Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 –
28 December 1959) was a Croatian
fascist politician and Axis collaborator. He ruled as
Poglavnik of the Independent State of Croatia
(NDH), a World War II puppet state of Nazi
Germany in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia
. In the 1930s, he was a founding member and
leader of the Croatian fascist ultra-nationalist separatist
movement, the
Ustaše. At the end of the
war, Pavelić escaped abroad.
He died from wounds caused by an
assassination attempt in Madrid
on 28
December 1959.
Early life
Ante
Pavelić was a Bosnian Croat born on the slopes of Ivan Mountain in
the small village of Bradina north of Konjic
, and roughly
15 kilometers southwest of Hadžići
, then part
of Austria-Hungary.
His
parents had moved to Bosnia from southern Lika
, where they
lived in the small town of Krivi Put, on the central part of the
Velebit plain. As an adult, Ante Pavelić decided to move to
Zagreb
to study law. An extremist even in his
youth, Pavelić became a member of the organization known as the
"Frankovci", whose founder, Dr.
Josip
Frank, was the father-in-law of
Slavko Kvaternik, an Austro-Hungarian army
officer. Kvaternik had been a long-standing advocate of Croat
separatism.
In 1919, Pavelić was the interim secretary of the Pure Party of
Rights. In 1921, he was arrested, along with several other members
of the party, but was released. Pavelić defended his fellow party
members at their trial, but lost.
He married Marija Lovrenčević on August
12, 1922 in St. Mark's Church
in Zagreb
.
Pavelić's quarrelsome nature was increasingly apparent in the years
immediately after
World War I, when he
became involved in a succession of disputes with the Centralist
Party and the Croat Peasant Party of
Stjepan Radić. Pavelić was the sole
representative of his Party in the
Skupština (Yugoslav
Parliament), but rarely attended sessions and, when he did, he
occasionally indulged in a long harangue against some measure of
which he did not approve.
1920s and 1930s
In the
early 1920s, Pavelić established contacts with Croat émigrés in
Vienna
and Budapest
. Over the next few years he entered into
close accord with the
Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and, in 1927, defended
Macedonians charged in Skopje with terrorist offences. Through his
Viennese contacts, Pavelić established clandestine links with the
Italian government, but he was less successful in attempting to
forge similar links in Hungary, where Budapest authorities were
wary of jeopardising relationships with other countries.
In 1927, Pavelić
was elected to the national assembly, having previously served
on the municipal council of Zagreb. Pavelić was one of two elected
on the Croatian Bloc's list, the other being
Ante Trumbić.
Pavelić held the
position of party secretary in the Party of Rights until 1929, the
beginning of the royal government in the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia
. Shortly after the proclamation of the
establishment of the government Alexander I of Yugoslavia in
January 1929, Pavelić fled abroad and was subsequently sentenced to
death in absentia in Belgrade
for his part in anti-Serb demonstrations organized
in Sofia by Bulgarian and Macedonian terrorists. Pavelić
then co-founded the
Ustaše extremist
organization and went underground.
Pavelić and the Ustaše received support from Italian Fascist
dictator
Benito Mussolini, who saw
them as a means to help destroy Yugoslavia and expand Italian
influence in the Adriatic. Mussolini allowed Pavelić to live in
exile in Rome and train his paramilitaries for war with Yugoslavia.
Pavelić
would later cede parts of Dalmatia and some Adriatic islands to
Italy in exchange for being allowed to take all of modern-day
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
into the NDH.
Ustaše
training camps were set up in Italy
and Hungary
, chiefly at Brescia
and Borgotaro
in Italy and Jankapuszta
in Hungary. In 1933, the Ustaše attempted an armed
insurrection in Yugoslavia."Croatia: between Europe and the
Balkans" by William Bartlett, Routledge 2003 Page 18
Croatian Party of Rights, had established a terrorist organization
known as the Ustaše - Croatian Revolutionary
Organization"Organizing for Total War" by American Academy of
Political and Social Science, Francis James Brown, American Academy
of Political and Social Science 1942 Page 225
As an interesting detail for the American public it may be reported
that the terrorist organization Ustashe, paid by the Italians, was
sending money to the ...
