Croatia is a place that few people could find on a map even today, yet this corner of the former Yugoslavia ended up as one of Hitler's staunchest allies. As Germany swallowed up Europe between 1939 and 1941, the Nazis sought allies from among the conquered peoples and found many who shared their racial and anti-communist beliefs.
In every nation Hitler occupied, pre-war fascist or ultra-nationalist parties came to the fore with German sponsorship. A series of puppet dictators were placed in control of conquered nations under strict German guidance, such as Vidkun Quisling in Norway, whose name would become synonymous with collaboration and treason.
Across the occupied territories, fascist-leaning citizens were recruited into foreign legions within the German Army, Air Force, and Waffen-SS. Danes, Norwegians, Frenchmen, Belgians, Walloons, Dutchmen, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and many others joined the list. Most of these units ended up on the Eastern Front fighting the Soviets. Many won fearsome fighting reputations, while others earned darker reputations for brutality and mass murder.
Few people know that among the German units captured at Stalingrad in 1943 was a regiment that wore German army uniforms but actually came from the Balkans: the 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment. Its regimental badge was a red and white checkerboard shield. The unit was Croatia's contribution to the crusade against Bolshevism, as the Nazis called it, sent east by the dictator of the Independent State of Croatia, Ante Pavelić.
Yugoslavia had been created in 1918 at the conclusion of World War I by merging former Ottoman Turkish and Austro-Hungarian territories. The problem with this idea was the religious and cultural differences between the kingdoms and territories that made up Yugoslavia. Though a nominally unified kingdom, internal turmoil and political intrigue were relentless.
A dictatorship was established in 1929 by King Alexander I, and the Croatian politician Ante Pavelić went into exile, establishing a revolutionary organization called the Ustaše that hoped one day to make Croatia independent. The unpopular king was assassinated in Marseilles, France, in 1934.
Because the new king, Peter II, was an 11-year-old boy, a regency was formed led by the king's cousin, Prince Paul. The Serbs and Croats pushed for federalism of their regions and claimed territories in neighboring parts of Yugoslavia, with both claiming territory in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina, which also had Bosnian Muslim populations. The rise of Hitler and his late-1930s expansion fueled Serb and Croat demands.
No settlement was made, however, before Yugoslavia faced a serious outside threat. It seemed likely that Germany and Italy would invade Yugoslavia, and Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact in March 1941, joining Hitler and Mussolini in a vain attempt to stay independent.
With King Peter II now 17 years old, a coup was staged on March 27 and the regency was overthrown. Yugoslavia withdrew support from the pact with Hitler but was careful not to formally withdraw from the Axis itself. Nevertheless, Hitler could not risk having a potential Allied power on his southern borders, and Germany invaded on April 6, 1941, crushing all resistance in a short campaign. The royal family managed to escape to Kenya in Africa, where the British held them under house arrest.
Germany and Italy now dismembered Yugoslavia to suit themselves. Slovenia joined Germany, apart from a third of western Slovenia that went to Italy. Mussolini also gained control of Dalmatia, bits of Macedonia and Kosovo, Montenegro, and the southern part of Croatia. Croatia was expanded under German auspices and became an independent state and a kingdom. The new king was Tomislav II, in reality the retitled fourth Duke of Aosta, an Italian royal from the House of Savoy. What was left of Serbia became a German-administered puppet led by Milan Nedić.
Ante Pavelić served first as prime minister of Croatia from 1941 to 1943 and then as dictator, using the title Poglavnik, loosely translated as "first" or "foremost." He was an avowed fascist whose Ustaše were set loose on what was perceived as Croatia's enemies: Serbs, Jews, Romany, and anti-fascists. His policies resulted in the murder of over 100,000 Jews and Serbs in notorious concentration camps, as well as many thousands from other groups, and the murder of his own citizens.
Pavelić ensured good relations and military and economic assistance from Germany by providing troops for Hitler's campaign in the East. The Croatian Army grew to 55,000 men, equipped with former Royal Yugoslav Army equipment and Italian light tanks. A sizable air force was also created with Yugoslav, German, Italian, and French fighters and bombers.
