Croatia Under Ante Pavelic

America, the Ustase and Croatian Genocide in World War II

Robert B. McCormick

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857736710
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Seconda guerra mondiale

Ante Pavelic was the leader of the fascist party of Croatia (the Ustaše), who, on Adolf Hitler's instruction, became the leader of Croatia after the Nazi invasion of 1941. Paveli? was an extreme Croatian nationalist who believed that the Serbian people were an inferior race - he would preside over a genocide that ultimately killed an estimated 390, 000 Serbs during World War II. Croatia under Ante Paveli? provides the full history of this period, with a special focus on the United States' role in the post-war settlement. Drawing on previously unpublished documents, Robert McCormick argues that President Harry S. Truman's Cold War priorities meant that Paveli? was never made to answer for his crimes. Today, the Ustaše remains difficult legacy within Croatian society, partly as a result of Paveli?' political life in exile in South America. This is a new account of US foreign policy towards one of the Second World War's most brutal dictators and is an essential contribution to Croatian war-time history.

CHAPTER 1

ANTE PAVELIĆ AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE USTAŠE

The United States neglected Yugoslavia and the Balkan Peninsula for most of the 1920s and 1930s.¹ The economic boom in post World War I America and the consequences of the Great Depression focused Washington’s attention on domestic affairs and relations with countries with whom the United States had a significant economic interest. Otherwise, isolationism ruled from coast to coast. No matter how hard politicians tried, however, they could not completely separate America from international affairs. Due to its large immigrant population, even distant and seemingly remote countries such as Yugoslavia were to attract Washington’s attention from time to time. Since the United States had a large population of Croatians, Serbians, Macedonians and other Balkan peoples, any turmoil between ethnic groups in Yugoslavia had the potential for major repercussions within the United States. While America was looking inward, Yugoslavia experienced a series of crises, both internal and external, which ultimately led to the German invasion in April 1941, and the creation of an alleged independent Croatia, an Axis satellite. Some of the turmoil was triggered by Ante Pavelić. A remote, mysterious and almost unknown figure to the State Department for much of the 1930s, Washington reluctantly became interested in Pavelić and the activities of Croatians within the United States, some of whom were sympathetic and supportive of the Ustaše.

American diplomacy

As the United States emerged as an industrial giant in the late 1800s, even relatively obscure areas such as the Balkans necessitated some official American presence. Serbia hosted an American mission as early as 1882; however, it was considered a far-flung distant posting, without any real significance. By the time the United States placed permanent representatives in Yugoslavia in 1919, little had changed. Like most Balkan capital cities, Belgrade was viewed as a backwater.² In the 1930s, America’s staff at the mission ‘consisted of one minister, one secretary-of-embassy, and a part-time military attaché who “covered” several Balkan countries simultaneously’.³ There were various other staff members, but this certainly was a skeleton crew. Besides the office in Belgrade, there was a consulate in Zagreb, established in 1920, which was staffed by two department officials. Washington deemed a larger presence in Yugoslavia unnecessary, primarily because America had little economic or national interest in the new kingdom or the region. Throughout the 1930s, the United States never imported more than $6.7 million of goods from Yugoslavia in a single year. Likewise, American exports had an equally small share of the Yugoslav market, peaking in 1937 at $7.2 million. To place this in perspective, American trade with Czechoslovakia was several times as much.⁴

