Fifth anniversary of the Ustaška mladež

Four items issued by the Independent State of Croatia on 22 November 1942: a 5 + 20 kuna stamp in black-blue, perforated and imperforate, and the souvenir sheet each was taken from, likewise in both states.

The design is a hand raising a fanfare trumpet hung with a banner bearing the Croatian chequy arms, lettered 9-V · NEZAVISNA DRŽAVA HRVATSKA · 1942. The frame of the sheet says what the occasion was: U ✠ M across the head for Ustaška mladež, the Ustaša Youth; 9.V.1937 and 9.V.1942 down the two sides; ZAGREB at the foot. The organisation had been founded on 9 May 1937 and this marks its fifth anniversary.

That is what places the issue in a Scout catalogue. The Ustaška mladež was the compulsory youth body of the Croatian state, the counterpart of the German, Romanian and Italian organisations of the same years, and it left no room for independent Scouting. The raised trumpet is the same figure the movement and its state replacements share.

Colnect files the issue under the heading Senj's Victims — the relief cause the 20 kuna surtax was raised for — though nothing on the stamp or the sheet refers to Senj. Printings were 51,148 of the perforated state and 51,357 of the imperforate. The stamps expired for postage on 15 December 1942 and the sheets a year later, on 15 December 1943. Catalogue references are Michel HR 93A and 93B with blocks 3A and 3B, Scott HR B18 for the perforated sheet, Yvert HR BF3, Stanley Gibbons HR MS73a and MS73b, and AFA HR 75, 76, 75a and 76a; Scott and Stanley Gibbons do not list the stamps separately from the sheets.