ABSTRACT
After the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 with the help of National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy, the ruling Ustaša regime found itself in the midst of German-Italian conflict over political and ideological influence in the new state, particularly targeting its corporatist institutions. Besides that, the opposing factions in the Ustaša regime, mostly reflecting interwar political rivalries, had their own visions of corporatism. Factional infighting that broke out between various groups of political Catholics, nationalist intellectuals, and trade union leaders, with Ante Pavelić’s maneuvering between all of them and Croatia’s German and Italian allies, resulted in institutional chaos and the inability of corporatist institutions to fulfil their political and social aims. The serious attempt at the creation of the coherent system of political corporatism in Croatia took place only in the last year of the war under the direction of Ivan Oršanić, which failed due to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the collapse of the Independent State of Croatia.
