Misplaced Pages

#981018

195-442: Ustaše youth groups were first formed in the 1930s and became active by 1940. These groups were organized into a fully-structured organization on 12 July 1941. The organization was split into four sections by age and it was also divided geographically. Officially, membership was compulsory for all Croat youth. In practice, this issue came down to camp leaders and the recruitment drive in 1941 failed to achieve mass enrollment, after which

390-526: A corporatist system of "National Councils" of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, and communications, among others; and abolition of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy . The Fascist Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers,

585-590: A holistic -national radical Third Way ", while Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism; social Darwinism ; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution." Historian Emilio Gentile has defined fascism thusly: [A] modern political phenomenon, revolutionary , anti-liberal , and anti-Marxist , organized in

780-460: A minimum wage , worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow

975-602: A terrorist organization as well. The first Ustaše center was established in Vienna , where brisk anti-Yugoslav propaganda soon developed and agents were prepared for terrorist actions. They organized the so-called Velebit uprising in 1932, assaulting a police station in the village of Brušani in Lika . In 1934, the Ustaše cooperated with Bulgarian, Hungarian and Italian right-wing extremists to assassinate King Alexander while he visited

1170-465: A "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the " plutocratic " French and British. Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism". The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives , Catholics, and

1365-542: A 'police state' and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism. According to David Thomson , the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the 'nemesis of fascism'. William L Shirer sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel , through Bismarck , to Hitler; Robert Gerwarth speaks of a 'direct line' from Bismarck to Hitler. Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a 'particularly violent form of imperialism '. Marcus Garvey , founder and leader of

1560-530: A bent for conspiracies, revolutions and coups is in their blood." Starčević called the Serbs an "unclean race", a "nomadic people" and "a race of slaves, the most loathsome beasts", while the co-founder of his party, Eugen Kvaternik , denied the existence of Serbs in Croatia , seeing their political consciousness as a threat. Milovan Đilas cites Starčević as the "father of racism " and "ideological father" of

1755-421: A black scarf or a tie. Male members also carried a knife, the only permitted weapon for members, Ustaše Hero had a smaller knife while Ustaše Starčević Youth had a larger one. Uniforms were mandatory at any of the organization's public gatherings, meetings, and activities. Wearing the uniform in school was prohibited. This was done either to avoid conflict between Ustaše Youth members and the teachers or to highlight

1950-461: A camping trip organized by the Ustaše Youth. They were "more or less successful" but their number significantly decreased by 1943. Regional camps were very strict but offered an opportunity for social mobility . Ustaše Youth members who attended these camps often exhibited rebellious behaviour and fierce competition between individual local camps was common. The Ustaše Youth developed relations with

2145-621: A concentration. Concentrations had squads and platoons , the latter being split into branches according to age. The leader of the Ustaše Youth operated from the Supreme Ustaše Headquarters and reported directly to Pavelić. This office was first assumed by Ivan Oršanić , who previously led the State Secretariat for Propaganda of the NDH. In July 1944, Oršanić was succeeded by Feliks Niedzielsky, who had previously served as

SECTION 10

#1732794560982

2340-601: A constant struggle in which only the strongest would survive. Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Manifesto of Futurism (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism, for

2535-447: A critical part in economic production for the war effort and thus arose a "military citizenship" in which all citizens were involved to the military in some manner during the war. World War I had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines or provide economic production and logistics to support those on the front lines, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in

2730-443: A death camp, had 88% mortality rate, higher than Auschwitz 's 84.6%. A former brickyard, a furnace was engineered into a crematorium, with witness testimony of some, including children, being burnt alive and stench of human flesh spreading in the camp. Luburić had a gas chamber built at Jasenovac V, where a considerable number of inmates were killed during a three-month experiment with sulfur dioxide and Zyklon B , but this method

2925-759: A defining characteristic of those ideologies. They refer to the combination of populism, authoritarianism and ultranationalism as "a marriage of convenience". Robert Paxton says: [Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. Roger Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on

3120-522: A delegation that visited the NDH in October 1941. The delegation arrived in Zagreb on 16 October, visited several other cities, and observed the work of the Ustaše Youth. In December 1941, Oršanić and his delegation again visited Slovakia. On this occasion, they were welcomed by high-ranking Slovak officials, such as Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka , and received HM medals. Ustaše Youth official Zvonimir Malvić

3315-517: A demonized " Other ", such as Jews , homosexuals , transgender people , ethnic minorities , or immigrants . These ideas have motivated fascist regimes to commit massacres , forced sterilizations , deportations , and genocides . During World War II , the genocidal and imperialist ambitions of the fascist Axis powers resulted in the murder of millions of people. Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves as fascist ;

3510-486: A group of nationalists to the unification into a common state of South Slavs , influenced ethnic tensions in the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since 1929 Kingdom of Yugoslavia). The 6 January Dictatorship and the later anti-Croat policies of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government in the 1920s and 1930s fueled the rise of nationalist and far-right movements. This culminated in

3705-554: A high-ranking official in Great Crusaders' Brotherhood ( Croatian : Veliko križarsko bratstvo ), a radical Catholic youth organization. In 1942, Vrljičak-Dugački was replaced by a leader of the female Ustaše Youth in Dubrovnik, Dolores Bracanović , who held this position until the end of the war. Officially, membership in the Ustaše Youth was compulsory, as its founding statute stated, "the whole of Croat youth belongs in

3900-557: A joint Croat-Slovak camp in Ozalj . There, youths slept in tents and received military pre-education courses on handling weapons. In September, a joint two-month course was held in the Croatian town of Borovo . During this course, youths listened to lectures mostly about each other's organizations, received courses military pre-education, gymnastics, and singing and language courses in both Slovak and Croatian . By 1943, relations between

4095-475: A major stronghold of radical Croatian nationalism in interwar Yugoslavia . Many short-lived militant youth organizations were formed in the 1920s, most of which disappeared quickly or were banned by the authorities because of their violent actions. The two largest youth organizations were the Croatian National Youth , founded in the spring of 1921 and intended for middle-class youths, and

SECTION 20

#1732794560982

4290-399: A militia party with a totalitarian conception of politics and the state, an activist and anti-theoretical ideology, with a mythical, virilistic and anti-hedonistic foundation, sacralized as a secular religion, which affirms the absolute primacy of the nation, understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organized in a corporate state , with a bellicose vocation to

4485-494: A mythos of national rebirth from decadence. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views. Italian fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s. A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements. In

4680-509: A new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive." Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing

4875-645: A new version of Tsar Nicholas II . After World War I, fascists commonly campaigned on anti-Marxist agendas. Liberal opponents of both fascism and the Bolsheviks argue that there are various similarities between the two, including that they believed in the necessity of a vanguard leadership, showed contempt for bourgeois values, and had totalitarian ambitions. In practice, both have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, one-party states, and party-armies; however, both draw clear distinctions from each other both in aims and tactics, with

5070-589: A numerical sum of atomized individuals. They condemned the rationalistic, liberal individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society. The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, including Darwinian biology, Gesamtkunstwerk , Arthur de Gobineau 's racialism, Gustave Le Bon 's psychology , and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche , Fyodor Dostoyevsky , and Henri Bergson . Social Darwinism , which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed

5265-614: A pro-interventionist fascio called the Revolutionary Fasces of International Action in October 1914. Benito Mussolini upon being expelled from his position as chief editor of the PSI's newspaper Avanti! for his anti-German stance, joined the interventionist cause in a separate fascio . The term "fascism" was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's movement, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. The first meeting of

