Original scientific paper
THE characteristics of the German Police System in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945
Davor Kovačić
Abstract
Using the German example of a “totalitarian” spy network, the security services created in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) covered the entire country with an intelligence apparatus. The entire police system (and administrative system) in the NDH was established according to the example of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and placed under their tutelage. It can be concluded that the NDH, even though it was formally an independent state, in terms of police and intelligence services was in practice treated as an occupied
district and various information services of the Third Reich were engaged in activities throughout its territory. German interference in the sovereignty of the NDH was especially obvious in the organizations subordinated to Heinrich Himmler. From the very formation of the NDH, the Germans had a rather wide network of intelligence services in operation. The Gestapo, the secret police, was responsible for enemies of Nazism, Marxists, communists, reactionaries, and liberals; it was also supposed to control the entire apparatus of the Ustaša authorities. The SD, the security service, that is the intelligence service of the Nazi Party, was given the task of monitoring the economy, that is, public life in general. The Abwehr, the primary German military intelligence service, had its own separate intelligence service in the NDH. On the basis of available archival sources and existing literature, the author examines the scope and nature of the German police system in the NDH from 1941-
1945. The author attempts to understand the degree of cooperation between the German police services and their corresponding agencies in the NDH, as well as to determine to what extent the police services of the NDH provided the Germans with intelligence, and to what extent they received information from their counterparts. Despite the fact that until 1943 the Germans did not openly and directly put into operation their administrative apparatus in the NDH, in practice, the Germans had controlled all the police agencies in the NDH from the very beginning and had interfered in the operation of the administrative organizations. The German police and intelligence services did not cooperate sincerely with their counterparts in the NDH. It can be concluded that their relationship was one-sided: the police and intelligence services of the NDH provided information and assistance to the Germans but received none in return. All their efforts to liberate themselves from German control and influence were not successful.
Keywords
National Socialism; Fascism; Totalitarianism; Police and Security Services; Intelligence Services; Independent State of Croatia; German Gestapo
Hrčak ID:
19059
URI
Publication date:
18.1.2008.
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