THE UTOPIA OF TERROR

Life and Death in Wartime Croatia

Edited by

RORY YEOMANS
The Utopia of Terror
 Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe
Series Editor: Timothy Snyder, Yale University

Additional Titles of Interest

Between East and West:

Polish and Russian Nineteenth-Century Travel to the Orient
Izabela Kalinowska

The Polish Singers Alliance of America 1888–1998: Choral Patriotism

Stanislaus A. Blejwas

A Clean Sweep?
The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing in Western Poland, 1945–1960
T. David Curp

Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization
Edited by Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford, and David Stahel

Critical Thinking in Slovakia after Socialism

Jonathan Larson

Smolensk under the Nazis: Everyday Life in Occupied Russia

Laurie R. Cohen

Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context

Edited by Ewa Mazierska and Michael Goddard

Literary Translation and the Idea of a Minor Romania

Sean Cotter

Coming of Age under Martial Law:

The Initiation Novels of Poland’s Last Communist Generation
Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova

Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980–1989:

Solidarity, Martial Law, and the End of Communism in Europe
Andrzej Paczkowski
Translated by Christina Manetti

A complete list of titles in the Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe series
may be found on our website, www.urpress.com.
 The Utopia of Terror

Life and Death in Wartime Croatia

Edited by Rory Yeomans

 Copyright © 2015 by the Editors and Contributors

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no

part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.

First published 2015

University of Rochester Press

668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-545-8
ISSN: 1528-4808

Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress.

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

This publication is printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America.
 Contents

Abbreviations vii

Introduction: Utopia, Terror, and Everyday Experience in the

Ustasha State 1
Rory Yeomans

Part One: Terror as Everyday Experience,

Economic System, and Social Practice
1 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration: The Ustasha Regime
and the Nationalization of Jewish Property and Business in Sarajevo 43
Dallas Michelbacher

2 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: Everyday Life in Karlovac

under Ustasha Rule 61
Filip Erdeljac

3 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness: Cinema,

Terror, and Ideological Refashioning 86
Rory Yeomans

4 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values: The Anthropology of

Ustasha Violence 119
Radu Harald Dinu

Part Two: Incarnating a New Religion, National Values, and Youth

5 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization: The Sacralization of
Politics in the Ustasha State 145
Stipe Kljaić

6 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart: Ustasha Ideology,
Catholic Values, and National Purification 165
Irina Ognyanova

Yeomans.indd v 10/9/2015 6:51:31 PM

 vi Contents

7 Envisioning the “Other” East: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslims, and

Modernization in the Ustasha State 188
Nada Kisić-Kolanović

8 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha”: Youth Organizations

as Incubators of a New Youth and New Future 217
Goran Miljan

Part Three: Terror, Utopia, and the

Ustasha State in Comparative Perspective
9 Forging Brotherhood and Unity: War Propaganda and
Transitional Justice in Yugoslavia, 1941–48 241
Tomislav Dulić

10 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent: The Ustasha Movement

and the Transnational Dynamics of Interwar Fascism 260
Aristotle Kallis

Epilogue: Ordinary People between the National Community and

Everyday Terror 284
Rory Yeomans

Appendix: The Origins and Ideology of the Ustasha Movement 300

List of Contributors 305

Index 309

Yeomans.indd vi 10/9/2015 6:51:31 PM

 Abbreviations

DIPU Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured (State Information and

Propaganda Office)
DRGP Državno ravnateljstvo za gospodarstvenu ponovu (State
Directorate for Economic Regeneration)
GIL Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (Italian Lictor Youth)
GRP Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu (Main Directorate for
Propaganda)
GUS Glavni Ustaški stan (Main Ustasha Headquarters)
HSS Hrvatska seljačka stranka (Croatian Peasant Party)
HURIS Hrvatski u rieci i sliči (Croatia in words and pictures)
NARGOS Ministarstvo narodnog gospodarstvu (Ministry for National
Economy)
NARPROS Glavno ravnateljstvo za opće narodno prosvjećivanje (Main
Directorate for Mass National Enlightenment)
NDH Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia)
NOP Narodnooslobodilački pokret (People’s Liberation Movement)
ODSLIK Slikopisni odsjek (Section for Film)
PTB Poglavnikova tjelesna bojna (Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion)
PTS Poglavnikov tjelesne sdrug (Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade)
UHRO Ustaša hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija (Ustasha Croatian
Revolutionary Organization)
UNS Ustaška nadzorna služba (Ustasha Surveillance Service)
 Introduction

Utopia, Terror, and Everyday

Experience in the Ustasha State

Rory Yeomans

The beginning of April 1942 witnessed a week of festivities the state media wrote
about for days afterward. In the mornings, there were marches by the student
units of the Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (Poglavnikova tjelesna bojna—PTB)
and the Ustasha Corps; processions by members of the Ustasha Youth, Ustasha
students, and peasant and worker organizations; masses of thanksgiving; sports
events; lectures; and the singing of the state hymn and Ustasha anthem in schools
across the state. In the evenings there were concerts of the Croatian Philharmonic
Orchestra and speeches and performances by members of the Zagreb State
Theater and Ustasha cultural organizations. There were more raucous celebrations,
too. Away from the sedate evening galas, streets and squares were packed with
boisterous students, shop girls, factory workers, and militia men, some of them
clearly inebriated. Nonetheless, whoever they were, wherever they came from, and
whatever condition they were in, those who turned out on the streets of Zagreb
and other Croatian cities in chilly spring weather were determined to make the
most of the first anniversary of the founding of the Independent State of Croatia
(Nezavisna Država Hrvatska—NDH), or Ustasha state, the “resurrection” of
national independence, and the triumph of the liberation struggle.1
In a special edition, the newspaper Nova Hrvatska recited the achievements
of the Ustasha state in statistics: the number of new homes built for workers, the
millions of kunas spent on the construction of new hospitals, the thousands of
square meters the new student accommodation and scientific laboratories com-
prised, the miles of new railway track built, the number of frequencies and cover-
age of the planned new radio hall, the millions of hectares of agricultural land
2 Rory Yeomans

irrigated and reclaimed, and the percentage rise in the nation’s birth rate. The
impression was of a state that was modern and dynamic, leaving the oppression of
the Yugoslav past behind and committed to the construction of a utopian society
fit for a reborn nation-state.2
Among the features in Nova Hrvatska on the modernization of the Croatian
university in Zagreb and the activities of students in the first year of independence
was one in which the newspaper drew attention to the numerous young Ustasha
students who had joined the Thirteenth Shock Student Unit of the PTB militia.
It praised them as the “bravest warriors” of the PTB, who had “shed their young
blood and given their lives” in “cleansing the homeland from dangerous enemy
elements.” The mass construction of new facilities was, it continued, a reward for
their role in the “purification” of the University of Zagreb from “undesired for-
eigners and perverts, hostilely disposed toward the Croats and the Ustasha move-
ment,” thereby enabling its “regeneration” as the “Ustasha University.”3 While the
feature did not explain who these unwanted populations were, how numerous
they were, or how they had been removed, it represented perhaps the most strik-
ing statistical achievement of the state. In the space of twelve months, its militias,
death squads, and security services had managed to deport or liquidate perhaps
as many as 250,000 Serbs, Jews, and “internal enemies.” By September 1942, the
state’s fifteen thousand Gypsies had been added to the list. A few hour’s journey
from Zagreb, countless thousands of racially or ideologically “unworthy” citizens
had disappeared into the state’s archipelago of concentration camps to be set to
hard labor or to be “reeducated” or murdered. Journeying by train to celebrate
a national festival, listening to a philharmonic orchestra, traveling for days on a
stifling cattle truck en route to death in a concentration camp: these were the con-
tradictions of the Ustasha state.
In an article of 1995 about cultural politics in the Independent State of Croatia,
Dubravko Jelčić criticized Yugoslav-era historians and academics for interpreting
cultural life in the state through the prism of Yugoslav, socialist, and “Greater
Serbian” ideology and for conflating the Independent State of Croatia with the
Ustasha regime. He argued that the Ustasha regime was “not the same as the
Independent State of Croatia and is not the same as Croatia.” Maintaining that the
Independent State of Croatia was the expression of the Croatian nation’s yearning
for independence—something for which the majority of Croatians had been pre-
pared to sacrifice their lives, he added—Jelčić wrote that the authentic “European,
idealistic, and creative” values of Croatia were embodied in the state and its cul-
tural politics. This not only proved that Croatian culture during the early 1940s
was an “authentic expression” of the Croatian soul and consciousness through the
centuries, but it also demonstrated that the Ustasha regime, while repressive in its
national politics, was “visibly tolerant” in the cultural sphere. He called for greater
research of the state’s cultural policy because it had helped to shape “the politics
 Introduction 3

of the Ustasha movement and the culture of the Croatian people, revealing in its
essence that the Ustasha movement not only did not repress but actually encour-
aged a free spirit in this respect.” Arguing that, to a certain extent, the “toler-
ant” cultural politics of the regime aimed to “rectify or at least ameliorate their
mistakes in the political field” and noting the wide diversity of opinion in the
state’s cultural journals and artistic milieu, he asked whether there was more artis-
tic freedom in the Independent State of Croatia than in Communist Yugoslavia or
whether artists and writers were simply more courageous in the former than in the
latter. He concluded, “Even if we answer affirmatively to the second question, we
still cannot deny that their courage was enabled and even motivated by the high
degree of freedom that prevailed in the Independent State of Croatia in the sphere
of literature and cultural life.”4
Jelčić’s theoretical model has been challenged by other Croatian writers on
both methodological and ethical grounds. For example, in a 2010 review of a
photographic collection depicting everyday life in the Ustasha state, the writer
Slavko Goldstein accused it of “never offering a complete picture nor a critical
one but instead a distorted one.” While images of festivals, athletics competitions,
military processions, and chic young women were not falsified, the collection as
a whole was distorted. It relied, Goldstein wrote, on a “tendentious selection of
images” and “misleading commentary” since it ignored or minimized the terror
that was just as much, if not more, a part of the “everyday” life of the state’s
citizens as ceremonies, exhibitions, and cultural events.5 Nevertheless, Jelčić’s
argument for a strict division between the state and the regime and between cul-
tural politics and terror continues to have an important influence on discussions
about wartime Croatia. In fact, the notion that a “good” Independent State of
Croatia in which cultural life flourished can be separated from a “bad” Ustasha
regime that “repressed” Serbs, Jews, Roma, and antifascists remains a dominant
feature of history textbooks in Croatia. Moreover, even a number of textbooks
that cautiously acknowledge the crimes of the Ustasha movement ascribe its
genocidal program to “Great Serb hegemony, violence and the economic exploi-
tation of Croatia.” Elsewhere, they refer to a common Chetnik-Partisan agenda
to destroy the Independent State of Croatia and recreate Yugoslavia, thereby
reinforcing the state’s implicit legitimacy as distinct from that of the Ustasha
movement.6 However, as Ljiljana Radonić has pointed out, the curators of the
Jasenovac Memorial Museum—located at the site of the largest Ustasha death
camp complex, Jasenovac-Stara Gradiška, where an estimated hundred thou-
sand inmates perished—have signaled a break with the state-regime paradigm
by placing the former’s cultural achievements in the framework of the terror and
repression that structured it.7
For the state’s zealous young ideologues, however, there was no distinction
between the movement and the nation-state. They articulated the view that the
4 Rory Yeomans

Ustasha movement was bringing into being a regenerated state and individual
modeled on a set of revolutionary ideas. The end result would be the refashioning
of Croatian citizens as new Ustasha men and women, inculcated with Ustasha
principles, living in an Ustasha state. The expression “the Ustasha state,” routinely
used by the movement’s ideological cadres, expressed the profound ways in which
they believed that the life of the state, its citizens, and the movement should be
synthesized into one mass shared existence. For them, the Ustasha state’s racial
and cultural politics were not only inseparable but intimately connected. When
commentators wrote approvingly of the role of student militias in liberating the
state from the influence of unwanted populations, they were not simply arguing
that these groups should be removed to create a racially purified state but also
expressing their belief that these “undesired elements” would present an obstacle
to the modernization of the nation and creation of a new citizen imbued with
Ustasha values. Only after the external “revolution of blood,” as the movement
termed its violent program of national purification, had been completed could a
“second revolution” of internal regeneration be launched. As such, the defining
program of the Ustasha movement to purify the nation through terror ultimately
informed every aspect of cultural, social, and economic life. This does not mean
that the social and cultural visions outlined by social planners, economic experts,
or cultural advisers were simply functional. Nevertheless, many of these transfor-
mative projects were connected to wider racial plans and demographic concerns.
In a nation-state in which the practice of terror and utopian processes were inter-
dependent, the Ustasha state constituted a utopia of terror.
The essays in The Utopia of Terror provide new perspectives on the relation-
ship between the Ustasha state’s politics of construction and destruction. Bringing
together established historians of the Ustasha regime with an emerging generation
of younger historians, The Utopia of Terror explores various aspects of everyday life
and death in the Ustasha state that until now have received only peripheral atten-
tion by historians. The contributors argue for a more complex consideration of the
relationship between mass terror and utopianism in which both are seen as part
of the same process rather than as discrete phenomena. In so doing, they aim to
bring new perspectives, generate original thinking, and provide enhanced under-
standing of both the Ustasha regime’s attempts to remake Croatian society and its
campaign to destroy what it perceived as “enemy” and alien group identities.
While interdisciplinary and comparative approaches have long been a feature
in studies of European fascism and the radical right, they have rarely been system-
atically applied to the Ustasha regime—and, in fact, have sometimes been actively
resisted.8 If the essays in this collection are united by a common approach, it is
their commitment to the imaginative use of interdisciplinary methodologies and
primary sources to construct a more complex picture of the Ustasha state. Like
some recent studies of other European fascist movements, The Utopia of Terror
 Introduction 5

aims to move away from totalitarian conceptual models, exploring how ordinary
people at all levels of society negotiated their place in the state. The essays chal-
lenge prevailing interpretations of the Ustasha state in which resistance has been
given a privileged status and the complexity of social support and public opinion
pushed to the margins. By viewing citizens as active agents of historical events,
this volume provides a more nuanced understanding of how society functioned
under Ustasha rule with respect to the relationship between the party-state and
ordinary citizens; between economics and racial politics; among intellectuals,
institutions, and the regime; and between mass terror and everyday culture from
the “inside out.”
In view of the long-standing historiographical marginalization of the Ustasha
regime, the contributors share the belief that it is only through the application
of comparative and interdisciplinary approaches that it can be transformed from
marginal interest to mainstream research, thereby becoming an integral part of the
discussion on European fascism. In so doing, these essays contribute to a better
understanding of what was unique to the Ustasha state and what was common to
other fascist states and movements. In addition to contributing to scholarship on
the Ustasha state, therefore, these essays aim to provide context for the ongoing
debate about the troubling nature and legacy of European fascism.

Mass Terror and Fascist Modernity

The brutal contradictions of mass killing and high culture have been characteristic
of most states in the twentieth century structured by terror; in that respect the
resources the Ustasha state devoted to the incarnation of a new national culture
legitimating new cultural, racial, and ideological orthodoxies is hardly unique.
What makes the Ustasha state different from other fascist states in Hitler’s new
Europe is the extent to which the evolution of cultural policy reflected the course
of the state’s terror against minorities. The campaign of economic destruction,
terror, and mass killing unleashed by Ustasha militias in the countryside and eco-
nomic ministries in the cities to purify the nation of “undesired” elements was a
necessary precondition, according to Ustasha ideologues, for the construction of a
national community founded on the principles of discipline, work, social justice,
and the transformation of the individual into an Ustasha subject imbued with
the principles of “Croatian socialism.” Many scholars now agree that the Final
Solution of the European Jews by the Third Reich (as opposed to their marginal-
ization and increasing persecution) emerged gradually. By contrast, the destruc-
tion of the Serbs and the Jews was intrinsic to the Ustasha goal of constructing a
“national community” (narodna zajednica). A nationally regenerated, culturally
autarchic state characterized by social mobility and a new consciousness could
6 Rory Yeomans

not be realized until the nation had been purified. By the time the campaign of
terror was aborted in the summer of 1942, it had embedded itself in the patterns
of daily life and culture, impacting citizens’ everyday activities: the shops they vis-
ited, the people they talked to, the concerts they attended, the films they saw, and
the books they read. While the state was never able to realize its totalizing vision
of a national community, it nevertheless used the promise of cultural revolution
and social mobility as a means of compensating radical, hard-line factions of the
movement disillusioned by the failure fully to realize the purification of the state
from community “aliens.”
Despite the fact that historians have long debated whether the Ustasha move-
ment and the state it built were genuinely fascist, many key ideological, cultural,
and economic aspects of the state clearly drew on the ideas of Italian Fascism
and other European fascist movements. The desire to build a “new man” (novi
čovjek) who would not only be physically merciless but intellectually and spiritu-
ally purified, the vanguard of the regeneration of the nation, was a central element
of Ustasha thinking. Similarly, Ustasha ideologues interpreted the foundation of
the Ustasha state not just as the liberation of the Croatian nation from colonial
oppression but, like other fascist movements, as a national temporal revolution,
the beginning of “new time.” Like most fascist movements, too, the discourse of
the Ustasha state was highly sacralized, shot through with allusions to sacrifice,
martyrdom, and the afterlife of dead warriors. Fundamentally utopian, Ustasha
ideologues wanted to refashion society from within, transforming Croatian citi-
zens into Ustasha subjects through the remaking of aesthetic, cultural, economic,
and social relations. Since the emergence of the groundbreaking scholarship of
George Mosse on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy more than four decades ago,
scholars looking for comparative models to understand the Ustasha state have long
been able to draw on a rich and diverse collection of studies exploring the terms
of the temporal, palingenetic, and sacralized cultural revolution fascism seemed to
promise.9 From the perspective of understanding the symbiotic link of the prom-
ise of cultural revolution, the building of a national community, and mass ter-
ror, however, the Ustasha state was arguably much closer to Nazi Germany and
Stalinist Russia than other major European fascist states, most of which either did
not engage in systematic terror or, in the context of occupied Europe, lacked the
power or resources to implement their plans. Fascist states such as Italy and Spain
might have sought to inculcate their citizens with a new fascist consciousness and
incarnate a national temporal revolution, but only in the Ustasha state was its real-
ization predicated on mass terror, economic destruction, and the violent removal
of “aliens” from the national community.10
For all the many insights and innovations that the culturalist school has
brought to our understanding of European fascism, its methodological lens of cul-
tural revolution has tended to focus on “from above” phenomena such as public
 Introduction 7

culture, festivals, spectacle, propaganda, intellectualism, and literature.11 In his

defense of the cultural approach, Mosse, writing in an often-quoted essay of 1996,
argued that viewing fascism as a cultural revolution meant “seeing fascism as it
saw itself and as its followers saw it, to attempt to understand the movement on
its own terms.” Cultural history, he continued, considered the perceptions of men
and women and how these were shaped and enlisted in politics at a particular
place and time. Since fascism addressed people’s perceptions of their situation in
life and their hopes for the future, it was essential to understand how fascist self-
representation was “so successful in taking up and satisfying these perceptions if
we want to gauge the depth of the movement’s appeal.”12 Thus, while the cultural-
ist approach pioneered by George Mosse, Emilio Gentile, and others was enor-
mously important in constructing a fuller picture of how those actively engaged
with the fascist project from the top or just below the top—ideologists, artists,
novelists, architects, party and youth leaders, social theorists, scientists—viewed
society and the place of fascism within it, this perspective was inevitably based on
public expressions of opinion, whether in journals and newspapers or in novels,
theoretical treatises, designs, or exhibition guides. By contrast, the new cultural
history provided relatively little insight into the views of low-level bureaucrats,
grassroots party activists, ordinary people, or regional leaders; the inner workings
of ministries, agencies, and institutions; or the interplay among victims, beneficia-
ries, and supplicants under fascism. However, as Christian Gerlach pointed out in
his recent groundbreaking study of “mass violence,” terror is often driven by pres-
sure from below rather than orders from above.13 Therefore, it can only be fully
explored if it is approached through an interdisciplinary framework that includes
social history and the history of everyday life, aspects that English-language schol-
arship on fascism, at least, has tended to pay less attention to.14
In an article of 2002 proclaiming the emergence of a “cultural consensus” in
fascist studies, Roger Griffin, a leading member of the culturalist school, neverthe-
less took the opportunity to acknowledge its empirical and methodological weak-
nesses. He argued that the cultural approach needed to evolve in a more empirical
direction that would engage fully with human experience so that its experts were
no longer able “to get away with focusing on leaders, elites, propaganda, social
engineering and national Sonderwege, or with revelling in abstruse hermeneutic
model-building.”15 In his reply to Griffin, David Roberts countered that the cul-
turalist approach demonstrated an inability to take fascism seriously, in particular
its economic and social ideas, despite their centrality to the Italian fascist vision.
Ideas of national rebirth were important, Roberts conceded, but their overempha-
sis tended to obscure the fact that the fascists did not believe that they were simply
recovering a lost equilibrium. “Rather the nation was positioned to step to the
international forefront by addressing, in radically new ways, inadequacies of the
modern western liberal-positivist-materialist mainstream that had come to light
8 Rory Yeomans

through recent experience but that the complacent democracies lacked the will
to address.” More important, perhaps, the cultural turn implied a “complacent
‘anything goes’ relativism,” leaving Italian Fascism as one culture among others to
be taken on its own terms and forgetting that the fascist regime was “vicious, cruel
and a failure.” The culturalist approach then “tends to preclude drawing the essen-
tial ethical lessons from historical experience.” Elsewhere, he argued for an inter-
disciplinary approach to fascism that would combine from-above and from-below
approaches; synthesize cultural, social, and economic history as well as the his-
tory of everyday life; and draw on comparisons not just with Nazi Germany and
fascist states but also with the Soviet experiment up until the end of the Stalinist
era at least.16 Alexander de Grand, meanwhile, argued that the cultural approach
revealed little about how fascist regimes functioned in practice, how they were
structured, or the various interest groups and factions within them competing for
power and influence, from radical to reactionary. Hence, it missed the “element
of coalition politics” with which fascism sought to accommodate the desires of
traditional elites and the utopian visions of revolutionaries.17 This echoed Robert
Paxton’s admonition that those studying fascism needed to “observe it in daily
operation using all the social sciences” to comprehend the four-way power strug-
gle “among the leader, his party (whose militants clamour for jobs, perquisites,
expansionist adventures, and the fulfilment of elements of the early radical pro-
gramme), the regular state functionaries such as police commanders and magis-
trates and the traditional elites—churches, the army, the professions and business
leaders.”18 But if this approach was still too top-down, emphasizing what was hap-
pening in the bureaucracy and party over the lives of ordinary people, then Sergio
Luzzatto memorably proposed that, to properly understand fascism, historians
could no longer rely on “the slogans of rabble-rousers, the theories of ideologists
and the rhetoric of journalists” but would increasingly have to “rake through the
school libraries of the Ventennio, attend the country fairs, visit the farmhouses,
study carefully the posters in the streets, follow pregnant mothers into the deliv-
ery rooms, and turn up at scientific conferences,” rushing like the ogre in Marc
Bloch’s fable “everywhere they get the slightest whiff of human flesh.”19
The sanguinary character of the Ustasha state was unusual but not unique
among major fascist states of the 1940s. Like Croatia, wartime Romania, includ-
ing the short-lived National Legionary state led by the Iron Guard, for example,
engaged in systematic and widespread terror and violence against minorities, espe-
cially Jews and Roma. In the period between 1940 and 1945, as many as four
hundred thousand Jews were murdered either in mass executions, during deporta-
tions to the East, or in concentration camps.20 Ideas about national regeneration
and social justice clearly played an important role in legitimating the Holocaust in
Romania, as they did in many other wartime fascist states in Europe. Seen from
this perspective, the study of the Ustasha state is helpful in understanding wider
 Introduction 9

European experiences of fascism. That said, given the intensity of the relation-
ship between Ustasha terror on the one hand and cultural revolution, economic
transformation, and social engineering on the other, it is arguable that scholarship
about Stalinist terror and the Final Solution provides an equally useful compara-
tive framework for considering how Ustasha terror intersected with wider social
processes. In her groundbreaking 1979 study about the interdependence of ter-
ror and cultural revolution, Education and Social Mobility in Soviet Russia, Sheila
Fitzpatrick, a pioneer of the “revisionist” historical school of the Stalinist period,
argued that the Great Terror was partly driven by pressure from below for a cul-
tural and generational revolution. The purges of the 1930s, she noted, produced
many beneficiaries as well as victims, in particular a young generation of techno-
crats called the viydvizhenie, who had been able to access education at workers’
technical colleges at the time of the first five-year plan and had thereafter been
promoted into positions in industry, administration, and political leadership on
the principle of “proletarian advancement.” Fitzpatrick also sought to demon-
strate that the cultural revolution of the late 1920s, which had resulted in sweep-
ing changes in academia, literature, the arts, industry, and economics, was not a
simple “from above” process but a response to pressure from below on the part of
the emerging viydvizhenie involved in a class struggle against executives, bosses,
and the intelligentsia whom they believed were blocking their path to promotion.
Factory workers were also tapping into the culture of denunciation of the “Great
Turn,” denouncing “corrupt” powerful factory bosses, administrators, and local
secretaries. In Fitzpatrick’s view, the era of the Great Terror represented a consen-
sus between the Soviet leadership and wider society in which the violent removal
of “bourgeois specialists” ran parallel to a second campaign of affirmative action
to create a new “worker and peasant intelligentsia.” Terror, social mobility, and
cultural change were thus closely connected.21 In the same period as the Great
Terror, the state was also promoting “normality” and middle-class values as part
of this culture of consensus. As literary scholar Vera Dunham showed in her study
of popular fiction in the 1930s, In Stalin’s Time, Stalinism offered the aspiring
emergent middle classes a “Big Deal” involving social mobility, greater material
rewards, and a glimpse of the good life in exchange for loyalty to the system. It
was this agreement, she wrote, rather than terror, that explained the persistence of
both Stalinism and the Soviet system.22
History “from below” has also long been a characteristic of writing about the
Third Reich. The emergence of social history as an important historiographical
methodology in the late 1960s as well as the need to explain why so many ordinary
Germans had acquiesced to the rule of the Nazi regime and, ultimately, the Final
Solution led some social historians and political scientists to understand the appeal
of National Socialism in its modernizing aspects. According to the modernization
theory, pioneered in studies such as Ralf Dahrendorf ’s Society and Democracy in
10 Rory Yeomans

Germany and David Schoenbaum’s Hitler’s Social Revolution, National Socialism

inculcated a social revolution characterized by the breaking up of social hierar-
chies and transformation of society, albeit as a by-product of National Socialist
rule rather than its aim.23 The concept of a Nazi social revolution was then devel-
oped by a younger generation of historians, such as Martin Broszat and Hans
Mommsen, who combined it with an interest in everyday aspects of Nazi rule.
Broszat, in particular, a pioneer of the Alltagsgeschichte approach to the study of
the Nazi period, called for the “historicization” and “normalization” of the Nazi
era, arguing that it should be integrated into wider German history rather than be
seen as an exceptional parenthesis. Only by doing so, he argued, could historians
assess in what ways Nazism represented continuity and in what senses a break
with the national past. Pointing to commonalities in Nazi social welfare policy
and those of democratic postwar West Germany, Broszat argued that the “still-evi-
dent tendency even, in part, in historical research to interpret all cases of change
in the National Socialist era, especially in the area of economics and law, solely
from the viewpoint of their function in the stabilization of the regime” served to
“hermetically seal” National Socialism in its entirety from mainstream German
history, hindering understanding.24
Among the many studies addressing Nazi modernization, one of the most con-
troversial was Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann’s 1991 Nationalsozialismus und
Modernisierung, which argued that social and economic revolution was an inten-
tional aim of Nazi policy, rather than an incidental outcome. Strongly influenced,
as the editors wrote, by Broszat’s contentious historicization arguments, the book
looked at diverse aspects of the Nazi modernization program such as social plan-
ning, economic policy, town planning, communal education, and economic reform.
Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung argued, as Zitelmann set out in the open-
ing essay/first chapter, that the driving aim of National Socialism was to modern-
ize German society and transform Germany into a highly developed, industrially
advanced technological society, an endeavor that was hindered by a cautious bureau-
cratic class. Zitelmann wrote that the Nazis envisaged a society in which an idle
bourgeoisie would be replaced by upwardly mobile workers with opportunities for
social advancement in a planned economy modeled on the Soviet economy. More
provocatively still, Zitelmann maintained that, rather than a means to achieving
lebensraum in the East, racial purification was a functional means of transform-
ing and modernizing German society. Anticipating the criticisms that followed
in the wake of their book, he emphasized that the Nazi modernization program
should not be viewed from the contemporary liberal understanding of the concept.
Rather, since there were numerous examples throughout history of modernization
programs being implemented by violent antidemocratic governments, it should be
understood as “value-free.” Drawing a parallel with the revisionist school of Soviet
history, like Broszat, he noted that the Nazi modernization project had remained
 Introduction 11

underresearched because of ethical, not empirical, barriers, despite the fact that it
was central to understanding the appeal of Nazism.25
Prinz and Zitelmann’s book attracted strong criticism from other histori-
ans of the Third Reich. Critics like Jens Alber and Norbert Frei, for example,
contended that, in linking National Socialism so closely to modernization, the
authors had presented a dishonest, distorted picture of life in Nazi Germany in
which the impacts of the modernization process and the politics that informed
it were divorced from society and everyday life.26 For his part, Hans Mommsen
criticized the authors for taking too much of Nazism’s claims at face value and
failing to acknowledge the uses to which it put its modernization program.27 At
around the same time, the research of two young scholars, Suzanne Heim and
Götz Aly, linking Nazi economic modernization to racial purification in the East,
proved even more contentious. Their study Vordenker der Vernichtnung, asserting
that the Holocaust in the East was driven by National Socialist plans for eco-
nomic modernization and social transformation, not racial ideology, provoked a
lively debate that quickly became rancorous, as accusations of Holocaust relativ-
ism reverberated.28
The modernization debate also had a direct impact on the study of cultural
aspects of the Third Reich. In contrast to fascist studies where a “from-above”
cultural history separate from ideology or politics began to emerge, the empha-
sis that Third Reich studies placed on social history also meant that cultural his-
tory stressed “from-below” methodologies. Owing to the enormity of the Final
Solution, study of the everyday culture of Nazi Germany was less often divorced
from the ideological context in which it had emerged. Studies of consumption,
travel, leisure, and advertising aimed to better understand its racial politics and
the genesis of the Final Solution through an analysis of Nazism’s “dream spaces.”
In an overview of scholarship on Nazi modernism ten years after the publica-
tion of Prinz and Zitelmann’s volume, Paul Betts argued that, while analysis of
advertising, entertainment cinema, industrial design, television, sex culture, and
autobahns might appear of marginal importance, they were central to exploring
“how ‘trivial culture’ related to the broader Nazi campaign to intensify the iden-
tification of the people with the government by dissolving all political resistance,
cultural distance and racial difference in an aesthetic ideal of unified purpose and
imperialist mission.” Studies of the “happy illusion” of Nazi modernism not only
challenged prevailing Cold War views of Nazi culture but represented a move
away from “moralizing narratives of mass manipulation toward fuller descrip-
tive accounts of the emotional linchpins of fascist everyday life” and how consent
for Nazi terror was built.29 A pioneering work in this regard was Peter Reichel’s
1992 Der schöne Schein des Drittes Reich, which explored social relations in Nazi
Germany through an examination of its leisure, holiday, festival, and entertain-
ment worlds. From the outset, Reichel conceded that his undertaking might not
12 Rory Yeomans

be popular, but it was important because examination of the way in which the
Third Reich “aestheticised” reality contributed to the ongoing deconstruction of
the “totalitarian” image of Nazi Germany. Reichel argued that the Third Reich,
like all fascist states, possessed an inherent duality combining visions of utopia
and terror. Exploring the “beautiful glitter” of the Third Reich did not mean rela-
tivizing its crimes; on the contrary, along with violence and brutality, “the aes-
thetic, permanent depiction of a beautiful reality was an absolute necessity for
the stability of the regime,” a means of avoiding class conflict and postponing
difficult social questions. However, the longer this process lasted and the less the
official depiction of “reality” was taken to be true, the more it developed a sys-
temic dynamic of its own.30
More recent cultural histories of the Third Reich have similarly shown how
ideas about pleasure, luxury, and consumption were connected to the joys of
genocide. Pleasure and Pain in Nazi Germany, for example, argued that, unless
the pleasurable aspects of the Third Reich were understood, the pain of the Nazi
state could not be understood either, since they were integrally linked. The idea
of “strength through joy” made pain and pleasure mutually reinforcing. “Strength
came through joy and joy came through strength,” the authors wrote. “A con-
tented people were a more productive people and thus stronger people; and only a
strong people could expect to achieve lasting contentment in the eternal struggle
between the races.” Furthermore, Nazism saw pleasure not as a private concern
but as a social and communal experience; it could consist in making sacrifices and
experiencing pain for the good of the state or the Volksgemeinschaft, the people’s
community, a dynamic expressed in organized social solidarity actions such as
Winter Help and One-Pot Sunday. Both of these, as with territorial conquest in
the East or the Final Solution, required Nazi citizens to make sacrifices on behalf
of the German nation. But, rather than see these as forms of manipulation and
control as a totalitarian model might, the book considered how ordinary people
responded to and subverted these pleasures, illustrating the limits to the power of
the Nazi state. As a result, like Reichel, they deconstructed the totalitarian model
of a manipulated population, highlighting the discrepancy between the grandi-
ose mind-shifting claims of Nazism and the ambiguous reality.31 In her study of
the mass tourism and leisure organization Strength through Joy (Kraft durch
Freude), Shelley Baranowski persuasively argued that not only does study of
the activities of the Strength through Joy illuminate the economic and social
policy behind the alluring promises of a taste of luxury and the good life, but
it illustrates how such organizations served the racial aims of the völkisch state
by separating ethnic Germans from racial outsiders, offering them a glimpse of
a future characterized by cultural enlightenment and economic prosperity once
racial living space had been acquired.32 In his Creating the Nazi Marketplace,
meanwhile, S. Jonathan Wiesen explored Nazi Germany’s attempt to create an
 Introduction 13

“ethical marketplace,” focusing on the challenges the state faced in the devel-
opment of a new kind of economy that would provide ordinary German con-
sumers with goods they wanted to buy while simultaneously dissuading them
from purchasing goods associated with “Jewish materialism.” National Socialist
consumer experts hoped that this would create a consumer consciousness in
harmony with the demands of constructing the racial Volksgemeinschaft.33
The study of the Volksgemeinschaft has produced arguably some of the most
insightful new scholarship on everyday culture and terror in Nazi Germany. The
concept of the Volksgemeinschaft referred to an imagined order, the structure into
which Nazi planners aimed to reshape German society. It encompassed an almost
limitless field of social action and cultural production and, since the concept was
inherently vague, was open to diverse interpretations by officials and citizens alike,
achieving a concrete form only once it had become social practice.34 This vague-
ness meant that while it required all members of the community (Volksgenossen)
to transcend their individual identity for a national collective one united in
purpose, it held out a vision of a future prosperous utopia. As a result, many
ordinary Germans were prepared to accept the intrusion of Volksgemeinschaft prin-
ciples into many spheres of everyday life, viewing it as a price worth paying for
future material well-being. Moreover, while the Volksgemeinschaft had a collec-
tive nature, strictly separating members of the national community from racial
and social “community aliens” (Gemeinschaftsfremden), it consciously sought to
appeal to Germans on an individual level, offering them opportunities for social
mobility, professional advancement, and a socially equal, racially unified commu-
nity. However, its ubiquity in everyday life meant that, over time, whether they
believed in the concept of the Volksgemeinschaft or not, German citizens began to
speak its language, drawing on its motifs, discourse, and ideas when seeking to
further their own interests or appealing to authority. The call to action issued by
the Volksgemeinschaft involved individuals constructing their individual sense of
self through a collective identity. While many citizens who were not convinced
National Socialists tried to retain their personal belief structure, this proved to be
a “daily struggle.” And, when the promise of future social equality, mobility, and
prosperity failed, coercion, repression, and terror could be used instead.35
Recent studies such as Marina Steber and Bernhard Gotto’s Visions of
Community in Nazi Germany, exploring how the Volksgemeinschaft sought to
transform everyday life and attitudes, identify insiders and outsiders, and refash-
ion German citizens into Nazi subjects synthesize the terror and modernization
of Nazi society in ways that neither reduce the Third Reich to the inevitability of
the Holocaust nor artificially separate the Final Solution from National Socialism’s
economic and cultural politics. Rather, they enable historians to explore every-
day life and ideology in Nazi Germany from the perspective of beneficiaries,
victims, supplicants, and subjects—the full range of human experience—and to
14 Rory Yeomans

explore issues of consent, resistance, and social support. The new scholarship on
the Volksgemeinschaft represents a methodological synthesis of social history and
cultural history, exploring the relationship between political terror and visions of
utopia, the interplay between ideology and social practice, and the complexity of
individual attitudes under the pressure of collective politics. While the construc-
tion of a Volksgemeinschaft incarnated a new class of racially conscious citizens
who were, on the face of it, beneficiaries of the people’s community, they were
nonetheless confronted by its “demands, offers, threats and violent practices and
had to find their way through the maze this entailed.”36
Historians are increasingly attending to the social practices of terror, everyday
experience, and cultural revolution in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia from
a comparative perspective that moves beyond a totalitarian interpretation.37
Similarly, the social history of the Great Terror in Stalinist Russia and daily life in
the Volksgemeinschaft provides potential models for historians of European fascism
seeking to understand the relationship between everyday culture and terror, espe-
cially those studying the Ustasha state. With its pretensions to a new “regenerated”
Ustasha subject imbued with an “ethical” consciousness; defined by order, work,
and discipline; and nourished through access to education, social mobility, and
cultural enlightenment, the promise of a good life extended by the future national
community once the obstruction of community “aliens” had been removed pro-
vides a path to understanding the culture of the everyday for ordinary people liv-
ing in extraordinary times under Ustasha rule.
Despite the often sharp differences of opinion that existed among totalitar-
ian and revisionist historical schools of the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia, the
emergence of “from-below” approaches to the study of both Nazi Germany and
Stalinist Russia was partly made possible because most historians shared a com-
mon view on the basic facts of the Great Terror and the Holocaust, however much
they might disagree in their interpretations of its origins and causes.38 This was
not the case with historiographical interpretations of the Ustasha state. Following
the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the existing consensus about the funda-
mentally criminal nature of the Ustasha regime disappeared. Instead, with the rise
of nationalism, especially in Serbia and Croatia, historiography began to follow
a “national” line in which basic facts as much as interpretations were contested.
For most of the 1990s, historiography of the Second World War generally and
the Ustasha regime in particular demonstrated the continued relevance of histo-
rian Mirjana Gross’s 1996 observation that in post-Communist Yugoslavia history
writing was still governed as much by politics and the present as by historical
events and the past.39 During this period, Serbian historians overwhelmingly
concentrated on the Ustasha movement’s campaign of terror, mass murder, and
forced assimilation against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies and the alleged complicity of
the Catholic Church in the mass program of conversion to Catholicism.40 Many,
 Introduction 15

but by no means all, studies either relegated resistance among ordinary Croatians
to the margins or ignored it completely, implicitly suggesting that the genocidal
policies of the Ustasha movement enjoyed popular support. This argument was
made explicit in some studies. In a 1986 article, for instance, Vasilje Krestić wrote
not only that the crimes of the Ustasha regime enjoyed popular support but that,
throughout its history, the Croatian nation—as opposed to its most extreme
element—had entertained fantasies about the destruction of its Serb conation-
als.41 Although Croatian historiography followed a very different trajectory, it
was similarly informed by ideological agendas. The nationalistic atmosphere that
erupted in the early 1990s ensured that many Croatian studies adopted a strongly
apologetic discourse that minimized, relativized, or even denied the crimes of the
Ustasha regime.42 The most egregious examples went so far as to appropriate the
language and rationalizations of Ustasha intellectuals.43 Literary studies played
a particularly important role in this new historiographical paradigm since they
often uncritically examined cultural politics in the Ustasha state largely decontex-
tualized from any reference to the terror that informed it.44
Paradoxically, though, these same cultural studies represented an important
step forward in research terms since they provided, for the first time, an insight
into the worldview of some of the state’s most ideologically committed artists
and writers, a subject that had been avoided in socialist historiography. Over
time, they were also complemented by more critical studies that explored the
connections between cultural politics and broader processes of coercion and ter-
ror and the tensions, factions, and rivalries that informed the ideological life
of the state.45 On the one hand, this historiographical trend has intensified in
recent years as Croatian scholars have increasingly examined the state’s intellec-
tual, cultural, and social projects within the broader framework of its campaigns
of racial purification and terror.46 On the other hand, scholarship on the Ustasha
state, even cultural, micro-, and everyday history, continues to be dominated
by narrative-driven, “from-above” perspectives in which comparative, interdis-
ciplinary, and social history methodologies play little role.47 Although revision-
ist and relativist arguments are less dominant than they were, they remain an
important element in studies of the Ustasha regime, ironically, sometimes citing
interdisciplinary approaches in European and American scholarship on fascism
to legitimize their approach.48
Western scholarship on the Ustasha regime has experienced a correspond-
ingly evolutionary process. For many years, research on the Independent State of
Croatia represented a marginal area of interest for historians of European fascism.
With the exception of a few key studies, research tended to be not just limited
in scope but also methodologically narrow and, because it was often influenced
either by émigré sources or Cold War understandings, frequently empirically
questionable or openly partisan.49 This picture has only begun to change in the
16 Rory Yeomans

past decade with the emergence of a younger generation of scholars addressing a

range of underresearched topics related to Ustasha rule. These have ranged from
local and microhistories to broader analyses covering subjects as diverse as social
mobility, gender, urban life and resistance, cultural politics, and the construc-
tion of a racially homogeneous society.50 Increasingly, comparative approaches
have also begun to integrate the Ustasha regime into mainstream discussions of
European fascism.51

Remaking Citizens in the Surveillance State

Looking back at the events of April 1941 from three years’ distance, the former
mayor of Bjelovar Julije Makanec remembered the establishment of the Ustasha
state not only as an exhilarating national revolution but also as the most exciting
period of his life. In his reminiscence about the “uprising,” Makanec, by then the
state’s education minister, recalled how, in the days between April 8 and 10 when a
rebellious army garrison had refused to obey the orders of their Serb commanders,
“young Bjelovar Ustashas” were already marching to meet the rebels and offer their
support. To assist the uprising, he had ordered the distribution of weapons to high
school students and members of local youth groups as well as “respected” older
citizens, his mayoral headquarters full of young people “armed to the teeth” and
just waiting for the command to go into battle against the Serbs. Consequently,
following the surrender of the Yugoslav army in the town, Makanec proclaimed
the resurrection of a Croatian state from the balcony of the municipal buildings
before thousands of Croatian citizens and soldiers. “Armed Croatian youth and
Ustashas, together with the police, patrolled the city and brought from all sides
arrested Chetniks and various other suspicious elements so that in a few hours all
the prisons were full,” he wrote nostalgically.52
Despite the fact that the new state had been bought into being by the Axis
invasion of Yugoslavia in March 1941, many ordinary citizens, as Makanec did,
viewed the creation of the Ustasha state as the culmination of a national revolu-
tion. It was not just the radical right that perceived the triumphant Ustasha leader-
ship returning to Zagreb as the representatives of a liberation movement, however;
this view was more widely shared. In the heady days of April 1941, newspapers
captured the ecstatic mood with photographic montages showing citizens embrac-
ing in celebration, university students waving flags on the sides of cars and backs
of motorbikes, and women presenting newly demobilized Croatian soldiers with
bouquets of flowers. The institutions created in the formative period of the state
reflected both the desire of the Ustasha movement to transform Croatia through
social and cultural refashioning and its commitment to establishing a new nation-
state through terror and purification.
 Introduction 17

Despite the fact that the Ustasha movement portrayed itself as an organization
representing the will of the entire nation, which was leading the citizens toward
cultural enlightenment and social justice, like all totalitarian movements, it was
inherently unstable and heterogeneous, composed of a multiplicity of factions and
interest groups struggling for influence and favor with the leadership. There was
also a variety of regional, generational, and cultural conflicts. Consequently, many
of the state’s policies were challenged from within, subject to sudden reversals, and
inherently contradictory. Moreover, from the outset, the state suffered from a cri-
sis of legitimacy. The Ustasha movement portrayed itself as a mass movement for
national liberation and the Ustasha state as the successful outcome of the struggle
to free the nation from foreign occupation. Yet an “independent” Croatian state had
been achieved only through Axis invasion and the new state’s stability guaranteed
by German and Italian occupation forces. While few states in the Nazi new order
enjoyed as much autonomy in regard to cultural, social, and racial politics as the
Ustasha state—at least until the end of 1942—the Croatian state was, nonetheless,
a condominium state divided into two zones of occupation, with Nazi Germany
controlling the western regions and Fascist Italy occupying the Adriatic Coast, for
nationalists the “cradle” of Croatian civilization. There were humiliating condi-
tions attached to this arrangement. Following the signing of the May 1941 Treaty
of Rome, not only was the Adriatic Coast placed under Italian occupation and local
Croats subjected to an enforced campaign of “Italianization,” but the treaty imposed
an Italian duke as the progenitor of a new “Croatian” royal dynasty.
In the Ustasha state, power was centralized in the hands of the leader of the
Ustasha movement, Ante Pavelić, who became the supreme chief (Poglavnik)
of the state, and his most trusted adjutants, deputies, and advisers in the Main
Ustasha Headquarters (Glavni Ustaški stan—GUS). There were three basic units
of authority in the state. The first, civilian section included all registered members
of the movement: male Ustashas; female Ustashas who were organized in the Vine
of Ustasha Women (Ženska loza Ustaškog pokreta); the Ustasha University Center
(Ustaški sveučilištni stožer) for student members; and the youth wing, the Ustasha
Youth (Ustaška mladež). In May 1941, a central syndicate, the Main Alliance of
Professions and Other Syndicates (Glavni savez staliških i drugih postrojbi), was
established. Its director, the philosopher Aleksandar Seitz, developed a corporatist
and organic theory of economic production that he termed “Croatian socialism.”
Its core principles included the state control of industry, the dominant role of
the “national community” in regulating economic relations, and social and class
harmony. In the summer of 1942 the Main Alliance announced its formal inclu-
sion of the Ustasha workers’ organization, the Croatian Workers’ Union (Hrvatski
radnički savez), which had sections for social welfare, employment rights, and
economic policy as well as a dedicated research unit for the development of corpo-
rativist theory and a workers’ leisure organization, Odmor (Rest).53
18 Rory Yeomans

The other central institutions of the state were dedicated to the construction,
through terror, of a nationally purified state, comprising a network of militias
and death squads such as the Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade (Poglavnikov tjelesni
sdrug—PTS), Black Legion (Crna legija), and Ustasha Corps (Ustaška vojnica),
modeled on the SS. A Croatian army, commanded by Slavko Kvaternik, was also
created, although unlike the movement’s paramilitary organizations it played a
minor role in the implementation of terror. Perhaps the most important branch
of the Ustasha state was the security service, whose activities were overseen by
the Ustasha Surveillance Service (Ustaška nadzorna služba—UNS) and a paral-
lel agency, the Directorate for Public Order and Security (Ravnateljstvo za javni
red i sigurnost). The UNS consisted of four main bureaus, the most important
of which were the first three. Bureau 1, incorporating the Ustasha police, was
charged with suppressing dissent. It also operated special departments dealing
with Jewish and Serb questions. Bureau 2, headed by Viktor Tomić, comprised
the intelligence service (Obavještajna služba), whose network of agents monitored
and rooted out antistate and seditious elements. Bureau 3, meanwhile, constituted
the Ustasha Defense (Ustaška obrana) led by Vjekoslav Luburić, which adminis-
tered the concentration camp system. As with the UNS, the Directorate for Public
Order and Security contained a network of offices and directorates dedicated to
the liquidation of national enemies and political opponents.
Like the Ustasha movement, the state was organized on a system of interdepen-
dent revolutionary units.54 According to the movement’s 1929 constitution, there
were four basic organizational levels. Below GUS stood the largest organizational
unit, the center (štozer), which comprised a number of camps (logor). These, in turn,
were made up of concentrations (tabor). The base unit was the swarm (roj). After
the founding of the state, regional branches of the movement were organized into
centers, camps, concentrations, and swarms. Similarly, the state was divided into
twenty-two provinces, the equivalent of centers; these were subdivided into 141 dis-
tricts, replicating camps; underneath these were 1,037 communes performing the
role of concentrations; and at the base level was the swarm, which represented a unit
as large as a village or city neighborhood or as small as an individual street or apart-
ment block. One of the aims of this structure was to create a surveillance state in
which citizens would be under observation at all times, since even at the most basic
unit of the apartment block their activities would be watched by Ustasha activists.
The replication of the movement’s structure in the state also aimed to ensure that all
social classes and professions would be incorporated into the movement’s ranks.55
Yet this arrangement also had profound implications for efficient administra-
tion, since the dual party-state structure meant that rivalry between state institu-
tions and party organizations was endemic. This fact, combined with the high
degree of autonomy that regional leaders enjoyed, ensured that power struggles
and factionalism between local Ustasha leaders and branches, on the one hand,
 Introduction 19

and state officials and the central GUS authorities, on the other, were frequent.
As a consequence, despite the Ustasha movement’s claim to be constructing a new
national consciousness and state that would overcome the social and regional divi-
sions of the past, a complex administrative structure resulted in a state character-
ized by a high degree of regional variation, conflict, and contestation.
At the same time the state was establishing various institutions for the imple-
mentation of terror, it created a number of cultural institutions aimed at the mass
indoctrination, education, and acculturation of ordinary citizens. Chief among
these was the Main Directorate for Mass National Enlightenment (Glavno
ravnateljstvo za opće narodno prosvjećivanje—NARPROS), originally founded
in October 1941 as an institute within the Ministry for National Education. Its
mission was to promote education, literature, and art; increase cultural and eco-
nomic activities in the village; spread literacy; and supervise the creation of a mass
national culture that would transform ordinary Croatians into active participants
in culture imbued with an Ustasha consciousness. As early as April 1941, a pro-
paganda division, the State Secretariat for Propaganda and Youth Enlightenment
(Državno tajništvo za propagandu i prosvjećivanje omladine), was established.
Its name and personnel changed frequently, and in January 1942 it was replaced
by a new institution, the State Information and Propaganda Office (Državni
izvještajni i promičbeni ured—DIPU), which regulated and censored book pub-
lishing, newspapers, film, radio, and other forms of propaganda. With regional
offices in Sarajevo, Karlovac, and Zemun, it aimed to ensure that the provinces
conformed to central censorship regulations. Finally, in October of the same year,
DIPU was renamed the Main Directorate for Propaganda (Glavno ravnateljstvo
za promičbu—GRP), but it retained the same functions.

Mass Terror and Cultural Fronts as Roads to National Rebirth

Purifying the new state of “undesired elements”—Serbs, Jews, political opponents,
and, later, Gypsies—was a central element in the Ustasha regime’s campaign to
regenerate the nation. As early as April 17 1941, the Ministry of the Interior
introduced a law for the defense of the nation and the state that gave the state the
right to punish with death anyone who had “offended the honor and vital inter-
ests of the Croatian people or in any way the existence of the Independent State of
Croatia or state powers, by deed or by attempt.” It was accompanied by the estab-
lishment of a network of extraordinary and emergency courts to try transgres-
sors; these provided the state security, police, and justice agencies with a legalistic
means of arbitrarily arresting and liquidating the Serb elite, the Jewish commu-
nity, and ideological opponents.56 The emergency courts also furthered the aims
of the total surveillance state the Ustasha movement aimed to create, reinforced
20 Rory Yeomans

by legal statutes institutionalizing spying and informing on neighbors, work col-

leagues, friends, and even family members. During spring and early summer of
1941, local authorities in the major cities instructed Jews and Serbs to register
with the Ustasha Police, evacuate their properties, and move to designated parts
of the city where they were subject to strict curfews.57 One of the first racial pri-
orities of the new state was the segregation of the Jewish community from main-
stream society, and in April and May the Ministry of the Interior introduced a
series of “Aryanization” laws that barred Jews from marriage or relationships with
non-Jews, owning businesses, state employment, or any involvement in culture
and sports. All Jews above the age of fourteen were required to wear insignia iden-
tifying them as Jewish.58 In some cities, Ustasha police chiefs published notices
that barred them from parks, cafes, restaurants, pools and bath houses, and shop-
ping at markets, orders that were often applied to local Serbs too.59
Economic destruction played an important role in the initial terror against the
Serbian and Jewish communities in particular. In May 1941, the Ministry for
National Economy (Ministarstvo narodnog gospodarstvu—NARGOS) estab-
lished the Office for Economic Renewal (Ured za obnovu privrede), which, in
partnership with local Ustasha centers, appointed commissioners to Serbian
and Jewish businesses in advance of their forced nationalization or sale. One of
the primary duties of commissioners was the Aryanization of private enterprises
through the arbitrary dismissal of Serbian, Jewish, and politically and nationally
suspect employees. At the beginning of July, this office was superseded by the
State Directorate for Economic Regeneration (Državno ravnateljstvo za gospo-
darstvenu ponovu—DRGP). The Office for Economic Renewal, and later DRGP,
enjoyed a range of other economic competencies, including the seizure of Serbian
and Jewish property and assets. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior, headed
by Andrija Artuković, oversaw the mass removal of Serbs and Jews from state
industries and the professions. The State Directorate for Regeneration (Državno
ravnateljstvo za ponovu—DRP), headed by Josip Rožanković, was tasked with
implementing plans for the forced deportation of two hundred thousand Serbs to
Serbia and the confiscation of their land, assets, and possessions. A related agency
in the Ministry of Health and Social Care, the Institute for Colonization (Zavod
za kolonizaciju), organized the settling of landless peasants and émigré Croatians
on this empty land. The central directorate of the DRP in Zagreb encompassed
a large bureaucracy in order to accommodate the regime’s ambitious deporta-
tion plans. It oversaw the establishment of a series of regional DRP branches
(podružnica) across the state, created a militia that enforced the deportations—
often with great brutality—and administered a series of “resettlement” camps in
which conditions were appalling.60
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1941, party leaders, officials,
and ministers had given speeches at rallies across the new state against the Serb
 Introduction 21

community, personifying them as a racially alien and unstable element without

whose removal from Croatian soil the nation could not prosper or even survive.
Many speeches made a direct link between the Serbs and the Jews. For Foreign
Minister Mladen Lorković, the Serbs and Jews were “our nation’s misfortune.”61
In the editorial columns of newspapers and journals, the movement’s intellectual
cadre and youth activists identified Serbs and Jews with the racial contamination
and moral degeneration of the nation. Without the purification of the nation
from such elements, society could not be morally regenerated.62 In an echo of
their comments, in late spring and summer of 1941 Ustasha militias rampaged
through the countryside murdering tens of thousands of Serbs. Hundreds of
Orthodox priests were also murdered and Orthodox churches, monasteries, and
cathedrals destroyed. In the first few weeks of Ustasha rule, the UNS had already
erected the first of the state’s twenty-six concentration camps, the Jadovno camp
in Gospić; by the autumn, the notorious Jasenovac-Stara Gradiška complex, the
largest concentration camp in Southeastern Europe, had been built. The armed
insurgency by Serbs that this campaign of terror provoked turned into a crisis
for the Ustasha authorities, quickly making many rural areas ungovernable and
threatening the very existence of the state. Under pressure from the Axis force
and in an atmosphere of bitter factionalism and recrimination within the Ustasha
movement itself, in the autumn of 1941 GUS ordered the disbanding of a num-
ber of party militias.
It was during this summer crisis, partly driven by German and Italian disquiet,
that a new policy for solving the Serb “problem” began to emerge in the form of a
mass program of forced conversion to Catholicism—something that had been oper-
ating on a limited and informal scale for some time but had not yet been applied
systematically. The Ministry of Religion, which developed the program, hoped that
ordinary Serbs would convert to Catholicism if it was made clear to them that by
doing so and therefore becoming Croats they would be able to save their lives. By
contrast, according to the policy framework developed by Radoslav Glavas, a young
Franciscan and policy official, the Serb intelligentsia would not be permitted to con-
vert since their identity was too strong; without their influence, he reasoned that
the mass of Serb peasants would assimilate more easily.63 The DRP established a
special religious section to administer the conversion process, headed by a militant
young friar, Dionizije Juričev, later to die in battle as a PTS battalion leader. Juričev’s
section sent radical young Franciscan monks and priests, many of whom were com-
mitted Ustasha activists, into the countryside to convert the Serb masses. Some of
these zealous missionaries became feared by ordinary Serb peasants for their vio-
lent methods, and conversion ceremonies were frequently overseen by armed local
Ustasha militias. In some cases, Serbs were openly threatened with death by local
Ustasha communes if they did not convert; promises of conversion were also used
by Ustasha militias as a means of gathering Serb peasants in one place so they could
22 Rory Yeomans

be killed more easily. In addition, hardline elements in the movement resisted the
policy, arguing that the state should continue with its policy of mass terror. When
it became clear to Serbs that converting to Catholicism would not save their lives,
they began to deploy diverse strategies to avoid conversion, and, by the beginning of
1942, the policy was essentially dead.64
In a speech at the newly opened Parliament (Sabor) in February 1942,
Artuković announced the establishment of a Croatian Orthodox Church and the
redefinition of the state’s Serbs as “Orthodox Croats.” This was a policy German
officials had been urging on the Ustasha authorities for some time as a means of
ending the Serbian insurrection in the countryside. The formation of the church
and a range of other initiatives connected to it—the creation of seats in the Sabor
for “Orthodox Croat” representatives, an order from GUS that they should be
allowed to resume employment in state ministries and industries, the founding
of an orthodox department in the theology faculty at the University of Zagreb—
aimed to demonstrate to the occupation forces that the state had ended its cam-
paign of terror against the Serbs and that they were now being integrated into
Croatian society under a new, authentic identity. In reality, the policy aimed to
further weaken and eradicate Serb identity. In addition, while it is true that some
Serbs were able to reenter society—albeit on a contingent basis—this was not
the experience for most Serbs. The policy was not only divisive among the wider
membership of the movement but was also viewed by the Ustasha leadership as a
temporary measure. At some point, as Artuković noted prophetically in a speech
at Sremska Mitrovica in 1942, once the state had “killed the black gypsies” all
that would be left “is to kill the white gypsies [the Serbs].”65 The only question
was when the project of racial purification would be fully reactivated. The sum-
mary execution of thousands of Serbian men, women, and children in the Kozara
region and Hrvatska Mitrovica by elite Ustasha units in a series of “anti-Partisan”
operations in the summer of 1942, along with the ongoing deportations of Serbs
of all social backgrounds to Jasenovac and other camps, suggested that it was likely
to be restarted sooner rather than later.66 If the systematic liquidation of Serbs had
come to an end by the middle of 1942, for Jews and Gypsies, the terror incremen-
tally increased. In the same February speech announcing the establishment of the
Croatian Orthodox Church, Artuković boasted that the Croatian state, “finding
itself in a state of self-defense from these insatiable and poisonous parasites,” had
solved the Jewish question “with healthy and decisive action.”67 Gypsies, in the
meantime, were rounded up en masse in June 1942 and deported to Jasenovac.
Until autumn of that year, hardline factions committed to the eradication of the
entire Serb population remained dominant in GUS, the security services, the armed
forces, and the Ustasha movement itself. However, in September 1942 a number
of prominent hardliners, including Eugen Dido Kvaternik, the head of the UNS,
were purged. Although this purge was partial, it did nonetheless reflect changes in
 Introduction 23

the composition of the regime that arose out of the summer crisis of 1941. In the
early autumn of 1941 as the movement was engulfed in an atmosphere of recrimi-
nation and purges, the leadership had begun promoting professional young tech-
nocrats into key positions in state ministries and agencies. The appointment of
ambitious young economists, social planners, and cultural experts who became the
core of a new state cadre reflected the ostensibly more “moderate” course the state
was embarking on. Out of the internal power struggle in GUS, a set of proposals
about social and cultural politics emerged, later finding expression in the concept
of a “second revolution.” This second revolution intended to popularize the Ustasha
movement among the masses, transforming its role from that of vanguard to that
of a more broad-based national movement that could imbue the entire nation with
its values. The idea of a second revolution faced stern internal opposition, however,
particularly from tough working-class hardline factions who feared that transform-
ing the movement into a mass organization would threaten its revolutionary ethos.68
One of the most important ideas of the second revolution was the concept of
intellectual rebirth. The revolution of blood that had purified the nation needed
to be followed, commentators such as Stanko Vitković argued, by a revolution
that would refashion the social values and ideological beliefs of the entire nation.
In this way, the Croatian citizen would be transformed into an “Ustasha subject.”
At the same time, the second revolution aimed at a cultural revolution that Mile
Starčević, the director of NARPROS, claimed was at the center of the Ustasha
revolution. For him, “being Ustasha,” that is transforming the self into an Ustasha
subject, meant first of all being active on the “cultural front.”69 An equally impor-
tant aspect of the second revolution was the idea of worker advancement and
increasing workers’ access to culture. Before students and activists could be sent
into fields and factories to create an Ustasha consciousness among the masses,
ordinary citizens would have to be provided with the opportunity not just to view
plays and films and to listen to philharmonic concerts and the radio but to be
active participants in culture, staging their own plays and productions, writing
novels and short stories, and running their own theater companies. NARPROS
led this initiative, establishing cultural and educational competitions for workers
and promoting the literary work of established and emerging “worker artists.”
While one aim of the second revolution was to introduce those at the bottom
of the social ladder to culture and cultured values, it also represented a policy
through which the regime could compensate hardline factions and interest groups
for the seemingly abrupt interruption of the revolution of blood. The utopian
terms of the second revolution sought to reinvigorate the enthusiasm and ideo-
logical zeal of those activists who had become disillusioned by the jettisoning of
the movement’s utopian program. This temporary period of relative stability in a
profoundly dysfunctional and violent state could not last. By the autumn of 1944,
as ever more of the state came under the control of the Partisan-led resistance,
24 Rory Yeomans

there was building frustration and growing internal pressure for the leadership to
return to its original revolutionary values. Internal dissent against the corruption
and speculative practices of the elite was also growing. The Ustasha student orga-
nization led the way, with its leader, Milivoj Karamarko, calling on students to
agitate for a “popular Croatian socialist society” that would “mercilessly liquidate
the appearance of all native Jewish traits and capitalism” and “antistate specula-
tion.” Militant Ustasha Youth were in open revolt against official corruption, the
perceived indecisiveness of the state leadership, and their own leaders, who, they
argued, were preventing them from entering the battlefield.70
Radical voices, never properly purged, grew noisy. In September 1944, two high-
ranking members of the regime, Ante Vokić and Mladen Lorković, were arrested on
charges of attempting to stage a coup against the Poglavnik. After their arrest a wave
of terror swept the state as student leaders, young technocrats, and “moderate” ideo-
logues were arrested. Hard-liners were returned to ministries, agencies, and security
organs as well as to governing bodies in the cultural and propaganda sphere, a num-
ber of them vengeful veterans of the purges of autumn 1942. The wave of terror
against their opponents, among them architects of the second revolution, resulted in
a relaunch of the revolution of blood, now directed not just against Serbs and other
“undesired elements” but also against Ustasha activists and ordinary Croats.
Across the state, terror was being enacted. In the Jasenovac camp complex, the
last surviving inmates were liquidated and the camp destroyed; as the Communist
resistance advanced to the cities, retreating units of Ustasha militias rampaged
through the countryside looting, burning, and killing villagers who refused to join
their retreat; in Zagreb members of the PTS militia interrogated and executed
imprisoned dissident comrades. In early 1945 Vjekoslav Luburić was appointed
the Poglavnik’s supreme representative in Sarajevo, charged with destroying the
local insurgency and preventing the Partisan advance. Setting up his headquarters
in a villa in the center of the city, he inaugurated a reign of terror, establishing an
emergency court while his secret police agents arrested and executed hundreds of
workers, officials, and ordinary citizens accused of crimes ranging from treason to
price fixing. In March 1945 with Partisan forces closing in on the city, his police
publicly hanged dozens of dead prisoners from trees on Marijin Dvor as an exam-
ple to all those who would contemplate antistate activities. With the return of the
revolution of blood, terror was joined once more to utopia.71

Terror as Everyday Experience,

Economic System, and Social Practice
As the essays in this collection show, for both the state’s citizens and the “unde-
sired elements” that constituted its internal enemies, terror quickly became a part
 Introduction 25

of everyday life in the Ustasha state, woven into every aspect of the economy,
social relations, lived experience, and culture. The program to expropriate and
nationalize Serb and Jewish businesses provides one example of how a discrete
process evolved into a far broader economics of race and social redistribution in
which terror and utopian visions proved to be mutually self-sustaining. In his
chapter about the workings of the DRGP, the agency that oversaw this process,
in Sarajevo, Dallas Michelbacher focuses on the role that its decisions and actions
played in the destruction of the Jews. Michelbacher argues that the confiscation
of Jewish property should be seen as a stepping stone to the extermination of
the state’s Jews, much as it had been for the Nazi regime during its economic
war against the Jews in the 1930s. However, he also demonstrates that while offi-
cially the local DRGP implemented the state’s Aryanization and nationalization
policies both to generate much-needed revenue and to enforce racial purification,
it often made choices dictated by local pressures, the constraints of the market,
and the desire for economic stability. This was especially evident in its decisions
whether to allow companies to retain Jewish members of staff. Nonetheless, the
DRGP remained an economic agency in the service of state terror, complicit in
the destruction of the Jews, since the revenue derived from the nationalization
and dissolving of Jewish businesses in Sarajevo helped to finance the campaign of
terror and extermination against the state’s Jews.
The everyday life of ordinary citizens, meanwhile, is the subject of Filip
Erdeljac’s essay, which examines how the Ustasha movement sought to establish
its control and legitimacy in the town of Karlovac and surrounding areas. Moving
beyond the narrow focus on the destructive impact of Ustasha violence, it consid-
ers how the local leadership legitimized its claim to power, gained compliance and
support from the population, and used the Serb insurgency to solidify the rigid
national and racial categories of Ustasha ideology. In his study, Erdeljac explores
how, in addition to excluding and murdering designated outsiders, the Ustasha
movement sought to integrate Croatians hostile to the new regime’s exclusion-
ary and violent ideology into the newly conceived Croat national community.
He details the strategies developed by the local Ustasha leadership to allow even
citizens repulsed by its extreme violence to participate in the movement’s nation-
building project without engaging, or even coming into contact, with the atroci-
ties committed by Ustasha militias. Such an approach required Karlovac’s Ustasha
leaders, at times, directly to disobey or deliberately misinterpret orders coming
from Zagreb. He demonstrates that a key element in gaining compliance was
the impact of the Communist resistance, which was initially Serb dominated
and which brought violence into the forefront of daily life for Karlovac’s citizens.
While the resistance may have hurt the local Ustasha movement from a logistical
and military standpoint, it helped advance its campaign of national homogeni-
zation because it induced many ordinary citizens previously apprehensive about
26 Rory Yeomans

Ustasha rule to see the local authorities as the only institution capable of safe-
guarding their physical well-being and property from groups of people the state
and Ustasha press had portrayed as committed to the annihilation of Croatia.
As part of its project to refashion citizens as Ustasha subjects and modernize
the nation, the state made use of various forms of mass communication and every-
day culture, including open-air concerts, advertising, radio, and, above all, the
moving image. Rory Yeomans considers the role cinema played in the attempt to
remake ordinary Croats. Looking at the project of the Croatian State Cinematic
Institute Hrvatski slikopis (Croatia Film) to build a national and anticommercial
cinema culture that would help to revise the popular consciousness, he focuses
on the activities of the mobile film unit, which brought documentary and fea-
ture films as well as newsreels to audiences in remote locations. He explores how
film agencies attempted to expand the cinemagoing demographic by constructing
new cinemas in previously inaccessible environments. This chapter argues that, in
addition to serving the purpose of ideological reeducation, the institute’s program
intended to modernize and culturally elevate the masses by showing them that
cinema could offer a taste of the “good life.” By contrast, for the state’s Serb and
Jewish “plutocrats,” whose cinemas were confiscated by the state and who were
dismissed from employment in cinemas, the construction of a national cinematic
culture represented an early example of the connection between cultural utopia
and terror. Yeomans demonstrates that the campaign to create a national con-
science-raising cinema faced significant obstacles not just in the suspicious atti-
tude of isolated populations toward the cinematic medium but also in the rivalry
between Hrvatski slikopis and the DRGP concerning the ownership of confis-
cated cinemas. Ironically, the utopian vision of a new everyday cinematic culture
was fatally undermined by the very processes of terror that had made it commer-
cially viable and that its newsreels had legitimized on a weekly basis.
While studies of the Ustasha state have been dominated by discussions of the
campaign of terror it waged against perceived racial and national enemies, the
symbolic and anthropological meaning of that terror has less frequently been ana-
lyzed. Exploring the meaning of the methods of mass terror perpetrated by Ustasha
militias is the subject of Radu Dinu’s case study. He argues that, in addition to
only recently becoming the subject of systematic historiographical research, most
studies of Ustasha violence to date have disregarded methodological developments
in Holocaust studies, anthropology, and sociology and have been reticent about
the logic and meaning of physical violence. By contrast, Dinu’s discussion explores
a number of case studies of Ustasha militia violence, analyzing them through the
framework of anthropological and sociological methodologies. Dinu interprets
the extreme forms of violence perpetrated by militia members—cutting off the
noses and ears of Serb civilians, burning or tearing out Orthodox priests’ beards,
and photographing each other with the decapitated heads of their victims—as a
 Introduction 27

form of communicative and symbolic action. These acts of mutilation, particularly

on victims’ faces, were not meaningless, nor can the removal of body parts merely
be interpreted as an irrational or affective act. Rather, extreme forms of violence
such as disfigurement and mutilation were closely linked to notions of honor
and shame. By mutilating their enemies, the Ustasha militia members “drew” the
physical defeat onto their victims’ bodies and thereby marked their loss of honor.
While he contends that violence was not intrinsic to Ustasha ideology since it
often acquired its own dynamic, a discourse of violence was—something reflected
in the movement’s aestheticization of death, violent struggle, and annihilation.

Incarnating a New Religion, National Consciousness, and Youth

While the aestheticization of death and violence was expressed through the ter-
ror of militias in the countryside, it was also reflected in the cultural sphere—
specifically, in the Ustasha movement’s attempt to incarnate its ideology as a
new political religion. While many historians have drawn attention to the role
of Catholicism in both Ustasha ideology and the Ustasha state—in particular,
the extent of the Catholic Church’s involvement in the mass terror and the con-
version program—the Ustasha movement’s utilization of Catholic and religious
language and iconography has largely remained unexplored. Utilizing Emilio
Gentile’s classic theory of the sacralization of politics, Stipe Kljaić analyzes the role
that religious concepts of life and political religion played in the ideology of the
state. Through a reconstruction of state holidays and national commemorations,
including the anniversary of the state’s founding, the celebration of St. Anthony’s
Day and the Day of the Croatian Martyrs, he demonstrates how the Ustasha state
imbued traditional religious holidays with ideological significance and new festi-
vals with religious meaning in its attempt to create a political religion. The study
illustrates the various means by which Ustasha ideologues, many of them devout
Catholics or experts on Catholicism, attempted to instrumentalize the Catholic
faith as a weapon of regime legitimation and a means of mobilizing citizens. At
the same time, he considers the role the sacralization of politics played in insti-
tutionalizing the Poglavnik as a supreme living deity whose every word and deed
was to be unquestioningly obeyed. Paradoxically, as Kljaić argues, while many of
the movement’s theorists envisaged a political religion that would incorporate the
best elements of Catholicism and restore Catholic values to the nation, the result
was the construction of an immutable state religion that violated key Catholic
principles and to which everything else in the state became subordinate, including
the Catholic faith itself.
The existence of a public political religion did not mean that Ustasha ideo-
logues did not consider the relationship between the state and the Catholic
28 Rory Yeomans

Church to be of central importance. In fact, the attempt to engineer a synthesis

between Ustasha ideology and Catholicism represented one of the most impor-
tant policies of the regime. In her study of the evolving relations between the
church and the regime, Irina Ognyanova describes the attempt to establish the
Ustasha state as a Catholic state. According to the Ustasha regime, faith would
preserve the Ustasha state, making it stronger and guaranteeing its spiritual vital-
ity. Simultaneously, religion was seen as a bearer of the moral worth and culture of
the Croat people. Ognyanova considers the influence the devout Catholicism of
a section of the movement’s rank-and-file members had on its distinctly Catholic
character while illustrating how the Ustasha state used Catholicism as a means of
mobilization. She argues that the relationship between the state and the church
was understood to be a reciprocal one: while the Ustasha movement aimed to
ensure that its members were devout Catholics faithful to “Catholic values,” the
Catholic Church was placed under a “religious obligation” to imbue its congre-
gation with sympathy for Ustasha values and to mobilize members of Catholic
youth organizations into the movement. Yet, while the Ustasha regime promised
to restore the Catholic Church to its proper societal place, its role, as Ognyanova
shows, was to be restricted to the religious sphere. This and the increasingly tense
relations between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the regime ensured that the
Catholic Ustasha state never truly became a clerical one.
The state also attempted to inculcate a new consciousness in the population
as part of a wider program of modernization not just among ordinary Croats
but also among Bosnian Muslims. Ustasha ideologues had long argued that the
Muslims were the racially purest of Croats and that Bosnia-Hercegovina was the
heart of the Ustasha state. Key to intellectuals’ understanding about Muslims were
their romantic perceptions about Bosnia as a land that linked the orientalism of
the East to the Western Catholic values of Europe and, as such, represented Croat
national values in an Islamic context. In exploration of the relationship between
the Ustasha state and Bosnian Muslims, Nada Kisić-Kolanović assesses perceptions
of Islam and the “other East” in the official culture of the state and the attitude of
Muslim intellectuals to the state’s program of nationalization and modernization.
She argues that the political and cultural activism of the state toward Bosnian
Muslims was motivated by the desire to incorporate Bosnia into the Croatian
state and transform the Croatian ethnic community into a modern state entity.
An important part of this process was the appropriation not only of the Bosnian
Muslim population as “Muslim Croats” in racial “blood” and “kinship” terms but
also their broader culture as an Islamic variant of Croatian culture. Through this
process, Bosnian Muslims and Islamic culture were viewed by Ustasha intellectu-
als as a zone of creative civilizational contact between the East and West. However,
in addition to conflicting with the Ustasha regime’s original paradigm of Croatia
as a bulwark of Western values against “Asiatic” Eastern culture, this theory of the
 Introduction 29

“other East,” as Kisić-Kolanović demonstrates, did not nationalize Muslim intel-

lectuals; it divided them. While the secular intelligentsia embraced the opportu-
nities for social mobility the state offered them, religious elites and theologically
minded students refused to identify with the regime’s concepts of modernization
or its fascist ideology. Instead, they insisted that identity and patriotism could be
found in religion and a return to a more “authentic” form of Islam.
In addition to projects of modernization to create a new kind of Muslim,
Ustasha theorists envisaged the construction of a new youth, the nucleus of
a future state elite. In fact, the centrality of youth to the Ustasha project was
expressed not only in the dominant rhetoric about regeneration but in the very
definition of the Ustasha movement as a movement of youth. Influenced by fascist
concepts, the Ustasha movement set out to liberate, transform, and regenerate the
Croat nation, a project in which youth were integral. Goran Miljan examines the
activities and pedagogical training of Ustasha Youth members, the heralds of the
“new” and “better” future, through an examination of their fraternal exchanges
with the Slovakian Hlinka Youth. Miljan contends that the exchanges between
Hlinka and Ustasha Youth aimed to promote the image of a young, vigorous,
and zealous youth whose role was to be the avant-garde of the state and, in time,
its elite cadre. While the fraternal connections were presented as constituting an
important element in the creation of the “new Europe” and new European youth,
they had another purpose. Both states used the fraternal visits, courses, and excur-
sions of their youth organizations to legitimate their policies at home and cement
their growing relationship with each other. Nonetheless, external political factors,
especially the deteriorating security situation in Slovakia after 1943, meant that
these fraternal youth visits were aborted, resulting in the permanent postpone-
ment of the project to create a new youth for the new era.

Terror, Utopia, and the Ustasha State in Comparative Perspective

After terror and the collapse of the Ustasha state came the reckoning. The victori-
ous Communist-led Partisan movement, having liberated Yugoslavia, was faced
with the task of reuniting citizens who had recently experienced a bloody fratricidal
war. This task was especially challenging on the territory of the former Croatian
state because the Ustasha movement had initiated a campaign of terror against
other ethnic groups in the name of the Croat nation. In his study of the processes
of national reconciliation, Tomislav Dulić demonstrates how the Communist
Party tried to create a clear delineation between “ordinary” Croats and Ustashas,
realizing that only by overcoming ethnic conflict could it claim legitimacy for
itself; simultaneously, it consciously created an image of the war and revolution as
a dividing line between a past of oppression and a bright future of equality. Dulić
30 Rory Yeomans

focuses on the work of the State Commission for the Establishment of Crimes
Perpetrated by the Occupiers and their Helpers in the Country (Državna komisija
za utvrđivanje zločina okupatora i njihovih pomagača u zemlji), discussing how it
appropriated the general narrative of the party, thereby seeking to combine propa-
ganda and official rhetoric with a normative, legal framework through which the
war and revolution could be interpreted.
Drawing on a sample of the nearly seventy thousand “declarations” related
to war crimes, he argues that these two interpretive elements have to be under-
stood as key in the formulation of a new master narrative about the war. He
demonstrates that after an initial frenetic phase of activity, for pragmatic rea-
sons the party eventually decided to discontinue war crimes trials as a vehicle
for lower-level reconciliation processes, instead focusing on the trope of the
Partisan struggle as a rejuvenation of the Yugoslav idea. As a result, certain issues
of key importance to transitional justice and ethnic reconciliation remained
undiscussed, not least the culpability of “bystanders.” By contrast, the image of
Ustashas as members of a marginal organization of pathological murderers with
few roots in Croat national traditions remained dominant in historical literature
as well as fiction. This created a useable stereotype that nationalist actors, espe-
cially in Croatia and Serbia, marshaled to their advantage as the legitimacy of
the socialist system collapsed in the 1990s.
In addition to depicting the Ustasha movement as an organization of marginal
men, one of the central themes of socialist historiography of the Ustasha regime
was the alien nature of the Ustasha worldview and its ideological indebtedness to
Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Reconsidering the often complex and conten-
tious relationship between the Ustasha ideology and Italian Fascism and National
Socialism, Aristotle Kallis identifies the dominant ideological premises of the
Ustasha state, asking to what extent the Ustasha state can be viewed as authenti-
cally fascist and how far its ideological development was influenced by specifically
regional and national ideas that predated or evolved independently. On the one
hand, as Kallis argues, the movement’s intellectuals claimed that the Ustasha ide-
ology had developed organically from national traditions and stressed the differ-
ences between the Ustasha ideology and Italian Fascism and National Socialism;
such assertions were complicated further by the fact that the state was involved in a
sometimes antagonistic relationship with the very German and Italian occupation
forces that had facilitated the creation of the state and ensured its survival, if not
stability. Kallis argues that the tension among the Ustasha movement’s national
“uniqueness,” its transnational interactions, and its international dynamics should
not be seen as a contradiction but as the foundation for a more complex under-
standing of the rise, radicalization, and eventual fall of interwar militantly nation-
alist movements and regimes. In this respect, with its combination of Croatian
ultranationalism and fascist ideology, the Ustasha movement was both a distinctly
 Introduction 31

Croatian phenomenon and one whose formation and development must be con-
textualized within the framework of transnational interwar fascism. Through a
process of reflexive recontextualization, radical-right parties such as the Ustasha
movement reinterpreted fascist ideas through the lense of their own—sometimes
imagined, often distorted—national traditions.
Discussions about the national authenticity of the Ustasha movement and the
role of bystanders brings us back to where this introduction started: the question
of the extent of social support. A distinguishing characteristic of states committed
to projects of social engineering is the extent to which ideology seeps into every
facet of everyday life; consequently, as in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, the
entire population becomes complicit in the system. In the case of the Ustasha
state, not just those citizens included in the imagined national community but
also those excluded from it became part of the machinery of the state and its sys-
tem of social support. The epilogue traces the fates of individuals living in Zagreb
who wrote to the DRP and Ustasha police in the summer of 1941. It explores
how the terror directed at the violent removal of Serbs and Jews from the national
economy also impacted on the lives of ordinary Croat citizens, most of whom
were either members of the national community (if not yet fully formed Ustasha
subjects) or aspired to be active agents in the transformation of society and the self
the building of the national economy implied. Through an analysis of the letters
and petitions they wrote to the two directorates, it considers how supplicants and
victims negotiated and responded to the radical new reality, driven as they were
by a range of motivations, aspirations, and concerns, at the same time exploring
how victims sought to conceptualize and represent themselves in their search for
survival or belonging in the utopia of terror.
For much of the past two decades, the historiography of the Ustasha state has
been characterized by a mutually antagonistic discourse and a range of political,
national, and methodological obstacles. This has been exemplified by sharp divi-
sions in the way many Croatian and Serbian scholars have dealt with the his-
toriography. The strategies of minimization and denial employed in nationalist
Croatian historiography found their most extensive expression in the construc-
tion of an artificial separation between the regime’s racial politics and its cultural
“achievements.” By contrast, much Serbian historiography has been grounded, like
socialist historiography before it, in reducing the same state to a catalog of crimes
that, as the Czech novelist Milan Kundera noted, was emblematic of a totalitar-
ian spirit, sometimes made worse by attributions of collective national guilt.72
Not only have these narratives not benefited historiographical research; they have
failed to honor the memory of the Ustasha movement’s victims: their deaths have
either been marginalized from the everyday life of the state, portrayed as a side-
show to a more important story going on elsewhere, or, alternatively, reduced to
the status of bit-part actors in a broader account about historical inevitability and
32 Rory Yeomans

defective national character. These paradigms have only recently begun to change
with the emergence of younger historians pursuing different research agendas and
approaches. At the same time, this generational change in Croatia, at least, has
provoked debates that have served as a reminder of how polemical and personal-
ized discussion of this subject can still be.73
The avoidance, until very recently, of any discussion of social support, mass
mobilization, or the role of bystanders has rendered not only the campaign of ter-
ror but the survival of the state until May 1945 incomprehensible. The persistence
of a theoretical framework that asserts that the Ustasha state lacked any popular
support or that the ideological vision of the Ustasha movement went no further
than the eradication of “undesired elements” does not explain why a cross section of
society—students, workers, peasants, housewives, and lawyers—rallied, as indepen-
dent agents, to the new state while others remained passive and others still actively
resisted. While Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as antifascists were being executed in
the countryside or liquidated in concentration camps, ordinary citizens continued
to vacation, study, enjoy cultural pursuits, mark state festivals, and attend trade fairs
and exhibitions. In Zagreb and cities throughout the state, tens of thousands turned
out to celebrate, long into the night, the anniversary of the state’s foundation. How
to explain this? Interdisciplinarity provides a route out of existing paradigms and
apparent contradictions, enabling historians to reconstruct life, death, and everyday
experience in a genocidal state from the perspective of perpetrators, beneficiaries,
bystanders, and victims. Put another way, in place of the antagonistic models of
utopia without terror or terror without utopia, could an interdisciplinary approach,
accepting that terror and the mass murder of “undesired elements” were the defining
characteristics of the state’s ideology while exploring the utopian social, economic,
and cultural aspirations that lay behind it, lead to the emergence of a new shared
narrative? Perhaps not, but given the role that the legacy of the Ustasha state played
in the descent into war in the 1990s, such a shared narrative is worth striving for.

Notes
1. The celebrations in Zagreb have been reconstructed using the contempo-
rary programs of events, photo journalistic coverage, and official reports. See, e.g.,
1941.10.1V.1942: Raspored proslave prve godišnjice Nezavisne Države Hrvatske (Zagreb:
Grad putničarski ured, 1942); “Manifestacije po zagrebačkom ulicama uoči 10 travnja
1942,” Hrvatski krugoval, April 13–20, 1942, 5–10; internal NARPROS report, April
15, 1942, HDA, NDH, Ministarstvo narodne prosvjete, 7.216/450/1942.
2. See the series of articles in the April 10 special edition of Nova Hrvatska.
3. “Preporod i uloga hrvatsko sveučilišta kao vrhovne naučne ustanove u novoj
Hrvatskoj,” Nova Hrvatska, April 10, 1942.
 Introduction 33

4. Dubravko Jelčić, “Kulturni život u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,” Časopis za

suvremenu povijest 27, no. 3 (1995): 521–22, 524.
5. Život u NDH: Slike života, slike smrti (Zagreb: Europres Holdings, 2010); Slavko
Goldstein, “Lažna slika države kojoj je zločin bio program i cilj,” Jutarnji list, February
10, 2010.
6. Jovanka Mihajlović-Trbovc and Tamara Pavasović-Trost, “Who Were the Anti-
Fascists? Divergent Interpretations of WWII in Post-Yugoslav History Textbooks,” in
The Use and Abuse of Memory: Interpreting World War II in Contemporary European
Politics, ed. Christian Karner and Brams Mertens (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books,
2013), 178–81.
7. See Ljiljana Radonić, “Slovak and Croatian Invocation of Europe: the Museum
of the Slovak National Uprising and the Jasenovac Memorial Museum,” Nationalities
Papers 42, no. 3 (2014): 489–507; Radonić, “Univerzalizacija holokausta na prim-
jeru hrvatske politike prošlosti i spomen-područja Jasenovac,” Suvremene teme 3, no.
1 (2010): 53–62.
8. See, e.g., Mario Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokreta od nastanka do travnja 1941
(Zagreb: Školska knjiga i Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2006), 145–57.
9. Among the best English-language works on these subjects are Roger Griffin,
Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Hound-
mills, UK: Palgrave, 2007); Emilio Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy,
1922–1945, trans. Keith Botsford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996);
Claudio Fogu, The Historic Imaginary: Politics of History in Fascist Italy (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2003); Victoria de Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women:
Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Ruth Ben-Ghiat,
Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000);
Miranda Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilising Gender in Vichy France (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1998).
10. While a number of states or countries occupied by the Nazis took an active role
in the Holocaust, campaigns of ethnic cleansing and terror against non-Jewish minor-
ity groups were generally instigated by radical-right and fascist groups and movements
that were either only formally in power or in active opposition to the ruling authori-
tarian state cadre, and sometimes—as in the case of the short-lived Romanian Legion-
ary State—both. Regarding fascist agency and mass killing during the Second World
War, see, e.g., Aristotle Kallis, Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Fascist
Europe (London: Routledge, 2009).
11. Some examples: Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics
of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Euge-
nia Paulicelli, Beyond the Blackshirt: Fashion under Fascism (London: Bergbahn Books,
2004); Marla Stone, The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Barbara Spackman, Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric,
Ideology and Social Fantasy in Italy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1996); Jef-
frey Schnapp, Staging Fascism: 18 BL and the Theater of the Masses for the Masses (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
34 Rory Yeomans

12. George Mosse, The Fascist Revolution: Towards a General Theory of Fascism
(New York: Howard Fertig, 1999), x–xii.
13. Christian Gerlach, Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth
Century World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), esp. 1–9.
14. Notable English-language social histories of Italian fascism include Paul Cor-
ner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975);
Anthony L. Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna,
1908–1922 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982); Perry Wilson, The
Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993);
Wilson, Peasant Women and Politics in Fascist Italy: The Massai Rurali (London: Rout-
ledge, 2002); Alice A. Kelikian, Town and Country under Fascism: The Transformation
of Brescia, 1915–1926 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Victoria de Grazia,
The Culture of Consent: The Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (London: Oxford
University Press, 1986). More recent studies include Shannon Fogg, The Politics of
Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables and Strangers (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2009); Kate Ferris, Everyday Life in Fascist Venice, 1929–1940
(Houndmills, UK: Palgrave 2011); Robert Gildea, Olivier Wieviorka, and Anette
Warring, eds., Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe (London:
Bloomsbury, 2006); Paul Corner, The Fascist Party and Popular Opinion in Mussolini’s
Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
15. Roger Griffin, “The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufac-
ture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 1
(March 2002): 239–40.
16. David D. Roberts, “Comments on Roger Griffin,” Journal of Contemporary
History 37, no. 2 (March 2002): 259–62; Roberts, “How Not to Think about Fascism
and Ideology, Intellectual Antecedents and Historical Meaning,” Journal of Contempo-
rary History 35, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 202–9.
17. Alexander De Grand, “Comments on Roger Griffin,” Journal of Contemporary
History 37, no. 2 (March 2002): 263–66.
18. Robert Paxton, “The Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70, no.
1 (March 1998): 10, 18, 21–22.
19. Sergio Luzzatto, “The Political Culture of Fascist Italy,” Contemporary Euro-
pean History 8, no. 2 (July 1999): 317–34.
20. Recent studies of the Holocaust in Romania include Simon Geissbühler, Blu-
tiger Juli: Rumäniens Vernichtungskrieg und der vergessene Massenmord an den Juden
1941 (Paderborn: Schöning, 2013); Vladimir Solonari, “Ethnic Cleansing or ‘Crime
Prevention’? Deportation of Romanian Roma,” in The Nazi Genocide of the Roma:
Reassessment and Commemoration, ed. Anton Weiss-Wendt (New York: Berghahn
Books, 2013), 96–119; Solonari, “Patterns of Violence: The Local Population and the
Mass Murder of Jews in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, July-August 1941,” in
The Holocaust in the East: Local Perpetrators and Soviet Responses, ed. Michael David-
Fox, Peter Holquist and Alexander Martin (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
2014), 51–83.
 Introduction 35

21. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Social Mobility and Education in the Soviet Union, 1921–
1934 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Fitzpatrick, “Cultural Revolu-
tion as Class War,” in Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1920–1931, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 8–40.
22. Vera Dunham, In Stalin’s Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1976).
23. Ralf Dahrendorf, Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland (Munich: Piper,
1965); David Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Ger-
many, 1933–1939 (New York: Doubleday, 1965).
24. Martin Broszat, “Plaidoyer für eine Historisierung des Nationalsozialismus,” in
Nach Hitler: Der schwierige Umgang mit unserer Geschichte: Beiträge von Martin Bro-
szat, by Martin Broszat, ed. Hermann Graml and Klaus-Dietmar Henke (Munich:
Oldenbourg Verlag, 1986), 172. Ian Kershaw, “‘Normality’ and Genocide: the Prob-
lem of ‘Historicization,’” in his The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of
Interpretation, 4th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 218–26.
25. Rainer Zitelmann, “Des totalitäre Seite des Moderne,” in Nationalsozialismus
und Modernizierung, ed. Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann (Darmstadt: Buchge-
sellschaft, 1991), 1–15. Kershaw, “Shifting Perspectives: Historiographical Trends in
the Aftermath of Unification,” The Nazi Dictatorship, 244–45.
26. Jens Alber, “Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung,” Kölner Zeitschrift für
Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 41 (June 1992): 346–65; Norbert Frei, “Wie modern
war der Nationalsozialismus?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 19 (1993): 367–87. Ker-
shaw, “Shifting Perspectives,” 244.
27. Hans Mommsen, “Noch enimal: Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung,”
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 21, no. 3 (July–September 1995): 391–407. Kershaw,
“Shifting Perspectives,” 244.
28. Suzanne Heim and Götz Aly, Vordenker der Vernichtung: Auschwitz und die
deutsche Pläne für eine neue europaische Ordnung (Hamburg: Fischer Taschenbuch,
1991). A useful and measured discussion of the book’s empirical shortcomings can be
found in Christopher Browning, “German Technocrats, Jewish Labour and the Final
Solution: A Reply to Götz Aly and Susanne Heim,” in The Path to Genocide: Essays on
Launching the Final Solution, by Christopher Browning (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1992), 59–76.
29. Paul Betts, “The New Fascination with Fascism: The Case of Nazi Modern-
ism,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 4 (spring 2002): 552–53.
30. Peter Reichel, Der schöne Schein des Dritten Reiches: Fascination und Gewalt des
Faschismus (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1992), 7–10, 44.
31. Pamela E. Swett, Corey Ross, and Fabrice Almeida, Pleasure and Pain in Nazi
Germany (London: Palgrave, 2011), 1–15.
32. Shelley Baranowski, Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the
Third Reich (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
33. S. Jonathan Wiesen, Creating the Nazi Marketplace: Commerce and Consump-
tion in the Third Reich (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
36 Rory Yeomans

34. Martina Steber and Bernhard Gotto, “Writing the Social History of the Nazi
Regime,” in Visions of Community in Nazi Germany: Social Engineering and Private
Lives, ed. Martina Steber and Bernhard Gotto (New York: Oxford University Press,
2013), 16.
35. Steber and Gotto, “Writing the Social History of the Nazi Regime,” 20–25.
36. Ibid., 16.
37. See, e.g., Sheila Fitzpatrick and Michael Geyer, eds., Beyond Totalitarianism:
Nazism and Stalinism Compared (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Paul
Corner, ed., Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes: Fascism, Nazism, Communism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
38. The exception to this general observation might be the Historikerstreit among
German and non-German historians of Nazi Germany in the mid-1980s. While this
subject is outside the scope of this introduction, it is worth noting that the arguments
of Ernst Nolte, the leading advocate for the view that the crimes of the Third Reich
were not essentially worse than those of Stalin’s Russia, were rejected outright by most
historians and especially harshly criticized by German scholars. The literature on the
Historikerstreit is extensive. See, for example, Erich Nolte, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg
1917–1945: Nationalsozialismus und Bolschewismus (Frankfurt am Main: Herbig Ver-
lag, 1989); Peter Baldwin, Hitler, the Holocaust and the Historians’ Dispute (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1990); Jürgen Peter, Historikerstreit und die Suche nach einer nationalen
Identität der achtziger Jahre (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995); Rudolf Augstein
and Karl Bracher, eds., Historikerstreit: Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die
Einzigartigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung (Munich: Piper, 1987).
39. Mirjana Gross, “Plaidoyer za profesionalnu historiografiju,” Radovi 29 (1996):
35–45; Nada Kisić-Kolanović, “Povijest Nezavisne Države Hrvatske kao predmet
istraživanje,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 34, no. 3 (2002): 679–712.
40. See, e.g., Danilo Tunguz Perović, Stradanje Srba u Hercegovini za vreme Neza-
visne Države Hrvatske (Novi Sad: Dobriša knjiga, 2006); Nikola Živković and Petar
Kačavenda, eds., Srbi u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu
istoriju, 1998); Vladimir Dedijer and Antun Miletić, eds., Proterivanje i stradanje Srba
sa ognjišta, 1941–1945: Svedočanstva (Belgrade: Rad, 1989).
41. The most frequently cited example of this tendency is Vasilje Krestić’s essay, “O
genocidu nad Srbima u NDH,” Književne novine 23, no. 716 (September 15, 1986):
1–5; see also his Genocidom do velike Hrvatske (Novi Sad: Matica Hrvatska, 1998);
Slobodan Klajkić, A Conspiracy of Silence: Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia
(Belgrade: Serbian Ministry of Information, 1991).
42. See, e.g., Zdravko Dizdar and Mihael Sobolevski, Prešućivani četnički zločini
u Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini, 1941–1945 (Zagreb: Ceres, 1997); Josip Pečarić,
Srpski mit o Jasenovcu (Zagreb: Stih, 1999); Ljubica Štefan, Istinom i činjencima za
Hrvatsku (Zagreb: Hrvatsko slovo, 1999); Dušan Bilandžić and Bože Čović, Hrvatska
između rata i samostalnosti (Zagreb: Nacionalna i sveučilišna naklada, 1991), 34–62;
Anto Knežević, “Some Questions about a ‘Balanced’ Discussion,” East European Poli-
tics and Societies 7, no. 1 (winter 1993): 155–66; Mirko Valentić, “O zločinima Crne
 Introduction 37

legija na području Kupresu u ljeto 1942. godine,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 2, no.
32 (2000): 317–34.
43. See, for example, Jure Krišto, Sukob simbola: Politika, vjere i ideologije u Neza-
visnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Globus, 2001); Mirko Valentić, “O etničkom kori-
jenju hrvatskih i bosanskih Srba,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 3, no. 24 (1992):
1–23; Petar Požar, Hrvatska pravoslavna crkva u prošlosti i budućnosti (Zagreb: PIP,
1996); Dragutin Pavličević, “Jugo-istočna Europa i Balkan na granici svjetlova,”
Dženana Efendić-Semiz, “Srpska agrarna reforma,” and roundtable comments of
Aleksandar Ravlić, in Međunarodni znanstveni skup jugoistočna Europa, 1918–1945:
Zadar, 28-30.09.1995, ed. Ante Beljo (Zadar: Hrvatski informativni centar, 1995),
6–13, 80–88, 252–53.
44. See, e.g., Branimir Donat, “Književni nagrade u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,”
Republika 5–6 (June–July 1995): 64–80; Donat, Društvo žrtovanih hrvatskih pjesnika
(Zagreb: Dom, 1998); Donat, “U sjeni nestalih,” Republika 7–9 (June–July 2000): 117–38.
45. See, e.g., Trpimir Mačan, Spremnost, 1942–1945 (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska,
1998); Marko Samardžija, Hrvatski jezik u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb:
Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, 1992); and Samardžija, Ježicni purizam u Nezavis-
noj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, 1993); Stanko Lašić,
Krležologija ili povijest kritičke misli o Miroslavu Krleži: Miroslav Krleža i Nezavisna
Država Hrvatska, 10.4.1941–8.5.1945, vol. 3 (Zagreb: Globus, 1989); Zdenka Tur-
cinec, “Cenzura u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,” Vjesnik biblioteka Hrvatske 3 (2000):
79–90; Hrvoje Klašić, “Društveni život u Sisku u vrijeme drugog svjetskog rata,”
Časopis za suvremenu povijest 3, no. 32 (2000): 527–45.
46. See, e.g., Nada Kisić-Kolanović, Muslimani i hrvatski nacionalizam, 1941–
1945 (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2009); Marko Samardžija, Hrvatski jezik,
pravopis i jezična politika u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna
naklada, 2002); Alan Labus, Politika i novine u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb:
Nova plejada, 2011).
47. See, e.g., Franko Mirošević, “Ustaška mladež u Dubrovniku 1941. godine
u svjetlu službenoga glasila ‘Hrvatski narod,’” Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti
HAZU u Zadru 54 (2012): 305–22; Mario Jareb, “Illusions of a ‘Final Victory’ and
the Fate of ‘Small European Nations’: Media and Propaganda of the Independent State
of Croatia,” in 1945: A Break with the Past; A History of Central European Countries
at the End of World War Two/1945—Prelom s preteklostjo: zgodovina srednjeevropskih
držav ob koncu druge svetovne vojne, ed. Zdenko Čepić (Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo
zgodovino, 2011), 227–39; Nikica Barić, “Šibenik pod upravnom Nezavisne Države
Hrvatske,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 35, no. 2 (2003): 513–44; Nikica Barić
and Vladimir Geiger, “Odjeci i obilježovanja 5 prosinca 1918 u Nezavisnog Državi
Hrvatskoj,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 34, no. 3 (2002): 833–52.
48. See Darko Sagrak, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska: Prijepori i mitovi (Zagreb:
Novija hrvatska povjesnica, 2010), esp. 13–29; Tomislav Jonjić, “Pitanje državnosti
Nezavisne Države Hrvatske,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 43, no. 3 (2011): 667–98.
38 Rory Yeomans

49. Early key works include Martin Broszat and Ladislaus Hory, Der kroatische
Ustascha-Staat 1941–1945 (Stuttgart: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1964); Holm Sund-
haussen, Wirtschaftsgeschichte Kroatiens im nationalsozialistischen Grossraum 1941–
1945: Das Scheitern einer Ausbeutungsstrategie (Stuttgart: Institut für Zeitgeschichte,
1983); Yeshayahu Jelinek, “Nationalities and Minorities in the Independent State of
Croatia,” Nationalities Papers 8, no. 2 (1980): 195–210.
50. See, e.g., Tomislav Dulić, Utopias of Nation: Mass Killing in Bosnia and Herce-
govina, 1941–1942 (Uppsala: University of Uppsala Press, 2005); Alexander Korb, Im
Schatten des Weltkriegs: Massengewalt der Ustaša gegen Serben, Juden und Roma in Kroatien
1941–1945 (Hamburg: Hamburg Edition, 2013); Emily Greble, Sarajevo, 1941–1945:
Muslims, Christians and Jews in Hitler’s New Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2011); Rory Yeomans, Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural
Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945 (Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 2013), 200–
36; Martina Bitunjac, Le donne e il movimento Ustascia (Rome: Edizioni nuova cultura,
2013); Nevenko Bartulin, Honorary Aryans: National-Racial Identity and Protected Jews
in the Independent State of Croatia (New York: Palgrave, 2013).
51. See, for example, Radu Harald Dinu, Faschismus und Gewalt in Südosteuropa:
Die Legion Erzengel Michael und die Ustaša im historischen Vergleich (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013); Alexander Korb, “A Multi-Pronged Attack: Ustaša Per-
secution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma in Wartime Croatia,” in Eradicating Difference:
The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe, ed. Anton Weiss-Wendt
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), 145–63; Rory Yeomans, “Mili-
tant Women, Warrior Men and Revolutionary Personae: The New Ustasha Man and
Woman in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945,” Slavonic and East Euro-
pean Review 83, no. 4 (October 2005): 685–732; Martina Bitunjac, “‘Velike su naše
dužnosti prema narodu’: Intelektualke u Ženskoj loži hrvatskog ustaškog pokreta.” In
Desničini susreti: Zbornik radova, ed. Ivana Cvijović-Javorina and Drago Roksandić
(Zagreb: FF Press, 2011), 243–53.
52. Julije Makanec, “Ustanak u Bjelovaru,” Hrvatska smotra 12, nos. 2–4 (Febru-
ary–April 1944): 102–12.
53. Odmor was modeled on similar mass leisure organizations in Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy, Strength through Joy and the Opera Nazionale Dopalavoro. See
Nada Kisić-Kolanović, “Komunizam u percepciji hrvatske nacionalističke inteligencije
1938.–1945. godine,” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 43, no. 1 (2011): 129–30.
54. For further details about the structure of the Ustasha movement, see the
appendix.
55. Ferdo Čulinović, “Organizacija vlasti i oružane snage u ‘Nezavisnoj Državi
Hrvatskoj,’” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 3, no. 19 (1968): 136–38; Fikreta Jelić-Butić,
Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, 1941–1945 (Zagreb: Liber, 1978), 25–26.
56. “Zakonska odredba za obranu naroda i države,” Narodne novine, April 17, 1941;
“Zakonska odredba o prijekom sudovima,” Narodne novine, May 17, 1941; “Zakonska
odredba o pokretnom prijekom sudovima,” Narodne novine, June 24, 1941.
 Introduction 39

57. See, e.g., “Evakuacija Srba u Zagrebu koji stanuju u odrednjim svjernim
djelovima grada,” Hrvatski narod, May 10, 1941; “Židovi i Srbi moraju za 8 dana
napuštiti svjerni dio Zagrebu,” Hrvatski narod, May 10, 1941.
58. “Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti,” XLV-67 Z., Narodne novine, April
30, 1941; “Zakonska odredba o zaštiti arijske krvi i časti Hrvatskog naroda,” XLIV-
67-Z., Narodne novine, April 30, 1941; “Zakonska odredba zaštiti narodne i arijske
kulture Hrvatskog naroda,” CXLVII-333-Z., Narodne novine, June 4, 1941.
59. See e.g., “Židovima zabranjen polazak kavana, restauracija i goštionica,”
Hrvatski narod, April 22, 1941.
60. See “Zakonska odredba o osnivanju Ureda za obnovu privrede,” LIII/85 Z.
p. 1941, Narodne novine, May 3, 1941; “Zakonska odredba o osnutku Državnoga
ravnateljstva za ponovu,” Narodne novine, June 24, 1941; “Zakonska odredba o
osnutku Državnog ravnateljstva za gospodarstvenu ponovu,” CLXXXI-581-Z. p.
1941, Narodne novine, July 1, 1941.
61. “Značajan politički govor ministra dra Lorkovića,” Hrvatski narod, July 28,
1941.
62. See, e.g., Josip Frajtić, “Neželjena baština,” Hrvatska gruda, September 26,
1941; Ivan Topljak, “Stare rane treba liječiti,” Nezavisna Hrvatska, June 14, 1941.
63. See the policy submission by Glavas to the Ministry for Religion, July 14,
1941, HDA, NDH, MNP, 42.678/B-41, 2203.
64. On the conversion program, see Mark Biondich, “Religion and Nation in
Wartime Croatia: Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions,
1941–1942,” Slavonic and East European Review 83, no. 1 (2005): 71–116; Rory Yeo-
mans, “Eradicating ‘Undesired Elements’: National Regeneration and the Ustasha
Regime’s Program to Purify the Nation, 1941–1945,” in Racial Science in Hitler’s New
Europe, 1938–1945, ed. Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 2013), 215–25.
65. Dennis Reinhartz, “Damnation of the Outsider: The Gypsies of Croatia and
Serbia in the Balkan Holocaust,” in The Gypsies of Eastern Europe, ed. David Crowe
and John Kolsti (London: M. E. Sharpe, 1991), 89.
66. Korb, Im Schatten des Weltkriegs, 336–47.
67. “Hrvatski državni sabor—brzopisni zapisnik III sjednice hrvatskog sabora
Nezavisne Države Hrvatske dne 24 veljača 1942,” Narodne novine, February 25, 1942.
68. For a fuller discussion of the relationship among terror—the “revolution of
blood”—the “second revolution,” and pressure from below and above, see Yeomans,
Visions of Annihilation, 1–29.
69. Stanko Vitković, “Druga revolucija,” Hrvatska smotra 9, no. 12 (December
1941): 621–25; Mile Starčević, “Ustaška država i kulturno-prosvjetna djelatnost,”
Prosvjetni život 1–2 (1942): 4–8.
70. “Smjernice organizacije i rada hrvatskih sveučilištaraca,” Hrvatski narod, April
30, 1944; Luka Puljiz, “Priznanje borcima!” Naraštaj slobode 3, no. 5 (March 15,
1944): 4–5.
40 Rory Yeomans

71. A vivid description of these events is given in Greble, Sarajevo, 1941–1945,

220–29.
72. Milan Kundera, “Paths in the Fog,” in Testaments Betrayed, trans. Linda Asher
(London: Faber and Faber, 1995), 225.
73. See, e.g., the exchange between Nevenko Bartulin and Tomislav Jonjić in
Review of Croatian History 8, no. 1 (2012): 185–268.
 Part One
Terror as Everyday Experience,
Economic System, and Social Practice
 Chapter One

Anti-Semitism and
Economic Regeneration

The Ustasha Regime and the Nationalization

of Jewish Property and Business in Sarajevo

Dallas Michelbacher

The city of Sarajevo represents a unique case within the Independent State of
Croatia. None of the state’s other major cities had such a wealth of ethnic and reli-
gious diversity as Sarajevo, where Croats, Serbs, Muslims, and Jews had coexisted
for centuries. These groups often lived in their own neighborhoods and occupied
their own specific economic niches, but their relationships were generally harmo-
nious prior to the establishment of the Ustasha state. However, not even a city
with such a long-standing history of relative tolerance was immune to the terror
of the Ustasha regime. When it took control of Sarajevo in April 1941, peaceful
ethnic relations in the city were shattered, as neighbors were turned against one
another by the racist ideology of the regime; the Jews and Serbs of Sarajevo were
especially victimized.
The Ustasha regime’s crimes against the Jews are notorious. The Jasenovac
death camp has become the symbol of the horrors committed against them.
However, the Ustasha regime first persecuted the Jews in the social and economic
sphere before deporting them to concentration camps, where the majority met
their deaths. The city of Sarajevo, where there had been little in the way of anti-
Semitism prior to 1941, is an ideal location not only for the study of the state and
local structures and processes for the nationalization and expropriation of Jewish
property but also for an analysis of the capability of the local authorities to inter-
vene in this process in the name of preserving local economic stability.1 Through
studying the types of properties nationalized and expropriated, the handling of
Jewish financial assets, the placement of Jewish firms under Croatian commission-
ers (povjerenici), and the procedure for the sale of expropriated Jewish property, it
is possible to create a model for the nationalization of Jewish property in Sarajevo
as well as to understand its economic impact on the city and the Ustasha regime’s
44 Dallas Michelbacher

plan for the economic “regeneration” of the state. In the city of Sarajevo, while
many properties were confiscated by the Croatian state, the local nationalization
directorate as well as the city’s authorities tried to mitigate the damage this process
caused to the local economy through extralegal actions aimed at maintaining eco-
nomic stability in the city.

The Situation of Jews in Sarajevo and the Ustasha State

Sarajevo’s Jewish population was by no means a large one. During the interwar
period, Jews—both Ashkenazi and Sephardi—represented just 11 percent of the
city’s population, some 7,458 people.2 Most of these Jews were concentrated in
the Čaršija District of Sarajevo, which was the old central business district, though
some Sephardim lived in the Bjelave District, a relatively poor section of the city.
There was some division of economic roles and the general wealth of the popula-
tion between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews in the city. Most of the city’s Jews
were involved with commerce in some way, with many working as artisans. Some
of the Ashkenazim who had immigrated to the city late in the nineteenth century
held professional positions. However, among the native Sephardim, there existed
a substantial number of poorer Jews who lived outside of the city’s commercial
center. In 1933, Jews constituted 9 percent of the insured workforce of Sarajevo.
This schematic of Jewish economic life in the city remained largely unchanged up
to the eve of World War II.3
The establishment of the new state brought an end to the relatively stable
ethnic situation in Sarajevo. In 1941, the city’s population was around eighty-
five thousand. The city’s mixed ethnic composition meant that it did not fit the
nationally pure model espoused by the Ustasha state and required some reconsid-
eration on the part of the party leadership. Their efforts were particularly concen-
trated on finding a way to execute their racially motivated policy of eradicating
“foreign” and anational “elements” while avoiding a catastrophic disruption of the
city’s economy. In the view of the Ustasha movement, the Jews of Sarajevo were
among the elements they considered “foreign”; they were to be removed from the
economy and, ultimately, from society altogether.4
Despite the determination of party officials to exclude Jews from the state econ-
omy, however, local councils, communes, and authorities did not always share
their enthusiasm, as their primary concern was the stability of their communities
rather than racial ideology. Sarajevo epitomized this concern, as local leaders were
hesitant to go along with the regime’s program of organized violence and plunder
against the Jews. Nonetheless, the central Ustasha authorities were relentless in
introducing legislative measures restricting Jewish life in the social and economic
spheres. This began immediately after the Ustasha movement came to power. The
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 45

first major decree the regime introduced against racial and national minorities was
the Law for the Defense of the Nation and the State, promulgated on April 17,
1941.5 This measure legalized, for all intents and purposes, the campaign of terror
and mass murder that the Ustasha regime would wage against the state’s Serbs,
Roma, and Jews over the next four years. This law authorized the execution of
anyone who was deemed to have violated the honor of the Croat people. Two days
after the introduction of this law, the Ustasha regime began the nationalization of
Jewish property.6
Although Jewish assets had been legally frozen on April 14, a decree requiring
Jews to register their property was not issued until April 30; this type of measure
is consistent with the initiation of an organized nationalization process as was
conducted in Nazi Germany and other states in occupied Europe.7 The registra-
tion of Jewish properties began on May 3. Also on April 30, the Legal Decree on
Citizenship was issued, barring non-Aryans from Croat people.8 A third law was
also introduced that day, the Legal Decree for the Protection of the Aryan Blood
and Honor of the Croat Nation; this racial legislation required Jews to wear the
Star of David and a patch bearing the letter “Ž” for Židov (Jew).9 Jews were also
obligated to make financial contributions to the state’s coffers during the early
days of the Ustasha regime through a one-time tax on all Jewish wealth. These
monetary levies, in addition to the profits the state received from expropriation
and liquidating Jewish property, were a major windfall to a new state financially
burdened with the substantial costs of Nazi occupation and the war effort.10
To facilitate the process of expropriating Jewish property, an organiza-
tion known as the State Directorate for Economic Regeneration (Državno
ravnateljstvo za gospodarstvenu ponovu—DRGP) was established on July 1,
with a main office in Zagreb and local offices (podružnica) in cities throughout
the state. Staffed by local businesspeople, professionals, and Ustasha activists,
local offices of the DRGP were tasked with compiling lists of Jewish properties
across the state and handling their nationalization or transfer to commissioners
and their sale to Aryan owners; they also oversaw the liquidation and distribu-
tion of their financial assets. DRGP officials were additionally entrusted with
the task of confiscating Jewish bank assets for the state. After the process of
expropriation was complete, these offices handled requests for compensation for
property, as well as other such appeals.
At the local level, the DRGP offices answered to both the party and the
state DRGP and, on the surface, were accountable and subservient to them. In
September 1941, for example, the owner of an ironworking business, Zlatan
Jaškić, filed a request with the DRGP to retain one of his Jewish employees, a
technician named Josip Zavod. He claimed that Zavod was essential to the func-
tioning of his business. The local Ustasha office sent a letter to the DRGP office
in Sarajevo informing them that, in their opinion, it was best not to interfere
46 Dallas Michelbacher

with employees of Aryan firms in important industries. The DRGP subsequently

granted Jaškić permission to retain Zavod’s services.11 This case represents an
example of how the Ustasha agencies saw fit to intervene in the affairs of the
DRGP; in some cases, citizens would even appeal to Ustasha agencies or the state
DRGP in an attempt to go over the heads of the local DRGP office.
Nonetheless, at the local level, the DRGP still exercised a great deal of autonomy
over Jewish property and its transfer to Aryan hands; the state DRGP and party
tended to intervene in matters only where factories or other major firms were being
directly taken over by the state. The degree of power exerted by this single organiza-
tion over the nationalization and expropriation of Jewish property at the local level
allows for a thorough reconstruction of this process and the formulation of a model
of the flow of Jewish wealth from its rightful owners to the state.

The Schematic of Nationalization in Sarajevo

The nationalization of Jewish business and property in Sarajevo by the DRGP,
while conducted with a racial objective, was ultimately focused on serving the
interests of the Croatian state; the primacy of state interest is evident in the
DRGP’s choices regarding the types of businesses that were nationalized or
Aryanized. The list of cases of properties nationalized in Sarajevo is extensive,
as virtually all Jewish businesses in the city were subject to the DRGP’s control.
However, a distinct pattern emerges in the processes of nationalization and expro-
priation: generally, those properties that were nationalized were industrial or man-
ufacturing concerns important to the war effort, while the DRGP expropriated
and Aryanized other Jewish shops and properties.
In some instances, the destination of the confiscated Jewish property in ques-
tion was very clear. For example, a manufacturing plant owned by a Jew named
Jud Montiljo was given to the Croatian military for use in war production; this
transfer to the state of a war-critical industry fits the general pattern described
above.12 Similarly, a dry cleaner’s shop belonging to Simon Rajs was confiscated
by the DRGP and placed under the control of a commissioner; as this business
was not related to the war effort, its administration was transferred to the DRGP,
which undertook the process of Aryanization, handing the property over to a
commissioner who would be responsible for its sale or liquidation.13
However, there were other cases in which the distinction between war-related
and nonwar-related utility was not so clear. Businesses concerned with the produc-
tion of clothing, for example, were often nationalized by the Croatian state and used
to produce materials for Croatian army uniforms; Jewish tailor Alkalaj Roze’s shop,
for example, was nationalized for this purpose in 1941.14 However, a cobbler’s shop
belonging to Katan Moric was expropriated by the DRGP during the same period,
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 47

as the Croatian state did not choose to nationalize it directly.15 Ostensibly, decisions
about such properties were based more on the needs of the Croatian state and mili-
tary at that time rather than on any set principle. Despite these exceptions, the divi-
sion between war-related and nonwar-related firms can be considered to be a general
guiding principle for the distribution of property between the state and local DRGP.
Once it was decided that a property was to be nationalized, the DRGP’s work in the
process was done; however, if the property was left to the DRGP’s control, it then
would then begin the process of Aryanization.
In his study examining the dynamics of Nazi expropriation of Jewish wealth,
Götz Aly proposed a generic schematic for the confiscation of Jewish property
in occupied Europe. He explained the process in four steps, beginning with
the appraisal and registration of Jewish property, followed by the restriction of
Jewish control over their own property, the appointment of commissioners to
oversee the confiscated property, and, finally, the liquidation of that property.16
This model is applicable to the city of Sarajevo and the Ustasha state, though
the functioning of the DRGP and the unique case of Croatia as a state created a
much more complex process.
A model of the nationalization and expropriation of Jewish property in
Sarajevo must include the distinction between transfers of property directly to
the state and transfers via the DRGP to Aryan commissioners. Within this second
class of property transfers, a further distinction must be made between those com-
missioners who were charged with maintaining the operation of a formerly Jewish
business and those who were simply intermediaries in the sale of the property to
an Aryan owner. Such a model must also include the transfer of vacated property
to both state and private organizations for uses that benefited the public, as well
as the DRGP’s handling of Jewish finances and employment cases. Finally, this
model must account for the manner in which the DRGP accumulated the pro-
ceeds from the properties and assets it confiscated and how those assets were used
by the state.
Of additional note in the study of the DRGP’s actions in Sarajevo is the ame-
nity potential of the directorate; this concept, originated by Harold Demsetz,
explains the phenomenon by which an actor can use nonprofit-related utility to
further his or her own preferences.17 Thus, it is worthwhile analyzing whether the
local DRGP ever used this amenity potential to benefit the Jews of Sarajevo (as
a form of local resistance to the state ideology) or whether it simply executed its
assigned tasks in a calculated manner without personal considerations. Through
the study of all of these aspects of the DRGP’s functioning in the city, it is possible
to model the nationalization and expropriation of Jewish property in Sarajevo and
understand its implications both for the Jews of Sarajevo and the Ustasha state.
The most straightforward part of the process of confiscating Jewish property
was the nationalization of critical industrial concerns by the regime. The DRGP
48 Dallas Michelbacher

had little involvement in this process, as major manufacturing plants and other
firms involved in war production were taken over directly by the regime and mili-
tary authorities. These firms were then used to produce goods that were needed by
the Croatian army, Ustasha paramilitary units, and state security agencies. Though
the regime generally handled such matters directly, the DRGP often became
involved in handling requests for compensation by the former owners of such
firms. For example, in September 1941, Salamon Z. Levi requested compensa-
tion for his vulcanization plant. Levi was awarded 2,000 kunas by the DRGP;
this amount does not represent a large sum, as substantial wartime inflation was
already occurring in the Ustasha state by late 1941.18
The state authorities and the war effort also frequently benefited from the
confiscation by the DRGP of stores of goods that had formerly belonged to
Jews. For example, in a report dated September 17, 1941, the railway office
noted that it had acquired “one box of carpet tacks, six wrench sets, ten packs
of hanging nails,” and other assorted hardware from a confiscated warehouse.
These materials were turned over to the DRGP, which transferred them to
nationalized firms as needed.19
A document from September 9, 1941, records a similar seizure of assets of a
Jewish tailor, Izidor Alkalaj. Alkalaj had been the owner of the Vijenac warehouse
in Sarajevo, which was vacated when Alkalaj was deported to Kravica concentra-
tion camp. The commissioner placed in charge of Vijenac requested permission
from the DRGP to have the police open this warehouse. Rather than selling the
goods, however, the appointed commissioner sought to distribute the hats and
clothes in the warehouse to the “impoverished workers” employed at the rail-
way in Sarajevo, which was under state control. DRGP commissar Čeremović
approved the request.20 The decision by the DRGP commissar to share the con-
fiscated goods with the railway workers could represent an attempt by the Ustasha
state to win popular support for anti-Semitic measures in a city that was not natu-
rally highly anti-Semitic.
Finally, the German consulate in Sarajevo Albert Aurich requested to sell cloth-
ing and other items that were under the control of the DRGP. The DRGP acqui-
esced, with the support of the state DRGP and local Ustasha apparatus.21 The use
of goods that fell into state hands via the DRGP to benefit the German war effort
became a minor theme in the overall process of nationalization in Sarajevo. The
transfer of goods from DRGP properties to nationalized firms continued periodi-
cally throughout the war. However, property nationalized by the Croatian state
was not the primary concern of the DRGP; its primary task was the redistribution
of smaller Jewish businesses and properties to Aryan ownership.
The most basic form of Aryanization conducted by the DRGP in Sarajevo was
the turnover of a confiscated Jewish property to a Croatian commissioner, who
would then manage the property until its liquidation or oversee its sale under
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 49

the DRGP’s authority.22 The most common practice was for the DRGP to sim-
ply select middle-class, white collar, or professional Croatians or Muslims from
Sarajevo and place them in charge of previously Jewish-owned firms. The Albert
Alkalaj firm in Sarajevo was among those Aryanized through commissionership
when Alkalaj was removed from his office as head of the firm and replaced by
a DRGP appointee, an office worker named Nusret Čandarević.23 This practice
seems to have been particularly preferred in the early period of expropriations,
prior to September 1941.
However, the face of expropriations soon changed as, on the night of
September 3–4, 1941, the local Ustasha authorities deported some one thousand
Sarajevan Jews to Kravica.24 While the Ustasha regime had begun the deporta-
tion of Croatia’s Jews to camps, including the notorious Jasenovac extermination
camp, in July 1941, the action on the night of September 3–4 was the first large-
scale deportation of Jews from Sarajevo.25 After this wave of deportations, the
task of the DRGP in Sarajevo changed. Now, instead of removing Jews through
legislation and replacing them with Aryan commissioners, they were appointing
commissioners to take over businesses vacated by the deportees.
In many cases, commissionerships were granted on the basis of the DRGP’s
trust in the prospective commissioner; nonetheless, other commissionerships were
awarded on the basis of a request by an ethnic Croatian for the control of a busi-
ness. During the course of September and October 1941, when there was a large
number of Jewish properties abandoned after the deportations of September 3–4,
the DRGP fielded numerous requests for commissionerships. For example, in late
September 1941, the DRGP received a request from a businessman, Marijan Palić,
to be granted control of a Jewish firm; Palić’s request was nonspecific, volunteer-
ing his services as a commissioner wherever there may have been an opening.26
In other cases, Sarajevan citizens made requests for the commissionership of
a specific concern. In the case of the Jewish-owned firm Kolega, for example,
Dragutin Čičić, a businessperson, applied to become its commissioner upon
Kolega’s confiscation from its owner, a Jew named Abinun. However, Čičić’s
request ran into a roadblock due to the DRGP’s regulations about its commis-
sioners; he was already serving as the commissioner of another firm, Maestro, and
was thus rejected, as the DRGP stated that commissionership of more than one
firm by an individual was not allowed in order to prevent conflicts between com-
missioners and to maintain the public’s perception that they were working for the
benefit of the Ustasha state, rather than their own personal gain.27
The DRGP placed other restrictions on its commissioners in order to regulate
their activities and ensure that the businesses were operated in a way that brought
in money for the DRGP and, thus, for the state. The DRGP levied money from
its commissioners, in addition to rent and taxes, that was, the DRGP claimed, to
prevent sabotage; this policy was also held up to the public as an example of the
50 Dallas Michelbacher

strict ethical controls that the DRGP placed upon its commissioners in order to
prevent corruption. One of the earliest commissioners appointed, Albert Roman,
paid the DRGP 2,400 kunas to control the Bernard Finci firm.28
The DRGP also exercised control over the continued employment of its com-
missioners and, in many cases, removed commissioners, sometimes without cause.
The main reason given in DRGP documentation for removal of commissioners was
inefficiency, which would entail a loss of profit to the DRGP and a loss of income
for the Croatian state. Other documents hint at the possibility of corruption com-
mitted by dismissed commissioners. In two cases from September 1941, two com-
missioners from separate firms—Marija Ratković at an unnamed business and
Slavka Bravadžić at the Moric Kabiljo firm—were dismissed from their positions
for unstated reasons, though it is implied that their dismissals were the result of
inefficiency.29 In another case, however, the commissioner of the Maks Hofbauer
firm, Omer Ćatović, requested permission to retain his position; the DRGP took no
action, and, presumably, he was still removed. Nonetheless, Ćatović’s request reflects
a unique example of boldness on the part of an outgoing commissioner, as none of
the other commissioners who were removed at this time made such a request.30
Though commissionerships were the primary means of Aryanizing expro-
priated Jewish properties, in some cases the DRGP oversaw the sale of the firm
directly to a Croatian owner and simply collected the profits from its sale. It also
oversaw the transfer of confiscated or abandoned Jewish properties to state or pri-
vate agencies for public uses. In these cases, the DRGP was essentially an agency
for the redistribution of formerly Jewish wealth. The sales of DRGP-controlled
properties were conducted in two distinct ways. The first was the direct sale of the
property by the DRGP to a prospective Croatian owner; alternatively, the prop-
erty could be turned over to a community cooperative that was under contract
with the DRGP, and the sale would be handled by the cooperative. Both methods
of selling confiscated property were used regularly, and the DRGP showed little
preference for one method over the other. In a case of the former practice, a busi-
nessman Emilijan Treml made the purchase of an antique shop that had formerly
belonged to a Jew named Mirko Kislinger; the property was turned over to him
by the DRGP at an unnamed price.31 The latter approach was a bit more complex
and required greater involvement on the part of the DRGP in terms of paper-
work and coordination. In the case of the Bukia shop, formerly the property of
Klara Kohen, a Croatian businessperson named Anto Sajević submitted a request
to the DRGP to purchase the property. He was told by the DRGP to contact their
community cooperative to request the purchase of the property. The cooperative
would then negotiate the price with him and report the sale back to the DRGP.32
The DRGP handled not only the sale of confiscated properties under its con-
trol but also their distribution to state and private organizations for public use. In
these cases, the DRGP sought to take actions that benefited the local community
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 51

or the war effort. Most requests of this nature were referred to the local party office
or the state DRGP for a second opinion, as the DRGP sought to make correct
decisions on such important matters. A case that demonstrates this process is a
1941 request by the Bosnian Military Hospital for the use of an abandoned Jewish
house in Sarajevo as a recovery area for injured men. The state DRGP office sent
notice to the DRGP branch in Sarajevo supporting the request in mid-September.
The Sarajevo office of the DRGP then sent word on to the hospital that its request
had been granted and that it should set its plan into action “without hesitation.”33
In other instances, the local DRGP handled requests from organizations uni-
laterally. For example, in late 1941, a grain company approached the DRGP to
request the use of abandoned Jewish warehouses to process cereals and flour. The
DRGP sent its agents out to compile a list of available warehouses. After the list
was compiled, the DRGP negotiated the rent payments for the facilities with the
company and arranged for the transfer of the property.34 In this case, the DRGP
handled a matter that was important for the public good through its own chan-
nels, rather than consulting the state DRGP or the local party office.
Although the DRGP employed numerous means to effect the Aryanization of
Jewish properties in Sarajevo, this process represented an enormous redistribu-
tion of property and income from Jewish to Croatian ownership. However, the
transference of control over physical property was not the only recourse by which
the DRGP was to effect the economic “regeneration” of the city of Sarajevo. It
also took control of the finances of the city’s Jews, confiscating and liquidating
their assets for the benefit of the Croatian state. In addition, the DRGP exercised
its power in questions of employment related to Jewish firms or individual Jews,
usually requests from Croatian business owners or commissioners to retain the
services of a Jewish employee. The DRGP would decide the economic necessity
of the employee and rule in the matter on that basis. The DRGP’s actions in these
matters also made a substantial contribution to the Croatian state’s quest to expro-
priate the wealth of Sarajevo’s Jews for its own uses.

The Nationalization of Jewish Financial Assets

As Götz Aly has argued, one of the first actions that Nazi Germany and the states
of occupied Europe took against the Jews was to freeze and confiscate their bank
accounts, stocks, and securities.35 The Ustasha regime initiated much the same
process. Although Jewish assets were legally frozen on April 14, 1941, even before
the legal groundwork for the nationalization of Jewish property was in place at
the national level, in Sarajevo the actual confiscation of these assets did not take
place for some time. This delay was due to the fact that it was not until July 1941
and the establishment of a regional DRGP office that an economic agency existed
52 Dallas Michelbacher

that was able to carry out the process of confiscation. Nonetheless, once opera-
tional, the DRGP exercised considerable control over local bank and credit union
branches, closing and confiscating accounts and transferring money at will. The
confiscation of these assets followed a process similar to the one used in the confis-
cation of physical property belonging to Sarajevo’s Jews.
As was the case with property, the first step in the DRGP’s confiscation of
Jewish financial assets was an inventory of Jewish bank and credit accounts in the
city’s financial institutions. During July and August 1941, the DRGP ordered the
banks of Sarajevo to compile lists of Jewish assets in their holdings and required
credit unions to provide lists of their Jewish membership. The DRGP then over-
saw the passage of regulations that removed the banks’ control over their Jewish
customers’ accounts. In some cases, the DRGP installed its own employees as the
new managers of banks and credit unions. Such was the case at the Botić Credit
Union, where a DRGP official named Pračić was appointed to “oversee the con-
duct” of the credit union; in reality, Pračić’s task was to oversee the confiscation of
the assets belonging to the union’s Jewish members.36 This practice became stan-
dard at the city’s small, privately run credit unions in 1941.
In another case, the DRGP became aware through its surveys of Jewish
financial possessions in the city that the firm of D. Gaon Bencion held a credit
account worth 400,000 kunas. With no notification given to the firm, the DRGP
requested that the bank simply turn over the Bencion firm’s credit account to the
DRGP’s own account at the city bank.37 Such transactions brought enormous
financial gains to the Croatian state very quickly. Through the same process of
appraisal, restriction, commissionership, and liquidation that had been used in
dealing with expropriated property, the DRGP was able to confiscate the financial
assets of the Jews of Sarajevo at a rapid pace during the latter half of 1941.

The DRGP and Jewish Employees

A more complicated set of issues was presented to the Sarajevo DRGP in the inqui-
ries it received regarding Jewish employees at firms in the city. These questions
were difficult because they fell into a gray area between the ideological line of the
Ustasha state and the task of economic “regeneration” that the DRGP was charged
with. Removing Jewish employees would be the appropriate action toward the
goal of a judenrein Croatian economy, but the loss of essential skilled employees
could be damaging to production in Sarajevo’s firms. Thus, the DRGP’s handling
of issues relating to Jewish employees was not governed by clear rules and processes
like other aspects of the Aryanization of the Croatian economy; instead, they were
handled on a case-by-case basis, which demonstrates the Sarajevo DRGP’s capac-
ity for economic rationality in its control of the resources at hand.
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 53

The closest semblance of a guiding principle for the DRGP’s decisions with
regard to the status of Jewish employees in Aryan companies was the economic
utility of the worker in question. In cases where the worker was critical to the pro-
ductivity of the business, precedent from previous Ustasha and state DRGP pro-
nouncements dictated a policy of noninterference. Viktor Klajn was a technician
employed at the Cesar Josef Danon firm (a formerly Jewish firm that had been
placed under Aryan commissionership). The Aryan commissioner of the firm sub-
mitted a request to the DRGP to retain the services of Klajn and to be able to pay
him a fair wage for his services. Operating both on the basis of rational thinking
about the firm’s productivity and on precedent, as illustrated in the Zlatan Jaškić
case, the DRGP agreed to allow the commissioner to retain Klajn and to pay him
whatever wage he deemed appropriate.38
In cases where the employee in question was working in an unskilled posi-
tion, however, the DRGP’s attitudes shifted dramatically. For example, in 1941
the owner of a block of flats in Sarajevo, Veljko Ujdurović, submitted a request
to the DRGP to retain his Jewish janitor, who had been barred from his position.
Here, the DRGP took a hard line, denying Ujdurović’s request: its decision cited
an ordinance in Sarajevo banning Jews from flats in the city.39 Such a strict adher-
ence to a minor ordinance represented an economic choice dictated by ideology
rather than practicality. Yet, in this case, the ideologically correct line could be
followed at little cost to the economy of Sarajevo, since an unskilled worker like a
janitor was viewed as easily replaceable, while a technician like Viktor Klajn was
not. The DRGP’s actions in these two cases are an effective illustration of the bal-
ance between strictly rational choice and ideological orthodoxy. This boundary
was further tested through the limited appeals process that the DRGP granted to
Jews and others who had lost property or employees to the “campaign of plunder
and pillage” led by the DRGP and the deportations conducted by Ustasha secu-
rity agencies and military units.40

Appeals to the DRGP

The appeals handled by the DRGP in Sarajevo fell into two major categories:
those dealing with financial losses and those dealing with lost personnel. As was
illustrated above, the process for answering employment questions was based on
the perceived importance of the employee in question, demonstrating a capacity
for rational economic decision-making on the part of the DRGP. In the case of
requests by Jews for compensation for lost property, the DRGP saw fit to grant
such requests only in the case of properties that had been taken by the state.
While the measures that legalized the nationalization of these properties did not
require the payment of any indemnity by the state, the DRGP often saw fit to
54 Dallas Michelbacher

mete out some compensation to the dispossessed owner when not constrained
by the market.41
For example, Salamon Gaon, who had lost his business in the nationalization
drive of July 1941, requested compensation of 650 kunas per month. As this mod-
est sum did not significantly impair the utility produced by the nationalization of
the firm, the DRGP granted his request.42 Also in July 1941, a brewer whose
brewery had been nationalized requested a lump sum payment of 23,334.33
kunas in compensation for the loss of his business. Though this request was for a
much larger sum of money, the fact that it was a lump sum payment, as well as the
fact that the state still gained a substantial amount of utility from the control of
his brewery, meant that this payment would not cause substantial damage to their
profit in the long term; as a result, his request was granted.43
Another application of rational economic choice by the DRGP is the case of
a commissioner who had recently taken over a Jewish firm early in the process of
nationalization in 1941. The new Aryan owner was struggling to make a profit
from his new business and requested an exemption from his rent payment to
the DRGP because of the high costs in running the business. The DRGP rec-
ognized that pressing this commissioner for continued payment of rent would
likely cause the business to fail and thus granted him an exemption from that
month’s payment.44 While these decisions do represent the capacity of the DRGP
to act rationally within the constraints of the political situation and the market,
they should not be misconstrued as altruistic behavior. The DRGP was still an
economic agency of a radical anti-Semitic regime, its apparatus and personnel
directly involved in the operation of the Holocaust in Croatia. Its response to a
request by a business for the return of staff after the deportations of September
1941 demonstrates this well.
On September 17, 1941, the new owner of the Jonekla hardware store, an
employee prior to the expropriation of the property, wrote to the DRGP to request
the return of three of the store’s former employees. An ironworker named David
Eskenazi, along with the former owner of the store, Moric Finci, and his son Josef
had been deported from Sarajevo on the night of September 3–4, he explained; the
new owner deemed their work, particularly Eskenazi’s skilled labor, essential to the
continued profitability of the firm. Despite the form of this request, which matched
previous successful appeals against the removal of personnel, the DRGP informed
the new owner that it was not, in fact, possible for the employees to be returned
from the Kravica camp. The DRGP explained that the order to deport the Jews
from Sarajevo on that night had come from Zagreb, and thus the DRGP was not
authorized to override this decision.45 While accurate in terms of the DRGP’s place
in the state’s power structure, its explanation does not reveal the entire reason the
employees of the store could not be returned: the DRGP was aware that most of the
Jews deported from Sarajevo on that night had already been massacred.
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 55

Sarajevo after the Nationalization Drive

Unfortunately for the Jews of Sarajevo, the deportations of September 3–4, 1941,
were not to be the last carried out by the Ustasha regime in that city. Sarajevo’s Jews
faced additional deportations during the late fall of 1941; by that time, the regime
had established at least a dozen concentration camps throughout the state, including
the infamous Jasenovac and Jadovno camps, to which Jews were being systematically
deported.46 During 1942, the local Ustasha branch’s attitude toward the racial issue
in Sarajevo became harsher, and deportations continued through the summer of
that year.47 As in much of the Ustasha state, the authorities became more aggressive
in deporting Jews to the concentration camps, and, over the course of the war, 75 to
80 percent of Croatia’s Jews perished in Ustasha camps.48
The systemic shock of the Aryanization drive combined with a large number
of refugees from violence in the countryside created a troublesome economic situ-
ation in the city, as well as a social crisis. The authorities in Sarajevo, particularly
the mayor, Hasan Demirović, were disappointed that the DRGP and the state
had not decided to distribute confiscated Jewish apartments and houses to refu-
gees.49 This influx of population, combined with the inevitable shortages in sup-
ply caused by the inefficiency of commissioner-run businesses led to scarcity of
food and materials and increasing prices. The Ustasha regime declined to inter-
vene with additional social services, so private and religious organizations in the
city were needed to shelter and feed people.50 Fortunately, Catholic and Muslim
organizations had been granted some of the property left behind by deported Jews
and thus had the facilities to adapt their services to the increased needs of the
community.51 Many of the religious leaders in the city had voiced their opposi-
tion to the deportations to the city authorities, but to no avail; ironically, their
charitable efforts in the city benefited from the aftermath of the deportations.

The Croatian State’s Profits

Of course, the main beneficiary of the nationalization of property in Sarajevo, and
in Croatia as a whole, was the DRGP and, thus, the Croatian state. The DRGP
enjoyed numerous sources of income as a result of this process; these included the
confiscation of Jewish bank accounts and securities, direct profits from the sale of
Jewish property to Croat citizens, and rent and tax payments from commissioners.
The Sarajevo branch of the DRGP held an account at the City Bank of Sarajevo to
deposit the income from these processes; from this account they made payments
to their employees and transferred their profits to the Croatian state.
Handwritten bank records for the DRGP’s account in Sarajevo date back to
the creation of the directorate on July 1, 1941.52 The account was in the name of
56 Dallas Michelbacher

one of the leading officials in the Sarajevo DRGP, a former businessperson named
Josip Rover. Rover oversaw the payment of the DRGP’s officials from this account.
For example, on September 17, 1941, he authorized the payment of 50,000 kunas
to DRGP official M. Pilavdžić, indicating that the higher-ranking officials in the
DRGP made healthy salaries. In this same letter, Rover requested the closure of
the old DRGP work account and the opening of a new one.53
Through the DRGP’s deposit slips and bank statements, it is evident that the
DRGP in Sarajevo was quite profitable and brought in a significant income for
the Croatian state. For example, on the same day that he authorized the pay-
ment of 50,000 kunas, Josip Rover signed a deposit slip for a payment of 258,000
kunas into the DRGP’s work account.54 The bank also sent frequent statements
to the DRGP indicating the profit they were receiving through the rent and taxes
paid by their commissioners. Over the course of about three weeks in September
and October 1941, the DRGP’s account for these funds increased from 87,980.45
kunas to 129,120 kunas and eventually to a mark of 227,900 kunas on October
4.55 Such an income in a relatively short period of time meant that the generous
salaries of the DRGP’s employees were easily affordable and did not substantially
diminish the state’s profits from nationalization, though the state itself was in dire
financial straits due to the high rate of inflation and shortages of basic goods.
The profits from the nationalization of Jewish property and assets were an
important source of revenue for the cash-strapped Croatian state. The state, like
other nations occupied by Nazi Germany and subject to a Wehrmacht presence
on their soil, was pressured with enormous payments for these “services” ren-
dered by the occupation authorities. As the evidence from Sarajevo suggests, the
nationalization of Jewish property was a substantial and, ultimately, vital source of
income. Götz Aly notes that in 1943 the Croatian state’s budget totaled approxi-
mately 1.25 billion kunas. He states that this amount was almost entirely covered
by revenues from nationalized Jewish assets, including confiscated bank accounts
and profits from confiscated Jewish and Serb property.56 This remarkable bud-
getary feat is indicative of the critical role the nationalization of Jewish property
played in keeping the Ustasha state financially liquid; it is also a testament to the
prewar economic strength of the Jews of Croatia and Bosnia as well as the magni-
tude of the dispossession conducted by the DRGP.

Amenity Potential, the DRGP, and

the Economic Stability of Sarajevo
The vast amount of political and economic power the DRGP exercised and the
value of the resources under its control raise other economic questions about
its choices as an economic actor, particularly in the appeals cases it heard. The
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 57

concessions that it made to Jews in compensation, which were not required of it

by the law, are evidence of economic preferences that were not in line with strict
adherence to the law and profit maximization. As such, its decisions in these cases
are a useful case study of amenity potential by governmental actors.
Three factors are relevant in evaluating an economic actor’s exercise of ame-
nity potential as demonstrated in the typology set out by Ray Jones in his study
of Oskar Schindler’s economic choices: the actor’s economic preferences, the
resources available to the actor, and the legal and market forces that constrain the
actor.57 These influences on the actors’ choices determine the amenity potential
they possess and are the crucial factors in analyzing the actors’ exercise of their
amenity potential.
From its creation in July 1941, the stated preference of the DRGP was profit
maximization; this preference reflected its function as an agency tasked with
enriching the Croat national economy. While its preferences at the state level
were easily controlled, at the local level, pressures within the community and
the motives of individuals within the DRGP also influenced its choices. Profit
maximization was still the dominant preference observable in the actions of the
Sarajevo DRGP. Its confiscation of Jewish bank accounts and properties, along
with its strict management of commissioners, indicate a prescient concern for
maximizing profit. However, pressures to resist the state’s agenda from local actors
such as Mayor Hasan Demirović also influenced its decision to protect the stabil-
ity of the local economy.58 As demonstrated by its decisions to award compen-
sation to Jews whose properties had been nationalized directly by the state, the
Sarajevo branch of the DRGP did pursue aims other than simple profit maximiza-
tion.59 Its decision to allow the retention of some Jewish employees demonstrates
convictions beyond the prevailing racial ideology of both the Ustasha state and
party as well as a pragmatic preference for maintaining economic stability.
The DRGP’s decision to award these compensation payments was supported
by substantial cash resources made available by its position of political and
economic power. By contrast, allowing Aryanized businesses to retain Jewish
employees was certainly a deliberate choice, but one in which the DRGP was
more constrained by its resources, as many of these people worked in skilled
positions and could not be easily replaced. Nonetheless, these actions deviated
from a strict interpretation of state ideology, which made no concessions to
human resources in Croatian cities.

The Economic Preferences of the DRGP

The choices of the DRGP were shaped both by pressures from hard-line factions
in the Ustasha regime and the uncompromising state laws from above as well
58 Dallas Michelbacher

as community pressures from below. Nevertheless, the choices its officials made
reflected serious concern for the market constraints that existed in Sarajevo at
the time; the DRGP’s actions reflected a belief that the economic “regenera-
tion” of Croatia through profiting from the nationalization of Jewish property
and the maintenance of the economic stability of the city of Sarajevo were not
mutually exclusive aims. Its exercise of extralegal preferences in paying indemni-
ties when they were not legally obligated demonstrated a willingness to exceed
the legal pressures of the state, while their actions toward Jewish employees in
some appeals cases reflects a determination to protect businesses from losses in
a volatile market.
The Sarajevo branch of the DRGP clearly expressed economic preferences out-
side of profit maximization, particularly for the maintenance of the economic
health of the city. Its use of the available resources to provide compensation to
dispossessed Jewish business owners and to attempt to alleviate the lack of skilled
workers by allowing some Jewish employees to retain their positions reflect con-
scious preferences for rational action rather than ideology. As a result, it is clear
that the primary constraint on its behavior was not legal and social pressures from
the Ustasha state but the constraints of the market in Sarajevo. The choices of the
Sarajevo branch of the DRGP are thus consistent with the possession and exercise
of amenity potential as defined by Demsetz and applied by Jones.
The DRGP was an instrument of state terror and complicit in the destruction
of the Jewish community. Its endeavors in nationalizing and Aryanizing Jewish
property and assets brought massive profits to the Ustasha state and allowed it to
finance its war effort and further its agenda of racial purification and annihilation.
The Sarajevo branch of the DRGP played a vital role in the process of nationaliza-
tion in Croatia, and its structure and modes of operation were representative of
local branches of the DRGP throughout the state. However, in the midst of the
crimes of the Holocaust, the DRGP in Sarajevo did demonstrate preferences for
the maintenance of economic stability in the city, which benefited a small propor-
tion of the city’s Jewish population. While this exercise of amenity potential was
small in comparison to the enormous crimes of the DRGP, it does demonstrate
that underlying the process of economic “regeneration” in the Croatian state was
a concern not merely for the economic welfare of the Ustasha regime but also for
the economic stability of the communities under the DRGP’s control.

Notes
1. Martin Dean, in his seminal work, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jew-
ish Property in the Holocaust, 1933–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 3, defines Aryanization or expropriation as the “transfer of property directly
 Anti-Semitism and Economic Regeneration 59

into Aryan hands,” while nationalization is defined as “confiscation of property by

the state.”
2. Harriet Pass Friedenreich, The Jews of Yugoslavia: A Quest for Community (Phila-
delphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 17.
3. Ibid., 19.
4. Emily Greble-Balić, “When Croatia Needed Serbs: Nationalism and Genocide
in Sarajevo, 1941–1942,” Slavic Review 68 (2009): 119.
5. “Zakonska odredba za obranu naroda i države,” Narodne novine, April 17, 1941.
6. Emily Greble-Balić, Sarajevo 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Hitler’s
Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), 105.
7. Götz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War and the Nazi Welfare State
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 228.
8. Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945 (Palo Alto, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2001), 383–84.
9. Ibid., 592–93.
10. Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, 228.
11. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Records Group 83.003M,
“Državno ravnateljstvo za gospodarsku ponovu-podružnica Sarajevo (Fond DRGP),
1941–1942,” reel 2.
12. DRGP Nationalization Order, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 1.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, 214.
17. Harold Demsetz, “Amenity Potential, Indivisibilities, and Political Competi-
tion,” in Perspectives on Positive Political Economy, ed. James E. Alt and Kenneth A.
Shepsle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
18. Salamon Z. Levi to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
19. DRGP report, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
20. Croatian commissioner of Alkalaj Firm to Gosp. Čeremović, USHMM, RG
83.003M, reel 2.
21. Albert Aurich to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
22. Greble-Balić, Sarajevo 1941–1945, 105.
23. DRGP record of commissionership for Alkalaj Firm, USHMM, RG 83.003M,
reel 2.
24. Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941–1945: A Record of Racial
and Religious Persecutions and Massacres (Chicago: American Institute for Balkan Stud-
ies, 1961), 116.
25. Ibid., 117.
26. Marijan Palić to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
27. Dragutin Čičić to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
28. DRGP to Albert Roman, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 4.
29. DRGP report on dismissals of commissioners, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
60 Dallas Michelbacher

30. Omer Čatović to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.

31. Emilijan Treml to DRGP USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 4.
32. Anto Savjević to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
33. DRGP to Bosnian Military Hospital, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
34. DRGP report on abandoned warehouses, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
35. Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, 214.
36. DRGP commissionership order for Botić credit union, USHMM, RG
83.003M, reel 4:.
37. DRGP to City Bank of Sarajevo, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
38. DRGP to commissioner of Cesar Josef Danon Firm, USHMM, RG 83.003M,
reel 2.
39. Veljko Ujdurović to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
40. Srdja Trifković, Ustaša: Croatian Fascism and European Politics, 1929–1945
(London: Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, 1998), 183.
41. Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 116.
42. Salamon Gaon to DRGP, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 4.
43. DRGP report, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 4.
44. DRGP rent exemption order, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 4.
45. DRGP to Jonekla Firm commissioner, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
46. Trifković, Ustaša, 193.
47. Greble-Balić, Sarajevo 1941–1945, 130.
48. Trifković, Ustaša, 216.
49. Greble-Balić, Sarajevo 1941–1945, 138.
50. Ibid., 213.
51. Ibid., 106.
52. DRGP bank statement from City Bank of Sarajevo, USHMM, RG 83.003M,
reel 4.
53. Josip Rover to City Bank of Sarajevo, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
54. Deposit slip from City Bank of Sarajevo, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
55. DRGP bank statement from City Bank of Sarajevo, USHMM, RG 83.003M,
reel 2.
56. Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, 228.
57. See Ray Jones, “The Economic Puzzle of Oskar Schindler: Amenity Potential
and Rational Choice,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 57, no. 1 (Jan
1998): 12.
58. Greble-Balić, Sarajevo 1941–1945, 109.
59. Various, USHMM, RG 83.003M, reel 2.
 Chapter Two

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times

Everyday Life in Karlovac under Ustasha Rule

Filip Erdeljac

Surrounded by the Kupa, Korana, Mrežnica, and Dobra rivers, the city of
Karlovac was, in times of peace, widely recognized as a place of leisure and sports.
Its picturesque parks, dating from the Habsburg period, and beach-lined river-
banks provided natives and visitors alike with ample opportunities for a variety
of pleasurable activities. Karlovac’s beautiful physical geography, however, did not
always lend itself to a positive portrayal of the city. Ante Kovačić, the famous
nineteenth-century writer, referenced Karlovac’s proximity to so many rivers, and
the humid, swamp-like environment created by such a geographical position,
in his unfinished condemnation of Karlovac and its inhabitants, Međ Žabarima
(Among the frog people). So outraged were Karlovac’s elites at Kovačić’s portrayal
of them as frog-like, duplicitous, and cowardly that Kovačić never completed the
volume. In times of war, Karlovac’s rivers and the star-shaped fortress located in
the town’s center helped protect the town from invaders.
The advent of the Second World War, however, placed Karlovac’s citizens in a
situation where the lines between the invaders and the invaded—the aggressors
and victims—became blurred beyond any recognition. As an Ustasha strong-
hold surrounded by an overwhelmingly Serbian Orthodox–inhabited country-
side, Karlovac served as a center from which the Ustasha state launched many
murderous raids against the area’s Serbian Orthodox community. Nonetheless,
it also suffered ample devastation and many casualties as rebel guerillas from
surrounding areas sought to wrest the city from Ustasha hands. Though a histor-
ical analysis can neither confirm nor disprove Kovačić’s one-dimensional carica-
ture of Karlovac’s citizens, it can offer important insights into how the ordinary
inhabitants of this picturesque town and its surrounding areas responded
to a set of extraordinary circumstances brought about by the Nazi invasion
of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Ustasha-led Independent State of
Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska—NDH), circumstances so extreme they
could hardly be compared to anything the city had ever experienced before.
62 Filip Erdeljac

Exploring the manner in which the Ustasha movement ruled and how Karlovac’s
citizens adjusted to Ustasha rule in and around Karlovac can lead us to conclu-
sions relevant far beyond Karlovac’s city limits.

Karlovac before World War II

Established in 1579 only fifty-five kilometers from Zagreb, Karlovac existed, for
much of its history, as a fortress town in the Habsburg Military Frontier and played
an important role in deterring Ottoman incursions. On the eve of the Military
Frontier’s abolition in 1881, Karlovac and the areas surrounding it consisted of
an indigenous Catholic population, which comprised a majority in the city itself
and the plains north of the town toward Zagreb but constituted a minority in the
area just south of Karlovac known as Kordun, which was inhabited by an over-
whelmingly Orthodox population. By the time of Karlovac’s integration into the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the town had transformed itself from a
military town to a commercial and industrial center boasting a large nail factory
and flourishing leather industry, with a population composed of 17,845 Catholic
and 2,365 Orthodox inhabitants.
During the interwar period, Karlovac politics revolved around two major par-
ties: Stjepan Radić’s Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka—HSS)
and Svetozar Pribičević’s Independent Democrats, a predominantly Serbian party.
Nationalism made inroads into Karlovac, as elsewhere in Eastern Europe, dur-
ing the nineteenth century and led to increased tensions between those citizens
who began to identify with Croat nationalism and those who appropriated a Serb
or Yugoslav national identity. Some of these tensions manifested themselves in
the local newspapers of the two main parties, the HSS’s Hrvatska sloboda and the
pro-Yugoslav Karlovac. Articles describing the Serbs as primitive, uncivilized, and
uncultured—as a result of their Byzantine legacy, Eastern Orthodox religion, and
experience of Ottoman occupation—appeared in Hrvatska sloboda, implying to
ordinary Croats that the Serbs were too politically and culturally inferior to hold
a dominant position in a state they shared with the Western-oriented, culturally
more advanced, and politically progressive Croats.1 Karlovac regularly responded
by labeling Croat nationalists as agents serving divisive foreign forces bent on frag-
menting Yugoslavia.2
The increasingly loud rhetoric of national intolerance from nationalist
leaders during the interwar period has led some scholars to assume that lines
between Serbs and Croats had been clearly drawn and that national antago-
nisms made any future in a common state impossible long before the Axis inva-
sion of Yugoslavia. The heated exchanges between nationalists, however, give
us little insight into the degree to which common people participated in the
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 63

nationalist tensions. By projecting the intolerant rhetoric of nationalist leaders

onto the masses, scholars highlighting the allegedly irremediable national ten-
sions between Serbs and Croats have neglected the complexity of identity in
interwar Karlovac and Yugoslavia more generally. Failing to consider the contri-
butions made by recent studies of the phenomenon of national indifference—
studies that have called into question the degree to which common people felt
immersed in exclusive national categories—scholarship on Yugoslavia has over-
whelmingly ignored the many individuals whom it would be difficult to place
according to clearly defined national and political lines.3
People’s religious affiliations did not always correspond to the identities they
developed and the political roles they might be expected to play on the basis of
their Catholicism or Orthodoxy, as exemplified by one of Karlovac’s most promi-
nent citizens of the interwar period, Dr. Milan Vujčić. Born to rural Orthodox
parents, Vujčić married a Catholic woman and became prominent in Karlovac as
a former champion and president of the city’s rowing club and as a successful law-
yer. Though a leading member of the Independent Democrats, and by extension
a supporter of a common Yugoslav state, the lawyer encountered problems with
the Yugoslav authorities, who scrutinized his friendship with Karlovac’s leading
HSS members and objected to his belief that the state should consider granting
Croatia a greater degree of autonomy.4 While Vujčić was an Orthodox supporter
of an autonomist solution to the Croat question, several Catholic Karlovčani
became ardent followers of integral Yugoslavism and regularly condemned fel-
low Catholics for adhering to a Croatian separatist agenda and thus weakening
the common state. Members of Karlovac’s Jewish minority also had varied and
complicated identities, as evidenced by Ivo Goldstein, a disillusioned former
Zionist who hosted audiences of varied political opinions at gatherings in his
prominent Karlovac bookshop and spoke to his family in a Serbo-Croatian mixed
with German vocabulary. Moreover, individual identities did not remain fixed but
changed according to circumstances, as illustrated by the family of Beno Jaroš, a
childhood playmate of Goldstein’s son Slavko. Slavko Goldstein’s memoir of the
period notes that, as the German invasion approached, Beno’s father changed the
family name to the more German-sounding Jarosch and later enrolled his children
in the Kulturbund.5 Despite decades of nationalist activity in Karlovac, its citizens
did not necessarily define themselves according to the rigid national and political
divisions historians have retroactively imposed upon them.
The difficulty that some local officials in and around Karlovac initially had with
understanding the categories imposed by the newly adopted Ustasha racial laws
shows just how indifferent certain segments of Karlovac’s society were to national-
ism prior to the establishment of the Ustasha state. The Ustasha leadership clearly
identified Serbs as a threat long before they came to power; once in power, how-
ever, their definition of what made someone a Serb remained elusive enough to
64 Filip Erdeljac

make it difficult even for trusted state officials to determine whom to treat as a
Serb. In a letter to the local Ustasha authority, a colonel in Karlovac’s Recruitment
Command (Popunidbeno zapovjedništvo) attempted to clarify how officers
in the Croatian army should distinguish Serbs from non-Serbs when accepting
volunteers. The letter’s existence indicates a puzzling situation. Even though the
state had recently declared Serbs national enemies and racial inferiors, the letter
suggests that people who could possibly be defined as Serbs by Ustasha criteria
remained unaware of the fact that some of their characteristics relegated them to
a newly subordinate status, going so far as to volunteer for the new state’s army.6
In his instructions, the colonel initially demanded that officers employ reli-
gious criteria and dismiss all Orthodox volunteers. He then, however, complicated
matters by noting that some Orthodox might be entitled to serve in the Croatian
army “because faith alone is not complete proof that someone is, according to his
heart, a Greater Serb.” His instructions, it seems, did nothing to provide clarity on
who was, and who was not, a Croat according to the Ustasha movement’s criteria.
The colonel’s failed effort at clarifying the guidelines according to which officers
should distinguish racial enemies from the rest of the population demonstrates
how difficult it was to classify people as Serbs or non-Serbs in a society as complex
as the one that existed in Karlovac prior to the establishment of the Ustasha state.
Four years of Ustasha rule would, however, change this. The violence that the local
Ustasha movement eventually deployed across Orthodox villages of Kordun, and
the rebellion that broke out as a result of Ustasha terror, helped solidify the once-
unclear divisions and made most of the area’s population conform to the new clas-
sifications institutionalized by the state.

The Establishment of Ustasha Rule

Though historical accounts of the Ustasha state in socialist Yugoslavia sought to
portray it as a violent and illegitimate regime that the population resisted from its
very inception, it appears that a significant segment of Karlovac’s population wel-
comed the first days of Ustasha rule in Karlovac, during which the Main Ustasha
Headquarters (Glavni Ustaški stan—GUS) established the regime’s authority in
the city. Hrvatska sloboda, the local party newspaper, claimed that ordinary citi-
zens enthusiastically awaited the arrival of the new state and warmly greeted the
German and Italian armies. According to the newspaper’s correspondent Ratko
Demut, almost all of Karlovac’s citizenry “gathered to watch the most glorious
army of all times” roll through their town and to see for themselves “what force
stands behind our young Croatian state.”7 Slavko Goldstein recalled the awe with
which both he and his friend, Bogdan Lasić, by then a committed Communist,
witnessed the passing of the German military.8 Having seen only the obsolete
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 65

technology of the now-defeated Yugoslav army, in which horses and oxen usu-
ally pulled archaic weaponry, the sophisticated military machinery that passed
through the town left the two boys, and likely most of those who observed, con-
vinced that nothing could challenge such an indestructible force.
Ante Niksić, the head of the GUS, who would soon earn a promotion to
become the supreme leader (veliki župan) of the district (veliki župa) of Pokupje,
the new administrative unit that included Karlovac and its surrounding areas,
recalled that Croatian tricolors appeared throughout the city immediately upon
the announcement of the new state.9 The lawyer Feliks Židovec, another member
of the GUS, who would become the city’s first Ustasha mayor, swore in new mem-
bers at his law office, as Ustasha oaths reverberated throughout the city.10 Karlovac
soon boasted a membership of 2,868 new Ustasha members.11 Members of the
HSS paramilitary organizations, the Citizens’ Guard and the Peasants’ Guard,
cooperated with the new authorities and helped them disarm captured Yugoslav
soldiers.12 While Goldstein’s recollection of the Ustasha takeover of Karlovac
does not suggest as euphoric an entry into the town, he acknowledged that many
people seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the new developments, exclaiming,
“There is no war, yet we have a state.”13 Although local citizens may not have been
as genuinely ecstatic as Demut described in Hrvatska sloboda, Goldstein recalled
that “many then believed that the NDH would bring a happier future for Croatia,
or at least a salvation from a greater evil.”14
The fact that the Poglavnik Ante Pavelić would make Karlovac his first and
only stop on his way from exile to Zagreb conferred additional prestige to the
city. Greeted by Slavko Kvaternik, one of the movement’s founding members,
Pavelić waited in Karlovac for the arrival of Edmund Veesenmayer, an emissary
of the Third Reich’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Filippo Anfuso, his Italian
counterpart, in order for the representatives of the newly allied states to agree on
additional terms pertaining to the state. Though this might have been the occa-
sion on which Pavelić allowed Karlovac to fall into the Italian zone of occupa-
tion, Hrvatska sloboda portrayed the meeting as one of equal allies, noting that
the foreign representatives referred to Pavelić as “Your Excellency.”15 In his speech,
Pavelić announced that an era of “freedom, order, justice, and work” had arrived
and ended his speech by shouting the first part of the Ustasha salute, “Za Dom,”
which the crowd completed by replying in unison, “Spremni!” Hrvatska sloboda
also noted that loyalists of the former regime became anxious at the arrival of the
new order and tried to bribe their way out of the city, fearful of the German army
and the new authorities.16
While many left, others who might have anticipated problems with the new
regime remained in the city. Ivo Goldstein, a respected member of the local Jewish
community and regular visitor of Jewish refugees from Austria whom the Yugoslav
government allowed to settle in a refugee camp in the nearby town of Draganić,
66 Filip Erdeljac

anticipated that Hitler’s expansion eastward could disrupt the relative stability of
life in Karlovac. During the years leading up to 1941, Goldstein used some of
the family’s savings to add a room to the house of the family maid’s brother in
the village of Banski Kovačevac should Karlovac become too dangerous for the
family. However, the arrival of the new authorities was not enough to compel the
Goldsteins to flee. On the morning of April 13, Goldstein allowed his older son,
Slavko, to go outside to play with his friends, warning him only that he must be
home before lunch. By the time Slavko returned home, he learned that Ratko
Demut and his colleague from Hrvatska sloboda Stjepan Augustinović had visited
his house and taken his father away.17 Slavko would later learn that, in addition
to his father, the new authorities apprehended dozens more “visible” Karlovac citi-
zens they deemed suspicious. Among them were the more prominent Orthodox
inhabitants of Karlovac, like the respected Serbian Orthodox priest and high
school teacher Milan Radeka, a number of Communists, and another Jew, Filip
Reiner, the leader of Karlovac’s Zionist club.18
The families of those arrested were initially uncertain of the authorities’ inten-
tions and remained calm. The authorities permitted Goldstein’s family to visit
him, both in jail in Karlovac and when they transferred him to Zagreb’s Danica
prison camp. Goldstein’s family began to fear for his safety only later in the year
when they could no longer find him in jail; only after the war did Goldstein
conclusively ascertain that his father had died in an Ustasha camp near Gospić.
Despite his father’s absence, Goldstein recalled that he did not feel like a “perse-
cuted being” during the spring of 1941; school was canceled for the remainder
of the year, and Slavko spent much of his time outdoors, playing ping-pong with
his friends.19 The membership of his best friend’s older brother Hanzi Kurelac
in the Ustasha Youth organization did not preclude Goldstein from playing with
the younger Dori nor with Beno Jarosch, who disobeyed the orders of his newly
Germanized family and remained friendly with Goldstein.20 Goldstein’s memoirs
indicate that, at least during the first months of Ustasha rule in Karlovac, he did
not feel excluded from society by the arrival of the new order and that his family
likely believed no greater misfortune would befall them.
The memoirs of Milan Radeka, which Goldstein used extensively to supple-
ment his own account of his fathers’ imprisonment, indicate that Radeka also
believed the new state posed no threat to him and that he received humane treat-
ment after his arrest. Shortly after his apprehension on April 17, 1941, Radeka
received a visit from his friend Ivo Klarić, a prominent Croat nationalist whose
interwar activism earned him a position in Karlovac’s GUS. As a favor to an old
friend, Klarić arranged for Radeka to leave the prison for Easter. Rather than using
the opportunity to escape, Radeka checked back into prison after visiting his fam-
ily and conducting the appropriate religious services.21 The fact that Radeka and
Goldstein, two educated men fully aware that that their religious background
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 67

made them enemies of the new state, believed they would remain safe in Karlovac
suggests that the new regime did not immediately exhibit the genocidal violence
that remains a defining feature of its rule.

Soliciting Compliance
In the first few months of Ustasha rule, the local leadership took measures to con-
vince Karlovac citizens that their establishment in power would lead to a change
for the better. Keen to appeal to the city’s large industrial working population,
the local Ustasha leadership made an effort to portray itself and the wider move-
ment as committed to improving the lives of ordinary workers. Ante Nikšić, in a
conversation with Hrvatska sloboda, designated the working people of Karlovac
as the true carriers of the Ustasha message.22 By April 19, 1941, Narodne novine
announced the passing of a law that mandated the construction of Croat workers’
family homes in Karlovac.23 Named after Stipe Javor, a key Ustasha martyr who
died after a hunger strike in a Yugoslav prison in 1936, the new workers’ neighbor-
hood would consist of houses with small yards and would be paid in installments,
with no interest and at reasonable prices.24 Upon announcing the construction
of these homes, Hrvatska sloboda took the liberty of explaining the commitment
of the movement to bringing social justice to ordinary workers in contrast to the
callousness of the previous Yugoslav regime: “What did the Belgrade authorities
give the worker in 23 years of rule? Not only did they fail to give, they kept taking
away from workers’ earnings, so it is no surprise that our worker was lice-ridden,
naked and barefoot.” The new regime would change this because, the newspaper
explained, “Croatian money is now in Croatian hands, and there has to be enough
for the Croat worker.”25
Though the first issues of Hrvatska sloboda focused heavily on how the new
authorities would improve workers’ lives, Karlovac Ustashas promised prosperity
to all Croats. Attempting to portray the Ustasha movement as an organization
that cut across class lines, Ante Nikšić, who worked as a judge during the period
of interwar Yugoslavia, shared an anecdote about how one young pilot took the
Ustasha oath in Karlovac. Tied up with work at the courthouse, Nikšić was unable,
as he had previously promised the young pilot, to administer the Ustasha oath to
him. Rather, he sent the pilot to a local carpenter and Ustasha activist named
Pozderac. Though initially apprehensive, as he had originally expected to swear his
Ustasha oath in front of a respected Karlovac judge, the pilot ultimately left even
more impressed with the social diversity of the movement, which valued all of its
members equally.26 The local leadership announced that the Ustasha movement
would “create conditions for a decent life for everyone worthy of living.”27 Money
would be available, as “Croatia had plenty of it” and would not have to use it for
68 Filip Erdeljac

anyone but the Croats. “Their hand,” Hrvatska sloboda argued, “is finally in their
own pocket, and their gun on their own shoulder.”28
The Ustasha social program extended its reach to the field of recreational activi-
ties with the establishment of a local chapter of the Ustasha Youth, which replaced
the former state’s Jugosokol organization. The new youth organization mandated
the participation of all citizens from ages seven to twenty-one, seeking “to provide
a unified physical and spiritual upbringing to aid the regular development of spiri-
tual and physical capabilities of future generations, which are today the pillars of
our state.”29 Grouping the children by age instead of the “social position of their
parents” guaranteed that the Ustasha Youth would reflect the Ustasha movement’s
commitment to social mobility. Their headquarters, the Ustasha Youth Center
(Dom Ustaške mladeži), in addition to serving youth programs, became the pre-
ferred destination for rallies, film screenings, and concerts, which were often con-
ducted by Ustasha Youth singers.
In Karlovac, a town that even during the interwar period enjoyed the reputa-
tion of an athletic city because of its many parks, sporting grounds, and nearby
rivers suitable for rowing and swimming, the local administration made a com-
mitment to widening public access to sports. Glasonoša, the Karlovac Ustasha
branch paper that replaced Hrvatska sloboda in 1942, argued that sports had been
available only to a limited layer of society during the interwar period. The local
authorities in Karlovac, Glasonoša promised, therefore intended to make sports
“the property of the entire Croat nation and thus [make them] equally accessible
to everyone, regardless of their wealth and social standing.”30 Sports in Karlovac
would become an “educational actor” that would help the city raise not just “good
athletes, but good people.” Glasonoša pledged to provide more local sports cov-
erage and, from its first edition, included detailed recapitulations of the local
football club’s matches. At the same time, the sports column in Glasonoša also
included detailed summaries of how the state’s teams fared in competition against
Slovak, Hungarian, Italian, and German teams, diligently highlighting when
native Karlovčani participated in these efforts. The paper, for example, proudly
announced the ascension of the ping-pong team to the Central European finals
where, after defeating Hungary and Germany, it would face the Slovakian national
team in Bratislava.31 Reports of the state’s successes in the international arena were
a particular source of pride, projecting an image of power even, for example, in
seemingly small victories over Germany in ping-pong and Italy in boxing. By cap-
italizing on the rich athletic tradition in Karlovac and linking it to greater national
successes, the local authorities made participation in a popular recreational activ-
ity into a show of support for the state.
Apart from sports, the local regime found other ways to solicit support from
the Karlovac public. During the first week of June 1941, for example, the City
Committee for Help (Gradski odbor za pomoć) held the Croatian Week of the
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 69

Mother and Child. Intended to raise awareness about the importance of mothers
and children, the City Committee for Help raised money for destitute families by
selling booklets next to the Velika kavana (Grand Café) in Karlovac. City leader-
ship employees handed out free medicine and vitamins, as well as food coupons,
to impoverished women with children. The program also featured a slide show, a
film, and a speech by Mayor Franjo Deak highlighting the value of mothers and
children, in addition to a concert by the Ustasha Youth of Karlovac. Announcing
the events, Mayor Deak called all “Croatian men and women” to attend these
concerts and events in larger numbers to “demonstrate your love of the mother
and child—those guarantors of the future of our homeland.”32 Such charitable
events allowed the city, and the state more generally, to transform mundane tasks,
almost entirely unrelated to the regime’s exclusivist racial ideology and defining
campaign of terror, into demonstrations of patriotism and loyalty to the new
nation-state. Being helpful and charitable was thus held up as a Croatian and
Ustasha characteristic as much as joining a militia, evidence of one’s commitment
to the Ustasha cause.
The local authorities solicited compliance not just by enticing citizens into
presumably appealing activities like sports, youth movements, and charitable
acts. As elsewhere in the state, the local Ustasha organization made being a
racially aware Croatian and demonstrating loyalty to Ustasha precepts impor-
tant aspects of daily life in Karlovac; it required citizens to adopt the new racial-
national categories the state had developed whenever they needed approval for
something from the local authorities. Thus, for example, when Fanika Kocman
wanted to expand her small cafe to serve alcoholic drinks, the state required her
to submit extensive documentation proving her eligibility to run such a cafe.
In addition to providing evidence of her financial status and the necessary cer-
tifications that qualified her to manage a restaurant, the city also required her
to submit certificates proving a record of acceptable political behavior during
the previous regime and proof of her Aryan racial ancestry.33 Similarly, when
Glasonoša announced that the city leadership was taking applications from pro-
spective renters seeking to move into the newly constructed Stipe Javor workers’
neighborhood, the newspaper noted that applicants needed to include several
certifications. Among these, the city asked that applicants prove they were
“physically and mentally healthy,” “frugal, obedient, neat,” and led a life “in har-
mony with the Croat national community.”34 Such requirements, rather than
violently forcing people to comply with the Ustasha authorities in Karlovac,
allowed people corresponding with them to proactively and publicly conform to
the state’s ideological agenda. In the process, people who may not have cared or
known whether they led a life beneficial to the national community or whether
they possessed Aryan ancestry had to articulate descriptions of themselves using
categories the state had set for them. Though some may have simply taken a
70 Filip Erdeljac

pragmatic approach, viewing the process as a necessary bureaucratic require-

ment, it is possible that for others it involved a genuine redefinition of their
identity resulting in a fundamental transformation in line with the demands of
the state. In communicating with the Ustasha authorities, individual citizens
learned to employ a new discourse not only when they needed something from
the state but even when they objected to its activities and policies.
In Karlovac, the new authorities promoted several plans and measures that,
they promised, once introduced, would improve the lives of local citizens. Making
their local rule consistent with decrees coming from Zagreb and being enforced
statewide, they vowed, for example, to crack down on prostitution and implement
new laws aiming to regulate the prices of commodities, thus preventing merchants
from profiting excessively at the expense of consumers. In addition to construct-
ing the Stipe Javor workers’ neighborhood, the city authorities also boasted of an
electrification campaign that would bring electricity to more homes in Karlovac.
Despite the positive intentions of such projects, they met with a number of com-
plaints from individual Karlovac residents. The letters voicing objections to some
of these projects, however, indicated no overall hostility to the Ustasha movement
or state, despite the specific criticisms they contained. The existence of these let-
ters indicates that ordinary citizens did not necessarily fear voicing dissent; like-
wise, they demonstrated that the authorities were willing to tolerate critical, even
hostile, letters from citizens, provided they were articulated in a way compatible
with Ustasha ideology.
In September 1941, Jakov Gisondo wrote to the city authorities requesting
permission to operate a brothel. Though he emphasized his awareness of Ustasha
morality, he highlighted that allowing him to open a brothel would not violate
the national moral code, but, on the contrary, contribute to the state’s ability to
remove prostitutes from the public eye.35 Given that so many soldiers, especially
Italians, were stationed in Karlovac, Gisondo argued that it would be impossible
to curtail these young men’s sexuality. Opening a brothel, though, would further
Ustasha moral aims by curbing the soldiers’ harassment of local women. By estab-
lishing a regulated brothel, Gisondo claimed, he would single-handedly prevent
the illicit trade in women and protect them from abuse. The brothel would also
employ a doctor to reduce the spread of venereal disease, which Gisondo knew
the regime also wished to combat. Most importantly, “prostitution would be car-
ried out discreetly without disturbing public morality.” The Ustasha police direc-
tor agreed with Gisondo but concluded that the local authorities did not possess
the power to grant a permit for a brothel.36 This letter illustrates how people like
Gisondo learned to employ a language with which they could safely challenge
some of the new state’s decisions. Rather than bluntly highlighting the shortcom-
ings of the Ustasha approach to prostitution, he rearticulated his grievance by pre-
senting it as a means of assisting the movement in obtaining its ideological goals.
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 71

Though Mijo Šarinić similarly adopted a position that clearly indicated

his loyalty to the state and support for the movement’s overall goals, his let-
ter took a much sharper tone toward the city authorities. In a letter to Ante
Nikšić in September 1941, Šarinić objected to the fact that, when he asked the
appropriate authorities to connect his home to a source of water, they refused
and told him the electrification of the city would compensate for his lack of
water. Šarinić also objected that the official to whom he had addressed his con-
cerns had insulted him, which Šarinić, as a Croat and a “son of Lika,” a nearby
region celebrated by Ustasha ideologues as the cradle of Ustasha warrior values,
could no longer tolerate. By treating him in such a manner, this official, Šarinić
argued, had directly violated “the Ustasha values that are required of all city
officials.” Šarinić went on to further criticize the decision to pursue electrifica-
tion and neglect the water supply, because he, as a farmer, needed water for his
livestock and to wash up, while he did not need electricity, as he worked during
the daytime. His initial complaint about the treatment he received at the hands
of a specific official turned into a full-blown tirade against the failed prom-
ises of the new state in Karlovac, suggesting that the local Ustasha authorities
were neglecting hardworking farmers like him and ruling on behalf of the city’s
wealthy citizens, some of whom were not nearly as loyal to the cause as he was.
Šarinić felt uncomfortable taking his cows to drink at nearby estates, he claimed
sarcastically, for fear of offending the wives of the wealthy gentlemen living in
the homes connected to water. Additionally, he suggested, water was wasted on
these ladies because they had only lapdogs that served no useful purpose, while
his cows, deprived of water, actually benefited society.37
Despite his barrage of objections to the current order, Šarinić stated his griev-
ances in a manner consistent with that of a loyal citizen: he was a hardworking
Croat who objected to the privileges of the local elite, which the Ustashas had
promised to abolish, and disagreed with the city’s prioritization of electrification.
While expressing his pronounced disillusionment, the letter nowhere indicated
disloyalty to the state. The city leadership, which also received complaints from
electrical workers claiming that Šarinić regularly interfered with their work and
insulted state officials, responded to Šarinić’s request cordially.38 When they called
Šarinić in to explain why they could not fulfill his requests, Šarinić stuck to the
legal recourse the state provided by asking to receive the verdict in writing in
order to appeal his grievance to a higher authority, which, Šarinić clearly believed,
would rectify the wrongs against him committed in Karlovac.39 The Šarinić affair
reveals an implicit understanding between the state and its citizens in which, as
long as individuals articulated their objections according to certain guidelines and
using a certain narrative, the regime would give them due consideration.
The regulation of prices throughout Karlovac appeared to pose the greatest
problem for the local authorities. The terror the state began deploying against
72 Filip Erdeljac

the Orthodox population in the agricultural area of Kordun, on which Karlovac

relied for much of its food, further complicated the regime’s plan to keep the
city nourished, as peasants stopped bringing their produce and animals to the
market in Karlovac.40 As Goldstein recalled, within days of the arrival of foreign
troops in the city, Italian and German soldiers had bought up everything they
could and started sending it home.41 By December 1941, the city leadership was
complaining that the Italian army used up a significant amount of the much-
needed resources for the local population.42 The small number of peasants who
did come to town sought out Italian soldiers to whom they could sell items at a
much higher price, and they regularly refused to sell goods to locals who asked
to buy at regulated prices. Other peasants, who stopped coming to the market
altogether, began smuggling goods to Italy, where they could demand even higher
prices and thus multiply their profits.43 An Ustasha police detective sent to inves-
tigate in April 1942 noted that Karlovac butchers did not display state-mandated
price lists, entirely determining prices on the spot, while other Karlovac merchants
did not even have their items registered and labeled. The agent found the situation
desperate and sensed that the populace had slowly begun feeling uneasy toward
the Ustasha authorities as well as the Italian army.44
Though several sources indicate that a shortage brought on by Ustasha terror
in Kordun and the flawed implementation of price regulation severely impacted
Karlovac and was beginning to jeopardize Ustasha influence, the degree to
which Karlovac’s populace blamed the Ustasha authorities for the situation
remains disputable. Despite the food crisis, the local authorities explained in
Glasonoša that the shortage was a result not of their own actions but of the rebel-
lion launched by Orthodox elements that the Ustasha militias were doing their
best to neutralize.45 Additionally, the only letters in which citizens conveyed
their concerns about shortages to the authorities suggest that they did not hold
them responsible for the situation. Rather than objecting to the policy of regu-
lated prices, Jure Prasina and Mijo Spudić, from the village of Prilišće, twenty
kilometers northwest of Karlovac, wrote to the Commerce Ministry in Zagreb
to request that the state enforce its policies more rigidly. Noting that they regu-
larly read about the regulation of prices for certain products in the newspaper
and anticipating that this would make life better for them, their letter indicated
that they obeyed the rules and kept up their part of the deal. Yet, the state
exerted no control over local merchants, they complained. In addition to sell-
ing their products at prices that they determined to be in direct violation of the
new laws, these merchants, the letter argued, also spread alarming news about
the future availability of items in an effort to sell their merchandise as soon as
possible. “Where is our Croatian government?” Prasina and Spudić asked in the
letter. “We know that you in Zagreb may not be aware of these transgressions
against our young state, so we are informing you and expecting that you remove
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 73

these thieves from the nation lest they infect it entirely.”46 They were writing
this letter, they claimed, so that the authorities would take measures—prefer-
ably by sending an agent—to arrest those making a profit at the expense of the
nation because “today our sons are fighting for our state and giving their lives
while these men rip us off in our own villages!!!” Far from resisting or objecting
to Ustasha policies, then, some citizens criticized the authorities for not doing
more to successfully implement the changes they promised.
The magnitude of the terror employed by the Ustasha state has meant that
the many nonviolent methods by which the Ustasha movement aimed to impose
its ideological order, mobilize the population, and gain social support have been
marginalized or overlooked. In fact, the Ustasha authorities in Karlovac launched
several programs intended to gain the population’s support. Additionally, by
infusing all aspects of public life with Ustasha ideology, from charity to the issu-
ing of trading permits, the local authorities ensured that people adapted to the
terms of Ustasha rule even if they did not fully support the new order. Rather than
responding violently to all dissent, the regime, as correspondence between local
authorities and citizens indicates, tolerated the objections of ordinary citizens—
provided they were articulated in accordance with Ustasha ideology. Despite the
local authorities’ efforts to secure compliance from the public, however, from the
very first days of Ustasha rule, they remained open about the necessity of terror
against the state’s enemies.

Rationalizing Violence
To supplement the promises of future prosperity, Hrvatska sloboda’s first editions
reminded readers that the process would be difficult: “Worlds are collapsing. And
when old worlds collapse, it is clear, new ones are not made overnight and with-
out pain.” Highlighting the violence the previous royalist regime deployed against
anyone standing in its way, the local Ustasha organization sought to portray itself
as a peaceful, benevolent liberation movement correcting the oppression of the
Yugoslav past. Nevertheless, the local leadership made clear to the public that the
movement would have to settle scores with its onetime tormentors and national
enemies. “If you want to live the way you should,” one article noted, “your first
duty is to liberate yourself from the enemy that lives in your very home.” To pre-
pare its readers for the approaching terror, the newspaper concluded, “Laws are
emerging, one better than the other. Thousands of unnecessary existences will dis-
appear. [Among them], all of those who lived well but did not serve the nation
and only harmed it. Croatia will not be removing this giant and poisonous cyst
with injections or pills. It will remove it as it needs to, with a surgical interven-
tion.”47 Although the Ustasha movement portrayed itself as seeking to bring peace
74 Filip Erdeljac

and prosperity to the Croat nation, from the very outset, it made no secret of its
plan to eliminate those perceived as harmful to the nation and its state.
Ustasha violence was first brought into plain sight when the bodies of three
murdered men appeared at a creek near the neighboring village of Rečice on
May 5, 1941, less than a month after the declaration of independence. The
revelation that the one of the bodies belonged to Milan Vujčić—the prominent
lawyer who had opposed the persecution of Croat nationalists under Yugoslav
rule—shocked many in the city, especially the Goldstein family and their
friends.48 According to Goldstein’s account, the public was further disturbed by
the revelation that three city youths affiliated with the Ustasha movement and
on close terms with regional chief Nikšić had carried out the murders and even
boasted about them around town.
In his memoirs, Slavko Goldstein suggested that the immediate public reac-
tion to the death of Milan Vujčić likely led local authorities to realize that
indiscriminate killings would tarnish their legitimacy. As a result, the leader-
ship ensured that subsequent murders possessed some sort of pretext and
occurred further from the eyes of Karlovac’s citizens. The subsequent murders
of Orthodox civilians a few days later, though much larger in scale than the kill-
ings in Rečice, occurred in the village of Blagaj, thirty kilometers south of the
city limits. The Ustasha authorities alleged that Orthodox villagers in the area
had murdered Joso Mravunac, a Catholic miller, and his family in neighboring
Veljun, as part of a planned uprising against the state. While witness testimo-
nies of Veljun’s Orthodox inhabitants who survived the massacre note that they
recognized the men who apprehended them as their Catholic neighbors from
Blagaj, they also acknowledged receiving even more brutal treatment at the
hands of other Ustashas whom they could not recognize.49 Goldstein’s postwar
investigation into the incident concluded that Maks Luburić and Ivan Šarić led
the contingent of about fifty Ustasha militia members—many of them returnees
from emigration in Italy—who arrived in Blagaj from Karlovac, at the behest of
Eugen Dido Kvaternik, to organize the massacre.50
Though accounts of the massacre vary, several suggest that the men brought
along by Luburić and Šarić participated more extensively in the torture and mur-
der of Orthodox civilians, while local Ustasha activists and Croatian army soldiers
from Blagaj and Pavlovac only assisted and stood guard. At least one of the local
Ustasha militia members, however, admitted his extensive participation in the
murders at the end of the war. In separate testimony given to Đuro Zatezalo, one
woman from Blagaj indicated that her husband’s participation, though limited to
helping the arriving militia members, made her husband very ill and unable to
eat or sleep for days. Nevertheless, the testimonies of survivors indicated that they
believed local Croats to be just as responsible, if not more responsible, for the mas-
sacre. Additionally, several accounts recalled that locals from the Croat villages of
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 75

Blagaj and Pavlovac looted the homes of the murdered Veljun inhabitants, stealing
their valuables and livestock. Local Croats, witness accounts suggested, disposed
of the dead bodies in a mass grave and later planted crops on the location.51
Though these reports may entail several inaccuracies, exaggerations, and even
lies, what the possibly flawed narratives reveal about the details of the massa-
cre may be less important than what they clearly show about its consequences:
a sharpening of the divide between the Catholic and Orthodox populations in
Blagaj, Pavlovac, and Veljun. Though massacres like this may have antagonized
Orthodox villagers and forced them to eventually take up arms against the state,
they also helped the Ustasha authorities deepen the divisions between populations
that had coexisted peacefully in the past. By suggesting that local Orthodox villag-
ers planned an armed uprising against the state, by implicating local Ustashas in
the massacre of innocent Orthodox peasants, and by encouraging Croat inhabit-
ants of the area to help themselves to the belongings of their murdered neighbors,
Luburić ensured that the area’s Catholic and Orthodox inhabitants now blamed
each other for the events that had transpired. The Catholics of Blagaj, regardless
of their previous support for the Ustasha state, were now firmly implicated in its
activities and would have only the Ustasha authorities to turn to for protection
should the Orthodox inhabitants of Veljun choose, as they eventually did, to exact
retribution against these Croatian villages.
Postwar Partisan accounts cited the Blagaj massacre as evidence that a pivotal
breakdown in relations between the state and its Orthodox population occurred
less than a month after the establishment of the NDH.52 Yet, as late as December
1941, police commander Jure Mravačić recounted how one hundred and fifty
Orthodox villagers from Lasinja waved white flags as they approached Ustasha
units stationed close to their village and declared that they wanted to collectively
abandon Orthodoxy and convert to Catholicism to avoid persecution.53 Orthodox
peasants sought to comply in other areas of Kordun as well. Nikola Generalović,
an Orthodox schoolteacher from Vojišnica, who, one report noted, never exhib-
ited any interest in politics before the war and married a Catholic woman with-
out demanding she convert to Orthodoxy, tried to reach a compromise with the
authorities. Generalović gathered two thousand Orthodox inhabitants from the
area and led them, while carrying the state’s flag, to the town of Vrginmost to be
converted to Catholicism. While local Ustashas loaded the people onto trucks
with the promise that they would be taken elsewhere for conversion, the group
was taken to a church in the nearby town of Glina and murdered.54 Many schol-
ars suggest that most Croats lost faith in the new state and began turning against
the Ustasha leadership shortly after its rise to power. The fact that even Orthodox
villagers from areas of Kordun, who most likely had some knowledge of the
atrocities committed against other villages, attempted to find ways in which they
could comply and come to terms with the new order several months after the
76 Filip Erdeljac

state’s foundation must lead us to reconsider the assumption that most Catholics
began opposing Ustasha rule. If communities clearly singled out for exclusion
found enough reasons to comply with the Ustasha state, what motivations did
Catholics from the Karlovac area, to whom the Ustasha leadership promised eco-
nomic prosperity, social justice, and a better future within a unified national com-
munity, have for objecting to Ustasha rule? Orthodox populations throughout
Kordun eventually came to realize that their attempts to comply with the regime
would not bring an end to the terror and thereafter began to see their only chance
for survival in active resistance. By contrast, Catholics, whom the regime gener-
ally only persecuted in cases of open sedition, had far fewer reasons to resent, let
alone resist, Ustasha rule. Furthermore, the outbreak of an Orthodox-led rebellion
further aided the Ustasha movement in soliciting loyalty and compliance from
Catholic subjects.

The Rebellion
The outbreak of a larger-scale rebellion, though constraining the Ustasha
authorities and their supporters from a purely military standpoint, also pro-
vided the state with a pretext to escalate its campaign of terror against Kordun’s
Orthodox population. By 1942, a report indicated that it had become impos-
sible for the authorities to distinguish between the “leaders of the rebellion and
the Greek-Eastern population.”55 The inability to distinguish between civilians
and rebel leaders animated Ustasha tactics against the rebels and enhanced the
local authorities’ ability to justify the violence it was deploying in Kordun. With
the prospect of armed rebels a stone’s throw across the Korana and Mrežnica
Rivers separating Karlovac from Kordun, fewer people would object to Ustasha
violence against Kordun’s Orthodox population if the regime could present
their campaign of terror as an essential counterinsurgency measure. As a result,
the state media in Karlovac portrayed the assault by Ustasha forces on Kordun’s
Orthodox community as necessary to protect the young state’s independence;
to confirm Karlovac’s role as a historical Antemurale Christianitatis that would
protect not just Karlovac and the state but the entire “civilized” and “enlight-
ened” Christian West from the onslaught of degenerate Eastern Orthodox and
Communist rebels; and, perhaps most importantly, to protect the safety of citi-
zens and their property from the rebels. Though in many ways dangerous to the
state’s survival, the rebellion also allowed the leadership in Karlovac to attract
adherents among the civilian population who believed the local authorities’ pro-
paganda about the danger the rebels posed.
The rebellion also brought to the forefront issues of nation, race, and religion
that had previously enjoyed far less importance, as they were now directly tied
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 77

to matters of life and death. The expansion of rebel operations, rebel atrocities
against Croat villages, and the pressure placed by rebels on people to join the
resistance ensured that ordinary people could no longer remain neutral, even if
they felt ambivalent about both the state and the insurgents. The proximity of
the enemy and the occasional atrocities the rebels committed helped the Ustasha
authorities legitimize their violence against both an abstract, ideological threat
represented by the predominantly Orthodox, Communist rebels and the immedi-
ate physical threat to the safety of Karlovac citizens.
The outbreak of the rebellion in Kordun left the local authorities somewhat
confused as to who stood behind them. Ustasha reports initially referred to the
rebels as “Chetniks” and “Chetnik Communists,” indicating that they initially
acknowledged no difference between rebel elements loyal to the Serbian monar-
chy and Communist Party.56 Official reports eventually acknowledged the preva-
lence of Communist forces in Kordun and began using the term Partisans, rather
than Chetnik-Communists, when referring to them. Odmetnici, or “renegades,”
however, became the term most frequently used in Karlovac reports and news-
papers to describe those who took up arms against the state. Such a label empha-
sized the rebels’ supposed criminality, indicating that their ranks did not consist
of just Serbs opposed to the state but of people taking advantage of the situation
to loot, pillage, and kill innocent civilians. If accepted by the general public, such
a portrayal transformed the rebels into a threat to not just Ustasha loyalists but all
decent citizens in and around Karlovac.
Ustasha newspapers initially sought to portray the rebellion as a Serb-led
attempt to destabilize the newly created state and annihilate the Croat nation.57
Glasonoša eventually acknowledged the prevalence of the Communist movement
in Kordun yet continued to portray the rebel movement as exclusively Serb, even
though a few “deluded” Croats had, the newspaper admitted, joined up. One arti-
cle, for example, pointed to the disproportionate number of Serbian Orthodox
clergy in the Partisan leadership as clear evidence of the Communists’ Greater
Serbian agenda.58 The newspaper frequently discussed the continuities between
Karlovac’s history as a fortress designed to defend Christian civilization and cul-
ture from Ottoman incursions and its current position as one of civilized Europe’s
last lines of defense against savage Eastern Orthodox hordes, even more danger-
ous now because of their adherence to the degenerate ideology of Communism.59
The promises that Communist ideologues made and the realities these promises
turned into also led to mocking comments by Karlovac’s leadership and Glasonoša.
Nikola Tusun, who replaced Ante Nikšić as district chief, mocked the official
name of the Partisans, the National Liberation Army, by suggesting that the name
described the movement quite accurately: if allowed, the Communists would
gladly “liberate” people of their freedom, their Catholic religion, their property,
and, ultimately, their lives.60
78 Filip Erdeljac

To further underscore the dangers of Communism, the Ustasha authorities in

Karlovac distributed the short book We Ate Human Meat (Jeli smo ljudsko meso),
which related the experiences of Croatian legionaries in Soviet captivity. Dizdar
Hajrudin, one of the legionaries, described the savagery of “the hordes of the East;
the dark, uncultured barbarian East, that have today rushed toward Europe,”
warning that they “bring us a sample of that barbarity and give us a preview of
what awaits us if that force comes to rule Europe: the harshest slave-owners the
world has known, the destruction of everything that the cultured humanity of
Europe has created.”61 Rather than bringing a “newer, happier and better order for
human beings,” Communism in Russia consisted of the exact opposite. Upon the
legionaries’ capture, Soviet soldiers took away pictures of the captives’ wives and
girlfriends and “abused and entertained themselves with them as if they were wild
black men.” They marveled at how well dressed their Croatian captives were and
even attempted to eat the soap they found among the legionaries’ belongings, so
obliterated were Soviet citizens’ memories of “civilized Western life” after years of
Communist rule. Highlighting the backwardness of the East, Hajrudin claimed
his captivity taught him that “we Croats are certainly to be found among the most
cultured of nations.” Even the poorest Croatian peasant, he noted, lived a more
prosperous life than high-ranking commissars; Croatian schoolchildren could
count and multiply better than Hajrudin’s adult captors. The alliance between the
Serbs and Communists remained ever present, he continued, with one Serbian
commissar in Russia telling Hajrudin about how the Communists “had drunk
enough Croatian blood already, but would drink even more.”62 In publicizing
such a vivid account of the misery of life under Communism, the Ustasha author-
ities sought to further alarm the public about what would happen to them if the
state’s militias and army failed to destroy the Partisans.
The effectiveness of this Ustasha propaganda against the Communist rebels
remains open to dispute. Descriptions of the alleged atrocities the rebels had com-
mitted in Kordun, and throughout the state, likely played more of a role in convinc-
ing people that the Ustasha movement, its activists, and militias constituted the only
force capable of providing the public with some degree of protection. Ustasha pro-
paganda in Karlovac went to great lengths to convince the public of the Orthodox
peasants’ responsibility for the reprisals they had brought upon themselves by rebel-
ling against the state. In addition to articles that chronicled how rebel soldiers killed
and looted throughout the Croat villages of Kordun, articles detailed the supposed
“wildness,” savagery, and “bloodthirstiness” of rebel soldiers. Glasonoša, for example,
published an account of a female Ustasha Youth group’s visit to the city hospital
to support injured soldiers. After describing a soldier who sustained nineteen stab
wounds before managing to fight off “four of his animalistic tormentors,” the article
noted that the rebels “are not satisfied with death. They are thirsty for Croatian
blood. They want to see a living person as he struggles.”63
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 79

Glasonoša also carried news of the crowds of people packing a Karlovac

auditorium for the release of Mladen Lorković’s Siva knjiga (Grey book), a
volume chronicling alleged rebel crimes against the state and civilians. Nikola
Tusun and Franjo Družak, the chief of the propaganda office in Karlovac, gave
speeches about the book and elaborated on its account of the outrages commit-
ted by Serb “renegades.” Tusun noted that Serb rebels had become notorious
for decapitating people, gouging out their eyes and ears, cutting off the breasts
of women, stabbing pregnant women, and even placing people on spears and
roasting them like animals on a spit.64 In his speech Družak reminded the pub-
lic that the Croats did not instigate the conflict with the rebels, as the Grey Book
would hopefully show the whole world, but were compelled to respond to the
rebel’s provocations with force: “the burning of our villages and the screams of
the innocently slaughtered have made of us Croats wolves who will battle any
force as long as Croatia is not peaceful and until every Croat . . . can feel safe
about their lives and property.”65 Such a description of the rebels’ alleged crimes
corresponded neatly to the overall propaganda campaign depicting the savagery
of Eastern peoples, to whom the rebels belonged, and to the degenerate ideol-
ogy of Communism that they represented.
The success of Ustasha propaganda in Karlovac relied on the fact that some of
the local newspapers’ exaggerations about rebel excesses had some basis in real-
ity. In Karlovac, the Ustasha authorities partially benefited from their proximity
to the rebels and the violent manner in which, on certain occasions, the rebels
responded to Ustasha atrocities. While Partisan atrocities paled in comparison
to those of Ustasha militias’ campaigns of terror and mass murder in Kordun,
evidence of even a few excesses undoubtedly for some confirmed propaganda
depictions of the Partisans as a force determined to destroy the Croatian state
and murder Croats. In a raid on November 17, 1941, for example, a Partisan
unit disguised in Croatian army uniforms stormed the local hospital to rescue
a captured comrade from Ustasha captivity. Unable to find him, the Partisans
encountered two Ustasha soldiers from the Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion
(Poglavnikova tjelesna bojna—PTB) who were recovering in the hospital and
shot them dead. Once the Partisans left the city, after engaging in a firefight
that left three Italian soldiers dead, the local authorities discovered the bodies of
two additional uniformed Ustashas on a city street, both with their throats slit
and evidence of torture. To ordinary citizens, this seemingly unprovoked kill-
ing of seven soldiers in the center of the city verified Ustasha claims about the
Partisan’s propensity for violence and terror.66
Other instances of rebel excesses further enhanced Ustasha claims about the
rebels’ targeting of innocent Croats. Before the Communist Party took firmer
control of the rebels and enforced discipline, several instances during which rebel
commanders tolerated, and even ordered, assaults against entire villages they
80 Filip Erdeljac

deemed complicit in Ustasha atrocities were permitted. One such instance of per-
ceived retribution occurred after the massacre of Orthodox villagers in the Glina
church. After taking the village of Prekopa, which local Partisans suspected of
complicity in the massacre, the commander, Petar Krnajić, ordered his troops to
burn the village and kill every male over the age of sixteen.67 While the Partisan
leadership worked to eventually curtail such excesses, the presence of occasional
atrocities on the part of the Partisans rendered more plausible the Ustasha propa-
ganda campaign to present the Partisans as a movement that openly engaged in
the murder of Croat peasants and the burning of their villages.
The fact that Partisans attacked not just Croats but even Orthodox peasants
they deemed to be complying excessively with Ustasha authorities further per-
petuated Ustasha stories of the Partisans’ alleged terror. According to a police
report from Krnjak in October 1941, the Partisans seized a local woman, Milica
Ćokešić, and threw her to her death in a cave after accusing her of fraternizing
with Croatian soldiers.68 The authorities from Slunj also reported that, after a
wave of Orthodox conversions to Catholicism and Islam, rebels began attacking
new converts. Nikola and Miloš Ribić, recent converts to Islam, managed to save
their lives only by killing Dragić Marjanović, a rebel fighter who attacked them
for abandoning Orthodoxy.69 The Partisans’ ruthlessness toward Orthodox peas-
ants, who constituted their core base, effectively heightened Croat fears that the
Partisans would subject them to even harsher measures.
Though Ustasha propaganda in Karlovac constantly portrayed the rebellion in
Kordun as a Serb-led effort to destroy the state and exterminate the entire Croat
nation, no instance of rebel atrocities attracted as much attention as the after-
math of the battle in the village of Krašić, north of Karlovac, during which the
Partisans defeated Ustasha militia and Croatian army units, allegedly killing sev-
eral hundred Croatian soldiers in cold blood and disposing of them in the Jazovka
cave after the battle. Accounts of the Krašić battle vary according to sources, with
former Partisan participants in the conflict denying any wrongdoing and former
Croatian army accounts suggesting that the several hundred soldiers taken pris-
oner died in extrajudicial killings. As recently as 2011, the Croatian judiciary
launched an investigation into the case and briefly apprehended Josip Boljkovac,
one of the main suspects in the disappearance of about 160 people taken prisoner
after the Krašić battle, although it ultimately did not prosecute him.70 The uncer-
tainty of what happened, however, did not preclude Glasonoša from presenting
the battle and its aftermath as yet another example of Serb-led atrocities against
Croats. After highlighting the heroism that the state’s forces had displayed in the
actual battle, it reported that the Partisans took captured soldiers to the market
grounds at Šošice, where they placed them on display in front of an Orthodox
mob and subsequently asked the crowd whether they should shoot or “slaugh-
ter” the prisoners. The crowd, chanting in unison, opted for the latter and the
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 81

Partisans took them away. Soon, Glasonoša concludes, “the blood-drinkers’ knives
began to get drunk with warm blood.”71
The barrage of Ustasha propaganda about Partisan atrocities and the occasional
confirmation of such incidents likely had a deep impact on the Croat population
of Karlovac and Kordun, as they remained extremely reluctant to join the Partisan
movement, despite increased efforts by the Partisan leadership to recruit Croats.
The exaggeration and exploitation of Partisan atrocities allowed the Ustasha
authorities to convince Croatian civilians that they had no choice but to side
with the Ustasha movement, as only it could protect them from Partisan excesses.
Marko Bogović found himself in this difficult position. As a Catholic from the vil-
lage of Mračelj in Vojnić, Bogović was forced to flee his home after Milić Savić, a
Partisan commissar from Cetingrad, ordered him to join the Partisans and begin
supplying them with food raised on his land. Unwilling to fight, Bogović, his
wife, and their five children left all their property and possessions and fled to
Karlovac. Given that he abstained from initially joining either the Partisans or the
Ustasha movement, Bogović likely had no preference for either, seeking instead
to remain neutral and avoid participating in the hostilities. Yet the situation in
his home village, where serious consequences befell those unwilling to join the
Partisans, forced him to flee and ultimately ask the Ustasha authorities in Karlovac
for assistance.72
Though much of what filled the pages of Ustasha publications in and around
Karlovac consisted of exaggerations, the fact that many Croat families endured
some sort of suffering as a result of the conflict lent some degree of credence to
propagandistic writings about rebel savagery. The influx of Croat refugees from
Kordun into Karlovac may not have convinced Karlovac’s inhabitants that
Communist rebels roasted Croats on spits or that they ate human flesh; it did,
however, demonstrate that the Partisans engaged in the sort of behavior that
would compel people to leave all of their belongings and flee to Karlovac. Though
Ustasha estimates of the number of refugees varied, the arrival of between one
and two thousand refugees from the area around Slunj to Karlovac served as a
constant reminder of Partisan brutality. Additionally, the arrival of these refugees
also allowed the city leadership and district officials to reinforce their proclaimed
principles of social justice. They launched a campaign to help the refugees, with
the authorities undertaking constant food and clothing drives and encouraging
Karlovac citizens to help the new arrivals in every way they could.
Such an approach allowed the Ustasha authorities to portray themselves not as
just the brutal avengers of the Croat nation who would violently crush the rebels
but as humanitarians who took care of those whom rebel actions had harmed.
Their charitable campaigns also enabled the authorities to gain the support of
Karlovac inhabitants who may have otherwise felt indifferent or even opposed
to them. Though helping people in times of dire need may have appeared to be
82 Filip Erdeljac

a selfless act devoid of an ideological agenda, city and district authorities made
sure to utilize it in the service of the movement’s radicalized agenda. In a public
poster addressed to “Croat citizens of Karlovac,” Tusun noted that Karlovac “in its
glorious history always held high the banner of Croatian perseverance and nation-
alism, and it will continue to do so today.” By providing shelter “for our brave
Slunjani and caring with brotherly love for these fighters, their hungry wives and
freezing children,” the people of Karlovac would, Tusun remarked, “demonstrate
their Croatian and Ustasha conscience.”73 The manner in which the authorities
articulated these calls for help demonstrates that they wanted not only to help ref-
ugees from Slunj survive but to mobilize support for the Ustasha cause. Providing
clothing, food, and shelter for displaced people ceased being a neutral act of good-
will and became instead a conscious expression of loyalty to the state and regime
and a demonstration of Ustasha values on the part of ordinary citizens. The plight
of the refugees from Slunj, owing to their visibility in the small town, also played a
crucial role in the local authorities’ effort to demonize the Partisans and persuade
locals to continue engagement with the state.

Toward a New Understanding of Ustasha Rule

Postwar Yugoslav literature often suggested that the Ustasha movement’s subordi-
nate status in relation to its allies, combined with the terror its militias deployed,
rendered the public, almost from the state’s inception, unreceptive to its mes-
sage and progressively supportive of the Partisan cause. However, the experi-
ence of Karlovac and the surrounding areas during the war suggests that local
circumstances allowed the Ustasha authorities, for much of the state’s existence, to
establish some sort of legitimacy and to prevent, until much later at least, Croat
citizens from going over to the Partisan cause. Despite the Ustasha regime’s efforts
to secure and retain the support of Karlovac citizens, whether through social
and economic programs intended to benefit the Croatian population or through
demonization of the rebels, the Partisans eventually succeeded in mobilizing many
Croats who had previously refused to join them. Superior in their military capac-
ity and with more foreign support than any of their domestic rivals, the Partisans
decisively defeated Ustasha forces and their allies. Slavko Goldstein, who eventu-
ally fled the city with his mother and ultimately joined the Partisan army, entered
Karlovac with the victorious army in May 1945. Though trials and extrajudicial
killings of followers of the Ustasha movement did occur, the official postwar
Partisan account of the war sought to minimize the extent to which ordinary civil-
ians supported the Ustasha movement, attributing much of the terror to “foreign
occupiers” and a negligible number of traitorous “domestic helpers.” Even signifi-
cantly more sophisticated recent accounts of the Ustasha state and Second World
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 83

War echo, to some extent, aspects of this flawed account. The few challenges to
such accounts, written mostly by Ustasha sympathizers insisting on the state’s
overwhelming domestic support or from Serbian nationalist narratives seeking to
conflate the entire Croat nation with the Ustasha movement’s genocidal ideology,
have barely ameliorated the gap in our understanding of how the Ustasha state
sought to gain support and how much success it enjoyed in doing so. The numer-
ous ways the Ustashas sought to win over the public in Karlovac can clarify how
the circumstances of war and armed rebellion induced many ordinary Croatians,
who might not have shared the Ustasha leadership’s extremist ideology, to begin
supporting the Ustasha regime.

Notes
1. “Skupština Hrvatskog Sokola,” Hrvatska sloboda, March 23, 1922.
2. “HANAO Nezakonito čedo,” Karlovac, July 27, 1923.
3. See, e.g., Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for
Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2008).
4. Slavko Goldstein, 1941: Godina koja se vraća (Zagreb: Novi Liber, 2008), 75.
5. Ibid., 140.
6. Letter from Karlovac’s Recruitment Command, November 24, 1941, Državni
arhiv u Karlovcu, Gradsko Poglavarstvo Karlovac, NDH, 0010.2306/taj.
7. Ratko Demut, “Veliki dani Karlovca—Četri nezaboravna dana,” Hrvatska slo-
boda, June 13, 1941.
8. Goldstein, 1941, 12.
9. “Iz dana kada je Hrvatska uskrsnula: Razgovor s pretsjednikom hrvatskog
ustaškog stana u Karlovcu g. dr. Antom Nikšićom,” Hrvatska sloboda, May 2, 1941.
10. Demut, “Veliki dani Karlovca.”
11. “Izvjesće o prilikama u Velikoj Župi Pokupje,” May 3, 1944, Državni Arhiv u
Karlovcu, Velika Župa Pokupje, 1518.203-1944.
12. Demut, “Veliki dani Karlovca.”
13. Goldstein, 1941, 31.
14. Ibid.
15. Demut, “Veliki dani Karlovca.”
16. Ibid.
17. Goldstein, 1941, 13.
18. Ibid., 17.
19. Ibid., 142.
20. Ibid., 143–48.
21. Ibid., 22.
22. “Iz dana kada je Hrvatska Uskrsnula.”
84 Filip Erdeljac

23. “Izvadak iz narodnih novina,” April 19, 1941, DAKA, GPK, NDH, 0010.14.
24. “Gradnja radničkih kuća,” Hrvatska sloboda, May 16, 1941.
25. “Sto milijuna za radničke kuće,” Hrvatska sloboda, May 2, 1941.
26. “Iz dana kada je Hrvatska Uskrsnula.”
27. “Problem naše unutrašnje konsolidacije,” Hrvatska sloboda, June 13, 1941.
28. “Događaji u Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatska sloboda, May 2, 1941.
29. “Svrha i cilj ustaške mladeži,” Glasonoša, October 14, 1942.
30. “Sport,” Glasonoša, October 14, 1942.
31. “Naši stolni tenisači u Bratislavi—prvenstvo srednje Evrope,” Glasonoša, Janu-
ary 30, 1943.
32. Announcement from the City Committee for Help in Karlovac, May 28,
1942, DAKA, GPK, NDH 0010.14/1942.
33. “Svjedodžba o vladanju,” August 25, 1941, DAKA, GPK, NDH,
0010.4750-1941.
34. “Dodjeljivanje radničkih obiteljskih domova,” Glasonoša, January 23, 1943.
35. “Gisondo Jakov iz Karlovca moli dozvolu držanja javne kuće u Karlovcu,” Sep-
tember 5, 1941, DAKA, GPK, NDH, 0010.933.
36. “Predmet: Jakob Gisondi, iz Karlovca, molba za otvorenje javne kuće,” Octo-
ber 30, 1941, DAKA, GPK, NDH, Predmet: 0010.19852/1941.
37. Mijo Šarinić to Ante Nikšić, September 5, 1941, DAKA, GPK, NDH.0010.b.b.
38. Franjo Deak to the Grand Župa of Pokupje, September 23, 1941, DAKA,
GPK, NDH, 0010.29586/41.
39. “Zapisnik kod gradskog poglavarstva u Karlovcu,” November 21, 1941,
DAKA, GPK, 0010.21674/41.
40. “Nedeljni izvještaj od 20-27 travnja 1942,” April 27, 1942, DAKA, VZP,
NDH, 0009.12.taj.
41. Goldstein, 1941, 20.
42. Letter to Ministry of Commerce and the State Office for the Shaping of Prices,
July 12, 1941, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.174.Tajno.
43. “Izvještaj o službenom putu u pogledu izvida kotarskoj oblasti Karlovac,
obćine Netertić mjesta Ladišić Draga, Prilisća i Prilisća Gornjeg,” December 16, 1941,
DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
44. “Nedeljni izvještaj od 20–27 travnja, 1942,” April 27, 1942, DAKA, VZP,
NDH, 0009.12taj.
45. “Obrana i prehrana,” Glasonoša, December 10, 1942.
46. Jure Prasina and Mijo Spudić to the Ministry of Trade in Zagreb, November
20, 1941, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
47. “Događaji u Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatska sloboda, May 2, 1941.
48. Goldstein, 1941, 76–78.
49. Đuro Zatezalo, Radio sam svoj seljački i kovački posao (Zagreb: SKD Prosvjeta,
2005), 14–27.
50. Goldstein, 1941, 97.
51. Zatezalo, Radio sam svoj seljački i kovački posao, 26.
 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times 85

52. Dušan Livada, “Dijelovi kotara Slunja u ustanku 1941/1942 godine,” in Prva
godina narodnooslobodilačkog rata: Zbornik 3, ed. Đuro Zatezalo (Karlovac: Historijski
Arhiv u Karlovcu, 1971), 444–45.
53. Jure Mavračić, “Izvještaj o stanju na području oružničke postaje Lasinja,”
August 9, 1941, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
54. The number is exaggerated and likely the result of a typographical error. More
accurate estimates suggest fewer than two hundred people. “Mjesečno izvješće,”
November 16, 1942, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.T1106-I-A-1942.
55. “Nedeljni izvještaj Velike Župe za vrijeme od 15.II. 1942 do 22.II.1942,” Feb-
ruary 22, 1942, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.12taj.
56. Command of the First Croatian Police Regiment to Directorate for Public
Order and Security, October 6, 1941, Državni Arhiv u Karlovcu, Župska Redarstvena
Oblast Karlovac, NDH, 0011.3116/JS.
57. “Hrvatski narod u službi Evrope,” Glasonoša, January 23, 1943.
58. “Srbsko pravoslavlje i Partizani,” Glasonoša, February 27, 1943.
59. “Stari i novi Karlovac,” Glasonoša, November 21, 1943.
60. “Veliki govor Župana Župe Pokupje G. Dr. Nikole Tusuna prigodom predaje
Sive Knjige karlovačkoj javnosti,” Glasonoša, February 13, 1943.
61. Jeli smo ljudsko meso—doživljaji Hrvatskih legionara u Sovjetskom zarobljenštvu
(Zagreb: Mala Politicka Knjiznica, 1944).
62. Ibid., n.p.
63. M.P., “Posjet našim junačkim borcima,” Glasonoša, October 14, 1942.
64. “Veliki govor Župana Župe Pokupje G. Dr. Nikole Tusuna.”
65. “Govor nadstojnika promičbenog ureda F. Družaka: Siva Knjiga pokazuje
graničarsko poslanje Hrvata,” Glasonoša, February 13, 1943.
66. “Izvješće,” November 21, 1941, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
67. “Saopćenje,” Narodna borba: Organ narodno-oslobodilačke fronte u Lici, August
1, 1942.
68. “Napadaj na oružnike od strane komunista i četnika,” October 1, 1941,
DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
69. “Izvješće o situaciji,” October 4, 1941, Državni Arhiv u Karlovcu, Župska
Redarstvena Oblast Karlovac, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, 0011.400.
70. Anđelka Mustapić, “Heroj ili Zločinac,” Slobodna Dalmacija, November 5,
2011.
71. “U sjeni slave,” Glasonoša, January 23, 1943.
72. “Bogović Marko kbr. 12 iz Mračelja općine Krstinja kotar Vojnić moli pomoć,”
April 12, 1942, DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009.b.b.
73. “Plakat/letak velikog Župana Dr. Nikole Tusuna, kojim pozivlje narod da
pomogne izbjeglicama,” DAKA, VZP, NDH, 0009U.190.
 Chapter Three

The Engine Room of a

New Ustasha Consciousness

Cinema, Terror, and Ideological Refashioning

Rory Yeomans

In early 1945, a column began appearing in the newspaper Hrvatski narod relat-
ing the disconcerting adventures of a commentator with cultural modernity.
Clearly satirical on one level, the appearance of the column in the midst of a
plethora of articles relating the heroic sacrifices of Ustasha warriors, the “terror” of
the Bolshevik hordes, and invocations from regime officials for ordinary citizens
to fight fanatically to the death for the Ustasha state lent it an incongruous air.
In spite of its pretense of normality, though, the writer’s exaggerated confronta-
tions with archetypes of everyday life served to explore in comic form the regime’s
anxieties about the failure, even at this late stage, to refashion Croat citizens into
Ustasha subjects. This was illustrated in the very first column in which the com-
mentator related his experience visiting a local cinema. Having been induced into
seeing the latest cinematic “gala production” by a young sophisticated cineaste
despite having no money for it, the jostling, pushing, and rough behavior of the
cinemagoing public he encounters while trying to make his way to the ticket office
speaks eloquently of the state’s inability to remake the conduct of the masses.
Furthermore, as he is pushed forward by the straining masses, he is appalled to
realize that he too “burns with an unquenchable desire” to see the film. “I am
already by the doors. Ah, the rear end of the column moves; a bit more and I will
gaze on the shining face of the ticket seller.”1
For Ustasha cultural theorists, cinema represented a medium through which
the masses could be transformed from ordinary citizens into Ustasha subjects with
Ustasha values. As the most modern form of mass propaganda, cinema consti-
tuted a central element in the state’s social and cultural program to enlighten and
modernize the masses. Party ideologues, meanwhile, envisaged the construction of
a new concept of cinema imbued with the social ideals of the Ustasha movement
and its radical cultural and nationalist orthodoxies. Moreover, in the same way as
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 87

it utilized its programs of worker mobility, house building, and mass education,
through cinema the state sought to offer ordinary citizens a glimpse of the good
life and a space of normalcy in a profoundly abnormal time of deprivation, blood-
shed, and conflict. But this good life did not apply to everyone. Since terror was
woven into the very fabric of cultural and economic life, racial and national per-
secution quickly became an integral element of the construction of a new social
cinema. Serb and Jewish cinema owners and workers, identified as responsible for
the materialist, anti-Croatian, and cosmopolitan values of interwar cinema, were
quickly and ruthlessly removed from the industry as part of a wider policy of eco-
nomic regeneration. For them, the experience of a new Croatian cinema was less a
factory of dreams and more a production line of nightmares.
While party ideologues aspired to build a mass anticapitalist cinematic culture,
this proved extremely hard to achieve in practice. Not least, the very worker and
peasant masses living in remote regions who were supposed to be the recipients
of the expansion of the film industry and the new cinematic ethos were often
those least interested in cinema and most suspicious of its modern and techno-
logical nature. It also proved difficult for the central film agencies to monitor
the structure and content of cinematic activity in the regions and more remote
locations where mobile cinema and weekly newsreels were designed to act as an
engine room of ideological refashioning. Meanwhile, the predominantly urban
educated population that had embraced commercial cinema so enthusiastically in
the 1920s and 1930s continued to constitute a large proportion of the cinema-
going public under the Ustasha regime too. Identified by Ustasha theoreticians as
possessing a set of cultural and social attitudes inimical to the party’s revolutionary
ideas, they represented a significant barrier to the incarnation of a new kind of
ethical cinematic audience. Subsequent attempts by a succession of film agencies,
institutes, and sections to shape cinematic culture through censorship, fines, and
regulation were largely a failure. Moreover, the competing agendas of cinematic
agencies and economic directorates as well as the shifting priorities of the state
itself meant that the idea of using cinema as a means of transforming unconscious
citizens into actively engaged subjects was never likely to be achieved. For these
reasons, the history of the experimental attempt to create a radical film culture
and cinematic audience with newfound tastes, behaviors, and attitudes provides
an ideal frame through which to explore the broader Ustasha program of ideologi-
cal refashioning. Serving as a case study of how ideas about social, economic, and
cultural transformation were employed to mobilize support for the state’s cam-
paign of terror against “undesired elements” and how socioeconomic pressures
drove popular support for these campaigns, it demonstrates that the inability of
the new cinema to create an ideologically attuned and culturally enlightened audi-
ence reflected broader challenges inherent in the program to remake the masses as
Ustasha subjects.
88 Rory Yeomans

Until now, much scholarship related to cinema under the Ustasha regime
has concentrated on the production and premiere of the state’s first feature-
length film, Lisinski, a lush musical biopic of the nineteenth-century oper-
atic composer Vatroslav Lisinski, or other landmark productions.2 Given the
film’s immense popularity, the way it captured the imagination of the cinema-
going public, and the sense of romance and elegance it evoked in the midst
of the state’s violent collapse, this is not surprising. While other studies have
addressed topics ranging from the state’s participation in the 1942 Venice
Bienniale to the influence of German cinema, they have tended to utilize a
linear top-down approach from which the perspectives of both the architects
and recipients of film policy have largely been absent. As a result, the history
of cinema under the Ustasha regime has frequently been presented as orga-
nized and unproblematic in ways that, ironically, replicate the propaganda of
the regime itself.3 In fact, the attempt to construct a new concept of cinema
was, behind the opulent artifice of Lisinski, frequently characterized by con-
testation, terror, utopianism, and experimentation.

New Men, Cinema, and the Ustasha Style of Living

Ustasha cultural visionaries aimed at nothing less than the transformation of
society and the individual. In his essay “The Second Revolution,” published in
Hrvatska smotra in December 1941, the critic Stanko Vitković set out a problem
that troubled many other commentators. Despite the many technological, eco-
nomic, and social achievements of the Ustasha state, the task of remaking ordi-
nary people and everyday life along Ustasha lines had not been achieved. True
liberation would only occur, Vitković insisted, when “every manifestation of pub-
lic life is given an Ustasha expression and branded with an Ustasha stamp, in a
word: when everywhere and everything is embodied with the Ustasha style of liv-
ing. And this is the second revolution. This is the incarnation and shaping of new
men.”4 How was this to be done? Ustaša, the movement’s official journal, argued
that the state was constructing “the man of the future,” a vanguard of Ustasha
revolutionary values and the architect of the new Croatia. The Ustasha revolution
would transform the Croat citizen into the Ustasha subject in order to transform
Croatia into the Ustasha state.5
Antibourgeois sentiment, hostility to consumerism, and opposition to capi-
talism constituted central elements in the Ustasha value system and hence the
Ustasha man and woman; these were also intrinsically linked to its ideas about
race. On Ustasha workers’ radio in May 1941, Vjekoslav Blaškov, commissioner
of the Croat Workers’ Union (Hrvatski radnički savez), argued that the strug-
gle of Croat workers against Jewish and foreign capital was the “struggle of the
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 89

mechanics’ bench against the cafe-bourgeois table, that is the struggle of the earn-
ings of one dinar an hour versus the earnings of one million an hour.” He argued
that the only way for national society to purify its surroundings from foreign-
ers and “to treat the illness” of foreign capital was through state control of the
economy. The leading theoretician of what became known as Croatian Socialism,
Aleksandar Seitz, pointed to the foundation of a new social and economic system
and the “disappearance” of the bourgeois citizen as evidence of the social radical-
ism of the Ustasha state. In this way, the national revolution served a dual func-
tion as a social revolution returning dignity to Croat workers and ending their
exploitation by Jewish and Serbian plutocrats.6 But since Ustasha theoreticians
argued that Croat workers could be truly liberated only if they were educated and
enlightened, programs that aimed at cultural enlightenment were, unsurprisingly,
central elements in the construction of a new consciousness. This position was
articulated by the head of the Main Directorate for National Mass Enlightenment
(Glavno ravnateljstvo za opće narodno prosvjećivanje—NARPROS) Mile
Starčević in early 1942. In Prosvjetni život he argued for a reconfigured Ustasha
movement with culture at its core. The Ustasha state, he wrote, should be an all-
encompassing “engine room” of national consciousness and an “active agent of
culture.” The citizen emerging from school should be encouraged to be “an active
member of the national community.” Being Ustasha, he insisted, meant waging a
liberation struggle not only in the social and ideological fields but in the cultural
arena too.7 Through bringing culture and education to ordinary workers in the
suburbs and peasants in the village, the state would imbue them with Ustasha
values. In Spremnost, meanwhile, the former Marxist activist Milivoj Magdić
explained that a program of worker advancement—whether through attending
night school, listening to a symphonic orchestra, or visiting the theater—would
“hasten the revolutionary processes of society” and lead to the incarnation of a
new “technological elite” in factories and on shop floors.8
NARPROS, Croatian State Radio, the Croatian State Cinematic Institute
and other cultural and educational institutions organized open competitions
for workers in acting, scriptwriting, theater direction, and playwriting skills;
typically, they emphasized the ways in which the involvement of workers would
remove them from their monotonous jobs in offices and factories. Worker and
employee organizations such as the Croat Workers’ Union or the Union of
Croatian Private Employees (Savez hrvatskih privatnih namještnika) established
their own leisure sections where members could pursue cultural, intellectual,
and sporting activities.9 Along with bringing culture, education, and art closer
to ordinary workers, NARPROS and others aimed to make workers more cul-
tured in a behavioral sense too. By becoming cultured, they would learn to prac-
tice culture in a more enlightened manner. But, being active agents, as much
as workers benefited from their contact with culture, they were also helping to
90 Rory Yeomans

improve the ethos of the cultural consumer by bringing authentic Ustasha val-
ues to popular culture and sweeping away the bourgeois behaviors of the past.
The theater director Dušan Žanko, writing in Hrvatski radnik, observed that, as
a result of the promotion of culture among workers, the worker had become “a
more complete person,” satisfying his or her intellectual needs and demonstrat-
ing the intellectual capacity to appreciate and understand “our national operas.”
This fact opened “completely new pathways in the educational life of our Croat
worker” but, more importantly, ensured a new, more conscious theater audience,
replacing the “old small-town criticism and perpetually ill-tempered behavior
of corrupted urbanites.”10 Peasants in the socially dominant countryside were
also to be included in these programs. Social planners envisaged students, youth
brigades, and cultural workers going into the villages to improve their levels
of literacy, challenge conservative practices, raise their national consciousness,
and enlighten and educate them through culture and exposure to Ustasha val-
ues. As Franjo Lačen postulated in Ustaški godišnjak, through their work in vil-
lages, activists would bring modernity and transform the rural environment. A
new kind of village, with agricultural work made more efficient by tractors and
mechanized ploughs and everyday life characterized by electrification, offices,
health clinics, and educational colleges, was the aim.11
In the campaign for Ustasha values, cinema presented the second revolu-
tion’s architects with both the greatest opportunities and biggest challenges.
On the one hand, they recognized film’s status as a form of mass communi-
cation that could act as the engine room of national consciousness to which
Mile Starčević had referred, enabling them to inculcate ordinary citizens with
Ustasha values. At the same time, many Ustasha theoreticians were deeply
hostile to its associations with American culture, liberal cosmopolitan values,
and consumerist capitalist ethos. In his 1943 polemic Ustaški pogledi, Mijo
Bzik famously personified cinematic culture as inimical to Ustasha values. He
wrote of the vapid, shamelessly dressed young woman and her Anglophone
mustachioed ladies’ man out in town to watch the latest Hollywood offering
as the antithesis of everything that the new Ustasha man and woman repre-
sented. Meanwhile, in his regular column in Hrvatska pozornica, the young
poet and cultural commentator Vladimir Jurčić unfavorably compared the
brash, “vaudevillian” commercial tastes of the cinemagoer with the cultured
anticonsumerist instincts of the theatrical audience.12 Paradoxically, these cul-
tural prejudices were popularly enough held to sometimes prevent citizens,
even in large cities, from visiting the cinema, thus undermining the state’s
endeavors. Elsewhere, as an art form that presented such contradictory dilem-
mas, only through the incarnation of a different cinematic vision could the
communicative and technological promise of cinema be harnessed safely in
reshaping citizens’ moral, social, and national universes.
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 91

Constructing a New National Cinema from the Wasteland

The Ustasha state’s celluloid architects saw themselves as constructing a revo-
lutionary new social cinema from a wasteland. In a review of the first year of
Croatian film in May 1942, the director of the Croatian State Cinematic Institute
Marijan Mikac recalled that, when the Ustasha state was founded, the nascent
film industry had been built from ashes. The state, he recalled, “took over nothing
from the former Yugoslavia—not one film camera, not even the smallest piece of
apparatus needed for the synchronization and editing of film.” In the early days,
the first Croatian film institution, the Directorate for Film (Ravnateljstvo za film),
bought two old cameras with which they made the first short films and even in
the first few weeks “of our new state” had established a weekly information reel.
From these unpromising beginnings, Mikac explained, in the intervening period
cinematic production in the state had been transformed: “behind us stands a year
of strenuous work which has provided us with our first success.” Two cameras
had been purchased, with two put aside for the making of feature films and a van
equipped with cameras “for the filming of talking features.” At the time of writing,
he continued, the institute had made plans for the construction of a temporary
studio while at the same time talks were in progress with a foreign film company
for the erection of a permanent film studio complex on the outskirts of Zagreb at
which feature films would be filmed. In addition to the development of a studio
system and the purchase of modern equipment, film professionals had been sent
on a series of courses to improve their expertise. Nonetheless, Mikac admitted
that “we are far from having everything we need so that we can create cinema in
the quantities and with the speed common in other small states.” But, then again,
he noted, “our film industry, irrespective of how small it is at the beginning, has
exceeded what has been achieved in some other states that achieved their libera-
tion and independence a long time before us.”13
Two years later, Mirko Cerovac, a senior adviser at the institute, compared the
endeavors of the Croatian State Cinematic Institute to the lack of activity in inter-
war Yugoslavia: “Is it really an insignificant fact that in the space of three to four
months after the establishment of the state, at the height of the war itself, we
were successful in achieving what the former artificial state did not achieve in
twenty-three years of peace when for a little money it was possible to acquire as
many products and devices as one could have wanted?” he asked, adding, “And
we started off at a time when it was difficult even to purchase a simple nail!”
Cerovac also listed the large number of cultural and documentary films that had
been produced. In addition to an award-winning documentary about the exploits
of the Ustasha Black Legion (Crna legija) militia, films had been produced about
the work service of the Ustasha Youth and the city of Dubrovnik, as well as a
docudrama about Đuro Arnold’s poem Domovina. A film that celebrated the first
92 Rory Yeomans

anniversary of the state, Slavlje slobode, epitomized the ambitious pioneering new
spirit of Croatian cinema, he contended. Moreover, by April 1942 the number
of cinemas had increased from 111 to 150, with 22 in Zagreb alone and seating
capacity rising from 35,531 to 52,390. While initial film editing and the pro-
cess of turning silent documentaries and cultural films into speaking pictures had
taken place in an apartment, with commentators talking from a bedroom and a
cable transferring their words to an amplified camera in the dining room, foreign
experts had congratulated them on the quality of the reels. No one would be able
to tell, as Cerovac tartly put it, that “they had been assembled in a bathroom and
former pantry and edited in a bedroom.”14
When Mikac published his account of the first three years of Croatian cinema
in 1944, Tri godine hrvatskog slikopisa, one of its most striking aspects was the
bewildering number of personnel, name, and structural changes it endured in just
the first year of existence before it attained its final form. The first film institu-
tion was the Directorate for Film within the State Secretariat for Enlightenment
(Državno tajništvo za prosvjećivanje). Created on April 23, 1941, it included a
censorship section, the Commissariat for the Oversight of Film (Povjerenstvo
za ocjene slikopisa), which decided whether films could be shown, whether any
cuts or amendments were required, and if films were to be broadcast, what age
classification they should be placed under. For Mikac, the establishment of the
Directorate for Film demonstrated the importance the state placed on cinema
from the very beginning while the inclusion of the film directorate in the secre-
tariat was a “historical and meaningful act” that illustrated that cinema had ceased
being only a commercial product. As the state’s first film institution and the pro-
ducer of films, the directorate brought into its organization a large number of
young officials, experts, and advisers including, according to Mikac, a new gen-
eration of “young, talented, and self-sacrificing” film professionals. They stood in
stark contrast to many of the established experts who had judged initially that the
new directorate would not succeed.15
The pioneering work of the directorate came to an end at the beginning of 1942
with the founding of the Section for Film (Slikopisni odsjek—ODSLIK) within
the State Information and Propaganda Office (Državni izvještajni i promičbeni
ured—DIPU). ODSLIK was responsible for the production of films in terms of
content, technical aspects, and commercial prospects. It also oversaw the pur-
chase of foreign films and their screening and censorship, as well as the editing of
films whether domestic or foreign in agreement with the Ministry of the Interior
and the Ministry for National Education and the Ustasha Surveillance Service
(Ustaška nadzorna služba—UNS). In addition, it issued permits for new cinemas
and the production of films. Mikac stressed that film production was to be tightly
controlled by ODSLIK: “We should not repeat the mistakes of the past when any-
one could make a film whenever and wherever they liked without taking measures
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 93

to secure the right conditions for film production,” he stressed. According to him,
the right conditions consisted of the training of experts; the purchase of techni-
cal aids, equipment, and devices; and the construction of film studios. “Thus,” he
declared, “the state has taken into its hands responsibility for the entire process of
the production of Croatian films.” This was something that would not be possible
without the acquisition of advanced technical equipment and substantial finance.
Private capital was “unimaginable” because capitalists and bankers would want to
see a profit from their investment irrespective of the cultural value or social util-
ity of the films and because private capital contravened the new social cinematic
ethos. Instead, Mikac envisaged the state as being the “sole pioneer” of cinema.
The centralization of film was theoretically increased further in January 1942 after
a legal statute conferred on DIPU the sole right to purchase films from overseas.
While this action prevented the “relentless increase in prices and the speculation”
of cinema companies when new foreign films were purchased, it also allowed state
control over which films were being shown. The technical supervision and over-
sight of cinemas was another key responsibility of ODSLIK. In his study, Mikac
wrote with disdain about the neglected status of regional cinemas in the 1930s.
By contrast, Mikac vowed that ODSLIK would prioritize the opening of new
cinemas in small towns; these would not be “situated in taverns but in dedicated
beautiful buildings; cinemas that will serve not only for leisure but will also be
centers of education and culture.”16
Ever since the creation of the Directorate for Film, officials had been discuss-
ing the need for an autonomous cinematic institute. On January 19, 1942, the
Ministry for National Education introduced a legal statute announcing the estab-
lishment of the Croatian State Cinematic Institute (Hrvatski slikopis). This enabled
the creation of an institute “full of enthusiasm,” which would be independent of the
state budget and secure from the financial point of view, although its work contin-
ued to be overseen by ODSLIK. Despite the rising costs of cinema and increasing
demands being placed on Croatian cinema, Mikac argued that the introduction of
the law had enabled “fruitful and successful work” and the realization of anticom-
mercial cinema culture. Had the law not been introduced, he insisted, it would not
have been possible to “subordinate the commercial character of cinema to its more
high-minded instincts.” In fact, the income that Hrvatski slikopis derived from its
commercial activities funded its productions and educational and cultural projects.
Hrvatski slikopis, operating initially under the guidance of DIPU and later the
GRP, the Main Directorate for Propaganda (Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu) had
six divisions, including sections for cinema administration, film production, mobile
film, and film purchase, while another produced the state’s cinematic weekly news-
reel, educational, and feature films and propaganda features and advertisements. By
1944, Hrvatski slikopis owned three cinemas in Zagreb, Sisak and Banja Luka, the
third of which it had renovated with its own resources.17
94 Rory Yeomans

Like many other parts of the state bureaucracy, the complicated structure of
Croatian cinema was exacerbated by the numerous changes of name and func-
tion, the parallel functions of Hrvatski slikopis and ODSLIK, and in the case
of Hrvatski slikopis the large number of sections with overlapping competencies.
Like many other state agencies, the efficient working of Hrvatski slikopis and
ODSLIK was made more challenging by the variety of directorates in which they
were located. Since the personnel and perspectives of these parent departments
differed sharply, Hrvatski slikopis, in particular, regularly found itself in conflict
with not just its own department but other ministries and agencies that shared a
common interest in cinema but very different economic and financial agendas.
Personal rivalries, interest groups, and diverse outlooks all played a significant
role in stymieing the competent administration of the institution. Mikac himself,
while a trusted official in the Ustasha state, had never actually been a supporter of
the movement or even a nationalist. Formerly a surrealist writer with the Zenithist
artistic group and scriptwriter for the Yugoslav franchise of Twentieth Century
Fox and Warner Brothers, as head of the Directorate for Film, he appointed a
number of ambitious young filmmakers, screenwriters, producers, film enthusi-
asts, and interns such as Milan Katić, Branko Marjanović, Branko Blažina, and
Mladen Prebil, nonideological technocrats committed to the pragmatic develop-
ment of the state film industry. While many of these young cinematic enthusiasts
did drive Croatian film forward, others such as Stjepan Barberić, Božidar Metzger,
and Franjo Fuis worked clandestinely for the Communist resistance. In Fuis’s case,
this involved undertaking a doomed journey by plane to deliver film equipment
to the Partisans under the guise of making a film about war operations in the
Zagreb region.18 The factionalism of the nascent Croatian film industry resulted
in a system of administration that was, by turns, antagonistic and bureaucratic.

Public Indifference and Weekly Newsreels

If the new national cinema was defined by one achievement, it was, Mirko
Cerovac argued in his 1944 review of its early pioneering days, the develop-
ment of the Croatian film weekly Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik. The film weekly
had begun transmitting regularly under the title of Croatia in Words and Pictures
(Hrvatska u rieci i sliči—HURIS) on August 28, 1941. As Cerovac pointed out,
it was now considered among the leading newsreels in Europe, having produced
120 editions with one thousand scenes or, as he put it, “a thousand events from
all regions of Croatia!” Despite the supposedly spontaneous nature of the news-
reels, much of the filming was highly planned, with advance notices sent out by
Hrvatski slikopis to those who were going to be the subject of filming. Whether
they were factory bosses, regional Ustasha camp leaders, commune heads, or
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 95

workers’ representatives, the notice arrived a few days beforehand. Ivo Hrencević,
the owner of a foundry in Klanjac, received just such a notice in May 1942. In it,
Mikac curtly informed him that a cameraman would be arriving to film him, his
foundry, and his employees and instructed them to give the cameraman all pos-
sible assistance. This was not an offer that could be declined.19
Yet there is little doubt that many officials at Hrvatski slikopis were genuinely
enthusiastic, as Cerovac was, about what had been achieved through the news-
reels. Not only did they document the rich range of experiences and lives in the
new state, but it was hoped that, as a mass form of communication, they would
inculcate the citizens with the qualities of industry, self-sacrifice, and national-
ism required to become Ustasha subjects. Just as importantly, though, the news-
reel demonstrated to the outside world how the lives of the new state’s citizens
were being refashioned and modernized. As Cerovac put it, the construction of
Croatian cinema was a visible sign to the rest of the world that “we Croats don’t
belong in the ranks of those few European nations which intellectually or spiritu-
ally have not developed far enough to be able to provide the precious gift of mod-
ern culture and civilization that is cinema.” Cinema was not only an important
part of the national economy, he added, but “one of the most powerful means
of the education of the widest classes in society, a document of its time and, as
such, a constant mirror of the militant strength and creative power of the Croat
nation through the past three years because the film lens has honestly set down
and preserved for all time everything valuable and important that took place
among us.”20 In a context of initially modest cinematic resources, Cerovac argued
that the weekly film newsreel constituted both an ideal kind of film for an embry-
onic national cinema—simple, cheap, and immediate—and a necessary testing
ground without which the later triumphs of Croatian cinema could not have been
achieved. As such, it represented the Croatian will to succeed against all odds. “If
our people in the Hrvatski slikopis institute had said: ‘We don’t have the neces-
sary technical means nor can we buy them right now so we can’t create anything,’
we would not now have had the film Lisinski nor our short films or, indeed, our
weekly newsreel. We would have remained in the order of those three to four most
isolated European countries which do not have a permanent film industry. But
lazybones and cowards give up in the face of difficulties, not those who have the
will, inclination, and decisiveness for work.” Newsreels, then, not only captured
the festivals and events of the Ustasha state but embodied its values too.21
Officials at the institute proclaimed the founding of HURIS to be a symbol of
the modernity of the new state, an achievement that, despite the limited resources
at its disposal, demonstrated that Croatia had joined the ranks of technologically
and culturally progressive societies represented by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy,
departing the Balkan backwardness and cultural darkness of the former Yugoslavia
for good. Hrvatski slikopis, the institute’s monthly film journal, pointed out in
96 Rory Yeomans

September 1943 somewhat defensively that less than four months after the estab-
lishment of the new state, Croatia had its own cinematic weekly newsreel, the best
evidence, it claimed, of the importance of cinema as “an educational, entertain-
ment, information, and propaganda tool” in the Ustasha state. It observed that
from August 1941 until the time of writing, there had been eighty-five editions
even if, it added waspishly, the public was not aware of the “effort and difficulty”
that had gone into the making of each individual edition. This was known only by
those who “had the opportunity at least to peer into these more than anonymous
and modest rooms in which—sometimes through the entire night—they worked
just so that the new edition could come out on time and appear on Saturday
evenings at the premier cinemas in Zagreb.” Compare this with the working
conditions of those producing the newsreels of the Italian Instituto L’Unione
Cinematografica Educativa and the German Universum Film AG, it exclaimed:
“large, light, airy, and comfortable studios with advanced technology” on one side
and on the other HURIS accommodated in “small rooms, former bathrooms, and
pantries where one could hardly move and the devices that we had to use had
already been thrown in the trash can in other countries.” Despite all this, in its
external appearance the newsreel betrayed no trace of the conditions in which
it had been made but, on the contrary, was equal to German and Italian news-
reels produced in far more ideal circumstances. In addition to being shown at the
Venice Biennale, Hrvatski slikopis emphasized that HURIS had been screened in
Rome, Berlin, Bucharest, and other international cities, “surely never giving any
foreign experts cause to think: ‘Ah, this is something primitive, amateurish.’ On
the contrary, in this field we presented ourselves as a young state, still undeveloped
perhaps, but with a serious film industry.”22
Despite the growing number of HURIS newsreels and the bold assertions by
Hrvatski slikopis that in recent months the film institute had provided the most
modern equipment and comfortable rooms for the technical production of con-
temporary newsreels, the journal nonetheless fretted that ordinary members of the
public did not feel engaged by or interested in the newsreels either because they
were not aware of its significance or did not consider it truly “Croatian.” Hrvatski
slikopis aimed to counter these perceptions. It insisted that the medium of the
newsreel was an equivalent to radio and newspaper, but it could be more power-
ful than both because it appealed to the eye and the ear at the same time and thus
had far more influence. Hrvatski slikopis illustrated this point with the example
of an art museum director in Zagreb who pointed out that although newspapers
had written frequently about his museum and state radio had mentioned it on
numerous occasions, there had been few visitors, and the public had only begun
to show interest in his museum when it was shown on newsreels: “When this
museum was shown for the first time in the film newsreel, the very next day—
even though it was a Sunday and the museum was closed—more people came to
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 97

look around than in the previous months combined. And they had all become
interested because of the film newsreel!” This illustrative story, the journal con-
cluded, showed the importance of HURIS. It was also important to reassure the
public that, despite the use of filmmaking technology from Germany and Italy,
it was untrue, as many Croatian cinema goers assumed when they looked at the
HURIS reels, that they were “not our own work but foreign.” This was “com-
pletely wrong,” it explained: only the equipment came from overseas; the filming
of images, sound recording, mixing, and other production, on the contrary, was
carried out by “our national experts here in Zagreb”; none of the production pro-
cesses were completed overseas. It was something “that has been completely devel-
oped in our state, that has been developed from the beginning to the end by our
people inside our state . . . and, as the name suggests, shows our most important
political, cultural, economic, sporting, and other events, and that, in the light of
day, carries our unknown cultural heritage. Thus our Croatian newsreel deserves
the nickname that it widely carries: the eyes and ears of the world.”23
There were also concerns that because the vast majority of ordinary Croatians,
especially outside the major towns, did not visit the cinema they were not getting
the chance to become acquainted with the state’s achievements. According to a
critical editorial in the Sarajevo newspaper Novi list in February 1944, the fact
that the newsreels were played before each feature-film screening was not much
use if most citizens did not attend. True, Novi list conceded, the newsreels were the
best evidence of the progress of the Croatian film industry in the past three years
“screened daily at the beginning of every cinematic presentation in our Sarajevo
cinemas.” Nevertheless, while some cinema owners had done their best to draw
attention to these presentations, the truth was there was a lack of promotion and
advertising. Thus, “while romantic and adventure films are frequently advertised,
at the moment many valuable and fascinating cinematic weekly reviews remain
unnoticed by the wider general public, which very rarely attends film presenta-
tions.” The solution, it argued, was for the weekly newsreel to be advertised widely
so that citizens were not deprived of the incredible images and experiences it cap-
tured. Film reporters and investigators from Hrvatski slikopis, Novi list pointed
out, had “in the past year toured all the Croatian regions that abound with his-
torical landmarks of incalculable cultural worth. They have explored with their
cameras every part of our Croatian homeland that is full of romanticism, and not
the slightest detail has escaped their eyes. On the celluloid screen, this has awak-
ened the interest of the general and foreign public. They have visited every village
and town, the unconquerable towers of Croatdom and Ustashaism in which are
located and concealed so many details that until now have not been known to the
Croatian public.”24
The fact that the weekly cinematic newsreel was screened prior to every feature
film led Novi list to two conclusions. First, not enough people were choosing to
98 Rory Yeomans

watch films. More effective advertising of these newsreels would encourage citi-
zens ordinarily alienated by the superficial image of movies to visit the cinema in
order to see themselves or regions familiar to them on the big screen. Over time,
they would begin regularly visiting the cinema and so gain the modern tastes and
values that film inculcated citizens with in addition to cultural enlightenment.
For those who did frequent the cinema, better-targeted advertising would ensure
that the newsreels “were seen by many more of our citizens who will get to know
the warriors and national heroes bravely defending national liberation and state
independence on the battlefield with guns in their hands.” Thus they could serve
an important propaganda function. Moreover, if the end result was more ordi-
nary people visiting the cinema, since the newsreels also covered a range of inter-
national events, it would increase not just the size of the audience but expand
their worldview too, bringing them into contact with images and information
that “unwind sometimes in closed rooms and sometimes in places far outside the
regions of our narrow homeland.”25

Croatian Cinema as a New Moral and Racial Economy

Campaigns of racial purification and moral rebirth represented central elements in
the remaking of everyday attitudes and life. As in all other branches of economic
life in the new state, the removal of Serbs, Jews, and all other “undesired elements”
was a prerequisite for the construction of a healthy anticapitalist culture, in this
case a cinematic one. Since Jews and Serbs were associated with not just racial infe-
riority but a range of moral vices such as cosmopolitanism, materialism, and capi-
talism, the liquidation of Serb, Jewish, and foreign influence in film represented
the transformation of film into a new social and moral economy. In an editorial of
May 1942 in Hrvatski slikopis, Mikac explained what this meant. In the past, he
wrote, cinema had been based exclusively on commercial and “immoral ‘princi-
ples’ that Jewish plutocrats imposed on cinematic production.” These consumerist
and degenerate moral values had been destroyed. In place of the old commercial
values, a new cinematic culture was emerging, which extolled “a new spirit and
order in the world.” It promoted collaboration between nations and spread educa-
tion and culture. As part of the destruction of free market principles, not only had
the dominant Jewish influence been removed, Mikac explained; institutions “that
produced and showed provocative films were banned from all work.”26
His colleague Cerovac emphasized that the new social practices underpinning
the construction of a national cinema needed to be combined with new moral
guidelines too. Writing on the state’s first anniversary in April 1942, he pointed
out that only a year previously cinema had been considered to be a means of
“personal enrichment by certain individuals” of “non-Aryan origin” or a form of
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 99

mindless “entertainment for the wider national public.” The establishment of the
Ustasha state meant that such materialistic thinking had come to an end. Instead,
cinema would be required to fulfil elevated tasks in the service of national life,
attuned to Ustasha principles. One of the film directorate’s earliest initiatives was
to ensure that cinema advertisements were brought into line with the new cultural
orthodoxies. Extravagance and excitement were to be substituted for simplicity,
seriousness, and the “strictest business morals” that had been “so neglected and
distorted” in interwar Yugoslavia. Within its first few weeks, the directorate had
published an order stating that film advertisements served “neither the honor of
the film industry nor cinema” and were, “with few exceptions, frivolous, inaccu-
rate, and often plain lies.” Relying on a low level of perception among cinemago-
ers, they had “seduced the public with indecent text and images, which sometimes
had barely any connection with the film.” Such “frivolous dishonorable” practices
must immediately cease. The purpose of film advertising, Cerovac insisted, was
not to swindle but to “draw the attention of the public to certain films, point-
ing out their main features and appeal.” As a result, only “serious and exemplary”
advertisements would be permitted, and they were restricted to pointing out the
characteristics, contents, and plot of the films, insofar as the films were “in the
spirit of the new age.”27 By contrast, cinemagoers were provided with details of
the film’s leading actors and actresses, director, and other members of the pro-
duction cast only if the directorate considered it crucial to audiences reaching an
informed decision about the quality of the film. The directorate considered the
choice of advertising image crucial since, it noted, in the past images had con-
sciously appealed to the “baser instincts” of the public. It decreed that images had
to avoid “excess and weirdness,” and it pointed out to production companies that,
in the new state, film assumed a worthy place “in the service of the Croat people
and the state” and was not therefore an ordinary business. On the contrary, film
had the task of influencing the public “in a positive and not destructive way” and,
as a result, had to be seen “from the point of view of the community and not the
narrow individual point of view.”28
The directorate was not content to address only immoral practices in advertis-
ing since it believed that it was a symptom of wider depravity in an industry char-
acterized by distorted ethics. Ironically, while cinematic characters chattered about
morals on the basis of “the superficial understanding of Hollywood scriptwriters,”
in the film business, “a special kind of ‘film morality’ was asserted that differenti-
ated itself in every respect from the morals on the big screen and that shared only
a name with authentic morals,” Cerovac complained. He pointed out that this
lack of morality extended to the corrupt buying and selling of films, a practice
informed by the idea that the film industry and cinema were just another form
of commerce. Rather than being “the pride of civilization and the most powerful
weapon in the service of education,” cinema had become “a business of the most
100 Rory Yeomans

squalid kind.” While film institutes tricked cinematographers, cinematographers

in turn swindled film institutes, and, as a result, they acted as two enemy camps
in which “disharmony, factionalism, and backstabbing” ruled rather than working
together as one camp serving the nation.
For their part, cinema owners inflated prices, tried to outwit business rivals,
and frequently inflicted mediocre films on the cinemagoing public. Meanwhile,
film companies damaged the business of cinema owners, and, where they could,
cinema owners damaged film companies as well as the state and their patrons.
Thus, while shadows served to flatter the actor on the screen, the real man outside
the celluloid fantasy was swindled in the most “shameless” way, and, as Cerovac
observed, “Jewish plutocrats in their skyscrapers weaved threads with which they
entranced the whole world, including the Croat man.” Thankfully, he announced
that state cinematic culture had freed itself from these inequities. “Film and
cinema have already been liberated from the control of unscrupulous business-
men and dark speculators and placed in the service of the state and the people.
International profiteering will cease. Poorly structured competition will come to
an end. In the Independent State of Croatia, film will take the place that belongs
to it as a powerful instrument of education. The film and cinematographic busi-
ness liberated from all damaging influences will be reorganized at its root.” This
new structure aimed to ensure not just that the film industry was in harmony with
Ustasha principles but that it was based on the interests and preferences of the
hardworking cinemagoing citizen.29
As part of the transformation of cinematic culture, throughout 1941 and early
1942 the directorate and then ODSLIK in its turn initiated the nationalization of
the major Hollywood film company franchises. These were liquidated in collabora-
tion with the Ministry for Trade, Industry and Handicrafts. British films had been
banned by the directorate immediately after it was created and American films in
December 1941 following its entry into the war, while the major American film
studio distribution companies had quickly been placed under the control of com-
missioners appointed by the State Secretariat for Enlightenment. Nonetheless, it
was not until the beginning of 1942 that the franchise companies themselves were
liquidated and their remaining assets transferred to DIPU and ODSLIK.30 The
liquidation of “enemy” Anglo-American film companies was only one aspect of
the nationalization process, however. A far more wide-reaching program involved
the purification of cinema from all Serb and Jewish influence and involvement.
One of the first initiatives of the Directorate for Film had been the appointment
of commissioners to administer the cinemas appropriated from their Serb and
Jewish owners. The commissioners represented a wide cross section of both the
party and state bureaucracy and included businesspeople, office workers, and
advisers in the film directorate. Nevertheless, the majority were already involved in
the film industry as owners or employees of American film franchises or Croatian
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 101

distribution firms. One of the first commissioners appointed was Mato Kovačević,
the secretary of the Union of Croatian Private Employees, a radical workers’ orga-
nization founded in the late 1930s to improve working conditions, agitate for a
centrally planned national economy in place of “Jewish capital,” and imbue Croat
workers with an ideological consciousness so that they could resist “antinational
influences.” Unsurprisingly, as Kovačević revealed to Novi list in May 1941, some
of its members had “actively participated in the Ustasha revolution” and were
enthusiastic about the new state’s radical “nationalist and social values.” In fact,
some of its leading young activists such as Mirko Bilić and Zdravko Belamarić
had since become spokespeople for Ustasha worker organizations, journals, and
cultural societies.31
Simultaneously, on the suggestion of the Department for Social Care, the
health minister, Ivo Petrić, had appointed Kovačević commissioner with respon-
sibility for regulating relations between cinema owners and employees in
Zagreb. Since he had been a labor dispute specialist in the 1930s and there
was already a section for cinematographic operators and box office staff in the
Union of Croatian Private Employees, his appointment, according to Novi list,
was welcomed by employees with “open arms.” One of Kovačevic’s key tasks was
the signing of collective agreements demarcating labor relations, pay, vacation,
and other working conditions. From the beginning, then, the appropriation of
Serb and Jewish cinemas—like the wider national revolution—was defined as a
question of social justice and collective worker’s rights in which worker exploita-
tion and capitalist practices would be swept away as much as unwanted racial
and national enemies.32
In the case of Serb- and Jewish-owned cinemas in more remote regions, by
contrast, commissioners tended to be drawn from among local party activists,
students, youth members, and workers either because local Ustasha councils and
communes had their own processes or because there was no one qualified to act as
a commissioner. In some instances, this meant that commissioners seemed com-
pletely at a loss as to what was required of them, as was the case with the com-
missioner appointed to run Jovan Bakić’s cinema in Livno.33 In other cases, film
agency officials struggled to gather information on the activities of regional com-
missioners.34 At its most extreme, it resulted in the appointment of candidates
judged entirely unsuitable to be commissioners. Sometimes, these were appointed
by the State Directorate for Economic Regeneration (Državno ravnateljstvo za
gospodarstvenu ponovu—DRGP), which was in competition with the film direc-
torate for the control of the cinemas. This rivalry sometimes led the DRGP to
arbitrarily replace commissioners appointed by the directorate. On August 1,
1941, for example, Mikac sent a letter to the State Secretariat for Propaganda
complaining that the DRGP had substituted “without any kind of justification”
the commissioner of Cinema Urania in Zagreb, Fran Grlanić, barely a week after
102 Rory Yeomans

his appointment with the “amateur” Slavko Budić. He pointed out, too, that
commissioners could, “in principle,” be appointed only by the film directorate.35
Mikac and his officials also expressed concern about the background and
qualifications of those seeking to purchase nationalized cinemas. In a letter
of January 1942 to the workers’ cooperative Hrvatska radiša explaining why
ODSLIK could not give its support to its plan to sell its cinema, he pointed out
that in the proposed sale it was not clear who was intending to buy the cinema
and whether they possessed the necessary expertise. It was of crucial importance
for ODSLIK, he stressed, that those running cinemas had professional qualifica-
tions. “From the former Yugoslavia,” he explained, “we inherited a number of
cinema owners who did not possess sufficient qualifications to manage cinemas
because in those days the job of cinema manager was an ordinary commercial
job. Since these businesses have been placed in the sphere of state propaganda
and have to serve educational and propaganda aims, we must be careful about
whom these businesses are sold to.” He reminded the cooperative that, at that
precise moment, ODSLIK and the DRGP were implementing the liquidation
of American and Jewish companies. This would result in a significant number
of expert professionals remaining without work. To ensure that cinemas were
managed by mind-sets in tune with Croatian cinema’s anticommercial values,
it was the intention of the film directorate to find among them candidates for
the purchase of Jewish and Serb cinemas. In addition, Mikac pointed out that
there were cases where “in the current war situation individual cinemas had to
be closed or the owner was injured in the war. These people must be given prior-
ity in the purchase of Jewish and Serb cinemas.” ODSLIK would therefore be
unable to come to a decision about the sale of the cooperative’s cinema until it
had sent him more information about the prospective buyer.36
Despite the idealistic claims of the nationalization program, its fundamen-
tally acquisitive nature was made clear in a report by Mikac in September 1942
to the Office for Nationalized Assets (Ured za podržavljeni imetak) in which he
discussed the fate of a number of Jewish- and Serb-owned cinemas. The report
illustrates how far those agencies tasked with leading the nationalization program
viewed their work in pragmatic terms. Mikac’s report, despite the stated anticapi-
talist principles that animated the Croatian Film Institute, was characterized by
a highly commercial assessment of the amount of revenue that could be gener-
ated by the sale and use of assets belonging to absent Serb and Jewish owners.
Even the smallest assets, such as single film projectors, were deemed suitable for
nationalization. In contrast to the careful detail of the inventories, nothing was
said about the fate of the owners, who were reduced to their essentialist racial
identity: “expelled Serb Lazar Rakijaš” and “the Jew Katić.”37
The nationalization of cinemas was a slow process, in part, because of the
number of agencies involved in nationalization, rivalry between different
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 103

departments, and disagreement about what to do with assets at both the insti-
tutional and individual level. The tensions between different agencies involved
in the nationalization and liquidation of Jewish and Serb property were obvious
in the rivalry between the DRGP and its successor agencies and ODSLIK. In a
letter of January 1942 to the head of Hrvatska radiša about the proposed sale of
its cinema—apparently long since agreed to by the DRGP—the head of DIPU
Vilko Rieger had warned the cooperative that it needed to send every potential
application for taking over Jewish and Serb cinemas to DIPU, as it had ulti-
mate oversight for ensuring that confiscated property ended up in “Croatian
hands.”38 Rieger’s instruction reflected wider concerns in DIPU and ODSLIK
about the increasing tendency of the DRGP to lead the liquidation of Jewish
and Serb cinemas on the basis that this was, like such programs of nationaliza-
tion, an economic issue; by contrast, Mikac and Rieger saw it as a cultural issue
in which the cinematic expertise of DIPU and ODSLIK should take precedence
over the economic knowledge of the DRGP. The conflict between these two
agencies went back as far as June 1941 when, as head of the film directorate,
Mikac began complaining about the interference of the Ministry for National
Economy (Ministarstvo narodnog gospodarstvu—NARGOS) to the State
Secretariat for Propaganda. In a report, he related a visit from representatives of
the Society of Cinema Owners in Zagreb. “They arrived very agitated and wor-
ried because they had heard that the Independent State of Croatia intended, in
a period of two days, to take over Zagreb cinemas. I answered that I knew noth-
ing about this, and they told me that they were going to visit [Vladimir] Košak
and [Drago] Šulterer,” both of whom were officials in NARGOS. For Mikac
this event was emblematic of a wider problem, and, in the light of “various
alarming stories” about Zagreb cinemas, he asked for an investigation to estab-
lish what the real situation in Zagreb’s cinemas was because it appeared that
NARGOS “has taken various matters into its own hands, not informing the
State Secretariat for Propaganda, and frequently placing me in an uncomfort-
able situation so that I am not able to give any information about the real state
of affairs and cannot provide answers to people who come to me for advice.”39
The zealous attitude of NARGOS also led it to arbitrarily confiscate cinemas
from owners it assumed were Jewish and Serb even in cases where this was in
question. On June 18, 1941, for instance, Mikac complained to the secretar-
iat that officials from NARGOS had attempted to purchase Cinema Urania,
which belonged to Gita Pelossy, despite the fact there was no commissioner
appointed to the cinema and nor had the owner ever expressed a wish to sell.
According to Pelossy’s account, after the NARGOS official found the owner was
not there, he left her a message instructing her to come to a specific address in
four hours. “When I tracked down the official, Barić,” she recalled, “he asked
me for information about my nationality, religion and informed me that the
104 Rory Yeomans

state was going to take the ownership of all cinemas into its hands. To my ques-
tion about why I was being affected when I am an Aryan woman, a Croatian
woman, he replied that the state needed the cinema for propaganda. Then, as
I recall, Dr. Barić announced to me that I would have to hand over the cin-
ema this Sunday because he was traveling to Rome and everything had to be
settled by then.” Mikac protested that NARGOS was interfering in areas that
were the responsibility of the film directorate. The purchasing of cinemas by the
state required caution and a system; the actions of NARGOS were, by contrast,
“inconvenient and even damaging.” Cinema was a “noble” industry that should
be led by experts. This especially needed to be taken into account in the current
time “when great difficulties exist with obtaining films and it is virtually impos-
sible to get good new films. Apart from this, there is the fate of cinema workers
whose existence could be threatened by mediocre management.” In any case, he
concluded, NARGOS was reckless in purchasing cinemas such as Urania that
had disastrous business models and “enormous” debts.40
Added to this, Mikac continued, NARGOS officials were interfering in the
payments awarded to cinema commissioners. “I should mention,” he wrote, “that
NARGOS has, against the advice of this directorate, ordered an incredibly small
bursary for film company commissioners. Only today I read the order sent to
Vladimir Benković, the commissioner for Fox Films, which stipulated a monthly
bursary of 1000 dinars for him. However, one must take into account that Mr.
Benković and the other commissioners are giving up their free time, which they
should be spending in the businesses in which they are employed, and, instead,
are being reproached by their bosses.” Bearing all this in mind, it was in the inter-
ests of the state if NARGOS did not act unilaterally but instead consulted the film
directorate. In fact, it would be best, he added crisply, if the State Secretariat for
Propaganda “took responsibility for all questions related to cinema and films as
envisaged in the legal statute of the Directorate for Film.”41
A few weeks later NARGOS, nevertheless, placed Cinema Urania under its
control. The commissioner appointed to Cinema Urania acted ruthlessly to eradi-
cate Jewish and Serb influence both in the ownership and management of the
cinema; one of the first acts undertaken by the newly appointed commissioner
was the purging and purification of the cinema of Jewish and Serb employees
as well as Croatian employees suspected of having “Yugoslav” or seditious ten-
dencies. An Ustasha police investigation of June 2, 1941, had already found that
Cinema Urania was infested with undesirable employees. It noted that the plans of
NARGOS to reorganize the cinema had revealed the extent of Serb employment:
besides the “suspicious” Savo Marić, the deputy manager, who lived in Streljačka
ulica with his “concubine,” Elza Milecher, there was Nenad Vukelić, the film
operator, and Žarko Stupar, the night watchman, “both of the Serbian Orthodox
religion who, according to the new movement in our state, are not desired. In
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 105

general, this cinema is of doubtful provenance and it appears that Jewish capi-
tal stands behind it.” The police report observed that the owner, Pelossy, a for-
mer manicurist, had lived for many years in concubinage with “a notorious Jew,
Gutman/Godmen, an Englishman who has now fled.” In addition to the racially
undesirable employees, the chief manager of the cinema was a retired teacher,
Eugen Dabac, an emphatic “integral Yugoslav” who “has always been and still
is to be found in the company of Serbian societies and Serbian officers.” Other
cinema employees confirmed that Dabac “placed his trust only in Marić and the
other Serb employees in this cinema while he harasses the others.” While the cin-
ema had ten Roman Catholic employees, including two ticket sellers, they were
“neglected.” As such, the cinema and its employees were, for NARGOS, a repre-
sentative example of everything that was disreputable in the current structure of
Croatian cinema, and it needed to be purified to construct a truly national cul-
ture. Mato Kovačević, the new commissioner, carried out the purging of the cin-
ema with ruthless efficiency. On July 2, 1941, ODSLIK reported to the Ustasha
police that Kovačević had already dismissed from service all “undesirable employ-
ees,” informing the secretariat that “the employees of the Cinema Urania, Savo
Marić, Nenad Vukelić, Žarko Stupar and Eugen Dabac, have been dismissed from
service and no longer work in this business.”42
While the nationalization of their cinemas represented for urban Serbs and Jews
part of a campaign of economic terror against them, in some regions authorities
did not carry out the expropriation of Jewish cinemas as rigorously as they should
and, as the zealousness of the program of economic regeneration dissipated, some
“national enemies” did attempt to reclaim their former assets. In January 1942,
for example, ODSLIK wrote to the head of the Hum region asking him to clarify
the accusations by the local male Ustasha Youth camp and the former commis-
sioner of the Cinema Corso that it was “once again in the hands of the baptized
Jew Kaće Jovanović.” Since it was “in the interests of state prosperity that this cin-
ema is in trustworthy hands,” clearly it could not be returned to a Jew. Some dis-
missed Serb employees also successfully appealed. One of these was Savo Marić,
who, just one month after being sacked as Urania’s deputy manager and banned
from working in Croatian cinemas, submitted an appeal requesting reinstatement.
In his letter, accompanied by affidavits from Ustasha officials including one from
Ivan Oršanić, a policy adviser at the directorate and cinema commissioner, he
asked for the decision to be overturned. This was on the basis not only of his
recent conversion to Catholicism but because he had “continuously collaborated
with the Croat people” in its struggle for liberation, considering himself a Croat
despite his Orthodox upbringing. While he was not permitted to return to the
Urania, the ban on working at other cinemas was revoked on condition his state
sector eligiblity was cleared by the GUS personnel office. However, these examples
were almost certainly the exception rather than the rule.43
106 Rory Yeomans

Elsewhere, the liquidation of Serb and Jewish cinemas fired the idealism of
the movement’s supporters, who saw in it evidence of a wider program of social
mobility and socioeconomic transformation. Ordinary members of the public
as well as professional, cultural, and educational organizations submitted appli-
cations to acquire confiscated cinemas. On June 17, 1941, Slavko Furdek and
the novelist Zlatko Milković, both officials in the Educational Institute, wrote to
the Ministry for Religion and Education requesting the use of Cinema Europa
for “educational and cultural aims that would serve primarily the contemporary
education of the entire Croat youth.” They pointed out that not one cinema in
Zagreb was currently being used for this extremely important purpose. The teach-
ers intended to dedicate their work in the framework of European cultural val-
ues “to imbuing our youth with a new life, youth which, unfortunately, in recent
years has been poisoned with degenerate films with altogether no artistic value,
placing it on the wrong path and making it complicit in its own downfall.” The
Educational Institute, with high-school teachers at its head and excellent teaching
staff, intended to pay careful attention to films shown to youth. Before the screen-
ing of films about cultural subjects, it planned to hold film lectures, from time to
time organizing children’s concerts and in this way “increasing further the already
great love for beautiful art and beauty.” Milković and Furdek pointed out that
national cinema was still in the hands of Serbs and Jews who “are working against
the spirit of the Croat people and the Croatian Ustasha movement and, what is
more, against the spirit of the Poglavnik’s order that Jews and Serbs may not have
any role in the construction of Croatian culture.”44

Mobile Cinema and the Education of the Masses

The idea of film as a vehicle of cultural enlightenment was central to the vision
of Croatian cinema’s architects. In particular, they believed that film should play
a key role in educating and modernizing the peasant masses in the countryside;
additionally, they hoped that through indoctrination cinema would mobilize
peasant support for the Ustasha movement. More fundamentally, though, mobile
cinema’s new reels, documentaries, and cultural films would expose peasants to
Ustasha values and, in publicizing the achievements of the state and the move-
ment, foster a spirit of solidarity, thereby reducing the social division between the
city and the village. But, since many of the more remote villages lacked access to
electrification or even power generation, never mind cinema, how was this to be
achieved? The answer was the establishment of a mobile cinema unit that would
bring films to the most inaccessible regions of the state. Looking back in May
1942, Hrvatski slikopis recalled the challenge this had represented: “Although
it is the twentieth century, a century of technology that has already become an
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 107

important part of our lives, our villages lived the lives of their ancestors. It was
not until the establishment of a liberated state that they could feel the gift of
contemporaneity.” The creation of the mobile film section then allowed the state
to bring films to remote regions so that its citizens could see “world and domestic
events of historical importance on the screen.” This task, however simple it might
look in a period of normality, presented, according to Hrvatski slikopis, “great dif-
ficulties in this extraordinary era.” Nonetheless, in March of that year, officials
in the Croatian Film Institute embarked on educational work in villages such as
Vrbovac, Zlatar, Vinica, and Marija Bistrica, among others, and immediately the
impact on ordinary villagers was clear: “One needed to witness the delight on the
faces of the peasants when they looked at the screen and heard the Poglavnik and
other high officials of their state as well as learning about events in the outside
world. Ordinary folk could not find enough words of thanks for those who had
enabled them to have such great satisfaction.” In addition to its educational func-
tion, the mobile film section possessed important propaganda value, something
Hrvatski slikopis acknowledged: “When we recognize the great value of this work,
we cannot help but warmly thank all those who have a lesser or greater role in this
because we are conscious how important it is in the current time to offer our rural
population truthful facts about world events.”45
Irrespective of the priority placed on mobile film, the resources of the mobile
film section were initially modest. In May 1942, for instance, the section pos-
sessed only two vans equipped to present films and four generators to enable films
to be shown in localities without electricity. Mikac wrote hopefully that it was
anticipating the arrival of seven more vans from Germany, one of which would
allow the section to show films in the open air, enabling “many thousands of peo-
ple to see films.” In addition, some of the future vans were equipped with their
own generators so that films could be shown in regions where there was no electri-
cal supply. This meant, Mikac pointed out, that “the most far-flung regions of our
homeland will benefit from the wonderful invention that film is.”46 By June 1942
Hrvatski narod, however, was claiming that no other state had invested as much
effort in the spreading of education and culture in the villages as the Ustasha state
had. As a result of this “excellent means of propaganda” that carried education to
the most remote village, the state illustrated its “great concern for our village and
the desire that it comes closer to the city and the world outside its borders.”47
By July the new vans had arrived. According to a feature in Hrvatski list,
the mobile film vans had their own generator, loudspeakers, and audio sound
and were ideal for villages without electricity: “The apparatus is modern, the
sound is excellent and the pictures are clear,” it declared confidently. Thus the
most “far-flung villages have the opportunity in their locality, in their village,
to see films for the first time and, in this way, gain a picture of today’s strug-
gle for a better future for the whole of humanity.” Great care, the newspaper
108 Rory Yeomans

explained, was taken in the kinds of films shown to peasants; only films of the
highest quality were screened: propaganda, war movies, and feature films, to be
sure, but also films that addressed the contemporary problems of the peasant
economy and economic life. As a result, the peasants welcomed mobile cinema
with great happiness since, “after twenty-odd years, education and learning have
finally come to their villages. Many notes of appreciation testify that in cinema
the peasant has found an answer to all those questions that troubled him in the
long years of ignorance and darkness.” Moreover, the peasant had been pre-
sented with an extraordinary impression of cinema’s possibilities. “Until today
he had only heard about cinema, told about it by relatives and neighbors who
had been to the city and watched it. He never dreamed that one day he would
enjoy ‘these pictures in which people talk’ in his liberated independent state and
see faraway lands and battlefields where his Croat brothers fight.” The weekly
newsreels were of particular interest. Seeing images of soldiers on the Eastern
Front or in North Africa, peasants were able to view things they had only heard
about from older villagers who had already been to war. This helped to shape
their minds, Hrvatski list explained, in the correct ideological direction: “The
contemporary weaponry and arms of friendly states and the discipline and brav-
ery of our army: all of this has provoked reverent amazement in them. In these
pictures, the Croat peasant has seen his homeland, his Poglavnik, and his great
concern for the welfare of the Croat people. It has also been confirmed to him
that there are people who are mercenaries, who provoke unrest and quarrels
among small nations, who have malign and corrupted souls.”48
While an important aspect of the work of the mobile film unit involved pro-
moting education and cultural enlightenment in the village, the films shown to
ordinary workers and peasants were chosen not just by their quality but also their
content: the censorship system developed by ministries such as DIPU and GRP
dictated that what was shown often differed from what was shown in the city. In
fact, the Croatian State Cinematic Institute argued that there was no contradic-
tion between screening feature-length films exclusively in cities and the type of
short films shown in remote locations since the latter would “penetrate” into the
“smallest and most poverty-stricken villages” more easily and play their role in the
education of the masses. By July 1943, Hrvatski slikopis was claiming rather defen-
sively that, in partnership with the film company Svjetloton, the mobile unit had
already offered “thousands and thousands of peasants who had perhaps reached
old age without ever seeing a film the opportunity to become acquainted with
the fruits of European civilization” through short films. “Today,” it added, “we
have access to technical equipment, especially vans and generators, that enable
the holding of short film screenings in all parts of the country and even in those
places far removed from modern transport links and in such places where there
are no sources of electricity.” In its reasoning, Hrvatski slikopis provided technical
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 109

explanations why short documentaries and cultural films were suitable for mobile
cinema: “In a country as mountainous and wooded as Croatia, in which not even
the most basic transport have been developed, the easy transmission and simple
handling of such short films represents the enduring progress and success of short
films. Short films are the means by which European, educated, and healthy beliefs
in the most far-flung and inaccessible regions can be spread, regions in which nor-
mally cinema would not penetrate.”49
In another defense of the choice of films screened by the mobile unit, Kazimir
Vrljčak, a young official at the film institute, emphasized the dual role cultural
films, in particular, played as a driver of enlightenment and propaganda.50 The
establishment of the Ustasha state, he argued, meant the transformation of the
nation’s entire cultural life. Cinema especially had been given “new directions and
new possibilities for work in incomparably healthier and better circumstances
than before.” As a result of the changed conditions and expanded opportunities
for cultural films, two things were clear. First, the production of cultural films had
stopped the involvement in the film industry of “various unworthy anti-Croatian
elements which until then had enjoyed the dominant say in film questions.” Also,
since these films were financed and coordinated directly by state institutions, the
industry had been liberated from the “environment of those who saw everything,
not least cultural films, through the lens of profit.” As a result of the commercial
ethos, even “the most dubious productions” had been given the title of cultural
film despite the fact that the producers of such films “consciously and uncon-
sciously in their work were led to ideas and desires that at their root clashed with
the Croat man’s understanding of life and the most sacred traditions of the Croat
nation.” For the future of the cultural film in Croatia, then, “happy and wide
horizons” were opening. The ideological purging of cultural films did not imply
that this genre of film was narrow. On the contrary, he insisted, cultural films
could incorporate all sorts of educational, scientific, and documentary films about
medicine, hygiene and racial biology, social policy, and expeditions. Yet while cul-
tural films in the state would soon enjoy “almost unlimited possibilities for devel-
opment,” Vrljčak argued that they played a special role in “raising the cultural
levels of all our national classes.” In this sense, the cultural film had the same task
in the villages as elsewhere: it was to “open new horizons and elevate the intellec-
tual enlightenment of the individual milieu. In an interesting and easygoing way
it must acquaint the widest layers of society with worthy and virtuous thoughts,
screening scientific and cultural work so that the screenings never lose their attrac-
tion irrespective of how complex or little known the subject matter of them is.”51
Nonetheless, Vrljčak insisted that cultural films needed to serve an ideological
purpose and educate “in the intellectual and spiritual sense of the word.” Cultural
films must ensure that they were Croatian “both in their contents and inten-
tions” so that they provided “a detailed review of our entire cultural, economic,
110 Rory Yeomans

social, and political essence and an encyclopedia of our history and our con-
temporary life, our people and our land, all our ethnographic richness, and our
natural beauty.” As such, they should represent a “real and complete mirror of
the Croatian name from the first emergence of national cultural and political life
through the centuries until today.” When, he added, Croatian cultural film incor-
porated “all the political and cultural monuments of our bloody and celebrated
past, a witness of the splendor of the glory, strength and will of Croatian life, and
when we see in the cinema once again that the thousand-year Croatian past and
culture are not discarded words or empty propaganda slogans, but the great and
living reality,” then it would be “promoting our cultural property and educating
its milieu.” Cultural film, Vrljčak concluded, had a unique propaganda role in the
external regeneration of the nation and the internal rebirth of the individual as an
Ustasha subject.52
In spite of countless features in journals and newspapers about the positive
impact the mobile film section was playing in education and cultural enlighten-
ment in rural and remote regions, it faced significant challenges. Often short of
equipment, urgent deliveries of projectors were frequently delayed by misunder-
standings, hindering the cultural work of the state, as Mikac complained in a let-
ter to the Foreign Ministry’s Section for Journalism and Cultural Contacts in June
1942.53 In addition, most of the mobile film unit’s projectionists were required
to obtain permission from the UNS to travel around the state since the Ustasha
security forces, always uneasy about mobility, had early on introduced strict laws
curtailing the freedom of movement for those with no fixed address or place of
work. As a result, travel permits such as the one granted to Rudolf Perger from
Koprivnica in October 1942 by DIPU usually lasted only for a year and had to be
renewed annually, a process that could be bureaucratic and involve lengthy delays.
Moreover, any permit to travel had to be approved by the Ustasha local commune
in which the traveler was ordinarily resident. In other cases, though, local film
enthusiasts such as the Mostar cinema commissioner Stjepan Anić were simply
given projectors by DIPU or the film institute. In this way, they could screen films
in locations where there were no cinemas since the number of mobile vans was
even more limited than the number of projectors.54
In October 1941 cumbersome regulations for mobile cinema were drafted
by ODSLIK. They stipulated that mobile film screenings could take place only
in areas where there was no existing cinema and placed onerous burdens on the
premises where films were to be screened. The screening of all films was to take
place in indoor accommodations fitted with fire exits and fire safety equipment to
ensure public safety; doors had to be closed for the entire duration of the screen-
ing; and limitations were placed on the source, form, and positioning of the elec-
trical generators and lights and on the storage of reels during the screening of
the film. Chairs for viewers had to be fixed firmly to the floor wherever possible
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 111

and all exits highlighted by permanently illuminated red lights. At the same time,
regulations made it mandatory for those in charge of screening films to be profes-
sionally trained. They had to provide evidence of their qualifications and suitabil-
ity at the request of the regional police authorities. Meanwhile, all films proposed
for screening had to be evaluated by the Commissariat for the Oversight of Film,
and any mobile firm that screened films not submitted for evaluation was pun-
ished with the revocation of its license. While some of the regulations were, taken
individually, sensible precautions to ensure a safe screening environment, taken
together they made spontaneous screenings in often treacherous conditions before
raucous audiences almost impossible. The regulations were, furthermore, contra-
dictory since the film institute was aiming to dictate the terms of an inherently
autonomous and intrepid creative process.55
This contradiction inevitably led to conflicts between agencies like ODSLIK
and regional Ustasha authorities, especially where film licenses were concerned.
Although all films were supposed to be viewed by ODSLIK before they could be
shown in remote locations, increasingly, Ustasha communes made independent
decisions about the screening of films without ensuring they had been cleared by
Mikac and his staff. In response Mikac sent a letter of warning to the Ministry
of the Interior in June 1942 reminding it of the oversight function that had
been afforded to ODSLIK in law. Pointing out that ODSLIK was responsible
for all cinematic questions, including mobile cinema, he complained that it was
becoming impossible to gain any insight into the work of the mobile unit because
communes were publishing licenses for mobile cinemas on their own initiative.
As a result, “this office was subsequently unable to carry out an assessment of
the licenses and an evaluation of all the films that were being screened by the
special mobile cinemas.” Mikac requested the ministry publish an order to all
communes instructing them “unconditionally” to carry out a review of licenses
for cinemas and licenses for the screening of films and send complete details to
ODSLIK’s main office. “Until such time as this office publishes new licenses for
special mobile cinemas and is able to evaluate the films, all such cinemas should
be banned from further work,” he added firmly.56
There were also problems with local tax offices. As Mikac complained to the
Section for State Revenue in June 1942, according to the law of January 19, 1942,
that had established the film institute, it was exempt from paying both direct and
indirect taxes, including fees on tickets. Stressing the socially and ideologically
important work carried out by the mobile unit in bringing propaganda films about
the state to inhospitable regions, Mikac complained that “officials of regional tax
offices are making the work of employees of Hrvatski slikopis more difficult owing
to a lack of knowledge about the legal order.” Emphasizing that “these cinematic
presentations are screened at great expense and solely with the aim of furthering
propaganda, insofar as the State Treasury continues to try to charge a ticket fee for
112 Rory Yeomans

these cinematic presentations, Hrvatski slikopis will be forced to stop the screen-
ing of these films.” Mikac stressed that such a drastic step would cause great harm
“because it is precisely this mobile cinema that enables the widest layers of soci-
ety to become acquainted through cinema with all the events inside and outside
the homeland.” Consequently, he instructed the section to “urgently publish an
order to all tax offices so that in future they will no longer impede officials from
Hrvatski slikopis in their work.”57

The Limits of a Mass Celluloid Culture

For the film institute and ODSLIK the development of mobile cinema was only
a beginning. Ultimately, film officials dreamed of a time when cinematic culture
was embedded in the consciousness of the population, something that could only
be achieved by increasing the number of cinemas. State film agencies developed a
variety of schemes to do so, particularly in more remote areas; mobile cinema was
imagined as a temporary measure to inculcate the masses with the new Ustasha
values until such time as there was a cinema in every city, town, suburb, and vil-
lage in the state. Conscious that there were only 150 cinemas in the state, in July
1942 Marijan Mikac wrote to the Office for Price Control and Wages (Ured za
oblikovanje ciena i nadnica) suggesting that to maximize taxes from cinema for
the state treasury and to increase the number of cinemas in remote, inaccessi-
ble locations with population of fewer than seven thousand, a smaller entrance
fee tax could be levied on cinema owners in these regions. This would result in
larger audiences and wider margins for cinema owners, benefiting state finances
in increased revenue due to an expansion in the number of small and medium-
sized enterprises paying tax. It would also avoid the need to raise entrance fees at
all cinemas and unnecessarily drive away audiences. But lower taxes for successful
cinemas in remote and sparsely populated localities could also be seen as a form
of investment in the film industry, as some of the revenue could be reinvested in
the construction of Croatian cinema.58 This was only one solution. ODSLIK also
encouraged the construction of new cinemas by local entrepreneurs. In January
1942, Miroslav Novak from Varaždin successfully applied to open a new cinema
under the name Cinema Tomislav. ODSLIK informed him that he must open it
“in a specially built auditorium with entirely new equipment.” But it approved
the idea since “in principle we encourage the opening of new cinemas.” The next
month ODSLIK permitted Viktor Pilar to commence work on opening a new
cinema in Djakovo on the basis of a lack of cinemas in the town. In this way, new
cinemas in smaller towns and more sparsely populated locations contributed to
the aspirations of ODSLIK and Hrvatski slikopis for a cinema easily accessible to
every citizen.59
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 113

In its publicity for new cinemas, the journal Hrvatski slikopis differenti-
ated them from those constructed in the Yugoslav era by emphasizing both the
“national” character of these cinemas and their antielite origins in the proactive
efforts of local citizens. For example, when Hrvatski slikopis reported on the open-
ing of Cinema Gaj in Varaždin in December 1943, it stressed that the construc-
tion and design of the cinema as well as the original initiative for it “were realized
by native inhabitants.” Meanwhile, it pointed out, “its perfect workmanship dem-
onstrates that it is not necessary to call on foreign people if we want something to
be done well.” Despite the fact that every aspect of the design and construction of
the cinema had been carried out by local or national companies, as the magazine
explained, the cinema had been designed to the most contemporary and advanced
standards, which included a state-of-the-art heating and air conditioning system
purpose built for the comfort of cinemagoers. Similarly, Cinema Croatia, opened
in Banja Luka on June 12, 1943, on the eve of Antunovo, had been “systemati-
cally renovated” under the instructions of the Croatian State Cinematic Institute
in the “most modern manner.” On the opening gala evening, the invited guests—
which included Vladimir Dodigović, the leader of the local Ustasha Youth Center
(Stožer Ustaške mladeži), and other local party and state officials—were “aston-
ished” at the “contemporary foyer” and impressed by the quality of the sound
and images on the screen provided by the latest technological equipment. This,
Hrvatski slikopis reported, reflected the plans of Cinema Croatia to show “only the
best films under the leadership of the manager, Edhem Malkić, a native son, who
aside from being a cinematic expert aims to please Banja Lukans in all ways possi-
ble.”60 Despite the opulence and expansive seating of Cinema Croatia and, in the
case of Cinema Gaj, the “delightful” foyer, the report in Hrvatski slikopis empha-
sized the number of ordinary citizens who had also attended the cinemas’ opening
nights: Cinema Gaj frequently charged serving soldiers no admission while the
first ticket at the opening gala of Cinema Croatia was bought by Jovo Borojević, a
local car mechanic.61
While officials in Hrvatski slikopis and ODSLIK encouraged the construction
of new cinemas in the provinces accessible to all, what these nascent audiences
were permitted to view was strictly circumscribed, often on the basis that certain
subjects were not suitable for populations in remote locations and might provoke
unwelcome reactions. This could apply to the weekly newsreel as much as it did
to foreign feature films. In May 1942, a circular from ODSLIK to its rental sec-
tion drew its attention to the fact that while the showing of the weekly newsreel
was “permitted in its entirety,” the director of DIPU, Vilko Rieger, had ordered
that “the preliminary snapshot about the fashion show in Zagreb can be shown
only in one part of the state and only in the cities of Zagreb, Karlovac, Sisak,
Varaždin, Bjelovar, Osijek, Zemun, and in those small towns which are located
between these cities.” Therefore, it concluded, “this film may not be shown west of
114 Rory Yeomans

Karlovac, in Dalmatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, nor in Slavonski Brod.” Why was
a preview of a fashion thought to be so provocative that it could not be screened in
certain regions? The reasons are not clear, but in the case of Bosnia it might have
been related to concerns about the film’s potential to offend rural and conservative
Muslim moral sensibilities; elsewhere it is also possible that Rieger’s moratorium
reflected anxieties that details about fashion shows in Zagreb might provoke a
negative reaction among hard-pressed peasants. Traumatized by the Communist
insurgency in their villages and the counterterror of Ustasha militias, a film offer-
ing a taste of the good life risked causing social resentment and exacerbating
divisions between the city and the countryside that the Ustasha regime—partly
through cinematic culture—had attempted unsuccessfully to close.62
By April 1945, as it approached its fourth anniversary, the state was close to
collapse. With the violent purge of regime moderates the previous autumn, the
return of hard-liners, and the relaunch of the original program of terror, this time
against disloyal cadres as well as racially “undesired elements,” newsreels were
characterized by an apocalyptic tone, frequently warning citizens that the fall
of the Ustasha state would expose them to certain annihilation at the hands of
Eastern Bolshevik hordes. The factory of dreams increasingly became a produc-
tion line of nightmares for its beneficiaries as well as its victims. On April 5, 1945,
a circular was sent from the director of the GRP by express post to the manage-
ment of all the state’s cinemas instructing them to place the following message at
the beginning of all film screenings after the lights of the auditorium had dimmed
and, where possible, accompanied by national music and Ustasha marching songs:
“Through the centuries, the Croat people always held onto the idea of their own
Croatian state and have never by any act renounced this!”63 A month later that
state collapsed in violence, flight, and chaos.

Between Organized Terror and Unregulated Cinema

The Hrvatski narod columnist who went in search of cinematic culture at the
Cinema Danica and found only unruly mobs did eventually get to see his film.
Finding the ticket window empty by the time he gets there and, after banging
angrily on the window for a couple of minutes, a member of the cinema staff
informs him that there is no point trying to buy a ticket as they all sold out early
in the morning. After inadvertently attempting to purchase a ticket from one of
the illegal teenage black marketeers whose appearance on Zagreb’s streets com-
mentators had interpreted as a symbol of increasing bribery and corruption in
the state, the usher let him in under the false assumption that he was an inspector
for the economic police. Thus he becomes a consumer of celluloid culture only
through an encounter with an adolescent racketeer and an act of deception, itself
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 115

driven by a mistaken assumption of order, morality, and economic justice.64 This

was not the kind of cinematic experience the state’s celluloid architects dreamed of
when they launched their utopian vision four years before.
As the story of the hapless cinemagoer suggests, the attempt by the state to
construct Ustasha subjects imbued with Ustasha values through the building of a
national cinema never really succeeded. Instead, the unregulated economy of cin-
ema, the jostling, coarse manners, and black market bribery spoke of a cinemagoing
public that, far from representing a new ethical class imbued with Ustasha values,
remained the same urban materialistic elite it had been in the 1930s. Unlike its
campaign to purify the nation through terror and mass murder, the state’s program
to remake the masses through the moving image left little mark and was swept arbi-
trarily away, as a cartoon in the Communist newspaper Vjesnik suggested, as if it had
never existed.65 A microcosm of the problems and contradictions of the wider pro-
gram of ideological refashioning, four years of utopian dreams, debates, and aspira-
tions about cinema as the engine room of a new mentality could never step out from
under the shadow of the terror that the architects of Croatian cinema had not only
legitimated but constructed their experimental visions on.

Notes
1. IRIS, “Idemo na slikokaz!” Hrvatski narod, February 15, 1945.
2. See, e.g., Danijel Rafaelić, Lisinski: Prvi hrvatski zvučni dugometražni igrani film
(Zagreb: Hrvatska kinoteka, 2010).
3. See, e.g., Ivo Škrabalo, Izmedju publike i države: Povijest hrvatske kinematografije,
1896–1980 (Zagreb: Znanje, 1984), 97–112; Danijel Rafaelić, “Raj Amerika u Neza-
visnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatski filmski ljetopis 13, no. 52 (2007): 4–13; Rafaelić,
“The Influence of German Cinema on Newly-Established Croatian Cinematography,
1941–1945,” in Cinema and the Swastika: The International Expansion of Third Reich
Cinema, ed. Roel Vande Winkel and David Welch (Palgrave: 2007), 99–111; Rafaelić,
“NDH na filmskom festivalu u Venecija 1942. godine,” Hrvatski filmski ljetopis 14,
no. 56 (2008): 64–70, 171–72.
4. Stanko Vitković, “Druga revolucija,” Hrvatska smotra 9, no. 12 (December
1941): 621–25.
5. “Čovjek ustaške revolucije,” Ustaša, November 16, 1941, 5.
6. Aleksandar Seitz, “Društvovna revolucija ustaškog pokreta,” Nova Hrvatska,
May 3, 1942; “G. Vjekoslav Blaškov o ulozi Židova u odnosu rada i kapitala,” Novi
list, June 26, 1941.
7. Mile Starčević, “Ustaška država i kulturno-prosvjetna djelatnost,” Prosvjetni život
1–2 (1942): 4–8.
8. Milivoj Magdić, “Radnik prema narodnoj zajednica,” Spremnost, August 9,
1942.
116 Rory Yeomans

9. V., “Kulturni zbor SHPN-a [Savez hrvatskih privatnih namještnika] oživljana

rad,” Novi list, May 13, 1941.
10. Dušan Žanko, “Radničtvo u kazalištu,” Hrvatski radnik, December 25, 1942.
11. Franjo Lačen, “Rad, radnici i seljaci u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,” Ustaški
godišnjak 1 (1942): 165–71.
12. Mijo Bzik, Ustaški pogledi (Zagreb: Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu, 1943),
100; Vladimir Jurčić, “Razmatranja o kazalištu i kazalištnom obćinstvu,” Hrvatska
pozornica 15–16, no. 2 (April 1, 1943): 230–31.
13. Marijan Mikac, “Početci hrvatskog slikopisa,” Hrvatski slikopis 2, no. 1 (May
15, 1942): 1.
14. Mirko Cerovac, “Tri godine hrvatskoga slikopisa,” Hrvatski slikopis 3, no. 5
(May 1, 1944): 3.
15. Marijan Mikac, Tri godine hrvatskoga slikopisa (Zagreb: Hrvatski slikopis,
1944), 23–29, 31.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 32–35.
18. Škrabalo, Izmedju publike i države, 102–3; Franjo Fuis, Zakon Rieke: Osnova
sadržaja za veliki hrvatski slikopis, ed. Mladen Pavković (Varaždin: Varteks, 2004), 5.
19. Marijan Mikac to Ivo Hrenčević, May 27, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
27.237/8274.
20. Cerovac, “Tri godine hrvatskoga slikopisa,” 3.
21. Ibid.
22. “Još nešto o našem domaćem slikopisnom tjedniku,” Hrvatski slikopis 11, no. 9
(September 1, 1943): 4.
23. Ibid.
24. “Kako naš domaći slikopisni tjednik prima hrvatska pokrajina,” Novi list, Janu-
ary 14, 1944.
25. Ibid.
26. Mikac, “Početci hrvatskog slikopisa,” 1.
27. Mirko Cerovac, “Slikopis (film) u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatska
smotra 10, nos. 3–4 (March–April 1942): 254–55.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 256–57.
30. ODSLIK to the Ministry for Trade, Industry and Handicrafts, February 7,
1942, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/2117.
31. U., “SHPN [Savez hrvatskih privatnih namještnika] energično nastavlja s
radom” (interview with Mato Kovačević), Novi list, May 13, 1941.
32. “Povjerenik g. M. Kovačević ima regulirati radne odnose u svim zagrebačkom
kinopoduzeća,” Novi list, June 27, 1941.
33. Directorate for Film list of commissioners for cinemas in Zagreb to NARGOS,
May 2, 1941, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/14/41; reference for Ivan Oršanić from
NARGOS to the State Secretariat for Propaganda, June 6, 1941, HDA, NDH, GRP,
27.237/414; reference for Marijan Korečić from Marijan Mikac to State Secretariat
 The Engine Room of a New Ustasha Consciousness 117

for Propaganda, June 20, 1941, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/554-1941; Commis-
sioner of Cinema Europa in Livno to the Office for Economic Renewal, July 1, 1941.
34. See, e.g., Marijan Mikac to Stjepan Anić, February 21, 1942, HDA, NDH,
GRP, 23.237/2968/42.
35. Marijan Mikac to the State Secretariat for Propaganda, August 1, 1941, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/872-1941.
36. Marijan Mikac to Hrvatska radiša, January 7, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
27.237/228.
37. Marijan Mikac to Office for Nationalized Assets, September 23, 1942, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/15131.
38. Vilko Rieger to Hrvatska radiša, January 2, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.
237/40192.
39. Marijan Mikac to State Secretariat for Propaganda, June 23, 1941, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/959.
40. Marijan Mikac to State Secretariat for Propaganda, June 18, 1941, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/527/1941; Gita Pelossy to Directorate for Film, June 17, 1941,
HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/523.
41. Mikac to the State Secretariat for Propaganda, June 18, 1941, HDA, NDH,
GRP, 27.237/527/1941. In fact, it was only in October 1942 that the outline of an
agreement was reached between ODSLIK and the Office for Nationalized Assets. See
Marijan Mikac, “Podržavljenje slikokaza,” October 24, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
23.237/15775.
42. State Secretariat for Propaganda to the Ustasha police, July 2, 1941, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/1107/41.
43. ODSLIK to the leader of Hum, January 9, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
27.237/427; Savo Marić to Directorate for Film, August 16, 1941, HDA, NDH,
GRP, 27.237/921; State Secretariat for Propaganda to Marijan Mikac, August 28,
1941, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/2709.
44. Zlatko Milković and Slavko Furdek to the Ministry for Religion and Educa-
tion, June 17, 1941, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/15401.
45. “Prosvjetni slikopis u narodu,” Hrvatski slikopis 2, no. 1 (May 15, 1942): 5.
46. Marijan Mikac, “Početci hrvatskog slikopis,” Hrvatski slikopis 2, no. 1 (May 15,
1942): 1.
47. “Putujući slikokaz u selu koje nema električnu struju,” Hrvatski narod, June 30,
1942.
48. “Slikopis u hrvatskom narodu,” Hrvatski list, July 30, 1941.
49. “Putujući slikokazi uzkog slikopisa u Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatski slikopis 11, no. 7
(July 1, 1943): 19–20.
50. “Cultural films,” a common feature of cinema in the 1920s and 1930s, were short
documentaries and docudramas depicting some aspect of artistic, social, or economic
life. According to the standard format, they were always shown before the main feature.
51. Kazimir Vrljčak, “Hrvatski prosvjetni slikopis,” Hrvatski slikopis 2, no. 1 (May
15, 1942): 4.
118 Rory Yeomans

52. Ibid.
53. Marijan Mikac to the Section for Journalism and Cultural Contacts, June 30,
1942, HDA, NDH, GRP, 27.237/10278/1942.
54. See, e.g., DIPU permission for Rudolf Perger, October 8, 1942, HDA, NDH,
GRP, 9.237/13.755; DIPU confirmation for Stjepan Anić, May 22, 1942, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 9.237/7905.
55. “Uvjeti rada putujućeg slikopisa,” October 8, 1941, HDA, NDH, GRP,
9.237/13.755.
56. Marijan Mikac to the Interior Ministry, May 19, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
27.237/7837.
57. Marijan Mikac to the Office for State Revenue, June 11, 1942, HDA, NDH,
GRP, 9.237/9134.
58. Policy proposal from Marijan Mikac to the Office for Price Control and Wages,
July 16, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP, 23.237/11679.
59. See ODSLIK to Miroslav Novak, January 30, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
23.237/169/42; ODSLIK to Viktor Pilar, February 12, 1942, HDA, NDH, GRP,
23.237/244/42.
60. “Varaždin dobio novi slikokaz,” Hrvatski slikopis 11, no. 2 (December 1, 1943):
26; “Svečano otvorenje novog slikokaza u Banja Luci,” Hrvatski slikopis 11, no. 7 (July
1, 1943): 18.
61. “Varaždin dobio novi slikokaz,” 26; “Svečano otvorenje novog slikokaza u
Banja Luci,” 18.
62. Head of ODSLIK to Section for Purchase of Films, May 7, 1942, HDA,
NDH, GRP, 27.237/7285.
63. Director of GRP to cinema managers, April 5, 1945, HDA, NDH, GRP,
9.237/887/45.
64. IRIS, “Idemo na slikokaz!”
65. “Naša borba neće prestati sve dotle, dok i posljednji tragovi fašizma u našoj
zemlji ne budu izbrisani,” Vjesnik, May 13, 1945.
 Chapter Four

Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values

The Anthropology of Ustasha Violence

Radu Harald Dinu

In June 1941, an official of the German legation in Belgrade received the following
eyewitness report from a colleague. In a cover note, his colleague explained that
the report exposed the “inquisitorial methods of torture that Croatian Serbs are
exposed to and the methods that the Croatian Ustashas use for the final destruc-
tion of the Serbs.” Quoting the report “verbatim,” he continued:

Proko Pejnović from Martina (Našice District) hid from the Ustashas in a tree
that was located on a rural property. From there he was able to observe how the
Ustashas physically abused Đorđe Bogić, a handcuffed Serb priest from Našice.
By coincidence the Ustashas came very close to Pejnović’s hiding place so that
he was able to carefully observe the bestial practices and the maltreatment the
priest was exposed to.
The Ustashas tied the priest to a tree before they began their atrocities.
They cut off the priest’s ears, his nose, and then his tongue. With relish and
entirely senselessly, they pulled out his beard and the underlying skin. The poor,
exhausted priest cried out of sheer pain. He was still a young man of thirty,
healthy and well built. The whole time the priest was resolute and stood upright
so that the Ustashas could give free reign to their crudeness. After gouging out
his eyes the priest still did not stir so they cut open his stomach and chest so
that Bogić collapsed. One could see his heart beating. One of the Ustashas
yelled: “Cursed be your Serb mother whose heart is still beating.” After this
sentence the Ustashas set the priest on fire and shortened his pain and suffering.
His body remained until the 18th (approximately to 4 o’clock) at the same loca-
tion. Subsequently, the gypsies from Našice came and buried the body in the
village of Brezik.
In the same district, further in Gavrilovac (near Đurđenovac), the following
people were killed on June 16: Predrag Mamuzić, elementary school teacher
from Našice; Pero Kovačević, teacher from Njegoševac; and Rade Vukobratić,
a retired gendarmerie officer from Brezik. All three were transported at night
120 Radu Harald Dinu

from the county jail of Đurđenovac to Gavrilovac, where they were killed.
The Serbs from Gavrilovac, whose identity could not be determined, were
buried on June 17.

I send the aforementioned report for your information. If you intend to initiate
further investigations on this case, allow me to point out that the witness is at
your disposal.1

The forms of violence described in this report were not isolated events in Second
World War Yugoslavia but rather recurring motifs that demand explanation.
Mutilations are among the most extreme forms of human behavior. They are,
however, all too quickly identified as pathological, without even questioning
whether such acts bear any meaning.2 Relating to violence that aims to destroy
the integrity of the human body, Jan Phillip Reemtsma argues that “autotelic vio-
lence” has the greatest capacity to disturb us because “it escapes understanding
and explanation—at least today—which is why we speak of ‘senseless cruelty’”:

There is a certain emotional aversion (and, consequently, intellectual aversion)

to accepting the existence of autotelic violence. As a result, people tend to
regard it as an exceptional, and exceptionally bizarre, deviation from the pur-
suit of another goal. The soldier who takes the corpse of his enemy and rips it
to pieces like a dog would a rag doll is considered berserk, his behavior crazy, a
pathological aberration that, because we see it as the exception, rarely calls for
closer scrutiny.3

The reason scholars rarely have been interested in examining autotelic violence,
Reemtsma believes, is because our culture has profound difficulty in coming to
terms with it. The fear of dealing with these extreme forms of human behavior
is widespread among scholars. It seems to promise an escape from inconvenient
details to overarching structures but in fact it only obstructs a deeper understand-
ing of violence during warfare.4
In recent years, cultural studies and sociology have become an essential part of
historiography. The works of Christopher Browning or Sven Reichardt attest to a
growing acceptance of these methodological trends within the field of Holocaust
studies and comparative fascism.5 The same applies to anthropological and psy-
chological approaches to the study of violence that are now an established and
indispensable subdiscipline within genocide studies.6 Despite their extremely
diverse backgrounds, all these approaches share a basic interest in the agency of
ordinary people, rather than exploring impersonal structures or forces imposed
by an abstract state or political ideology. However, many historians researching
the Ustasha movement and the Ustasha state either remained unaffected by these
new approaches or very reluctant to engage in an interdisciplinary examination of
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 121

Ustasha violence.7 Therefore, it seems all the more important to apply these inno-
vative methodologies to gain a more nuanced understanding of extreme violence
in the Ustasha state. By looking more closely at the way in which violence was
implemented and by moving beyond simplistic characterizations and interpreta-
tions of its perpetrators, scholars can increase their knowledge of the profound
meanings behind extreme violence. Making use of a range of anthropological and
sociological approaches, historians can consider to what extent physical violence
can be interpreted as a communicative and symbolic interaction.
To make sense of extreme violence, one has to examine its embodied cultural
meaning, as Christopher Taylor suggests in his study on the Rwandan geno-
cide.8 Arjun Appaduraj similarly insists that “violence inflicted on the human
body in ethnic contexts is never entirely random or lacking in cultural form . . .
even the worst acts of degradation . . . have macabre forms of cultural design
and violent predictability.”9 Although atrocities are a universal phenomenon in
warfare, their specific form is often culturally conditioned. Extreme violence
frequently references a symbolic system that perpetrators inscribe onto the
body of their victims. Certainly, this does not mean that culture causes violence
in a determinist sense. Rather, the cultural patterns internalized by ordinary
people—for example, concepts of honor and shame—can be expressed both
during wartime and peacetime. Building upon recent theoretical approaches
from historical anthropology and the sociology of violence, this chapter argues
that examinations of ethno-nationalist violence need to consider specific ideas
about how societies perceive the body. By applying a symbolic and interpre-
tive approach to violence, this chapter moves beyond the existing literature to
broaden our knowledge of the Ustasha movement.
When addressing violence in the Balkans, a range of culturalist explanations
have been employed, producing a distorted and stereotyped image. According to
one hitherto popular and still-influential interpretation promoted by writers such
as Robert D. Kaplan, the Balkans has always been a breeding ground for extreme
violence due to “ancient ethnic hatreds.”10 Especially with regard to the former
Yugoslavia, the variable “culture” has all too often been embraced to explain the
alleged inclination of the region to violence. However, as Wolfgang Höpken has
pointed out, on closer inspection, the Balkans appear not “as the battleground of
a backward periphery, opposed to the peacefulness of the center, but rather as a
part of European history, which was always marked by the presence of violence.”11
The idea that extreme violence is grounded in a specific Balkan culture was also
a widespread attitude among representatives of the German occupying forces in
Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Arthur Häffner, a retired Habsburg
officer from Croatia and Wehrmacht informer in wartime Croatia, constantly
depicted Croatians in general and the Ustashas in particular as “cruel” people
with “atavistic instincts,” only able to improve their living standard by “robbery
122 Radu Harald Dinu

and murder.”12 The exoticization of Ustasha violence in German reports certainly

served the functionalist purpose of obscuring the brutality of German troops
in Yugoslavia.13 Therefore, even though German reports, like those used in this
chapter, are useful insofar as they provide authentic descriptions of events, they
are nonetheless filtered through the prism of German perceptions and need to be
read with caution.