5460-494: A probationary period of between four and seven months which every Ustaše Youth member had to serve in their local camp before being accepted as a registered member. Despite the professionalization of the Ustaše Youth, the organization retained the principle that all Croat youths should be its members. Ustaše Youth members took part in the genocide of Serbs in the NDH, as well as the Holocaust . According to eyewitnesses, many of

5655-639: A shortage of facilities. Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth and Italian Lictor Youth were seen as role-models for structuring and organizing by Ustaše officials. In August 1941, Ustaše Youth sent their representatives led by Ivan Orašnić to summer sports games held in Breslau . The representatives competed in swimming, athletics, and archery. One of the chief reasons for this visit was for Ustaše Youth members to familiarize themselves with organizational offices, homes, sports halls, and sports fields. The presence of Oršanić along with 11 other high-ranking youth officials in

5850-608: A system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Historian John Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims that Nazism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism , and that states such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are more different from each other than they are similar. In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism thusly: [A] cult of

6045-507: A warrior." Pavelić's most loyal supporters were part of the militant Croatian youth. The Ustaše presented their struggle as one between the young (supporters of fascism ) and the old (supporters of democracy ). Under the Ustaše, all those considered to be supporters of the old mentality – liberal democracy , plutocracy , and Yugoslavism  – were to be destroyed. They were declared national traitors and put in prison camps where they were tortured. In September 1941,

Ustaše Youth - Misplaced Pages Continue

6240-411: A well made glove fits a beautiful hand." The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini . Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight. Corradini spoke of Italy as being

6435-454: Is "a radical variant of fascism"—on the political right by explaining: "The more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be." Fascism's origins are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered on

6630-514: Is a far-right , authoritarian , and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy , militarism , forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy , subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race , and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism , democracy , pluralism , egalitarianism , liberalism , socialism , and Marxism , fascism

6825-417: Is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum . Fascism rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I , before spreading to other European countries , most notably Germany . Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society,

7020-476: Is better seen as an elitist ideology. They cite in particular its exaltation of the Leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. They see populism as a "thin-centered ideology" with a "restricted morphology" that necessarily becomes attached to "thick-centered" ideologies such as fascism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus populism can be found as an aspect of many specific ideologies, without necessarily being

7215-419: Is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism". Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works. Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Sorelian syndicalism , known as Sorelianism , as a means to confront democracy. Maurras stated that "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as

7410-609: Is more aristocratic than democracy." By 1909, after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries. Initially, Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism

7605-571: The fin-de-siècle generation. Bergson's claim of the existence of an élan vital , or vital instinct, centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challenged Marxism. In his work The Ruling Class (1896), Gaetano Mosca developed the theory that claims that in all societies an "organized minority" would dominate and rule over an "disorganized majority", stating that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority). He claims that

7800-499: The 2020–2022 United States racial unrest , have substantiated his concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world. Roger Griffin describes fascism as "a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism ." Without palingenetic ultranationalism, there is no "genuine fascism" according to Griffin. Griffin further describes fascism as having three core components: "(i)

7995-563: The Axis powers , the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was established as an Italian- German quasi-protectorate under the leadership of the Ustaše. One of the most important components of the Ustaše movement's ideology was the youth. The idea that the revolution of the Ustaše was the revolution of the youth was widely shared in the movement. The Ustaše Youth journal wrote, "[t]o be an Ustaša means to be eternally young and eternally

Ustaše Youth - Misplaced Pages Continue

8190-457: The Cold War and shifts in fascist organizing techniques, a number of scholars have moved toward the minimalist 'new consensus' refined by Roger Griffin: 'the mythic core' of fascism is 'a populist form of palingenetic ultranationalism .' That means that fascism is an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for

8385-782: The Frankists ( Frankovci ) and they would become the main pool of members of the subsequent Ustaše movement. Following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I and the collapse of Austria-Hungarian Empire , the provisional state was formed on the southern territories of the Empire which joined the Allies -associate Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Yugoslavia), ruled by

8580-745: The Latin word fasces . This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci , groups similar to guilds or syndicates . According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini 's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate

8775-535: The Minister of Education of the NDH , Mile Budak , discussed introducing radical changes to the puppet state's school system. He announced that all Yugoslav-era textbooks would be replaced with Austro-Hungarian-era books adapted to the Ustaše ideology. Budak wanted schools in the NDH to become "hothouses of Ustasha philosophy and patriotism." Universities and schools were to be ideologically purged. Budak said that teachers could save their jobs by "sincerely converting to

8970-559: The Slovak Republic . The HM and Ustaše Youth had similar structures and ideologies. Miljan argues that both of these youth organizations considered relations with each other "more suitable and meaningful" than with Hitler Youth or Lictor Youth. An Ustaše Youth delegation visited Slovakia for the first time in July–August 1941 to observe their work in schools and camps. Relations were further improved when HM leader Alojz Macek headed

9165-608: The Spirit of 1914 manifested itself in the concept of the People's League of National Socialism. This National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state. This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism because of the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in

9360-509: The Universal Negro Improvement Association , insisted that he and his organisation "were the first fascists". In 1938, C. L. R. James wrote "all the things that Hitler was to do so well later, Marcus Garvey was doing in 1920 and 1921". The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time. The theme

9555-646: The University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times". Fascist is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term neo-fascist . Despite fascist movements' history of anti-communism , Communist states have sometimes been referred to as fascist , typically as an insult. It has been applied to Marxist–Leninist regimes in Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh . Chinese Marxists used

9750-568: The Ustaše movement reaches back to the 19th century when Ante Starčević established the Party of Rights , as well as when Josip Frank seceded his extreme fraction from it and formed his own Pure Party of Rights. Starčević was a major ideological influence on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše. He was an advocate of Croatian unity and independence and was both anti- Habsburg , as Starčević saw

9945-491: The fascist Ustaše regime in the Nazi German puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia ( Serbo-Croatian : Nezavisna Država Hrvatska / Независна Држава Хрватска , NDH) between 1941 and 1945. It was carried out through executions in death camps , as well as through mass murder , ethnic cleansing , deportations , forced conversions , and war rape . This genocide was simultaneously carried out with

SECTION 50

#1732794560982

10140-458: The racially superior Nordic race. On the other hand, Serbs belonged to the " degenerate race " of the Vlachs. The Ustaše promoted the theories of historian and politician Šufflay, who is believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when the nation of Yugoslavia

10335-432: The 'new man. ' " Griffin himself explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept of post-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era. Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to explore proto-fascist movements. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism "flirted with populism ... in an attempt to generate mass support", it

10530-617: The 1920s was sometimes called fascist . Historian Peter Amann states that, "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental ... [the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system." Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back to ancient Greece . The political culture of ancient Greece and specifically

10725-423: The 1920s, Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile described their ideology as right-wing in the political essay The Doctrine of Fascism , stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century." Mussolini stated that fascism's position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: "[F]ascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on

10920-475: The Administrative Command of the Ustaše Youth took a loan of 500,000 kuna for the production of uniforms for those who could not afford them. Depending on the price of each uniform, this amounted to between 250 and 625 uniforms. Leaders in the Ustaše Youth had an insignia above their left pocket to indicate their belonging to the local county, commune, or district. The symbol used by the Ustaše

11115-532: The Austro-Hungarian army and two of them served as military governors of Bosnia and occupied Serbia . They both endorsed Austria–Hungary's denationalizing plans in Serb-populated lands and supported the idea of incorporating a tamed Serbia into the Empire. Newman stated that Austro-Hungarian officers' "unfaltering opposition to Yugoslavia provided a blueprint for the Croatian radical right,

