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A, although not detailed, picture featuring the Axis attack on Yugoslavia, which would be similar to their eventual full scale attack on the poor Kingdom.

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On March 27th, 1941, the German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler would authorize for the mobilization of units from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy towards Yugoslavia in preparation for a war on them to supplement Italian units fighting in the Balkans. Prior to this attack, the Yugoslavs had actually joined the Axis powers briefly, but this would be short lived as the military who was pro-allies had staged a coup against the Yugoslav monarchy to maintain neutrality, but by then it was all but too late, Germany and its axis allies had noticed the anti-German sentiment displayed by Yugoslavia and would not simply let it pass.

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Ante Pavelic, a Croatian nationalist who spearheaded the Croatian independence movement as an ultranationalist fascist uprising supporting Germany and the Axis.

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On April 6th, 1941, after several days of preparation, the Axis would stage an invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Allying with the friendly Ustase Party, a Croatian ultranationalist party who hated the Serbian monarchy of Yugoslavia, the Axis led by Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria would attack Yugoslavia aiming to partition the Kingdom and then continue their advances southwards to aid the Italian garrison in Albania throughout their Greek campaign which was aimed to solidify the Axis control of the Adriatic Sea and Mediterranean. In mere weeks the Yugoslavian Kingdom would capitulate allowing the subsequent German occupation and Axis partition of the Yugoslavs.

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A map featuring the Axis division of Yugoslavia. Shockingly, most of Yugoslavia was turned into friendly local governments rather than outright annexed.

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With Yugoslavia defeated, the Axis would then get to work with dividing up Yugoslavia and preparing for the Kingdoms demise. In Slovenia, the entire region would be annexed between Croatia, Germany in Italy, along with most of the Adriatic Coast being annexed to Italy. All of northern Serbia would also be promptly annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary and a newly established Serb collaborationist government known as the National Salvation Government, a German puppet government. In Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia the regions would be occupied by the Ustase who had collaborated with the Axis to establish the Independent State of Croatia, an extremely racist and violent constitutional monarchy (under Italian Monarch) who will be the focus of this documentation for their violent slaughters towards Serbs, which would even startle the Nazis, and force Germany and Italy to threaten a full scale annexation of Croatia to make them end their brutality. In southern Yugoslavia, the regions would be divided between Bulgaria and Italy, with the Italians carving out Kosovo region and Montenegro to serve as Albanian and Italian protectorates, while the Bulgarians (the least violent Axis, even possibly a hero for saving Jews in the Balkans) would annex most of Macedonia.

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The Guard Tower of Danica Concentration Camp, replicated in a memorial for those executed in this camp.

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On the 15th of April, 1941, the first concentration camp of the Croatians would be constructed by the Ustase on an abandon fertilizer station known as Danica. Named after the station it was built on, Danica Concentration Camp would be given a guard tower and a few individual inmates on April 18th 1941, and then by the end of April there would be inmates arriving in droves which bolstered the total number of inmates to 5,000 soon after June of that year. In may 1941, the Jews of Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia, would be deported to Danica, who would all be killed in July. This camp would be understandably very hated by Serbians, Jews, Communists, and Romanians who were seeing their families deported and murdered in the masses, leading to the rise of popular resistance groups such as the Chetniks and the Communists collectively known as the Paritsans, who would become such an issue the Italians (who would utilize their monarchy over Croatia, since an Italian Prince was elected to become the king of Croatia) would force Croatia to halt their killings and disband the camp.

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Serbs being looted by Croatian officers before entering Jasenovac Concentration Camp.

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In August 1941, the Ustase administration of Croatia would authorize the construction of Yugoslavia's most massive death camp, known as the J asenovac concentration camp. This death camp would be the site of over 50,000 murders led out by Croatia and Germany during the early Holocaust, and in fact the Croatians led the first mass murders before even Germany had introduced their mass genocides in the camps of Poland and the Eastern European Reichskommisars. The Croatians had been so violent and molested Serbs to such a high degree that the Nazis and Italians would intervene and attempt to force the Croatians to halt these extreme killings, as they had led to much larger Yugoslav partisan resistance from groups like the Chetniks and Communist rebels that necessitated the German Reich to place an occupant force of 100,000 men in Croatia to contain the partisan rebels.