Prologue: Comradeship and Violence

Some recent studies in comparative fascism have stressed the importance of col-
lective actions and violent practices over ideology. As Michael Mann put it, fas-
cism “was not just a collection of individuals with certain beliefs. Fascism had a
great impact on the world only because of its collective actions and its organiza-
tional forms.”14 Clearly, people do not commit violence without discourse: “they
need to talk themselves into it.”15 But to study boundaries in the mind does not
necessarily illuminate violent jurisdictions on the ground. The doing is at least
as important to an understanding of fascism as the study of its collective mind-
sets. As Sven Reichardt has underlined with regard to fascism, violence and com-
radeship mutually enforced each other, just as the political values of fascism were
conditioned by its organizational structures and practices.16 Likewise, the Ustasha
ideology gained its impact only by being anchored in the social practice of the
movement. It was primarily the isolated life and paramilitary drill in the Italian
camps during the 1930s that bestowed émigré Ustasha members with a warrior’s
identity; at the same time, the practice of violence created a communal relation-
ship among Ustasha activists. Various social scientists have emphasized that col-
lective violence creates a bond of unity. Max Weber, for example, pointed to the
“extraordinary quality of brotherliness of war” that “creates a pathos and senti-
ment of community.”17 Just as in other fascist organizations, violent socialization
and criminal complicity went hand in hand in the Ustasha movement. Although
not all members actively participated in violent activities during the 1930s, they
inevitably became accomplices in a violent social milieu.18
The everyday life of émigré Ustasha members during the 1930s was spent
mainly in Italian and Hungarian training camps, leading to an intense group cohe-
sion. The Ustasha uniforms embodied the paramilitary spirit of the movement,
and even the Croatian Home Defenders (Hrvatski domobran, the American
branch of the Croatian separatist movement, closely associated with the Ustasha
movement) established a paramilitary habitus by wearing blue shirts.19 Prominent
Ustasha leaders also expressed the experience of living in Italian exile by adapting
the term ras (head, leader) from the Italian squadristi.20 The longtime experience
of illegality, the confined life in the camps, and the isolation from the outside
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 123

world led to a radicalization that can be understood as a preliminary stage of the

mass violence unleashed in 1941. This assumption is confirmed by the findings
of social psychology: groups that interact in isolation from moderating influences
tend to become more extreme, which can result in violent acts that the individual
members likely would not commit alone.21
It is hardly surprising that everyday life in the Italian camps was retrospectively
idealized by prominent Ustasha ideologues. In Ustaška pobjeda (The Ustasha vic-
tory), an adulatory history of the Ustasha movement written in 1942 by Mijo Bzik,
the movement’s historian, the camps were depicted as the “promised land” and
as an attractive training ground for future Ustasha fighters.22 However, after the
assassination of King Aleksandar and the French foreign minister Louis Barthou
in Marseille in 1934, the Ustashas’ promised land quickly became a dead end,
as the continuing isolation from the outside world and the outbreak of diseases,
such as typhoid, led to a gradual disintegration process.23 Ercole Conti, inspec-
tor general of the Italian secret service, sought to keep the movement under con-
trol by isolating the “nucleus” (as the Croatian separatists were referred to by the
Italian authorities) on the island of Lipari. Soon, deep conflicts erupted within the
nucleus, aggravated by long periods of seclusion.24 The separation from Pavelić,
who lived apart from rank-and-file members in Bologna, led to a disintegration
of morale and a paralysis of the Ustashas, as Italian reports testify.25 As Bzik wrote
retrospectively, every single Ustasha fighter “looked toward that day when the
Poglavnik visited the camp. And when he saw him, his whole body trembled with
joy and respect. . . . Already the first contact, the first glance, the first meeting
bestowed everyone with a feeling of trust and respect for the Poglavnik.”26
Although Bzik’s account was almost certainly meant to satisfy the propagan-
distic needs of the Ustasha regime, Italian intelligence reports confirm the devo-
tion rank-and-file Ustasha members demonstrated to their leader.27 The fact that
only face-to-face contact with the Ustasha leader guaranteed internal cohesion is
certainly not sufficient proof of Pavelić’s charismatic authority; nonetheless, both
Bzik’s account and the Italian intelligence reports do suggest that Pavelić was able
to prevent a further fragmentation of the movement through the acclamation of
his leadership “from below.” The tension between different factions within the
exiled Ustasha organization created precarious power relations that were held
together not only by the voluntary surrender of each activist to Pavelić’s leadership
but also by military discipline and a strict vertical structure.28 Both the Ustasha
hierarchy, defined in the 1932 Ustasha Statute (Ustav) and the Ustasha oath tes-
tify to a typical fascist form of organization: “I swear before God and all that is
sacred that I will respect all the commandments of this organization and will exe-
cute without conditions all that I am ordered to do by the supreme leader. I will
meticulously keep all secrets entrusted to me and will deceive nobody, no matter
what it may be.”29 To take the Ustasha oath fulfilled the function of a solemn
124 Radu Harald Dinu

promise and served as an initiation ritual. Members were assigned a new identity,
something that was underscored in the receiving of an Ustasha uniform. As Sven
Reichardt remarked, such fascist rituals “integrated the individual into the new
social reference group, whereas the sense of belonging to a peer group was signaled
symbolically and charged with emotional pathos.”30
Despite internal rivalries, the Ustasha movement manifested a strong cult
of comradeship. A specific form of homosocial relationship served here, as in
other military contexts, as a surrogate family.31 The Croatian American sociolo-
gist Dinko Tomašić observed in 1942 that the Ustasha state “is conceived as an
enlarged family of the patriarchal type in which the whole authority is vested in
the hands of the patriarch and in which all members are supposed to work under
his direction for the benefit of the whole. . . . The leaders and the ideologists of
the Ustasha State of Croatia themselves come mostly from villages in the Dinaric
parts of Croatia where peasants still live in large families of the old patriarchal
type.”32 Whether the group identity of the Ustasha actually reflected the fam-
ily structure of the zadruga (a traditional village community historically common
among South Slavs) is open to debate. It is clear, nevertheless, that more than
two-thirds of exiled Ustasha activists in the early 1930s were unmarried and not
older than thirty, which partly explains their willingness to join the Ustasha move-
ment.33 Mijo Bzik also spoke of the “Ustasha family” (Ustaška obitelj), to which
every Ustasha, once admitted, acquired lifetime membership:

Anyone who has even once tasted the Ustasha bread never wanted to leave the
Ustashas again. He became a new member of the large Ustasha family that had a
father who was, however, much more than just a father: he is the Poglavnik. . . .
He has raised them, he has trained them . . . and if needed, he comforted them
or forgave them if they were not obedient. The Poglavnik was neither an arro-
gant leader nor a soldier . . . but rather a brother, father, and friend who was
always there for his Ustashas because he knew them so well. Their work and sac-
rifice he respected deeply because he came from a modest background himself.34

While Bzik’s writing obviously served a hagiographic function on behalf of the

Poglavnik, a specific small-group dynamic is apparent, something that was a cen-
tral feature of fascist paramilitary formations. Like the German Sturmabteilung,
the Ustasha movement adopted a group culture based on closeness, emotional
obligations, and affective relationships that replicated a family structure.35 As in
other military contexts, the “cement” of that group culture was the threat of social
death and the exclusion from mutual care.36 In Mijo Bzik’s words, “The law of the
Ustasha, the law of the Revolution stands above [individual] friendship.”37 This
is why the family ethos of the movement went hand in hand with strict social
control and relentless pressure for conformity. A lack of obedience was harshly
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 125

punished, as the Ustasha disciplinary code of 1932 stipulated. Violations of the

code allowed for either a temporary deprivation of rank and uniform or an irre-
vocable dismissal from the organization.38 Sometimes even the death penalty was
imposed. As the Ustasha oath attested, every member who broke the Ustasha rules
was to receive the death sentence.39 As a result, as many as twenty Ustashas were
liquidated in the Italian camps because of internal rivalries or for alleged treason.40

Shaming Practices and Mutilations in the Ustasha state

To understand extreme violence in the Ustasha state, shame and honor are of
central importance. Until recently, shame and honor have often been interpreted
as categories inextricably linked to premodern or Mediterranean Europe. This
is largely due to the fact that historians, especially within the field of microhis-
tory and historical anthropology, almost exclusively focused on the early mod-
ern period in their work.41 Additionally, anthropologists like John Peristiany and
Julian Alfred Pitt-Rivers saw honor as a distinctive cultural code of Mediterranean
societies.42 It would be wrong, however, to limit concepts of honor and shame to
specific periods or regions since to do so would be to accept that honor and shame
are indigenous to some societies as well as to perpetuate an archaization and
exoticization of the Mediterranean as an allegedly homogenous cultural area.43
Moreover, honor and shame did not cease to exist in the modern era, although
they were subject to cultural change.44
A report from December 1941 issued by the executive committee of the
Serbian Council of Ministers in Belgrade stated that eight Serbs from the Bosnian
town of Brčko were brutally assaulted by an Ustasha unit led by Većeslav Montani.
The unit had a particularly long history of violence as it consisted of returnees
from the Ustasha camps in Italy and was now part of the elite party militia, the
Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (Poglavnikova tjelesna bojna—PTB). Members of
the militia chased their victims through the streets and shouted, “Behold the royal
guard!” Subsequently the Serbs were thrown to the ground, whereupon militia
men competed against each other to see who could beat the defenseless Serbs most
cruelly. When the militia men became exhausted, they forced their victims to sing
the Ustasha hymn.45 Presumably, public shaming spectacles like these were used
to compensate for the Ustasha movement’s own “defamation” in the past. The
eight Serbs in Brčko were to collectively atone for the “shame” experienced during
Ustasha fighters’ long years of exile. As the Brčko incident reveals, shaming ritu-
als were highly communicative acts since they took place in broad daylight and
aimed to achieve maximum publicity and exposure.46 Furthermore, the public
humiliation of the Serbs promised a relegitimization of the Croat national com-
munity. Even if such practices referred to the concept of nationhood, they were
126 Radu Harald Dinu

not necessarily rooted in a specific fascist mind-set. Rather, they were informed by
the tradition of folk justice that had been revived in those parts of the new state
where order and recognized authority had broken down. Thus, it was not fascist
ideology, governmental decrees, or laws that explain this kind of anti-Serb vio-
lence but traditional shaming punishments that functioned as a means of regulat-
ing everyday conflicts and originated from the pre-Ustasha period.
Defamations could be performed in different ways. It was by no means acciden-
tal that the Ustasha unit from Našice, mentioned in the German legation report
of June 1941, insulted the victim’s mother during the act of killing. In fact, this
practice expressed a mind-set predominant in Southern Europe in which the per-
sonal honor of a man was closely linked to the honor of his mother and family.47
In other words, in societies where the personal and social identity overlapped,
group honor became a prevailing point of reference.48 In another example, in late
May 1941 the corpses of a Serb family were washed ashore near the Bosnian town
of Bosanska Gradiška. An inscription, probably attached by an Ustasha unit, was
found on the battered bodies saying “Happy journey to Belgrade!”49 Besides the
symbolic fact that the River Sava flows toward Belgrade, such practices had the
aim of violating the group honor of the Serbs.
If honor is a form of symbolic capital, mutilations can also have the function
of acquiring honor during violent conflicts.50 Some of the violent practices in the
Utasha state were already observed by the British writer and anthropologist Mary
Edith Durham before the First World War. Even though Durham’s accounts were
in line with the spirit of the era, tending to orientalize the Balkans, her observa-
tions still serve to highlight differences and similarities between the practices of
the Ustashas and earlier sanguinary examples.51 As Durham noted in her 1928
study, Some Tribal Origins, Laws and Customs in the Balkans, Montenegrins used
to exhibit their opponents’ noses or collect the heads of their enemies as evidence
of heroism: “Kovatchevitch, the lame schoolmaster at Podgoritza, ‘Professor
of Modern Languages,’ and proud of having been in British employ in Egypt,
said to me gleefully: ‘Now you will see plenty of noses! Even baskets full.’ I told
him sternly that such conduct would disgust all Europe. He flew into a rage and
declared nose-cutting was a national custom and Turks not human beings.”52
Mutilations also aimed to deny the victim an entry into the afterlife, as
Durham noted: “Whether they thought it would affect the future life of the
deceased I could not ascertain. But I found many Montenegrins—and others
in the Balkans—had a great horror of amputation of a shattered limb, believing
that at the Resurrection they would not rise without it.”53 Presumably, this was
an inverted response to a belief deeply rooted in the Christian Orthodox faith
according to which a dignified burial and bodily integrity after death are prereq-
uisites for the resurrection.54 The German sociologist Heinrich Popitz similarly
underlined that the “triumph of killing” could continue even after death, when
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 127

“the victim’s hope for a survival of the soul is denied by mutilating the body or by
refusing a funeral.”55
Although the sources do not reveal whether this belief was widespread among
Ustasha units, the practice of removing body parts was common. Young Ustasha
militia members cut off their victim’s noses and ears and boasted afterward of
having killed a corresponding number of opponents in close combat.56 Others
had themselves photographed with the decapitated heads of Serbian Orthodox
priests or displayed the heads of Chetniks in public.57 When an Ustasha combat-
ant came to Brčko with a head impaled on his bayonet, the local Ustasha com-
mander Većeslav Montani “placed a table in the middle of the street and gathered
the local people. He started to gesticulate madly, displayed the head and blatantly
announced that all Serbs would be punished in the same manner. He ordered
them to impale the head on a stake and exhibit it for the next thirty-six hours in
the main square.”58
The collection of body parts may be interpreted as a symbolically commu-
nicated behavior in which Ustasha militia men competed to outdo each other.
The public exhibition of detached heads might also have been used as a means
of demoralizing the enemy. In any case, it would be a mistake to ascribe these
forms of violence exclusively to Balkan societies. On the one hand, one cannot
simply transfer the customs of Montenegrin tribes observed by Durham to the
Bosnian or Croatian context. On the other hand, the collection of body parts
as war trophies is equally documented in Western cultures. As John Dower and
Joanna Bourke demonstrated in their studies of the Pacific and Vietnam Wars, US
soldiers gained status and were seen as “good troopers” when they collected body
parts of their enemies, as, for example, by making themselves a necklace of ears.59
A critical analysis of Ustasha violence is made more challenging by the fact that
many of the more lurid accounts have often been uncritically cited in various liter-
ary works and historical studies. The vivid but now-infamous passage from Curzio
Malaparte’s novel Kaputt describing Ante Pavelić’s alleged eyeball collection, for
example, has proved to be particularly influential in shaping Western perceptions
of Ustasha violence: “‘Are they Dalmatian oysters?’ I asked the Poglavnik. Ante
Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and revealed the mussels, that slimy and
jelly-like mass, and he said smiling, with that tired good-natured smile of his, ‘It
is a present from my loyal Ustashis. Forty pounds of human eyes.’”60 Macabre as
Malaparte’s account may appear, though, his description is not entirely implau-
sible, given Ustasha militias’ preference for human war trophies. Other accounts,
moreover, confirm that Serb bodies were regularly found with gouged-out eyes.61
Another form of violence frequently mentioned in eyewitness accounts was
tearing off beards of Serbian Orthodox priests and stuffing them into their mouths
after they killed them.62 Punitive depilation and shaving have been noted since
antiquity. Both male and female body hair was valued in different cultures.63 The
128 Radu Harald Dinu

male beard could bear attributes such as dignity, power, and wisdom.64 In regions
with a Byzantine heritage, the beard additionally served as a visible distinguishing
mark of the Orthodox clergy in relation to the Catholic clergy. In the course of the
Great Schism (AD 1054) the patriarch of Constantinople Michael I. Cerularius
forbade clean-shaven priests participation in the Holy Communion since only the
“Latins” were shaved.65 By destroying this sign so closely linked with Orthodoxy,
the Ustasha militias apparently employed a symbolic practice that was to epito-
mize the destruction of the Serbian (Orthodox) identity. Orthodox priests, as rep-
resentatives of the Serb elite, were additionally to be metaphorically silenced by
stuffing their mouths.
These and other practices can never be limited to one single explanation, as the
symbolic meaning behind the violence is scarcely documented and rather a matter
of interpretation. In certain cases, the purpose of such brutal acts may have been to
simply inflict pain on the victims.66 To identify the removal of body parts exclu-
sively as an affective or pathological act would be overhasty, although such behavior
may have been caused by these impulses in some cases. But, for all that, it was surely
not accidental that Ustasha militia men mostly inflicted damage to the face and
head of their victims. If the human body is to be regarded as the most basic medium
of human communication, the face represents the most central carrier of meaning in
this semantic field.67 What does it mean then, if someone cuts off one’s nose or tears
off one’s beard? Can we detect a deeper meaning beyond the body?
As the historian Valentin Groebner showed, the custom of cutting off some-
one’s nose (denasatio) was a common shaming practice in medieval societies,
rooted in customary social norms. If convicts lost their nose, they figuratively lost
their “face.”68 A blemish on the face, in turn, was a sign of sin, whereupon dena-
satio implied different meanings for women and men. While the disfiguration of
women primarily had sexual connotations based on the women’s alleged impurity
or infidelity, a defaced man primarily signified loss of power. By violently over-
powering the body and by imprinting an indelible stigma, inferiority was literally
inscribed onto the man’s face. Through the physical defeat, the victim lost his
honor, while the defacement irrevocably marked his disempowerment. Groebner’s
observations are a valuable source for an anthropologically informed examination
of extreme violence in the Ustasha state.

Violence Becomes Private

Political motives for violence often go hand in hand with private economic inter-
ests during warfare. As recent studies emphasize, many violent conflicts do not
support the traditional binary classification of political/apolitical or public/pri-
vate.69 The same applies to the violence of the Ustasha militias in which ideological
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 129

motivations were often superseded by private impulses. Ustasha rule and the civil
war in the state created an opportunity structure in which violence became an
accessible resource that could be employed for a variety of purposes. Viktor Gutić,
for example, the infamous Ustasha leader of Vrbaska Banovina (Vrbas Province) in
Banja Luka offered Jews and Serbs who wished to escape to the Italian-occupied
coastal zone the option of purchasing their escape with large sums of money.
While Gutić himself took possession of Jewish and Serb estates, the economic
earnings of these “nationalization measures” were distributed as benefices to his
followers.70 In many other instances too, Serbs were able to save their lives by
bribing local Ustasha officials.71
Violence and material profit were often symbiotically linked. From the very
establishment of the state, the rule of local Ustasha cadres was based on physical
violence. The prospect of personal profit in turn was one of the crucial reasons
many ordinary Croatians joined the movement. Arthur Häffner, for one, reported
in July 1941 that about 250 new Ustasha members had been inducted into the
Zagreb branch of the Ustasha police. These untrained officers “wore police uni-
forms and took part in the nighttime raids of the Ustashas, committing thefts
amounting to 60.000 dinars.”72 Another Wehrmacht informer from Zagreb
stressed that new Ustasha members did not join the movement for purely ideo-
logical reasons:

I know numerous persons that took possession of more or less important

offices with the help of the Ustasha movement. But as soon as you talk to
them in private, they distance themselves from the Ustashas in a remarkable
manner. They openly declare that they only commit themselves to the Ustasha
movement insofar as it is necessary to secure their status quo. . . . It’s a ques-
tion of pure opportunism as they are completely indifferent to the Ustashas’
revolutionary ideas. . . . Therefore these people would be prepared to go in
a completely different direction, provided that they get the same chance to
climb to positions of power.73

Even the Ustasha leadership recognized this problem and initiated a public cam-
paign in order to purge so-called Nastashas (careerists and opportunists) and
restore the reputation of the movement. The movement’s official journal, Ustaša,
wrote in September 1941, “The Ustasha movement will persecute and cleanse
Nastashas leading a dishonorable, non-Ustasha life in the name of Ustashism. . . .
There is no place for them in the healthy parts of our nation, particularly in posi-
tions of responsibility.”74
Despite this public anticorruption purge, profiteering and social advance-
ment remained important motivating factors in much of the Ustasha violence.
Under the guise of the nationalization of Serb and Jewish property, for instance,
130 Radu Harald Dinu

looting, extortion, and arbitrary confiscation frequently took place, as numer-

ous documents reveal.75 The Deutsche Volksgruppe (German ethnic group) from
Lipik, Požega District, reported in October 1942 that an Ustasha militia from
Herzegovina had come to Slavonia to enrich themselves from the surrounding
Serb villages. In the village of Subocka the militia herded a dozen residents into the
church, including women and children, and eventually killed them. Subsequently,
they cleared the houses of all their goods and returned to Lipik, where family
members were waiting for the booty.76 Another Ustasha unit from Zagreb was
detached to eastern Slavonia in August 1942 and began to “cleanse” Serb villages.
As the Serb peasants returned to their villages after fieldwork,

they were arrested by the Ustasha and shot immediately at the cemetery. The
Ustashas stole and plundered much of the village and left the houses open in
order to place the blame on neighboring inhabitants. . . . They drove away cattle
and pigs but kept back 150 farrows and bigger pigs for their own living. By day,
most of them were drunk because they did not deliver the confiscated liquor.
The same applies to the wine. The furniture and furnishings of the displaced
Serbs were auctioned off in Drenje. They did the same with poultry, geese and
ducks. . . . There is still a great deal of unthreshed wheat and unreaped oat
around the villages. . . . Chickens and pigeons are still running around and
cannot be caught. Many wooden tubs of fat, ham, and bacon were taken by
the Ustashas. . . . The cook at the gendarmerie post and the postal clerk each
received a sewing machine as a gift from the Ustashas. . . . The Ustashas also
donated pigs to the Croatian inhabitants of Mandičevci. . . . In Drenski Slatnik,
only five of five hundred Croats are Ustasha members.77

Mass violence was hardly unique in being driven by a diversity of economic, per-
sonal, or purely pragmatic motives; the looting and robbery of food and livestock
were also grounded in this ambivalent logic. However, in this case, raids aimed not
only to satisfy the demands of Ustasha militias but also to mobilize the population
behind the local movement by making donations and distributing gifts. Once this
violent rule was established, various groups could benefit from it, including ethnic
German farmers who were enabled to settle old personal scores by denouncing
their Serb neighbors.78 In addition, the release of livestock or the redistribution of
food also constituted forms of repression that deliberately aimed to deprive Serbs
of their main means of existence.79

The Knife: Between Myth and Reality

One of the central features of interwar fascism was its specific outlook on vio-
lence. Violence was no longer regarded as instrumental but rather raised to the
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 131

status of a self-justifying, self-referential value.80 As Walter Benjamin remarked

with reference to German National Socialism, the new fascist view on violence
was “nothing other than an uninhibited translation of the principles of l’art pour
l’art to the war itself.”81 Unlike their German or Italian counterparts, Ustasha ide-
ologists scarcely addressed this issue in their writings. For prominent intellectu-
als like Mile Budak or Mladen Lorković, there was little space for philosophical
reflections on violence since the “Serb question” often dominated ideological dis-
cussions within the movement before 1941. Although the movement did not have
its own Georges Sorel, the typically fascist view of violence as a means in itself
was expressed by Ustasha symbols and attests to a cult of violence. The official
seal, a capital “U” with an exploding bomb, signified the violent self-image of
the movement. Even the swearing-in ceremony constituted the symbolic entrance
into a community of violence. The Ustasha novice was usually sworn in with a
Bible and a crucifix (or a Koran), a revolver, and a dagger. As Ustaša explained
in an editorial in December 1941, “Crucifix, dagger, and revolver are items that
warm the Ustasha during his struggle for freedom. This trinity remains a real,
constant, and visible symbol of struggle and sacrifice. These [symbols] are not a
mere technicality of the Ustasha oath but a spiritual medium that has brought the
battle for Croatia’s independence to a conclusion.”82 This violent symbolism was
certainly not new. As Holm Sundhaussen emphasized, the Ustasha movement’s
glorification of violence was inspired by older traditions prevalent in Balkan secret
societies, ranging from the Greek Filiki Eteria (Society of friends) to revolution-
ary organizations such as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.83
Even the Serbian Black Hand used a poison bottle, a skull, a bomb, and a dagger
as daunting symbols of violence.84 Indeed, objects like the dagger or cudgel were
part of the basic combat paraphernalia of Italian fascists and Nazi fighters. The
Legionaries of Gabriele D’Annunzio and Nazi storm troopers as well as the SS
wore a dagger as a status symbol, while the Italian squadristi venerated their “holy
cudgel” (santo manganello) in their songs.85
While the knife or dagger became a central representative object of the fascist
cult of violence in the 1920s, it played a rather unique role in Yugoslav postwar
political culture too.86 Methodological obstacles to historicizing the knife as a cult
object of the Ustashas are to be found in Yugoslav historiography. This includes
not only historical accounts that were politically motivated but also literary works
that had a strong impact on public opinion in socialist Yugoslavia. When con-
sulting these accounts from a present-day perspective, it is hard to distinguish
between mythmaking and authenticity, as many sources are hard to verify. Already
in Ivan Goran Kovačić’s poem Jama (The Pit) from 1943, the knife appears as a
frightening symbol of the atrocities committed by Ustasha militias and bands.87
In Šime Balen’s book on Pavelić from 1952, the Poglavnik was depicted with an
“Italian knife” attached to his uniform, which, according to the author, was a
132 Radu Harald Dinu

“symbol for the forthcoming cutthroat methods” of the Ustashas.88 Tito’s biog-
rapher Vladimir Dedijer similarly interpreted the knife as a “compulsory requi-
site and gem of the Ustasha uniform, a murderous symbol of power.”89 With the
release of Vuk Drašković’s novel Nož (The Knife) in 1982, the knife finally became
an inherent topos in the collective memory of the Yugoslavs, symbolizing the
atrocities committed by the Ustashas (and the Chetniks).90
Regardless of its ideological and literary instrumentalization, a plethora of
sources nonetheless bear witness to the frequent and extravagant use of knives
during massacres by Ustasha militias.91 But what motive lay behind the Ustashas’
use of knives, if they could just as well use firearms? John B. Allcock argues that
killing with knives brought about an animalization of the victims not just through
the practice of cutting the throat or the stomach but also in the double seman-
tics of žrtva (which can mean both “victim” and “sacrifice”) and the use of the
ritualistic klanje (slaughter) for mass murder: “Killing of this kind is more than
mere killing; it is the offering of the slain as if they are sacrificial animals. It is
atrocity raised to the level of sacrament.”92 The zoological representation and dis-
cursive dehumanization of “the other” has proved to be a universal phenomenon
in warfare and serves as a preparatory stage of mass violence. Ustasha writers fre-
quently employed this rhetoric when depicting the enemy in their texts. Serbs
were referred to as “bedbugs” and “wretched cattle” in the words of Mijo Bzik,
while Ismet Žunić described them as “red ants, the maggots that bite Muslims.”93
This observation corresponds to a psychological process Michel Wieviorka noted
with regard to seemingly “senseless” or “unnecessary” violence. Drawing on Primo
Levi’s account of the camp guards at Auschwitz, Wieviorka pointed to a paradoxi-
cal mechanism. To avoid damage to his own subjectivity and to be able to toler-
ate himself, the perpetrator treats the victim in a reifying manner. Violence then
fulfills the function of creating an “antisubject” by “denying the humanity of the
victim, and by acting in such a way as to negate his or her subjectivity. The nega-
tion of the subjectivity of the other becomes a form of self-assertion.”94
Semiotic approaches certainly run the risk of reading a symbolic meaning into
people’s behavior that the persons involved have no consciousness of.95 With ref-
erence to the knife as a symbol for the violence of the Ustashas, Tomislav Dulić
similarly raises the objection that in “reading into various atrocious acts some
deeper meaning that we cannot find documentary evidence for, we risk over-
stepping the bounds of what is possible to do with the sources at hand.”96 There
might have been purely pragmatic motives that explain the use of knives. After the
destruction of the Yugoslavian kingdom in April 1941, the German and Italian
occupying forces not only seized a large part of the Yugoslav arsenals; the two
major armament factories near Sarajevo became spoils of war and were transferred
to the German Reich under the supervision of the Supreme Command of the
Armed Forces. Only after the outbreak of the civil war in summer 1941 did the
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 133

German and Italian occupation authorities gradually began to supply Croatian

units with firearms.97 Most likely, the simple lack of firearms contributed to the
decision by Ustasha units to use not only knives but also other weapons such as
pickaxes, cudgels, axes, and hammers, as various eyewitness testimonies reveal.98
Regardless of such pragmatic reasons, as many sociologists have shown, killing
with a knife always requires a physical effort on the part of the perpetrator that
can prove to be an experience to be relished. Cruelty, Jacques Sémelin wrote, is
often reliant on physical closeness.99 The observation that violence can be intrinsi-
cally motivated, for example, by the prospect of experiencing a thrill is not new.
The sociologist Ferdinand Sutterlüty underlines that the subjective experience
of self-transcendence that can emerge during the act of violence should not be
regarded as a mere corollary but rather as a key motive for action. Accordingly, the
deeply satisfying experience of committing violence can accompany instrumental
motives, eventually becoming the dominant driving force so that the perpetrator
does not need any objectives beyond the actual situation.100 Rather than an exclu-
sively instrumental action motivated, for example, by ideology, the inspiration for
violence can sometimes be found in the act of violence itself.101
Returning to the report of June 1941, it certainly seems to be the case that
the Ustashas tortured the priest “with relish” and “entirely” senselessly. The sig-
nificance of these atrocities then lay in the act of violence itself. It was a form
of violence that was carried out for its own sake and liberated from any external
moderating influences in its implementation. This does not, conversely, mean
that cultural or political references were absent, though, since even if violence
becomes an end in itself, during the act it remains embedded in a cultural and
political context.102

Reflections on Ustasha Violence

Violence is by no means “speechless,” as Hannah Arendt purported.103 It contains,
on the contrary, strong communicative and symbolic elements, which can be made
intelligible when properly examined. For its part, Ustasha violence was both a social
practice and a fundamentally communicative action. Most Ustasha activists were
interned in Italian and Hungarian training camps during the 1930s, which led to an
intense group cohesion. Despite internal rivalries, the Ustashas developed a strong
cult of comradeship during their years of exile, a central feature of fascist paramili-
tary formations. Just as in the German Sturmabteilung, Ustasha émigré fighters
adopted a group culture based on closeness, emotional obligations, and homosocial
relationships that served as a surrogate family. In this isolated milieu, violence and
comradeship reinforced each other and led to a radicalization that can be under-
stood as a preliminary stage of the mass violence unleashed in 1941.
134 Radu Harald Dinu

As in other fascist movements, the Ustashas regarded violence as a self-justi-

fying, self-referential value. This outlook was notably expressed by the Ustasha
symbols that attest to a strong cult of violence. Of all the symbols adopted, the
knife emerged as the most prominent symbol of the Ustasha movement and came
to play a unique role in Yugoslav postwar political culture. That Ustasha mili-
tias used knives and other “primitive” weapons instead of firearms might have
had purely pragmatic reasons, conditioned by intermittent shortages. However,
Ustasha violence and the terror of the Ustasha state can be made more compre-
hensible by considering its embodied cultural meaning. Shame and honor are of
central importance to the symbolic system that perpetrators inscribed onto the
body of their victims. To violate the group honor of the Serbs, Ustasha militia
men employed various shaming punishments such as shaming rituals in broad
daylight, mutilations, or the removal of body parts. Tearing off beards of Serbian
Orthodox priests or cutting off noses were violent practices that bore a highly
symbolic meaning. These forms of extreme violence were neither unique to Balkan
societies, as comparisons to other regions and societies demonstrate, nor were they
merely pathological. Collecting body parts rather had the function of acquiring
honor, a form of symbolic capital that Ustasha militia men utilized to compete
with each other and raise their status within their group.

Notes
1. Cited in Slavko Vukčević, Zločini na jugoslovenskim prostorima u prvom i drugom
svetskom ratu: Zločini Nezavisne Države Hrvatske 1941–1945 (Belgrade: Vojnoistori-
jski Institut, 1993), 1:137–38.
2. With regard to the Independent State of Croatia, see, e.g., Edmond Paris, Geno-
cide in Satellite Croatia, 1941–1945: A Record of Racial and Religious Persecutions and
Massacres (Chicago: American Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1961); Viktor Novak, Mag-
num crimen: Pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj (Belgrade: Nova knjiga, 1986); Gojo
Riste Dakina, Genocid nad Srbima u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj: Budi katolik ili umri
(Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1994).
3. Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Trust and Violence: An Essay on a Modern Relationship
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 63.
4. Alf Lüdtke, “Thesen zur Wiederholbarkeit: ‘Normalität’ und Massenhaftigkeit
von Tötungsgewalt im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Kulturen der Gewalt: Ritualisierung und
Symbolisierung von Gewalt in der Geschichte, ed. Rolf Peter Sieferle and Helga Breun-
inger (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1998), 283.
5. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the
Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Collins, 1992); Sven Reichardt, Faschis-
tische Kampfbünde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im italienischen Squadrismus und in der
deutschen SA (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002).
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 135

6. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Coming to Our Senses: Anthropology and Genocide,”

in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, ed. Alexander Laban Hinton
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 348–81; James Waller, Becoming Evil:
How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007); Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (London: Rout-
ledge, 2006), 288–306; Harald Welzer, Täter: Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Mas-
senmörder werden (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2005).
7. Recent examples taking an interdisciplinary approach include Radu Harald
Dinu, Faschismus, Religion und Gewalt in Südosteuropa: Die Legion Erzengel Michael
und die Ustaša im historischen Vergleich (Wuppertal: Harrassowitz, 2013); Alexander
Korb, Im Schatten des Weltkrieges: Massengewalt der Ustaša gegen Serben, Juden und
Roma in Kroatien 1941–45 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2013); Korb, “Under-
standing Ustaša violence,” Journal of Genocide Research 12 (2010): 1–18; Korb, “Der
Unabhängige Staat Kroatien, 1941–1945: Eine integrierte Gewaltgeschichte des Rau-
mes,” in Herrschaft in Südosteuropa Kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven,
ed. Radu Harald Dinu, Mihai-D. Grigore, and Marc Živojinović (Göttingen: V&R
Unipress, 2011), 195–224; Tomislav Dulić, Utopias of Nation: Local Mass-Killings in
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1941–42 (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2005).
8. Christopher C. Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994
(Oxford: Berg, 1999).
9. Arjun Appaduraj, “Dead Certainity: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globaliza-
tion,” in Genocide: An Anthropological Reader, ed. Alexander Laban Hinton (Oxford:
Blackwell 2002), 289.
10. Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1993). See also Imanuel Geiss, “Der Balkan als historische Konfliktre-
gion,” in Der Balkan: Eine europäische Krisenregion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed.
Jürgen Elvert (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997), 21–36.
11. Wolfgang Höpken, “Gewalt auf dem Balkan: Erklärungsversuche zwischen
‘Struktur’ und ‘Kultur,’” in Politische und ethnische Gewalt in Südosteuropa und Latein-
amerika, ed. Wolfgang Höpken and Michael Riekenberg (Cologne: Böhlau 2001), 56.
12. “Bericht vom 15. November 1945,” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Deutscher
General in Agram, RH 31/III-13, 267. On the attitudes of the German occupying
forces in the Balkans, see also Christopher R. Browning, “Germans and Serbs: The
Emergence of Nazi Antipartisan Policies in 1941,” in A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews
Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis, ed. Michael Berenbaum (New York: New York
University Press, 1990), 64–73; Jonathan E. Gumz, “Wehrmacht Perceptions of Mass
Violence in Croatia 1941–1942,” Historical Journal 44, no. 4 (2001): 1015–38. On
German warfare in the Balkans during the Second World War, see Manfred Messer-
schmidt, “Partisanenkrieg auf dem Balkan: Ziele, Methoden, ‘Rechtfertigung,’” in Von
Lidice bis Kalavryta: Widerstand und Besatzungsterror; Studien zur Repressalienpraxis im
Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Lukia Drulia (Berlin: Metropol, 1999), 65–91; Walter Manos-
chek, “Serbien ist Judenfrei”: Militärische Besatzungspolitik und Judenvernichtung in Ser-
bien 1941–1942 (München: Oldenbourg, 1993).
136 Radu Harald Dinu

13. For a critical assessment of Wehrmacht attitudes and perceptions see Korb, “Im
Schatten des Weltkrieges,” 16.
14. Michael Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 12.
For a similar approach, see Robert O. Paxton, “Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of
Modern History 70, no. 1 (1998): 1–23; Sven Reichardt, “Praxeologie und Faschismus:
Gewalt und Gemeinschaft als Elemente eines praxeologischen Faschismusbegriffs,” in
Doing Culture: Neue Positionen zum Verhältnis von Kultur und sozialer Praxis, ed. Karl
H. Hörning and Julia Reuter (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2004), 129–43.
15. David Ernest Apter, The Legitimization of Violence (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1997), 2.
16. Reichardt, “Praxeologie und Faschismus,” 129–43.
17. Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. Hans Heinrich Gerth
and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 335–36.
18. Cf. Reichardt, “Praxeologie und Faschismus,” 137–38.
19. Damir Jug, Oružane snage NDH: sveukupni ustroj (Zagreb: Nova Stvarnost,
2004), 178–92; James J. Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 1927–
1937 (New York: Garland, 1987), 145.
20. Italian squadre leaders borrowed the term ras from Arabic (lit. “head”) during
the occupation of Abyssinia. Francesca Tacchi, Storia illustrata del fascismo (Florence:
Giunti, 2000), 25.
21. Waller, Becoming Evil, 39.
22. Mijo Bzik, Ustaška pobjeda: U danima ustanka i oslobodenja (Zagreb: Naklada
Glavnog Ustaškog Stana, 1942), 16.
23. Mario Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokret: Od nastanka do travnja 1941 (Zagreb:
Školska Knjiga, 2006), 424; Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 272.
24. Pasquale Iuso, Il fascismo e gli Ustascia 1929–1941: Il separatismo Croato in Ita-
lia (Rome: Gangemi, 1998), 84; Cf. Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokret, 420.
25. Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 270.
26. Bzik, Ustaška pobjeda, 25.
27. Cited in Iuso, Il fascismo, 97.
28. There were internal rivalries reflecting regional loyalties and animosities within
the movement—for example, between Mile Budak’s faction, whose supporters mostly
came from the Lika region, and the faction of Branimir Jelić, which consisted mainly
of Dalmatian exiles. Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokret, 422.
29. “Ustav hrvatske revolucionarne organizacije ‘Ustaše,’” in Ustaša: Dokumenti o
ustaškom pokretu, ed. Petar Požar (Zagreb: Zagrebačka stvarnost, 1995), 45–47, 49.
30. Reichardt, “Praxeologie und Faschismus,” 140.
31. Thomas Kühne, “Male Bonding and Shame Culture: Hitler’s Soldiers and the
Moral Basis of Genocidal Warfare,” in Ordinary People as Mass Murderers: Perpetrators
in Comparative Perspectives, ed. Olaf Jensen, Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann and Mar-
tin L. Davies (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 55–77; Thomas Kühne,
Kameradschaft: Die Soldaten des nationalsozialistischen Krieges und das 20. Jahrhundert
(Göttingen: V&R, 2006).
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 137

32. Dinko Tomašić, “Croatia in European Politics,” Journal of Central European

Affairs 2 (1942–43): 80.
33. Rory Yeomans, “Militant Women, Warrior Men and Revolutionary Personae:
The New Ustasha Man and Woman in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–
1945,” Slavonic and East European Review 83, no. 4 (October 2005): 707; James J.
Sadkovich, “La composizione degli Ustascia: Una valutazione preliminare,” Storia con-
temporanea 11 (1980): 993.
34. Bzik, Ustaška pobjeda, 25.
35. Bernd Weisbrod, “Gewalt in der Politik: Zur politischen Kultur Deutsch-
lands zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 43
(1992): 113–24. Cf. Reichardt, “Praxeologie und Faschismus,” 139.
36. Cf. Kühne, Kameradschaft, 273.
37. Bzik, Ustaška pobjeda, 24.
38. “Popis o Ustaškoj Disciplini,” in Požar, Ustaša, 48.
39. Požar, Ustaša, 49. The commander of the Hungarian Ustasha camp Gustav
Perčec was the most prominent victim of this draconian code of conduct. He was held
responsible for facilitating the infiltration of his fiancée, Jelka Pogorelec, an informant
of the Yugoslav secret service, into the Ustasha camp in Janka Puszta. Jareb, Ustaško-
domobranski pokret, 251–52. See also Vladeta Milićević, A King Dies in Marseilles: The
Crime and Its Background (Bad Godesberg: Hohwacht, 1959), 47–51; Jelka Pogorelec,
Les secrets des organisations terroristes au service du révisionnisme (Paris: La Paix, 1935).
40. Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokret, 264.
41. See, e.g., Martin Ingram, “Charivari and Shame Punishments: Folk Justice and
State Justice in Early Modern England,” in Social Control in Europe, vol. 1, 1500–
1800, ed. Herman Roodenburg and Pieter Spierenburg (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State
University Press, 2004), 288–308; Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early
Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1987).
42. John G. Peristiany and Julian Alfred Pitt-Rivers, Honor and Grace in Anthropol-
ogy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
43. Christian Giordano, “The Anthropology of Mediterranean Societies,” in A
Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, ed. Ullrich Kockel, Mairead Nic Craith,
and Jonas Frykman (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 13–31; Frank Henderson
Stewart, Honor (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994), 75–78.
44. Winfried Speitkamp, Ohrfeige, Duell und Ehrenmord: Eine Geschichte der Ehre
(Stuttgart: Reclam, 2010); Cf. Wolfgang Reinhard, Lebensformen Europas: Eine histo-
rische Kulturanthropologie (München: Beck, 2004), 518.
45. “Abschrift. Das Ministerratspräsidium. Pov. Nr. 234. Betr.: Geschehnisse in
Brčko, 31. Dezember 1941,” Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Zagreb 56/3.
46. Klaus Schreiner and Gerd Schwerhoff, “Verletzte Ehre: Überlegungen zu
einem Forschungskonzept,” in Verletzte Ehre: Ehrkonflikte in Gesellschaften des Mit-
telalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Klaus Schreiner and Gerd Schwerhoff (Cologne:
Böhlau, 1995), 1–28.
138 Radu Harald Dinu

47. Karl Kaser, Familie und Verwandtschaft auf dem Balkan: Analyse einer unterge-
henden Kultur (Vienna: Böhlau, 1995), 102, 412.
48. Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, and Klaus Jonas, An Introduction to Social
Psychology (Chichester, UK: BPS Blackwell, 2012), 525; Cf. Reinhard, Lebensformen
Europas, 523.
49. “Bericht der deutschen Gesandtschaft Zagreb vom 26. Oktober 1942,”
BA-MA, RH 31/3-7, 1.
50. Cf. Klaus Schreiner and Gerd Schwerhoff, Verletzte Ehre, 10.
51. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009), 120.
52. Mary Edith Durham, Some Tribal Origins, Laws and Customs of the Balkans
(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928), 177–78.
53. Ibid., 173–74.
54. This is underpinned by the fact that Christian Orthodox churches do not allow
cremation. John Anthony McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its
History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture (Oxford, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 379.
55. Heinrich Popitz, Phänomene der Macht (Frankfurt am Main: Mohr, 1992), 53–54.
56. Zdenko Levental, Zločini fašističkih okupatora i njihovih pomagača protiv jevreja
u Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Saveza Jevrejskih opština FNR Jugoslavije, 1952), 92; Milovan
Djilas, Wartime (London: Secker & Warburg, 1977), 211.
57. For corresponding photographs see Vladimir Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac:
Dokumenti (Beograd: Izdavačka radna organizacija Rad, 1987), 146; Marco A. Riv-
elli, Le génocide occulté: État Indépendant de Croatie 1941–1945 (Lausanne: l’Âge
d’homme, 1998), xi; “Bericht für Herrn General Dr. h.c. Glaise von Horstenau,”
BA-MA, RH 31/3-13, 57.
58. “Bericht vom 10. März 1942,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 56/3.
59. John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 64–65; Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Kill-
ing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare (New York: Basic Books,
1999), 121.
60. Curzio Malaparte, Kaputt (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press 1997),
286; Malaparte (1898–1957), author of Technique du coup d’état and correspondent
for the newspaper Corriere della Sera, reported from the battlefields of Eastern and
Southeastern Europe during the Second World War. The story about the eyeball col-
lection was adapted by Vladimir Dedijer, but without citing further evidence. See
Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac, 146.
61. Peter Broucek, Ein General im Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaise von
Horstenau (Vienna: Böhlau, 1988), 3:168.
62. Dulić, Utopias of Nation, 151. For other examples see: Vukčević, Zločini,
140; Antun Miletić and Vladimir Dedijer, Proterivanje Srba sa ognjišta 1941–1944:
Svedočanstva (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1989), 189–92.
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 139

63. Shaving off women’s hair was used during German National Socialism as a
form of sexual violence. It denied women’s gender identity and violated their bodily
integrity. See, e.g., Brigitte Halbmayr, “Sexualised Violence against Women during
Nazi ‘Racial’ Persecution,” in Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holo-
caust, ed. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel (Waltham, MA: Brandeis Uni-
versity Press, 2010), 37.
64. Reinhard, Lebensformen Europas, 125–27.
65. Alexander P. Kazhdan, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 1:274. Cf. Durham, Some Tribal Origins, 302–3.
66. “Bericht . . . über die ‘Aktion’ des Staatssekräters Kvaternik jun. in Syrmien,”
BA-MA, RH 31/3-13, 109.
67. Reinhard, Lebensformen Europas, 530.
68. Valentin Groebner, Ungestalten: Die visuelle Kultur der Gewalt im Mittelalter
(Munich: Carl Hanser, 2003), 71–93; Valentin Groebner, Defaced: The Visual Culture
of Violence in the Middle Ages (New York: Zone Books, 2004). Cf. Groebner, “Das
Gesicht wahren: Abgeschnittene Nasen, abgeschnittene Ehre in der spätmittelalterli-
chen Stadt,” in Verletzte Ehre: Ehrkonflikte in Gesellschaften des Mittelalters und der
frühen Neuzeit, ed. Klaus Schreiner and Gerd Schwerhoff (Cologne: Böhlau, 1995),
361–90. As Pierre Bourdieu noted, nif literally means “nose” in Arabic and symbol-
izes the honor (or pride) of a man. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 90.
69. I am following Peter Waldmann’s model on the evolution of civil wars. Peter
Waldmann, “Gesellschaften im Bürgerkrieg: Zur Eigendynamik entfesselter Gewalt,”
Zeitschrift für Politik 4, no. 42 (1995): 343–68; Cf. Waldmann, “Civil Wars,” in Inter-
national Handbook of Violence Research, ed. Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003), 1:291–308.
70. Milan Vukmanović, “Neka pitanja o obrazovanju i djelovanju Ustaškog Stožera
i povjereništva za Vrbasku Banovinu u Banjaluci od aprila do augusta 1941. godine,”
Istorijski zbornik Banja Luka 1–3 (1981): 173.
71. On July 29, 1941, hundreds of Serbs were shot and hastily buried in a mass
grave in nearby Vojnić. A Serb villager succeeded in bribing the Ustasha with 4,000
dinars and escaping death. “Konfidentenbericht über die Ursachen des Aufstandes in
der Gegend um Vojnić,” BA-MA, RH 31/3-13, 43.
72. “Bericht vom 15. Juli 1941,” BA-MA, RH 31/III-13, 24.
73. “Bericht vom 2. Juni 1941,” PA-AA, Büro StS Kroatien, vol. 1, 286–87.
74. “Mnogi su krivo razumjeli,” Ustaša, September 7, 1941, 1.
75. For further examples, see “Bericht,” BA-MA, RH 31/III-13, 10; “Bericht vom
7. Februar 1942,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 56/3, 11; Ivo Goldstein and Slavko Goldstein,
Holokaust u Zagrebu (Zagreb: Novi Liber, 2001), 182–83.
76. “Bericht vom 18. Oktober 1942,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 66/2.
77. “Aufzeichnung,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 66/2.
140 Radu Harald Dinu

78. “Bericht vom 20. September 1943 aus dem Bezirk Đakovo,” BA-MA, RH
31/3-4. For further examples, see, e.g., “Bericht vom 27. Oktober 1942,” PA-AA,
Zagreb, 66/2.
79. On the causality of food supply and violence in the Ustasha state, see also
“Bericht vom 7. Dezember 1941,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 56/3, 4; Cf. Korb, Im Schatten des
Weltkriegs, 329–36.
80. Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political
Revolution, trans. David Maisel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 152.
81. Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927–1934, ed. Michael W. Jen-
nings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999), 314.
82. “Vrijednost ustaških znamena: U znaku križa, noža i samokresa,” Ustaša,
December 19, 1941, 2.
83. Holm Sundhaussen, “Der Ustascha-Staat: Anatomie eines Herrschaftssystems,”
Österreichische Osthefte 37 (1995): 502; Sundhaussen, “Geheimbünde,” in Lexikon zur
Geschichte Südosteuropas, ed. Edgar Hösch, Karl Nehring, and Holm Sundhaussen
(Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), 245–46.
84. Also known as “Unification or Death” (Ujedinjenje ili smrt). See Hösch et al.,
Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas, 723–24.
85. On the violent symbolism in early fascism, see Rolf Wörsdörfer, Krisenherd
Adria 1915–1955: Konstruktion und Artikulation des Nationalen im italienisch-jugos-
lawischen Grenzraum (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004), 80; Reichardt, Fas-
chistische Kampfbünde, 385.
86. Dulić, Utopias of Nation, 356–58.
87. Ivan Goran Kovačić, The Pit: Poem, 1943 (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1961).
On literary representations of fascism in socialist Yugoslavia see also Željka Švrljuga,
“The Politics and Poetics of Blood and Knife: Some Reflections on the Representation
of Fascism in Yugoslav Literature,” in Fascism and European Literature, ed. Stein Ugel-
vik Larsen (Bern: P. Lang, 1991), 293–305.
88. Šime Balen, Pavelić (Zagreb: Hrvatska seljačka tiskana, 1952), 44–45.
89. Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac, 146.
90. Vuk Drašković, Nož (Belgrade: Zapis, 1982). For a discussion of Drašković’s
novel and similar literary productions, see Jasna Dragović-Soso, Saviours of the Nation:
Serbia’s Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism (Montréal: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 2002), 100–105.
91. Koncentracioni logori: Dokumenti ustaškog terora (Zagreb: Jasenovac, 1986), 52;
Levental, Zločini, 95. For further eyewitness reports, see Miletić and Dedijer, Prote-
rivanje, 61–62; “Bericht. 27-08.1941,” BA-MA, RH 31/3-13, 49; “Bericht vom 7.
Dezember 1942,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 66/2.
92. John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia (London: C. Hurst, 2000), 398.
93. Mijo Bzik, Ustaški pogledi (Zagreb: Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu, 1944);
Ismet Zunić, “Južni Hrvati u oslobodjenoj domovini,” Ustaška mladež, April 26,
1942, 4–5.
 Honor, Shame, and Warrior Values 141

94. Michel Wieviorka, Violence: A New Approach (London: Sage, 2009), 133.
95. Wolfgang Reinhard, “Manchmal ist eine Pfeife wirklich nur eine Pfeife: Plä-
doyer für eine materialistische Anthropologie,” Saeculum 56, no. 1 (2005): 1–16.
96. Dulić, Utopias of Nation, 357.
97. “Bemerkungen zur Verlautbarung betreffs der Übergabe von Waffen,” BA-MA,
RH 31/3-13, 23; and “Liste von Kriegsmaterial, das bevorzugt als Beute zu erfssen
ist und für deutsche Zwecke Verwendung finden soll,” RH 20-12/344, 92. Cf. Holm
Sundhaussen, Wirtschaftsgeschichte Kroatiens im nationalsozialistischen Großraum,
1941–1945 (Stuttgart: Dt. Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 153; Jozo Tomasevich, War and
Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2001), 419.
98. In December 1941, the aforementioned Ustasha leader Većeslav Montani
rounded up about 150 Jews from Brčko, after which all of them were slain and
thrown into the River Sava. For this purpose “he had requisitioned several hammers
from local locksmiths and blacksmiths and returned them bloody after the action had
been accomplished.” See “Bericht vom 17. Dezember 1941,” PA-AA, Zagreb, 56/3.
For further examples see Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac, 138, 146.
99. Jacques Sémelin, “Toward a Vocabulary of Massacre and Genocide,” Journal of
Genocide Research 5, no. 2 (2003): 207.
100. Ferdinand Sutterlüty, Gewaltkarrieren: Jugendliche im Kreislauf von Gewalt
und Missachtung (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002), 93.
101. Ibid., 63–64.
102. Wieviorka, Violence, 130.
103. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 18.
 Part Two
Incarnating a New Religion,
National Values, and Youth
 Chapter Five

Apostles, Saints’ Days,

and Mass Mobilization

The Sacralization of Politics in the Ustasha State

Stipe Kljaić

During the celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the Ustasha state’s found-
ing in Osijek in April 1942, Vilko Rieger, the head of the State Information and
Propaganda Office (Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured—DIPU) gave a speech
in which he linked the fate of the Croat people and the survival of the nation to
the leadership of the Poglavnik:

I tell you that I am convinced, the Croat nation is convinced, the Ustasha
movement is convinced, we are all convinced that victory will be on our side
because our Poglavnik leads us, our Poglavnik, who has always shown that he
knows what he is doing, who was always right in the past, who now, in every
action, is right and will always be right because God sent him to us, my broth-
ers, in whose name I invite you to shout: Long live our Poglavnik, Ante Pavelic!
Long live the Independent State of Croatia! Long live the Ustasha movement!1

By deifying the Poglavnik and presenting him to the Croat people as an omnipo-
tent leader given to the nation by God, he was not merely attempting to argue
for unquestioning obedience on the part of ordinary citizens as well as Ustasha
activists toward the supreme leader but also illustrating how the Ustasha move-
ment sought to legitimate its rule through the use of sacralized imagery and the
identification of its ideology as a new religion.
Despite the frequent use the movement made of religious symbolism and
sacralized imagery, when relating Ustasha ideology to religion, historians and
scholars of the Ustasha regime in socialist Yugoslavia predominantly focused on
the relationship between the Ustasha regime and the Catholic Church in Croatia.
While some of this was rooted in legitimate historical inquiry, much of this his-
toriographical approach was also motivated by the state’s anticlerical orthodoxies
146 Stipe Kljaić

and the desire to provide evidence of the church and state’s mutually close rela-
tionship and common struggle against both the Partisan resistance movement and
the new Yugoslavia.2 In fact, the relations of the church hierarchy and the Ustasha
authorities were characterized by a combination of ambivalence, suspicion, and,
eventually, hostility. After the initial enthusiasm of the Catholic Church for an
independent state had dissipated, relations between the secular and religious
authorities grew progressively more antagonistic. One of the dominant sources
of conflict between the church hierarchy and Ustasha state is to be found in the
Ustasha politics of mass terror against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, while another is
located in the efforts of the Ustasha regime to bring the church under state control
and transform it into a legitimating tool of regime power.3
This does not mean that sections of the Catholic Church did not sympathize
with the Ustasha project or the new Ustasha values. As in states elsewhere in
Europe, the Catholic Church in Croatia was sometimes willing to tolerate the
extremism and violence of radical right ideologies, often motivated by a fear of
Communism. Some high-ranking prelates enthusiastically rallied to the cause of
the Ustasha movement and its militant nationalist ideology. Chief among them
was the archbishop of Sarajevo Ivan Šarić.4 However, generally the church’s atti-
tude reflected the ideological divisions in wider Croatian society in the 1940s,
and a substantial number of Catholic priests, especially in regions such as Istria,
Kvarner, and Dalmatia where the assimilating tendencies of Mussolini’s Italy were
felt, joined the resistance movement under the leadership of the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia.5
Although since the 1990s historians have enjoyed far greater freedom to
explore the history of the Ustasha state in a more complex and interdisciplin-
ary manner, thus far studies of the relationship between the Ustasha regime and
Catholicism have focused almost exclusively on the relationship between the
regime and Catholicism as an institution. In Croatian historiography, at least,
little consideration has been given to the ways in which the Ustasha regime
and its leading theorists used the values and iconography of Catholicism as a
legitimating tool or viewed the Ustasha ideology as a form of political religion.
However, many of the new state’s most important state and religious holidays
as well as the manner in which they were celebrated demonstrate the extent to
which state ideologues believed that the Ustasha ideology represented a new
religion. Not least, the anniversary of the founding of the state on April 10,
1941, was remembered in the culture of memory as the “Croatian Easter” or
“resurrection.” This chapter explores the attempts by party intellectuals and
ideologues as well as the machinery of the state itself to establish the Ustasha
ideology as a new secular religion. Paying particular attention to those aspects of
ideology and state culture with strongly religious, transcendent, and sacral ele-
ments, it explores how festivals, holidays, and anniversaries were appropriated
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 147

in the cause of the new religion. It also considers how Ustasha theorists, and the
movement more widely, used Catholic symbolism and tradition as legitimizing
devices and a means of mobilizing ordinary citizens behind the state’s project of
national regeneration and the construction of a new consciousness. While ana-
lyzing the Ustasha regime through the prism of political religion cannot provide
a definitive interpretation of Ustasha ideology, it can contribute to a fuller, more
nuanced understanding of how the Ustasha movement and its followers viewed
the world and the new society they wished to construct.
Key dates in Croat national and religious history formed the central objects
of the Ustasha politics of sacralization. This chapter considers festivals such as
Croatian Martyrs’ Day (June 20), St. Anthony’s Day (June 13), Independence
Day (April 10), Easter and Christmas. Croatian Martyrs’ Day commemorated
the anniversary of the day on which a group of Croatian parliamentarians, led
by Stjepan Radić, the symbol of the Croat national struggle against a centralist
and unitarist Yugoslavia, had been shot in the Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade.
St. Anthony’s Day was appropriated partly because of the great and widespread
piety of the Croat nation toward St. Anthony of Padua but also because that day
was the name day of both Ante Pavelić and Ante Starčević, the latter of whom
was claimed as the central ideological influence of Ustasha theorists. While
national holidays such as Croatian Martyrs’ Day and Independence Day possessed
sacred and religious dimensions, religious holidays were, in turn, ideologized.
Consequently, the state transformed St. Anthony’s Day into a feast in honor of
Ante Pavelić; Easter was appropriated as the “resurrection” of the Croatian state in
1941; and Christmas was celebrated as the memory of the state’s birth. The state
also turned these universal Christian holidays into national ones, renaming them
Croatian Easter, Croatian Christmas, and Croatian St. Anthony’s Day. As a result,
the Ustasha policy of sacralization became an important tool in the construction
of a comprehensive corpus of Ustasha ideology that contained the characteristics
of a political religion. In other words, it was considered to be an absolute truth
and faith; its political leader was deemed to be infallible and a divine messenger;
and the movement presented itself as an organization of the spiritual and moral
elite, like a religious order, whose sacred aim was the creation of the state.

The Death of God and the Birth of New Gods

When the supremacy of Christian faith and the church as the only values of soci-
ety and culture disappeared in the modern age, the autonomy of politics from
institutional religion was established. Such autonomy of politics developed in the
direction of emphasizing state sovereignty and ultimately led to the separation
of church and state. This had a significant influence on modern culture, which
148 Stipe Kljaić

became progressively secularized as religious and cultural influences faded ever

more into the private and personal sphere. However, with the emergence of mass
politics and political ideologies, a new relationship emerged between politics and
religion, since political and national leaders realized that religious symbolism, lan-
guage, and concepts could create a powerful bond between the masses and leaders.
In a process referred to as the sacralization of politics, politics essentially became
a new kind of religion, which meant attributing religious characteristics to politi-
cal concepts such as nation, state, race, party, and leader. Politics was transformed
into religion in a wider sense because it sought to interpret and determine the final
goal of individual and collective existence through systems of ideas and beliefs
expressed in myths, rituals, and symbols. As a result, the fate of the individual and
the community began to depend on their submission to a higher political entity
transformed into a sacred and thus transcendent entity. Such an entity then devel-
oped into an object of faith, worship, respect, cult, and fidelity, even demanding
the sacrifice of an individual’s life if necessary. Historically, the sacralization of
politics emerged as a response to modern democracy, political mass mobilization,
and the creation of nation-states following the American and French Revolutions.
It seemed to suggest that the idea of a separation of politics from religion in mod-
ern Western culture was something of a myth.6
The American political philosopher and historian of ideas Erich Voegelin was
among the first to discuss the concept of political religions in his 1938 study,
Die politischen Religionen. He argued that one of the best known of Friedrich
Nietzsche’s aphorisms—“God is dead”—actually prophetically anticipated the
history of the twentieth century. After the decapitation of the Christian God,
“new gods” ascended to his vacant throne. Voegelin, for example, believed that
Gnostic, eschatological, and utopian readings of Christianity were the main spiri-
tual sources of the “new gods” of Nazism and Communism.7
During the interwar period, the expansionist aspirations of the modern nation-
state became ever more obvious. Since modern nation-states wanted to encompass
all fields of social, economic, and cultural life, both of the individual and the
community, this period was often referred to as the birth of the total or totalitar-
ian state. Seeking the reasons for the rapid conquest of the masses by the totali-
tarian regime in the 1920s and 1930s, the French philosopher Raymond Aron
maintained that political religion constituted a critical element. He also stressed
its role in the creation and consolidation of totalitarian political movements.
Likewise, the German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that, early on,
Hitler recognized the importance of myths and religious elements in the establish-
ment of total power by National Socialism.8 Aron stubbornly insisted that the
mythical and religious elements of totalitarian movements and ideologies were
key to explaining their success in mass democratic societies. According to Aron,
these political religions were attractive to the masses because they offered simple
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 149

unambiguous messages: they defined their ideological programs in the framework

of the Manichean ethical categories of good and evil in contrast to the messy
pragmatism and negotiation of liberal democratic values whose political represen-
tatives seemed to be increasingly ineffectual. Because these political religions per-
ceived themselves as religions of collective redemption and salvation, they rejected
the notion that there was any idea or movement more powerful than they.9
All values, whether material or spiritual, were to be subordinated to this ulti-
mate goal of national rebirth. Therefore, the “believers” of the political religion
were required to be prepared to use all means at their disposal without regard to
morals or conscience. Because, in the case of the Ustasha movement, the ultimate
aspiration to be achieved was the “purification of Croatia,” this sanctified and jus-
tified violence and terror. Like other political religions, the Ustasha political reli-
gion made a spiritual virtue of and expressed in sacral forms a deeply political and
therefore materialistic doctrine. Common to political religions, the language of
Ustasha ideology combined the use of traditional religious imagery and iconog-
raphy with a totalizing view of the world. Thus, ideologists frequently referred
to the movement’s key concepts as the “Ustasha view,” the “Ustasha worldview,”
or “Ustasha thought.” Almost as regularly, they denounced the evils that were
“destroying the Croat national being,” referring acidly to the “Yugoslav lie” and
the “infernal paradise of Marxism and Bolshevism.” These were the evils the
Ustasha ideology promised to eradicate in the bright future, as a result assuring
the worldly happiness and welfare of the Croat people. It was believed that this
welfare would bring the Croat nation salvation and freedom after the trials of the
biblical “Way of the Cross,” as the novelist Mile Budak characterized the period
in Croatian history between the medieval Croatian state and the creation of the
Ustasha state in 1941.10 However, on the journey to attain this golden future, the
Ustasha ideology, like every political religion, demanded sacrifice and struggle,
calling openly for its followers to give their lives so the movement could realize
its aspirations of national liberation. For this reason, the movement’s ideologues
maintained that it was vital to propagate the Ustasha cult of sacrifice and death,
arguing that warriors and citizens who sacrificed their lives for the Ustasha cause
would be granted eternal life.11

“The Ustasha Ideology Is Our Fanatical Faith!”

The Ustasha ideology, with its emphasis on the appropriation of Catholic values,
differed significantly from the explicit anticlericalism of both National Socialism
and Italian Fascism, which advocated the confiscation of church property and
the marginalization of clerical influence in public life. The anticlericalism of early
Italian Fascism was later opportunistically reversed, seven years after the Fascist
150 Stipe Kljaić

Party came to power, in the form of the 1929 Lateran Treaty. In 1933, much the
same process occurred in Nazi Germany when Hitler signed the Reichskonkordat,
even though many radical Nazi ideologues viewed Christianity negatively since
they looked to paganism as the authentic ancient German religion. This appar-
ent rapprochement was threatened by an increasing sense of confrontation
between the Catholic Church and both Fascism and National Socialism on the
global stage, a tendency that was manifested in the papal encyclicals of Pius XI
Non habbiamo bisogno in 1931 and Mit brennender Sorge in 1937. In contrast
to Italian and German nationalism, which developed historically in opposition
to Catholicism, in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Croatia, the church often
acted as a surrogate for a nation-state and the propagator of the national idea in
the absence of statehood. There were a number of reasons for this. First, during
the Austro-Hungarian era, the church supported strengthening Croatia’s political
autonomy and independence from Vienna and Budapest. In interwar Yugoslavia,
especially after 1929, it was often perceived as a center of national resistance to the
royal dictatorship and, later, integral Yugoslavism. Indeed, in the 1930s, the Croat
national question and the position of the church were often symbiotically linked.
In such a way Croat nationalism and Catholicism became part of a common
front united in political struggle against Yugoslavism, liberalism, Communism,
and Serbdom. Despite this informal alliance, after the establishment of the new
state, the Ustasha ideology showed itself to be completely incompatible with the
guiding doctrines of the Catholic Church. In particular, the Ustasha regime’s
campaign of terror, mass murder, and forced assimilation perpetrated against the
state’s Orthodox Serbs, as well as its intervention in religious affairs, alienated
much of the church hierarchy and ensured that the anticipated symbiosis between
church and state could not be realized.
As far as the internal organization of the Ustasha movement was concerned,
Ustasha ideologues envisaged the emergence of a select new cadre that was “predes-
tined and chosen by God himself” for the salvation of the Croat nation. This elitist
concept of the Ustasha state meant that leading members of the Ustasha movement
should hold absolute power and form a “new aristocracy.” Membership was pred-
icated on fidelity to the 1933 “Ustasha Principles” and allegiance to the Ustasha
vision of the Croatian state, attributes deemed significantly more important than
the moral qualities of the future elite. However, even before the “Ustasha revolu-
tion” of 1941, sworn members of the movement had declared themselves a legion
of avenging angels who were willing to use violence to purify and liberate the nation
from “foreign” occupation. At the same time, Pavelić denounced the Belgrade gov-
ernment as “the propagator of a barbarian culture and Gypsy civilization,” accusing
it of spreading “atheism and a bestial mentality in divine Croatia.” Therefore, the
“purification of divine Croatia” from that “Belgrade impurity” was the great and
holy purpose proposed by the Ustasha movement.12 It was a movement that Ante
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 151

Vrbić, a theology student in Sarajevo, described in 1942 as “not just a political orga-
nization but a movement of the greatest spiritual and moral dignity, based on the
sacrifice and the contemplation of individuals for the good of the community.”13
With the establishment of the Ustasha state, three central concepts entered the
political pantheon: Nation, State, and the Poglavnik. The party press contended
that the Ustasha state had been created by the will of God and divine providence.
For this reason, ordinary citizens should mobilize behind both the movement and
the Poglavnik who had saved the nation, entering Croatia like Christ and carrying
“the cross of the nation.” With his faithful Ustashas, he pledged to liberate Croatia
from the “Yugoslav dungeon.”14
Under the Ustasha ideology, radical Croat nationalism was transformed into
a secular religion that had its own faith and undeniable dogma—its version of
the Ten Commandments metaphorically speaking—its catechism, saints, martyrs,
and magnificent ceremonies in honor of the nation, state, and Poglavnik. The
“Ustasha faith,” also imagined as the national faith, was elevated to the status of an
absolute and sacral value transcending all social particularism and representing the
ultimate goal and purpose of the entire Croat nation. This sentiment was echoed
by Mile Budak, by now Ustasha minister for religion and education. During the
first celebration of Saint Anthony’s Day in Karlovac, Budak declared that “religion
is the basis of the Ustasha movement,” and he continued:

The term “Ustasha movement” is not enough; it is too weak a word for the
Ustasha ideology. The Ustasha ideology is, in the ranks of Croats, more than a
movement, something far bigger than a party, far more than a regime. The Usta-
sha ideology is a faith, a strong and deep faith that permeates us all. This faith
saved us from doom; it strengthened us in times of despair and death. Finally,
this liberation was created by Ustasha faith. Ustasha faith is the salvation and
the power of Croatianhood.15

The absolutization of the state led to its characterization as a supernatural and

divine entity. As such, the Ustasha state was imagined as a mythical deity that,
like God, had the right and power to multiply its requests to its citizens who were
expected to become “Ustasha believers” of the “Ustasha Gospel” represented by
the Ustasha principles. In its mythical form, the Ustasha state appropriated the
role of an omnipotent supernatural superstructure that required not only abso-
lute obedience but also unquestioning conviction and faith. Milivoj Karamarko,
a twenty-one-year-old law student, youth journalist, and social activist, insisted in
the movement’s journal Ustaša in October 1941 that the state is a “fundamental
idea of the Ustasha movement” whose “central and essential precondition was the
consolidation and prosperity of Croatianhood as a distinctive collective.” For that
reason, he concluded, “the State must be before and above all.”16
152 Stipe Kljaić

In 1942, Vinko Nikolić, a well-known poet and Ustasha Youth instructor,

described the moment of the Ustasha revolution and its social meaning. He argued
that the revolution was not simply a revolution of the state but also a “revolution
in private lives, sensuality, mentality, and resolve.” He concluded that “the Ustasha
ideology is our fanatical Faith.” Because of this, the most important aspiration of
the Ustasha state was to initiate a “spiritual and moral revolution that must cre-
ate a new man.” Nikolić claimed that the revolution, which, he argued, had been
started but not finished, had begun to fulfill these aspirations and goals, perform-
ing a “radical revolution of sense, thought, perception, and action.” Ultimately,
Nikolić reasoned, the Ustasha revolution was “a family, social, national, and eco-
nomic one.” As such it should represent a precondition for any intellectual or
creative act to “ensure that our literature, philosophy, science, music, painting,
and all other emotional, thoughtful, and creative activities are profoundly imbued
with the Ustasha ideology.”17
The personification of the idea of a new political religion found its most pro-
found expression in depictions of the mystical relationship between the Poglavnik
and the Croatian masses. This mystical personalism was forcefully constructed by
state propaganda, especially the powerful directorate responsible for shaping and
refashioning the minds and social imaginations of citizens: the Main Directorate
for Propaganda (Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu—GRP). Like most other fascist
states and regimes, the Ustasha movement did not rely on the truth of its doctrine
but instead emphasized the “mystical union of the supreme leader with the historical
destiny of his people.” The Poglavnik, like other fascist leaders, wanted, as Robert
Paxton has argued, to “bring his people into a higher realm of politics which they
would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race that is now fully
aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a
vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared
feelings, and sacrificing one’s petty concerns for the group’s good; and the thrill of
domination.” These intense feelings, emotions, and experiences were to be accom-
plished through mass public spectacles, parades, and festive events.18
According to state propaganda, the Poglavnik was the embodiment of the
nation, the messiah, the savior; like the Roman emperors, he was Divi filius. In
support of the contention that the Poglavnik was the incarnation of holiness,
omnipotence, and infallibility, state media regularly published slogans allud-
ing to his all-seeing, all-knowing omnipotence: “The Poglavnik has never made
a mistake since he rules over the Croat people with his own hands,” or “The
Poglavnik has always been and is in all circumstances right” being just two char-
acteristic examples. Since there was no authority either above or below him, if he
should err, the entire state and nation whose fate rested on his shoulders would
be fatally affected. The idea that the conduct of politics belonged exclusively to
the Poglavnik reminded citizens of his absolute power and of a shared destiny
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 153

binding them to him. Not only did such slogans and declarations emphasize that
the Ustasha movement and its ideology was above mere politics, but they also
served to highlight the fact that the fortunes of the state and the leader as well as
the movement were inextricably tied to that of the nation.19
The deification of the Poglavnik was also reflected in the cultural sphere and
countless poems—many of them published to commemorate state anniversaries,
holidays, and festivals, as well as the Poglavnik’s birthday—attested to his divine
powers and status as the savior of the nation. Among the most well known of
these was a series of poems entitled “Odes to the Poglavnik,” written by the arch-
bishop of Sarajevo Ivan Šarić to commemorate the first Christmas in the new
state. Šarić used the religious holiday of Christmas Day as an occasion to celebrate
and glorify the Poglavnik, sanctifying someone he considered to be a secular deity.
According to Šarić, as the supreme leader of the Croat nation, the Poglavnik was
not a mere political leader; on the contrary, his personality possessed something
mystical and transcendental, and his politics was a mission from God to “save the
Croat people and the nation in this war.” Obviously, Šarić’s mention of God and
God’s will had a political function in legitimizing the new order created in 1941
and simultaneously discrediting Communist-led resistance fighters whose ideol-
ogy denied God’s existence.20 In the poem, the Poglavnik is depicted as a national
hero as a result of his years in exile and struggle for the Croat national cause, but
he is also a “divine messenger” because “our good and strong God watched over
him as he undertook his holy deeds for our Homeland.” From Šarić’s perspective
it is evident that the creation of an independent Croatian state is not only political
but also “a holy deed for which God and the Poglavnik are jointly responsible.”
The Poglavnik is thus the mediator between God and the Croats:

a worthy genius as deep as Mystique.

In vain wolves are howling all around,
like a prophet through forests and valleys he shouts: God and Croats.

In the second part of Šarić’s ode, he explores even more explicitly the role of
Pavelić as a messenger between God and the Croat people.

From within his heart flying toward the sky he cries:

Holy God, save our lovely homeland!
To you it is always the first concern, pray for it.

The Poglavnik, the poem explains, also represents the Croat nation before God.

From now, our hearts, our souls lift up to God’s heaven,

You are the leader whom the Croat people hungers for like daily bread.
154 Stipe Kljaić

Newly resurrected Croatia born in the ferment of the Ustasha revolution will
become the “worldly kingdom of heaven” in which “work, progress, fairness, and
freedom” will reign.21 Similarly, in his poem written to mark the first anniversary
of the Ustasha state and dedicated to the Croatian “resurrection,” Vinko Nikolić
described the Poglavnik as a “joy” who had been sent to the Croat nation in the
spring of 1941.22
The charisma of the Poglavnik’s authority and its historical precedent in rela-
tion to past rulers lies in the fact that for Šarić

he is a human of mind and heart, and integrity, a man who is not in charge,
but a man who is a worker, a man who has never succumbed: Our Leonidas.23

Emphasizing the Poglavnik’s toil in the business of ruling, he informs the read-
ers of Nova Hrvatska that their supreme leader resembles Christ, who came not
to rule but to serve, and just as Christ he is also portrayed as the redeemer. “The
redemption of the soul of the Croat people,” the poem continues, is realized by
the Poglavnik who redeems the nation with the “destruction of the Yugoslav
shackles of slavery,” resulting in “the resurrection of the Croat state and nation.”
The Poglavnik’s personality also gains the attributes of holiness and martyrdom in
Šarić’s vision, and he eulogizes him as “a man of honesty, work, and sacrifices.” His
stay in exile, meanwhile, represents martyrdom fulfilled for “Croatian freedom”:

sacrificing everything for the homeland,

a daring hero, a hero who lives for the faith,
you stood up for the freedom of our homeland, divine Ustasha!

Moreover, the ideals of statehood outlined by Ante Starčević and realized by Ante
Pavelić make them joint “defenders of sacred rights.” The archbishop-poet elevates
the political struggle of the Croat nation for the creation of the state into a sacra-
ment, a religious phenomenon beyond banal everyday political machinations.24

The Saints’ Days of the Ustasha Political Religion

April 10, 1941, the date on which the Independent Croatian State had been
officially proclaimed, quickly became a state and national holiday, obtaining the
title of “the glorious resurrection of the Croat state.” As far as the Ustasha move-
ment was concerned, it was “our most important day.” Festive events were orga-
nized for this public holiday and a huge military parade took place in honor of
the Poglavnik, the Croat nation, and Croat state throughout Ustasha Croatia.
The sense of nationalist euphoria was well captured by the party newspaper
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 155

Hrvatski narod: “The Easter of our lives has arrived. Our country has been regen-
erated. . . . He came as the Messiah. He is our Poglavnik. And he has brought
us boundless joy, love and exhilaration in what he did for us because he is the
fulfillment of all our hopes and the leader of all our destinies. He is Croatia in
chains. He is Croatia in glory.”25
The fact that the proclamation of the new state took place on Maundy
Thursday, three days before Easter 1941, was exploited by the Ustasha regime, and
the anniversary of the founding of the state at Easter was transformed each year
into Croatian Easter. While the resurrection of Christ is, for the Christian faith, a
universal religious festival, under the Ustasha regime it was synthesized with the
establishment of the new state at Easter to become an exclusively Croat national
celebration. Thus there was a clearly visible intertwining of religious and political
events, with many regime intellectuals legitimating the new state by attributing its
creation to God’s providence. Pavelić described the Croatian Easter similarly in his
first public speech of May 21, 1941:

Ustasha brothers! The Croat people have experienced their great and glorious
resurrection. Everyone knows that the resurrection did not occur overnight. The
Croat national and state resurrection had been many decades and centuries in
preparation. Through the ages at a time of slavery, at a time when freedom was
truncated, the Croat nation provided sons from its midst, sons who were pre-
cursors, who worked and fought, sacrificing their own lives for what we have
today. Especially in the past twenty years, the Croat nation produced warriors,
produced children who set off on the final journey, who carried out the ultimate
acts, the ultimate deeds for the complete liberation of the Croat nation.26

The meaning of Christmas, especially Christmas in 1941, possessed an equally

ambivalent political and religious character and value in the Ustasha state because
it was a double birth—the birth of Christ and the new state. The religious holiday
celebrating the birth of Christ, then, was also incarnated as a festival of thanksgiv-
ing for the fulfillment of the ultimate goal of Ustasha ideology—the creation of
an independent Croatian state. As the newspaper Nova Hrvatska explained in its
Christmas Day editorial:

In addition to Christmas, which we celebrate as Catholics, we celebrate a sec-

ond Christmas: the one in which the Independent State of Croatia was given
birth to and created by the Poglavnik. That is why this Christmas is celebrated
as a double joy because it was the first in which the Croat nation found justice
and is therefore celebrated in its Independent State. With a deep and humble
gratitude the Croat nation thanks Providence, which allowed it to celebrate
Christmas this year with a double and a deep inner meaning. We are convinced
that the entire Croat nation feels a double joy on the birthday of the Savior.27
156 Stipe Kljaić

In addition, Nova Hrvatska offered a further parallel between religious and secu-
lar events. Highlighting the fact that John the Baptist’s ideas were widely rec-
ognized as having inspired Jesus Christ’s own teachings, the newspaper argued
that, in much the same way, the emergence of the Ustasha movement and the
birth of the Ustasha state signified the “spiritual connection” of Ante Starčević
and Ante Pavelić.28
In addition to Croatian Easter and Croatian Christmas, two national and reli-
gious holidays held an important status in the Ustasha state: the Croatian Martyrs’
Day commemorated on June 20, and St. Anthony of Padua Day, celebrated on
June 13, popularly known as Antunovo. The date on which Croatian Martyrs’ Day
fell was intentionally and powerfully resonant. Yet, in addition to commemorat-
ing the anniversary of the shooting of Radić and a number of party colleagues in
the Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade by a deputy of the Serbian nationalist Radical
Party, it also honored all the national martyrs throughout history whose “shed
blood produced the seeds of national liberation and independence.” It incorpo-
rated both Ustasha martyrs and a litany of national martyrs and heroes through
the centuries: the last king of independent Croatia, Petar Svačić; Nikola Šubić-
Zrinski, a seventeenth-century noble executed by the Habsburg authorities; Eugen
Kvaternik, the leader of the 1871 insurrection in Rakovica against Habsburg rule;
the historian and Croatian Party of Right (Hrvatska stranka prava) intellectual
Milan Šufflay, assassinated by the Yugoslav state in 1931; as well as Radić, who
succumbed to his injuries in August of that year.
While the day honored the sacrifices of a pantheon of national martyrs with
black flags placed throughout the center of Zagreb as well as other towns and
villages, it nonetheless emphasized the martyrdom of Radić. In what amounted
to a form of cult, it was his image that stared from the front pages of newspapers
on Croatian Martyrs’ Day and his widow Marija and children who were the
guests of honor at the annual mass of thanksgiving for national martyrs held
on the morning of June 20. On one level, by evoking Radić the regime aimed
to expand its base of support and attract greater numbers of adherents from the
ranks of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka—HSS), which
had dominated Croatian interwar politics. Admittedly, a number of leading
members of the right wing of the Peasant Party joined the new regime in 1941,
including Lovro Sušić, Vladimir Košak, Marko Lamešić, and Ivica Frković,
stepping into important positions in the party and state ministries and helping
to legitimate the state and its ideological system.29 Yet, with the invocation of
Radić’s martyrdom, the Ustasha regime was also attempting to gain the support
of the mainstream of the Peasant Party, whose leader Vladko Maček had refused
to collaborate with the Ustasha authorities.
At the same time, certain aspects of the day also drew parallels with and
made references to the Christian understanding of history and faith as outlined
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 157

by Tertullian in his third-century treatise against pagan philosophers. In his

Apologetica, he stated that “the blood of the Christians is the seed of Christianity.”
Using this same allusion, Vilim Peroš, editor of Nova Hrvatska, wrote in an edito-
rial to mark Croatian Martyrs’ Day that “the blood of the victims who were killed
on June 20 in the Belgrade parliament created the freedom of the Croat nation.”
His editorial continued:

There was a lot of blood that splashed holy Croatian soil. But the Croat nation
neither hesitated nor wavered a moment. It stood there like a legendary giant
manly, resolute, and heroic in defense of our sacred freedoms. . . . The blood of
Croatian deputies fell! But that blood fell on fertile ground, it was a seed from
which Croat national and state liberation grew and so the sacrifices of the June
martyrs death were regenerated.30

For many party intellectuals as well as the state media, this blood was not only
regenerative but also “redeemed our nation, just as Christ redeemed mankind
spilling his blood from his vessels.”31 Nova Hrvatska, meanwhile, insisted that the
entirety of Croatian history was nothing but a journey on a “heavy and bloody
Calvary.”32 In the words of Peroš, the years after 1918 when Croatia became part
of the new Yugoslav state should be remembered as a period when the “Serbian
eagle introduced tyranny into Croatian lands and produced a twenty-year long
Calvary of the Croat nation.”33 The religious framing of the day was reinforced by
two of its most important rituals: the visits of “the mass of citizens to the graves
of Croat martyrs at the Zagreb cemeteries of Mirogoj and Šestine” and the pay-
ing of their respects to the flower-laden catafalques in Zrinjevac and in the center
of Zagreb cathedral.34 The message was clear: this day, defined as a “holy day of
the Croat people, because the bones of countless martyrs constructed Croatian
freedom,” transformed an event with a purely secular and political character—the
assassination of Croat politicians in the parliament in Belgrade—into a religious
commemoration of “holiness and martyrdom.”35
The Day of St. Anthony of Padua, originally known as Antunovo, also had a
double meaning similar to other religious holidays that were incorporated by the
Ustasha regime into their new calendar. The cult of St. Anthony was originally
promoted by members of the Franciscan order in Croatian lands, and, over time,
he became the most celebrated of all Catholic saints among Croatians. As hap-
pened with religious holidays such as Pentecost, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’
Day, this day was instrumentalized in the service of the state and movement.36
The best example of this instrumentalization was on the occasion of the first
Antunovo, when a large-scale military parade of the Croatian armed forces was
held before “the eyes of the greatest celebrant, Ante Pavelić.” Antunovo unam-
biguously became a day of adulation for the Poglavnik, whose status as a messiah
158 Stipe Kljaić

was one of the founding myths of the Ustasha state. The Ustasha regime, which
consciously appropriated Catholic rites, traditions, and festivals to mobilize the
population, in its utilization of Antunovo, nonetheless, only incidentally men-
tioned the religious significance of the date; by contrast, the national and political
significance of Ante Starčević and Ante Pavelić in the Croat national struggle for
liberation was given far greater prominence. To a lesser extent, the state press and
party journals also paid some attention to Ante Radić, brother of Stjepan Radić,
and a Peasant Party ideologist. Elevating St. Anthony’s Day far beyond its religious
origins, the Ustasha state used Antunovo to reinforce a connection in the minds
of the ordinary citizens between the nineteenth-century legacy of Ante Starčević,
the “apostle of Croat national idea and Croat nationalism,” and the “toiling of
Ante Pavelić for the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia.”37 Ante
Starčević, the father of Croat nationalism, occupied an important place in Ustasha
ideology, and the persistent references to Starčević were intended to attract those
Croat nationalists who did not belong to the Ustasha movement and did not share
its worldview. Despite the attempt by party intellectuals to appropriate the tradi-
tions of nineteenth-century Croat nationalism and incorporate its history and ide-
ology into that of the Ustasha movement, it proved difficult to synthesize the two.
Not least, the fact that Ustasha ideas represented a modern form of nationalism
that had developed under the influence of fascist models meant that it inevitably
clashed with Starčević-era nationalism.
The centerpiece of Antunovo consisted of a monumental public celebration glo-
rifying the “brilliant leader of the Croat nation” Ante Pavelić and his mystical con-
nection to St. Anthony. The basis for the construction of these relations was rooted
in the struggle of St. Anthony of Padua against Ezzelino III, a tyrannical Italian
medieval feudal lord in the March of Treviso who also ruled Verona, Venice, and
Padua. In his fight against Ezzelino’s tyranny, St. Anthony emphasized the role of
ethics and morality, and the parallels to Pavelić and Starčević’s struggle for national
liberation were obvious. For Ljudevit Zimperman, writing in the movement’s intel-
lectual journal Spremnost, the fight against despotism and the charisma of Croatia’s
three Anthonys served as a framework through which to establish St. Anthony,
Starčević, and Pavelić as a mystical trinity guiding and watching over Croatia:

From the green banks of the River Brenta the legend of St. Anthony was born
and spread around the world. That legend leapt over flower to flower of the
human soul; it crossed over the plains, the mountains, and the sea and came to
our Lika. It is not mere coincidence that in 1823 the Starčević family found it
necessary to place their child at his baptism under the protection of the saint,
who, in his defense against tyranny, became a leader, teacher, and comforter of
the nation. It is not mere coincidence then that in 1889 the Pavelić family also
put their son at his baptism under the protection of the same saint.38
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 159

The Holy Mission: Ustasha Croatia as Antemurale Christianitatis

For many Ustasha intellectuals and ideologues, there was not just a conflict
between Croat nationalist ideas and the Yugoslavism of the Partisans and Greater
Serb nationalism of the Chetniks. They believed that there was a far wider struggle
between the West and the East, culture and barbarism, Latin values and those
of Byzantium, “New Europe” and Bolshevism, and, ultimately, a final confron-
tation between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in Southeast Europe. In an article
in the journal Hrvatska smotra in 1943, Ivo Guberina, a member of the Ustasha
movement, Catholic priest, and official in the Education Ministry, advocated
that the same kind of support should be given by the Vatican and the church
to the Ustasha state as the Vatican and the local Spanish church had given to
Franco’s nationalist forces against the Republican left during the Spanish Civil
War. His article highlighted one of the key ways in which the Ustasha regime
attempted to gain the support of the church by arguing that the collapse of the
Ustasha state would inevitably mean the destruction of Catholicism in Southeast
Europe. Furthermore, he insisted that the revival of the interwar Yugoslav state or
Tito’s new Yugoslavia would necessarily result in the persecution of the church.
Guberina regarded the greatest threat to the Catholic Church to be the ruling
political cadre of interwar Yugoslavia.
During the entire period of the Yugoslav state’s existence, there had been
polemics about the position of the Catholic Church. Although a concordat had
been signed in 1935 between the Vatican and Yugoslavia, it was never ratified by
the Senate and National Assembly because of the risk of civil conflict. In the sum-
mer of 1937, the opposition had organized a mass demonstration in Belgrade that
became known as Krvava litija (Bloody litany). It was that event, also referred to
as the Concordat Crisis, that, as far as Guberina was concerned, demonstrated
the strength of a broad anticlerical and anti-Catholic bloc composed of Yugoslav
unitarists, Serbian nationalists, liberals, Communists, and the Serbian Orthodox
Church. He complained that Yugoslavia’s political elites had even preferred to
agree to the establishment of a semiautonomous Croatian Banovina as the price
of the settlement of the Croat national question rather than give concessions to
the church through the Concordat. By contrast, he wrote, the official status of the
Croatian Catholic Church was never officially resolved in interwar Yugoslavia.39
In his ideas about Catholicism and Western values, Guberina relied heavily on
the hypothesis formulated by Milan Šufflay.40 One of Šufflay’s basic theses was
that Croat nationalism was absolutely positive because in its historical develop-
ments for four centuries it had been a bulwark of Christianity and Western values
against Ottoman Turkish forces and the Islamic faith. For this reason it did not
exhibit an exclusively nationalist character, instead being assigned the historical
mission of defending Catholic Europe and Western civilization as well as Croatia.
160 Stipe Kljaić

The Ustasha state utilized the historical metaphor of Antemurale Christianitatis

forged in the time of the Ottoman threat. Guberina himself portrayed the state as
being involved in a contemporary version of this struggle, submitting that it was
necessary to wage an apocalyptic confrontation with the Partisan and Chetnik
movements since they embodied not just “the East” but all other categories that
meant the negation of Catholicism and Western culture: “barbarism, Byzantinism,
Bolshevism, and Orthodoxy.” The uprising of Chetniks and Partisans against
the Ustasha state was therefore, Guberina continued, to be “destroyed with the
sword since it not only works against the interests of Ustasha Croatia but poses
a threat to Catholicism if they win the war.” Guberina held that the Ustasha ide-
ology was “in the greatest harmony with Catholicism and that nowhere has it
violated Catholic principles,” as some senior clerics such as the primate of Zagreb,
Archbishop Stepinac, had suggested it might have. According to Guberina, for the
sake of the health of the state “the Serb uprising against Ustasha Croatia” meant
that the Serbs had to be forcibly removed from “the healthy Croatian organism,”
something that was entirely “within the principles and spirit of Catholic moral-
ity.” In this way, the Ustasha ideology was essentially catholicized; its chief theo-
logian, Guberina, aimed to mobilize the Vatican and the church in defense of the
state’s campaign of national purification and then, later, in its struggle for survival
after the tide of war turned in favor of its enemies.41
Of the many reasons that Guberina offered for why the Vatican and the church
should support the Ustasha regime, few, if any, found acceptance with Archbishop
Stepinac. In fact, Guberina was suspended from the priesthood by Stepinac,
largely due to the fact that, as a Catholic priest, he was politically engaged on
the side of the regime in its ongoing conflict with the church and the arch-
bishop.42 Guberina was also a captain in the elite Ustasha paramilitary formation
the Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade (Poglavnikov tjelesni sdrug—PTS), which only
served to emphasize his profound commitment to the Ustasha cause.
The understanding of the Ustasha state as Antemurale Christianitatis demon-
strated that the Ustasha ideology was a political religion not just influenced by
the ideas of fascism and Nazism but also nurtured by “cultural tradition and the
symbolism of Catholicism.” Specifically, Catholicism had a significant impact in
the promotion of Ustasha ideas in the late 1930s and its embrace by members of
the Catholic clergy, particularly at the local parish level, undoubtedly reflected its
strong appeal to some Catholic organizations. This was especially true of members
of zealous Catholic youth groups such as the Great Brotherhood and Sisterhood
of Crusaders (Veliko križarstvo bratstvo i Veliko križarstvo sestrinstvo). Not least
of the reasons for this attraction was that, owing to the strong identification of
Catholicism with the Croatian identity, many of these organizations were pro-
foundly committed to the idea of an independent Croat nation-state. In many
respects, then, as Ivo Banac has argued, the venture of “secularist intrusions into
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 161

the Catholic Church is probably the most significant ideological action created by
catholicized Ustashism.”43
The use of Catholic religious terminology in the rhetoric of Ustasha ideology
and the movement’s generally positive perception of Catholicism and Christianity
as an important cultural determinant for the establishment and maintenance of
Croat national identity throughout history does not automatically assume an accep-
tance of Catholic-Christian morality. In many ways, the Ustasha movement, in both
terms of its ideology and its practices, was inimical to Catholic and Christian values.
For example, the glorification of ruthless, cold-blooded warrior values as key moral
characteristics of the new Ustasha man had little in common with traditional theo-
logical teaching, no matter how much Ustasha ideologues attempted to suggest that
the new Ustasha man was, despite his aggressive nature, a model of Catholic piety.
Moreover, many aspects of the Ustasha political liturgy were far removed from any
conventional Catholic doctrine. Thus, in describing the oath that new members of
the Ustasha movement were required to take before an altar to “Almighty God,”
the journal Ustaša explained in December 1941 what the movement meant when
it referred to the “Holy Trinity”: “the Ustasha movement will not be able to cleanse
Ustasha Croatia armed with a prayer book and the holy rosary but will have to
resort to the cold weapons that have always warmed the Ustashas in their struggles,
the cross, knife, and pistol—the Ustasha Holy Trinity.”44
These sentiments and the propensity of the movement to fuse extreme violence
and biblical allusions in the creation of a new political religion were illustrated
in the speech the Poglavnik had delivered on May 21, 1941, in which he set out
the guiding policies of the new state. He used the guiding principle of the Old
Testament—“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”—to argue that violence and
terror could be used to avenge the supposed sufferings and humiliations of the
Croat nation in interwar Yugoslavia. Pavelić announced that his “new politics in
the new Croatia” meant a revolutionary change in relation to the political and
pacifist methods of struggle of the Croatian Peasant Party and the church:

It was clear to me that we could not fight against thieves with a prayer book in
our hands. That is why I founded the movement with the intention of placing
cool grass on angry wounds. And the violence that was intended for the Croat
people, that was inflicted against the Croat people, has been suppressed by vio-
lence. It was clear that there was never any nation in history that released itself
with a song and drum, but only with blood and deadly weapons.45

Catholicism in the Service of Ustasha Political Religion

Unlike Communism, which directly and militantly encroached on traditional reli-
gion, the Ustasha ideology appropriated various religious aspects of Catholicism.
162 Stipe Kljaić

Through its ideological Machiavellianism, the Ustasha state attempted to utilize the
deeply rooted Catholicism of the Croat masses to create a totalitarian nationalist
state. This attempt to synthesize secular fascist concepts and religious traditions was
exemplified in the connection intellectuals and ideologues made between the cruci-
fix and the saintly charisma of St. Anthony of Padua on the one hand and Ustasha
ideology on the other. Nonetheless, while outwardly sympathetic to Catholicism,
the Ustasha movement was no less atheistic and heretical with regard to positions of
Catholic orthodoxy than Communism was. It demonstrated rigid idolatry toward
the nation, the state, and the Poglavnik, all of which were contrary to the Catholic
moral system of God’s unconditional priority in the hierarchy of human values.
The Ustasha movement perpetuated a radical nationalist ideology with devel-
oped characteristics of political religion and the deification of the nation, state,
and Poglavnik as key programmatic features; it also appropriated a range of reli-
gious elements from Catholicism. Newfound versions of state and church holi-
days in the Ustasha calendar such as Croatian Antunovo, Croatian Easter, and
Croatian Christmas clearly illustrate this. While it is true that many of the intel-
lectuals engaged in the ideological construction of the Ustasha political system
were committed Catholics or experts on the Catholic faith, it is also important to
consider the reasons the Ustasha ideology chose to legitimate itself so frequently
through the imagery and doctrine of Catholicism. The repeated attempts to gain
ideological and popular legitimacy and mobilize the masses through the use of
religious iconography and ritual suggests that Croatia, which was, in terms of
demographics, still a predominantly rural state, was not sufficiently secularized;
as such, religion continued to play an important social and political function.
At the same time, for Ustasha ideologues, the link between the Catholic faith
and Croatian cultural identity represented an important weapon in their attempts
to ensure that the possibility of reconstructing a multiethnic and multireligious
Yugoslavia, or any Yugoslav idea would be permanently destroyed.
In the end, the Ustasha project to transform Catholicism into a national religion
of the Ustasha state by fusing it with Ustasha ideological precepts meant that the
difference between the nation and religion and religious expression and national-
ist mobilization became blurred. This new political religion was characterized by
a set of sacred myths in which the Ustasha principles were defined as the “Ustasha
gospel” and the Ustasha ideology as the “Ustasha faith.” That “faith” was considered
to be predetermined, infallible, and God given, bringing fortitude and strength to
Croatians in the face of war and social upheaval; simultaneously, its belief in the
rejuvenating power of blood and martyrdom held out the promise of new life after
sacrifice. Yet, ironically, while the Ustasha ideology and worldview were profoundly
structured by sacralized politics and the instrumentalization of Catholic rituals, it
never succeeded in becoming a new synthesized national religion. In a traditional
religious society, Catholic values ultimately prevailed over Ustasha ones.
 Apostles, Saints’ Days, and Mass Mobilization 163

Notes
1. Vilko Rieger, “Veličanstvena proslava Antunova u Osijeku,” Nova Hrvatska,
June 16, 1942.
2. See, e.g., Viktor Novak, Magnum crimen: Pola vijeka klerikalizma (Zagreb: Nak-
ladni zavod Hrvatske, 1948); Ivo Mihovilović, Vatikan i fašizam (Zagreb: Nakladno
poduzeće Glas rada, 1950); Zdenko Štambuk and Joža Horvat, Dokumenti o protun-
arodnom radu klera i zločinima jednog djela klera (Zagreb: Rožanskovski, 1946).
3. Jure Krišto, Sukob simbola: Politika, vjere ideologije (Zagreb: Nakladni zavod
Globus, 2001), 71–113.
4. Petar Jeleč, “Odnos nadbiskupa Ivana Ev. Šarića prema ustaškoj vlasti (1941–
1945),” Prilozi instituta za istoriju u Sarajevu 41 (2012): 107–28.
5. Ćiril Petešić, Katoličko svećenstvo u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi (Zagreb: OOUR
Vjesnikova press agencija, 1982).
6. Emilio Gentile has explored the sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy and the
extent to which it represented a modus vivendi between the state and ordinary citizens
in a number of key works. See, e.g, Emilio Gentile, “A Never-Never Religion, a Sub-
stitute for Religion or a New Religion,” in Politics as Religion, trans. George Staunton
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 1–15.
7. Manfred Henningsen, introduction to “Modernity without Restraints,” in The
Collected Works of Erich Voegelin, ed. Manfred Henningsen (Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 2000), 5:1–17.
8. Tihomir Cipek, “Trijumf volje kao trijumf nacizma,” Međunarodne studije
1(2009): 96.
9. Emilio Gentile, “Invasion of the Idols: Christians against Totalitarian Religions,”
in his Politics as Religion, trans. George Staunton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2006), 138–39.
10. Mile Budak, “Naš križni put,” Ustaša, July 17, 1941, 15.
11. Cipek,”Trijumf volje kao trijumf nacizma,” 107.
12. Rory Yeomans, “Cults of Death and Fantasies of Annihilation: The Croatian
Ustasha Movement in Power, 1941–1945,” Central Europe 3, no. 2 (September–Octo-
ber 2005): 235.
13. Antun Vrbić, “Poglavnikovo djelo,” Vrhbosna 56, no. 3–4 (March–April 1942):
147–50.
14. “Hrvatski uskrs,” Hrvatski narod, April 10, 1942.
15. Mile Budak, “Na putu izgradnje: Ustaška vjera je spas i snaga hrvatstva,”
Ustaša, January 11, 1942, 3.
16. Milivoj Karamarko, “Država—osnovna misao ustaškog pokreta,” Ustaša, Octo-
ber 19, 1941, 1.
17. Vinko Nikolić, “Ustaštvo je nosilac novog poredka, novog čovieka, nove
države,” Ustaša, January 11, 1942, 1.
18. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004),
17.
164 Stipe Kljaić

19. “Dan hrvatskih mučenika,” Hrvatski narod, June 20, 1942.

