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.
The Black Legion, officially the 1st Standing Active Brigade, was an Ustaše militia infantry unit active during World War II in Independent State of Croatia. The legion was formed in September 1941 as the 1st Ustaša Regiment. It consisted largely of Bosnian and Croatian refugees from eastern Bosnia, where large massacres were carried out by Chetniks and to a small degree by the Yugoslav Partisans. It became known for its fierce fighting against the Chetniks and the Partisans and massacres against Serb civilians. The legion's commanders were Colonel Jure Francetić and Major Rafael Boban. It consisted of between 1,000 and 1,500 trained mechanized infantrymen.
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.
The Serbian Volunteer Corps, also known as Ljotićevci, was the paramilitary branch of the fascist political organisation Zbor, and collaborated with the forces of Nazi Germany in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II.
Marko Mesić was a decorated gunnery officer who served in the armies of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Independent State of Croatia, and the SFR Yugoslavia. He is best known for being the final commander of Croatian legionnaires in World War II, serving in the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in the Battle of Stalingrad, and later joining Yugoslav People's Army.
The Slovene Home Guard was a Slovene anti-Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries, part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice.
World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country 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 communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.
The 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment was a regiment of the German Army raised to fight on the Eastern Front during World War II. The regiment was formed in July 1941 from Croatian volunteers from the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), including a Bosnian Muslim battalion, it was commonly referred to as the Croatian Legion. The troops swore a joint oath of allegiance to the Führer, the Poglavnik, the German Reich and the NDH. The unit was sent to the Russian front where it was attached to the 100. Jäger-Division. In 1943, as part of the 6th Army, it was the only non-German unit to participate in the battle of Stalingrad where it was virtually destroyed. On 31 January 1943, the 800 surviving Croatian legionaries, led by their commander Marko Mesić, surrendered to the Red Army.
Ernest Peterlin was a Slovene military officer who rose to a senior position in the Royal Yugoslav Army prior to the Second World War. Married to Anja Roman Rezelj. A decided anti-Communist, during the war he became a prominent anti-Partisan military leader and one of the main exponents of the pro-Western faction of the Slovene Home Guard, an anti-Communist collaborationist militia active in parts of German-occupied Slovenia between 1943 and 1945. In 1945, he was tried and sentenced to death by the new Yugoslav Communist authorities and executed in 1946.
The 101st Jäger Division was a light infantry Division of the German Army in World War II. It was formed in July 1942 by the redesignation of the 101st Light Infantry Division, which was itself formed in December 1940. The Walloon Legion was briefly attached to this division from December 1941 to January 1942. The Division took part in the Battle of Kharkov, the Battle of the Caucasus, and the retreat into the Kuban, where it suffered heavy losses fighting both the Red Army and partisans. The division was then involved in the battles in the Kuban bridgehead before being evacuated. The 101st was subsequently transferred to the lower Dnieper River in late 1943. It was part of the 1st Panzer Army that was surrounded in March 1944; it formed the rear guard for the XLVI Panzer Corps during the breakout of the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. The division then retreated across Ukraine. In October 1944, it was moved to Slovakia and took part in the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
117th Jäger Division was a German infantry division of World War II. The division was formed in April 1943 by the reorganization and redesignation of the 717th Infantry Division. The 717th Division had been formed in April 1941. It was transferred to Yugoslavia in May 1941, to conduct anti partisan and Internal security operations.
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.
The Free Arabian Legion was the collective name of several Nazi German units formed from Arab volunteers from the Middle East, notably Iraq, and North Africa during World War II.
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.
The Government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Exile was an official government of Yugoslavia, headed by King Peter II. It evacuated from Belgrade in April 1941, after the Axis invasion of the country, and went first to Greece, then to Palestine, then to Egypt and finally, in June 1941, to the United Kingdom, and hence it is also referred to as the "Government in London".
Husein "Huska" Miljković was a Bosniak 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 Bosniak 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 Bosniak anti-communists within his militia to assassinate him in May 1944.
After the fall of Greece to the Axis powers in April–May 1941, elements of the Greek Armed Forces managed to escape to the British-controlled Middle East. There they were placed under the Greek government in exile, and continued the fight alongside the Allies until the liberation of Greece in October 1944. These are known in Greek history as the Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East.
Yugoslav Army Outside the Homeland is the term for members of the Royal Yugoslav Army who managed to escape capture in the April War. This part of the Yugoslav Аrmy numbered about 980 to 1158 people, mostly members of the navy and air force, who were stationed in Egypt and the Middle East. Only this part of the army was under the direct command of the Yugoslav government-in-exile.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia