Ustaše

The Ustaše were in charge of the Independent State of Croatia from its establishment in 1941 to 1945. Ustaše were both political organisation and military formation: what were Fascists in Italy and Nazis in Germany, that were Ustaše in Croatia.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center listing for Ustasa reads as follows:

"Created in 1930, Ustasa was a Croatian nationalist terrorist organization. Its members' hatred of the Jews was only rivaled by their hatred of the Serbs. Brought to power after Hitler created a Croatian puppet state in 1941, Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled 250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. They murdered thousands of Jews and Gypsies." [1]

Other estimates of the killed range from 600,000 to up to 1,000,000 people.

Ustaše variant of Nazi greeting "Sieg - Heil" is "Za dom - Spremni":
Greeting: Za dom!
Reply: Spremni!
It means "For home(land) - Ready (to die)".

History

Ustaše were founded in January 1929 by Ante Paveli and Gustav Perčec. Perčec was later assasinated by Pavelić in 1933.

They came into power when Germany invaded Yugoslavia and installed their regime on April 14th 1941. When the Germans were defeated in World War II the Ustaše went underground and continued to fight for Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia.

Ideology

The Ustaše embraced the Nazi ideology of the time. They aimed at an ethnically "pure" Croatia, and saw their biggest obstacle as the Serbs that lived in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Thus, Ustaše ministers Mile Budak, Mirko Puk and Milovan Zanic declared in May 1941 that goal of Ustaše is:

1. One third of the Serbs to be catholicised
2. One third of the Serbs to be expelled
3. One third of the serbs to be liquidated

This plan of an ethnically pure Croatia was finally fulfilled in 1995 when Croatia expulsed the Krajina Serb population.

A small problem with Nazi ideology was that the Croats are Slavs, and thus themselves "inferior" by Nazi standards. The Croats thus created a theory about a pseudo-Gothic origin of the Croats in order to raise their standing on the Aryan ladder. Unlike the Germans, however, Ustaše never established a theory behind their Nazi ideas, for it would be impossible to racially distinguish most Croats from the Serbs they so hated.

Jews and Serbs who were family members of Ustaše leadership were granted titles of "honorary Aryans". It is known that Ustaše of lesser rank proved their loyalty by killing their Serb wives and children.

Ustaše held that Slavic Muslims are Muslim Croats. Unlike Orthodox Serbs, Muslims were not persecuted by them and many joined in the Ustaše forces and their grim atrocities (see SS Hanjar and SS Kama).

On other subjects, Ustaše were against industrialisation and democracy.

Connections with Catholic Church

Ever since the Great Schism of 1054, the Roman Catholic Church regarded the Serbs as renegades and a bulwark against Catholicism in the Western Balkans. Pope Benedict XV, for example, did not have much appreciation for the fact that that a few million Catholics lived in a predominantly Orthodox state, and he promoted the creation of separate states for the Catholic Croats and Slovenes, instead of Yugoslavia.

Ustaše held the Orthodox faith as their greatest foe, in fact, they never once recognized the existence of a Serbian people on the territories of Croatia or Bosnia. Catholic priests were carrying out forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism throughout Croatia and some Franciscans, particularly in Herzegovina and Bosnia took part in the atrocities themselves. It is ironic that a wholly different religion, with negative attitude towards Christianity, Muslims, were not a problem for Catholic church, but another branch of Christianity was. For the whole duration of the war, the Vatican kept up full diplomatic relations with the Ustaša state, had its papal nunzio in Zagreb (the capital) and was even briefed on the efforts of conversions.

Some Catholic priests and monks took part in Ustaš pogroms, sometimes calling for killing and sometimes killing Serbs themselves; Miroslav Filipović, a Franciscan is most prominent of them. This was never condemned by the Catholic church (see the list of incriminated Croat Catholic Ustashi clergy). Franciscan monasteries were used as Ustaše bases.

After the Second World War was over, the Vatican saved the remaining Ustaše by smuggling them to South America through rat lines. This operation was directed by Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović, Petranovic and Dominik Mandic of the Illyrian College of San Girolamo in Rome which to this very day marks April 10th, the birthday of the Ustaša state. Even Pavelić himself spent most of his days peacefully in Argentina before being hunted down by a Serbian royalist (Chetnik) who wounded him fatally in Spain in 1959.

As well (see external links), it is claimed that the Ustasa regime had kept 350 million Swiss Francs in gold which it had plundered from Serbian and Jewish property during WW II. About 150 million was seized kept by the British however the remaining 200 million reached the Vatican and is allegedly still being kept in the Vatican Bank. The issue was the theme of a class action lawsuit in a California court of law which threw the case out claiming a lack of jurisdiction, although some point to pressures from the Vatican.

In 1998 Pope John Paul II beatified Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb during the Second World War. Stepinac's role in the movement was organising Ustaūe military clergy.

On June 22, 2003, John Paul II visited Banja Luka. During the visit he held a mass at Petrićevac monastery and proclaimed beatification of Catholic priest Ivan Merz, the founder of the Croatian Eagles, Ustaše version of Hitlerjugend.

This caused public uproar as on February 6, 1942, in Petrićevac, Ustaše led by Catholic priest Tomislav Filipović brutally massacred 2730 Serbs including 500 children. The same Filipović later became Chief Guard of Jasenovac concentration camp where he was nicknamed "Fra Satan".

Bibliography

1. Aarons, Mark and Loftus, John. Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets. New York: St.Martin's Press, 1992. 372 pages.
2. Paris, Edmond. "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941- 1945". (First print: 1961, Second: 1962), The American Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1990.

Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-399 First printing, November 1961, Second printing, May 1962 Published by: The American Institute for Balkan Affairs 1525 West Diversey Parkway, Chicago 14, Illinois Edition 1990

External links

• The Pavelic Papers. "An independent project researching the history of the Ustase movement."
• Vatican Bank Claims
• Time Magazine on Ustasa Gold in Vatican Bank
• Vatican and Ustasa links