Andrija Hebrang (politician, born 1899)

Andrija Hebrang was born in the village of Bačevac near Gradina to Andrija Hebrang Sr. and Cela Strasser, a mixed Croatian-Jewish mercantile family. In World War I, he was stationed in Osijek, Zagreb, and finally the battlefields in Gorizia, Italy where he stayed until the end of the war. Not long afterward, in 1919, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia^[2] and became heavily involved in socialist political causes.

He became a member of the Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia (communists) in 1919 in Osijek, distinguished himself and was a member of the Local Committee of the CPY for Zagreb.^[3] In December 1920, the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes issued the Obznana, which prohibited the legal activities of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The Communist Party was formally outlawed under the Law on the Protection of the State in August 1921.^[4] At the beginning of 1923, the communists illegally founded the Independent Workers' Party of Yugoslavia.^[5] In the same year, Hebrang settled in Zagreb.^[3] In the 1925 elections, the Independent Workers' Party won only 1.1% of the vote and was left without a seat in the National Assembly. The following year, Hebrang joined the Board of Directors of a branch of the Union of Private Employees as treasurer, and before their congress in October 1927 he was expelled from the union and administration.^[5]

In 1928, the city of Pantovčak was presided over by VIII. conference of the Zagreb Communists where, together with Tito, he opposed factional struggles within the Party.^[6] The victory of their anti-factional current, with the support of Antun Mavrak, secretary of the CPY Provincial Committee for Croatia and Slavonia, enabled the consolidation of party ranks. At the invitation of the Comintern, Hebrang travelled as a delegate of the Zagreb organisation to a consultation of Yugoslav communist representatives in Vienna. He was arrested while illegally crossing the Austrian border and sentenced to three months' imprisonment; following an appeal, the sentence was reduced, and he was released in May 1928. He was subsequently expelled to his birthplace, Bačevac, for five years.^[5][6] He returned illegally to Zagreb, where, after the murder of Pavle Radić and Đuro Basaričko, the wounding of Ivan Pernar and Ivan Granđa, and the fatal wounding of Stjepan Radić in the National Assembly on June 20, 1928, the work of the Party intensified.^[5][6] Following the assassinations, the ensuing protests intensified police persecution of opponents of the regime, especially HSS members and communists.

In 1942, he was captured by the Ustaše in house of Ivan Srebrenjak and sent to Stara Gradiška concentration camp, where he was later exchanged along with his future wife, Olga, for several Ustasha officials.^[8] He traveled to Bihać to attend the Anti-fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ). He also helped form the State Antifascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) and served as the vice-president.^[8] On 20 September 1943, ZAVNOH unilaterally issued a declaration that Istria, Rijeka, and Italian-occupied Dalmatia were part of Croatia without the prior approval of the national AVNOJ. which angered Yugoslav leader Tito.^[8]

At the third session of ZAVNOH, held on 8–9 May in Topusko several resolutions were adopted which further angered Broz. They included an openness to continue religious education in schools and overtures to a free press.^[8] In September 1944, the executive board of ZAVNOH established the Telegraphic Agency of Croatia (TAH). Broz immediately sent a telegram to Hebrang on 17 September:

Immediately stop with the work of this so-called telegraph agency - TAH. What does this even mean? You're sliding with full force into separatism. Don't you realize that even federal states have a single telegraph agency. Let your example be the Soviet Union if no other.^[9]

The following day Broz also sent a telegram to Edvard Kardelj:

Urgently travel to Croatia. They're creating some unbelievable idiocy. First, ZAVNOH adopted a resolution according to which religious education is a mandatory subject in schools. Second, they've founded some telegraph agency - TAH. This all demonstrates that separatist tendencies are fairly strong and this is true of our comrades. With this there is no kidding, for we will have to undertake the sharpest measures. For all this I blame Andrija. Make inquiries and if Andrija is not of this opinion, we will have to immediately remove him from the post of secretary of the CC [Central Committee].^[9]

Around the beginning of the Tito–Stalin Split in 1948, Hebrang was suspected of being Stalin's prime candidate for replacing Tito.^[2] Hebrang was thus blacklisted from the Yugoslav Communist Party and expelled. By March his phones were tapped, and in April he was placed under house arrest, relieved of all official duties. In May, he was accused of collaborating with the Ustashe and the Gestapo to sabotage Yugoslavia and spy for the Soviets after Tito broke with Joseph Stalin.^[11]

Hebrang was arrested in Belgrade by UDBA agents and accused of numerous treasons, while his wife and small children were put under house arrest. He disappeared under suspicious circumstances. UDBA official Milorad Milatović, who was in charge of the Hebrang case, claimed in 1952 that Hebrang had committed suicide at Glavnjača prison in Belgrade on 11 June 1949, but his body was never recovered and no official death certificate was filed. In the late 1980s, several historians reported that Hebrang had been assassinated in his Belgrade prison cell for political reasons.^[12]

Not long after Hebrang's arrest, his wife Olga was sentenced to twelve years in prison, and his children were sent to live with his sister, Ilona, in Zagreb. His family changed their surname as the government blacklisted anyone with the surname Hebrang. In 1992, the government of the Republic of Croatia rehabilitated Hebrang as a "victim of communism". His sons Andrija and Branko were active in the efforts to rehabilitate their father and return his remains.^[13]

A street in central Zagreb, Ulica Andrije Hebranga, is named for Hebrang.