[7] NOP was under the leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and supported by many others, with Croatian Peasant Party members contributing to it significantly.

Convinced that the Axis powers would lose the war and that their totalitarian system was not aligned with HSS's ideas of liberal democracy and peacemaking, Maček tried in all ways, including entering the Yugoslav government-in-exile, to preserve the changes that had been made within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and to protect the Croatian people from bloodshed.

However, when the war reached Croatian territory, prevented by Ustashe police control, Maček opted for a policy of waiting to see how the things would turn, left the political scene and handed it over to the Ustaše and the Communists.

With Treaties of Rome, NDH was proclaimed the kingdom, and the crown was offered to a member of the Italian ruling dynasty, Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta as Tomislav II.

With the Lorković–Vokić plot in summer of 1944, high-ranking Ustasha officials unsuccessfully tried to preserve NDH by taking power and switching sides to the Allies.

[8] First Armed Anti-fascist Resistance Unit in Europe was founded by a group of Croats and one notable Serb woman, Nada Dimić, in the forest of Žabno near Sisak on 22 June 1941 under the leadership of Vlado Janić-Capo.

[15] Their goal was, first and foremost, to liberate Croatia from the German and Italian occupation and terror which was conducted by the Ustaše regime against Jews, Romanis, Serbs, Croats and others who did not accept their principles.

With sudden attacks on the traffic infrastructure and ambushes, they have successfully hindered the main supply of the German army, as well as the overall NDH's functioning.

Just like a real war government, ZAVNOH coordinated Partisan military operations and organized economic activities in the liberated territories.

[20] In the second half of 1943, the Partisans strengthened numerically and created more mobile combat units - the brigades, and gained control over larger territory.

With more troops and equipment, Partisan brigades gradually developed into a well-coordinated military force, using more direct methods of conflict, so that the NDH government's control, in reality, came down to larger cities and communication lines.

Thanks to military success, at the Second Session of Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) held on 29 November 1943 in Jajce, a new Yugoslavia was established "as a state union of equal peoples", which would ensure full equality of Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenians, that is, of Federal Republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

[21] Allies established a military mission at the Supreme Staff of the National Liberation Army which was led by Josip Broz Tito.

The continuity of the Yugoslav state was accepted, and at the same time, the internal discontinuity was confirmed, especially with regard to social and class determinations and their formation in accordance with communist conceptions.

On Croatian territory after 30 November 1944 in combat with the enemy participated 5 corps, 15 divisions, 54 brigades and 35 Partisan detachments, a total of 121,341 soldiers (117,112 men and 4239 woman) which at the end of 1944 made up about third of the entire armed forces of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia.

[23] In military operations in the Croatian and Slovene territories conducted in March 1945, the Partisans broke through the German front in Lika, and parallel to the Danube river, the Syrmia Battlefield.

First National Liberation Committees (Croatian: Narodnooslobodilački odbori, NOO) were established in 1941 as a support for the partisan units and political authorities that served as a substitute for a dysfunctional (Yugoslav) system of local government.

Initiative Committee for the Establishment of ZAVNOH was created in the summer of 1943 as the political representative body of the National Liberation Movement in Croatia and Croatian people.

The Conference's decisions to create a federal Yugoslavia, based on the right of self-determination of nations, in which the South Slavic peoples (Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes) who would live in six constituent republics with equal rights represented a discontinuity with the changes initiated in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the creation of Banovina of Croatia.

At the extraordinary session of ZAVNOH's Presidency held on 14 April 1944 in Split, the National Government of the Federal Republic of Croatia was elected.

President of the Presidency of the National Parliament of Croatia (Croatian head of state) Vladimir Nazor gave the mandate to form a new government to Vladimir Bakarić who proposed the creation of the multiparty government consisting of five members from the Croatian Peasant Party (Franjo Gaži, Tomo Čiković, Aleksandar Kohanović, Ante Vrkljan, Jurica Draušnik), four from the League of Communists of Croatia (Vladimir Bakarić, Vicko Krstulović, Anka Berus, Mladen Ivekovi), four from the Serbian Deputy Club (Rade Pribićević, Duško Brkić, Dušan Čalić, Stanko Ćanica-Opačić) and one "independent patriot" (Uliks Stanger).

[29] The decisions of ZAVNOH had a crucial and far-reaching significance in the defense of Croatian statehood and constituted the constitutional-legal basis of the contemporary Republic of Croatia.

Only in the period between 1 and 15 September 1944, 245 Croatian Home Guard soldiers with full weapons joined the Eastern Group of Partisan Detachments in the vicinity of Bjelovar.

[36] An anti-fascist movement in the form of armed struggle developed in Croatia as nowhere in Europe, and since the formation of the Sisak Partisan Detachment on 22 June 1941, composed almost exclusively of Croats, at the end of 1941 it counted about 7,000 fighters.

In addition, in the immediate postwar period, a number of Partisan units engaged in mass murder against prisoners of war and others perceived Axis sympathizers and collaborators with their relatives, children including.