20. Ivan Evandjelist Šarić, “Ode poglavniku,” Nova Hrvatska, December 25, 1941.
21. Šarić, “Ode poglavniku,” 2.
22. Vinko Nikolić, “Proljetna radost,” Hrvatski narod, April 11, 1942, 3.
23. Šarić, “Ode Poglavniku,” 1.
24. Ibid., 2.
25. “Proslava dana Državnosti,” Hrvatski narod, April 10, 1942, 21.
26. Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, 1941–1945 (Zagreb:
Liber, 1977), 137.
27. “Sretan Božić,” Nova Hrvatska, December 25, 1941.
28. Ibid.
29. Zdenko Radelić, Hrvatska seljačka stranka 1941–1950 (Zagreb: Hrvatski insti-
tut za povijest, 1996), 22.
30. Vilim Peroš, “Zločin od 20. lipnja uperen je proti cijelom hrvatskom narodu,”
Nova Hrvatska, June 20, 1942.
31. “Za domovinu palima,” Hrvatski narod, June 21, 1941.
32. “Hrvatski je narod žrtvama i mučenicima dokazao da je vrijedan svoje slo-
bode,” Nova Hrvatska, June 20, 1942.
33. Vilim Peroš, “Misao i djelo Ante Starčevića i Ante Pavelića,” Nova Hrvatska,
June 13, 1942.
34. “Hrvatski je narod žrtvama i mučenicima dokazao da je vrijedan svoje slo-
bode,” Nova Hrvatska, June 20, 1942.
35. “Proslava dana hrvatskih mučenika,” Hrvatski narod, June 20, 1941.
36. Yeomans, “Cults of Death and Fantasies of Annihilation,” 242–50.
37. “Kulturno značenje Antunova,” Nova Hrvatska, June 13, 1942.
38. Ljudevit Zimperman, “Hrvatski 13. lipanj,” Spremnost, June 14, 1942.
39. Ivo Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” Hrvatska smotra 11, nos. 7–10 (July–
October 1943): 4–5.
40. Milan Šufflay, “Esej o Vjekoslavu Klaiću—značajke hrvatske nacije,” in
Izabrani politički spisi (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2000), 80–85.
41. Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” 6.
42. Krišto, Sukob simbola, 99–100.
43. Ivo Banac, “Katolička crkva i liberalizam u Hrvatskoj,” in Liberalizam i katoli-
cizam u Hrvatskoj, ed. Hans-Georg Fleck (Zagreb: Zaklada Friedrich Naumann,
1998), 93–94.
44. “U znaku križa, noža i samokresa,” Ustaša, December 19, 1942, 2.
45. Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, 141.
 Chapter Six

Between the Racial State

and the Christian Rampart

Ustasha Ideology, Catholic Values,

and National Purification

Irina Ognyanova

One of the most striking features of the Ustasha regime is the extent to which
religion, particularly Catholicism, was used as a means of political instrumental-
ization. Despite this, the sacralization of politics in the Ustasha state, and in par-
ticular the use of Catholic ritual and imagery as a form of regime legitimation, has
received only peripheral attention in the existing literature. Although both radical
nationalism and Catholicism were central ideas in the Ustasha ideological system,
there are few, if any, studies exclusively dedicated to the subject. One reason for
this perhaps is that many established Croatian historians have encountered dif-
ficulties in objectively addressing the subject of Catholicism under the Ustasha
regime and in applying methodological and conceptual terminology. Frequently,
historians have proven unable to distinguish between a clerical state (which the
Ustasha state arguably was not) and a Catholic state (which it definitely was) and
have therefore concluded that the ideology of the Ustasha state was secular with
no religious influences. As a result, they have been unable to explain the support
for the Ustasha movement among clericalist youth groups and village clergy or to
account for the movement’s rituals and ceremonies based on the altar and cruci-
fix and their campaigns of morality and traditional “Catholic” values. Although
the Ustasha movement was essentially secular in character, it actively appropriated
“Catholic” values to mobilize the masses and gain public support.
This chapter focuses on how the Ustasha movement used religious ideas and
concepts as a form of state legitimation. Rather than considering the role of the
Catholic Church or its relationship with the Ustasha regime, a subject that has
already been studied extensively in the existing literature, it instead explores the
Ustasha movement’s use of religious, specifically Catholic, ideas, imagery, moral-
ity, and language to legitimize its rule and genocidal policies toward the state’s
166 Irina Ognyanova

chief perceived “enemy,” the Serb minority. While the place of religion in Croat
nationalism has often proved to be extremely important, the Ustasha movement
transformed it into a central characteristic of their national ideology and ideo-
logical belief system. For the Ustasha movement, religion served as a distinctive
marker between the Croat nation and “undesired elements,” especially the large
Serb minority that was ethnically and linguistically indistinguishable. This chap-
ter argues that the Ustasha movement used Catholicism not only to define the
Croat nation but to provide legitimacy for its campaign of persecution against
“national enemies” and accomplish its broader program of national purification.
However, as this chapter shows, the Ustasha movement was not an exclusively
Catholic one and embraced both Bosnia’s Muslims and Islam as allies in the
struggle against the “Eastern” Orthodox Serbs. While the state gave the Catholic
Church enhanced privileges and influence in education, culture, and morals, aim-
ing to ensure that members of the movement were imbued with “Catholic values,”
the church was expected, for its part, to instill in its worshippers support for and
loyalty to the movement while subordinating the wishes of the church to those of
the party-state.

Religion in Croat Nationalism before the Ustasha Movement

Croat nationalism in the nineteenth century was largely civic in character. It deter-
mined the Croat nation on the basis of ethnicity, language, state territory, history,
and culture, and it was similar to mainstream European nationalism of that period.
The first form of Croat national ideology from the 1830s, called Illyrianism, was
a prototypical Yugoslavism. It aimed to develop a common national conscious-
ness among all South Slavs, who were to stand together against the Magyarization
and Germanization policies of Budapest and Vienna. It did not emphasize reli-
gion specifically because religion had traditionally divided Orthodox and Catholic
South Slavs from each other. The direct political heir of the Illyrian movement
in the 1850s and 1860s was the Yugoslavist People’s Party (Narodna stranka) of
Archbishop Juraj Strossmayer and in the twentieth century the Croatian Peasant
Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka—HSS), the dominant political organization in
Croatia in the interwar period. It was a civic secular party, and its leaders raised
their political demands outside the framework of religious doctrines.1
But there was a strong religious element in some of the more militant forms of
Croat nationalism that distinguish it from Western civic nationalism. Catholicism
became increasingly important after the appearance of more exclusivist variants of
Croat nationalism. In the 1860s, the Croatian Party of Right (Stranka prava) was
founded by a rising lawyer and politician, Ante Starčević. Radical and demanding
complete national independence for the Croatian lands, its followers were known
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 167

as the Pravaši, an allusion to the state right ideology of the party. The Pravaši
argued for the leading role of the Croat nation in the liberation of South Slav
lands from Austro-Hungarian rule and, for the first time, openly made a distinc-
tion between Croats and Serbs, partly on the basis of religion. They thus made a
connection between religious affiliation and national belonging, using religious
differentiation as a means of serving political goals.2 Moreover, the Pravaštvo ide-
ology of the Party of Right, which the Ustasha movement claimed as its ideologi-
cal inspiration, was Catholic in spirit. According to the historian Mario Spalatin,
“The Croatian Party of Right, created by the former seminarian Ante Starčević,
was actually a Catholic movement, which worked for the political independence
of Catholic Croatia.”3 One of Starčević’s dominant slogans was “God and Croats.”
He was convinced that belief in God had preserved the Croat nation through-
out the centuries. According to him, the Croatian spirit was indivisible from
Catholicism.4 Starčević’s frequent collaborator Eugen Kvaternik was also known
for his Catholic mysticism.5
At the beginning of the twentieth century, an extremist faction of the Party
of Right, led by Josip Frank, established the Pure Party of Rights (Čista stranka
prava); the party’s supporters were known as the Frankovci (Frankists), after
their leader. One of the main slogans of the Frankists was “Croatianism and
Catholicism.” In many ways, the Pure Party of Right was an ideological anteced-
ent of the Ustasha movement, and for both the Frankists and the Ustasha move-
ment Catholicism was an expression of the Croat national identity.

Western European “Classic Fascism”

and Its Eastern European “Modifications”
The triad of religion-church-clergy played an important role in the Ustasha ideol-
ogy, as it did for all radical nationalist movements in Central and Eastern Europe
in the interwar period. While secularization in both society and politics was grow-
ing, the dominant totalitarian movements—Nazism, fascism, and Communism—
contributed to the birth of new secular cults, myths, and religions. For example,
many fascist rituals and symbols were examples of secular religiousness and a
major factor behind fascism’s success. Essentially, fascism was a new religion for
its adherents which, in the Italian case, Emilio Gentile has called the “sacralization
of politics,” something that can also be applied to the Croatian case.6 One of the
main differences between Western European “classical Fascism” and its Eastern
European “modifications,” however, was the presence of real religious elements
in the ideology of extreme nationalist and radical right movements. In Eastern
Europe, the symbiosis between radical nationalism, regional in definition, and
Christianity, universal in character, became increasingly important.7
168 Irina Ognyanova

Religion played a central role in the ideology of the Eastern European radical
right. Many of the leaders of extreme nationalist organizations and parties such
as Ferenc Szalasi in Hungary, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in Romania, Dimitrije
Ljotić in Serbia, Ante Pavelić in Croatia, and Father Jozef Tiso in Slovakia broadly
proclaimed their Christian convictions. They used religion to discredit their
political opponents as enemies of God. Close connections with the Catholic and
Orthodox Churches, which had a powerful influence in the region, helped the
radical right gain support among different social classes.8 The radical right in
Slovakia and Romania even chose religious symbols for their organizations—the
apostolic cross and Archangel Michael.9 At the same time, in contrast to Italian
Fascism, which was generally hostile to institutions with an international char-
acter such as the Catholic Church, in Eastern Europe the radical right typically
embraced the Catholic Church and attempted to utilize it for ideological pur-
poses. They believed that support from the local Catholic Church would enable
them to attract the broad social strata, especially the peasantry.10
While the Catholic Church as an international institution tried to distinguish
itself from fascism and Nazism,11 in Eastern Europe the Catholic Church often
exhibited nationalistic positions and attitudes. Opposed to secularization and
fearful of Communism, it openly expressed nationalist sentiments, frequently
expressing intolerant views toward other nations and religions, creating the
myth, as the Croatian Catholic Church did, of the “chosen people.”12 The suc-
cess of the radical right was not just restricted to youth and the peasantry; it also
found support among a section of the Catholic clergy. In Croatia, some younger
radical priests, especially in rural parishes, sympathized with the Ustasha move-
ment, and in Slovakia the right-wing Catholic Slovak People’s Party, headed by
a priest, Father Andrej Hlinka, led the struggle against perceived Czech domi-
nation in interwar Czechoslovakia. These parties were not a product of Nazism
and Fascism; they had local roots and were a reflection of the circumstances in
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Their combination of nationalist ideology and
political Catholicism reflected a wider phenomenon across interwar Europe in
states including Austria, Spain, and Portugal.13
The combination of political Catholicism and nationalism was probably stron-
gest in Croatia and Slovakia. While for many decades scholars tended to cat-
egorize the Slovakian and Croatian regimes as “clerical fascist,” historians have
increasingly become aware that such terms are inadequate.14 Undoubtedly, the
regimes of Tiso and Pavelić were strongly influenced by Catholicism, which dis-
tinguished them from Italian Fascism and even more from National Socialism.
At the same time, in both states the Catholic Church had an ambivalent attitude
toward the radical right.15 In fact, the Catholic Church and the senior clergy felt
comfortable with the ideology of the authoritarian right only insofar as it was
conservative and not revolutionary and adhered to local traditions. The fact that
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 169

some Catholic priests and even bishops supported the Ustasha movement or the
secular racist faction of the Slovak People’s Party did not mean that the church as
an institution did. On the contrary, other clergy, including senior prelates, assisted
persecuted groups, resisted state ideology and policy, and condemned fascism and
National Socialism. As a result, they were publicly reprimanded, threatened, or
placed under severe pressure while a small number were even incarcerated in con-
centration camps.16

Croatianism and Catholicism in the Ustasha Ideological System

There is no doubt that the Ustasha movement was ideologically saturated with
the doctrines of fascism and, to a lesser extent, National Socialism, but it also
“adapted to the specific Croatian environment,” which, in the case of the Ustasha
movement, was the interplay between religion and extreme nationalism. Under
the Ustasha ideological system, radical nationalism and Catholicism were closely
associated. The novelist Mile Budak, a leading member of the Ustasha movement
and later the minister for religion and education, stated that “the basis of the
Ustasha movement is religion.”17 Ustasha leaders paid specific attention to reli-
gious questions both before and after 1941, having in mind the strong religious
sentiment in Croatia. As a consequence, a significant element of their propaganda
was Catholic in character. Since Croat nationalism had historically been closely
connected to religion and the Catholic Church, Ustasha ideologues made fre-
quent reference to God and religion, the pope, and the church. The slogan “With
God and belief we always walk ahead” was just one of the many religiously infused
expressions appropriated by the movement. There were also frequent articles in
the Ustasha press about the historical merit and contribution of religion to the
Croatian struggle for independence.18
Ustasha ideologues stressed that, from the moment of their conversion to
Christianity, the Croats had always been a religious people. In the Ustasha oath
from 1942, an amended version of the Ustasha Statute of 1932, Ustasha members
swore “by almighty God and all that is holy to me” that they would fight in the
Ustasha organization for the independence and freedom of the Croats, ending the
oath with the words “God help me! Amen!”19 For the Ustasha movement, the reli-
gious issue was directly relevant to the national problem—the existential conflict
they perceived between the Croat nation and the supposedly aggressive aliens on
national living space, in particular the Serbs. Part of the reason that Catholicism
was so crucial to Ustasha ideologues was because religion was an ethnic marker
demarcating Serbs from Croats. While the nation was also determined on the
basis of a range of other characteristics—ethnicity, language, territory, history,
and culture—nevertheless, the centrality of religious identity meant that Ustasha
170 Irina Ognyanova

theoreticians drew heavily on Catholicism as a form of community identity. Their

religious affiliation was inseparable from their national identity, one reason they
placed so much emphasis on it in their ideological system.
Ustasha propaganda frequently historicized the Croatian Catholic iden-
tity, stressing the centuries-long close relationship between the Croats and the
Vatican. The movement’s historians and intellectuals described in detail the his-
torical commitment of the Croat people to the Holy See. The 1300th anniver-
sary of the conversion of the Croats to Catholicism was celebrated in 1942,
and that event was widely publicized in the state press. The Ustasha movement
considered it momentous since with the conversion to Catholicism their nation
became a member of the European Christian community. The Croat people
were, as the newspaper Hrvatski narod boasted in March 1943, one of the most
ancient Catholic peoples in Europe.20
Living, as they saw it, at the frontier of West and Orient, Ustasha intellectu-
als desired to prove their nation’s cultural and civilizational membership in the
West. Expressing their pride in King Tomislav’s actions, which had connected
their country to Rome, they pointed out that the Croats had become Catholic
and “Western” people while the Serbs were left under Constantinople’s “Eastern”
influence and developed as an Orthodox nation. By stressing the historical con-
nections of the Croat nation to the Catholic capitals of Europe such as Vienna,
Budapest, and Rome, Ustasha writers aimed to propagate the idea that Croatia
was part of Europe, not the Balkans. For Hrvatski glas, the dividing line between
Western and Eastern Europe was on the River Drina, which separated “civilized
Croatia” from “wild Serbia.”21
Moreover, like many Ustasha theoreticians, in his 1942 book, Ustaška borba
(The Ustasha struggle), the historian of the movement Mijo Bzik argued that
the resistance of the Croat people to the Ottoman invasion had resulted in the
Croatians taking on a historical mission in preventing the Turkish conquest of
Europe, thus saving Western civilization. He presented the Croat nation as the
“the chosen one,” referring to it as the “strongest shield” of Catholicism and the
papacy against the Eastern invasions of Byzantines, Turks, Serbs, and other Asiatic
influences.22 That was the reason, as Hrvatski narod explained in an editorial of
1939, Croatia had long been called a “wall” or a “rampart” of Catholicism and
Christianity by various popes, starting with Leo X.23 In such a way radical nation-
alists in the late 1930s and Ustasha ideologues after 1941 were able to “mythol-
ogize” their nation, developing notions of its ancient past and historicizing its
“particularity” to distinguish Croats from Serbs and other ethnic groups sharing
their living space that spoke the same languages. It also established their impor-
tance in a broad civilizational-cultural context. The Croats were thus presented in
radical-right and Ustasha jeremiads as the “first line” of defense on the battlefield
against the “enemies” of Europe, ready to risk their lives for the Christian world.24
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 171

According to Ustasha intellectuals, the religious identity and thus the very exis-
tence of the Croat nation had been threatened after 1918. In an article of 1943
in Hrvatska smotra, Father Ivo Guberina, a captain in the Poglavnik Bodyguard
Brigade (Poglavnikov tjelesni sdrug) and associate professor in theology at the
University of Zagreb, wrote that in the view of the Ustasha movement, one of
the aims of the creation of Yugoslavia had been the destruction of the “rampart
of Catholicism” and Croatianism and hence the opening of the door of Europe to
Orthodoxy.25 This had been a common complaint of Guberina and other right-
wing Catholic commentators in the late 1930s and early 1940s too. For example,
in a broadside of September 1940 about youth and Catholicism in the newspaper
Hrvatska straža, Guberina accused the Serbs of acting as the destroyers of Croatian
Catholicism, with the Orthodox Church as the spiritual leader of this campaign.
Since the Croats were denied religious autonomy in Yugoslavia, Guberina argued
that “Croatia must separate from Serbia if it wants not to be rendered Byzantine
and to sink into the Great-Serbian deep of Orthodoxy.”26
The resistance of the Croat people to Yugoslavism was, for many radical nation-
alists and Ustasha supporters, to be based on two foundations: Croatianism and
Catholicism. In his book Strahote zablude (Deadly sins, 1937), the Ustasha leader
Ante Pavelić explained the aims of his liberation movement with frequent refer-
ence to the difficult position of Catholicism in Yugoslavia. Repeatedly, he claimed
that the Croats could not remain in a state that tried “to change the millennial
orientation of Croat-Catholics and to interrupt the existing relationship between
them and the Holy See.”27 As far as both the members of the wider separatist
community and Catholic activists were concerned, the late 1930s and early 1940s
had been especially difficult for the Catholic Church. Not only, they argued, had
the pope and the Catholic clergy been accused by the Yugoslav authorities of
being “traitors” of Yugoslavia and “foreign servants,” but the unsuccessful attempt
to conclude a Concordat with Rome in 1935 had hurt the national feelings of
Croats. Insisting on the ratification of the Concordat, they saw the attacks against
the Concordat as a blow against Croatdom and the authority of the Catholic
Church. In their newspapers they published polemical editorials in which they
declared that, in the same way that Catholics did not interfere in the affairs of
other religions, they did not want “foreign elements” like the Serbs to be involved
in the settlement of their relationship with Rome.28
For commentators like Ivo Guberina, Serbian rule in Yugoslavia had simply
been “illegal.” Hence, the struggle of the Ustasha movement and the Croat peo-
ple against the Yugoslav state and the “Serbian dictatorship” did not contradict
Catholic principles. Even Ustasha “revolutionary” activity was, Guberina contin-
ued, “completely in harmony” with Catholic morality. The faith of the Croat peo-
ple, he submitted, could not be crushed with force because it was “sincere” and
“deep.” Far from betraying their loyalty to Rome and the ideas of Ante Starčević
172 Irina Ognyanova

under outside pressure, the Croat people’s Catholicism and nationalism would
lead them to victory.29

Croatia as a Catholic State

The aim of the new regime was to create not just an independent but also a
Catholic state, in which religion and church would take their proper place.
Religion, as it was interpreted by the new Poglavnik, was to be one of the pil-
lars of the “new order” in Europe, and also in Croatia. Guberina did not doubt
God would take his honored place in the “new Europe” being created by the Axis
powers. According to him, the Poglavnik, Franco, Antonescu, Tiso, and their
movements were fighting for the creation of a new social order that would respect
religion and be based on Christian principles.30
In the new state, religion was raised to the level of a cult, partly because of
its powerful national role, and it enjoyed a special status in the new Croatia. In
fact, the proclamation of the new state delivered by Slavko Kvaternik on April
10, 1941, declared that the Ustasha state had been established with “God’s provi-
dence” because it had occurred at Easter. The Croatian primate, Archbishop
Alozije Stepinac, wrote a circular in Katolički list in which he argued that the
rebirth of an independent Croatian state at the same time as Christians remem-
bered the “resurrection of God’s son” reflected the “agony” and “suffering” that the
Croat people had lived through in their struggle for independence.31
The Ustasha state consciously utilized traditional Croat nationalist slogans,
reconfiguring them with Ustasha rhetoric. To take one example, the slogan “God
and Croats” was transformed into “Christ and the Ustashas.” In one of his early
speeches, the Poglavnik claimed that in the Croatian lands “the Master was God
and the Croat people and nobody else.”32 For the movement’s religious experts,
the ultimate aim of the new state was the struggle for the resurrection of a “great
and holy Catholic Croatia.” They believed God would bless their state and would
turn it in a land of peace, progress, and welfare, a kind of “God’s kingdom on
Earth.” According to them, faith would preserve the resurrected Croatian state,
making it stronger and guaranteeing its spiritual vitality in the future. Religion
was seen as a bearer of the morals and culture of the Croat people, and all Ustasha
members as well as civil servants and officials, from the most senior departmental
head to the lowliest bureaucrat, were required to swear an oath of allegiance to
God, the Poglavnik, and the state.
The establishment of the new Croatian state also ostensibly meant a significant
increase in the privileges of the Catholic Church and Catholic believers more gen-
erally. The new state declared that it would guarantee the civil and political rights
and freedoms of Catholics, in contrast to the suppression the Catholic Church
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 173

had allegedly endured in interwar Yugoslavia. With great satisfaction Catholic as

well as Ustasha commentators claimed that the Ustasha state was the only state
in Southeastern Europe with a predominantly Catholic population, and in that
sense it appeared to be a “bastion of Catholicism” and the “gateway” to its pen-
etration and imposition as the dominant religion in the Balkans. Both Catholic
newspapers and the movement’s own press captured this mood of initial Catholic
euphoria, punctuated by articles that described the triumph of “nationalism and
Catholicism” and the construction of “the Catholic state.”33 When, as part of the
treaty with Fascist Italy signed in Rome in May 1941, the Ustasha regime agreed
to accept an Italian prince as the new Croatian king, part of the reasoning given
was that as a Catholic their head of the state could be closer to them than the for-
mer Orthodox Karađorđević dynasty.34
The Ustasha movement’s understanding of Catholicism and the role of the
Catholic Church was eloquently explained in two articles by Ivo Guberina,
“Ustashism and Catholicism,” published in Hrvatska smotra in 1943, and
“Ustashism and Croatianism,” published in 1945 in Hrvatski narod.35 Guberina
maintained that Croatian Catholicism should be grateful to the Ustasha move-
ment in many aspects, not least because it had created the conditions necessary
for the broad and free expression of Catholicism. Ustasha newspapers made simi-
lar points. Hrvatski glas, for example, in an editorial written less than two weeks
after the establishment of the new state, claimed that for the first time since 1918
Catholicism had regained its status as the state religion in Croatian lands.36
Ustasha writers argued that the historical mission of the Catholic faith was
symbiotically linked to the national survival of Croatia. In preserving their
Catholic faith, they insisted, the Croats had maintained a consciousness of their
own statehood, culture, and national identity through the centuries. For the
Ustasha movement, then, faith was a powerful spiritual bulwark of the Croat
people, one of the specific characteristics of the nation, on the basis of which
Croat nationalism had developed. For many Ustasha commentators, the loss
of their Catholic faith threatened national extinction or, at the very least, the
assimilation of the Croat nation by outside enemies. In a speech at a public
rally in 1941, Mile Budak, the new minister for education, declared, “History
teaches us that if we were not Catholics, we should cease to exist.”37 Since,
for many Ustasha ideologues, national liberation had been rooted in mainte-
nance of the Catholic faith and nationalism was inseparable from Catholicism,
they disseminated the notion that every loyal Croat should believe in God and
declared that all good Ustashas were simultaneously good Catholics.38 By logi-
cal extension this meant that those who were not devout Catholics could not be
loyal Croats and that being an ethical Catholic meant being a dutiful citizen of
the Ustasha state. The nation thus was transformed into both the main icon and
cathedral for collective worship.
174 Irina Ognyanova

The instrumentalization of Catholicism played a key role not only in the histo-
ricization of the nation’s past but also in shaping the public policy of the new state
because, Ustasha ideologues argued, the Ustasha state could not be truly liber-
ated or independent as long as it was threatened by internal and external enemies.
Catholicism was thus utilized as a means of legitimating the state’s persecution of
minority populations. Many of the Ustasha hierarchy were devout Catholics, and
for them the new state could not be a “non-Catholic” or “anti-Catholic” state.39
Identifying religion with the nation, they vilified supposed national enemies as
God’s enemies too. Speaking in July 1941 at a rally in Gospić, Mile Budak was
open about the regime’s intention to “cleanse” the new state from Serbs, Jews, and
Gypsies for it to become “one hundred percent Catholic.”40
Catholicism in the Ustasha state, then, was transformed from a religious doc-
trine into an instrument of legitimation in the implementation of anti-Serb,
anti-Semitic, and anti-Communist policies and was deployed with the aim of pop-
ularizing the Ustasha ideology. Through the conscious invocation of Catholicism,
Catholic ritual, and Catholic “values,” Ustasha ideologues aimed to mobilize a
significant part of the religious Catholic population. At the same time, by defin-
ing the Croat nation as a predominantly Catholic one they aimed to separate the
Croatian population from the large Serb minority that lived in the territory of
the new state and create a Catholic state that would serve as a bastion against the
Orthodox and “Bolshevik” East.41
In addition to identifying Catholicism with national survival, the campaign
of the Ustasha state against the state’s Serbs was also rooted in the idea that Serb
identity was synonymous with the Serbian Orthodox Church. This was made
clear by Mile Budak in a speech of June 6, 1941, at a meeting in Križevci in
which he spoke of Orthodox Christians as the enemies of the Croat people who
had tried to move the boundary of Orthodoxy westward to the detriment of
Catholicism.42 For many Catholic and Ustasha commentators, Croatia would
have to embrace once again its historical role of defender of Western civiliza-
tion in its struggle against the “Eastern barbarism,” becoming a “wall” and
“shield” against the penetration of Orthodoxy, and prevent the propaganda of
the Serbian Orthodox Church.43
There were other more functionalist reasons for the appropriation of
Catholicism by the Ustasha movement. First, its alliance with Fascist Italy
meant that the Croatian state had close links to the Vatican. Gaining recogni-
tion from the Vatican and forging close relationships with the Holy See would
provide the unstable Croatian state with more legitimacy as well as, presumably,
help to broaden the appeal of the movement to the Catholic masses.44 Added to
this, the fact that the Catholic Church feared the advance of Marxist material-
ism, atheism, and secularism meant that the Ustasha movement could present
itself as the protector of Catholic “values.” Therefore, in the same way that the
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 175

Catholic press often wrote in admiring terms about the Poglavnik and the Ustasha
state, the state and Ustasha press published regular articles about the “persecu-
tion” of the Catholic Church and Catholics across the state by Communist and
Chetnik insurgents, publishing adulatory obituaries of Catholic priests who had
succumbed to “martyrs’ deaths.”45
Catholic Croatians comprised half the population of the new state and tended
to be more religious than their Serbian Orthodox conationals. Owing to the
strongly religious character of the Croatian population, the Ustasha movement
was able to utilize Catholicism for the purpose of ideological mobilization and
popularization of a movement that until then had been illegal and, while increas-
ing in popularity in the late 1930s, had lacked a mass organized support base, its
leading members living in exile in Italy.46 They therefore needed to create their
own “system of values and moral principles,” and Catholicism was to play a key
role in the formation of this new value system.

The Catholic Church in Ustasha Ideology

In Ustasha propaganda the Catholic Church was seen as an important institution
in the cultural and political life of the state. In the interwar period the Ustasha
movement had started to attract adherents among young Catholic intellectuals
and students as well as Catholic priests. As a pro-Catholic movement, it called
on Croats to be “sincere” Catholics.47 The émigré milieu around Mile Budak and
Ivo Bogdan, a young Catholic journalist, fostered connections within the intellec-
tual circle around the journal Hrvatska smotra. At the same time, radical nation-
alist Catholic youth organizations were emerging. One of these was the Great
Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Crusaders (Veliko križarsko bratstvo i Veliko
križarsko sestrinstvo), known as the Crusaders, founded in 1929. The Crusaders
considered their society to be a “defensive national organization” and saw them-
selves as an avant-garde preserving the national consciousness of the Croats.48 In
contrast to their praise of the archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Šarić, for his staunch
opposition to the Yugoslav state, Ustasha activists called Zagreb’s archbishop,
Ante Bauer, an “old Serbian lackey” and accused him of failing to condemn King
Alexander’s dictatorship.49
To gain the support of the Catholic Church, Ustasha intellectuals and theo-
logians depicted ordinary Ustasha members as the nation’s “best sons,” fight-
ing for the Croatian state and protecting its interests. Ivo Guberina argued that
the very resurrection of the Croat people and state in 1941 was based on the
moral codes of the church, while Hrvatski glas claimed that the principles of the
papal epistles were the foundations of the social program set out in the 1933
“Ustasha Principles.” Among other things, these stated that “Ustashaism is a
176 Irina Ognyanova

moral movement” that expressed the belief that “the basis of the well-appointed,
healthy, and happy life is faith and family.”50 All Catholics in the Ustasha state
were tasked with making these principles part of their life because religion and
tradition helped in the preservation of the Croat national identity. The central-
ity of Catholic precepts to the new state was confirmed by the Bulgarian ambas-
sador in Zagreb Yordan Mechkarov, who wrote, “Church and morality in the
Ustasha state were pillars of the state and people’s life; that is why a great atten-
tion was paid to them.”51 Ideas about personal morality—laws against abortion,
prostitution, and swearing, for example—and the use of many of the tradi-
tions and rites of the Catholic Church such as sacrifice, martyrdom, ceremonies
before altars, and crucifixes were for Ustasha leaders a means of legitimizing
their power and the new state.
Since Ustasha theoreticians presented the Ustasha movement as a “construc-
tive” Croat national movement with a strongly religious and morally “pious” char-
acter, fighting against the enemies of God and church—Jewry, freemasonry, and
Communism—and because significant numbers of Catholic youths, students, and
lower clergy were mobilized behind the regime, they expected that the Catholic
Church, as an institution, would support their struggle against Catholicism’s per-
ceived enemies. In that respect commentators like Guberina popularized the idea
that Ustasha policy did not contradict Catholic principles but was, in fact, “in
full harmony with Catholic morality.”52 Likewise, on June 13, 1941, Mile Budak
codified the relationship between the Ustasha state and the Catholic Church in a
speech in Karlovac: The Poglavnik “is fulfilling God’s will,” he proclaimed. “The
actions of the Ustasha movement are in the interest of the Catholic Church. . . .
Our whole activity is subordinated to the Church and the Catholic faith.”53 On
this basis, Budak and other Ustasha officials assumed that the church would coop-
erate enthusiastically with the new regime and support its program.
The relationship between the state and the church was understood by the
regime as a reciprocal one: in the same way that the Ustasha movement aimed to
ensure that its members were faithful and devout Catholics, the Catholic Church
was under a “religious obligation” to imbue its congregation with sympathy for
Ustasha values and to encourage its flock to actively support the movement.54 It
promised to fight for the creation of social and political preconditions in the state
such that the church would be able to fulfill its spiritual mission freely.55 In terms
of theoretical church-state relations, the state would guarantee the church’s free-
dom, while allowing the church autonomy in the spiritual sphere. The church was
to have a regulated legal status with the church and state establishing a close rela-
tionship on the basis of mutual respect. For example, the Ministry of Education
insisted that while all children should be inculcated with Ustasha values, the
Catholic Church was to have exclusive right to the religious-cultural education of
young Catholics. It insisted that the Catholic spirit be imposed in schools as well
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 177

as the army and other state institutions. The Ustasha regime also gave the Catholic
Church freedom of action in the propagation of Catholic cultural traditions.56
While the Ustasha movement respected the church as far as it represented tra-
ditional, national social and family values, it rejected the universalism of Christian
teaching and internationalism on which the Catholic Church based its doctrine;
it could not accept a church that could not share its radical nationalistic view
of Croatia. It is thus not surprising that Ustasha officials and leaders demon-
strated greatest confidence in those Catholic prelates such as Archbishop Šarić
who were most sympathetic to their program.57 Although it is possible to call
the Independent State of Croatia a “Catholic” state, it could not be qualified as a
clerical one. The church hierarchy understood clericalism to mean “government
of the clergy” and involvement of the church in the civil affairs and the policy of
the state. This was not the case in Ustasha Croatia. As the Catholic newspaper
Katolički list explained in an editorial of July 1941, “The clerical state is not an
ideal for a Catholic state but its caricature.”58 The church and its clergy were called
upon by the Ustasha movement not to organize the new Croatian state but to
address spiritual issues. In fact, the church forbade the participation of the clergy
in politics; for its part Ustasha officials did not welcome the intervention of the
church in policy issues, as a polemic by the education minister Julije Makanec
against Archbishop Stepinac in November 1944 illustrated.59 Consequently, the
Ustasha hierarchy insisted on the separation of church and state.

The Ustasha Movement and Orthodoxy

The Ustasha regime was not primarily concerned with theological issues; instead, it
instrumentalized Catholicism as “the only true and genuine religion” in the world
because of its role in nationally differentiating Croats from Serbs in ethnically and
religiously mixed parts of the new state. Ustasha ideology viewed Catholicism not
just as a religious doctrine but as part of a special Croat national tradition, a dif-
ferentia specifica from Orthodox Christianity and a “defense” against Orthodoxy.
Likewise, the Ustasha movement did not undertake a “crusade” against Islam but,
on the contrary, publicly glorified Islam as the religion of the Bosnian Muslims,
whom it saw as the racially purest of Croats. Nor did the Ustasha state persecute
other Orthodox nationalities such as Bulgarians, Romanians, or Ukrainians. The
Ustasha regime targeted the Serbian Orthodox Church for destruction and the
Orthodox Serbs for annihilation on account of their national identity.60 There
is little doubt that the campaign of persecution launched against the Serbian
Orthodox Church was national in form and content. The Ustasha movement was
concerned not by the “deviations” of Orthodox theological dogmas and religious
rituals but rather by the strong connection between the Serbian Orthodox Church
178 Irina Ognyanova

and the Serbian national consciousness. In territories they identified as Croatian,

the Ustasha authorities recognized only a Croat national consciousness. For them
Orthodoxy was hostile precisely because it was Serbian.61
Ustasha propaganda partly legitimated its campaign of persecution on historio-
graphical grounds, in particular, the fact that from the eleventh century onward
a struggle for domination had been waged between the Orthodox and Catholic
Churches in Europe.62 In the immediate aftermath of the Serb insurgency pro-
voked by the Ustasha campaign of terror, mass killing, and forced deportation, in
the autumn of 1941 the religious section of the State Directorate for Regeneration
(Državno ravnateljstvo za ponovu) launched a program aimed at the mass forced
conversion of the Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. Local Ustasha authorities
in partnership with Ustasha militias and security forces had already closed or
destroyed most Serbian Orthodox churches in the summer and deported, incar-
cerated, or murdered Orthodox priests and bishops. However, the architects of
the conversion program believed that it would not only facilitate the adoption
of a Croatian identity by catholicized Serbs but would also permanently destroy
the Serbian Orthodox Church in the state by depriving it of its flock. Again, the
Ustasha regime used historiography to underpin the program by drawing on the
historical intolerance of the Catholic Church toward “schismatics.” Nonetheless,
in their intention to catholicize the Serbs, the authorities were guided by nation-
alistic motives rather than religious considerations, chiefly the “Croatianization”
of the new state and its transformation into an ethnically and religiously homo-
geneous country. This extended to the Franciscan friar who acted as the program’s
leading policy adviser. In a position paper, Friar Radoslav Glavas, an official in
the Ministry of Religion, argued that the Serbs had a national consciousness inti-
mately connected to their religion and would only abandon their Serbian identity
if they were forced to abandon their religion. Through conversion to Catholicism,
the Serbs would become “Croats,” resulting in national unity in the state.63
Although the mass conversion of Serbs to Catholicism began only in the
autumn of 1941, official rhetoric about the Serbs had already begun to change
in the late summer when Serbs, previously vilified as racial aliens, began to be
referred to as part of the Croat nation, former Croats who had been forced to con-
vert to Orthodoxy under the Ottoman occupation. From that moment onward,
this theme took an important place in the Ustasha propaganda. It found its most
exact formulation in a statement by the Poglavnik in Neue Ordnung on August 24,
1941: “As far as the Serbs are concerned, here we have a confusion of terms,” he
explained. “There are very few real Serbs in Croatia. Most of them are Croats who
accepted the Orthodox faith in the past.”64
The Ustasha conversion program drew on the historical research of well-known
Catholic and nationalist historians such as Dominik Mandić, Milan Šufflay,
Ivo Pilar, and Krunoslav Draganović, whose research was cited as proof that the
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 179

Orthodox population in Croatia was overwhelmingly Croatian, with only a small

part having migrated from Serbia. As late as January 1945, articles were appear-
ing in Hrvatski narod declaring that the “Croatian Orthodox Christians are not
of Serbian origin.”65 From the summer of 1941 onward Ustasha theorists such as
Franjo Lačen as well as Catholic commentators like Ivo Lendić were maintaining
that throughout the interwar period concerted attempts had been made by the
Yugoslav authorities to define adherents of the Eastern Church rite who lived on
the Croatian territory as Serbs, an endeavor supported by the Serbian Orthodox
Church. Typically, they added that many Catholics had been pressurized into con-
verting to Orthodoxy as a result of different social pressures such as the desire to
enter mixed marriages, to become more socially mobile, or to further their career
ambitions. They estimated that in the 1920s and 1930s as many as a quarter of a
million Catholics had been forced to convert to Orthodoxy.66
All this provided legitimation for Ustasha officials to proclaim the conver-
sion of Serbs to Catholicism as a process of “re-Croatianization,” returning the
“Serbianized Croats” to the “faith of their forefathers” and the Croat nation. These
were precisely the grounds the Minister for Justice and Religion Mirko Puk used
at the sixth plenary session of the Croatian Parliament, or Sabor, to legitimate
the policy of forced conversion. The Orthodox Christians were Catholics in the
past, he insisted, and after the collapse of Yugoslavia they were now able “freely”
to express their desire to return to their “old faith.”67 At the height of the con-
version campaign, the Poglavnik delivered a speech in which he declared that
it was a “tragedy” when a nation professed several religions. This, he explained,
was the main reason the conversion program had been initiated. For his part,
the Poglavnik assured the Orthodox population that the state would guarantee a
“peaceful life” to all those Serbs who had converted and would recognize them “as
full members of the Croat nation.” However, those Serbs who rejected conversion
to Catholicism would have to leave the state.68

The Ustasha State’s New Religious Policy toward the Serbs

The opening of the Sabor on February 23, 1942, marked the beginning of a new
attitude on the part of the Ustasha regime toward Orthodoxy. By the beginning
of 1942 it was clear that the attempt to forcibly assimilate the Serb population
through conversion to Catholicism had failed. While Ustasha leaders refused to
countenance the existence of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Croatian state,
they also realized that they could not allow one-third of the population to be
in permanent insurrection against the state and thus decided on the establish-
ment of a distinct Croatian Orthodox Church (Hrvatska pravoslavna crkva).
Henceforth, the Serbs of Croatia would cease being viewed by Ustasha theorists
180 Irina Ognyanova

as historically “schismatic” Catholic Croats in need of reconversion and instead

be viewed as “Orthodox Croats.”69 The Poglavnik believed that the “Orthodox
Croats” could be separated from their residual Serbian identity and ties to Serbia
only if an independent Orthodox Church was established. According to him it
was precisely because of the lack of an autocephalous Croatian Orthodox Church
that the Orthodox Croats had fallen under the influence of the Serbian Orthodox
Church, which was an instrument of Serbian national politics. The Poglavnik was
convinced that if a Croatian Orthodox Church was founded, Serbs would join it
in large numbers, throw off their Serb identity, and end their insurgency.70
The first official statement of the leadership on the issue of a Croatian
Orthodox Church was expressed by Mirko Puk and the Poglavnik at the con-
cluding session of the Sabor on February 28, 1942. In his speech, the Poglavnik
declared that nobody had anything against Orthodoxy in Croatia and that an
Orthodox Church could continue to exist and function as long as it was not a
Serbian Orthodox Church. As he explained, “Nobody is attacking Orthodoxy,
but in the Croatian state there cannot be a Serbian Orthodox Church. . . . Why?
Because everywhere in the world Orthodox Churches are national churches. The
Serbian Orthodox Church is a part of the Serbian state. It is led in hierarchical
terms from the state authority in Serbia. . . . That might be possible in Serbia, and
it might have been possible in the former wretched Yugoslavia, but it is not pos-
sible in the Croatian state.”71 The Poglavnik emphasized the determination of the
Ustasha regime to liquidate the Serbian Orthodox Church on state territory and
its desire to create a “national Croatian Church organization” that, while “having
freedom in the spiritual sphere, on other issues should be under the control of the
Croatian state.”72
The Croatian Orthodox Church, he continued, would become a church orga-
nization of all Orthodox who lived on Croatian state territory, irrespective of their
ethnicity: Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks and Montenegrins.
The statutes of the Croatian Orthodox Church explicitly stated that it had author-
ity to address only the “religious education and spiritual well-being” of believers,
not political and national issues, in contrast to the former activities of the Serbian
Orthodox Church. The Ustasha leadership asserted that, with the establishment
of the Croatian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox population had become a part
of the Croatian political nation, active agents in the construction of a new state.
It further claimed that under Ustasha rule the Croat nation had been transformed
from one exclusively associated with Catholicism to one which was modern, pro-
gressive and religiously heterogeneous.73
In reality, the founding of the Croatian Orthodox Church was an insincere tem-
porary policy decision dictated not by canon law but by political motives: to assimi-
late the Serb masses back into mainstream society and thereby undercut the Serb-led
insurgency in the countryside. Moreover, Serbs had extremely limited choices about
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 181

whether to accept the new church because the authorities made it clear that in not
doing so they were making a choice to leave the state. The guiding aim of the church
was to weaken Serb identity permanently, refashioning them into Orthodox Croats,
an inseparable part of the Croatian political nation.74 Commentators also empha-
sized the consequences for Serbs of not embracing their new identity. Writing in
July 1944, the young educational adviser and critic Marko Čović argued that the
creation of the church presented the Orthodox population with a stark choice: to
submit to assimilation or be exposed to “Greater Serbian” propaganda. The first
option guaranteed them “equal rights with the rest of the citizens of the Croatian
state,” while the second threatened to transform them into “tools of Belgrade.”
In fact, Čović claimed, the religious system of the Ustasha state provided a com-
mon homeland for all three confessional groups. Just as the fatherland of Catholic
Croats was neither Italy nor the Vatican and the fatherland of Muslim Croats was
not Turkey or Mecca, for the Orthodox Croats too, he insisted, it could not Serbia
either. Instead, the common fatherland for them all could be only Croatia. The
mass destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches and killings of hundreds of its
flock that had preceded the building of this “common homeland” was not men-
tioned, let alone the destruction of every synagogue and the liquidation of almost
all the state’s Jewish citizens. That self-serving silence and the implicit threats of
conditionality hinted at a second aim of the establishment of the new church: a
temporary pacification measure that would allow the state to prepare for a return
to the methods of the summer of 1941 in the search for a final solution to the
religious and national “problem” posed by the Serbs.75

Ustasha “Manipulation” of Catholicism

While the national ideology of the Ustasha movement was, in many respects,
extreme, its attitude toward religion and its relationship to the Catholic Church
was dictated by pragmatism. As Ivo Guberina explained, the Ustasha movement
was a national and civic one, not explicitly religious or Catholic.76 Pavelić’s practi-
cal decision making, increasing the church’s marginalization between 1941 and
1945, leaves little doubt about the ultimately secular character of the regime. It
fused specifically Croatian traditions with those of Roman Catholicism for ide-
ological purposes, above all to legitimize its rule and radical policies. Religious
rites, rituals, and language were used to emphasize the sacred nature of Ustasha
ideology while the leadership consciously invoked Catholicism to popularize the
Ustasha movement’s program to attract new adherents and gain the support of the
Catholic hierarchy, an ambition that was only ever partially successful at best. The
historian Ivo Banac has rightly observed that the Ustashas “skillfully manipulated”
their Catholicism in the service of a secular ideology.77
182 Irina Ognyanova

This does not mean that the prominence of Catholic traditionalism in the
movement did not also reflect the support the movement and its Manichean
visions gained among some of the clergy, militant Catholic youth groups, and
seminary students; a number of leading Ustashas had received their formative
education at Catholic seminaries. Nevertheless, the role of Catholicism in the
Ustasha ideology should not be overestimated. From the late 1930s onward it
became clear to the wider separatist movement that they needed the support of
the large Muslim population in Bosnia if a Greater Croatian state was to be via-
ble. This was brought even more starkly home to the Ustasha movement after it
established its state. In such a context an overtly Catholic regime simply was not
possible. In addition, the Ustasha regime, despite the support of some younger
radical priests and combative Catholic youth activists, did not enjoy an easy rela-
tionship with the Catholic Church, whose head, Archbishop Alozije Stepinac,
often publicly voiced his opposition to individual state policies as did, from time
to time, the Catholic press. However, it was the dominance of radical nationalism,
racism, and fascist notions of modernization in the Ustasha ideology that pushed
Catholic influence to the sidelines. In an ideological milieu dominated by fanta-
sies of anti-Serbianism, anti-Semitism, and national purification, Catholicism was
instrumentalized ultimately not as an expression of devotion to the Catholic faith
or a commitment to Catholic “values” but as a marker of Croatian cultural iden-
tity and nationhood. It was a means of legitimating the separation, vilification,
and destruction of the Serb enemy within.

Notes
1. Stjepan Radić routinely criticized the Catholic Church, especially its interven-
tion in politics. He did not allow clergymen in his party and accused the church of
excluding eight hundred thousand Muslims from the Croat national movement, iden-
tifying Catholicism with Croatdom. Only after Vladimir Maček took over the leader-
ship of the HSS did the relationship between the peasant movement and the Catholic
Church normalize. See Amy Schmidt, “The Croatian Peasant Party in Yugoslav Poli-
tics” (PhD diss: Kent State University, 1984), 4, 11; Ivo Banac, “Katolička crkva i lib-
eralizam u Hrvatskoj,” in Liberalizam i katolicizam u Hrvatskoj, ed. Hans-Georg Fleck
(Zagreb: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, 1998), 92.
2. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 108.
3. Cited in Pedro Ramet, “Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslavia,” in Religion
and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics, ed. Pedro Ramet (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1989), 306.
4. Ante Starčević, Politički spisi, ed. Tomislav Ladan (Zagreb: Znanje, 1971), 31;
Ante Starčević, Misli i pogledi, ed. Blaž Jurišić (Zagreb: Svijet, 1971), 70.
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 183

5. Eugen Kvaternik was cofounder of the Party of Right together with Starčević.
See Banac, National Question in Yugoslavia, 108.
6. See Emilio Gentile, “Fascism as Political Religion,” Journal of Contemporary His-
tory, no. 25 (1990): 229–51.
7. Richard Wolff, “The Catholic Church and the Dictatorships in Slovakia and
Croatia, 1939–1945,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadel-
phia, 88, nos. 1–4 (1977): 15; Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two
World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), 207.
8. Peter Sugar, Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945 (Santa Barbara,
CA: Clio Press, 1971), 151–52; Ivo Banac, “Nationalism in Southeastern Europe,” in
Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe, ed. Charles Kupchan (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1995), 115.
9. Codreanu’s Romanian Iron Guard was originally called the Legion of Archangel
Michael. See Juan Linz, “Some Notes toward a Comparative Study of Fascism in Soci-
ological Historical Perspective,” in Fascism: A Reader’s Guide; Analyses, Interpretation,
Bibliography, ed. Walter Laquer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 18.
10. Stella Alexander, “Croatia: The Catholic Church and the Clergy, 1919–1945,”
in Catholics, the State, and the European Radical Right, 1919–1945, ed. Richard J.
Wolff and Jorg K. Hoensch (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 1987), 37;
Linz, “Some Notes toward a Comparative Study of Fascism,” 13, 16, 18–19.
11. In much of the early historiography, a popular notion was that the Vatican
sympathized with Fascism and Nazism, with the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty with
Mussolini in 1929 and the Concordat with Hitler in 1933 cited as evidence. However,
while a compromise between Mussolini and the Vatican was indeed reached, Hitler
ignored the interests of the Catholic Church. In fact, Vatican circles became increas-
ingly worried about the anti-Christian manifestations of the new rulers in Germany.
Some prelates who escaped from Nazi Germany and found shelter in the Vatican
expressed the idea that “Vatican circles . . . even consider National Socialism more
dangerous than Bolshevism for the Catholic Church.” See Report from the Bulgarian
King’s Legation in Rome to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Confessions, January 1,
1942, Centralen Darzhaven Arhiv, f. 176, op. 8, a.e. 1119, 1, 5; Report from the Bul-
garian King’s Legation in Rome to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Confessions, Janu-
ary 4, 1944, Centralen Darzhaven Arhiv, f. 176, op. 8, a.e. 1212, 13.
12. For example, in 1936 the archbishop of Sarajevo Ivan Šarić stated that “God
was on the side of the Croats.” See Pedro Ramet, Cross and Commissar: The Politics
of Religion in Eastern Europe and the USSR (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1987), 15.
13. Hugh Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918–1941 (Hamden,
CT: Ardron Books, 1962), 66–67; Stephen Fischer-Galati, Eastern Europe and the
Cold War: Perceptions and Perspectives (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994;
Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1994), 75–76.
14. In the Western literature there is little consensus about the term “clero-
fascism.” For a discussion about the historiographical dispute, see, e.g., Yeshayahu
184 Irina Ognyanova

Jelinek, “Bohemia-Moravia, Slovakia and the Third Reich during the Second World
War,” East European Quarterly, no. 2 (1969): 236; Linz, “Some Notes toward a Com-
parative Study of Fascism,” 4–5; Wolff, “Catholic Church and the Dictatorships in
Slovakia and Croatia, 1939–1945,” 3–5.
15. Tiso fought for the diminishing of the influence of pro-Nazi radicals in his
People’s Party, Stepinac was often in opposition to the Ustasha regime, and in Italy
the newspapers Civilita Cattolica and Osservatore Romano frequently criticized racial
policy and theory spreading on the European continent.
16. “Crkveni problemi (Arhiva Hansa Helma),” HDA, f.1561, SDS, RSUP SRH,
83/001.1.
17. Cited in Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941–1945: A Record of
Racial and Religious Persecutions and Massacres (Chicago: American Institute for Bal-
kan Affairs, 1961), 240.
18. “Mi smo nacionalisti, jer vjerujemo u Boga, volimo hrvatski narod i hrvatsku
krv,” Hrvatski glas, August 1, 1941; “Ustav hrvatskoga oslobodilačkoga pokreta,”
Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, May 16, 1941.
19. “Propisnik o zadaći, ustrojstvu, radu i smjernicima ‘Ustaše’—hrvatskog
oslobodilačkog pokreta,” Narodne novine, August 13, 1942, cited in Petar Požar, ed.,
Ustaša: Dokumenti o ustaškom pokretu (Zagreb: Zagrebačka stvarnost, 1995), 46.
20. “Danas je cjeli hrvatski narod jedno,” Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, March 5,
1942; “Proslava godišnjice krunitbe Sv. Oca Pape Pia XII,” Hrvatski narod, March 10,
1943.
21. “Crkva i hrvatski narod,” Hrvatski glas, April 22, 1941; “Narod znakova i
čudesa,” Katolički tjednik, August 3, 1941.
22. Mijo Bzik, Ustaška borba: Od prvih dana ustaškog rada do poglavnikova odlaska
u emigracije; Poćeci i bit Ustaškoga pokreta (Zagreb: Glavni Ustaški Stan, 1942), 42.
23. The term used was Antemurale Christianitatis. See “1300-godišnjica pokrštenja
Hrvata: Pripreme za veliko hrvatsko katoličko slavlje,” Hrvatski narod, June 30, 1939.
24. George Schopflin, “The Functions of Myth and a Taxonomy of Myth,” in
Myths and Nationhood, ed. Geoffrey Hosking and George Schopflin (London: Hurst,
1997), 33–36; Vjekoslav Perica, Uloga crkva u konstrukcije državnotvornih mitova
Hrvatske i Srbije: Historijski mitovi na Balkanu; Zbornik radova (Sarajevo: Institut za
historiju, 2003), 207–8.
25. Ivo Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” Hrvatska smotra 11, nos. 7–10 (July–
October 1943): 436, 437.
26. “Hrvatska omladina i nacionalizam: Revija mladih nacionalista,” Hrvatska
straža, September 27, 1940, 5.
27. Cited in Vladimir Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac: Dokumenti (Belgrade: Rad,
1987), 71.
28. “1300-godišnjica pokrštenja Hrvata: pripreme za veliko hrvatsko katoličko
slavlje,” Hrvatski narod, June 30, 1939; “Posjet Nj. Kr. Visočanstva Kneza Namjesnika
Pavla Zagrebu,” Hrvatska straža, January 14, 1940.
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 185

29. Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” 438–39.

30. Ibid., 445.
31. Nadbiskup Alojzije, “Okružnica časnome kleru nadbiskupije zagrebačke,”
Katolički list, April 29, 1941.
32. Poglavnik govori (Zagreb: Naklada Glavnog ustaškog stana, 1941), 91.
33. “Poglavnik na svečanoj misi i zahvalnici u sabornoj crkvi,” Hrvatski narod,
April 11, 1942; “Katolička država (jedno načelno pitanje),” Katolički tjednik, June 29,
1941; “Crkva i država,” Katolički tjednik, July 27, 1941.
34. Report from the Bulgarian Embassy in Zagreb to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Confessions, September 11, 1942, CDA, f. 176, op. 8, a.e. 1154, 53–54.
35. Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” 435–46; Guberina, “Ustaštvo i Hrvatstvo,”
Hrvatski narod, February 11, 1945.
36. “Crkva i hrvatski narod,” Hrvatski glas, April 22, 1941.
37. “Komunizam je služio zarobljivanju Hrvata,” Hrvatski narod, July 27, 1941;
“Hrvatska omladina i nacionalizam: Revija mladih nacionalista,” Hrvatska straža, Sep-
tember 27, 1940, 5; “Bog i Hrvati,” Katolički tjednik, November 23, 1941.
38. “Izjava nadbiskupa dra Ivana Šarića,” Hrvatski narod, May 13, 1941; “Komuni-
zam je služio zarobljivanju Hrvata,” Hrvatski narod, July 27, 1941; “Mi smo nacional-
isti, jer vjerujemo u Boga, volimo hrvatski narod i hrvatsku krv,” Hrvatski glas, August
1, 1941.
39. Pavelić himself was a devout Catholic. In his house in Zagreb he had a small
chapel and two personal confessors. A priest was even appointed as a teacher for his chil-
dren. See National Archives and Record Administration, Washington, DC (NARA), M
1203, doc. 860H.00/1389, 5; Stevan Pavlowitch, The Improbable Survivor: Yugoslavia
and Its Problems, 1918–1988 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1988), 100.
40. Cited in Fitzroy Maclean, Disputed Barricade: The Life and Times of Tito (Lon-
don: Jonathan Cape, 1957), 162.
41. “Komunizam je služio zarobljivanju Hrvata,” Hrvatski narod, July 27, 1941;
A.N. “Narod i država,” Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, March 5, 1942.
42. Cited in Dedijer, Vatikan i Jasenovac, 129.
43. “Crkva i hrvatski narod,” Hrvatski glas, April 22, 1941; “Udarena brana prodi-
ranju pravoslavlja,” Katolički tjednik, June 8, 1941; “Križari od sutra,” Katolički tjed-
nik, November 23, 1941.
44. “Poglavnik i hrvatsko izaslanstvo kod Svetog Otca,” Nedjelja, May 25, 1941, 2.
45. “Narod na koljenina (uz svršetak hrvatske svete godine),” Katolički tjednik,
June 29, 1941; “Luciferski sud ponora,” Hrvatski narod, November 17, 1943.
46. Only around three hundred Ustashas were based in Italy with Ante Pavelić
before the beginning of the Second World War. However, many of these were to
become the core of the administrative apparatus of the regime. See Ivo Goldstein,
Croatia: A History (London: Hurst, 1999), 133–34.
47. Ivan Mužić, Hrvatska politika i jugoslavenska ideja (Split: published by the
author, 1969), 232.
186 Irina Ognyanova

48. “Crkveni problemi (Arhiva Hansa Helma),” HDA, f. 1561, SDS, RSUP SRH,
83/001.1; Lovro Totić, “Božja providnost,” Nedjelja, June 15, 1941; Franjo Vargić,
“Važnost Križarstva u hrvatskom narodu,” Nedjelja, February 1, 1942.
49. Poglavnik Saboru i narodu: Govor na završnoj saborskoj sjednici, 28.II.1942
(Zagreb: Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured, 1942), 33–39; James J. Sadkovich.
Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 1927–1937 (New York: Garland, 1987), 151.
50. “Crkva i hrvatski narod,” Hrvatski glas, April 22, 1941; Guberina, “Ustaštvo i
katolicizam,” 442–43.
51. Report of Yordan Mechkarov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Confessions,
CDA, f. 1931, op. 1, a.e. 32, 6.
52. Guberina, “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” 439–40; Mužić, Hrvatska politika, 232.
53. Cited in Dedijer, Vatikan and Jasenovac, 129.
54. Guberina. “Ustaštvo i katolicizam,” 437, 444, 446.
55. Yeshayahu Jelinek, “Bosnia-Herzegovina at War: Relations between Moslems
and Non-Moslems,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 5, no. 3 (1990): 285.
56. “Katolička država (jedno načelno pitanje),” Katolički tjednik, July 6, 1941;
“Katolička država (jedno načelno pitanje),” Katolički tjednik, July 13, 1941.
57. Poglavnik Saboru i narodu, 33–39; Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugo-
slav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919–1953 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1991), 114, 117, 209.
58. “Katolička država (jedno načelno pitanje),” Katolički tjednik, July 29, 1941.
59. Julije Makanec, “Pozvani i nepozvani,” Nova Hrvatska, November 7, 1944.
60. State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, part 4, Germany and Its
Occupied Territories during World War II, NARA, Office of Strategic Services.
61. “Komunizam je služio zarobljivanju Hrvata,” Hrvatski narod, July 27, 1941.
62. Miloš Obrknežević, Razvoj pravoslavija u Hrvatskoj i Hrvatska pravoslavna
crkva (Barcelona: Hrvatska revija, 1979), 34; Vasa Kazimirović, NDH u svetlu
nemačkih dokumenata i dnevnika Gleza fon Horstenau 1941–1944 (Belgrade: Nova
knjga, 1987), 109.
63. Djilas, Contested Country, 122; Ivan Mužić, Pavelić i Stepinac (Split: Logos,
1991), 42.
64. Cited in Kazimir Katalinić, Rađanje države: NDH, Tito, “hrvatsko proljeće” i
1991 (Zagreb: Časopis Republika Hrvatska, 1994), 71.
65. “Doglavnik Miško Račan: Hrvatski pravoslavci nisu srbskog podrietla,”
Hrvatski narod, January 14, 1945.
66. “Okružnica hrvatskog metropolite svećenstvu,” Hrvatski narod, May 3, 1941;
Ivo Lendić, “Što kažu Talijani: Tko će dobiti rat?” Hrvatski narod, January 24, 1943;
Franjo Lačen, “Duhovno jedinstvo hrvatskog naroda,” Nezavisna Država Hrvatska,
September 25, 1941.
67. “Brzopisni zapisnici,” HDA, f. 211, Hrvatski državni sabor Nezavisne države
Hrvatske 118; “Zadušnice za kardinala Luigi Maglione-a,” Hrvatski narod, August 30,
1944.
 Between the Racial State and the Christian Rampart 187

68. “Brzopisni zapisnici,” HDA, f. 211, Hrvatski državni sabor Nezavisne države
Hrvatske, 118; “Poglavnikov govor prelaznicima,” Katolički list, November 27, 1941;
“Važno za prijelaze inovjeraca na rimokatoličku vjeru,” Katolički tjednik, July 6, 1941.
69. Pavelić dedicated an entire book to this subject in postwar exile. See Ante
Pavelić, Hrvatska pravoslavna crkva (Madrid: Domovina, 1984).
70. Juraj Cenkić, “Primanje katolika u katoličku crkvu,” Katolički list, September
27, 1941.
71. Report from the Bulgarian Embassy in Zagreb to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and Confessions, March 2, 1942, CDA, f. 176, op. 8, a.e. 1153, 70.
72. Pavelić, Hrvatska pravoslavna crkva, 11.
73. Ibid., 74, 89.
74. Vladimir Kendjelić, “Pravoslavci u Hrvatskoj,” Hrvatski narod, July 9, 1944.
75. Marko Čović, “Čiji je Bog?,” Hrvatski narod, July 9, 1944.
76. “The Ustasha movement is not pro-Catholic. . . . It is not a religious move-
ment, neither is it called upon in this direction to educate Croats.” Ivo Guberina,
quoted in Mužić, Hrvatska politika, 232.
77. Ivo Banac, “Katolička crkva i liberalizam u Hrvatskoj,” 93.
 Chapter Seven

Envisioning the “Other” East

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslims, and

Modernization in the Ustasha State

Nada Kisić-Kolanović

The historical experience of the Second World War in Croatia from 1941 to 1945
was characterized by a kaleidoscope of ideological utopias, ethnic homogeniza-
tion, and extreme violence. The memory of this historical experience is suitably
described by Aleida Assmann’s comparison of the “cooling of history’s hot zone”
and the incomplete transition from biographical memory to externalized and
mediated memory.1 The new experience of war and political transition in Croatia
in the 1990s has additionally spurred a reevaluation of the socialist culture of
remembering the Second World War, in particular the role of intellectuals, which
was often reduced to a conflict between left- and right-wing worldviews and the
assignment of moral culpability. Nationalist intellectuals were often condemned
as criminals and executed while the personal biographies of those who escaped
this fate were defamed by accusations of treason and collaboration with the fascist
and Nazi occupation authorities. Postsocialist historiography exposed the myth
of Communist antifascism and shifted research interest to different and more
complex ways of considering the Second World War period.2 An interdisciplin-
ary approach rooted in analysis of archives and a wide diversity of printed sources
yielded more nuanced answers and restored the memory of negatively portrayed
national intellectuals. But the critical construction of these biographies contin-
ues to be a paradox: a commitment to national liberation and, at the same time,
involvement in ethnically motivated crimes and acts of terror that no subsequent
validation is capable of redeeming.3
This chapter examines these paradoxical biographies through an analysis of
intellectual engagement in the Ustasha state. Specifically, it explores the evolving
and frequently contradictory attitudes of nationalist Croat intellectuals to Bosnia-
Herzegovina and the position of Bosnian Muslims in both the state and the wider
Croat nation. First, it describes the manner in which Croat national intellectuals
 Envisioning the “Other” East 189

brought to life the mythomoteur potential of blood and soil. It was also with the
help of this cultural imaginarium that the belonging of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the
state manifested itself. The chapter then focuses on the articulation of the ideas
and stereotypes used in the state to bridge the traditional gap between the histori-
cal heritage of Western Catholicism and Islam. Finally, it considers the extent to
which these ideas about Islam and the East and their place in the state influenced
and resonated with Muslim ideological and cultural expressions and how this
influenced the perceptions of Croat nationalism in the eyes of the Muslim politi-
cal and religious elite in the period between 1941 and 1945.

The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Not the “Other” but “Croats of the Islamic Faith”?
In the history of Croatian-Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) relations at the end
of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century there was tension,
but not the potential for violence that quite forcefully manifested itself in
Croatian-Serbian relations.4 This historical trend would be difficult to compre-
hend outside of the discursive strategy devised by Ante Starčević, a Croatian
politician and founder of the Party of Right (Stranka prava), formed in 1861.
Starčević advocated a Croatian state, independent of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy, and for most of his life he was called the “Father of the Homeland.”
At the same time, he expressed great respect for the first generation of Muslim
national revivalists, who showed a political affinity for him due to several fac-
tors. First and foremost, Starčević’s nationalism was free of any confessional
notions, which was apparent in his “Naputak” (Instructions) for members of
his Party of Right issued in 1871, in which he explicitly beseeched his sup-
porters not to divide the people by faith and to teach the Croat populace that
religion was a matter of personal choice.5 It was perhaps significant for future
Croatian-Bosniak relations that Starčević promoted the Islamic religion and
expressed admiration for it. The first popular text on the prophet Muhammad
intended for a broader Croatian readership—which otherwise perceived the
Islamic heritage as something foreign—was in fact written by Starčević in his
pedagogic publication Hervatski kalendar za prostu godinu 1858 (Croatian cal-
endar for the year 1858).6 Starčević therefore gave the Muslims the option
of being part of the Croatian political community while freely expressing
their Islamic faith. Osman Nuri Hadžić, a writer from the first generation of
Muslim national educators, dedicated a major portion of the introduction to
his 1894 book Islam i kultura (Islam and culture) to Starčević. He portrayed
Starčević as a “great man,” a “mature” and “wise” politician who “distinguishes
faith from nation” and “accords all due respect to Islam.” He also praised him
190 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

as a visionary for supporting the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and

because he did “not push [the Turks] from Europe.”7
Within his historical context, Starčević saw the constitutional status of Bosnia-
Herzegovina as a solution to the “Eastern” and not the “Croatian” question. At the
same time, for him the Croatian ethnicity of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina
was not in doubt. He referred to them as “Croatian brothers by blood in Bosnia-
Herzegovina,” and he saw Bosnia-Herzegovina as a space in which a part of “our
purest, least corrupted people” lived.8 In 1906, the Club of the Starčević Croatian
Pure Party of Right was established in Sarajevo, and besides Croats it also gathered
Muslims, primarily followers of the Muslim Progressive Party of Ademaga Mešić.
In 1908, the club welcomed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, seeing this as a step toward the unification of this territory
with Croatia. Starčević’s Party of Right was a permanent feature on the Croatian
political scene from the 1860s to the end of the First World War.9 Thereafter,
Muslims were much more strongly influenced by the Croat liberal intelligentsia
gathered in the Croatian Peasant Party under the leadership of Stjepan Radić
and later Vladko Maček. As a result of the growing political and economic crisis
in Yugoslavia and the rise of fascism in Europe, followers and sympathizers of
the Ustasha movement gained in political strength. The movement’s intellectual
adherents proclaimed the Ustasha ideology to be a modern variant of Starčević’s
Party of Right, and Bosnia-Herzegovina once more became politically relevant as
the imagined ancestral homeland of the Croats.
In the 1930s, many leading figures in the Ustasha movement viewed Bosnia-
Herzegovina as the territorial center of the future Croatian state. According to
writer and future Ustasha minister Mile Budak, Bosnia was the “heart of the
Croatian state,” and “it was precisely these lands that were the core of Croatian
settlement, and they have remained our racially, ethnically purest lands until the
incursions of the Turks.” He claimed that the “Bosnian Muslims are the racially
purest, least contaminated Croats,” who had compactly preserved indisputably
Croatian linguistic qualities to the present day.10
Mladen Lorković, who since 1929 had been coordinating the Ustasha move-
ment in political exile in Berlin, where he earned a doctorate with a dissertation
on the history of ethnicity in the Balkans, returned to Zagreb in 1939. There he
published his magnum opus, Narod i zemlja Hrvata (The people and land of the
Croats), in which he underscored the Croatian demand for Bosnia-Herzegovina,
because, “in terms of its nobility and populace, in terms of its language and state
territory and in terms of its traditions, [it] is a Croatian land.” When speaking
of the model for the nation-state, Lorković claimed that religion was not a cru-
cial factor. The Croat people had two religions—Catholicism and Islam, so the
future Croatian state would equally nurture the cultural heritage of Christianity
and Islam.11
 Envisioning the “Other” East 191

Although the Independent State of Croatia was only recognized as an inter-

national sovereign entity by those Axis powers that had brought it into being
in 1941, its borders, drawn up by agreement between the foreign ministers of
Germany and Italy in Vienna on April 21–22, 1941, encompassed the territory
of Bosnia-Herzegovina.12 However, throughout its existence, the state was in
fact caught between the Italian hammer and German anvil, and it lacked legiti-
macy from the outset as a result of its relations with its Axis allies. Particularly
discrediting in this respect was the seizure of the coastal zone by the Second
Italian Army and the attempts to Italianize the Croatian littoral that, under the
Rome Treaties concluded by Mussolini and the Poglavnik on May 18, 1941,
were ceded to Italy.13
According to official sources, the NDH had a population of 5,655,750,
of whom most were Roman Catholic by faith, 2,993,335 (52.93 percent), fol-
lowed by Greek/Eastern Orthodox, 1,809,613 (31.99 percent), while Muslims
accounted for 772,794 (12.78 percent).14 The Poglavnik personally guaranteed
the state’s Muslims the position of a “status” group founded on the Islamic faith.
In his public speeches, Pavelić borrowed freely from the vocabulary of Starčević,
particularly his metaphor of Muslims as the “flower of Croat nationhood.” As he
would say in his first meeting with representatives of the Muslims in Zagreb and
Mufti Ismet Muftić on August 1941, “The Bosnian Muslims are the blood of our
blood, they are the flower of our Croat nationhood, and they will be viewed as
such by the entire Croat people and by the Croatian State.”15
Pavelić certainly had Starčević in mind when he told the Croatian State
Parliament in early 1942 that Islam is “a Croatian faith, for in our country its
members are also Croatia’s sons.” Thus, according to Pavelić’s definition, the
Croatian state did not impose controversies concerning the Muslim minority:
“We have no Muslim question,” Pavelić announced. “States that have colonies
have a Muslim question,” and “in those colonies there are peoples of the Muslim
faith who are not the same flesh and blood as the people in the mother country.”16
Bosnia and the Muslims helped to shape Pavelić’s entire style as a national
leader. He often had his photograph taken wearing a fez, which was a noteworthy
visual feature for Croatian politicians of that era. Pavelić’s memoirs provide reveal-
ing biographical details about his attitudes toward Bosnia and the Muslims. He
was born in 1889 in the Bosnian village of Bradina, next to the town of Konjic,
where his father worked as a railroad entrepreneur. He bore powerful memories
of a childhood spent on the banks of the River Pliva and the small settlement of
Jezero—formerly Turkish Gjulhisar, where he acquired his elementary literacy in
a Koranic primary school.17 Pavelić’s travel writings from Istanbul in 1929 reveal,
for example, that the city’s history reminded him exclusively of the glory of the
“Bosniaks—Croatia’s sons,” who once climbed high on the Ottoman administra-
tive ladder as viziers, beylerbeyi, and Janissary agas.18
192 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

After the establishment of the new state, the Islamic religious community con-
tinued to autonomously administer its religious, educational, and waqf (endow-
ment) affairs in accordance with the Yugoslav legal framework of 1936. The 1929
Yugoslav law governing Sharia courts also remained in force. Religious rites, status
issues, family and inheritance law, and waqf affairs remained under their jurisdic-
tion, while obligations and agrarian and financial law were outside the purview of
Sharia courts. Islamic religious holidays such as Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Mawlid,
and Muharram, meanwhile, were elevated to the rank of state holidays. Although
Muslims were explicitly ethnically defined by the official designation “Croats of
Islamic faith,” the terms Bošnjak (Bosniak) and bošnjaštvo (Bosniaknism) were
both legitimately used. They encapsulated the bond between the Muslims of the
specific territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a mentality, culture, and customs,
analogous to the terms Dalmatian, Slavonian, or Zagorac to describe someone
from Croatia’s Dalmatia, Slavonia, or Zagorje regions.19

Islam in the Cultural Practice of the Ustasha State

Croat nationalists as a whole, in comparison to their Serbian counterparts, aes-
theticized Islam, which had a beneficial political impact on the first generation
of Muslim national activists at the end of the nineteenth century.20 The effect of
this aestheticization would become more tangible in the sociocultural space of
the new state that was figuratively bounded by roughly a hundred dailies, week-
lies, biweeklies, monthlies, anthologies, almanacs, brochures, and books that,
despite the war, flooded Zagreb.21 In this short period the Muslims of Bosnia-
Herzegovina became quite visible both in the media and in political rituals, in
public institutions, lexicography, and historiography. Moreover, they became the
symbolic standard bearers of Croatian identity as an eclectic blend of the Western
and Islamic cultural heritage. The narrative of the Islamic variant of Croatian cul-
ture was vigorously propelled by the press and popular history, and it bore the
imprimatur of the state propaganda machinery. Typical of this genre is a booklet
published by the State Information and Propaganda Office (Državni izvještajni i
promičbeni ured—DIPU) of the NDH under the portentous title Krv je progovo-
rila (The blood has spoken).22 A multitude of positive texts on Islam scattered
about in cultural and party journals, occasional volumes, essays, and newspaper
articles were the work of nationalist enthusiasts, although historians and writers
made their own contribution, as did Ustasha intellectuals.
By presenting the cultural heritage of Islam, the state undermined its own
narrative about the Antemurale Christianitatis (Bulwark of Christianity), which
had been tenaciously nurtured in Croatia since the sixteenth century.23 The
Croatian mythologem about the Drina River as a symbol of the demarcation
 Envisioning the “Other” East 193

between the Occident and the Orient also demonstrated its flexibility. After the
eastern borders of the new state with Serbia were drawn along the course of the
Drina, this river was considered the natural bulwark of the Croat nation against
Serbdom and Orthodoxy.24
The presentation of Islamic heritage by two influential ethnologists and aca-
demic experts provides insights into the wider attitudes of the state and Ustasha
regime itself toward the idea of an Islamic variant of Croatian culture. Stjepan
Ratković, a geography professor and education minister in 1941, to some extent
expressed the state’s official line. The image of the Islamic heritage as a “great
and valuable enrichment of the Croatian cultural totality” was solidified by
Ratković into the topography of ground-level Croatian culture with a special
mission in “the meeting of East and West, Christianity and Islam.” Ratković
stepped outside of the bulwark of the Christianity paradigm, so he did not con-
sider the geographic location of Croatia at the meeting points of civilizations as
a curse but rather an advantage. According to him, the Muslims reinforced the
cultural power of the Croatian state, in whose territory “two great religions and
two so different and rich cultures not only touch but also mutually penetrate
and intertwine in symbiosis, into a vital organic whole.” According to Ratković,
Croatia possessed the invaluable European experience of the Orient through all
branches of national life, from the artistic crafts to the architecture of houses
and cities, the decoration of homes, the use of utensils and implements to tai-
lor clothing, and the preparation of food. It might almost be compared to that
form of coexistence of different religions and cultures nurtured in medieval
Spain under Arabic rule between 711 and 1492.25
Another writer deemed suitable by the regime for cultural engagement in
Sarajevo was Dragutin Kamber, a Catholic priest with a degree in Oriental
studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (1931) and a current
affairs and popular history writer. As someone who lived and worked in Bosnia,
Kamber was entirely aware of the diversity of its religions and political ideolo-
gies. In his memoirs, he candidly recounted his experience of Bosnia, offering a
somewhat romanticized and orientalized description; to him it was an idea and
reality, a unique cultural phenomenon, a “beautiful,” “colorful,” “enigmatic,”
but also “dangerous” country, for in it “not a single group can reign.” He saw
the strength of the Muslims in their affinity for the Bosnian soil, even when
their eyes were turned to Istanbul and the Arab world.26 In 1943, Kamber sur-
faced on the cultural scene as one of the editors of the literary journal Hrvatska
misao, which was launched by a subcommittee of the Croatian literary and cul-
tural organization Matica Hrvatska in Sarajevo, expecting that it would serve
as a driver of Croatian orientation among the Muslims. The journal had a cir-
culation of two thousand, and among its editors were Muslim writers Ahmed
Muradbegović and Alija Nametak, who attempted to give it a literary and
194 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

artistic character. As a cultural analyst, Kamber was highly eclectic, something

that was reflected in his introductory remarks in the first issue: “There is no
nation, nor culture, whose origins are entirely and solely national,” he wrote.
“In the empire of the soul there can be no isolationism.”27
Nonetheless, as a radical Croat nationalist, he expressed fury and loathing
toward Serb nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was entirely convinced that
Serb nationalism was the most aggressive form of nationalism in Bosnia, because
it equated Orthodoxy with Serbianism. Kamber conveyed an ominous message
to Serb nationalists: “us or—you.” Furthermore, Kamber believed that the Croats
and the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina could oppose Serbianism exclusively by
means of a common political will, that is, the Croatian state.28
In its own way, the state’s lexicographical production also testified to the extent
to which “the Islamic variant of Croatian culture” was accepted as part of the
cultural mainstream. The Croatian Encyclopedia was originally launched in 1940,
printed in five volumes by the Croatian Publishing and Bibliographic Institute,
at that time under the directorship of Mate Ujević, a professor of literature and
a general man of letters. Although the encyclopedia predated the establishment
of the state, the new cultural orthodoxies ensured that a special editorial section
for “the Turkish and Arabic civilization and our Muslims” was added, consist-
ing of essays and contributions by Muslim cultural historians such as Hamdija
Kreševljaković and Muhamed Hadžijahić. Their efforts on the encyclopedia
entries on Bosnia-Herzegovina constituted probably the finest texts on this topic
produced during the state’s existence.29
Historiography also paid its dues to cultural nationalism, especially in iden-
tifying the Croatian ethnic character of the Muslims in the moribund Ottoman
world of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The historical texts of the influential historian and
archaeologist Ćiro Truhelka, which argued for the close racial and national kinship
of Muslims and Catholics in Bosnia, were also reprinted. Over his long career,
Truhelka wrote more than 150 studies and articles on the archaeology of classical
antiquity, medieval Bosnian history, art history, numismatics, and ethnography;
Truhelka also conducted research into the Islamicization of Bosnia-Herzegovina
during the Ottoman era and concluded that it had made no impact on the eth-
nicity of the population, to which the custom of endogamy (marital exclusivity)
contributed. The Bosnian Muslims strictly adhered to endogamy, he contended,
the result of which was that the Ottomans did not succeed in “diminishing the
nationality of the Croatian Muslims.” He also stressed the fact that the Ottomans
had not interfered with the Croat national language and the Turkish language
had failed to take root in Bosnia-Herzegovina, meaning that the language of
Catholics and Muslims remained intact and undiluted. As an ethnographer,
Truhelka also paid great attention to biological and racial factors, and he observed
that the Muslims “in terms of the strength of pigmentation are the closest, in fact
 Envisioning the “Other” East 195

identical, to the Catholics.” If it is still maintained, Truhelka continued, that “the

Slavs, who settled Southern Europe, were the first representatives of the fair type,
among whom blond hair and blue eyes are the primary racial markers, then the
fact that the purely fair type is most strongly present among the Muslims gains
importance, for in this regard it is the Muslims who are the purest Slavs, that is to
say Croats, in Bosnia.”30
Popular commentary habitually focused on the construction of the Muslims
as bearers of traditional values such as respect, morality, and the nurturing of
good neighborly relations. In this, some writers, such as Mirko Jurkić, saw an
antidote to the modern dislocated atomized urban societies of the West, and this
was in turn perceived as a “natural guarantee of the social, cultural, and moral
renewal of Croatia after the horrors of the First World War.”31 The Islamic vari-
ant of Croatian culture was also validated within the framework of literary histo-
riography. Muslim writers were afforded a prestigious position on the Croatian
literary map. Literary editors, for example, often emphasized the quality of the
novels, poems, and short stories produced by Muslim writers, while accomplished
and established novelists and poets such as Safvet-beg Bašagić, Musa Ćazim Ćatić,
Ahmed Muradbegović, Alija Nametak, and Salih Alić were deemed to have made
an essential contribution to Croatian literature.32 In fact, in the four years of the
state’s existence, Muslim writers published 119 independent titles,33 mostly under
the sponsorship of Matica Hrvatska, one of the oldest Croatian cultural institu-
tions and the largest publisher of books and periodicals in the state.34
Despite this, relatively few of these authors took an active role in the political
or bureaucratic life of the state. A rare example of cultural activism was the young
novelist Alija Nametak, who published more than a dozen literary titles in the
four years of the state’s existence, was appointed director of the Croat National
Theater in Sarajevo, and edited the periodical Glasnik Islamske vjerske zajednice
(Islamic religious community herald), as well as being a prolific cultural commen-
tator. Muslim writers also received various state and literary honors, with Enver
Čolaković’s novel Legenda o Ali-paši (The legend of Ali-pasha) proclaimed the best
Croatian literary work in 1943.
The apex of symbolic gestures aimed at integrating the Muslim community
culturally, socially, and politically into the new state was the opening of the colos-
sal mosque in Zagreb on August 19, 1944, on the eve of Ramadan. According
to the religious legal document, the waqf-nâme—an Arabic-Persian term for a
deed of trust—the legator of the mosque was Pavelić himself. The waqf of the
Poglavnik’s mosque in Zagreb was a plot of land consisting of 9,634 square
meters, a monetary deposit that represented about 20,000,000 kunas at that time,
and movable assets for the waqf’s needs.35 However, the history of the Zagreb
mosque began immediately after the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908
with the initial proposal put forward by Ivan Zatluka, a delegate in the territorial
196 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

diet and member of the Croatian Party of the Right. His proposal was covered in
the Zagreb press at the time with polemics that had an Orientalist tone, question-
ing whether the mosque had to be located in the city center or whether it could be
routed to the periphery. In December 1935, the Jamaat Majlis—the Muslim com-
munity council in Zagreb—established a special endowment for the construction
of the mosque. In 1942, the Gordian knot of the location was cut by the Poglavnik
when he opened the mosque in the heart of Zagreb. For this purpose, he arranged
for the renovation of the Fine Arts Pavilion, built in 1938 as an endowment of the
late Yugoslav monarch Petar I Karađorđević. By doing so, the Poglavnik wanted
to stress that the role of Muslims had been negligible in the exercise of political
power in Yugoslavia. He stated in 1942 that the Karađorđević endowment “bears
in itself the stamp of subjugation” of the Muslims by Serbia, and this stamp could
not be “erased in any better way than turning this temple into a mosque. Why?
Because the Muslims in Serbia disappeared at that time when the last mosque was
torn down. As a sign that they will not disappear among the Croat people, their
mosque is being established in the capital city.”36 The central dome was enhanced
with three minarets that were designed by Stjepan Planić, perhaps Zagreb’s lead-
ing architect. The abstract gypsum ornaments, variants of the Early Croatian
interlace motif, were crafted by the sculptor Jozo Turkalj. In line with wartime
circumstances, the Quranic saying “Verily shall our army vanquish the infidels”
was used as a chronogram, while Pavelić wanted his name carved into the stone of
the mosque as a sign of his love for the God Allah.37
The Zagreb press called the opening of an Islamic place of worship in the
center of Zagreb “a great day for Islamic Croats.” Newspaper editorials tirelessly
stressed that the opening of the Zagreb mosque reflected “the symbolic and deep
ties between Islam and the Croatian race in the Islamic Croats” that will best “tes-
tify to the survival of the Croatian state.”38 For Zagreb’s four thousand Muslims,
who mainly belonged to the middle class, the mosque was a visible symbol of their
continuing link to the Islamic world. The mosque was opened on their behalf
by Adži Ali Effendi Aganović, whose speech focused on the mosque as a symbol
of the unification of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the ummah—the
entire Islamic community. Aganović conveyed gratitude to the state authorities,
but he avoided politics and limited himself to patriotic discourse: “the Muslims
shall, Poglavnik, reciprocate and be thankful such that we shall be loyal and faith-
ful, for they are loyal and faithful to their exalted faith of Islam, which teaches
them one of the principal and fundamental tenets: to love the homeland.”39
Ultimately, after the collapse of the state, the immense mosque would dis-
appear from downtown Zagreb as a site that evoked adverse memories of the
defeated Ustasha regime. Its assets and expensive furnishings were seized, and
in April 1949 the Communist authorities had the minarets removed in three
days, using German prisoners of war to carry out the demolition work. The
 Envisioning the “Other” East 197

public was told that the Muslims themselves had renounced the “Ustasha”
mosque. But the truth was different. The Islamic community’s Reis ul-
Ulema (the religious leader of Bosnia’s Muslims) tried in vain to convince the
Communist authorities that the Zagreb mosque was a religious space outside
and above politics and that it was established using considerable funds raised
by the Muslims themselves over the years.
The attempts by the Ustasha regime and radical nationalist intellectuals to inte-
grate the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Islam into the Croatian identity
are not the end of the story about the transformation of cultural identity in the
Croatian state between 1941 and 1945. Frustrated by the fact that the Allied pow-
ers did not accept the Croatian state as sovereign under international law, toward
the end of the war the popular press revived the notion that Croatia had always
historically defended itself against the Orient. Ante Tresić-Pavičić, a writer, poet,
and follower of Starčević’s Party of Right, who had built a diplomatic career as a
representative of interwar Yugoslavia in Madrid and Washington, DC, formulated
a poetic version of the Croatian state as a contemporary version of the Antemurale.
Tresić wrote his historical epic novel Gvozdansko during World War II. In it, he
glorified the resistance of the Croatian magnates Babonić-Blagajski and Šubić-
Zrinski to the Ottoman conquest of Gvozdansko Castle at the foot of Mount Zrin
between 1577 and 1578. The imaginarium of the Antemurale can be discerned
in Tresić’s explanation for writing the epic, published in Spremnost in July 1944.
There is no more vivid expression of the Ustasha state as the Antemurale than his
declaration that the Croats had always been “left to themselves, plundered to their
bare skin, poisoned by foreign propaganda, which is primarily aimed at smother-
ing our national consciousness, and to do so, it has assaulted our history for many
years, denigrating, debasing, and disgracing it, for it is known that if it is van-
quished so is our political individuality.”40 Antun Bonifačić, meanwhile, a novelist
and chief of staff of the Cultural Relations Department in the Foreign Ministry,
addressed European intellectuals in his 1944 pamphlet Entre Jupiter et Mars: La
Croatie et ľEurope (Between Jupiter and Mars: Croatia and Europe), in which he
reminded them that the Croats had “paid for their bond with Europe in blood
and performed their duties as frontier guards with legendary fealty.” He claimed
that Croatia belonged to Europe under “Paul Valéry’s strictest definition.” Thus,
Croatia “is a territory, where Roman administration and Catholicism followed in
the footsteps of Greek influence.”41
The persistence of the Antemurale paradigm between 1941 and 1945 can partly
be explained by the state crisis of legitimacy and the mass support enjoyed by the
Partisan-led resistance movement. The latent Orientalism displayed by many nation-
alist intellectuals and Ustasha ideologists was often a reflection of a fierce conflict
with the Communist worldview. Thus, many of the intellectuals frequently referred
to Communism, as Stjepan Horvat did in a self-published polemic of 1944, as an
198 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

“invasion from the East.”42 Similarly, the Ustasha and state press relentlessly identi-
fied Communism and the Soviet Union as the nation’s primary danger, threatening
to sever the organic bond between Croatia and the Western cultural sphere. Thus,
Milivoj Magdić, a journalist, Ustasha ideologue, and theorist of organic “Croatian
Socialism” asserted in 1941, “Russia was never a part of the West, not even in its
liberal phase.” In 1944, he exclaimed that “the European orientation of Croatia con-
stitutes the axiom of all of our political orientations.”43
Croat nationalist intellectuals and Ustasha ideologues, however, ascribed a set
of negative characteristics to Communism to bolster their conviction that fascism
carried an inherently emancipatory value for the nation-state and was the standard
bearer of European social development. Pavelić himself, believing in European
historical development rooted in ethnic identity, endeavored to raise awareness
that it was in fact this “nationalist Europe” that had created “European culture
and civilization,” while Bolshevism, as a universalist ideology, forced people to
become “nameless and their states mere geographic concepts.”44

A Tale of Two Elites: Secular and

Religious Intelligentsia Confront Modernity
Ethnic communities in the Balkans are often considered separate ethnic and socio-
cultural groups and distinct religious communities denoted by specific religious
beliefs, practices, and institutions. This particularly applies to the history of the
collective self-conception of the Bosniaks, for whom the Islamic faith, a common
environment, cultural traditions, and shared experiences were more important
than origin or ethnicity as a formative element of identity.45 The Muslim elites of
the first half of the twentieth century should also be viewed through this prism, as
they were undoubtedly torn by the attractiveness and repulsiveness of nationalism
as a modern ideology.
The perception of Islam as the principal source of identity of the Muslims of
Bosnia-Herzegovina was a fundamental reason for the internal dispute among
the state’s Muslims as to how to chart a course toward modernity. It was the
Muslim secular urban elite that accepted the values of the new state and who
sought modernity through nationalism. By contrast, the Muslim religious elite,
which also expressed loyalty to the Croatian state in 1941, shared the conviction
that nationalism was an organic Western ideology that could not be transferred
to the spiritual ground of Islam. As a result, they always remained more ambiva-
lent toward, wary of, and sometimes resistant to the modernizing agenda of the
Ustasha state.
The Muslim intelligentsia educated in Zagreb, Vienna, Graz, and Prague
was crucial to the process of absorption of Western modernity. During the
 Envisioning the “Other” East 199

Austro-Hungarian period, educational and cultural institutions were the most

important channel for the dissemination of Croat nationalism among this gen-
eration.46 Near the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth
century, the University of Zagreb was home to an entire generation of Muslim stu-
dents who could provisionally be considered Western modernists and who would,
in fact, contribute to the building of intergenerational ties with Croatian students.
Bearing in mind that the proportion of Muslims in the wider educated population
of the new state was only 0.01 percent, or 732, most with social science degrees,
this elite was decidedly a minority.47 Under the Ustasha regime, the principal
orientation for Muslim policy was set by Džafer-beg Kulenović, who, after the
death of Mehmet Spaho, became president of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization.
Kulenović confronts the contemporary reader with the internal conditions among
the Muslim political elite during the Yugoslav internal crisis of 1939. As the min-
ister of forests and mines in the Yugoslav government, Kulenović opposed the
partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Such a partition was facilitated by the agree-
ment concluded between Yugoslav prime minister Dragiša Cvetković and Vladko
Maček, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, which resulted in the creation of the
Banovina. After the Axis occupation, the Yugoslav government fled to London,
while Kulenović remained in the country, and on August 14, 1941, he came to
Zagreb to hold talks with Pavelić. When asked by Croat reporters whether his
arrival could be interpreted as the Yugoslav Muslim Organization joining the
Ustasha movement, he responded, “It is not, because such a thing is not even
necessary. We have been in the movement from the very first moment, and we are
cooperating with it in today’s policies and administration of the Independent State
of Croatia in all fields. The consolidation and organization of the Independent
State of Croatia stands before all of us Muslim Croats, so we have and always shall
invest all of our strength to this end.”48
Kulenović consciously employed the rhetoric of nationalism, and he saw the
key to Muslim progress in a “Croatian state” that recognized religious freedom. In
his political writings, he supported this assertion with the following explanation:
“The faith we practice is not in question. We are good believers and we respect the
faiths that divided us to some extent, although our national consciousness links us
into a whole that is innate, and it is essential that the religious divisions between
us be removed, so that we may comprehend that the State of Croatia is neither
Muslim nor Catholic nor, possibly, of any other faith, rather it is national, purely
and solely Croatian, in which all religions may enjoy the greatest freedom in exer-
cising religious rites and enjoying those goods which are necessary and belong to
a given religion.” Thus, “nations do not struggle for places of worship, but rather
for a free state.”49
Since a state was a prerequisite for Muslim progress and modernity, Kulenović
insisted on adequate participation by Muslims in the new regime. In early
200 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

November 1941, he was appointed deputy prime minister, followed by the

recruitment of Muslims into the sphere of state and bureaucratic institutions. In
the Croatian Sabor, the state legislature, which Pavelić appointed and convened
in 1942, there were twelve Muslims among its 132 deputies and roughly sixty of
them among the state’s military officers. The high-ranking Ustasha title doglavnik,
or deputy leader of the Ustasha movement, was accorded to two Muslims,
Ademaga Mešić and Hakija Hadžić. Meanwhile, the post of foreign minister from
May 1944 to May 1945 was entrusted to Mehmed Alajbegović, while Himlija
Bešlagić was minister of transportation and public works from 1941 to 1943.50
A more important group of Muslim intellectuals seeking to gain ideological and
cultural influence in the new state was gathered around the cultural and political
weekly Osvit, which was printed in Sarajevo from March 1942 to August 1944.
Kasim Hadžić, a Sharia judge who served as Osvit’s editor in chief, was surrounded
by a number of right-wing Sarajevo intellectuals sympathetic to the Ustasha ideol-
ogy, including Muhamed Hadžijahić, Halid Čaušević, Hazim Šabanović, and Seid
and Hafiz Traljić. The weekly’s name, meaning “daybreak,” was deliberately cho-
sen to evoke a publication of the same name that was launched in Mostar in 1898
by writer Ivan Miličević Aziz. The leading proponent of the idea that Muslims
were Croats of the Islamic faith, he was also known as “the son of Mostar.”
Despite the fact that Osvit was written and edited by a cohort of young
Muslims who embraced Ustasha values, it was subject to the regime’s draconian
censorship system, which attempted to ensure the journal was imbued with its own
ideological objectives. Nonetheless, in September 1943, Prime Minister Nikola
Mandić praised Osvit’s editorial policy and encouraged its editors to remain true
to their Croatian state-building editorial line.51 The circle around Osvit presented
its members as the innovators and drivers of “a new project of cultural national
activities among Croatian Muslim youth.” For his part, Hasan Hadžiosmanović
clearly set out his editorial credo in an article headlined “Croatianism in Theory
and Practice” in which he asserted that “our guiding principle must be unity and
harmony, embodied in our free and independent state.”52
While the authority of the Muslim political elite generally eroded, the religious
elite became the true core of Muslim intellectual power. The institutional ulema
class (of elite religious scholars) was represented through the Reis-ul-Ulema of
the Islamic religious community in Sarajevo, the Ulema Majlis, and the Waqf
Directorate in Sarajevo, and the mufti offices in Banja Luka, Bihać, Sarajevo,
Mostar, Travnik, Tuzla, and Zagreb. During the 1930s, the religious intelligen-
tsia was frequently criticized for excessive concern over its material status and
its refusal to accept modernization—for example, banning the introduction of
electricity in mosques and refusing to interpret the Quran in the context of the
twentieth century. The religious intelligentsia distilled the central question of the
future of the Muslim community to secularization, believing that this process had
 Envisioning the “Other” East 201

taken root and constituted a threat to Islam. Internal Muslim discord surrounding
the draft Constitution of the Islamic Religious Community between 1941 and
1945 reinforces this interpretation.53
The religious intelligentsia enjoyed one of its more distinguished lobbyists in
Zagreb in the person of Ademaga Mešić, a merchant and notable Bosniak waqif
(benefactor). Although the Ustasha movement conferred the high title of doglavnik
on him in 1941, emotionally and chronologically Mešić had far more in common
with the generation of young Muslims spiritually mentored by Ante Starčević.54
Given that the religious intelligentsia was dissatisfied with its status in Yugoslavia
as a result of the Constitution of the Islamic Religious Community of 1936, it
expected that in the new state the role and status of clerics would be strengthened.
In particular, it hoped that the authorities would grant the waqf autonomy, which
meant that waqf assets would be managed in strict accordance with Sharia rules.55
This was accompanied by the demand that the state not interfere with the elec-
tion of the Reis-ul-Ulema and the highest religious representatives. Mešić brought
the draft for the new Islamic Religious Community Constitution to Zagreb and
submitted it to the authorities as early as August 7, 1941. This constitution would
not be ratified for the duration of the state, and the likely reason for this was the
internal dispute among the Muslims rather than the will of the regime or Pavelić
himself, who attempted to convey the impression of objectivity in this matter.56
The Reis-ul-Ulema Fehim Spaho maintained a middle course and did not urge
any haste in the new legal regulation of Islamic religious autonomy. He thereby
disappointed many Muslims who expected a more energetic stance; as a result, he
gradually lost his status as an unassailable religious leader. This was accompanied
by the insinuation that, in contrast to his brother Mehmed Spaho, the leader of
the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, he considered himself a Croat. In the Yugoslav
parliamentary elections in May 1935, Fehim Spaho did in fact run on the slate of
Vladko Maček, the Croatian Peasant Party leader, and in 1939 he did not take
a clear stance on the matter of provincial autonomy. In contrast to this political
engagement, Spaho was much more successful in the field of Oriental philology,
translating an entire series of Turkish novels and stories.57 Spaho’s rather unex-
pected death in mid-February 1942 once more highlighted the internal disputes
surrounding the regulation of religious autonomy, and the election of a new Reis-
ul-Ulema was postponed, so Salih Safvet Effendi Bašić was appointed naib—the
acting religious leader of the Muslims in the NDH.
If the ulema expressed political conformism by supporting the establishment
of the new state, moral opposition to the Ustasha regime grew quite rapidly, and
criticism of nationalism as a Western ideology was increasingly articulated. At
the same time, in the overall social crisis of the 1940s, the ulema accused secu-
lar Muslim intellectuals of being divorced from the masses, seeing themselves as
organic Muslim intellectuals from the classical and postclassical eras of Islam. To
202 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

the religious elite, the nation and nationalism were neither substantial nor lasting
social phenomena in the development of the Muslim community. All interpreta-
tions of the religious elite from 1941 to 1945 proceeded from the principle that
Muslim identity was founded on the principles of the Islamic faith. Although it
formally accepted the Croat nation-state because at that time it seemed an inevi-
table development, the religious intelligentsia nonetheless raised its voice in oppo-
sition to the aggressive nationalism and terror of the regime.
The Islamic clerical association El-Hidaje (derived from the Turkish term for “the
right path”),58 which functioned through roughly fifty local branches during the
war, had considerable funds at its disposal and published its own monthly journal
that served as a vital institutional link for the state’s Muslims. As early as October
1941, sections of the religious intelligentsia were expressing an increasingly ambiva-
lent attitude to the state when, at the initiative of El-Hidaje’s Executive Committee,
a highly critical resolution was published containing the signatures of 108 Muslim
dignitaries who declared themselves “adherents of the sublime faith of Islam.” The
Reis-ul-Ulema Fehim Spaho refused to sign the Sarajevo Resolution, which he saw
as a rash act.59 Many of the reasons the religious elite at first embraced the new
state only to become rapidly disenchanted were outlined in this document. First,
the Muslims were exposed to suffering that exceeded the bounds of the sacrifice
“that patriots are obliged to endure for their homeland, for this is general chaos that
continues to grow and leading to the ruin of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
Second, the Muslims could not accept responsibility for the conflict with the
“Greek-Easterners,” that is, the Serbs, even though they acknowledged that “among
the perpetrators of various misdeeds there are also people with Muslim names.” The
Muslims based their conduct on Islamic convictions that did not allow them to
commit “violence against the members of other faiths.” The Sarajevo Resolution was
directed to the state authorities and “all Muslim believers and political representa-
tives.”60 This public declaration by Muslim dignitaries in Sarajevo was followed by
similar resolutions in other cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Prijedor, Mostar, Banja
Luka, Bijeljina, and Tuzla). The state authorities did not take direct action against
those who signed the resolution. However, the German police in Sarajevo did
attempt to intimidate the members of El-Hidaje’s Executive Committee.
The complex attitude of Muslim religious scholars toward nationalism and
Western modernity in general can be illustrated through the statements of three
prestigious theologians: Mehmed Handžić, Mustafa Busuladžić, and Kasim
Effendi Dobrača, who shared the common conviction that nationalism was
an organic idea of the West that could not be transplanted to the soil of Islam.
Mustafa Handžić was a specialist in a variety of fields: the Arabian language, lit-
erature, aq’aid (dogmatism and apologetics), fiqh (Sharia law), tafsir (exegesis of
the Quran), and hadith (Muhammad’s teachings). A professor at the Husrevbeg
Madrassa in Sarajevo and administrator of El-Hidaje, Handžić embodied the
 Envisioning the “Other” East 203

spirit of the Islamic philosophical concept of awdah (return to foundations,

i.e., foundations of Islam), which he had discovered in 1930 during his studies
at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. It paved the way for his wider contention that
Muslim progress was tied to a return to the authentic sources of Islam. In his
writings about nationalism in 1941, Handžić underscored the standpoint that
Muslims did not want to be a powerless weapon in the hands of nationalist ideol-
ogy. In fact, Handžić rejected nationalism as a possible avenue for Muslim eman-
cipation, particularly the kind infected by the virus of “extremism” and “tribal
causticity.” On the contrary, Handžić obliquely criticized the collusion between
nationalism and faith, thinking specifically of Croatian Catholicism and Serbian
Orthodoxy. He warned that “religious aspects had been brought into the concept
of nationalism” and that “they are considered primary and decisive.” Muslims, he
declared, may not “profess nationalism, which, regardless of its nature, incorpo-
rates elements of faiths other than sublime Islam.” Precisely because Muslims were
devoted to “sublime Islam” and “love [of ] their faith,” they would never “accept
that which is ‘cooked and seasoned’ with foreign religious elements.” Perceiving
that the nationalism of individual groups was nothing more than “religious propa-
ganda” and “anti-Islamic propaganda,” Handžić reaffirmed the concept of “patrio-
tism,” which, in his view, had a basis in Islam and satisfied the political needs of
the Muslims. According to him, Islam “enhanced the innate patriotism of the
Bosniaks” and aroused in Muslims a feeling of “loyalty” to the homeland rather
than one of “nationalism.”61
The religious elite placed the problem of alienation from Islam and adoption
of Western values on the list of modern evils besetting Muslims. Handžić, for one,
referred to the secular educated generation of Muslims as “Muslims in name only,”
admonishing them for “falsely or genuinely reveling in contemporary culture” and
for believing that “Islamic Sharia is not suited to today’s circumstances and that nei-
ther a state nor valid order can be based upon it.” At the same time, there were many
educated “Muslims who adhere to religious teachings” but “do not have a deeper
understanding of faith.” In this vein, Handžić accorded legitimacy to Muslim lead-
ers who “more sharply and radically act” in defense of Islamic tradition.62
The skepticism toward Western ideas of the wartime generation of Muslim reli-
gious intellectuals is evident in the works of Mustafa Busuladžić, a professor at
the Sarajevo Sharia gymnasium, a preacher, or vaiz, who wrote a great deal during
the four years of the Croatian state’s existence.63 Busuladžić argued that all the
power of the Muslims derived from Islam and that they did not need Western
modernity to improve the life of their community. On the contrary, in his view
it was impossible to bridge the gap between Islam and Western modernity, in
which category he included nationalism. Busuladžić perceived the ancient past as
a period characterized by the ascent of the Muslims and modern times as their fall
to insignificance and subjugation. Through Islam, Muslims entered the totality of
204 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

history—in other words, they “became its subject”; through secularism and mod-
ernization, they had become only its object. His view of the future in 1941, then,
was tied to “faith as the source of our strength and life itself.”64
This view partly explains Busuladžić’s severely critical interpretation of the
Muslim secular elite, since he deemed it responsible for the loss of the Islamic
spirit in the urban milieu. He complained that Muslims were “blindly imitating
Europe” and breaking with “the past, with the healthy traditions of our fathers
and the mental traits of our Muslim and racial soul.” According to him, Islam
was nonetheless preserved in the Bosnian rural environment, which was not
“infected with civilization to a greater degree,” so he saw in it the primary source
of Islamic renewal. By 1944, Busuladžić was writing about the “Muslim front
of self-defense” and called on Muslims to grapple with the future by remaining
tied to the past, for “the ideational melding with non-Muslim Europe” not only
threatened the onset of “spiritual inferiority” but also “physical annihilation.”65 In
opposition to a secular materialistic intelligentsia, he advocated an organic type
of Muslim intelligentsia and asserted that the clergy in both war and peace was
the genuine promoter of collective identity since it followed “the Islamic path
marked by the Quran and Hasrat Muhammad’s life.” Since Busuladžić equated
service of God with service of society and the community, he concluded that in
the new state El-Hidaje, in fact, enjoyed a “state-building” quality. “The spiritual,
religious, and cultural and economic elevation of the Muslims means reinforcing
the foundations of the state itself,” he wrote.66
Husein Đozo, a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo and a professor of the
Arabic language and Sharia, took the lead in criticizing the secular intelligentsia
in 1941. As a follower of the teachings of Muhammad Abduh and Jamal-ad-Din
Afghani, he adhered to the view that the Quran may not be subject to interpreta-
tion in compliance with the demands of a given time. Đozo held the secular intel-
ligentsia accountable for causing the “Muslims to neglect two-thirds of Islam and
thus unconsciously proclaim most of the Quran derogatory.” He claimed that they
had taken the entire life of the Muslims in their hands, leaving the ulema with only
“mosques and nothing else, mosques as houses of prayer, but not as schools, courts,
pulpits, meeting halls, and so on.” Simultaneously, he censured the “Muslim youth,
educated in European universities and steeped in modern materialistic thought” for
“succumbing to these deceptions and tendentious lies” so that “the glorious past and
majestic Islamic culture did not constitute anything of value in their eyes.”67

Youth and the Return to Islam: The Case of the Young Muslims
However, the emancipatory charge of Islam was probably more apparent in an
organization called the Young Muslims, which functioned under the protective
 Envisioning the “Other” East 205

umbrella of El-Hidaje. The organization was established in March 1941 and

mostly attracted Muslim secondary school and university students who, feel-
ing pressured by the prevalent secular environment, sought an explicitly Muslim
identity.68 The Young Muslims operated under the watchful eye of the Ustasha
authorities in seventeen local chapters. The Sarajevo weekly Osvit attempted to
characterize the activities of the Young Muslims as being somewhere between
advocacy for a return of youth to “the wing of the Islamic faith” and protection
from “atheistic and anational teachings,” asserting that these two modern evils
“threatened Croats of Islamic faith with evident ruin.”69
At the same time, though, there were a series of indications that the Young
Muslims served as a breeding ground for activists who aspired to political eman-
cipation through Islam. According to them, secularism was anathema to Islam,
a stance that invites comparisons with the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement
founded by Hassan al-Banna in the Middle East and North Africa.70
It is not entirely coincidental that the organization’s name and the use of the
Arabic language and script in its emblem were borrowed from the pan-Islamic
guidebook. As explained in the El-Hidaje bulletin, the organization took its name
from similar movements in Arab countries to emphasize “pan-Islamic fraternity.”
The emblem of the Young Muslims was written in Arabic using Arabic letters to
demonstrate the bond with the Quran, “brothers of the same faith,” and “the
cradle of Islam.”71 The enthusiasm and firmness of Islamic conviction among
the Young Muslims in the Ustasha state is best illustrated by the writings of Asaf
Serdarević. To him, Islam was not contingent but rather “for all times.” Skepticism
of Western modernity pushed Serdarević to an early embrace of Islam. In attempt-
ing to summarize the negative impact of modernization on Muslims, he asserted
that the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina had become victims of Western rational-
ism, even though they differed from Westerners precisely because Islam does not
accept “reason” as “the postulate of all things and ideas.” The supremacy of reason,
he said, “degenerates the soul and spiritual life of man,” establishing “a cult of
material.” Thus, Muslims must reject materialism as “the new most essential and
most characteristic quality of today’s man and also his most painful and most
perilous disease.” In other words, to the Muslim understanding of life, revelation,
which is above reason, was more important. In this vein, Serdarević concluded
that the Western definition of culture was a “demagogic definition” because it
delineates culture “in hundreds of ways.” He acknowledged only one definition,
the “culture of justice, love, and sacrifice, the culture of the authentic man, the
divine man, who has always been the same and who will always remain the same.”
At the level of everyday politics, Serdarević asserted that the status of Islam in the
context of the Croatian state had weakened considerably so that the Muslims were
currently “in a worse position than we were about fifty years ago.” What Muslims
had to comprehend, he continued, was that there could be no resolutions to their
206 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

vital concerns “outside of Islam.”72 Thus, it came as no surprise that in 1943

Serdarević called for recruitment to the unit of Hafiz Mehmed Pandža, who was
leading a struggle of the Muslims against the Communist-led Partisans, a struggle
that was almost destined to fail. It proved fatal for Serdarević too: as a member of
Pandža’s Muslim Liberation Movement, he was arrested and shot by the Partisans
in Vitez in mid-1944.
When Kasim Effendi Dobrača took over the organization after Handžić’s death
in June 1943, he rejected any suggestion that it might have a political charac-
ter, stressing that the Young Muslims were in no way a “political movement” but
rather an “Islamic moralist and Islamic educational movement.”73 However, the
fact remains that a radical group whose views of Islam were essentially ideological
appeared under the aegis of the Young Muslims. The Young Muslim circle was
hardly monolithic and was divided into a “submissive” majority of youths drawn
to the traditional spiritual course of the El-Hidaje organization and a group of
“rebels” who were bound by a sense of Islam as a political religion. Tarik Muftić,
a medical student, led a group of “rebellious” adherents that counted among its
number Esad Karađozović, Emin Granov, Asaf Serdarević, and Murtez Dervišević.
He also occasionally wrote texts on the pages of the bulletin El-Hidaje that he
did not sign for fear of being incriminated. Muftić believed that “Islam is not
just a faith but also the most perfect universal ideology,” criticizing “compro-
mised Muslims,” by which he meant educated individuals who “in contact with
the Christian West, have degraded and diminished Islam.” Furthermore, he was
also critical of the Muslim intelligentsia who, as far back as the twilight of the
Ottoman Empire in 1878, had wanted to throw off the Islamic faith in order
to live in Europe and who “established Europe, European teaching and thought
as the sole, absolute, and proper criteria.” Secular intellectuals, he complained,
did not understand that Islam was also “a completely perfect social, state, eco-
nomic, and philosophical system, a system with its particular views of the world
and culture, both spiritual and material.” Instead, these people had submitted “to
the influences of progressive and high European culture.” As a result, all of them
“finished Western schools, became doctors, professors, and engineers,” and built
their own careers but “ceased to be sons of this land.” Nevertheless, Muftić made
a distinction between Islam rooted in the Quran and hadith and “compromised
Islam,” which been contaminated by “the hereditary caliphate, imperial palaces,
court opulence, pomp, façades, harems, formal audiences, dervish orders, Mawlid
observances, Ta’wil, türbes, nishan ceremonies.”74 He pointed out that Islam was
not limited to “to a narrow-minded and limited concept of faith or religion,” and
he underlined the link between Muslims and pan-Islamism, a movement that
will “awaken the Islamic colossus from its centuries-long slumber” and create “a
great Islamic state that would number over 400 million denizens, members of the
most diverse races and nations—but brothers.”75 Radical Young Muslim members
 Envisioning the “Other” East 207

therefore were rebelling against the established clergy rather than Islam itself since
they believed that Islam had to be liberated from the ulema.