Armed by the Italians, the Ustaše attempted
to invade the Yugoslavia by crossing the Adriatic sea
in motorboats. This was unsuccessful but its
lack of success probably was instrumental in the decision to
assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.
Two attempts were
made, the last one successful, and Alexander was slain at Marseilles
9 October 1934 along with the French Foreign
Minister, Louis Barthou.
The lack of armed protection afforded to the Yugoslav monarch, and
the general laxity of security precautions when it was well-known
that one attempt had already been made on Alexander's life, testify
to Pavelić's organizational abilities; he had apparently been able
to bribe a high official in the
Sûreté General. The Prefect of Police of
Marseilles, Jouhannaud, was subsequently removed from office. For
the second time, Pavelić was
in abstentia sentenced to
death, this time by a French court.
Ustaše regime
Adolf Hitler was not thrilled about
putting fascists in charge of his puppet governments, so he did so
only when there was no other option. This was the case with Croatia
and Pavelić’s Ustashi government. Before he was ever leader of the
Ustashi party, he was a young lawyer and leader in the
Party of Rights (a Croatian nationalist
party). It wasn’t until 1929 when he formed the Ustasha-Hrvatska
Revolucionarna Organizacija (Insurgency-Croatian Revolutionary
Organization, UHRO). In 1932 he wrote the charter of principles
that outlined the plan for achieving an independent Croatia based
on their ethnic identity and Catholic religion. This task would be
the responsibility of an
ustanak, or rather an armed
insurgency, composed of the Croatian people, under the direction of
the Ustashi. Ethnic cleansing and land gain were at the center of
the party's agenda.
Pavelić believed that the new Croatian state
should include most of Bosnia
and all of
Dalmatia. Pavelić and his party
argued that Croatia had already defeated the nomads of the east and
the Turkish Muslims. Their new objective was to rid the country of
Eastern Slavs and communism.
Around twenty-four concentration camps were
set up in Croatia, the most deadly of them being at Jasenovac
where Allied estimates prove that 750,000 Serbs,
Jews and Gypsies were murdered. Pavelić did not consider
Croatians to be Eastern or Slavic, but rather of a more Western and
Gothic background. The party would use this idea later during the
war to become closer to Nazi Germany. However, unlike the Nazis,
who preached no escape or mercy for the Jews of Germany and other
Central European powers, Pavelić originated a plan to spare Serbs
and Bosnians who embraced Catholicism and were willing to convert
he was quoted as saying "we shall convert one third, we shall kill
one third and one third will leave willingly or unwillingly". While
Pavelić aligned himself and the party with more of an Italian
fascist ideology, the Ustashi movement in Germany began to place
more emphasis on race. This was most likely due to their close
proximity to the National Socialists of Germany. On more than one
occasion Hitler was reluctant to put Pavelić in power. The
leadership role of Croatia after the German invasion was first
offered to
Vladko Maček, who was
leader of the Peasant Party at the time. It was again offered to
Macek in 1941 when Hitler considered replacing Pavelić. However,
Macek refused both offers, leaving Pavelić in power. At the end of
the war when Pavelić fled the country, more than 50,000 Croatian
soldiers were murdered by the incoming communists.
World War II
Ante Pavelić visiting Hitler at Berghof.
The personal standard of Ante Pavelić as
Poglavnik of the
Government from 1941 to 1943, and then as Poglavnik of the state
from 1943 to 1945.
Pavelić remained in Italy until the beginning of
World War II.
