Archbishop Stepinac (right) and other prelates at Ustashi Ceremonies. At left are Col. Erik Lisak and Ivan Shelich (Stepinac's Secretary). Lisak was condemned to death at the mass trial in Zagreb in October 1946, when Archbishop Stepinac was also found guilty and sentenced to 16 years hard labor.
When Adolf Hitler, during the execution of his plan
to conquer Europe and the world, attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on April 6,
1941, it became immediately apparent that the German Wehrmacht had at its
command powerful treacherous groups within the Yugoslav state. The Yugoslav
Army, engaged in a deadly struggle against the overwhelmingly superior forces of
the Nazi invaders, had to contend from the start with military bands working for
the enemy in its rear. These were the so-called Ustashi terroristic detachments
which, in close cooperation with and sometimes under the direct leadership of
those Roman Catholic priests who were members of the Ustashi, threatened the
communication lines of the fighting Yugoslav Army, and attacked and disarmed
isolated Army units.
Suffering under the blows of the German Wehrmacht,
and stabbed in the back by the Ustashi, the Yugoslav Army resisted heroically
until it was broken after two weeks of fighting.
After the defeat of the
Yugoslav Army parts of the country were occupied by the Wehrmacht, and other
parts were given over to the Ustashi, who set up a Nazi puppet state, which they
called the Independent State of Croatia. From the beginning it became apparent
that in this new puppet state power rested entirely in the hands of the Ustashi
and their collaborators in the higher and lower Catholic clergy.
A wave
of terror soon swept the newly organized Independent State of Croatia. Of the
2,000,000 Serbs in Croatia, the Ustashi program, now put into action, called for
one third to be driven from their homes back to Serbia, another third to be
murdered and the rest forced, under threat of torture and death, to convert to
the Roman faith. Of the 80,000 Jews in Yugoslavia, 60,000 were killed, the great
majority in Croatia. As will be seen in following chapters, based on documentary
evidence, these almost incredible atrocities were committed with the full
knowledge and active support of one part of the Roman hierarchy in Croatia.
Archbishop Stepinac was the responsible head of that hierarchy.
Investigation by the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission established that
Archbishop Stepinac had played a leading part in the conspiracy that led to the
conquest and breakdown of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was furthermore
established that Archbishop Stepinac played a role in governing the Nazi puppet
Croatian state, that many members of his clergy participated actively in
atrocities and mass murders, and, finally, that they collaborated with the enemy
down to the last day of the Nazi rule, and continued after the liberation to
conspire against the newly created Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia.
NEXT: Why was the Arrest Delayed?
THE CASE OF ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC
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