| The Germans attempted to exploit ethnic tensions in the Balkans to their own advantage. Initially, they were successful, carving up Yugoslavia and installing a puppet Croat regime. However, units raised in the Balkans were a mixed bunch, and ultimately proved incapable of defeating the partisans. Nazi attempts to raise volunteer and conscript units in the former Yugoslavia and Albania were moderately successful during World War II, in the sense of numbers of men raised. However, the attempt by Berlin to take advantage of ethnic tensions within the country to further its aims (as part of its objective to transform the Balkans into a satellite region) ultimately proved disastrous, because it resulted in the creation of a large-scale anti-German partisan movement. The Germans had to commit tens of thousands of ground forces to battle these insurgents during a four-year war, troops that could have been better employed elsewhere. For Yugoslavia itself, the war was a tragedy, with Croat fighting Croat, Serb fighting Serb, and both fighting German, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces.
The formation of Yugoslavia After World War I, the Paris Peace Conference created the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which comprised the former kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus Austrian territory in Dalmatia and Slovenia, and Hungarian land north of the River Danube. This settlement was much to the annoyance of Italy, which wanted Croatia and Slovenia for herself. The 1921 constitution of the new country established a highly centralized state in an attempt to keep the fledgling country together, and especially to diffuse any Serb-Croat hostility. Under this constitution, legislative power was exercised jointly by the monarchy (of the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty) and parliament. The king was a powerful figure, as he appointed a Council of Ministers and retained significant foreign policy prerogatives. Indeed, in 1929, King Alexander I prorogued the parliament, declared a royal dictatorship and changed the name of the state to Yugoslavia. Following Alexander's assassination in October 1934 by a Macedonian activist, allegedly with Croat help, Prince Paul became the head of the Council of Regents until the king's young son, Peter, came of age.
The troubled 1930s In the 1930s, Yugoslavia ostensibly remained neutral, but in fact between 1935 and 1939 moved closer to Nazi Germany under the leadership of Milan Stojadinovic. He was a Serb politician and head of the right-wing Yugoslav Radical Union, a party of Serbs, Bosnian Moslems and Slovenes. His party had its own stormtroopers, and he adopted the title Vodja (Führer). As premier, he negotiated treaties with Italy and Bulgaria with Germany's help. However, he was distrusted by the Croats and in an attempt to preserve national unity Prince Paul accepted his resignation in early 1939. He was replaced by Dragisa Cvetkovic, who maintained the same pro-Axis foreign policy but with fewer fascist trappings.
Yugoslavia is sucked into war Events outside Yugoslavia now threatened to suck the country into war. In April 1939, Italy invaded and occupied Albania; while in October 1940, Mussolini invaded Greece, only to receive a bloody nose from the Greeks. To extract his ally, Hitler ordered his General Staff to prepare an invasion of Greece, codenamed Marita. But he needed transit rights through Yugoslavia for his invasion forces to take up position in Bulgaria. Paul had been willing to discuss a three-way, non-aggression treaty with Rome and Berlin to maintain Yugoslavia's territorial integrity. But now Hitler wanted him to sign the Tripartite Pact (an agreement signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by Germany, Italy and Japan which formalized the Axis powers' partnership) or risk military invasion. Therefore, on 25 March 1941, Prime Minister Cvetkovic and Foreign Minister Cincar Markovic signed the pact. On 27 March, two Serb generals, Bora Mirkovic and Dusan Simovic, led a British-assisted coup in Belgrade against the Cvetkovic government and placed Peter in charge. Air Force General Simovic was quick to assure Berlin that Yugoslavia was "devoted to the maintenance of good and friendly relations with its neighbours the German Reich and the Kingdom of Italy". He believed that his close personal friendship with several top Nazis, especially Luftwaffe chief Göring, would save the day. He was wrong - the Germans invaded on 6 April. Hitler was particularly enraged by the disruption to his plans, and swore to "wipe Yugoslavia off the map". From the beginning, he wanted to enlist the help of the Croats, stating that "the domestic political tensions in Yugoslavia will be sharpened by political assurances to the Croats".
