The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" (7. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen"),[1] initially named the SS-Volunteer Division Prinz Eugen (SS-Freiwilligen-Division "Prinz Eugen"), was a mountain infantrydivision of the Waffen-SS, an armed branch of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. From 1942 to 1945, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in occupied Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1941 from both Reich Germans and Volksdeutsche–ethnic German volunteers and conscripts from the Banat, Independent State of Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The division surrendered on 11 May 1945 to Yugoslav Partisan forces, with thousands of stragglers surrendering by the 15th near the Austrian border.
After the initial rush of Volksdeutsche to join, voluntary enlistments tapered off, and the new formation did not reach division size. Therefore, in August 1941, the SS discarded the voluntary approach, and after a favorable judgement from the SS court in Belgrade, imposed a mandatory military obligation on all Volksdeutsche in Banat, the first of its kind for non-Reichsdeutsche.[4]
One of the reasons for the forced conscription of ethnic Germans was the disappointingly low number of volunteers for the division after the initial recruitments (no more than 5,000). While the division remained "volunteer" in name, few of the conscripted ethnic Germans actively sought entry into the unit. Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler had announced that the wishes of the Volksdeutsche were irrelevant, while in connection with the Balkan Germans the SS head of recruitment Gottlob Berger remarked: "kein Mensch [kümmert] [sich ja] darum, was wir unten mit unseren Volksdeutschen tun" ("no person cares what we do with our ethnic Germans in the South").[5]
Croatian Homeguards of German ethnic background enlisting in the SS
Ethnic Germans in the Balkans were therefore powerless and could not oppose conscription into the SS. The unwillingness of ethnic Germans to serve in the unit is illustrated by a mutiny of 173 Croatian Germans of the division in 1943 in Bosnia when apparently the men of mixed ancestry did not speak German and were mistreated by their superiors as a result. Many of these men preferred service in the Croatian Home Guard for a variety of reasons; Himmler intervened personally in the problem.[6]
Vehicles of Prinz Eugen's 7th Panzer Battalion (including SOMUA S35 and Hotchkiss H39 tanks) laagering on the outskirts of a Bosnian town in 1941
In 1942, the Pančevo-based unit was declared a Mountain Division. Its troops were issued with a significant amount of non-standard German weapons and used captured equipment such as Czechoslovak machine guns like the ZB-53[7] and French light tanks. They were provided with excellent German-made mountain artillery such as the 10.5 cm Gebirgshaubitze 40 howitzer and 7.5 cm Gebirgsgeschütz 36 mountain gun.[8] When the division was formed, it was assigned to the Balkans as an anti-Partisan mountain division.
In early October 1942, the division was deployed in southwestern Serbia, in Kraljevo, Užice, Ivanjica, Čačak, Raška, Kosovska Mitrovica, and Novi Pazar. On 5 October 1942, the division commander Artur Phleps ordered the German and Bulgarian forces to destroy the enemy. A comprehensive attack was planned: 20,000 well-armed and fully trained troops would encircle the 1,500 Serb guerrillas from four directions. Because of the perceived importance of this operation and to observe the first military operations of the newly established SS Division, Himmler himself travelled to Kraljevo in the German occupation zone; Himmler was in Kraljevo from 15 to 18 October 1942 and toured the division. German and Bulgarian forces began their attack on the Chetnik territory at dawn on 12 October 1942, proceeding from four directions.[10] However, Keserović ordered his units to regroup into smaller squads for easy maneuvering and penetration, and the Rasina Corps was able to escape from the Axis ring entrapment.
The division's first major action thus ended in a failure, as the Germans and Bulgarians cleared the Chetnik free territory (and in the process committed war crimes against the Serbian civilian population), yet the Chetniks themselves successfully withdrew beyond the reach of the occupation forces. The Prinz Eugen was next involved in counter-insurgency activities on the Serbian-Montenegro border in the mountains east of river Ibar.[citation needed]
1943
Afterwards, the division took part in the Fourth anti-Partisan Offensive (Operation Weiss) in Croatia's Zagreb-Karlovac area. There, together with Italian forces, the Germans attempted to defeat the Yugoslav Partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito, but the operation failed as most of the Partisans managed to evade the main attack. In Operation Weiss I, the division advanced from Karlovac area against the Yugoslav National Liberation Army (NOVJ) resistance and on January 29 captured informal partisan capital Bihać. In Operation Weiss II, it forced its way from western Bosnia to Mostar area in Hercegovina and also deployed units northwest of Sarajevo.
