"Even going back ten years it was easy to see something gripping
Yugoslavia by the throat. But in the years since then the grip has
been tightened, and tightened in my opinion by the dictatorship
established by King Alexander Karageorgevitch.
This dictatorship, however much it may claim a temporary success,
must inevitably have the effect of poisoning all the Yugoslav
organism. Whether the poisoning is incurable or not is the question
for which I have sought an answer during two months in Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria and central Europe."
"Black Hand over Europe" by Henri Pozzi, 1935
THE SIN
Yugoslavia was born in sin and in sin it perished. The King of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Alexander I, a freshly self-proclaimed
dictator, declared it on October 1929. It was a union of East and
West, the Orthodox and the Catholic, Ottoman residues with Austro-
Hungarian structures, the heart and the mind. Inevitably, it stood
no chance. The Croats and the Slovenes - formerly fiery proponents
of a Yugo (Southern) Slav federation - were mortified to find
themselves in a Serb-dominated "Third World", Byzantine polity.
This was especially galling to the Croats who fiercely denied both
their geography and their race to cling to the delusion of being a
part of "Europe" rather than the "Balkans". To this very day, they
hold all things Eastern (Serbs, the Orthodox version of
Christianity, Belgrade, the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia) with
unmitigated contempt dipped in an all-pervasive feeling of
superiority. This is a well known defence mechanism in nations
peripheral. Many a suburban folk wish to belong to the city with
such heat and conviction, with such ridiculous emulation, that they
end up being caricatures of the original.
And what original! The bloated, bureaucracy-saddled, autocratic and
sadistic Habsburg empire. Hitler's Germany. Mussolini's Italy.
Unable to ignore the common ethnic roots of both Serbs and Croats -
one tribe, one language - the Croats chose to believe in a vast
conspiracy imposed upon the Serbs by corrupt and manipulative
rulers. The gullible and self-delusional Cardinal Stepinac of Zagreb
wrote just before the Second World War erupted, in a curious
reversal of pan-Serbist beliefs: "If there were more freedom...
Serbia would be Catholic in twenty years. The most ideal thing would
be for the Serbs to return to the faith of their fathers. That is,
to bow the head before Christ's representative, the Holy Father.
Then we could at last breathe in this part of Europe, for Byzantium
has played a frightful role ... in connection with the Turks."
The same Turks that almost conquered Croatia and, met by fierce and
brave resistance of the latter, were confined to Bosnia for 200
years. The Croats came to regard themselves as the last line of
defence against an encroaching East - against the manifestations and
transmutations of Byzantium, of the Turks, of a vile mix of
Orthodoxy and Islam (though they collaborated with their Moslem
minority during the Ustashe regime). Besieged by this siege
mentality, the back to the literal wall, desperate and phobic, the
Croats developed the paranoia typical of all small nations encircled
by hostility and impending doom. It was impossible to reconcile
their centrifugal tendency in favour of a weak central state in a
federation of strong local entities - with the Serb propensity to
create a centralist and bureaucratic court. When the Croat delegates
of the Peasant Party withdrew from the fragmented Constituent
Assembly in 1920 - Serbia and the Moslem members voted for the
Vidovdan Constitution (June 1921) which was modelled on the pre-war
Serbian one.
While a minority with limited popular appeal, the Ustashe did not
materialize ex nihilo. They were the logical and inescapable
conclusion of a long and convoluted historical process. They were
both its culmination and its mutation. And once formed, they were
never exorcised by the Croats, as the Germans exorcised their Nazi
demon. In this, again, the Croats, chose the path of unrepentant
Austria.
Croat fascism was not an isolated phenomenon. Fascism (and, less so,
Nazism) were viable ideological alternatives in the 1930s and 1940s.
Variants of fascist ideology sprang all over the world, from Iraq
and Egypt to Norway and Britain. Even the Jews in Palestine had
their own fascists (the Stern group). And while Croat fascism (such
as it was, "tainted" by Catholic religiosity and pagan nationalism)
lasted four tumultuous years - it persisted for a quarter of a
century in Romania ("infected" by Orthodox clericalism and peasant
lores). While both branches of fascism - the Croat and the Romanian
- shared a virulent type of anti-Semitism and the constipated
morality of the ascetic and the fanatic - Codreanu's was more
ambitious, aiming at a wholesale reform of Romanian life and a re-
definition of Romanianism. The Iron Guard and the Legion (of the
Archangel Michael, no less) were, therefore and in their deranged
way, a force for reform founded on blood-thirsty romanticism and
masochistic sacrifices for the common good. Moreover, the Legion was
crushed in 1941 by a military dictatorship which had nothing to do
with fascism. It actually persecuted the fascists who found refuge
in Hitler's Germany.