The Germans walk in The Serb-led army quickly withdrew from Slovenia and Croatia to defend Serbia before the Germans appeared, leaving the Croatians and Slovenes without supplies or ammunition. Most Croatian soldiers simply went home. The Yugoslav Army disintegrated in the face of the German invasion: 100 of 135 generals in the officer corps surrendered during the first week. Belgrade was taken by a single platoon of Waffen-SS troops led by a second lieutenant on 12 April. General Simovic and his government fled the country; the fighting was over by 17 April. The Germans were quick to exploit Croatian discontent, presenting themselves as liberators.
The division of the country After the Axis victory, Yugoslavia was dismembered. The German Army occupied Serbia and Macedonia was given to Bulgaria. Croatia was occupied and divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and the Independent State of Croatia, which was given a slice of Dalmatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, was established with the consent of Germany though against the express wishes of Italy, which wanted to make it an Italian kingdom. The Serbian province of Kosovo was awarded to the Italian colony of Albania, which became known as Greater Albania. The Croatian Government was led by Ante Pavelic and his Ustase movement (Ustase comes from the word ustanak, meaning uprising or rebellion), which began as an inter-war terrorist movement before adopting fascist ideology. Pavelic had been an elected deputy in parliament and vice-president of the Croatian Bar Association when Alexander declared the dictatorship and dissolved parliament. He fled to Italy and founded the Ustase in exile with the aim of liberating Croatia by force.
Pavelic and the Ustase When Yugoslavia was invaded, the underground Ustase throughout Croatia took control of the government before the Germans arrived. As in the Soviet Union, when the Germans did arrive, they were at first welcomed as liberators. The new Croatian government adopted German racial and economic laws and began persecuting Jews, Serbs, communists, opposition leaders and others. While the majority of the Croatian people favoured an independent Croatian state, many did not support the Ustase regime. At its height in 1942, for example, there were only 60,000 in the movement. Pavelic established himself in Zagreb and immediately unleashed a reign of terror against the local Serb population. Aspiring to form an ethnically pure paradise out of a state in which Croats were, in fact, a minority, he was advised by Hitler not to show too much pity. "If the Croat state wishes to be strong," he told his pupil, "a 50-year policy of intolerance must be pursued, because too much tolerance on such issues can only do harm." Within weeks, Pavelic's bloodiest henchman, Vjekoslav Luburic, began laying the groundwork for Jasenovac, the largest concentration camp in southern Europe. Peasant Party (a popular political movement among the Croats) leader Vladko Macek, who had originally welcomed the Ustase's formation of the Independent State of Croatia, found himself among the first internees at Jasenovac; he watched as Croatia's Jewish population, along with untold numbers of Serbs, Roma and political dissidents, passed through the gates on their way to extermination (Macek himself was later released to serve under house arrest). On 22 July 1941, deputy leader Mile Budak clarified Ustase ideology in an official newspaper: "We shall kill one part of the Serbs. We shall transport another third, and the rest of them will embrace the Roman Catholic religion. Our Croatia will become Catholic within 10 years."
"the Ustase has gone raving mad" Unsurprisingly, Ustase atrocities provoked the Serb population in the Independent State of Croatia to rise in arms, flooding the ranks of the monarchist Chetnik and the partisan movements (see below). The state was soon torn apart by internal revolt, and the Ustase, for all its violence, was never able to establish full control over the country. Its shocking behaviour even exasperated many hardened German officers, including General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia, who littered his reports to Berlin with denunciations of the Ustase and "unspeakable swineishness of this gang of murderers and criminals". In July 1941, he had told Berlin: "According to reliable reports from countless German military and civilian observers, during the last few weeks, in town and country, the Ustase has gone raving mad." One of Horstenau's reports stated: "We saw no sign of [guerrillas] but there were plenty of ownerless horses and cattle, not to mention innumerable geese. At Crkveni Bok, an unhappy place where, under the leadership of an Ustase lieutenant-colonel, some 500 country folk from 15 to 20 years had met their end, all murdered, the women raped and then tortured, the children killed. I saw in the River Sava a woman's corpse with the eyes gouged out and a stick shoved into the sexual parts. This woman was at most 20 years old when she fell into the hands of these monsters. Anywhere in a corner, the pigs are gorging themselves on an unburied human being. All the houses were looted. The ‘lucky' inhabitants were consigned to one of the fearsome boxcar trains; many of these involuntary ‘passengers' cut their veins on the journey." Mussolini soon turned against his former protégés, and ordered his army to reoccupy Herzegovina, the birthplace of many of the Ustase leaders. In total, it is estimated that at least 30,000 Jews, 29,000 Roma and 600,000 Serbs - one-third of the pre-war population - were murdered in the four years of the Independent State of Croatia's existence.