In 1941, after the Axis powers had agreed
to formation of the Independent State of Croatia
, Pavelić returned to Zagreb
and became
leader of the State throughout its existence. In 1941, he visited
Hitler in Berchtesgarten
. As the leader of the State, he directly
ordered, organized and conducted a campaign of terror against
Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and anti-fascist Croats. Pavelić's Ustaše
regime was the most murderous, in relation to its size, in
Axis-occupied Europe. Numerous testimonies from the Nuremberg
Trials, and in German, Italian and Austrian war archives, bear
witness to bestialities perpetrated against the civilian
population.
Serbian, Jewish, and Gipsy men, women, and even children were
literally hacked to death. Whole villages were razed to the ground
and the people driven into barns to which the Ustaše set fire.
General
Edmund von
Glaise-Horstenau reported to the
OKW on 28
June 1941:
On 10 July, General Glaise-Horstenau added:
According
to these testimonies, German officers themselves were dismayed by
the atrocities committed by the Ustaše, to the extent that they
occasionally intervened to stop the bloodshed (Jasenovac
, 1941), arrested one of the most notorious Ustaše
(Friar Miroslav
Filipović/Majstorović, Banja Luka, 1942) and disarmed an Ustaše
detachment (Eastern Bosnia, 1942).
The regime declared in advance its intention to eliminate the
Serbian population in NDH by killing one part, expelling a second
part and converting the rest.
.
A Gestapo report to Himmler (17 February 1942) on increased
Partisan activities stated that "Increased activity of the bands is
chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustasha units in Croatia
against the Orthodox population.
The Ustashas committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only
against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old
people, women and children.
The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and
sadistically tortured to death is over seven hundred
thousand."
Pavelić's regime was not officially recognized by the
Vatican, but the Church never condemned the
genocide and forced conversions to Catholicism perpetrated by the
Ustaše. Soon after coming to power in April 1941, Pavelić was given
a private audience in Rome by
Pope Pius
XII, an act for which the Pope was widely criticized.
Official policy against the Serbs was extermination, expulsion, and
conversion to the Roman Catholicism.
As to the Jews and Gypsies - the only policy was total annihilation
of both.
According to an official Yugoslav report, only 1,500 out of 30,000
Croatian Jews remained alive.
Approximately 26000 Gypsies were murdered by the Ustashi in the
Independent State of Croatia.
There was approximately 40000 Gypsies living within the borders of
the Independent State of Croatia.
A Yugoslav court ruled Pavelić responsible for approximately
700,000 deaths, though some historians and demographers believe
that figure to be too high.
Post-war
In May
1945, Pavelić fled from advancing Yugoslav Partisans, via Bleiburg
, to Austria
. After a few months, Pavelić moved to
Rome
, where he was hidden by members of the Roman Catholic Church (according to
de-classified US Intelligence documents.)
Six months after arriving in Rome, Pavelić fled to
South America. Upon arriving in
Argentina via the
ratlines, he became a security advisor to
Juan Perón. Perón issued 34,000
visas to Croatians, including those who had been Nazi collaborators
and had fled from the Allied advance.
On 10
April 1957, the 16th anniversary of the founding of the Independent
State of Croatia
, the 67 year old Pavelić was shot and seriously
wounded by an unknown assailant in Buenos Aires. The
shooting was generally attributed to
Yugoslav
intelligence. Despite having a bullet lodged in his spine,
Pavelić elected not to be hospitalized.
Two weeks after the shooting, the Argentine authorities agreed to
grant the Yugoslav government's request to extradite Pavelić, but
he went into hiding before he could be extradited.
Although there were
reports that Pavelić had fled to Paraguay
to work for the Stroessner regime, his whereabouts remained
unknown until late 1959, when it was learned that he had been
granted asylum in Spain
.
Pavelić
died on December 28, 1959, at the German hospital in Madrid
, reportedly
from complications due to the bullet in his spine. Pavelić
was buried in the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid.
See also
Notes
- " Ante Pavelic (Croatian nationalist)".
Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009.