Fascism in Hungary developed similarly. It was based on reactionary
ideologies pre-dating fascism by centuries. Miklos Horty, the
Austro-Hungarian Admiral was consumed by grandiose fantasies of an
Hungarian empire. He had very little in common with the fascists of
the "white terror" of 1919 in Budapest (an anti-communist
bloodshed).
He did his best to tame the Hungarian fascist government of Gyula
Gombos (1932). The untimely death of the latter brought about the
meteoric rise of Ferenc Szalasi and his brand of blood-pure racism.
But all these sub-species of fascism, the Romanian, the Slovakian
(Tiso) and the Hungarian (as opposed to the Italian and the
Bulgarian) were atavistic, pagan, primal and romanticist - as was
the Croat. These were natural - though nefarious - reactions to
dislocation, globalization, economic crisis and cultural pluralism.
A set of compensatory mechanisms and reactions to impossible,
humiliating and degrading circumstances of wrathful helplessness and
frustration. "Native fascism" attributed a divine mission or divine
plan to the political unit of the nation, a part of a grand design.
The leader was the embodiment, the conveyor, the conduit, the
exclusive interpreter and the manifestation of this design (the
Fuhrerprinzip). Proof of the existence of such a transcendental plan
was the glorious past of the nation, its qualities and conduct
(hence the tedious moralizing and historical nitpicking). The
definition of the nation relied heavily of the existence of a
demonized and dehumanized enemy (Marxists, Jews, Serbs, Gypsies,
homosexuals, Hungarians in Romania, etc.). Means justified the end
and the end was stability and eternity ("the thousand years Reich").
Thus, as opposed to the original blueprint, these mutants of fascism
were inert and aspired to a state of rest, to an equilibrium after a
spurt of cleansing and restoration of the rightful balance.
When Serb domination (Serb ubiquitous military, Serbs in all senior
government positions even in Croatia) mushroomed into the "Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes", it was only natural for dissenting
and dissident Croats to turn to their "roots". Unable to
differentiate themselves from the hated Serbs racially - they
appealed to religious heterogeneity. Immediately after the political
hybrid was formed, the Croats expressed their discontent by handing
election victories to the "Croatian Peasant Party" headed by Radic.
The latter was a dour and devout anti-Yugoslav. He openly agitated
for an independent - rustic and pastoral - Croatia. But Radic was a
pragmatist. He learned his lesson when - having boycotted the
Constituent Assembly in Belgrade - he facilitated the imposition of
a pro-Serb, pro-central government constitution. Radic moderated his
demands, if not his rhetoric. The goal was now a federated
Yugoslavia with Croat autonomy within it. There is poetic justice in
that his death - at the hand of a Montenegrin deputy on the floor of
the Skupstina in 1928 - brought about the dictatorship that was to
give rise to Macek and the Sporazum (Croat autonomy). The irony is
that a peasant-favouring land reform was being seriously implemented
when a deadlock between peasant parties led to King Alexander's
fateful decision to abolish the parliamentary system.
King Alexander I was a good and worthy man forced by circumstances
into the role of an abhorrent tyrant. He was a great believer in the
power of symbols and education. He changed the name of his loose
confederacy into a stricter "Yugoslavia". In an attempt to defuse
internal divisions, he appealed to natural features (like rivers and
mountains) as internal borders. Croatia vanished as a political
entity, replaced by naturally-bounded districts and provinces. The
majority of Croats still believed in a federal solution, albeit less
Serb-biased. They believed in reform from the inside. The Ustashe
and Pavelic were always a minority, the Bolsheviks of Croatia. But
King Alexander's authoritarian rule was hard to ignore: the torture
of political opponents and their execution, the closure of patriotic
sports societies, the flagrant interference in the work of the
ostensibly independent judiciary, the censorship. There was bad
blood growing between the King and more of his subjects by the day.
The Croats were not the only "minority" to be thus maltreated. The
Serbs maintained an armed presence in Macedonia, Kosovo, the Sandzak
and even in Slovenia. They deported thousands of "Turks" (actually,
all manner of Muslims) under the guise of a "re-patriation" scheme.
They confiscated land from religious institutions, from the
deportees, from big landowners, from the Magyars in Vojvodina and
"re-distributed" it to the Serbs. Ethnic homogenization (later to
become known as "ethnic cleansing") was common practise in that era.
