1: Philatelic Exhibition in Banja Luka (1942)
2: 1942 Surcharge
3-5: National Relief Fund (1942)
6-10: Red Cross Fund: National Costumes (1942)
11,12: Ustasha Youth (1) Fund (1942)
13-15: National Labour Service (2) Fund (1943)
16: 1943 700 Years of Zagreb as Free Royal City (3)
17,18: 1943 Definitives: Castles
19: 1943 Second Anniversary of Independence: President A. Pavelic (4)
20-22: Famous Croats (1943)
Miniature Sheets 3A and 3B: Ustasha Youth Fund (1942):
Miniature Sheets 4A and 4B: Second Anniversary of Independence (1943):
1: 1943 Definitive Stamp: President A. Pavelic
2-5: Croatian Legion (5) Fund (1943)
6: Third Philatelic Exhibition in Zagreb (1943)
(1) The
Ustasha was a Croatian far-right organization put in charge of the Independent
State of Croatia by the Axis Powers in 1941. At the time of their founding in
1929, the Ustasha was nationalist political organizations that committed terrorist
acts. When they came to power in WWII, they also had military formations that
later numbered some 76,000 strong at their peak in 1944.
In October 1928, after the assassination of Croatian member of Yugoslav Parliament
S. Radic, a radical youth group named Hrvatski Domobran started publishing a
newspaper dedicated to the Croatian national matters. Various members of the
Croatian Party of Rights contributed to the writing, until around Christmas
1928 when the newspaper was banned by the authorities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In January 1929, the King banned all national parties, and radical wing of the
Party of Rights was exiled, among them A. Pavelic. In 1929, Pavelic and others
co-signed a declaration in Sofia together with the members of the Macedonian
National Committee, asserting that they would pursue "their legal activities
for the establishment of human and national rights, political freedom and complete
independence of both Croatia and Macedonia". Because of this, the Court
for the Preservation of the State in Belgrade sentence Pavelic. The exiles never
returned to Yugoslavia, and instead started organizing support for their cause
among the Croatian diaspora in Europe, South America and North America. In January
1932, they named their revolutionary organization Ustasha.
Due to their previous links with the Macedonian nationalists, the Ustasha members
were accused in conspiring to murder the Yugoslav king Alexander in 1934. Soon
after the assassination, all organizations related to the Ustasha were banned
throughout Europe.
The Axis invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. V. Macek, the leader of the Croatian
Peasant Party which was the most influential party in Croatia at the time, rejected
offers by the Nazi Germany to lead the new government. Ustasha took the opportunity
and with the help of the foreign armies installed their regime on April 14th
1941. A group of several hundred of them infiltrated from Italy, their commander
S. Kvaternik took control of the police in Zagreb and proclaimed the formation
of the Independent State of Croatia. Pavelic arrived on April 20th to become
the head of government, of the state that would soon encompass most of today's
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Serbia. Because the Ustasha did not
have a capable army or administration necessary to control the territory, the
Germans and the Italians split up the NDH into two zones of influence, one in
the southwest controlled by the Italians and the other in the northeast controlled
by the Germans. Eventually all who opposed the Ustasha were outlawed.
Pavelic first met with Hitler on June 6, 1941. M. Budak, then minister in Pavelic's
government, publicly proclaimed the violent racial policy of the state on July
22, 1941. V. Luburic, one of the chiefs of secret police organizations, started
building concentration camps in the summer of the same year. The regular army
of the NDH, the Home Guard, was composed of enlisted men who were barely combat-ready
and did not participate in the atrocities. The members of the Ustasha party
were part of the paramilitary units that committed the crimes.
Eventually the Red Army and partisans liberated Yugoslavia and the Ustasha were
utterly defeated as well. They continued fighting even a bit after the German
surrender on May 9th, 1945, but were soon overpowered. A large column of Ustasha
as well as many civilians, tried to flee for Austria and Italy later in the
same month, but was handed over back to the partisans on the Austrian border
and subsequently either executed or sent at a "death march" back into
the country, the so-called Bleiburg massacre. Pavelic managed to escape and
fled to Argentina. Agents of the Yugoslav intelligence agencies shot him in
Buenos Aires, inflicting injuries that would later prove to be fatal.
