Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović (born 30 October 1903, Brčko, Austria-Hungary, died 3 June 1983, Sarajevo) was a Croatian Roman Catholic priest and historian who is accused as being one of the main organisers of the ratlines which aided the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe after World War II.[1]
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Draganović was from Travnik (now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina). He attended secondary school in Travnik and studied theology and philosophy in Sarajevo. Draganović was ordained a priest on Jul 1, 1928.[2] From 1932-35 he studied at the Papal Oriental Institute and the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome. In 1935 he submitted his German language doctoral dissertation Massenubertritte von Katholiken zur Orthodoxie im kroatischen Sprachgebiet zur Zeit der Turkenherrschaft (Mass conversions of Catholics to Orthodoxy in the Croatian-speaking area during the Turkish rule).
In 1935 he returned to Bosnia, initially as secretary to Bishop Ivan Šarić. In August 1943 Draganović returned to Rome, where he became secretary of the Croatian 'Confraternity of San Girolamo', based at the monastery of San Girolamo degli Illirici in Via Tomacelli. This monastery became the centre of operations for the Croat ratline, as documented by CIA surveillance files.
He is believed to have been instrumental in the escape to Argentina of the Croatian wartime dictator Ante Pavelić. Asked by Klaus Barbie why he was going out of his way to help him escape to Juan Peron's Argentina, he responded: "We have to maintain a sort of moral reserve on which we can draw in the future." [3]
Draganović was a controversial and mysterious figure, who is central to many allegations involving the Vatican Bank, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Nazi Party. Declassified CIA documents confirm that Draganović was a member of the Ustase, a far-right Nazi-affiliated Croatian fascist organisation that was given control of Croatia by the Axis powers in 1941. Draganović has been accused of laundering the Ustashe's treasure of jewelry and other items stolen from war victims in Croatia[4].
In 1945 Draganović printed his Mali hrvatski kalendar za godinu 1945 (Small Croatian Calendar for the year 1945) in Rome for Croatian emigrants.[5]
But perhaps the greatest mystery surrounds Draganović's later defection to Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia. After World War II he lived in Italy and Austria gathering evidence of communist crimes committed in Yugoslavia. Because of that he was wanted by the Department of State Security (UDBA). The UDBA held Draganović for 42 days in Belgrade and after 42 days of investigation he turned up in Sarajevo and gave a press conference on 15 November 1967 at which he praised the "democratisation and humanising of life" under Tito.
He denied the claims made by the Croatian diaspora press that he had been kidnapped or entrapped by the UDBA Yugoslav secret police.
Draganović spent his last years in Sarajevo updating the general register of the Roman Catholic Church in Yugoslavia, and died in June 1983.
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