Serbia In Serbia, a new pro-Nazi government was first established under the leadership of Milan Asimovic and later under former Minister of War General Milan Nedic, which governed until 1945. Nedic supported Hitler and met with him in 1943. This new government immediately established three concentration camps for Jews, gypsies and others. Nedic formed his own paramilitary stormtroopers known as the State Guard, which numbered 20,000. The guard was comprised of former members of the Chetniks, which had existed as an all-Serb paramilitary police force under Alexander and Paul to enforce loyalty from non-Serbian members of the armed forces. The Chetniks were essentially a Serb nationalist guerrilla force, named after the armed irregulars who had harassed the Turks in the nineteenth century. The most important group were those organized by Colonel Draza Mihailovic in the Ravna Gorge district of western Serbia.
Chetniks and partisans When Yugoslavia disintegrated, one faction of Chetniks swore allegiance to the new Serbian Nazi Government. Another group remained under the pre-war leader Kosta Pecanac, who openly collaborated with the Germans. A third Chetnik faction followed the Serbian fascist Dimitrije Ljotic. Ljotic's units were primarily responsible for tracking down Jews, gypsies and partisans for execution or deportation to concentration camps (which often amounted to the same thing). By August 1942, the Serbian Government would proudly announce that Belgrade was the first city in the New Order to be Judenfrei or "free of Jews". Only 1115 of Belgrade's 12,000 Jews would survive the war, and 95 percent of the total Jewish population of Serbia was exterminated between 1941 and 1945. Other Chetniks rallied behind Mihailovic, a 48-year-old army officer and monarchist who had been court-martialled by Nedic and was known to have close ties to Britain. Early in the war, Mihailovic offered some tepid resistance to the German forces while at the same time collaborating with the Italians. Although Mihailovic conducted a propaganda campaign to convince the Allies that his Chetniks were inflicting great damage on the Axis, he in fact collaborated with both the Germans and Italians while fighting the Ustase and partisans. At its peak, Mihailovic's Chetniks claimed to have 300,000 troops (in reality, they never exceeded 30,000). At first, the Allies considered Mihailovic the most important figure in the Yugoslav resistance, but they eventually shifted their support to the partisans.
Tito's partisans The partisans, founded by Josip Broz (Tito), a Croatian communist, represented the only real resistance to the Axis in Yugoslavia during World War II. They fought a tenacious campaign; and on 13 July 1943, a Democratic Republic of Croatia under the leadership of Andrija Hebrang was declared in those areas occupied by partisan forces (by the end of 1943, the partisans numbered 300,000). By 1943, Allied support swung behind Tito; and by 1944, the partisans were the only recognized Allied-backed force fighting in Yugoslavia. But in 1941, the country was firmly under the heel of the Germans.
Croats on the Eastern Front Soon after its formation, Pavelic's Croatia offered troops to fight on the Eastern Front. In a letter to Hitler, Pavelic stated that the Croatians were eager to join the battle of "all freedom-loving nations against communism". The call for volunteers yielded 9000 recruits which, by 16 July 1941, had been whittled down to 4000 men. They were formed into the 369th Reinforced Croatian Infantry Regiment, which consisted of a regimental staff, three infantry battalions and an artillery staff company. A training battalion was also formed, in the Austrian town of Stokerau, to process replacements when the regiment had been sent to the front. In October 1941, the regiment was in combat east of the River Dnieper, where it received the surrender of thousands of Red Army soldiers (who believed they would receive better treatment if they gave themselves up to fellow Slavs). The following year, in July 1942, the regiment was fighting near the River Don where it sustained heavy casualties. It was involved in the fighting in Stalingrad, which reduced its numbers still further. By 3 November 1942, for example, it was down to 191 men. In the face of privations and combat, the numbers dwindled further; and, to make matters worse, Colonel Pavicic, the regiment's commander, went insane. On 23 January 1943, 18 wounded Croatians were flown out of the Stalingrad Pocket, leaving behind a handful of their comrades to fight on under Lieutenant-Colonel Mesic. They were either killed or captured by the Red Army when the pocket was finally liquidated.
