View source for Ustaše

{{Short description|Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization (1929–45)}}
{{About|the World War II organization|an ethnic slur against Croats|Ustaša (pejorative)}}
{{Pp-semi|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Infobox militant organization
| name             = Ustaše
| logo             = [[File:Ustaše symbol.svg|100px]]
| native_name      = ''Ustaša – hrvatske revolucionarne organizacije''
| leader           = [[Ante Pavelić]] {{Assassinated}}{{refn|group=n|Ante Pavelić began using the title of ''[[Poglavnik]]'' ({{lit|leader' or 'guide}}).<ref name="goldstein">{{cite book|last=Goldstein|first=Ivo|author-link=Ivo Goldstein|title=Croatia: A History|year=2001|publisher=Hurst & Co|isbn=978-0-7735-2017-2|pages=133-134|url=https://archive.org/details/croatia00ivog/page/133|quote=..On 15 April Pavelić came to Zagreb and... took the title of ''poglavnik'' (leader) of the state... by May 1941, it already had 100,000 members who swore the Ustasha oath.}}</ref> After the war, Pavelić died on 28 December 1959 at the Hospital Alemán in Madrid, aged 70, from the wounds he had sustained in the assassination attempt.{{sfn|Fischer|2007|p=211}}}}
| foundation       = {{ubl|{{start date|1929|1|7|df=y}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schäuble |first1=Michaela |title=Narrating Victimhood: Gender, Religion and the Making of Place in Post-War Croatia |date=2014 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-261-4 |page=323 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lJ78AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA323}}</ref>}}
| dissolved        = [[Battle of Odžak|{{end date|1945|5|25|df=y}}]] (''de facto'')<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Vukosavljević |first1=Mladen |last2=Karasijević |first2=Drago |title=53. SREDNJOBOSANSKA NOU DIVIZIJA |year=1969 |url=https://znaci.org/00003/712.htm |publisher=Zadrugar |location=Sarajevo|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016073715/https://znaci.org/00003/712.pdf|archive-date=16 October 2022}}</ref>
| predecessor      = [[Croatian Committee]]{{refn|Radical members of the organization.<ref name=Grđan>Martina Grđan: [http://darhiv.ffzg.unizg.hr/id/eprint/4983/1/DIPLOMSKI%20Martina%20Gr%C4%91an.pdf ''Ustaška emigracija za vrijeme Kraljevine Jugoslavije ''] Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Zagreb, lipnja 2014. str. 7.</ref>}}<br />[[Party of Rights|Pure Party of Rights]]{{refn|Radical ''[[Frankism (Croatia)|Frankist]]'' wing of the party.<ref name="Fischer2007">{{cite book|author=Bernd Jürgen Fischer|author-link=Bernd Jürgen Fischer|title=Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South Eastern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qMZaPjrHqYYC&pg=PA208|access-date=30 August 2013|year=2007|publisher=Purdue University Press|isbn=978-1-55753-455-2|page=208|quote=Pavelić belonged to the most anti-Serbian branch of the Party}}</ref>}}
| successor        = émigré groups{{refn|group=n|{{further|Ustaše in Australia}} Ustaše supporters who emigrated abroad established various pro-Ustaše-style organizations after the war. These included the [[Crusaders (guerrilla)|Crusaders]], [[Croatian Liberation Movement]],<ref name="hidra">{{cite web|url=http://hidran.hidra.hr/hidrarad/stranke/programi/028368.pdf|title=Croatian Liberation Movement|publisher=Croatian Information-Documentation Referral Agency|language=Croatian|accessdate=29 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170114094819/http://hidran.hidra.hr/hidrarad/stranke/programi/028368.pdf|archive-date=14 January 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood]]<ref name="Alexander &  Myers 2015 p. 59">{{cite book |last1=Alexander |first1=Yonah |author-link=Yonah Alexander |last2=Myers |first2=Kenneth |author2-link=Kenneth A. Myers III |title=Terrorism in Europe |publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |publication-place=London |year=2015 |series=Routledge Library Editions: Terrorism and Insurgency |isbn=978-1-317-44933-1 |oclc=907773295 |page=59 |quote=The third terrorist international aggregate which has caused problems for Western Europe is composed of various Croatian emigre terrorist groups. These groups operating under names ... ''Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood'' ...}}</ref> and the [[Croatian National Resistance]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00287R000101220002-6.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123120013/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00287R000101220002-6.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 23, 2017|title=Yugoslav Emigre Extremists|date=29 May 1980|website=Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room|publisher=CIA}}</ref>}}
| clans            = * [[Ustaše Militia]]{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=341}}
* [[Ustaše Youth]]<ref>{{Cite journal|title=U službi fašizma: akterke ustaškog pokreta između karijere, politike i zločina|journal=Zbornik Janković|url=https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=352628|last=Bitunjac|first=Martina|year=2021 |volume=4|pages=446–480|issue=4|doi=10.47325/zj.4.4.14 |s2cid=247537553 |trans-title=In the service of fascism: Actresses of the Ustasha movement between careers, politics and crime|doi-access=free}}</ref>
| headquarters     = {{plainlist |
* [[Turin]], Italy (until 1941)<ref name="Berend">{{cite book |last1=Berend |first1=Iván Tibor |title=Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II |date=1998 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-52020-617-5 |page=329 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwSSDDppR_gC&pg=PA329}}</ref>
* {{nowrap|[[Zagreb]], Croatia (from 1941)}}
}}
| ideology         = {{ubl|class=nowrap|
| [[Croatian_nationalism#Independent_State_of_Croatia|Croatian ultranationalism]]{{refn|group=n|The [[Clerical fascism|clerical fascist]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Biondich |first1=Mark |date=2007-05-18 |title=Radical Catholicism and Fascism in Croatia, 1918-1945 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14690760701321346  |journal= Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions |volume=8 |issue=2007 |publisher=Taylor & Francis Online |pages=383-399 |doi=10.1080/14690760701321346 |access-date=2025-06-16 |ref=none|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Ustaše espoused a violent [[ultranationalist]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Miljan |first1=Goran |title=Croatia and the Rise of Fascism: The Youth Movement and the Ustasha During WWII |date=2018 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781838608293 |pages=93–97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BeWDwAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Ramet |editor1-first=Sabrina P. |title=The Independent State of Croatia 1941-45 |date=2020 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781000154993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72DwDwAAQBAJ |quote=Ustasism, in a manner typical of radical-right formations, set the leader above the law, replaced individual rights with a notion of collective rights, declared the inequality of peoples, allowed for intolerance and violence toward those lower on the racial hierarchy..}}</ref><ref name="Ruzicic-Kessler2011-Schäuble2014">
* {{cite book|page=194|publisher=Lit|first=Karlo|last=Ruzicic-Kessler|title=From the Industrial Revolution to World War II in East Central Europe|year=2011|quote=...the ultra-nationalist Ustase of Ante Pavelic...}}
* {{cite book |last1=Schäuble |first1=Michaela |title=Narrating Victimhood: Gender, Religion and the Making of Place in Post-War Croatia |date=2014 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-261-4 |page=323 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lJ78AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA323}}</ref> and [[ethnocratic]]<ref>[[#Tomasevich 2001|Tomasevich (2001)]], p. 391 {{blockquote|Serbia proper was under strict German occupation, a situation which allowed the Ustasha to pursue its radical anti-Serbian policy...}}</ref><ref name="YeomansWeiss-Wendt2013">{{cite book|author1=Rory Yeomans|author2=Anton Weiss-Wendt|title=Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8WPLZYsMaGEC&pg=PA228|year=2013|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-4605-8|page=228|quote=The Ustasha regime&nbsp;... inaugurated the most brutal campaign of mass murder against civilian population that Southern Europe has ever witnessed&nbsp;...  The campaign of mass murder and deportation against the Serb population was initially justified on [[Scientific racism|scientific racist]] principles.}}</ref> ideology rooted in Croatian ethnic supremacy and [[Croatian irredentism]],<ref name="Meier1999-Lampe2006">
* {{cite book|last=Meier|first=Viktor|title=Yugoslavia: a history of its demise|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=InX1QDEq_O8C|access-date=23 December 2011|date=23 July 1999|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-18595-0|page=125}}
* {{cite book|last1=Lampe |first1=John |last2=Mazower |first2=Mark |title=Ideologies and National Identities|publisher=Central European University Press|isbn=9789639241824|year=2006|pages=54–109}}</ref> characterized by intense [[anti-Serbism]], [[antisemitism]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lampe |first1=John |last2=Iordachi |first2=Constantin |title=Battling Over the Balkans: Historiographical Questions and Controversies |date=2019 |publisher=Central European University Press |location=Budapest |isbn=978-963-386-325-1 |page=267}}</ref> and [[antiziganism]],<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Jasenovac.html |title=Concentration Camps: Jasenovac |encyclopedia=[[Jewish Virtual Library]] |access-date=4 September 2015 |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref> combined with a fascist embrace of [[Aryanism|Aryan racial theories]]<ref>[https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/FLAGS/hr_ndh.html Laws on the use of flags in the Independent State of Croatia]. The racial laws of the Independent state of Croatia (texts) include ''Zakonska odredba o zaštiti arijske krvi i časti Hrvatskog naroda'' (Legal determination on protection of Aryan blood and honor of the Croatian people), signed on 30 April 1941 by Ante Pavelić. Article 4 says: {{blockquote|"[...] Non-Aryans [Jews, Roma and others] and the non-State members [citizens without full citizenship rights] are forbidden to hoist the Croatian State and national flag and to display the Croatian national colors and emblems".}}</ref><ref name="sistoryI">[http://www.sistory.si/cdn/publikacije/37001-38000/37516/zakoni_odredbe_knjiga_I_abby.pdf Zgodovina Slovenije - SIstory] Zakoni, zakonske odredbe, naredbe i t. d. proglašene od 11. travnja do 26. svibnja 1941. Knjiga I (svezak 1. - 10.), ur. A. Mataić; Tisak i naklada St. Kugli, Zagreb; str. 107.-108., pristupljeno 24. travnja 2019.</ref> that sought to purify the nation through genocide and forced assimilation. According to Ustaše officials, the creation of an ethnically pure [[Greater Croatia]]n state would ensure the safety of the Croats from the Serbs.<ref name="BalkanEnigma">{{cite web |last1=Johnsen |first1=William T. |title=Deciphering the Balkan Enigma: Using History to Inform Policy |url=https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/1469.pdf |publisher=Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College |pages=37–38 |date=7 November 1995}}</ref>}}
| [[Croatian socialism]]{{refn|group=n|The new economic system promised by the Ustaša was heavily inspired by Italian Fascist [[corporatism]] and went by several different names; Ustaše theoretician Aleksandar Seitz called it "Croatian socialism". This idea was opposed to both communism and capitalism and "attempted to create a psychic unity among the peasant in the village, the worker in the town, intellectuals in garrets, white-collar workers in offices, and warriors on the battlefield". Seitz declared that the aim was to bring together all classes and estates to work for the national community; this national community was held to be a concept opposed to both [[Marxism|Marxists]] and [[capitalism|capitalists]], because "the former knew only of classes, while the latter recognized only free markets."<ref name="books.google.com">Nevenko Bartulin: [https://books.google.com/books?id=8WjxRbkl9eYC Honorary Aryans: National-Racial Identity and Protected Jews in the Independent State of Croatia], Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 63</ref>{{sfn|Yeomans|2014|pp=196-197}}{{sfn|Yeomans|2015|pp=89, 284-285}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Yeomans|first=Rory|title=Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945|year=2012|location=Pittsburgh|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-82297-793-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yxv4-iqVe2wC|pages=196}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 | editor1-last = Badie
 | editor1-first = Bertrand
 | editor1-link = Bertrand Badie
 | editor2-last = Berg-Schlosser
 | editor2-first = Dirk
 | editor2-link = Dirk Berg-Schlosser
 | editor3-last = Morlino
 | editor3-first = Leonardo
 | editor3-link = Leonardo Morlino
 | title = International Encyclopedia of Political Science
 | date =  2011
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Vn2iCQAAQBAJ
 | publisher = Sage Publications
 | publication-date = 2011
 | page =
 | isbn = 9781483305394
 | access-date = 9 September 2020
 | quote = [...] fascist Italy [...] developed a state structure known as the corporate state with the ruling party acting as a mediator between 'corporations' making up the body of the nation. Similar designs were quite popular elsewhere in the 1930s. The most prominent examples were ''Estado Novo'' in Portugal (1932–1968) and Brazil (1937–1945), the Austrian ''Standestaat'' (1933–1938), and authoritarian experiments in Estonia, Romania, and some other countries of East and East-Central Europe, [...]}}</ref>}}
}}
| position         = [[Far-right politics in Croatia|Far-right]]
| attacks          = {{ubl|[[Velebit uprising]]|[[Alexander I of Yugoslavia|Killing of Alexander I]]{{refn|In 1934, a joint Ustasha-IMRO conspiracy would succeed in [[Alexander_I_of_Yugoslavia#Assassination|assassinating Alexander I of Yugoslavia]] during a state visit to France.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uktv.co.uk/yesterday/gallery/aid/595790/image/5775/#gallery |work=[[UKTV History]]|title=Infamous Assassinations-King Alexander|access-date=17 June 2012}}</ref>}}|[[Rašića Gaj massacres]]{{refn|The [[Ustaše]]'s largest [[genocidal massacre]]s were carried out in [[Bosanska Krajina]] and in places in Croatia where Serbs constituted a large proportion of the population including [[Banija]], [[Kordun]], [[Lika]], and northern [[Dalmatia]]. Between 300 000– 350 000 Serbs were killed in massacres and in concentration camps like [[Jasenovac concentration camp|Jasenovac]] and [[Jadovno concentration camp|Jadovno]]. Some 100,000 Serbs, Jews, and anti-fascist Croat were killed at Jasenovac alone.<ref>{{cite web|year=2007|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005449|title=Jasenovac|publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]|access-date=26 September 2007|archive-date=13 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713111937/https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005449|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Croatia|publisher=Shoah Resource Center - Yad Vashem|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf|access-date=17 September 2017|archive-date=4 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104235511/http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205930.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>}}}}
| allies           = [[File:Flag of the IMRO.svg|23px|border]] [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|IMRO]]<br />[[File:Flag of the National Fascist Party (PNF) variant 2.svg|23px|border]] [[National Fascist Party]]
| opponents        = [[File:Flag of the Chetniks.svg|23px|border]] [[Chetniks#Collaboration_with_the_Independent_State_of_Croatia|Chetniks]] (until 1942)<br />[[File:Flag of Yugoslavia (1943–1946).svg|23px|border]] [[Yugoslav Partisans]]
| partof           = [[Main Ustaša Headquarters]]
| battles          = [[World War II in Yugoslavia]]
| size             = {{nowrap|100,000 (May 1941 {{estimation}})<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Pinto |editor1-first=Antonio Costa |editor2-last=Eatwell |editor2-first=Roger |editor3-last=Larsen |editor3-first=Stein Ugelvik |title=Charisma and Fascism |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317834533 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9I7sAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA90}}</ref>}}
| slogan           = ''[[Za dom spremni|Za dom spremni!]]''<ref>
* {{Cite web|title=Pozdrav 'Za dom spremni' ekvivalent je nacističkom 'Sieg Heil!'|url=https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/ustaski-za-dom-spremni-je-ekvivalent-nacistickom-sieg-heil-904408|access-date=2022-12-29|website=www.vecernji.hr|language=hr}}
* {{Cite web|last=Dragčević|first=Vitomir|date=2021-05-14|title='Za dom spremni' je isto što i 'Sieg Heil'!|url=https://net.hr/danas/crna-kronika/za-dom-spremni-je-isto-sto-i-sieg-heil-b33811a0-b1c8-11eb-9e47-0242ac150023|access-date=2022-12-29|website=Net.hr|language=hr-HR}}
* {{cite news |work=[[The Times of Israel]] |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/croatia-removes-plaque-with-wwii-pro-nazi-regimes-slogan-near-death-camp |title=Croatia removes plaque with WWII pro-Nazi regime's slogan near death camp |date=September 7, 2017 |access-date=October 19, 2024 |quote='For the homeland — Ready! salute, used by puppet regime during war, has resurfaced among nationalists and right-wingers}}</ref><br />("For the home—Ready!")
| anthem           = ''Puška puca''<ref>Marches from: Spring: Musical Bulletin of the Ustaška Mladeži . Zagreb 1942, pp. 3–4.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Puška Puca: Anthem of the Ustaša |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MN-iu2Rp9c |website=youtube.com |publisher=Greek Enlightened |language=en |format=video |date=March 12, 2022}}</ref><br />[{{Audio|Puška Puca.ogg|{{lit|As rifles shoot...}}}}]
}}
{{Fascism sidebar}}

