The Pavelic Papers | Timeline: The Independent State of Croatia

Timeline: an historical overview of the Independent State of Croatia


1941
				March 24: The Yugoslav government, after weeks of German flattery and threats, joins the Tripartite Pact. Though given assurances they will not be obliged to allow German troops to cross their territory, the primary reason for the Nazi pressure to sign was the use of the Nis-Thessaloniki railway to transport German troops for the invasion of Greece.
March 26-27: A group of mostly junior officers, led by General Dusan Simovic, carries out a coup d'etat. Regent Prince Paul is deposed and the seventeen year old heir to the throne, King Peter, empowers a new government, including Croat Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Croat Peasant Party, Vladko Macek.
				March 30: Adolf Hitler issues a directive to the German Army (hereafter Wehrmacht) called Operation Enterprise 25, to "destroy Yugoslavia as a military power and sovereign state."
April 6: The German Luftwaffe attacks Belgrade, killing between 12,000 and 17,000 people. The attacks do not drop a payload on Croatia. Citizens in Zagreb hear the voice of leader Ante Pavelic broadcasting from Italy, calling for a mutiny. "Croat soldiers, use your weapons against the Serbian soldiers and officers. We are already fighting shoulder to shoulder with our German and Italian allies."
				April 10: German troops occupy Zagreb. Slavko Kvaternik, deputy leader of the Ustase and soon to be named Field Marshal, proclaims the Independent State of Croatia in the name of the Poglavnik Ante Pavelic.
April 11: Vladko Macek makes a broadcast announcement: "I invite all members of the Peasant Party to recognize the change, to help the new Croatia, and above all, to obey all its laws." Nevertheless his party deputy, governor of Croatia Ivan Subasic, flees with the royal government on April 15, to the Middle East and onward to London.
				April 16: Wearing a black fascist tunic, Ante Pavelic arrives in Zagreb for the first time in twelve years and assumes command of the Independent State of Croatia (hereafter NDH, after its Serbo-Croat acronym). He is greeted by a large congregation of officials, bureaucrats, and church officials, including Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac of Zagreb, head of the Croatian Catholic Church. The Yugoslav Armed Forces have not yet surrendered and are still fighting in the field, particularly to the south in Montenegro and Macedonia and even in Dalmatia. The official surrender came on April 18.
April 27: A division of the newly-minted Ustase Army attacks Gudovac, a village with an exclusively civilian population. 196 Serbs and Jews are killed.
				April 30: Ante Pavelic issues several decrees on race in the NDH. Based upon his Principles of the Ustase Movement written almost a decade ago in exile, the Poglavnik calls for the "purification" of Croatia from "alien elements." Jews and Roma are to be liquidated without delay. Serbs will wear armbands on which the letter P (for Pravoslav, or Orthodox Christian) is inscribed. Jews have their own with the letter Z for zidov.
End of April: Ante Pavelic is granted a private audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome.
				May 8: Security chief of the Ustaska obrana and Pavelic confidant Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburic leads an Ustase attack on the village of Blagaj.
May 11: Royal Yugoslav Army Col. Dragoljub "Draza" Mihailovic and several junior officers depart for Ravna Gora, Serbia. Detachments of their "Chetnik" army are formed in Bosnia, Hercegovina, Slavonia and the Krajina largely as a reaction to the Ustase terror.
				May 12: Maks Luburic arrests and supervises the execution of 260 Jews, Serbs and anti-fascists from the village of Prekopa.
May 18: Italy and Croatia agree on precise borders. Nearly all of Dalmatia is ceded to Italy - an act which shocks many Ustase stalwarts and causes Archbishiop Stepinac to weep. The NDH's borders nevertheless include all of "historic" Croatia, including Bosnia, and stretches to Zemun, at the gates of Belgrade itself.
				May 27: Prefect of Western Bosnia Viktor Gutic orders the arrest of the Orthodox Bishop of Banja Luka. His beard is shaved with a knife and his body mutilated before he is set on fire. All told 131 of 577 Orthodox priests (including three bishops) were murdered by the Ustase through the reign of the NDH, and about 60 others killed in fighting.
