed the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its majority of non-Croat (Serbian and Bosniak) populations, as well as some 20 km˛ of Slovenia (villages Slovenska vas near Bregana, Nova vas near Mokrice, Jesenice in Dolenjsko, Obrežje and Cedem) and the whole of Syrmia (part of which was previously in the Danube Banovina).
Administrative divisions
The Independent State of Croatia had three levels of administrative divisions: great parishes (Velika Zhupa), districts and municipalities. At the time of its foundation, the state had 22 great parishes, 142 kotars and 1006 municipalities. The highest level of administration were the great parishes (Velike župe), each of which was headed by a Grand Župan.
History
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). The committee was succeeded by a national council which in 1918 sent a delegation to the Serbian monarch to offer unification within a State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, Stjepan Radic, 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 December 1, 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. On 20 June 1928, Stjepan Radic 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 Radic, died. Resultant outrage 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 renaming the state the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia".
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 Pavelic, who had been a Zagreb deputy in the Yugoslav parliament and who was to be 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, Pavelic and other Croatian exiles founded the Ustaša insurgency.
Establishment of NDH
Following the attack of the Axis powers on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, and the quick defeat of the Yugoslav Army (Jugoslavenska Vojska), the country was occupied by Axis forces. Slavko Kvaternik, deputy leader of the Ustaše proclaimed the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH - Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) on April 10, 1941. Pavelic, who was known by his Ustaše title, "Poglavnik" (Head-man) returned to Zagreb from exile in Italy on April 17 and became the absolute leader of the NDH throughout its existence (the Axis powers had offered Vladko Macek the opportunity to form a government, since Macek and his party, the Croatian Peasant Party (Croatian: Hrvatska seljacka stranka - HSS) had the greatest electoral support among Yugoslavia's Croats. Macek refused that offer.)
Acceding to the demands of the Kingdom of Italy, and particularly its Fascist regime under Benito Mussolini, Pavelic reluctantly accepted Aimone the 4th Duke of Aosta as a figurehead King of the NDH under his new royal name, Tomislav II. Tomislav II never visited the NDH and had no influence over the government, which was dominated by Pavelic. Tomislav II was not interested in being the figurehead King of Croatia. On learning that he had been named King of Croatia, he told close colleagues that he thought his nomination was a bad joke by his cousin King Victor Emmanuel III. Tomislav II's position was intended by the Italian Fascist regime to legitimize the presence of Italian armed forces on Croatian soil.
From a strategic perspective, establishment of the NDH was a means 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 Pavelic into signing an agreement on May 19, 1941, 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. Upon Pavelic signing the agreement, other Croatian politicians rebuked him. Pavelic publicly defended the decision and thanked Germany and Italy for supporting Croatian independence. This concession to Italy sowed the seeds of discontent between the "home" and "emigre" elements of the Ustaša that continued through the lifetime of the NDH.
After refusing leadership of the NDH, Macek called on all to obey and cooperate with the new government. The Roman Catholic Church was also openly supportive of the government. According to Macek, the new state was greeted with a "wave of enthusiasm" in Zagreb, often by people "blinded and intoxicated" by the fact that the Germans had "gift-wrapped their occupation under the euphemistic title of Independent State of Croatia". But in the villages, Macek 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". (Macek pp. 220-231).
Dissatisfied with the Pavelic regime in its early months, the Axis Powers in September 1941 asked Macek to take over, but Macek again refused. Perceiving Macek as a potential rival, Pavelic subsequently had him arrested and imprisoned 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. The northeastern half of NDH territory was in the so-called "German Zone of Influence" where the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) exercised de facto control. The southwestern portion of the NDH was controlled by the Italian army until capitulation of Fascist Italy in 1943, when the NDH acquired control of northern Dalmatia (Split and Šibenik).
Role of existing organizations
Previously important organizations, the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) and the Catholic Church, were relatively uninvolved in the creation and maintenance of the Independent State of Croatia. Many organizations that opposed or threatened the Ustaše were eventually outlawed. For example, the Croatian Peasant Party was banned on June 11, 1941 in an attempt by the Ustaše to displace the party as the primary representative of the Croatian peasantry and its leader, Vladko Macek, was sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp. The Catholic Church initially participated in state mandated religious conversions, but eventually the main branches of the Church stopped when it became obvious that these conversions were merely a form of punishment for the undesirable population.