The '''Ustaše''' ({{IPA|hr|ûstaʃe|pron}}), also known by anglicised versions '''Ustasha''' or '''Ustashe''',{{refn|group=n|They are variously known in English as the ''Ustaše'', ''Ustashe'', ''Ustashi'', ''Ustahis'', or ''Ustashas'' ([[OED]] 2020 adds ''Ustachi'', ''Ustaci'', ''Ustasha'', ''Ustaša'', and ''Ustasi''); with the associated adjective sometimes being ''Ustashe'' or ''Ustasha'', apart from ''Ustaše''. This variance stems from the fact that ''Ustaše'' is the plural form of ''Ustaša'' in the [[Serbo-Croatian language]].}} was a [[Croats|Croatian]] [[fascist]] and [[ultranationalist]] organization{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=32}} active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the '''Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement''' ({{langx|hr|Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret}}). From its inception and before the [[World War II|Second World War]], the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]], including collaborating with [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|IMRO]] to assassinate King [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia#Assassination of Alexander I|Alexander I of Yugoslavia]] in 1934.<ref name="sachar">The Assassination of Europe, 1918-1942: A Political History, Howard M. Sachar, University of Toronto Press, 2014, {{ISBN|9781442609181}}, pp. 251–258.</ref> During [[World War II in Yugoslavia]], the Ustaše went on to perpetrate [[The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia|the Holocaust]] and [[genocide]] against its [[Jews|Jewish]], [[Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|Serb]] and [[Romani Holocaust#Independent State of Croatia|Roma]] populations,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=351–352}} killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as [[Muslims (ethnic group)|Muslim]] and Croat political dissidents.<ref name="kroatische"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/1673249.stm|title=Croatian holocaust still stirs controversy|work=BBC News|date=29 November 2001|access-date=29 September 2010}}</ref><ref name="bbc">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4479837.stm|title=Balkan 'Auschwitz' haunts Croatia|work=BBC News|date=25 April 2005|access-date=29 September 2010|quote=No one really knows how many died here. Serbs talk of 700,000. Most estimates put the figure nearer 100,000.}}</ref>

The ideology of the movement was a blend of [[fascism]], [[Roman Catholicism]] and [[Croatian nationalism|Croatian]] [[ultranationalism]].<ref name="kroatische"/> The Ustaše supported the creation of a [[Greater Croatia]] that would span the [[Drina]] River and extend to the border of [[Belgrade]].<ref>Meier, Viktor. ''Yugoslavia: a history of its demise'' (English), London: Routledge, 1999, p. 125. {{ISBN|9780415185950}}</ref> The movement advocated a [[Racial purity|racially "pure"]] Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs—due to the Ustaše's [[anti-Serb sentiment]]—and Holocaust against Jews and [[Genocide of Romani people in the Independent State of Croatia|Roma]] via [[Nazi racial theory]], and persecution of [[Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia|anti-fascist]] or dissident Croats and Bosniaks. The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as "[[Croat Muslims|Muslim Croats]]", and as a result, Bosniaks were not persecuted on the basis of race.<ref name="fischer"/> The Ustaše espoused [[Catholic Church in Croatia|Roman Catholicism]] and [[Islam in Croatia|Islam]] as the religions of the Croats and condemned [[Eastern Orthodoxy in Croatia|Orthodox Christianity]], which was the main religion of the Serbs. Roman Catholicism was identified with Croatian nationalism,<ref name="Lonely Cold War">Kent, Peter C. ''The lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: the Roman Catholic Church and the division of Europe, 1943–1950'', McGill-Queen's Press (MQUP), 2002 p. 46; {{ISBN|978-0-7735-2326-5}}<br />"''Fiercely nationalistic, the Ustaše were also fervently Catholic, identifying, in the Yugoslav political context, Catholicism with Croatian nationalism...''"</ref> while Islam, which had a large following in [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]], was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats."<ref name="Jelić-Butić">{{cite book |last1=Jelić-Butić |first1=Fikreta |title=Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska 1941–1945 |date=1977 |publisher=Sveučilišna naklada Liber}}</ref>{{pn|date=November 2023}}

It was founded as a nationalist organization that sought to [[Croatian question|create an independent Croatian state]]. It functioned as a [[Terrorism|terrorist]] organization before World War II.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=30}}<ref name="kroatische"/> After the [[invasion of Yugoslavia]] in April 1941, the Ustaše came to power when they were appointed to rule a part of [[Axis powers|Axis]]-occupied Yugoslavia as the [[Independent State of Croatia]] (NDH), a [[Quasi-state|quasi]]-[[protectorate]]{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=233–241}} [[puppet state]] established by [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]] and [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="USHMM">[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005456 Yugoslavia], ''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website; accessed 25 April 2014.</ref><ref name=CRIMES>{{cite book|last=Watch|first=Helsinki|title=War Crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nltdtAo38K0C&pg=PA14|access-date=23 April 2008|year=1993|publisher=Human Rights Watch|isbn=978-1-56432-083-4}}</ref><ref name=STATEHOOD>{{cite book|last=Raič|first=David|title=Statehood and the law of self-determination|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L7UOyPGYBkwC&pg=PA81|access-date=23 April 2008|year=2002|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|isbn=978-90-411-1890-5}}</ref> The [[Ustaše Militia]] ({{langx|hr|Ustaška vojnica}}) became its military wing in the new state.<ref name="kroatische"/>

The Ustaše regime was militarily weak and failed to ever attain significant support among Croats. Therefore, terror was their means of controlling the "ethnically disparate" population.{{sfn|Shepherd|2012|p=78}}<ref name="Israeli">{{cite book |last1=Israeli |first1=Raphael |title=The Death Camps of Croatia: Visions and Revisions, 1941–1945 |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-35148-403-9 |page=45 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uxwuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA45}}</ref> The Ustaše regime was initially backed by some parts of the Croat population that in the [[interwar period]] had felt oppressed by the Serb-led Yugoslavia, but their brutal policies quickly alienated many ordinary Croats and resulted in a loss of the support they had gained by creating a Croatian national state.<ref name="Sindbaek2002">{{cite book|last=Sindbaek|first=Tina|title=Usable History?: Representations of Yugoslavia's Difficult Past from 1945 to 2002|year=2002|publisher=Aarhus University Press|page=27}}</ref> 

With the [[German Instrument of Surrender|German surrender]], [[end of World War II in Europe]], and the establishment of [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|socialist Yugoslavia]] in 1945, the Ustaše movement and their state totally collapsed. Many members of the Ustaše militia and [[Croatian Home Guard (World War II)|Croatian Home Guard]] who subsequently fled the country were taken as [[prisoners of war]] and subjected to forced marches and executions during the [[Bleiburg repatriations]]. Various underground and exile successor organisations created by former Ustaše members, such as the [[Crusaders (guerrilla)|Crusaders]] and the [[Croatian Liberation Movement]], have tried to continue the movement to little success.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

==Name==
The word ''ustaša'' (plural: ''ustaše'') is derived from the intransitive verb ''ustati'' (Croatian for ''rise up''). "{{lang|hr|Pučki-ustaša}}" ({{langx|de|[[Landsturm]]}}) was a military rank in the [[Imperial Croatian Home Guard]] (1868–1918). The same term was the name of Croatian third-class infantry regiments ({{langx|de|Landsturm regiments}}) during World War I (1914–1918).{{citation needed|date=April 2020}} Another variation of the word ''ustati'' is ''ustanik'' (plural: ''ustanici'') which means an [[Insurgency|insurgent]], or a rebel. The name ''ustaša'' did not have fascist connotations during the early years of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the term "ustat" was itself used in [[Herzegovina]] to denote the insurgents from the [[Herzegovina Uprising (1875-1878)|Herzegovinian rebellion]] of 1875. The full original name of the organization appeared in April 1931 as the {{lang|hr|Ustaša – Hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija}} or UHRO (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Organization). In 1933 it was renamed the {{lang|hr|Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret}} (Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement), a name it kept until World War II.<ref name="kroatische"/> In English, Ustasha, Ustashe, Ustashas and Ustashi are used for the movement or its members.{{Citation needed|date=November 2020}}

==Ideology==
===Ideological roots===
[[File:Mussolini and Pavelic 1941.jpg|thumb|left|275px|''[[Poglavnik]]'' [[Ante Pavelić]] and Italy's ''[[Duce]]'' [[Benito Mussolini]] on 18 May 1941 in [[Rome]]. The Ustaše were heavily influenced by [[Italian Fascism]] and politically supported by Fascist Italy.]]
[[File:Adolf Hitler meets Ante Pavelić.1941.jpg|thumb|left|275px|Germany's ''[[Führer]]'' [[Adolf Hitler]] with Pavelić at the [[Berghof (residence)|Berghof]] outside [[Berchtesgaden]], Germany. The Ustaše increasingly came under the influence of [[Nazism]] after the founding of the NDH in 1941.]]

One of the major ideological influences on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše was 19th century Croatian activist [[Ante Starčević]],<ref name="fischer"/> an advocate of Croatian unity and independence, who was both anti-[[Habsburg]] and anti-Serbian in outlook.<ref name="fischer">{{harvnb|Fischer|2007|pp=207–208, 210, 226}}</ref>

He envisioned the creation of a [[Greater Croatia]] that would include territories inhabited by [[Bosniaks]], [[Serbs]], and [[Slovenes]], considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to [[Islam]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]], and considered the Slovenes "mountain Croats".<ref name="fischer"/> Starčević argued that the large Serb presence in territories claimed by a Greater Croatia was the result of recent settlement, encouraged by Habsburg rulers, and the influx of groups like [[Vlachs]] who took up Orthodox Christianity and identified themselves as Serbs. Starčević admired Bosniaks because in his view they were Croats who had adopted Islam in order to preserve the economic and political autonomy of Bosnia and Croatia under the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] occupation.<ref name="fischer"/>

The Ustaše used Starčević's theories to promote their own annexation of [[Bosnia (region)|Bosnia]] and Herzegovina to Croatia and recognized Croatia as having two major ethnocultural components: Catholics and Muslims.<ref name="fischer"/> The Ustaše sought to represent Starčević as being connected to their views.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=117}} [[Josip Frank]] seceded his extreme fraction from Starčević's [[Party of Rights]] and formed his own, the [[Pure Party of Rights]], which became the main pool of members of the subsequent Ustaše movement.{{sfn|Kallis|2008|p=130}}{{sfn|Yeomans|2015|p=265}}{{sfn|McCormick|2008}}{{sfn|Newman|2017}} Historian John Paul Newman stated that [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] officers' "unfaltering opposition to Yugoslavia provided a blueprint for the Croatian radical right, the Ustaše".{{sfn|Newman|2014}}

The Ustaše promoted the theories of [[Milan Šufflay]], who is believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when the nation of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=118}} Šufflay was killed in Zagreb in 1931 by government supporters.<ref name="NYT04.06.31">[https://www.nytimes.com/1931/05/06/archives/einstein-accuses-yugoslavian-rulers-in-savants-murder-charges-the.html "Einstein accuses Yugoslavian rulers in savant's murder"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 6 May 1931. [http://crostamps.com/nyt/nyt.htm mirror]</ref><ref name="RaditchTimes">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/08/23/archives/raditch-left-tale-of-yugoslav-plot-account-of-parliament-murders-in.html|title=Raditch left tale of Yugoslav plot|newspaper=The New York Times|date=23 August 1931|access-date=6 December 2008|page=N2}}[http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/raditch.pdf mirror]</ref>

The Ustaše accepted the 1935 thesis of [[Krunoslav Draganović]], a Catholic priest who claimed that many Catholics in southern Herzegovina had been converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to justify their own policy of forcible conversion of Orthodox Christians to [[Catholicism]].{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=126}}

The Ustaše were heavily influenced by Nazism and fascism. Its leader, Ante Pavelić, held the position of ''Poglavnik'', which was based on the similar positions of ''Duce'' held by Benito Mussolini and ''Führer'' held by Adolf Hitler.<ref name="fischer"/> The Ustaše, like fascists, promoted a [[Corporatism|corporatist]] economy.<ref name="djilas"/> Pavelić and the Ustaše were allowed sanctuary in Italy by Mussolini after being exiled from Yugoslavia. Pavelić had been in negotiations with Fascist Italy since 1927 that included advocating a territory-for-sovereignty swap in which he would tolerate Italy annexing its claimed territory in [[Dalmatia]] in exchange for Italy supporting the sovereignty of an independent Croatia.<ref name="fischer"/> The Ustaše ideology has also been characterized as [[clerical fascism]]<ref>''Fascism: Past, Present, Future''
By Walter Laqueur. p. 263</ref> by several authors, who emphasize the importance the movement attached to Roman Catholicism.

Mussolini's support of the Ustaše was based on pragmatic considerations, such as maximizing Italian influence in the Balkans and the Adriatic. After 1937, with the weakening of French influence in Europe following Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland and with the rise of a quasi-fascist government in Yugoslavia under [[Milan Stojadinović]], Mussolini abandoned support for the Ustaše from 1937 to 1939 and sought to improve relations with Yugoslavia, fearing that continued hostility towards Yugoslavia would result in Yugoslavia entering Germany's sphere of influence.<ref name="VanCreveld">[[Martin van Creveld|Van Creveld, Martin L.]] ''Hitler's Strategy 1940–1941: The Balkan Clue''. 2nd ed. London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974. pp. 6–8 {{ISBN|9780521201438}}</ref>

[[File:Partizani cetnici.jpg|thumb|upright|Anti-[[Chetnik]] ([[Anti-Serbian sentiment|anti-Serb]]) and anti-communist Ustaše poster]]
The collapse of the quasi-fascist Stojadinović regime resulted in Italy restoring its support for the Ustaše, whose aim was to create an independent Croatia in personal union with Italy.<ref name="VanCreveld"/> However, distrust of the Ustaše grew. Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian foreign minister Count [[Galeazzo Ciano]] noted in his diary that "The Duce is indignant with Pavelić, because he claims that the Croats are descendants of the Goths. This will have the effect of bringing them into the German orbit".<ref name="ciano">Galeazzo Ciano, Count; [[Malcolm Muggeridge]] (translator). ''Ciano's diary, 1939–1943''. W. Heinemann, 1950, p. 392.<!-- ISBN/ISSN needed, if any --></ref>

Hungary strongly supported the Ustaše for two aims. One, in order to weaken Yugoslavia, [[Little Entente]], in order to ultimately regain some of its lost territories. The other, Hungary also wished to establish later in the future a strong alliance with the Independent State of Croatia and possibly enter a personal union.{{sfn|Hamerli|2015}}

Nazi Germany initially did not support an independent Croatia, nor did it support the Ustaše, with Hitler stressing the importance of a "strong and united Yugoslavia".<ref name="VanCreveld"/> Nazi officials, including [[Hermann Göring]], wanted Yugoslavia stable and officially neutral during the war so Germany could continue to securely gain Yugoslavia's raw material exports.<ref name="VanCreveld"/> The Nazis grew irritated with the Ustaše, among them Reichsfuhrer SS [[Heinrich Himmler]], who was dissatisfied with the lack of full compliance by the NDH to the Nazis' agenda of extermination of the Jews, as the Ustaše permitted Jews who converted to Catholicism to be recognized as "honorary Croats", thus putatively exempt from persecution.<ref name="fischer"/>