The Croat divisions The positive response to German recruiting in Croatia led the Germans to raise a division, which began forming at Stokerau in August 1942. Built around a cadre from the 369th Regiment, the division soon achieved a high level of readiness under the leadership of German Generalleutnant Fritz Neidholt, who had the assistance of German officers and NCOs (Neidholt was hanged in Belgrade in 1947 for war crimes in Yugoslavia). Soon it mustered 14,000 men in two regiments, the 369th and 370th, and was titled the 369th (Croat) Infantry Division, though its members nicknamed it the "Devil's" Division. The Germans intended to send the division to the Eastern Front, but due to the growing partisan threat in Yugoslavia it was deployed to Croatia in January 1943. Its first operation, codenamed White, was in northern Bosnia and lasted from 20 January until the end of March. The operation failed to destroy the partisans in the area, who escaped at the Neretva River by fighting their way through Italian forces and wiping out a Serb Chetnik blocking force. In May, the division was engaged against the partisans again, this time near the town of Balinovac in the Montenegro-Bosnian border area. The partisans numbered four divisions and two brigades, who were trying to escape being surrounded by Axis forces. The 369th Division was the blocking force, and it inflicted heavy casualties on the partisans, though losing many men itself. And, once again, the partisans escaped. In 1944, the division continued its anti-partisan sweeps, but by the end of the year Tito's forces had the upper hand in Croatia. In January 1945, for example, they pushed back the 369th Division from Mostar, and the Croat unit was forced to retreat to Austria. It surrendered to British forces on 11 May. The survivors were handed over to the partisans, who executed them.
The "Tiger" Division The Germans raised a second Croat division, the 373rd (Croat) Infantry Division, to combat partisans in Croatia. Nicknamed the "Tiger" Division by its members, it began forming in January 1943 at Dollersheim in Germany. Organized into the 383rd and 384th Croatian Infantry Regiments, it mustered 10,000 men and was heavily engaged throughout 1943 and 1944. It was badly mauled in December 1944 at Knin; and by early 1945, what was left of it was part of the German XV Mountain Corps. The survivors surrendered to partisans near Sisak in May 1945. The third division raised by the Germans was the 392nd (Croat) Infantry Division, known as the Blue Division, again mustered at Dollersheim. It was formed in August 1943, and comprised the 364th and 365th Croatian Infantry Regiments. Assigned to the northern coastal area of Croatia, it was engaged against the partisans throughout its short career. Most of the survivors surrendered to the partisans north of Fiume in April 1945. All the Croat divisions had a majority of German officers and NCOs, with the rank and file being Croat.
Croat Fighter Squadron Another Croat unit that deserves mention is the Fighter Squadron that was raised during the war, designated 15.(Kroatische)/JG 52. First formed in July 1941, over the next few months its personnel learnt to fly Bf 109 fighters. It was deployed to the Eastern Front, near Poltava, on 6 October 1941. By the end of January 1942, the squadron had shot down 23 Soviet aircraft. It continued to serve on the Eastern Front until July 1944, when it was withdrawn to Croatia to combat partisans. By this time, its tally totalled 283 enemy aircraft shot down for the loss of only two aircraft and five pilots.
SS recruitment in the Balkans The Croat divisions and squadron were under army and air force control respectively, but it was inevitable that Himmler would try to recruit units from the Balkan region. However, his efforts would ultimately make a mockery of the ideal of the SS being a racially pure Germanic organization. On 7 August l940, Gottlob Berger, head of Waffen-SS recruiting, sent Reichsführer-SS Himmler a memorandum outlining his plans for the recruitment of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from the Balkans into the Waffen-SS. He estimated there were 700,000 Volksdeutsche living in Yugoslavia. Himmler approved the formation of a freiwilligen gebirgs division (volunteer mountain division) on 1 March 1942. The cadre around which the division was built was the SS-controlled Selbstschutz (Protection Force), made up of Volksdeutsche in Serbia; and the Einsatz Staffel (Action Squadron) from Croatia (in l943, Himmler introduced compulsory military service for the Volksdeutsche in German-occupied Serbia; 21,500 ethnic Germans from Serbia would see service in Himmler's Waffen-SS).