The Turks, the Bulgars, the Germans, the Greeks were all busily
purifying the ethnic composition of their lands. But it made the
King and the Serbs no friends.
The Serbs seemed to have been bent on isolating themselves from
within and on transforming their Yugo Slav brethren into sworn
adversaries. This was true in the economic sphere as well as in the
political realm. Serbia declared a "Danubian orientation" (in lieu
of the "Adriatic orientation") which benefited the economies of
central and northern Serbia at the expense of Croatia and Slovenia.
While Serbia was being industrialized and its agriculture reformed,
Croatia and Slovenia did not share in the spoils of war, the
reparations that Yugoslavia received from the Central Powers.
Yugoslavia was protectionist which went against the interest of its
trading compatriots. When war reparations ceased (1931) and
Germany's economy evaporated, Yugoslavia was hurled into the
economic crisis the world has been experiencing since 1929. The Nazi
induced recovery of Germany drew in Yugoslavia and its firms. It was
granted favourable export conditions by Hitler's Germany and many of
its companies participated in cartels established by German
corporate giants.
King Alexander I must have known he would be assassinated. Someone
tried to kill him as he was taking the oath to uphold the
constitution on June 28, 1921. For 8 long years he had to endure a
kaleidoscope of governments, a revolving door of ministers, violence
in the Assembly and ever-escalating Croat demands for autonomy.
After the hideous slaughter on the floor of parliament, all its
remaining Croat members withdrew.
They refused to go back and parliament had to be dissolved.
Alexander went further, taking advantage of the constitutional
crisis. He abolished the constitution of 1921, outlawed all
ethnically, religiously or nationally based political parties (which
basically meant most political parties, especially the Croat ones),
re-organized the state administration, standardized the legal
system, school syllabi and curricula and the national holidays. He
was moulding a nation single handedly, carving it from the slab of
mutual hatred and animosity. The Croats regarded all this as yet
another Serb ploy, proof of Serb power-madness and insatiable desire
to dominate. In an effort to placate the bulk of his constituency,
the peasantry, King Alexander established rural credit unions and
provided credit lines to small farmers and rural processing plants.
To no avail. The insecurity of this hastily foisted regime was felt,
its hesitation, the cruelty that is the outcome of fear. The
scavengers were gathering.
It was this basic shakiness that led the King to look for sustenance
from neighbours. In rapid succession, he made his state a friend of
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania (the last two in the frame of
the Little Entente). Another Entente followed (the Balkan one) with
Greece, Turkey and Romania. The King was frantically seeking to
neutralize his enemies from without while ignoring the dangers from
within.
His death lurked in Zagreb but he was travelling to Marseilles to
meet it. A vicious secret police, a burgeoning military, a new
constitution to legalize his sanguinous regime conspired with a
global economic crisis to make him a hated figure, even by Serb
Democrats. Days before his death, he earnestly considered to return
to a parliamentary form of government. But it was too late and too
little for those who sought his end.
The Ustasha movement ("insurgence" or "insurrection", officially the
"Croatian Ustasha Movement") was a product of the personal rebellion
of Ante Pavelic and like-minded others. Born in Bosnia, he was a
member of the Croat minority there, in a Serb-infused environment.
He practised as a lawyer in Zagreb and there joined the Nationalist
Croatian Party of Rights. He progressed rapidly and by 1920 (at the
age of 31), he was alderman of Zagreb City and County. He was a
member of the Skupstina when anti-Croat sentiment peaked with the
triple murder of the Croat deputies. When Alexander the King
dissolved parliament and assumed dictatorial powers, he moved (or
fled) to Italy, there to establish a Croat nationalist movement, the
Ustasha. Their motto was "Za Dom Spremny" ("Ready for Home" or
"Ready for the Fatherland"). Italy the fascist was a natural choice
- both because of its ideological affinity and because it opposed
Yugoslavia's gradual drift towards Germany. Italy was worried about
an ultimate anschluss ("unification or incorporation") between the
Reich and Austria - which will have brought Hitler's Germany to
Austria's doorstep.