11310-483: The Belgrade government of propagating "a barbarian culture and Gypsy civilization", claiming they were spreading " atheism and bestial mentality in divine Croatia". Supporters of the Ustaše planned genocide years before World War II, for example one of Pavelić's main ideologues, Mijo Babić , wrote in 1932 that the Ustaše "will cleanse and cut whatever is rotten from the healthy body of the Croatian people". In 1933,

11505-463: The Bolsheviks emphasizing the need for an organized participatory democracy ( Soviet democracy ) and an egalitarian , internationalist vision for society based on proletarian internationalism , while fascists emphasized hyper-nationalism and open hostility towards democracy, envisioning a hierarchical social structure as essential to their aims. With the antagonism between anti-interventionist Marxists and pro- interventionist fascists complete by

11700-610: The Brezje forest. On the Serbian New Year , 14 January 1942, the biggest slaughter of the civilians from Slavonia started. Villages were burned, and about 350 people were deported to Voćin and executed. In August 1942, following the joint military anti-partisan operation in the Syrmia by the Ustaše and German Wehrmacht , it turned into a massacre by the Ustaše militia that left up to 7,000 Serbs dead. Among those killed

11895-549: The Community for Official Youth Upbringing. Unlike the press of Axis nations and occupied territories, the Nazi press gave very little coverage to this meeting for two reasons: German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels "polemicized very sharply against the talk of a “new Europe”" in his secret meeting with journalists and members of Spanish delegation influenced the final declaration of the meeting to not include condemnation of

SECTION 60

#1732794560982

12090-774: The Croatian Labor Youth, which aimed to prevent working-class youths from joining socialist organizations. After these two were outlawed, two more were founded: the Croatian Right Republican Youth led by Branimir Jelić and the Croatian Right Labor Youth, led by Marko Hranilović and Matija Soldin , who were both later executed on charges of terrorism. The Ustaše movement was established in 1930 by Ante Pavelić as an organization dedicated to achieving an independent Croatian state by all means, including terror. By

12285-414: The Fasces of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915 when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere "for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended." Attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and

12480-604: The French city of Marseille . Pavelić's fascist tendencies were apparent. The Ustaše movement was financially and ideologically supported by Benito Mussolini. During the intensification of ties with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Pavelić's concept of the Croatian nation became increasingly race-oriented. In April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers. After Nazi forces entered Zagreb on 10 April 1941, Pavelić's closest associate Slavko Kvaternik , proclaimed

12675-693: The German Hitler Youth and the Italian Lictor Youth , which were seen as role models. It was also a member of a short-lived alliance of fascist national youth organizations called the European Youth Alliance. The Ustaše Youth also developed close relations with the Slovak fascist Hlinka Youth organization. Together, the organizations established joint camps held in both Slovakia and the NDH. Youth groups were

12870-569: The Granik ramp crane, their intestines and necks slashed, then dropped into the river. When the Partisans and Allies closed in at the end of the war, the Ustaše began mass liquidations at Jasenovac, marching women and children to death, and shooting most of the remaining male inmates, then torched buildings and documents before fleeing. Many prisoners were victims of rape , sexual mutilation and disembowelment , while induced cannibalism amongst

13065-473: The Holocaust in the NDH as well as the genocide of Roma , by combining Nazi racial policies with the ultimate goal of creating an ethnically pure Greater Croatia . The ideological foundation of the Ustaše movement reaches back to the 19th century. Several Croatian nationalists and intellectuals established theories about Serbs as an inferior race . The World War I legacy, as well as the opposition of

13260-468: The Italian Fasces of Combat ". The Fascist Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and supported the creation of universal suffrage , including women's suffrage (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded); proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through

13455-562: The Jadovno concentration camp itself acted as a "way station" en route to pits located on Mount Velebit , where inmates were executed and dumped. Approximately 90,000 of the Serb victims of genocide perished in concentration camps; the rest were killed in "direct terror", i.e. Punitive expeditions and razing of villages, pogroms, massacres and sporadic executions which mainly occurred between 1941 and 1942. The largest and most notorious camp

13650-618: The Jews. Historian Wayne H. Bowen says that Nazi Germany "lost interest in uniting the youth of Europe" and that next conference of European Youth Alliance in Madrid , to which only eight nations sent delegates, was a "decided flop". The Hlinka Youth ( Hlinkova mládež , HM) was a youth organization subordinate to the Slovak People's Party , which governed the German client state known as

13845-560: The NDH and whether the reasons given by Macek were true or not remains unclear. Nevertheless, mutual visits of official delegations and journalists continued. The official connections and exchanges were established in the summer of 1942, which saw several visits of youths to camps in a different country. The first of these was in Slovak city of Párnica , where twenty-eight Ustaše Youth members along with HM and Hitler Youth members stayed during July. The following month, thirty HM members attended

14040-583: The NDH had significantly deteriorated. Relations between the two organizations, although almost halted, continued to exist until 1945. Male members of Ustaše Hope wore green-brown shirts and shorts, brown belts, boots, a red scarf, and a cap with the capital letter U  – a symbol of the Ustaše. Female members wore green-brown skirts while the rest of their uniform was the same as that of their male counterparts. Members of other sections had similar outfits, only differing in their scarves, Ustaše Hero had blue scarves, while Ustaše Starčević Youth had either

14235-585: The NDH population. The NDH was never fully sovereign, but it was a puppet state that enjoyed the greatest autonomy than any other regime in German-occupied Europe . The Independent State of Croatia was declared to be on Croatian "ethnic and historical territory". This country can only be a Croatian country, and there is no method we would hesitate to use in order to make it truly Croatian and cleanse it of Serbs, who have for centuries endangered us and who will endanger us again if they are given

14430-430: The NDH that lasted until the end of the war. A few days following the massacre of Bjelovar Serbs, the Ustaše rounded up 331 Serbs in the village of Otočac. The victims were forced to dig their own graves before being hacked to death with axes. Among the victims was the local Orthodox priest and his son. The former was made to recite prayers for the dying as his son was killed. The priest was then tortured, his hair and beard

14625-503: The NDH was one of the most lethal European regimes. Mile Budak and other NDH high officials were tried and convicted of war crimes by the communist authorities . Concentration camp commandants such as Ljubo Miloš and Miroslav Filipović were captured and executed, while Aloysius Stepinac was found guilty of forced conversion. Many others escaped , including the supreme leader Ante Pavelić, most to Latin America . The genocide

14820-522: The Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile." The term fascist has been used as a pejorative , regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that

15015-551: The Serbian Karađorđević dynasty . Historian John Paul Newman explained that the influence of the Frankists, as well as the legacy of World War I, had an impact on the Ustaše ideology and their future genocidal means. Many war veterans had fought at various ranks and on various fronts on both the ' victorious ' and ' defeated ' sides of the war. Serbia suffered the biggest casualty rate in the world, while Croats fought in

15210-450: The Serbs between sixteen and sixty years of age to be arrested. After much discussion, they decided that all of the arrested should be killed. Many of the town's Serbs heard rumors that something bad was in store for them but the vast majority did not flee. On the night of 11 May, mass arrests of male Serbs over the age of sixteen began. The Ustaše then herded the group into an Orthodox Church and demanded that they be given documents proving

