Andrija Artuković | |
|---|---|
.png) Andrija Artuković, 1940s | |
| 1st Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia | |
| In office 16 April 1941 – 10 October 1942 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Ante Nikšić |
| Minister of Justice of the Independent State of Croatia | |
| In office 10 October 1942 – 29 April 1943 | |
| 3rd Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia | |
| In office 29 April 1943 – 1 November 1943 | |
| Leader | Ante Pavelić |
| Preceded by | Ante Nikšić |
| Succeeded by | Mladen Lorković |
| State Secretary | |
| In office 11 November 1943 – 8 May 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Mirko Puk |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 19 November 1899 |
| Died | 16 January 1988(1988-01-16) (aged 88) |
| Political party | Ustaše |
| Spouse | Ana Maria Heidler |
| Alma mater | University of Zagreb |
| Profession | Lawyer |
Andrija Artuković (19 November 1899 – 16 January 1988) was a Croatianlawyer,politician, and senior member of thefascistUstaše movement, who served as the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice in theGovernment of theIndependent State of Croatia (NDH) duringWorld War II in Yugoslavia. He signed into law severalracial laws againstSerbs,Jews, andRoma, and was responsible for a string ofconcentration camps where civilians were tortured and murdered. He escaped to theUnited States after the war, where he lived until he was extradited toYugoslavia in 1986.[1] He was tried and found guilty of several mass killings in the NDH and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and health. He died in custody in 1988.
Andrija Artuković was born on 19 November 1899,[2] inKlobuk, nearLjubuški inAustro-Hungarian to Marijan and Ruža (née Rašić) Artuković. He was one of 14 siblings raised on a farm.[3] He studied at aFranciscangymnasium (high school) run by thefriary in nearbyŠiroki Brijeg, and obtained adoctorate in law from theUniversity of Zagreb in 1924. From 1926 he was practising law inGospić in theLika region of theKingdom of Yugoslavia.[2]
Artuković joined theCroatian nationalist andterroristUstaše organisation which had been formed in 1929 and 1932, he was one of the organisers of their smallVelebit uprising in Lika,[2] which involved an attack on a Yugoslavgendarmerie station by a group of Ustaše.[4] Artuković fled Yugoslavia before the uprising commenced, escaping viaRijeka toVenice on 31 August. On arrival inItaly, thepoglavnik (supreme leader) of the Ustaše,Ante Pavelić, appointed Artuković as an adjutant toMain Ustaša Headquarters and commander of all Ustaše in Italy, and Artuković adopted the pseudonym "Hadžija" (pilgrim).[2] The uprising he helped organise was quickly and brutally suppressed by the Yugoslav authorities, which brought the Ustaše some public attention and prestige.[4]
In Italy, Artuković came into conflict with a group of supporters of fellow UstašaMijo Babić (known as "Giovanni"). In late 1933, Artuković left the country. After that, he went toBudapest and thenVienna, where he was arrested and briefly detained in March 1934 before being expelled fromAustria. He returned to Budapest, then after meeting Pavelić inMilan in early October, he travelled toLondon. He was arrested there after the Ustaše assassination of the Yugoslav KingAlexander I inMarseille, France.[2]
After his arrest, he was handed over to French authorities and spent three months in aParis prison. In January 1935, he was extradited to Yugoslavia, and after 16 months spent in prison inBelgrade, he was acquitted by the Court for the Protection of the State. He was released on 16 April 1936 and briefly returned to Gospić before travelling to Austria in May. He later went to Germany,[5] where he spread Ustaše propaganda.[6] In early 1937, he was living in Berlin when he was interrogated by theGestapo, and under threat of arrest, he fled to France. This was followed by a stint in Budapest, after which he returned to Berlin.[5] By the late 1930s, the Ustaše had adopted the fascist principles of their financial backer and protector, Italy.[7]
In late March 1941, Yugoslavia joined theAxis. Still, two days later, a pro-Alliedcoup d'état overthrew the government that had signed the treaty. In response,Adolf Hitler decided to invade and dismember Yugoslavia. TheGerman-ledAxisinvasion of Yugoslavia in early April comprehensively defeated the Yugoslav military, and the country was divided up between the Axis powers. Before the Yugoslav government had capitulated, the Germans engineered the creation of theIndependent State of Croatia, and placed Pavelić and the Ustaše in charge.[8]
Slavko Kvaternik, the most senior Ustaše still in Yugoslavia, proclaimed theIndependent State of Croatia on 10 April 1941,[9] and Artuković and the otherémigré Ustaše returned to Zagreb. On 12 April, Kvaternik formed an interim government,[10] which included Artuković.[5] Pavelić arrived in Zagreb on 15 April,[11] and on the following day, Artuković became the Interior Minister in the firstCroatian government. As a member of Pavelić's trusted inner circle, Artuković carried out the orders he was given.[5]
On 17 April, to provide authority for Ustaše policies targetingSerbs,Jews,Roma, and anti-Ustaše Croats within the NDH, Pavelić proclaimed the Law Decree on the Defence of the People and the State. It prohibited any person from acting against the Croatian people and their interests, for which the penalty was death. Such alleged offences were to be dealt with in asummary manner by a panel similar to acourt martial.[12] On 22 April, Artuković announced that the NDH government would solve the "Jewish question" in the same way as the German government, and a week later, he issued further racial laws, and advocated a policy of terror.[5] These first and subsequent racial laws were vaguely worded, permitting broad interpretation. The organisation charged with enforcing these laws was the Directorate of Public Order and Security, which was subordinated to Artuković's Interior Ministry. The Directorate was established in May and was headed byEugen "Dido" Kvaternik, the son of Slavko Kvaternik.[12]