7th SS Freiwilligen Gebirgs Division Prinz Eugen What would be named the 7th SS Freiwilligen Gebirgs Division Prinz Eugen was formed between April and October l942. Its command was entrusted to SS-Brigadeführer Artur Phleps who, on 20 April l942, was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer. Phleps, who had been a soldier in the Austrian Imperial Army, was a Volksdeutsche himself from Transylvania and commanded a mountain corps in the Romanian Army until l941. By 31 December 1942, the division numbered 393 officers, 2010 NCOs and 18,699 men (though the majority were volunteers, conscription was also resorted to). The officers and NCOs were almost entirely Reichsdeutsche (Germans from the Greater Reich), while the enlisted men were Volksdeutsche from Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. In general, the Reichsdeutsche had a low opinion of the fighting ability of the Yugoslav Volksdeutsche, though both Himmler and Berger were committed to exploiting the manpower of these ethnic Germans living outside the Reich.
Prinz Eugen in combat In October 1942, the Prinz Eugen Division was ready and was transferred to the Uzice-Cacak region of western Serbia. In November, it was under the control of the German Twelfth Army, Army Group Southeast. The "backbone" of the division was made up of Volksdeutsche from the Serbian Banat who had been officers and NCOs in the Yugoslav Army. The primary mission of the division was to battle partisans, it was thus equipped with mainly obsolete and captured weapons, including French Renault tanks. Mountain divisions were designed to fight in difficult terrain, and thus had a high proportion of pack and horse transport. Support weapons were lighter than those in line divisions, and designed for easy breakdown into manageable loads. For example, the Prinz Eugen's 1st and 2nd Artillery Battalions were each equipped with two batteries of four 75mm mountain guns. In contrast, the Wiking Division's Artillery Regiment had battalions equipped with 150 heavy howitzers as well as with 105mm light howitzers. In October 1942, the division took part in its first large-scale military operation, against Serbian forces under one of Mihailovic's commanders, Major Dragutin Keserovic, in the Kopaonik Mountains in the region of Kriva Reka. Phleps' orders to his subordinates indicated the type of war Prinz Eugen was going to fight: "The entire population of this area must be considered rebel sympathizers. Every man in Division Prinz Eugen will fight victoriously wherever the combat takes him. We now lay the groundwork for future operations. The division must fight to destroy our enemy, eliminate his headquarters and maintain the peace." However, according to Otto Kumm, who commanded the division between February 1944 and January 1945, this first military engagement against Mihailovic's Chetniks was a failure. Kumm noted in his history of the division: "The Chetniks had their spies in every town and were warned long beforehand."
Atrocities Himmler visited the Prinz Eugen Division between 15 and 18 October, and according to Kumm "was pleased by the attitude and state of training". During the latter part of October, the Prinz Eugen attacked Mihailovic's guerrilla forces again, this time in Gorni Milanovac and Cacak. During the next two years, the division was almost continuously fighting partisans, though in January 1945 it also came up against Red Army units near Vukovar where it was badly mauled. Prinz Eugen ended the war in Slovenia where its officers surrendered to the partisans. As a result, most of the division's survivors were shot. Fighting insurgents can be a frustrating business, and in Yugoslavia the SS often took out its frustrations on the local population. The Prinz Eugen committed a number of atrocities during its career. In May l943, during Operation Black, the division invaded Montenegro from Herzegovina and occupied the Niksic district. The SS troops took punitive measures against the civilian population, burning entire villages, torturing and killing civilians in their homes. Pregnant women, infants with their mothers, the frail and the elderly were all butchered. In one village, 121 people, mostly women, were massacred, including 29 children between the ages of 6 months and 14 years, and 30 persons between the ages of 60 and 92. In March 1944, during a "purge action" from Sinj, 834 inhabitants were massacred and their bodies burned. More than 500 houses were also looted and set on fire.