Within the State Department of the 1930s there were few people who knew much about Yugoslavia or Balkan affairs in general, therefore postings in Belgrade or Bucharest usually came with a good deal of freedom to mould American policy. Foremost among those ignorant of the region was Secretary of State Cordell Hull, a man with little experience or interest in international relations, who became the longest-serving secretary of state in history, holding the post from 1933 to 1944. Hull was mostly a figurehead for President Franklin Roosevelt, who preferred using his own hand-picked men for gaining information and advice on foreign affairs. Hull was heavily dependent on his staff for policy decisions and leadership. As historian Martin Weil commented, ‘Documents went out under his name, but they rarely reflected his own independent opinions, which were few’.⁵ Throughout his tenure in office, the Tennessean allowed the bureaucracy of the State Department to run day-to-day affairs. American relations with Yugoslavia and the rest of the Balkans were managed by a Kentucky native, Wallace Murray, since 1929, the head of the Division of Near East Affairs.⁶ Murray’s experience with Eastern Europe was extremely limited, having only served as secretary to the American legation in Hungary from 1920 to 1922. The Middle East was an area of greater interest for him. Neither Hull nor Murray concerned themselves much about Yugoslav politics. Historian Vladimir Petrov noted that ‘months and sometimes years passed without a single Department message to the legation in Belgrade requesting specific information related to a particular episode or a comprehensive analysis of the situation as a whole’.⁷ What is perhaps most striking is the State Department’s lack of interest in how Balkan countries fitted into the context of European politics. There was much attention paid to following Italian or German affairs, but little was focused on the role Balkan states played in the plans of these expanding fascist countries. Yugoslavia was a faraway country with no one in the State Department very much interested in or capable of understanding its complicated political landscape. It would take terrorist violence and a world war to begin to alter this situation.

Yugoslav politics

Regardless of American isolation, major events were changing Yugoslavia in a profound and dramatic fashion. The late 1920s brought significant domestic turmoil to Yugoslavia, as political rivalry between nationalist parties reached a fever pitch. The Yugoslav government was permanently crippled by its inability to develop a national political party that could draw large numbers of votes from various nationalities. Instead, politics focused on ethnically divisive parties who forged deeper ethnic hatreds in order to solidify their political power among their constituents. Most Croatians, especially the peasants, endorsed the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska Seljačka Stranka, HSS), which had gained prominence under the leadership of the Radić brothers, Ante and Stjepan. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Peasant Party fought for, at most, an independent Croatia and, at minimum, a Croatia with a great amount of autonomy within Yugoslavia. Serbians looked to Nikolai Pašić and the Radical Party as the mouthpiece for their interests. Neither party even pretended to cooperate with the other. This was never more apparent than in debates that surrounded the ratification of the 1921 Constitution, a strongly centralist document dictated by the desires of the greater Serbia faction of the Radicals. The constitution was approved without the support or participation of key Croatian leadership, making it a major point of contention throughout the 1920s. In effect, the constitution created a centralized state under Serbian authority which provided the King, a member of the Serbian royal family, with considerable power. Consequently, Croatians never fully accepted the document or the Yugoslav government under it, believing that neither represented Croatian interests or the country as a whole. Croatian leadership saw the constitution as a Serbian document only exercising jurisdiction over Serbs.

By the mid 1920s, Premier Pašić’s dominance, enforced by the police and censorship, became more precarious as trade agreements with Italy faced serious opposition from the independence-minded Croatian Peasant Party now led by the surviving Radić brother, Stjepan. The Croatians were concerned about growing Italian interest in the Dalmatian Coast and had no faith that the Radicals would protect them from Mussolini’s ambitions. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Italy was denied most of its territorial claims, including much of Dalmatia, promised by the 1915 Treaty of London. Pašić’s death in 1926 damaged the cohesion of the Radical Party by depriving it of its long-term anchor, and moved Yugoslavia towards even more instability. The political quagmire allowed King Aleksandar to flex his muscles. This was especially true after the elections of 1927 failed to provide the country with anything more than the continued divisive political formations of the previous years.⁸

By May 1928, the Skupština (Yugoslav Parliament) faced gridlock. The particular issue was the Italian trade treaty; however, the deep-seated problems were nationalistic. The government, led by Prime Minister Veljo Vukičević, did not include even one Croatian; attempts to attract Stjepan Radić to join had failed. It was unfortunate for Croatian interests and hopes for Yugoslav unity that the Croatian Peasant Party championed an ill-fated policy of non-participation. Croatian abandonment of the political arena on several different occasions meant that the Serbian dominated Skupština was able to move forward with a Serbian platform. Although Radić returned to the Skupština in June 1928, Croatian and Serbian mistrust continued to burn. The rhetoric on both sides had been heated, with talk of violence which occasionally spilled over into fist fights in and around the parliament. These were only minor disturbances compared to the events of 20 June 1928, when a Radical Montenegrin deputy, Puniša Račić, mortally wounded Radić on the floor of the parliament. Radić lingered, at times seemingly on the road to recovery, until his death on 8 August.

