The Croatian right-wing musician at the centre of many a fascist controversy drew tens of thousands to a Zagreb concert this weekend, with pro-Nazi salutes that have been labelled as “a great shame for Croatia.”
Controversial Croatian singer Marko Perković - known professionally as Thompson and who has a song which opens with the chant “Za dom spremni!”, the Croatian version of the Nazi salute “Sieg Heil” - gathered tens of thousands of fans to Zagreb this weekend.
As we reported earlier this year, Saturday's gig at the Hippodrome was set to be the biggest concert in Croatia’s history. Perković broke the record for ticket sales – overtaking the likes of The Rolling Stones and Tina Turner.
Organisers said that half a million people attended Perković's concert in the Croatian capital.
The 58-year-old rocker, whose fans are known for their chants "Kill a Serb" and "Here we go Ustasha" (the Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organisation), has been banned from performing in some European cities over frequent pro-Nazi displays at his gigs.
However, Perković remains hugely popular in Croatia, frequently attending rallies and sports events.
As he came out to the stage, the singer told the crowd that “with this concert we will show our unity.” He urged the rest of Europe to “return to its tradition and Christian roots.”
Despite organisers saying that any displays of hate-fueling insignia were strictly banned at Saturday's concert, Perković and his fans still performed pro-Nazi World War II salutes.
One of Marko Perković's most popular songs played on Saturday starts with the dreaded “For the homeland - Ready!” salute, used by Croatia’s Nazi-era puppet Ustasha regime.
Croatia’s WWII Ustasha regime ran concentration camps where tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists from Croatia and the neighbouring countries were brutally executed.
Video footage aired by Croatian media also showed many fans displaying pro-Nazi salutes earlier in the day.
The salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perković can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said.
Former Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on X criticised how “the state and the city have been put in service of one man.”
“Thrill and excitement as fans at downtown Zagreb already sing songs from the era of the criminal state,” Kosor wrote on X. “No media are reporting about that.”
She added: "Croatian television, for which we all pay a subscription fee, enthusiastically reports on the concert in its noon news program. Not a word about fascist salutes in the city and at the concert. The misery of working-class journalism."
In neighbouring Serbia, President Aleksandar Vučić criticised Perković's concerts as a display “of support for pro-Nazi values.”
Elsewhere, former Serbian liberal leader Boris Tadić said it was a “great shame for Croatia" and "the European Union” because the concert “glorifies the killing of members of one nation, in this case Serbian.”
His post on X reads: "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 organized on the soil of Europe that glorify the Quisling fascist hordes and the killing of members of one nation - in this case Serbian."
"It is especially devastating to see how many young people came to the concert of the man who greets the audience with the Ustasha salute and how many of them follow the black shirt iconography of the Ustasha movement from World War II."
He added: "Such images not only send tragic messages about the relationship to the past, but also to the future."
