The Battle for Stalingrad: The 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry
Regiment and Operation Barbarossa
GALLERY
By Carl K. Savich
Introduction: Enemies at the Gates
Stalingrad. The name itself conjures up associations and meanings.
The name has become associated with ferocity, sacrifice, determination,
and dedication in combat. Stalingrad was arguably the greatest battle
of World War II and one of the greatest military battles ever fought.
The battle of Stalingrad was the turning point in World War II when
the tide of war changed. Winston Churchill said that "the hinge of
fate had turned" at Stalingrad.
This decisive battle has been perceived by historians as one between
Germany and Russia only. But history has ignored and forgotten the
hundreds of thousands of troops that fought alongside the Germans
as staunch allies in the invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union,
Operation Barbarossa. From the Balkans and Eastern Europe, Romania,
Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina sent troops to Stalingrad.
The Croatian and Bosnian Muslim troops at Stalingrad were engaged
in many of the fiercest and most fanatical and decisive battles. Their
story has rarely, if ever, been told. As a consequence, history has
forgotten about the most fanatical Nazis of Adolf Hitler’s New Order
in Europe, the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims. How did Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina come to be Hitler’s most dedicated and committed
allies? How did Croats and Bosnian Muslims end up fighting at Stalingrad,
the decisive battle of World War II?
Hitler and Mussolini Create the Independent State of Croatia
On April 6, 1941, Ante Pavelic, the Poglavnik, "leader" or "fuehrer",
made a radio broadcast from Italy to Yugoslavia as that country was
invaded by Germany and allied troops from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Italy:
"Croat soldiers, use your weapons against the Serbian soldiers and
officers. We are already fighting shoulder to shoulder with our German
and Italian allies." On April 10, Slavko Kvaternik, formerly an officer
in the Austro-Hungarian Army, proclaimed the Independent State of
Croatia, Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska (NDH). The NDH was made up of an
enlarged Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina and was recognized by Adolf
Hitler and Benito Mussolini. On April 16, Pavelic arrived in Zagreb,
greeted by Alojzija Stepinac and Croatian officials. Pavelic was welcomed
by Stepinac and the Croatian Roman Catholic hierarchy, especially
the militant Franciscans, who were avid supporters of the Ustasha.
At the end of April, Pavelic met with Pope Pius XII in the Vatican,
who endorsed the Ustasha regime. On April 30, Pavelic called for the
"purification" of Croatia, entailing the destruction of "alien elements",
which were Serbs, Jews, and Roma. The massacres of Serbs and Jews
began on April 27 when 196 Serbs and Jews were killed in Gudovac by
Ustasha forces. On May 12, 260 Serbs and Jews were massacred in the
village of Prekopa. On June 6, Pavelic met Adolf Hitler to discuss
Pavelic’s plan to make Croatia ethnically pure. Pavelic’s initial
plan was to deport and kill the Serbian, Jewish, and Roma populations
and to resettle their land with Croats and Slovenes. Hitler rejected
Pavelic’s plan to expel Serbs and Jews from Croatia and to settle
Croats and Slovenes in their place in the NDH from areas occupied
by Nazi Germany. Instead, Hitler told Pavelic to pursue "a fifty year
plan of intolerance, because too much tolerance on such issues can
only do harm." Pavelic took this as consent to continue the massacres
and genocide against the Serbian, Jewish, and Roma populations of
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The massacres of Serbs continued and intensified. On June 23, 164
Serbs from Popovo Polje were murdered by throwing them in gorges at
Kotez. On July 24, in an Ustasha attack on the Serbian Orthodox Church
in Glina, approximately 700 Serbs are killed, many stabbed, beaten,
and burned alive inside the church.
Bosnia-Hercegovina was where many of the massacres against the Serbian
Orthodox population occurred. This was a systematic and planned genocide.
