Waffen-SS Mutiny - France 1943

[Music] germany had successfully defeated the kingdom of yugoslavia in april 1941. hitler ordered the creation of a puppet fascist state in what is today's croatia bosnia and herzegovina and parts of serbia named the independent state of croatia or ndh under the authority of dictator antepavalic his ustasha militia enacted violently anti-semitic anti-serb and anti-roma actions the bosnian-muslim minority was also persecuted by the ustasha things became so bad that community leaders requested that the germans annex bosnia and herzegovina in order to protect them heinrich himmler reichsfuhrer ss permitted the head of the ss recruiting office or bergruppenfura gottlob berger to lay out a plan before hitler for the recruiting of a bosnian muslim ss division keeping the peace in the region was tying down a lot of german troops the plan being that the new division could protect its own communities regarding the issue of race himmler believed that the bosnian muslims were not slaves but instead pure aryans of iranian descent the germans had already raised a unit of croatian troops soon after the creation of pavlich's puppet state the unit was called the 369th reinforced infantry regiment serving in the german army its members wearing a croatian checkerboard patch with the word fratzka or croatia on the upper right sleeve of the german tunic and the right side of the steel helmet about a third of the volunteers in this regiment were bosnian muslims the rest croat christians ukrainians or white russians numbering 5 000 men the regiment served on the eastern front before being destroyed from the battle of stalingrad the survivors being taken prisoner by the soviets at the end of january 1943. however before this more than a thousand had been evacuated and they formed the core of the new 369th croatian infantry division used on anti-partisan operations in yugoslavia until the end of the war regarding bosnian muslims himmler remembered that when austria-hungary had ruled the region before the end of world war one bosnian and herzegovinian troops had performed very well in their service the new ss division adopted as its headgear the red fez which had been used previously by muslim troops in the austro-hungarian empire this new division will be used to crush tito's communist partisans who are operating in northeast bosnia and of course bring order to the area hitler approved the project ss gruppenfuhrer arter fleps was to raise the division after negotiations with the ndh government islamic specialist and serbo croat speaker ss standard carl von krempler actually organized the division recruiting rallies were held and a commanding officer was appointed standard fura herbert von oberzer of the sixth ss mountain division nord helping recruitment was the grand mufti of jerusalem who was living in berlin at the time after fleeing from the british controlled area of the middle east the grand mufti was the sunni muslim cleric in charge of islamic holy places in jerusalem he had actually been involved in the arab revolt against british rule he insisted that the new division be used only in bosnia but the germans had other ideas not all of the 14 000 men in the division were muslims due to a shortage of volunteers part of the shortfall was made up by a ten percent draft of catholics in fact forty percent of its strength was actually yugoslav fox deutsche or ethnic germans these non-muslim men made up nearly all of the officers and senior ncos and were backed up by many full-time german ss officers who have been brought in to command positions for example the signals battalion in the division was all german for proper training the division was dispatched to german occupied france at this time the unit had no name simply being referred to as the muslim division the 9th of august 1943 a new commanding officer was appointed obese khal gustav zalweshwag of the german army he transferred immediately to the waffen-ss as an oberfuhrer although he couldn't speak serbo-criet he was regarded and respected by most of the men of the division but within the division in france were men who were dissatisfied with their lot and particularly resentful against their german officers and ncos many of whom treated their men with a lack of respect the rebellious soldiers were both muslims and catholics billeted in the town of villefonsh de ruerg the pioneer battalion was commanded by ss obershtamban fura oscar kirkbaum before trouble broke out with the ss this area of france was unsettled with civilian demonstrations in lyon grenoble marseille and montpelier and students singing the marseilles in vil french as they march past the war memorial the vichy french police did nothing to stop them the central conspirators managed to establish contact with the local french resistance leaders at least one yugoslav was already leading french fighters in the region at 10 past midnight on the 17th of september 1943 the mutiny began uberstamban fura kurchbaum was captured along with four other german officers after a short trial they were all shot one wounded german officer managed to escape the battalion medical officer managed to persuade the rebels that they should release him this they did but he immediately raised the alarm contacting local german headquarters the mutineers occupied both the police and the railway stations about 200 heavily armed bosnian ss literally headed for the hills while others hesitated unsure of what to do next the battalion's muslim imam helped to quell further rebellion among the troops the mutineers burned the battalion records so that the gestapo would not be able to persecute their families afterwards one group of 40 mutineers tried to fight through the cordon of german troops arriving to seal off vilfrosh ss troops entered the town and went house to house fighting the mutineers and either killing them or taking them prisoner between 30 and 40 were killed their bodies dragged into the streets to be identified over a hundred of those captured were forced to line up alongside a large pit outside the town and were then summarily executed by machine gun fire a few of the bosnian ss managed to join the french resistance in the hills the few were also hidden by sympathetic french civilians one of those bosnian ss who managed to join the resistance later received the french quad de ger for gallantry the ss then purged the division of any man it felt was suspect 825 bosnians were taken out of the ss and transferred to the organization tot labor service out of this number 265 refused to cooperate so the germans shipped them to neuengama concentration camp where many subsequently died the division was moved to silesia to complete its training and was given a new name it became the 13th waffen mountain division of the ss hunshah first croatian it was then returned to croatia for anti-partisan duties at the end of the war the division retreated west away from the advancing red army and surrendered to the british interestingly many former bosnian ss fought in the conflict in the middle east in 1947-48 including the 1948 arab israeli war both syria and iraq sent teams to europe to recruit former bosnian ss and over a thousand fought in palestine thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,264,402

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Waffen-SS, SS Handschar, Yugoslavia, Bosnia

Id: 2ZUNDPD0MmE

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020