From 15 May – 15 June, the Prinz Eugen took a part in the subsequent Fifth anti-Partisan Offensive (Operation Schwarz) aiming to pin Tito's main force of about 20,000 Partisans against the Zelengora mountain, in south-eastern Bosnia.[11][12][13][14] During the battle, the division received a task to move through the Italian occupation zone in order to block the possible advance of Partisans towards the Adriatic Sea and the Italian-occupied Albania, to close the south-east part of the encirclement and then advance north over mountainous terrain to crush the Partisan forces. In eleven-day fightings from May 20, division captured Šavnik. For this success, Sturmbannführer Dietsche as well as commander Phleps both received first two Knight's Crosses for the division.[15] In the following days, the focal point of the battle shifted westward. After the main group of the Partisans headed by the 1st Proletarian Division broke out of the encirclement, two battalions of the division that were moved to cover the left bank of the Sutjeska river and block the Partisans' escape route were surprised by the attack of three battalions of the NOVJ 1st Dalmatian Strike Brigade and one from 5th Montenegro Brigade at Tjentište pushing them back. They recovered their positions during a night battle and defeated the Partisan units.[16] In the operation Schwarz the division suffered total losses of 613 men.[17]
Prinz EugenMG 42 position on the Dalmatian coast, 1943
In August 1943, the division became a part of the XV Mountain Corps and was sent to the Dalmatian coast, to disarm the local Italian forces in September 1943 after the Italian government had surrendered to the Allies. In exploiting Italian capitulation, Tito's forces succeeded in seizing control of the most part of the Dalmatian coast. In sixteen-days long battle the division pushed back NOVJ units and on September 29 reoccupied Split, forcing the resisting Italians to surrender. In October, division participated in Operation Landsturm, another anti-Partisan operation in Omiš, Ploče and Biokovo. In battles for Split and Biokovo coastline, the Prinz Eugen suffered losses of 1,582 killed, wounded and missing in action.[citation needed]
The division was reorganized on 22 October 1943 and was renamed the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. In November, the unit was attached to the V SS Mountain Corps and took part in anti-Partisan Operations Kugelblitz and Schneesturm in Dalmatia during the next month.[18]
1944
In January 1944, the division was involved in more anti-Partisan actions in Operation Waldrausch. It then took part in Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive (Operation Rösselsprung) which began on 25 May 1944. This operation had the task of killing or capturing Tito, and the operation was spearheaded by the 500th SS Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon and supported by the Brandenburg Regiment. In this timespan many other ethnic groups joined the division, such as ethnic Croats, ethnic Hungarians, and over 1,000 ethnic Serbs who volunteered for the division at General Phelps' office, most of whom were either ideologically or otherwise motivated to fight against the Partisans.[19]
In September, the Soviet Red Army had advanced to the Balkans and the division suffered heavy casualties in defensive battles against the combined Bulgarian, Soviet and NOVJ forces in the Nish region. On 21 September, Obergruppenführer Phleps—the division's first commander—was believed to have been killed when en route from Montenegro to Transylvania. The division's next action was the defence of the Kraljevo bridgehead against the Soviet-led Belgrade Offensive as a part of XXXIV Army Corps (Army Corps Müller). This defence was essential for the success of Army Group E efforts to open a corridor which would allow the retreat of 350,000 German soldiers from Greece and the Aegean Sea.
In the beginning of November, the very understrength and underperforming 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg was disbanded, following widespread demoralisation and mass desertions within its ranks. It was nominally ethnic Albanian but in reality staffed mostly with the Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche Germans, including ex-Kriegsmarine conscripts. Its remnants were incorporated into the 14th Regiment of Prinz Eugen, which received its honor title Skanderbeg.[18]
1945
In January 1945, the division was in action against the Yugoslav Partisans at Otok and Vukovar in Croatia. In February, it took part in Operation Wehrwolf against a Yugoslav bridgehead in the Virovitica area.
The withdrawal from Bosnia towards Austria continued as Prinz Eugen retreated through Croatia in April 1945. On 10 May, the division moved towards Celje in Slovenia. There it surrendered to the Yugoslav People's Army on 11 May,[18] three days after the capitulation of Germany that marked the official end to World War II in Europe.
