Ustashi and the Pope

(An answer and a challenge to the Catholic Chaplain).

In reply to the letter of Fr. O'Sullivan, (Salient, 1st August, I must point out that he has examined only the Catholic-expurgated version, and while it may be suitable for the Tablet it is not good enough for a university newspaper. I wish to fill in some of the more blatant ommissions in paragraphs 3 to 11 inclusive.

Paragraph 3. When war broke out in September 1939, Yugoslavia was neutral, but Italy's invasion of Greece, in the south, in October 1940, and German political pressure resulted in Yugoslavia's alignment with the Axis powers. On March 25 1941, Prime Minister Cvetkovic entered Yugoslavia in the Axis Tripartite Pact of 1940 which included Germany, Italy and Japan. On the next day, demonstrations occurred throughout the country with the slogan "Better war than the pact, better death than slavery" and German property was attacked. Two days later a group of officers led a military coup which unsaddled the Cvetkovic government, and an air force Genera), Simovic, became Prime Minister in a government of national unity. Hitler was insulted by the coup and determined to smash the nation as quickly as possible, particularly as he had to postpone Operation Barbarossa, the attack against the Soviet Unio, while he dealt with Yugoslavia. On April 6, without a declaration of war, the German air force attacked the undefended city of Belgrade while the army poured across the frontier. On April 17, the Yugoslav army surrendered to the Germans. The Simovic government fled the country. They reached London in June and set up a government in exile which pledged itself to continue the struggle. The Axis established Ante Pavelic, the founder and leader of the Ustashi, as ruler (Poglavnik) of an independent state of Croatia.

Paragraph 4. On April 10 1941, the German army entered Zagreb, the Capital of Croatia. The Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed by Slavko Kvaternik (Secretary of State, and Zagreb Head of Police) who had entered with the German army. Following this proclaimation. Archbishop Stepinac, on behalf of his clergy congratulated Kvaternik on the victory. Instructions on collaboration with the Germans were issued over the radio and people who were in any doubt as to what to do were told to contact the Catholic Parish Office in their district. A proclamation from Macek, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, was also broadcast over Radio Zagreb and printed in the newspapers (e.g. Hrvatski Narod, April 10 1941) in which he called on the Croatian people to submit to the new government and for the members of the Croatian Peasent party to support the new government.

When Ante Pavelic arrived in Zagreb on April 13, dressed in Italian Blackshirt uniform and accompanied by an Italian Tank escort and Ustasha bodyguards, he went straight to German army headquarters, where he received his orders signed by Marshall Von Keitel on behalf of Hitler. The next day Archbishop Stepinac congratulated Pavelic for his efforts and that night he gave Pavelic and his followers a grand banquet. The newspapers published photographs of the occasion, showing Catholic ecclesiastical robes mingled with Nazi, Fascist and Ustasha uniforms, celebrating the conquest of Yugoslavia and the independence of Croatia.

Paragraph 5. Resistance to the Axis occupiers was quickly organised. Colonel Mihailovic, a staunch Serbiarr patriot, organised bands of Chetnik (cetnici) guerillas. In January 1942, the government in exile named him Minister of War and Commander in Chief of the royal armies in Yugoslavia. After the German attack on the USSB in June 1941, a second resistance movement developed under the direction of the illegal Yugoslav Communist Party. Its Secretary General, a Croat named Josip Broz (Tito) directed the operations of irregular units called Partisans against the invaders. Fighting under the slogan "Death to Fascism, liberty to the people' the Partisans welcomed all Yugoslav nationalities (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes) to its ranks and pursued a policy of maximum resistance to the Axi Mihailovic and Tito met several times in late 1941 but they failed to agree on common operations against the occupiers. In November 1941, sporadic fighting broke out between the two resistance movements. Tito's forces grew rapidly and peoples councils (odbore) were set up in liberated territory, In November 1942, an anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) was established under Communist leadership. Until 1943, the Allied powers recognised Mihailovic as head of the Yugoslav resistance, however when reports were received that Mihailovic's subordinates had aligned themselves with the Italian Fascists the Allies shifted their support to Tito. In November 1943, AVNOJ established a Yugoslav provisional government headed by Tito At the Teheran Conference (Nov 28—Dec 1, 1943) it was decided to provide major material aid to Tito's movement. In 1944 German rule began to crumble. Belgrade was liberated on October 20 by the Soviet army and the Partisans. Tito's Communists established themselves in political and military control of the country.

The last sentence in paragraph 5 in his letter tells us more about Fr. O'Sullivan than about Croatia. It is interestin—although hardly surprising—that Fr. O'Sullivan (like his superiors in the Vatican) supports the Ustashi cause. He says "The Croatian government in self defence was obliged to resist these forces (Chetniks and Partisans) which were supported from without by Soviet arms and also by the Western powers". In other words Fr. O'Sullivan has sympathies for the Catholic Ustashi regime but none for the State of Yugoslavia or putting it more bluntly. Catholic interests first ana state interests second. The same common denominator links the IRA, the ASIO and our own SIS.