Thus, the Ustasha established training centres (more like refugee
camps, as they included the family members of the would be
"warriors") in Italy and Hungary (later to be expelled from the
latter as a result of Yugoslav pressure). Having mainly engaged in
the dissemination of printed propaganda, they failed at provoking a
peasant rebellion in north Dalmatia (promised to Italy by the
Ustasha). But they did better at assassinating their arch-foe, King
Alexander in 1934 (having failed earlier, in 1933). In this the
Ustasha was reputed to have collaborated with the fascist IMRO
(Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) under Ivan Mihailov
in Bulgaria. By joining forces with the IMRO, the Ustasha has
transformed itself into a link in the chain of terrorist
organizations that engulfed the world in blood and flames prior to
the onslaught of the greatest terrorist of all, of Hitler. While
some versions of the unholy alliance between the Bulgarian-
Macedonian outfit and the Croats are unsubstantiated (to put it
gently), it is clear that some assistance was provided by both lower
Italian ranks and the IMRO. The actual murderer of the King was
Mihailov's Macedonian chauffeur, Vlado Georgiev-Kerin. The Ustasha
was also known for blowing trains and for attempting to do so on
more than one occasion both in Croatia and in Slovenia. King
Alexander seemed to have ordered the systematic annihilation of the
Ustasha just before his own untimely Ustasha-assisted annihilation.
Lt. Colonel Stevo Duitch "committed suicide" in Karlsbad and there
were attempts - some successful, some less - on Pavelic in Munich,
Percevic in Vienna, Servaci (Servatsi) in Fiume and Percec in
Budapest. It was made abundantly clear to the Ustasha that it was an
all-out war with no prisoners taken. The King had to go.
It was a strange movement, the Ustashe. Claiming the continuous
"rights of state" of the Great Croatian Kingdom under Peter Kresimir
and Zvonimir in the 11th century - they nonetheless gave up Slovenia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy and, later, accepted a German
occupation of eastern Croatia. Composed of frugal ascetics and
avaricious operators, merciless romanticists and hard nosed
pragmatists, murderous sadists and refined intellectuals,
nationalist Croats and Serb-haters who had no coherent national
agenda bar the mass slaughter of the Serbs. Thus, it was a social
movement of the dispossessed, a cesspool of discontent and rage, of
aggression too long suppressed but never sublimated, of justified
social and political grievances irradiated by racism, national
chauvinism, militarism and sadism. A grassroots reaction turned
cancerous, led by a second hand, third rate Hitler-clone. A
terrorist organization displaying the trappings of a state in the
making. This is not to say that it lacked popular support. Tensions
ran so high between Serbs and Croats that daily brawls broke in pubs
and restaurants, trains and public places between Serb soldiers and
Croat citizens in Croatia. The Ustashe fed on real friction, were
charged by escalating tensions, mushroomed on growing violence.
Prince Paul, who acted as regent for 12 years old Peter II,
permitted the operation of political parties but did not reinstate
parliament. All this time, a Yugoslav opposition of democratic
forces included Croat as well as Serb intellectuals and wannabe
politicians. Vladko Macek himself - later, the epitome of Croat
separatism and the most successful promoter of this cause - was a
member. In the 1938 elections, his party - the Peasant Party - won
an astounding 80% of the votes in Croatia.
The regent, now much humbled by years of strife and paralysis -
bowed to popular opinion so eloquently and convincingly expressed.
He backed negotiations with Macek which led to a declaration of
Croat independence in everything but name. The Sporazum of August
1939, a few days before the outbreak of World War II, granted
Croatia self-government except in matters of national defence and
foreign affairs. The Serbs were now disgruntled. The Serb Democrats
felt abandoned and betrayed by Macek and his Faustian deal with the
dictatorship. All other Serbs felt humiliated by what they regarded
as a capitulation to irredentism, bound to have a disintegrative
domino effect on the rest of Serbia's possessions. It is a
surrealistic thing, to read the transcripts of these vehement and
sincere arguments just four days before the world as all the
conversants knew it, came to a shrieking end.
When German planes were pulverizing Warsaw, Yugoslavia declared its
mock-neutrality. Everybody knew that Paul was pro-German. Even King
Alexander before him signed a few secret pacts with the rising,
ignore at your peril, Central European force. The Austrian national
socialists who were implicated in the murder of the Austrian prime
minister, Dolfus, in July 1934, escaped to Yugoslavia and resided
openly (though disarmed by the Yugoslav police) in army barracks in
Varadzin. In 1935, a fascist movement was established in Serbia
("Zbor"). Fascism and Nazism were not without their attractions to
Serbs and Croats alike.
