Английская Википедия:21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg

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The 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian) 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 developed around the nucleus of an ethnic Albanian battalion which had briefly seen combat against the Yugoslav Partisans in eastern Bosnia as part of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian). Composed of Albanians with mostly German and Yugoslav Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) officers and non-commissioned officers, it was given the title Skanderbeg after medieval Albanian lord George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, who defended the region of Albania against the Ottoman Empire for more than two decades in the 15th century.

Skanderbeg never reached divisional strength, being at most a brigade-sized formation of between 6,000 and 6,500 troops. In May 1944, members of the division arrested 281 Jews in Pristina and handed them over to the Germans, who transported them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. The division itself was better known for this action and for murdering, raping, and looting in predominantly Serb areas than for participating in combat operations on behalf of the German war effort. Its only significant military actions took place during a German anti-Partisan offensive in the German occupied territory of Montenegro in June and July 1944. Following those operations, the unit was deployed as a guard force at the chromium mines in Kosovo, where it was quickly overrun by the Partisans, leading to widespread desertion. Reinforced by German Kriegsmarine personnel and with fewer than 500 Albanians remaining in its ranks, it was disbanded on 1 November 1944. The remaining members were incorporated into the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. After the war, divisional commander SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS August Schmidhuber was found guilty of war crimes by a court in Belgrade and executed in 1947.

History

Background

a male dressed in robes reviewing a parade of soldiers
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, reviewing soldiers of the 13th SS Division in November 1943. The division included an estimated 1,000 Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak who later formed the nucleus of Skanderbeg.

On 7 April 1939, five months prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Kingdom of Italy invaded Albania. The country was overrun in five days, and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III accepted the crown offered by the Parliament of Albania. The Royal Albanian Army was incorporated into the Royal Italian Army and a viceroy was appointed to administer the country as a protectorate.Шаблон:Sfn Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, Italian Albania was expanded to include adjacent parts of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia incorporated mainly from the Yugoslav banovinas (regional subdivisions) of Vardar and Morava.Шаблон:Sfn Most of Kosovo was annexed to Albania, and in the beginning, Albanians living there enthusiastically welcomed the Italian occupation.Шаблон:Sfn Some Kosovo Albanians even suggested that Albanians were "Aryans of Illyrian heritage".Шаблон:Sfn Although officially under Italian rule, the Albanians in Kosovo were given control of the region and encouraged to open Albanian-language schools,Шаблон:Sfn which had been banned by the Yugoslav government.Шаблон:Sfn The Italians also gave the inhabitants Albanian citizenship and allowed them to fly the flag of Albania.Шаблон:Sfn The Royal Italian Army expelled most of the Serbs and Montenegrins that had settled Kosovo during the interwar period.Шаблон:Sfn The Kosovo Albanians despised the Serbs for the oppression they had experienced at their hands during the Balkan Wars, World War I, and under Yugoslav rule.Шаблон:Sfn They took advantage of their changed circumstances, attacked their Serb neighbours, and burned the homes of as many as 30,000 Serb and Montenegrin settlers.Шаблон:Sfn

Albania remained occupied by Italy until its surrender to the Allies in September 1943.Шаблон:Sfn In August of that year, faced with the imminent collapse of the Italian war effort, Germany deployed the 2nd Panzer Army to the Balkans to take over areas previously occupied by Italy. One of the Italian areas seized by the Germans was Albania, where the XXI Mountain Corps of GeneraloberstШаблон:Refn Lothar Rendulic's 2nd Panzer Army had been deployed. A Wehrmacht plenipotentiary general, and a special representative of Heinrich Himmler, SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS und PolizeiШаблон:Refn Josef Fitzthum, were both based in the Albanian capital of Tirana. The Germans took control of all Albanian forces that had been collaborating with the Italians prior to their capitulation, including the Balli Kombëtar, an anti-communist and nationalist militia. The Germans strengthened the Albanian army and gendarmerie, but quickly decided those troops were unreliable.Шаблон:Sfn That year, a number of Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak region were recruited into the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), a Waffen-SS division composed largely of Bosnian Muslims and Croats with mostly German officers, that operated in the puppet Independent State of Croatia (Шаблон:Lang-hr). A key recruiter amongst Albanians for the Waffen-SS was SS-StandartenführerШаблон:Refn Karl von Krempler. For about six months the division included about 1,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak who made up the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment (I/2), which later became the 1st Battalion of the 28th Regiment (I/28).Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The division later recruited a further 500 men from the Sandžak.Шаблон:Sfn The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini assisted in organising and recruiting Muslims into the Waffen-SS and other units.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The Mufti also visited in order to bless and inspect the 13th SS Division,Шаблон:Sfn during which he used the Nazi salute.Шаблон:Sfn