On June 25, 260 Serbs were killed in the Stolac district of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
On June 30, Franciscan priests aided the Ustasha in killing 90 Serbs
from Capljina in Bosnia-Hercegvina. On July 31 to August 4, 1,000
Serbs were massacred in Bosanska Krupa in Bosnia. On August 3, 700
Serbian men, women, and children are massacred by Ustasha in Prijedor
in northern Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Ustasha murdered 131 Serbian Orthodox
priests, including three bishops. The French Cardinal Eugene Tisserant,
a close confidant of Pope Pius XII, revealed that the Vatican had
knowledge of the fact that Roman Catholic priests participated in
and even organized the massacres:
I know for a fact that it is the Franciscans themselves, as for example
Father Simic of Knin, who have taken part in attacks against the Orthodox
populations so as to destroy the Orthodox Church. In the same way
you destroyed the Orthodox Church in Banja Luka. I know for sure that
the Franciscans in Bosnia and Hercegovina have acted abominably, and
this pains me. Such acts should not be committed by educated, cultured,
civilized people, let alone by priests.
The NDH was part of the Axis. Pavelic was one of the staunchest allies
of Nazi Germany. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union
on June 22, 1941. Pavelic contacted Hitler to offer his aid. The NDH
had declared war on the USSR. On December 12, following the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, the NDH declared war against the US and UK.
Operation Barbarossa and the Independent State of Croatia
On June 6, Pavelic had met with Hitler in Germany to coordinate their
activities in the war. On June 22, Operation Barbarossa was launched,
a massive German invasion of the Soviet Union that would include troops
from Finland, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Italy, and Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Ante Pavelic and the NDH Ustasha leadership contacted Edmund Glaise
von Horstenau, the German military commander in the NDH, to offer
the German forces Croatian volunteers in the Nazi invasion of Communist
Russia. Glaise von Horstenau asked Pavelic to make a formal request
to Hitler in a letter offering Croatian troops on the Eastern Front.
On June 23, Pavelic wrote Hitler that he wanted to join the struggle
of "all freedom loving nations" against Communism. Pavelic promised
to provide ground, air, and sea forces "as soon as possible." On July
1, Hitler accepted Pavelic’s offer. On July 2, Pavelic began calling
up volunteers to fight in Russia in a crusade against Communism/Bolshevism.
This was how the formation of the famed Hrvatska Legija, the Croatian
Legion, was begun. By the end of July, 1941, 9,000 volunteers were
assembled. The Legion would be an Infantry Regiment made up of three
battalions recruited from Croatia proper and Bosnia-Hercegovina, in
Varazdin and in Sarajevo.
The Croatian and Bosnian Muslim troops would be part of the German
Army wearing German uniforms and helmets, unlike the Ustasha formations
and Domobranstvo, the Croatian regular army of the NDH. The Croat
and Bosnian Muslim troops in the regiment wore either the M1935, M1942
summer uniform, or M1944 standard German army uniforms. They wore
the German M1935 steel helmets or stahlhelm with a white/red chessboard
shield on the right side of the helmet. By 1942, however, the German
army forbade decals and shields on the helmet because Russian snipers
were using them to take out German troops. A gold oval badge featured
the letters "NDH" on their side-cap and M1943 Einheitsfeldmutze or
field cap. Two battalions were recruited in Varazdin in Croatia while
a third was recruited in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Regiment
was made up of Roman Catholic Croats from Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina
and Bosnian Muslims from Bosnia-Hercegovina. The regiment consisted
of 3, 895 officers, NCOs, and troops.
The regiment would participate in one of the greatest battles of World
War II, the battle for Stalingrad. Ante Pavelic would visit the Regiment
on September 24, 1942 in Golubinskaya, Friedrich von Paulus’ headquarters,
outside of Stalingrad, to encourage the troops before the first push
into the city.