23rd SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Kama Approval for the raising of a second Croatian SS division was given by Hitler on 17 June 1944. The new division was given the honorary title Kama (the word for a short Turkish sword) and assigned the divisional number 23. This new division was to be a mountain division titled the 23rd SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Kama. It was also decided that a mountain corps command would be created that would eventually be in charge of the Handschar and Kama Divisions. Recruitment for the Kama Division had already begun on 10 June 1944. Some German officers and NCOs were made available, as well as a number of Croatian officers and men from the Handschar Division. The entire Reconnaissance Battalion of the Handschar was also transferred to Kama. To this core of troops was added a batch of new recruits, mostly Croatian Moslems from Bosnia. At its peak in September 1944, Kama had 3793 men. Hitler had planned to form the division in northern Croatia, but feared that Tito's partisans would seriously disrupt or even destroy the unit before it could finish training. He therefore ordered it to form in the Hungarian Bacska, which was populated mostly by ethnic Hungarians and Germans.
Moslem SS recruits In September 1944, with the Red Army advance approaching the Balkans, the training bases of the Kama Division were suddenly dangerously close to the frontlines. The SS High Command attempted to get the division ready for combat, but soon realized that sending still raw recruits into combat would be folly. It was, therefore, decided to disband the unit and make as much use of the personnel as possible by transferring them as replacements to other divisions. The Moslems in the division were ordered to report to Handschar, but many took the opportunity to desert. The others were generally incorporated into the forming 31st SS Freiwilligen Grenadier Division (a Dutch unit). The Reichsführer-SS had several reasons for forming a Moslem SS division. For example, such a unit would be useful for taking advantage of the traditional Moslem enmity towards the Christian Serbs, who made up a large part of Tito's partisans. He was also attracted to the Islamic idea of the virtue of dying in a holy war (Jihad).
An SS-sponsored Jihad The Independent State of Croatia contained the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The province was an ethnic and religious mix, with Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Moslem Croats. It was the latter that the SS would target in its recruitment of a Croatian SS division. Himmler was fascinated by the Islamic faith, and regarded Moslems in general as fearless soldiers. He also subscribed to the theory that Croatians (and therefore the Croatian Moslems) were not Slavic people, but actually of Aryan descent. Of more interest to Hitler, the Germans were hoping to rally the world's 350 million Moslems to their side in a struggle against the British Empire. The creation of a Moslem, albeit European Moslem, division was considered a stepping stone to this greater end.
Croat hostility Himmler proposed the formation of a Bosnian Moslem division to Hitler in late 1942, but the Führer waited until 13 February 1943 before authorizing its formation. Prior to the creation of the division, however, approval also had to be granted by the Croatian Government, as its citizens were to be recruited - and on Croatian territory. Himmler immediately began negotiations with the Croats. Their most serious objection to the concept was that they didn't want any boost given to Moslem separatism in Bosnia. The SS prevailed, and Pavelic eventually agreed to the division's creation on 5 March 1943. But the Croats tried to hinder the project, especially after the SS recruiters played up the glories achieved by the Bosnian units of Imperial Austria-Hungary, thus fanning the flames of Moslem separatism. The employment of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the Waffen-SS to drum up more recruits further alienated the Croats.
The division takes shape These efforts were reasonably successful, though, as 8000 men had volunteered by 14 April, including a number of deserters from the Croatian military. This was well short of the target of 26,000, so a number of Volksdeutsche and Moslems from the Croat Army and Ustase were recruited. However, this was still inadequate, so Himmler reluctantly permitted Bosnian Catholics to enlist, but not to exceed 10 percent of the division's authorized strength (only 400 ultimately joined). Despite these additions, the division was firmly Moslem in practice: imams served at the battalion level, except for the all-German signal battalion; and mullahs were attached to regiments. Books were produced encouraging their religion and were distributed throughout its ranks. It was even reported that Hitler sent each member of the division a pendant with a miniature Koran attached to it.