===Political programme and main agendas===
In 1932, an editorial in the first issue of the ''Ustaše'' newspaper, signed by the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić, proclaimed that violence and terror would be the main means for the Ustaše to attain their goals:<blockquote>The KNIFE, REVOLVER, MACHINE GUN and TIME BOMB; these are the idols, these are bells that will announce the dawning and THE RESURRECTION OF THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA.{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=92}}</blockquote>

In 1933, the Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles" that formed the official ideology of the movement. The Principles stated the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights and declared that people who were not Croat by "[[Heredity|blood]]" would be excluded from political life.<ref name="fischer"/>

Those considered "undesirables" were subjected to mass murder.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=119}} These principles called for the creation of a new economic system that would be neither [[Capitalism|capitalist]] nor [[Communism|communist]]<ref name="fischer"/> and which would emphasize the importance of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and the [[patriarchial]] family as means to maintain social order and morality.<ref name="fischer"/> (The name given by modern historians to this particular aspect of Ustaše ideology varies; "[[national Catholicism]]",<ref name="Payne1996">{{cite book|author=Stanley G. Payne|title=A History of Fascism, 1914–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_MeR06xqXAC&pg=PA406|year=1996|publisher=University of Wisconsin Pres|isbn=978-0-299-14873-7|page=406}}</ref> "[[political Catholicism]]" and "Catholic Croatism"<ref name="Lampe2004">{{cite book|author=John R. Lampe|title=Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gE1c4wK-ASAC&pg=PA102|year=2004|publisher=Central European University Press|isbn=978-963-9241-82-4|page=102}}</ref> have been proposed among others.) In power, the Ustaše banned [[contraception]] and tightened laws against [[blasphemy]].<ref name="Atkin">Atkin, Nicholas and Frank Tallet. ''Priests, Prelates and People: A History of European Catholicism since 1750''. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2003. p. 248. {{ISBN|9781860646652}}</ref>
[[File:Ustasha gathering in Zagreb.ogv|thumb|left|Ustaše gathering in [[Zagreb]]]]

The Ustaše accepted that Croats are part of the [[Dinaric race]],<ref name="trinchese">Caccamo, Francesco and Trinchese, Stefano. ''Rotte adriatiche. Tra Italia, Balcani e Mediterraneo''. FrancoAngeli, 2011. p. 158. {{ISBN|9788856833027}}</ref> but rejected the idea that Croats are primarily Slavic, claiming they primarily come from Germanic roots with the [[Goths]].<ref>Rich, Norman. ''Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order'' (1974), pp. 276–277. W.W. Norton & Co: New York. {{ISBN|9780393332902}}</ref> The Ustaše believed that a government must naturally be strong and authoritarian. The movement opposed [[parliamentary democracy]] for being "corrupt" and [[Marxism]] and [[Bolshevism]] for interfering in family life and the economy and for their [[materialism]]. The Ustaše considered competing political parties and elected parliaments to be harmful to its own interests.<ref name="djilas"/>{{what|date=May 2023}}

The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as national religions of the Croatian people but initially rejected Orthodox Christianity as being incompatible with their objectives.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=118}} Although the Ustaše emphasized religious themes, it stressed that duty to the nation took precedence over religious custom.<ref name="Greble125">Greble, Emily. ''Sarajevo, 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Hitler's Europe''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2011. p. 125. {{ISBN|9780801449215}}</ref>

In power, the Ustaše banned the use of the term "Serbian Orthodox faith", requiring "Greek-Eastern faith" in its place.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=119}} The Ustaše forcefully converted many Orthodox to Catholicism, murdered and expelled 85% of Orthodox priests,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=529}} and plundered and burnt many Orthodox Christian churches.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=529}} The Ustaše also persecuted [[Old Catholics]] who did not recognize [[papal infallibility]].{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=119}} On 2 July 1942 the [[Croatian Orthodox Church]] was founded, as a further means to destroy the [[Serbian Orthodox Church]], but this new church gained very few followers and was abolished in 1945.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=546}}

=== Antisemitism ===
{{See also|The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia}}

While initial focus was against Serbs, as the Ustaše grew closer to the Nazis they adopted antisemitism.{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=93}} In 1936, in "The Croat Question", Ante Pavelić placed Jews third among "the Enemies of the Croats" (after Serbs and [[Freemasons]], but before Communists): writing:<blockquote>″Today, practically all finance and nearly all commerce in Croatia is in Jewish hands. This became possible only through the support of the state, which thereby seeks, on one hand, to strengthen the pro-Serbian Jews, and on the other, to weaken Croat national strength. The Jews celebrated the establishment of the so-called Yugoslav state with great joy, because a national Croatia could never be as useful to them as a multi-national Yugoslavia; for in national chaos lies the power of the Jews... In fact, as the Jews had foreseen, Yugoslavia became, in consequence of the corruption of official life in Serbia, a true Eldorado of Jewry."<ref>{{cite web|title=Ante Pavelic: The Croat Question|url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/history/faculty/kelly/blogs/h312/wp-content/sources/pavelic.pdf|url-status=dead|access-date=25 November 2017|archive-date=25 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025022502/http://chnm.gmu.edu/history/faculty/kelly/blogs/h312/wp-content/sources/pavelic.pdf}}</ref></blockquote>

Once in power, the Ustaše immediately introduced a series of Nazi-style racial laws. On 30 April 1941, the Ustaše proclaimed the "Legal Decree on Racial Origins", the "Legal Decree on the Protection of Aryan Blood and the Honor of the Croatian People", and the "Legal Provision on Citizenship".{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=115}} These decrees defined who was a Jew, and took away the citizenship rights of all non-Aryans, i.e. Jews and Roma. By the end of April 1941, months before the Nazis implemented similar measures in Germany and over a year after they were implemented in occupied Poland, the Ustaše required all Jews to wear insignia, typically a yellow [[Star of David]].{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=121}} The Ustaše declared the "Legal Provision on the Nationalization of the Property of Jews and Jewish Companies", on 10 October 1941, and with it they confiscated all Jewish property.{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=170}}

Already on their first day, 10–11 April 1941, Ustaše arrested a group of prominent Zagreb Jews and held them for ransom. On 13 April the same was done in [[Osijek]], where Ustaše and [[Volksdeutsche]]r mobs also destroyed the synagogue and Jewish graveyard. This process was repeated multiple times in 1941 with groups of Jews. Simultaneously, the Ustaše initiated extensive antisemitic propaganda, with Ustaše papers writing that Croatians must "be more alert than any other ethnic group to protect their racial purity, ... We need to keep our blood clean of the Jews". They also wrote that Jews are synonymous with "treachery, cheating, greed, immorality and foreigness", and therefore "wide swaths of the Croatian people always despised the Jews and felt towards them natural revulsion".{{sfn|Zuckerman|2010}}

In May 1941, the Ustaše rounded up 165 Jewish youth in Zagreb, members of the Jewish sports club Makabi, and sent them to the [[Danica concentration camp]]. All but three were later killed by the Ustaše.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.vecernji.hr/zvonimir-despot/2012/02/09/kako-je-osnovan-prvi-ustaski-logor-u-ndh/|title=Kako je osnovan prvi ustaški logor u NDH|last=Despot|first=Zvonimir|publisher=Vecernji list|access-date=30 March 2020|archive-date=1 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201223943/http://blog.vecernji.hr/zvonimir-despot/2012/02/09/kako-je-osnovan-prvi-ustaski-logor-u-ndh/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Ustaše sent most Jews to Ustaše and Nazi concentration camps—including the notorious, Ustaše-run [[Jasenovac concentration camp]]—where nearly 32,000, or 80% of the Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, were killed.<ref>[https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/jasenovac/frameset.html "Holocaust Era in Croatia 1941–1945: Jasenovac"] [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]</ref> In October 1941, the Ustaše mayor of Zagreb ordered the demolition of the [[Zagreb Synagogue]], which was completely demolished by April 1942.<ref name="Knezevic_en">{{cite book|last=Knežević|first=Snješka|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/en/education/zagreb1.pdf|title=The Synagogue and Zagreb|publisher=Jewish Community of Zagreb|year=2001|pages=42–46|section=The Synagogue of Zagreb, 1867–1942|access-date=2018-12-13}}</ref> The Ustaše persecuted Jews who practiced [[Judaism]] but authorized Jewish converts to Catholicism to be recognized as Croatian citizens and be given honorary Aryan citizenship that allowed them to be reinstated at the jobs from which they had previously been separated.<ref name="Greble125"/> After they stripped Jews of their citizenship rights, the Ustaše allowed some to apply for Aryan rights via bribes and/or through connections to prominent Ustaše. The whole process was highly arbitrary. Only 2% of Zagreb's Jews were granted Aryan rights, for example. Also, Aryan rights did not guarantee permanent protection from being sent to concentration camps or other persecution.{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|pp=127–135}}

===Views on Muslims===
Islam, which had a large following in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats."<ref name="Jelić-Butić" /> The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as "[[Croat Muslims|Muslim Croats]]", and as a result, they were not persecuted on the basis of race.<ref name="fischer"/> However, Muslims were not free from Ustaše persecution and atrocities, even if they were not targeted on a religious or ethnic basis. The majority of Muslims preferred a return to [[Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina|autonomy under Habsburg rule]] and were reportedly either neutral or opposed to the Ustaše regime. Despite Pavelić’s promises of equality between Catholics and Muslims, many Muslims became dissatisfied with Croat rule.<ref name="Lepre">{{Cite book |last1=Lepre |first1=George |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/234472255/Himmler-s-Bosnian-Division-the-Waffen-SS-Handschar-Division-1943-1945 |title=Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943–1945 |pages=14–18 |publisher=Schiffer Military History |isbn= 9780764301346}}</ref> Muslims (Bosniaks) comprised approximately 12% of the civil service and armed forces of the NDH.{{sfn|Velikonja|2003|p=179}}

=== Other measures ===
{{See also|Croatian socialism}}
Economically, the Ustaše supported the creation of a corporatist economy.<ref name="djilas"/><ref name="Atkin"/><ref name="griffin">Griffin, Roger. ''The Nature of Fascism''. Digital Printing edition. New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 120. {{ISBN|9781136145889}}</ref> The movement believed that natural rights existed to [[private property]] and [[Petite bourgeoisie|ownership over small-scale means of production]] free from state control. Armed struggle, revenge and terrorism were glorified.<ref name="djilas"/>

Decrees enacted by the regime formed the basis that allowed it to get rid of all unwanted employees in state and local government and in state enterprises, the "unwanted" being all Jews, Serbs and Yugoslav-oriented Croats who were all thrown out except for some deemed specifically needed by the government. This would leave a multitude of jobs to be filled by Ustašes and pro-Ustaše adherents and would lead to government jobs being filled by people with no professional qualifications.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=381–382}} Dalmatian-American historian [[Jozo Tomasevich]] in ''War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941–1945'' remarks "never before in history had Croats been exposed to such legalized administrative, police and judicial brutality and abuse as during the Ustaša regime."{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=381–382}}

==History==
===Before World War II===
During the 1920s, Ante Pavelić, a lawyer, politician and follower of Josip Frank's [[Pure Party of Rights]], became the leading advocate for Croatian independence.{{sfn|McCormick|2008}} In 1927, he secretly contacted [[Benito Mussolini]], dictator of [[Italy]] and founder of [[fascism]], to present his [[separatism|separatist]] ideas.{{sfn|Suppan|2014|pp=39, 592}} Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia covering the entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats.{{sfn|Suppan|2014|pp=39, 592}} Historian [[Rory Yeomans]] claimed there were signs appearing as early as 1928 that Pavelić was considering the formation of a nationalist insurgency group.{{sfn|Yeomans|2014|p=6}}

In October 1928, after the assassination of leading Croatian politician [[Stjepan Radić]], ([[Croatian Peasant Party]] President in the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia|Yugoslav Assembly]]) by radical Montenegrin politician [[Puniša Račić]], a youth group named the Croat Youth Movement was founded by [[Branimir Jelić]] at the [[University of Zagreb]]. A year later, Pavelić was invited by the 21-year-old Jelić into the organization as a junior member. A related movement, the Domobranski Pokret—which had been the name of the legal Croatian army in Austria-Hungary—began publication of ''Hrvatski Domobran'', a newspaper dedicated to Croatian national matters. The Ustaše sent ''Hrvatski Domobran'' to the [[United States]] to garner support from [[Croatian-Americans]].<ref>Kivisto, Peter. ''The Ethnic enigma: the salience of ethnicity for European-origin groups''. Cranbury, NJ/London, UK/Mississauga, Canada: Associated University Press, 1989. p. 107 {{ISBN|9780944190036}}</ref> The organization around the ''Domobran'' tried to engage with and radicalize moderate Croats, using Radić's assassination to stir up emotions within the divided country. By 1929 two divergent Croatian political streams had formed: those who supported Pavelić's view that only violence could secure Croatia's national interests, and a much larger group supporting the Croatian Peasant Party, led then by [[Vladko Maček]], successor to Stjepan Radić.<ref name="djilas">Đilas, Aleksa. ''The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919–1953'', Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 114–115, 129. {{ISBN|9780674166981}}</ref>

Various members of the [[Party of Rights (1861–1929)|Croatian Party of Rights]] contributed to the writing of the ''Domobran'', until around Christmas 1928 when the newspaper was banned by authorities of the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]]. In January 1929 the king banned all national parties,<ref>Jović, Dejan. ''Yugoslavia: a state that withered away'', p. 51<!-- ISBN, publisher needed --></ref> and the radical wing of the Party of Rights was exiled, including Pavelić, Jelić and Gustav Perčec. This group was later joined by several other Croatian exiles. On 22 March 1929, [[Zvonimir Pospišil]], [[Mijo Babić]], [[Marko Hranilović]], and Matija Soldin murdered Toni Šlegel, the chief editor of newspaper ''[[Novosti (Croatia)|Novosti]]'' from Zagreb and president of ''Jugoštampa'', which was the beginning of the terrorist actions of Ustaše. Hranilović and Soldin were arrested and executed for the murder.<ref>{{harv|Colić|1973|p=34}}:"Ustaške terorističke akcije počele su 22. marta 1929. godine u Zagrebu, gdje su Mijo Babić i Zvonko Pospišil revolverskim hicima ubili glavnog urednika zagrebačkih »Novosti« i predsjednika »Jugoštampe« Toni Šlegela."</ref> On 20 April 1929 Pavelić and others co-signed a declaration in [[Sofia, Bulgaria]], with members of the [[Macedonians (Bulgarians)|Macedonian]] National Committee, asserting that they would pursue "their legal activities for the establishment of human and national rights, political freedom and complete independence for both Croatia and Macedonia".{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} The Court for the Preservation of the State in [[Belgrade]] sentenced Pavelić and Perčec to death on 17 July 1929.

