Croatia (NDH) was a puppet state during WWII, proclaimed by the Ustashe on April 10, 1941, with the military and political support of the Axis countries. The new state included part of modern Croatia without Istria and most of Dalmatia, as well as the whole modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, some parts of Slovenia and Srem. After the capitulation of Italy, the German government declared the Treaties of Rome invalid and annexed Dalmatia to Croatia. However, Istria, as well as the Dalmatian city of Zadar, was occupied by Germany.
Organized terror directed mainly against Orthodox Serbs, as well as Jews and Roma, resulted in mass killings during the War. According to various estimates, from 330,000 to 1.2 million Serbs perished. The attempt to physically eliminate the Serbs resulted in armed resistance. As a result, the Government of the Independent State of Croatia has in fact never controlled much of its own territory. At the end of 1944, the NDH and German troops only controlled a few major cities, as well as the most important roads. Croatian troops took part in the fighting on the Eastern Front on the side of Nazi Germany.
May 6, 1945, when the German army had almost completely retreated from the Balkans, the Croatian government left Zagreb. In the same month, the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia under the command of Josip Broz Tito completely established control over the new territory of Yugoslavia.
Government Structure
The state was under the control of the Ustasha Party, headed by Ante Pavelic. In the first two years of existence, the formal head of state was a cousin of the Italian king, who assumed the name of Tomislav II, in honor of the medieval king of Croatia. The monarch never set foot in his own country. In October 1943, after the surrender of Italy, the king renounced his throne. After that, until the end of the NDH, the throne of Croatia remained empty, and Pavelic was officially accepted as the head of state (Poglavnik). In connection with this, the post of prime minister was created, occupied by a lawyer, Nicola Mandic. The representative body of the state was the Croatian State Sabor.
The NDH was part of the occupation system established in Yugoslavia. However, it had real attributes of the state and some independence in conducting domestic policy. Numerous strata of the Croatian population saw in it the realization of national statehood. The Ustashe state movement was a radical nationalist regime with strong totalitarian characteristics. Their ideology of the new state established an absolute monopoly position. All political parties and social movements were banned. As a substitute, a network of official public organizations was established, which were either part of the Ustashe movement or completely controlled by it. Only members of the movement could occupy important public positions.
The Croatian army took part mainly in the struggle against Yugoslav guerrillas, Partisans, and Chetniks. By May 1945, the total strength of the Croatian army had reached 200,000. With the arrival of the Partisans and the Red Army in May 1945, most of the Croatian army retreated to Austria, where they tried to surrender to the Allies, but they were refused and handed over to the partisans. Tens of thousands of Croatian collaborators died during the Bleiburg massacre, a significant part of the former members of the Croatian armed formations were sent to Yugoslavia, where they were brought to trial.
Discrimination and Genocide
The national-political goals of the Ustashe were not only the establishment of state independence of Croatia but also the establishment of an ethnically pure Croatian state. The main obstacle to achieving this goal was the Serbs, who constituted one-third of the population. As a result, from the very first days, the Ustashe started active anti-Serb actions. The prelude was a powerful propaganda initiative that portrayed the Serbs as enemies of the Croatian people. The culmination was mass killings of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies in numerous concentration camps.
Following the example of Nazi Germany, the Ustashe regime issued racial laws, resembling the Nuremberg laws, but directed against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies. On April 17, 1941, the law imposed the death penalty for threatening the interests of the Croatian people or the existence of an independent state of Croatia.
On April 18, decisions were handed down to appoint state commissars to private enterprises belonging to Serbian or Jewish entrepreneurs, and to confiscate all their vehicles. On April 25, a law was passed banning Cyrillic letters. On April 30, the law protecting “Aryan blood” and honoring Croatian people required Serbs to wear armbands with the letter “P “, which meant “Orthodox “. On May 5, 1941, the Ustashe government issued a decree ordering the Serbian Orthodox Church to cease operations in Independent Croatia.
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The attitude towards Serbs and Jews was the desire to destroy the Jews completely. They wanted to destroy one third of the Serbs, baptize a third into the Roman Catholic church, and expel a third to Serbia. The first raids on towns and villages inhabited by the Ustashi were carried out immediately after the surrender of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
After a significant number of occupation forces left the Balkans in June 1941, and German control over their ally was weakened, the Ustashe increased the scale of Serbian killing. In six weeks uring 1941, the Ustashe murdered three Orthodox bishops and 180,000 Serbs.
The Ustashe created two types of camps: deportation and concentration camps. The camps were scattered across all the territories controlled by the Ustashe. In all, there were 22. Of these, only 2 remained in operation until the end of the war – in Jasenovac and Stara Gradishka.
On May 23, 1941, the Yadovno camp was created. Prisoners that arrived were immediately executed. 35,000 to 75,000 people were killed. In the Stara Gradishka camp, about 75,000 people were killed. The “death camp” Jasenovac was established in May 1941. Periodically, the camp organized competitions for efficiency by executioners. The winner of these competitions was Petar Brzica. On the night of August 29, 1942, he personally killed 1,300 people. The exact number of people killed is unknown. According to Serbian estimates, about 700,000 Serbs, 23,000 Jews, 80,000 Gypsies were killed in the camp, but this number isn’t confirmed and has been disputed.