Moral plummets It was originally intended to form the division in Bosnia from a cadre supplied by the Prinz Eugen Division, but the training areas were too crowded with the 117th Jäger Division, which was also being formed. The SS was also tired of the Croatian Government's petty obstructions, and decided to train the division in Germany instead. The first trainloads of recruits were shipped to the Wildflecken training ground, not far from Schweinfurt, in late May. However, in early June, the SS decided to train the recruits in France instead. Thus, in July, the Bosnians were sent to various towns near the city of Le Puy. By this time, the Bosnians numbered only 15,000 and were desperately short of trained officers and NCOs (a number of the older men who had served in the Austro-Hungarian Army had been deemed unsuitable). To fill out the division, the SS demanded that all Moslems in Croat service be turned over and that a draft of military age men be carried out. This filled out numbers, but at the cost of stripping most of the manpower that had been defending the Moslem villages in Croatia from the depredations of the marauding royalist Chetniks, Ustase and communist partisans. The divisional strength reached the required 26,000 men by mid-1943, though not all men were volunteers (some being begged, bribed and outright kidnapped into service). Morale in the division dropped when reports were received of soldiers' villages being destroyed and their families killed.
The Handschar Division The recruits were in training from July 1943 until February 1944 but problems soon emerged. Their German training officers, indoctrinated by years of Slav-baiting, did not share Himmler's enthusiasm at the prospect of Moslems becoming members of the Waffen-SS. They despaired at the sight of the men kneeling down on their prayer mats facing Mecca, praying to Allah, and made their feelings known in no uncertain terms. They called the recruits Mujos and behaved towards them in an overbearing and condescending manner. This led to friction between officers and men which culminated in a mutiny in the pioneer battalion, during which some German officers were shot out of hand. The mutiny was soon quelled, with 14 of the ringleaders being shot, and a large number of others being sent either to labour gangs working on the Siegfried Line or to concentration camps. The division was ready by early 1944, being named the 13th SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Handschar (a "handschar" is a curved Turkish sword, traditionally the symbol of Bosnia). The division had two infantry regiments (Waffen Gebirgs Jäger Regiments 27 and 28), an artillery regiment (Waffen Gebirgs Artillerie Regiment 13), a reconnaissance company, a panzerjäger (anti-tank) company, a flak company, a pioneer battalion and other support units.
Commanders and uniform The division's first commander from 9 March 1943 until 1 August 1943 was SS-Standartenführer Herbert von Obwurzer. SS-Brigadeführer Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig took over until 1 June 1944, when SS-Brigadeführer Desiderius Hampel replaced him. Hampel commanded the remnants of the division until its surrender on 8 May 1945. The uniform worn by the division was regular SS issue, with a divisional collar patch showing an arm holding a scimitar over a swastika. On the left arm was a Croatian arm shield. The oval mountain troop Edelweiss patch was worn on the right arm. Headgear was the Moslem fez in field grey (normal service) or red ("walking out"), with the SS eagle and death's head emblazoned. Non-Moslem members could opt to wear the normal SS mountain cap.
Anti-partisan sweeps Handschar began anti-partisan operations in the spring of 1944 from its base in Brcko, and took part in several large-scale anti-partisan sweeps. However, the 1st battalion of the 28th Regiment wasn't to stay long in Bosnia. It was composed of ethnic Albanian Moslems from Kosovo and Himmler ordered it to serve in the newly forming 21st SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Skanderbeg being raised from Albanian Moslems. The battalion was reformed from new recruits and men from the rest of the division. This wasn't the last "donation" unit; on 28 May 1944, Hitler granted permission to form a second Bosnian division. Handschar had to provide a cadre for the new division - 23rd SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Kama - though ongoing operations prevented any men from being released until June. Handschar gave up 54 officers, 187 NCOs and 1137 men to Kama. These losses, coupled with the previous leadership shortage, hampered its combat operations as few Bosnians were judged suitable for promotion. The addition of 500 young Croatian Volksdeutsche hardly compensated Handschar for its losses.