The formation of an Albanian Waffen-SS division was Fitzthum's idea, initially opposed by the German Foreign Ministry representative for the Balkans Hermann Neubacher, and also by the head of the Reich Security Main Office SS-Obergruppenführer und General der PolizeiШаблон:Refn Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who influenced Himmler to shelve it. But the Albanian government supported the idea; in the face of increasing difficulties Himmler soon changed his mind, and in February 1944 the idea received Adolf Hitler's approval.Шаблон:Sfn

Formation

In February 1944, Hitler approved the creation of an Albanian Waffen-SS division that was to serve only inside Kosovo,Шаблон:Sfn and was intended to protect ethnic Albanians but remain under German control.Шаблон:Sfn It was meant to be one of three Muslim Waffen-SS divisions serving in the Balkans, the other two being the 13th SS Division and the 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian).Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Himmler's goal was to expand Waffen-SS recruiting in the Balkans and form two corps of two divisions each, with one corps to operate in the region of Bosnia in the Independent State of Croatia and the other in Albania. These corps would then be combined with the Volksdeutsche 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen and together would form a Balkan Waffen-SS mountain army of five divisions.Шаблон:Sfn

A portrait of a male with a long beard wearing a hat and a fur-collared coat
The division was named after the medieval Albanian warrior Skanderbeg.

In March 1944, Bedri Pejani, the chairman of the Second League of Prizren, an organisation created after the Italian surrender to advance the interests of Kosovo Albanians, proposed to Hitler that a force of 120,000–150,000 Kosovo Albanian volunteers be raised to fight the Yugoslav and Albanian partisans. Pejani asked the German leadership to give the Albanians equipment and supplies to fight the communist insurgency, and requested the expansion of the borders of the German puppet state of Albania at the expense of the German occupied territory of Serbia and the German occupied territory of Montenegro. These requests were not fulfilled.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Nevertheless, in April 1944, Himmler ordered the establishment of the new Albanian volunteer division that Hitler had authorised.Шаблон:Sfn It was subsequently named after the medieval Albanian warrior Skanderbeg.Шаблон:Sfn By this point, the Germans and some members of the Albanian puppet government believed that about 50,000 ethnic Albanians could be recruited to join the Waffen-SS.Шаблон:Sfn The Germans had initially envisioned a force of 10,000–12,000 men for the Albanian SS division.Шаблон:Sfn Himmler saw the Muslim Albanians as a potential source of manpower in Germany's war against the Yugoslav Partisans,Шаблон:Sfn who faced significant difficulties in recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join their ranks.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

On 17 April 1944, the Albanian battalion of the 13th SS Division was transferred via rail directly from combat in Bosnia to Kosovo to form part of the new Albanian division.Шаблон:Refn The head of Waffen-SS recruitment, SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, reported to Himmler that the Albanians "... were quite sad about leaving."Шаблон:Sfn Himmler himself expected "great usefulness" from the unit since the Albanians that fought in the 13th SS Division had proven to be "highly motivated and disciplined" in the fight against the Partisans in the NDH.Шаблон:Sfn After the war, Bosnian Muslim former members of the 13th SS Division stated that while with the division the Albanians had shot unarmed civilians and were "very brutal".Шаблон:Sfn