All personnel of Prinz Eugen taken prisoner by the Yugoslav army were then killed.[20] Most were executed wholesale, without trial, disposed of through a variety of methods immediately following their surrender. The killings, which were never punished, were ordered by local Yugoslav commanders, apparently acting directly against Tito's strict instructions to detain the captives in prison camps and screen them for war criminals.[20] In 2010, a large mass grave containing the remains of some 2,000 Prinz Eugen soldiers was opened near the Slovenian village of Brežice; the soldiers had been stripped naked, bound together with telephone wire, and shot, their bodies buried in a trench in a summary mass execution on 22 May 1945.[21] Many of the soldiers' family members were amongst the tens of thousands of local civilians who perished at the hands of Yugoslav forces during the ethnic cleansing of German-speaking populations throughout eastern Europe.[22]
The loss of the division's war diary, likely through intentional destruction, has caused significant gaps in the historiography of both the division itself and the broader Yugoslav campaign.[23]:14
War crimes
The post-war Nuremberg trials made the declaratory judgement that the Waffen-SS was a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the killing of prisoners-of-war and atrocities committed in occupied countries.[24] Excluded from this judgement were those who were conscripted into the Waffen-SS and had not personally committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.[25]
The division was infamous for its brutality.[26] On 6 August 1946, during the morning session at the Nürnberg Trials, it was said that "The 7th SS Division, Prinz Eugen, is famed for its cruelty," and that "wherever it passed - through Serbia, through Bosnia and Herzegovina, through Lika and Banija or through Dalmatia - everywhere it left behind scenes of conflagration and devastation and the bodies of innocent men, women, and children who had been burned in the houses."[27]
During late September 1942 members of SS Prinz Eugen killed 18 Serb civilians in villages on Rogozna mountain. Unit also stole wheat and forced people to work in mines, on roads and railways, regardless of ethnicity[28]
The Germans and Bulgarians committed reprisals against the civilian population and burned several villages during their anti-Chetnik Operation Kopaonik during October 1942. The village of Kriva Reka, the location of Keserović's headquarters, suffered the most: 120 civilians were locked in the village church and burned to death by members of the 7th SS Division. In other villages in Kopaonik 300 civilians were killed; in the villages on Mount Goč 250 civilians were executed.
In villages of Blaževo, Gradac, Bozomina and Domiševine in early December 1942 the united killed 29 villagers and razed 40 homes. In Brekovo near Arilje, they arrested and executed 11 people for founding weapons in some houses. They burned down municipality seat and few other buildings. Crew of SS Prinz Eugen located in Topola arrested over 30 citizens, tortured them into admitting to support Partisans and than executed them. Right before transport to NDH, on January 1, 1943, SS Prinz Eugen arrested 12 and executed 11 people south of Požega[29]
Researchers of the Institute of History in Karlovac established a number of 276 civilian inhabitants of Karlovac area, killed by the 7th SS Division during Operation Weiss I in January 1943.[30][31][32] In February, the division conducted, together with the 369th (Croatian) Infantry Division and the 717th Infantry Division, an assault on Grmeč. Some 15,000 civilian inhabitants broke through the enemy lines together with Partisans, but those left behind were destroyed mercilessly. Another drama of an attack on a refugee column happened on late February near Resanovci, during Operation Weiss II, and resulted with hundreds of victims. According to official postwar investigation, the three divisions were responsible for 3,370 killed civilians, and another 1,722 deported to concentration camps during Operation Weiss.[33]
On 12 July in the Bosnian Muslim village of Rotimlja, near Stolac, the 7th SS Division killed 66 civilians, 25 of which were younger than 15.[36] On the same day, other units of the division killed 68 civilians, 36 younger than 15, in the Muslim village of Košutica, near Sokolac.[37]
During its advancement towards Split, on 17–30 September 1943, the division killed 230 inhabitants of Croatian villages in the Imotski, Sinj and Split areas.[38] After capturing Split, the division executed 48 Italian officers and three generals (General Salvatore Pelligra, commander of the artillery of the XVIII Corps, General Angelo Policardi, commander of the pioneers of the XVIII Corps, and General Alfonso Cigala Fulgosi, commander of the 17th Littoral Brigade).[39] On 5 November, the division executed 25 hostages in Sinj in a retribution for losses.[40]
The 2nd Battalion of the 14th SS Regiment of the division killed 1,525 civilians on 26–30 March 1944, in the villages near Kamešnica near Split, in an action under command of V SS Corps.[41]
It also committed numerous atrocities in the area of Nikšić in Montenegro:
