Collection of 14 official documents issued by the Ministry of Interior of the "Independent State of Croatia" - an ally of Nazi Germany during the war, relating to Croatian citizens whose horses and livestock were confiscated during World War II and taken for the Yugoslav or Nazi army due to a shortage of war horses. The documents before us are effectively various affidavits from the horse owners, each describing the appearance of the horse they owned and the day it was taken for the army, requesting to have the horse returned or at least receive compensation, requests for approval to slaughter livestock they owned which the state had essentially designated for army use, and responses from the dictatorial state that citizens had no right to have their horses returned. In most documents, alongside the secretary's signature and ink stamp, there is a pledge of allegiance to Adolf Hitler: "Heil Hitler." At the top it states: "NEZAVISNA DRZAVA HRVATTSKA" - "Independent State of Croatia" - Yugoslav Croatia, 1941-1944. Ink stamps of Yugoslav Croatia with swastikas. Croatian.
Croatia was occupied by the Axis powers in 1941. The Croatian Ustasha party, which identified with the Nazi regime, seized power and thus the Independent State of Croatia was formed, led by Ante Pavelić, Germany's puppet prime minister. The fascist puppet state, which was essentially an arm of the Nazi leadership, immediately began eliminating ethnic minorities - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - who were called "enemies of the state" or "undesirables", and was a full-fledged dictatorship during the war years.
The documents are typewritten. Some have "stamps of the Independent State of Croatia". Handwritten signatures by an Interior Ministry representative and swastika ink stamps. Overall very good condition.