Islamism and International Solidarity:

The Visit of the Grand Mufti to Sarajevo
The problematic relationship between the state authorities and the Muslim com-
munity and the growing appeal of a return to authentic Islam is eloquently illus-
trated by the intervention of Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of
Jerusalem. Husseini was a member of the first Arab Palestinian elite, which frac-
tured during the long years of resistance to Zionism. Appointed Palestinian grand
mufti in 1921, in 1928 he formed ties with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood of
Hassan al-Banna. At the end of 1941 he moved to Berlin, where he began to learn
more about the situation of the Muslims in the Balkans.
Husseini’s support for the Axis powers said much about the Muslims’ own
weaknesses in their struggle against the enemies of Islam. In mid-1942, Osvit car-
ried an extensive interview with Husseini in which he underscored his view that
the NDH was a satisfactory solution for the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
who represented “a bond between East and West” and “the vanguard of Islam
in Europe.” The grand mufti believed that British colonialism, Bolshevism, and
Communism were the dominant enemies of Islam. In his first appearance in the
Croatian state press, Husseini stressed that the Second World War was first and
foremost “a wrestling of ideologies” and “a struggle against oppressors” being
waged by “youthful nations, above all Germany, for a more just order.”76 Husseini
called upon the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina to focus their energies fighting
against Communism and Bolshevism. Osvit underlined this statement in its edi-
torial, declaring that “Bolshevism is a danger in and of itself, for it denies God
and all of the values upon which refinement and civilization are founded. . . . The
spirit of Communism cannot be reconciled with Islam. . . . The struggle against
Communism is the sacred duty of Muslims.”77
It was precisely for this mission of mobilizing Muslims to oppose Communism
that Husseini visited Zagreb and Sarajevo in March 1943. This second visit was
arranged by Heinrich Himmler, the German Reich minister of the interior and
director of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), who
had launched a recruitment drive for a Muslim volunteer SS division. The state
authorities and Pavelić himself were rather reserved about Husseini’s arrival in the
state, as they feared he might encourage Muslim autonomists in Sarajevo.78
In his memoirs, the German ambassador Siegfried Kasche noted that the grand
mufti’s arrival was carried forward “against the will of the Croatian Government”
and against the better judgement of the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
208 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

himself. Husseini therefore came to Zagreb exclusively at the behest of the Reich
Main Security Office.79 Muslim officials within the regime also exhibited reserve
over the grand mufti’s visit. Muhamed Alajbegović, then the Croatian state’s con-
sul in Munich, explicitly rejected the Ustasha regime’s request that he be a mem-
ber of the grand mufti’s official escort. Moreover, in early March 1943 he warned
the state authorities that Husseini could be exploited to manipulate “the poor
people in Bosnia” on behalf of German interests and that, given the wartime cir-
cumstances, the Muslims could suffer additionally. He believed that it would have
been more appropriate to invite the grand mufti to the opening of the mosque in
Zagreb because to Muslims he was first and foremost a religious authority.80
In Sarajevo, Husseini was informed that the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina
had been pushed into a civil war between the Croats and Serbs and that they were
threatened with extermination by the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović.
This was made worse by the fact that the German and Italian occupation authori-
ties were cooperating militarily with the Chetniks to combat the Communist-led
resistance to the Ustasha regime backed by the masses. Thus Husseini was asked by
the Muslim intelligentsia to dissuade the German and Italian military command-
ers from further cooperation with the Chetniks. After returning from Sarajevo,
Husseini compiled a report for the needs of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt in
which he advocated for assistance on behalf of the Muslims. Husseini had close
links with the Reichssicherheitshauptamt’s Special Section Arabia, which had
organized his trips in Nazi-occupied Europe and which shared his commitment
to the destruction of the Middle Eastern Jews. He reinforced his arguments by
emphasizing the need for the formation of a Muslim volunteer SS division. In May
1943, the Thirteenth SS Volunteer Division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, later known
as the Handschar Division, was formed, composed mainly of Muslims from
Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as some Albanians and ethnic Germans. Recruiting
posters consciously targeted Bosnian Muslims, calling on them as honorable and
manly warriors to join this new SS division and defend their homes and families
from the depredations of violent Bolshevik hordes.81

Bosnian Muslims between Modernity and Nationhood

Under the Ustasha regime, the symbolic presentation of Islam and the Muslims
of Bosnia-Hercegovina was an integral aspect in the cultural formation of Croat
nationalism as a bridge between the East and the West. Similarly, the racial cat-
egorization of the Muslims as the purest of Croatians formed part of the broader
racial system that operated under Ustasha rule and identified the Muslims as an
ostensibly privileged group. Muslims experienced some social mobility in the new
state, entering the state parliament, for example, or taking up positions in state
 Envisioning the “Other” East 209

ministries and directorates while, culturally, Muslim artists, writers, and novelists
were the recipients of numerous awards and their work feted and actively pro-
moted. However, the attempt by the Ustasha regime to incorporate Muslims into
their new state led to divisions between the Muslim intellectual elite, which iden-
tified as Croatian and shared the Ustasha movement’s secular modernizing vision,
and the religious intelligentsia, which resisted the Ustasha program of nationaliza-
tion and modernization as well as its campaign of anti-Serb and anti-Jewish ter-
ror. The hostility of the religious intelligentsia was increasingly matched by that
of Muslim youth groups. As a result, the program to reframe the Muslims and
Croatian culture as a synthesis of East and West was never likely to succeed. In
fact, the collapse of the Ustasha state in 1945 was a historical watershed in a dual
sense. Its failure to create a form of Croatian culture that would be a symbiosis
of the Western and Islamic heritages was brought to its historical end. Parallel to
this, the negative experience with Croat nationalism under the Ustasha regime
accelerated the process of Muslim consciousness as a separate and distinct nation.

Notes
1. Aleida Assmann, Duga senka prošlosti: Kultura sećanja i politika identiteta (Bel-
grade: Biblioteka XX. veka, 2011), 265–66.
2. On the recent course of the Croatian postsocialist culture of remembering the
Second World War, see, for example, Sulejman Bosto and Tihomir Cipek, eds., Kul-
tura sjećanja 1945: Povijesni lomovi i svladavanje prošlosti (Zagreb: Disput, 2009).
3. The bulk of the historical legacy of the Independent State of Croatia is viewed
through the prism of Jasenovac, the largest concentration camp, where approximately
eighty-three thousand lost their lives (between forty-five and fifty-two thousand
Serbs, twelve thousand Croats and Muslims, thirteen thousand Jews, and ten thou-
sand Roma). Cf. Vladimir Žerjavić, Opsesije i megalomanije oko Jasenovca i Bleiburga
(Zagreb: Globus, 1992); with Nataša Mataušić, Jasenovac 1941–1945: Logor smrti i
radni logor (Jasenovac: Javna ustanova Spomen-područje Jasenovac, 2003).
4. For the most recent Croatian historiography on Croatian-Bosniak relations,
several monographic treatments are noteworthy: Ševko Omerbašić, Islam i musli-
mani u Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Mešihat islamske zajednice u Hrvatskoj, 1999); Zlatko
Hasanbegović, Muslimani u Zagrebu 1878–1945: Doba utemeljenja (Zagreb: Medžlis
Islamske zajednice, Institut za društvena istraživanja Ivo Pilar, 2007); Nada Kisić
Kolanović, Muslimani i hrvatski nacionalizam, 1941–1945 (Zagreb: Školska knjiga,
2009). For a recent analysis of Bosniak historiography on the various problems
encountered by the Muslims in 1941, see the anthology Husnija Kamberović, ed.,
Bosna i Hercegovina 1941: Novi pogledi (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju u Sarajevu, 2012).
5. Tihomir Cipek and Stjepan Matković, Programski dokumenti hrvatskih političkih
stranaka i skupina 1842–1914 (Zagreb: Disput, 2006), 241.
210 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

6. Zlatko Hasanbegović, “Ante Starčević o poslaniku islama: Jedan zaboravljeni

esej,” Hazard, no. 6 (2002): 33–38.
7. Osman Nuri Hadžić, Islam i kultura (Zagreb: Naklada vlastita 1894), 60–64.
8. Ante Starčević, Istočno pitanje (Zagreb: Hrvatska hercegovačka zajednica Herceg
Stjepan, 1992), 27, 53.
9. For more on the conflict in rightist political thought and the emergence of
factions, see Mirjana Gross, Izvorno pravaštvo: Ideologija, agitacija, pokret (Zagreb:
Golden Marketing, 2000); Stjepan Matković, Čista stranka prava, 1895–1903
(Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2001); Jasna Turkalj, Zlatko Matijević, and Stj-
epan Matković, eds., Pravaška misao i politika (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest,
2007).
10. Mile Budak, Hrvatski narod u borbi za samostalnu i nezavisnu hrvatsku državu
(Youngstown, OH: Izdanje Hrvatskog Kola u Sjedinjenim Državama i Kanadi, 1934),
35, 112–14.
11. Mladen Lorković, Narod i zemlja Hrvata (Zagreb: Grafički zavod Hrvatske,
1996), 55–58. An identical view was advocated by Filip Lukas, a geographer and
geopolitical specialist, in “Bosna i Hercegovina u geopolitičkom pogledi,” in Povijest
hrvatskih zemalja Bosne i Hercegovine od najstarijih vremena do godine 1463 (Sarajevo:
Nova tiskara, Vrček i dr., 1942), 39–77.
12. I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani: Nona serie 1939–1943, vol. 6, doc. 95
(Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1986), 892–94. Cf. also Zbornik doku-
menata i podataka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu 1941–1945, vol. 12, book 1, doc. 239
(Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut, 1973), 641–46.
13. For more on the Rome Treaties and the problems that ensued as a result for the
Ustasha regime between 1941 and 1945, see Nada Kisić-Kolanović, NDH i Italija:
Političke veze i diplomatski odnosi (Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak, 2001).
14. Rafael Landikušić, ed., Priručnik o političkoj i sudbenoj podjeli Nezavisne Države
Hrvatske (Zagreb: Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured, 1942), 13.
15. “Poglavnik je kazao muslimanskim Hrvatima: Bošnjački muslimani jesu krv
naše krvi oni su svijet naše hrvatske narodnosti; Ismet ef. Muftić pozdravlja Poglavnika
u ime Hrvata muslimanske vjere,” Hrvatski narod, April 24, 1941.
16. “Poglavnik dr. Ante Pavelić, Govor u Hrvatskom državnom saboru NDH 28.
veljače 1942,” Brzopisni zapisnici prvog zasjedanja Hrvatskog Državnog sabora u Neza-
visnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Hrvatski državni sabor, 1942), 161.
17. Pavelić reported that he learned his alphabet with Muslim children and that an
elderly and “honorable” khoja sat “in Turkish fashion” on a reed chair with all of the
children in front of him on the floor reciting the Koran. See Višnja Pavelić, ed., Ante
Pavelić 100 godina: Zbornik prigodom 100 godišnjice rođenja poglavnika Ante Pavelića
1889–14. srpnja 1989 (Zagreb: Naklada Starčević, 1995), 116–17.
18. Ante Pavelić, “U Carigradu,” in Doživljaji (Zagreb: Vratna gora, 1998), 2:226.
19. Mirko Jurkić, in an essay entitled “Bosnian Reality and Matica Hrvatska,”
explained, “I feel loyalty to Bosnia, bošnjaštvo, positively. It is not the antithesis of Cro-
atianism, rather its component, just as Provence or Savoy are no obstacle to France, or
 Envisioning the “Other” East 211

Bavaria or Saxony to Germany.” Briefly, as a “feeling of home and a geographic term,”

bošnjaštvo did not contradict the Croatian “national concept and name.” See Jurkić,
“Bosanska stvarnost i Matica Hrvatska,” Hrvatska misao 2–3 (1944): 33–37.
20. Muhamed Hadžijahić argued that early Croat nationalism tended toward “a
predominantly cultural content” while Serbian nationalism was “predominantly
political.” Srećko Matko Džaja also noted that in Serbian nationalism Islam was sub-
jected to the “evolutionary” paradigm and was seen as a cause for the backwardness of
the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. See Hadžijahić, Od tradicije do identitet: geneza
nacionalnog pitanja bosanskih Muslimana (Zagreb: Globus, 1990), 102–12; Džaja,
Bosna i Hercegovina u Austro-ugarskom razdoblju, 1878–1919: Inteligencija između
tradicije i ideologije (Mostar: Ziral, 2001), 215–16.
21. The body of texts generated in the Independent State of Croatia is today more
open to a critical reading, particularly well done by the literary critic Stanko Lasić
using the example of the distinguished Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža and his liter-
ary status under the Ustasha regime. Lasić came to the conclusion that the “Ustasha
ideocrats” were not capable of establishing a highly educated or intellectually robust
ideological vanguard to dominate the entire cultural sphere, which allowed for the
existence of a certain cultural autonomy. Stanko Lasić, Krležologija ili povijest kritičke
misli o Miroslavu Krleži: Miroslav Krleža i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, 10.4.1941.–
8.5.1945 (Zagreb: Globus, 1989).
22. The anthology Krv je progovorila reprinted the studies of a number of intellec-
tuals who had expressed their belief in the Croatian character of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
See Munir Šahinović-Ekremov, ed., Krv je progovorila: Rasprave i članci o podrijetlu i
životu Hrvata islamske vjere (Sarajevo: Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured, 1942).
23. The symbolic identity of Croatia at the crossroads of worlds dates to the time
of Krsto I Frankopan, the Croatian prince who sent a letter to Pope Hadrian V in
1523 asking for his help against the Ottomans, portraying Croatia as the “bulwark
or fortress of Christianity.” Cf. Ivo Žanić, “Simbolični identitet Hrvatske u trokutu
raskrižje—predziđe—most,” in Historijski mitovi na Balkanu: Zbornik radova (Sara-
jevo: Institut za istoriju, 2003), 1:166–85.
24. For the Drina mythologem, see Ivo Goldstein, “Granica na Drini—značenje i
razvoj mitologema,” in Historijski mitovi na Balkanu: Zbornik radova (Sarajevo: Insti-
tut za istoriju, 2003), 1:109–37.
25. Stjepan Ratković, “Prinos islama hrvatskoj kulturu,” in Džamija u Zagrebu:
U spomen otvorenja (Zagreb: Zakladni odbor za izgradnju džamije u Zagrebu, 1943),
107–12.
26. Archdiocesan Archives, Zagreb, Dragutin Kamber, manuscript collection.
27. Dragutin Kamber, “Hrvatska misao,” Hrvatska misao 1–2 (1943): 1–3.
28. Dragutin Kamber, “Središnje pitanje hrvatske državne problematike: Südland,
Južno-slavensko pitanje,” Hrvatska misao 6–7 (1944): 151. In this article, Kamber
highlighted the importance of Ivo Pilar’s Južnoslavensko pitanje i svjetski rat, which
was published in German in Vienna in 1918 under the alias L. V. Südland and
translated into Croatian in 1943. Pilar claimed that the Serbian state had not only
212 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

a political-national but also religious character, aspiring to expand the Greek Eastern
Orthodox faith into the western Balkans, primarily to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
29. Ćiro Truhelka, for example, rejected the notion of the violent Ottomanization
of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Ottoman era and asserted that “there was no par-
ticularly violent Turkification” or “religious persecution.” He criticized Croatian his-
toriography and believed it was under the influence of “Catholic propaganda,” which
“until the end of the eighteenth century roiled with insults against the bloody enemy
of Christianity.” Ćiro Truhelka, “Bosna u ranom srednjem vijeku,” Hrvatska enciklope-
dija, ed. Mate Ujević (Zagreb: Hrvatski izdavački bibliografski zavod, 1942), 3:151.
30. Ćiro Truhelka, “O podrijetlu bosanskih muslimana,” in Krv je progovorila:
Rasprave i članci o podrijetlu i životu Hrvata islamske vjere, ed. Munir Šahinović-
Ekremov (Sarajevo: Državni izvještajni i promičbeni ured, 1942), 11–26.
31. Mirko Jurkić, “Misao kroz prošlost,” in Džamija u Zagrebu: U spomen otvorenja
(Zagreb: Zakladni odbor za izgradnju džamije u Zagrebu, 1943), 38.
32. Petar Grgec, “Muslimanski udio u stvaranju hrvatskog narodnog pjesništva,” in
Hrvatsko podrijetlo bosansko-hercegovačkih Muslimana: Rasprave i članci, ed. Petar Šarac
and Miljenko Primorac (Zagreb: Vjesnik, 1992), 87–98.
33. Cf. Osman Sokolović, Pregled štampanih djela na srpsko-hrvatskom jeziku Mus-
limana Bosne i Hercegovine od 1878–1948 (Sarajevo: Sarajevski grafički zavod, 1955),
1–80.
34. For more on the work of Matica Hrvatska in the Independent State of Croatia,
see Visešlav Aralica, Matica Hrvatska u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Hrvatski
institut za povijest, 2011).
35. “Vakufnama samostalnog Vakufa Poglavnikove džamije u Zagrebu i Zakonska
odredba samostalnog Vakufa Poglavnikove džamije u Zagrebu. Vakufnama samostal-
nog Vakufa Poglavnikove džamije u Zagrebu i Zakonska odredba samostalnog Vakufa
Poglavnikove džamije u Zagrebu,” HDA, RSUP SRH, SDS, 004/1.
36. “Poglavnik dr. Ante Pavelić, Govor u Hrvatskom državnom saboru NDH 28.
veljače 1942,” 161.
37. The text reads, “To the glory of and as a sign of love for the one God Allah and
as a sign of regard for the Muslims, the Poglavnik Dr Ante Pavelić raises this magnifi-
cent temple in the capital city Zagreb so that the loyal sons of the chivalrous people of
Croatia, the sincere followers of the faith of Islam, may offer their humble prayer to
fortify the diligent forces in the struggle for the defense and progress of our beautiful
homeland, the Independent State of Croatia so that it may be forever happy.” Cited
in Džamija poglavnika Ante Pavelića: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, Acta 1941–1945
(Madrid: Niz Domovina, 1988), 35.
38. “Velike islamske vjerske svečanosti u Zagrebu: Poglavnikova džamija za dobro i
sreću hrvatskih muslimana i hrvatske države,” Hrvatski narod, August 19, 1944.
39. Ibid.
40. Ante Tresić-Pavičić, “Gvozdansko zavjet i uloga Hrvata u razvitku čovječanstva,”
Spremnost, July 2, 1944. Tresić’s epic would be published only posthumously in 2000.
 Envisioning the “Other” East 213

41. Antun Bonifačić, Entre Jupiter et Mars: La Croatie et ľEurope (Zagreb: Naklada
Europa, 1944), 1–22; Bonifačić, “Izmedju Jupitera i Marsa: Hrvati su krvavo pla-
tili povezanost s Europom, ali su s legendarnom vjernošću izvršili svoju graničarsku
dužnost,” Spremnost, January 9, 1944.
42. This term was, for example, used by Stjepan Horvat, a scholar and chancel-
lor of the Croatian University in Zagreb, in his book Pisma hrvatskim intelektualcima
(Zagreb: Naklada pisca, 1944), 53–57.
43. Milivoj Magdić, Intelektualci prema marksizmu i liberalizmu (Zagreb: Naklada
Putovi, 1942), 11–12; Magdić, “Hrvatska prema sovjetskom imperijalizmu,” Sprem-
nost, June 25, 1944.
44. Ante Pavelić, Strahote zabluda: Komunizam i boljševizam u Rusiji i u svijetu
(Zagreb: Knjižara Stjepan Kugli, 1941), 228–30.
45. Ružica Čičak-Chand, “Islam, etničnost i država: Balkan,” Migracijske teme 3
(1999): 263–85; Tone Bringa, Biti Muslim na bosanski način: Identitet i zajdnica u
jednom srednjebosanskom selu (Sarajevo: BTC Šahinpašić, 1997), 46–47. Cf. Husnija
Kamberović, ed., Rasprave o nacionalnom identitetu Bošnjaka: zbornik radova, vol. 5
(Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 2009); Dženit Sarač-Rujanac, Odnos vjerskog i nacio-
nalnog identiteta Bošnjaka od 1980. do 1990. godine (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju,
2012).
46. For a more comprehensive picture, see Džaja, Bosna i Hercegovina u Austro-
ugarskom razdoblju, 242. See also Mirjana Gross, “Hrvatska politika u Bosni i Her-
cegovini od 1878. do 1914,” Historijski zbornik 2 (1966): 9–67; Mustafa Imamović,
Bošnjaci u emigraciji: Monografija bosanskih pogleda 1955–1967 (Sarajevo: Bošnjački
institut Zürich, 1996).
47. The bulk of these professionals were lawyers (225) and teachers (126), followed
by physicians (71), military officers (64), sales representatives (31), and veterinarians
(21). Cited in Salih Alić, “Muslimani s fakultetskom spremom,” Narodna uzdanica:
Kalendar za godinu 1941 (1942): 67–68.
48. “Predstavnici bivše Jugoslavenske muslimanske organizacije kod Poglavnika,”
Hrvatski narod, August 15, 1941.
49. Džaferbeg Kulenović, Sabrana djela 1945–1956 (Buenos Aires: Movement for
Croatian Liberation in the USA, 1978), 55–57.
50. Kisić-Kolanović, Muslimani i hrvatski nacionalizam, 54.
51. Nikola Mandić, prime minister of the Independent State of Croatia, made the
following statement: “I hold Osvit and its contributors in very high regard, for in such
a difficult area they are spreading the state and national thought.” Statement of Nikola
Mandić in Osvit, September 19, 1943.
52. Hasan Hadžiosmanović, “Hrvatstvo u teoriji i praksi,” Osvit, October 11,
1943.
53. Siegfried Kasche, the German ambassador in Zagreb, testified that “the exis-
tence of several groups among the leading Muslims impeded the drafting of a new
statute and this was the reason for the many debates that went unnoticed by the
214 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

public.” See Kasche, “O organizaciji i djelovanju njemačkog poslanstva u Hrvatskoj,

Zagreb 10 listopada 1946,” HDA, RSUP, SRH, 1561, 202.1, 75, 0.
54. Around 1895, Mešić became a follower of Starčević and the Croatian political
line. For him the Muslims were neither Turks nor Mohammedans but rather Mus-
lims by faith and Croats by nationality. At the onset of the twentieth century, Mešić
claimed that the Croatian language was the “mother tongue” of the Muslims and that
bošnjaštvo was problematic because it served the purposes of both Hungarian and Ser-
bian imperialism. Without losing the intense feeling of religious identification as a
Muslim, in 1908 Mešić established the Muslim Progressive Party, which self-identified
the Muslims as an “Islamic nation” and Bosnia-Herzegovina as their genuine and only
homeland. See Ademaga Mešić, “Memoari,” n.d., Zagreb, Nacionalna i sveučilišna
knjižnica, Zbirka rukopisa Rariteti 6629, 65 and 109.
55. A waqf (Turk. vakif) is an endowment consisting of property or money donated
by a Muslim and subject to a contract dictating its use for a permitted purpose. Dur-
ing the Ottoman period, waqfs were established to maintain mosques, to pay for the
hajj, to assist schools and hospitals, and to finance public works. In 1878, from one-
fourth to one-third of the cultivable land in Bosnia-Herzegovina was classified as a
waqf and, in the absence of state regulation, the waqf system may have been a source
of abuse and personal enrichment. Cf. also Robert Donia, Islam pod dvoglavim orlom:
Muslimani Bosne i Hercegovine, 1878–1914, vol. 1 (Sarajevo: Naklada Zoro and Insti-
tut za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine, 2000).
56. See Kasche, “O organizaciji i djelovanju njemačkog poslanstva u Hrvatskoj,
Zagreb, 10. listopada 1946,” HDA RSUP, SRH, SDS, 1561, 202.1, 75, 0.
57. He earned particular scholarly credibility for his Croatian translation of
the Arabian texts of the Husrevbeg waqf-nâme, written by the famed Arabian styl-
ist Mawlānā Mustafa ibn Omer ibn Amza, who came to Sarajevo in 1522 as a
mufti and became known as Arap-hodža (Arab Khoja). Cf. Mahmud Traljić, “Tis-
kani radovi Rehmetli Fehim ef. Spahe,” Novi Behar 16, no. 4 (February 15, 1944):
64–66.
58. El-Hidaje was established in Sarajevo in 1936 by Hajji Aliefendija Aganović, a
Sharia judge who studied at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The association defined its
mission primarily as a struggle against modern vices such as alcoholism, prostitution,
and the imitation of Western fashions and luxuries.
59. Fehim Spaho to Asim Ugljen, January 17, 1941, Historical Archives in Sara-
jevo, Fehim Spaho Collection 806.
60. Muhamed Hadžijahić, “Muslimanske rezolucije iz 1941. godine,” in 1941. u
istoriji Bosne i Hercegovine: Zbornik radova (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju Bosne i Her-
cegovine, 1973), 275–82.
61. M[ehmed] Handžić, “Patriotizam, narodnost i nacionalizam sa islamskog
gledišta,” El-Hidaje 5, no. 1 (1941): 7–16. Handžić’s stance on nationalism was con-
tinued by Kasim ef. Dobrača, who became the head of El-Hidaje after the former’s
sudden death in August 1944. See Kasim ef. Dobrača, “Nacionalizam i patriotizam
 Envisioning the “Other” East 215

u islamu,” in Kasim ef. Dobrača: Život i djelo, ed. Ferid Dautović (Sarajevo: Izdavački
centar IZ u BiH & Medžlis islamske zajednice Sarajevo, 2005), 165–92.
62. Handžić, “Naša vjerska zajednica,” Osvit, July 30, 1944.
63. Šaći Filandra, Mustafa Musuladžić: Muslimani u Evropi; Izabrani spisi (Sarajevo:
Sejtarija d.o.o., 1997).
64. Mustafa Busladžić, “Dužnost i njihov smisao u našoj sadašnjici,” El-Hidaje 12
(1943): 229–33.
65. Mustafa Busladžić, “Misli o sudbini naroda i zajednica u poviesti,” Novi Behar
19 (1944): 293–96.
66. Mustafa Busladžić, “Misija El-Hidaje—El-Hidaje je udruženje cjelokupne
muslimanske inteligencija sa sjedištem u Sarajevo,” Osvit, August 23, 1942; Busladžić,
“Svećenstvo i narod,” Osvit, April 30, 1944.
67. Husein Đozo, “Politika islamskih naroda,” Novi Behar 5 (1941): 139–42.
68. For further details, see Sead Trhulj, Mladi muslimani (Zagreb: Globus, 1992).
69. Muhamed A. Mujić, “Organiziranje muslimanske mladeži,” Osvit, May 3, 1942.
70. Cf. Fikret Karčić, Društveno-pravni aspekti islamskog reformizma: Pokret za
reformu šerijatskog prava i njegov odjek u Jugoslaviji u prvoj polovini XX. vijeka (Sarajevo:
Islamski teološki fakultet, 1999), 234. Karčić stressed that the Young Muslims tended
toward “Islamic revivalism,” “anti-Communism,” and “political pan-Islamism.” Cf.
Gilles Kepel, Jihad, the Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2002), 242.
71. Džemal Muhasilović, “O našem družtvenom znaku,” El-Hidaje 6, no. 1
(1943): 59–64.
72. Asaf Serdarević, “Islam i suvremenost,” El-Hidaje 8, no. 6 (1944): 231–37.
73. Kasim Dobrača, “Mladi muslimani,” El-Hidaje 6, nos. 10–11 (1943): 281–88.
74. “Problem naše omladine,” El-Hidaje 5, nos. 1–2 (1942): 17–22.
75. “Kompromisni islam i kompromisni Muslimani,” El-Hidaje 5, no. 4 (1942):
91–96. The byline “Young Muslim medical student” probably concealed the identity
of Tarik Muftić, who was studying medicine in Zagreb at the time. Muftić would be
sentenced to twelve years in prison in 1949 for illegal political activity in Yugoslavia.
76. Mustafa Busuladžić, “Pobjeda sila trojnog saveza je neumitna: Veseli me, da su
se Hrvati našli u svojoj slobodnoj i nezavisnoj državi,” Osvit, August 9, 1942.
77. Mustafa Busuladžić, “Razgovor s velikim jeruzalemskm muftijom El Huseini-
jom,” Osvit, August 9, 1942.
78. Hans Helm, the German police attaché in Zagreb, expressed the concern
that “the visit of the grand mufti to Sarajevo will provide a strong motivation to the
Muslims and reinforce their aspirations for autonomy, which will certainly create
difficulties for the Croatian state leadership.” He predicted that recruitment for a
Muslim SS division would also be met with some reticence in Italy. Helm, “Posjet
velikog muftije: Izvješće upućeno Njemačkom Glavnom uredu za državnu sigurnost
(RSHA-Reichssicherheitshauptamt) 27. ožujka 1947. godine,” HDA, RSUP, SRH,
1521, 202.1, 75, 0.
216 Nada Kisić-Kolanović

79. Siegfried Kasche, “Dr M. Alajbegović, Hrvatski ministar vanjskih poslova,

Zagreb 3 ožujka 1947. godine,” HDA, RSUP, SRH, 1561, 013.1.4.
80. Mehmed Alajbegović, “Izjava od 16. studenoga 1946. godine,” HDA, RSUP
SRH 1561, 013.0.50.
81. Enver Redžić, Muslimansko autonomaštvo i 13. SS divizija: Autonomija Bosne i
Hercegovine i Hitlerov Treći rajh (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1987), 100–102.
 Chapter Eight

“To Be Eternally Young

Means to Be an Ustasha”

Youth Organizations as Incubators

of a New Youth and New Future

Goran Miljan

“Don’t ever forget that through You and by You as a new generation the state idea
must be secured, the idea of freedom and independence of the Croat people for all
times. Never again can traitors, hirelings and slaves be born from your generation,
but only strong, highbred and decisive carriers, representatives and warriors of a
liberated and strong Croat nation.”1 It was with these words that Ivan Oršanić,
the leader of the Ustasha Youth organization, said goodbye to his young follow-
ers when he was reassigned to his new position.2 Through his words it is possible
to discern the guiding role assigned to members of the Ustasha Youth: to be a
future ruling elite of the Ustasha state. The question of youth within regimes that
aspired to total social and political control has often represented a key project
in campaigns aimed at ideological, social, and cultural transformation through
the refashioning of citizens. In both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, an emergent
uncompromised and “unsullied” ruling cadre aimed to create a new ideologically
committed and unquestioning generation, both loyal citizens and future leaders.
Even more so in smaller authoritarian states established during the 1930s and
1940s in Southeast Europe, it was deemed crucial to mold the young into true
believers and future leaders, an embryonic “elite” whose purpose and mission
would be to safeguard the existing state, order, and its ideas. In the case of the
Ustasha movement, the aim was to create a new generation of fanatical, belliger-
ent, politically conscious Croats—that is, young Ustashas.
This chapter explores the various ways in which the generation of Ustasha
leaders who came to power in 1941, considering themselves the warriors of the
struggle in the 1930s for a liberated independent Croatian homeland, embarked
on a project to create a new generation of followers and believers, of Ustashas.
This new generation was taught to be proud of the older generation’s sacrifices and
218 Goran Miljan

ruthlessly to defend their achievements, in particular, the successful national liber-

ation struggle. The idea of safeguarding the virtues of the national revolution was
supposed to motivate every thought and deed of the coming Ustasha generation.
For its part, the project aimed at the social, political, and ideological transforma-
tion of youth, becoming a key aspect of the state’s wider program of social remak-
ing. Through a comparative analysis of the interaction and collaboration of the
Ustasha Youth and its Slovakian counterpart, the Hlinka Youth—which ranged
from mutual camping excursions and fraternal visits to athletic competitions and
courses at each other’s training schools—this chapter aims to demonstrate how
both the Ustasha movement and Hlinka Party conceptualized their youth as car-
riers of the “new” order and the new state. As a generation raised and educated by
those who had fought for the establishment of the resurrected nation-state, both
Hlinka and Ustasha Youth were to serve as guardians of its cultural, social, and
political achievements. It argues that the relations established between the Hlinka
and the Ustasha Youth organizations were those of equals, something that was not
the case in their relations with the larger and far better organized Italian Fascist
and Hitler Youth organizations. Although both of these regimes wished for their
youth organizations to be incorporated into wider European youth organizations,
it was, in fact, their mutual and developing relationship that was fostered and
frequently promoted as a symbol of the pride, development, and achievements of
their respective national states.
Since the beginning of the 1990s there has been a proliferation of schol-
arly studies in Croatia dealing with the topic of the Ustasha regime and the
Independent State of Croatia. Until now the majority of these studies have lacked
a methodological and thematic focus and, despite the centrality of the concept of
youth to both the Ustasha ideology and state, research dedicated to the Ustasha
Youth organization has been almost entirely absent from contemporary Croatian
historiography. Not only are there are no studies dedicated to the topic, but even
within the books that address political, social, or cultural aspects of the Ustasha
regime, the question of youth is rarely, if ever, analyzed systematically.3
Why this is so is unclear, but some answers might be found in the ideological
and political context within which some of these works were written. On the one
hand, scholarly studies written during the Communist period perhaps avoided
the question of youth and their involvement within the Ustasha regime because
young people were perceived as a necessary factor of social and political inclu-
sion in the newly formed Yugoslav state. Given that the Ustasha Youth organiza-
tion incorporated, on the basis of obligatory membership, young people from
the age of seven to twenty-one, it was the very generation that had been through
the Ustasha Youth system that was now viewed as an essential building block of
social capital and instrument of cohesion in the new state. Another reason for
silence on this topic might lie in the sometimes striking similarities between
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 219

Ustasha and Communist ideas on youth and youth organizations. However, in

the post-1990 period the majority of Croatian historiography addressing the
Independent State of Croatia focused on its role as an expression of Croatian
sovereignty and statehood, strongly influenced by the existing political context.
Research based on this premise explained the establishment of the Ustasha state
as a legitimate expression of the Croat people’s struggle for the right to their
own state. As such, the concept of statehood as well as the historical justification
on which it was built was elevated—or, more accurately, detached—from the
political, ideological, cultural, and social practices of the Ustasha regime. Such
an ideologically and politically influenced approach meant that broader and
more considered interpretations and descriptions of the Ustasha regime and its
followers was pushed to the margins and often treated as irrelevant when com-
pared to the “centuries’ long aspiration” of the Croat nation for independence.
As a result, understanding the actions and ideas of the Ustasha movement and
its followers and what animated them became irrelevant in comparison to rec-
ognizing the legitimacy of the state the movement established.4
Besides such a nationalistic and ethnocentric view of Croatian history,
another important aspect missing from most Croatian research dealing with
this topic is a broader methodological framework encompassing comparative
approaches. As a result of this absence, it is hardly surprising that there exists
not one single study by a Croatian scholar comparing the ideology, ideas, and
policies of the Ustasha regime with those of other influential European fascist
movements and regimes. For example, not one study deals with the question of
fascism and its influence on the Ustasha movement, its formation, development,
and actions. On the contrary, fascism as a continent-wide and dominant ideo-
logical phenomenon of the 1930s and 1940s has tended either to be ignored
in discussions of the Ustasha regime or else explicitly dismissed on the basis of
an extremely limited conception of what fascism constituted.5 However, as this
chapter shows, fascist ideas about youth played a central role in the Ustasha
worldview and, consequently, our understanding of it.

“New” States through National Liberation: Slovakia and Croatia

Both the Independent State of Croatia and Slovakia were formed as a result and
in the context of Nazi Germany’s foreign policy and its idea of a “new European
order.” Slovakia was established on March 14, 1939, while the Independent State
of Croatia was established in the aftermath of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in
March 1941.6 The new leaders of these nations considered the establishment of
their respective states to be the fulfillment of the ancient struggles and rights of
their people to national liberation and independence. The romanticized notion
220 Goran Miljan

of national independence became an increasingly important part of nationalist

discourse in these nations after the First World War, when both became parts
of the larger state units of Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes. During the interwar period the main premise of nationalist par-
ties, especially those of more radical provenance, was that they had been forced
into artificially created states in which they were now being governed by a foreign
nation—and in the case of Croatia, according to radical nationalists, by a nation
with a foreign and inferior culture. In such an atmosphere, national development
in the 1920s and 1930s could not be interpreted as anything other than artifi-
cial and stunted. For radical nationalists and separatists, this period of national
stagnation and decay came to an end only with the military intervention of Nazi
Germany and its allies, who were viewed as national liberators.7
Both of the newly established regimes regarded this moment as a unique histor-
ical opportunity to finally develop their nations’ destinies independent of foreign
rule. The fact that they were highly influenced by and, to a certain extent, depen-
dent on Nazi Germany (and, in the case of Croatia, Fascist Italy) was of minor
significance for them. As far as the new states’ leaders were concerned, national
liberation, no matter how compromised, offered them the opportunity to resume
their “natural” historical development, which had been abruptly interrupted in
1918. For the writer Josip Andrić commenting in the Croatian radio magazine
Hrvatski krugoval, “The artificially created Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were
actually dungeons for nations that fell into them.” As such, the Slovak state was
“a consequence of the unbreakable will of the Slovak people. . . . And old Pribin,
Rastislav, and Svetopluk’s Slovak state emerged from this same desire.”8 The medi-
eval period presented both of these regimes with points of reference when dis-
cussing state and historical legitimacy. This romanticized construction served the
purpose of presenting these two nations as having undeniable historical rights to
form and live within their own independent states. It also served the purpose of
demonstrating that these two “small” nations were once and were now again capa-
ble of governing on their own outside “artificially” created multinational states.
Mutual connections between Slovakia and Croatia date from the early nine-
teenth century, during which both nations were under the influence and politi-
cal control of Budapest. Although their positions were different, with Croatia
having more autonomy through its Sabor, or Parliament, their common strug-
gle against Budapest created a platform for collaboration and the formation of
closer relations.9 With the establishment of their respective independent states,
these relations were elevated to a higher level of importance, although they were
not without their difficulties. State relations passed through various stages, rang-
ing from a period of dynamism to complete silence and indifference, and were
strongly shaped by the development of Nazi foreign policy and priorities as well
as the war context. As a consequence of the broader context within which these
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 221

states were formed, Slovakia and Croatia were restricted in their ability to act
independently in diplomatic relations, and this regulated the level of cooperation
between them too.
That said, given the similarities of both ideology and practices between the
Ustasha Youth and the Slovakian Hlinka Youth, as well as their close and fraternal
relationship, youth policy often served as a conduit for creating connections at a
broader political, ideological, social, and practical level. At the same time, their
somewhat similar ideological interpretation of the role of youth and the signifi-
cance they attributed to it means that examining the interactions, activities, and
relations between the two youth organizations provides one means of understand-
ing the wider relationship between the two states.

Educating the “New” Youth

Within independent Slovakia and the Ustasha state, the question of youth, its orga-
nization, and its ideological education was perceived as a key policy priority. For the
new Ustasha elite, youth was envisioned to be an embryonic generation of young
vigorous Ustashas, the vanguard of Ustasha ideas and guardians of the Ustasha state.
The Ustasha Youth organization was therefore imagined as a young, zealous move-
ment. On a symbolic level the organization was supposed to represent a ruthless mil-
itant new youth that would stand on the borders of the “liberated” state and defend
it by any means necessary.10 Simultaneously, the Ustasha Youth was to become a
part of a wider European youth movement. According to Radovan Latković writing
in Ustaška mladež, the organization’s central journal, youth was to become a “car-
rier of a new nationalistic spirit in Europe.” Janko Skrbin, meanwhile, argued that
“especially in those fateful days of humanity and culture, it was the youth as a carrier
of spirit, of fight and radicalism, as a flag carrier of the new ideas and new perspec-
tives that became a key factor in national life.”11 The Ustasha Youth organization
was based on the idea of youth as the herald of a new way of thinking. Its organiza-
tion and beliefs were structured on a basis similar to those of Fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany, both of which, at that time, served as a sort of a blueprint for youth
organization and ideas elsewhere in fascist Europe.12 The influence of both Italian
Fascist youth precepts and the Hitler Youth ideology could be seen quite clearly in
the Ustasha Youth belief that their “feeling of personal loyalty and respect toward
the Poglavnik and fanatical belief in his historical greatness” should be constant and
unquestioning.13 This mirrored the way in which both Italian Fascist youth and the
Hitler Youth were instructed to demonstrate unquestioning obedience and love to Il
Duce and the Führer.14
The Ustasha Youth was divided into four separate sections and was envisaged
as an all-embracing organization within the Ustasha movement. The first section
222 Goran Miljan

incorporated children from the age of seven till eleven and was named Ustasha
Hope (Ustaška uzdanica); from age eleven to fifteen children were incorporated
into the Ustasha Hero organization (Ustaški junak); between fifteen and twenty-
one, they joined the Starčević Youth (Starčevićeva mladež), and finally those
attending the University of Zagreb joined the Ustasha University Center (Ustaški
sveučilištni stožer). As the commander of the male Ustasha Youth Zdenko
Blažeković explained in his book Mladež i Država (Youth and the state, 1944), the
purpose of the organization and its all-embracing aspects was to “encompass all
the youth within a structure that must conduct a spiritual revolution of Croatian
youth and put an end to a reckless dash into disaster.”15 Ivan Oršanić, the adminis-
trative commander of the Ustasha Youth, likewise anticipated the incarnation of a
new kind of youth: “From this revolutionary core, from this struggle,” he wrote in
August 1941, “there will develop a whole generation that has never existed before
in Croatia—the Ustasha generation.”16 The exact number of members and suc-
cess of this organization is hard to assess. Some of the leaders of the organization
such as Blažeković claimed a number of “over half a million Croatian youth.”17
Such numbers were probably exaggerated, although it is certainly true that the
Ustasha Youth was a mass organization with membership mandatory for Croatian
youth.18 Nonetheless, an internal state report written in August 1942 conceded
that the youth organization was ill defined, badly governed, unorganized, and
lacking a proper leadership and that had become an institution whose members
were, increasingly, motivated by personal selfish benefits.19 Be that as it may, the
idea of a universal national youth organization certainly demonstrates the inten-
tion of the Ustasha Youth to become a mass phenomenon. It was on this basis that
it managed to gather large numbers of young people and to organize educational
and physical activities, parades, and spectacles.20 Youth leaders also managed to
establish special schools for youth functionaries, such as the one established in
Borovo in October 1941. Schools were also established in Makarska, Hrvatski
Karlovci, and Nova Gradiška.21 The purpose of these schools, as stated by youth
leader Oršanić, was to “build members of the Ustasha Youth, educating them in
national-political ideology on the basis of the Ustasha principles.”22 In his book,
Blažeković explained that this was to be achieved through a combination of spe-
cialist as well as general education, while in order to avoid a “one-sided education”
theoretical modules should be complemented by practical exercises.23
As in most other such youth organizations, there existed a strict division
between male and female members and their assigned social roles and education.
Male members of the Ustasha Youth were to have a military, practical, and ascetic
education and training; female members, by contrast, were assigned the task of
being “the Poglavnik’s soldier at home.” Vika Biščan explained that the female
Ustasha Youth member “needs and wishes to remain a guardian of the Croatian
home, the educator of the new Ustasha generation.”24 While boys went camping
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 223

and underwent a strongly militaristic education, girls were tasked with collect-
ing gifts for winter relief or attending sewing courses.25 As Mira Dugački, leader
of the female section of the Ustasha Youth wrote, “They will need to know that
family and home is their kingdom. Each one of them should know that mother-
hood is her first and holiest duty and that it is upon her that the future of Croatia
depends.”26 It is likely that within the Ustasha Youth the clear gender division
was based, in part at least, on biological principles influenced by the ideology of
the movement as well as the context of total warfare. Being a militarily organized,
masculine organization, focused on armed struggle, aggression, and dynamism
in everyday life, the movement conceptualized the sexes not just on the basis of
their assumed physical utility but also according to their conservative, patriarchal
beliefs and vision of the family. Thus even women’s higher education was to be
“on such a level that she can silently, but step by step, follow the actions and expe-
riences of her life partner.”27
Besides their connections with the Hlinka Youth, the Ustasha leadership also
wished to connect their youth on a wider, European level. As a result, members
of the Ustasha Youth traveled to both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany for educa-
tional and training purposes.28 While these often proved to be mutual exchanges,
they were, however, driven by the fact that those organizations were more expe-
rienced and better organized. Therefore, these visits frequently served the pur-
pose of learning and observing so that some of their organizational and practical
aspects could be transferred and applied within the Ustasha Youth. For example,
in July 1942 the Ustasha Youth organized a summer colony for its Ustasha Hope
members in collaboration with the Italian Lictor Youth (Gioventù Italiana del
Littorio—GIL). The course was attended by 115 members and lasted for three
weeks. It was structured on the model of training colonies already established
in Italy and was led by Maria Furci-Lanni, who served as the principal trainer
for the entire course. Simultaneously, lectures were organized in Croatia itself
through which Ustasha Youth members became acquainted with how such colo-
nies worked and operated.29 Besides the activities organized within the state, the
movement also aimed to incorporate their youth into international European
youth organizations. The Ustasha Youth participated in a number of European
youth gatherings that brought together youth from a variety of European fascist
states and that were held in cities such as Weimar, Florence, or Vienna. The
meeting held in Vienna in October 1942 went a step further in organizing an
Alliance of European Youth.30 All this served the purpose of connecting, trans-
ferring, and educating a “new” youth for “new” times. For the Ustasha Youth
and the Ustasha elite, this meant recognition of their work, their nation, their
state, and especially their future leaders as belonging and being active partici-
pants in what was to become the “new” Europe. Nevertheless, it is evident that
some members of the Ustasha Youth, at least, felt most comfortable in joint
224 Goran Miljan

activities with the Hlinka Youth, which might have explained their relatively
closer relations. In a report from Florence, for instance, one Ustasha Youth
member admitted that, while fraternal visits with the GIL were to be welcomed,
“it is easiest and most preferable to come to terms with the Slovaks, and there-
fore most often we spend our time with them.”31
In examining the organization, education, and role of Ustasha youth, what
Ustasha pedagogical experts regarded as education can best be described as politi-
cal, social, and cultural indoctrination based on a strict ideology and vision of the
state and its future shape. As stated in the 1933 “Ustasha Principles,” the sacred
ideological document that formed the basis for the movement’s actions, struc-
ture, and activities, the Ustasha leadership regarded its newly established state as
being “totalitarian because it unites, connects, and directs all sources of national
strength, spiritual and real ones, because it takes onto itself the complete, total
welfare for all classes of people in all their life needs.”32 Youth was also to be edu-
cated in Ustasha principles. This meant that in the education of youth the Ustasha
regime rejected any deviation from its core ideology and youth served as a tem-
plate from which would be molded a new engaged Croat citizen imbued with
Ustasha values.
The Ustasha Youth played a key role in the inculcation of the new Ustasha
citizen. Early on, Ustasha ideologists identified the need for a third constitu-
ent factor in the education of youth in addition to home and school, which
would be truly nationally and state oriented in a way neither of the other two
national institutions could be.33 Clearly, the Ustasha Youth, as part of the third
educational factor, could potentially include youth in its entirety through its
mass activities, festivities, and educational programs. Connections and trans-
fers with various foreign youth organizations served the purpose of creating a
sense of wider affiliation among its members. Summer camps and courses with
the members of youth organizations from other countries created the feeling of
belonging to something new, bigger, and important. As a result, youth leaders
hoped, youth would feel like active participants in the tectonic changes and
upheavals then taking place throughout the state and more widely in Europe.
Zdenko Blažeković, for one, reminded Ustasha Youth leaders that they were
“the generation that is coming and carriers of a new life.” As such, they were
tasked with a vital national role. “The Ustasha Youth,” Ivan Oršanić likewise
informed them, “has to help, over and above anyone else, the Poglavnik of the
Independent State of Croatia Dr. Ante Pavelić, to accomplish his great histori-
cal mission, that is, to create a strong, powerful, and great state.”34 Before this
could be realized, though, a new Croatian youth would need to be shaped and
educated not only by the activities and ideology of the Ustasha Youth organi-
zation itself but also through mutual interaction and education with fraternal
youth groups in summer camps and on training courses.
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 225

Influences and Connections between the

Slovak Republic and the Ustasha State
Mutual connections between Slovakia and the Ustasha state began almost imme-
diately. On April 15 the Slovak Republic recognized de jure and de facto the exis-
tence of the Independent State of Croatia, the same day as did the Third Reich
and the Kingdom of Italy.35 Early on, both states demonstrated a keen interest
in each other’s political, social, and cultural development. Already in May Viliam
Kovár, editor of the Slovak newspaper Gardista and author of a book about the
Ustasha movement, visited Zagreb.36 In the same month, Ustasha newspapers
published articles on the Slovak film industry as a role model for the organization
and development of Croatia’s own burgeoning cinema.37 Similar articles could
be found in Slovak newspapers as well, whether writing about the visit of Branko
Benzon, the Ustasha ambassador in Germany, to Bratislava on May 16, describ-
ing the “workers and peasant” basis of the Ustasha state, or offering good wishes
in the Croatian language to the football players of the Croatian club Gradjanski
who had just arrived in Slovakia.38 Slovak newspapers also wrote extensively on
the Croatian state’s administrative organization and social legislation.39 One of
the first organized visits was made by a delegation of Croatian journalists that
included Tias Mortigjija and Frano Dujmović in June 1941. They were escorted
from Zagreb by Viliam Kovár and were received in Bratislava by Tido J. Gašpar,
head of the Propaganda Office.40 These political, cultural, and social connections
and transfers continued throughout the two states’ existences and were often fol-
lowed by a variety of articles describing these visits as products of connections
between the two brotherly nations toward whom the same injustice had been per-
petrated in the past.41 The most visible connections on a cultural and intellec-
tual level were facilitated through the Croatian-Slovak society that was established
in Bratislava on March 13, 1942, with the purpose of spreading and improving
mutual relations.42 Besides organizing various gatherings, this society also pro-
duced a journal, Tatre i Velebit, which published various political and ideological
articles, as well as literary works, poems, and short stories. The uniqueness of this
journal lay in the fact that it was bilingual, printing the same articles in both
Slovakian and Croatian.
In addition to cultural exchanges and transferences, the Ustasha leadership
also paid particular attention to the Hlinka Youth organization. Despite the most
visible and best organized blueprints of the youth organizations existing in Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy, it was the Hlinka Youth that served as a point of refer-
ence for the Ustasha Youth organization. As early as August 1941, the state had
arranged the first visits of Ustasha Youth representatives to Slovakia. On August
27, these representatives visited the cities of Trenčianske Teplice and Chtelnice
with the purpose of becoming acquainted with the courses organized by the
226 Goran Miljan

Hlinka Youth organization.43 These visits were covered in some detail in Ustasha
journals. A report in Ustaša from September 1941, for example, introduced its
Ustasha Youth readers to the Hlinka Youth leader Alojz Macek, who had greeted
the Ustasha Youth delegation on its arrival. It also noted with interest the divi-
sion of the female Hlinka Youth into three groups: Vil, from age six to eleven;
Tatraniek, from age eleven to sixteen; and Devy, from age sixteen to twenty.44 In
November 1941 Ustaša returned to the subject of both the visit and the structure
of the female Hlinka Youth, indicating that it had an impact and influence on the
organization of the female branch of the Ustasha Youth. The author of the article,
a member of the Ustasha Youth delegation, stated that their visit to the summer
camp in Chtelnice provided valuable observations and “new incentives” to those
who were working on the “creation of a new female generation for new Croatia.”
The author recalled that they had been present during the taking of the oath by
the Hurbanovci, equivalent to the Starčević Youth. Interestingly, the descrip-
tion of the ceremony ended with both the Slovak salute “Na straž!” (On guard!)
and the Ustasha salute “Za dom spremni!” (For the homeland prepared!).45 This
aspect is interesting, especially since the “Heil Hitler!” salute was rarely found in
articles relating to Nazi Germany published in Ustasha journals. By contrast, the
salute “Na straž!” was present in almost every article about Slovakia. Moreover,
both salutes were often present in official documents as well, whether embassy
reports or Ustasha Youth official documents.46 This practice served to emphasize
the somewhat closer, more fraternal and equal relationship between the two states
and their youth organizations—or at least the perception that this was so. After
these initial visits and connections, mutual visits by official delegations were given
a new dynamism.
In October 1941 the Hlinka Youth delegation made a return visit to Croatia.
The delegation consisted of Alojz Macek, Jozef Sinčák, Margita Valkova, and
Nelica Slobodová. As stated by Macek, the visit served the purpose of strength-
ening the friendship between the youths of Slovakia and Croatia.47 The delega-
tion arrived in Zagreb on October 16 and was greeted by Ustasha Youth leader
Ivan Oršanić. According to the report in Gardista, the delegation was greeted by
thousands of people in Zagreb while the main train station was decorated with
Slovak and Croatian state flags.48 The Slovak youth delegation was also received
and greeted by the Poglavnik. During their visit the Hlinka Youth delegation vis-
ited several cities in Croatia from Varaždin in the north to Vinkovci in the east,
just on the border with Serbia.49 Throughout their travels they were welcomed
by Ustasha Youth members, with up to two thousand members greeting them in
the city of Vinkovci alone.50 That this visit was seen as important can be deduced
from the number of articles published in Croatia announcing that this visit was
to take place or describing in detail the welcoming organized for them.51 During
their visit to the city of Pakrac, they were greeted by Ustasha commune leader
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 227

Boris Kolb, who declared, “There are no words, there is no language that could
express the amount of happiness, the amount of joy, and the amount of enthusi-
asm that today we are feeling when among us we get to greet the Hlinka Youth,
the youth of that nation and state that is so dear to us . . . and so fateful to Croat
people and Croatian state!”52 Meanwhile, on October 17 they visited the city of
Požega where upon entering the town hall they were greeted with the salute “Na
straž!”53 During the ceremony Đuro Kuntarić gave a speech in the Slovak lan-
guage in which he stated his happiness at greeting those in whose parliament he
had served as a delegate during its first session. He pointed out that the Slovak
and Croat people were bound by “great cultural and political traditions.”54 After
visiting other cities in Croatia, the delegation returned to Bratislava on October
25. Upon his return Macek told Gardista that “what he had seen in Croatia . . .
is something rarely found in a newly born state. During this short period the
Ustasha Youth organization is moving forward with great promise.” On October
29 Gardista published an article about the Hlinka Youth’s trip around Croatia as
well as the positive impression it had made on Macek. In addition to mentioning
his reception with the Poglavnik, Oršanić, and Mira Dugački from the female
Ustasha Youth, he also spoke admiringly of the ability of the Ustasha regime to
mobilize youth into a mass organization in such a short time.55
In December, only a month and a half later, another Croatian delegation vis-
ited Slovakia and the Hlinka Youth. This time the visit took place at the highest
level, with the Croatian delegation led by Oršanić himself. The representatives
arrived on December 10 in Bratislava “to get acquainted with the hierarchy and
organization of the Hlinka Youth and Hlinka Guard.”56 Their visit lasted for
ten days, during which they were received by the Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka
and the parliamentary representative Martin Sokol, and throughout their jour-
ney they were escorted by Alojz Macek. They visited Trenčianske Teplice, Žilina,
Banská Biystricu, and Ružomberok, where they paid their respects to the grave of
Andrej Hlinka.57 On December 12, during an official ceremony given in honor
of Oršanić, he told the assembled guests, “The youth is the carrier of revolution
against the old democratic and plutocratic order. . . . Slovaks and Croats are
reliable carriers of a new European order.”58 Ustasha newspapers, for their part,
argued that the Hlinka Youth was engaged in the same project of refashioning
and constructing a new kind of youth as the Ustasha Youth was. As far as Nova
Hrvatska was concerned, “The work of the Hlinka Youth is, the same as in our
organization, of an educational and physical nature, directed toward the develop-
ment of a new man, a man of a new spirit and new comprehensions.”59
The end of 1941 also witnessed the culmination of official visits by delegations
whose main purpose was to establish connections and become mutually acquainted.
These visits had served the purpose of building official contacts and getting to know
the structure, work, and activities of each other’s youth organization. However, these
228 Goran Miljan

visits were more useful for the Ustasha Youth than they were for their Slovakian
counterparts. Since the Hlinka Youth had already been in existence for three years,
it was the Ustasha Youth representatives who were more in need of a template to
organize their own youth organization. This was clearly stated in an article in Nova
Hrvatska describing Oršanić’s visit to the Hlinka Youth. The newspaper explained
that the purpose of the visit was actually to “get to know” the work of the Hlinka
Youth, as a result of which it was “completely natural that the Croatian delegation
paid much attention to examining the organization of Slovak youth within the ranks
of the Hlinka Youth.”60 It is hardly surprising that the embryonic Ustasha Youth
organization modeled its structure, activities, and practices heavily on those of the
Hlinka Youth. While both the Hitler Youth and GIL enjoyed an unquestionable
influence on the formation of the Ustasha Youth, the fact remains that the Ustasha
regime regarded Slovakia as a nation with a greater historical, cultural, social, and
political affinity and therefore was a more natural role model for the mass organiza-
tion of youth. Although mutual visits of state delegations did not cease after 1941, it
is also clear that, from the beginning of 1942 onward, the extent of interaction and
fraternal visits between members of the Hlinka and Ustasha youth organizations
increased dramatically, in some ways superseding those between Slovakian politi-
cians and the Ustasha leadership.

Summer Camps and Youth Visits

During 1942 contacts between the two youth organizations intensified, leading to
increased cooperation, mutual activities, and the formation of closer fraternal rela-
tionships. In July 1942, for example, the Hlinka Youth organized a summer camp
to which they invited members of the Hitler Youth and GIL as well as members
of the Ustasha Youth.61 The Ustasha Youth was asked to send twenty-five young
males between the age of sixteen and eighteen and three older members to this
summer camp that took place in the city of Párnica, under the Tatra Mountains.62
The camp was situated in a valley, four kilometers away from the city center.
According to the report by one member of the Ustasha Youth who attended, they
were accommodated in wooden houses with four rooms, and in each of these
rooms one Croat was housed with one Slovak youth member, in order to “get
to know each other better, and to learn each other’s language more easily.”63 In a
report written by the Ustasha delegate to the Hlinka Youth organization Zvonimir
Malvić, the arrival of the Ustasha Youth members went as planned. They had time
to take a look around Bratislava, after which they were transferred by bus to camp
in Párnica, where they were given uniforms and an allowance.64
Soon after this first meeting of youth members, the Ustasha Youth organized
and invited Slovak youth members to a Croatian-Slovak summer camp. They
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 229

invited twenty-seven members between the age of sixteen and eighteen and three
leaders. The starting date of the camp was August 5, 1942, and it was stipulated
that the Hlinka Youth should arrive in Zagreb no later than August 3.65 Thirty
members of the Hlinka Youth organization left Bratislava on August 2 with a gift
sent by Macek for Oršanić, a photo album from his last visit in December 1941.66
Members of the Hlinka Youth arrived on August 3 and were to stay for thirty
days.67 Ustasha newspapers such as Nova Hrvatska made clear the purpose of this
summer camp near the city of Ozalj: “young males are being educated so that
they become qualified to take over the [leadership] duty that will be assigned to
them.”68 The camp consisted of forty tents encircled by a wooden fence made by
camp members themselves with the wood acquired from a nearby forest. At the
camp entrance stood a sign with the salutes “Na straž!” and “Za dom spremni!”
In the center of the camp there were the flags of Slovakia and Ustasha Croatia as
well as the flags of the Hlinka and Ustasha Youth organization. Youth members
slept two to a tent, one Croat and one Slovak. Their daily schedule was arranged
to ensure the whole day was full of activities. The youth members would get up
at 6 a.m. for half an hour of physical exercise, after which they would wash, get
dressed, and clean their tents. This was followed by prayers and the raising of
the camp flag. After breakfast members would attend lectures, which lasted two
hours. There was also a special course entitled “Croatian-Slovak Hour,” through
which the camp members learned about each other’s history, language, culture,
and organization. After lunch the afternoon was free until 4 p.m., when they were
given practical instructions in military pre-education and were taught “how to
handle a weapon and to conduct improvised attacks on villages, forests, and so
on.”69 At 7 p.m. they gathered for the lowering of flags, after which there were
various competitions in football, running, and other sports. The members also
had to arrange their schedule for the night watch.
What was the purpose of such mutual gatherings and camping? Certainly, they
served to show the closeness of the two organizations, but they also demonstrated
to camp members that they were active participants in a larger transnational com-
munity. This community was presented to them, through various propaganda and
educational materials, as a community that was building something new, better,
and eternal. Also, as the report in Nova Hrvatska pointed out, such camps “are
the most convenient places for the training and education of functionaries. . . .
Besides ideological construction, in these camps young men are also being edu-
cated in practical work and thus being trained for their future independent life.”
At the same time, the training camps aimed to emphasize the ideal of comrade-
ship and the lasting value of mutual youth connections as well as “the desire that
our youth be spiritually and physically strong and healthy.”70 After spending some
two weeks in the summer camp, the Hlinka Youth traveled to the cities of Osijek
and Vinkovci, after which they returned to Zagreb, where their representatives
230 Goran Miljan

gave their impressions on the time they had spent in camp and in Croatia through
a radio broadcast.71 The radio broadcast took place at 7:45 p.m. and was opened
with the Slovak song “Krásna zem je tá” (Beautiful land is this). It continued with
a speech given by the Hlinka Youth delegation representative Štefan Letko, in
which he announced that “our youth is the first in line in elevating our people and
state. It is the guarantee of the eternal life and existence of Croats and Slovaks.”
The broadcast finished with the songs “My sme buducnost narodá” (We are
the future of our nation) and “Slovaci stojte na chotári” (Slovaks stand on your
borders).72 Prior to its departure, the Hlinka Youth visiting delegation was also
received by the Poglavnik.73
During the month of August, another activity between Hlinka and Ustasha
Youth members was organized in the form of a chess tournament. Ustasha Youth
leaders considered chess to be a noble game, aimed at developing the mind, intel-
lect, and spirit. It was also considered to have an important role in youth educa-
tion.74 The tournament was designed as a rematch for a game that took place in
December 1941 in Zagreb. This game had been agreed upon by Croatian chess
representative Mirko Magdić and Slovak representative Ludovit Potuček during
a talk in Salzburg, where they attended the founding assembly of the European
Chess Alliance.75 In July 1942, Hlinka Youth representatives sent an official invi-
tation to the Ustasha Youth to attend the chess tournament, which was to take
place from August 21 to 24 in Trenčianske Teplice, Slovakia. Each team consisted
of eight members plus two reserves and one leader. All the players were obligated
to be members of the Ustasha Youth, something that probably served as a means
of preventing professional players from competing.76 How the tournament pro-
gressed is not clear, and in his report published in Ustaška mladež Luka Halat
devoted more time to discussing the friendly welcome, historical connections
between the two states, the Tatra Mountains, and the new spirit in Slovakia than
the tournament itself.77
The same month, Oršanić sent an invitation to Macek through Zvonimir Malvić
for joint participation of Ustasha and Hlinka Youth members in an education
and training course. This course took place in the small city of Borovo, in eastern
Slavonia, at the local Ustasha Youth training school. Participation was limited to
twenty-five members plus two leaders.78 The Slovak newspaper Gardista announced
the invitation on September 4, 1942, stating that it was to be a joint camp for
Croatian, Bulgarian, and Slovak youth.79 However, it seems that the Bulgarian
youth representatives either did not respond to the invitation or Slovak newspapers
simply made a mistake in reporting their attendance, since the Bulgarian representa-
tives were not mentioned in subsequent reports referring to this course. The course
itself lasted two months, and Slovak representatives were expected to send two lead-
ers, of whom one was supposed to be an expert in discipline and the other an intel-
lectual. The intellectual representative was tasked with preparing lectures about the
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 231

geography and history of Slovakia and the structure and work of the Hlinka Youth.
In his invitation Oršanić instructed Malvić that Hlinka Youth attendees were to
bring a map of Slovakia, five Slovak songs, some photos, and propaganda materi-
als.80 Prior to their departure the Hlinka Youth organized a short preparatory camp
for those members selected to attend the course in Borovo, which took place at
Moravského Svätý Jána from September 25 to 29.81 On October 8, after a short
visit to Zagreb, the representatives of the Hlinka Youth arrived in Borovo, and on
November 13 they were received by the Poglavnik and Ivan Oršanić.82 However,
during their stay the members also visited a number of other Croatian cities and
towns including Osijek, Vinkovci, and Vukovar.83
It is not clear what courses or training the Hlinka Youth members took during
their stay in Croatia and whether formal syllabuses were produced. Nevertheless,
newspapers did provide details of the training and educational courses, and it is
clear that the courses aimed to immerse members of the Hlinka Youth in the cul-
ture of their Croatian counterparts. For example, members of both youth organi-
zations were expected to dress in Ustasha Youth uniforms.84 Through their courses
Hlinka Youth learned about the Ustasha movement, the organizational structure
of the Ustasha Youth, and the educational system being implemented in Ustasha
Youth training schools. This was probably reciprocal, and it is likely that Ustasha
Youth members also learned the same about the Hlinka Youth, its organization,
and activities.85 The school also provided singing courses, gymnastics, sports, and
other activities as well as lectures on the histories of both countries. According
to the profile in Slovak, great attention was paid to attendees’ physical education
because, as the newspaper emphasized, “in their physical training they learn what
is most needed for the healthy breeding of the body so that every graduate can
perform their duty of being a teacher of physical educational in their camps.”86
Emphasis was also placed on military pre-education. The Ustasha movement
regarded military education as an important aspect of youth education since it
was considered that “the role model warrior, a warrior armed with virtues, who
with his inside and not only his outside appearance fits the description of the
military ideal, has an exceptional value.”87 In their attitude toward the military
training of youth, the Hlinka and Ustasha Youth appeared to differ somewhat,
and Hrvatski list explained that the emphasis placed on this aspect during the
course in part reflected the fact that in Hlinka Youth courses “such attention is
not devoted to military education.”88 At the end of the training and educational
courses, members had to pass examinations organized for them, after which
they were awarded certificates.89 The members of the Hlinka Youth returned to
Slovakia on November 29, after completing a two-month course that received
enthusiastic press coverage. In its description of the eight weeks that their youth
had spent in the Ustasha state, Slovak, for example, recalled with pride that “wher-
ever we passed through we were greeted with our salute: Na stráž!”90
232 Goran Miljan

It appears that by 1943 exchanges and fraternal visits between the Hlinka and
Ustasha Youth had slowed and become less intensive. Joint camps and courses
ceased to take place after this point. This does not mean that connections were
completely halted, and exchanges still took place. In March 1943, for example,
students at the Commerce Academy in Zagreb made a request to Oršanić to
approve an excursion to Slovakia. While they were granted permission to travel,
Oršanić stipulated that they had to do so not as students of commerce and eco-
nomics but as the members of the Ustasha Youth; this meant that they should
expect to be received by the members of the Hlinka Youth, who would then serve
as guides during their stay. The permission from Oršanić also suggested that it
would be preferable if they could meet their fellow students in Slovakia so that
their “excursion would not merely have the appearance of frivolity.”91 In another
example of continued relations, as late as July 1943 the journal of the Vine of
Ustasha Women, Ustaškinja, was still being sent to the editorial boards of Slovak
newspapers by the Ustasha publishing house, which continued to post it “under
the condition of reciprocity.”92
Nonetheless, unquestionably the frequency and intensity of contacts did decline
dramatically from 1943 onward. Perhaps the reason for this lay in the deteriorat-
ing security condition both in the Independent State of Croatia and Slovakia. An
Ustasha report from February 1944 on conditions in Slovakia stated that the pre-
vailing military and political conditions on the wider continent were also reflected
in Slovakia, with “growing” anti-German sentiment. “The faith in German victory
and with it the arrangement of the New Europe based on German terms is rapidly
diminishing. . . . Acts of sabotage in the country are becoming frequent. . . . In
the eastern and southeastern parts of the country partisan movements are emerg-
ing.”93 Combined with the worsening military, political, and social situation in
the Croatian state in the same period, it is no surprise that fraternal visits and
mutual educational and training courses aimed at the creation of a new youth also
seem to have come to an abrupt halt.

New Youth and New States

The fraternal relations between the Ustasha and Slovakian states originated in
a shared identity of their nations as victims of historical injustice engaging in a
heroic struggle to establish their independent states. Based on this premise, both
Slovakian and Ustasha ideologues used each other’s cases as context to legitimize
their own national revolution and state independence. These relations, grounded
in fraternal images, were cemented and illustrated through connections, influ-
ences, and transfers between their youth organizations during the period between
1941 and 1945. While organizations such as the Hitler Youth and GIL served as
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 233

umbrella, blueprint organizations in the sense of ideological and organizational

principles, fascist Slovakia and Croatia had their own ideas about the purpose and
role that their youth were to play within their own newly established states. It was
precisely through their youth organizations, seen as incubators of future leaders
and functionaries, that they emphasized the need for closer cooperation to safe-
guard the long-term viability of their states. Through traveling, excursions, camp-
ing, and various training courses, they aimed to connect their youth members
more closely to foster the feeling of being an active, decisive factor within some-
thing bigger, more important, and crucial for the future survival of both their
respective nation-states and the new youthful Europe.

Notes
1. Ivan Oršanić, “Dragi dužnostnici i pripadnici Ustaške mladeži,” Ustaška mladež,
June 1, 1944, 3.
2. Oršanić was named as administrative commander of the Ustasha Youth in 1941.
He held this position until May 1944 when, by the Poglavnik’s decree, he was given
the position of state associate of the chief alliance of syndicates and other unions.
He was succeeded by the young Catholic intellectual Feliks Niedzielski. See Darko
Stuparić, ed., Tko je tko u NDH (Zagreb: Minerva, 1997), 302–3; Oršanić, “Dragi
dužnostnici i pripadnici Ustaške mladeži,” 3.
3. See, e.g., Hrvoje Matković, Povijest Nezavisne Države Hrvatske (Zagreb: Naklada
Pavičić, 1994); Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Zagreb: Liber,
Školska knjiga, 1977).
4. For more on the issue of this statehood idea and its influence on contemporary
Croatian historiography, see Maja Brkljačić, “What Is Past Is Present?” International
Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 17, no. 1 (2003): 48.
5. For example, Mario Jareb has argued that no meaningful comparison can be
drawn between the Ustasha ideology and Italian Fascism. However, his analysis is
restricted to a comparison between the Ustasha Principles and Mussolini’s Dottrina
del Fascismo. As such, it fails to consider not only the broader intellectual work of
both Ustasha and fascist ideologues but also wider readings of fascist ideology, aims,
and practices outside the framework of theoretical treatises and statements. See Jareb,
Ustaško-domobranski pokreta od nastanka do travnja 1941 (Zagreb: Školska knjiga i
Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2006), esp. 145–57.
6. Jan Rychlik, “Odnosi Slovačke i Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, 1941–1945,”
Časopis za suvremenu povijest 36, no. 3 (2004): 939–57.
7. For more on the topic of Nazi policy in occupied Europe, see Mark Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (London: Allen Lane, 2008).
8. Josip Andrić, “Hrvatska i Slovačka,” Hrvatski krugoval, November 1, 1941, 14;
Andrić, “Značenje slovačke države,” Hrvatski krugoval, March 14, 1943, 3.
234 Goran Miljan

9. Rychlik, “Odnosi Slovačke i Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, 1941–1945,” 940.

10. Thus, it is not surprising that one of the most important role models for Usta-
sha youth was Jure Francetić, commander of the Black Legion (Crna legija), guardians
of the River Drina, which, for Ustasha theorists, symbolized the border between the
cultured West and the barbaric, byzantine, Judeo-Bolshevik East. Regarding the Drina
myth, see Ivo Goldstein, “Granica na Drini—značenje i razvoj mitologema,” in Histo-
rijski mitovi na Balkanu, vol. 1, ed. Husnija Kamberović (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju
u Sarajevu, 2003), 109–39.
11. Radovan Latković, “Mladež nosioc idealizma,” Ustaša, August 24, 1941,
49–50; Janko Skrbin, “Omladina—snaga naroda,” Plava Revija 1, no. 1 (September
1940): 1–4.
12. For more detailed analysis of these organizations see, e.g., Tracy H. Koon,
Believe, Obey, Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy (Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press, 1985); Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2004); H. W. Koch, The Hitler Youth: Origins and Develop-
ment, 1922–45 (New York: Dorset Press, 1988).
13. M.K., “Predavanje izaslanika UM na bečkom kongresu europske mladeži,”
Ustaška mladež, October 15, 1942, 20.
14. See Koch, Hitler Youth, 129.
15. Zdenko Blažeković, Mladež i Država (Zagreb: Zapovjedničtvo Ustaške omla-
dine, 1944), 143. Zdenko Blažeković was a commander of the male Ustasha Youth
from 1941 until January 1945 when he was appointed commissioner of the State
Leadership for Physical Education and Sport.
16. Ivan Oršanić, “Ustaška mladež,” Ustaša, August 3, 1941, 5.
17. Blažeković, Mladež i Država, 145.
18. “Odredba o osnutku i ustrojstvu Ustaške mladeži,” Narodne novine, November
5, 1941.
19. “Izvještaji o Ustaškoj mladeži August 21, 1942,” HDA, NDH, SNDH,
Predsjednički spisi, 211/Z-807/ 2/1.
20. See, e.g., reports from the Perušić Ustasha Youth camp on their activities dur-
ing 1942 in “Izvještaj o radu Logora za mjesec svibanj,” May 6, 1942, HDA, NDH,
Ustaša Hrvatski Oslobodilački Pokret, 249/16.
21. “Prva škola za dužnostnike Ustaške mladeži,” Hrvatski list, October 2, 1941;
Julije Makanec, “Odgoj vodja ustaške mladeži,” Plava Revija 3, nos. 1–2 (January–
February, 1943): 1–5.
22. Ivan Oršanić, Zadatci našeg rada (Zagreb: Promičba ustaške mladeži, 1942), 24.
23. Blažeković, Mladež i Država, 206.
24. Vika Bišćan, “Hrvatska djevojka u Ustaškoj državi,” Ustaša, August 10, 1941,
29; “Rad ženske ustaške mladeži u Travniku,” Ustaška mladež, January 4, 1942, 24.
25. “Ženska Ustaška mladež u Omišu,” Ustaša, December 25, 1941, 15; “Rad
ženske ustaške mladeži u Travniku,” Ustaška mladež, January 4, 1942, 24.
26. Mira Dugački, “Ženska mladež u novoj Hrvatskoj,” Ustaša, August 3, 1941,
15.
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 235

27. Ivan Oršanić, “Svaki petak u 8. sati navečer,” Ustaška mladež, February 8,
1942, 1–2.
28. See “Srdačni ispraćaj ustaške mladeži,” Hrvatski list, October 3, 1941; “Ženska
Ustaška mladež kod Poglavnika,” Ustaška mladež, March 5, 1942, 5; Ivona Latković,
“Današnja hrvatska i njemačka intelektualna mladež—dojmovi s posjeta drugarima u
Reichu,” Spremnost, June 27, 1942.
29. “Ljetna kolonija UM u Zagrebu,” Nova Hrvatska, July 22, 1942. Youth sum-
mer camps in Fascist Italy became part of the Fascist pedagogy early on. Summer
camps were already organized during the 1920s and were envisioned as “a nation-
wide system of seaside and mountain summer camps lasting from one week to three
months.” See Philip V. Cannistraro, ed., Historical Dictionary of Fascist Italy (West-
port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 569–73.
30. Luka Halat, “U dodiru s europskom mladeži,” Ustaška mladež, October 15,
1942, 8.
31. “S ustaškim Junacima i Junakinjama u Firenzi,” Ustaška mladež, July 19, 1942,
16.
32. Danijel Crljen, Načela Hrvatskog Ustaškog pokreta (Zagreb: Tiskara Matice
hrvatskih akademičara, 1942), 113.
33. Blažeković, Mladež i Država, 21–23.
34. Ibid., 10; Oršanić, Zadatci našeg rada, 7.
35. Rychlik, “Odnosi Slovačke i Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, 1941–1945,” 942.
36. “Zajednički put slovačkog i hrvatskog naroda,” Novi list, May 11, 1941.
37. “Putovi, koje nam prikazuje Slovačka,” Novi list, May 4, 1941.
38. “Srdečné priatel’stvo slovensko-chorvátske,” Gardista, May 17, 1941; “Chor-
váti stoja za Pavelićom,” Gardista, May 24, 1941; “Draga braćo Hrvati,” Gardista,
May 31, 1941.
39. “Slovák medzi Chorvátmi pred 50 rokmi,” Gardista, June 2, 1941; “Nové
sociálne zákonodarvstvo v Chorvátsku,” Gardista, June 5, 1941.
40. “Chorvátski novinári na Slovensku,” Gardista, June 8, 1941.
41. “Slovensko—ukážka novej Europy,” Gardista, September 14, 1941.
42. Rychlik, “Odnosi Slovačke i Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, 1941–1945,”
950–52.
43. “Zástupcovia ustaše na ceste po Orave,” Gardista, August 28, 1941.
44. “Osada Hlinkine Mladeži u Chtelnici,” Ustaša, September 21, 1941, 14.
45. “Medju Slovacima,” Ustaša, November 2, 1941, 15.
46. “Obavijest o sportskoj priredbi,” June 1, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2;
“Poziv na taborovanje u Kuparima,” July 10, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2.
47. “Hlinkova mládež v Chorvátsku,” Gardista, October 15, 1941.
48. “Srdečné privitanie HM v Záhrebe,” Gardista, October 17, 1941.
49. “Delegacia HM na ceste do vlasti,” Gardista, October 24, 1941.
50. Ibid.
51. “Vodstvo Hlinkine mladeži dolazi u Osijek,” Hrvatski list, October 5, 1941;
“Svečan doček braće Slovaka u Vukovaru,” Hrvatski list, October 19, 1941.
236 Goran Miljan

52. “Dragi gosti iz Slovačke,” Hrvatski list, October 20, 1941.

53. “Izaslanstvo Hlinkine mladeži u Požegi,” Hrvatski list, October 20, 1941.
54. “Srdačan doček izaslanstva Hlinkine mladeži u Požegi,” Vihor, October 25,
1941.
55. “HM sa vrátila z Chorvátska,” Gardista, October 26, 1941; “Obetavost Chor-
vátov za svoj štát nepozná hranic,” Gardista, October 29, 1941.
56. “Reprezentanti chorvátskej mládeže na Slovensko,” Gardista, December 10,
1941; “Izaslanstvo Ustaške mladeži u Slovačkoj,” Nova Hrvatska, December 28, 1941.
57. “Izaslanstvo Ustaške mladeži u Slovačkoj,” Gardista, December 10, 1941;
“Reprezentanti chorvátskej mládeže na Slovensko,” Gardista, December 10, 1941.
58. “Mládež je nositel’kou revolucie proti starému poriadku,” Gardista, December
13, 1941.
59. “Izaslanstvo Ustaške mladeži u Slovačkoj,” Nova Hrvatska, December 28, 1941.
60. Ibid.
61. “Ustašská mládež na tábore HM,” Gardista, July 5, 1942.
62. “Odsunutie terminu započatia Slovensko-nemecko-chorvatskeho Tabora,”
June 30, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2; “Ustaška mladež stigla u Slovačku,”
Nova Hrvatska, July 8, 1942.
63. “Ustaška mladež na logoravanju s Hlinkinom mladeži u Slovačkoj,” Nova
Hrvatska, July 23, 1942.
64. “Izvještaj Malvića Upravnom zapovjedništvu Ustaške Mladeži,” July 7, 1942,
HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2, no. 80/42.
65. “Poziv na taborovanje u Kuparima,” July 10, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB,
229/2, no. 21/1942. This document stated that this summer camp was to take place
in Kupari near Dubrovnik. However, because of unknown circumstances, the camp
was moved to Ozalj, where the first Ustasha youth summer camp was taking place.
66. “Výprava HM odcestovala do Chorvátska,” Gardista, August 4, 1942.
67. “Zajedničko logorovanje Ustaške i Hlinkine Mladeži,” Nova Hrvatska, August
4, 1942.
68. “Taborovanje Ustaške mladeži na Ozlju,” Nova Hrvatska, August 11, 1942.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. “Hlinkina mladež vratila se u Zagreb,” Nova Hrvatska, August 21, 1942.
72. “Hlinkina mladež nosi najljepše dojmove iz Hrvatske,” Nova Hrvatska, August
22, 1942.
73. “Poglavnik je primio skupinu Hlinkine mladeži,” Nova Hrvatska, August 22,
1942.
74. “Ustrojstvo šahovkse igre,” Dužnostnik 1, no. 7 (September 1942): 358–61.
75. “Pismo povjerenika šahovskog ustrojstva Nezavisne Države Hrvatske Mirka
Magdića tajniku Slovaćkog Šahovlsog saveza Ludovitu Potučeku,” July 10, 1942,
HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2, no. 21/1942.
76. “Poziv H.V.H.M. na šahovski turnir,” July 21, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB,
229/2, no. 25/1942.
 “To Be Eternally Young Means to Be an Ustasha” 237

77. Luka Halat, “Vidjeli smo slovačku,” Ustaška mladež, September 15, 1942, 17.
78. “Oršanićevo pismo Malviću vezano uz dolazak predstavnika Hlinkine mladeži,”
August 20, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2.
79. “HM do Chorvátska,” Gardista, September 4, 1942.
80. “Oršanićevo pismo Malviću vezano uz dolazak predstavnika Hlinkine mladeži,”
August 20, 1942, HDA, NDH, NDHPB, 229/2.
81. “HM pred cestou do Chorvátska na výcvikové tábory,” Gardista, September 6,
1942.
82. “HM v Chorvátsku,” Gardista, October 9, 1942; “Výprava HM u poglavnika,
Oršaniča a Dr. Ciekra,” Gardista, November 19, 1942.
83. “Posiet iz Borova,” Hrvatski list, November 20, 1942.
84. Ibid.
85. “Odlazak Hlinkine mladeži iz Borova,” Hrvatski list, December 11, 1942.
86. “Dva mesiace v bratskom Chorvátsku,” Slovak, December 12, 1942.
87. Ivo Babić, “Potreba i značenje vojne prednaobrazbe,” Plava Revija 3, no. 3
(March 1943): 65–75.
88. “Odlazak Hlinkine mladeži iz Borova,” Hrvatski list, December 11, 1942.
89. Ibid.
90. “Dva mesiace v bratskom Chorvátsku,” Slovak, December 12, 1942.
91. “Djaci I. drž. trg. Akademije, ekskurzija po Slovačkoj,” May 8, 1943, HDA,
NDH, NDHPB, 229/3, no. 4836/43.
92. “Časopis Ustaškinja—dostavlja se,” July 12, 1943, HDA, NDH, NDHPB,
229/3, no. 1231/43.
93. “Stanje u Slovačkoj početkom 1944,” February 12, 1944, HDA, NDH,
NDHPB, 229/3, no. 982.
 Part Three
Terror, Utopia, and the Ustasha State
in Comparative Perspective
 Chapter Nine

Forging Brotherhood and Unity

War Propaganda and Transitional

Justice in Yugoslavia, 1941–48

Tomislav Dulić

The violence perpetrated by the Ustasha organization during the Second World
War primarily affected the Serb, Jewish, and Roma ethnic communities, while
thousands of Croat, Muslim, or other antifascist opponents of the regime also
fell victim to terror. The sheer magnitude of destruction made the issue of post-
war retributive justice an inescapable task for the People’s Liberation Movement
(Narodnooslobodilački pokret—NOP) under the command of Josip Broz
“Tito.” Already at the second congress of the Antifascist Council for the National
Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko veće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije) in
late November 1943, the revolutionary authorities therefore decided to create the
State Commission for the Establishment of Crimes Perpetrated by the Occupiers
and their Helpers in the Country (Državna komisija za utvrđivanje zločina oku-
patora i njihovih pomagača u zemlji; hereafter, the Commission) to investigate
war crimes and thus provide evidence that could be used in legal proceedings.1
The initiative was not intrinsic to the NOP but should be seen as part of the
decision of the Allies at the Tripartite Conference in Moscow in October to try
and sentence war criminals rather than resort to summary executions. The agree-
ment stipulated that all those who had committed war crimes stand trial in the
countries where the offenses had been perpetrated, while the major war criminals
would have their cases heard by an international military tribunal.2
Even though similar commissions and tribunals were established throughout
Europe, the Yugoslav experience is particularly relevant in light of the country’s
violent dissolution in the 1990s. The fact that tribunals and “truth commissions”
became an integral element of many postconflict resolution initiatives at the end
of the twentieth century, with the establishment of the permanent International
Court of Justice standing as the pinnacle of this process, points to the need for a
better understanding of the way in which such institutions have functioned in
242 Tomislav Dulić

various political contexts. From a historian’s perspective, the fact that tribunals
have often been given the role as the creators of an “authoritative interpretation”
of the past is considered crucial because of the predominant view that reconcili-
ation can only be achieved through remembrance and the acknowledgment of
crime. The argument is based on the assumption that legal systems and institu-
tions have a strong normative power that makes them particularly useful tools to
establish a clean break with “traditions of impunity.”3
However, while efforts to institutionalize reconciliation may be politically nec-
essary, courtrooms often become less than ideal places for the difficult task of his-
tory writing. One reason is that legal experts need to prove their case beyond a
reasonable doubt, while often having access to only a limited amount of docu-
ments from the perpetrators themselves. Historians, in contrast, “only” have to
show the plausibility that an event took place on the basis of available archival
documents. As a result, courts sometimes reach conclusions that they have prob-
lems explaining to the public.4 There is also reason to believe that “top-down” his-
tory writing has been particularly challenging in the context of post-Communist
democratization processes, where populations have living memories of “official
histories” that had to be adhered to in public while at the same time nurturing
competing “hidden histories” in private.5 It should therefore come as no surprise
that such efforts often fail to create consensus and even may contribute to the type
of mobilization they actually sought to overcome.6
Considering that socialist Yugoslavia was a dictatorship, while the post-Com-
munist societies are often ethnically centered democracies, the Yugoslav case
also provides a rare opportunity to analyze if and to what extent specific ideo-
logical and political settings affect transitional justice initiatives. One particularly
important aspect is whether such activities have a profound, long-lasting effect
in democracies that combine legal processes with an effort to create a plausible
master narrative that can help bring about a shift in collective social memory.
In contrast to the situation after the war in the 1990s, socialist Yugoslavia had
considerably more opportunity to manipulate opinions and public discourse with
the help of media and school curricula. Numerous court proceedings, including
the public trials organized against some of the main perpetrators such as Chetnik
leader Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović, became key events in this process.7 The war
in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s instead ended with a stalemate, with
no single political group or ethnic community becoming powerful enough to
implement its own agenda on groups that rejected their legitimacy. Added to this
is the difficulties that democracies encounter when trying to encourage a specific
explanation of the past, since their core values, at least officially, center on prin-
ciples of critical thinking, scrutiny of facts, and a plurality of views.
This chapter provides some reflections on how the ideology of the NOP was
disseminated through Communist propaganda and how its key tropes were
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 243

also firmly present in the work of the Commission and various courts. It argues
that the Yugoslav political and legal system of the 1940s was comparatively well
suited to the task of achieving intergroup reconciliation. More precisely, the
revolutionary elite under Tito had an advantage over ex-Yugoslav transitional
justice institutions since it had complete control over media and therefore could
combine publicized court proceedings with the dissemination of a monolithic
“authoritative history” that was necessary to pave the way for the introduction
of normative systems focusing on the concept of brotherhood and unity. The
chapter also explores wartime strategy and how the Communist Party tried to
overcome interethnic differences by focusing its propaganda on making a clear-
cut distinction between the Ustasha movement, on the one hand, depicted as
an organization of pathological murderers, and “ordinary” Croats, on the other.
Finally, it considers the activities of the Commission, demonstrating how it per-
petuated many of the same wartime tropes, manifested not least in the careful
avoidance of codes that could be interpreted as contributing to collective guilt.
The chapter argues that although the framing of the history of the Second World
War aimed to contribute to the establishment of a stable and viable multiethnic
state, it also helped to entrench a fundamentally unsustainable master narrative
that was not only increasingly challenged in the 1980s but even fueled national-
ist mobilization once the overarching ideology that sustained it was abandoned
for the benefit of nationalism.