A Croatian Air Force Legion was also formed attached to the Lufftwaffe
which saw action in Russia. The Kroaten Staffeln was formed on June
2, 1941 made up of fighter and bomber squadron that were attached
to German fighter groups JG52 and JG53 commanded by Oberst Franjo
Dzal. They participated in bombing assaults on Moscow and the Caucasus
Front, seeing action from October, 1941 to July, 1944.
Croats volunteered for the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine, for service
on the Eastern Front. A Croatian naval contingent of 343 Croat sailors
served in the Black Sea in combat operations, security detail, and
in minesweeping.
Croatians also formed a Hrvatska Legija as part of the Italian Army.
This Croatian formation consisted of two battalions termed a "Blackshirt
Legion" augmented by an artillery battalion. The Italian-Croat Legion
had 1,211 men and was designated the Motorized Croatian Legion (Legione
Croata Autotransportable). In April, 1942, the Legion was sent into
action as part of the 8th Italian Army, a 227,000 man force, on the
Don Front in the southern Soviet Union. These Croat troops were attached
to the Italian 3rd Mobile Division "Pincipe Amedeo Duca d’Aosta" which
was destroyed during the Don retreat. The Soviets launched a massive
armored assault that effectively destroyed the 8th Italian Army.
The Road to Stalingrad
The 369th Croatian Infantry Regiment (Verstarken Kroatischen Infanterie
Regiment 369) was formed to join the German forces on the Eastern
Front. It was also known as the Hrvatska Legija or Croatian Legion.
It was made up of 3 infantry battalions. Two battalions were from
Varazdin in Croatia proper and the third was from Sarajevo in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
consisting of Roman Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. The regiment
consisted of a staff company, a machine gun company, an anti-tank
company, and a heavy weapons company. An artillery group of three
batteries made up of 105mm guns was added later. The formation was
part of the Germany Army or Heer, the Wehrmacht. The Croatian and
Bosnian Muslim troops in the regiment wore German military uniforms,
used German military weapons, and used German rank insignia, but wore
a national arm patch on their left arm with the word "Hrvatska" over
a chessboard shield (schachbrett) of 25 squares.
The troops were transported on July 15 from Zagreb to the Doellersheim
training camp near Vienna, Austria, which was then part of the German
Reich. On August 15, the regiment was transported by rail to the USSR,
traversing through Bratislava, Slovakia, and Budapest, Hungary. On
August 25, they arrived in Botosani, a Soviet town west of the Dniester
River north of the Black Sea. The regiment was part of the German
advance that captured Jasy, Permomaysk, Kirovograd, and Krementchug
on the Dnieper River. The regiment participated in its first major
battle at Poltava on September 26, before being deployed to Kharkov
and Stalino. The regiment was transferred out of this sector on May
15. In June, 1942, the regiment was deployed in Voronezh before fighting
in a major engagement at Rossos. On September 25, the regiment arrived
at Kalatch, from where it advanced into Stalingrad two days later.
The 5,000-6,300 men of the regiment were attached on October 9 to
the German 100th Light Division (100. Jaeger Division) commanded by
Generalleutnant Werner Sanne. They were assigned to the Southern Sector
of the Russian or Eastern Front. Sanne commanded the 100th Jaeger
Division from December 10, 1940 to January 31, 1943. He had earlier
commanded the 34th Infantry Division from May to November, 1940. He
had received the Knight’s Cross on February 22, 1942 for his command
on the Eastern Front. He would be taken prisoner at Stalingrad and
spent the rest of his life in the Soviet POW camp at Krasnopdic, where
he died in 1952. The 100th Jaeger Division also distinguished itself
in the Battle of Staryyogkol but would be destroyed at Stalingrad.
The 100th Jaeger Division would be reformed in April, 1943 in Serbia
in the Belgrade area under the command of Generalleutnant Willibald
Utz. The division would later be transferred to Albania to occupy
the country when Italy surrendered. Germany maintained the Greater
Albania borders that included Kosovo-Metohija and western Macedonia
that Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler had established in 1941.