Early June: The German Plenipotentiary for the region, General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, begins a report to Berlin with the following words: "According to reliable reports from countless German military and civilian observers, during the last few weeks, in town and country, the Ustasha have gone raging mad." Dr. Hermann Neubacher, the German Plenipotentiary in SE Europe, refers to the horrifying atrocities meted out to the civilian population of the NDH as "a Croatian crusade of destruction."
				June 4: The German legation in Zagreb and the leaders of the NDH discuss Pavelic's plan to replace a significant part of the Serbian population of the NDH with Slovenes and Croats from lands annexed by Nazi Germany.
June 6: Ante Pavelic meets with Adolf Hitler, who signs off on the population resettlement plan. Hitler counsels Pavelic to pursue "a fifty year plan of intolerance, because too much tolerance on such issues can only do harm."
				June 22: Germany attacks the Soviet Union.
June 23: The Ustase kill 164 Serbs from Popovo Polje and execute them by throwing them into a gorge at Kotez.
				June 25: Massacre by Ustase units in the district of Stolac. 260 people killed.
June 26: A speech by Doglavnik (Deputy Leader) Mile Budak is printed in the official newspaper Hrvatski List, which for the first time elucidates the Ustase goal of "killing a third, expelling a third, and converting a third" of the Serbian population of the NDH.
				June 28: Maks Luburic supervises the execution of 260 Serbs from the village of Prekopa. Nearly 4,000 Serbs are expelled from the district of Virovitica altogether.
June 29: A Ustase unit captures 94 Serbs from Prisoje and throws them into a gorge on Mount Grabovica.
				June 30: Ustase aided by Franciscan priests kill an estimated 90 Serbs from Capljina near the Humac monastery.
July 1: The village of Suvaja is burned by the Ustase, killing nearly 300.
				July 13: Beginning of the uprising by Cetniks and Communist-led Partizans in Montenegro, later known as "The People's Uprising." It is the first wide-scale insurrection in Occupied Europe.
July 24: The Ustase begin a massive retaliation for a rebel ambush, executing more than 1,200 people from the vicinity of Grabovac over the next two days.
				July 28: In simultaneous attacks, Ustase units kill 248 civilians near Duvno, 80 people in Primisalj and Slunj, and 180 people at Ivanovic Jarak.
July 29: Massacres in Livno (160 killed), Gracac (500), and an attack on a church in Glina (at least 700 killed), where worshippers are stabbed, beaten, and then burned alive inside after the church is set aflame.
				July 31-August 4: Massacres in the vicinity of Bosanska Krupa. 1,000 people are killed over the next five days.
August 2: A company of the Zagreb Ustasa battalion executes 800 hostages in Sanski Most.
				August 3: 700 Serbian men, women and children in Prijedor are executed.
August 4: A unit of the Ustase arrested 102 Serbs, throwing them into a ravine at Bivolje Brdo.
				August 5: Venezia Division arrives in Montenegro and puts down the insurrection.
August 6: 347 Serbs are taken from Kosinj near Perisic for conversion to Catholicism. Instead they are led to Kosa where they are executed.
				August 17: Beginning of the operation to "purify" Mostar. The city's Jewish population is arrested, and Serbs driven to the nearby villages.
Early September: Approved by Interior Minister Andrija Artukovic and designed by Maks Luburic, the sprawling concentration camp of Jasenovac opens approximately 60 miles south of Zagreb. Among the guards and executioners are six Franciscan priests, including Zvonko Brekalo and the notorious Father Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, known as Fra Sotona (Brother Devil) for his cruelty.
				September 3: The Crna Legija (Black Legion) formed in Sarajevo. This was exclusively a terror unit, infamous for their brutality against the civilian population.
September 5: In response to the Ustase massacres, the Italian army begins to reoccupy Hercegovina, offering their protection to the local Serbian and Jewish population. On the island of Pag they discover the bodies of 4,500 Serbs and 2,500 Jews.
				September 7: Italian General Vittorio Ambrosio gives his "word of honor" to protect the Jews in areas under his command.
Late Autumn: Peasant Party leader Vladko Macek is released from Jasenovac to serve under house arrest until the conclusion of the war. His memoirs include his description of the death camp.
				December 12: The NDH declares war on the United States and Britain following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and similar declarations by Nazi Germany and Italy.