The Evolution of Wartime History

Making in Communist Propaganda
The evolution of Titoist rhetoric and propaganda during the war was shaped by
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije) and its
political predicament after the invasion and breakup of Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Immediately following the Axis occupation of the country and the establish-
ment of the Independent State of Croatia, Ustasha militias and the state’s security
forces began a campaign of terror against the Roma, Jews, and the Serb minority.8
This, in turn, forced the Serb peasantry to take to the mountains and organize
rebellions in defense of their lives and homesteads. As a result, militias and the
Croatian army soon lost control over entire regions of the country, such as eastern
Herzegovina, Kordun, Banija, and eastern Bosnia.9
While the Ustasha regime tried to blame “Communist Chetniks” for the esca-
lation in violence,10 German officials had a completely different perspective on
these developments. Already in June 1941, the German officer Arthur Häffner,
for instance, argued that the Serbs, constituting almost two million people, or 30
percent of the state’s population, were no more prone to Communism than were
244 Tomislav Dulić

Croatian peasants. He therefore argued that any treatment of them as “helots”

would be counterproductive and threaten to provoke a rebellion that would have
negative consequences for the German occupation authorities.11 Even though
political infighting between the military establishment and the diplomatic corps
around Ambassador Siegfried Kasche hindered any decisive action on the part of
the Germans until the second half of 1942, Häffner’s fears proved to be right once
the disorganized rebellions turned into an all-out insurgency during the summer
and early autumn of 1941. At the time, however, the NOP had only a rather
limited following and, although well trained and experienced in clandestine orga-
nizational work in royal Yugoslavia, could not engage the Wehrmacht in frontal
warfare. Drawing on an emerging Marxist military doctrine, the party understood
that small-scale guerrilla attacks appeared to be the best way to aid the Allied
cause. It was for this reason and to minimize the risk of casualties among a militar-
ily untrained population that it opted for the destruction of enemy means of com-
munication and infrastructure.12 A decision was therefore made in late September
(the Stolice Consultations) to wage a guerrilla war throughout Yugoslavia.13
Crucial to the Partisan doctrine was the idea that the resistance struggle should
always be focused on those territories where one could achieve the greatest politi-
cal rather than merely military advantage. Such considerations were also of fun-
damental importance for the development of the party’s national policies and
propaganda. More precisely, the party understood that the acquisition of popu-
lar support was a crucial prerequisite for the successful waging of a guerrilla war
since it would facilitate mobility and allow for the successful collecting of sup-
plies among the population. Knowing that the Serb part of the population in
the Independent State of Croatia had been forced to defend itself from Ustasha
terror, the party therefore decided that “the full weight of the revolution” had to
fall on Serb shoulders during the first period of the war. By this it was meant that
one should avoid confiscating provisions from Muslims and Croats but use pro-
paganda only to win them over to the NOP cause in due course.14 The party also
understood that a gradual increase in the support base necessitated the implemen-
tation of concrete measures designed to overcome at least some of the interethnic
suspicion and hatred that had surfaced because many local Croats and Muslims
had joined Ustasha militias in their killing spree. It was with this strategic goal in
mind that the party intensified its rhetoric propagating “brotherhood and unity”
in the summer of 1941.

Key Tropes of Communist Propaganda

The Partisan propaganda during the first war year accurately reflected the strat-
egy adopted by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia while avoiding certain
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 245

controversial issues. Foremost among the taboo themes at this time were those
concerning atheism and religion and plans for the postwar introduction of a
Communist system in Yugoslavia. The party instead focused on criticizing fas-
cism as well as the interwar royal dictatorship. This sent out two complemen-
tary messages about the resolution of the “national question” in Yugoslavia. By
framing itself as an active opponent of foreign occupation by fascist powers,
the Partisan leadership signaled to the Serbs that it fought for the reestablish-
ment of Yugoslavia, something that evidently aimed at presenting the NOP as
an alternative to Mihailović’s Serb nationalist Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland
(Jugoslovenska vojska u otadžbini). However, since at the same time it dissociated
itself from the interwar government as an expression of a “terrible exploitation
of Macedonians, Croats, Montenegrins, Slovenes, and other national minori-
ties by the Greater Serbian leading clique,”15 the party concurrently framed itself
among antifascist non-Serbs as a viable alternative movement that would respect
the national distinctiveness and interests of Yugoslavia’s peoples. There was even a
tendency in early propaganda to downplay the role of the party itself as a leading
force in a “people’s liberation war,” described as a struggle between a majority of
Yugoslavs and a small group of treacherous fascists. In one of its earliest informa-
tion brochures, for instance, the General Staff of the NOP declared that the term
“people’s liberation units” was used

because these are not the military formations of any political party or group
specifically—in this case the Communist Party, regardless of the fact that Com-
munists fight in their ranks—but are the military formations of the peoples
of Yugoslavia, which all patriots have to join if they are capable of fighting a
military struggle against the occupier, regardless of their political orientation.16

To overcome some of the tensions that had surfaced as a result of massacres and war
crimes, the party focused on the formulation of certain key themes in its antifascist
propaganda that were inseparable and provided the basis for an overall narrative that
eventually came to dominate social memory about the war. While the propaganda
directed against “ordinary” and “guiltless” Croats served the purpose of uniting “all
patriots,” the anti-Ustasha rhetoric had a decidedly different tone that aimed at
excluding members of the security apparatus, the Ustasha Corps (Ustaška vojnica),
and other “traitors” from participation in a postwar settlement and state building as
pariahs beyond the reach of political and indeed moral salvation. However, at the
same time there was a tendency to “criminalize” fascists as little more than mur-
derers and arsonists who destroyed anything in their way. Foremost among these
were high-ranking members of the Ustasha regime such as Ante Pavelić, Andrija
Artuković, Eugen Dido Kvaternik, and Viktor Gutić, who were epitomized as the
embodiment of an evil that had brought shame on the Croat nation. In one of its
246 Tomislav Dulić

dispatches from August 28, 1941, for instance, the High Command of the NOP
described the Ustasha leadership in the following terms:

There could not have been a greater shame than that brought about by
Pavelić. He places the Croatian soldiers under the command of degenerate
and cowardly Italian generals who until now have experienced only defeat on
all fronts. This latest treason against the Croat people should be the last call
for Croats to wake up and destroy the traitor Pavelić together with his blood-
thirsty Ustasha horde.17

The second element in the anti-Ustasha propaganda went far beyond the mere
“criminalization” of fascists into a zone best described as “pathologization.” In
Partisan documents there were frequent denunciations of the immoral, “degener-
ate,” and even “beastly” Ustasha militias and bands, which regularly used knives
to cut off their victims’ heads and otherwise mutilate their bodies. This image
was reinforced through graphic photographs and descriptions of slaughter that
emphasized the mass murder of not just men but also women, the elderly, and
children. In a bulletin from September 8, 1941, for example, the party described
an event in Divoselo, Lika, where members of an Ustasha militia had captured
“seventy women, children, and elderly people, who were brought to Alanak at the
foot of Velebit Mountain where they were slaughtered with bayonets and thrown
into the abyss.”18 By creating an image of the Ustasha member as deserving of no
mercy from retribution, Communist propaganda not only paved the way for a
clear distinction between “ordinary” Croats and fascists but also provided legiti-
mation for the postwar summary execution of imprisoned Ustasha officials and
militia members, not least in connection with what in Croat nationalist mythol-
ogy later became known as “The Way of the Cross.”19
Even though stigmatizations of “the other” are common to most war situa-
tions, Communist propaganda is particularly interesting because of the way in
which the party combined virulent anti-Ustasha rhetoric, on the one hand, with
an effort to present Communism as an alternative to exploitation, nationalism,
and fascism, on the other. By depicting members of the Ustasha movement as
representatives of “reactionary” forces and the war itself as a necessary cathartic
experience for the Yugoslav nations while pointing to the possibility of an alterna-
tive path leading to the establishment of a future state defined by equality, social
justice, and workers’ rights, the NOP could gain certain allegiances. Even though
much of the ideological indoctrination was initiated through the work of political
commissars in military units rather than propaganda leaflets (at least for the two
first years of the war), the fact that Yugoslavs from all ethnic communities joined
the NOP provided it with the necessary legitimacy to claim itself as the true repre-
sentative of “brotherhood and unity.”20
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 247

The Establishment and Work of the War Crimes Commission

While propaganda leaflets and bulletins were utilized in an effort to present
the population with an “official” view on the causes and developments of war,
the establishment of the Commission in 1943 represented the formulation of
an “authoritative historiography” of the war by which the previous campaign
received its normative backing in the form of official judicial proceedings and
numerous official “communiqués.” The Commission was responsible for the
collecting of data on war crimes. Much of the work was carried out with the
assistance of local party officials, veterans, or other “trusted” individuals who
were tasked with interviewing victims of terror. When conducting investiga-
tions, the officials cooperated closely with prosecutors and the police or intel-
ligence services. Unfortunately, the number of cases vastly exceeded anything
that could be handled within the framework of an embryonic judicial system,
which also explains why the authorities in many thousands of cases decided
to opt for a system whereby it “declared” that some people were war criminals
rather than carrying out formal judicial proceedings.21 After someone had been
declared a war criminal, the case was transferred to a military tribunal or other
court, which handed down sentencing judgments based on evidentiary material
collected by the Commission. While such solutions might have been considered
the only viable option in a context where there were more than nine hundred
thousand filed cases of suspected war crimes involving sisty-six thousand poten-
tial defendants, it oftentimes left much to be desired with respect to due process
(even if many of those accused had indeed committed war crimes).22
Another problem was that relatively few Ustasha activists, officials, and militia
members remained in Croatia after the state collapsed, something which was par-
ticularly true for the elite. For example, Pavelić managed to escape to Argentina
through a “Rat Line” via the Vatican. After living quite openly, he suffered an
assassination attempt in 1957 and fled to Franco’s Spain, where he lived incog-
nito until his death in 1959.23 Vjekoslav Luburić, who headed Bureau 3 within
the Ustasha Surveillance Service (Ustaška nadzorna služba—UNS) as well as the
Ustasha Defense Force (Ustaški obrambeni zdrug) and thus was responsible for
the organization of the state’s concentration camp system, also lived in Spain
until he was assassinated by a Yugoslav secret service agent in 1969.24 Eugen Dido
Kvaternik, who, as head of the secret police, the Directorate for Security and
Public Order (Ravnateljstvo za javni red i sigurnost) held a position in the Ustasha
state similar to that of Heinrich Himmler in Nazi Germany, lived quite openly in
Argentina until dying in a car accident in 1962.25 Apart from Kvaternik’s father,
Slavko (the commander of the Croatian army until the autumn of 1942), and
a handful of other notables, most Ustasha officials, militia leaders, and military
commanders escaped justice. As a consequence, the Yugoslav legal authorities
248 Tomislav Dulić

found themselves in a situation of having to deal with mid- to low-level members

of the Ustasha Corps or former officials who did not play a key role in the organi-
zation of mass murder and genocide.
In local-level proceedings and “declarations” that were adopted throughout
Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, judgments varied considerably depending
on the identity of the victim. More precisely, it appears that the torture and mur-
der of Communists and their sympathizers was considered to be a particularly
grave crime, illustrating the existence of a “hierarchy of victims.” For example, a
district court, which in many of its other rulings handed down far milder pun-
ishments for torture, on March 11, 1946, sentenced an Ustasha police officer
in Mostar to death for beating Communists on several occasions. The fact that
Džemal Bijedić, a rising star of the party, was among the victims suggests that the
police officer might simply have made the mistake of torturing a person who soon
rose to prominence.26 Nevertheless, the ruling makes it clear that crimes against
Communists were considered particularly abominable:

Considering that we are not dealing with ordinary arrests and the arrests of ordi-
nary people but of people with the appropriate political and social orientation,
people who worked for the realization of social justice, equality, brotherhood,
and unity, in short people who worked for the realization of our present-day
system, and because in individual cases there were dire consequences because
future leaders of our authorities and organizations were lost, the court found
that we are dealing with a most serious case. It therefore sentences the defendant
to death by firing squad, permanent loss of political and citizenship rights, and
confiscation of the defendant’s property.27

Another noteworthy characteristic of the Commission’s work is that it kept to a

more “official” and matter-of-fact language than did the emotionally laden pro-
paganda leaflets. However, there was also the tendency to pay particular atten-
tion to killings with knives and other “cold” instruments, which contributed to
the extremely negative image of members of Ustasha militias. In its appeal judge-
ment in the case of Adam Jovanović, for instance, the High Court of Bosnia and
Herzegovina related an episode near Tasovčići on the banks of the River Neretva
where the defendant cut the throat of a named Serb victim. The description of the
event was particularly chilling:

It has been ascertained beyond reasonable doubt that the accused took the
deceased Milovan Toholj, who wanted to escape from the silo dressed in wom-
en’s clothes; that he subsequently took him from the prison to a place behind
the silo; that Toholj there begged and cried loudly: “Please brother Adam, do
not cut my throat”; that wheezing sounds were heard after that and everything
then went quiet.28
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 249

Another striking feature in the documentation is that the authorities took pains to
avoid raising the “ethnic issue” in their deliberations. Even though the perpetra-
tors’ ethnic identities were usually mentioned in the introduction of each ruling,
the authorities sometimes referred to their religious affiliation instead. Jovanović
was, for instance, described as a person “of Roman Catholic creed” rather than
a Croat.29 More importantly, the Commission and courts mentioned the per-
petrator’s ethnic or religious affiliation only in the section dealing with personal
background information, while focusing on his (and occasionally her) political
affiliation when discussing the material evidence. A ruling issued in the Mostar
District Court on the June 28, 1946—which dealt with a massacre of six hundred
civilians in Prebilovci on August 6, 1941—is a typical example of this:

During the pretrial process, the witness Salko Tikveš said that he knew the
defendant was an active Ustasha in 1941 and that he had participated in the
taking away and killing of Serb victims from Prebilovci with a rifle in his hand
and that he transported those Serbs to the station in Šurmanci. The Ustashas
took them from there throughout the day to a pit which they were thrown into.
The defendant was among those Ustashas who threw the Serbs into the pit.30

While judgments were certainly part of the way in which norms were used in the
creation of a new master narrative in Yugoslavia, the Commission also had other
means at its disposal. Among the most important were the numerous reports and
other general descriptions of specific wartime events, processes, organizations, and
military operations. These were often based on witness statements, documents,
and other primary evidence, and they created the interpretative frame through
which the history of the war was understood in public discourse and, ultimately,
the way sentencing judgments were handed out. These reports are even more strik-
ing than the judgments and often contain a highly emotional language through
which vivid descriptions of violence occasionally coalesce with symbolic references
to sacrifice.31 In the “decision” pertaining to Viktor Tomić, who was responsi-
ble for a particularly bloody punitive expedition in Syrmia in August 1942, for
instance, the Commission wrote that with his arrival “dark clouds arise over this
region and the patriotic population will endure one of its greatest tragedies during
the occupation.” After describing the operation in detail, the court also related
some rather disturbing descriptions of perpetrator behavior:

As soon as the party arrived, Tomić ordered the trench diggers to move forward.
The butchers had already prepared and continued their bloody work as if it was
an ordinary job. Eight hundred innocent victims were killed in the cemetery
that night. . . . A ten-year-old child was brought to the pit during one of the
killings at night. He was completely naked and when he was brought to the
edge of the pit and understood that he would be slaughtered, the child called
250 Tomislav Dulić

out in sorrow, “Please do not cut my throat.” But not even these words touched
the heart of the Ustasha, who immediately slaughtered him. . . . Once the pits
were filled, the corpses were covered with quicklime, which had a terrible effect
on those victims who were still alive. After that followed the filling of the pit,
even when one could hear the still-alive victims moan and wheeze. This burial
of still-alive victims is a savagery in a league of its own because of which two
German officers complained on two separate occasions, saying that it is truly a
scandal to save bullets.32

One should, of course, not be surprised that mass murder caused intense reac-
tions, and it might therefore seem rather unwarranted to speak of “criminaliza-
tion” and “dehumanization” of individuals who had committed heinous crimes
against civilians, including children. With this caveat in mind, though, the imag-
ery of Ustasha atrocities, while certainly being true in many instances, was also
used for the purpose of placing the movement’s members collectively outside the
framework of societal protection as morally depraved aliens and “degenerates” of
the Croat nation in particular. At the same time, there was also often a tendency
to describe some of the participants in locally mobilized “wild Ustasha” militias as
uneducated, easily manipulated young men or “a few homeless people and failed
individuals.”33 Even though it is not clear whether this type of rhetoric was a pre-
conceived policy, the “misled” thus came to represent a group of perpetrators in an
ambiguous category somewhere between murderous Ustashas and the majority of
Croats who rejected the Ustasha regime.

The Postwar Legacy and Reevaluation of Wartime History

The postwar legacy of the Communist Party and its use of history for the propaga-
tion of “brotherhood and unity” raises the issue of whether the wartime propa-
ganda and postwar transitional justice campaign actually had an impact on public
discourse and opinions. There is unfortunately no clear answer to this question,
and recent research seems to point in different directions. Max Bergholz has, for
instance, argued that killings of Muslims went unpunished because some of the
erstwhile Chetnik perpetrators had joined Partisan ranks and become members of
the local nomenclature, which helped create a skewed image of the Serbs as the
only victims of the war.34 Others have instead argued that “de-ethnicization” went
too far, resulting in a relativization of crimes whereby all groups were considered
equally guilty and no distinction was made between the Ustasha movement and
the Chetnik organization.35 It has also been a common complaint since the 1980s
by all ethnic communities that “their” victims were never acknowledged to the
extent they should have been. This would later result in a number of quasireligious
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 251

commemorations at limestone pits, the bridges over the Drina River in eastern
Bosnia, or the Bleiburg “killing field” in southern Carinthia.36
The problem with some of the arguments is that they suffer from assump-
tions based on rather scant empirical evidence. While the demand for more
research and a deeper understanding of historical phenomena is understand-
able when coming from the very scholars producing such knowledge, the
claim that war crimes were somehow “forgotten” seems difficult to reconcile
with the fact that, for instance, 1,400 publications of various sorts were written
about the Jasenovac camp alone.37 It is also clear to anyone who lived in the
former Yugoslavia that the People’s Liberation War was omnipresent in collec-
tive memory and public space through school curricula, cross-country marches
“along Tito’s paths of revolution” (Titovim stazama revolucije), television docu-
mentaries, commemorations, and “Partisan films,” which attracted well-known
Western actors such as Yul Brynner and Franco Nero. Even though heroes and
battles rather than victims and atrocity were the central themes of most films
and commemoration, films such as The Battle of the Neretva River (Bitka na
Neretvi) aimed to “de-ethnicize” the NOP in the most obvious manner, sig-
naling that the organization had a multiethnic character and fought against
treacherous Chetniks and Ustashas. Alongside heroic cinematic portrayals of the
Partisan struggle were others such as Veljko Bulajić’s Kozara, which depicted
the Ustashas and Germans cooperating in massacres of women and children
in the summer of 1942.38 Most importantly, however, films such as Frane
Štiglic’s Deveti krug (The ninth circle, 1967) and Dušan Vukotić’s Akcija stadion
(Operation stadium, 1977) directly addressed Ustasha war crimes.
Thus, it is an oversimplification to argue that Yugoslavs were “unaware” of
Ustasha crimes since the war was actually omnipresent in everyday Yugoslav life
through scholarship, media, and school curricula. It is true, nevertheless, that the
party wanted to achieve a clean break with the past by sentencing some of the
perpetrators and then moving the historical analysis away from local processes to
that of political decision making. This transformation of the master narrative in
Communist Yugoslavia had a profound effect, as it meant that Yugoslav histori-
ography never underwent processes similar to those in, for instance, Holocaust
research, where initial studies of the Nazi state, the bureaucratic apparatus, and the
concentration camp system were followed by social psychological research into the
local dynamics of violence. The fact that Yugoslav historians never addressed the
role of ordinary citizens and their passivity in the face of terror probably had the
most negative long-term effect, although it is perfectly explicable from an ideo-
logical and political perspective. While serving a positive political goal of national
reconciliation, the overly rigid juxtaposition of pathological Ustasha murderers
on one side and the generally “progressive” population on the other entrenched
a problematic understanding of Ustasha agency and the way the Ustasha regime
252 Tomislav Dulić

managed to remain in power for the duration of the war. More precisely, the
party’s insistence that the Ustashas were a small elite with virtually no popular
support could hardly be reconciled with the fact that they managed to mobilize
sections of the population and retain control of the major cities and some parts of
the countryside until the state’s collapse in May 1945, after which tens of thou-
sands of their supporters fled alongside the retreating army.
The fact that socialist historiography made a simplistic distinction between the
minority of Ustasha killers and the rest of the population, heroically resisting fas-
cism, also had the effect that the Yugoslav historians were never able or willing
to address the role of “bystanders.” This was a serious omission since the behav-
ior and passivity of ordinary citizens was crucial to the mechanisms of violence,
regardless of whether it was the majority who simply tried to muddle through
as best they could, those referred to by Raul Hilberg as the “gainers,” or those
few who moved from a passive position to risking their own lives to help fellow
humans. The avoidance of this topic meant that certain individuals never received
the acknowledgment that was due. Among the most important was Austrian-born
Diana Budisavljević, who was married to a well-known ethnic Serbian lawyer in
Zagreb. While at first she was reluctant to participate in any humanitarian activi-
ties, she became gradually drawn into a campaign to save thousands of Serb chil-
dren from certain death in the Ustasha children’s camps of Jastrebarsko and Stara
Gradiška. The fact that she had the “wrong” class background probably contrib-
uted to her deeds being largely overlooked during the Communist period.39
The fact that bystanders were largely ignored in the historical analyses of the
Second World War also opened the door for the collective attribution of guilt
during the period of national mobilization in the 1980s, a process that brought
about a fundamental reinterpretation of the Yugoslav social memory about the
war. Among the most important authors working in this field was Veselin Đuretić,
who in a book on the relationship between the Allies and Yugoslavia lamented
the fact that the government in exile referred to the Ustasha movement and the
Chetnik organization as equally guilty.40 It was this and similar references that
provoked Franjo Tudjman to refute an alleged “Serbian” tendency to “declare”
Croats to be “a genocidal nation.”41
An entire literature has since emerged in which it has been argued from a vari-
ety of standpoints that what happened in the 1940s was a “national tragedy” for
either nation because of the emergence of an “intraethnic” fratricidal war within
the larger context of the Second World War.42 This empirically and theoretically
problematic argument is based on the idea that Communism brought about dis-
unity within each collective, thus pitting Croat against Croat or Serb against Serb
in an ideological struggle when they presumably instead should have fought for
a common—“national”—political cause. While such interpretations suffer from
a number of deficiencies (including the misperception that Communist Serbs or
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 253

Croats should have a stronger affiliation to their coethnics than to their comrades
of another ethnic denomination), they should probably be understood first and
foremost as expressions of a shift in historical consciousness that resulted from the
delegitimization of Communism in the 1990s.
A prominent and vivid example of the change in the interpretation of the
Second World War in Serbia can be found in Vuk Drašković’s best-selling novel
Nož (The Knife) from the early 1980s, in which the author describes a massacre
in the eastern Herzegovinian town of Gacko. In one scene, the author depicts an
Ustasha militia commander gnawing on a lamb’s leg at the scene of a massacre
while ordering his men to kill the victims by cracking their skulls open with cud-
gels, after which they are thrown into a limestone pit. Even more importantly for
this analysis, Drašković casts a Muslim who opposed the violence not as a positive
figure and representative of a “people,” as interpreted in Communist-era descrip-
tions of the same event,43 but instead portrays him as an exception to the rule
of Muslims joining Ustasha militias voluntarily.44 In other words, Drašković per-
petuated an image of the perpetrator as a pathological murderer, on the one hand,
while at the same time blurring the firm boundary between him and the gen-
eral population, which had been a key element in the postwar Communist social
memory.45 The lurking question that found its way into public discourse and con-
sciousness was that perhaps many Croat and, in particular, Muslim Ustashas had
actually escaped justice, while many ordinary Croats and Muslims had actually
supported fascism and mass murder. Once Communist ideology lost its appeal in
the 1980s and ethnic mobilization resulted in manifestations of nationalism and
previously banned nationalistic paraphernalia from the Second World War (such
as Ustasha symbols), suspicions of a reemerging Independent State of Croatia
became “confirmed” in the eyes of many Serbs, in particular those who had a liv-
ing memory of past atrocities. Past injustice, a lack of proper historical analysis of
mass violence, and the delegitimization of the concept of brotherhood and unity
thus contributed to ethnic mobilization.

History as Part of a State-Building Project

Wartime party propaganda was well thought out ideologically and was imple-
mented in a consistent manner in which key tropes of the “dehumanization” of
perpetrators, the “de-ethnicization” of crimes, and forward-looking promises of a
utopian future in the form of a socialist state imbued with the concept of broth-
erhood and unity and social justice dominated and endured. The Commission’s
most important achievement was that it succeeded in strengthening the nascent
socialist master narrative by transferring it from the field of propaganda into nor-
mative regulation. With the help of thousands of “declarations” and other official
254 Tomislav Dulić

documents, the party managed to strike a very important balance between the
stigmatization of Ustasha officials and members of militias as the incarnation of
pathological evil, and the patriotic nobility and courage of the ordinary, “progres-
sive” Croat worker and peasant. Creating this distinction was of crucial politi-
cal importance since it paved the way for a new master narrative that framed
Yugoslavia as a state that had come to terms with its past and a united people
moving toward a utopian socialist future. Even though it is important not to
overinterpret the effects of the media on public opinion, such campaigns prob-
ably would have failed had it not been for the fact that the Yugoslav authorities
controlled the means of mass communication. This meant they could influence
public discourse, facilitating the concurrent dissemination of a monolithic under-
standing of the recent past with promises of future social justice. This is probably
one of the single most crucial differences between the transitional justice initia-
tive in the 1940s and that which followed in the wake of the wars in the 1990s,
although the long-term effects, of course, remain to be seen.
The Communist Party created a master narrative in Yugoslav society that in
many ways appears to have been successful in legitimizing the party’s monopoly
on power as well as its key ideological message of brotherhood and unity. However,
the party lost political power at the beginning of the 1990s, which was preceded
by a decade characterized by economic decline and the erosion of the ideologi-
cal basis of “socialist self-management.” The 1980s also witnessed the declining
legitimacy of an altogether problematic master narrative that had avoided those
aspects of mass killing that were of particular relevance for understanding the role
of bystanders. As a result of a predominant view of the Ustashas as Pavelić’s will-
ing executioners, to paraphrase Daniel Goldhagen, and the attribution of collec-
tive guilt to Croats in general by some influential Serbs, the reevaluation of social
memory concerning the Second World War provided the national mobilization of
the 1980s with ideological fuel.

Notes
1. The decision was made by Rodoljub Čolaković and Ivan “Lola” Ribar on
November 30, 1943, in Jajce. Miodrag Zečević and Jovan P. Popović, eds., Dokumenti
iz istorije Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Arhiv Jugoslavije, 1996), 4:445.
2. United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplo-
matic Papers, 1943: General (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1943),
1:768–69. The idea to simply place war criminals before a firing squad was also dis-
cussed at the Yalta Conference, when Josef Stalin estimated that some fifty thousand
German officers would probably qualify for these measures. Churchill became infuri-
ated and left the conference room in protest and did not return until he was told that
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 255

Stalin had only “joked.” The fact that the Soviet leader was responsible for the killing
of many thousands of Polish officers in Katyn in 1939 suggests that such ideas were
hardly strange to him.
3. Chiara Bottici, “European Identity and the Politics of Remembrance,” in Per-
forming the Past: Memory, History, and Identity in Modern Europe, ed. Karin Tilmans,
Frank Van Vree, and Jay Winter (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010),
335–60.
4. One particularly interesting aspect in this context concerns the discussion of the
International Court of Justice’s ruling in the Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia case for
genocide. The court ruled that what happened generally was not genocide (with the
exception of the massacre against the local male population of Srebrenica). The ruling
infuriated parts of the Bosniak public and intellectuals who often did not understand
the distinction between “ethnic cleansing” and genocide. This confusion should be
understood in light of a specific local understanding of the term “genocide,” which is
much wider than the one stipulated by international law. The Yugoslav legal concept
of genocide, which was coined by the historian Vladimir Dedijer, included deporta-
tions and forced expulsions as elements of crime, which it is not according to the
United Nations definition. This means that Yugoslav jurisprudence allowed for defin-
ing violent deportation (popularly known as “ethnic cleansing”) as genocide, while
international law includes this type of activity (extermination, deportation) into the
category of crimes against humanity. For more on the Yugoslav definition of genocide
and the debates in the 1990s, see Xavier Bougarel, “Du code pénal au mémorandum:
Les usages du terme génocide dans la Yougoslavie communiste,” in Peines de guerre, ed.
Isabelle Delpla and Magali Bessone (Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales,
2010), 67–84. See also Christian Axboe Nielsen, “Surmounting the Myopic Focus
on Genocide: The Case of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Journal of Genocide
Research 15, no. 1 (2013): 21–39.
5. Robert Hayden, “Recounting the Dead: The Rediscovery and Redefinition of
Wartime Massacres in Late- and Post-Communist Yugoslavia,” in Memory, History
and Opposition under State Socialism, ed. Rubie S. Watson (Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press, 1995), 149–50.
6. Roland Kostić has conducted a series of public opinion surveys in Bosnia and
Herzegovina since the turn of the twenty-first century that suggest that there is a con-
tinuous fragmented opinion about the work of the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia. See Kostić, “Transitional Justice in Bosnia and Herzegov-
ina: Whose Justice, Whose Peace?,” Sociologija 54, no. 4 (2012): 659.
7. For more on the relationship between social memory and the process for the
legal rehabilitation of Mihailović, see Tomislav Dulić, “Sentenced ‘for Ideological and
Political Reasons’? The Rehabilitation of Dragoljub ‘Draža’ Mihailović and Social
Memory in Serbia,” Sociologija 54, no. 4 (2012): 49.
8. The genocide against the Jews and Roma resulted in an almost complete
destruction of both communities, even though the measures against the latter were
only ostensibly supposed to affect the itinerant (čergaši) Roma population. The
256 Tomislav Dulić

attack against Serbs was not as extreme if counted in percentages, but some 15–17
percent of the prewar population in the territory of the Ustasha state nevertheless
perished. Many died as members of the NOP, while others were killed in “cleans-
ings,” including some nineteen thousand children in the Jasenovac concentration
camp alone. For details, see Tomislav Dulić, “Mass Killing in the Independent State
of Croatia, 1941–1945: A Case for Comparative Research,” Journal of Genocide
Research 8, no. 3 (2006): 271–72; Vladimir Žerjavić, Opsesije i megalomanije oko
Jasenovca i Bleiburga (Zagreb: Globus, 1992), 166; Bogoljub Kočović, Žrtve Drugog
svetskog rata u Jugoslaviji (London: Veritas Foundation Press, 1985), 180; Dra-
gan Cvetković, “Bosna i Hercegovina—numeričko određivanje ljudskih gubitaka
u Drugom svetskom ratu,” in Prilozi istraživanju zločina genocida i ratnih zločina,
ed. Jovan Mirković (Belgrade: Muzej žrtava genocida, 2009), 79–156; Cvetković,
“Stvarni gubici Hrvatske prema popisu Žrtve rata 1941–1945. iz 1964. godine:
Analiza trenutnog stanja prema do sada izvršenoj reviziji,” in Dijalog povjesničara-
istoričara, ed. Hans-Georg Fleck and Igor Graovac (Zagreb: Zaklada Friedrich Nau-
mann, 2002), 481–503.
9. Concerning the division of Yugoslavia and Axis policies, see Dragan S. Nenezić,
Jugoslovenske oblasti pod Italijom (Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut vojske Jugoslavije,
1999); Milan D. Ristović, Nemački “novi poredak” i jugoistočna Evropa 1940/41–
1944/45: Planovi o budućnosti i praksa (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački i novinski cen-
tar, 1991); Klaus von Olshausen, Zwischenspiel auf dem Balkan: Die deutsche Politik
gegenüber Jugoslawien und Griechenland von März bis Juli 1941 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlags-anstalt, 1973).
10. Once the NOP became more involved in the warfare, officials also began refer-
ring to the insurrectionists as “Communist Chetniks.” Telegram from Major Jurišić on
the fall of Glamoč, June 30, 1941, HDA, fond Jadransko divizijsko područje, kut.1,
V.T. 1388.
11. NAW, Record Group T-501, roll 265, frs. 337–8.
12. Mladenko Colić, Pregled operacija na Jugoslovenskom ratištu 1941–1945 (Bel-
grade: Vojnoistoriski Institut, 1988), 17–19.
13. Ibid., 24.
14. Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, Revolucija koja teče: Memoari (Belgrade: Komu-
nist, 1971), 1:194.
15. Zbornik dokumenata i podataka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu jugosloven-
skih naroda [hereafter: Zbornik DNOR], ser. 2, vol. 2, Dokumenta vrhovnog štaba
Narodnooslobodilačke vojske Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut jugoslovenske
armije, 1954), doc. no. 1.
16. Zbornik DNOR, vol. 2, Bilten vrhovnog štaba narodnooslobodilačke vojske Jugo-
slavije (Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut jugoslovenske armije, 1949), 11.
17. Ibid., 28.
18. Ibid., 50–51.
19. For details of Croatian historiography and history teaching pertaining to the
massacres committed at the end of the war, see Martina Grahek, “Bleiburg i Križni put
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 257

u hrvatskim udžbenicima povijesti,” Dijalog povjesničara-istoričara, vol. 9, ed. Hans-

Georg Fleck and Igor Graovac (Zagreb: Zaklada Friedrich Naumann, 2002), 642–59;
Vladimir Geiger, “Bleiburg i križni put u historiografiji, publicistici i memoarskoj lit-
eraturi,” in Spomenica povodom 50-te obljetnice Bleiburga i križnog puta, ed. Mirko
Valentić (Zagreb: Quo Vadis, 1995), 71–91.
20. It is very clear from available documentation originating with the party cadres
in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina that the issue of multiethnicity was a key con-
cern. The “problem” that Serbs constituted a majority in Partisan units was addresssed
in reports by top-ranking politicians such as Edvard Kardelj, who in a letter from
August 1941 complained that the NOP received very little support among ethnic
Croats in Croatia. See Zbornik DNOR, ser. 2, vol. 2, doc. no 6.
21. Zečević and Popović, Dokumenti iz istorije Jugoslavije, 12n11. It is somewhat
unclear what happened to some of those who were declared to be war criminals.
22. This has led to a considerable amount of criticism in recent years, with Serbia
adopting a Law on Rehabilitation, according to which all those who had their or their
relatives’ rights violated can file lawsuits to declare these null and void. According
to the regulation, the court should not discuss the issue of whether the accused was
guilty but only whether the proceeding was in line with high standards. This is impor-
tant, since it means that a rehabilitated person might well have committed the acts
for which he or she was accused, including those who were clearly implicated in war
crimes. For more on the complexity of this issue, see Dulić, “Sentenced ‘for Ideologi-
cal and Political Reasons’?,” 629–32.
23. Bogdan Krizman, Pavelić u bjekstvu (Ljubljana: ČGP Delo, 1986).
24. Darko Stuparić, ed. Tko je tko u NDH (Zagreb: Minerva, 1997), 240–42.
25. Ibid., 223–25.
26. Bijedić held important positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the
war, when he became deputy minister of the interior. He later also served as prime
minister in Yugoslavia from 1974 until his death in 1977.
27. District Court in Mostar, judgement 70/46 of March 11, 1946, AJ 110-818-92.
28. High Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, appeal judgement from December 17,
1945, AJ 110-818, fol. 331.
29. District Court in Mostar, Judgement no. 28/45, November 19, 1945, AJ 110-
818, fol. 329.
30. District Court in Mostar, Judgement no. 255/46, July 28, 1946, AJ 110-818,
fols. 23–24.
31. For more on this aspect, cf. John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia (London:
Hurst, 2000).
32. Zečević and Popović, Dokumenti iz istorije Jugoslavije, 364.
33. Transcript of the Republican Commission, April 8, 1947, AJ 110-493, fol.
434.
34. See Max Bergholz, “The Strange Silence: Explaining the Absence of Monu-
ments for Muslim Civilians Killed in Bosnia during the Second World War,” East
European Politics & Societies 24, no. 3 (2010): 408–34.
258 Tomislav Dulić

35. Ivan M. Becić, “List ‘Borba’ u borbi za ovladavanje javnim mnenjem u Srbiji
1944–1945,” Istorija 20. veka, no. 2 (2012): 86; Kosta Nikolić, “Bitka za prošlost—
stvaranje istorijske svesti o Drugom svetskom ratu u Jugoslaviji,” Zbornik radova Insti-
tuta za savremenu istorju, no. 8 (2006): 36.
36. For details on the reevaluation of the Second World War in former Yugosla-
via, see David B. MacDonald, Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim-Cen-
tred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2002).
37. Jovan Mirković, “Jasenovački logor u literaturi,” Dijalog povjesničara–istoričara,
539. For some of the most important scholarly works and memoirs dealing with
Jasenovac and violence in the Ustasha state, see Mirko Peršen, Ustaški logori (Zagreb:
Stvarnost, 1966); Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Zagreb: SN
Liber Školska knjiga, 1977); Egon Berger, 44 mjeseca u Jasenovcu (Zagreb: Grafički
zavod Hrvatske, 1966); Dušan Sindik, ed., Sećanja jevreja na logor Jasenovac (Belgrade:
Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije, 1972); Jaša Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije 1941–
1945. žrtve genocida i učesnici NOR (Belgrade: Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije,
1980).
38. Veljko Bulajić, Kozara, YouTube video, posted by srbin najstariji, May 19,
2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc71WGetA4Y, capture 1:11:00-1.23.00.
39. Budisavljević’s war diary was first published in 2003, but it was not until almost
ten years later that her feat became acknowledged throughout Serbia, Croatia, and
Bosnia and Herzegovina. See, e.g., “Diani Budisavljević ulica na Dedinju,” Večernje
Novosti, April 12, 2011; “Diani Budisavljević ulica u Zagrebu,” Novosti, August 5,
2010; Josip Kolanović, ed., Dnevnik Diane Budisavljević (Zagreb: Hrvatski državni
arhiv & Javna ustanova Spomen-područje Jasenovac, 2003).
40. Veselin Đuretić, Saveznici i jugoslovenska ratna drama, 2 vols., vol. 1, Posebna
izdanja (Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1985), 76–77.
41. Franjo Tudjman, Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy (New York:
M. Evans, 1996), 270–89.
42. See for example Savo Skoko, Krvavo kolo hercegovačko 1941–42, vol. 1 (Bel-
grade: NIP Planeta, 2000). The topic of historical “revisionism” and reevaluation has
been analyzed in several articles and major studies since the late 1990s. See Ivo Gold-
stein and Slavko Goldstein, “Revisionism in Croatia: The Case of Franjo Tuđman,”
Eastern European Jewish Affairs 32, no. 1 (2002): 52–64; Tomislav Dulić, “Mapping
Out the ‘Wasteland’: Testimonies from the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees in the
Service of Tudjman’s Revisionism,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 23, no. 2 (2009):
263–84.
43. Lutvo Džubur, “Poslednje školsko zvono,” in Hercegovina u NOB, ed. Svetko
Kovačević (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački i novinski centar, 1986), 358.
44. Vuk Drašković, Nož (Belgrade: Zapis, 1984), 146–47.
45. The description of this event is particularly interesting, as it underwent sev-
eral transformations. While the Commission related the Muslim’s objection, it also
explained that his voice remained alone during Tongl’s meeting, which gathered
 Forging Brotherhood and Unity 259

what were described as local “Ustashas” bent on mass murder. In the postwar pub-
lication Herzegovina u NOB, by contrast, a participant explained that locals did not
agree with the Ustashas but were afraid to voice their opinion. In a third reference to
the same event, which was collected by the Commissariat for Refugees in occupied
Serbia, however, the witness simply mentioned that “one Muslim, who was present
at this gathering, commented that one cannot do that, but the Ustashas answered
him that it could and should be done.” Cf. Transcript ZKRZ BiH, June 20, 1946,
AJ 110-493, fol. 445; Džubur, “Poslednje školsko zvono,” 358; Arhiv Srbije, fond
G-2, Komesarijat za izbeglice vlade Milana Nedića, f. 6 (Gacko), transcript from the
May 9, 1942 (K. Bumbić), 1.
 Chapter Ten

Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent

The Ustasha Movement and the Transnational

Dynamics of Interwar Fascism

Aristotle Kallis

The mere suggestion that the Ustasha movement constituted the Croatian variant
of a generic ideological and political phenomenon that we nowadays label “fas-
cism” raises complex questions both about the Ustasha movement itself and about
the nature and dynamics of interwar fascism.1 There are three main facets to this
discussion that has been raging in fascism studies for decades.2 The first concerns
the nature of fascism as a distinct but also generic ideological force. As a novel rad-
ical, hypernationalist force that came to the fore in the effervescent atmosphere of
post–World War I Italy, fascism quickly developed a strong transnational momen-
tum, with radical ideas and practices pioneered in Italy exerting ever stronger
and wider influence across the continent. With the rise of National Socialism
in Germany and especially Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933,
many—both on the right and left—spoke of fascism as a generic paradigm shift
in the political sphere.3 At the same time, an array of radical movements appeared
in many parts of the continent; some brandished the name “fascist” or “national
socialist” in their title, while others borrowed from the radical ideas and experi-
ments of Fascist Italy or National Socialist Germany or both at the same time that
they were claiming that their beliefs were rooted in distinct national traditions
and not simply emulating foreign prototypes. Post–World War II historiography
assumed the existence of a “generic fascism” in interwar Europe even before differ-
ent generations of scholars (from George L Mosse and Ernst Nolte in the 1960s
to Stanley Payne in the 1980s and Roger Griffin in the 1990s4) sought to identify
fascism’s distinct ideological character and clarify, through a process of “idealized
abstraction,” its distinguishing, generic features vis-à-vis other established ideolo-
gies of the time. However, the rise of the “generic fascism” paradigm was also
contested by other scholars who claimed that the ideological differences between
those movements and regimes outweighed their similarities. Ever since Gilbert
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 261

Allardyce’s polemical “What Fascism Is Not,” these scholars have tried to either
dissociate Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany from each other or chal-
lenge the utility of the concept of generic fascism.5
These criticisms point to a second vexing complexity—or indeed paradox—in
the nature of fascism: How is it possible for a primarily ultranationalist phenom-
enon to produce similar or comparable ideas and actions across so many countries
with such different traditions, challenges, and aspirations? Because of its funda-
mental focus on the regeneration and absolute sovereignty of the nation, the vari-
ous “fascist” movements, parties, and regimes differed from one national context
to the other—and often within the same country. To take an example, Belgium
witnessed the emergence of potentially three “fascist” movements in the inter-
war period. One, the Rex, which emanated from dissident Catholic youth circles,
was not originally anti-Semitic and promoted a vision of national regeneration
that involved the entire population of Belgium. Another, the Verdinaso, was from
the outset vehemently anti-Semitic and envisioned a territorial reconstitution
of the medieval kingdom of Burgundy that involved lands far beyond the then-
official national frontiers. Lastly, the Flemish National League (Vlaams Nationaal
Verbond) started as a nationalist party for Belgium’s Flanders region but during
the 1930s developed into an increasingly “fascistized” political force, with a strong
(and racial) ideological layer of anti-Semitism and a vision of national regenera-
tion that looked toward the Netherlands and Germany rather than Belgium.6
Similar variations existed in other countries as well. The overwhelming major-
ity of these radical hypernationalist movements in interwar Europe posited them-
selves as authentically national responses to a perceived European “crisis,” taking
particular pride in invoking values and inheritances derived from their specific
national context. Therefore, to claim that the Ustasha movement was equivalent
to “Croatian fascism” runs the risk of conflating methodological individualism
(that is, an analytical focus on the Ustasha movement as a uniquely Croatian phe-
nomenon, rooted in national traditions but also reflecting particular aspects of its
contemporary context) and methodological holism (namely, the analysis of the
Ustasha movement as a facet of a wider transnational “fascist” phenomenon in
interwar Europe).
Thus, we arrive at the third complexity of this discussion: whether a movement
such as the Croatian Ustasha movement and a state such as the Independent State
of Croatia can be classified as fascist. In recent years, new approaches to interwar
fascism have sought to redirect the debate from classifications according to rigid
paradigms toward a more dynamic framework of analysis that focuses on transna-
tional transfers and influences and reflexive adaptations.7 They have drawn atten-
tion to the emergent nature of fascism in interwar Europe as a radical experiment
in the making rather than as the fully formed paradigm that scholarship has often
assumed with the benefit of hindsight. In this respect, to ask whether the Ustasha
262 Aristotle Kallis

movement or regime was fascist is a potentially misleading starting premise of

analysis, ignoring the complex dynamics of formation and focusing unduly on
outcomes rather than intentions.8 Instead, the question that this chapter will seek
to address is somewhat different: To what extent and in what ways were the ideo-
logical formation of the Ustasha movement and the political radicalization of the
Ustasha state critically influenced by developments in interwar Italy and Germany,
as well as by the dynamic that these developments unleashed across Europe espe-
cially in the 1930s? By drawing attention to the wider ideological-political con-
text of interwar Europe and by seeking to identify the transnational channels of
influence as perceived at the time by the major protagonists, the Ustasha move-
ment and the Ustasha state can be fruitfully analyzed both in terms of continuity
within national traditions and of discontinuity made possible because of fascism’s
transnational appeal and dynamism. This article argues for an approach that sees
national “uniqueness,” transnational interactions, and international dynamics not
as vexing dichotomies with classificatory side effects but as premises for a more
nuanced understanding of the rise, radicalization, and eventual fall of interwar
militant movements and regimes. This perspective seeks to interpret the Ustasha
movement as both a distinctly Croatian phenomenon and one whose particular
formation and history makes very little sense outside the dynamic transnational
field of interwar generic fascism.

Ustasha Ideology: National Legacies

and Transnational Entanglements
When representatives from radical nationalist movements and dictatorships from
across Europe met in Montreux, Switzerland, in December 1934 under the aus-
pices of the Italian Fascist regime, the list of represented countries did not include
Yugoslavia, let alone Croatia.9 Given that the purpose of this meeting was to bring
about a coalition of “fascist” forces from across the continent, a kind of “Fascist
International,” the omission of the Ustasha movement is interesting. There
were, of course, other important absences from the Montreux proceedings—the
German National Socialists and the British Union of Fascists were also not pres-
ent, the latter because its leadership had turned down the invitation to attend.
Meanwhile, some inconsequential groups, such as the Greek National Socialists,
had been invited and turned up at the conference in spite of their tiny mem-
bership and minimal impact on their societies.10 The Ustasha movement, which
had been supported actively by the Fascist regime, had in effect been deliberately
excluded from the first major international meeting of fascists.
Did this deliberate exclusion indicate that Mussolini did not consider the
Ustasha movement to be part of the dawning “new order” in Europe that he
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 263

evangelized and sought to formalize with the 1934 conference? From its origins in
the late 1920s, the Ustasha movement presented the Italian Fascist regime with a
conundrum. On the one hand, its primary separatist character placed it in a differ-
ent category than most other interwar antisystem movements that operated within
the structures of established states. The Ustasha movement, together with other
separatist organizations in interwar Yugoslavia (such as the Macedonian Internal
Revolutionary Front) and elsewhere in Europe (such as the Slovak Hlinka People’s
Party), belonged to a peculiar radical nationalist subset whose raison d’être was
national independence. Unlike, however, the Slovak movement, which had gradu-
ally built a genuine national following and emerged as a more legitimate political
force in interwar Czechoslovakia,11 the Ustasha movement was a far more radi-
cal and decidedly violent organization. In October 1934 its members had been
implicated in the assassination of King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia in Marseille
(along with the French foreign minister Louis Barthou), which resulted in an
official ban on the organization and its persecution by the Yugoslav authorities.
Indeed, the timing of the Montreux conference (only months after the assassi-
nation) made an official invitation to the Ustasha movement practically impos-
sible. On the other hand, Mussolini had already shown a strong willingness to
support radical antisystem forces across Europe.12 Given that the Ustasha move-
ment conspired against the fledgling and unstable Yugoslav kingdom, toward
which Italy still harbored territorial aspirations, especially on the Dalmatian
coast, Croatian separatism was politically useful as a tool for subverting the state
and maintaining the pressure on the postwar Versailles system. Together with
Horthy’s revisionist regime in Hungary, Fascist Italy supplied the Ustasha move-
ment with financial aid, political shelter, expert training, and channels of influ-
encing developments in Yugoslavia.13
At any rate, at the time of the Montreux conference, the Ustasha leader Ante
Pavelić was already in Italy—and in prison. Self-exiled from Yugoslavia since
1929 to avoid arrest by state authorities for his violent separatist activities, he had
escaped to Austria, where he was arrested and deported to Germany. Nevertheless,
once again he fled, this time to Italy, where the fledging movement would find
its most welcoming haven from persecution. Clandestine training camps had
been established with the support of the Fascist regime across Italy by the early
1930s.14 Italian media presented Pavelić and his Ustashas as a genuine force for
the liberation of the Croat people from a repressive and putatively illegitimate
Yugoslav regime.15 Mussolini’s brother Arnaldo, who had a strong ideologi-
cal influence on Il Duce until his death in 1931, did not conceal his support
for the Croatian separatist case.16 After the 1934 Marseille assassinations, how-
ever, the Italian authorities bowed to international pressure and cracked down
on Ustasha activists in Italy. Pavelić was imprisoned until 1936. Upon his release
and for a short time, he appeared to enjoy once again the support of the Fascist
264 Aristotle Kallis

regime for his anti-Yugoslav schemes. The initially supportive attitude of Italian
Fascist authorities gave way to a more repressive policy from 1937 onward, with
training camps closed down and Ustasha émigrés either displaced or deported.
Apparently disillusioned with Pavelić and his band of émigrés, whom they now
regarded as falling seriously short of the revolutionary dynamism of fascism,
Italy explored better relations with Yugoslavia.17 Ironically, given the troubled
post–World War I Italian-Yugoslav relations and Fascist Italy’s earlier support for
Croatian separatism, it was the prime minister of Yugoslavia Milan Stojadinović
who courted Fascist sympathies more successfully (though only temporarily) and
led the new Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano to describe him as a “true fas-
cist.”18 Increasingly isolated, Pavelić spent the rest of the time until his return to
Croatia in the spring of 1941 under constant surveillance by the Italian authori-
ties. Apparently disillusioned with Mussolini, he chose to pursue a closer align-
ment with National Socialist Germany.19 The small network of Ustasha émigrés
in Germany opened channels of communication with the Nazi Party and tried to
maintain the propaganda noise in anticipation of future Nazi plans for the politi-
cal and territorial reorganization of Europe. Still, ideological alignment and politi-
cal back channels did not deliver tangible benefits to the Ustasha movement in
the late 1930s. Just as Fascist Italy was exploring friendly relations with Yugoslavia
in 1937, National Socialist Germany seemed to prioritize the revisionist plans of
Hungary at the same time that it was pursuing expanding economic ties with the
Yugoslav kingdom.
Dispersed and disjointed, persecuted, lacking a solid organizational and indeed
a social base easy to mobilize, oscillating between political opposition and terror-
ism, the Ustasha movement remained a sui generis radical separatist movement
with a highly atypical political curve in the 1930s.20 Unlike other radical hyper-
nationalist movements of its time, the Ustasha movement was notably less inter-
ested in a political revolution or a well-defined program of radical reorganization
of social, political, and cultural life under the auspices of a centralized national
state;21 its raison d’être was to destroy, first, the legitimacy and then the mere
existence of the Yugoslav kingdom as the necessary precondition for realizing its
primary goal—Croatian independence and statehood. Its 1933 program devoted
more than half of the fifteen points to the notion of the “historic” Croat right to
independent statehood. A panoply of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious, anthro-
pological, geographic, historical, and gradually racial arguments were deployed to
support this goal. Integral nationalism, with all its familiar exclusivist appendages,
was at the heart of the Ustasha political program, but the main target was neither
Communists nor Jews but the kingdom of Yugoslavia (with its founding premise
of “South Slav” unity) and the Serbs (who were seen as dominating the state and
attempting to articulate a claim to their alleged superiority vis-à-vis other ethnic
groups of Yugoslavia). Finally, the goal of independent statehood for the Croats
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 265

was linked to the territorial reconstitution of a “Greater Croatia,” steeped in his-

torical arguments about rights over lands that extended well beyond Croatia to
include large parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vojvodina, and western Serbia.22
All these central tenets in the Ustasha ideology could claim some kind of sig-
nificant national lineage. The nineteenth-century politician and literary figure
Ante Starčević earned the title of “the father of the Croat nation” because of his
efforts to construct a meaningful Croatian identity in opposition both to the
Habsburg Empire and the growing ambitions of the Serbs to be the dominant
force in the region. Starčević’s ideology contained all the important ingredients
of the ideology of extreme Croat nationalism in the twentieth century.23 In
1861 Starčević founded the Party of Right (Stranka prava), which in the 1870s
and 1880s embraced the vision of full Croatian independence. Starčević was
also the architect of the modern ideological paradigm of Croatian ethno-exclu-
sive “nation-statism.” Using historical arguments reaching back to medieval
times, he envisioned an all-Croatian state extending from Dalmatia over Bosnia
to Bulgaria, with no place left for the Serbs within this territory.24 He was thus
instrumental in marrying (and legitimizing) the regenerative discourse of Croat
nationalism with an intolerant exclusionary attitude toward the Serb “other”
that would become the horrifying trademark of the ideology and, later, praxis of
the Ustasha. He articulated his hostile opinion on the Serbs, whom he described
derogatorily as a “nomadic” people of “eastern” derivation that had degenerated
throughout the centuries. Starčević’s vision for a future independent Croatia
offered no place for “alien” groups, including the Jews. Nevertheless, whatever
animosity toward the Jews (racial, political, or economic) existed in the ideology
of Starčević and his party, it was overshadowed by the vehement opposition to,
and denigration of, the Serbs.25
However, it was the more extreme Frankist (Frankovci) wing of Croat national-
ism headed by Josip Frank that held the most venomous views about the Serbs.
In 1895, Frank’s faction split from the main Party of Right to form the Pure
Party of Right (Čista stranka prava).26 The Frankovci reconstituted themselves as
the Croatian Party of Right (Hrvatska stranka prava) in 1918 and became the
main pool of the subsequent fascist Ustasha movement. When, during and after
the First World War, the inclusive platform of Yugoslavism (lit. “south Slavism,”
envisaging a political coalition among various ethnic and religious groups in the
region) gathered momentum as the basis for the formation of the Yugoslav state,
the Bosnian jurist and politician Ivo Pilar addressed the “south-Slav question” and
reached conclusions identical to those of Starčević and Frank—about the alleged
“eastern,” “nomadic” origin of the Serbs; their likeness to the Jews; their destruc-
tive racial-cultural influence; and the nonviability of the “Yugoslav” solution of
coexistence. He and the anthropologist and historian Milan Šufflay energetically
propagated the idea that the conflict between Serbs and Croats was essentially
266 Aristotle Kallis

a clash of historically and culturally incompatible civilizations—the “European

West” on the one hand and the “Asiatic East” on the other.27
Thus, neither the violent exclusionary bias of Ustasha integral nationalism, pri-
marily and overwhelmingly directed at the Serbs, nor its aggressive and expansion-
ist “nation-statist” fantasies were novel ideological ingredients. Even the Ustasha
movement’s virulent racialist turn of the 1930s and particularly early 1940s had
been, partly at least, prefigured in the anthropological distinctions between Croats
and Serbs sketched by Starčević, Frank, Pilar, Šufflay, and others. It was from
within the ranks of the Croatian Party of Right that Pavelić started his political
career as the leading figure of the most extreme, ultranationalist frankovci faction.
Pavelić and other leading figures of the Ustasha movement acknowledged at every
opportunity that the modern formation of Croat nationalism would have been
unimaginable without Starčević’s intellectual groundwork and passionate advo-
cacy. As links with Nazi Germany intensified in the second half of the 1930s,
Pavelić’s conception of the Croatian “nation” became increasingly—and more
blatantly—race oriented and infused with a “blood and soil” rhetoric.28 Ustasha
ideology resorted more and more to a blend of racial imagery and religious speci-
ficities to legitimize its historical-political claim to independence and justify the
organic nationalist demand for the elimination of the “contestant others” from
the “pure” Croat national “living space.”29 Prominent scientists and ideologues
such as Ćiro Truhelka and Mladen Lorković propagated a discourse of speciation
depicting the Serbs as burdened with an immutable racial inferiority and degen-
eration.30 Like Starčević before him, Pavelić himself appeared divided between
the notion of a de facto racial inferiority of all Serbs and the suggestion that
many Serbs residing in Croat lands were actually Croats forcefully converted to
the Orthodox creed.31 This explains the infamous alleged quote by the Ustasha
minister of education Mile Budak in June 1941 stating that the eliminationist
policy of the Croatian state toward Serbs would be based on the equal combina-
tion of forceful conversion, expulsion, and annihilation.32 Whether Budak ever
actually uttered those words, what followed in the period between 1941 and 1944
was to prove that they accurately reflected the new state’s eliminationist intentions
toward the Serb minority. Even with regard to Ustasha anti-Semitism, the key ide-
ological ingredients had already been in place before the 1920s—or at least could
be retrospectively invoked in an exaggerated fashion. Starčević had attacked the
Jews, both for allegedly supporting the interests of the Dual Monarchy against the
emancipation of nationalities and for the putative attachment to materialism that
he considered a distinguishing characteristic of their “race.” Ironically, anti-Semi-
tism also flourished among the ranks of proponents of Yugoslavism in the interwar
period, using Frank as a primary target to attack both Croats and Jews. Even the
leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka—HSS) Stjepan
Radić deployed an anti-Jewish discourse in the late 1930s, albeit stopping short of
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 267

embracing theories of biological anti-Semitism.33 However, with the growing rap-

prochement between the Ustasha movement and Nazi Germany in the late 1930s,
ideologues of extreme Croat nationalism expended considerable efforts to prove
their anti-Semitic credentials by seeking validation in the ideas and musings of
early Croat nationalists. Once again, Starčević’s pronouncements about the Jews
provided legitimation: in a series of public lectures in 1936 to commemorate the
fortieth anniversary of Starčević’s death, radical nationalist intellectuals such as
Stjepan Buć and Filip Lukas portrayed him as no less than a prophet of National
Socialism and racial biology.34
The dramatic events of the spring of 1941 thrust the Ustasha movement into
the forefront of Croat political life. Pavelić, still in Italy and only until recently
under surveillance by the Fascist authorities, watched the Axis invading forces
occupy and dismember Yugoslavia. On April 10 he heard on the radio the declara-
tion of the Independent State of Croatia by the leading Ustasha figure in Croatia,
Slavko Kvaternik. Three days later, after years of exile and clandestine activities, he
set foot on Croatian territory, as the unlikely leader (Poglavnik) of a new, in the-
ory sovereign, state. It would be an understatement to note that Pavelić and other
Ustasha leaders were thoroughly unprepared for this kind of authority granted to
them so unexpectedly amid extraordinary geopolitical changes across the entire
Balkan region. Vastly underresourced and politically inexperienced, lacking even
the most rudimentary structures through which to exercise some form of central
authority over state and regional agencies, the new leadership failed to maintain
effective control over decisions and actions within the new state’s territories, espe-
cially during the first chaotic months following the Nazi invasion. Political incom-
petence, imperfect central oversight, and cynical design behind the smokescreen
of war combined with a deeply embedded eliminationist intention to produce a
lethal environment of extreme violent permissiveness and lack of accountability
that bred increasingly uncontrolled terror and mass killing.35
In his meeting with Hitler in early June 1941, Pavelić was encouraged to fol-
low “a nationally intolerant policy [toward “alien” minorities . . . that] must be
pursued for fifty years, because too much tolerance on such issues can only do
harm.”36 Yet “cleansing” operations, particularly in areas with sizeable Serb com-
munities, had been reported only days after Kvaternik’s founding proclamation
for the new state. These were followed by a series of legislative arrangements
and local measures that set the tone of the regime’s aggressively ethno-exclusive
future policies with regard to Serbs and Jews. Measures restricting access to pub-
lic spaces for Jews were already in place within the first fortnight of the new
state’s existence.37 In some towns and cities in the new state, Serbs were obliged
to wear a blue armband with the letter “P” (Pravoslavac, or Orthodox), which
mirrored the yellow sign with the letter “Ž” (Židov, or Jew) for Jewish citizens;
they were also subject to the same restrictions on access to public amenities
268 Aristotle Kallis

as were Jews.38 By the beginning of May, Serbs and Jews had been ordered to
register with the Ustasha police, moved into ghettos, and subject to strict cur-
fews.39 In addition, emergency and extraordinary courts were established in
many places (with some operating as “mobile” courts) that were intended to
function as pseudolegal legitimizing channels for the escalating violent persecu-
tion of the regime’s perceived enemies. Established through the mandate of the
Law for the Defense of the Nation and the State, they targeted both political
opponents and unwanted “racial” groups, showing a chilling predilection for
summary death sentences and authorizing deportations to the regime’s concen-
tration camps.40 Meanwhile, a “racial” definition for both “Aryan” Croats and
Jews and Roma came into effect in late April 1941 through The Legal Decree
on Race Membership and The Legal Decree for the Protection of the Aryan
Blood and Honor of the Croat People.41 The combined effect of the two decrees
was more far reaching than the stipulations of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in
Nazi Germany, making substantial inroads into the categories of half Jews, ille-
gitimate children, offspring of unmarried Jewish women, and spouses of Jews
regardless of their own “racial” makeup. This definition enabled a full assault on
the rights of the Jewish population: regulation of marriage and sexual relations
between Jews and Croats, removal of the former from any profession, confisca-
tion of their assets. Other measures introduced swiftly included confiscation of
property for Serbs as well as Jews, marriage regulations following a mixture of
religious-ethnic-racial ideas, and restrictions on their movements and freedom
of worship.42 As Jonathan Steinberg noted, “In the months of May and June
1941, it [the Ustasha regime] passed the laws that the Nazis had taken years to
work out.”43 Nevertheless, it was overwhelmingly unruly, wanton Ustasha mass
violence, seemingly uncontrollable in scale and very often ritualistic in execu-
tion unfolding in the margins of the organized deportations and internments,
that proved to be the defining feature of Ustasha rule.

The Ustasha Movement and the Classification Conundrum

Early Italian Fascist patronage, then growing admiration for the ruthlessly effi-
cient Nazi racialist model, direct political empowerment by the Axis partners,
and finally extreme genocidal momentum against its perceived national enemies
meant that the Ustashas, as both movement and regime, became inextricably
linked with the “era of fascism.” Stanley Payne has labeled the Ustashas as a “pro-
tofascist” movement, undergoing significant “fascistization” in the late 1930s
through its growing links with Nazi Germany and finally developing into an Axis
satellite regime, broadly comparable to wartime Slovakia, Vichy France, and the
short-lived Hungarian Arrow Cross regime.44 Michael Mann has described the
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 269

Ustasha ideology as “formally fascist” but essentially less complex because of its
near-exclusive emphasis on integral nationalism and its pursuit of independent
nation-statehood.45 Rory Yeomans has noted that “fascist” ideas and influences
were perhaps superficially understood in the case of the Ustasha movement, partly
because of its atypically disjointed formative period and partly because of a lack
of deeper intellectual engagement from the movement’s ideologues and leading
political figures. Nevertheless, he has argued that Ustasha violence had a powerful
“regenerative” thrust that was inextricably linked to the ideological and political
milieu of the 1930s.46 Martin Blinkhorn has approached the Ustasha ideology as
essentially “not fascism but gravitating toward a fascist position,” again highlight-
ing the influence of ideas and practices developed in Italy and Germany. More
interestingly, Blinkhorn has argued that it was developments outside of Croatia
(e.g., the dynamism of National Socialist Germany and the onset of World War
II) that offered the Ustashas—a minor movement without significant social
appeal, in his opinion—a place in history, similar to the case of other interwar
radical nationalist parties that found themselves in power as satellites of the Axis
“new order.”47 Andrea Feldman, by contrast, is unequivocal in the designation of
the Ustasha ideology as “Croatian fascism,” fusing indigenous integral national-
ism and a distinct radicalizing momentum evident since the late nineteenth cen-
tury with influences from contemporary fascist ideology.48
Problems of classification have paradoxically become more pronounced and
vexing as a result of the ongoing conceptual elaboration of the nature and ide-
ology of “fascism” itself.49 Theories of “generic fascism” have derived Weberian
“ideal types” of the essence and distinguishing features of fascism and then
attempted to apply them to empirical case studies that have invariably (and inevi-
tably) fallen short of the conceptual benchmarks in one area or another. In the
overwhelming majority of cases, the paradigm of generic fascism works far bet-
ter when applied to the ideology of movements rather than to the nature and
decisions of regimes. It has often exaggerated distinctions between movement
and regime, as well as between ideological vision and political praxis. In fact, as
a genus, the fascist regime concept has traveled neither far nor well, even in rela-
tion to case studies from interwar Europe. A large number of interwar dictator-
ships and wartime satellite regimes (whether labeled fascist or not) have largely
been treated as imperfect, compromised political translations of their underpin-
ning intentions into political action and institutional makeup, particularly since
the benchmarks for any comparison on this level are derived from Mussolini’s or
Hitler’s dictatorships.50 “Para-fascist,” “semi-fascist,” “quasi-fascist,” “half-fascist,”
“pseudo-fascist,” “fascistoid,” and other similar adjectives have formed a “luxuri-
ant cluster of epiphenomena” widely used and abused in the historiography in
an attempt to account for the complexity of the historical landscape of interwar
Europe while still salvaging the holy grail of generic fascism’s conceptual and
270 Aristotle Kallis

taxonomical clarity.51 In addition, the tendency of parties and dictatorial regimes

to seemingly borrow ideological themes and emulate political or stylistic features
of established parties and dictatorships elsewhere (especially—but by no means
exclusively—from Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany) has been often
explained away as mimesis—a passive, one-way, partial emulation with minimal
agency, often opportunistic and cynical.52
Still, even accounts that deploy the term “fascism” with unyielding parsimony
beyond the narrow circle of specific movements and regimes do acknowledge to
varying degrees that something that is nowadays called “fascism” was at the heart
of a complex transnational dynamic in interwar Europe.53 The questioning of the
overall fascist credentials of a particular movement or regime is usually accompa-
nied by an acknowledgment that it may have displayed a set of “fascist trappings”;
that it may have reproduced some fascist ideas, formal aspects, policies, or modes
of institutional development from fascist sources elsewhere; or that it became fas-
cistized in the process.54 These caveats are important not only in their intended
function (namely, to question the inclusion or justify the exclusion of a particular
case study from the circle of interwar fascism) but also as an admission that it is
impossible to comprehend the latter’s historical development in isolation from the
ideological and political dynamics on a regional and pan-European level.
The “uniqueness” count of the Ustasha movement and regime appears at
first sight to be dizzyingly high. The movement shared with the Slovak People’s
Party the primary focus on separatism and the belief that the fulfillment of the
dream of nation-statehood was possible only through the violent obliteration of
the existing state. Yet, while the Slovak People’s Party grew in membership and
stature by operating as a national political opposition to the Czechoslovak state,
the Ustasha movement was condemned to a dispersed and underground existence
throughout the long period of ideological formation and institutional organiza-
tion prior to exercising power. Furthermore, the Ustasha movement also shared a
number of ideological attributes with the Romanian variant of fascism, the Iron
Guard—especially the idealization of peasant life as a socioeconomic alternative
to either capitalism or Communism; mysticism, particularly in the form of the
“cult of the dead”; and the belief that extreme violence had a strong redemptive
and regenerative horizon.55 However, while the Iron Guard directed its violence
overwhelmingly against the Jews, it was the Serbs that the Ustashas identified
as their existential menace and the target of their cleansing campaigns. A host
of other potential similarities with other case studies may also fall short under
closer scrutiny through the lens of methodological individualism. Ustasha activ-
ists’ history of persecution by the state authorities may have been comparable
to that of the Iron Guard or the Hungarian Arrow Cross, but neither of these
movements had to negotiate their activities with exile and dispersal until the eve
of their rise to power. The importance of religion in general, and Catholicism
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 271

in particular, linked the Ustashas to a spate of other movements—in Slovakia,

Belgium, Romania, and Francoist Spain.56 Still, religion was not so central in
its ideological formation (including its scant programmatic declarations prior to
1941) that it can adequately explain its policy against the Orthodox Serbs that
oscillated between forced deportations, a pandemonium of mass murder, and a
bizarre (and largely ineffective) policy of assimilation through forced conversion.57
Above all, as has already been noted, the killing spree of Ustasha militias appears
unique on numerous levels: in its sheer political centrality in the history of the
Independent State of Croatia; its intensity and primary target; its multifaceted
and disorderly execution; and, above all, its profound association of murderous
cleansing with national regeneration and a sense of “making history.”58
Methodological individualism has derived interpretive ammunition from two
very different frameworks of interpretation. On the one hand, the particular intel-
lectual, cultural, and historical context of modern Croat nationalism undoubtedly
had a formative impact on ideological developments in the Ustasha movement
in the 1920s and 1930s. It could also be seen as the progenitor of the move-
ment’s fundamental ideas—not just its virulent anti-Serb ideology and its haunt-
ing vision of independent nation-statehood but also its racialist undertones and,
potentially, its brutal eliminationist drive. Viewed through this lens, the Ustasha
ideology could be interpreted as a resynthesis and radicalization of preexisting
ideological attributes, in the exceptional circumstances of intra-Yugoslav tensions
and seismic pan-European geopolitical shifts, both in the 1930s and during World
War II. On the other hand, the Ustasha ideology was also a product of fascism’s
political momentum in the interwar years. Its leadership cult, youth institutions,
paramilitary agencies, propaganda apparatus, and uncompromising violent activ-
ism against its opponents drew direct inspiration and legitimacy from earlier and
“successful” experiments in Fascist Italy and later National Socialist Germany. The
racial-anthropological ideas of many of its intellectuals flourished in a permissive
international environment, where National Socialist racialism was successfully
breaking one taboo after the other and setting empowering precedents in an ever-
expanding domain of language and action. Its regenerative discourse possessed a
far-reaching history-making edge, linking the Ustasha movement and Croatia to
a wider civilizational confrontation that would decide the face of history. Finally,
its extreme violence unfolded against the backdrop of a continent-wide genocidal
drive, spearheaded by the National Socialist regime but finding hordes of willing
agents in many parts of wartime Europe.59 In this respect, the Ustasha move-
ment arguably borrowed from, and emulated, seemingly successful precedents;
followed organizational models, stylistic elements, and discursive justifications
already rehearsed elsewhere; and took advantage of a wider atmosphere of permis-
siveness that suited its political basis of Croat nation-statism and anti-Serb hatred
exceptionally well.60
272 Aristotle Kallis

Each of these interpretations is plausible—and not just in the case of the

Ustasha movement. The field of interwar radical nationalism was littered with
intellectuals and politicians who sought to reconcile two seemingly contradic-
tory claims—namely, that their ideology was organically derived from indigenous
national traditions and that their movements were the vanguard of a dawning
new order, in their country, in Europe, and beyond. Even movements that delib-
erately avoided using the appellation “fascist” or “national socialist” were effusive
in their praise for Mussolini, Hitler, or both, recognizing them as the pioneers
of a new historic pathway that would destroy the status quo and usher in a new
historical era. Meanwhile, most dictatorial regimes of the interwar period, includ-
ing those that have been labeled by historiography as “authoritarian” as opposed
to “fascist” (e.g., the “Fourth of August” dictatorship in Greece between 1936 and
1941) and even those that actively suppressed or purged radical domestic “fascist”
movements (such as Salazar’s dictatorship in Portugal), introduced ideological and
organizational elements into their countries that were inspired by experiments
already rehearsed in Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany.61 The “magnetic
pull” of fascism started to manifest itself almost immediately after Mussolini’s rise
to power and continued to grow stronger as the Fascist dictatorship took hold in
Italy.62 Before Mussolini definitively declared that Fascism was an “export” prod-
uct, radical movements and dictatorial regimes across Europe were openly hailing
Fascist Italy as a new template for thought, regenerative action, and institutional
reimagining of the relation among individual, society, and the state.

Reflexive Recontextualization
Different transnational contemporary audiences were attracted to disparate fascist
innovations and drew a variety of lessons from them. As this chapter has argued
elsewhere, the emerging fascist paradigm of the 1920s (and even 1930s) could
mean different—and often contradictory—things to its diverse, constantly grow-
ing audience of disciples and sympathetic observers. Some were convinced that
Italian Fascism triggered an international “domino effect” that would soon sweep
away liberals, socialists, and conservatives, ushering in a new sense of “heroic”
time in world history, an impression that received seemingly compelling positive
feedback from Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. For others, the appointment and
consolidation of Mussolini in power confirmed the irreversible passing of the era
of liberal democracy; charted the path of a new kind of populist, mass-mobilizing
authoritarian dictatorship; and demonstrated a viable, hugely effective strategy of
obliterating the left. While many were enthralled by Fascism’s apparent revolu-
tionary élan and “history-making” zest, others appreciated its message of order,
efficiency, hierarchy, and ruthless capacity for problem solving. Some admired the
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 273

scope of the Fascist regime’s radical (and often aggressively fanatical) regenerative
horizon, while others were interested in, and fascinated by, the actual compromise
solution that brought about the successful postliberal authoritarian “departure” in
Italy and unlocked a host of new possibilities for political synthesis between main-
stream and (“successful”) radical elements.63 Some were attracted by what Robert
Paxton called the “plumage”—the aesthetic, ritual, and formal facets of fascism.64
Others still arrived at a qualified admiration through rational assessment of politi-
cal and social benefits from borrowing some Fascist innovations while discarding
other, less appealing ones.65
Borrowing, however, was not simple mimesis.66 Even the most fervent transna-
tional disciples of fascism—those genuinely fascinated by its ideological premise
of a profound civilizational regeneration and the promise of a new temporality—
were marrying fascist inspiration with national traditions and their own political
calculations. So long as this fascism, in its particular Italian or German guise or
as a combined force through the Axis alliance, was seen as successful and victori-
ous, others observed it as a critically empowering precedent that had opened up
the field of opportunity in an increasingly radical and uncompromising direction.
This dynamic often led to an extreme form of cognitive liberation, whereby the
status quo of mainstream values ceases to be regarded by some as the only legiti-
mate way of thinking and acting and other, previously impossible or inadmissible
alternatives become legitimized as plausible alternatives. Cognitive liberation cre-
ates an alternative, radically different vision for the future that is not only pre-
sented as (more) legitimate but also as more desirable (in terms of its projected
outcomes).67 In these circumstances, the transition from discourse to associated
action becomes less of a taboo; once both the premise of the “problem” has been
accepted and the alternative, radical way of thinking about it has been embedded
in discursive terms, the “license to hate” carries with it the possibility of a license
to act in transgressive ways.68 Previously suppressed and delegitimized aspirations
(against “others,” against democracy and liberal individualism, against the left,
against egalitarianism, against the post-Versailles geopolitical status quo) could be
entertained as feasible future options, within a milieu of growing permissiveness
driven by the radical agency of the two fascist regimes and their allies. Borrowing
from, and adapting, external prototypes produced idiosyncratic and imaginative
results in each national case. The kaleidoscope of ensuing hybrid outcomes was
not just different from their sources of inspiration but also often more radical
and far reaching, infused with communicative ingredients that made sense only in
their originating particular national-cultural setting.
The Ustasha movement was forged ideologically in the fault line between the
tumultuous genesis of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the exploding opportuni-
ties for radical change made possible through the “success” of fascism in interwar
Europe. Like most of its kindred contemporaries, the movement came to perceive
274 Aristotle Kallis

its role in dual terms: first, as the harbinger of national self-fulfillment and regen-
eration in its own (independent) country, and, second, as part of the vanguard of
a new radical international cause that would transform the course of European
and human history. The growing perception that the success of fascism—and,
later, of the Nazi program of racial cleansing—was ushering in a new chapter in
the continent’s history increased the temptation to play a role in the undertak-
ing, while at the same time offering a unique window of opportunity to fulfill
particular nationalist utopias of ethno-racial homogeneity and violent elimination
of alleged domestic foes within their frontiers. While operating under the aus-
pices of Fascist Italy and then growing increasingly close to the National Socialist
regime, the Ustasha movement was nevertheless consumed by its particular goal
of independent, homogeneous statehood and its escalating retributive anti-Serb
outlook. Far from being a passive imitator, its leadership decontextualized numer-
ous fascist ideas and practices in order to recontextualize them, in an adapted
form, to advance the Ustasha movement and regime’s particular priorities in direct
relevance to its national setting and circumstances. A reflexive form of recontextu-
alization involved an acute awareness of domestic circumstances, long-term cul-
tural factors, and past trajectories. Inevitably, the latter left a distinct imprint on
the adapted practices and shaped them as unique hybrid outcomes.
The Ustasha leadership demonstrated its reflexive astuteness in its dealings with
Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on numerous occasions. It welcomed the protec-
tion of Fascist Italy during the trying time of its persecution in Yugoslavia but
was subsequently disillusioned with the lack of concrete political support from
Mussolini’s regime. It is telling of the doubts among the Fascist leadership con-
cerning the future of Ustasha that Pavelić, resident in Italy for more than a decade,
received his first private audience with Mussolini only a few weeks before his
return to Croatia in 1941. Political divisions between those who favored a closer
alignment with Fascist Italy and those advocating a more rigid pro-Nazi line did
not necessarily have an ideological underpinning, resulting instead from reflexive
assessments of the contemporary geopolitical situation and of the best pathway
to a viable independent Croatian existence in the future. In relation to the move-
ment’s ethno-racial ideology, National Socialism was clearly a far more useful and
relevant source of inspiration and empowerment. The Ustasha framing of eth-
nic homogeneity in terms of a fundamental conflict between “Eastern” Serbs and
“Western” Croats lent itself to the kind of racialist civilizational discourse that the
Nazis popularized and legitimized across Europe in the 1930s. However, Pavelić
was only too keen to underline the idea that Ustasha racial theory had indigenous
roots, portraying it as derived from an organic synthesis between the “traditions
of the Croat people” and “modern principles.”69 Even the most extreme ideolo-
gies that made their appearance in the 1920s and 1930s need to be understood as
products of this dual influence.
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 275

On the one hand, theories that depicted the Croats as possessing “Aryan/
Nordic” racial stock had already been articulated before the rise of National
Socialism and the popularization of the Aryan racial ideal in interwar Europe.
In an attempt to distinguish themselves from the Serbs, to fight against pan-Slav
ideologies associated with Yugoslavism, and to counter prevalent Western cul-
tural-racial stereotypes against Balkan people, Croat nationalists sought to deploy
modern racial thinking in support of their attempts to recast as unique the Croat
nation’s civilizational status across the Balkans and its historic role as defender of
Western Christianity. On the other hand, the notion that Croats were pure Aryans
gained significant currency among separatist intellectuals and Ustasha ideologues
in the 1930s not as the result of any German pressure—the Nazi leadership never
considered the Croats as belonging to the Nordic racial type, although Germany
anticipated rewarding the Croats modestly in the Nazi postwar order—but as part
of a strategy of aligning the official language of a future Ustasha state with the
dominant, Nazi racialist discourse of the time.70 The Ustasha leadership mined
this connection as far as it could, presenting the regime as a revolution of blood
and soil that mirrored developments in Nazi Germany and advancing a single
civilizational, history-making cause. The idea that the Croats stood as historic bul-
warks of the West, while by no means new, acquired a new lease on life—and a
new critical relevance—during World War II and especially after the launch of
Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.71
Where it concerned domestic politics, the Ustasha leadership was careful to
maintain the delicate balance between support for the Nazi new order and defer-
ence to national traditions. In this respect, the Croatian state shared crucial simi-
larities with the wartime Slovak state. Even if the Catholic Church was not as
central to the political core of the Ustasha regime as it was in Slovakia, embrac-
ing Catholicism and maintaining good relations with the official church were of
paramount significance to the legitimization of independent Croatia. In practice,
it proved very difficult for Pavelić to juggle his regime’s propensity for political
sacralization—not least the institution of his very own cult of leadership and
control over youth socialization—with the church’s ambition to extend its influ-
ence over the social sphere, as the regime itself had promised.72 An increasingly
antagonistic relation between state and church was made ever more problematic
by Pavelić’s seemingly steadfast adherence to the Axis cause, even when the initial
confidence about victory had given way to the near certainty of crushing defeat.
In the end, it came down to a choice between competing loyalties. At a time
when this crushing defeat of the Axis project appeared as inevitable as victory
had seemed in 1939–41, one regime after the other that had once embraced the
Axis cause and vision of a new order faced the same dilemma—standing firm
or pragmatically switching sides. Many wavered. Some actively sought to cut
their ties with the losing Axis coalition or went so far as to open back channels
276 Aristotle Kallis

with the Allies in order to switch sides before it was too late—among them even
Vidkun Quisling, the self-proclaimed Führer of Norway and one of the most
vocal participants at the 1934 Montreux conference. A significant constituency
of agents of the Nazi new order, however, chose not to extricate themselves from
the alliance even at this point—among them the sycophantic poet Ezra Pound;
the desperate members of the Vichy Singmaringen delegation; Leon Degrelle in
Belgium and his Waffen SS division, something that earned him a special medal
from Hitler; and the Arrow Cross and its short-lived regime in Hungary. Pavelić
and his Ustasha-led state were among those who stayed loyal to the Axis cause
until the bitter end, notwithstanding Pavelić’s growing disillusionment with the
prospect of victory. Some of his closest aides and ministers, though, had already
become proponents of a pragmatic disengagement. In the spring of 1944, Mladen
Lorković, one of the movement’s most distinguished ideologues and then interior
minister, and Ante Vokić, armed forces minister, joined the ranks of those who
advocated negotiations with both the HSS and the Western Allies to pave the way
for a post-Ustasha transition.73 They were both accused of conspiracy and treason
and subsequently executed.74 The last meeting between Pavelić and Hitler took
place in September 1944 against the backdrop of the state’s collapsing grip on
power and with the prospect of a German withdrawal from the Balkans looming.
The diminished stature of Pavelić’s rule in Croatia mirrored the rapidly shrinking
Axis empire in Europe and the fate of other collaborationist leaders such as Tiso
and Quisling. Inevitably, the last chapter of the state and the Ustasha movement’s
history unfolded in tandem with the collapse of the Axis wartime project and the
irreversible defeat of interwar fascism.

The Ustasha Movement and the “Era of Fascism”

Calling the period between the two world wars the “era of fascism,” according to
Ernst Nolte, was justified by the sheer ideological and political originality of the
fascist phenomenon.75 Yet, far more than its ideological novelty, fascism had a
profound effect on the history of the entire continent in many more significant
ways. Its dynamic of ideological and political diffusion, as well as the complex
web of transnational interactions that it generated, have only recently received
the historiographical attention that they truly deserve. From the viewpoint of the
late 1930s and early 1940s, when a transnational force that we now describe as
fascism appeared on the cusp of achieving a gigantic, epoch-defining victory, its
prodigious political constituency was made up of pioneers and believers, enthusi-
astic converts, swayed earlier skeptics, and pragmatists fearful of what seemed to
them as the tangible prospect of ending up on the losing side of history. Whether
out of profound, genuine conviction, rational assessment, or opportunism, they
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 277

believed that there was no other meaningful course of action than to embrace the
ideologies of the two successful fascist regimes, succumbing to their unfolding
radical political paradigm, and cross-fertilizing or adapting their radical ideas with
elements distinct to each national context and their personal political aspirations.
A strong path dependency, with distinct determinants in each national context,
added a further element of complexity in the already supremely rich and dynamic
field of possibilities for hybridization in interwar Europe. Domestic and inter-
national dynamics, consonant or clashing expectations on the part of different
actors, and diverse long-term memories and histories built into all these interac-
tions generated a supremely complex domain of possibilities for synthesis, recon-
textualization, and new, often unpredictable, hybrid outcomes.
Whether classified as fascist, quasifascist, or neither, the Ustasha movement
and its state occupied their own significant place in this supremely dynamic
web of transnational interactions, influences, and transfers. Their history makes
very little sense outside the wider context of the era of fascism, from the move-
ment’s formative years in the training camps of Italy to the regime’s brutal elim-
inationist spasm of the early 1940s and its ever-closer political alignment with
Nazi Germany until their mutual obliteration. At the same time, however, the
Ustasha movement was driven by a vision of future change that remained criti-
cally informed by its particular historical and cultural national setting. It was the
product of a long pedigree of radical Croat hypernationalism, with its own racial-
anthropological thought and prejudices against particular “others.” It was also a
force that was shaped in the midst of a particular crisis in the fledgling Yugoslavia
and the political instability of the Balkan region. The complexity of its originating
position, and of much of its early history of dispersal and persecution, inevitably
resulted in an unpredictable, highly atypical curve. It also inscribed on its ideo-
logical and political profile a spate of seemingly unique features that set it apart
from other comparable radical hypernationalist movements and collaborationist
wartime regimes—which displayed equally unique features for the same reason.
Finally, the Ustasha movement was thrust to the forefront of history as a result of
external agencies and decisions, over which it had virtually no control. It was the
Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia—and the refusal of Vladko Maček to head a collabo-
rationist government, as Hitler originally preferred—that gave the Ustasha move-
ment a new critical role in the region that by no means seemed inevitable or even
likely just months before the invasion.76
Classification often entails overstating differences and invoking dichotomies.
Such dichotomies abound in the fray of fascism studies: fascist or authoritarian,
genuine or mimetic, nationally driven or influenced by external factors, continu-
ous or discontinuous, successful or failed. Wrapped in its own turbulent history
and implicated in the tumultuous postwar trajectory of Yugoslavia, the histo-
riography of the Ustasha movement and the Independent State of Croatia has
278 Aristotle Kallis

been plagued by such juxtapositions—not unlike other similar cases but perhaps
more painfully so given the recurrence of violence and nationalism in the region.
Whether fascist or not, whether Croat or mimetic, the Ustasha movement is cru-
cially implicated in the transnational history of what we call fascism—by choice
and circumstance alike. The idea of reflexive recontextualization may go some
way toward reconciling the tension between indigenous origins and transnational
entanglements, as well as between autonomy and influence from external prec-
edents. It certainly opens up a new field of empirical inquiry, focused on dynamic
processes of interaction, entanglement, diffusion, and reception that promises to
redimension the Ustasha place in various histories—of Croatia, of Yugoslavia, of
southeastern and east-central Europe, and of interwar transnational fascism. Still,
the degree to which the history of the Ustasha movement became linked to the
life cycle of international fascism, the way in which international fascism ensured
its place of infamy in history—when, as Blinkhorn noted, it was heading for the
obscurity of its footnotes at best—by thrusting itself so dramatically into the lime-
light and then dragging itself down with the entire catastrophic Axis enterprise
seems to be asking very different questions than those posed by the taxonomical
models of fascism studies.77

Notes
1. The author would like to thank Rory Yeomans for sharing primary sources and
information on emergency courts and racial legislation introduced by the Ustasha
regime in 1941.
2. Roger Griffin, Werner Loh, and Andreas Umland, eds. Fascism Past and Pres-
ent, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative
Study of the Extreme Right (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2006). See in particular Griffin’s
contribution, “Da capo, con meno brio: Towards a More Useful Conceptualization of
Generic Fascism,” 243–81.
3. Aristotle Kallis, “‘Fascism,’ ‘Para-Fascism’ and ‘Fascistization’: On the Similari-
ties of Three Conceptual Categories,” European History Quarterly 33 (2003): 222–25.
4. For a historiographical introduction to the concept of generic fascism, see Aris-
totle Kallis, ed. The Fascism Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), 1–41.
5. Gilbert Allardyce, “What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Con-
cept,” American Historical Review 84 (1979): 367–88; and, more recently, Zeev Stern-
hell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995),
1–6; Knox Macgregor, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fas-
cist Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 56.
6. Luc Schepens, “Fascists and Nationalists in Belgium, 1919–1940,” in Who Were
the Fascists? Social Roots of European Fascism, ed. Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet,
and Jan Petter Myklebust (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1980), 501–16.
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 279

7. Michel Dobry, “Desperately Seeking ‘Generic Fascism’: Some Discordant

Thoughts on the Academic Recycling of Indigenous Categories,” in Rethinking the
Nature of Generic Fascism, ed. Antonio Costa Pinto (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011),
53–84.
8. Antonio Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, eds., A World of Dictatorships: Rethink-
ing the Dynamics of Interwar Fascism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014).
9. Marco Cuzzi, L’internazionale delle camicie nere: I CAUR 1933-1939 (Milan:
Mursia, 2005); Beate Scholz, “Italienischer Faschismus als ‘Export’-Artikel (1927–
1935)” (PhD diss., Universität Trier, 2001), 327–46.
10. “Appunti sui CAUR,” n.d., Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome), Ministero
Cultura Popolare, Gabinetto Series, f. 93.
11. Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Parish Republic: Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, 1939–
1945 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1976); Jelinek, “Clergy and Fas-
cism: The Hlinka Party in Slovakia and the Croatian Ustasha Movement,” in Who
Were the Fascists?, 367–79.
12. See the classic work of Alan Cassels, Mussolini’s Early Diplomacy (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970); H. James Burgwyn, Italian Foreign Policy in the
Interwar Period, 1918–1940 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 35–56.
13. James Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism 1927–1937 (New
York: Garland, 1987); Michael Barry Miller, Shanghai on the Métro: Spies, Intrigue,
and the French between the Wars (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1994), 124–26.
14. Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 52–55.
15. Massimiliano Ferrara, Ante Pavelić: Il duce croato (Rome: Kappa, 2008), 159–
60; Marco Aurelio Rivelli, La génocide occulté (Paris: L’Age d’Homme, 1998), 26.
16. Erik Gobetti, Dittatore per caso: Un piccolo duce protetto dall’Italia fascista
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 125–44; Giacomo Scotti, “Ustas-
cia”: Tra il fascio e la svastica; Storia e crimini del movimento “ustascia” (Udine: Incon-
tri, 1976).
17. Richard J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 202.
18. Dragoljub R. Zivojinović, “Yugoslavia,” in European Neutrals and Non-bel-
ligerents during the Second World War, ed. Neville Wylie (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 217–18; C. J. Lowe and F. Marzari, Italian Foreign Policy
1870–1940 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 293. On Stojadinović and his ideas, see
Dejan Djokić, “‘Leader’ or ‘Devil’? Milan Stojadinović, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia
(1935–39), and His Ideology,” in In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in
Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Rebecca Haynes and Martyn Rady (London: IB Tau-
ris, 2011), 153–68.
19. Jacob B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, 1934–1941 (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1962), 29–31.
20. Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, “Nationalities and Minorities in the Independent State
of Croatia,” Nationalities Papers 8, no. 2 (1980): 193–201.
280 Aristotle Kallis

21. Srdja Trifković, Ustaša: Croatian Separatism and European Politics, 1929–1945
(London: Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, 1998), 390.
22. Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation
and Collaboration (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 337–39; Nevenko
Bartulin, Honorary Aryans: National-Racial Identity and Protected Jews in the Indepen-
dent State of Croatia (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 49–50.
23. Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolu-
tion, 1919–1953 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 103–27.
24. Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 337.
25. Aristotle Kallis, Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Interwar
Europe (New York: Routledge, 2009), 127–34.
26. Jure Kristo, “Croatian Political Turmoils in the Dusk of Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy,” Review of Croatian History 1 (2005): 73–93; Ivo Banac, The National
Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 94.
27. Rory Yeomans, “Of ‘Yugoslav Barbarians’ and Croat Gentlemen Scholars:
Nationalist Ideology and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Yugoslavia,” in Blood and
Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900–
1940, ed. Marius Turda and Paul Weindling (Budapest: Central European University
Press, 2007), 83–122.
28. Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964), 71.
29. Kallis, Genocide and Fascism, 238–44.
30. Yeomans, “Of ‘Yugoslav Barbarians,’” 102.
31. Holm Sundhaussen, “Der Ustascha-Staat: Anatomie eines Herrschaftssystems,”
Österreichische Osthefte 37, no. 2 (1995): 528.
32. Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise (New York: Routledge, 2005), 125.
33. Mark Biondich, Stjepan Radić, the Croat Peasant Party and the Politics of Mass
Mobilization, 1904–1928 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 110.
34. Yeomans, “Of ‘Yugoslav Barbarians,’” 112.
35. Mark Levene, Annihilation, vol. 2, The European Rimlands, 1939–53 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press), 267–81; Ben Shepperd, Terror in the Balkans: German
Armies and Partisan Warfare (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 94.
36. Levene, Annihilation, 2:271.
37. “Židovima zabranjen polazak kavana, restauracija i goštionica,” Hrvatski narod,
April 22, 1941.
38. See, e.g., Order of the Požega branch of GUS to Serbian citizens from May
13, 1941, Arhiv Jugoslavije, Arhiv vojnoistorjiskog instituta, fond Nezavisne Države
Hrvatske, 313, reg.br.55/1-2 as cited in Zločini na jugoslovenskim prostorima u prvom i
drugom svetskom ratu: Zbornik dokumenata, vol. 1 Zločini Nezavisne Države Hrvatske,
ed. Slavko Vukmanović (Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut, 1993), 44. See also Rivelli,
La génocide occulté, 38.
39. See, e.g., “Židovi i Srbi moraju za 8 dana napuštiti svjerni dio Zagrebu,”
Hrvatski narod, May 10, 1941.
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 281

40. “Zakonska odredba za obranu naroda i države,” Narodne novine, April 17,
1941.
41. Ivo Goldstein, “The Independent State of Croatia in 1941: On the Road to
Catastrophe,” in The Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945, ed. Sabrina Ramet
(New York: Routledge, 2007), 71; Paul Mojzes, Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Eth-
nic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011),
54–55.
42. Rivelli, La génocide occulté, 45.
43. Jonathan Steinberg, “Types of Genocide? Croatians, Serbs and Jews, 1941–5,”
in The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, ed. David Cesarani (London:
Routledge, 1996), 179; Steinberg, All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941–
1943 (London: Routledge, 2002), 29.
44. Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (London: UCL Press,
1997), 15, 144, 369.
45. Michael Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 48;
Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005), 294.
46. Rory Yeomans, Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural
Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013),
363–64.
47. Martin Blinkhorn, Fascism and the Right in Europe, 1919–1945 (London:
Longman), 49–50.
48. Andrea Feldman, “‘Better Known for Its Fascists Than Its Democrats’: Cro-
atia’s Experience with Ideologies in the Twentieth Century,” in Totalitarian and
Authoritarian Regimes in Europe: Legacies and Lessons from the Twentieth Century,
eds. Jerzy W Borejsza, Klaus Ziemer, and Magdalena Hułas (New York: Berghahn,
2006), 231.
49. Antonio Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, introduction to Costa Pinto and Kal-
lis, World of Dictatorships, 1–10.
50. Mann, Fascists, 47–48.
51. Henry A. Turner Jr., “Fascism and Modernization,” World Politics 24 (1972):
547; MacGregor Knox, To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics
of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2007), 7–8; cf. Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge,
1993), 121.
52. Aristotle Kallis, “The ‘Fascist Effect’: On the Dynamics of Political Hybridisa-
tion in Interwar Europe,” in World of Dictatorships, 13–41.
53. On the transnational approach to fascism, see Arnd Bauerkämper, “Interwar
Fascism in Europe and Beyond: Toward a Transnational Radical Right,” in New Per-
spectives on the Transnational Right, ed. Martin Durham and Margaret Power (New
York: Palgrave, 2010), 39–66; Bauerkämper, “Transnational Fascism: Cross-Border
Relations between Regimes and Movements in Europe, 1922–1939,” East Cen-
tral Europe 37, nos. 2–3 (2010): 214–46. See also the excellent work of Federico
282 Aristotle Kallis

Finschelstein, Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and
Italy, 1919–1945 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), esp. 7–9.
54. On the concept of fascistization, see Mary Vincent, “Spain,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Fascism, ed. Richard J. B. Bosworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009), 362–79; and Kallis, “‘Fascism,’ ‘Para-Fascism’ and ‘Fascistization,’” 222–25.
55. See Stanley G. Payne, “The NDH State in Comparative Perspective,” Totalitar-
ian Movements and Political Religions 7, no. 4 (2006): 409–15; Rory Yeomans, “‘For
Us, Beloved Commander, You Will Never Die!’ Mourning Jure Francetić, Ustasha
Death Squad Leader,” in In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in Central
and Eastern Europe, ed. Rebecca Haynes and Martyn Rady (London: IB Tauris, 2011),
188–205.
56. On the similarities and differences between “clerical fascist” movements and
regimes, see Matthew Feldman, Marius Turda, Tudor Georgescu, eds., Clerical Fascism
in Interwar Europe (New York: Routledge, 2013).
57. Mark Biondich, “Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia: Reflections on
the Ustasha Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941–1942,” Slavonic and East
European Review 83, no. 1 (2005): 71–116; Biondich, “Controversies surrounding the
Catholic Church in Wartime Croatia, 1941–45,” Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions 7, no. 4 (2006): 429–57; Biondich, “Radical Catholicism and Fascism in
Croatia, 1918–1945,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, no. 2 (2007):
393; Bartulin, Honorary Aryans, 6–8.
58. Robert M. Hayden, “Recounting the Dead: The Rediscovery and Redefinition
of Wartime Massacres in Late- and Post-Communist Yugoslavia,” in Memory, History
and Opposition under State Socialism, ed. Rubie S. Watson (Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press, 1994), 177.
59. Kallis, Genocide and Fascism, 261–83.
60. Cf. Payne, “NDH State in Comparative Perspective,” 410.
61. Aristotle Kallis, “Neither Fascist nor Authoritarian: The 4th of August Regime
in Greece (1936–1941) and the Dynamics of Fascistisation in 1930s Europe,” East
Central Europe 37, nos. 2–3 (2010): 303–30.
62. Philippe Burrin, “La France dans le champ magnétique des fascismes,” Le
Débat 32 (1984): 52–72.
63. Kallis, “Fascist Effect.”
64. Robert O. Paxton, “The Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70,
no. 1 (1998): 2–3.
65. Juan Linz, “Fascism and Non-democratic Regimes,” in Totalitarianism and
Political Religions, ed. Hans Maier, vol. 3, Concepts for the Comparison of Dictator-
ships—Theory and History of Interpretation (New York: Routledge, 2003), 246.
66. Kevin Passmore, “The Construction of Crisis in Interwar France,” in France in
the Era of Fascism: Essays on the French Authoritarian Right, ed. Brian Jenkins (Oxford:
Berghahn, 2004), 193. Note the different view of Stanley Payne in “NDH State in
Comparative Perspective,” 410.
 Recontextualizing the Fascist Precedent 283