Paragraph 6. The force of circumstance referred to by Fr. O'Sullivan put Yugoslavia, rather than Croatia, on the side of the Axis. In August 1939, an autonomous province (Banovina) of Croatia was established, with its own parliament (Sabor). The governor of Croatia was Subasic, who was a follower of Macek. Recall that Macek, the leader of the Croation Peasant Party, appealed for collaboration with the Germans on April 10 1941. Furthermore, in the years before the war, Pavelic sent Ustashi propagandists into Yugoslavia to spread the Ustashi message, and after the German invasion in April 1941, many of the Ustashis who had infiltrated the civil and military administration came out into the open as key figures, sabotaging the Yugoslav war effort and collaborating with the Germans. In other words. Croatia's alignment with the Axis was planned and was not the result of pressure as in the case of the Yugoslav government.

Paragraph 7. After the German and Italian carve-up of Yugoslavia, the new Independent State of Croatia was enlarged to include the former province of Croatia together with the former province of Bosnia-Herzegovina which contained over two million Serbs. The population of the new state was approximately 6,700,000, consisting of 3,300,000 Croats, over 2,000,000 Serbs, 700,000 Moslems, 45,000 Jews and other sundry monorities. The area of the new state was about the same as that of the North Island of New Zealand.

The statistics used by Fr. O'Sullivan cover the seventeen year period from 1931 to 1948, and send to conceal the figures that we are concerned with, namely the deaths between 1941 and 1945. The figure of 940,000 Serbs murdered is the highest estimate. The lowest estimate is 600,000 which came from the London government in exile. In addition, about 300,000 Serbs were deported and another 240,000 were converted "without the slightest pressure and with deep seated conviction with regard to the truths of the Catholic faith". About 100,000 Croat workers were sent to Germany, while others were conscripted for service in the Eastern Front. About 30,000 Jews were killed by the Ustashi.

Paragraph 9. There is another side to this story that Fr. O'Sullivan prefers not to disclose. Briefly it is as follows: In early 1945, with the collapse: of Croatia fast approaching, Pavelic and Stepinac began to reorganise the Ustashi armies with the aim of (1) preventing the collapse of Ustashi Croatia, and (2) resisting and if possible destroying Tito's Central Yugoslav Government. However there was insufficient time, and as a final desperate move, Pavelic placed the Ustashi government under the control of Stepinac. At the end of April 1945, the Ustashi loot was buried in the Archbishop's Palace in Zagreb. There were cases of gold nuggets, also rings, jewellery, gold watches, gold dentures and fillings wrenched from the jaws of the massacred victims, also cases of silver. The archives of the defunct state, e.g. films, records of Pavelic's speeches, files of the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs etc. were also hidden in the Archbishop's Palace.

The main Ustashi leaders and about 500 priests fled with the retreating German army. Those Ustashi who remained in Yugoslavia, instead of disbanding, became guerillas and their new enemy was Tito's Central Yugoslav (Communist) government which had replaced the former Yugoslav kingdom. Their new terrorist activities were again cloaked in innocent sounding religious organisations, e.g. the Crusaders, whose aim was to rise and overthrow the government, or in Ustashi language, to "liberate the Croatian people". Their activities included sabotage and the assassination of officials of the new Yugoslav government—carried out with Stepinac's approval. Stepinac established contact with the scattered armed bands of the Ustashi, directing priests and monks to act as liason with them. These holy men-travelled through out the country keeping the illegal Crusader groups in communication with one another. They reported their positions, strength and equipment to Stepinac in Zagreb. He forwarded these reports to the Vatican, which in turn forwarded them to the USA. It was hoped that the USA would start World War III and invade Yugoslavia so that an independent Catholic state of Croatia could once again emerge as in World War II.

The Yugoslav government decided to solve the problem tactfully by removing Stepinac without disturbing the religious hornet's nest, and approache Pope Pius XII requesting the Archbishop's removal from Zagreb. The Pope meanwhile was already preparing for the "cold war" in which religion was to be used to stir up emotional hatred for political ends, and for this process Archbishop Stepinac was to become a pawn. The Vatican ordered Archbishop Stepinac to carry on with the Ustasha guerilla activities. The Yugoslav goverment waited for four months without receiving any reply. Meanwhile the War Crimes Commission produced its evidence concerning Archbishop Stepinac, and on September 18 1946 he was arrested. In order to avoid religious complications inside and outside Yugoslavia, Stepinac was tried in Zagreb by a jury consisting entirely of Catholics, and on October 11 1946 the court sentenced Archbishop Stepinac to sixteen years imprisonment.

The Vatican uttered a cry of horror which was amplified a thousandfold by the Catholic hierarchies, Catholic organisations and the Catholic press the world over, and the Pope ordered the excommunication of all those Catholics who had taken part in the trial. The Pope also set in motion the vast machinery of Catholic propaganda which flooded the world with falsifications and distortions. Overnight, Stepinac the authoritarian leader, political plotter, politician, promoter of forcible conversions, tolerator and instigator of Ustashi massacres and Ustashi resistance leader, was made to appear as Stepinac the defender of true democracy, the most holy Archbishop, the courageous champion of religious freedom, the persecuted and the martyr. Millions swallowed the Catholic version.

