State independent of Croatia

After the occupation of the Yugoslavia in April 1941, the forces of the Axe installed in Croatia as in Serbia of the satellite modes.

In Zagreb, the capacity was entrusted to the Croatian party of extreme-right-hand side Ustaše, placed at the head of a “ State independent of Croatia ” ( Nezavisna Država Hrvatska or NDH), led by Ante Pavelić. Its territory included all Bosnia-Herzégovine and the major part of current Croatia, but this one was cut down by Istrie and a broad part of Dalmatie, annexed by Italy de Mussolini. Divided into zones of German and Italian occupation, the dictatorial mode of Pavelic started by abolishing the Croatian Parliament by pursueing any opposition. As a satellite of IIIe Reich, it introduced racial laws and sheltered several camps of deportation and/or concentration, in particular the Concentration camp of Jasenovac. Tens of thousands of Serb prisoners , Jewish S, Tziganes or Croatian, opponents with the mode, found death there.

Combatant the forces of the Axis, the movement in favor antifascist emerged as of the beginning 1941, under the orders of the party Communiste, led by the Croat Josip Broz Tito, as in the other parts of the Royaume of Yugoslavia. As from 1943, its width in Croatia becomes major: one counts 100.000 partisans there, that is to say a third of the Yugoslav partisans. On the twenty-six divisions setting-up by the partisans of Tito, eleven are established in Croatia (seven in Bosnia-Herzégovine, five as Slovenia, two in Serbia and one in Montenegro). As from June 1943, the Croatian maquis obtains a national civil Staff, the ZAVNOH (the territorial Council antifascist of the liberation movement national of Croatia), chaired by Vladimir Nazor, and assisted by Andrija Hebrang, another figure of Croatian Resistance. Supreme authority of Resistance in Croatia, this Council coordinates the military actions of the Croatian units of the Partisans. In 1944, it is constituted in constituent assembly of the federate State of Croatia (Federalna Drazava Hrvatska) within future federal Yugoslavia, and names in April 1945, the first Croatian government of the post-war period.

Established since 1941 on the debris of the Yugoslav royalist army, the Serb royalist guerilla of the Četnici constituted the third force fighting on the ground. Their role was however more ambiguous owing to the fact that they fought at the same time the Ustaše, incarnating in their eyes the sworn enemies of Large Serbia, and the Partisans of Tito, ideological enemies, which will quickly be worth the support to them military and financial Axis and, consequently, the loss of that of Allied which chooses to support Tito. The many exactions of which they were made guilty were worth in their chief, Draza Mihailovic, to be shot with the Release.

In this context where the policy issues and ideological local were superimposed on those of the planetary conflict, the Second world war was particularly fatal in Croatia, since it made there a little less than three hundred and thousand victims - is 30% of the total assessment for the whole of the territory of Yugoslavia of pre-war period (between 1.014.000 and 1.027.000 victims). Extended to the whole of the territory of the “State independent of Croatia” (Bosnia-Herzégovine and Sirmie included), this number reached between six hundred and fifty thousand and seven hundred and thousand dead - of which a half of Serb (335 000 - 353.000), a third of Croats (186 000 - 204.000), a eighth of Bosnians (75 000 - 78.000), between 20.000 and 27.000 Jews and 34.000 and 38  000 people of various nationalities. Among these victims, one counts some 261.000 soldiers (139 000 partisans of Tito and 122.000 collaborators, oustachis and tchetniks). This assessment includes the “purification” which followed with the Release, in particular the Massacre of Bleiburg in May 1945 when tens of thousands of civilians and Croatian soldiers, ustaše or domobrani (regular army), seeking refuge in Austria, was delivered by the Allies to the reprisals of the units of the Partisans of Ière, IIe and IIIe Armées, primarily recruited in Serbia and Voïvodine from the semione, and of which part of the troops was made up defectors tchetniks.

Policy chiefs of the NDH

  • Ante Pavelić
  • Slavko Kvaternik
  • Mirko Puk
  • Andrija Artuković
  • Ivan Petrić
  • Lovro Šušič
  • Mile Budak
  • Ivica Frković
  • Jozo Dumandžič
  • Milovan Zanič
  • Osman Kulenović
  • Džafer beg Kulenović

See too

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