5 Countries You May Not Know Declared War On The U.S.

Published January 25, 2016

Croatia, 1941

Wreckage in Croatia Image Source: Inavukic

After Germany declared war on the United States, Croatia followed suit. Heavily influenced by German Nazism, the Croatian movement Ustaše’s goal of persecuting Serbians and converting them to Roman Catholicism begat a mass genocide of the Serbs, Jews and Romanians. Anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 people were killed. At least 100,000 were killed in concentration camps.

This country can only be a Croatian country, and there is no method we would hesitate to use in order to make it truly Croatian and cleanse it of Serbs, who have for centuries endangered us and who will endanger us again if they are given the opportunity.
— Milovan Žanić, the minister of the NDH Legislative council, May 2, 1941

author

Abby Norman is a writer based in New England . Her work has been featured on The Rumpus, The Independent, Bustle, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and Quartz.

editor

Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.

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Norman, Abby. "5 Countries You May Not Know Declared War On The U.S.." AllThatsInteresting.com, January 25, 2016, https://allthatsinteresting.com/5-countries-you-may-not-know-declared-war-on-the-u-s. Accessed March 3, 2025.