1942
				January 15: Ustase units participate in the Second Offensive against Communist guerrillas in Eastern Bosnia.
April 16: Poglavnik Ante Pavelic issues a decree announcing a scorched earth policy in any part of the NDH where guerrilla activity occurs. Among other things, it states that anyone in any such zone can be executed, legally and summarily.
				April 20: Father Franjo Rihar is arrested and sent to Jasenovac for refusing to celebrate a High Mass on the anniversary of founding of the NDH and failing to lead his congregation in a Te Deum on Ante Pavelic's birthday.
May 9: Archbishop Stepinac returns from a 12 day visit to Rome. The NDH ambassador to the Vatican writes in his dispatches that Stepinac "was in fine form and took a pugnacious attitude to all enemies of the state! He submitted to the Holy Father a nine-page type-written report. He showed it to me and I can assure you it stands for our point of view. In attacking the Serbs, Chetniks and Communists, he has found things to say which even I had not thought of."
				July: Italian units begin to withdraw once again from Hercegovina. The Ustase are prevented from resuming the full-scale massacres of the Spring and Summer 1941 on account of the large number of civilians who have joined the Chetniks or the Partizans.
August 10: The Ustase and the Gestapo begin a reign of terror in Zagreb, Osijek and other cities, arresting the few Jews remaining and whoever they deem to be a left-wing sympathizer. About 1,000 persons are executed over the next three days.
				August 18: German ambassador to Italy Prince Otto von Bismarck submits a written demand for the Italians to "actuate those measures devised by the Germans and Croatians for the transfer of the mass of the Jews of Croatia to territories in the East." Mussolini has "no objection" but most Italian officers ignore the order.
August 25: The Ustase execute 140 people suspected of harboring anti-Ustase sentiments in Vukovar.
				August 30: About 200 men are rounded up in Sid and transported to Sremska Mitrovica on the eastern extremity of the NDH, where they are executed.
Early September: The Crna Legija or Black Legion of the Ustase Army is disbanded under German and Italian pressure.
				September 27: General Mario Roatta visits the main camp for Jewish refugees of the NDH at Kraljevica and reaffirms his committment to protect them from the Ustase.
October 13: Ustase from Jasenovac descend on the surrounding villages on the Sava River, killing about 600 people.
				November 1: A group of "loyal Ustase" Muslim leaders from Bosnia write to Adolf Hitler, commending his Middle Eastern policy, including his support of the anti-Semetic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem but condemning the massacre of the Serbs.
Mid-November: Ante Pavelic meets Adolf Hitler on the Eastern Front HQ in Ukraine and obtains a promise from him for assistance in smashing resistance to his rule in Bosnia.
				December 17: Two Jewish inmates at Jasenovac kill a guard and escape. They find their way to Bihac where the first account of the horror of the camp is published in an interview by an underground newspaper circulated by the Communist-led Partizan army.


1943
				January 20: Operation Weiss with combined Ustase, Italian and German forces begins to root out resistance in Bosnia.
February 2: The Wehrmacht is defeated at Stalingrad. With them, thousands of Croatian soldiers volunteered by their Poglavnik to fight on the Eastern Front are annihilated.
				March: During a visit to Zagreb, Heinrich Himmler claims to have found a few more Jews being protected as "honorary Aryans" and demands their deportation to Germany. The NDH will pay the Germans 30 reichsmark for every Croatian Jew deported to Auschwitz.
Early May: Archbishop Stepinac visits the Vatican. According to the new Ustase ambassador, Stepinac "justified in part the measures used against the Jews, who in our country are the greatest defenders of crimes of this kind [ie, abortion] and the most frequent perpetrators of them."
				May 15: Ustase units participate with German and Italian soldiers in Operation Schwarz, culminating in the Battle of Sutjeska Gorge in which Communist units are heavily battered.
May 21: Ustase torture and execute about 100 Serbs from Mandjelos, sending 300 others to Jasenovac.
				June 10: The Supreme Headquarters of the Partizan army breaks out of its encirclement after defeating the Second Battalion of the Croatian 369th "Devil's Division" at Balinovac.
July 25: Benito Mussolini is toppled in a palace coup in Rome.
				September 8: Italy surrenders. Partizan units temporarily capture Split and an enormous supply depot located there before withdrawing. Ustase units occupy the Dalmatian coast.
Late September: Partizan units evacuate several hundred Jewish and Serbian refugees from the NDH from the island of Rab, where they had found sanctuary under Italian protection. Some join the fight against the remaining Ustase and the Germans, while others are taken to live underground in the Dalmatian hinterland with sympathetic Croat families.
				December 31: From January to December, 58 Ustase mayors of Bosnian towns have been assassinated, and more than two hundred townhalls burnt to the ground.


