Croatia, located in southeastern Europe along the Adriatic Sea, is known for its stunning coastline, picturesque islands, and historic cities. The country boasts a diverse landscape that includes rocky shores, pristine beaches, and lush national parks. The ancient city of Dubrovnik, with its well-preserved walls and charming streets, is a highlight. Inland, you'll find rolling hills, vineyards, and historic towns like Split with its Roman influence. Croatia's rich cultural heritage, combined with its natural beauty, makes it a popular destination for travelers seeking both relaxation and exploration.
Behind the some what idyllic persona the modern country has now it’s history has an uglier face. The evils of war shone light on this face during The wars of Yugoslavia which showed the lengths that some can go to in a bid for independence and retribution, as ethnic cleansing and war crimes prevailed throughout that conflicts.
Before all of this pain and torment there was and earlier scare, a scare that has been forgotten or well hidden, a scare that has festered behind the many taboos that arose during the Second World War, a scare that not even the Nazi themselves could contain once they’ed open Pandora’s box.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the dark history podcast where we explore the darkest parts of human history. hope everyone is well I’m Rob your host as always. Welcome to the new episode, The Ustacha: World war 2 forgotten evil, yeah this one is going to be dark and I mean very dark, So the usual obligatory warnings apply. I am not one to sensors the harsh truth of topics that I have covered, I have become somewhat desensitised what I read and research but this one is horrendous. If you are continuing with this episode I will begin. During World War II, Croatia was part of the Axis Powers and established the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in 1941 under the leadership of the Ustasha regime. The NDH was a puppet state aligned with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Ustasha government pursued a policy of extreme nationalism and ethnic cleansing, targeting Serbs, Jews, Roma, and other minority groups. I know what your think, Rob this is no different to any other fascist ideology of the time, and in some respects you are right but the depths of evil this government went to had the Nazis cutting ties with their own creation because they were to extreme. So without further ado please sit back and relax next to the fire for more dark history.
World war 1 spelt the end for many empires on both sides of the divide. The Russian Empire was plunged into The Russian Revolution in 1917 which led to the downfall of the Russian monarchy and the establishment of the Bolshevik government. The defeat of Germany in World War I led to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the collapse of the German Empire. The Weimar Republic emerged as a democratic government in Germany, but it faced economic challenges and political instability. The war also marked the end of the Ottoman Empire. The empire’s territories were divided among European powers and local nationalist movements. The Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, resulted in the establishment of modern-day Turkey as a republic in 1923.
One major player in world war 1 was the Austro-Hungarian empire. The empire ruled the Balkans in a polyglot mosaic of little states. These states each had varying degrees of autonomy but were all unified under the Hapsburg monarchy. the end of the war saw its implosion of Austro-Hungary. The empire’s multi-ethnic structure couldn’t withstand the nationalist aspirations of its various populations culminating in the creation several successor states, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.
Croatia became a part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This kingdom was a multi-ethnic state composed of several South Slavic nations, including Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others. Croatia's identity within this larger entity underwent shifts as the country adjusted to the new political landscape.
Croatia retained a degree of autonomy within the kingdom, with its own Ban, governor and Sabor, parliament. However, tensions between different ethnic groups and centralization efforts by the government in Belgrade led to conflicts and challenges in defining Croatia's role and identity within the kingdom.
Throughout the interwar period, Croatia's political landscape was marked by debates over centralization versus regional autonomy. The economic and social conditions were often difficult for the population, and political parties representing various interests competed for influence. In Croatia one of the most successful right-wing factions to arise was the Croatian Peasant Party. This party combined a moderate religious bend with soft nationalism and traditional blood-and-soil ideas
Members were intolerant of Serbian citizens, who were in conflict with the Croatians following the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand.
One former member of this party, Ante Pavelic, took the cause of Croatian independence a bit further than most. He would become the face of the ultra nationalist organization that would terrorize Croatia in the coming decades: the Ustacha.
Ante Pavelić was born in Bradina, Bosnia in 1889. He is best known for his role as the head of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. Pavelić was a lawyer by profession and became a prominent figure in Croatian nationalist and separatist circles.
Based on a blend of Roman Catholicism and fascism, the group had no qualms about using genocide and terror to reach its ultimate goal of creating an independent and purely Croatian state free from Yugoslavian influence. As such, the group orchestrated several bombings and an attempt on the life of Croatia’s and Yugoslavia’s King Alexander, who was struggling to temper the tensions between Croatia and Serbia by unifying them under his crown.
Pavelic had fled to Italy to form the group covertly, but in 1929, the Yugoslavian court sentenced him to death in absentia. Pavelic was sentenced to death again in 1932, but he succeeded in assassinating King Alexander two years later. Under tremendous pressure from foreign protesters, Italy begrudgingly locked Pavelic up for 18 months.
