View source for 13th Waffen Division of the SS Handschar

[[File:Hanschar.jpg|right|300px]]
In [[WW2]],
Thousands of [[Slav]]ish [[Muslims]] served in one of the most unique and notorious Waffen-[[SS]] divisions – the 13th Waffen Division of the SS Handschar.<ref>Lepre, George. [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Himmler_s_Bosnian_Division/rPZmAAAAMAAJ?hl=en Himmler's Bosnian Division : the Waffen-SS Handschar Division, 1943-1945]. United States: Schiffer Military History, 1997.
<blockquote>..the story of the "Handschar," a Muslim combat formation created by the Germans to "restore order in Bosnia." What actually transpired was quite different</blockquote></ref><ref>Trigg, Jonathan. [https://books.google.com/books?id=TVk7AwAAQBAJ Hitler's Jihadis: Muslim Volunteers of the Waffen-SS]. United Kingdom: History Press, 2011.
<blockquote>Overview

By the end of the Second World War there were soldiers of more than thirty different nationalities in the Waffen-SS, and Reich Germans themselves were in the minority. How did a regime that believed so completely in the racial superiority of its population come to welcome hundreds of thousands of foreigners into its military elite? Who were these foreign SS men, and why did they fight so long and so hard for such a murderous regime? Hitler’s Jihadis provides an analysis of some of the most intriguing and controversial of these foreign volunteers – the thousands of Muslims, from as far away as India who wore the SS double lightning flashes alongside their erstwhile conquerors. Jonathan Trigg gives an insight into the pre-war politics that inspired these Islamic volunteers, who for the most part would not survive. Those who did survive the war and the bloody retribution that followed saw the reputation of the units in which they had served berated as militarily inept and castigated for atrocities against unarmed civilians. Using first-hand accounts and official records, Hitler’s Jihadis peels away the propaganda to reveal the complexity that lies at the heart of the story of Hitler’s most unlikely ‘Aryans’.</blockquote></ref><ref>Eleonore Lappin, [https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/the-death-marches-of-hungarian-jews-through-austria.html#footnote44_z7u69ke The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945], YadVashem.
<br><i><font size=1>In Gau Styria, Croatian Waffen-SS men were also deployed as guards for the Hungarian Jews.... These were members of the Waffen-SS divisions “Handschar,” “Kama” and “Prinz Eugen.” Report of the Head Security Office for Upper Austria to the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg, (ZStL) Zl 9AR-Z 85/61, November 6, 1962, Archives of the Republic (AdR) BuMinI 457-13/57.</font></i></ref>

[[File:Mufti's Muslim-SS Handschar.PNG|right|300px]]
Though, in fact, in the scope of enormously [[Holocaust]]<ref>[https://www.ushmm.org/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]</ref><ref>[https://yadvashem.org/ Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center]</ref><ref>[https://aish.com/holocaust-faqs/ Holocaust FAQs]</ref> unique event in history, these units, or even the [[Grand Mufti of Jerusalem |Mufti]]'s part as a whole,  played a very marginal role, the will and readiness was there, especially on the side of the "spiritual" recruiter and motivator, the eager Mufti's.<ref>Dani Dayan, [https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/adhering-to-the-historical-truth-about-the-mufti-during-the-holocaust.html Adhering to the Historical Truth about the Mufti during the Holocaust], ''Yad Vashem'', 02 December 2021.
<blockquote>Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a despicable antisemite and ardent Nazi supporter. Nevertheless, the role he played in the Holocaust was marginal. 

Inaugurated in 2005, Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum contains hundreds of Holocaust-era artifacts, photographs and artworks, all carefully curated to reflect the accurate historical truth of the Holocaust. On display in the Museum are two photographs of the Mufti – one with Heinrich Himmler, and one with Bosnian Muslim units who fought in the ranks of the SS – which present his efforts to promote Nazi ideology during the Shoah... Research shows that the meeting between the Mufti and Adolf Hitler had a negligible practical effect on Nazi policy.</blockquote></ref> 


Author:
{{Cquote| In 1943, when Italy collapsed, the NDH reached its apogee and the Dalmatian coast, including Kotor and Zadar, was given to an enlarged Croatian state. For many Croat nationalists, the ephemeral 1943 borders were the culmination of their boldest aspirations
because they included Bosnia as well as Dalmatia. 

As far as the Ustaše ere concerned, the primary obstacle in the way of Bosnia becoming part of Croatia remained the Orthodox population, many of whom were not generally considered to be 'redeemable', although there were some forced conversions. Hundreds of thousands were murdered on the grounds of race or religion by the Ustaše especially between the summer of 1941 and 1942. The fascist regime launched a campaign of extermination of the Orthodox peoples of the region and, as allies of the Nazis, allowed the deportation of Sarajevo's Ladino-speaking Jewish population to the death camps.

Muslim leaders were initially quite sceptical about the Ustasa until the intervention of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who persuaded many of them to support the Third Reich. 

Adolf Hitler was enthusiastic about keeping alive links between the Nazis and Islam and was persuaded by Heinrich Himmler that the Bosnian Muslims would make a suitable division of the Schutzstaffel or SS. Some of the older Bosnians had fought for the Habsburgs just over 20 years earlier, including Husejin Biscević. Muhamed Hadziefendić who had served in both the Habsburg and Yugoslavian armies, organized a Muslim militia in the Tuzla region before joining the 13th SS Handschar Division in 1943, which 12,000 men volunteered to join. He and his men were surrounded by the Communist Partisans in Tuzla in the autumn of 1943 and died in the struggle. The name that the SS battalion adopted referred to the dagger that was their collective symbol. Some attempts were made to mark their Muslim heritage and their rations excluded alcohol and pork. As in the First World War, their dead were honoured as šehidi (Muslim martyrs). 

As part of their uniform, the Handschar wore a fez with two further symbols: the SS skull and an eagle astride a swastika. Bosnian Handschar soldiers were among the defenders of Berlin in 1945 when it fell to the Soviets.
Ustaše troops carried out the genocide so rapidly in the early summer of 1941, that some confused Serbs reported their actions to the authorities, largely because they could not believe that these actions could be sanctioned by a legitimate government and must be the work of terrorists. Tomislav Dulić has calculated that approximately 75 per cent of Jewish and Roma communities of the NDH and up to 17 per cent of Serbs died as 'victims of fascism'. Six per cent of Croats died, many killed in 1945 by Communists ...<ref>Carmichael, Cathie. A Concise History of Bosnia. N.p.: Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=I2UbCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA78 77-8].</ref>}}
==References==
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[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Islamism]]
[[Category:World War II]]