Eugen "Dido" Kvaternik's pics ?

[Egon95]

Eugen Kvaternik

As far I know ...

Born in Zagreb 29 March 1910
Son of the well known Slavko Kvaternik (Pavelic's top aide until 1942)
Student in Nancy (France)
One of the founder of the Ustasa movement, fled his country in 1929 (?)
Led the assassination of king Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseille (1934)
Exiled in Italy 1934-1941
NDH (croatian state) Security minister between 1941 & 1942 he was responsible for some of the most awful crimes of the WWII
Disgraced in September 1942
Fled to Slowakia and then to Argentina where he died in a car accident

Any information on him or any pics would be welcomed

Thanks

[_The_General_]

I have a picture of his father in my collection, I din't know about his son, i' will follow this topic very carefully 8)

[Egon95]

Hi

I've never seen a pic of him and I still don't know why he's so elusive ...
Nevertheless he was the N°2 (or maybe the N°3) of the croatian state during one and a half year and also the founder of the infamous Jasenovac camp ...

His mother was half-jewish, and according to the Nuremberg laws criteria (which Pavelic imposed in Croatia) he was himself a "mischlinge" ...

After the war he writes his autobiography and makes some efforts to play a political role inside the ustashi diaspora until he died in a car accident, he was 47 years old ...

[GLADIVM]

In fact Eugen kvaternki was a rather elusive character and the only picture I have ever seen of him is the one published by OSPREY Men at Arms series " Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941-45 "

There is a photo of perhaps the most notorious trio in war time Croatia , Eugen Kvaternik , Jure Francetic & Mladen Lorkovic , below I enclose the photo .

Btw would you have any detail about Kvaternik escape form Croatia and then to Argentina .
Surely he could not count on Pavelic cooperation and possibly not the vatican network so his escape must have been rather an adventurous affair .

Yours

GLADIVM

[Egon95]

Thank you very much Gladium, it's wonderful for me to see Kvaternik finally after so many years of search after him

I'll try to find infos about his escape ...

[Allen Milcic]

In fact Eugen kvaternki was a rather elusive character and the only picture I have ever seen of him is the one published by OSPREY Men at Arms series " Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941-45 "

There is a photo of perhaps the most notorious trio in war time Croatia , Eugen Kvaternik , Jure Francetic & Mladen Lorkovic , below I enclose the photo .

Btw would you have any detail about Kvaternik escape form Croatia and then to Argentina .
Surely he could not count on Pavelic cooperation and possibly not the vatican network so his escape must have been rather an adventurous affair .

Yours

GLADIVM

Hi Gladium:

I'll have a full bio on Eugen Kvaternik posted by this evening, including some details on how he made his way to Argentina. I also have a numbe of photos that I will scan over the next few days.

BTW, while I agree that "Dido" Kvaternik and Jure Francetic are, as you put it, "notorious", I disagree with that qualification regarding Mladen Lorkovic. Minister Lorkovic was one of the few moderates in the Ustasa regime, an oponent of the give-away of Croatian lands to Italy, main protagonist and organizer of the aborted attempt to moderate NDH politics by forming a coalition government with the HSS, and the ring-leader of the failed 1944 coup to overthrow Pavelic and bring the NDH into the Allied ranks. If there were more individuals like Lorkovic in the leadership of the NDH, then perhaps many of the failures and stupidity of that state would never have occurred.

Regards from Canada.

[Egon95]

Hi Gladium:

I'll have a full bio on Eugen Kvaternik posted by this evening, including some details on how he made his way to Argentina. I also have a numbe of photos that I will scan over the next few days.

I'm impatient

[Allen Milcic]

KVATERNIK, Eugen "Dido": (Born in Zagreb, Croatia, March 29, 1910 - Died in Rio Cuarto, Argentina, March 10, 1962)