Colonel Ivan Markulj was the first commander of the Regiment. Colonel
Viktor Vitez Pavicic succeeded Markulj as commander on July 1, 1942.
Pavicic would remain the commander until January 20, 1943. In the
final days of the Stalingrad pocket, Lt. Colonel Marko Mesic, who
had been the artillery commander of the regiment, would assume command
from January 20 to February 2, 1943.
The Croat Regiment was sent to the Kharkov Front in September, 1941
and saw action during the Soviet counter-offensive of 1941-42. The
regiment fought against Soviet partisans/guerrillas and regular army
troops at Kharkov, Valki, Selivanov, Kalatch, the Don Front. On May
31, a German communique congratulated the Croatians on taking 5,000
Soviet POWs.
The regiment became part of the 6th Army advance from Voronezh to
Stalingrad in the German summer offensive known as Operation Blue
or Fall Blau. On July 25, 26, 27, the Regiment joined German troops
in a ferocious battle near Selivanov on the Proljet Kultura Kolkhoz
or Collective Farm. This was a fierce hand to hand engagement that
left 46 Croatian troops killed and 176 wounded.
The Croatian and Bosnian Muslim troops in the regiment received Croatian
and German awards and medals. Pavelic awarded them Croatian medals
when he visited them outside of Stalingrad in Golubinskaya. In September,
1942, the German Iron Cross 2nd class was awarded to Bosnian Muslim
Sergeant Dzafer Babovic and Lt. Josip Zambata of the regiment for
combat on the southern sector. Captain Geza Majberger, who commanded
the 1st battalion, received the Iron Cross 2nd class for his part
in the battles around Manojlin in the summer offensive of 1942. Majberger
died from the injuries he sustained on July 30, 1942. The Iron Cross
was awarded for bravery in combat above and beyond the call of duty.
The Hinge of Fate: The Battle of Stalingrad
Stalingrad in 1942 was a growing industrial city of 500,000 inhabitants
that stretched 30 miles along the Volga River in the southern USSR.
The town had been known as Tsaritsyn before the Russian Revolution
of 1917. In 1941, the city was an industrial center that produced
tractors and armaments, was home to the Red October factory and a
Soviet air force academy.
The initial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, which consisted of 4,000
sorties, is estimated to have left 40,000 civilians dead and to have
razed the city. The Luftwaffe used incendiary bombs that engulfed
the city in flames. The military objective of Operation Blue (Fall
Blau) was to seize the southern Soviet Caucasus oilfields and cut
off Moscow from the south. Eventually, Hitler planned to launch an
attack on Moscow from the rear and south. Stalingrad was not the ultimate
objective of the operation. Stalingrad assumed symbolic significance
because of the name of the city and the Soviet decision to make a
stand there. In 1942, Stalin was anticipating a second attempt by
Hitler to try to capture Moscow. Consequently, Soviet troops were
concentrated in the central sector of the front leaving the southern
front weakened, allowing a rapid German penetration. The problem was
that such a rapid advance exposed the flanks of the 6th Army and rendered
their logistical support vulnerable.
On September 24, before the assault on Stalingrad, Ante Pavelic visited
the Croatian Regiment as it prepared to enter the city. Pavelic was
photographed meeting with German general Maximillian von Weichs in
Golubinskaya, an assembly area west of Stalingrad and Friedrich von
Paulus’ headquarters. Pavelic also met and dined with Friedrich von
Paulus, the commander of the 6th Army that was charged with capturing
the city. Ivan Markulj had been replaced by Vikton Pavicic as commander
of the regiment on September 22.
