Josip Metzger

Josip Metzger (17 August 1883 – 21 June 1945) was a member of the fascist Ustaše movement who rose to the rank of major general in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. He was tried, sentenced and executed for war crimes after the war.

Early life A Danube Swabian who was born in Franzfeld in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Kačarevo in Serbia), Metzger graduated from the Austro-Hungarian Military Academy in Trieste.

Interwar separatism After the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs declared independence on 1 October 1918, however on 1 December 1918, Regent Alexander announced the union of the Kingdom of Serbia with the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

On 5 December 1918, Metzger led a minor revolt of Croat soldiers in Zagreb, contemporaneously with other regional uprisings,

Metzger was arrested several times, including for his participation in the so-called of 1919. Acquitted on 7 April 1920,

Metzger worked for the Hungarian Defense Ministry. During 1930, Metzger, then a Hungarian intelligence officer, engaged with other members of the Party of Rights in organisation of proto-Ustaše activity among Croats in towns along the border of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Metzger's German descent was a rarity among the small number of pre-World War II Ustaše members, given the Ustaše's racialist principals. He was allegedly one of the organisers of the 1934 assassination in Marseille of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.

World War II On 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers, the puppet government of Independent State of Croatia was created, headed by Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić.

In the summer of 1944, the People's Uprising Corps was formed with four regiments of older reservists under Metzger, by then a Major-General. The Corps, named after the original corps which fought alongside the Royal Croatian Home Guard against Serbia in 1914, was disbanded in March 1945.