Son of Vojskovodja (Marshal) Slavko vitez Kvaternik and Olga Kvaternik nee Frank (daughter of Croatian politician Josip Frank, who was Jewish). Completed highschool in Zagreb in 1928, and studied (but never completed) law. As a student he joined several Croatian patriotic organizations such as "Hrvatska Mladica" and "Domagoj", where he met and befriended several future NDH personalities (Mladen Lorkovic, Vladimir Singer). After the murder of Croatian members of the Yugoslav parliament by Serb radicals in 1928 his politics become more extreme, and he joins secret anti-Yugoslav groups led by Branimir Jelic and Vlado Singer. Begining in 1930 he begins travelling abroad on missions for the Ustasa movement, and late in that year on one of his missions he meets Ante Pavelic for the first time. In 1933 he leaves Yugoslavia fearing arrest, as one of the secret groups he belonged to was infiltrated by Yugoslav agents, and is the guest of Pavelic at his home in Modena, Italy. In December of 1933 he secretly returns to Zagreb to assist in the planned assassination of King Aleksandar (the so-called Oreb Assassination), but when this plot is discovered he escapes into exile and remains there until April of 1941. Initially he lives in Austria with his sister Marija, and later moves to Italy where he develops a close political and working relationship with Ante Pavelic. In May of 1934 he is promoted by Pavelic to a position with the Ustasa movement's headquarters in Italy, and is soon intrusted with the position of Treasurer of the GUS (Glavni Ustaski Stan - Office of the Ustasa Headquarters). In the summer of 1934 Pavelic orders him to organize the Marseille assassination of King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia. He initially meets with the mixed Croatian-Macedonian assassination group in Zurich, then moves them to Paris, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, training and planning for the killing in each location. He completed the preparations and training and left the group on October 8, 1934, and was in Italy on the 14th of October when the assassination successfully went through. He was interned together with all members of the Ustasa movement in Italy after the assassination, but the Italians refused to extradite him or Pavelic to France. He remains interned at various locations (Lipari, Isernia, Lucca) until 1940, when Mussolini reactivates support for Pavelic. He returns to Croatia together with Pavelic 3 days after his father Slavko Kvaternik declared Croatia an independent state (NDH) on April 10, 1941, and on April 15, 1941 Pavelic places him in charge of public order and security in the city of Zagreb. On April 18, 1941 he is named Commander (Ravnatelj) for Public Order and Security for the entire NDH, and on May 4, 1941 he receives the title of Secretary of State with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With the founding (August 16, 1941) of the UNS (Ustaska Nadzorna Sluzba - Ustasa State Security Service), he is named State Security Commander. He also carries the rank of Major (Bojnik) in the Poglavnik Bodyguard, later promoted to full Colonel. In short order after assuming command of the newly formed UNS, Kvaternik organizes an efficient and deadly police aparatus, which quickly became a symbol of Ustasa terror. He sides with Pavelic in the ongoing serious differences between the Poglavnik and "Dido's" father Marshal Slavko Kvaternik, and Slavko Kvaternik practically disowns him. In January 1942 he marries Marija Cvitkovic, one of Pavelic's personal secretaries. Soon after this, "Dido" Kvaternik begins his fall from grace with the NDH leadership, and especially Pavelic. The first break with Pavelic was due to his insistance that the NDH cooperate with anti-Communist Serbs (Cetniks) in the fight against Tito and the Partisans, which were in his opinion the greatest threat to the Croatian state. The second, and more serious break, occurred when Kvaternik's mother, Marshal Slavko Kvaternik's wife, Olga Kvaternik (nee Frank) commits suicide. She is said to have killed herself as she was embarrassed, as a Jew and as a mother, at what her son had become. This shocking development seems to have awoken Kvaternik's conscience; he made peace with his father and strongly sided with him in the conflict with Pavelic. He resigned from his positions with the state at the end of September, 1942, and Pavelic officially accepted the resignation on October 13, 1942. "Dido's" father, Marshal Kvaternik, was already sent by Pavelic on a forced leave-of-absence to Slovakia on October 5, 1942, and "Dido" with his family joined him there. He remained in Slovakia till September of 1944, then moved to Austria until May of 1945, when he moves yet again, this time to Italy where he still had a number of friends and contacts from his pre-war years. He remains in hiding in Italy until June of 1947, when he is able to travel, under an assumed name, to Argentina. He was killed in a motor vehicle accident on March 10, 1962 in Argentina (his youngest daughter Olga [11 years] was also killed in this accident, while his wife and two sons [Slavko-Eugen and Davor] were seriously injured). During his years in Slovakia and later, he wrote extensively about the Rome Agreements between the NDH and Italy, and a number of his memoirs were printed in the Croatian emigrant newspaper Hrvatska Revija. A collection of his writings was published in 1995 under the title Sjecanja i Zapazanja 1925-1945 (Memories and Thoughts 1925-1945).

Excerpted from the essay on Eugen Kvaternik by Zdravko Dizdar of the Croatian Historical Institute, Zagreb.

I note that, aside from his famous father, Eugen "Dido" Kvaternik also had two uncles, his father's brothers, that were active in the service of the NDH. Ljubomir Kvaternik (1887 - 1980) was a municipal politician in the NDH, while Petar Milutin Kvaternik (1882 - 1941) was a military officer during Austria-Hungary; he was killed on April 10, 1941 by a group of Yugoslav soldiers while trying to secure Croatian control of the town of Crikvenica after the declaration of Croatian independence.

Regards from Canada.

[Egon95]

Hi

Congratulations Croat, you've made a great job !!!

My date for his death was wrong ... and I presume that there is rumours about his car accident (as for Otto Abetz and many others).

I can add that is ancestor and homonym, Eugen Kvaternik had been famous in 19th century as a croat nationalist who died for his cause

In 1934, on October 17 Dido was arrested at Turino. The French government issued a extradition request but Musolinni refused expeled him.