From this, Pavelić formed the Croatian Air Force Legion, a German-trained air unit attached to the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front. They flew the Messerschmitt 109 fighter and the Dornier 17 bomber. Croatian fighter pilots from this unit would claim 283 Soviet aircraft shot down.
The Croatian Legion, an army force for Eastern Front service, was formed in 1941. Its main component was the aforementioned 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment, attached to the German 100th Jäger Division in Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army. Uniformed and armed by the Wehrmacht, the 369th's members wore distinctive Croatian colors on their tunics, and the men were either Croats, Ukrainians, or White Russians. There were also Bosnian Muslims among them.
The regiment saw considerable action, suffering heavy casualties before its involvement in the disastrous Stalingrad campaign, fighting at the Red October Factory and Mamayev Hill. By December 1942 the regiment was reduced to a third of its original strength, but the German command commended the 369th for its military bearing and discipline. Many officers and men were decorated by the Germans, including many who received the Iron Cross first and second class.
The 369th was worn down to a shadow of its former self by the relentless battle as the Axis forces were surrounded at Stalingrad and surrendered with the Germans in February 1943. The remaining 900 men became prisoners of war as part of the 100,000 German, Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian prisoners the Soviets took, all that remained of the quarter-of-a-million-strong Sixth Army. They were sent to labor camps in Siberia, from whence few returned.
About a thousand Croatian legionnaires had been evacuated from the Stalingrad pocket before the end, and they were formed with new men into the 369th Croatian Infantry Division in the German Army. It was used on anti-partisan operations in Yugoslavia, serving alongside the Waffen-SS's Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. What remained of this division surrendered to British forces in Austria in May 1945. German troops were taken prisoner by the British, but the 3,000 or so Croat troops from the division were handed over to Yugoslav partisans and were mostly executed as traitors.
As for Ante Pavelić, he realized the writing was on the wall when Croatian and German forces could not control Yugoslav partisan advances into his nation. He moved with the Croatian Army into Austria along with many civilians. On May 8, German General Alexander Löhr informed Pavelić that Germany had surrendered. Fearing for his life, Pavelić abandoned the Croatian forces and drove to the US occupation zone of Austria.
Incredibly, Pavelić did not try to conceal his identity. He reported himself to the US occupation authorities, who took no action whatsoever. However, after several former Croatian government ministers were arrested and executed in Zagreb in 1945, Pavelić decided to move on.
He next went to Italy disguised as a Catholic priest. In Rome he received help from elements of the Vatican, living in several Vatican-owned properties. The new president of Yugoslavia, Tito, accused the Vatican of harboring the war criminal Pavelić. It was believed that Pavelić was useful to Western intelligence, like so many wanted Nazis who also received shelter or help from Allied intelligence organizations.
Pavelić obtained a Red Cross passport via his Vatican contacts and used it to obtain an Argentine entry visa, arriving in Buenos Aires on November 6, 1948, on an Italian ship. His family followed soon afterwards. Using the false name Pablo Aranjos, he stayed in contact with other former Ustaše in the city.
Life was hard and he had to work as a bricklayer to support his family. He later became the owner of a building company and also joined a Croatian nationalist organization called the Croatian Home Guard. In April 1951 Pavelić announced the Croatian State Government, a government in exile, gathering together many former Ustaše living in Argentina under his leadership.
In April 1957, however, Pavelić was shot and wounded by a Serbian hotel owner. Without Perón's protection, Pavelić was vulnerable, and Yugoslavia made an extradition request. The Argentine government granted the request, but Pavelić, with a bullet lodged in his spine, fled to Santiago in Chile and then to Spain.
He found a friendly reception in Madrid, as Spain was ruled by the fascist dictator General Francisco Franco. In Madrid, Pavelić entered more political intrigue in secret, but the wounds he received from the assassination attempt in Buenos Aires eventually caught up with him. He died in hospital on December 28, 1959, at the age of 70, never having been brought to justice for his appalling crimes.