Yugoslavia’s hidden history: partisan-ustashi collaboration in the World War II (1941-1945)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to give a significant contribution to both Balkan and South Slavic historiography in clarification of the question of direct and indirect military-political cooperation between the Partisans of Corporal and Marshal Josip Broz Tito and the Ustashi leader (Poglavnik) Ante Pavelić on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia during the World War II (1941−1945) and to highlight the ideological and political roots and objectives of this cooperation. The article is mainly based on the primary archival documents housed in Belgrade, but never used by the official state’s Titoist historiography, and on the testimonies of participants in historical events from the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland (the socalled Chetniks) who were after 1945 in exile.