[Allen Milcic]

Hi Egon:

I note that you mentioned that Eugen Kvaternik was the founder of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. The Camp was, actually, founded by Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburic.

Cheers!

[Egon95]

Hi Egon:

I note that you mentioned that Eugen Kvaternik was the founder of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. The Camp was, actually, founded by Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburic.

Cheers!

But Kvaternik was the Luburic's boss, wasn't ? I remember that Luburic was the Chief of "Ustaška obrana" (part of UNS in charge of concentration camps). UNS was fouded and directed by Kvaternik ... so I presume that we can consider Kvaternik as the co-founder of the Jasenovac camp ...

Take a look on that http://www.pavelicpapers.com/features/j ... tiond.html

Hey Croat, you've promised others pics of Kvaternik ... I'm waiting

[Allen Milcic]

Hi Egon:

I note that you mentioned that Eugen Kvaternik was the founder of the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. The Camp was, actually, founded by Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburic.

Cheers!

But Kvaternik was the Luburic's boss, wasn't ? I remember that Luburic was the Chief of "Ustaška obrana" (part of UNS in charge of concentration camps). UNS was fouded and directed by Kvaternik ... so I presume that we can consider Kvaternik as the co-founder of the Jasenovac camp ...

Hey Croat, you've promised others pics of Kvaternik ... I'm waiting

Hi Egon:

The fact that the Ustaska Obrana was part of the UNS (so-called III Bureau) was merely a technicality - no one, not even Poglavnik Ante Pavelic, had very much control over "Maks" Luburic, who over the course of the NDH was very much a law unto himself. He used his 15,000-man strong Logorska Obrana as a private army, dealing out justice and fighting for the 'cause', and for his own personal gain, as he saw it fit; embarassing with his often ruthless and bloody actions even Ustasa leaders that had little or no conscience worth mentioning. This was possible due to a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that the NDH was a new state, still being organized (often by men that had no experience whatsoever in politics, economy, law etc), that there was an ongoing civil war which threw the already shabby communications and control by the government into further dissarray, and the fact that, for all his egregious behaviour, Luburic was still very much needed by Pavelic as his "strong man" who kept others in the Ustasa movement in line.

Luburic visited the concentation camp Sachsenhausen in September of 1941, and was impressed with the dual nature of the camp - part business, part killing machine. He took it upon himself to build a camp based on this model in the NDH, and to that extent in December 1941 ordered the official joining of the two small internment camps founded by "Dido" Kvaternik, located at Krapja and Brocica (re-naming them Jasenovac I and Jasenovac II), as well as the construction of the new, main camp near the town of Jasenovac - naming it Jasenovac III. To this, he added the old leather plant in the town of Jasenovac itself (Jasenovac IV), as well as the prison in Stara Gradiska (Jasenovac V). He also ordered the construction of a separate execution area at Gradina (which is located on today's Bosnian side of the Sava River). Some approvals for his actions were obtained directly from Pavelic, others were simply carried out without much care for chain of command. Luburic placed his cousin and loyal subordinate Ljubo Milos in charge of the entire Jasenovac complex.

The Jasenovac complex, with its numerous locations, became a cash-cow for Luburic, who organized the manufacture, by virtual slave labour, of leather goods (including soldiers boots and belts, sold to the Croatian armed forces and Ustasa militias), bricks and chains, as well as a sawmill. With his profits, he "greased the wheels" of the NDH bureaucracy when possible, or simply sent out squads of his "Luburicevci" camp guards to scare or even eliminate (as "Communist sympathizers") any troublesome individuals that may have dared interfere with his enterprise.

It is the actions of men such as Luburic, and the weakness of the so-called leader Pavelic, that honourable men in the NDH such as initially Marshal Slavko Kvaternik, and later Minister Mladen Lorkovic and Krilnik Ante Vokic (the Vokic-Lorkovic coup) rebelled against. Even some hard-core Ustasa such as "Dido" Kvaternik were disgusted!

As for the photos of "Dido" - I am having some problems with my scanner, but will try and get the pictures posted as soon as possible.

Regards from Canada.

[badoglio]

The grandson of slavko kvaternik is called eugen slavko kavaternik, is is teacher of political science in Argentine and was teacher to me
he is very good friend me

[Allen Milcic]

The grandson of slavko kvaternik is called eugen slavko kavaternik, is is teacher of political science in Argentine and was teacher to me
he is very good friend me

Hi Badoglio:

Yes, you will see that I mention him in the short biography as being in the same car accident that killed his sister and father. I would appreciate any stories you many have heard and would be willing to share with us regarding your friend, particularly as they relate to his father or grandfather and their roles in Croatia during WW2.

Kind regards from Canada.

[lukasWn]

Hi! I am looking for a images Eugen Kvaternik's uncle Petar Milutin Kvaternik. Where you can find on the Internet?
I would be very grateful for the help in my research.