Petar Milutin Kvaternik

Kvaternik was born in Vučinić Selo near Vrbovsko. After he graduated from a gymnasium, Kvaternik joined the cadet school, and after graduation, worked as an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army in Graz, Austria. Also, Kvaternik graduated from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. During World War I, Kvaternik fought in the Battle of Galicia and Carpathian Mountains.^[2]

After the war, Kvaternik entered into service of the Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but was immediately retired in 1919 as a major.^[2] During his retirement, he dedicated himself to politics and he became active in the Croatian Worker (Hrvatski radiša), an association of which he was a director in Zagreb.^[3] During the April War, the German invasion on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on 10 April 1941, his brother Slavko told him to go to Crikvenica to proclaim the independence^[1] and organize a takeover, as the NDH was established that day.^[2] Moreover, Kvaternik got an order from his brother to take over the North Naval Sector, which was, at the time, under the control of the Yugoslav Navy. Yugoslav commander of the sector, captain Mirko Pleiweiss, formed a detachment of sailors from Selce and arrested Kvaternik in a post in Crikvenica, along with his associates. In the night between 10 and 11 April, Kvaternik was killed during the prisoners' transfer to the municipal building, when he tried to grab lieutenant Perkačević, a commander of sailors who guarded the prisoners, but Kvaternik was shot through an eye. Đuro Hajdin (1887–1941), a local official who informed Pleiweiss about Kvaternik's actions, was also killed.^[1]

Kvaternik's body was transferred to Zagreb, where he was buried at the Mirogoj cemetery on 15 April.^[2][1]

Citations

Bibliography

• Bauer, Ernest (1986). Život je kratak san: uspomene 1910-1985 (in Croatian). Knjižnica hrvatske revije.
• Dizdar, Zdravko; Grčić, Marko; Ravlić, Slaven; Stuparić, Darko (1997). Tko je tko u NDH (in Croatian). Minerva. ISBN 953-6377-03-9.