Croatia erupted with demonstrations and violence, as the cause of Croatian independence now had a new martyr, while some Serbians hailed the assassin as a hero. The Yugoslav government had reached a point of grave crisis. By 6 January 1929, King Aleksandar, seeing no opportunity for the Skupština to function, dissolved the 1921 Constitution and proclaimed his dictatorship. He had little choice in the matter since the Croatian Peasant Party, now led by the politically-challenged Vladimir Maček, refused to abide by the constitution, which they argued was never approved by Croatians and did not recognize Croatian rights. Indeed, many Croatians viewed Aleksandar as more of a foreign monarch than the king of Yugoslavia. Some believed the dictatorship was the final manifestation of a carefully crafted strategy of Serb dominance in Yugoslavia. Since Serbs were not about to allow Croatia a significant amount of autonomy, the country’s politics had ground to a halt. Appreciating the threat of a potential civil war if firm leadership did not unite Yugoslavia, the King proceeded to grasp full control over his kingdom. Aleksandar rapidly moved to quash unrest. All political parties were banned and press freedoms were curtailed. He changed the name of the country from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, an act designed to de-emphasize ethnic divisions in the hope of creating a common national identity.

Ustaše origins

Irritated by Croatian political impotence, angered over Aleksandar’s grasp for power and eager to champion the cause of Croatian independence, Ante Pavelić founded the Ustaše, a political and paramilitary organization, in Zagreb on 7 January 1929.⁹ He had no stomach for a dictatorship led by a member of the Serbian royal family, a family he considered foreign and imperialistic. Pavelić had been moving towards a break with Yugoslavia for years, but especially after being elected to the Skupština in 1927. As a deputy representing Zagreb, he enjoyed a prominent pulpit from which to preach his vitriol-laced message of Croatian independence.

The origins of Pavelić’s beliefs rest in his early life in the ruggedly beautiful region west of Sarajevo. The future leader of Croatia was born in the small village of Bradina, Herzegovina on 14 July 1889, the son of a railroad worker on the Sarajevo–Metković line. His early life was spent in an ethnically mixed, rural area that included large numbers of Muslims. Extreme nationalists typically emerge in areas where there is constant and appreciable contact with another ethnic group, and such was the case with Pavelić. He received a good education, attending schools in Travnik, Senj, and Karlovac. In 1910, he travelled to the capital of Croatia – a heady experience for this small-town young man – to attend the University of Zagreb. The University was a centre of Croatian nationalism and Pavelić became an adherent almost immediately, joining a nationalist group called Young Croatia. He earned his stripes in 1912, being arrested for demonstrating in favour of Croatian separatism. Although already a political activist, Pavelić did not shirk his law studies and graduated in 1915.¹⁰

The newly-minted attorney was a staunch supporter of the nationalist Party of Right, being elected general secretary in 1918. He embraced the strongly nationalist foundation of the Party, refusing to recognize Croatia’s inclusion in Yugoslavia. In 1922, he took time away from his political agenda to marry Marija Lovrenčević in Zagreb. The couple had three children, two daughters and one son. By 1927, Pavelić, now vice-president of the Croatian Bar, was elected to the national assembly as a deputy from Zagreb with the aid of an alliance with Ante Trumbić, one of the grand old men of Croatian politics. Pavelić’s biggest supporters were students, strongly influenced by romantic notions of the nation and its heroic past. His position with students and nationalists was further entrenched when he defended Macedonian students affiliated with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) during a trial in Skopje. With this devoted base of followers, his plans for establishing an independent Croatia were already well advanced.