On 23 May, Fitzthum noted the failure of the Albanian units that had been used in operations against the Partisans. He reported that he had dissolved four Albanian battalions organised by the Wehrmacht, describing most Albanian army and gendarmerie officers as "totally corrupt, unusable, undisciplined and untrainable."Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Efn The Germans found that Kosovo Albanians were more cooperative than Albanians from Albania-proper.Шаблон:Sfn This was mainly because they feared a return to Yugoslav rule.Шаблон:Sfn Thus, many of the division's recruits were Kosovo Albanians, although some were refugees from Albania-proper. The quality of most of these recruits was poor, and only between 6,000 and 6,500 were considered suitable to receive training.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Those that were accepted were a combination of about 1,500 former Royal Yugoslav Army prisoners of war, elements of the failed Albanian army and gendarmerie, volunteers from both pre-war and expanded Albania, and conscripts from families that had more than two sons.Шаблон:Sfn Unlike the Albanians in the Handschar division, who received extensive training in France and then Neuhammer training grounds in Germany, the new recruits underwent a very short training period of only six weeks.Шаблон:Sfn The Albanians may have joined for a range of reasons, including access to modern weapons and military training, to help revise the borders of Albania, revenge, and even the opportunity for looting.Шаблон:Sfn

The enlistment of Albanian civilians was organised in close cooperation with the Albanian puppet government.Шаблон:Sfn In June 1944, Neubacher successfully displaced Pejani, whom he considered "insane".Шаблон:Sfn The Albanian Minister of the Interior and new chairman of the Second League of Prizren, Xhafer Deva, was a key factor in recruiting Albanians for the new division. Fitzthum, who had developed a close friendship with Deva, noted that the right-wing and anti-Serb politician was vital for German recruitment efforts.Шаблон:Sfn In contrast to the 13th SS Division, the use of Islam as an incentive to join the Waffen-SS disappeared completely from the German agenda, while the utilisation of ethnic tensions became much more important. No field imam is documented in the new division and ideological training was avoided entirely, because the Germans feared that such instruction would upset their new recruits.Шаблон:Sfn According to Nazi propaganda, the division was to source its manpower exclusively from Muslim Albanians, but the reality was different.Шаблон:Sfn While the vast majority of the division's Albanians were Bektashi or Sunni Muslims, "several hundred" Albanian Catholics also served in the division.Шаблон:Sfn

Operations

May–August 1944

The division was founded as the 21. Waffen-SS Gebirgsdivision der SS Skanderbeg (albanische Nr.1)Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn on 1 May 1944,Шаблон:Sfn as part of the XXI Mountain Corps. Most or all of the division's officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and specialists were German,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and were mainly provided by the 7th and 13th SS Divisions, which noticeably weakened those formations.Шаблон:Sfn The divisional artillery regiment was formed from the 1st Albanian Artillery Regiment.Шаблон:Sfn The division was placed under the command of SS-Standartenführer August Schmidhuber,Шаблон:Sfn who was promoted to SS-OberführerШаблон:Refn in June.Шаблон:Sfn Members took a religious oath using the Quran, pledging "jihad against unbelievers."Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The division was originally equipped with captured Italian Carro Armato M15/42 tanks, which proved to be unreliable.Шаблон:Sfn Its garrison was located in the town of Prizren.Шаблон:Sfn

a tank with riveted hull and turret
The division was supplied with captured Italian Carro Armato M15/42 tanks, but they proved to be unreliable.

The division was to be responsible for security in Kosovo, including transport routes, the defence of economically important objects such as the chrome ore mines in Kukës and Đakovica, as well as offensive action against Yugoslav Partisans operating in the region. Men who had already served in the 13th SS Division were also deployed as guards at a concentration camp in Pristina.Шаблон:Sfn Early on, it became clear that most of the division's Muslim Albanian members seemed to be interested only in settling scores with their Christian Serb adversaries, who became the target of numerous atrocities.Шаблон:Sfn In order to put a stop to the crimes, the Germans had to disarm battalions of the division in the towns of Peć and Prizren and arrest the Albanian officers, with one commanding officer even being sent to prison in Germany.Шаблон:Sfn On 14 May 1944,Шаблон:Sfn members of the division raided Jewish homes in Pristina, arrested 281 Jews and handed them over to the Germans, who sent them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed.Шаблон:Sfnm The historian Noel Malcolm describes this event as "the most shameful episode in Kosovo's wartime history."Шаблон:Sfn The division was later involved in a massacre of Albanian partisans.Шаблон:Sfn It was also responsible for the expulsion of up to 10,000 Slavic families from Kosovo as new Albanian settlers arrived from the poor areas of northern Albania.Шаблон:Sfn The arrival of these Albanians was encouraged by Italian authorities, and it is estimated that as many as 72,000 Albanians were settled or re-settled in Kosovo during the war.Шаблон:Sfn Between 28 May and 5 July 1944, the division apprehended a total of 510 Jews, communists and other anti-fascists and turned them over to the Germans. It also carried out retaliatory hangings of suspected saboteurs.Шаблон:Sfn