The German 6th Army was under the command of Generalfeldmarschall
Friedrich von Paulus from January 1, 1942 to January 31, 1943. Hitler
made Paulus a Field Marshall in the last days of the siege to induce
him to either fight to the last man or to commit suicide. The 6th
Army consisted of the most disciplined and battle-tested troops of
the Wehrmacht. These troops had mastered the blitzkrieg or lightning
war tactics when they overran French troops in the campaign in France
in 1940. They destroyed the French and British Expeditionary troops
at Dunkirk in 1940, a massive British and French military disaster.
In 1941, these troops had participated in the invasion and occupation
of Yugoslavia. These troops were part of massive German encirclement
and envelopment operations that destroyed Red Army defenses in Kiev
and Kharkov that opened the way for the advance towards Stalingrad.
The 6th Army represented the best German troops, troops who were perceived
as invincible, as Nazi supermen, the armed forces of the master race.
They had developed the blitzkrieg or lightning war.
The 6th Army was part of Army Group B. 6th Army consisted of 2 panzer,
1 motorized infantry and 15 infantry divisions. The 369th Croat Reinforced
Infantry Regiment was part of the 100th Jaeger Division which were
part of the 11th Army Corps. Army Group B also consisted of Group
von Weichs under the command of Maximillian von Weichs, consisting
of 1 motorized infantry, 4 German and 2 Hungarian infantry divisions,
2nd Hungarian Army under Colonel-General Gusztav Jany, which was made
up of 4 Hungarian infantry divisions, and the 4th Panzer Army under
General Hermann Hoth, made up of 3 panzer, 2 motorized and 6 infantry
divisions. The Soviet 62nd Army under Vasily Chuikov was defending
Stalingrad.
On September 25, 1942, the 6th Army entered Stalingrad. On September
27, the 369th Croat Reinforced Infantry Regiment, made up of Croats
and Bosnian Muslims, entered Stalingrad. They were part of the non-German
allies of Nazi Germany that fought on the Eastern Front, along with
Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, and Finnish formations. The
Croats and Bosnian Muslims fought in the most contested areas and
in the fiercest battles of the city, such as the battles for Red October
factory plant.
On October 10, Staff Sergeant Dragutin Podobnik received the Iron
Cross 1st class for his role in the September 30 battle in the Red
October factory when they had taken over a Soviet position and allowed
the German 54th Regiment to occupy a section of the factory, capturing
3 artillery pieces, 1 Maksim machine gun, 2 mortars, and grenades,
rifles, pistols, and automatic weapons. He had earlier received the
Iron Cross 2nd class on September 24 for his role in the Proljet Kultura
Kolkhoz battle in the Ukraine, an all-night, hand-to-hand combat engagement.
Podobnik was listed as "missing and presumed dead." He never returned
from Stalingrad. Sgt. Ivan Grbesa received an Iron Cross 2nd class
for combat in Stalingrad.
The Croat Regiment fought in many of the fiercest battles in the city.
Ivan Coric, a Captain who commanded the 2nd Battalion, described how
he was ordered to mount an attack in the middle of a Soviet Katyusha
rocket and artillery barrage and air attack:
During the night of 26/27 September, Russian aircraft flew extremely
low, and bombed the area where my battalion was supposed to be encamped….After
only a few hundred meters, we were hit by immense artillery fire,
and my men began to die, one after another….Soviet airplanes easily
noticed us and bombed us with Phosphorus bombs that burn upon explosion.
Many of my men were in flames. It was a horrible sight….My Battalion,
now attached to the 227th Regiment, advanced with great difficulty,
taking house by house…I later heard that my men continued to fight
heroically until the last man of the 2nd battalion had fallen.
A platoon commander of the 2nd company wrote:
When we entered Stalingrad, it was ruined and in flames. We took cover
in trenches and bunkers, as the enemy was hitting us with artillery,
Katusha rockets, and with aircraft…My platoon’s mission was to, in
conjunction with a German unit, clear the Freight Station, and then
the railroad dike, and reach the Volga river….I didn’t lose any men,
but our transport unit was hit badly, and lost 10 men, 40 horses,
and an equipment truck with ammunition.