1944
				Spring: Thousands of members of the Croatian Home Guards, the Domobrans (ie, regular army) defect or desert their posts. The NDH controls little of its own territory outside of the towns and several of these fall to the Chetniks or Partizans.
April 22: The Balkan Air Force bombs Zagreb. Seven Domincan priests are killed. Archibishop Stepinac denounces the bombing in the most severe terms as "a blow to the living organism of the Croatian people."
				August: Foreign Ministry official Mladen Lorkovic and Domobran Col. Ante Vokic are arrested on suspicion of plotting a coup against Ante Pavelic. They are imprisoned in Lepoglava and executed on Pavelic's order in May of 1945.
August 26: German Army Group E begins to withdraw from the Balkans.
				September 6: The Soviet Red Army approaches the Yugoslav border with Romania.
October 20: Partizan units supported by Soviet armor capture Belgrade. Ustase and German units form a line for the final defense of the state, the Sremski Front.
				December: Elements of the German SS and several Franciscan Ustase fight to the last man at the monastery at Siroki Brijeg, scene of especially bloody massacres and the place where Ustase such as Andrija Artukovic were educated.


1945
				Early March: Ustase massacre a hundred wounded Serbs at Knin.
March 10: Several leading Montenegrin and Serbian Chetniks, including Pavle Djurisic, Petar Bacovic and Dragisa Vasic, negotiate with the Ustase to allow passage through their territory to reach the British and Americans in Austria and Italy. The negotiations are carried out with Montenegrin "Green" (pro-independence) leader Sekula Drljevic acting as intermediary. The Ustase later go back on their word and disarm the fighters. Even though their own state is crumbling, they take time to massacre them to a man.
				March 15: Ante Pavelic asks Archibishop Alojzije Stepinac to assume leadership of the Independent State of Croatia. Stepinac considers the offer but does not come to a decision.
March 24: In a pastoral letter, Archbishop Stepinac catagorically denies accuasations that the clergy have participated in war crimes in the Independent State of Croatia. These are lies generated as "a means of destroying those people whom the Communists consider to be an an obstacle to the creation of their program."
				April 6: Partizans capture Sarajevo.
April 10: Archbishop Stepinac celebrates Mass in Zagreb in honor of the fourth anniversary of the NDH.
				April 12: The Sremski Front falters. Vukovar is captured by Partizans.
April 15: Ante Pavelic, Andrija Artukovic, Mile Budak, Archbishop Ivan Saric and other Ustase ringleaders flee Zagreb. By final order of the Poglavnik, Maks Luburic is left in charge of the Armed Forces of the NDH and leads a two-year guerrilla campaign against the Communist government. Anti-Pavelic conspirators Lorkovic and Vokic are executed by the retreating Ustase.
				April 28: Benito Mussolini is captured and executed by Italian partisans in Milan.
May 8: The Wehrmacht surrenders. Partizan forces enter Zagreb.
				May 13: The Partizan First Army is ordered to intercept and annihilate a column of Croats speeding toward the Austrian border, which is believed to contain most of the Ustase leadership. The operation is a failure and most make it through to Austria.
May 15: The war in Yugoslavia ends. According to the Yugoslav government, 1.8 million people died on the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the war (excluding their own victims during the tail end of it). By the Simon Wiesenthal Center's estimates, the Ustase was responsible for the murder of 30,000 Jews (75 percent of the total number in the NDH's pre-war boundaries), 29,000 Roma (97 percent), and 600,000 Serbs (about one-third).

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Timeline: The Ustase Movement

Essay: The Poglavnik's Family Tree