His path from nationalist lawyer to wartime dictator spanned roughly two decades of radicalization, exile, and state-sponsored terrorism before he was handed effective control of a country. As Poglavnik of the NDH, Pavelić oversaw a regime whose systematic persecution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma placed him among the central perpetrators of genocide in occupied Europe during World War II. The Ustaše apparatus he built and led operated with a brutality that drew notice even from German and Italian authorities.