By the end of December, three straight days and nights were spent
fighting for control of the Red October factory. German troops would
take a room in the factory only to lose it in a Russian counter-attack.
The Germans would then mount a counter-attack to retake the room of
the factory. The Russians would then mount a counter attack to retake
the ground lost. It was a war of attrition and futility. After the
6th Army was encircled and effectively cut off and trapped in the
city, the German forces were fighting merely not to be overrun. But
time was not on their side. When the Red Army seized the last German
airfield, the 6th Army was doomed. Many of the Croats fought fanatically
to the death in the final days of Stalingrad. On January 16, Soviet
troops attacked the Croatian positions from three sides and overran
their positions. The Croatian troops fought until their ammunition
was used up and they were killed in the assault.
Sanne awarded Pavicic the Iron Cross 1st class on October 16 in Stalingrad
for "excellent leadership of the Croatian Legionnaire unit." Pavicic
had earlier been the commander of the Croatian Military Academy in
the NDH and had been in the Army or Domobranstvo of the NDH. Pavicic
was listed as "missing and presumed dead" on January 21, 1943 when
the plane on which he was evacuated was shot down. Marko Mesic took
command of the regiment in its final death throes. Mesic received
the Iron Cross 1st class for a stubborn and fanatical defense in the
last days of the battle of Stalingrad. Only Mesic and a few others
survived, trapped in a pocket of the city. The Russians overran and
trapped and destroyed the regiment in the final days of fighting.
Mesic was captured by the Soviets and became a POW. In 1947 the USSR
extradited him to Yugoslavia where he was executed by the Yugoslav
government. Over 1,000 Croat and Bosnian Muslim troops were evacuated
from Stalingrad before it fell.
On November 19-20, the Soviet counter-offensive known as Operation
Uranus began. Uranus had been planned and organized by Alexander Vasilevsky,
the chief of the Soviet general staff headquarters or STAVKA, and
by Georgi Zhukov, who was the deputy Supreme Commander of the Soviet
forces, in fact, the military commander of the Soviet armed forces.
Zhukov would be made the first Soviet Marshall of the war in January,
1943, after the success of the Stalingrad encirclement. On August
26, Zhukov had been given responsibility for the defense of Stalingrad.
Three days later, he went to Stalingrad to assess the military situation.
Vasily I. Chuikov, the Soviet commander of Red Army forces inside
the city, the 62nd Army, conducted a fierce Ratten Krieg or ‘rat’s
war", using fast moving, small unit attacks that ground the Nazi forces
down. Chuikov was also responsible for the success of the encirclement.
On November 21, the flanks of 6th Army were attacked by Soviet forces
led by Nikolai Vatutin from the north and Andrei Yeremenko from the
south. The Romanian 3rd Army in the north and the Romanian 4th Army
in the south were quickly destroyed by a massive Soviet armored attack.
By November 23, 6th Army was encircled when Soviet forces linked at
Sovietski west of Stalingrad, placing a noose around the neck of the
trapped Nazi forces in the city. Erich von Manstein (original name,
von Lewinski), attempted to break through the Soviet ring around the
city and relieve the German forces by launching a German attack from
the south, the relief action known as Operation Winter Storm. Manstein
made progress and advanced steadily until the Russians called in reserves
that stopped the advance 35 miles from Stalingrad. The fate of 6th
Army was now sealed. They were a doomed army. Paulus debated on whether
a breakout should be attempted but Hitler ordered that Paulus should
hold his ground and not retreat from Stalingrad.
On December 25, a massive Soviet artillery and Katyusha rocket barrage
was launched in the northeastern section of the city that killed 1,300
German troops. Lt. General Konstantin Rokossovsky’s forces then broke
through the German lines. Rokossovsky sent an ultimatum of surrender
on January 8 to the trapped German, Romanian, and Croatian and Bosnian
Muslim troops in Stalingrad. Paulus wanted "freedom of action" but
Hitler prohibited a retreat from the city.