Even while he was in prison, Pavelic was making progress on his nationalist Ustaše revolution. The Italians allowed him virtually unlimited contact with the outside world, which he used to direct terrorist activity inside Yugoslavia.
In 1935, a Croat nationalist party rose to power, which Pavelic felt justified in taking credit for. When he was released in March 1936, still finding Italy’s official relationship with his movement chilly, Pavelic traveled to Germany and made efforts to win the support of Hitler himself.
As part of the process, the German Foreign Office asked him to draft a statement of his beliefs to gauge how close he was to the Nazis ideologically. In his statement, Pavelic wrote:
“Today almost all banking and almost all trade in Croatia is in the hands of the Jews…All the press in Croatia is in Jewish hands. This Jewish Freemason press is constantly attacking Germany, the German people and National Socialism.”
“All enemies,” Pavelic vociferated, “all Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, should be slaughtered.”
But he was too radical even for Hitler, who wanted the Balkan states to remain neutral allies to his regime. As such, Pavelic was forced to take the Ustaše underground under the surveillance of the Benito Mussoline and the Italians.
But Under Pavelić’s leadership, the Ustasha movement gained momentum, advocating for Croatian independence and promoting extreme nationalism.
The Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War, occurred in April 1941. This was the final solution that the German war machine had come to after Yugoslavia had signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany in March 1941. However, a military coup took place in Belgrade on March 27, 1941, overthrowing the pro-German government. The coup led to a period of political instability, which the Axis Powers used as a pretext for their invasion. On April 6, 1941, German forces, supported by Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops, launched a coordinated invasion of Yugoslavia from multiple directions. The Yugoslav military, disorganized and internally divided, struggled to mount an effective defense.
the Luftwaffe initiated heavy air raids, targeting key Yugoslav cities and infrastructure. The bombing campaigns significantly weakened Yugoslav defenses and disrupted communication and transportation networks.
Despite some pockets of resistance, the Yugoslav defense quickly crumbled under the overwhelming force of the Axis invasion. The Yugoslav government sought an armistice on April 17, and the country officially surrendered shortly after.
Following the surrender, Yugoslavia was divided among the Axis Powers and their allies. Germany and Italy occupied most of the country, while Bulgaria annexed parts of Macedonia and Serbia, and Hungary occupied regions in the north.
The invasion and ultimate surrender of Yugoslavia to Nazi German brought about a headache for the invading force, Although they preferred to install a puppet government that had the public’s support, the popular Croatian political leader Vladko Maček refused to collaborate.
So, they had no choice but to install the extreme Pavelic as the leader of the new Independent State of Croatia.
Pavelic and the Ustaše wasted no time settling scores all over the country. Within days of taking power, he signed a decree “Protecting Croatian National Property” that nullified contracts with Jews.
A few days later, he signed another decree that gave the Ustaše power to impose immediate execution on anyone found “harming national interests” that could include being Jewish or Serbian.
Immediately after that, the Ustaše passed an “economic reform” package that eliminated state and local governments which effectively turned tens of thousands of Serbs and Jews who had worked in local politics into jobless refugees.
Pavelic wasn’t done yet. The philosophy of the Ustaše was violently pro-Croatian the way the Nazis were pro-German, but they were based in strict Roman Catholic values, too. As such, Bosnian Muslims were tolerated on the grounds that their religion “kept the Croat bloodline pure,” while Jews who converted to Catholicism were allowed to claim “honorary Croatian” status.
Unconverted Jews, however, along with Orthodox Serbs, were considered enemies of the state. Communists and partisans of all political, religious, and ethnic stripes were considered as such as well.
By the end of 1941, the Ustaše had rounded up and shot, strangled, or beaten to death perhaps 100,000 of these people.
Children were blinded, their eyes gouged out, or hacked to death with shovels. Men were hung upside-down and castrated before strangled or mauled by dogs. Some units allied with the Axis powers, such as Franco’s Spanish volunteers, even asked to be assigned to a fighting front near Leningrad to get away from service near the Ustaše death squads.
Everybody in the country who even looked like a communist was killed or interned in a labor camp, while the police and judges who had previously harassed Ustaše members disappeared overnight.
One of the Ustacha’ tools of fear was the concentration camp. Although no concentration camp was pleasant, the Ustacha camps stands out among a sea of darkness. The Jasenovac camp was situated in a remote and ominous landscape which was built in August 1941 and it was a place of unspeakable horror for thousands of men and women.
Inside the camp, a bleak collection of barracks and watchtowers created an atmosphere of despair. The very architecture seemed to exude a sense of malevolence, as if the structures themselves bore witness to the atrocities that took place within their walls.
The camp's purpose was to strip away the humanity of its victims. Inmates endured forced labor, unbearable conditions, and relentless torment. The horrors inflicted upon them were beyond comprehension, reflecting the depths of human cruelty.