Mass desertion As part of V SS Mountain Corps, Handschar was constantly engaged in anti-partisan warfare until September 1944 when it was withdrawn back to Brcko (just in time to receive the brunt of a fresh offensive by Tito's partisans). It was during this time that the desertion rate reached an all-time high: more than 2000 deserters were reported in the first three weeks of September, who also took their weapons with them. Many switched sides, especially after Tito offered an amnesty, but a number joined the Ustase or simply went home to defend their families. Handschar was now short of manpower, so Himmler ordered it reorganized on 24 September. Each of its Gebirgsjäger regiments had its third battalion disbanded, and most of its speciality units were removed and subordinated directly to IX SS Mountain Corps. Widespread desertions continued until October. After 100 Bosnians of the divisional escort company deserted in mid-October, an enraged Himmler ordered all unreliable Bosnians to be disarmed and their weapons turned over to Germans. The Bosnians were pressed into service with labour units. The remnants became part of Battle Group Hanke and were deployed to Hungary, south of Budapest, Lake Balatan and Drava in March 1945. Thus ended Himmler's scheme of creating an all-conquering Moslem division.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel As well as Yugoslavia, Himmler also looked to Albania to furnish recruits for his SS empire. During the Italian administration from 1941-43, Kosovo Serbs, Jews, gypsies and other non-Albanians were arrested, interned, deported or murdered. Serb houses were burned and their inhabitants were driven out of Kosovo. Dozens of Serb Orthodox churches were also demolished and looted. With the surrender of Italy in 1943, Germany occupied Albania and sought to strengthen Albanian nationalist groups and to recruit Albanians for German-raised units. On 16 September 1943, Dzafer Deva, a member of the Balli Kombetar (BK - National Union, an Albanian nationalist organization which sought to create an ethnically pure Greater Albania), organized the Second League of Prizren (the league was a nineteenth-century Albanian liberation movement) "in cooperation with the German occupation authorities", which intensified its efforts to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Serbs and Jews and other non-Albanians. Attacks against Kosovo Serbs increased and intensified, and over 10,000 Kosovo Serb families were driven out of Kosovo.
21st SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Skanderbeg The Balli Kombetar and the Second League of Prizren were instrumental in the creation of the 21st SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Skanderbeg, which was seen as advancing the cause of a Greater Albania by making Kosovo ethnically pure and cleansed of Serbs and Jews. Himmler was comfortable with the idea of an Albanian SS division as "anthropological studies" by the Italians during 1939-43 purported to show that the Ghegs of northern Albania and Kosovo-Metohija were Aryans who had preserved their racial purity for over 2000 years. Bedri Pejani, the president of the Second League of Prizren, wrote to Himmler on 19 March 1944, asking him to organize Albanian military formations as part of the armed forces of the Third Reich: "Excellency, the central committee of the Second Albanian League of Prizren has authorized me to inform you that only your excellency is united with the Second Albanian League, that you should form this army, which will be able to safeguard the borders of Kosovo and liberate the surrounding regions."
21st SS Waffen Gebirgs Division Skanderbeg On 17 April 1944, following instructions from Himmler, the Skanderbeg Division was formed. Himmler envisioned the formation of two Albanian SS divisions, but the war ended before the second could be raised. Approximately 300 Albanians from the Handschar Division were transferred to the new unit, making a total of 6491 ethnic Albanians, two-thirds of whom were from Kosovo-Metohija. To this Albanian core was added German troops - Reichsdeutsche from Austria - and Volksdeutsche officers, NCOs and enlisted men transferred from the Prinz Eugen Division then stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Skanderbeg Division was made up of Albanian Moslems of the Bektashi and Sunni sects of Islam and several hundred Albanian Roman Catholics. The total strength of the division was 9000 men of all ranks. The first commander of the division was SS-Brigadeführer Josef Fitzhum, from April to June 1944. In June 1944, SS-Standartenführer August Schmidhuber, formerly an officer in the Prinz Eugen Division, was appointed divisional commander until August 1944. Thereafter, SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfred Graf assumed command of the remnants of the division until May 1945.
A division of murderers Militarily useless, the Skanderbeg Division essentially engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Serb Orthodox Christian and Jewish populations of Kosovo-Metohija and the Stara Srbija region. In Kosovo-Metohija, it massacred unarmed Serbs in a systematic plan of genocide. Its first operation in Kosovo-Metohija was the raid on Kosovo Jews in Pristina which took place on 14 May 1944. The SS troops raided apartments and homes where Kosovo Jews lived, looted their possessions, and rounded them up for deportation to concentration camps. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, both Yugoslavia and Albania became communist states. In November 1945, Tito proclaimed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia; and in 1946, its southern neighbour became the People's Republic of Albania. Nationalist sentiments within both states were suppressed, and the wounds of a brutal war were seemingly healed. However, the hundreds of thousands of deaths that were caused by Nazi policy in the Balkans created a legacy of mistrust and thirst for revenge. These sentiments lay festering among the different ethnic groups in both countries, until they finally exploded into violence in the 1990s. |
