Background
The main fighting force against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia (1941–45), in terms of numbers involved and campaigns undertaken, was the communist-led Partisan movement. The Axis-appointed Ustaše government in Zagreb headed the Nazi puppet state the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The NDH had a racist persecution policy for the Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croats:
For the rest - Serbs, Jews and Gypsies - we have three million bullets. We will kill one part of the Serbs, the other part we will resettle, and the remaining ones we will convert to the Catholic faith, and thus make Croats of them. —Mile Budak, Minister of Education of Croatia, July 22, 1941This was manifested in the atrocities at Jasenovac concentration camp and elsewhere. The Ustashe regime was responsible for the egregious crimes committed against the civilian population, particularly the systematically targeted Serbs and Jews. The scale of the atrocities shocked even German and Italian occupying forces, noted in the reports of Wehrmacht General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau and the Gestapo to their superiors.
The Yugoslav Partisan movement grew rapidly, partly as a result of these atrocities. Eventually, units of the Ustaše military began defecting to the Partisans.
The Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia (HOS) were reorganized in November 1944 to combine the units of the Ustaše and Croatian Home Guard.
By 1945, the Yugoslav Partisans had become the Yugoslav People's Army, numbering over 800,000 men organized into five field armies, and were in pursuit of the remnant of the defeated German and NDH forces.
Read more about this topic: Bleiburg Repatriations
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