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Edgar Angeli
Born (1892-05-11)11 May 1892
Died 17 June 1945(1945-06-17) (aged 53)
Place of birth Karlovac, Austria-Hungary
Place of death Zagreb, SFR Yugoslavia
Allegiance Flag of Austria-Hungary 1869-1918 Austria-Hungary
Flag of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Flag of Independent State of Croatia Independent State of Croatia
Service/branch Navy of the Independent State of Croatia
Years of service 1911-1945
Rank Rear Admiral
Commands held Navy of the Independent State of Croatia
Battles/wars World War I
World War II
Awards Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd Class

Edgar Angeli (11 May 1892 – 17 June 1945) was Croatian rear admiral of Navy of the Independent State of Croatia of Jewish origin.[1][full citation needed]

Biography[]

Angeli was born in Karlovac, Austria-Hungary. He attended the Naval Academy of Austrian-Hungarian. As a naval officer he participated in World War I serving in the fleet based in Rijeka.

In 1919 he was assigned to War Navy of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, holding the rank of lieutenant commander. He later rose to the rank of Captain while commanding a river fleet, and witnessed the capitulation of Kingdom of Yugoslavia.[2] Because of his connections with Croatian officers who supported the Ustaše and Slavko Kvaternik, he became an officer of the newly formed Navy of the Independent State of Croatia becoming its deputy commander from 10 April 1941 – 14 April 1943. For these actions, the Yugoslav Government in exile declared him a traitor and deprived him of his former Naval rank.

In the Croatian Navy he continued to command a river fleet and also commanded a coastal port gendarmerie. He participated in the creation of the Croatian Naval Legion which served with the Kriegsmarine on the Black Sea and Azov Sea. He also broke the Treaty of Rome, signed by Ante Pavelić and Benito Mussolini, forbidding Croatia from building any sort of naval fleet. For his merits and war records he was decorated with the Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd Class, on 13 June 1942 from Poglavnik Ante Pavelić.

On 17 September 1943 he was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral, becoming a commander of the Croatian Navy.[3]

By 21 April 1944, he requested that he be allowed to retire his commission due to a prolonged illness. In May 1945 he was taken by the British Army to Bleiburg, the town where most of the early Yugoslavian War Crimes trials were held, mainly against Yugoslav Partisans. He was imprisoned in partisan HQ in Zagreb where he was killed[4] on 17 June 1945 by partisans seeking revenge over his resistance to the partisans of Petar Drapšin near Trieste.

References[]

  1. Bulajić, Milan. Jasenovac: the Jewish Serbian holocaust (the role of the Vatican) in Nazi-Ustasha Croatia (1941-1945). Fund for Genocide Research, 2002.
  2. Vojni poraz Kraljevine i sudbina srpskog naroda
  3. Nigel Thomas, K. Mikulan, Darko Pavlović; Axis forces in Yugoslavia, 1941-5, Osprey Publishing, 1995. (p. 18)
  4. Home Defence Navy, Vojska.net
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