Italian influence
Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Ante Pavelic had close relations prior to the war. Mussolini and Pavelic both despised the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Italy had been promised, in the London Pact of 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 Woodrow Wilson, 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 the Croatian town of 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 Pavelic, 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 Yugoslavia was copied and implemented as a foreign policy approach to Yugoslavia by Mussolini.
In the 1930s, upon Pavelic and the Ustaše being forced into exile by the Yugoslav government, Mussolini offered Pavelic and the Ustaše sanctuary in Italy and allowed them to use training grounds to prepare for war against Yugoslavia. In exchange for this support, Mussolini demanded that Pavelic 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, for centuries and was part of Italian nationalism's irredentist claims. In exchange for this concession, Mussolini offered Pavelic the right for Croatia to annex all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had only a minority Croat population. Pavelic agreed to this controversial exchange.
The level of independence achieved by Pavelic's regime was not respected by the Italian Fascist regime, which had intended to maintain Croatia as a protectorate and annex all of Dalmatia. Hitler was unsure of Italy's ability to maintain control of its own territories due to military failures on other fronts, and preferred NDH control over Croat populated territories. Despite this uncertainty, the Italian Fascist regime annexed a portion of Dalmatia, some Adriatic islands, and exercised significant influence in the NDH by maintaining military control over all of the state's coastline. Italy intended to keep the NDH within its sphere of influence by forbidding it to build any significant navy. Italy only permitted small patrol boats to be used by NDH forces. This policy forbidding the creation of NDH warships was part of the Italian Fascists' policy of Mare Nostrum (Latin for "Our Sea") in which Italy was to dominate the Mediterranean Sea as the Roman Empire had done centuries earlier.
Italian armed forces assisted the Ustaše government in persecuting Serbs. In 1941, Italian forces captured and interned the Serbian Orthodox Bishop Irinej of Dalmatia.
German influence
At the time of the invasion of Yugoslavia by 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 Germany's ally Hungary and its nationalist territorial claims and would also avoid the creation of a Slavic puppet state, as Hitler viewed all Slavs as racially degenerate.
The German position on Croatia changed after the 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. 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 singlehandedly, 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 Pavelic 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 Yugoslav Partisans. Hitler disagreed with his commanders, but pointed out to Pavelic 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.. When Hermann Neubacher, Hitler's southeast-Europe plenipotentiary, reported the wholesale slaughter of Serbs, including babies, children, women and old men, Hitler replied: "I also have told the Poglavnik that it is not so simple to annihilate such a minority. It is too large."
According to reports by General Glaise-Horstenau, Hitler was angry with Pavelic, 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 Pavelic to his war headquarters in Vinnytsia (Ukraine) on September 23, 1942. Consequently, Pavelic replaced his minister of the Armed Forces, Slavko Kvaternik, with the less zealous Jure Francetic. 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, Pavelic 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 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 Military Administration of Serbia, a joint German and Serb led government in the territory of Serbia which was not occupied by its neighbours. The German occupation forces allowed the expulsion of Serbs to Serbia, but instead of sending the Slovenes to Croatia, they were also deported to Serbia. In total, about 300,000 Serbs had been deported or fled from the NDH to Serbia by the end of World War II.
The Nazi regime demanded that the Ustaše adopt anti-Semitic racial policies, persecute Jews and set up 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, and the state broke away from Nazi anti-Semitic 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 anti-Semitic 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.
Partisan uprising and the Yugoslav front
The Ustaše's genocidal onslaught on its minorities provoked mass movements of resistance, inspired in part by royalist (Cetnik) and – more effectively – communist (Partisan) ideologies, but driven primarily by a determination to fight back by any means. The uprisings were particularly strong in rural areas where many village populations fled from the terror and then mounted guerilla operations from vantage points in the mountains and forests. On June 22, 1941, the First Sisak Partisan Brigade was formed in the Brezovica forest near Sisak, Croatia; this was to be celebrated as the first armed resistance unit formed in occupied Europe during World War II. Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and citizens of all nationalities and backgrounds began joining the pan-Yugoslav Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito. The Partisan movement was soon able to control a large percentage of the NDH (and Yugoslavia) and before long the cities of occupied Bosnia and Dalmatia in particular were surrounded by these Partisan-controlled areas, with their garrisons living in a de-facto state of siege and constantly trying to maintain control of the rail-links.
