Croatian Cruiser Brotherhood

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The Croatian Cruiser Brotherhood ( Croatian Hrvatsko križarsko bratstvo , HKB for short ) was a registered association of Croats in exile founded in January 1959 with its seat in Bensberg near Cologne . The head of the association with around 200 members was the Catholic priest Rafael Medić (1914–1973), the former house chaplain of the Ustasha leader Ante Pavelić (1889–1959).

According to its statutes , its purpose as a Catholic refugee organization was to help Croatian refugees in the Federal Republic with regard to their economic and cultural problems and their existence in this country.

In fact, it was a right-wing extremist organization. It included 23 participants in a bomb attack that was carried out on November 29, 1962 on the building of the Yugoslav Department of the Swedish Embassy in the Bad Godesberg district of Mehlem ; the caretaker was fatally injured. According to the news magazine Spiegel , the association and comparable organizations were in continuity with Croatian collaborators of the German Reich during the break-up and occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II .

Due to the attack, the Cologne District President banned the association on March 13, 1963 according to Article 9, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law in conjunction with association law : The activity violates criminal laws and the idea of ​​international understanding. An emigrant has no right to exile politics in relation to the country of refuge. The refuge state, on the other hand, must suppress any propaganda aimed at preparing for violent attacks.

Medić was released from prison on September 30, 1965.

See also

literature

  • Alexander Clarkson: Fragmented Fatherland: Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany: 1945–1980 (=  Monographs in German History . Volume 34 ). Berghahn Books, 2013, ISBN 978-0-85745-959-6 , Support or Suppress? Croatian Nationalists and the West German Security Services, S. 65 ff .
  • Nina Grunenberg: "We cannot forget ...": Trial of 26 Croatians - secret grouping in exile . In: The time . No. 12/1964 , March 20, 1964 ( zeit.de ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Journal for Foreign Public Law and Völkerrecht 1965, p. 266 f .: International law practice of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1963. Retrieved on September 30, 2017.
  2. At that time there were no diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia .
  3. Der Spiegel 18/1963: Croats. Bomb and cross. Retrieved September 30, 2017.
  4. Knjižnica. Ljudi i Krajevi (=  Hrvatska Revija . Band 3 ). 1967, p. 200 .