Yugoslavia
The Catholic state of
Croatia in WW2
is perhaps the lowest point of the last few centuries
for the Catholic church.
It is probably the worst example of
the church's collaboration with evil
in the modern era.
Shockingly, WW2-style killing erupted again in Europe in the 1990s.
The Serbs horrified the world with
the worst atrocities in Europe since WW2.
Yugoslavia's rapid descent from communism
into ethnic violence and barbarism
in the 1990s
reminds us that communism promotes intolerance, tribalism, oppression and violence as a solution to problems.
Communism is not the opposite of fascism.
Democracy is the opposite of fascism.
The grave of the Croat butcher
Pavelic
in Madrid.
From
here.
Croatia in WW2
was a Roman Catholic Nazi state, that killed
an estimated 700,000
Serbs and other minorities
with the enthusiastic support
of Roman Catholic priests, nuns, bishops, the hierarchy
and the Vatican,
some of whom (notably the Franciscans)
even participated in the killing.
- Rudolph J. Rummel
- Independent State of Croatia
- Concentration camps
- USHMM
- The trial of Dinko Sakic
- Modern Croatia itself prosecutes one of the Ustashe killers.
- Clerical Fascism
-
Patron Saint of Genocide: Archbishop Stepinac.
In April 1941, Ante Pavelic headed a new Croat "Ustashe" regime
in alliance with Nazi Germany,
dedicated to the conversion to Catholicism or extermination
of the Serbs and Jews of Croatia.
At the end of April, as the killing began,
a pastoral letter from Archbishop Stepinac called on all
Catholics to support the Croat leader.
Stepinac remained the head of the Catholic Church
in Croatia during the genocide.
- Cornwell lists some of the major facts
of church collaboration with Pavelic's regime:
- While Pavelic's men were killing
thousands of innocent Serb men, women and children,
Pope Pius XII
greeted Pavelic at the Vatican in 1941.
The Vatican was fully informed of the genocide,
yet continued to support the Croat regime,
and rejoiced in the huge number of conversions to Catholicism.
How the church believed these conversions
were the result of anything other than terror
is not known.
- Pius
gave a personal audience to Croat police in Rome in 1941.
- Pius
gave a personal audience to Ustashe youth in Rome in 1942.
- Pius
received Ustashe Police at the Vatican in 1943.
- Clergy participated in the killing,
notably Franciscans, who killed in the field and in camps.
The
Jasenovac concentration camp
was run for a time by a Franciscan friar.
It was later run by another priest.
- The war ended without any explicit Vatican
condemnation of the Croat genocide.
- The Vatican
hid Pavelic in Rome after the war,
and helped him escape Europe.
- The Croat war criminal
Andrija Artukovic
was given refuge in a
Catholic monastery in Ireland
before escaping Europe.
- Unbelievably,
the Vatican
excommunicated all Catholics who were involved in the trial
of Archbishop Stepinac.
Remember that the Vatican never excommunicated Hitler, Himmler, Pavelic or
a single one of the tens of thousands of
Catholic genocidal killers
of the Holocaust.
Yet it excommunicated people
involved in the trial
of a war criminal.
The church's morality here can only be described as sick.
- The trial of Adolf Eichmann
- Vol.2
- see sessions 45-47 on Croatia
- Lawsuit against the Vatican
attempting to recover some of the assets of the men, women and children
killed
by the Catholic state in Croatia.
Cornwell shows that:
(a) The Ustashe regime stole a fortune
from the
men, women and little children
it killed,
(b) The Vatican provided a deposit service for the Ustashe treasury,
so that this loot was at one point in the Vatican,
and:
(c) The Vatican provided a safe route for Croat war criminals
to escape after the war.
It seems very likely that the Vatican made a profit
from the genocide.
- Christianity and the Holocaust
Flawed sites
These rather flawed sites may have unpleasant agendas
(anti-Catholic extremism, pro-Serb extremism)
but may still contain some useful information
about WW2 Catholic Croatia.
- Protestant fundamentalist sites
- Serb nationalist sites
Despite
all the attempts to "never forget" what
the Nazis did in WW2,
something similar
did happen again in Europe, in the 1990s.
Despite their suffering in WW2, it was the Serbs this time who committed most of the democide.
Modern Serb fascism
led to the killing of perhaps 60,000
innocent civilian men, women and children
in 1991-99.
[1]
Concentration camps were even set up in Europe in the 1990s.
It is true that
Croats, Bosnian Muslims
and Kosovan Muslims also contributed to the democide.
But the majority of the democide in this period
was carried out by Serbs.
[2]
It is hard to remember, but the Serb Orthodox are meant to be
yet more Christians.
The wars
- The Croatian war, 1991-95.
- The Bosnian war, 1992-95.
- The Kosovo war, 1996-99.
The "Catholic" Croat state of WW2
organised concentration camps and genocide.
The "socialist" Serb state in the 1990s
carried out primitive ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Socialism
is no innoculation against fascism.
Neither is
Christianity.
Years of Tito didn't make former Yugoslavs refrain from neo-fascist genocide.
Quite the opposite.
And centuries of Christianity didn't make Croats and Serbs refrain from murdering the innocent.
The only innoculation against fascism that works is not socialism.
And it is not Christianity.
It is democracy.
- Criticism from counterjihadists:
- Because I am part of the counterjihad,
I get criticism from counterjihad people for condemning the Serbs
(and, some people think, implying support for the Muslims)
in the Yugoslav wars.
- But not everything fits into a "secular liberal democrat versus Islamic fascist" narrative.
Israel fits into that narrative.
But the Soviet Union doesn't.
Stalin doesn't.
And neither do the Yugoslav wars.
- Bottom line: I don't recognise the 1990s Serbs as fellow "westerners".
They do not stand for the values I stand for.
- Mill Town Atheist blog
-
Mill Town Atheist complains about my lack of links to Muslim crimes
in the Yugoslav wars.
-
He makes some good points.
I explain that:
(a) Serb crimes seem to be the main story of the wars,
if you consider absolute numbers killed,
and:
(b) to say that is not to imply support
for the Croats or Muslims.
It's not an "either-or" choice.
I agree that
revulsion at Serb atrocities like Srebrenica
should not lead us to romanticise all their enemies
- such as the
KLA.
But likewise, revulsion at the global jihad should
not lead us to support everyone
who fights it - such as the Serbs and the Russians.
- If you have an argument
that Serbs were not the major killers of the Yugoslav wars,
or that Muslims were not the main victims
(in terms of absolute numbers killed),
then tell me here.
- If you know of a major massacre (say over 20 killed) by
Muslims in the Yugoslav wars,
that I do not link to above,
then
tell me here.
Street scene in
Kosovo
(which is a
majority Muslim country).
Photo 2008 from
here.
See
terms of use.
There
were some Islamic jihadist fundamentalists fighting the Serbs in the Yugoslav wars,
but the wars do not neatly fit into a
"secular liberal democrat versus Islamic fascist"
narrative:
-
First, the Serbs were not secular liberal democrats.
-
Second, there are a lot of liberal,
long-westernised
(not recently-westernised)
Muslims in this region.
Saudi-style Islam is alien to the natives of this region
just as it is alien to the natives of London and Paris.
The grave of the Serb butcher
Arkan
in Belgrade.
From here.
Return to
Fascism
page.