Zdenko Blažeković
Major Zdenko Blažeković | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Blažeković as a young man wearing the HAŠK's kit | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 23 September 1915 Bihać, Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 12 January 1947 (aged 31) Zagreb, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Allegiance | Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Major | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Zdenko Blažeković (23 September 1915 – 12 January 1947) was a Croatian fascist official and footballer who held several posts in the World War II Ustaše regime in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). He was the student commissar at the Ustaše University Centre (USS), leader of the male Ustaše Youth organisation and a sports commissioner in the NDH.
Born in the town of Bihać, he graduated from high school in Osijek before applying to join a polytechnic college in Zagreb to become a builder. He was a member of various Croatian cultural and athletic organisations during his youth. He played as a goalkeeper for Hajduk Osijek and HAŠK football clubs.
Briefly a member of the conservative Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), Blažeković was imprisoned several times by the Yugoslav authorities because of his involvement with various Croatian youth organisations, which saw him often involved in clashes with left-wing students. He joined the far-right Ustaše in 1939, and following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Ustaše-led NDH in April 1941, went on to be appointed to the newly formed Ustaše supervisory committee by Slavko Kvaternik. That same month, he also became the leader of the Ustaše University Headquarters and the Ustaše Youth, charged with organising student bodies at the University of Zagreb and promoting the Ustaše's policy of preventing all non-Croats from attending universities in the country.
In 1942, he was involved in the formation of the 13th Ustaše Assault Company, and by 1943 had attained a seat in the Croatian Parliament. Between 1942 and 1943, he recruited students to join Ante Pavelić's bodyguard and was promoted to major. He held the position of head of the Ustaše University Headquarters and Ustaše Youth until January 1945, when he was appointed Commissioner for Physical Education and Sport. Blažeković fled Zagreb from the advancing Yugoslav Partisans in May 1945 and ended up in a refugee camp in Salzburg, Austria. In August, he was arrested by American forces who extradited him to Yugoslavia on 12 February 1946. He was tried in Zagreb on 12 January 1947, sentenced to death, and executed the same day.