 The works were financed locally, as well as by wealthy Serbs from the Austrian Empire and the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz (in the amount of 25,000 groschen).Mostar was part of the Nazi puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia, along with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina.The Ustasha fascist government was led by Ante Pavelić in Zagreb, and its view of Serbs was akin to the Nazi German view of Jews.