Youth organization of Ustasha Movement was formed on 4 November, 1941 by decision of A. Pavelic. It was led by Office of commander of Ustasha youth. Commander was directly responsible to Pavelic and had two deputies - one for male and other female youth. Organization of Ustasha youth covered entire youth from age 7 to 21.
(2) National Labour Service was a semi-military organized common and compulsory one year service for all citizens of the Independent State of Croatia.
(3) While
the human habitats were present at the wider city area since the Neolithic,
Zagreb’s modern name was recorded for the first time in the 11th century
(1094). In that year the Hungarian King Ladislaus founded a bishopric on the
Kaptol hill. An independent secular community developed on a neighboring hill
Gradec. The settlements suffered greatly under the Mongol invasion of 1242,
but when they abruptly left, King Bela IV declared Gradec a royal autonomous
city in order to attract foreign artisans.
The two mediaeval hills, Gradec and Kaptol, finally merged into one community,
Zagreb, in the early 17th century.
(4) Ante
Pavelic (1889-1959) was the leader and founding member of the Croatian Ustasha
fascist movement in the 1930s and later the leader of the Independent State
of Croatia.
He was born in Bradina, a small village in Bosnia and Herzegovina and moved
to Zagreb to study law. In his youth he became a member of the Croatian Party
of Rights. In 1919 he was interim secretary of the Pure Party of Rights. In
1921 he was arrested along with several other members of the party but was released.
In 1927 he was elected to the Zagreb city council. He held the position of the
party secretary in the Party of Rights until 1929 and the beginning of royal
dictatorship in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He then co-founded the Ustasha and
went underground. In 1934, when Yugoslav king Aleksandar was assassinated in
France, Pavelic and other Ustasha members were arrested in Italy under the charges
of conspiring to kill the king, but were never extradited and were later released
from prison.
Pavelic remained in Italy until the beginning of World War II. In 1941, Yugoslavia
was invaded and he became the leader (poglavnik) of the Independent State of
Croatia. As the leader of the Ustasha, he directly ordered, organized and conducted
a campaign of terror against Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and communist Croats.
In May 1945 he fled via Bleiburg to Austria and then to Argentina. There he
became security advisor to Juan Peron. Peron issued 34.000 visas to Croatians:
both the Nazi collaborators and the anti-communists that fled from Communism.
In April 1957 he was shot twice in an assassination attempt. Pavelic was subsequently
forced to flee Argentina to avoid arrest and extradition, and he found refuge
in Spain, where he died in Madrid in late 1959, from complications of his wounds.
(5) During
the Russian campaign, Croatians volunteered to fight alongside Germany. A Croatian
Legion composed of three infantry battalions was formed, two raised at Varazdin,
and the other one formed of Bosnian Croats from Sarajevo. In addition the legion
had a staff company, an anti-tank company and a heavy weapons company, later
an artillery group. The legion was designated as the 369th Croatian Reinforced
Infantry Regiment. Reinforced because the regiment had its own artillery, beyond
the regular issue infantry guns. The Croatians wore German Uniforms with a Chessboard
shoulder badge with the word "HRVASKA" (CROATIA).
After training at the camp near Vienna, the 5.000 troop regiment was attached
to the German 100th Light Division on the southern sector of the Eastern Front.
The Legion was commanded by a Croatian Colonel V. Pavicic. By September 1941,
the legion moved to Kharkov. It took part in the advance of the German 6th Army
to Stalingrad.
On 25 September 1942, the 6th Army entered Stalingrad. The Croatian volunteers
fought on several of the hardest sectors inside the surrounded perimeter at
Stalingrad. By January 1943, German 6th Army surrendered to the Russians, who
captured the last remnants of the 369th Croatian Regiment. About a thousand
men were evacuated from Stalingrad via air and were used to form the core of
a new Croatian volunteer units of the Wehrmacht.
The Croatian Air Force legion was formed on
2 June, 1941. It was composed of a fighter squadron and a bomber squadron. The
squadrons were equipped respectively with Me109bf's and the Do17's. They were
attached to the German fighter groups. The fighter group was commanded by Oberst
F. Dzal. The Air Force saw action over many sectors; the bombers raiding Moscow
at one point while the fighters saw action in the Caucasus. In July 1944 the
Croatian airmen returned to their own country to help stop the partisan threat.