The Independent State of Croatia (, NDH)German: unabhängiger Staat KroatienItalian: Stato indipendente di Croazia was a World War II–era quasi-state. It was a protectorate of Fascist Italy from 1941 to 1943, and a puppet state of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. It was established in parts of occupied Yugoslavia on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of the country by the Axis powers. Its territory consisted mostly of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as some parts of modern-day Serbia and Slovenia, but also excluded many Croat-populated areas in Dalmatia, Istria, and Međimurje.
During its entire existence, the NDH was governed as a one-party state by the fascist Ustaše organization under its Poglavnik, Ante Pavelić. "Poglavnik" was coined by the Ustaše and originally a title for the movement's leader. In 1941 it was institutionalized in the NDH as the title of first the Prime Minister (1941–1943), and then the head of state (1943–1945). It was at all times held by Ante Pavelić (1889–1959) and became synonymous with him. The translation of the term varies. The root of the word is the Croatian word "glava", meaning "head" ("Po-glav(a)-nik"). The more literal translation is "head-man", while "leader" captures more of the meaning of the term (in relation to the German "Führer" and Italian "Duce"). The regime targeted Serbs, Jews and Roma as part of a large-scale campaign of genocide, as well as anti-fascist or dissident Croats and Bosnian Muslims.
The NDH was considered Germany's closest regional ally with strong ideological alignment. Out of the 22 concentration camps in NDH-controlled territory,*
Concentration camps other than Jasenovac in the Independent State of Croatia, Holocaustresearchproject.org; accessed 4 December 2015.* Jasenovac was the largest while Jastrebarsko and Sisak held only children.
From the signing of the Treaties of Rome on 18 May 1941 until the Italian capitulation on 8 September 1943, the state was a territorial condominium of Germany and Italy. As Pavelić came to power alongside the Ustaše, German Führer Adolf Hitler and Italian Duce Benito Mussolini resourced and provided political power to the NDH.Graubard, Stephen R. (1993). Exit from Communism. p. 153. Transaction Publishers; "Mussolini and Hitler installed the Ustašas in power in Zagreb, making them the nucleus of a dependent regime of the newly created Independent State of Croatia, an Italo-German condominium predicated on the abolition of Yugoslavia."Frucht, Richard C. (2005). Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture. p. 429. ABC-CLIO; "The NDH was in fact an Italo-German condominium. Both Nazi Germany and fascist Italy had spheres of influence in the NDH and stationed their own troops there."Banac, Ivo (1988). With Stalin Against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism. Cornell University Press, p. 4; In its judgement in the Hostages Trial, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal concluded that NDH was not a sovereign state. According to the Tribunal, "Croatia was at all times here involved an occupied country".
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). 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.Ferdo Šišić: Ljetopis Jugoslavenske akademije, Vol.49 (Zagreb 1936) p. 279Srdja Trifkovic: Ustaša, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies (London 1998)
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
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.
Acceding to the demands of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist regime in the Kingdom of Italy, Pavelić reluctantly accepted Aimone the 4th Duke of Aosta as a figurehead King of the NDH under his new royal name, Tomislav II. Aosta was not interested in being the figurehead King of Croatia: Upon learning 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 though he accepted the crown out of a sense of duty. 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.Tanner, 1997, p. 147 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".Maček, pp. 220–231
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.Pavlowitch, 2008
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
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.Bosworth, Richard J.B. Mussolini's Italy (2005). New Work: Allen Lane. pp. 112–113.