To Pavelić, independence was the only policy for Croatians, who, in his opinion, had suffered for generations under foreign regimes such as the Habsburgs and at present the Karadjordjevićs. Though he was an unknown politician to the Americans, he had emerged in Yugoslavia as a voice for Croatian independence, a champion of Croatian interests who drew his message from earlier Croatian nationalists. Pavelić’s political inspiration stemmed primarily from two Croatian politicians, Ante Starčević and Josip Frank. Starčević was a contemporary of Bishop Joseph George Strossmayer, the intellectual father of Yugoslavism. The son of a Catholic father and an Orthodox mother, Starčević championed Croatia’s historical right to be an independent state, arguing that Croatians had never abandoned their independence, regardless of Habsburg or Ottoman domination. As leader of the Party of Right, his hatred of Habsburg dominance gained a large following among Croatians who had long been weary of Hungarian hegemony. In opposition to South Slav unity as outlined by Strossmayer, Starčević worked to undermine Serbian identity by aggressively arguing that Serbians were Croatians who had converted to Orthodoxy. Such statements were blatantly offensive to Serbians and helped set the table for future ethnic tension between Serbian and Croatian camps. Starčević, however, was not a proto-fascist. As Sabrina Ramet notes, Pavelić and his followers altered Starčević’s reputation to fit their fascist desires ‘by denying that the 19th century liberal had ever believed in human equality, ignoring his championing of women’s equality, and endeavouring to portray him as a prototypical racist’.¹¹

As Starčević grew older, his party suffered from a lack of leadership which, in turn, forged factions. Josip Frank, a popular German-Jewish lawyer and follower of Starčević, was a committed Croatian nationalist who became the leader of the Pure Party of Rights, a splinter of Starčević’s party, from 1898 until his death in 1911. Frank, Starčević’s son-in-law, reversed a key component of Starčević’s beliefs. Seeking to become prominent in Croatian politics, he supported the Habsburg monarchy, hoping to elevate Croatia’s place in the Empire and reduce traditional Hungarian power over Croatians. He continued, however, to embrace a hatred for Serbs, a position which was useful for rallying Party supporters. With Frank, a man who believed that Orthodox Serbs were a degenerate force, the seed of anti-Serbian feeling germinated. Though he despised Hungarian dominance in Croatia, his ultimate goal was the establishment of a Croatia in the fashion of Hungary after the Ausgleich of 1867. In other words, Croatia would become an autonomous political entity within the Habsburg Empire, enjoying extensive rights over its domestic affairs.

As years passed and optimism faded, especially after the collapse of the Habsburg state, Frank’s party retreated into the safety of its vehemently anti-Serb and anti-Orthodox dogma. Having failed in achieving its aims, it directed its frustration towards the Serbs. After the creation of Yugoslavia, the Party stood in opposition to the state and the 1921 Constitution, both of which worked against Croatian autonomy and independence. To the Party faithful, full independence seemed the only legitimate policy, although it appeared a distant dream. This did not, however, discourage a small core of Croatians who accepted that independence was a lengthy process, having already consumed hundreds of years. Consequently, Frank’s followers emerged as Croatian zealots who did not seek accommodation with the Serbs but favoured violence, as the only option left to achieve their aims.

The Ustaše

Those in tune with Frank’s strongly anti-Serb positions were left without a unifying voice until Ante Pavelić emerged as leader of the Ustaše. But Pavelić’s ability was not obvious to all. After the Ustaše’s founding, it took about two years for him to be recognized as the movement’s point man. Although he lacked the oratorical proficiency of Mussolini or Hitler, Pavelić had political skills and wanted to develop the Ustaše along the lines of revolutionary and terroristic organizations such as IMRO. From the organization’s inception, the Ustaše was violent and revolutionary. Members’ beliefs were a collection of seemingly disparate ideologies bound together in one movement. In Ustaše ideology, one could be a proto-fascist while at the same time a deep believer in Catholicism. At its ideological core was a fervent, mystical belief in the holiness and sanctity of the Croatian state. As Ustaše architect, Pavelić maintained that Croatians had established a state 1,400 years earlier and that over the centuries they had never abandoned their right to independence. Regardless of the Ottomans, the Habsburgs, or the Karadjordjevićs, Croatia had always existed. Pavelić’s chief goal was therefore the resurrection of an independent Croatian state with borders which corresponded to earlier manifestations of Croatia. This objective was only achievable through the destruction of Serbian – foreign – influence within Croatia, which, in turn, necessitated the annihilation of Yugoslavia. Correspondingly, the wellbeing of the state was of such significance that individual rights ran a distant second to the establishment and maintenance of Croatia. Pavelić’s fascist tendencies were apparent.

In their desire to demonstrate the...