67. On the concept of cognitive liberation, see Douglas McAdam, Political Process
and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1982), 48–51.
68. Daniel Bar-Tal, “Delegitimization: The Extreme Case of Stereotyping and
Prejudice,” in Stereotyping and Prejudice: Changing Conceptions, ed. Daniel Bar-Tal
(New York: Springer Verlag, 1989), 169–88; Bar-Tal, “Causes and Consequences of
Delegitimization: Models of Conflict and Ethnocentrism,” Journal of Social Issues 46,
no. 1 (1990): 65–81; Kallis, Genocide and Fascism, 106–12.
69. Cited in Nevenko Bartulin, “The Ideology of Nation and Race: The Croatian
Ustasha Regime and Its Policies toward Minorities in the Independent State of Croa-
tia, 1941–1945” (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, 2006), 279.
70. Nevenko Bartulin, The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia (Amster-
dam: Brill, 2013), 199; Jelinek, “Nationalities and Minorities in the Independent
State of Croatia,” 193–201.
71. Bartulin, Racial Idea, 193.
72. Ivo Goldstein, “Ante Pavelić, Charisma and National Mission in Wartime Cro-
atia,” in Charisma and Fascism, ed. Antonio Costa Pinto, Roger Eatwell, and Stein
Ugelvik Larsen (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 87–96; Vesna Drapac, “Catholic Resis-
tance and Collaboration in the Second World War: From Master Narrative to Practi-
cal Application,” in Beyond the Balkans: Towards an Inclusive History of Southeastern
Europe, ed. Sabine Rutar (Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2014), 313–14.
73. Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 450–51.
74. Mario Jareb “The NDH’s Relations with Italy and Germany,” Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions 7, no. 4 (2006): 464–65.
75. Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969),
20–22.
76. Payne, History of Fascism, 410.
77. Blinkhorn, Fascism and the Right, 51.
 Epilogue

Ordinary People between the National

Community and Everyday Terror

Rory Yeomans

“Revolutionary times demand revolutionary methods,” Aleksandar Seitz wrote in

Put do hrvatskog sozializma (The road to Croatian socialism).1 In the Ustasha state,
he reminded his readers, it was not enough to seek “social justice” or to think
“socially”: the new worker in the Ustasha state had to be socialist too in thinking
and actions. Seitz stressed that Croatian socialism was distinguished from both
“Anglo-American and Jewish” capitalism and “scientific” Marxism, having been
formulated specifically for the economic and social requirements of the national
community; as such, it was an expression of the “national soul.” What this meant
in practice, he explained, was social solidarity and reciprocity: everyone who did
his or her duty to society would receive benefits from it in return. An attitude of
duty, discipline, and order, meanwhile, would be forged through the construction
of the “ethical person of work,” a figure embodied not just in the factory worker
but also the peasant, office worker, intellectual, and soldier. The construction of a
socialist state would, Seitz envisaged, lead to the withering away of all class divi-
sions and social barriers; no longer would economic and social life be character-
ized by conflicts between workers and bosses; instead, society would be divided
between the dutiful and disciplined new national class of worker and those ana-
tional “social parasites” who idled, cheated, and lived off the toil of the national
community. Furthermore, in the new socialist society the Ustasha state was bring-
ing into being, private property would no longer belong exclusively to the indi-
vidual; instead, the principles of Croatian socialism dictated that private property
would be classified as a public good for which the private owner was responsible
to the people, state, and, ultimately, the national community. As such, should
 Epilogue 285

owners not dispense their duties properly, their property and assets could be taken
away from them. In short, the demands of the individual had to be harmonized
with those of the “national community [narodna zajednica].”2 If Croatian social-
ism envisaged a revolution in social and economic relations, it also assumed a
transformation in collective ideology, embodied in the concept of the national
community. For the young sociologist Stjepan Tomičić, Seitz’s protégé, the
national community was, in fact, the essence of Croatian socialism. It promised
to offer members of the same nation of blood and fate economic equality, social
mobility, and cultural enlightenment. As Tomičić explained in Spremnost, this
national community had to be at the center of all economic and social decisions;
the state was merely the representative of the national community. Therefore, eco-
nomic initiatives, suggestions, and arbitrations, he wrote, “must stem from the
special institutions and agencies of the national community” such as workers’ syn-
dicates, providing direction and working in collaboration with state planning and
economic ministries.3
The privileges of the national community were the perquisite of those with
a socialist consciousness, but in theory, at least, those who exhibited the bour-
geois attitudes and behaviors of the capitalist era could enjoy the mobility asso-
ciated with the building of Croatian socialism if they renounced their “errors”
and engaged in “inner renewal.”4 However, since a Croatian socialist society could
only be realized in a regenerated nation-state purified from “parasitical” racial and
national groups, the new socialist orthodoxies excluded the state’s Serbs, Jews, and
Gypsies as a hindrance to the building of Croatian socialism and provided theo-
retical legitimation for their economic destruction and physical liquidation. By
the time Seitz’s book was published in 1943, the road to Croatian socialism was
so obstructed as to be seemingly impassable. By contrast, back in the summer of
1941, from the perspective of social planners, economic institutions, and ordinary
citizens alike, exciting new highways of social revolution were being constructed.
In the aftermath of “national revolution,” an atmosphere of fervor and terror,
excitement and desperation pervaded everyday life in city and countryside, private
home, and office, and among workers, shopkeepers, and intelligentsia.
In that first summer of nation building, few state institutions were as busy on
behalf of the national community as the central economic planning departments:
the State Directorate for Regeneration (Državno ravnateljstvo za ponovu—DRP)
and the Office for Economic Renewal (later the State Direcotorate for Economic
Regeneration—DRGP) located in Kačićeva ulica. As these agencies set about their
work nationalizing Serbian and Jewish businesses, confiscating the property and
assets of Serb and Jewish citizens, making plans for the mass deportations of thou-
sands of middle-class Serbs, and debating how to distribute their assets in the
cause of economic regeneration and social justice, officials were inundated with
petitions and letters from citizens of all social classes, professions, and nationalities
286 Epilogue

affected in some way by the plans for the construction of a national economy
or else swept up in the consumer culture those same plans stimulated. This was
especially true in Zagreb, where the increasing demand for consumer goods was
reflected in the classified sections of newspapers like Novi list and Hrvatski narod.
In a period of massive, sudden social and economic upheaval, those who were
not offering a room for rent, a vacancy to fill, or furniture to sell were looking for
them, as large numbers of citizens moved from regional towns to the capital in
search of work, a new life, or expanded opportunities. “I am giving a 3,000 dinar
reward for anyone who can procure for me a three-room apartment with all mod-
ern conveniences and a balcony not far from the center of the city. Without ques-
tion, it is important that one room has a separate entry from the stairs or from the
vestibule. A quiet Aryan family and a prompt payer,” read one typically urgent
advertisement in Hrvatski narod on August 1, 1941. In Novi list, meanwhile, “a
state employee, an Aryan with three children,” was searching for “a one- or two-
bedroom apartment with a balcony and bathroom in the east or northern part
of the city” for immediate use.5 His specification of the “east or northern part of
the city” is telling: it was from the north of the city that Serbs and Jews had been
resettled and hence where many of the vacant apartments were located. Nearby in
Bogićevića ulica, the Serbian and Jewish Sections of the Directorate of the Ustasha
Police (Ravnateljstva ustaškog redarstva) were fielding thousands of appeals, peti-
tions, and denunciations in relation to the new state’s deportation program and its
radical anti-Semitic laws.
Among the numerous petitioners to DRP that summer was Jozo Segediji, the
owner of a drugstore in the commercial district of Ilica. He wrote to the director-
ate on July 21, 1941, asking to have delivered to him a “summer suit of light color
I am very fond of and that is hanging in the locked-up shop of Pero Adžić, a tailor
from Ulica Medulićeva 1.” Did he want ownership of a suit he had seen hanging
in the tailor’s shop window or was the suit his own? The officials were not sure. A
week later, on July 28, the director of the DRP Josip Rožanković instructed offi-
cials to inform Segediji that his request had been refused because “it is not clear
for what reason he is seeking the delivery of the suit, whose suit it is, and how it
came to be in the workshop of Pero Adžić.” Since nothing had been “explained
or attested to in support of the supposed claimant,” the request “deserved” to be
rejected. Segediji was not put off so easily; two days later he wrote to the direc-
torate’s legal section to explain that “in connection with the decision of July 28,
1941, about my request to deliver a suit from the shop of Pero Adžić I am at
liberty to inform you that this is my suit, which was there for dry cleaning. As a
witness I can call on the testimony of the apprentice to this business who came for
this suit and took it away for dry cleaning.”6 Segediji was not the only customer
seeking the return of clothing from Adžić’s shop. At around the same time Ida
Krajnc, a housewife living in Frankopanska ulica, wrote to the DRP asking it to
 Epilogue 287

secure the return of “confiscated fabric—my property—which has been deposited

with the tailor Pero Adžić, Medulićeva ulica 1. A description of the fabric: a sum-
mer soft grey-greenish color purchased at the store of Brandek Kula, Ilica 17, five
months ago for 600 dinars.”7
The summer of 1941 was a time of great uncertainty for many individuals
looking for work, searching for lost items, requesting recompense, or seeking sal-
vation. In addition to the tailor Pero Adžić, the pharmacist Jozo Segediji, and
the housewife Ida Krajnc, other citizens in Zagreb drawn into the work of these
agencies included Jelka Kraus, a young housemaid for a Serbian family; Zvonimir
Maričić, an unemployed professional hopeful of finding work with the DRP;
Vitomir Krauth, Jewish but with aspirations to become Croatian; and Dimitrije
Marić, a Serbian office worker from Tuškanac. Although these individuals lived,
worked, and studied in the same city, they never met—not even the tailor and his
customer. Nevertheless, their fates were intertwined and their everyday existences
affected by the state’s efforts to build a national economy and a racially-purified
society. The novelist Margaret Atwood has argued that at its most fundamental,
history is about individuals, the decisions they make, and the way their lives are
changed by events over which they have no control. History, as she told an audi-
ence in 1996, “may intend to provide us with grand patterns and overall schemes,
but without its brick-by-brick, life-by-life, day-by-day foundations, it would col-
lapse. Whoever tells you that history is not about individuals but only large trends
and movements is lying.”8 The ordinary people who wrote to the DRP and the
Directorate of Ustasha Police in the summer of 1941, insofar as they were not
these agencies’ intended targets, were, for the most part, unimportant actors in
the terror, small cogs in a far larger machinery. But taken together their stories
and interaction with the state provide a microcosm of the dynamics of destruction
that engulfed the Serbian and Jewish communities in Zagreb, the ways in which
terror embedded itself into every aspect of everyday life, and the various means by
which ordinary people responded to and negotiated it.
Not all subjects in this story were marginal actors; some were men (and occa-
sionally women) tasked with the construction of the new society. One of these was
Milovan Žanić, a hardline Ustasha minister, who visited the town of Daruvar in
early June 1941 accompanied by Mladen Lorković, president of the Institute for
Colonization (Zavod za kolonizaciju), and Daruvar’s “hometown son” Radovan
Latković, the twenty-four-year-old director of Croatian State Radio. Speaking
under a triumphal arch, Žanić reminded the assembled local citizens, youth activ-
ists, athletes, and workers of the long-standing attempt made by Serbian rulers to
“balkanize our homeland” after 1918, an endeavor defeated only by the Ustasha
movement, which had returned “the Balkans back to where it belongs, stamping
the border [of our state] on the Drina.” Turning to the central question of the new
state’s minorities, he sought to distinguish between those who were members of
288 Epilogue

the national community and those who were not. “Inside the state,” he began, “we
have minorities. Here in this region there are large German and Czech minori-
ties. We cannot behave toward these minorities that were always loyal to us in any
other way than to see them as a source of strength for our state. [From the crowd:
That’s right!] Thus, these minorities in the Independent State of Croatia will enjoy
all their rights, especially in regard to ownership and culture.” Then he turned to
the subject of the “undesired” community “aliens”:

Croats! We have among us some who have never been loyal toward us. They
came to these regions at a time when many of our own people were perishing in
the Turkish wars and they devastated our homeland. [Down with the Chetniks!]
They came here, spread like hedgehogs and began to threaten and endanger us.
These are the Serbs. [Down with them!] From all that happened we know that
they will never think positively about us, nor do they think well of us now. We
Ustashas know that until the question of the Serbs is resolved, our state will
be unstable. We know we are right when we demand: get across the border!
[Applause, chants of Yes, exactly!] In all of this, we cite our vital interests, our
vital needs and so we send a message to them: Get across the Drina! This is
Croatia [wild applause and chants of approval]!9

While Žanić and other ministers were conceptualizing the Serbs (and Jews) in
these collective terms, Ustasha militias were traveling through the countryside in
trucks, liquidating Serbs en masse in their villages and deporting members of the
local Serbian intelligentsia to makeshift concentration camps; at the same time,
the first roundups of Jewish community leaders began. Meanwhile, in large cit-
ies such as Zagreb and Sarajevo, Serbs and Jews were being forced by the Ustasha
Police to vacate their apartments and houses and relocate to ghettos, receiving
dismissal notices from state institutions and private enterprises, or being informed
by planning officials that their businesses and assets were to be transferred to the
control of state-appointed commissioners. Throughout the state, local Ustasha
authorities were publishing orders instructing Serbs to prepare for transfer to
“resettlement” camps—often published only on the day Serbs were due to be
deported—stipulating where they had to assemble and the amount of possessions
they could take with them (usually limited to a bag weighing fifty kilograms).
These orders, pasted onto public buildings throughout the town, warned Croat
citizens not to intervene on behalf of Serb neighbors, colleagues, or friends or to
hide their assets or possessions under threat of “the harshest punishment,” includ-
ing death. In other cases, Serb—and sometimes Jewish—citizens were not even
given this amount of notice. Instead, they were woken in the middle of the night
and deported in the clothes they were wearing, allowed to take with them only
what they could carry in their hands and frisked by the police and Ustasha militias
 Epilogue 289

for valuables and money.10 Not surprisingly, the terror against local Serbs and Jews
often had an unsettling and detrimental impact on the everyday lives of ordinary
Croatians. As a result of the mass firing of Jewish and Serbian workers, factories,
offices, and businesses found themselves lacking expertise; the staff of Jewish and
Serbian solicitors and businesspeople or the apprentices of craftsmen and build-
ers arrived at work to find that their bosses had vanished and they no longer had
jobs; tradespeople’s long-standing contracts were canceled and customers’ orders
remained undelivered; domestic staff, meanwhile, became destitute overnight,
the families they had looked after for years having vanished. Unemployment rose
sharply and “situations sought” newspaper sections were punctuated by advertise-
ments from redundant workers looking for new positions—or any position. “I
am seeking the post of supervisor, bailiff, delivery man, or similar, have first-class
recommendations. I have been left without work because of the liquidation of the
enterprise. I am thirty years old. Urgent offers to editorial under number 6223-2-
1,” read one typical advertisement in Novi list.11
What were people to do? The simple answer was to write to the DRP and
Office for Economic Renewal and appeal for compensation. These petitions
were initially welcomed by officials. From their perspective, claims for compen-
sation arising from the nonpayment of debt, services undelivered, contracts not
honored, or assets unfairly distributed legitimated the state discourse that the
removal of Serbs and Jews from the national economy was a form of economic
redistribution transferring national wealth from an exploitative employer class
to honest Croat workers. The consumer demand this generated in requests for
confiscated goods also helped to bring social peace in an economy ill equipped
to provide full, sustainable employment. However, it is clear from the increas-
ingly irritated and parsimonious responses of bureaucrats and investigators that
the volume of petitions exceeded expectations and, further, that they considered
many of them were unjustified or frivolous. Ironically, the implications of their
own policies designed to help build a national economy proved to be expensive,
both financially and administratively. Typical of the kind of petition investigators
received was the one from Jelka Kraus, a young housemaid working for the family
of Dušan Manojlović, sent in July 1941 to the DRP. Her initial request seemed
simple enough: the return of the possessions she had left in her servant’s quarters.
“I have been in service with this family for more than three years and I realize that
my fiancé and I have left some things there,” she explained. “In one small room
overlooking the street, there is a small brown wardrobe with underwear, one sofa,
three yellow chairs, a pail of fat weighing four kilograms, one three-liter can of
oil, one five-kilogram packet of sugar, bags with various foods in them because I
loved to cook for my sweetheart, in another room two jars of strawberry conserve,
all my things in the maid’s room, in the anteroom three pairs of shoes, two of
which are women’s and one of which is men’s. I respectfully ask you to open up
290 Epilogue

the apartment so that I can remove my things from it.” In a subsequent petition,
though, she also requested financial support from the directorate, explaining that
her employer’s “unexpected departure has left me without a job and without any
means of support. I wonder if you could make it possible in some way to sup-
port me until such time as I can find another job because I left the above address
without any form of compensation. This petition is in addition to my previous
petition which I sent for the delivery of my things.”12
In addition to the thousands of petitions to the directorate complaining about
unpaid debts or requesting consumer goods, there were petitions from citizens
and workers motivated not by consumer aspiration or economic need but by
social resentment, personal spite, or ideological fervor. Petitions denouncing
Serbian and Jewish colleagues, neighbors, and even relatives were common, but
so too were petitions pleading the cases of individual Serbs and Jews with the
authorities even while they often harshly condemned the supposed harm done to
the Croat people by the Serbs and Jews as collective groups. In cases of interven-
tions, a range of arguments were put forward explaining why an exception should
be made. These ranged from underlining the ways the victims’ expertise could
benefit the national economy to explaining how their commitment to the cause
of Croatian independence and disavowal of their “antinational” Serbian or Jewish
identity made them spiritually, at least, members of the national community.13
Some correspondents also viewed the nationalization and deportation campaigns
as opportunities for social mobility and career advancement. This was especially
true of students of agronomy, economics, and social planning whose expertise was
in strong demand at the very moment their already-precarious living standards
were being undercut because of shortages of affordable consumer goods, falling
wages, and the sharply increasing cost of living. Some were motivated by material
necessity in an atmosphere of economic crisis, while others were inspired by the
thought of being active agents in the regeneration of the homeland. In some cases,
both motivations were in play. One applicant who fell into both categories was
Josip Lončarić, an economics student at the Economic and Commercial Higher
School, who wrote to the DRP on July 4, 1941, from his home village of Bobovac
in the Kostajnica region, where he was spending his vacation before returning to
Zagreb for the autumn semester. Financially strapped, he requested a position on
the basis of “the impossibility of completing my study owing to the poor material
conditions.” Nonetheless, he added, working for the agency would also enable
him to “give all of my knowledge exclusively to this directorate and its work and
contribute something to the construction of the homeland.”14 The promise of
social advancement and being able to use one’s technical expertise to overcome the
logistical and administrative challenges represented by this experiment in social
engineering and economic reordering were also important factors. As Zvonimir
Maričić wrote to the Ministry of Social Care at the end of May, having graduated
 Epilogue 291

high school and completed his army training, this was the opportunity he was
waiting for. “I am absolutely ready for responsibility in the entire state and legal
administration and especially in the field of colonization and social care because
I have been employed for five years in the National Defense, which provides peo-
ple from the underdeveloped regions with social support. . . . I am fully qualified
and independent as an official and am used to carrying out all kinds of duties.”
But economic necessity and validating his national worth through social work
were also important factors, as he made clear in his application, which had been
endorsed by his regional Ustasha camp of Croatian Primorja. “Seeing as I am in an
extremely financially poor situation and find myself without work and since I am
a good Croat who has suffered constantly and been persecuted for my Croatian
consciousness, I am asking to be given a position and will send all documents that
are needed for my appointment immediately.”15
A separate category of petitions were those sent from victims of these eco-
nomic agencies, mostly Serbs and Jews who had been deprived of their businesses,
homes, jobs, and, in many cases, a viable means of existence. When regional
branches of the DRP and the Ustasha Police Directorate began publishing regula-
tions for the deportation of Serbs to Serbia, some Serbs immediately petitioned
them for permission to leave the state voluntarily; in many cases, aware of rumors
about conditions in the resettlement camps that were a feature of the deportation
process, they were desperate to avoid them. Elsewhere, the generalized atmosphere
of terror and the realization that, as Serbs, they had no future in the state made
their departure a matter of survival. According to the regulations, Serbs wanting
to resettle voluntarily in Serbia had to apply directly to the DRP or the Police
Directorate; in addition to providing details of all family members who intended
to settle in Serbia, they had to include written confirmation that they had no
financial debts and did not possess a criminal record, as well as signing a dec-
laration stating that they would permanently give up all citizenship rights and
never seek to return to the Independent State of Croatia. Among the thousands
of Serbs who wrote to the Serbian Section (Srpski odsjek) of the Ustasha Police
Directorate was Dimitrije Marić, a young father of two from the Zagreb suburb
of Tuškanac. His letter eloquently expressed the desperation and resignation felt
by many Serbs. Describing himself as “a clerk without work,” unlikely, he added,
to get any because of his national identity and destitute after the confiscation of
his apartment, he pleaded his case to leave Croatia by emphasizing his loyalty to
it; he clearly viewed the resettlement camp for which he and his family had been
designated as punishment for disloyal Serbian citizens, a category in which, he
insisted, he did not belong. “I have nearly completed the form for myself, my wife
Marija Marić, and our two small children, Dubravko and Radojka Marić,” he
wrote. “I am asking the Police Directorate to give us permission to resettle from
Zagreb in Belgrade and, as this is a permanent move, at the same time, to be able
292 Epilogue

to transport our kitchen furniture and a bed from one of the bedrooms as well as
the kitchen crockery. The furniture is made from soft wood. Seeing as I remain
without work and as an Orthodox cannot get any other position and I have been
on the streets with my wife and two children without any means of support, I ask
to be allowed to emigrate from Zagreb. For the whole of my time in Zagreb—in
other words over the past twelve years—I never committed any crimes against
Croatian culture nor the Croat nation but, on the contrary, was always a friend of
the Croatians and have remained so to this day, something that can be affirmed
by many respectable Croats. I have never been subject to police or legal measures.
My possessions, as the result of long years of work, amount to the above furniture,
and I beg to be allowed to take them with me.” His petition was accompanied by
the required confirmation that he had neither debts nor a criminal record; he also
included a list of the furniture he owned.16
Although petitions such as Dimitrije Marić’s reflected widespread genuine
fear at the prospect of internment in a resettlement camp, some regional com-
missariats of the DRP judged such petitions with profound suspicion, seeing
them as typical of the devious behavior for which the “former Serbs” were well
known.17 This was certainly the view of Većeslav Bartovski, the commissioner
for the DRP Bosanska Krupa branch, who on July 16, 1941, wrote to the direc-
torate’s central office in Zagreb to express his concerns about the number of
Serbs volunteering to leave the state. Fearing that such applications were being
submitted by Serbs who wished to stay under the radar of state surveillance and
hence represented a danger for the state, he described the alternative approach
he had initiated: “Ever since the commissariat began the work of resettlement, it
has been observed that a considerable number of Serbs have voluntarily sought
to resettle in Serbia on condition that they are not sent into a camp. We have
been approving such resettlements on the false assumption that they were trav-
eling to Zemun. Now, the Ustasha camp is collecting them from the railway
station at Sunja and transporting them directly to the Slavonska Požega camp.
Thereafter, we are sending information and dispatch lists about those being
resettled to the camp with an indication of the number of confirmed approved
resettlements. We are requesting that you APPROVE this method because the
suspicion exists that these emigrants have an important reason to avoid being
placed in the camp. There is a large percentage of former Serbs here, and their
resettlement must be carried out vigilantly.”18 In fact, Serbian civilians like
Marić had good reason to be afraid of the resettlement camps. The appalling
conditions in which inmates lived and the abuse they suffered en route to Serbia
at the hands of the guards and the DRP militia caused the German occupa-
tion border guard in some parts of Serbia to order that all crossings into Serbia
cease “immediately and unconditionally.” As one Croatian army commander
reported to the directorate on July 6, 1941, the German authorities in Serbia
 Epilogue 293

were becoming increasingly critical about the “inhumane” treatment of the

Serbian refugees arriving at the border. “They had their shoes and clothes taken
away from them, were deprived of their money and property, and, starving and
naked, they were driven across the Drina in such a way that one would not
even inflict on the Jews in Germany,” one border guard commander told him.19
Likewise, ten days later, Ante Jandrašić, a Croatian army colonel and delegate to
the Headquarters of the Head of the Armed Forces, related the comments of a
German general in Serbia who complained that an Ustasha militia “had forced
around 10,500 Serbs across the Drina into Užice in an utterly dreadful condi-
tion, without possessions, money, and the means for feeding themselves, and
some not even with any shoes. These refugees told the German authorities that
the Ustashas had stripped them of everything.”20
At the same time that Dimitrije Marić was petitioning the Serbian Section
of the Ustasha Police in Zagreb, Vitomir Krauth, a twenty-nine-year-old Jewish
professional, was writing to its Jewish Section (Židovski odsjek. Unlike Marić,
he was not asking to leave a nation-state he was permanently excluded from as
a strategy of survival but rather seeking to be included in the national commu-
nity as the marker of a shared sense of belonging. In May 1941, the Ministry
of the Interior had passed a series of laws restricting the everyday lives of Jews.
Particularly for Jews in cities like Zagreb, this had a profound impact, determin-
ing where they could live and shop, the amenities they could use, the places they
could visit, the times they were permitted outside, and the people they could
talk to. The Legal Decree on Race Membership introduced by the ministry on
April 30—that is, two weeks after the Ustasha state was established—stipulated
that all Jews had to wear a Jewish insignia on their left arm and the left side of
their chest. However, the Legal Decree on Race Membership and the raft of
other similar laws passed at this time offered a potential means of escape. Jewish
state officials, those on active military duty, and those with “Aryan” spouses and
children baptized before April 10, 1941, could be exempted from the regula-
tions. But exemptions had to be applied for through the submission of a birth
certificate and other documentation, and, while successful petitions excused
individuals from the duty to wear the sign, as the legal statute emphasized, they
had “no bearing on the right to exemption from other orders related to racial
membership.”21 The Legal Decree on Race Membership also raised the possi-
bility of an exception for anyone who had proven “their service to the Croat
nation, especially to its liberation, as well as their spouses with whom they were
joined in matrimony” prior to April 10, 1941. Such people could apply for
“honorary Aryan” status, which would exempt them from the anti-Semitic laws
and bestow upon them “all the rights that belong to people of Aryan origin.”22
The honorary Aryan clause was drafted essentially to protect the spouses and
families of a handful of high-ranking Ustasha officials of Jewish origin. Most
294 Epilogue

ordinary Jewish citizens did not fall into either of those categories; nevertheless,
thousands of Jews did apply to the Jewish Section of the Ustasha Police for hon-
orary Aryan status, often by disavowing their Jewish roots, claiming an explicit
Croatian rather than Jewish identity, and differentiating their past actions for
the liberation struggle of the Croat nation and their desire to be members of
the national community from the harmful behavior of other Jews. It is hard to
assess how genuine these sentiments were, expressed as they were in a time of
terror; that said, it is likely that some Jews felt, as Vitomir Krauth did, sincerely
Croatian, their Jewish religion now a terrible, if unavoidable, blemish on their
Croatian consciousness:

It is a tragic fact of my life that my ancestors were Jews, which means that I am
one too. I emphasize and underline it is tragic because in my soul, even in my
early childhood, I not only always expressed myself and felt myself to be Croa-
tian in every way but acted Croatian too. . . . I was extremely active in the Croa-
tian Sokol in Virovitica from 1924 until the time when the notorious Serbian
authorities disbanded it. After the dissolution of the Croatian Sokol and Croa-
tian Scouts in Daruvar, I was one of the first who took over the role of Sokol
auditor and hid its documentation in the hope that there would come a time for
Croatians when the Croatian Sokol could again be active. Furthermore, in the
time of the most intense persecution of the Croats in 1933, I gave asylum to my
good friend and national warrior Josip Begović in Zagreb at Trg Bukovičeva 5.
Finally, although I do not want to stress how this affects my feelings, it deeply
offends me and strongly debases me that as a Jew I am counted among those
who positively worked against the yearnings of the CROAT PEOPLE. I am
sending my petition to the distinguished office above so that with respect to my
aforementioned activities I can be permitted to walk about without having to
wear the Jewish marking.23

The terror unleashed by the Ustasha state had impacts that went far beyond its
intended targets. In the summer of 1941, the fates of Jelka Kraus, Dimitrije
Marić, Vitomir Krauth, Josip Lončarić, and Zvonimir Maričić were intertwined.
The decisions officials in the the DRP and Police Directorate took affected their
lives in ways that were both mundane and profound. Jelka Kraus, the house-
maid who had lost her employment, was given permission to collect her belong-
ings from the Manojlović residence but was refused compensation. The initial
assessment of one of the DRP’s accountants that she was owed 700 dinars’ com-
pensation based on loss of wages was overruled by another official who wrote
pointedly: “Refused—taxes, etc.”24 It is not clear whether Josip Lončarić, who
had applied for a position in the DRP, was offered one. The likelihood is that
he was, given the skills and staff shortages the directorate faced at this time and
the high turnover of officials in an extremely pressurized working environment;
 Epilogue 295

alternatively, in light of the chaos, disorganization, and indiscipline that were

characteristics of the culture of the directorate every bit as much as enthusiasm,
idealism, and ideological zeal, it is also possible that his application got lost at
the processing stage. The application of Maričić, the young professional who
had petitioned the Ministry of Social Care for a job, meanwhile, was suc-
cessful. On July 11, 1941, less than six weeks after he wrote, he received a
letter of appointment from the DRP director Josip Rožanković instructing
him to report immediately to the offices of the directorate in Kačićeva ulica.
Implementing terror was not only demanding; it could be dangerous too.
Maričić’s role, like that of many of the young technocrats and planners who
joined the directorate that summer, was not simply an administrative one; it
was paramilitary. As an investigator and field researcher, Maričić also served
in the Ustasha Police, which, with the DRP’s special militia was tasked with
overseeing the “orderly” deportation of Serbian citizens. As an illustration of
the extent to which terror was embedded into the construction of a national
economy purified from community “aliens,” Rožanković’s letter of July 21 to
the Ustasha Police Directorate is instructive: he requested permission “for the
issuing and use of a revolver by Maričić, urgently needed in the carrying out
of his duties in this State Directorate.”25
We do not know whether Dimitrije Marić was given permission to resettle in
Serbia or, if in fact, having been granted permission, in what condition he and his
young family arrived at the border with Serbia or even whether he was allowed
to cross into Serbia by the German authorities; his personal file is incomplete.
The experience of other similar applicants is not necessarily a reliable guide, since
getting the “right” answer depended so heavily on the whims of the individual
processing the case. However, evidence about how the cases of other victims in
this story were resolved does exist. Vitomir Krauth was refused honorary Aryan
status despite his heartfelt declaration of Croatian identity. He was forced to wear
the Jewish insignia, a marker of his exclusion from the national community he
longed to join and of his status as one of its “enemies,” as well as a daily reminder
of his failure to contribute to the liberation of Croatia. While his application was
dismissed, the police directorate never explained to him the reasons for his rejec-
tion. Like many of the state’s Jews, he was deported later that year to Jasenovac,
where he was murdered.26
While the lives of supplicants, victims, and potential beneficiaries in Zagreb
intersected and in some cases were interdependent, they clearly did not follow the
same course. In the correspondence of a housemaid, a student of agronomy, an
unemployed but enthusiastic social activist, and two community “aliens”—one
leaving the national community permanently and the other longing for inclusion
in it—who were all living in the same city, one can read fear, optimism, ideal-
ism, ambition, economic necessity, desperation, and despondency. However, these
296 Epilogue

petitions were also a microcosm of the diverse ways in which terror affected indi-
viduals from different educational backgrounds, social classes, and national and
religious groups. How sharply their fates diverged was nowhere more poignantly
illustrated than in the case of Jozo Segediji, searching for his summer suit, and the
tailor Pero Adžić to whom he had given it for alteration. It is not known whether
the DRP relented and compensated the determined shopkeeper; the trail grows
cold after Segediji’s second petition. But it is safe to assume that no compensation
could be expected from Pero the tailor.
Two weeks after Segedij sent his second letter, Adžić’s young fiancée, Slavica
Sterle, wrote to the directorate asking permission for him to return to Croatia.
In her petition Sterle described herself as “a Croat woman with my soul and
body” but explained that Adžić, who had been living in Belgrade since his
deportation, had applied for conversion to Catholicism before his arrest; she
was also, she assured the directorate, working hard to transform him into a
Croat. In addition to being separated from the man she loved, there was another
fundamental reason for her appeal, though: “I am in a desperate situation,” she
wrote, “because I am pregnant and my fiancée financially and emotionally sup-
ported me. We were planning to get married in a Roman Catholic church but
now I have been left destitute.” If her request was rejected, she feared, it would
almost certainly “lead to my ruin.”27 In reality, the chances of Sterle’s heart-
felt petition having a positive outcome were slim. The Ministry of the Interior
made strenuous efforts to prevent deported Serbs from returning, irrespective
of their social class or purported national consciousness.28 Moreover, while the
state pursued a determinedly natalist policy, it looked with stern disapproval
on unmarried mothers-to-be, even more so when the child they were expecting
was the product of a relationship with an “undesired element.” In such cases, as
the more zealous Ustasha Youth commentators argued, they were to be seen as a
fifth column in the womb.29
Ida Krajnc’s prospects of reimbursement were, if anything, even more doubt-
ful, despite the optimistic gratitude she had expressed in advance to the direc-
torate for resolving her request. As an official’s typed note at the bottom of her
petition explained with brutal practicality, “The fabric was bought at the store of
Brandek Kula and he has been killed and his store no longer exists so I cannot
submit the bill.”30 While from the distance of seven decades we remember the
shopkeeper Brandek Kula and the tailor Pero Adžić as two of the city’s many vic-
tims of Ustasha terror, at the time their disappearances left little trace until Slavica
Sterle’s desperate intervention, at least aside from a couple of customer complaints
and a minor bureaucratic headache. This, then, was the duality of life in the uto-
pia of terror. For, while Segediji and Krajnc’s petitions to the directorate were
seemingly banal complaints about clothing that had not been returned, in the end
they are the stories of human beings who would never come back.
 Epilogue 297

Notes
1. Aleksandar Seitz, ed., Put do hrvatskog sozializma: Govori i članci državnog
savezničara (Zagreb: Glavni savez staliških i drugih postrojbi, 1943).
2. Aleksandar Seitz, “Predgovor,” in Put do hrvatskog sozializma: Govori i članci
državnog savezničara, ed. Aleksandar Seitz (Zagreb: Glavni savez staliških i drugih
postrojbi, 1943), 26–31, 34–35, 38–39.
3. Stjepan Tomičić, “Hrvatski socializam,” Spremnost, November 28, 1942.
4. The process by which penitent Croatian citizens confessed and renounced past
national “errors” (especially those of a Yugoslav or democratic nature), thereby gaining
admittance to the national community, shared similarities with the samokritika ritual
in Soviet self-denunciations of ideological deviation. On samokritika, see, for exam-
ple, J. Arch Getty, “Samokritika Rituals in the Stalinist Central Committee,” Russian
Review 58, no. 1 (January 1999): 49–70; Igal Halfin, Intimate Enemies: Demonising
the Bolshevik Opposition, 1918–1928 (Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press,
2007).
5. See classified section of Hrvatski narod, August 1, 1941, and Novi list, August
21, 1941.
6. Jozo Segediji to the DRP, July 19, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova, Srpski odsjek/
Opći spisi, 445.1076/1461/41; internal memo from Josip Rožanković, July 28, 1941,
HDA, NDH, Ponova, SO/OS, 445.1076/1461/41; Segediji to DRP, July 30, 1941,
HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 445.1076/3039.
7. Ida Krajnc to the DRP, [July 1941?], HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 448.1076,
unnumbered.
8. Margaret Atwood, “In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical
Fiction,” American Historical Review 103, no. 5 (December 1998): 1050.
9. “‘Ustaška načela su ustav naše države’ rekao je ministar dr. Milovan Žanić na
veličanstvenoj smotri ustaške misli u Daruvaru,” Novi list, June 4, 1941.
10. See, for example, “Poziv Srbima,” order from Mostar Ustasha city police,
August 15, 1941, HDA, NDH, ŽS, 102.10/111941; Gustav Matković, “Izvještaj o
odlasku stanovnika židova i grkoistočnjaka iz Bihaća,” June 25, 1941, HDA, NDH,
Ponova/SO/OS/445.1076/V.T. Br.146.
11. Classified section of Novi list, August 24, 1941.
12. Petition from Jelka Kraus to the DRP, July 10, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/
SO/OS, 441.1076/223; Kraus to the DRP, July 17, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/
OS, 441.1076, unnumbered.
13. A somewhat tendentious but still useful account of citizen interventions on
behalf of Jewish citizens in the Independent State of Croatia can be found in Esther
Gitman, When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent
State of Croatia, 1941–1945 (New York: Paragon Books, 2011).
14. Josip Lončarić to the DRP, July 4, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS,
447.1076/141/1550.
298 Epilogue

15. Zvonimir Maričić to the Institute for Colonisation and Ministry for Social
Care, May 30, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 441.1076/34/1941.
16. Petition from Dimitrije Marić to the Ustasha Police Directorate in Zagreb, July
19, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 445.1076/051416.
17. “Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti,” XLV-67 Z., Narodne novine, April
30 1941. Although the title “former Serbs” (bivše Srbi) was applied to all Serb citizens,
denoting the fact that their previous identity was no longer permissible in the new
state, it was especially applied to members of the urban educated Serb intelligentsia
and rural elites who were viewed by Ustasha ideologues as having a developed national
consciousness, and, in contrast to the Orthodox peasant masses, not amenable to
assimilation. In addition to being seen as the vanguard of an “artificial” Serbian iden-
tity, they were associated with a range of behavioral traits, attitudes, and practices that
Ustasha ideologues considered to be harmful to the new state. As a term that com-
bined class and racial categories, it was close to the Soviet concept of “former people”
(byvshie liudi) ascribed to the bourgeoisie and kulaks during industrialization and col-
lectivization in the late 1920s and 1930s. On the concept of byvshie liudi during the
Stalinist Great Terror, see, e.g., Lynne Viola, “The Second Coming: Class Enemies in
the Soviet Countryside, 1927–1935,” in Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, ed. J. Arch
Getty and Roberta Manning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 65–98.
18. Većeslav Bartovski, “Dobrovoljni iseljenici iz ovog kotara, skupljaju se prisilni u
Sunji i upućuju logor,” July 16, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 445.1076/1407
(emphasis in original).
19. “Obustavljene preseljavanje pravoslavaca u Srbiju,” July 6, 1941, HDA, NDH,
Ponova/SO/OS, 445.1076, unnumbered.
20. Report from Ante Jandrašić to DRP, July 19, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/
OS, 445.1076/1361.
21. “Naredba o promjeni židovskih preizmena i označivanju Židove i židovskih
tvrtka,” Narodne novine, June 4, 1941.
22. “Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti,” XLV-67 Z., Narodne novine, April
30, 1941.
23. Petition from Vitomir Krauth to the Ustasha Police Directorate, n.d., HDA,
NDH, Ravnateljstvo Ustaškog redarstva, Židovski odsjek, 2.252/691 (emphasis in
original). Josip Begović was a member of a clandestine Ustasha terrorist cell, executed
by the Yugoslav state in 1934 for his involvement in plans to assassinate King Alek-
sandar when he visited Zagreb in 1933. After the foundation of the Ustasha state,
he became one of its most revered martyrs. For an overview of Begović’s life, see,
e.g., the recollections by a close friend, Milan Badovinac, “Neke uspomene na Josipa
Begovića,” Hrvatski tjednik, June 20, 1941, 3, part of a special edition commemorat-
ing Begović’s life.
24. On the Kraus decision, see note in the margin of Kraus to the DRGP, July 17,
HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 441.1076, unnumbered.
 Epilogue 299

25. Letter of appointment from Josip Rožanković to Zvonimir Maričić, July 11,
1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 441.1076/222/6; Rožanković to the Ustasha
police directorate, July 21, 1941, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS, 441.1076/1503/1941.
26. On the fate of Krauth, see Slavko Goldstein and Ivo Goldstein, Holokaust u
Zagrebu (Zagreb: Novi Liber/Židovska općina, 2001), 144.
27. Slavica Sterle to the DRP, August 12, 1941, Ponova, 549.1076/unnumbered.
28. For details, see Marica Karakas-Obradov, “Migracije srpskog stanovništva na
području Nezavisne Države Hrvatske tijekom 1941. godine,” Časopis za suvremenu
povijest 43, no. 3 (2011): 823–24.
29. Regarding demographic policy and eugenics under the Ustasha regime, see
Rory Yeomans, “Fighting the White Plague: Abortion and Demography in the Inde-
pendent State of Croatia,” in Health, Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to
1945, ed. Christian Promizter, Sevasti Trubeta, and Marius Turda (Budapest: Central
European University Press, 2011), 385–426.
30. Annotation at foot of Ida Krajnc’s petition, HDA, NDH, Ponova/SO/OS,
448.1076, unnumbered.
 Appendix

The Origins and Ideology of the Ustasha Movement

The Croatian Revolutionary Organization (Ustaša—hrvatska revolucionarna

organizacija—UHRO), as the Ustasha movement was originally known, was cre-
ated sometime in late 1929 or early 1930 from among radical student clubs and
militant youth activists within the nationalist Croatian Party of Right (Hrvatska
stranka prava).1 The UHRO was formed jointly under the leadership of Gustav
Perčec, a Zagreb journalist, and Ante Pavelić, a lawyer and parliamentary dep-
uty for the Croatian Party of Right. The ostensible catalyst for the founding of
the organization was the fatal shooting in June 1928 in the Yugoslav parliament
of Stjepan Radić, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka
stranka—HSS), the largest and most popular political party in Croatia, and the
subsequent establishment of a royal dictatorship under King Aleksandar, which
created a centralized synthetic Yugoslav state. However, while Pavelić, Perčec, and
other leaders of the embryonic Ustasha movement would later claim that Radić’s
assassination, which provoked violent student protests on the streets of Zagreb,
represented a turning point, convincing them that an independent Croatian state
could be achieved only through violence, in the late 1920s the Croatian Party of
Right had already created a number of paramilitary student and youth groups that
in their underground newspapers and journals boasted of their preparations for a
“final confrontation” and violent insurrection against Belgrade.2 The UHRO was
not the first insurrectionary anti-Yugoslav movement to be formed in Croatia.
Immediately following the establishment of the new Yugoslav state in December
1918, embittered émigrés, led by Ivica Frank and Captain Josip Metzger, had
formed a paramilitary organization, the Croatian Legion, in Graz, Austria.
Claiming thousands of young and able members, they vowed on their return to
exact a terrible revenge on the Serbs and fry them in “boiling oil.” Nevertheless,
the UHRO was certainly the most significant.3
After the founding of the UHRO and the formal decision to struggle for the
“liberation” of Croatia through violence, Pavelić and his followers fled abroad
 Appendix 301

where they established training camps in sympathetic “revisionist” states such as

Fascist Italy and Hungary. The camps were run on strict military lines, and all
recruits were obliged to take an oath of loyalty to the organization and Pavelić,
known as the Ustasha Poglavnik (supreme leader). The social background of rank-
and-file Ustasha recruits was overwhelmingly working class and uneducated; most
early camp members were émigré workers, peasants, and sailors, although increas-
ingly during the 1930s students, most famously Jure Francetić and Ante Polonijo,
did abandon their university courses to join the terrorist training camps. The lead-
ing cadre, which included the novelist Mile Budak, by contrast, tended to be bet-
ter educated and more bourgeois.
The Ustasha leadership used the terror camps as a base from which to launch
deadly attacks against Yugoslavia, bombing state buildings and the railway sys-
tem, carrying out assassinations of prominent supporters of the royal regime,
and launching a series of (failed) uprisings, the most well known of which was
the Lika uprising of September 1932 against the gendarme station of Brušane.4
The Ustasha Headquarters (Glavni Ustaški stan—GUS) was established by the
Poglavnik first in Tornio before being transferred to Bologna. From here edicts
and orders were sent out to the camps; the constitution and principles of the orga-
nization were drafted and the UHRO paper Ustaša was written and published.
In 1934, members of the UHRO together with operatives from the Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization carried out their most spectacular act
of terrorism, the assassination of King Aleksandar and the French foreign minis-
ter Louis Barthou in Marseilles during the king’s state visit to France. The revul-
sion the act provoked throughout most of Europe was deeply embarrassing for
the Italian government, and, under international pressure, the Italian authorities
imprisoned Pavelić in Turin. At the same time, his followers were transferred to
the Island of Lipari, where they were interned until 1937 when some of them
were transferred to other parts of Italy. As a result, Ustasha activities largely halted,
a period Mijo Bzik would later remember as the “great Ustasha silence.”5 In the
meantime, the UHRO fell into recrimination and vendetta: Perčec, who com-
manded the training camp in Hungary, had been executed, allegedly on the orders
of Pavelić, after his fiancée, Jelka Pogorelec, and her sister Marija were uncov-
ered as spies for the Yugoslav government. On her return to Zagreb, Pogorelec
authored a series of sensational articles for the Zagreb mass-circulation Novosti
about her life with Perčec in the Ustasha camps and the Ustashas, detailing the
insurbodination, misery, and high rates of suicide among young Ustasha recruits.6
As well as émigré terror cells, a cadre of Ustasha intellectuals based in Berlin
under the leadership of Mladen Lorković and Branimir Jelić established a propa-
ganda center that disseminated numerous publications about the oppression of
the Croat nation under Yugoslav rule and published a number of German and
Croatian-language newspapers. This group, along with underground Ustasha
302 Appendix

activists in the homeland, the separatist intelligentsia, and radical students—many

of whom during the 1930s became “sworn” members of the movement—repre-
sented a second faction. Despite their radical nationalism, ideological extremism,
and tendency to violent actions, in the late 1930s tensions between this more
“moderate” party intelligentsia and the tough hardline working-class émigrés
became a source of internal conflict within the broader movement. This rivalry,
which was partly ideological but also class based, later become a feature of the
ideological, political, and cultural factionalism characterizing the Ustasha state.7
In the late 1930s, as part of an agreement between the Yugoslav govern-
ment of Milan Stojadinović and the Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano,
the Yugoslav authorities permitted the return of hundreds of Ustasha recruits
to Yugoslavia, who were granted an amnesty for their former terrorist activities.
Some were anxious to return because they were disillusioned with the poverty,
misery, and harsh conditions of the camps as well as the leadership of Pavelić;
others, though, returned with the approval of the Ustasha leadership, includ-
ing Pavelić, by now under house arrest in Siena. These latter returnees were
instructed to infiltrate social, economic, and cultural institutions in Croatia,
engage in clandestine activism on behalf of the organization, and spread the
Ustasha ideology of liberation through violent struggle. While the Yugoslav gov-
ernment hoped that repatriation would weaken the Ustasha movement in Italy,
it also had the effect of strengthening its influence in Croatia and Bosnia. By
the time a semi-independent Croat state emerged in September 1939 following
an agreement between the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party Vladko Maček
and the new Yugoslav prime minister Dragiša Cvetković, the Ustasha message
was gaining increasing popularity and influence not just in universities and high
schools but also among workers, peasants, cultural and economic institutions,
and younger Catholic clergy.8
The Ustasha movement’s overriding aim was the establishment of a Greater
Croatian state, incorporating Croatia and Bosnia, purified, by force if necessary,
of all racial “aliens,” first and foremost Serbs who lived in the territory of the
future Greater Croatia in large numbers. Although, initially, anti-Semitism was
not a primary concern of a movement that attracted to its ranks a number of radi-
cal Croatian students and intellectuals of Jewish origin, this began to change in
the 1930s under the influence of National Socialism. In 1933, the movement set
down its ideological program in a document called the “Ustasha Principles.” The
main features of the original fifteen principles were the creation of an independent
Greater Croatia through mass violence if necessary, the primacy of Croatian blood
and origins, the construction of a society based on the values of the Croat peasant
zadruga (cooperative), traditional morality and the patriarchal family unit, and a
campaign of “balanced breeding” and eugenics to render the nation racially pure.9
As a plan for a future Ustasha state, the principles might have seemed primordial
 Appendix 303

and basic, but some scholars have argued that this was precisely the point; taken
in their totality, they provided an ideological blueprint for the movement’s subse-
quent campaign of genocide against the state’s Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies in pursuit
of a future purified utopian society.10 Moreover, these principles were supple-
mented with essays and polemics in journals, newspapers, and theses and studies
authored by an emerging generation of separatist intellectuals, many of whom
would go on to form the state’s intellectual cohort. Immediately after the found-
ing of the Ustasha state in April 1941, the UHRO changed its official name to the
Ustasha Croatian Liberation Movement (Ustaša—hrvatski oslobodilački pokret)
to reflect the vanguard role it argued it had played in the “liberation” of Croatia
from Serbian “colonialism.” Thereafter, its activists and theoreticians referred to
it as the Ustasha movement (Ustaški pokret). Having refashioned the image of
Croat nationalism through violent struggle and gained a state with the help of
fascist powers, the task now remained to remake the nation through terror.

Notes
1. The classic histories of the Ustasha movement are Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i
Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Zagreb: Liber, 1977); and Bogdan Krizman, Ante Pavelić
i Ustaše (Zagreb: Globus, 1978).
2. See, e.g., Mijo Bzik, “Hrvatska omladina,” in Kalendar pravaš za godina 1929,
ed. Fran Arbes (Zagreb: Hrvatska prava, 1929), 95–101; “Falange složne hrvatske
mladosti rastvorite svoja prsa!,” Hrvatski domobran, November 16, 1928; “Pripraval-
jamo se za konačni obracun,” Hrvatski domobran, November 16, 1928.
3. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 264–65.
4. The only English-language study of the prewar Ustasha movement is James J.
Sadkovich, “Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 1927–1937” (PhD diss., Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, 1987); the corresponding Croatian-language work is Mario
Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski pokret od nastanka do travnja 1941. godine (Zagreb: Školska
knjiga, 2006). Nonetheless, they disagree about the date of the movement’s founding,
with Sadkovich locating it in 1928 and Jareb favoring early 1930.
5. Mijo Bzik, Ustaška pobjeda u danima ustanka i oslobodjenja (Zagreb: Glavni
Ustaški stan, 1942), 193.
6. It was later published in book form by the newspaper’s publishing house as Tajne
emigrantskih zločina: Ispovijest Jelke Pogorelec o Gustav Perčecu i drugovima, koji u tudjoj
službi rade protiv vlastite domovine (Zagreb: Novosti, 1933) and subsequently trans-
lated into French under the title Les secrets des organisations terroristes au service du
révisionnisme (Paris: La Paix, 1935).
7. For a fuller discussion on the conflict between hard-line and soft-line factions of
the Ustasha movement before and after the formation of the Ustasha state, see Rory
304 Appendix

Yeomans, Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fas-
cism, 1941–1945 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), 1–28.
8. On this, see Ljubo Boban, “O političkom previranjima na selu u Banovini
Hrvatskoj,” Istorija XX veka (2): 1961, 252–53, 264; see also Jareb, Ustasko-domobran-
sko pokret od nastanka do travnja 1941. godine, 642–43.
9. In 1940 and 1941 the principles were increased to seventeen. From 1933
onward, the “Ustasha Principles” were published in a number of militant émigré pub-
lications and under a variety of titles, such as “The Ustasha-Domobran Principles,”
“The Principles of the Croatian Domobrans,” “The Principles of the Domobran-
Ustasha Movement Established by Dr. Ante Pavelić,” and simply “The Principles.”
The term “Ustasha Principles” has been used here for simplicity. See Jareb, Ustaško-
domobransko pokret od nastanka do travnja 1941. godine, 121, 124.
10. See, e.g., Michelle Frucht Levy, “‘The Last Bullet for the Last Serb’: The Usta-
sha Genocide against the Serbs, 1941–1945,” Nationalities Papers 37, no. 6 (Septem-
ber 1, 2009): 811–12. The principles are discussed in detail in Danijel Crljen, Načela
Hrvatskog Ustaškog pokreta (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1942). See also Sadkovich,
“Italian Support for Croatian Separatism,” 120–34; and Jareb, Ustaško-domobranski
pokret od nastanka do travnja 1941. godine, 118–33.
 Contributors

Radu Harald Dinu is a research officer at the University of Skövde, Sweden.

He received his doctorate in history from the Max Weber Center for Advanced
Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, where he spe-
cialized in the comparative history of the Romanian Iron Guard and the Ustasha
movement. His main research interest is in the history of fascism in Southeastern
Europe and the anthropology of violence. He is the author of Faschismus, Religion
und Gewalt in Südoseuropa: Die Legion Erzengel Michael und die Ustaša im histo-
rischen Vergleich (2013).

Tomislav Dulić is director of the Hugo Valentin Centre at the University of

Uppsala, Sweden. His research interests focus on the dynamics of mass violence
in the former Yugoslavia, nationalism, memory culture, and transitional justice.
He currently leads a project on Yugoslav prisoners of war in Norway during the
Second World War, and he is the author of Utopias of Nation: Mass Killing in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1941–1942 (2005).

Filip Erdeljac is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at New

York University, where he is completing his thesis on the Ustasha regime, every-
day life, and national integration in Croatia. For the academic year 2013–14 he
was an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. He is currently a Quinn
Foundation Fellow at the University of New York. His main research interests are
in comparative fascism and the Holocaust, with a particular emphasis on the rela-
tionship between state ideology and everyday life.

Aristotle Kallis is professor of modern and contemporary history at Lancaster

University, UK. His main research interests are in the study of interwar fascism
and the contemporary radical right, with an emphasis on transnational perspec-
tives. He is the author of Genocide and Fascism (2009) and The Third Rome, 1922–
1943: The Making of the Fascist Capital (2014) and coeditor of Rethinking Fascism
and Dictatorship (2014).
306 Contributors

Nada Kisić-Kolanović is professor of contemporary history at the Institute for

Croatian History, Zagreb. Her main research interest is in the cultural, legal, and
diplomatic history of the Independent State of Croatia. She is the author of The
Independent State of Croatia and Italy: Political Contacts and Diplomatic Relations
(2001), Zagreb-Sofia: A Friendship Tailored for Wartime, 1941–1945 (2003), and
Muslims and Croat Nationalism, 1941–1945 (2009), all in Croatian. She currently
leads a research project titled “The Independent State of Croatia: The System of
Government, 1941–1945.”

Stipe Kljaić is a research assistant at the Institute for Croatian History and has
just completed his doctorate in history at the University of Zagreb on intellectu-
als and Croat nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s. His main research interest
is in the intellectual and ideological history of twentieth-century Yugoslavia and
Croatia. He is coeditor with Fabijan Veraja of Nikola Moscatello, Adviser to the
Yugoslav Mission at the Vatican: A Contribution to the History of Catholicism in
Yugoslavia, 1922–1946 (2014, in Croatian).

Dallas Michelbacher is a Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced

Shoah Studies and a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Central
Michigan University, where he is completing his thesis on the use of Jewish forced
laborers in private enterprises, government offices, and labor camps and detach-
ments during the Holocaust in Romania. His main research interests are in the
history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Central and Southeastern Europe
and Holocaust studies.

Goran Miljan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the

Central European University, Budapest, where he is completing his thesis on the
history of the Ustasha Youth organization. His main research interest is in com-
parative and transnational fascism, with a special emphasis on fascist youth groups
during the 1930s and 1940s. From January to April 2014, he was a guest research
fellow at the Hugo Valentine Centre at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
Among his recent publications are “Fascism, Sport, and Youth: The Idea and Role
of Physical Education and Sport in Educating and Organizing the Ustasha Youth,
1941–1945” (2014, in Croatian).

Irina Ognyanova is associate professor of history at the Institute of Balkan

Studies in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. Her main research interest is
in the history of the Balkans in the post–Second World War era. She is the author
of Nationalism and National Policy in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945
(2001, in Bulgarian) and The Catholic Church and the Ustasha Regime, 1941–1945
(2014, in Bulgarian).
 Contributors 307

Rory Yeomans is a fellow in history at the Wiener Wiesenthal Institute for

Holocaust Studies, Vienna, Austria. His main research interest is in the cul-
tural, economic, and social history of interwar and socialist Yugoslavia and the
Independent State of Croatia. He is the author of Visions of Annihilation: The
Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism (2013) and coeditor with Anton
Weiss-Wendt of Racial Politics in Hitler’s New Europe (2013).
 Index
Adžić, Pero, 286–87, 296–97
Alajbegović, Mehmed, 200, 208
al-Husseini, Muhammad Amin, 207–8
Alkalaj, Albert, 49
Alkalaj, Izidor, 48
Alltagsgeschichte, 10
Aly, Götz, 11, 47, 51, 56
amenity potential, 47–51
Andrić, Josip, 220
Anfuso, Filippo, 65
Antemurale Christiantatis, 76, 159–61;
Islam and, 192–93, 197–98
anti-Americanism: 90; Croatian
Socialism and, 284; film culture and,
100, 102
antifascist Council for the Liberation
of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko veće
narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije),
241
anti-Semitism: Belgian nationalist and
Catholic movements and, 261;
cinema and, 98–101; Croatian
nationalism and, 266–67; marginality
of in Sarajevo, 43, 48; Starčević and,
266–67 ; the Ustasha movement and,
174, 182, 267, 302–3
anti-Serb terror: 2, 19–20, 24–27,
119–20, 126; appropriation of
Catholic values and, 182; Croatian
contemporary historiography
and, 2–3; economic destruction
and, 25–26, 43–45; extent of
compared to genocide against Jews
and Roma, 255–56n8; German
views on, 243–44; hardliners and,
24; Muslim resolutions and, 202;
national community and, 5; People’s
Liberation Movement and, 241;
religion and, 177–78; social mobility
and, 128–30; Ustasha Principles and,
302–3; war crimes trials and, 248–49,
250, 252; Yugoslav historiographical
and cultural treatment of, 209, 271.
See also deportations; Law for the
Defense of the Nation and the State;
mass killing
Antonescu, Ion, 172
Appaduraj, Arjun, 121
April 10 anniversary, 1–3
Arendt, Hannah, 133
Argentina, 247
Aron, Raymond, 148–49
Artuković, Andrija, 20, 22, 245
Aryanization: businesses and, 20;
economic impact of, 55–57; Jewish
businesses and properties in Sarajevo
and, 46–51; Jewish employees in
Sarajevo and, 52–53; Jewish financial
assets and, 50–52; laws against inter-
marriage and employment, 20. See
also nationalization program
Aryanism: accommodation and, 286;
cinema ownership and, 103–4;
employment and, 45–46, 69; Ustasha
racial theories and, 275
Atwood, Margaret, 287
Aurich, Albert, 48
Austria, 65, 168, 263, 300
Balen, Šime, 131–32
310
Banja Luka: cinematic culture in, 93,
113; Muslims in, 200, 202; terror
against Serbs and Jews in, 129
Baranowski, Shelley, 12–13
Barthou, Louis, 123
Bartovski, Većeslav, 292
Bauer, Ante, 175
Begović, Josip, 294, 298n23
Belgium, 261, 271, 278
Belgian Rex movement, 261
Belgrade: 67, 119, 125–26; assassination
of Stjepan Radić and, 147, 156; as
destination for Serb deportees, 291,
296; suffering of Ustashas and, 156–
57; Ustasha views of, 150
Benjamin, Walter, 131
Bešlagić, Himlija, 200
Bihać, 200
Bitka na Neretvi, 251
Bjelave, 44
Black Legion, 18, 91
Blagaj, 74–75
Blaškov, Vjekoslav, 88–89
Blažeković, Zdenko, Mladež i država
and, 222, 224
Bleiberg, 251
Blinkhorn, Martin, 269, 278
Bloch, Ernst, 148
Bloch, Marc, 8
Bogović, Marko, 81
Bonifačić, Antun, 197
Borovo, 222, 230–31
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 28, 114;
attitudes of Ustasha intellectuals
toward, 188–89, 190–91, 193; Ćiro
Truhelka and, 194–95; Croatian
Encyclopedia and, 194; mass killings
by Ustasha militias in, 125–26;
1939 partition of, 199; religious
intelligentsia in, 198–204; resolutions
of intellectuals in, 202; SS volunteer
Division of, 208; writings of Ante
Starčević on, 190; youth in, 204–7
Index
Bosnjaštvo, 192, 210–11n19
Bratislava, 68, 225, 227–29
Bravaždić, Slavka, 50
Brčko, 125, 127
Broszat, Martin, 10
Budak, Mile: 131, 301; Bosnia and,
190; Catholicism and, 169, 173–76;
sacralization and, 149, 151; threats of
genocide against Serb civilians and,
266
Budisavljević, Diana, 252
Bulajić, Veljko, Kozara and, 251
Busuladžić, Mustafa, 202–4
Bzik, Mijo: Croatian as a western
rampart and, 170; genocidal
language and, 132; in prewar Ustasha
movement and, 123–24, 301; views
of cinema on, and, 90
Cairo, Al-Azhar University of, 203, 204,
214n58
Čandarević, Nusret, 49
Catholic Church in Croatia: 27–28;
attitude of Ustasha ideologists toward,
175–77; Concordat with Yugoslavia
and, 159; instrumentalization of by
Ustasha movement, 175–79, 181–82;
intellectuals in, 175–76, 179–80;
nationalism in, 150, 160–62, 166,
168–69, 171; relations between the
Church and the Ustasha movement,
145–46
Catholic priests: anti-Serbian views of,
159–60, 194; conversion program
and, 21; as martyrs, 175; as members
of Ustasha militias, 21; resistance
to the Ustasha regime and, 168–69;
support for the National Liberation
Army, 146; support for the Ustasha
movement, 159–60, 168–69,
175, 182. See also under entries for
individual priests
Ćatović, Omer, 50
 Index
Čaušević, Halid, 200
Cerovac, Mirko: Croatia in Words and
Pictures and, 94–95; Croatian cinema
and, 91–92; economic corruption in
cinema and, 99–100; Jews in cinema
and, 98–99; moral degeneracy in
cinema and, 98–99
Chetniks: 16, 132, 159; as communists
in Ustasha propaganda, 160, 251;
military cooperation with Italian
occupation forces, 208; as Serb rebels
in Ustasha propaganda, 77; Ustasha
mutiliation of, 127; views of Partisans
toward, 253
Ciano, Galleazo, 264, 302
Čičić, Dragutin, 49
cinema. See Croatian State Cinematic
Institute; Directorate for Film;
Section for Film
Cinema Croatia, 113
Cinema Danica, 114
Cinema Gaj, 113
Cinema Urania, 101–5
City Committee for Help, 68–69
Club of the Croatian Starčević Pure
Party of Right, 190
Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea, 168
Čolaković, Enver Legenda o Ali-paši and,
195
Commissariat for the Oversight of Film
(Povjerenstvo za ocjene slikopis), 92,
111
commissioners, 20; applications from
the general public, 49; aryanization
process and, 45–47, 48–49; behavior
of, 48, 50; economic inefficiency
of, 55; intervention of on behalf
of Jewish workers, 51, 53–54;
regulations on work of, 49–50.
See also nationalization program;
aryanization
Communist Party of Yugoslavia:
antifascism and, 188; the
311
Catholic Church and, 146,
174–75; Chetniks and, 245;
formation of State Commission
for the Establishment of Crimes
Perpetrated by the Occupiers and
their Helpers in the Country and,
247–50; Ivo Guberina and, 159;
propaganda of Ustasha regime
against, 76–78, 81; postwar policies
toward Croatia and, 245–56, 250–
52; propaganda about the National
Liberation War and, 243–47;
resistance to the Ustasha regime
and, 24–25, 29; Second World
War master narrative and, 253–54;
similarity to Ustasha ideas on youth
and, 218–19; views on the Ustasha
movement and, 245–47, 250–52
Communism: as threat to Croatia and,
78; Eastern invasion and, 197–98
concentration camps. See under
individual camps
Čović, Marko, 181
Croatia in Words and Pictures (Hrvatska
u rieči i sliči): popular attitudes
toward cinema and, 97–98; public
response to, 96–97; as symbol of state
modernity, 94–96
Croatian Home Defenders, 122
Croatian Legion, 300
Croatian legionaries, 78
Croatian Orthodox Church:
establishment of, 22, 179; Serb
identity and, 180
Croatian Party of Right (Hrvatska
stranka prava), 156, 266, 300
Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska
seljačka stranka), 62, 161, 300; anti-
Semitism and, 266–67; Bosnia and,
199; the Catholic Church and, 166;
Muslims and, 190, 201; right-wing
faction of and Ustasha movement,
156
312
Croatian Socialism, 5, 17, 89, 198, 284,
285
Croatian State Cinematic Institute
(Hrvatski slikopis), 26; achievements
of, 90–91; arts competitions and, 89;
establishment of, 93; mobile cinema
and, 108–12
Croatian State Radio, 287, 300; arts
competitions and, 89
Croatian State Sabor, 22, 179–80, 200
Croatian Ustasha Liberation Movement
(Ustaša – hrvatski oslobodilački
pokret). See under individual entries
Croatian Week of the Mother and Child,
68–69
Croatian Workers’ Union (Hrvatski
radnički savez), 17
Cvetković, Dragiša, 119, 302
Dabac, Eugen, 104–5
Dahrendorf, Ralf, 9–10
Dalmatia, 114, 263, 265, 136n28
Danica camp, 66
D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 131
Day of Croatian Martyrs, 27, 156–57
De Grand, Alexander, 8
Deak, Franjo, 69
Demirović, Hasan, 55, 57
Demsetz, Harold, 47, 58. See also
amenity potential
Demut, Ratko, 64–66
Denasatio, 128
deportations: of Croatian Jews to
concentration camps, 49, 53–55;
Directorate of Ustasha Police
and, 291; forced deportations as a
form of genocide, 255n4; German
military authorities complaints
about, 292–93; Law for the Defense
of the Nation and the State and,
268; looting of Serbs and, 288–89;
petitions of Serbs about, 291–92;
reservations of regional Ustasha
Index
camps about, 292; Romanian Jews
and, 8; of Serbs to concentration
camps, 22; of Serbs to Serbia, 20,
178, 271, 285–86; social mobility
and, 290–91; State Directorate for
Regeneration and, 291; violence
against Serbs and, 295
Dinaric region, 124
Directorate for Film (Ravnateljstvo za
film): American film companies
and, 94; cinema commissioners
and, 100–101; establishment of,
91–92; disagreements with the
Ministry for National Economy and,
103–4
Directorate for Public Order and
Security (Ravnateljstvo za sigurnost i
javni red), 247
Directorate of Ustasha Police, 18; anti-
Serbian and Jewish measures and, 20,
287; deportations and, 295; Jewish
petitions to, 293–95; Jewish Section
and, 286, 293; Karlovac and, 70,
72; nationalization of cinemas and,
104–5; ordinary citizens appeal to,
286–87; recruits to, 129; registrations
of Serbs and Jews and, 20, 268;
Serbian petitions to, 291–93; Serbian
Section and, 291–92; war crimes
trials and, 248
Dobrača, Kasim Effendi, 202, 206
Draganović, Krunoslav, 178
Drašković, Vuk, 132, 253
Družak, Franjo, 79
Dugački, Mira, 223, 227
Durham, Mary Edith, 126
Đuretic, Veselin, 252
El-Hidaje (organisation), 202–6
El-Hidaje (publication), 202, 205,
214n58
emergency courts, 19, 24, 268
Eskenazi, David, 54
 Index 313

extraordinary people’s courts. See Glina, 75, 80

emergency courts Goldstein, Ivo: fate under Ustasha
regime, 65–67; national identity of,
Fascist Italy, 6; Adriatic Coast and, 146, 63
263; Croatian cinema and, 95, 97; Goldstein, Slavko: Croatian
exiled Ustasha movement and, 74, historiography and, 3; wartime and,
125, 263–65; ideological influence 63–66, 72, 82
on Ustasha movement, 30, 260–62, Gotto, Bernhard, 13–14
271–78; influence on Ustasha Graz, 300
ideas about youth, 217, 220–21; Great Brotherhood and Great Sisterhood
occupation of Croatia, 17, 191; of Croatian Crusaders, 160, 175
relations with Yugoslavia and, 264; Great Terror, 9, 14
Rome Treaty and, 173; smuggling Greece, 272
of goods and, 72; the Vatican and, Griffin, Roger, 7–8, 260
174–75; youth trips to, 223–25 Groebner, Valentin, 128
Feldman, Andrea, 269 Guberina, Ivo: Antemurale
Final Solution: Croatia and, 48–49; Christiantatis and, 172–73, 175;
economic impact in Croatia, 49, 55; Catholic values of the Ustasha state
everyday culture in Nazi Germany and, 159–60, 171–73, 176; Ustasha
and, 11–14; modernization theory social values and Catholicism and,
and, 10–11, 255–56n8; Nazi 172, 181
Germany and, 5, 9 Gutić, Viktor, 129, 245
Finci, Josef, 54 Gvozdansko Castle, 197
Finci, Moric, 54 Gypsies. See Roma
Fitzpatrick, Sheila, 9
Flemish National League, 261 Habsburg Empire, 61, 62; Croatian
Franco, Francisco, 159, 172, 271 Catholic Church and, 150; Muslim
Frank, Ivica, 300 intelligentsia in, 199; Party of Right
Frank, Josip: 167, 266; attitudes toward and, 167, 189–90, 265
Serbs, 265 Hadžić, Hakija, 200
Frankists, 167, 265 Hadžić, Kasim, 200
Frković, Ivica, 156 Hadzić, Osman Nuri, 189
Fuis, Franjo, 94 Hadžijahić, Muhamed, 194, 200, 211
Furdek, Slavko, 106 Häffner, Arthur, 129; attitudes toward
persecutions of Serbs and, 243–44;
Gaon, Salamon, 54 opinion on Ustasha terror, 121–22
Gardista, 225–27, 230 Hajrudin, Dizdar, 78
Generalović, Nikola, 75 Halat, Luka, 230
Gentile, Emilio, 167–68 Handschar Division, 208
Gerlach, Christian, 7 Handžić, Mehmed, 202–3, 206, 214–
Gisondo, Jakov, 70–71 15n61
Glasonoša, 68–69, 72, 77, 78–81 Heim, Suzanne, 11
Glavas, Radoslav, 21, 178 Hilberg, Raul, 252
314
historiography of the Ustasha regime:
in 1990s Croatia, 15; in 1990s
Serbia, 14–15; interdisciplinary
approaches, 15–16, 30–32; socialist
historiography, 29–30, 188, 243–
46, 252; western historiography,
15–16. See also Communist Party of
Yugoslavia; war crimes
Hlinka, Andrej, 168, 227
Hlinka Youth: 29, 218; exchanges and
connections with Ustasha Youth
and, 225–28; summer camps with,
228–32
Hollywood, 90, 99–100
honor, 27; mutilations and, 126–27;
relationship to shame in Ustasha mass
killing, 125–26; relationship to terror
and mass violence, 121
Hrvatski list, 107–8, 231
Hrvatska misao, 193–94
Hrvatski narod, 86, 107, 114, 155, 170,
173, 179, 286
Hrvatska radiša, 102, 103
Hrvatska smotra, 88; Catholicism and,
159, 171–75
Hrvatska sloboda, 62–68, 73
Hrvatska straža, 171
Hrvatski glas, 170, 173, 175
Hrvatski slikopis, 98; mobile cinema and,
106–9; new regional cinemas and,
113
Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik. See Croatia in
Words and Pictures
Illyrianism, 166
Institute for Colonization (Zavod za
kolonizaciju), 20, 287
Iron Guard. See Legionary movement
Islam, 28; 1943 visit of the Grand Mufti
and, 207–8; conversions of Orthodox
peasants to, 80; Croatia as a bulwark
of Christianity against, 159; Croatian
identity under the Ustasha regime
Index
and, 192–98; religious intelligentsia
and, 198–204; Ante Starčević and,
189–90; as state religion under the
Ustasha regime, 190–92; views of
secular Muslim elite on, 198–200;
views of within the Ustasha regime,
166, 177, 189; the Young Muslim
movement and, 204–7
Islamic religious community, 192, 195,
200–207
Istria, 146
Italian Fascist Party. See Fascist Italy
Italian Lictor Youth, 223. See also Fascist
Italy
Jandrašić, Ante, 293
Jaroš/Jarosch, Beno, 63, 66
Jasenovac, 21, 22; casualties in,
256;deportation of Jews to, 43, 49,
55, 295; everyday life in socialist
Yugoslavia and, 251; liquidation of,
26
Jaškić, Zlatan, 45–46, 52
Jastrebarsko, 252
Jelčić, Dubravko, 2–3
Jews: barred from public places, 20;
curfews against; purging from
national economy, 20, 52–53,
98–106, 288; ghettoization of, 268,
288; honorary Aryanism and, 293–
95; interventions on behalf of, 53–54,
290; Legal Decree for the Protection
of the Aryan Blood and Honor of
the Croat People and, 45, 268; Legal
Decree on Race Membership and,
45, 268, 293; national identity of,
63; prewar communities, 44, 66;
subjectivity of, 293–95. See also
anti-Semitism; Aryanisation; Final
Solution
Jones, Ray, 57–58. See also amenity
potential
Jovanović, Adam, 248
 Index
Jurčić, Vladimir, 90
Jurićev, Dionizije, 21
Jurkić, Mirko, 195, 210–11
Kamber, Dragutin, 193–94
Kaputt, 127
Karadjordjević, Aleksandar I, 123, 263,
300, 301
Karamarko, Milivoj, 24, 151
Karlovac, 19; establishment of Ustasha
rule in, 64–67; everyday life under
Ustasha rule in, 25–26, 67–82;
interwar relations in, 62–64; social
support for the Ustasha movement in,
67–73, 78–83; terror in, 73–76
Kasche, Siegfried, 207–8, 244
Katolički list, 172, 177
Kislinger, Mirko, 50
Klajn, Viktor, 53
Kohen, Klara, 50
Kolb, Boris, 227
Koran, in Ustasha initiation ceremonies,
131, 200, 202, 204, 205–6
Kordun, 62, 64, 74–81, 243
Košak, Vladimir, 103, 156
Kovačević, Mato, 101, 105
Kovačić, Ante, Međ Žabarima and, 61
Kovačić, Ivan Goran, Jama and, 131
Kovár, Viliam, 225
Kozara, 21
Krajnc, Ida, 287, 296
Krašić battle, 80
Kraus, Jelka, 287, 289, 294
Krauth, Vitomir, 287, 293–95,
298n23
Kravica concentration camp, 48–49, 54
Krv je progovorila, 192, 211
Krvava litija, 159
Kula, Brandek, 286–87, 296
Kuntarić, Đuro, 227
Kurelac, Dori, 67
Kurelac, Hanzi, 67
Kvaternik, Eugen, 156, 167, 267
315
Kvaternik, Eugen Dido, 22, 74, 245,
247
Kvaternik, Slavko, 18, 65, 172, 247
Lačen, Franjo, 90, 179
Lamešić, Marko, 156
Lateran Treaty, 150, 183
Latković, Radovan, 221, 287
Law for the Defense of the Nation and
the State, 19, 45, 268
Legal Decree for the Protection of the
Aryan Blood and Honor of the Croat
People, 45, 268
Legal Decree on Race Membership, 45,
268, 293
Legionary movement, 8, 168,
270–71
Lendić, Ivo, 179
Letko, Štefan, 230
Lika region, 71, 136n28
Lipari, 123, 301
Ljotić, Dimitrije, 168
Lončarić, Josip, 290, 294
Lorković, Mladen, 287; arrest, 24, 276;
leader of Berlin Ustasha cell, 301–2;
Siva knjiga and, 79; views on Bosnian
Muslims, 190; views on Serbs and
Jews, 21, 266
Luburić, Vjekoslav: bureau 3 of the
Ustasha Surveillance Service and, 18,
247; massacre in Blagaj and, 74–75
Luzzatto, Sergio, 8
Macek, Alojz, 226–27, 229, 230
Maček, Vladko, 156, 277, 302;
relationship with Bosnian Muslims,
190, 201; relationship with Catholic
Church, 182n1; Sporazum and, 199
Magdić, Milivoj, 89, 198
Magdić, Mirko, 230
Main Alliance of Professions and other
Syndicates (Glavni savez staliških i
drugih postrojbi), 17
316
Main Directorate for Mass National
Enlightenment (Glavno ravnateljstvo
za opće narodne prosvjećivanje), 19,
23, 89
Main Directorate for Propaganda
(Glavno ravnateljstvo za promičbu),
19, 93, 152
Main Ustasha Headquarters (Glavni
Ustaški stan), 17; disbanding of
militias and, 21; émigré Ustasha
movement and, 301; factionalism
in, 22–23; in Karlovac, 64–66;
nationalization of cinemas and, 105;
power struggles with local Ustasha
camps and, 18–19
Makanec, Julije, 16, 177
Malaparte, Curzio, 127, 138n60
Malvić, Zvonimir, 228, 230–31
Mandić, Nikola, 200, 213n51
Marić, Dimitrije, 287, 291–92, 293–94,
295
Marić, Savo, 104–5
Maričić, Zvonimir, 287, 290–91,
294–95
Marjanović, Branko, 949
mass killing: communicative and
symbolic aspects of, 119–34;
Croatian refugees and, 81–82;
demonization of Serbs and, 80–81;
German attitudes toward, 121–22;
by Partisans, 79–82; social mobility
and, 128–30; threats of in newspapers
and speeches, 73–74, 132, 287–88;
by Ustasha militias, 74–76, 119–21,
125–27, 130; Ustasha propaganda
and, 78–79, 80–82. See also State
Commission for the Establishment of
Crimes Perpetrated by the Occupiers
and their Helpers in the Country; war
crimes; war crimes trials
Matica Hrvatska, 193, 195
Mechkarov, Yordan, 176
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.150 on Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:42:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Index
Mešić, Ademaga, 190, 200–201, 214n54
Metzger, Josip, 300
Mihailović, Dragoljub “Draža,” 208,
242, 245
Mikac, Marijan: appointment of cinema
commissioners and, 101–2; avant
garde background, 94; as director
of the Croatian State Cinematic
Institute, 93; disputes with the
Ministry for the National Economy
and State Directorate for Economic
Regeneration, 103–5; as head of
ODSLIK and the Directorate for
Film, 92–93; mobile cinema and,
106–11; nationalization program
and, 102–3;perspectives on Croatian
cinema, 91–92; purging of Serbian
and Jewish influence and, 102–4
Milecher, Elza, 104
Milković, Zlatko, 106
Ministry for National Economy
(Ministarstvo narodnog
gospodarstvu) 20; disputes with the
Directorate for Film, 103–5
Ministry of the Interior: anti-Semitic
laws and, 20, 293; Croatian cinema
and, 92, 111; deportation of Serbs
and, 296; Law for the Defense of
the Nation and the State and, 19;
purging of Serbs and Jews from state
service and, 20
Mirogoj, 157
Mit brennender sorge, 150
Mobile cinema, 106–11
Montani, Većeslav, 125–27
Montreux conference, 262–63
Moravského Sväty Jana, 231
Moric, Katan, 46–47
Mosse, George, 6–7, 260
Mostar, 200
Mravačić, Jure, 75
Mravunac, Josip, 74. See also Veljun
 Index
Mravunac, Joso, 74
Muhammad (prophet), 189, 202, 204
Muradbegović, Ahmed, 193, 195
Mussolini, Benito, 191, 262–64, 269,
272, 274
mutilation, 26–27; the afterlife and,
126–27; autotelic violence and,
120–22; as form of communicative
violence, 127–28; honor and,
125–26; shaming practices and,
125–26
Nametak, Alija, 193–95
national community (narodna
zajednica), 5–6, 13–14, 17, 69, 76;
Croatian Socialism and, 89; Jewish
petitions and, 293, 295; mass killing
and, 125, 284–85; speeches against
Serbs and Jews and, 287–88
National Legionary State, 8
Nationalization program: appeals in
relation to, 53–55, 104–5; cinemas
and, 101–6; claims for compensation
and, 289–90, 294–96; economic and
social impact of, 55–57, 288–89,
291–92. See also aryanization;
State Directorate for Economic
Regeneration
Nazi Germany, 6; the Catholic Church
and, 168, 183n11; Christianity
and, 150; glorification of violence
and, 131; historiography about,
8–14, 251; ideological influence on
Ustasha regime, 30, 220–21, 274–75;
Muhammad Amin al-Husseini
and, 207–8; nationalization and
aryanization drives in, 45, 47,
51; “new European order” and,
219, 276–77; newsreels in, 95; as
occupation force in the Independent
State of Croatia, 17, 56, 267; racial
laws and, 268; racial views about
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.150 on Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:42:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
317
Croats, 275; underground Ustasha
movement and, 264, 266–67;
Ustasha Youth and, 223, 225–26;
youth culture in, 217
“new Europe,” 5; Catholicism and, 159,
172; Ustasha Youth and, 29, 219,
223, 227, 232
“new man,” 6, 152, 227
Nikolić, Vinko, 152, 154
Nikšić, Ante, 65, 67, 71, 74, 77
Nolte, Ernst, 36n38, 260, 276
Non habbiamo bisogno, 150
Nova Hrvatska, 1–2, 154, 155, 156, 157,
227, 228, 229
Novi list, 97, 101, 286, 289
Nož, 132, 253
Office for Economic Renewal (Ured za
obnovu privrede): Directorate for
Film and, 103–5; nationalization
program and, 285, 289; terror
and, 20. See also Aryanisation;
nationalization program; State
Directorate for Economic
Regeneration
Office for Nationalized Assets (Ured za
podržavljeni imetak), 102
Office for Price Control and Wages
(Ured za oblikovanje ciena i nadnica),
112
Oršanić, Ivan (cinema commissioner),
105
Oršanić, Ivan (Ustasha Youth leader),
217, 222, 224, 226–32
Osvit, 200, 205, 207, 213n51
Palić, Marijan, 49
Párnica, 228
Party of Right (Hrvatska prava), 156,
197; Bosnian Muslims and, 189–90,
197; Catholicism and, 166–67;
nationalism and, 265–66
318
Pavelić, Ante (Poglavnik), 17, 65; alleged
atrocities and, 127; attitude toward
Husseini’s visit, 207; Šime Balen and,
131; in Bologna, 123;Catholicism
of, 189n39; charisma, 123–24;
collapse of Axis powers and, 275–76;
Communist Party of Yugoslavia
and, 245–46, 254; coup attempted
against, 24; in Croatian cinema,
107; Croatian Orthodox Church
and, 180; exile in Fascist Italy,
263–64, 300–302; first public speech
of as Poglavnik, 155, 161; forced
conversions and, 179; Hlinka Youth
and, 226–27, 230–31; ideological
influences of as leader, 221, 274–75;
as living deity, 27, 145, 151–55, 221;
meeting with Hitler and, 267; ode
to from Ivan Šarić, 153–54; political
career of, 266, 300; postwar existence
of, 247; Saint Anthony of Padua Day
and, 147, 157–58; Strahote zablude
and, 171; as supreme leader, 17; views
on Bosnian Muslims, 191, 210n17;
the Zagreb mosque and, 195–96,
212n37
Paxton, Robert, 8, 152, 273
Payne, Stanley, 260, 268
Pelossy, Gita, 103–5
People’s Liberation Movement (Narodni
oslobodilački pokret), 241; attacks on
Orthodox peasants, 80; massacres of
Croatian citizens, 79–80; portrayal in
socialist filmography and literature,
251;propaganda and, 244–47; Siva
knjiga and, 79; Ustasha accusations of
atrocities against, 79–81
People’s Party (Narodna stranka), 168
Perčec, Gustav, 137n39, 300–301
Peroš, Vilim, 157
Petrić, Ivo, 101
Pilar, Ivo, 178, 265–66
Poglavnik. See Pavelić, Ante
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.150 on Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:42:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Index
Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion
(Poglavnikov tjelesni sdrug), 1, 79,
125; Thirteenth Shock Student
Battalion of, 2
Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade
(Poglavnikova tjelesna bojna), 18, 24,
160, 171
Pogorelec, Jelka, 137n39, 301
political religion, 27–28, 167;
Antemurale Christiantatis and,
160–61; Raymond Aron and,
148–49; Ernst Bloch and, 148–
49; Mile Budak and, 149, 151;
Croatian Christmas and, 155–56;
Croatian Easter and, 154–55; Day
of Croatian martyrs and, 156–57;
deification of the Poglavnik and,
145, 152–54; glorification of the
state and, 151; Vinko Nikolić
and, 152; political science and,
147–49; Saint Anthony of Padua
Day (Antunovo) and, 157–58; in
synthesis of Ustasha movement
and Catholic Church, 275; in
totalitarian movements, 149–50;
use of Catholic language and ritual
in, 160–62; in Ustasha movement,
149–51; violence in, 161; as form
of regime legitimation, 165; Erich
Voegelin and, 148–49
Portugal, 168, 272
Potuček, Ljudo, 230
Prasina, Jure, 72
Pravaši, 167
Prebilovci, 249
price controls and regulations, 24,
70–73, 93, 112
Prinz, Michael, 10, 11
Puk, Mirko, 179, 180
Pure Party of Right (Čista stranka prava),
167, 190, 265
Put do hrvatskog socijalizma. See Croatian
Socialism
 Index
Quisling, Vidkun, 276
Quran. See Koran
Radeka, Milan, 66
Radić, Ante, 158
Radić, Marija, 156
Radić, Stjepan, 190; 1928 shooting of,
300; anti-Semitism and, 266–67;
appropriated by the Ustasha
movement as martyr, 147, 300;
Catholic Church and, 182n1;
Croatian Martyrs’ Day, 156; Croatian
Peasant Party and, 62
Rakovica uprising, 156
Ratković, Marija, 50
Ratković, Stjepan, 193
Rečice, 74
Reemtsma, Jan Philip, 120
Reichardt, Sven, 120, 122, 124
Reichskonkordat, 150
Reichel, Peter, 11–12
Reichssicherheitshauptampt, 207–8
revolution of blood, 4, 23–24, 275
Rieger, Vilko, 103, 113–14, 145
River Drina, 170, 192–93, 234n10, 251,
287–88, 293
River Korana, 61, 76
River Mrežnica, 61, 76
River Neretva, 248, 251
Roberts, David, 7–8
Roma: “black gypsies” and, 22; Mile
Budak and, 174; Croatian socialism
and, 285; destruction in Second
World War Romania, 8; in Našice,
119; as “undesired element,” 19;
Ustasha Principles and removal of,
302–3; Ustasha racial laws and,
268; Ustasha terror against, 2, 3, 14,
32, 45, 146, 241, 243; victims of
genocide, 255n8
Roman, Albert, 50
Rover, Josip, 56
Rwanda, 121
319
Šabanović, Hazim, 200
Sacralization of politics. See political
religion
Sajević, Anto, 50
Saint Anthony of Padua, 147, 158–59,
162
Saint Anthony’s Day (Antunovo), 27,
147, 151, 156–58, 162
Salazar, Antonio, 272
Sarajevo, 19, 132, 146, 190, 193; cinema
in, 97; Croat National Theater
and, 195; Final Solution in, 49, 55;
ghettoization of Jews and Serbs in,
288; Hrvatska misao and, 193–94;
Islamic Religious Community and,
200–201; multiethnic traditions in,
43–44; Muslim religious scholars
and, 202–3; nationalization and
aryanization in, 25, 46–60; Osvit
intellectuals and, 200, 205; terror
in, 24; visit of the Grand Mufti to,
207–8, 215n78
Šarić, Ivan (archbishop of Sarajevo):
Great Brotherhood and Great
Sisterhood of Crusaders and, 175;
support for the Ustasha movement,
146; “Odes to the Poglavnik” and,
153–54; Ustasha officials and, 177
Šarić, Ivan (Ustasha militia leader), 74
Šarinić, Mijo, 71
Schindler, Oskar, 57
“second revolution,” 4, 23–24, 88, 90
Section for Film (Slikopisni odsjek):
censorship and, 113–44; cinematic
visions of, 93; construction of new
cinemas and, 112–13; establishment
and duties of, 92–93; mobile cinema
and, 110–11; nationalized cinemas
and, 102; organization of, 94;
relations with economic agencies,
102–5; relationships with local
Ustasha authorities and, 111. See also
Directorate for Film
320 Index
Segediji, Jozo, 286–87, 296
Seitz, Aleksandar, 17, 89, 284–85
Sémelin, Jacques, 13
Serbian Orthodox Church: Croatian
Orthodox Church and, 179–80;
and Serbian identity in Ustasha
ideology, 174; terror against, 21, 159,
171, 181; Ustasha policy toward,
177–78
Serbian Orthodox priests, 21, 26–27;
victims of Ustasha terror, 66, 119–20,
127–28, 133–34, 178
Serbs: alleged domination in interwar
Yugoslavia and, 264; April 1941
national revolution and, 15–16, 89;
arrests of, 66–67; attitude toward
the Croatian state, 75–76; cinema
and, 26, 87, 98–106; concentration
camps and, 2, 18, 21, 22, 32, 268,
288; conversions to Catholicism
and, 21–22, 75, 80, 105, 178–79,
266, 271, 296; Croatian socialism
and, 285–86; economic destruction
of, 20, 56, 291–92; legislative
measures against, 267–68, 286; in
Partisan movement, 25, 76–82,
257n20; prewar identity of, 62–63;
propaganda against, 62, 74, 77–80,
169–74; Pure Party of Right and,
265–66; purged from the national
economy, 31, 285–86, 288, 289,
291–92; as racial aliens, 266–67,
274–75; speeches against, 20–21,
287–88; Ante Starčević and, 265;
subjectivity of, 62–64, 105, 291–92;
threats in newspapers against,
73, 179, 181. See also anti-Serb
terror; Croatian Orthodox Church;
deportations; Law for the Defense of
the Nation and the State
Šestine, 152
shame, in acts of violence and
mutiliation, 27, 125–28, 134
Sharia courts, 192; attitudes of Muslim
elite toward, 201–3
Sinčák, Jozef, 226
Sisak, 93, 113
Siva knjiga, 79
Skrbin, Janko, 221
Slikopisni tjednik. See Croatia in Words
and Pictures
Slovak Catholic People’s Party, 168, 169,
263, 270
Slovakia, 220–21, 225–26, 229–30. See
also Hlinka Youth; Slovak Catholic
People’s Party; Tiso, Josef;
Slunj, 80–82
Spaho, Fehim (Reis ul-Ulema of Bosnia),
201–2
Spaho, Mehmed, 201–2
Spain, 6, 168; Catholic Church and
fascism, 159; fascism in, 193, 271;
sanctuary for fugitive Ustasha leaders
post-1945, 247
sport, 68, 229, 231
Spremnost, 89, 158, 197, 285
Spudić, Mijo, 72
Srijem/Srem, 249. See also Tomić, Viktor
Squadristi, 122, 131
Stalinist Russia, 6, 9, 298
Stara Gradiška, 3, 21, 252
Starčević, Ante: Antunovo and, 147,
158; appropriation of slogans by
Poglavnik, 191; attitudes toward
Catholicism, 166–67; attitudes
toward Serbs and Jews, 265–67; as
father of the Croatian nation, 265;
as ideological forebear of Ustasha
movement, 172, 190; ideology of,
265; Party of Right and, 166–67;
as spiritual father of Ante Pavelić,
154, 156; views toward Muslims and
Bosnia, 189–91, 201
Starčević, Mile, 23, 89, 90
State Commission for the Establishment
of Crimes Perpetrated by the
 Index
Occupiers and their Helpers in
the Country (Državna komisija
za utvrđivanje zločina okupatora i
njihovih pomagača u zemlji), 247–50
State Directorate for Economic
Regeneration (Državno ravnateljstvo
za gospodarstevnu ponovu), 20,
101, 285; economic decisions of,
56–58; the Final Solution and,
49, 55; finances and revenue of,
55–56; foundation of, 45; Jewish
employees in nationalized companies
and, 52–53; nationalization and
aryanization programs and, 25;
nationalization of Jewish assets
and, 51–52; petitions and appeals
to, 53–54; relations between the
center and local branches, 45–46;
relationships with commissioners,
47, 49–51, 57; rivalry with the
Directorate for Film and the
Section for Film, 26, 101–3. See
also amenity potential; aryanization;
nationalization program
State Directorate for Regeneration
(Državno ravnateljstvo za ponovu),
20, 31, 178; complaints to, 292–
93; decisions and, 294–96; job
applications to, 290–91; petitions
from Serbs to, 291–92; religious
section and, 21; requests for
compensation to, 289–90, 294–96;
social mobility and, 290–91, 295;
technocratic idealism and, 290–91,
295; terror and, 292, 295. See also
deportations; nationalization
program
State Information and Propaganda
Office (Državni izvještajni i
promičbeni ured), 19; cinema culture
and, 92–93, 100, 113; confiscation
of Jewish and Serbian cinemas,
103–4; mobile cinema and, 108, 110;
321
publications and, 192; Vilko Rieger
and, 145
Steber, Marina, 13
Stepinac, Alozije, 160; attitude toward
Ustasha state, 177, 182; foundation
of Ustasha state and, 172. See also
Catholic Church
Sterle, Slavica, 296
Stiglić, Frane, Deveti krug and, 251
Stipe Javor workers’ home, 67, 69–70
Stojadinović, Milan, 264, 302
Strahote zablude, 171
Strossmayer, Josip Juraj, 166
Stupar, Žarko, 104–5
subjectivity: ordinary citizens and,
287–91; perpetrators of terror and,
132; Serbian and Jewish citizens and,
291–94
Sudhaussen, Holm, 131
Šufflay, Milan: Croatia as a western
bulwark and, 159–60; on culture
clash, 265–66; as nationalist martyr,
156; on Serbs as Orthodox Croats,
178–79
Sulterer, Drago, 103
Šurmanci, 249
Šušić, Lovro, 156
Sutterlüty, Ferdinand, 133
Svačić, King Petar, 156
Szálasi, Ferenc, 168
Tatra Mountains, 228, 230
Tatre i Velebit, 225
Taylor, Christopher, 121
Tiso, Josef, 168, 172, 276
Tito, Josip Broz, 241, 243; Titoist
rhetoric, 243–44, 251
Toholj, Milovan, 248
Tomašić, Dinko, 124
Tomić, Viktor, 18; Srem/Srijem massacre
and, 249–50
Tomičić, Stjepan, 285. See also Croatian
Socialism
322
Travnik, 200
Treml, Emilijan, 50
Trešić-Pavičić, Ante, Gvozdansko, 197
Truhelka, Ćiro, 194–95, 212n29
Tuka, Vojtech, 227
Tuškanac, 287, 291
Tusun, Nikola, 77, 79
Tuzla, 200
Ujdurović, Veljko, 53
Union of Croatian Private Employees
(Savez hrvatskih privatnih
namještnika), 89, 101
Ustaša: purging party ranks and, 129;
sacralization and, 131, 151, 161; the
second revolution and, 88; Ustasha
Youth and, 226
Ustasha Corps (Ustaška vojnica), 1, 18,
245, 248
Ustasha Defense (Ustaška obrana), 18
Ustasha Defense Force (Ustaška
obrambena sdrug), 247
Ustasha principles: Catholicism and,
175–76; cinema and, 99–100;
ideological precepts and genocide
and, 302–3; sacralization and, 150–
51, 162; social refashioning and, 4;
Ustasha Youth education and, 222,
224
Ustasha Statute, 123, 169
Ustasha Surveillance Service (Ustaška
nadzorna služba), 18, 92, 247
Ustasha University, 2
Ustasha University Center (Ustaski
sveučilištni stožer), 17, 222
Ustasha Youth (Ustaška mladež), 17, 24,
29; indoctrination and, 221, 224; in
Karlovac, 66, 68–69, 78; members
of the Alliance of European Youth,
223; nationalization of cinemas
and, 105; number of members, 222;
organization of, 221–22; summer
camps and exchanges with Hlinka
Index
Youth, 225–30; as template of a
new youth, 221–22; transnational
exchanges of, 222–23; Ustasha Youth
Training Schools and, 230–32. See
also Fascist Italy; Italian Lictor Youth;
Nazi Germany
Ustasha Youth Center, 68, 113
Ustaška borba, 170
Ustaška mladež, 221, 230
Ustaška pobjeda, 123
Ustaškinja, 232
Valkova, Margita, 226
Varaždin, 112–13, 226
Veesenmayer, Edmund, 65
Veljun, 74–75
Venice Biennale, 88, 96
Verdinaso movement, 261
Vine of Ustasha Women (Ženska loza
ustaškog pokreta), 17, 232
Vitković, Stanko, 23, 88; the Second
Revolution and, 88–89
Voegelin, Erich, 148
Vokić, Ante, 24, 276
Volksgemeinschaft, 12–13; as
historiographical subject, 13–14
Vrginmost, 75
Vrljčak, Kazimir, 109–10
Vujčić, Milan, 63, 74
Vukelić, Nenad, 104–5
Vukotić, Dušan, Akcija stadion and, 251
Waqf, 192, 214n55; Muslim religious
autonomy and, 201; Zagreb mosque
and, 195
war crimes, 241–54; Communist
propaganda tropes and, 244–46; the
International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia and, 241–42;
popular culture in socialist Yugoslavia
and, 251; postwar legacy and, 250–
53; reevaluation of Second World
War history and, 252–54; State
 Index
Commission for the Establishment
of Crimes and Perpetrated by the
Occupiers and their Helpers in the
Country, 247–50
war crimes trials, 30, 82, 242, 247–50
Weber, Max, 122, 269
Wehrmacht, 56, 129, 244
Wieviorka, Michel, 132
Wiesen, S. Jonathan, 12–13
Yugoslav Army in the Homeland
(Jugoslovenska vojska u otažbini),
245
Yugoslav Muslim Organisation
(Jugoslovenska muslimanska
organizacija), 199, 201
Zadruga, 124, 302
Zagreb: April 10 celebrations and, 1–2;
Bulgarian embassy reports from, 176;
confiscation of Jewish and Serbian
cinemas and, 100–106; Danica
concentration camp and, 66; Day
of the Croatian Martyrs in, 156–57;
323
demographic changes in, 286;
everyday life and terror in, 284–97;
film culture and, 91–93, 96–97, 113–
14; fraternal Slovakian visits and,
225–26, 229–30; mosque and, 195–
97; Muslims in, 191; nationalization
program and consumer culture in,
284–86; purging of cinemas in and,
103–5; relations with the regions
and, 70, 72–73; State Directorate
for Regeneration and, 20, 45, 54;
terror and, 24, 31; university life and,
2, 22; Ustasha militias sent directly
from, 130; visit of Muhammad
Amin al-Husseini to, 207–8; Zagreb
mosque, 195–97, 208
Žanić, Milovan, 287–88
Žanko, Dušan, 90
Zavod, Josip, 45–46
Zemun, 19, 113, 292
Židovec, Feliks, 65
Zimperman, Ljudevit, 158
Zitelmann, Rainer, 10–11
Zrinski, Nikola Subić, 156, 197
The essays in The Utopia of Terror provide new perspectives on the
relationship between the politics of construction and destruction in the
wartime Independent State of Croatia (1941–45) ruled by the fascist
Ustasha movement. Bringing together established historians of the
Ustasha regime and an emerging generation of younger historians, the
volume explores various aspects of everyday life and death in the Ustasha
state that until now have received peripheral attention from historians.
The contributors argue for a more complex consideration of the relationship
of mass terror and utopianism in which the two are seen as part of the
same process rather than discrete phenomena. This study enhances
our understanding of both the Ustasha regime’s attempt to remake
Croatian society and its campaign to destroy unwanted populations.

“Though highly diverse, The Utopia of Terror’s ten chapters achieve

a striking impression of unity and are a major contribution to the
anglophone understanding of the Ustasha experiment. Because of
Yeomans’s sound grasp of the subject and of contemporary comparative
history in this area, the scholars he has chosen are all on top of their game
and the chapters cumulatively build up a fascinating multifaceted picture
of the Ustasha phenomenon.”
—roger griffin , Oxford Brookes University

Contributors: Radu Harald Dinu, Tomislav Dulić, Filip Erdeljac, Aristotle

Kallis, Nada Kisić-Kolanović, Stipe Kljaić, Dallas Michelbacher, Goran
Miljan, Irina Ognyanova, Rory Yeomans

is a fellow in history at the Wiener Wiesenthal Institute

r o ry y e o m ans
for Holocaust Studies, Vienna, Austria.

Cover image: “One for all and all for one.” Ustasha propaganda poster from 1944 depicting the
three classes of the Independent State of Croatia—workers, peasants, intellectuals—coming
together in common work for the national community overseen by the omnipresent Croatian
soldier. Reprinted by permission of the Croatian State Archives, Republic of Croatia
(HR Hrvatski državni arhiv, Zbirka štampata, 907.25/138).

668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA

P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.urpress.com