This is the great theatre of the absurd called the Balkans. Pavelic
and the Ustasha were actually closer in geopolitical orientation to
the Yugoslav monarchy (until Paul was deposed by the Yugoslav army)
- than to Mussolini's fascist Italy. They were worried by the
latter's tendency to block German designs on Austria. In a region
known for its indefinite historical memory and lack of statute of
limitations, they recalled how the Italians treated Montenegrin
refugees in 1923 (returning them to Yugoslavia in cattle cars). They
wondered if the precedent might be repeated, this time with Croat
passengers. The Italians did, after all, arrest "Longin"
(Kvaternik), Jelic and others in Torino following the assassination
of the King. In the paranoid twilight zone of European Big Power
sponsored terrorism, these half hearted actions and dim memories
were enough to cast a pall of suspicion and of guilt over the
Italian regime. Mussolini called Pavelic his "Balkan Pawn" but in
that he was mistaken. There are good reasons to believe that he was
shocked by the murder of King Alexander. In any event, the free
movement of Pavelic and the Ustasha was afterwards severely
restricted.
On March 1941, the Crown Council of Yugoslavia decided to accede to
the Tripartite Pact of the Axis, though in a watered down form.
Yugoslavia maintained the prerogative to refuse the right of passage
in its territory to foreign powers.
Yet, no one believed this would be the case if confronted with such
a predicament. This decision - to give up Yugoslavia's main asset
and only protection - its neutrality - was taken under pressure from
the Croats in power at the time. The Pact was already joined by
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Two days after the Yugoslav Prime
Minister (Dragisa Cvetkovic) and his foreign minister signed the
Pact in Vienna - they were deposed together with the Regent Paul.
The precocious Peter was made King of Yugoslavia by the rebellious
officers, headed by General Dusan Simovic. The generals now in
charge reverted to Yugoslavia's neutrality and refused to join the
British-Greek naval treaty, for example. But what appeared to be
spontaneous demonstrations in favour of the conspirators and against
the Tripartite Pact erupted all over Serbia. It was a challenge to
Germany which it could not ignore. The Supreme Command of the
Wehrmact (OKW) issued "Undertaking 25" (against Yugoslavia) and
"Case Marita" (against Greece). The Yugoslavs mobilized (albeit with
a surprising procrastination), the Germans invaded (on April 6,
1941) and, within 10 days it was all over. The Croats did their best
to assist the new forces of occupation, disrupting and sabotaging
the best they could army operations as well as civilian defence. It
was clear that many of them (though by no means the majority)
regarded the Serbs as the real occupiers and the Germans as long
awaited liberators.
On April 10, 1941, six days into the invasion, the Germans declared
the Independent State of Croatia (NDH, after the initials of its
name in Croatian - Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska). Vladimir Mecak,
leader of the Peasant Party and Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia
called on the people to collaborate with the new government.
Overnight, a fringe terrorist organization, (erroneously) considered
to be more a puppet of Italy that a true expression of Croat
nationalism, found itself at the helm of government in circumstances
complicated by internecine rivalries, inter-ethnic tensions, an
history of hate and mutual resentment, a paranoia stoked by sporadic
violence. The Serbs were evidently a fifth column and so were the
Jews. Indeed, Croatia's Serbs wasted no time in joining resistance
movements against the Nazis and the NDH. Anyhow, the vacuum created
by Macek's surprising passivity and by the Church's abstention - was
filled by the Ustashe. The new state included a part of Dalmatia
(the rest went to Italy), the region of Srem and the entirety of
Bosnia Herzegovina. It was the closest Croatia ever got to re-
creating Great Croatia of a millennium ago. Fearful of Croat
encroachment, the Slovenes hurried to discuss the declaration of
their own state modelled after the NDH - only to discover that their
country was split between Italy and Germany. In Zagreb, the
enthusiasm was great. The 200 nor so returning Ustashe were greeted
back even by their political rivals. People thronged the streets,
throwing flowers and rice at the advancing former terrorist and
German convoys.
The NDH existed for four years. It had 7 governments - only 5 of
which were headed by Ante Pavelic. As opposed to popular opinion,
the Ustashe were not a puppet regime, far from it. Both the Italians
and the Germans express their continued frustration at being unable
to control and manipulate the Ustashe. Despite their military
presence and economic support - both Axis powers lacked real
leverage over the ever more frantic activities of the Ustashe. Even
when it was clear that the Croat NDH - in its genocidal activities -
is alienating the Serbs and adding to the ranks of resistance
movements throughout Yugoslavia, there was precious little the
Germans or Italians could do. They held polite and less polite talks
with the top echelons of their own creation but like the fabled Dr.
Frankenstein found that the NDH had a life very much of its own and
an agenda it pursued with vigour and conviction.
