Forced conversions of Serbs in the independent state of Croatia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the forced conversions of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia , the leading fascist Ustaša movement tried from summer 1941 to spring 1942 to systematically assimilate the Serbs in the territory of the so-called Independent State of Croatia .

During the Second World War , hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs were to be permanently "Croatized" through the indirectly or directly forced conversion to the Catholic faith . There are no exact figures on the Serbs actually converted. Some estimates put around 240,000 Serbs converted, while others put the number at around 100,000.

The attempt to “re-Catholicize” the Serbs in the Croatian puppet state , which is dependent on the Axis Powers, from the Ustaša's point of view, was rejected again in the spring of 1942. In order to pacify the state and make it more acceptable to non-Catholic non-Croatians, the Ustaše leadership decided to turn away from its aggressive conversion policy and instead found the Croatian Orthodox Church in April 1942.

background

A central component of the Ustaše ideology was to eliminate the Serbian population, which made up a third of the population, in the Croatian puppet state that was dependent on the Axis powers. According to the Ustaša functionary Mile Budak , the Croatian government would "force them (the Serbs) out (of the NDH)" . Elsewhere he described the Catholics and Bosnian Muslims as the only true Croats, whereas the Serbs would have to leave, whether of their own free will or not. Another Ustaša functionary, Milovan Žanić , said that the Serbs had to go and that there was no method that the Ustasha would not use to rid the state of the Serbs. According to Jonathan Steinberg , the role of religion was one of the distinctive features of the Ustaša crimes. These combined Catholic religiosity with Croatian nationalism and extreme violence. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were murdered and displaced during World War II. Numerous massacres such as the Prebilovci , Sanski Most and Banja Luka massacres were carried out. Also were concentration camps set up how the Jasenovac concentration camp , Stara Gradiška concentration camp or concentration camp Jadovno . Special children's concentration camps such as Gornja Rijeka , Jastrebarsko and Sisak concentration camps were also set up.

In the scientific literature, it is assumed that the forced conversions began immediately after the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia in April 1941. The historian Mark Biondich argues against the prevailing opinion that the Ustaša only considered this as a possibility a few months later, in autumn 1941. The mass killings had led to uprisings and the decline of entire regions. In order to stop the goal of the Greater Croatian nation-state, the demands of the German occupying power to contain the violence and the collapse of the state, the Ustasha initiated a change in its persecution policy by increasingly relying on the forced assimilation of the Serbs.

In the ranks of the Ustaša, the Serbs fluctuated between exclusionist and assimilationist tendencies, with the former dominating, which only saw the Catholic and Muslim population as Croatians. According to this, the Serbs are alien elements for which there was no place in the Croatian state. In the case of assimilationist tendencies, the Serbs were ethnic Croats, who were to be "Croatized" by converting to the Catholic faith and thus a "solution to the Serbian question" was to be achieved.

Forced conversions by the Ustaše

Conversion of Serbs in Mikleuš ( Slavonia ), carried out by priest Vlaho Martić .

The Ustaša defined their own rules and standards with regard to forced conversions and thus determined which Serbs could convert and what risk of being murdered or deported . On May 3, 1941, the Ustaša issued a first decree on conversions . This proclaimed that all existing laws on conversions, some of which went back to the time of the Habsburg Monarchy , will be suspended until further notice. In order to convert, a person had to register with the authorities and meet the requirements of the religion to which they wanted to convert. On May 27, 1941, the Department of Law and Religion issued instructions to local government officials regarding conversion from one religion to another. On July 14, 1941, the ministry issued a memorandum with further guidelines to the Catholic bishops in Croatia. In this memorandum the Ustaša declared that they would not accept any conversion of Orthodox Serbs to the Greek Catholic faith. Serbian intellectuals were also forbidden to convert to the Catholic faith. Only the rural Serbian people were entitled to carry out the conversion. On July 30th and August 2nd, 1941, the ministry issued two additional circulars. In the first circular, local government officials were reminded that a conversion of Serbs to the Greek Catholic denomination was not desired. Furthermore, Serbian intellectuals were only allowed to convert under exceptional circumstances, such as in the case of mixed marriages when the spouse was a Catholic denomination and their children were baptized Catholic. Finally, the first circular stated that if Orthodox Serbs convert to the Lutheran Church , they will not have the same rights as those of the German minority in the Independent State of Croatia and that converted Jews will not receive any other racial status, which was defined by the race laws of the NDH . The second circular was addressed to the church hierarchy in Zagreb and instructed the parish priests not to have conversions carried out without the approval of the local authorities. On September 15, 1941, the religious department was established within the Directorate for State Renewal . This directorate was responsible for monitoring the deportations of Serbs, the confiscation of their property and the resettlement of Slovenes from Slovenia, which was occupied by Nazi Germany, to Croatia. The religious department within this directorate was headed by the Franciscan monk and Ustasha Dionizije Juričev and was the state coordination office for forced conversions. One of the first and largest mass conversions took place in August 1941 in the Prijedor parish when 15,000 Orthodox Serbs converted to the Catholic denomination.