- Poglavnik was a term coined by the Ustaše, and it was originally used
as the title for the leader of the movement. In 1941 it was
institutionalized in the NDH as the title of first the
Prime Minister (1941-43), and then the Head-of-state (1943-45). It
was at all times held by Ante Pavelić and became synonymous with
him. The translation of the term varies. The root of the word is
the Croatian and Serbo-Croatian word glava,
meaning "head" (Po-glav(a)-nik). The
more literal translation is "head-man", while "leader" captures
more of the meaning of the term (in relation to the German
Führer and
Italian Duce).
- " Independent State of Croatia". Britannica
Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009. *" Croatia". Microsoft Encarta Online
Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009. *" Yugoslavia". Holocaust Encyclopedia.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed 11 November
2009.
- " Ustasa (Croatian political movement)". Britannica
Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009.
- War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and
Collaboration by Jozo Tomasevich, Stanford University Press 2001,
page 417.
- Nikad viđeni predmeti Ante Pavelića,
Jutarnji
List
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Srdja Trifkovic: Ustasha: Croatian Separatism and European
Politics 1929-45, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies (London
1998) pp41ff
- Edmond Paris: Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-45, American
Institute for Balkan Affairs (Chicago 1961) pp20-21
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Ante Pavelić: 1889-1959
- Headquarters Counter Intelligence Corps, Allied Forces
Headquarters APO 512, January 30, 1947
- A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, by Stanley G. Payne ... pages
405-411
- Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat: Der Kroatische
Ustascha-Staat, 1941-1945 Stuttgart, 1964
- Edmond Paris: Genocide in Satellite Croatia, The American
Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1525 West Diversey Parkway, Chicago,
Illinois. Published in 1961, 1962, 1990 , Introduction
- "All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943" by
Jonathan Steinberg Routledge 2002 Pages 29-30
- See: Djuro Schwartz, "In the Jasenovac camps of death" (ג'ורו
שווארץ, "במחנות המוות של יאסנובאץ".)
- "For the rest - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - we have three million
bullets. We will kill one part of the Serbs, the other part we will
resettle, and the remaining ones we will convert to the Catholic
faith, and thus make Croats of them." Mile Budak, Minister of
Education of Croatia, July 22, 1941 The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the
Vatican, Vladimar Dedijer, Anriman-Verlag, Freiburg, Germany, 1988
p 130 See
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/yugoslavia_catholic_church.htm
- Israel Gutman (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Holocaust vol
2, p.739
-
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-031.html
- Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative
Perspective: In Comparative PerspectiveBy Kurt Jonassohn, Karin
Solveig Björnson Published by Transaction Publishers, 1998 ISBN
0765804174, 9780765804174 page 283
- Yad Vashem Studies by Yad Vashem, rashut ha-zikaron la-Sho?ah
?ela-gevurah, Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance
Authority, 1990, page 49
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Yossi
Melman, Tied up in the Rat Lines, Haaretz, 17 January 2006
- "Yugoslav Rebel Shot in Argentina," Oakland Tribune,
April 12, 1957, p3
- "Ex-Puppet Premier of Croatia Dies," Nevada State
Journal (Reno), January 3, 1960, p. 26.
References
- " Ante Pavelic (Croatian nationalist)".
Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009.
- Poglavnik was a term coined by the Ustaše, and it was originally used
as the title for the leader of the movement. In 1941 it was
institutionalized in the NDH as the title of first the
Prime Minister (1941-43), and then the Head-of-state (1943-45). It
was at all times held by Ante Pavelić and became synonymous with
him. The translation of the term varies. The root of the word is
the Croatian and Serbo-Croatian word glava,
meaning "head" (Po-glav(a)-nik). The
more literal translation is "head-man", while "leader" captures
more of the meaning of the term (in relation to the German
Führer and
Italian Duce).
- " Independent State of Croatia". Britannica
Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009. *" Croatia". Microsoft Encarta Online
Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009. *" Yugoslavia". Holocaust Encyclopedia.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed 11 November
2009.