Conditions in the Jasenovac camps were horrendous. Prisoners received minimal food. Shelter and sanitary facilities were totally inadequate. Worse still, the guards cruelly tortured, terrorized, and murdered prisoners at will. This camp had one mission and that was the extermination of Jews, Serbs and Roma.
Guards would bet among themselves who could kill the most people, the record being 1360 men women and children. One guard recounted his torture of an old man named Vukasin Mandrapa; he attempted to compel the man to bless Ante Pavelić, which the old man refused to do, even after he had cut off both his ears and nose after each refusal. Ultimately, he cut out the old man's eyes, tore out his heart, and slashed his throat.
The camp’s brutality was notorious, with various methods of execution such as shootings, beatings, and use of sharp tools. Inmates were subjected to extreme violence and sadistic experiments.
Even children and babies weren’t safe from the people Some of their most horrific crimes were burning babies in front of their parents, mangling kids from 0-14 y/o with axes, raping girls in front of their mothers.
these evil fuckers had separate camp just for children. The children, ranging from newborn to fourteen years old, were separated from their parents and sent to these separate concentration camps. When some of these children arrived at this camp the children were exhausted and virtually naked. Their appearance was skeletal Many had swollen bellies due to malnourishment, thin pale faces, and teeth falling out. Almost all were suffering from severe diarrhea, and most had multiple diseases. Some children died after the effort of simply getting up.
The children had to sleep on the floor with only a thin layer of straw, covered in their own feces.
These children had No food, no water, they were riddled with lice, disease, malnutrition were forced into indoctrination classes over saw by the church.
From time to time, a men, dressed in a black uniform, would come with a wheelbarrow and pick up the dead children.
The coffins stuffed with as many bodies as possible so much so that it took physical force to close them.
By the end of the war, an estimated 30,000 Jews, 29,000 Romani, and between 300,000 and 600,000 Serbs had been slaughtered by the Ustaše.
This was on top of the usual shootings and deportations in the dead of winter that the Ustaše used as supplemental methods.
As the zone of German control shrank, the Ustaše found itself scrambling for a safe haven.
The Ustaše fought their last European battle in World War II on May 9, 1945, against partisans near the Austrian border, after which the entire force withdrew in an effort to find British units to surrender to.
The British, who had heard more than they would have liked about Ustaše activities refused the surrender and told the men to go and give themselves up to the predominantly Serbian partisans.
A total of 40,000 Ustaše members did just that, whereupon the partisans machine gunned every single one of them and tossed their corpses into a ditch.
However, the Ustaše’s leader Ante Pavelic was not found among the bodies. Citing their Roman Catholic faith, Pavelic and his senior officers appealed to the Vatican for help. Shockingly, despite all their atrocities, the Catholic Church obliged. Using clerical passports, the escaped Ustaše men made it all the way to Argentina along the infamous German “Rat Line.”
There, Ante Pavelic lived peacefully under the protection of the Peron regime until 1957, when a Serb partisan caught up with him and shot Pavelic several times in the stomach.
Pavelic survived, but Argentina was no longer safe for him, so he moved to Spain. Suffering from uncontrolled diabetes with his wounds still unhealed, former Ustaše leader Ante Pavelic died in bed in 1959 at age 70.
For a man that even the Nazis felt had gone too far, his death was far to easy.
Thank you everyone for taking the time out of your day to listen to this extremely dark episode. Exploring this horrific topic made me want to cry and vomit at the same time. Anything to do with the suffering of children gets to me and I will admit I left out a great deal of the stories of child torture and suffering. The camps and these people were disgusting and I would say hell is to good of a place for them. These people were so extreme one SS leader called them beasts and commented on how brutally they murdered conscripted aged males and helpless old people, women, and children. the this is the Gustapo, a police force that was known for their brutality and they were to much for them, Nazi actively asked not to be near them.
Another part of this was Ante Pavelić’s the leader of it all, the man who pulled the stings of these horde of demons. His legacy is highly controversial. Believe it or not some see him as a nationalist hero who fought for Croatian independence. How? How can you condone a man who doesn’t just kill children actively makes them suffer beforehand. Yes the argument will be well it happened to our children, and he did something about it, did he? Did he really? Or did he use the mask of independence as a way to settle his own scores.
As for the churches involvement in the camps and his escape, well what can I say if that is the act of gods representative on earth then he is no god of mine.
Luckily many others view him as a war criminal responsible for the suffering and deaths of numerous innocent people during his time in power.
As for the concentration camp So far, 83,145 names of victims have been collected. At least 39,570 men, 23,474 women and 20,101 children under the age of 14 died and that just at the Jasenovac camp complex. However, the final number is estimated to be much higher, and it is likely that some of the victims’ names will never be known.
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