Viktor Gutić (23 December 1901 – 20 February 1947) was the Ustaše commissioner for Banja Luka and the Grand Prefect of Pokuplje in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis puppet state during World War II. He was responsible for the persecution of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the Bosanska Krajina region between 1941 and 1942.
In April 1941, following the establishment of the NDH, Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić placed Gutić in charge of the territory of the former Vrbas Banovina. Gutić initiated a campaign of Croatianizing Banja Luka—banning the Cyrillic script, prohibiting Serbs and Jews from using public transportation, and initiating a series of massacres targeting the Serb population. Pavelić transferred Gutić to Zagreb in August 1941, after the Germans complained about his brutality, but he continued to wield influence in Banja Luka and its surroundings. This culminated in the Drakulić massacre of 7 February 1942, which Gutić helped plan, and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 Serb civilians. The following month, he was appointed as the Grand Prefect of Pokuplje, centred in Karlovac. By August 1942, partly due to his excesses and partly due to those of his brother, whom he had appointed as Banja Luka's police chief, Gutić fell out of favour with the Ustaše leadership and tendered his resignation. He moved to Zagreb and remained there until the NDH collapsed in May 1945.
After the Allied victory, Gutić fled first to Austria and then to Italy. He was arrested in Venice several months later after a Jewish refugee from Banja Luka recognized him and reported him to the authorities. He was imprisoned at an Allied prison camp in Grottaglie before being extradited to Yugoslavia in 1946. In February 1947, he was found guilty of collaboration and war crimes, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in Banja Luka.
Early life Viktor Gutić was born in Banja Luka on 23 December 1901. He completed his secondary education in his hometown. In his teenage years, he was one of the founders of the Croatian National Youth (, HANAO), the youth arm of the Party of Rights. Following the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in late 1918, he joined the Croatian Peasant Party (, HSS) and became its local branch secretary. He subsequently enrolled in the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Law, and upon graduation with a doctoral thesis, he returned to Banja Luka and opened his practice. Among his law clerks was Vilko Butorac, who would later become one of his closest confidants. In 1925, Gutić left the HSS and joined Ante Trumbić's Croatian Federalist Peasant Party (, HFSS). Gutić soon left the HFSS because he considered it too moderate.
In the early 1930s, Gutić became a supporter of the fascist Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement and its leader Ante Pavelić. The movement had been outlawed shortly after its creation in 1929, and Pavelić was forced into exile. Gutić's political activities—which included distributing Ustaše propaganda materials—led to several criminal convictions, most of which resulted in fines. In 1932, he was jailed for 15 months at Sremska Mitrovica prison, where he shared a cell with other Ustaše, including Juco Rukavina and Jurica Frković. After his release, he continued engaging in Ustaše activities, and was arrested again in 1938. During his incarceration, he organized the first Ustaše branch in the Vrbas Banovina. According to the scholars Goran Latinović and Nikola Ožegović, for much of the interwar period, Gutić was known to the people of Banja Luka for his drinking habits, debts, and his homosexuality, the latter of which was frequently ridiculed. In the lead-up to the outbreak of World War II in Yugoslavia, he maintained regular contact with Ustaše members outside the country, as well as inside it, such as the Franciscan friar Miroslav Filipović, who joined the movement in 1940. According to Latinović and Ožegović, he was fond of saying that he was "thirsty for Serbian blood".
World War II Creation of the NDH
During the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Gutić was mobilized as a reserve lieutenant in a rear unit near the town of Bihać, in northwestern Bosnia. On 11 April, the day the Germans bombed Bihać, Prijedor and Banja Luka, Gutić was in Ripač along with another rear lieutenant, Adem Haračić, and ordered that white flags be flown to signify surrender to the Germans. After hearing Slavko Kvaternik's proclamation of the establishment of the Axis puppet state the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH), he and Haračić went to Bihać, where they connected with Ustaše sympathizers and began laying the groundwork for Ustaše rule over the town and the surrounding region. On 13 April, Gutić issued a pro-NDH declaration, while units of the Royal Yugoslav Army were still active between Ripač and Bihać. He announced that the governments in four kotars (Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Cazin and Bosanski Petrovac) were to be overtaken by Ustaše functionary Ivan Bunić, as well as Gutić's associates Osman Kulenović and Murat Ibrahimpašić. Gutić and Haračić then established Ustaše governance structures in Bosanski Novi and Prijedor, as well as Bosanska Krupa where they tasked Šefik Tatlić and Ivan Holub with a take-over. Similar steps were taken in Cazin and Velika Kladuša by Gutić's associates. On 15 April, Butorac and Gutić's brother Blaž welcomed elements of the German 183rd Division as they entered Banja Luka. Gutić himself arrived in the town on 17 April. That same day, after 11 days of resistance, representatives of the Yugoslav government surrendered unconditionally to the Axis.