15405-742: The Serbs had all converted to Catholicism. Serbs who did not possess conversion certificates were locked inside and massacred. The church was then set on fire, leaving the bodies to burn as Ustaše stood outside to shoot any survivors attempting to escape the flames. A similar massacre of Serbs occurred on 30 July 1941. 700 Serbs were gathered into a church under the premise that they would be converted. Victims were killed by having their throats cut or by having their heads smashed in with rifle butts. Between 500 and 2000 other Serbs were later massacred in neighbouring villages by Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić 's forces, continuing until 3 August. In these massacres specifically males 16 years and older were killed. Only one of

15600-456: The Serbs. Historian Michael Phayer explained that the Nazis' decision to kill all of Europe's Jews is estimated by some to have begun in the latter half of 1941 in late June which, if correct, would mean that the genocide in Croatia began before the Nazi killing of Jews. Jonathan Steinberg stated that the crimes against Serbs in the NDH were the "earliest total genocide to be attempted during

15795-511: The Serbs. Political scientist Tamara Pavasović Trošt, commenting on historiography and textbooks, listed the claims that terror against Serbs arose as a result of "their previous hegemony" as an example of the relativisation of Ustaše crimes. Historian Aristotle Kallis explained that anti-Serb prejudices were a "chimera" which emerged through living together in Yugoslavia with continuity with previous stereotypes. The Ustaše functioned as

15990-481: The Ustasha cause." However, he also stated that schools could not be purged immediately because many schools would have to close then. Ustaše youth groups were formed in the 1930s, and by 1940, regularly distributed flyers inviting Croatian youth to their demonstrations, activities, and rallies. On 12 July 1941, Pavelić decreed that these groups were to be organized into a fully-structured organization. The Ustaše Youth

16185-466: The Ustaše Youth and the only ones excluded would be "non-Aryans" and "Greek-Easterners". Others, such as Ante Boras in Petrinja , made membership voluntary. Ustaše Youth leader Ivan Orašnić warned that "anyone who sabotaged the Ustaše Youth would be destroyed." Financial penalties were imposed on parents who forbade their children from attending lessons at Ustaše Youth camps. Thousands initially joined

16380-505: The Ustaše Youth, drawn by the athletic, intellectual, and artistic training the organization provided. Nevertheless, the recruitment drive in 1941 failed to achieve mass enrollment, as most youths showed no interest in joining. Although Blažeković claimed a figure of 500,000 members, the historian Rory Yeomans has described this as "unlikely". After its mass recruiting drive failed, the Ustaše Youth assumed an increasingly selective and elitist character. Ustaše statutes of August 1942 established

16575-484: The Ustaše Youth." The founding statute also ordered the closing of every other youth organization. Liberal, Yugoslav, and leftist ones were outlawed, while right-wing radical ones were incorporated into the Ustaše Youth. Despite the statute making membership compulsory, this issue came down to Ustaše Youth camp leaders. Some, like Vinko Sablić in Dubrovnik , issued an order that all schoolchildren were required to join

16770-595: The Ustaše Youth: camps in the countryside where Ustaše Youth members gathered for rallies and excursions and regional camps which were also situated in unused school buildings or cinemas. Countryside camps were set up during camping trips lasting at least three days in which Ustaše Youth members from various parts of the state would gather. These camps were split into two categories: taborovanje – consisting of three platoons and logorovanje  – consisting of more than three platoons. The purpose of camping

16965-452: The Ustaše cited, among other things, policies of the inter-war Yugoslav government which they described as Serbian hegemony "that cost the lives of thousand Croats". Historian Jozo Tomasevich explains that that argument is not true, claiming that between December 1918 and April 1941 about 280 Croats were killed for political reasons, and that no specific motive for the killings could be identified, as they may also be linked to clashes during

17160-471: The Ustaše concept of nation and racial identity, as well as the theory of Serbs as an inferior race. Pilar, historian, politician and lawyer, placed great emphasis on racial determinism arguing that Croats had been defined by the " Nordic - Aryan " racial and cultural heritage, while Serbs had "interbred" with the "Balkan-Romanic Vlachs ". Truhelka, archeologist and historian, claimed that Bosnian Muslims were ethnic Croats, who, according to him, belonged to

17355-485: The Ustaše had about 100,000 members who took the oath. Since Vladko Maček reluctantly called on the supporters of the Croatian Peasant Party to respect and co-operate with the new regime of Ante Pavelić, he was able to use the apparatus of the party and most of the officials from the former Croatian Banovina . Initially, Croatian soldiers who had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army held

17550-536: The Ustaše movement and ultimately its anti-Serbian policies in World War II, which was totally out of proportions to earlier anti-Croatian measures, in nature and extent. Yeomans explains that Ustaše officials constantly emphasized crimes against Croats by the Yugoslav government and security forces, although many of them were imagined, though some of them real, as justification for their envisioned eradication of

17745-427: The Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles" that formed the official ideology of the movement. The Principles stated the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights and declared that people who were not Croat by " blood " would be excluded from political life. In order to explain what they saw as a "terror machine", and regularly referred to as "some excesses" by individuals,

17940-503: The Ustaše". The Frankists blamed Serbian nationalists for the defeat of Austria-Hungary and opposed the creation of Yugoslavia, which was identified by them as a cover for Greater Serbia . Мass Croatian national consciousness appeared after the establishment of a common state of South Slavs and it was directed against the new Kingdom, more precisely against Serbian predominance within it. Early 20th century Croatian intellectuals Ivo Pilar , Ćiro Truhelka and Milan Šufflay influenced

18135-409: The Ustaše, while some Ustaše ideologues have linked Starčević's racial ideas to Adolf Hitler 's racial ideology . Frank's party embraced Starčević's position that Serbs were an obstacle to Croatian political and territorial ambitions, and the aggressive anti-Serb attitudes became one of the main characteristics of the party. The followers of the ultranationalist Pure Party of Right were known as

18330-458: The Ustaše. The Ustaše's goal was to create an ethnically homogeneous Greater Croatia by eliminating all non- Croats , with the Serbs being the primary target but Jews , Roma and political dissidents were also targeted for elimination. Large scale massacres were committed and concentration camps were built, the largest one was the Jasenovac , which was notorious for its high mortality rate and

18525-671: The World War II". Andrija Artuković , the Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia, signed into law a number of racial laws. On 30 April 1941, the government adopted "the legal order of races" and "the legal order of the protection of Atyan blood and the honor of Croatian people". Croats and about 750,000 Bosnian Muslims, whose support was needed against the Serbs, were proclaimed Aryans. Donald Bloxham and Robert Gerwarth concluded that Serbs were primary target of racial laws and murders. The Ustaše introduced

18720-420: The actions of the German allies, including the Croatian one, and the town- and village-level elimination of minorities also played a significant role. On 28 April 1941, approximately 184–196 Serbs from Bjelovar were summarily executed , after arrest orders by Kvaternik. It was the first act of mass murder committed by the Ustaše upon coming to power, and presaged the wider campaign of genocide against Serbs in

18915-553: The agrarian reform. Moreover, he stated that Serbs too were denied civil and political rights during the royal dictatorship. However, Tomasevich explains that the anti-Croatian policies of the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav government in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as, the shooting of the HSS deputies by Radić were largely responsible for the creation, growth and nature of Croatian nationalist forces. This culminated in

19110-400: The ancient Greek city state of Sparta under Lycurgus , with its emphasis on militarism and racial purity, were admired by the Nazis. Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler emphasized that Germany should adhere to Hellenic values and culture – particularly that of ancient Sparta. Georges Valois , founder of the first non-Italian fascist party Faisceau , claimed the roots of fascism stemmed from

19305-588: The bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand. The Ustaše's preference for cold weapons in carrying out their deeds

