Za Dom Spremni!

Za dom spremni! (“For the home[land], ready”) was an official salute in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an ally and puppet state of Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945. The NDH was run by the Ustase, a Croatian fascist movement that carried out mass exterminations in pursuit of an ethnically and ideologically 'pure' country.

Despite some court convictions against individuals who have used the phrase in recent years, it remains popular in parts of Croatian society and parts of the Croatian diaspora. Defenders of the phrase’s use argue it has historical use predating the Nazi and Ustase period, an argument which is rejected by most historians.

The phrase was used during the Yugoslav disintegration wars of the 1990s by the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS), the paramilitary unit of the far-right Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) active between 1991 and 1992. It often appears alongside the Ustase’s serifed “U” logo, frequently with a cross above the “U”. Phrase sometimes appears as “za dom”, alluding to the full phrase, or the initialism “ZDS”.

The phrase can also appear alongside a version of the Croatian checkerboard pattern (sahovnica), with a white square appearing on the upper left of the first row, which is different from the checkerboard pattern which appears on the contemporary Croatian flag which has a red square on the upper left of the first row. The version with the white square first in the top row was featured on the NDH flag, and was on Croatia’s flag for a brief period in 1990 after the country’s independence, before the adoption of the current flag.