Ante Pavelic Research Articles

Sovjetska diplomacija o nastanku Nezavisne Države Hrvatske

U radu se na temelju do sada nepoznatih i nekorištenih dokumentarnih izvora sovjetskoga podrijetla predstavljaju i analiziraju stavovi sovjetske diplomacije prema uzrocima nastanka i okolnostima u kojima se formirala Nezavisna Država Hrvatska. U tekstu je prikazan sovjetski odnos prema samom činu njezina proglašenja, posljedicama koje je njezin nastanak imao na sudbinu jugoslavenske kraljevine i ulozi Italije i Njemačke u formiranju i prvim danima postojanja Nezavisne Države Hrvatske. Rad sadržava i pregled stavova Sovjetskoga Saveza prema hrvatskom pitanju u jugoslavenskoj državi međuratnoga perioda i sovjetskih diplomatskih ocjena međunarodnih razmjera hrvatskoga problema u međuraću i prvim danima Drugoga svjetskog rata

Photography, Collaboration and the Holocaust: Looking at the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) through the Frame of the 'Hooded Man'

As a response to Cortis and Sonderegger’s re-take of the Abu Ghraib picture, this paper will discuss a picture taken by taken by Heinrich Hoffman, Hitler’s personal photographer, on 6 June 1941. The picture in question depicts the first meeting between Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian fascist Ustasha movement, and Hitler.

Виникнення усташсько-домобранського руху та його програмні документи

article is devoted to the emergence of the Ustash-Domobran movement and analysis of its main program documents. author is at the same time considered it as a national Croatian movement and as the main military force of opponents of the Yugoslav regime led by Ante Pavelic. article deals specifically with the period of its activity in emigration. A comparative description of different versions of the date of the formation of the Ustashes was made: from the evidence of the direct eyewitnesses of the mentioned events (memories of Ante Pavelic) to modern concepts (Tomislav Jonich). author analyzes the program documents (the The Charter, The Ustash-domobran principles and many Prescriptions) in accordance with the rules of the national Croatian movement indicated in them. Thus, features of ideology, political views, attitude to the entire Croatian people and other nations, the state structure of the future Croatia, as well as the main features of military discipline in the Ustash army, the appearance of the members of the movement and their behavior relative to each other and enemies were revealed. In addition, the main idea is to prove the Croats’ right to own large areas in the Balkans. Looking through the documents, one can come to the conclusion that the Ustash movement from the very beginning was striving for the formation of an independent Croatian state. article covers the first stage of the struggle of the Ustashes on the way to its goal.

The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War by Jacques Kornberg

Reviewed by: The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War by Jacques Kornberg Peter C. Kent The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War. By Jacques Kornberg. [German and European Studies.] (Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press. 2015. Pp. x, 405. $37.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-4426-2828-1.) Pope Pius XII’s dilemma when faced by World War II and its attendant genocide lay, according to Jacques Kornberg, in having to choose between his theological responsibility as pope in sustaining and preserving the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and his moral responsibility as pope in speaking out against the wartime atrocities and the programs of genocide that deprived so many people of their lives and civil rights. Making the pope’s decision even more difficult was that, in many cases, these atrocities were being enthusiastically carried out by Roman Catholics. Kornberg concludes that Pius XII saw his first responsibility to be the preservation of his Church as a vehicle for the salvation of souls. The institutional structure of the Church assisted its members toward God’s grace through the sacraments, the only guarantee of eternal life with God. In spite of the fact that important segments of the Church were active participants on opposing sides in the war, Pius felt constrained from criticizing their behavior or of reminding them of their moral duties, lest his criticism drive many Catholics from the Church. The pope realized his weakness and his inability to challenge the attraction of wartime nationalism; he was not in a position to lead his flock from above during the war but could only respond to wartime positions taken by national Catholic communities. He could not lead a Church if its members were not willing to follow him and better, therefore, that he work to preserve the institutional Church for the postwar future. In Germany in 1933, the Catholic Centre Party and the German Catholic bishops sought to accommodate themselves to Hitler’s new dictatorial government, which was popular and supported by many Catholics. The German Concordat of 1933 was an attempt by Catholics with the support of Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) to secure some protection for what might follow under Hitler’s leadership. When Germany invaded and occupied Poland in 1939, Pius XII lamented the impact of war on Poland but never assigned blame, since German Catholics were [End Page 857] supporting the German forces, and Polish Catholics were mounting a resistance against them. In Slovakia during the war, a Catholic party under the presidency of Monsignor Josef Tiso was responsible for antisemitic legislation. Although the Slovak bishops had reservations about some of this legislation, their opposition was muted and ambiguously stated. The Vatican saw no reason to interfere. Wartime Croatia, under the government of Ante Pavelic, was another state based on its Roman Catholic community, where the pope chose not to intervene in the forced conversions of Serb Orthodox and other atrocities lest he drive members from the Catholic Church. Blessed Aloysius Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb and leader of the Croat church, offered some resistance to the conversions and the death squads, but he never chose to break with the Croat government and certainly did not seek Vatican intervention. In Vichy France, Philippe Pétain’s National Revolution was designed to restore the Church to its position of influence and was well supported by French Catholics in spite of its deportation of French Jews. In many of these wartime situations, Pius was prepared to follow the lead given by local bishops, clergy, and laity, and made no attempt to impose his will on national communities. Kornberg, in fact, claims that Pius XII behaved no differently in this respect than had earlier popes when faced with similar situations. He cites Leo XIII’s inability to get French Catholics to rally to the French Republic in the late-nineteenth century when the French were not prepared to follow the papal lead. Benedict XV at the beginning of World War I made no mention of atrocities committed during the German occupation of Belgium, and his 1917 peace...