Croats were significantly more numerous than Serbs among the Partisan ranks. In 1944, the third year of the war in Yugoslavia, Croats formed 60% of the Partisan operational units originating from the Federal State of Croatia. The Partisan movement was generally multiethnic, although at least one Croatian unit was overwhelmingly Serbian (the 6th Lika Proletariat Division "Nikola Tesla"). FS 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. The Partisan commander, Marshall Josip Broz Tito, was half Slovene, half Croatian.
End of the war
In August 1944, there was an attempt by the NDH Foreign Minister Mladen Lorkovic and Minister of War Ante Vokic to execute a coup d'etat against Ante Pavelic. The Lorkovic-Vokic coup failed and its conspirators were executed.
By early 1945, the NDH army withdrew towards Zagreb with German and Cossak troops, and continued fighting for a week after the German surrender on May 9, 1945. They were soon overpowered and the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) effectively ceased to exist in May 1945.
The advance of Tito's partisan forces, joined by the Soviet Red Army, caused mass retreat of the Ustaše towards Austria. In May 1945, a large column composed of anti-communists, Chetniks, Ustaša followers, NDH Army troops and civilians retreated from the partisan forces, heading northwest towards Italy and Austria. Ante Pavelic detached from the group and fled to Austria, Italy, Argentina and finally Spain, where he died in 1959. The rest of the group, consisting of over 150,000 soldiers (including Cossak troops) and civilians, negotiated with the British forces for passage to the Austrian side of the Austrian-Slovenian border. The British Army, however, turned disarmed soldiers and civilians over to the partisan forces.
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 each of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina one 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 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, the Republic of Croatia rehabilitated the Croatian Home Guard, who now receive a state pension. German soldiers who died on Croatian territory were not commemorated until Germany and Croatia reached an agreement on marking their grave sites in 1996.
Demographics
Population
According to the data presented by Hrvoje Matkovic which he took from census of Hrvatski državni brojidbeni ured, the population of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 numbered 6,966,729 people including:
- Croats = 4,817,000 (muslims counted in) (69.14%)
- Serbs = 1,848,000 (26.52%)
- Germans = 145,000
- Hungarians = 70,000
- Slovaks and Czechs= 44,267
- Slovenes = 37,000
- Italians = 5,000
Out of that number an estimated 400,000 people were left out on May 19 after signment of Rome Contracts, which were again proclaimed void on September 9 after Italian capitulation.
According to another data presented by Ivan Košutic, the Independent State of Croatia had a population of 6,474,331 - the absolute majority was held by Croats, but as Bosnian Muslims were counted as Croats, Croats held over 74% of the population. Also according to that census there was a significant croatian minority of 280,000 people in Serbia and Montenegro, 118,725 in Backa, Baranja and Banat which were part of Kingdom of Hungary and 1,925,000 of Croats throughout the world, mostly in the USA and South America.
Displacement of people
A large number of people were displaced due to internal fighting within the former Yugoslav republic. The NDH had to accept more than 200,000 Slovenian refugees who were forcefully evicted from their homes as part of the German plan of annexing parts of the Slovenian territories. As part of this deal, the Ustaše were to deport 200,000 Serbs from Croatia military regions; however, only 182,000 had been deported when German high commander Bader stopped this mass transport of people because of the uprising of Chetniks and partisans in Serbia. Because of this, 25,000 Slovenian refugees ended in Serbia.
Racial legislation
On the first day of his arrival in Zagreb, Ante Pavelic proclaimed a law that remained in effect during the entire period of the Independent State of Croatia. The law, which was enacted on April 17, 1941, declared that all people who offend, or try to offend, the Croatian nation are guilty of treason — a crime punishable by death. One day later, the first Croatian anti-semitic racial law was published. This law did not create panic among the Jewish population, because they believed it was merely a continuation of the anti-semitic laws of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which were proclaimed in 1939. However, the situation quickly changed on April 30, with the publication of the Aryan race laws.
A notable part of the racial legislation was the religious conversion laws, the implications of which were not understood by the majority of the population when they were published on May 3, 1941. The implications become clear following the July speech of the minister of education, Mile Budak, in which he declared: "We will kill one third of all Serbs. We will deport another third, and the rest of them will be forced to convert to Catholicism." Racial laws were enforced until May 3, 1945, when they were abolished.
