What was Croatia?

Hello peeps.

I'm doing research to the croatians in WW2.

So my question is: Did the croatians made a pact with the devil for their independence or did the goverment of yugoslavia/Ustasja made the pact with the devil?

 

Nazi Germany had a scale as to ethnic purity and used it ruthlessly to keep various groups at arms reach from one another. Yugoslavia was a thrown together nation ,much like many Middle Eastern states and under pressure easily fractured. A case of both using the other for its own goals. In early 1941 and from the perspective of eastern Europe, Germany looked like a winner.

 

YugoslavPartisan is a relatively new member here and will probably check in soon. He has both Croatian and Serbian connections and a student of the area.

Gaines

 

Thnx for some answers.
Now I know about the goverment of Yugoslavia.

I will whait for YugoslavPartisan.
A classmate of me has croatian parents but I dont want to ask him because I dont know of they want to talk about it.
So I ask here.

 

OT but "peeps"?

 

Well, I wanted to avoid this debate because I feel really depressed and disgusted even when remotely thinking about the atrocities done by the Ustashas. Also it is difficult to talk about that subject because I simply can't find a proper reference point to compare and to put the subject under consideration in conceivable context. The horror is not just in the size of their crimes by numbers - it is horrific by the brutality they murdered. Just to mention: their preferred execution style was slow slaughter and they slaughtered even young children, babies too. There are some sources mentioning a basket full of human eyes brought as a birthday present to their Poglavnik (Croatian Führer) Ante Pavelic. They were the worst turd ever surfaced to this World.

To me, as a practicing Catholic, it is even more disturbing that the Ustasha regime was fully supported by the wast majority if not all of the Croatian Clergy and that they still nowadays have memorials devoted to Ante Pavelic and his henchmen. To some extent, or should I say, part of Croatian population still celebrates Pavelich as the greatest man of their history. It is saddening to me too because I have many Croatian friends and I speak Croatian language fluently.


PS: Here is a testimony by Italian Cruzio Malparte "A Basket of Oysters" - click the link to read more in English about the basket full of human eyes on a table in Pavelic's study.

 

I know, this may be depressing to all of you but, here is a photo that reveals a lot about Croatian Ustasha - "heroes" are sawing off the head of Serbian civilian:
(a photo taken from Wikipedia Commons)

 

Add in shocking, deplorable and intense Tamino. A hand saw to a live victim? You are likely closer to the events than anyone else on the board.

 

The Serbs, Croatians and Bosnians are the same people, the difference is the Croatians are catholic and western oriented, The Serbs are orthodox and eastern oriented and the Bosnians are Muslim and southern oriented. The three have a long history of hatred and atrocities toward each other and none are innocent.

 

Indeed, I'm close to the events and somehow my faith was decided by the Croatian language - twice. My father spend four years fighting as a partisan and was just twice in fatal danger, the first time it was at the beginning of the war that caught him in Croatia and he desperately wanted to get back home as soon as possible - by train. Only fluent Croatian language has saved him from arrest and certain death. He spoke Dalmatian dialect and Ustasha patrol let him go. At the first station he escaped from the train and walked home trough forests only during the night until he managed to get over the Slovenian green border. Second time he has encountered an SS patrol during the night somewhere in Bosnia . ("Our" SS units spoke Croatian language - they were either Folksdeutsche or Bosnian Muslims, later some of them were Ukrainians). My father was in dark and pretended he was Ustasha and fluent Croatian language with proper accent again saved his life. He walked towards the SS units until he came close to the blind spot where he suddenly jumped into dark. They were shooting at him but in vain - he was in his best age at that time and he escaped again. To survive, you need to keep calm and speak fluent Croatian, my father commented afterwards.

PS: Steve, you're right. I often say that Serbs, Croatians and Bosnians differ just by their former masters.

 

I know its the worst thing what the croatians did but where all the people Fascist like the germans?
And did the people of Croatia choose for the independence?
And why where the ustashasja the heroes?
I saw on wikipedia that in 2000 or something they placed signs of the Ustasjasha leaders on the streets so I like to know why.

 

IMO using terms like "Fascist" may be more of a henderance to understanding than an aid. Were the Germans for instance really Fascist? Arguably they weren't nor were they in spite of the name Socialist. I doubt you will find any case where all of the people of a country or an area of any size subscribe to any particular belief either. Best to avoid absolutes. Indeed Tamino has given accounts I believe of Croats who fought bravely against the Germans as well as the Ustasha.