Pavelić and his inner circle considered Gutić politically reliable and ideologically committed to the Ustaše cause. On 20 April, Pavelić summoned him to Zagreb and appointed him as the Ustaše commissioner () of the former Vrbas Banovina, which had previously encompassed all of northwestern Bosnia and parts of Lika. Gutić was directly subordinated to Colonel () Jure Francetić, who had been appointed the principal commissioner for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Feliks Neđelski was named as Gutić's deputy, and shortly after the NDH's establishment, Gutić appointed his brother Blaž as Banja Luka's police chief. While in Zagreb, Gutić met with several high-ranking Ustaše officials, including the NDH Minister of Internal Affairs, Andrija Artuković, and the Minister of the Armed Forces, Slavko Kvaternik.
Pavelić instructed Gutić to make preparations for the "liquidation" of Vrbas Banovina. In the words of scholar Tomislav Dulić, the Ustaše saw the Serbian people—especially dwellers of Bosnian Krajina, Lika, Kordun and Banija—similar to the way the Ottoman administrators saw the Armenian people in 1915, "namely as a potential threat living in the heart of the country". The Vrbas Banovina alone, according to the 1931 Yugoslav census, had more than one million inhabitants, of whom 600,000 were Serbs, 250,000 were Bosnian Muslims and only 170,000 were Croats. On 24 April, despite receiving no order from Zagreb to do so, Gutić decreed that "all persons" who were born or had roots in "the former Serbia and Montenegro" had to leave the NDH within five days. Several days later, he issued a clarification stating that Catholics and Muslims born in those countries were exempt.
Murder of Bishop Platon To ease the anti-Serb measures and convince Gutić to postpone his five-day deadline, Platon, the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Banja Luka, decided to arrange a meeting with Gutić. He selected Dušan Mačkić, a priest from Ključ, to act as his intermediary. On 27 April 1941, Mačkić met with Gutić and Butorac at the Ustaše headquarters in Banja Luka. During this meeting, Gutić spoke openly about his intentions and stated that his forthcoming measures were "God's punishment for you Serbs". Ultimately, he agreed to postpone the deportations by ten days. He also unexpectedly decided to appoint Mačkić as Platon's successor, given that the latter was scheduled to be deported. Mačkić complained that he was not second in rank to Platon. Gutić insisted, reasoning that Platon's deputy, Bishop Sava, had been born in Montenegro and would be deported. Mačkić reluctantly accepted the appointment. After a Sarajevo newspaper printed the news of the decision, local Serbs began to gather outside Mačkić's home, pleading with him to intervene on behalf of their friends and relatives. Platon refused to leave his diocese, and on 1 May wrote Gutić a letter pledging not to "abandon his flock".
The Ustaše arrested Platon on the night of 4–5 May. His arrest was overseen by Asim Đelić, who in addition to being Gutić's bodyguard, was also his homosexual lover. The bishop was imprisoned with another cleric in a local jail, which locals dubbed the Black House. Together with two other Ustaše, Mirko Kovačević and Nino Čondrić, Đelić forced the two clerics into the back of a car and drove them to the outskirts of Banja Luka. They were subsequently dragged to the banks of the Vrbas, near the village of Rebrovac. Đelić, Kovačević and Čondrić beat the two clerics and tortured them, tearing Platon's beard, gouging out his eyes, and cutting off his nose and ears. Pieces of his flesh were removed with a knife, and salt was poured on his wounds. Platon's body was found on the confluence of the Vrbanja and Vrbas later that month.
Anti-Serb and antisemitic decrees In late April 1941, Gutić established the title of Commissar of Jewish Property and Apartments, whose responsibility was to collect all rent that had previously been paid to Jewish landlords. He also forbade the buying of property from Serbs and Jews or looking after their property, except on behalf of the NDH authorities. By May, he had appointed at least ten prominent Ustaše members as power brokers in northwestern Bosnia, often promising them expropriated property in return for accepting the position. In one of his first acts, he ordered Banja Luka's wealthiest Serb citizens to bring him large sums of money within twenty-four hours or face "dire consequences".