In the meantime, Artuković participated in the Croatian-Italian border negotiations that took place between Pavelić and theItalian Foreign Minister CountGaleazzo Ciano in Italian-annexedLjubljana on 25 April 1941.[5] The Italians claimed the entire eastern shore of theAdriatic. Still, Pavelić made a counter-offer of that part ofDalmatia that had been offered to Italy in the secretTreaty of London of 1915.[13] The earlier Pavelić-Ciano agreement became the basis for theTreaties of Rome, which ceded these areas to Italy,[14] and Artuković also accompanied Pavelić to the signing of those treaties in mid-May.[5]
On 6 June, Artuković accompanied Pavelić during his visit toAdolf Hitler.[5] On 24 February 1942,[15] at the opening of theCroatian Parliament (Croatian:Sabor), Artuković announced the creation of theCroatian Orthodox Church, which was intended to replace theSerbian Orthodox Church for Serbs living within the NDH.[16] During the same speech, he promised that the NDH would take more radical action against Jews than Nazi Germany, referring to the Jewish people of the NDH as "insatiable and poisonous parasites" who would be destroyed,[15] and stating that Croats had been forced to serve the Jews in pursuit of their "filthy" profits and "materialistic and grasping" ambitions.[17] This speech preceded a systematic campaign against Croatian Jews which included mass deportations toNDH concentration camps and Germanextermination camps.[18] After the government reshuffle on 10 October 1942, Artuković became Minister of Justice and Religion, then from 29 April 1943 until 1 October 1943 he was again the Minister of Interior. He was Secretary of State from 11 October 1943 until the collapse of the Independent State of Croatia on 8 May 1945.[5]
With other members of the Government, he left Zagreb on 6 May 1945 in theIndependent State of Croatia evacuation to Austria. He was detained in an Allied camp inSpittal an der Drau. On 18 May 1945, the British extradited some Croatian ministers and Prime MinisterNikola Mandić to the Yugoslav authorities. Artuković was not extradited, but he was released soon with the remaining ministers. He left the British occupational zone and then went via the American to the French occupational zone, where his family was. In November 1946, he crossed theAustria–Switzerland border. He declared a false name, Alois Anich, and a false visa in Switzerland. In February 1947, he asked Swiss authorities for aNansen passport. Some months later, they found out his real identity. Switzerland offered him the chance to keep his Nansen passport, provided that he and his family would leave Switzerland until 15 July 1947. Exactly at that date, they took a plane toIreland. About one year later, they entered the United States on a tourist visa[19] and settled inSeal Beach, California. He worked at a company owned by his brother.[5] As an accused war criminal,Romani Holocaust perpetrator and Ustaše official, he did not qualify for legal status in the United States. He remained in the country after overstaying his visa.[20]
In July 1945, the Yugoslav State Commission for Investigation of Crimes of Occupiers and Their Allies declared Artuković a war criminal. The Government of theFPR Yugoslavia requested his extradition on 29 August 1951. Their request met with a seven-year-long bureaucratic delay inLos Angeles, California due to the influence of the Croatian émigré community and theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to whom Artuković and his family had appealed. On 15 January 1959, U.S. CommissionerTheodore Hocke rejected Yugoslavia's extradition request;[21] the INS's grounds for refusing extradition was"...since the crimes for which extradition was requested were deemed 'political' by the court, if Artukovic were deported to Yugoslavia, he would be "subject to physical persecution".[22] When theUnited States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) raised the question of the legal basis of the stay in the US of a large number of associates of and/or collaborationists withNazi Germany, the Yugoslav authorities, under the initiative of the Special Investigation Court of the U.S. Department of Justice, renewed their request for Artuković's extradition. He was arrested on 14 November 1984, and a court process began in New York.[5] Artuković remained in custody until his deportation. In 1985, he was transferred to theUnited States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners inSpringfield, Missouri due to his health problems.[23]
Artuković was prosecuted by theOffice of Special Investigations of the U.S. Department of Justice as the "Butcher of the Balkans".[24][25] He was ordered extradited to Yugoslavia on 11 November 1986,[5] where he was tried in the Zagreb District Court.[26] He was found guilty of:[3]
The court held that Artuković's intent had originated with "his Ustaša orientation, by which persecutions, concentration camps and mass killings of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, as well as Croats who did not accept the ideology, were part of the implementation of a program of creating a 'pure' Croatia". In sentencing him to death, the court described him as one of the "ruthless murderers, who under the cover of 'protecting purity of race and faith' and to realise their Nazi-Fascist ideology, [... ] killed, slaughtered, tortured, crippled, exposed to great suffering, and persecuted thousands and thousands of people, among whom were women and children."[26] He was sentenced to death,[20] but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and poor health.[5]
Artuković died of natural causes in the prison hospital in Zagreb on 16 January 1988.[5] His son, Radoslav (aCalifornia native), requested information about his father's burial from the Yugoslav authorities. A special law was passed in Yugoslavia that the remains of those convicted and sentenced to death but who escaped execution, were to be disposed of as those of executed persons. It is unclear what happened to his remains.[27][unreliable source?] In 2010—also at Radoslav's request—the president of theCroatian Helsinki Committee,Ivan Zvonimir Čičak, called for authorities to investigate what happened to the remains.[20]