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A photo of Benito Mussolini, the acting Prime Minister of Italy at the time who had signed the Treaties of Rome.

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On May 18th, 1941, the Croatian fascists and the Kingdom of Italy would formalize their border along the Adriatic Coast to completely end any border disputes and other affairs Croatia and Italy had needed to resolve at the time, since Croatia had only just been established. After concluding the meeting, it was ultimately decided that the Croatians would cede the Adriatic Coastline to the Kingdom of Italy who would take this time to found the Governate of Dalmatia in its place, as well as concluding that the Independent State of Croatia would not be able to dispatch naval forces into the Adriatic Sea unless it were for the protection of Italy, or if it were to maintain the interests of both Italy and Croatia.

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Edmund Gliase-Horstenau, a German Wehrmacht general who reported the crimes in Croatia to the Reich administration, alongside Croatian politician Ante Pavelic.

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Even before the partition of Yugoslavia, the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler had been uneasy about creating a Croatian State heavily influenced by the Italians, and even disputed with Italy over Croatia, wanting to give the region to their ally Hungary. Nonetheless, Germany allowed it and brought up communications with Croatia to discuss their future after the war was won (which of course never happened). the Fuhrer had communicated with Ante Pavelic to speak with him over the Croatian ethnostate, and in the end stated that Ante Pavelic may have his all-Croat state, but it was only to exist under the condition that Croatia practiced anti-Jewish and anti-Serb massacres and discrimination for 50 years. Later down the line of occupation, in fact only months after, the German Wehrmacht would report their open fears and disgust of what the Croatian government had been doing to Jews and Serbians abroad. One Wehrmacht General named Edmund Gliase-Horstenau, had even reported that some German officers were fearful of what Croatia was doing, but kept their mouths shut about it, and some were afraid of being held accountable for these actions if Germany was ever to be held accountable for their war time actions, which for some would even seem unreasonable at the time as Germany had been winning the war up to this point.
Additionally, the Fuhrer and leader of the Gestapo and German SS Heinrich Himmler, a man arguably even more violently racist and attuned to the Nazis than Hitler himself, would also report the following:

"Increased activity of the bands is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand."

Some Germans feared that they may need to halt what the Croats were doing because of how the Croatians conducted their atrocities.

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An American newspaper featuring the surrender of the Kingdom of Italy,  almost immediately after they had surrendered in 1943.

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Italy Capitulates- fall of Italian Monarchy in Croatia

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Italy Capitulates- fall of Italian Monarchy in Croatia

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On the 8th of September, 1943, the United States President FDR would formally announce the surrender of all Italian forces to the allied powers of Europe who had only recently invaded the Kingdom of Italy. The Kingdom of Italy, now neutral from the conflict, would then immediately change their side in the conflict and ally themselves to the Allied Powers in order to gain more preferential treatments following the eventual victory of the allies in Europe. With the Italians out of the picture, the Croatian State would use this oppurtunity to depose the Italian Monarchy of Croatia, as well as annexing the Governate of Dalmatia and terminating their subjugation to the Kingdom of Italy, now all but a shell of its former self.

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A map of the Italian Social Republic, a continuation of the Fascist regime in Italy and satellite state to Germany.

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With the Italians falling out of the war, the German Reich would ally itself with the Kingdom of Romania and Independent State of Croatia to immediately invade Italy to keep them in the war effort and hold down the allies to prevent them from reaching Venice, the Adriatic, and the Alps which would open a major weak point for the German occupants of Slovenia and the Croatian occupied Adriatic Coast. Even before the Italians had fallen out of the war, the Germans had anticipated that they would inevitably collapse after the campaign in Africa ended in a complete massacre of the Axis. To facilitate the loss of his ally in the south, the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, Adolf Hitler, would dispatch forces on a rescue mission to save Benito Mussolini and destroy any allied chance of reaching Rome and pushing the Axis Powers back further. The mission would be a decisive Axis Powers victory, and would end in Benito Mussolini being rescued from captivity, and henceforth being declared the Prime Minister of the Italian Social Republic, alongside his Blackshirt allies and fellow fascists to continue the war effort. Despite this overwhelming victory over the allies, Mussolini would continue to be pushed back, and would eventually be forced to rely on the natural barriers of the spring time mud that would force the Italian campaign into a stalemate until 1944.

