Media and Censorship Management, Social Status and Role of Journalists in the Independent State of Croatia

Abstract

In the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), the Department of Journalism of the State News and Propaganda Office (DIPU) of the government (from February 1943 the Department of Journalism and Printery of the National Propaganda Office – GRP), and the Department of Journalism of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice controlled the operation of the news agencies and censorship of the newspapers. There was not a single newspaper which opposed the government. The rare »incidents« like the ones in the Nedjeljne viesti from December 1942, the Sarajevo Katolički list at the beginning of 1943, or the Sarajevo Novi list from April 1944, were the result of a mistake made by the editor’s office, excessive eagerness of the censor or, as in the Sarajevo case, the oversight of the GRP’s branch office. After the establishment of NDH, the Ustasha group led by Colonel Josip Mrmić, together with Matija Kovačić and Mijo Tolj, had an important influence on the selection of newspapers in the agencies. According to the law taken from the German Editors’ Law from 1933, the NDH journalists were required to be members of the Croatian Journalist Society and of Aryan descent. From the end of 1944, upon the order of the director of the Ustasha Publishing House Mirko Puk and the political project of the ustashization of the Croatian society, journalists were threatened with the loss of their jobs unless they joined the Ustasha organization.