19500-405: The barbaric practices which occurred in it. Furthermore, the NDH was the only Axis puppet state to establish concentration camps specifically for children . The regime systematically murdered approximately 200,000 to 500,000 Serbs. 300,000 Serbs were further expelled and at least 200,000 more Serbs were forcibly converted, most of whom de-converted following the war. Proportional to the population,

19695-445: The bodies in the trenches. Some historians use a sentence from German sources: "Even German officers and SS men lost their cool when they saw (Ustaše) ways and methods." The infamous camp commander Filipović , dubbed fra Sotona ("brother Satan") and the "personification of evil", on one occasion drowned Serb women and children by flooding a cellar. Filipović and other camp commanders (such as Dinko Šakić and his wife Nada Šakić,

19890-459: The business community. Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism , internationalism , and pacifism , and the promotion of heroism , vitalism, and violence. The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism. They believed that humans are naturally predatory, and that nations are in

20085-447: The campfire in the morning and the evening, and evening prayers. Various punishments were established to achieve discipline in the camps, and some Ustaše Youth members were expelled for violating the rules. According to the historian Goran Miljan, such camps were organized "more or less successfully throughout the regime period", but their number significantly decreased after mid-1943. Yeomans writes that life in regional Ustaše Youth camps

20280-448: The conflict between Croatian and Serbian political parties, King Alexander I proclaimed a dictatorship with the aim of establishing the "integral Yugoslavism " and a single Yugoslav nation . The introduction of the royal dictatorship brought separatist forces to the fore, especially among the Croats and Macedonians . The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement ( Croatian : Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret ) emerged as

20475-649: The delegation made this visit also diplomatic and a political one with the goal of establishing firmer relations with the Hitler Youth. According to a contemporary Croatian news article, after games in Breslau, Hitler Youth invited Orašnić's delegation to Berlin "with the purpose of deepening friendly relations between the German and Croatian youth." The high-point of relations with Lictor Youth came in September and October 1941. An agreement between two organizations

20670-427: The democratic mystification of the popular will that created an impersonal collective subject. He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation's people. Maurras' integral nationalism was idealized by fascists, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form that was devoid of Maurras' monarchism. French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel promoted

20865-483: The development of fascism. Leon Trotsky would later formulate a theory of fascism based on a dialectical interpretation of events to analyze the manifestation of Italian fascism and the early emergence of Nazi Germany from 1930 to 1933. In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action , praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely

21060-558: The dissemination of the Rulebook on Distribution of Uniforms across the Independent State of Croatia. Inquiries and requests for uniforms were to be sent to the Administrative Command of the Ustaše Youth. The textile factory Velebit d.o.o. was contracted to produce Ustaše Youth uniforms. The exact price of such a uniform is unclear. One contemporary document places the price of an Ustaše Hope uniform at 800 kuna , while another puts it at 2,000 kuna, which Miljan considers "too high". In 1942,

21255-492: The economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people. The "fascist right" included members of the paramilitary Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco , sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace

21450-405: The economy. Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical technocratic state. Fascists viewed World War I as bringing revolutionary changes in the nature of war, society, the state and technology, as the advent of total war and mass mobilization had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant, as civilians had become

21645-402: The elimination of "Eastern" (Serbian) words from Croatian, as well as the shutting down of Serbian schools. Ante Pavelić ordered, through the "Croatian state office for language", the creation of new words from old roots, and purged many Serbian words. Whereas the Ustaše persecution of Jews and Roma was systematic and represented an implementation of Nazi policies, their persecution of Serbs

21840-473: The elite Black Legion and Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion (later Brigade). They were predominantly recruited among the uneducated population and working class. Besides ethnic Croats, the militia also contained Muslims where they accounted for an estimated 30% of the membership. Violence against Serbs began in April 1941 and was initially limited in scope, primarily targeting Serb intelligentsia . By July however,

22035-546: The end of the war, the two sides became irreconcilable. The fascists presented themselves as anti-communists and as especially opposed to the Marxists . In 1919, Mussolini consolidated control over the fascist movement, known as Sansepolcrismo , with the founding of the Italian Fasces of Combat . In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created " The Manifesto of

22230-546: The entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats. In that period, Mussolini was interested in Balkans with the aim of isolating Yugoslavia, by strengthening Italian influence on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea . British historian Rory Yeomans claims that there are indication that Pavelić had been considering the formation of some kind of nationalist insurgency group as early as 1928. In June 1928, Stjepan Radić ,

22425-456: The far-right. Historian Stanley G. Payne 's definition is frequently cited as standard by notable scholars , such as Roger Griffin , Randall Schweller , Bo Rothstein , Federico Finchelstein , and Stephen D. Shenfield , His definition of fascism focuses on three concepts: Umberto Eco lists fourteen "features that are typical of what [he] would like to call 'Ur-Fascism', or 'Eternal Fascism'. These features cannot be organized into

22620-531: The formation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) on a Radio Zagreb broadcast. Meanwhile, Pavelić and several hundred Ustaše volunteers left their camps in Italy and travelled to Zagreb, where Pavelić declared a new government on 16 April 1941. He accorded himself the title of " Poglavnik " ( German : Führer , English: Chief leader ). The NDH combined most of modern Croatia, all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate". Serbs made up about 30% of

22815-513: The highest positions in the NDH armed forces. Historian Irina Ognyanova stated that the similarities between the NDH and the Third Reich included the assumption that terror and genocide were necessary for the preservation of the state. Viktor Gutić made several speeches in early summer 1941, calling Serbs "former enemies" and "unwanted elements" to be cleansed and destroyed, and also threatened Croats who did not support their cause. Much of

23010-467: The human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest . It challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment. Its emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism. New theories of social and political psychology also rejected

23205-420: The ideal German society as a Volksgemeinschaft , a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk." Kershaw noted that common factors of fascism included "the 'cleansing' of all those deemed not to belong—foreigners, ethnic minorities, 'undesirables ' " and belief in its own nation's superiority, even if it

23400-444: The ideological changes of 1942, some Serbs – motivated by the prospect of social mobility – began to apply for membership. Many were accepted, especially if they came from mixed Croatian-Serb backgrounds and had converted to Catholicism . Many members of Ustaše Youth camps developed a regional identity and an independent spirit, which was a cause of anxiety for the central leadership. Rebellious behavior of

23595-405: The ideology of the Ustaše was based on Nazi racial theory. Like the Nazis, the Ustaše deemed Jews, Romani, and Slavs to be sub-humans ( Untermensch ). They endorsed the claims from German racial theorists that Croats were not Slavs but a Germanic race. Their genocides against Serbs, Jews, and Romani were thus expressions of Nazi racial ideology . Adolf Hitler supported Pavelić in order to punish

23790-456: The inmates also took place. Some survivors testified about drinking blood from the slashed throats of the victims and soap making from human corpses . The Independent State of Croatia was the only Axis satellite to have erected camps specifically for children. Special camps for children were those at Sisak , Đakovo and Jastrebarsko , while Stara Gradiška held thousands of children and women. Historian Tomislav Dulić explained that

23985-544: The large numbers of Serbs he had killed and claimed to have collected his victims' ears on his necklace. Two children's concentration camps were staffed by members of the Ustaše Youth. In the Jastrebarsko children's camp , between 449 and 1,500 children perished. In the Sisak children's camp , which was staffed by female part of Ustaše Youth, between 1,152 and 1,631 children died. There were two types of camps organized by

24180-474: The late 18th century Jacobin movement, seeing in its totalitarian nature a foreshadowing of the fascist state. Historian George Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution , as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918. Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III , who ran

