7. Nazi Doctrine in
the Catholic Press
The most important means for
propagating Ustashi ideas in Croatia was the Catholic press which, playing upon
the deep religious nature of the people, represented Pavelic and the Ustashi as
having been sent by God to the Croatian people. This press was especially
skillful in sowing the seeds of religious hatred toward the Serbs, racial hatred
toward the Jews and hatred for Yugoslavia. Immediately after proclamation of the
Independent State of Croatia the Catholic press placed itself without
reservation at the disposal of the Ustashi and the occupiers.
Glasnik Biskupije Bosanske i Sremske (The Voice of the Bosnian and Srem Bishoprics), No. 13, of July 15, 1941, wrote as follows of the establishment of the puppet state:
"Holy is this year of the resurrection of the Independent State of Croatia. The gallant image of our chieftain appeared in the rainbow. It can and it must be said of him that he is a man of Providence. He is the symbol of the 13-century-old religion, the faith, courage, gallantry, prudence, nobility, honesty and character of the Croatian people."
Glasnik Sv. Ante (The Voice of Saint Anthony) in the issue of December 12, 1941, said that the creation of the independent State of Croatia was God's work:
"The Croatians who are mostly a Catholic people consider such a great historical event as some fortunate accident, or as a stroke of luck. No, this is the work of God and providence."
Vjesnik Pocasne Straze Srca Isusova (The Courier of the Honorable Guards of Christ's Heart) wrote in a similar vein in issues Nos. 5 and 6 of 1941. An article entitled "The Banner of Croatia--the Heart of Christ" said:
"In the early spring the Croatian people experienced their resurrection at the time of Christ's resurrection. The great son of the Croatian people returned and gave their liberty and ancient rights. And this is also the work of God, the Lord did it all and that is why it is strange to our eyes."
The voice of the Crusader movement, Nedelja compared the Ustashi with Christ. In its issue of June 6, 1941, an article entitled "Christ and Croatia" reads:
"Christ and the Ustashi and Christ and the Croatians march together through history. From the first day of its existence the Ustashi movement has been fighting for the victory of Christ's principles, for the victory of justice, freedom and truth. Our Holy Savior will help us in the future as he has done until now, that is why the new Ustashi Croatia will be Christ's, ours and no one else's."
The Catholic press served as an effective
instrument in paving the way for fascism. The Catholic Church and its lay
organizations were owners and publishers of about 50 newspapers and periodicals.
The entire Catholic press was controlled and directed from the headquarters of
"Catholic Action."
The leading Catholic papers, especially Hrvatska
Straza (Croatian Guard) in Zagreb, Katolicki Tjednik in Sarajevo,
organ of "Catholic Action," Katolicki List in Zagreb and Katolicka
Rijec (Catholic Expression) in Split wrote in the spirit of fascism. This
most influential part of the Catholic press greeted with joy and sympathy the
successes of fascism in all European countries and systematically poisoned
public opinion with some sort of national-socialist ideology, while concealing
all the horrors of fascism and Nazism. It deceived the people by portraying for
them the "beauties" and "successes" of fascist regimes. This Catholic press was
engaged, before the war, in preparing the ground for establishment of a fascist
regime in Yugoslavia. It attacked all citizens who opposed the fascist assaults.
Every person, whether liberal or conservative, who did not side with the
clerical-fascist view was labeled "communist."
The Catholic press
reached people in all walks of life especially in the villages and small towns,
and had a wide circle of readers. Its influence was great. An interesting
example of how the Catholic press felt about itself is contained in an article
in the Hrvatska Straza. Reviewing the first 10 years of its existence on
July 2, 1939 -- two years before the war in Yugoslavia -- this newspaper said:
"In place of aimless wanderings, ideological disputes and party factionalism, the Croatian people need an era of building up a firm and definite national, cultural and social ideology.
"Today, 10 years after the first appearance of this Catholic daily, thousands of its pages and millions of lines show not only the enormous exertions of our staff, but also our clear line from which we never deviated. Since our beginning we were radical Croatians and always radical Catholics ... that has been our slogan, which we have never betrayed.
"This newspaper concentrates its attention on the currents of ideas and defends and promotes a clear and definite stand. Such newspapers have a special significance when they conduct a campaign. At first what they write does not attract unusual attention, but persistent repetition of the chosen thesis and its illustration by examples and quotations and always with new evidence are fruitful....
"We started many struggles. An example of the success of our campaign is our struggle against the Popular Fronts....
"Our unyielding and objective reporting about Spain is also well known, so much so that Spain itself admitted that we possessed better and more effective material than the editorial boards of the well-known Spanish papers. . . .
"In all our struggles we became known as a dangerous opponent...."
How this crusading for fascism met with the approval of Archbishop Stepinac was shown in the 1942 New Year's issue of this newspaper in an article entitled: "Our Highest Shepherd on Hrvatska Straza on New Year's Day." This declaration by Archbishop Stepinac read:
"Hrvatska Straza has always defended the religious ideals of the Croatian people without which the nation itself means nothing. Let it continue on that road in the Independent State of Croatia. It can render no greater service to its people than by spreading and defending the principles, which God has placed as the foundation of the lives of individuals and peoples. May the blessings of God accompany it in that work."