The NDH government cooperated with the Nazi Germany in the Holocaust and exercised their own version of the holocaust against ethnic Serbs living in their borders. State policy about Serbs has been first declared in words of Miroslav Žanic minister of NDH Legislative council on 2 May 1941:
At least 330,000 Serbs, 30,000 Jews and 30,000 Roma were killed during the NDH (see Jasenovac) and the same number of Serbs were forced out of the NDH. Although the Ustase's main target for persecution were the Serbs, it also participated in the destruction of the Jewish population. The NDH deviated from Nazi anti-Semitic policy by promising honorary Aryan citizenship to some Jews, if they were willing to enlist and fight for the NDH.
Culture
Soon after establishment of the NDH, the Yugoslav Academy of Science and Arts was renamed the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The country had four state theatres: Zagreb, Osijek, Dubrovnik and in Sarajevo. The Croatian State Theatre in Zagreb played host to the Berlin Philharmonic and the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the 1941/1942 season. Volumes two to five of Mate Ujevic's Croatian Encyclopedia were published during this period. The NDH was represented at the 1942 Venice Biennale, where the works of Joza Kljakovic, Ivan Meštrovic, Ante Motika, Ivo Režek, Bruno Bulic, Josip Crnobori, Antun Medic, Slavko Kopac and Slavko Šohaj were presented by Vladimir Kirin.
The state had one university, the University of Zagreb, then known as the Croatian University. The university established a pharmaceutical faculty in 1942, and a medical faculty in Sarajevo in 1944. The Croatian Red Cross was established in 1941, but it was not internationally recognized.
The state had two secular holidays; the anniversary of its establishment was commemorated on April 10, and the assassination of Stjepan Radic was commemorated on June 20, 1928. In addition, the state granted holidays to the different religious communities:
- The Catholic community received New Year's Day, Epiphany, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the feast of Saint Joseph, Easter, the feast of the Ascension of Jesus, Pentecost, the feast of Corpus Christi, the Assumption of Mary, the feast of All Saints, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and Christmas.
- The Eastern Orthodox community received New Year's Day, the Epiphany, the feast of the Annunciation, Easter, the feast of the Ascension of Jesus, Pentecost, the Assumption of Mary, and Christmas, all according to the Roman calendar.
- The Evangelical community received New Year's Day, Holy Friday, Easter, the feast of the Ascension of Jesus, Pentecost, Reformation Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.
- The Muslim community received Islamic New Year, Mevlud (Mawlid), Ramadan, and Kurban-Bajram (Eid al-Adha).
The official publication of the government was the Narodne novine (Official Gazette). Dailies included Zagreb's Hrvatski narod (Croatian nation), Osijek's Hrvatski list (Croatian Paper) and Sarajevo's Novi list (New Paper). The state's news agency was called the Croatian News Office "Croatia" (Hrvatski dojavni ured "Croatia") which took on the role formerly performed by the Avala news agency in Yugoslavia.
A state film institute, Hrvatski slikopis, produced many films, including Straža na Drini and Lisinski . The Croatian cinematographer, Oktavijan Miletic, was active during this period.
The state's main radio station was Hrvatski Krugoval, known before the war as Radio Zagreb. The NDH increased the transmitter's power to 10 kW. The radio station was based in Zagreb, but had branches in Banja Luka, Dubrovnik, Osijek and Sarajevo. It maintained cooperation with the International Broadcasting Union.
Sport
The most popular sport in the NDH was football, which had its own league system, with the highest level known as the Zvonimir Group. Top clubs included Gradanski Zagreb, Concordia Zagreb and HAŠK. The Croatian Football Federation was accepted into FIFA on July 17, 1941. The national football team played 15 matches representing the NDH as an independent state.
The NDH had other national teams. The Croatian Handball Federation organized a national handball league, and a national team. Its boxing team was led by African-American Jimmy Lyggett. The Croatian Table-Tennis Association organized a national competition as well as a national team which participated in a few international matches.The Croatian Olympic Committee was recognized as a special member of the International Olympic Committee, with Franjo Bucar acting as its representative. The Croatian Skiing Association organized a national championship, held on Zagreb's Sljeme mountain. A national bowling competition was held in 1942 in Zagreb which was won by Dušan Balatinac.
See also
External links
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