 

I know that there always people against the ruler but where the large part of the croatians for the goverment?

I dont actually know a other word then Fascist and National Socialist.
It seems logical to me that Croatia has a Fascist goverment in that time, because of the Italian/German occupation so thats why i say Fascist.

 

Branding people with ideological terms like "fascist", "communist", "imperialist" is pointless, misleading, averting our attention from the truth behind. It is not about the naming but about what they really did and that was horrendous, scary, an insult to the humanity. The use of other terms kick in: pathological murderers, sadists, scum of the human kind. Linguistics is too poor to cover everything they did. Simple little murderous cowards, perhaps defines them the best.
However, it should be emphasized, that to some extent Croats have served in "Domobran" units which were less involved but not isolated from the atrocities. Also, many Croats have joined partisans, the only military formations that weren't poisoned by the dangerous Balkans chauvinism. Finally, Tito, a leader of partisan movement was a Croat, born almost at the Slovenian border.

 

I think we all tend to use the words to some extent it's just that in some cases, especially if you are really interested in understanding a situation, they get in the way. Take communism for example what Marx meant by it was not what Lenin meant by it and what they meant by it was different form what Stalin or Khrushchev meant much less FDR, Ike, or Regan. The term Fascist is even more problematic. Certainly Italy was but it differed considerably from Spain which also became Fascist. Look more at the details. For instance the Japanese government is often called Fascist but is hardly comparable to any of the European governments of the time.

I'm not trying to be overly critical here just offer some friendly advice. Words are only useful if they help you communicate when they start getting in the way of true understanding then we need to look for better words.

 

Good post lwd, did not sound at all critical but rather informative and good for all of us to remember. Back in the late fifties/early sixties I had one of the best courses I ever took in school, comparative governments. The explanation of the Soviets was particularly good, Trotsky and Lenin certainly radically differed on communism. Lenin made that pretty clear !

I taught with a Croatian for years, she lives a block over from me and I have never meet a more kind, decent person. I have a Serbian friend I feel the same about. Countries, borders, ethnicities, governments, religions all conspire to make situations and conflicts far more complicated than outsiders can understand.

Gaines

 

It is both linguistic and semantic problem. I have tried very hard to find proper wording to describe the subject in a concise way but I cannot find adequate words. My best candidates were: blackguard, bugger, scamp, scoundrel… Perhaps it would be the best to cite others, perhaps Edwin Black at Jewish Press:

During the Holocaust, one group of killers stood out as more vicious, murderous, and bloodthirsty than all others.

The Ustasha of Yugoslavia was a Muslim-Catholic alliance of Nazi killers so beastly that even Nazi officials in Berlin were horrified. The Ustasha and three related crack divisions of Arab-Nazi Waffen SS comprised of tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers and terrorized people of all faiths in Yugoslavia.

In large measure, these murder machines emerged through the efforts of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini.

The grand mufti was on a mission to accelerate the extermination of all Jews everywhere. His partner was Adolf Hitler. The epic story of this alliance is one that began in Jerusalem, traveled to Baghdad, culminated in the Balkans, and ultimately spread across all Europe.

 

Tamino, I thought I was at least fairly aware of the Ustasha and their beyond terrible death camps. I have even read that the Nazis in many cases were horrified by their actions. That says a lot. , I was more vaguely aware of the Arab-Nazi waffen aspect but not to the extent of three divisions. and of their correlation. It helps to explain the degree of hatred during the war and even that what emerged after Tito's death. Marshall Tito seems to be a pretty remarkable man.

your post will motivate me to read more about the "Balkans".

Gaines

 

Good point. It also has some implications with regards to the formation of the state of Israel. With the opposition lead by such as the grand mufti I can see why they were reluctant to submit to a Moslem dominated state.

 

You would be surprised how the Balkans and Mideast Islamic terror are profoundly related. I will get back to this theme. There is a clear relationship Hitler-Pavelic-Hajj Amin al-Husseini and, surprise - Arafat and further, perhaps to the present day Islamists. On the photo below you may observe Bosnian SS Hanjar units reading a booklet in German language "Islam und Judentum" - eng: "Islam and Jewry". Their actual leader, mufti of Jerusalem, was Hitlers' ally and ideological father of Arafat and many other Islamist leaders.