Croatia’s pro-Nazi Ustaša movement declared the so-called NDH or Independent State of Croatia on April 10 1941. However it was never really independent or a state; dependent on its German masters for survival, and divided militarily into zones controlled by the German and Italian armies. Large chunks of Dalmatia were awarded to Italy, betraying the local population.

NDH’s Ustaša rulers were among the most bestial in Nazi-occupied Europe, launching genocides against the Serbs, Jews and Roma. Jasenovac is the most notorious of a whole system of camps where people were murdered through overwork, starvation, beatings and executions.

The Partisans

The ferocity of Ustaše rule provoked the rise of organised and well-supported anti-fascist resistance movements. The Partisans led by the communist party emerged as the most effective; largely because they insisted on the equality of all Yugoslav nations rather than appearing to fight for the interests of one ethnic group against another.

After 1943 British leader Winston Churchill opted to support the Partisans in preference to the Serbian royalist Chetniks, aware that the latter were collaborating with occupiers in order to advance an exclusively Serbian agenda.