Ante Pavelić

Ante Pavelić (Croatian pronunciation: [ǎːnte pǎʋelit͡ɕ] ^ⓘ; 14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and served as dictator of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state built out of parts of occupied Yugoslavia by the authorities of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, from 1941 to 1945. Pavelić and the Ustaše persecuted many racial minorities and political opponents in the NDH during the war, including Serbs, Jews, Romani, and anti-fascists, becoming one of the key figures of the genocide of Serbs, the Porajmos and the Holocaust in the NDH.

At the start of his career, Pavelić was a lawyer and a politician of the Croatian Party of Rights in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia known for his nationalist beliefs and support for an independent Croatia. By the end of the 1920s, his political activity became more radical as he called on Croats to revolt against Yugoslavia, and schemed an Italian protectorate of Croatia separate from Yugoslavia. After King Alexander I declared his 6 January Dictatorship in 1929 and banned all political parties, Pavelić went abroad and plotted with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) to undermine the Yugoslav state, which prompted the Yugoslav authorities to try him in absentia and sentence him to death. In the meantime, Pavelić had moved to Fascist Italy where he founded the Ustaše, a Croatian nationalist movement with the goal of creating an independent Croatia by any means, including the use of terror. Pavelić incorporated terrorist actions in the Ustaše program, such as train bombings and assassinations, staged a small uprising in Lika in 1932, culminating in the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 in conjunction with the IMRO. Pavelić was once again sentenced to death after being tried in France in absentia and, under international pressure, the Italians imprisoned him for 18 months, and largely obstructed the Ustaše in the following period.

At the behest of the Germans, senior Ustaša Slavko Kvaternik declared the NDH's establishment on 10 April 1941 in the name of Pavelić. Calling himself the Poglavnik, or supreme leader, Pavelić returned from Italy and took control of the puppet government. He created a political system similar to that of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The NDH, though constituting a Greater Croatia, was forced by the Italians to relinquish several territorial concessions to the latter. After taking control, Pavelić imposed largely anti-Serbian and antisemitic policies that resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Serbs and Jews in concentration and extermination camps in the NDH, murdering and torturing several hundred thousand Serbs, along with tens of thousands of Roma and Jews. These persecutions and killings have been described as the "single most disastrous episode in Yugoslav history".

In 1945, Pavelić ordered the executions of prominent NDH politicians Mladen Lorković and Ante Vokić on charges of treason when they were arrested for plotting to oust him and align the NDH with the Allies. Following the surrender of Germany that May, Pavelić ordered his troops to keep fighting even after the surrender. He subsequently ordered the NDH to flee to Austria to surrender their armed forces to the advancing British Army, which refused and directed them to surrender to the Partisans. Sparked by attacks on their position, the Partisans began carrying out killings of the Ustaše.

Pavelić fled to Austria before obtaining a false passport from the Vatican and escaping to Argentina, where he continued to engage in fascist activities. He later served as a security advisor to President of Argentina Juan Perón, who provided sanctuary for many fascist war criminals. On 10 April 1957, a Serbian hotel owner attempted to kill Pavelić by shooting him; initially surviving, the resulting injuries would eventually lead to his death on 28 December 1959, aged 70, after spending the last two and a half years in Francoist Spain.