The exiles started organizing support for their cause among the [[Croatian diaspora]] in Europe, as well as North and South America. In January 1932 they named their revolutionary organization "''Ustaša"''. The Ustaše carried out terrorist acts intended to maximize damage to Yugoslavia. From their training camps in fascist Italy and Hungary, they planted time bombs on international trains bound for Yugoslavia, causing deaths and material damage.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=33}} In November 1932 ten Ustaše, led by [[Andrija Artuković]] and supported by four local sympathizers, attacked a gendarme outpost at Brušani in the [[Lika]]/[[Velebit]] area, in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Yugoslav authorities. The incident has sometimes been termed the "[[Velebit uprising]]". {{citation needed|date=April 2014}}

====Assassination of King Alexander I====
[[File:1934-10-17 King Alexander Assassination.ogv|thumb|left|287px|[[Universal Newsreel]]'s film about the assassination of Alexander I]]
The Ustaše's most infamous terrorist act was carried out on 9 October 1934, when, working with the [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]] (IMRO), they assassinated King [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia]] in Marseille, France. The perpetrator,  Bulgarian revolutionary [[Vlado Chernozemski]], was killed by French police.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=33–34}} Three Ustaše members who had been waiting at different locations for the king—[[Mijo Kralj]], Zvonimir Pospišil and Milan Rajić—were captured and sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court. Following the [[German invasion of France (1940)|German invasion of France]], the men were released from prison.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=33}}

Ante Pavelić, along with [[Dido Kvaternik|Eugen Kvaternik]] and Ivan Perčević, were subsequently sentenced to death ''in absentia'' by a French court, as the real organizers of the plot. The Ustaše believed that the assassination of King Alexander had effectively "broken the backbone of Yugoslavia" and was their "most important achievement."{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=33–34}}

Soon after the assassination, all organizations related to the Ustaše as well as the ''Hrvatski Domobran'', which continued as a civil organization, were banned throughout Europe. Under pressure from France, the Italian police arrested Pavelić and several Ustaše emigrants in October 1934. Pavelić was imprisoned in [[Turin]] and released in March 1936. After he met with Eugen Dido Kvaternik, he stated that assassination was "the only language Serbs understand". While in prison, Pavelić was informed of the 1935 election in Yugoslavia, when the coalition led by Croat Vladko Maček won. He stated that his victory was aided by the activity of Ustaše.{{sfn|Matković|2002|p=17}} By the mid-1930s, graffiti with the initials ''ŽAP'' meaning "Long live Ante Pavelić" ({{langx|hr|Živio Ante Pavelić}}) had begun to appear on the streets of Zagreb.{{sfn|Goldstein|2006|p=229}} During the 1930s, a split developed between the "home" ''Ustaše'' members who stayed behind in Croatia and Bosnia to struggle against Yugoslavia and the "emigre" ''Ustaše'' who went abroad.{{sfn|Yeomans|2011|p=190}} Emigre ''Ustaše'' who had a much lower educational level were viewed as violent, ignorant and fanatical by the home ''Ustaše'', who were in turn dismissed as "soft" by the emigres, seeing themselves as a "warrior-elite".{{sfn|Yeomans|2011|p=190}}

After March 1937, when Italy and Yugoslavia signed a pact of friendship, Ustaše and their activities had been banned. This attracted the attention of young Croats, especially university students, who became sympathizers or members. In 1936, the Yugoslav government offered amnesty to those ''Ustaše'' abroad provided they promised to renounce violence; many of the emigre faction accepted the amnesty.{{sfn|Yeomans|2011|pp=190–191}} &nbsp;In the late 1930s, the ''Ustaše'' began infiltrating the para-military organizations of the Croat Peasant Party, the Croatian Defense Force and the Peasant Civil Party.{{sfn|Yeomans|2011|p=191}} At the University of Zagreb, an ''Ustaše''-linked student group become the largest single student group by 1939.{{sfn|Yeomans|2011|p=191}} In February 1939 two returnees from detention, [[Mile Budak]] and Ivan Oršanić, became editors{{citation needed|date=September 2021}} of the pro-Ustaše journal ''Hrvatski narod'', known in English as ''The Croatian Nation''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lamoth.info/?p=creators/creator&id=1402|title=Hrvatski Narod (Croatian Nation), Croatian periodical|publisher=Holocaust Museum LA|access-date=27 September 2021}}</ref>

===World War II===
The [[Axis powers]] [[Invasion of Yugoslavia|invaded Yugoslavia]] on 6 April 1941. Vladko Maček, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), which was the most influential party in Croatia at the time, rejected German offers to lead the new government. On 10 April the most senior home-based Ustaše, [[Slavko Kvaternik]], took control of the police in Zagreb and in a radio broadcast that day proclaimed the formation of the [[Independent State of Croatia]] (''Nezavisna Država Hrvatska'', NDH). The name of the state was an attempt to capitalise on the Croat struggle for independence. Maček issued a statement that day, calling on all Croatians to cooperate with the new authorities.<ref>[[Vladko Maček|Maček, Vladko]]. ''In the Struggle for Freedom'' (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1957), p. 230.</ref>{{better source needed|date=April 2020}}

[[File:Black Legion 1942.jpg|thumb|A unit of Ustaše in [[Sarajevo]]]]
Meanwhile, Pavelić and several hundred Ustaše left their camps in Italy for Zagreb, where he declared a new government on 16 April 1941.<ref name="fischer"/> He accorded himself the title of "Poglavnik"—a Croatian approximation to "Führer". The Independent State of Croatia was declared on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory",{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=466}} what is today [[Croatia|Republic of Croatia]] (without [[Istria]]), [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]], [[Syrmia]] and the [[Bay of Kotor]]. However, a few days after the declaration of independence, the Ustaše were forced<ref name="fischer"/> to sign the [[Treaties of Rome (1941)|Treaty of Rome]] where they surrendered part of Dalmatia and [[Krk (island)|Krk]], [[Rab (island)|Rab]], [[Korčula (island)|Korčula]], [[Biograd]], [[Šibenik]], [[Split, Croatia|Split]], [[Čiovo]], [[Šolta]], [[Mljet]] and part of [[Konavle]] and the [[Bay of Kotor]] to [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]]. ''De facto'' control over this territory varied over the course of the war, as the [[Yugoslav Partisans]] grew more successful, while the Germans and Italians increasingly exercised direct control over areas of interest. The Germans and Italians split the NDH into two zones of influence: the southwest, controlled by the Italians, and the northeast, controlled by the Germans. As a result, the NDH has been described as "an Italian-German quasi-protectorate". In September 1943, after Italian capitulation, the NDH re-occupied the whole territory annexed by Italy through the Treaty of Rome.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=233–302}}

The decline in support for the Ustaše regime among ethnic Croats of those initially for the government began with the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy, considered as the heartland of the state and worsened with the internal lawlessness from Ustaše persecutions.{{sfn|Trifković|2020|p=85}}

====Ustaše militia====
[[File:Chetniks, Ustasa, and Domobrani.jpg|thumb|200px|Meeting in Bosnia between representatives of the [[Chetniks]] and Independent State of Croatia officers (including the [[Ustaše militia]] and the [[Croatian Home Guard (Independent State of Croatia)|Croatian Home Guard]])]]
The [[Army of the Independent State of Croatia]] was composed of enlistees who did not participate in Ustaše activities. The Ustaše Militia was organised in 1941 into five (later 15) 700-man battalions, two railway security battalions and the elite [[Black Legion (Ustaše militia)|Black Legion]] and Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (later Brigade).{{sfn|Thomas|Mikulan|1995|p=}} They were predominantly recruited among uneducated population and working class.<ref>{{harv|Yeomans|2015|p=301}}:"The social background of rankand-file Ustasha recruits was overwhelmingly working class and uneducated;"</ref>

On 27 April 1941 a newly formed unit of the Ustaše army killed members of the largely Serbian community of Gudovac, near [[Bjelovar]]. Eventually all who opposed and/or threatened the Ustaše were outlawed. The HSS was banned on 11 June 1941, in an attempt by the Ustaše to take their place as the primary representative of the Croatian peasantry. Vladko Maček was sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp, but later released to serve a [[house arrest]] sentence due to his popularity among the people. Maček was later again called upon by foreigners to take a stand and oppose the Pavelić government, but refused. In early 1941 Jews and Serbs were ordered to leave certain areas of Zagreb.<ref name="ushmm">{{cite web|year=1941|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005456&MediaId=2156|title=Photography |publisher=Jewish Historical Museum of Yugoslavia|access-date=3 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080213091101/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005456&MediaId=2156|archive-date=13 February 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Some were sent to concentration camps and subsequently killed. For a description of these deportations and the treatment in the camps C.f. Djuro Schwartz, "In the Jasenovac camps of death" (ג'ורו שווארץ, במחנות המוות של יאסנובאץ", קובץ מחקרים כ"ה, יד-ושם)</ref>

In the months after Independent State of Croatia has been established, most of Ustaše groups were not under centralized control: besides 4,500 regular Ustaše Corps troops, there was some 25,000–30,0000 "Wild Ustaše" (hrv. "divlje ustaše"), boosted by government-controlled press as "peasant Ustaše" "begging" to be sent to fight enemies of the regime. After mass crimes against Serb populace committed during the summer months of 1941, the regime decided to blame all the atrocities to the irregular Ustaše—thoroughly undisciplined and paid for the service only with the booty; authorities even sentenced to death and executed publicly in August and September 1941 many of them for unauthorized use of extreme violence against Serbs and Gypsies. To put an end to Wild Ustaše uncontrolled looting and killing, the central government used some 6,000 gendarmes and some 45,000 newly recruited members of regular [[Croatian Home Guard (World War II)|"Domobranstvo"]] forces.{{sfn|Alonso|Kramer|Rodrigo|2019}}

[[File:SS recrutiment poster used in NDH.png|thumb|Nazi [[SS]] recruitment poster used in the [[NDH]]]]
Pavelić first met with Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941. Mile Budak, then a minister in Pavelić's government, publicly proclaimed the violent racial policy of the state on 22 July 1941. [[Maks Luburic|Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić]], a chief of the secret police, started building [[concentration camp]]s in the summer of the same year. Ustaše activities in villages across the [[Dinaric Alps]] led the Italians and the Germans to express their disquiet. According to writer/historian [[Srđa Trifković]], as early as 10 July 1941 Wehrmacht Gen. [[Edmund Glaise-Horstenau|Edmund Glaise von Horstenau]] reported the following to the German High Command, the [[Oberkommando der Wehrmacht]] (OKW):<blockquote>Our troops have to be mute witnesses of such events; it does not reflect well on their otherwise high reputation. .. I am frequently told that German occupation troops would finally have to intervene against Ustaše crimes. This may happen eventually. Right now, with the available forces, I could not ask for such action. Ad hoc intervention in individual cases could make the German Army look responsible for countless crimes which it could not prevent in the past.<ref name="Trifković">{{cite journal|author-link=Srđa Trifković|last=Trifković|first=Srđa|title=The Real Genocide in Yugoslavia: Independent Croatia of 1941 Revisited.|date=21 April 2000|journal=[[Chronicles (magazine)|Chronicles]]}}<!-- ISBN/ISSN needed --></ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&articleid=13742|author-link=Srđa Trifković|last=Trifković|first=Srđa|title=The Real Genocide in Yugoslavia: Independent Croatia of 1941 Revisited.|date=21 April 2000|publisher=The Centre for Peace in the Balkans}}</ref></blockquote>

Historian [[Jonathan Steinberg (historian)|Jonathan Steinberg]] describes Ustaše crimes against Serbian and Jewish civilians: "Serbian and Jewish men, women and children were literally hacked to death". Reflecting on the photos of Ustaše crimes taken by Italians, Steinberg writes: "There are photographs of Serbian women with breasts hacked off by pocket knives, men with eyes gouged out, emasculated and mutilated".{{sfn|Steinberg|1990|p=30}}

A [[Geheime Staatspolizei|Gestapo]] report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, dated 17 February 1942, stated:{{blockquote|Increased activity of the bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše 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 Ustaše have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand.<ref>[[Uki Goñi|Goñi, Uki]]. ''The Real Odessa: Smuggling The Nazis to Perón's Argentina''; Granta, 2002, p. 202. {{ISBN|9781862075818}}</ref>}}

In September 1942 an Ustaše Defensive Brigade was formed, and during 1943 the Ustaše battalions were re-organised into eight four-battalion brigades (1st to 8th).{{sfn|Thomas|Mikulan|1995|p=}} In 1943 the Germans suffered major losses on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] and the [[Armistice of Cassibile|Italians signed an armistice]] with the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]], leaving behind significant caches of arms which the Partisans would use.

[[File:Ustasha dressed in women's clothes.jpg|thumb|An Ustaša disguised as a woman, captured by [[Yugoslav Partisans|Partisans]] of the 6th Krajina Brigade]]
By 1944 Pavelić was almost totally reliant on Ustaše units, now 100,000 strong, formed in Brigades 1 to 20, Recruit Training Brigades 21 to 24, three divisions, two railway brigades, one defensive brigade and the new Mobile Brigade. In November 1944 the army was effectively put under Ustaše control when the [[Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia]] were combined with the units of the Ustaše to form 18 divisions, comprising 13 infantry, two mountain and two assault divisions and one replacement division, each with its own organic artillery and other support units. There were several armored units.{{sfn|Thomas|Mikulan|1995|p=}}

Fighting continued for a short while after the formal surrender of German [[Army Group E]] on 9 May 1945, as Pavelić ordered the NDH forces to attempt to escape to Austria, together with a large number of civilians. The [[Battle of Poljana]], between a mixed German and Ustaše column and a Partisan force, was the last battle of World War II on European soil.{{dubious |Battle of Slivice|date=July 2018}} Most of those fleeing, including both Ustaše and civilians, were [[Bleiburg repatriations|handed over to the Partisans at Bleiburg and elsewhere on the Austrian border]]. Pavelić hid in Austria and Rome, with the help of Catholic clergy, later fleeing to [[Argentina]].<ref name="ratlines"/>

===After the war===
{{see also|Terrorism in Yugoslavia|Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood}}
After World War II, many of the Ustaše went underground or fled to countries such as [[Canada]], [[Australia]], [[Germany]] and some countries in [[South America]], notably Argentina, with the assistance of Roman Catholic churches and their own grassroots supporters.<ref name="SerbianGenocide">{{cite web |title=Serbian Genocide |url=https://combatgenocide.org/?page_id=86 |website=combatgenocide.org |publisher=The Combat Genocide Association}}</ref>

For several years some Ustaše tried to organize a resistance group called the [[Crusaders (guerrilla)|Crusaders]], but their efforts were largely foiled by the Yugoslav authorities.<ref name="kroatische">Ladislaus Hory und Martin Broszat. ''Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat'', Deutsche Verlag-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 2. Auflage 1965, pp. 13–38, 75–80. {{in lang|de}}<!-- ISBN/ISSN needed --></ref> With the defeat of the Independent State of Croatia, the active movement went dormant. Infighting fragmented the surviving Ustaše. Pavelić formed the [[Croatian Liberation Movement]], which drew in several of the former state's leaders. [[Vjekoslav Vrančić]] founded a reformed Croatian Liberation Movement and was its leader. [[Vjekoslav Luburić|Maks Luburić]] formed the [[Croatian National Resistance]]. Branimir Jelić founded the Croatian National Committee. Former Crusader and Ustaša mobile police officer, Srecko Rover, helped establish [[Ustaše in Australia|Ustaše groups in Australia]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2020}}

Blagoje Jovović, a [[Montenegro|Montenegrin]], shot Pavelić near [[Buenos Aires]] on 9 April 1957; Pavelić later died of his injuries.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pavelic-papers.com/features/tbfp.pdf|title=Two Bullets for Pavelić|year=2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090423210448/http://pavelic-papers.com/features/tbfp.pdf|archive-date=23 April 2009}}</ref>

==Ethnic and religious persecution==
{{see also|Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia|Genocide of Romani people in the Independent State of Croatia}}
[[File:Serb family killed in their home, 1941.jpg|thumb|right|287px|An entire Serb family lies slaughtered in their home following a raid by the [[Ustaše militia]], 1941.]]The Ustaše intended to create an ethnically "pure" Croatia, and they viewed the Serbs living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the biggest obstacle to this goal. Ustaše ministers Mile Budak, {{ILL|Mirko Puk|hr|de}} and Milovan Žanić declared in May 1941 that the goal of the new Ustaše policy was an ethnically pure Croatia. The strategy to achieve their goal was:<ref>Jones, Adam & Nicholas A. Robins. (2009), [https://books.google.com/books?id=AX3UCk_PdEwC&pg=PA106 ''Genocides by The Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice''], p. 106, Indiana University Press; {{ISBN|978-0-253-22077-6}}</ref><ref name="jacobs">Jacobs, Steven L. [https://books.google.com/books?id=zm5YHFnQaWIC&pg=PA15 ''Confronting Genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam''], pp. 158–159, Lexington Books, 2009<!-- ISBN needed --></ref>

# One third of the Serbs were to be killed
# One third of the Serbs were to be expelled
# One third of the Serbs were to be forcibly converted to Catholicism

The NDH government cooperated with Nazi Germany in [[the Holocaust]] and exercised their own version of the [[genocide]] against Serbs, Jews and Roma inside its borders. State policy towards Serbs had first been declared in the words of Milovan Žanić, a minister of the NDH Legislative council, on 2 May 1941:

