Ustaše

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Ustaše File:340px-Ustaše symbol.svg.png Full Name: Ustaše Alias: Ustashe Ustasha Croatian Revolutionary Movement Origin: Croatia Foundation: January 7, 1929 headquarters Torino, Bologna (1929–1941) Zagreb, Croatia (1941 – 1945) Commanders: Ante Pavelić Goals: Exterminate all Jews and Romani in Yugoslavia (failed) Exterminate one-third of all ethnic Serbs Expel one-third of all ethnic Serbs Forcibly convert one-third of all ethnic Serbs from Serbian Orthodox Christianity to Roman Catholicism Stay in power (failed) Establish a "Greater Croatia" (failed) Crimes: Mass murder Genocide Ethnic cleansing Terrorism War crimes Crimes against humanity Xenophobia Anti-Semitism Antiziganism Slavophobia

“	In 1934, the world witnessed the very public rise of a Croat terror organization in Yugoslavia, who would eventually collaborate with the Nazis and commit hideous crimes against humanity during World War II. It is the Ustaše - an organization so extreme that even the Germans were appalled by the crimes they committed.	„
	~ Intro to a documentary about the Ustaše.

The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Croatian: Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret), commonly known as Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist, racist, ultranationalist and terrorist organization, active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II.

Ideology

The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Roman Catholicism and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span the Drina River and extend to the border of Belgrade. The movement emphasized the need for a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs, Jews and Romani people, and persecution of anti-fascist or dissident Croats and Bosniaks. The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as "Muslim Croats," and as a result, Bosniaks were not persecuted on the basis of race.

Fiercely Roman Catholic, the Ustaše espoused Roman Catholicism and Islam as the religions of the Croats and Bosniaks and condemned Orthodox Christianity, which was the main religion of the Serbs. Roman Catholicism was identified with Croatian nationalism, 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."

When it was founded in 1930, it was a nationalist organization that sought to create an independent Croatian state. When the Ustaše came to power in the NDH, a quasi-protectorate established by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during World War II, its military wings became the Army of the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustaše militia. However the Ustaše never received massive support.

The movement functioned as a terrorist organization before World War II but in April 1941, they were appointed to rule a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which has been described as both an Italian-German quasi-protectorate, and as a puppet state of Nazi Germany.

History

In 1929, when King Alexander I of Yugoslavia tried to suppress the conflict between Croatian and Serbian political parties by imposing a personal dictatorial regime in Yugoslavia, Ante Pavelić, a former delegate to Parliament and an advocate of Croatian separatism, fled to Italy and formed the Ustaša (“Insurgence”) movement.

Dedicated to achieving Croatian independence from Yugoslavia, the ustaše modeled themselves on the National Fascist Party and founded terrorist training centres in Italy and Hungary. To foment political crises in Yugoslavia, the Ustaša’s members attempted to incite a peasant rebellion in northern Dalmatia in 1932 and participated in the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 at Marseille.

The Ustaša achieved its goal after the Axis Powers invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia in April 1941. Pavelić then returned to Croatia and, under the sponsorship of the Italians, formed the government of a Croatian state that had been expanded to include some of Serbia and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Ustaša also conscripted an army to join the Axis Powers and to fight the resistance movements that were beginning to operate in the Yugoslav lands. To make their state more purely Croatian, the Ustaše set about exterminating its Serb, Jewish, and Gypsy inhabitants with a brutality that shocked even the Germans and occasionally obliged the Italians to intervene. Although many Yugoslavs reacted to their brutality by joining the resistance movements, the Ustaša remained in control of Croatia until May 1945, when the German army protecting them collapsed and Pavelić and his supporters fled before the Yugoslav Partisans lead by Josip Broz Tito.