Everything they came across they burnt down, they murdered and pillaged. The officers and men of the SS division Prinz Eugen committed crimes of an outrageous cruelty on this occasion. The victims were shot, slaughtered and tortured, or burnt to death in burning houses. Where a victim was found not in his house but on the road or in the fields some distance away, he was murdered and burnt there. Infants with their mothers, pregnant women and frail old people were also murdered. In short, every civilian met with by these troops in these villages was murdered. In many cases, whole families who, not expecting such treatment or lacking the time for escape, had remained quietly in their homes were annihilated and murdered. Whole families were thrown into burning houses in many cases and thus burnt. It has been established from the investigations entered upon that 121 persons, mostly women, and including 30 persons aged 60–92 years and 29 children of ages ranging from 6 months to 14 years, were executed on this occasion in the horrible manner narrated above. The villages [and then follows the list of the villages] were burnt down and razed to the ground. —Dr. Dušan Nedeljković, Yugoslav State Commission, Document D-940.[42]
SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SSArtur Phleps (30 Jan 1942 – 15 May 1943)
SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SSKarl von Oberkamp (15 May 1943 – 30 Jan 1944)
SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SSOtto Kumm (30 Jan 1944 – 20 Jan 1945)
SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SSAugust Schmidhuber (20 Jan 1945 – 8 May 1945)
Out of the four commanders of the division, one (Phleps) was killed in battle, two of them were sentenced to death by hanging and executed in Belgrade 1947, and the fourth (Kumm) managed to avoid extradition to Yugoslavia by fleeing over the wall of the internment camp of Dachau.[43]
Several members were decorated with high German military awards, including one Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oaks Leaves and Swords awarded to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Otto Kumm when he was the divisional commander. Divisional recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross included the first commander of the division, Artur Phleps and five others, all regimental or battalion commanders. One was awarded posthumously.
The 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside, but was never formally part of, the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar was a mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, an armed branch of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. From March to December 1944, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist puppet state of Germany that encompassed almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of Serbia.
August Schmidhuber was an SS-Brigadeführer who commanded two Waffen-SS divisions in occupied Yugoslavia and Albania during the latter stages of World War II who was executed by the post-war Yugoslav authorities for war crimes. The Waffen-SS was an armed branch of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS – of which Schmidhuber was a senior officer – was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Artur Gustav Martin Phleps was an Austro-Hungarian, Romanian and Nazi German army officer who held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS in the Waffen-SS during World War II. An Austro-Hungarian Army officer before and during World War I, Phleps specialised in mountain warfare and logistics, and had been promoted to Oberstleutnant by the end of the war. During the interwar period he joined the Romanian Army, reaching the rank of General de divizie, and also became an adviser to King Carol. After he spoke out against the government, he was sidelined and asked to be dismissed from the army.
The Banat was a political entity established in 1941 after the occupation and partition of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in the historical Banat region. It was formally under the control of the German puppet Government of National Salvation in Belgrade, which theoretically had limited jurisdiction over all of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, but all power within the Banat was in the hands of the local minority of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche). The regional civilian commissioner and head of the ethnic German minority was Josef Lapp. Following the ousting of Axis forces in 1944, this German-ruled region was dissolved and most of its territory was included into Vojvodina, one of the two autonomous provinces of Serbia within the new SFR Yugoslavia.
The 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The division was composed of German officers and Bosnian Muslim soldiers. Named Kama after a small dagger used by Balkan shepherds, it was one of the thirty-eight divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Formed on 19 June 1944, it was built around a cadre from the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar but did not reach its full strength and never saw action as a formation.
Otto Kumm was a German military officer who commanded two Waffen-SS divisions in the latter stages of World War II and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS – of which Kumm was a senior officer – was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the war, Kumm became one of the founders of HIAG, a lobby group and a revisionist organization of former Waffen-SS members.
