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Revision as of 21:34, 9 August 2003 by Igor~enwiki (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Ante Pavelic b. July 14, 1889, Bradina, Bosnia d. December 28, 1959, Madrid, Spain aka: poglavnik ("leader" or fuerher), Anton Pavelitch, Ante Pavelitch, Pedro Gonner
Poglavnik ("leader"; in German, "fuehrer") of the Independent State of Croatia, founder of the Ustase movement and mastermind of the Holocaust in Croatia in which an estimated 600,000 to 1 million Serbs, Jews, Roma and political prisoners perished between 1941 and 1945.
Leader of the extreme right, or "Frankist" faction of Croat Party of Rights after World War I. Following the assassination of Croat Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radic and the imposition of the Royal Dictatorship in Yugoslavia on January 6, 1929, Pavelic went abroad, first to Austria and then to Italy, where the nascent Ustase were provided training camps and afforded protection from the Fascist Italian government. Following the Nazi invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, proclaimed poglavnik of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH by its Serbo-Croat acronym), but only after Radic's successor, Vladko Macek, declined to lead the puppet state himself. Immediately implemented the Ustase plan for the "purification" of the NDH using the formula coined by his deputy Mile Budak: "kill a third, expel a third, and convert a third" of the Serbian population to Catholicism. Concentration camps such as Jasenovac were established as the Ustase "Black Legion" swept through Serbian villages and arrested Jews and Roma wherever they could be found.
After the collapse of the NDH, Pavelic escaped to Austria and then to Italy, where he linked up with Vatican operatives of the "Ratline," dedicated to shielding accused war criminals from arrest and shuttling them out of Europe. Escaped to Argentina with the help of Catholic priest, Ustase officer and Ratline operative Krunoslav Draganovic. Immediately upon arrival in Buenos Aires, formed a successor movement to the Ustase with other NDH fugitives and accused war criminals, and later the Croatian Liberation Movement, which still exists today as a miniscule political party in Zagreb. Acted as security advisor to Argentine dictator Juan Peron. After an attempt on his life on April 9, 1957, fled to Franco's Spain where he died on December 28, 1959. The Ustase and several splinter organizations of the one he founded would live on, enjoying a renaissance of terrorism in the 1960s and '70s.
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