The only way the 6th Army could survive was if the German air force
or Luftwaffe could deliver supplies and food by air. Hitler sent Erhard
Milch, Hermann Goering’s deputy to the Stalingrad sector to personally
organize the air deliveries of food and supplies to the city. Facing
starvation, the troops of 6th Army killed their 4,000 pack horses
for meat.
By the end of November, 5 officers, 9 NCOS, and 100 soldiers were
all that was left of the 369th Croat Reinforced Regiment. They were
reduced to eating 120 grams of horse meat and bread per day.
On January 16 the Potomnik air strip was taken by Russian troops.
The Germans could now only air drop food and supplies to the city.
Gumrak, the last German air strip, fell on January 22 cutting 6th
Army off completely. They were now doomed to a slow death by starvation.
On January 23, 1943, 18 wounded Croatian troops were evacuated out.
Mesic remained on to fight desperate and hapless battles against Russian
troops. Mesic and a handful of troops were all that remained when
they finally surrendered. Some of the Croatian POWs later switched
sides and fought as part of the Red Army as the "1st Royal Yugoslav
Brigade in the Soviet Union".
On January 30, Paulus, at his headquarters in the basement of the
Univermag department store, could still boast that "the swastika flag
is still flying over Stalingrad." On January 24, Paulus had ordered
that no food be given to the 30,000 wounded and sick German and Axis
troops in order to conserve food. The end was approaching for the
6th Army as they began to run out of food and ammunition.
On February 2, 1943, all German and Axis forces surrendered in Stalingrad
while the last remnants were captured by the Russians. The Soviets
took in 91,000 German POWs, 24 generals, and 2,500 officers. The Russians
destroyed one Italian Army. From the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the
Russians destroyed two Romanian Army groups, one Hungarian army group,
and a Croatian reinforced infantry regiment. Over 147,000 German and
Axis troops are estimated to have been killed inside of Stalingrad,
while 100,000 were killed outside the city. This group was initially
part of a 330, 000 man force in the Stalingrad sector. This was the
final result of the 1942 German summer offensive known as Operation
Blue.
The Nazi Legacy in Croatia and Bosnia: "My Father Fought at
Stalingrad"
Western historiography on World War II has censored and covered-up
the Croatian and Bosnian Muslim role during World War II. There is
hardly any mention of Jasenovac, the largest concentration and death
camp in the Balkans. All the information has been deleted and carefully
censored out. Likewise, the role of Croatians and Bosnian Muslims
on the Eastern Front and at Stalingrad has been covered-up and expurgated.
Why has there been a cover-up? One reason is that the war against
Russia was motivated by a Roman Catholic "crusade" against Communism.
The Vatican was implicated. From the Vatican perspective, Operation
Barbarossa would allow the Roman Catholic Church to proselytize and
covert the Orthodox populations to Roman Catholicism creating a single
Catholic religion led by the Pope at the Vatican. The Uniate Churches
were eastern churches that were "united" with the Vatican although
they had different rites and customs. Why did Croatia fight on the
Eastern front? The role of the Vatican’s "crusade against Bolshevism"
is significant in understanding why Croatia participated in Operation
Barbarossa. Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, stated that "the one,
real and principal enemy of Europe was Communism" and he advocated
a "communal military crusade against Bolshevism". In Slovakia, a Roman
Catholic priest, Jozef Tiso, took up this Roman Catholic "crusade
against Communism" by sending a Slovak Army Corps as part of German
Army Group South in the invasion of the USSR. Like Tiso, Croatian
Poglavnik Ante Pavelic was a fanatical and hardcore Roman Catholic
true believer. Ante Pavelic and Pope Pius XII and Alojzije Stepinac
had the same goals. In 1940, Archbishop Stepinac told Prince Paul,
the Regent of Yugoslavia, that the Serbs should convert to Roman Catholicism:
"The most ideal thing would be for the Serbs to return to the faith
of their fathers, that is, to bow the head before Christ’s representative,
the Holy Father." In Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII,
John Cornwell explained the Pope’s support of the Croatian and Bosnian
Muslim genocide of the Serbian Orthodox population as furthering his
"ambition for evangelization eastward", i.e., in the Soviet Union:
The potential for enticing mass conversions of the "schismatic" Orthodox,
through their close proximity to the Catholic eastern rite, explains
Pacelli’s indulgent policy toward Pavelic and his murderous regime.