24375-526: The late 1930s, the Ustaše adopted the fascist principles of the Italian government , which gave it financial support and protection. During the 1930s, the Ustaše conducted several terrorist attacks , most notably the assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in Marseilles in October 1934. In April 1941, when Yugoslavia was invaded and dismembered by

24570-530: The laws to strip Serbs of their citizenship, livelihoods, and possessions. Similar to Jews in the Third Reich, Serbs were forced to wear armbands bearing the letter "P", for Pravoslavac (Orthodox). (Likewise, Jews were forced to wear the armband with the letter "Ž", fort Židov (Jew). Ustaše writers adopted dehumanizing rhetoric. In 1941, the usage of the Cyrillic script was banned, and in June 1941 began

24765-502: The leader of the largest and most popular Croatian party Croatian Peasant Party ( Hrvatska seljačka stranka , HSS) was mortally wounded in the parliamentary chamber by Puniša Račić , a Montenegrin Serb leader, former Chetnik member and deputy of the ruling Serb People's Radical Party . Račić also shot two other HSS deputies dead and wounded two more. The killings provoked violent student protests in Zagreb . Trying to suppress

24960-477: The leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors. Stanley says recent global events as of 2020 , including the COVID-19 pandemic and

25155-473: The left. The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement. The "fascist left" included Michele Bianchi , Giuseppe Bottai , Angelo Oliviero Olivetti , Sergio Panunzio , and Edmondo Rossoni , who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize

25350-446: The legitimacy of political violence in his work Reflections on Violence (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike . In Reflections on Violence , Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion . Also in his work The Illusions of Progress , Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying "nothing

25545-475: The liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites. Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy . A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a Third Position outside the traditional political spectrum. Falange Española de las JONS leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "[B]asically

25740-432: The lives of citizens. Fascism rejects the view that violence is inherently negative or pointless but rather views imperialism , political violence , and war as means to national rejuvenation. Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state , and for a dirigiste economy (a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through economic interventionist policies), with

25935-549: The lives of citizens. Fascists viewed technological developments of weaponry and the state's total mobilization of its population in the war as symbolizing the beginning of a new era fusing state power with mass politics , technology and particularly the mobilizing myth that they contended had triumphed over the myth of progress and the era of liberalism. The October Revolution of 1917, in which Bolshevik communists led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, greatly influenced

26130-513: The main Croatian enemy in the Habsburg Monarchy, and anti-Serb . He envisioned the creation of a Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by Bosniaks , Serbs , and Slovenes , considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats who had been converted to Islam and Eastern Orthodox Christianity . In his demonization of the Serbs he claimed "how the Serbs today are dangerous for their ideas and their racial composition, how

26325-478: The most extreme movement of these. The Ustaše was created in late 1929 or early 1930 among radical and militant student and youth groups, which existed from the late 1920s. Precisely, the movement was founded by journalist Gustav Perčec and Ante Pavelić. They were driven by a deep hatred of Serbs and Serbdom and claimed that, "Croats and Serbs were separated by an unbridgeable cultural gulf" which prevented them from ever living alongside each other. Pavelić accused

26520-525: The mountain of the center. ... These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words." Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left, such as sharecroppers and labour unions. They welcomed fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on

26715-504: The nation from decadence. Kershaw argues that the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in the interwar period is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population. In Against the Fascist Creep , Alexander Reid Ross writes regarding Griffin's view: "Following

26910-543: The next meeting in Vienna . Axmann and Gauleiter of Vienna Baldur von Schirach organized the meeting in Vienna which took place from 14 to 18 September 1942. Representatives of 14 fascist national youth organizations attended this meeting and these organizations together comprised European Youth Alliance, established on the same meeting. The Alliance was divided into working communities, each headed by one or more youth officials from different countries. Oršanić became head of

27105-441: The notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason. Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead" coincided with his attack on the " herd mentality " of Christianity , democracy , and modern collectivism , his concept of the Übermensch , and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of

27300-448: The opportunity. The Ustaše became obsessed with creating an ethnically pure state . As outlined by Ustaše ministers Mile Budak , Mirko Puk and Milovan Žanić, the strategy to achieve an ethnically pure Croatia was that: According to historian Ivo Goldstein , this formula was never published but it is undeniable that the Ustaše applied it towards Serbs. The Ustaše movement received limited support from ordinary Croats. In May 1941,

27495-551: The organization developed an elitist character. During 1941, Ustaše Youth members were involved in the genocide of Serbs and the Holocaust in the NDH . They also staffed two children's concentration camps , in which hundreds or over a thousand children died. Activity of the Ustaše Youth took place in camps, of which there were two types: camps in the countryside where Ustaše Youth members gathered for rallies and excursions , and regional camps which were situated in unused school buildings or cinemas. Rural camps were established during

27690-490: The organization was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists. Similar political ideas arose in Germany after the outbreak of the war. German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution). According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as

27885-733: The organization, which was replaced by the Ustaše Storm Troopers ( ustaški jurišnici ) and Ustaše Girls ( ustaške djevojke ) sections for male and female members aged 18–21, respectively. The best members of the Starčević Youth became members of the Ustaše Assault Unit, where they underwent strict paramilitary training. The Ustaše Youth was structured in a military manner and divided regionally and territorially. Each county contained an Ustaše Youth Center, each administrative division had an Ustaše Youth camp, and each community had

28080-420: The organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority. French nationalist and reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras influenced fascism. Maurras promoted what he called integral nationalism , which called for the organic unity of a nation, and insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered

28275-517: The outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) opposed the war but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their reactionary regimes had to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism. Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed

28470-409: The placement of national interests above those of the individual. Fascist regimes often advocate for the overthrow of institutions that they view as "liberal decay" while simultaneously promoting traditional values. They believe in the supremacy of certain peoples and use it to justify the persecution of other groups. Fascist leaders often maintain a cult of personality and seek to generate enthusiasm for

28665-406: The politics of greatness, power, and conquest aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization. Historian and cultural critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat has described fascism as "the original phase of authoritarianism, along with early communism, when a population has undergone huge dislocations or they perceive that there's been changes in society that are very rapid, too rapid for their taste". Racism

28860-560: The principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency). Fascism's extreme authoritarianism and nationalism centres around the own group, but that can manifest as a belief in Manifest Destiny , revival of historical greatness (like Mussolini seeking to restore the Roman Empire) or in case of Nazism, racial purity or a master race which blended with some variant of racism or discrimination against

29055-491: The rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence." In Griffin's view, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism, and promising radical politics to rescue

29250-456: The regime by rallying massive crowds. This contrasts with authoritarian governments, which also centralize power and suppress dissent, but want their subjects to remain passive and demobilized. Scholars place fascism on the far right of the political spectrum . Such scholarship focuses on its social conservatism and its authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism . Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism , which he says

29445-700: The respective local Ustaše warlords than a well-structured policy. The Ustaše set up temporary concentration camps in the spring of 1941 and laid the groundwork for a network of permanent camps in autumn. The creation of concentration camps and extermination campaign of Serbs had been planned by the Ustaše leadership long before 1941. In Ustaše state exhibits in Zagreb, the camps were portrayed as productive and "peaceful work camps", with photographs of smiling inmates. Serbs, Jews and Romani were arrested and sent to concentration camps such as Jasenovac , Stara Gradiška , Gospić and Jadovno . There were 22–26 camps in NDH in total. Historian Jozo Tomasevich described that