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| A poster linking the SS and the Ustashe, Hitler and Pavelic, in the fight against communism. |
The Catholic press in Yugoslavia played an
important role in the pre-war propagation of Nazi-fascist ideas under the cloak
of religious principles. It praised Nazism and Hitler's "New Order" while at the
same time it persistently attacked the Western powers, the United States, Great
Britain and France, terming them countries of "decayed" democracy and Jewish
plutocracy.
The Katolicki Tjednik, organ of "Catholic Action"
published under the direction of the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Dr. Ivan Saric,
printed an article entitled "A New Order Must Come." It appeared in No. 4,
1941--before the war--and repeated the Nazi leitmotiv that the Axis powers were
fighting for a new social order and just distribution of wealth as well as for
space in the world. The article branded English hegemony and "Jewish capitalist
plutocracy". The main Catholic daily, Hrvatska Straza whose editor, Dr.
Janko Shimrak, became a bishop under Pavelic, openly and consistently praised
Hitler's successes in domestic and foreign policy. In the issue of March 12,
1938, Hitler's occupation of Austria was defended and praised. Later this paper
hailed Hitler's successes in Czechoslovakia, Poland and France.
Priest
Dragutin Kamber, mentioned previously, published an article in the Sarajevo
newspaper Osvit of December 18, 1942, under the title: "Why Do I Want the
Germans and Their Allies to Win?" This developed the thesis that, "1. Without
the Germans, that is, the Axis, our nation would die and we would not have an
Independent State of Croatia; 2. From the international point of view, Germany
and the Croatians have the same enemies."
The Ustashi supported the
"theory" that the Croatians were not of Slav descent at all, but were
Gothic-German, with the aim of more successfully inciting Croat hatred against
the Yugoslav state, the Serbs and other Slavs. One of the founders of this race
theory was the well-known priest Kerubin Segvic. In 1931, he wrote a book
entitled "The Gothic Descendance of the Croats." The book was published in the
German language in Germany long before the war, and later was translated into
Italian. It played an important part in disseminating fascist ideas among the
Croatian people because it purported to show racial and blood ties between the
Croatians and the Germans, paving the way for union of the Croatian people with
Nazi Germany.
The Catholic Crusader paper Nedelja, in its issue
of June 15, 1941, printed on the front page an article directed against the
defeated Yugoslav Army. Contrasting the Yugoslav soldier and the Nazi
conquerors, the article stated:
"Later we learned to know a different kind of soldier -- the German soldier. In him we saw something diametrically opposed to that soldiery which collapsed, as if struck by lightning, exactly at the time it was supposed to justify its 'reputation.' While every Yugoslav soldier looked like a beggar, the German soldier showed us that even a soldier can be a gentleman ... They always behaved in a fine and noble manner like their leaders."
Much space in the Catholic press was devoted to
praising the so-called "Corporate State," the authoritarian system of various
countries, in which the Roman clergy played a dominant role. Frequent reports
and articles about the achievements of the clerical dictatorship under Msgr.
Josip Tiso in the "Independent State of Slovakia," and about the influence of
the Catholic Church in Hungary, in Vichy France and Franco Spain were printed in
the Catholic papers. Tiso's Slovak national socialism, under which all political
power was concentrated in the hands of Catholic priests, was praised as the
ideal corporate state. The Catholic daily Hrvatska Straza of July 1,
1940, stated that in the Independent State of Slovakia (which the Germans had
created with the help of clerical quislings) the people became sovereign
citizens after they were freed from their political oppressors. The same paper
in its issue of August 6, 1940, praised the Slovak Minister of Internal Affairs,
Alexander Mach, who was a sort of Himmler in that country, as "a man of action"
and added: "We need such men today, only they can create a new world and a new
order." Hrvatska Straza of March 2, 1938, in an article "Young Croatia
for Anschluss" greeted the Anschluss of Austria: "Hitler, the
leader of the German people, proclaimed it his life work to build on the ruins
of old Germany and Jewish-democratic social order a new, happy and satisfied
great Germany."
The Zagreb Katolicki List, the
organ of Archbishop Stepinac, in January, 1940, carried an article entitled
"Catholicism and Slovakian National Socialism" which read in part:
"In a modern state, which placed the interests of the people above all other considerations, the church and the state must cooperate in order to avoid all conflicts and misunderstandings. Thus, in accordance with the teachings of Christ, the Church in Slovakia had already exerted itself to arrange a new life for the Slovakian people.
"The views of Dr. Tuka are fulfilled by the formation of a people's Slovakia,' which has the approval of the President of the Republic, Msgr. Dr. Josip Tiso. In the National-Socialist system in Slovakia, the Church will not be persecuted. Persecutions will be used against the opponents of National-Socialism.''
Similar articles were published in other Catholic
papers to convince the Croatian people that the clerical corporate state was on
the march everywhere. In the Catholic daily, Hrvatska Straza, fascist
Hungary was praised as early as April 3, 1938, for "solving the social problems
by accepting the main principles of the Christian corporate state." There can be
little doubt that this idea of the so-called corporate state was in the minds of
the Ustashi in their plot against pre-war Yugoslavia. The pattern would be to
help Nazi Germany overcome and dominate the Balkans and in return be allowed to
set up their own Independent State of Croatia.
NEXT: Exterminate the Jews
THE CASE OF ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC
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