Report on the Murder of 800 Civilians near Petrinja

Tersely-worded request by General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, the German

plenipotentiary general in Zagreb, for an explanation regarding reports of a massacre by
the Ustase of 800 "men, women and children" near Petrinja. Glaise set up his own
intelligence network throughout the NDH, sidestepping Ustase security chief Eugen-Dido
Kvaternik, a man Glaise characterized as "the pathological son of the pathological Field
Marshal," Slavko Kvaternik.
German General in Zagreb
Zagreb, 3.12.1941
TO THE CROATIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
Zagreb
According to reports I received from several sources on 19.11 [November 19], in a single
action of retaliation and cleansing in the area southwest of Petrinja, 800 men, women and
children were murdered, several villages were burnt down and a lot of cattle were
transported to Zagreb. Since that area is in German occupation zone, and since these
sorts of actions as a rule usually result in the expansion of rebel movement, I request, out
of the responsibility I have for German occupation troops, for an urgent and detailed report
about these events.
German General in Zagreb
Glaise
Major-General
Document number 4481.
Glaise von Horstenau on the Ustase Concentration Camps
From a document authored by the German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia, General
Edmund Glaise von Horstenau. Glaise von Horstenau worked with most of the Ustase
leaders and detested them. His reports critical of the Ustase sent to Berlin were for the
most part ignored.
We now went into the concentration camp in a converted factory. Frightful conditions. Few
men, many women, and children, without sufficient clothing, sleeping on stone at night,
pining away, wailing and crying. A camp commandant - in spite of the later, favorable
judgment of the Poglavnik - a rogue; I ignored him but instead told my Ustase guide: "This
is enough to make you puke."
And then worst of all: a room along whose walls, lying on straw which had just been laid
down because of my inspection, something like fifty naked children, half of them dead, the
other half dying. One should not forget that the inventors of the KZ were the British in the
Boer War. However, such places have reached their peak of abomination here in Croatia,
under a Poglavnik installed by us. The most wicked of all must be Jasenovic, where no
ordinary mortal is allowed to peer in.

Glaise von Horstenau's Report on the Ustase Massacres

From a report by the German Plenipotentiary General in Serbia and Croatia, General
Edmund Glaise von Horstenau.
We saw no sign of [guerrillas] but there were plenty of ownerless horses and cattle, not to
mention innumerable geese. At Crkveni Bok, an unhappy place where, under the
leadership of an Ustase lieutenant-colonel, some 500 country folk from fifteen to twenty
years had met their end, all murdered, the women raped and then tortured, the children
killed. I saw in the River Sava a woman's corpse with the eyes gouged out and a stick
shoved into the sexual parts. This woman was at most twenty years old when she fell into
the hands of these monsters. Anywhere in a corner, the pigs are gorging themselves on an
unburied human being. All the houses were looted. The "lucky" inhabitants were consigned
to one of the fearsome boxcar trains; many of these involuntary "passengers" cut their
veins on the journey.

Article: "The Renewal of Medieval Times"

This article appeared in the Fascist-controlled press in Italy on September 18, 1941. The
author, Corrado Zoli, was traveling through Bosnia and witnessed the Ustase massacres and the assistance of Franciscan priests in the butchery - firsthand. There can be little
doubt that this article appeared with the agreement of the Fascist Party in Italy, and the
Italian Army had already begun to stand between the Ustase and their victims in zones of
the NDH under their authority.
There were special bands who performed the massacres and are probably still doing so,
actually led and incited by Catholic priests and monks. This is more than confirmed. There
was a monk near Travnik with the crucifix in one hand who was inciting a band of people
whom he had organized and was leading. This happened in the first few days after my
arrival there.
"This therefore means the renewal of medieval times," remarked the correspondent.
"Yes, but made worse by machine guns, hand grenades, dynamite, barrels of gasoline and
other means of terrorism."
"Was this committed by the local Croat people?" asked Zoli.
"That's it, but by the worst element of the Croat population, just young men of around 20, collected,
armed and led by Croats who came from Zagreb. This was all taking place among people who
pretend to be civilized and who brag about having accepted the Mediterranean and Roman culture,
sometimes even stating that they are the direct descendants of the Goths. It was a terrible massacre!
It was a living terror! Entire families, men women, babies, old men, the sick and children massacred
and tormented by the worst imaginable Chinese tortures."...
...The first brother of Assisi spoke with the birds and fish, calling them brothers and sisters,
but his disciples and spiritual heirs, filled with hate, massacre the people in the
Independent State of Croatia, who are before God and the Father, their own brothers,
brothers of the same blood, the same language, the same mother earth which has
nourished them with the sap from her breasts. They massacre, they kill, they bury people

alive. They throw their victims into the rivers, the sea and into crevices. Bands of these
killers still exist and they are in a state of frenzied excitement, led on by the priests and the
Catholic religious officials.

Article by Corrado Zoli in Il Resto del Carlino. Quoted in Paris, Edmond. Genocide in
Satellite Croatia
September 18, 1941