Forced Catholicization of Serbian civilians who are placed in front of a baptismal font in the church in Glina.

In the Ustaše leadership, however, it was disputed whether the converted Serbs should have a place in Croatia. Ustaša militias also attacked converted Serbs, showing that converting the church offered no protection. In some cases, the Ustaše militia used threats and torture to force Serb civilians to convert, including murder and displacement . Members of the Ustaša militia carried out mass conversions of the Serb population in entire villages at gunpoint. In some cases this was just the prelude to a subsequent massacre . The Glina massacre is a synonym for this .

Attitude of the Catholic church and order leadership

The Roman Catholic Church in Croatia generally responded enthusiastically to the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia. However, this enthusiasm subsided in some after a short time due to the far-reaching anti-Serbian legislation as well as the racial laws directed against Jews and Roma. The policy of forced conversions has been one of the problems that has strained the relationship between the Church and the Ustasha. On the one hand, the Catholic Church welcomed the high number of people who converted to the Catholic faith; on the other hand, it was their concern that these conversions should take place on a voluntary basis and under the strict control of the Church.

Due to the politically motivated violent mass conversions, the leadership of the Catholic Church in Croatia tried to take control of the conversions. The Archdiocese of Zagreb under Alojzije Stepinac instructed the parish priests in a circular dated May 8, 1941 to strictly adhere to the Catholic principles for conversions. Ultimately, only the responsible bishop, who must be adequately informed by the priests, has to decide on admission to the Catholic Church. The attitude on site was based on the responsible clergy, whose motives for participating in the conversions ranged from the desire to save the Serbs from the Ustaša to fantasies of a Catholic Western Balkans.

In order to allegedly escape the terror of the Ustaše, Serbs asked in droves to join the Catholic Church, so that the local Catholic pastors did not know how to comply with the church conversion regulations. For example, pastors in the Dalmatian hinterland , which is heavily populated by Serbs , turned to their bishop several times in order to obtain blanket approval for the conversion of threatened Serbs.

At the end of 1941, Archbishop Stepinac wrote to the Croatian head of state and Ustasha leader Ante Pavelić that any use of force could seriously damage the reputation of the Catholic Church and lead to the failure of Catholicization. It is therefore necessary to entrust suitable missionaries "and not priests or believers who are careless and in whose hand a revolver rather than a crucifix belongs."

The members of the Franciscan religious order, which is traditionally strongly anchored in Bosnia and Herzegovina , were also expressly forbidden from participating in the mass conversions of the Ustaša by the General Management in Rome on July 24, 1941.

literature

  • Mark Biondich: Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia. Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941–1942 . In: The Slavonic and East European Revue . Volume 83, No. 1 , 2005, p. 71-116 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Klaus Buchenau: Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Yugoslavia 1945–1991: A Serbian-Croatian Comparison (=  Volume 40 of the Balkanological Publications of the Eastern European Institute of the Free University of Berlin ). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-447-04847-6 , p. 71 .
  2. ↑ Tobias Pflüger, Martin Jung: War in Yugoslavia: its causes: open borders for weapons, but not for refugees: pacifist perspectives for action Volume 1 of We produce refugees . Jung-Verlag, 1994, p. 18 .
  3. ↑ Fikreta Jelić-Butić: Ustaše i Nezavizna Drzava Hrvatska 1941-1945 . Zagreb 1977, p. 176 ff .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Mark Biondich: Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia: Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941–1942 . In: The Slavonic and East European Revue . Volume 83, No. 1 , 2005, p. 91 .
  5. ↑ Tomislav Dulić: Utopias of nation: Local mass killing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1941–42 (=  Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 218 ). Uppsala 2005, p. 268 .
  6. ↑ Klaus Buchenau: Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Yugoslavia 1945–1991: A Serbian-Croatian Comparison (=  Volume 40 of the Balkanological Publications of the Eastern European Institute of the Free University of Berlin ). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-447-04847-6 , p. 73 .
  7. ↑ Johann Wuescht: Yugoslavia and the Third Reich: a documented history of German-Yugoslav relations from 1933 to 1945 . Seewald-Verlag, 1969, p. 52 .
  8. ↑ Alexander Korb: In the Shadow of the World War: Mass violence of the Ustaša against Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia 1941–1945 . Publisher of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86854-259-2 , p. 354 f .
  9. ↑ Alexander Korb: In the Shadow of the World War: Mass violence of the Ustaša against Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia 1941–1945 . Publisher of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86854-259-2 , p. 355 .
  10. ↑ a b Alexander Korb: In the Shadow of the World War: Mass violence of the Ustaša against Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia 1941–1945 . Publisher of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86854-259-2 , p. 356 .
  11. ↑ Jan M. Piskorski: The expelled: Escape and expulsion in Europe in the 20th century . Carl Hanser Verlag , Munich 2010, p. 1917 .
  12. ↑ a b Klaus Buchenau: Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Yugoslavia 1945–1991: A Serbian-Croatian Comparison (=  Volume 40 of the Balkanological Publications of the Eastern European Institute of the Free University of Berlin ). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-447-04847-6 , p. 72 .