This version was echoed by newspapers, magazines and radio. Religious and political leaders joined in the chorus. Foreign Offices, Heads of States, and whole governments of Catholic and non-Catholic countries protested against the "Communist persecution of religion". Questions were heatedly asked in the British House of Commons, in the French, Italian and Belgian Chambers of Deputies and in the American House of Representatives and Senate. President Truman was subjected to tremendous pressure to intervene in Yugoslavia on behalf of the "martyred Stepinac". Three years later, in 1949, the same process was repeated with Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary. The emotional mass distortion engineered in the Vatican soon yielded its poisonous harvest, not in the religious field but in the political field: the "cold war" of the 1950's became a reality and split the world into two opposing hostile camps. Capitalism and Communism, the former claiming to be Christian and the latter claiming to be Atheistic. This is one of the many illustrations of the methods of the Vatican, namely the promotion of contemporary religious superstition for political purposes.

Paragraph 10. Fr. O'Sullivan's comment that Pavelic was in Rome and not in the Vatican is fair enough. It is worth looking at the methods used in pavelic's escape because they were also used by many other Catholic criminals. After the Ustashi had been placed in the hands of Stepinac, Pavelic and Artukovic (Ustashi Minister of Internal Affairs) went into hiding in the Convent of St. Gilgin near Salzburg. Pavelic was later arrested near the city of Linz in Austria by the British, but through some mysterious Intervention—political not spiritual—disappeared. He later turned up in Rome dressed as a priest and using the names Fr. Gomez and Fr. Bcnarez, lived in a monastery which had the privelege of extra-territoriality. In November 1948 he embarked on an Italian boat bound for Buenos-Aires (Argentina). His passport was issued by the International Red Cross in Rome 5 July 1948, in the name of Pablo Aranyos. Pavelic obtained this passport with the assistance of Ustasha Colonel Fr. K. Draganovic who was in the Institute of St. Jerome and who had connections in the Pontifical Assistance Commission. Artukovic was captured and interned in a camp for suspected war criminals. He escaped and obtained from the Pontifical Commission a passport in the name of Alois Anic. He fled to Ireland then to Los Angeles. He resisted successfully the attempts to extradite him in 1958 but on the basis of further evidence, immigration officials began another investigation in October 1976.

Paragraph 11. Fr. O'Sullivan denies that Archbishop Stepinac acted with the approval of the Pope, and says of Stepinac, "His superior in Rome was the Pope who did not lend approval to murder' This sort of hogwash has credibility only to the simple minded. In fact the Pope was well aware of what was going on in Croatia. As well as receiving information from the German and Italian representatives to the Vatican, he received continual reports from other reliable sources, namely Archbishop Stepinac, The Papal Legate, Pavelic's envoy to the Vatican and Cardinal Tisserand.

And what of the Holy Father?

On 18 May 1941, Pope Pius XII granted audience to the Ustashi General Staff. On 14 July 1941, Pope Pius received Monsignor Janko Simrak, naming him Bishop of Krizevci. This dedicated assistant on the Committee for Conversion [unclear: of] Orthodox Christians was also decorated by [unclear: vlic] with the "Grand Cross and Star", which was accompanied by this citation: "For his devoted service among his clergy and flock and for his sincere collaboration with the State authorities in true Ustashi spirit.

On 1 January 1943, the Pope sent a telegram to Pavelic thanking him for his good wishes: "For all that you have expressed to US both in your own name and that of the Croatian Catholics. We thank you and joyfully send the apostolic benediction to you and to the Croatian people ", In March 1943, on the anniversary of the enthronement of Pope Plus XII there was another exchange of good wishes. Then on 5th June 1943.' Pavelic sent the Pope his congratulations, and the Pope Replied cordially. "Praying God for the happiness of the Croatian people". (The serbs and Jews massacred by the Ustashis were obviously not included in these good wishes).

In March 1944, the Pope sent the following telegram to Pavelic: "The wishes which you and the Croatian people have expressed to Us, upon the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Our Pontificate, are very dear to Us, and We pray that God may bless you with His most gracious gifts".

There is enough material here, I think, to show that the Pope was not at all concerned about lending approval to murder—provided it is carried out for the Catholic cause.

Finally I wish to address the Roman Catholic Chaplin. Fr. O'Sullivan. I challenge you to take part in a public debate with me, to take place on the University campus during the third term in which we expand our respective discussions. In other words you can whitewash the issue while I lift the lid off and let Catholic and non-Catholic alike Inhale the stench. You have taken it upon yourself to act as spokesman for the 1000 odd 1 Catholic students at Victoria University, so you are naturally committed to accepting my challenge.

On the other hand, if you submit to Salient, a note from one of your superiors confirming the essential correctness of my discussion, then I am prepared to withdraw my challenge. I await your reply in these columns of Salient.

Donald J. Beswick.