Race Theory versus a Religious World-View: SS–Ustaša Relations and Islam in the Independent State of Croatia.

This article examines the SS policy toward Bosnian Muslims in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II, focusing on the ideological and political dynamics between Nazi Germany and the Ustaša regime. The SS, under Heinrich Himmler, pursued a pan-Islamic strategy to recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS Handschar Division, emphasizing their religious identity within a global Islamic community rather than their official designation as "Croats of the Islamic faith" and Aryans. This approach contrasted with the Ustaša's secular racial nationalism, which sought to integrate Muslims into a unified Aryan-Croatian national community, and was complicated by the SS's anti-Catholic stance and admiration for Islam as a "warrior religion." The article highlights how the SS's pan-Islamic policy both reflected broader Nazi geopolitical aims and ideological Islamophilia, while undermining Ustaša efforts to centralize and secularize national identity, illustrating the complex interplay of race, religion, and politics in Nazi and Ustaša ideologies.