The 24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Karstjäger was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Named Karstjäger, the formation was one of the 38 divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS. Formed on 18 July 1944 from the SS Volunteer Karstwehr Battalion, its nominal strength was never more than theoretical and the division was soon reduced to the Waffen Mountain Brigade of the SS. Throughout its existence as a battalion, division and brigade, it was primarily involved in fighting partisans in the Karst Plateau on the frontiers of Yugoslavia, Italy, and Austria; the mountainous terrain required specialised mountain troops and equipment.
Desiderius Hampel was a SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS during World War II who commanded the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar and was possibly awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz), the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. After the war the Yugoslavian government asked for his extradition to charge him with war crimes, but he managed to escape from a British internment camp.
The Operation Kopaonik was a large-scale Axis offensive launched against the Mihailović's Chetniks in Axis occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The operation was inspired by Heinrich Himmler who believed that the annihilation of Draža Mihailović and his forces was a basis for a success in Serbia and South East Europe. Since Dragutin Keserović and his Rasina Corps was probably the most active commander of Mihailovićs Chetniks in Serbia, the newly established 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was engaged to participate in Operation Kopaonik to destroy Keserović and Chetnik unit under his command.
The 369th (Croatian) Infantry Division was a legionary division of the German Army (Wehrmacht) during World War II.
The 373rd (Croatian) Infantry Division was a division of the German Army during World War II. It was formed in June 1943 using a brigade from the Home Guard of the Independent State of Croatia with the addition of a German cadre. The division was commanded by Germans down to battalion and even company level in nearly all cases, and was commonly referred to as a "legionnaire division". Originally formed with the intention of service on the Eastern Front, it was used instead for anti-Partisan operations in the territory of the NDH until the end of the war. It fought mainly in the western areas of the NDH, and was involved in the attempt to kill or capture the leader of the Partisans, Josip Broz Tito, in May 1944. Severely depleted by desertion, the division withdrew towards the Reich border in the early months of 1945, eventually surrendering to the Partisans on 10 May 1945 near Brežice in modern-day Slovenia.
The 1st Proletarian Brigade, later the 1st Proletarian Division, was the first brigade-size formation raised by the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. The unit was one of the elite formations of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. Its combat value was respected by the enemy. Artur Phleps, V SS Mountain Corps commander, in his war journal in 1944 assessed as a serious opponent, very well managed and well trained, who fights like a regular troop.
Dragutin Keserović was a Yugoslav Chetnik military commander holding the rank of lieutenant colonel and vojvoda during World War II. Keserović was likely the most active commander of Mihailović's Chetniks in Serbia.
Polizei Selbstschutz Regiment Sandschak, also known as the Krempler Legion was a unit established on the territory of Sandžak by the senior Waffen-SS officer Karl von Krempler under the command of Hoxha Patchariz in Axis occupied Yugoslavia. Krempler went to the Sandžak region in October and reorganized the local volunteer militia of around 5,000 anti-communist, anti-Serb Muslim men headquartered in Sjenica.
Aleksandar "Aca" Mišić was a Royal Serbian Army officer in World War I and a Chetnik in World War II.
Operation Rübezahl was the name of 3 German anti-partisan operations in Yugoslavia during World War II. The first operation announced the beginning of a strategic retreat by Nazi German troops from Serbia after the front change of Romania and Bulgaria.
The Einsatzstaffel der Deutschen Mannschaft (EDM) was a military unit of the Axis puppet state the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), whose members were ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) who lived in Slavonia and Syrmia. The EDM was part of the Ustaše Militia.
Richard Kaaserer was an Austrian SS-Oberführer and Oberst of Police who served in the Waffen-SS, and as an SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in Serbia and Norway during the Second World War. After the war, he was executed for war crimes in Yugoslavia.
The Velika massacre was the mass killing of between 428 and 550 Serb civilians by the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen and 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg on 28 July 1944 in the settlement of Velika, in Plav, Montenegro during World War II.
↑ The Chetniks were a threat to the Germans because they were able to break the German road communications and interfere with the movement of war materiel intended for Erwin Rommel's forces in the Second Battle of El Alamein—through the Morava−Vardar valley. Losses were inflicted on Keserovićev's detachments and the local population by the constantly pursuing enemy forces.