{{Cquote|This country can only be a Croatian country, and there is no method we would hesitate to use in order to make it truly Croatian and cleanse it of Serbs, who have for centuries endangered us and who will endanger us again if they are given the opportunity.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB159.pdf|title=Deciphering the Balkan Enigma: Using History to Inform Policy|access-date=3 June 2011|archive-date=13 November 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051113184801/http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB159.pdf|url-status=dead}}<!-- ISBN needed --></ref>}}

The Ustaše enacted [[Nuremberg Laws|race laws]] patterned after those of the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]], which persecuted [[Jews]], [[Romani people|Romani]] and Serbs, who were collectively declared to be enemies of the Croatian people.<ref name="fischer"/> Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian and Bosniak dissidents, including Communists, were interned in concentration camps, the largest of which was Jasenovac. By the end of the war the Ustaše, under Pavelić's leadership, had killed an estimated 30,000 Jews and 26,000–29,000 Roma,<ref name="howardball">{{cite book|title=Genocide: A Reference Handbook|last=Ball|first=Howard|year=2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-488-7|page=124|url=https://archive.org/details/genocidereferenc0000ball|url-access=registration}}{{better source needed|this author's work is unfootnoted and full of errors and unsubstantiated material with respect to Pavelić|date=September 2012}}</ref> while estimates of Serb victims range from  200,000 to 500,000,{{sfn|Yeomans|2014|p=18}} with historians generally listing between 300,000 and 350,000 deaths.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=114}}{{sfn|Baker|2015|p=18}}{{sfn|Bellamy|2013|p=96}}{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2008|p=34}}

The history textbooks in the [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] cited 700,000 as the total number of victims at Jasenovac. This was promulgated from a 1946 calculation of the demographic loss of population (the difference between the actual number of people after the war and the number that would have been, had the pre-war growth trend continued). After that, it was used by [[Edvard Kardelj]] and [[Moša Pijade]] in the [[World War II reparations towards Yugoslavia|Yugoslav war reparations claim sent to Germany]]. In its entry on Jasenovac, the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] says:

{{Cquote|Determining the number of victims is highly problematic, due to the destruction of many relevant documents, the long-term inaccessibility to independent scholars of those documents that survived, and the ideological agendas of postwar partisan scholarship and journalism, which has been and remains influenced by ethnic tension, religious prejudice, and ideological conflict. The Ustaše murdered between 320,000 and 340,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaša rule; more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed either in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jasenovac |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jasenovac |website=encyclopedia.ushmm.org |access-date=24 March 2020 |language=en}}</ref>}}

The USHMM notes that estimates on the number of Serb victims, the Ustaše's primary victims, vary tremendously but "the most reliable figures place the number between 330,000 and 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in Jasenovac."<ref name="USHMMPress">{{cite web|year=2001|url=https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/croatian-wwii-concentration-camp-records-made-available-for-first-time-by-u|title=Croatian WWII Concentration Camp records made available for first time by United States Holocaust|publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]|access-date=26 September 2007}}</ref>

[[File:Glina church massacre.jpg|thumb|right|325px|Serb civilians forced to convert to Catholicism by the Ustaše in [[Glina, Croatia|Glina]]]]

The Jasenovac Memorial Area maintains a list of 83,145 names of Jasenovac victims gathered by government officials in Belgrade in 1964, as well as names and biographical data for the victims identified in recent inquiries.<ref>[http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=6711 Jasenovac Memorial Site official web site]; accessed 25 August 2016.</ref> As the gathering process was imperfect, they estimated that the list represented between 60%–75% of the total victims, putting the number of killed in that complex at roughly 80,000–100,000. The previous head of the Memorial Area, Simo Brdar, estimated at least 365,000 dead at Jasenovac. The analyses of statisticians [[Vladimir Žerjavić]] and [[Bogoljub Kočović]] were similar to those of the Memorial Area. In all of Yugoslavia, the estimated number of Serb deaths was 487,000 according to Kočović, and 530,000 according to Žerjavić, out of a total of 1.014 million or 1.027 million deaths (respectively). Žerjavić further stated there were 197,000 Serb civilians killed in NDH (78,000 as prisoners in Jasenovac and elsewhere) as well as 125,000 Serb combatants.

The Belgrade Museum of Holocaust compiled a list of over 77,000 names of Jasenovac victims. It was previously headed by Milan Bulajić, who supported the claim of a total of 700,000 victims. The current administration of the museum has further expanded the list to include slightly over 80,000 names. During World War II various German military commanders and civilian authorities gave different figures for the number of Serbs, Jews and others killed inside the territory of the Independent State of Croatia. Historian Prof. Jozo Tomasevich has posited that some of these figures may have been a "deliberate exaggeration" fostered to create further hostility between Serbs and Croats so that they would not unite in resisting the Axis.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=722}} These figures included 400,000 Serbs ([[Alexander Löhr]]);<ref>Summers, Craig & Eric Markusen. ''Collective violence: harmful behavior in groups and governments''; Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p. 55 {{ISBN|9780847688135}}</ref> 500,000 Serbs ([[Lothar Rendulic]]);<ref>Rummel, Rudolph J. ''Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder''; Transaction Publishers, 1992, p. 75. {{ISBN|9781412821476}};<br />''"While German troops were still in several places in Croatia, the Croatians began a beastly persecution of the Orthodox [Serbs]. At this time at least a half-million people were killed. An unbelievable governing mentality was responsible, as I learned in August 1943 when I received the answer to a question of mine from a government functionary in the circle of the chief of state."''</ref> 250,000 to March 1943 (Edmund Glaise von Horstenau);{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=722}} more than "3/4 of a million Serbs" (Hermann Neubacher) in 1943;<ref>Neubacher, p. 31</ref> 600,000–700,000 in concentration camps until March 1944 (Ernst Fick);{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=722}} 700,000 (Massenbach).<ref name="lituchy">{{harvnb|Lituchy|2006|p=8}}.</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=April 2020}}

===Concentration camps===
{{main|Concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia}}
[[File:Ustaše militia execute prisoners near the Jasenovac concentration camp.jpg|thumb|325px|Ustaše militia execute prisoners near the Jasenovac concentration camp.]]
[[File:Srbosjek (knife) used in Croatia - 1941–1945.jpg|thumb|325px|A knife, nicknamed "Srbosjek" or "Serbcutter", strapped to the hand, which was used by the Ustaše militia for the speedy killing of inmates in Jasenovac]]

The first group of camps was formed in the spring of 1941. These included:
* Danica near [[Koprivnica]]
* [[Slana concentration camp|Slana]] and Metajna on the Island of [[Pag (island)|Pag]]
* [[Jadovno concentration camp|Jadovno]] near [[Gospić]]
* [[Kruščica concentration camp|Kruščica]] near [[Vitez]] and [[Travnik]] in Bosnia
* [[Đakovo concentration camp|Đakovo]]
* [[Loborgrad concentration camp|Loborgrad]] in [[Zagorje]]
* [[Tenja concentration camp|Tenja]] near Osijek

These camps were closed by October 1942. The Jasenovac complex was built between August 1941 and February 1942. The first two camps, Krapje and Bročica, were closed in November 1941. The three newer camps continued to function until the end of the war:
* Ciglana (Jasenovac III)
* [[Kozara]] (Jasenovac IV)
* [[Stara Gradiška concentration camp|Stara Gradiška]] (Jasenovac V) – concentration camp for women and children

There were also other camps in:
* [[Sisak concentration camp]]
* [[Jastrebarsko children's camp|Jastrebarsko Children's Concentration Camp]]
* [[Gospić concentration camp|Gospić]]
* [[Kerestinec prison]] near Zagreb
* [[Lepoglava concentration camp|Lepoglava]] near Varaždin

Numbers of prisoners:
* between 300,000 and 350,000 up to 700,000 in Jasenovac (disputed)
* around 35,000 in Gospić
* around 8,500 in Pag
* around 3,000 in Đakovo
* 1,018 in Jastrebarsko
* around 1,000 in Lepoglava

=== Massacres of Serb civilians ===
Beyond mass killings in concentration camps, the Ustaše perpetrated many massacres of civilians in the field. The first mass killing of Serbs was carried out on 30 April 1941, when the Ustaše rounded up and killed 196 Serb villagers at [[Gudovac massacre|Gudovac]]. Many other massacres soon followed, including at [[Blagaj massacre|Blagaj]], [[Glina massacres|Glina]], Korita, Nevesinje, [[Prebilovci massacre|Prebilovci]], Metkovic, Otočac, Vočin, [[Šargovac]], etc. Croatian Catholic Bishop of [[Mostar]], [[Alojzije Mišić]], described mass killings of Serb civilians in one small area of [[Herzegovina]] during the first six months of the war:<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vukušić |first=Tomo |date=2006-09-21 |title=MOSTARSKI BISKUP ALOJZIJE MIŠIĆ (1912–1942.) ZA VRIJEME DRUGOGA SVJETSKOG RATA (II.) Prilog proučavanju međucrkvenih i međunacionalnih odnosa* |url=http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=37130 |journal=Crkva U Svijetu |language=hr |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=326–341 |issn=0352-4000}}</ref>

{{Cquote|People were captured like beasts. Slaughtered, killed, thrown live into the abyss. Women, mothers with children, young women, girls and boys were thrown into pits. The vice-mayor of Mostar, Mr. Baljić, a Mohammedan, publicly states, although as an official he should be silent and not talk, that in Ljubinje alone 700 schismatics [i.e. Serb Orthodox Christians] were thrown into one pit. Six full train carriages of women, mothers and girls, children under age 10, were taken from Mostar and Čapljina to the Šurmanci station, where they were unloaded and taken into the hills, with live mothers and their children tossed down the cliffs. Everyone was tossed and killed. In the Klepci parish, from the surrounding villages, 3,700 schismatics were killed. Poor souls, they were calm. I will not enumerate further. I would go too far. In the city of Mostar, hundreds were tied up, taken outside the city and killed like animals.}}

==== German accounts of Ustaše massacres ====
German officers in Croatia and Bosnia repeatedly expressed abhorrence at Ustaše mass killings of Serbs, using words like "slaughter", "atrocities", "butchery" and "terror",{{sfn|Gumz|2001}} while citing hundreds of thousands of victims. Major Walter Kleinenberger, officer with the 714th division, complained Ustaše brutality "was in defiance of all laws of civilization. The Ustaše murder without exception men, women and children".{{sfn|Gumz|2001}} German Captain Konopatzki called the slaughter of Serb civilians in Eastern Bosnia by the Ustaše [[Black Legion (Ustaše militia)|Black Legion]] "a new wave of butchery of innocents".{{sfn|Gumz|2001}} Ustaše "wholesale butchery" (Abschlachtung) of Serbs in Srem, in ISC-occupied Serbia, triggered German concerns of Serb uprisings.{{sfn|Gumz|2001}} Lieutenant Colonel von Wedel wrote that in western Bosnia Ustaše killed women and children "like cattle" in a series of "bestial executions".{{sfn|Gumz|2001}} Hitler's Plenipotentiary to Croatia, General von Horstanau, described the aftermath of slaughter committed by Jasenovac concentration camp guards in a nearby village:<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last1=Horstenau|first1=Edmund Glaise von|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Yp6ApNCHj0C&q=Ein+General+im+Zwielicht:+die+Erinnerungen+Edmund+Glaises+von+Horstenau%22,+B%C3%B6hlau+Verlag,+Wien,+Austria,+1988,+str:+167.|title=Ein General im Zwielicht: die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau|last2=Broucek|first2=Peter|date=1988|publisher=Böhlau Verlag Wien|isbn=978-3-205-08749-6|pages=166'167|language=de}}</ref>

{{Cquote|At Crkveni Bok, an unfortunate place, over which about five hundred 15- to 20-year-old thugs descended under the leadership of an Ustasha lieutenant colonel, people were killed everywhere, women were raped and then tortured to death, children were killed. I saw in the Sava River the corpse of a young woman with her eyes dug out and a stake driven into her sexual parts. This woman was at most twenty years old when she fell into the hands of these monsters. All around, pigs devoured unburied human beings. "Fortunate" residents were shipped in terrifying freight cars; many of these involuntary "passengers" cut their veins during transport to the camp [Jasenovac]"}}

The German military even took the extraordinary step of trying the Ustaše chaplain, [[Miroslav Filipović]], for the massacre of 2,300 civilians in three villages around Banja Luka in February 1942, including 52 children at a school.<ref>BiH Supreme Court Archive, B.I.I.k171-13/15-1</ref> On 3 March, 1943, General [[Edmund Glaise-Horstenau|von Horstanau]], wrote "Thus far 250,000 Serbs have been killed".{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=721}} General Lothar Rendulić wrote how in August 1942 he remarked to an Ustaše official that he could not conceive how 500,000 Serbs had been killed, to which the Ustaše replied "Half-a-million is a slanderous accusation, the number is not higher than 200,000". Other German sources put the total Serb victim numbers in the ISC as high as 600,000 to 700,000.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=}}

=== Religious persecution ===
As part of their policy to eliminate Serbs entirely, by killing one-third, converting one-third and expelling one-third, the Ustaše conducted forcible conversions of Christian Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism, with the participation of Catholic priests.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=530}} On occasion  the prospect of conversion was merely a ruse to gather Serbs so they could be murdered, such as in Glina. On 18 May 1943, [[Aloysius Stepinac|Archbishop Stepinac]] wrote a letter to the pope, in which he estimated 240,000 conversions had occurred.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=541}} The Ustaše killed 157 Orthodox priests, among them three Serb Orthodox bishops (cutting the throat of the bishop of Banja Luka and killing the archbishop of Sarajevo),{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=528}} while they jailed and tortured [[Dositej Vasić|the Orthodox archbishop of Zagreb]]. The Ustaše expelled to Serbia 327 Orthodox priests and one bishop, while two other bishops and 12 priests left on their own.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=529}}

According to NDH laws only uneducated Serbs were eligible for conversion; educated people, including merchants, intelligentia, and particularly Orthodox clergy were to be exterminated or expelled.{{sfn|McCormick|2014|p=81}}

Thus 85% of the Orthodox priests in the Independent State of Croatia were either killed or expelled by the Ustaše, in order to "leave the Orthodox population without spiritual leadership so the Ustašas' policy of forced or fear-induced conversions to Catholicism would be easier to carry out".{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=529}} The Ustaše destroyed and [[desecrated]] numerous Orthodox churches,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=529}} forbade the use of [[Cyrillic script]] and the [[Julian calendar]] (both officially used by the Serbian Orthodox Church) and even prohibited the term "Serbian Orthodox Church". Orthodox schools were shut down,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=531}} and the Church was prohibited from collecting donations, robbing it of income.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=531}} Church properties were confiscated,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=531}} some were turned over to the Croatian Catholic Church. Finally, to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Ustaše tried to create its own alternative [[Croatian Orthodox Church]], with an imported Russian [[hieromonk]], [[Germogen Maximov]], reigning as "[[patriarch]]", but it failed to gain adherents.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=545}}

Despite these many actions by the Ustaše to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Church, the historian Jozo Tomasevich found no condemnations of these crimes, public or private, by Catholic Archbishop Stepinac or any other members of the Croatian Catholic Church. On the contrary, he states that this massive Ustaše attack on the Serbian Orthodox Church "was approved and supported by many Croatian Catholic priests",{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=531}} and that the Croatian Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and the Vatican "regarded Ustaše policies against the Serbs and Serbian Orthodox Church as advantageous to Roman Catholicism".{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=565}}

==Connections with the Catholic Church==
{{main|Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustaše}}
The historian Mark Biondich observes that the Catholic Church had historically been on the fringes of Croatian politics and public life, and that Church influence had further eroded during the [[interwar period]] due to the royal dictatorship and the popularity of the anti-clerical Croatian Peasant Party.{{sfn|Biondich|2007|p=41}} During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Catholic Clergy was deeply dissatisfied with the regime: "... a massive press campaign was launched to mobilize Croatia's nearly three million Catholics against the central government's measures penalizing Saint Peter's apostolate. First of all its inequality in treatment was denounced: 'the budget for religion totals 141 million dinars, 70 of which go to the Serbian Church, and 34 to the Catholic one.(...) [[Nikola Pašić|Pašić]]'s government is kind in Serbia, where each citizen pays 55 dinars in yearly taxes, while it is cruel in Croatia and Slovenia, largely Catholic districts, where each citizen pays 165 dinars in taxes.'"{{sfn|Adriano|Cingolani|2018|p=31}}

Croatian Catholic Church antagonism toward the Orthodox Church became an important part of Ustaše antagonism toward Serbs, with fateful consequences during the war.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=528}} The Ustaše supported violent aggression or force to convert [[Serbo-Croatian]] speaking Orthodox believers to Roman Catholicism. The Ustaše held the position that [[Eastern Orthodoxy]], as a symbol of [[Serbian nationalism]], was their greatest foe and never recognized the existence of a Serb people on the territories of Croatia or Bosnia—they recognized only "Croats of the Eastern faith". Under the Ustaše policy of eliminating Serbs, the Catholic Church in Croatia participated in the forced conversion of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=530}} However, even conversion did not necessarily protect Serbs and Jews from slaughter. Bishop [[Alojzije Mišić]] of [[Mostar]] described how while Serb converts to Catholicism "were at Church attending holy Mass, they (Ustaše) seized them, the young and the old, men and women, drove them like cattle...and soon sent them to eternity, ''en masse''."{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=537}}

The Ustaše called Bosniaks "Croats of the Islamic faith" and in general tolerated Muslims; in turn the Bosniak community did not demonstrate any particular hostility to the Ustaše government.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=pVCx3jerQmYC&q=tripartitepg Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War], Enver Redžić, Enver Redzic, Psychology Press, 2005 68–73, 79–83</ref> Many Muslim conscripts served in the armed forces of Independent State of Croatia and its police forces; only a very small number of Muslims served in the ranks of the communist Partisans until the closing days of the war.<ref>[Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention: Crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1990–93: Crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina], Steven L. Burg, Paul S. Shoup
Routledge, 4. ožu 2015.</ref> The October 12, 1941, [[Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims]] by 108 notable Muslims condemned Ustaše atrocities against Serbs.

