O Ustasha, or Use, was a Croatian nationalist party from far right who was placed in power by a puppet state created by the Nazis during the Second World War. This state was called Independent State of Croatia and was created after the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. This puppet state existed until 1945, when it was defeated by the Partisans (communists) Yugoslavs. In the four years it has been in power, the Ustaše has imposed a terror project, persecuting Serbs and Jews and promoting genocide in the region.
Use before the war
The Ustaše emerged as a result of Croatian nationalism during the 1920s and was led by Before Pavelić. This Croatian nationalism was a consequence of the formation of Yugoslavia, which brought together several different nationalities, including Serbs and Croats. Power in Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s was concentrated in the hands of the Serbs, and this motivated the emergence of an independence movement and a feeling of revenge from the Use it.
The Ustaše was therefore a separatist movement aimed at the emergence of Croatia as an independent state. For that to happen, he defended actions of force: insurrections, terrorism and armed struggle. The Ustaše was throughout history classified as a party with fascist orientations, as it was inspired by various political trends of the time, such as the
German Nazism it's the italian fascism, as well as relying on Croatian nationalist ideals that emerged in the 19th century.The Ustaše had anti-communist, racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic ideals, they were against liberal democracy - like all movements of right-wing in the 1930s – and defended the use of violence against minorities considered “internal enemies”, mainly against the Serbs. Furthermore, it openly proclaimed itself a Catholic party.
The group was officially founded by Ante Pavelić, in 1930, in Italy, and was joined by many Croatians spread across Italy, Hungary, Germany and Austria. Pavelić was called Poglavnik, which is basically the Croatian correspondent for Führer, in german, and Duh, in Italian. All three terms were used as a form of treatment and meant “supreme leader”. These terms showed respect and admiration and were used exclusively in reference to leaders (in this case, Poglavnik to Pavelić, Fuhrer to Hitler and Duce for Mussolini).
Outside Croatia, the Ustaše received membership and financial support from many Croatians, which enabled its funding, military training and terrorist actions. Despite this, internal support for the Ustaše did not exceed 10% of the Croatian population.
Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia
The Ustaše came to power in 1941, when the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia, depriving Prince Paul of command of the country. The Ustaše's collaboration with the Nazis brought them to power in the Independent State of Croatia from April 10, 1941. The Nazis had invaded Yugoslavia to ensure control over the region's material resources and gain passage to send troops to the Greece.
Once the Nazis dominated the region, the distribution of power and territories took place. Pavelić, to assume power in Croatia, had to accept the German and Italian impositions. Thus, the Independent State of Croatia was only possible because they accepted that part of the Yugoslavian territory would be distributed among Italians, Germans and Hungarians. Furthermore, the Croats had to accept interference from the Germans in power when necessary. In practice, Croatian independence in 1941 was apparent, as they were in fact just a puppet state of the Nazi Germans.
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The Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and power in the hands of the Ustaše led to the emergence of resistance movements throughout Yugoslavia. The groups that stood out were the royalist Serbs called the Chetniks and the Yugoslav communists called Partisans. These groups were led by Draža Mihailović and Josip Broz Tito, respectively. The next four years in Yugoslavia were, in short, a civil war in which Ustaše, Chetniks and Partisans fought violently against each other.
Horror Ustase
As soon as he took power, Ante Pavelić put into practice his project of ethnic cleansing in Croatia. Its main targets were Serbs, Jews and gypsies. This happened because, in the Ustaše ideology, the construction of an “ethnically pure” state, that is, homogeneous and formed only by ethnic Croats, was fundamental.
Thus was instituted by the Ustaše a strong persecution of the Serbs throughout Croatia. The Ustaše policy had the following goals: kill a third of Serbs, drive a third of Serbs out of Croatia, and convert the remaining third to Catholicism (the Serbs were Orthodox Christians). So, a week after coming to power, Pavelić enacted a law imposing heavy punishments on anyone who threatened the national interests and offended the Croatian people.
The genocidal policy implemented by Pavelić resulted in 1941 in a massive massacre in parts of Bosnia and Croatia, where Croatian militias invaded villages and massacred the Serb population. Generally, the Ustaše killed all adult Serb males, giving priority to Orthodox priests. Orthodox churches were also destroyed en masse. Furthermore, any cultural manifestations of Serbian origin (such as the Cyrillic alphabet) were persecuted.
The culmination of the Ustaše's genocidal policy was the creation of the concentration camp in jasenovac. In Jasenovac concentration camp, around 100,000 people were killed; of these, about 50,000 were Serbs.
Jews, though few in number in Yugoslavia, suffered intense persecution from the Ustaše, who had inherited anti-Semitism from German Nazism, as well as persecution of the Roma. It is estimated that, in six months in power, the Ustaše reduced the number of Jews in Croatia from 45,000 to 12,000 and that, after the war, Roma were almost completely extinct in the region. In the case of Serbs, estimates indicate that one in six Serbs died in the war.
Defeat Ustase
The Ustaše was defeated in 1945, after the expulsion of the Nazis from Yugoslavia. The Partisans, supported by the Soviets and the British, prevailed and took power in the region. The Independent State of Croatia ceased to exist and became part of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. The leader of the Ustaše, Ante Pavelić, managed to flee in 1945. He was granted political asylum in fascist Spain and died there in 1959, at the age of 70. What was left of the Ustaše ideology in Croatia was harshly persecuted by the socialist government of Yugoslavia after 1945.
*Image credit: nephthali and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