Yugoslavia’s Hidden History: Partisan-Ustashi Collaboration in the World War II (1941−1945)

The aim of this article is to give a significant contribution to both Balkan and South Slavic historiography in clarification of the question of direct and indirect military-political cooperation between the Partisans of Corporal and Marshal Josip Broz Tito and the Ustashi leader (Poglavnik) Ante Pavelic on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia during the World War II (1941−1945) and to highlight the ideological and political roots and objectives of this cooperation. The article is mainly based on the primary archival documents housed in Belgrade, but never used by the official state’s Titoist historiography, and on the testimonies of participants in historical events from the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland (the so-called Chetniks) who were after 1945 in exile.

Croatian pretensions to Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1848

Since the early 1860s many Croat politicians, both prominent (from Ante Starcevic and Ante Pavelic to Franjo Tudjman) and little known, have been openly expressing the ambition to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia at a favourable moment and under certain conditions, invoking Croatian state and historical right in support of their pretensions. These pretensions, born out of the belief that the unfortunately shaped territory of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia lacks the necessary strategic depth, have led to a fully-fledged strategy for creating an ethnically and religiously pure Greater Croatia and to constant conflict with the Serb side which also lays claims, predominantly ethnic, to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Marija Pavelić: The invisible Female Leader of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945)

The Independent State of Croatia was established in 1941 with the help of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was destroyed and divided by the Axis powers. As an anti-Yugoslavian, anti-Communist and anti-Semitic organisation, the ustasha displayed very strong tendencies towards National Socialist and fascist ideology, incorporated it and implemented it as legislation. The dispossession and annihilation of Serbs, Jews, Roma and resistance fighters were the consequences of the totalitarian state that was headed by the ustasha cult figure Dr. Ante Pavelic. Also women played an important role in the creation of the new state, even if the ustasha in their propaganda practiced the centuries-old, conservative-Catholic patriarchy in a form that resembled Fascism in many aspects. This article aims to analyze the role of one of the most powerful women in the Independent State of Croatia: Marija Pavelic, the wife of the ustasha-leader. Although Pavelic’s wife Marija gave birth to three children and rarely appeared in public, she was already a politically active woman in the Italian exile (1929-1941) and attempted to support the power of her husband from the beginning of his political occupation. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n2p205

The United States' Response to Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945

In April 1941, Ante Pavelic, the fascist leader of the Independent State of Croatia, and his paramilitary force, the Ustase (“rebels”), began a genocide that killed at least 330,000 Serbs and essentially eliminated Jews and Roma from Croatia. The American response to genocide in Croatia provides a fuller context for examining Washington's reaction to the Nazi genocide. By the summer of 1941, the US government had reliable information that genocide was taking place in Croatia. Washington expressed little interest in this slaughter, except insofar it affected Croatian–American and Serbian–American relations; made no direct public statement condemning the Ustase's actions; and offered no protest to the Vatican. Croatian events, however, propelled the FBI and the Office of War Information to suppress pro-Ustase supporters in the United States.

Notes on Italian Rule in Dalmatia under Bastianini, 1941–1943

invasion of Yugoslavia and the lightning victory achieved by the axis powers during April 1941 resulted in the dismemberment of the country into a number of foreign-dominated units occupied by Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy's protectorate, Albania and the so-called 'Independent State of Croatia'. The Italian-occupied zone, which included Dalmatia, was assigned by the Italian High Command (Comando Supremo) to the principal Italian military force of the invasion, the Second Army, which numbered about 200,000 men. The Second Army would remain in Italian-occupied Yugoslavia throughout the occupation: until 1942 under the command of General Vittorio Ambrosio; from January 1942 to January 1943 under the previous chief-of-staff of the army, General Mario Roatta; and from January to 8 September 1943 under the former commander of the Eleventh Army Corps in Slovenia, General Mario Robotti. The Second Army gave the occupation of Dalmatia to the Sixth Army Corps -which established its headquarters at Split (Spalato)1 and later, towards the end of January 1942, to the Eighteenth Army Corps. On 18 May 1941 in Rome, Benito Mussolini and Poglavnik Ante Pavelic signed a treaty for the limitation of the boundaries between the kingdom of Italy and the newly created Independent State of Croatia. They also drew up two other agreements, the first pertaining to military questions in the Adriatic littoral and the second to guaranties and collaboration between the two states.2 On the same day, Italy issued