- " Ustasa (Croatian political movement)". Britannica
Online Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 November 2009.
- War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and
Collaboration by Jozo Tomasevich, Stanford University Press 2001,
page 417.
- Nikad viđeni predmeti Ante Pavelića,
Jutarnji
List
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Srdja Trifkovic: Ustasha: Croatian Separatism and European
Politics 1929-45, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies (London
1998) pp41ff
- Edmond Paris: Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-45, American
Institute for Balkan Affairs (Chicago 1961) pp20-21
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Ante Pavelić: 1889-1959
- Headquarters Counter Intelligence Corps, Allied Forces
Headquarters APO 512, January 30, 1947
- A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, by Stanley G. Payne ... pages
405-411
- Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat: Der Kroatische
Ustascha-Staat, 1941-1945 Stuttgart, 1964
- Edmond Paris: Genocide in Satellite Croatia, The American
Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1525 West Diversey Parkway, Chicago,
Illinois. Published in 1961, 1962, 1990 , Introduction
- "All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943" by
Jonathan Steinberg Routledge 2002 Pages 29-30
- See: Djuro Schwartz, "In the Jasenovac camps of death" (ג'ורו
שווארץ, "במחנות המוות של יאסנובאץ".)
- "For the rest - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - we have three million
bullets. We will kill one part of the Serbs, the other part we will
resettle, and the remaining ones we will convert to the Catholic
faith, and thus make Croats of them." Mile Budak, Minister of
Education of Croatia, July 22, 1941 The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the
Vatican, Vladimar Dedijer, Anriman-Verlag, Freiburg, Germany, 1988
p 130 See
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/yugoslavia_catholic_church.htm
- Israel Gutman (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Holocaust vol
2, p.739
-
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-031.html
- Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative
Perspective: In Comparative PerspectiveBy Kurt Jonassohn, Karin
Solveig Björnson Published by Transaction Publishers, 1998 ISBN
0765804174, 9780765804174 page 283
- Yad Vashem Studies by Yad Vashem, rashut ha-zikaron la-Sho?ah
?ela-gevurah, Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance
Authority, 1990, page 49
- Jasenovac - Donja Gradina: Industry of Death
1941-45
- Yossi
Melman, Tied up in the Rat Lines, Haaretz, 17 January 2006
- "Yugoslav Rebel Shot in Argentina," Oakland Tribune,
April 12, 1957, p3
- "Ex-Puppet Premier of Croatia Dies," Nevada State
Journal (Reno), January 3, 1960, p. 26.
Sources
- Hermann Neubacher: Sonderauftrag Suedost 1940-1945, Bericht
eines fliegendes Diplomaten, 2. durchgesehene Auflage, Goettingen
1956
- Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat: Der Kroatische
Ustascha-Staat, 1941-1945 Stuttgart, 1964
- Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943 - Book of the year, page 215,
Entry: Croatia
- Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Europe, edition 1995,
page 91, entry: Croatia
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Edition 1991, Macropedia, Vol. 29,
page 1111.
- Helen Fein: Accounting for Genocide -
Victims and Survivors of the Holocaust, The Free Press, New York,
Edition 1979, pages 102, 103.
- Alfio Russo: Revoluzione in Jugoslavia, Roma 1944.
- Ruth Mitchell: The Serbs Choose War, Doubleday, Doran, 1943,
page 148
- Encyclopedia of the
Holocaust, vol. 2, p. 739.
- Avro Manhattan: The Vatican's Holocaust, Ozark Books, 1986,
page 48.
- Edmond Paris: Genocide in Satellite Croatia, The American
Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1525 West Diversey Parkway, Chicago,
Illinois. Published in 1961, 1962, 1990
- Cali Ruchala, Lord of the Danse Macabre: Ante Pavelic and the
Independent State of Croatia, Degenerate Magazine © 1996
- Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism: 1914-45, UCL Press Ltd.
1995, page 404-411
External links