29640-428: The rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order. Plenge believed that racial solidarity ( Volksgemeinschaft ) would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain. He believed that

29835-534: The rise of the Ustaše, an ultranationalist , terrorist organization, founded by Ante Pavelić . The movement was financially and ideologically supported by Benito Mussolini , and it was also involved in the assassination of King Alexander I . Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, a German puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was established, comprising most of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as parts of modern-day Serbia and Slovenia , ruled by

30030-426: The sister of Maks Luburić), used ingenious torture. There were throat-cutting contests of Serbs, in which prison guards made bets among themselves as to who could slaughter the most inmates. It was reported that guard and former Franciscan priest Petar Brzica won a contest on 29 August 1942 after cutting the throats of 1,360 inmates. Inmates were tied and hit over the head with mallets and half-alive hung in groups by

30225-626: The so-called Delić pit. During the war, the Ustaše massacred more than 900 Serbs in Divoselo , more than 500 in Smiljan , as well as more than 400 in Široka Kula near Gospić. On 2 August 1941, the Ustaše trapped about 120 children and women and 50 men who tried to escape from Divoselo. After a few days of imprisonment, where women were raped, they were stabbed in groups and thrown into the pits. On 21 December 1941, approximately 880 Serbs from Dugo Selo Lasinjsko and Prkos Lasinjski were killed in

30420-454: The state, and technology. The advent of total war and the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose, in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner. The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in

30615-537: The symbol of Falangism is five arrows joined by a yoke. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow. According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they're in power—have historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from

30810-463: The systematic murder of infants and children, who could not pose a threat to the state, serves as one important illustration of the genocidal character of Ustaša mass killing. The Holocaust and genocide survivors, including Božo Švarc , testified that Ustaše tore off the children's hands, as well as, "apply a liquid to children's mouths with brushes", which caused the children to scream and later die. The Sisak camp commander, aphysician Antun Najžer ,

31005-694: The teachers' roles as their students' superiors in the hope of mobilizing more teachers into the Ustaše. With the exception of those who could not afford them, whose uniforms were procured and subsidized by the state, Ustaše Youth members had to pay for their own uniforms. Rules regulating who would receive state-subsidized uniforms were initially not established. Delivery of the uniforms was also problematic. Ustaše Youth in Koprivnica reportedly received cloth , linen , ties, trefoils , and buttons instead of uniforms. Clearer rules were established in March 1942 with

31200-460: The term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, " as used , the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist ' ", and in 1946 wrote that " 'Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable." Richard Griffiths of

31395-459: The term is often used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements. Some opposition groups have adopted the label anti-fascist (often shortened to antifa ) to signify their stance. The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio , meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from

31590-773: The term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split , and the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists, in addition to social democracy , coining a new term in social fascism . In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in 1946: "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?" J. Edgar Hoover , longtime FBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively of red fascism . The Ku Klux Klan in

31785-412: The term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio , a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate , carried by his lictors . The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements; for example,

31980-515: The town of Vojnić were massacred during the war, out of a total of approximately 5000 inhabitants. That same month, a total of 759 women, children and elderly Serbs were massacred near the village of Krstinja . On 31 July 1942, in the Sadilovac church the Ustaše under Milan Mesić's command massacred more than 580 inhabitants of the surrounding villages, including about 270 children. At various dates, 2,019 primarily women and children were killed in

32175-577: The two organizations began to deteriorate. One of the primary reasons for this was the worsening of the situation on the Eastern Front , especially after the Battle of Stalingrad . Another reason was the growing anti-fascist resistance in both nations. The first major uprising in Slovakia occurred in 1944, while in the NDH, armed resistance had commenced in 1941. By 1943, the security situation in

32370-483: The vice-governor of the great parish of Sana-Luka. Niedzielsky remained in this position until the end of the war. Male and female parts of the organization also had their leaders. Leader of the male part was Zdenko Blažeković , who was previously the commander of the Ustaše University Headquarters ( Croatian : Ustaški sveučilišni stožer ). The first leader of the female part was Mira Vrljičak-Dugački,

32565-551: The victims, Ljubo Jednak, survived by playing dead. The district of Gospić experienced the first large-scale massacres which occurred in the Lika region, as some 3,000 Serb civilians were killed between late July and early August 1941. Ustaše officials reported an emerging Serb rebellion due to massacres. In late July 1941, a detachment of the Croatian military in Gospić noted that the local insurgents were Serb peasants who had fled to

32760-480: The village of Pecka with 250 victims, and Perna where 427 old men and children were killed. A large number were also killed in Vojišnica and Vrginmost . About 60% of Sadilovac residents lost their lives during the war. More than 400 Serbs were killed in their homes, including 185 children. On 17 April 1942, 99 Serbs were burned alive in the village of Kolarić , near Vojnić . A total of 3,849 inhabitants of

32955-416: The village of Rakovica . On 11 or 12 May 1941, 260–300 Serbs were herded into an Orthodox church and shot, after which it was set on fire. The idea for this massacre reportedly came from Mirko Puk, who was the Minister of Justice for the NDH. On 10 May, Ivica Šarić, a specialist for such operations traveled to the town of Glina to meet with local Ustaše leadership where they drew up a list of names of all

33150-964: The violence became "indiscriminate, widespread and systematic". Massacres of Serbs were focused in mixed areas with large Serb populations for necessity and efficiency. In the summer of 1941, Ustaše militias and death squads burnt villages and killed thousands of civilian Serbs in the country-side in sadistic ways with various weapons and tools. Men, women, children were hacked to death, thrown alive into pits and down ravines, or set on fire in churches. Hardly ever were firearms used, more commonly, knived axes and such were utilized. Serb victims were dismembered, their ears and tongues cut off and eyes gouged out. Some Serb villages near Srebrenica and Ozren were wholly massacred while children were found impaled by stakes in villages between Vlasenica and Kladanj. The Ustaše cruelty and sadism shocked even Nazi commanders. A Gestapo report to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , dated 17 February 1942, stated: Increased activity of

33345-413: The virile nature of violent action and war as being necessities of modern civilization. Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men saying that, in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books. He advocated segregation of the genders because womanly sensibility must not enter men's education, which he claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic." At

33540-534: The war, the NDH armed forces killed over 7,000 Serbs in the municipality of Kozarska Dubica , while the municipality lost more than half of its pre-war population. The biggest massacre was committed by the Croatian Home Guard in January 1942, when the village Draksenić was burned and more than 200 were people killed. Fascism Fascism ( / ˈ f æ ʃ ɪ z əm / FASH -iz-əm )

33735-630: The woods "purely as a reaction to the cleansing [operations] against them by our Ustaša formations". Following a sabotage of railway tracks in the district of Vojnić that was attributed to local communists on 27 July 1941, the Ustaše began a "cleansing" operation of indiscriminate pillage and killing of civilians, including the elderly and children. On 6 August 1941, the Ustaše killed and burned more than 280 villagers in Mlakva , including 191 children. Between June and August 1941, about 890 Serbs from Ličko Petrovo Selo and Melinovac were killed and thrown in

33930-608: The worst atrocities that were carried out by the Ustaše in 1941 were committed by youths. Survivors of the mass murders in Križevci and Karlovac testified that many armed youths participated in the killing and torture of Serbs and Jews. Members of the Ustaše Youth, together with the Student Militia of the Poglavnik's Bodyguard Brigade, perpetrated many of the first massacres in the NDH. On one occasion, Blažeković boasted about