↑ German combat group "North" marched to the top of Željin, and a secondary group to the top of Kavalj. Combat group "South" conducted a comprehensive movement in the area around Gobelja, located 17km northwest of Raška. Combat group "West" concentrated its forces in the valley 5km from Banje. Combat group "East" took a position west of Brus.
↑ Lampe, John, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country, 2nd ed. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 200.
↑ Cox, John, The history of Serbia, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN0-313-31290-7, pg.90
↑ Merriam, Ray, Waffen-SS, Volume 7 de World War II Arsenal Series, Merriam Press, 1999, ISBN1-57638-168-4, p. 4.
↑ Germany and the second World War, Volume 2; Volume 5, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN0-19-820873-1, p. 175.
↑ Otto Kumm: VORWÄRTS, PRINZ EUGEN! – Geschichte der 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Division "Prinz Eugen", Munin-Verlag, Coburg 1978, page 243.
↑ Mirko Novović, Stevan Petković: PRVA DALMATINSKA PROLETERSKA BRIGADA, Vojnoizdavački zavod, Beograd 1986, pages 176–211 (serbo-croatian)
↑ Schmider, Klaus (2002). Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien 1941–1944 (in German). Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn: Verlag E.S. Mittler & Sohn GmbH. ISBN3-8132-0794-3.
Blagojević, Obren (1996). Piva (in Serbian). Beograd: Stručna knjiga.
Božović, Srđan (2011). Divizija "Princ Eugen"[Division Prinz Eugen] (in Serbian). Pančevo: Narodni muzej Pančevo. ISBN978-86-906039-3-0.
Dedijer, Vladimir; Miletić, Antun (1990). Genocid nad Muslimanima, 1941–1945: zbornik dokumenata i svedočenja[Genocide of Muslims, 1941–1945: A Collection of Documents and Testimonies] (in Serbo-Croatian). Sarajevo, Yugoslavia: Svjetlost. ISBN978-86-01-01829-7.
Fleming, David (2003). Weapons of the Waffen-SS. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing Company. ISBN978-0-7603-1594-1.
Historijski Arhiv Karlovac (1988). Kotar Slunj i kotar Veljun u NOR-u i socijalističkoj izgradnji. 2 (1988)[District Slunj and District Veljun in the National Liberation War and in Socialist Development, book 2] (in Serbo-Croatian). Karlovac: Historijski Arhiv Karlovac. ISBN978-86-80783-02-4.
Hoare, Marko Attila (2006). Genocide and Resistance in Hitler's Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941–1943. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-726380-8.
Lepre, George (1997). Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943–1945. Atglen, Philadelphia: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN0-7643-0134-9.
Lumans, Valdis O. (1993). Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-0-8078-2066-7.
Milazzo, Matteo J. (1975). The Chetnik Movement & the Yugoslav Resistance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN978-0-8018-1589-8.
German Mountain Warfare. Special Series No. 21. Military Intelligence Division. 1944-02-29. OCLC16509592.
Zakić, Mirna (2017). Ethnic Germans and National Socialism in Yugoslavia in World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1-316-77106-8., chapter 8.
Zatezalo, Đuro (1989). Kotar Vojnić u narodnooslobodilačkom ratu i socijalističkoj revoluciji[District Vojnić in the National Liberation War and in Socialist Revolution] (in Serbo-Croatian). Karlovac: Historijski Arhiv Karlovac. ISBN978-86-80783-03-1.
Zatezalo, Đuro (1986). Duga Resa: radovi iz dalje prošlosti, NOB-e i socijalističke izgradnje[Duga Resa: Works on Earlier Past, National Liberation Struggle and Socialist Development] (in Serbo-Croatian). Karlovac: Historijski Arhiv Karlovac. OCLC16565712.
Živković, Milutin (2017). Санџак 1941-1943[Sanžak 1941-1943] (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrade: University of Belgrade.
Glišić, Venceslav (1970). Teror i zločini nacističke Nemačke u Srbiji 1941–1945[Terror and Crimes of Nazi Germany in Serbia 1941–1945] (in Serbo-Croatian). Belgrade: Rad. OCLC9151138.
Further reading
Casagrande, Thomas: Die Volksdeutsche SS-Division "Prinz Eugen", Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2003.
Wittmann, Anna M.: Balkan Nightmare, Boulder, East European Monographs, 2000.
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