Ante Pavelic, a former delegate to Parliament…
May 1941 CE
The Ustashe, dedicated to achieving Croatian independence from Yugoslavia, had modeled themselves on the Italian Fascists and founded terrorist training centers in Italy and Hungary.
The Ustashe had attempted to incite a peasant rebellion in northern Dalmatia in 1932 and had achieved their greatest success in organizing the assassination of King Alexander in Marseille on October 9, 1934.
Pavelic returns to Croatia after the conquest of Yugoslavia by Axis forces in April 1941, and is installed by the Italians as head (poglavnik) of the Independent State of Croatia, which has been expanded to include some of Serbia and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ustashe regime, whose slogan is "Za dom Spremni" ("Ready for the Fatherland"), conducts a brutal program of oppression against the Orthodox Serbs and the Jews.