Had he combated Pavelic’s forced conversions, deportations, and massacres
with denunciations and excommunications, the existence of the Croatian
bridgehead to the East might have been put in peril.
Thus, the Pope needed the Croats to advance his evangelization program
in Russia and in Eastern Europe. In other words, the Croats were doing
on a small scale in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina what the Pope hoped
to see realized in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Pavelic and
Stepinac were committed to Roman Catholicism and its spread. Hitler,
Alfred Rosenberg, and Reinhard Heydrich opposed Roman Catholic influence
in the Eastern territories. Hitler himself did not share Pavelic’s
or Tiso’s religious convictions: "Christianity is the hardest blow
that ever hit humanity. Bolshevism is the bastard son of Christianity;
both are the monstrous issue of the Jews." Franz von Papen, who was
a Roman Catholic, however, sent Hitler a memorandum outlining his
goals for Roman Catholic evangelization and conversions in the USSR.
French Cardinal Eugene Tisserant headed at department in the Vatican
that focused on evangelization in the East, known as the Congregation
for the Eastern Churches.
When Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Vatican was the
first to recognize the newly independent country. This reckless and
premature Vatican recognition, before any negotiations and discussions
could be conducted to ensure the rights of the Serbian Orthodox population,
plunged the region into civil war. The Vatican had staunchly supported
Croatian secession and independence of a Roman Catholic Croatia ever
since the end of World War II. The Vatican had worked the hardest
to make Croatia an independent Roman Catholic state? Was anyone surprised
that the Vatican was the first to recognize Croatia in 1991? Not surprisingly,
Germany was the second state to recognize Croatia in 1991.
The Nazi legacy persisted and endured in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Although censored and suppressed in the Western press and media, the
Croat-Bosnian Muslim connection to Nazism and fascism occasionally
intruded. In the November 15, 2000 Telegraph article "Croat hardliners
push nationalism with fascist edge", Julius Strauss noted the Croat
connection to Nazism. He reported from Ljubuski, a city in western
Hercegovina, part of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Strauss quoted a Croat party
official who told him:
I hope you’re not a Jew or an American. My father fought at Stalingrad.
He wore the German insignia with pride. At the end it was only us
Croats who stayed faithful to the SS.
Strauss noted that Croatians were "Hitler’s proxies in the Balkans"
and are the "spiritual descendants of the Ustashe." Why has this history
been suppressed, censored, and covered up in the so-called West? Is
this history not known to Western historians and the media? The Croats
and Bosnian Muslims were the most fanatical Nazis. This fact is well-known
by historians. Abe M. Rosenthal, the former editor of the New York
Times, wrote that Croatia was Hitler’s staunchest ally during the
Holocaust and World War II: "In World War II Hitler had no executioners
more willing, no ally more passionate, than the fascists of Croatia."
The Croatian and Bosnian Muslim connection to Nazism continues. This
Nazi legacy can be witnessed today. An article in the Washington Times
for June 15, 1997 noted this enduring Nazi legacy and connection:
A German tank rolls through a small village, and the peasants rush
out, lining the road with their right arms raised in a Nazi salute
as they chant ‘Heil Hitler’….Europe in the 1940s? No, Croatia in the
1990s.
All
rights reserved, ¿ÞÓÛÕÔØ - 2003.
