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MILITARY AND POLITICAL PROPAGANDA BY USTASHA LEADERSHIP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA OF 1944 AND THE NORMANDY LANDINGS OF THE WESTERN ALLIES
Abstract
Based on the original documentary materials of the Croatian State Archives and the analysis of dailies and periodicals, the paper gives an overview of Ustasha war and political propaganda in 1944, on the example of Normandy landings of the Western Allies in the summer of 1944. Special emphasis is given to the consequences of the successful warfare by the Allies on the military and political situation in the Independent State of Croatia, a satellite creation of the Third Reich, as well as on the dominant contents of newspapers regarding internal policies. The author analyses a large number of war reports and political commentaries, connecting news content to the decisions of the Ustasha leadership. To better explain its propaganda, the paper analyses the content of newspaper reports on the war in France and indicates a significant deviation from the actual situation on the Western Front in 1944. Furthermore, Ustasha military and political propaganda is analysed, corresponding to changes on the world's battlefronts in favour of the Allies, and based on the decisions of the Big Three in Tehran in 1943. The examples used are those of editorials and columns by leading Ustasha journalists and ideologues: Ivo Bogdan, Tias Mortigjija and Milivoj Magdi?. The author concludes that falsified war reports correlate with political columns. As reported in the press of the Independent State of Croatia, the aim was to convince the public that the Ustasha policy of joining the Third Reich was the only viable Croatian policy. It would guarantee the existence of the Croatian state, while any other would return Croats to Yugoslavia, dominated by Serbia and governed by communists. The coordination of combat operations by the Allies and their joint political activity, as exemplified by the creation of new Yugoslavia at the end of the war, posed a highly problematic topic to the Ustasha propaganda apparatus. By 1944, the Third Reich and, consequently, the Independent State of Croatia had already lost the war.
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References39
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Original materials: Croatian State Archives, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Reporting service
Original materials: Croatian State Archives, the Funds of the Republic secretariat of foreign affairs of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, National security service (1561)
Newspapers: Hrvatski narod
Newspapers: Hrvatski list
Newspapers: Spremnost
Newspapers: Nova Hrvatska
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