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Emblem of the Fifteenth Air Force, the first to air raid the city of Zagreb.

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In mid 1944, as the Allied Powers slowly crept up past Rome and near the Adriatic cores of Croatia, the United States would begin air raids over Croatia. The air raids would be centered on the Croatian capital city of Zagreb, and in total about 12 air raids would be launched between 1944 and 1945, led almost always by the Fifteenth Air Force, and occasionally the Twelfth Air Force. During the initial attacks, Croatia fought back hard and managed to drown 6 American fighters, but as the damages built up only very few casualties would be inflicted. In total, 327 people would be killed during these attacks, and one unexploded bomb would even be uncovered in 2007 and 2008 from these United States air raids on the Independent State of Croatia.

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Mladen Lorković, the Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia and leader of an anti Pavelic conspiracy. 

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Attempted and Failed Coup against Ante Pavelic is Staged

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Attempted and Failed Coup against Ante Pavelic is Staged

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By 1944, it was clear the war was only going to end one way, that being an absolute victory for the Allied Powers. As morale steeped beyond recognition of what it formerly was during the great massacres they had commit in 1941. Consequently, many conspirators rose from Croatia seeking out the removal of minister Ante Pavelic from power and to maintain Croatian Independence as well as negotiate to the allies for more preferential treatments after the war in Europe was over. A new conspiracy would rise in 1944 spearheaded by Mladen Lorkovic and Ante Kovic, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Armed Forces. These two men had aimed to stage a coup against Ante Pavelic which would remove him from power and replace him with somebody more fitting, such as a friendly politician to the Allies, or somebody more lenient in foreign negotiations. Before this coup against the government was even able to fully materialize, however, Ante Pavelic grew suspicious of his counterparts uncooperation with his orders, and would call for a meeting with these officers accompanied by armed guards. Here Ante Pavelic would accuse the two of treason, and despite other ministers defending him he would maintain his accusation and have them both arrested, dismissed from duty, and later murdered.

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A photo of the victims of the Bleiburg Death Marches.

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In very early May of 1945, it was basically confirmed that the Croatian State had been defeated. All of their territory was dominated by the Yugoslav partisans, and thus it was time to abandon Croatia, and flee to Austria. Ante Pavelic (despite claiming he would remain in Zagreb until the very end) would flee to Austria with his political posse behind him, and close behind would be 80,000 Yugoslav partisans and Croatian resistance fighters who had been arrested by the Croatian Government for fighting against the government and attempting to liberate Serbs. However, once they reached the Austrian and Slovenian mountains, they would only be met with British occupant forces rather than their German friends. The British would reject any attempts at surrender, and would coldly tell the Croatians to surrender towards the Yugoslav partisan forces, knowing well that it would result in a murder of the Croatian forces there. Most of the prisoners of war captive during the Bleiburg march would be either immediately executed or deported to death camps or factories to continue the war effort, although in mere days this would not matter.

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A map featuring the territories of Croatia and other parts of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia dominated by Communist and Yugoslav Partisans.

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The Croatian Government Collapses- Surrender of Armed Forces

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The Croatian Government Collapses- Surrender of Armed Forces

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On May 8th, 1945, only one day after the surrender of the Greater German Reich to the Allied Powers, the Independent State of Croatia would give up on any attempts at negotiating peace with the allies and just completely surrender without conditions. The government would be completely dissolved, and most of the former Croatian politicians and military leaders would take this opportunity to flee the country and move to Allied Occupied Austria, or possibly even Argentina with the dictator of Croatia Ante Pavelic to create a government in exile alongside him. After nearly 5 years, the Croatian state would be overrun by Communist partisans and forced to surrender, with hundreds of thousands murdered and leaving the Balkans in a smoldering ruin behind them. Additionally, the Yugoslav warriors did not even defeat the Croatians fully- Ante Pavelic and his close allies fled to Austria, and then Argentina and eventually to Spain, creating a government in exile for the Independent State of Croatia and pledging to never surrender. The war was over, and Croatia sit defeated in a pool of blood, alongside many generals and commanders who would be executed in the Nuremberg trials.