Independent State of Croatia

The Independent State of Croatia was a Second World War puppet state established on 10 April 1941, after the Axis invasion and partition of Yugoslavia. Its territory covered most of present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as parts of Serbia and Slovenia, but excluded much of Dalmatia, Istria and Međimurje, which Italy annexed. The Ustaše movement, led by Ante Pavelić, governed as a one-party state and was backed first by Italy and Germany, then by Germany alone after Italy capitulated in 1943. The regime waged a campaign of genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma and persecuted anti-fascist Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Jasenovac was the largest of its concentration camps. A guerrilla resistance led by Josip Broz Tito's Partisans and the royalist Chetniks fought the regime throughout the war. As German forces retreated, the NDH collapsed in May 1945, and its leaders fled or were captured and tried. The Nuremberg tribunal later described Croatia as an occupied country rather than a sovereign state.