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 as well as parts of Serbia. It was given the title Handschar after a local fighting knife or sword carried by Ottoman policemen during the centuries that the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was the first non-Germanic Waffen-SS division, and its formation marked the expansion of the Waffen-SS into a multi-ethnic military force. Composed of Bosnian Muslims with some Catholic Croat soldiers and mostly German and Yugoslav Volksdeutsche officers and non-commissioned officers, it took an oath of allegiance to both Adolf Hitler and the Croatian leader Ante Pavelić.
The Croatian Home Guard was the land army part of the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.
Operation Southeast Croatia was a large-scale German-led counter-insurgency operation conducted in the southeastern parts of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. It was the first of two German-led operations targeting mainly Yugoslav Partisans in eastern Bosnia between 15 January and 4 February 1942. Several days after the conclusion of Operation Southeast Croatia, a follow-up operation known as Operation Ozren was carried out between the Bosna and Spreča rivers. Both operations also involved Croatian Home Guard and Italian troops and are associated with what is known as the Second Enemy Offensive in post-war Yugoslav historiography. The Second Enemy Offensive forms part of the Seven Enemy Offensives framework in Yugoslav historiography.
Operation Trio was the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation of World War II conducted in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which included modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was carried out in two phases within eastern Bosnia from 20 April to 13 May 1942, with Ustaše militia and Croatian Home Guard forces taking part on the Axis side. The aim of the operation was to target all insurgents between Sarajevo and the Drina river in eastern Bosnia. These included the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and Serb nationalist Chetniks. Differentiating between the rank and file of the two insurgent factions was difficult, as even the communist-led insurgent groups consisted mainly of Serb peasants who had little understanding of the political aims of their leaders.
The Seven Enemy Offensives is a group name used in Yugoslav historiography to refer to seven major Axis military operations undertaken during World War II in Yugoslavia against the Yugoslav Partisans.
World War II in Yugoslavia refers to World War II military operations that occurred on the territory of the then-Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Conflict in Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans, on orders from Moscow, launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustashas and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.
The Kozara Offensive was fought in 1942 on and around the mountain of Kozara in northwestern Bosnia. It was an important battle of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement in World War II. It later became an integral part of Yugoslav post-war mythology, which celebrated the courage and martyrdom of outnumbered and outgunned Partisans and civilians. Certain sources mistakenly identify the Kozara Offensive as part of Operation Trio.
Operation Alfa was an offensive carried out in early October 1942 by Italian, Croatian and Chetnik forces against the communist-led Partisans in the Prozor region, then a part of the Croatian puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The operation was militarily inconclusive, and in the aftermath, Chetnik forces conducted mass killings of civilians in the area.
Mladen Stojanović was a Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav physician who led a detachment of Partisans on and around Mount Kozara in northwestern Bosnia during World War II in Yugoslavia. He was posthumously bestowed the Order of the People's Hero.
The 392nd (Croatian) Infantry Division was a so-called "legionnaire" division of the German Army during World War II. It was formed in August 1943 using Croatian Home Guard soldiers with a German cadre. The division was commanded by Germans down to battalion and even company level in nearly all cases. Originally formed with the intention of service on the Eastern Front, this did not eventuate, and the division was used in anti-Partisan operations in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) until the end of the war. It was commonly known as the Blue Division.
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 Ustaše militia was the military branch of the Ustaše, established by the fascist regime of Ante Pavelić in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis puppet state established from a large part of occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.
Petar Baćović was a Bosnian Serb Chetnik commander within occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. From the summer of 1941 until April 1942, he headed the cabinet of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Milan Nedić's puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. In May and June 1942, Baćović participated in the joint Italian-Chetnik offensive against the Yugoslav Partisans in Montenegro In July 1942, Baćović was appointed by the Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović and his Supreme Command as the commander of the Chetnik units in the regions of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. In this role, Baćović continued collaborating with the Italians against the Yugoslav Partisans, with his Chetniks formally recognised as Italian auxiliaries from mid-1942.
Srb uprising was a rebellion against the Independent State of Croatia that began on 27 July 1941 in Srb, a village in the region of Lika. The uprising was started by the local population as a response to persecutions of Serbs by the Ustaše and was led by Chetniks and Yugoslav Partisans. It soon spread across Lika and Bosanska Krajina. During the uprising numerous war crimes were committed against local Croat and Muslim population, especially in the area of Kulen Vakuf. As NDH forces lacked the strength to suppress the uprising, the Italian Army, which was not a target of the rebels, expanded its zone of influence to Lika and parts of Bosanska Krajina.
The Hadžiefendić Legion or Muslim Legion was a Bosniak self-defence militia and Croatian Home Guard unit based in the predominantly Muslim Tuzla region of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. The brigade–sized force was formally a "Volunteer Home Guard Regiment", and was raised in late December 1941 under the command of the former Royal Yugoslav Army reservist Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić, who had been commissioned into the Croatian Home Guard. By the end of the year, the Legion had commenced forming battalions in six towns in northeastern Bosnia.
Uroš Drenović was a Bosnian Serb military commander in the central Bosnia region of the puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), led by the fascist Ustaše, during World War II. After distinguishing himself in resisting the Ustaše alongside communist-led rebels, Drenović betrayed the communist-led Partisans and began to collaborate with the Ustaše, Italians and Germans against them.
Husein "Huska" Miljković was a Bosnian Muslim military commander who fought with various military formations in Yugoslavia during World War II. A communist politician during the interwar period, he joined the Yugoslav Partisans following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia but defected to the Ustaše in mid-1941. He defected back to the Partisans in December 1941 and was made leader of communist forces in northwestern Bosnia during 1942. Following a political disagreement, he defected to the Ustaše yet again in February 1943 and was given command of 100 soldiers. He formed his own 3,000-strong Bosnian Muslim militia with the help of the Germans and Croats in late 1943. He agreed to align himself with the Partisans once again in early 1944, prompting Muslim anti-communists within his militia to assassinate him in May 1944.
The 1942 Montenegro offensive was an Italian-led counter-insurgency operation of World War II, which targeted the Yugoslav Partisans in the Italian governorate of Montenegro and the eastern Herzegovina region of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). It was carried out from mid-May to June 1942, with Chetnik forces taking part on the Italian side. The offensive followed the conclusion of the joint German-Italian Operation Trio in eastern Bosnia. Together these two operations comprise what was known as the Third Enemy Offensive in Yugoslav historiography.
The Partisan Long March was the redeployment of Josip Broz Tito's Partisan Supreme Headquarters and the major fighting elements of the Yugoslav Partisans across the Independent State of Croatia, from south-eastern to north-western Bosnia that commenced in late June 1942. The march followed the first large-scale joint German-Italian counter-insurgency operation in the NDH, Operation Trio, and the combined Italian-Montenegrin Chetnik offensive in Montenegro and eastern Herzegovina.
Germany 
Independent State of Croatia 
Partisans 