It is impossible - nor is it desirable - to avoid the issue of the
mass killings of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Some Croats claim that
"only" 60-70,000 were killed in Jasenovac and other camps. The very
use of the word "only" in this context ought to send a frisson of
repulsion down the spines of civilized men. The Serbs, Jewish
scholars and many international scholars claim the number was
between 300-600,000 people. The reason for the disparity in numbers
is that - despite their "German" pretensions, the Croats acted like
the least of the barbarous Balkanians in their mass slaughters. This
was no industrial affairs, replete with bureaucracy and statistics.
The massacres were atavistic, primitive, the call of blood and guts
and scattered brains. It was an orgy, not an operation.
There is nothing much to tell about the NDH. The regime was busy
enacting laws against deadly sins and minor vices (such as
pornography). The collaboration with the Catholic Church proceeded
smoothly. Laws were passed against the Jews. The NDH army fought the
partisans and the Allied Forces. When it tried to surrender to the
British army in 1945 - it refused to accept their capitulation and
turned them over to the partisans. In a series of death marches army
soldiers and civilian collaborators with the Ustashe were
deliberately exterminated. The Balkans knows no mercy. Victims
become butchers and butchers victims in nauseating turns. By 1944,
the NDH lost half its territory either to the Germans or to the
partisans. The rump state survived somehow, its leaders deserting in
droves. Pavelic himself escaped to Austria, from there to Italy and
Argentina. He survived an attempt on his life in 1957 and then fled
to Paraguay and Spain where he died in 1959.
THE DEAD
"After all, if the Croat state wishes to be strong, a nationally
intolerant policy must be pursued for fifty years, because too much
tolerance on such issues can only do harm."
Adolf Hitler to Ante Pavelic in their meeting, June 6, 1941
"For the rest - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - we have three million
bullets. We shall kill one third of all Serbs. We shall deport
another third, and the rest of them will be forced to become Roman
Catholic."
Mile Budak, Minister of Education of Croatia, July 22, 1941
"There are limits even to love... (It is) stupid and unworthy of
Christ's disciples to think that the struggle against evil could be
waged in a noble way and with gloves on."
Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Saric, 1941
"Croats no longer think that German troops are present merely to
provide peace and security, but that they are here to support the
Ustasha regime [...] The Ustashas promote the impression that they
act not only in agreement with German instances, but actually on
their orders. [...] There is here today a deep mistrust of Germany,
because it is supporting a regime that has no moral or political
right to exist, which is regarded as the greatest calamity that
could have happened to the Croat people. That regime is based
entirely on the recognition by the Axis powers, it has no popular
roots, and depends on the bayonets of robbers who do more evil in a
day than the Serbian regime had done in twenty years."
Captain Haffner to General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau,
Plenipotentiary of the Wehrmacht in Zagreb, Croatia, 1941
"Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not
reflect well on their otherwise high reputation... I am frequently
told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene
against Ustasha crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with
the available forces, I could not ask for such action Ad hoc
intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look
responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the
past."
General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau to the OKW, July 10, 1941
"The horrors that the Ustashi have committed over the Serbian small
girls is beyond all words. There are hundreds of photographs
confirming these deeds because those of them who have survived the
torture: bayonet stabs, pulling of tongues and teeth, nails and
breast tips - all this after they were raped. Survivors were taken
in by our officers and transported to Italian hospitals where these
documents and facts were gathered."
Commander of the Italian Sassari Division in Croatia, 1941
"Increased activity of the bands is chiefly due to atrocities
carried out by Ustasha units in Croatia against the Orthodox
population. The Ustashas committed their deeds in a bestial manner
not only against males of conscript age, but especially against
helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox
that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is
about three hundred thousand."
Report to Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler from the Geheime
Staatspolizei - GESTAPO - dated February 17, 1942
"From the founding [of the NDH] until now the persecution of Serbs
has not stopped, and even cautious estimates indicate that at least
several hundred thousand people have been killed. The irresponsible
elements have committed such atrocities that could be expected only
from a rabid Bolshevik horde."
German foreign ministry plenipotentiary representative in Belgrade
Felix Benzler to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs
of the Reich
" (In Croatia under the Ustasha) ...over half a million [Serbs] were
murdered, about a quarter of a million were expelled from the
country, and another quarter of a million were forced to convert to
Catholicism."
Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
(All quotes from "The Real Genocide in Yugoslavia: Independent
Croatia of 1941 Revisited"
by: Srdja Trifkovic, published in: www.rockfordinstitute.org and in:
www.antiwar.com )