[[File:NDH - salute.jpg|thumb|287px|[[Marko Došen]] (far left, giving [[Nazi salute]]) and Archbishop [[Alojzije Stepinac]] (far right)]]

On 28 April 1941, the head of the Catholic Church in Croatia, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, issued a public letter in support of the new Ustaše-led Independent State of Croatia and asked the clergy to pray for Pavelić.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=555}} This despite the fact that the Ustaše had already proclaimed measures prohibiting Serbs, Jews and Roma to serve as policemen, judges and soldiers, and making easy for the state officials to fire members of those ethnic/religious groups from the public administration,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=381–384}} and he knew they were preparing Nazi-style racial laws, which Pavelić signed only two days after.{{sfn|Goldstein|Goldstein|2016|p=490}}

While Stepinac later objected to certain Ustaše policies and helped some Jews and Serbs, he continued to publicly support the survival of Independent State of Croatia until its very end, served as the state's War Vicar, and in 1944 received a medal from Pavelić.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-02-10 |title=Što je nama Stepinac? |url=https://www.autograf.hr/sto-je-nama-stepinac/ |website=autograf.hr |language=en-US}}</ref> During the ongoing war, Stepinac publicly objected to Ustaše policies—in fact, as regards for the relations with head of the Ustaše regime Ante Pavelić, "it is generally agreed that they thoroughly hated each other... archbishop also opposed Fascist and Nazi ideologies, especially Nazi racist ideology, and many Ustasha policies", unlike some other members of the Croatian Catholic clergy.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=567}} According to Historian [[Martin Gilbert]], "Aloysius Stepinac, who in 1941 had welcomed Croat independence, subsequently condemned Croat atrocities against both Serbs and Jews, and himself saved a group of Jews in an old age home."{{sfn|Gilbert|2010|p=236}}

The vast majority of Catholic clergy in Croatia supported the Ustaše at the moment they succeeded in forming Independent State of Croatia; but later when it was clear the Allies would win, the Catholic hierarchy tried to distance the Church from the regime and its war crimes.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8g4sAQAAMAAJ&q=clergy Cardinal Stepinac: a witness to the truth: a collection of papers from the international conference, Zagreb, September 19, 2008], Željko Tanjić, pp. 23, 45, 62, 76, 84, 170</ref> Yet in its pastoral letter of 24 March 1945, the Croatian Catholic Church still proclaimed its support for the puppet state and its rulers, despite the fact that most senior [[regime]] figures were preparing to flee the country.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=558}} The Catholic press also maintained its support of Pavelić right to the end,{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=370}} and Stepinac himself performed a final [[Te Deum]] to the NDH on the anniversary of its founding, on 10 April 1945, while the NDH was carrying out the final mass killings to liquidate the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Some <!-- who said they were all "former"?? -->priests, mostly [[Franciscans]], particularly in, but not limited to, Herzegovina and Bosnia, took part in the atrocities themselves. Priests like Ivan Guberina served as Pavelić's bodyguards, while Dionizije Juričev, responsible for the forced conversion of Serbs in the Ustaše government, wrote that it was no longer a crime to kill seven-year-olds if they stood in the way of the Ustaše movement.{{sfn|Phayer|2000|p=34}} In his diocesan newspaper, the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Šarić, published that the "liberation of the world from the Jews is a movement for the renewal of humanity".{{sfn|Phayer|2000|p=35}} In Bosnia the Ustaše largely ruled through the Catholic clergy, with the priest Božidar Bralo serving as a chief Ustaše delegate for Bosnia.{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|pp=490, 496}}

[[Miroslav Filipović]] was a Franciscan friar (from the [[Petrićevac]] monastery) who allegedly joined the Ustaše as chaplain and, on 7 February 1942, joined in the massacre of roughly 2730 Serbs of the nearby villages, including some 500 children. He was allegedly subsequently dismissed from his order and defrocked, although he wore his clerical garb when he was hanged for [[war crimes]]. He became Chief Guard of Jasenovac concentration camp where he was nicknamed ''"Fra Sotona"'' (Friar [[Satan]]) by fellow Croats. [[Mladen Lorković]], the Croat minister of foreign affairs, formulated it like this: ''"In Croatia, we can find few real Serbs. The majority of Pravoslavs [i.e. Orthodox Christians] are as a matter of fact Croats who were forced by foreign invaders to accept the infidel faith. Now it's our duty to bring them back into the Roman Catholic fold."''<ref name="berenbaum">Berenbaum, Michael (editor), ''A Mosaic of Victims. Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis'', NYU Press, pp. 74–79 (1992); {{ISBN|978-0814711750}}</ref>

For the duration of the war, "in accordance with [[Holy See|Vatican's]] long-term diplomatic practice of not recognizing new states in wartime before they were legitimized by peace treaties, the [[pope]] did not send a [[papal nuncio|nuncio]] or diplomat to Croatia as requested, but an apostolic visitor, the abbot [[Giuseppe Marcone]], who was to represent the Vatican to Croatian Catholic Church, not to the government. The government ignored this nuance, bestowing a prominent place for Marcone at all official functions".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=UtE_CQAAQBAJ&dq=vatican+nuncio+independent+state+of+croatia&pg=PA87 The Pope's Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War], Jacques Kornberg, University of Toronto Press, 2015, p. 87</ref> After World War II ended, the Ustaše who had managed to escape from Yugoslav territory (including Pavelić) were smuggled to South America.<ref name="ratlines">[https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=670245 "Tied up in the Rat Lines"], ''Haaretz'', 17 January 2006.</ref> This was largely done through [[Ratlines (World War II aftermath)|ratlines]] operated by Catholic priests who had previously secured positions at the [[Holy See|Vatican]]. Some of the more infamous members of the [[Pontifical Croatian College of St. Jerome|Illyrian College of San Girolamo]] in Rome involved in this were Franciscan friars [[Krunoslav Draganović]] and [[Dominik Mandić]], and a third friar surnamed Petranović (first name unknown).<ref name="Gorin 23 February 2010"/>

The Ustaše regime had deposited large amounts of gold—including the gold plundered from Serbs and Jews during World War II—into [[Swiss bank]] accounts. It seems a substantial quantity of gold was additionally transported by Ustaše to Austria at the end of the WWII. Out of a total, by some estimates, of 350 million [[Swiss franc]]s, an intelligence report estimated 200 million (ca. $47 million) reached the Vatican.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lksS0SgH7o0C&dq=ustashe+gold&pg=PA147 U.S. and Allied Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations with Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and German External Assets and U.S. Concerns about the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury: Supplement to Preliminary Study on U.S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen Or Hidden by Germany During World War II], William Z. Slany, Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Historian, 1998, pp. 149–151</ref> The question remains unclarified.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ppVxkjhwOKUC&q=phayer+ustashe+gold Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850–1950], John F. Pollard, Pollard John F. Cambridge University Press, 6. sij 2005, pp. 200–201</ref><ref name="Gorin 23 February 2010">{{cite web|last=Gorin|first=Julia|url=https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Mass-grave-of-history-Vaticans-WWII-identity-crisis|title=Mass grave of history: Vatican's WWII identity crisis|work=[[The Jerusalem Post]]|date=23 February 2010|access-date=17 January 2018}}</ref>

Cardinal [[Alojzije Stepinac]], [[Archbishop of Zagreb]], [[Aloysius Stepinac#World War II|was accused]] and sentenced to prison after the end of World War II by Yugoslav communist authorities of supporting the Ustaše and of exonerating those in the clergy who collaborated with them and were hence complicit in forced conversions. Stepinac stated on 28 March 1941, noting early attempts to unite Croatians and Serbs:<blockquote> "All in all, Croats and Serbs are of two worlds, northpole and southpole, never will they be able to get together unless by a miracle of God. The schism (between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy) is the greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than [[Protestantism]]. There is no moral, no principles, no truth, no justice, no honesty."<ref>Stanojević, Branimir. ''Alojzije Stepinac, zločinac ili svetac: dokumenti o izdaji i zločinu'', Nova knjiga, 1986, p. 51<!--ISBN/ISSN and page(s) needed--></ref></blockquote> On 22 July 2016, the Zagreb County Court annulled his post-war conviction due to "gross violations of current and former fundamental principles of substantive and procedural criminal law".<ref>[https://www.total-croatia-news.com/item/13193-court-annuls-verdict-against-cardinal-stepinac Court Annuls Verdict against Cardinal Stepinac] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808044254/https://www.total-croatia-news.com/item/13193-court-annuls-verdict-against-cardinal-stepinac |date=8 August 2016 }}, Vedran Pavlic, Total Croatia News, 22. July 2016.</ref>

In 1998 Stepinac was [[beatification|beatified]] by [[Pope John Paul II]]. On 22 June 2003 John Paul II visited [[Banja Luka]]. During the visit he held a [[Mass in the Catholic Church|Mass]] at the aforementioned Petrićevac monastery. This caused public uproar due to the connection of the monastery with Filipović. At the same location the Pope proclaimed the beatification of a Roman Catholic layman [[Ivan Merz]] (1896–1928), who was the founder of the "Association of Croatian Eagles" in 1923, which some view as a precursor to the Ustaše. Roman Catholic [[apologist]]s defend the Pope's actions by stating the convent at Petrićevac was one of the places that went up in flames, causing the death of 80-year-old Friar Alojzije Atlija. Further, it was claimed by the apologists that the war had produced "a total exodus of the Catholic population from this region"; that the few who remained were "predominantly elderly"; and that the church in Bosnia then allegedly risked "total extinction" due to the war.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}}

== Ustaše-Chetnik collaboration ==
{{See also|Chetniks#Collaboration with the Independent State of Croatia}}
[[File:Četnici, domobrani i ustaše zajedno piju.jpg|thumb|330x330px|Ustaše and Domobran officers with the Chetnik commander [[Uroš Drenović]] (left)]]
Despite representing opposing nationalisms, when confronted with the growing strength of their common enemy (i.e. the partisans), Ustaše and Chetniks throughout the Independent State of Croatia signed collaboration agreements in the spring of 1942, which for the most part held until the very end of the war.{{sfn|Tomasevich|1975|p=227}} The introduction to these agreements stated:{{sfn|Tomasevich|1975|p=227}}<blockquote>As long as there is a danger of armed partisan gangs, Chetnik formations will voluntarily cooperate with the Croatian armed forces in fighting and destroying the partisans and will be under the command of the Croatian armed forces in these operations.</blockquote>Beyond that, the agreements specified that the NDH military will supply Chetniks with arms and ammunition, Chetniks wounded in anti-partisan operations will be treated at NDH military hospitals, and widows and orphans of killed Chetnik soldiers, will receive state financial aid equal to aid received by widows and orphans of NDH soldiers. The NDH authorities arranged for Serbs in Ustaše concentration camps to be released, but only on the special recommendation of Chetnik commanders (thus, not partisans and their sympathizers).{{sfn|Tomasevich|1975|p=228}} On 30 June 1942, the Chief Headquarters of the Poglavnik (i.e. [[Ante Pavelić]]), sent a statement, signed by Marshall Slavko Kvaternik, to other NDH ministries, summarizing these agreements with NDH Chetniks.{{sfn|Tomasevich|1975|p=228}}
The Ustaše signed collaboration agreements with key NDH Chetnik commanders, in the following order:
* [[Momčilo Đujić]] (commander of Chetnik [[Dinara Division]]), [[Brane Bogunović]] (commander of Gavrilo Princip Corps, Dinara Division), Mane Rokvić (commander of King Alexander I Corps, [[Dinara Division]]), [[Pajica Omčikus]] (King Petar II Corps, Dinara Division) and [[Pajo Popović]] (commander of Onisin Popović Corps, Dinara Division) in December 1941 first started negotiations with the Ustaše mayor of Knin, David Sinčić, in [[Knin]].{{sfn|Popović|Lolić|Latas|1988}}
* Uroš Drenović, the commander of the Chetnik »Kočić« detachment, signed an agreement with the Ustaše in Mrkonjić Grad on 27. April, 1942.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ZAPISNIK O SPORAZUMU PREDSTAVNIKA ČETNIČKOG ODREDA »KOČIĆ« I NDH OD 27. APRILA 1942. O PRIZNAVANjU VLASTI NDH I SARADNjI U BORBI PROTIV NOP-a, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 74 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_74.htm |url-status=live |website=www.znaci.net |access-date=13 April 2020 |archive-date=20 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200120024237/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_74.htm }}</ref>
* [[Lazar Tešanović]], commander of the Chetnik battalion, »Mrkonjić«, signed an agreement with the NDH on 23. May, 1942.
* [[Cvijetin Todić]] and [[Savo Božić]], commanders of the Chetnik Ozren and Trebava detachments, signed agreements with the NDH on 28. May 1942. in the village Lipac<ref>{{Cite web |title=PREDLOG ŠTABA OZRENSKOG ČETNIČKOG ODREDA OD 10. MAJA 1942. KOMANDANTU 4. DOMOBRANSKE DIVIZIJE ZA SASTANAK RADI SKLAPANjA SPORAZUMA O SARADNjI U BORBI PROTIV NOP, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 82 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_82.htm |url-status=live |website=www.znaci.net |access-date=13 April 2020 |archive-date=23 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223132123/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_82.htm }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=ZAPISNIK O SPORAZUMU IZMEĐU PREDSTAVNIKA OZRENSKOG, TREBAVSKOG I ODREDA »KRALj PETAR II« I NDH OD 28. MAJA 1942. O SARADNjI U BORBI PROTIV NOP-a U ISTOČNOJ BOSNI, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 89 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_89.htm |url-status=live |website=www.znaci.net |access-date=13 April 2020 |archive-date=20 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200220031711/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_89.htm }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=DODATAK ZAPISNIKU O SPORAZUMU IZMEĐU OZRENSKOG I TREBAVSKOG ČETNIČKOG ODREDA I PREDSTAVNIKA NDH OD 28. MAJA 1942. SAČINjEN 9. JULA 1942. GODINE, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 117 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_117.htm |url-status=live |website=www.znaci.net |access-date=13 April 2020 |archive-date=25 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225045830/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_117.htm }}</ref>
* Representatives of the Majevica Chetnik detachment, signed agreements with the NDH on 30 May 1942.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ZAPISNIK O PREGOVORIMA PREDSTAVNIKA MAJEVIČKE ČETNIČKE GRUPE I KOMANDANTA 3. DOMOBRANSKE DIVIZIJE OD 30. MAJA 1942. O PRIZNAVANjU NDH I SARADNjI SA VLASTIMA NDH, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 91 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_91.htm |url-status=live |website=www.znaci.net |access-date=13 April 2020 |archive-date=16 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216190805/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_91.htm }}</ref>
* [[Rade Radić]], commander of the Chetnik detachment, "Borja", reached agreement with the NDH authorities on 9 June 1942.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ZAPISNIK O SPORAZUMU IZMEĐU PREDSTAVNIKA ČETNIČKOG ODREDA »BORJE« I NDH OD 9. JUNA 1942. O PRIZNAVANjU SUVERENITETA NDH I O SARADNjI U BORBI PROTIV NOP-a, Zbornik dkumenata i podataka NOR-a, tom XIV (četnički dokumenti), knjiga 1 (1941. i 1942. godina), Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd - dokument broj 103 |url=https://znaci.org/00001/4_14_1_103.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200120024127/http://www.znaci.net/00001/4_14_1_103.htm |archive-date=20 January 2020 |access-date=13 April 2020 |website=www.znaci.net}}</ref>
* [[Slavko Bjelajac]] and [[Jovan Dabović]], Chetnik commanders from the [[Otočac]] area, signed agreements with the NDH on 17 December 1942.{{sfn|Popović|Lolić|Latas|1988}}