34125-428: The youth ranged from relatively harmless, such as watching banned or adult films , to the more serious, such as resistance to an initiative to admit Serbs in the camps. Regional independence combined with ideological militancy also created a fierce rivalry between local camps, which often resulted in what Yeomans describes as "a state of near civil war". Along with these problems, many Ustaše Youth camps also encountered

34320-410: Was "far less idyllic" than life in camps in the countryside. These camps were strictly hierarchical, with a schedule strictly worked out by the camp leader. Strictness in these camps resulted in a sense of camaraderie between the youths and their leaders. The camps provided an opportunity for social mobility , as youths of modest backgrounds could become noticed and appointed to important positions. After

34515-523: Was a key feature of German fascism, for which the Holocaust was a high priority. According to The Historiography of Genocide , "In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group." Several historians, such as Umberto Eco, Kevin Passmore, and Moyra Grant, stress racism as a characteristic component of German fascism. Historian Robert Soucy stated that "Hitler envisioned

34710-403: Was a triple letter U with a double tendril. Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia The Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia ( Serbo-Croatian : Genocid nad Srbima u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj / Геноцид над Србима у Независној Држави Хрватској ) was the systematic persecution and extermination of Serbs committed during World War II by

34905-544: Was abandoned due to poor construction. Still, that method was unnecessary, as most inmates perished from starvation, disease (especially typhus ), assaults with mallets, maces, axes, poison and knives. The srbosjek ("Serb-cutter") was a glove with an attached curved blade designed to cut throats. Large groups of people were regularly executed upon arrival outside camps and thrown into the river. Unlike German-run camps, Jasenovac specialized in brutal one-on-one violence, such as guards attacking barracks with weapons and throwing

35100-513: Was able to do during its occupation of Europe." Bounded by rivers and two barbed-wire fences making escape unlikely, the Jasenovac camp was divided into five camps, the first two closed in December 1941, while the rest were active until the end of the war. Stara Gradiška (Jasenovac V) held women and children. The Ciglana (brickyards, Jasenovac III) camp, the main killing ground and essentially

35295-530: Was appointed envoy to HM headquarters in May 1942. Malvić served in this position as part of the NDH embassy in Slovakia. However, HM did not send an envoy to the NDH. Oršanić wrote to Malvić regarding this issue in November 1942. Malvić replied that he had spoken with Macek, who said that HM could not afford to dispatch an envoy and that it lacked qualified members who could fill this position. HM never sent an envoy to

35490-437: Was based on a revolt against materialism , rationalism , positivism , bourgeois society, and democracy . The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism , irrationalism , subjectivism , and vitalism . They regarded civilization as being in crisis, requiring a massive and total solution. Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as

35685-446: Was dubbed the "Croatian Mengele " by survivors. Diana Budisavljević , a humanitarian of Austrian descent, carried out rescue operations and saved more than 15,000 children from Ustaše camps. A large number of massacres were committed by the NDH armed forces, Croatian Home Guard ( Domobrani ) and Ustaše Militia . The Ustaše Militia was organised in 1941 into five (later 15) 700-man battalions, two railway security battalions and

35880-474: Was formed in 1918. The outburst of Croatian nationalism after 1918 was one of the main threats for Yugoslavia's stability. During the 1920s, Ante Pavelić , lawyer, politician and one of the Frankists, emerged as a leading spokesman for Croatian independence. In 1927, he secretly contacted Benito Mussolini , dictator of Italy and founder of fascism , and presented his separatist ideas to him. Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia that should cover

36075-557: Was not biological racism like in Nazism. Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretical commonality: all traditionally fall into the far-right sector of any political spectrum , catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities. According to the Council on Foreign Relations , many experts see fascism as a mass political movement centered around extreme nationalism, militarism, and

36270-513: Was not properly examined in the aftermath of the war, because the post-war Yugoslav government did not encourage independent scholars out of concern that ethnic tensions would destabilize the new communist regime. Nowadays, оn 22 April , Serbia marks the public holiday dedicated to the victims of genocide and fascism, while Croatia holds an official commemoration at the Jasenovac Memorial Site. The ideological foundation of

36465-655: Was officially intended to consist of all Croatian youths aged 7–21. The organization was divided into four sections: the Ustaše Hope ( ustaška uzdanica ) (age 7–11), the Ustaše Heroes ( ustaški junaci ) (11–15), the Ustaše Starčević Youth ( ustaška Starčevićeva mladež ) (15–21), and the University Youth ( sveučilišna mladež ). A decree from November 1941 removed the University Youth section from

36660-467: Was partly a result of the shortage of ammunition and firearms in the early course of the war, but also demonstrated the importance the regime placed on the cult of violence and personal slaughter, in particular through the usage of the knife. Charles King emphasized that concentration camps are losing their central place in Holocaust and genocide research because a large proportion of victims perished in mass executions, ravines and pits. He explained that

36855-590: Was pulled out, eyes gouged out before he was skinned alive. On 24–25 July 1941, the Ustaše militia captured the village of Banski Grabovac in the Banija region and murdered the entire Serb population of 1,100 peasants. On 24 July, over 800 Serb civilians were killed in the village of Vlahović. Between 29 June and 7 July 1941, 280 Serbs were killed and thrown into pits near Kostajnica . Large scale massacres took place in Staro Selo Topusko , including in

37050-407: Was rooted in a stronger "home grown" form of hatred, implemented with more variance due to the larger Serb population found across rural areas. This was done despite the fact it would degrade support for the regime, fueled Serb rebellion and jeopardized the stability of the NDH. The level of violence enacted against Serb communities often depended more on the intercommunal relations and inclinations of

37245-572: Was signed on 17 September 1941. The agreement stressed the need for close cooperation of the two organizations and for both youths to receive similar education. Lictor Youth made their institutes and academies free of charge for the Ustaše Youth. On 3 October, an Ustaše Youth delegation led by Oršanić made a return visit to Italy during which they visited several cities. Between 1941 and 1943, Ustaše Youth delegations regularly visited Italy to attend sporting competitions, cultural festivals, and ideological training courses. The most publicized Ustaše Youth visit

37440-541: Was the Jasenovac-Stara Gradiška complex, the largest extermination camp in the Balkans. An estimated 100,000 inmates perished there, most Serbs. Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, the commander-in-chief of all the Croatian camps, announced the great "efficiency" of the Jasenovac camp at a ceremony on 9 October 1942, and also boasted: "We have slaughtered here at Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire

37635-684: Was the one that took place in August and September 1942, when Dragutin Gjurić led 100 youths to a training course in Rome. During the summer of 1942, Ustaše Youth participated in two large-scale international events of fascist youth organizations which were held in Weimar , on 8 June and in Florence on 3 July. In an interview for one Ustaše journal, leader of Hitler Youth Artur Axmann spoke of "European youth alliance", which he said could be formed already at

37830-492: Was the prominent painter Sava Šumanović , who was arrested along with 150 residents of Šid , and then tortured by having his arms cut off. In August 1941 on the Eastern Orthodox Elijah's holy day , who is the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina, between 2,800 and 5,500 Serbs from Sanski Most and the surrounding area were killed and thrown into pits which had been dug by victims themselves. During

38025-519: Was to teach the youth the values of comradeship, sacrifice, duty, discipline, responsibility, and order. Ustaše manuals stipulated that such camps were to be fenced off and have a sign identifying them as Ustaše Youth camps, with an Ustaše Youth emblem at the main gate. A campfire, together with a mast flying the NDH and Ustaše Youth flags, was to be at the center of the camp. The camps' daily schedule included waking up at 6:00 a.m., morning exercise, working service, pre-military lectures, gathering around

#981018