Hello all, I have a question. Not sure if this is the correct sub forum, but here it goes. I would like to know if Croatian people are Slavic or Germanic. I read here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch
in the foot notes #26 it says : "According to Nazi policy the Croats were classified as more "Germanic than Slavic"; this was supported by the Croatia's fascist dictator Ante Pavelić, who maintained that the Croatians were descendants of the ancient Goths and "had the Pan-Slav idea forced upon them as something artificial".
Rich, Norman (1974). Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order, "
And also here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e
"The Ustaše accepted that Croats are part of the Dinaric race,[32] but rejected that Croats are primarily Slavic, claiming they are primarily descended from Germanic roots with the Goths."
That same article says this: "The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as the national religions of the Croatian people but initially rejected Orthodox Christianity as being incompatible with their objectives."
which is kind of a different point but I just found it interesting that the Ustase were allied with Bosniak Muslims at the time and considered the Bosniaks to be pure blood Croats. I didn't know this before. I thought the Croats and Bosniaks were not allies.
Also I read somewhere that Himmler considered Croats to be Germanic. So what's the deal?
Personally I am not sure what to think. Before this I was reading a book about Nikola Tesla called "Wizard", and in the first chapter it said that Serbs and Croats were all the same people, they are all Illyrians. I never heard that term before reading that, but according to the book Telsa himself said somewhere that his dream was to one day unite the Serbian and Croatian people and form one country. Not sure if he was talking about Yugoslavia, but it seemed to suggest that the only difference between Serbs and Croats was religion. Serbs are Orthodox, and Croats are Catholics. It also said that all Slavs speak the same language, which is true to some extent because I see a lot of similarities between Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Russian, Romanian, etc. I think when u know one Slavic language it isn't too hard to learn another. The difference seems to be in dialect.. and in some cases the alphabet.
I kind of agree with that to some extent but I am not sure. According to the stuff I've read about the Ustase their policy was to convert a third of the Serbs to Catholocism, and it seems to me that the only reason they persecuted Serbs was because of religious differences.
Being part Croatian and Part Serbian. I don't quite understand the difference myself. I don't understand the politics of that region, and I don't know why Croatia declared independence from the Serbs in the 90s. I grew up during the 80's when Yugoslavia was one country and I found the break up of that country a little confusing. The only major difference I found was the presence of Islam in Bosnia, but according to these World War 2 articles I've been reading Croats and Bosniaks seemed to get along. And I'm sure Serbs also got along with Bosniaks to some degree because there are so many Serbian enclaves in Bosnia.
So can someone explain if there are any racial differences between Serbs and Croats, and if Croats are Germanic or Slavic. I also am aware that Croats speak a Slavic language so that doesn't support the case that they are Germanic but still the question persists.
Also i don't know why Croats persecuted Serbs during world war 2. I know most Serbs were Partisans and the Croats where pro-Hitler, so I think that was the main reason, I don't think it had anything to do with race. Is my assumption wrong?
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