On 26 May 1942, the Ustaše minister, Mladen Lorković, wrote in a communique to local NDH authorities, that pursuant to these agreements "[[Croatian Home Guard (World War II)|Home Guard]] Headquarters agrees with your proposal to grant one million kuna aid to the leaders of the Greek-Eastern community [i.e. Serb Orthodox], Momčilo Djujić, Mane Rokvić, [Branko] Bogunović, Paja Popović and Paja Omčikus, 200 Yugoslav guns and 10 machine guns".{{sfn|Popović|Lolić|Latas|1988}} Ustaše and Chetniks simultaneously participated, alongside German and Italian forces, in major battles against the Partisans in the NDH: the [[Kozara Offensive]], [[Operation Weiss|Case White]], [[Operation Rösselsprung (1944)|Operation Rösselsprung]], the [[Battle of Knin|Battle for Knin]] (1944), etc.

In 1945, the Chetnik commander, Momčilo Djujić and his troops, with Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić's permission, escaped across the NDH to the West.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://povijest.net/odlazak-cetnicke-divizije-iz-kninske-krajine-i-predaja-saveznicima/|title=Odlazak četničke divizije iz kninske krajine i predaja saveznicima {{!}} Hrvatski povijesni portal|last=Zovak|first=Domagoj|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-13|archive-date=3 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220203205258/https://povijest.net/odlazak-cetnicke-divizije-iz-kninske-krajine-i-predaja-saveznicima/|url-status=dead}}</ref> In April 1945, by his own admission, Ante Pavelić received "two generals from the headquarters [[Draža Mihailović]] and reached an agreement with them on a joint fight against Tito's communists", while in the first days of May, Chetnik units passed through Ustaše-held Zagreb, on their way to Bleiburg, after which Chetniks and members of the Ustaše army, were killed by the Partisans in various sites, including Tezno near Maribor.{{sfn|Goldstein|2018}}

== Structure ==
At the top of the command was the ''[[Poglavnik]]'' (meaning "head") Ante Pavelić. Pavelić was appointed the office as Head of State of Croatia after Adolf Hitler had accepted Benito Mussolini's proposal of Pavelić, on 10 April 1941. The [[Army of the Independent State of Croatia|Croatian Home Guard]] was the armed forces of Croatia, it subsequently merged into [[Croatian Armed Forces (Independent State of Croatia)|the Croatian Armed Forces]].<ref name="goldstein" /> The Ustaše command structure was further broken down into administrations at a ''stožer'' (district), ''logor'' (country) and ''tabor'' (county) level.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Miljan |first1=Goran |title=From Obscure Beginnings to State 'Resurrection': Ideas and Practices of the Ustaša Organization |journal=Fascism |date=2016 |volume=5 |page=11 |doi=10.1163/22116257-00501002 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Symbols==
{{redirect|Evo zore, evo dana|the 1992 album|Dražen Zečić}}
{{Redirect|Jure i Boban|text=For the Ustaša military commanders, see [[Jure Francetić]] and [[Rafael Boban]]}}

[[File:EscudoUstacha.svg|thumb|150px|Symbol used in the Independent State of Croatia]]
The symbol of the Ustaše was a [[majuscule|capital]] blue letter "U" with an exploding grenade emblem within it.{{sfn|Littlejohn|1994|pp=216–217}}{{sfn|Tomasevich|2001|p=327}}

The flag of the Independent State of Croatia was a red-white-blue horizontal [[Triband (flag)|tricolor]] with the shield of the coat of arms or Croatia in the middle and the U in the upper left. Its currency was the [[Independent State of Croatia kuna|NDH kuna]].

The Ustaše greeting was "''[[Za dom spremni|Za dom – spremni!]]''":
: ''Salute:'' Za dom! ''For home(land)!''
: ''Reply:'' Spremni! ''(We are) ready!''

This was used instead of the Nazi greeting ''[[Heil Hitler]]'' by the Ustaše. Today it is associated with Ustaše sympathisers. On the internet, it is sometimes abbreviated as ZDS.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/11/ultranationalist-croatian-fascist-ustashe-melbourne-cfmmeu-anti-vax-protest| title=Ultranationalists Are Seeing an Organizing Boom in Australia| date=20 November 2021| access-date=3 April 2022| author=Leo Crnogorcevic| website=jacobinmag.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/17/modric-rakitic-mandzukic-swastika-croatian-football-federation| title=Croatia's footballers may become biggest losers in swastika fallout| author=Aleksandar Holiga| date=17 June 2015| access-date=3 April 2022| website=[[theguardian.com]]}}</ref>

The songs promoting the Ustaše included "{{lang|hr|Evo zore, evo dana|italic=no}}", "{{lang|hr|Hrvatska se vojska diže|italic=no}}", "{{lang|hr|Pjesma Poglavniku|italic=no}}".<ref>{{cite book | url = https://www.academia.edu/31326252 | page = 350 | title = 20 Years after the Collapse of Communism - Expectations, achievements and disillusions of 1989 | editor1-first = Nicolas | editor1-last = Hayoz | editor2-first = Leszek | editor2-last = Jesien | editor3-first = Daniela | editor3-last = Koleva | year = 2011 | series = Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe | volume = 9 | doi = 10.3726/978-3-0351-0273-4 | isbn = 978-3-0351-0273-4 }}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=July 2025}} "Evo zore, evo dana" (also called "Jure i Boban") promoted the [[Black Legion (Ustaše militia)|Black Legion]], and it was common for songs to have both a Partisan and a Ustaše version.<ref>{{cite journal | url = https://www.matica.hr/kolo/759/jama-ne-imenuje-ni-zlocince-ni-zrtvu-tko-bi-oni-mogli-biti-35103/ | language = hr | journal = [[Kolo (journal)|Kolo]] | issue = 2 | year = 2023 | first = Stijepo | last = Mijović Kočan | title = Jama ne imenuje ni zločince ni žrtvu – tko bi oni mogli biti }}</ref>

==Legacy==
{{main|Far-right politics in Croatia}}
[[File:Thompson Maksimir 17.6.2007 2.jpg|thumb|right|Young boy wearing a shirt with a [[Black Legion (Ustaše militia)|Black Legion]], [[Ustaše Militia]] sign at a [[Thompson (band)|Thompson]] concert]]

===In popular culture===
The Ustaše plays an important role in [[Harry Turtledove]]'s short [[alternate history]] story ''Ready for the Fatherland''. It plays a brief background role in ''[[In the Presence of Mine Enemies]]'', an unrelated work by the same author. In both these works, the regime founded by Pavelić lasted several decades beyond the 1940s.

Popular Croatian singer [[Marko Perković Thompson]] regularly starts his concerts with the Ustaše salute.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2019/05/22/angela-merkel-in-croatian-nationalist-song-controversy/|title=Angela Merkel in Croatian Nationalist Song Controversy|date=2019-05-22|website=Balkan Insight|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-11}}</ref> The Wiesenthal Center has protested this, along with other attempts at revisionism and Holocaust-denial in Croatia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/croatian-team-celebrates-world-cup-success-with-performance-by-fascist-singer/|title=Croatian team celebrates World Cup success with performance by 'fascist singer'|agency=JTA|website=The Times of Israel|date=18 July 2018 |language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-11}}</ref>

===Modern-day Croatia===
Seeking to unify support for Croatia's independence, [[Franjo Tuđman]], Croatia's first president, in the late 1980s advocated "pomirba", i.e. national reconciliation between Ustaše and Partisans.{{sfn|Ragazzi|2017}} This led to a revival of pro-Ustaše views, symbols and salutes among the Croatian political right.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hedges|first=Chris|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/12/world/fascists-reborn-as-croatia-s-founding-fathers.html|title=Fascists Reborn as Croatia's Founding Fathers|date=1997-04-12|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-04-12|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Following Croatia's Independence in the 1990s, streets were renamed to carry the name of Ustaše leaders, such as [[Mile Budak]] and [[Jure Francetić]]. Although some of these were later removed, [[Radio Free Europe]] noted that of some 20 streets dedicated to Mile Budak in the '90s, half still remained in Croatia in 2019.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/virovitica-budak-ulica/29999725.html|title=Mile Budak ostao bez ulice u Virovitici|website=Radio Slobodna Evropa|date=14 June 2019 |language=sh|access-date=2020-04-12|last1=Zebić |first1=Enis }}</ref>

Jewish and Serb organizations, Croat historians and antifascists, as well as international observers, have repeatedly warned of revisionism in Croatia, which seeks to minimize Ustaše crimes and even celebrates the Ustaše regime. Recent examples include the publication of a book celebrating "the Croatian knight" [[Maks Luburić]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.novilist.hr/content/view/full/1799936|title=U Crkvi predstavljaju "lik i djelo hrvatskog viteza Maksa Luburića", čovjeka koji je osmislio logor u Jasenovcu / Novi list|last=Komunikacije|first=Neomedia|website=www.novilist.hr|language=hr-HR|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> who as head of Ustaše concentration camps was responsible for over 100,000 deaths, during Ustaše genocides against Jews, Serbs and Roma, and a documentary minimizing children's deaths in Ustaše concentration camps.<ref name="nacional.hr">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nacional.hr/crkva-se-u-reviziju-povijesti-ukljucila-na-brutalan-nacin/|title=Crkva se u reviziju povijesti uključila na brutalan način|website=Nacional.hr |date=6 October 2019 |language=hr|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> The Luburić book was promoted with the assistance of the [[Catholic Church in Croatia|Croatian Catholic Church]],<ref name=":0"/> and Church sources minimized children's deaths in concentration camps. Croat historians have noted that the Church has been a leader in promoting revisionism and minimizing Ustaše crimes.<ref name="nacional.hr"/> In 2013, the newspaper of Croatian Catholic archdioceses, ''Glas Koncila'', published a series on Jasenovac, by the Jasenovac-denier [[Igor Vukić]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.novilist.hr/content/view/full/890566|title=Revizionistički odnos prema povijesti: Učiteljica života u Hrvatskoj zakazala / Novi list|last=Komunikacije|first=Neomedia|website=www.novilist.hr|language=hr-HR|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> who claims Jasenovac was a "mere work-camp," where no mass executions took place. In 2015, the head of the Croatian Bishops' Conference asked that the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute be adopted by the Croatian army.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vecernji.ba/vijesti/puljic-pitanje-o-pozdravu-za-dom-spremni-na-referendum-1021766|title=Puljić: Pitanje o pozdravu "Za dom spremni" na referendum|website=www.vecernji.ba|language=hr|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref>

Croatian soccer fans have repeatedly chanted the Ustaše "[[Za dom spremni]]" salute, for which [[FIFA]] and [[UEFA]] have repeatedly leveled penalties against the Croatian soccer federation for fascist outbursts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133333|title=Genocidal Chants at Croat Soccer – Jewish World|website=Israel National News|date=9 September 2009 |language=en|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Holiga|first=Aleksandar|url=https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/17/modric-rakitic-mandzukic-swastika-croatian-football-federation|title=Croatia's footballers may become biggest losers in swastika fallout {{!}} Aleksandar Holiga|date=2015-06-17|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-04-12|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> In 2014, the Croatian soccer player [[Josip Šimunić]] was banned from the [[2014 FIFA World Cup|FIFA World Cup]] for leading a stadium full of fans in the Ustaše salute.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Agencies|url=https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/dec/16/croatia-josip-simunic-ban-world-cup-pro-nazi-chant|title=Croatia's Josip Simunic hit with 10-match ban and will miss World Cup|date=2013-12-16|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-04-11|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

In 2014 the then-mayor of Split, Croatia, unveiled a monument dedicated to the 1990s HOS brigade named "The Knight [[Rafael Boban]]", after the Ustaše commander, which includes the HOS emblem with the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://slobodnadalmacija.hr/split/split-tisucu-gradana-pozdravilo-spomenik-hos-ovcima-baldasar-se-prevario-na-danasnji-dan-pobjede-nad-antifasizmom-234312|title=Slobodna Dalmacija – Split: tisuću građana pozdravilo spomenik HOS-ovcima; Baldasar se prevario: Na današnji dan pobjede nad antifašizmom…|date=2014-05-09|website=slobodnadalmacija.hr|language=hr-hr|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> Since then the HOS organization has organized annual commemorations at the memorial on 10 April (the anniversary of the founding of the Independent State of Croatia), during which the black-uniformed participants shout the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/splitom-opet-marsirali-ljudi-u-crnom-gradom-odjekivao-ustaski-pozdrav-za-dom-spremni-skejo-prijetio-s-govornice-mrzitelji-nas-i-dalje-pljuju/8716631/|title=SPLITOM OPET MARŠIRALI LJUDI U CRNOM, GRADOM ODJEKIVAO USTAŠKI POZDRAV 'ZA DOM SPREMNI' Skejo prijetio s govornice: 'Mrzitelji nas i dalje pljuju' – Jutarnji List|website=www.jutarnji.hr|date=10 April 2019|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref>

In 2016 the Croatian HOS war veterans' organization posted a plaque at Jasenovac concentration camp with the Ustaše "Za dom spremni" salute.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/croatia-government-under-fire-for-failing-to-tackle-pro-nazis/|title=Croatia government under fire for failing to tackle pro-Nazis|last=Veselica|first=Lajla|website=The Times of Israel|date=12 September 2017 |language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> Despite protests by Jewish and other organizations, this was allowed to remain until criticism by the US State Department special envoy on Holocaust issues,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/americki-izaslanik-za-holokaust-pozvao-hrvatsku-vladu-da-ubrza-povrat-imovine-prezivjelima-holokausta/5806767/|title=Američki izaslanik za holokaust pozvao hrvatsku vladu da ubrza povrat imovine preživjelima holokausta – Jutarnji List|website=www.jutarnji.hr|date=23 March 2017|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref> forced the government to move it to a nearby town. As a result of this, and allegations of the government's tolerance for the minimization of Ustaše crimes, Jewish, Serb and Croat WWII resistance groups refused to appear with government representatives at the annual Jasenovac commemoration.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/alternativna-komemoracija-jasenovac/28446106.html|title=Više tisuća ljudi na alternativnoj komemoraciji u Jasenovcu|website=Radio Slobodna Evropa|date=22 April 2017 |language=sh|access-date=2020-04-12|last1=Zebić |first1=Enis }}</ref>

