Far-right Croatian singer leads crowd in Nazi-style salute at country’s biggest ever concert

Far-right Croatian singer Marko Perković – who leads the band Thompson – led crowds in a fascist salute at his show on Saturday. 

The concert – said to be the largest in Croatia’s history – took place in the capital, Zagreb, and was attended by nearly half a million people. 

Perković is well-known for his admiration for Croatia’s wartime pro-Nazi puppet regime, the Ustaše, with one of his most popular songs beginning with the pro-Nazi “For the homeland – ready!” salute – the Croatian version of the Nazi salute.

Despite the fact that the Ustaše salute is illegal in Croatia, courts have previously ruled that the 58-year-old performer can use the gesture as part of his act. 

However, while Thompson may have imunity, this is reportedly not the case for members of the crowd. Croatian authorities have said they could prosecute some in attendance for their displays, and Croatian state television station HRT reported a local handball star was dropped from his team after attending the concert.

[Missing Credit]Marko Perković in uniform during Croatia's war of independence

Responding the scenes on X, Croatia’s former Prime Minister, Jadranka Kosor, wrote: “Croatian television, for which we all pay a subscription, enthusiastically reports on the concert in the noon news. Not a word about fascist salutes in the city and at the concert.”

Former Serbian liberal leader, Boris Tadić, was also critical, writing: “Thompson’s concert tonight in Zagreb is a great shame for Croatia, but also for the European Union. It is eerie that today in the 21st century concerts are being organised on the soil of Europe that glorify the Quisling fascist hordes and the killing of members of one nation — in this case Serbian.”

Around 80 per cent of Croatia’s Jews were murdered during the Second World War. Croatia’s brutal Ustaše regime operated dozens of concentration camps, and was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma, as well as Croatians who opposed them.

Perković rose to fame in the 1990s in the wake of Croatia’s war of independence, in which he fought. His band’s name, Thompson, is taken from the antique machine gun he carried during the war, and many of his songs celebrate Croatia’s victory in the war and newly-earned independence. 

Saturday’s concert was also full of Christian imagery, with the performer starting his show by announcing “With this concert we will show our unity,” and later adding: “I want to send a message to all of Europe to return to its tradition, to its Christian roots.”