In 2019 the Austrian government passed a law forbidding the display of Ustaše symbols,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/34112-ustasha|title=Austria Bans Ustasha Symbols|website=www.total-croatia-news.com|date=12 February 2019|language=en-gb|access-date=2020-04-11|archive-date=17 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230517003852/https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/34112-ustasha|url-status=dead}}</ref> along with previously banned Nazi symbols, largely as a result of the display of same by Croatian nationalists at the annual, Croatian government-sponsored [[Bleiburg commemoration]], where Austrian police have repeatedly arrested Croat nationalists for Nazi and fascist salutes. Three Austrian EU parliamentarians declared the Bleiburg ceremony, which tens-of-thousands of Croat nationalists attend, "the largest fascist gathering in Europe."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://slobodnadalmacija.hr/vijesti/svijet/austrija-ce-na-bleiburgu-organizirati-instant-sud-za-hrvatske-neofasiste-evo-kako-ce-kazniti-sve-koji-budu-isticali-ustaske-simbole-i-grb-hos-a-543401|title=Slobodna Dalmacija – Austrija će na Bleiburgu organizirati instant-sud za hrvatske neofašiste: evo kako će kazniti sve koji budu isticali ustaške simbole i grb HOS-a|date=2018-04-26|website=slobodnadalmacija.hr|language=hr-hr|access-date=2020-04-11}}</ref> The Austrian Catholic Church banned a Mass by the Croatian Catholic Church at Bleiburg because, as they stated, "the Mass at Bleiburg has become part of a manifestation that is politically instrumentalised and is part of a political-national ritual that serves to selectively experience and interpret history," adding that it misuses "a religious service for political purposes while not distancing itself from the Fascist worldview."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/34565-bleiburg|title=Catholic Church in Austria Bans Bleiburg Mass|website=www.total-croatia-news.com|date=8 March 2019 |language=en-gb|access-date=2020-04-11}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/koruska-crkva-zabranila-misu-u-bleiburgu-hbk-ogorcen-1305582|title=Austrijska Crkva zabranila misu u Bleiburgu, HBK ogorčen|website=www.vecernji.hr|language=hr|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref>

===Modern usage of the term "Ustaše"===
After World War II, the Ustaše movement was split into several organizations and there is presently no political or paramilitary movement that claims its legacy as their "successor." The term ''Ustaše'' is today used as a derogatory term for Croatian [[ultranationalism]]. ''Ustaše'' is sometimes used among Serbs to describe [[Serbophobia]] or more generally to defame political opponents.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}

==== Use by Serbian nationalists ====
Since the end of World War II, Serbian historians have used the Ustaše to promote that Serbs resisted the Axis, while Croats and Bosniaks widely supported them. However, the Ustaše lacked support among ordinary Croats and never accrued any significant support among the populace.{{sfn|Shepherd|2012|p=78}}<ref name="Israeli" /> The Ustaše regime was backed by parts of the Croatian population that during the interwar period had felt oppressed in the Serbian-led Yugoslavia. Most of the support it had initially gained by creating a Croat national state was lost because of the brutal practices it used.<ref name="Sindbaek2002" /> In the 1980s, Serbian historians produced many works about the forced conversion during World War II of Serbs in Ustaše Croatia.<ref name="Aleksov106">{{harvnb|Aleksov|2007|p=106}}</ref> These debates between historians openly became nationalistic and also entered the wider media.<ref name="Brunnbauer364">{{cite book|last=Brunnbauer|first=Ulf|chapter=Historical Writing in the Balkans|editor1-last=Woolf|editor1-first=Daniel|editor2-last=Schneider|editor2-first=Axel|title=The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 5: Historical Writing Since 1945|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199225996|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eJ4SDAAAQBAJ&q=Serbian+historians+debates&pg=PA364|page=364}}</ref> Historians in Belgrade during the 1980s who had close government connections often went on television during the evenings to discuss real or invented details about the Ustaše genocide against Serbs during World War II.<ref name="Stojanovic221" /> Serb clergy and nationalists blamed all Croats for crimes committed by the Ustaše, and for planning a genocide against Serb people. These propagandistic activities were aimed at justifying planned crimes and ethno-demographic engineering in Croatia.<ref name="Sells1998">{{cite book|author=Michael A. Sells|title=The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0bcwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA62|date=10 December 1998|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520216624|pages=61–62}}</ref><ref name="Stojanovic221">{{harvnb|Stojanović|2011|p=221}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=n}}

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin|30em}}
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* {{cite book|last=Lituchy|first=Barry M.|year=2006|title=Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia|publisher=Jasenovac Research Institute|isbn=978-0-9753432-0-3}}
* {{cite book|last=Matković|first=Hrvoje|year=2002|language=hr|title=Povijest Nezavisne Države Hrvatske|publisher=Naklada Pavičić|isbn=978-953-6308-39-2}}
* {{cite book|last=McCormick|first=Robert B.|title=Croatia Under Ante Pavelić: America, the Ustaše and Croatian Genocide|year=2014|publisher=I.B. Tauris|isbn=978-0-8577-2535-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rhGMDwAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book|last=Pavlowitch|first=Stevan K.|author-link=Stevan K. Pavlowitch|title=Hitler's New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia|year=2008|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231700504}}
* {{cite book|last=Phayer|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Phayer|title=The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965|year=2000|publisher=Indiana University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchho00phay|url-access=registration|isbn=978-0253214713}}
* Srdja Trifkovic: ''Ustaša: Croatian Separatism and European Politics 1929–1945'' Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, London, 1998.<!-- ISBN/ISSN needed needed -->
* Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Israel Gutman (editor-in-chief), Vol. 4, "Ustase" entry. Macmillan, 1990.<!-- ISBN/ISSN needed needed -->
* {{cite book|last=Biondich|first=Mark|author-link=Mark Biondich|chapter=Controversies Surrounding the Catholic Church in Wartime Croatia, 1941–45|title=The Independent State of Croatia 1941–45|publisher=Routledge|year=2007|pages=31–59|isbn=9780415440554|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6p1pAAAAMAAJ}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Biondich|first=Mark|author-link=Mark Biondich|title=Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia: Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941–1942|journal=The Slavonic and East European Review|volume=83|issue=1|year=2005|pages=71–116|doi=10.1353/see.2005.0063 |jstor=4214049|s2cid=151704526 }}
* {{Cite book|last=Ramet|first=Sabrina P.|year=2006|title=The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-34656-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTw3lEqi2-oC}}
* {{Cite book|last=Rivelli|first=Marco Aurelio|author-link=Marco Aurelio Rivelli|year=1998|title=Le génocide occulté: État Indépendant de Croatie 1941–1945|language=fr|trans-title=Hidden Genocide: The Independent State of Croatia 1941–1945|publisher=L'age d'Homme|isbn=9782825111529|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QwBnceJfwgUC}}
* {{Cite book|last=Rivelli|first=Marco Aurelio|title=L'arcivescovo del genocidio: Monsignor Stepinac, il Vaticano e la dittatura ustascia in Croazia, 1941–1945|language=it|trans-title=The Archbishop of Genocide: Monsignor Stepinac, the Vatican and the Ustaše dictatorship in Croatia, 1941–1945|publisher=Kaos|year=1999|isbn=9788879530798|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NQtnAAAAMAAJ}}
* {{Cite book|last=Rivelli|first=Marco Aurelio|title="Dio è con noi!": La Chiesa di Pio XII complice del nazifascismo|language=it|trans-title="God is with us!": The Church of Pius XII accomplice to Nazi Fascism|publisher=Kaos|year=2002|isbn=9788879531047|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwPZAAAAMAAJ}}
* {{cite book| last = Shepherd| first = Ben H. |author-link = Ben H. Shepherd| title = Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare| year = 2012| publisher = Harvard University Press| location = Cambridge| isbn = 978-0-674-04891-1}}
* {{Cite book|last=Steinberg|first=Jonathan|author-link=Jonathan Steinberg (historian)|title=All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941–1943|publisher=Psychology Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-4150-4757-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYQgiSTUQP4C}}
* {{cite book|last=Tomasevich|first=Jozo|author-link=Jozo Tomasevich|year=1975|title=War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-0857-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yoCaAAAAIAAJ}}
* {{cite book|last=Tomasevich|first=Jozo|author-link=Jozo Tomasevich|year=2001|title=War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-3615-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fqUSGevFe5MC}}
* {{Cite book|last=Yeomans|first=Rory|chapter="For Us, Beloved Commander, You Will Never Die!", Morning Jure Francetic, Ustasha Death Squad Leader|title=In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe|year=2011|publisher=I.B Tauris}}
* {{Cite book|last=Yeomans|first=Rory|title=Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yxv4-iqVe2wC|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|year=2014|isbn= 978-0-82297-793-3}}
* {{cite book|last=Yeomans|first=Rory|title=The Utopia of Terror: Life and Death in Wartime Croatia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8HEDCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA301|year=2015|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-58046-545-8}}
* {{Cite book|last=Korb|first=Alexander|chapter=A Multipronged Attack: Ustaša Persecution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma in Wartime Croatia|title=Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|pages=145–163|isbn=9781443824491|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wGknBwAAQBAJ}}
* {{Cite book|last=Novak|first=Viktor|author-link=Viktor Novak|title=Magnum Crimen: Half a Century of Clericalism in Croatia|volume=1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b1jyvQAACAAJ|year=2011|publisher=Gambit|isbn=9788676240494}}
* {{Cite book|last=Novak|first=Viktor|author-link=Viktor Novak|title=Magnum Crimen: Half a Century of Clericalism in Croatia|volume=2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vF9GMwEACAAJ|year=2011|publisher=Gambit|isbn=9788676240494}}
* {{Cite book|last=Stojanović|first=Dubravka|chapter=Value changes in the interpretations of history in Serbia|editor1-last=Listhaug|editor1-first=Ola|title=Civic and uncivic values: Serbia in the post-Milošević era|year=2011|publisher=Central European University Press|isbn=978-963-9776-98-2|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9DGfhZ6lQoC&q=Serbian+historians+Islam&pg=PA221}}
* {{cite book|last1= Kallis|first1= Aristotle |author-link= Aristotle Kallis |title=Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Fascist Europe|date=2008|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781134300341}}
* {{cite book|last= Suppan |first= Arnold |author-link= Arnold Suppan|title=[[Hitler–Beneš–Tito|Hitler – Beneš – Tito: Konflikt, Krieg und Völkermord in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa]]|date=2014|publisher= [[Austrian Academy of Sciences]] }}
* {{cite book|last1=Thomas|first1=Nigel|last2=Mikulan|first2=Krunoslav|title=Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941–45|date=1995|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781855324732}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Newman|first=John Paul|date=2017|title=War Veterans, Fascism, and Para-Fascist Departures in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1918–1941|journal=Fascism|volume=6|pages=42–74|doi=10.1163/22116257-00601003|doi-access=free}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Newman|first=John Paul|s2cid=73611212|date=2014|title=Serbian and Habsburg Military institutional legacies in Yugoslavia after 1918|journal=First World War Studies |volume=5|issue=3|pages=319–335|doi=10.1080/19475020.2014.1001519|url=http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/7632/1/JPN-Serbian-2014.pdf}}
* {{cite journal|last=McCormick|first=Rob|s2cid=145309437|title=The United States' Response to Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945|journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention|year=2008|volume=3|issue=1|pages=75–98|url=http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1183&context=gsp|doi=10.1353/gsp.2011.0060|url-access=subscription}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Hamerli|first=Petra|title=The Hungarian-Italian Support of the Croatian Separatism between 1928 and 1934|url=https://www.academia.edu/19673649|journal=West Bohemian Historical Review|issn=1804-5480|issue=1|year=2015|language=en}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Zuckerman|first=Boško|year=2010|title=Prilog proučavanju antisemitizma i protužidovske propagande u vodećem zagrebačkom ustaškom tisku (1941-1943)|url=https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=95367&lang=en|journal=Journal of the Institute of Croatian History|language=hr|volume=42|issue=1|pages=355–385|issn=0353-295X}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Gumz|first=Jonathan E.|date=2001|title=Wehrmacht Perceptions of Mass Violence in Croatia, 1941–1942|journal=The Historical Journal|volume=44|issue=4|pages=1015–1038|doi=10.1017/S0018246X01001996|jstor=3133549|s2cid=159947669|issn=0018-246X}}
* {{cite book |last1=Trifković |first1=Gaj |title=Parleying with the Devil: Prisoner Exchange in Yugoslavia, 1941‒1945 |date=2020 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-1-94966-811-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNjcDwAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book |last1=Alonso |first1=Miguel |last2=Kramer |first2=Alan |last3=Rodrigo |first3=Javier |title=Fascist Warfare, 1922–1945: Aggression, Occupation, Annihilation |date=2019 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-03027-648-5 |pages=243–261 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XXfADwAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book |last1=Adriano |first1=Pino |last2=Cingolani |first2=Giorgio |title=Nationalism and Terror: Ante Pavelić and Ustasha Terrorism from Fascism to the Cold War |date=2018 |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-9-63386-206-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U7tWDwAAQBAJ}}
* {{Cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Martin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1mQBeR9F0isC|title=The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust|year=2010|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|isbn=978-1-4299-0036-2|language=en}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Popović|first1=Jovo|title=Pop izdaje|last2=Lolić|first2=Marko|last3=Latas|first3=Branko|date=1988|publisher=Stvarnost|isbn=9788670750395|language=hr}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=ufi4AAAAIAAJ at Google Books] [https://znaci.org/00001/15.pdf at znaci.net]
* {{Cite book|last=Goldstein|first=Ivo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tAI3wAEACAAJ|title=Jasenovac|date=2018|publisher=Fraktura|isbn=978-953-266-987-9|page=731|language=en}}
* {{cite book|last=Littlejohn|first=David|title=Foreign Legions of the Third Reich|year=1994|publisher=R. James Bender Publishing|isbn=978-0-912138-29-9|volume=3}}
* {{Cite book|last=Ragazzi|first=Francesco|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9j9cnQAACAAJ|title=Governing Diasporas in International Relations: The Transnational Politics of Croatia and Former Yugoslavia|date=2017|publisher=Taylor & Francis Group|isbn=978-1-138-73963-5|language=en}}
* {{cite book |last=Velikonja |first=Mitja |author-link=Mitja Velikonja |url=https://archive.org/details/religiousseparat0000veli|url-access=registration|title=Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina|year=2003 |publisher=Texas A&M University Press|isbn=978-1-58544-226-3}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Fischer|editor-first=Bernd J.|editor-link=Bernd Jürgen Fischer|year=2007|title=Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South-Eastern Europe|publisher=Purdue University Press|isbn=978-1-55753-455-2}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Ustaše}}
* [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac Holocaust era in Croatia: Jasenovac 1941–1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070916054042/http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac |date=16 September 2007 }}, an on-line museum by the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051031151251/http://guskova.ru/misc/balcan/2004-04-22e Fund For Genocide Research, Jasenovac death camp], guskova.ru
* [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-046-01.html Eichmann Trial, Tel Aviv 1961] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194245/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-046-01.html |date=3 March 2016 }}, nizkor.org
* [http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com Lawsuit against the Vatican Bank and Franciscans for return of the Ustaše Treasury by Holocaust victims]

{{Fascism}}
{{Yugoslav Axis collaborationism}}
{{Genocide of Serbs}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ustase}}

[[Category:Ustaše| ]]
[[Category:1929 establishments in Croatia]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Croatia]]
[[Category:Anti-Serbian sentiment]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Banned far-right parties]]
[[Category:Catholicism and far-right politics]]
[[Category:Collaboration with the Axis Powers]]
[[Category:Croatian nationalism]]
[[Category:Defunct political parties in Croatia]]
[[Category:Right-wing terrorism]]
[[Category:Fascism in Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:Fascist organizations]]
[[Category:History of the Romani people during World War II]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:Independent State of Croatia]]
[[Category:Jewish Croatian history]]
[[Category:Organizations disestablished in 1945]]
[[Category:Parties of one-party systems]]
[[Category:Terrorism in Croatia]]
[[Category:Propaganda in Croatia]]
[[Category:War crimes of the Independent State of Croatia]]
[[Category:Anti-Masonry]]
[[Category:Antisemitic political parties]]