In June 1944, Skanderbeg engaged in large-scale field manoeuvres in eastern Montenegro.Шаблон:Sfn In Andrijevica, the division summarily executed more than 400 Orthodox Christian civilians.Шаблон:Sfn It participated in Operations Endlich (Finally) and Falkenauge (Hawkeye)Шаблон:Sfn in June and July, as well as Operation Draufgänger (Daredevil),Шаблон:Sfn the first phase of Operation Rübezahl, which ran from 5 to 22 August.Шаблон:Sfn During Operation Draufgänger Skanderbeg was the main force used by the Germans.Шаблон:Sfn These operations were focused on the destruction of strong Partisan forces in the Đakovica, Peć and Mokra Gora areas.Шаблон:Sfn By the end of Operation Draufgänger, more than 400 men of the division had deserted or otherwise gone missing.Шаблон:Sfn According to Neubacher, the division was carelessly committed to fighting in the early stages of its training and performed poorly.Шаблон:Sfn Between 18 and 27 August, the division fought the Partisans in and around Debar but failed to capture the city.Шаблон:Sfn During the summer of 1944, Deva was sidelined within the League. Fitzthum was so concerned about the impact that this would have on the development of the division that he wrote to Himmler.Шаблон:Sfn By the end of August 1944, the Germans had decided that the division was only of use for basic guarding duties.Шаблон:Sfn Some members were charged with guarding chromium mines near Kosovo before the area was overrun by the Partisans. In the ensuing clashes, one of the division's regiments lost more than 1,000 men and many Albanians deserted.Шаблон:Sfn Some of the desertions occurred after a Partisan offensive northeast of Gusinje.Шаблон:Sfn Army Group E reported that the division's performance showed that it had "absolutely no military value."Шаблон:Sfn

September–November 1944

On 1 September 1944, members of the division stationed in Tetovo and Gostivar mutinied, killing their German officers and NCOs.Шаблон:Sfn By this time, the division numbered fewer than 7,000 men, less than one third of its intended strength.Шаблон:Sfn Within two months of its initial deployment, 3,500 had deserted. Himmler brought in 3,000–4,000 Kriegsmarine (German navy) personnel from Greece to make up the numbers, but this had little effect on the division's fighting ability.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The desertions were mainly caused by Germany's defeats, serious shortfalls in food and equipment, as well as from observing constant overflights by the United States Army Air Force, Allied propaganda, and the approaching end of Germany's military hegemony in the Balkans. Further reasons for the escalating number of desertions included the news that both Bulgaria and Romania had joined the Allies, Josip Broz Tito's amnesty which ended on 15 September, and a demand by Albania's Party of Labour that fighting-age men join the National Liberation Front.Шаблон:Sfn

By the beginning of October 1944, the division's strength had fallen to about 4,900 men, fewer than 1,500 of whom were fit for combat.Шаблон:Sfn Between April and October, 3,425 had deserted, constituting over half the division's strength. Schmidhuber reported that even the 697 members of the battalion that had served in the 13th SS Division had deserted.Шаблон:Sfn The unit was blighted by shortages of equipment and armaments, and a lack of German staff to train new recruits, as demonstrated by the fact that over the summer and autumn only a single battalion had been readied for combat.Шаблон:Sfn Schmidhuber held his men in contempt, and he, his superiors, and Fitzthum attempted to justify their failure to create an effective security force by denigrating the Albanians' culture and military reputation.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Schmidhuber also linked the failure of the division to the lack of time for proper military training, ideological training and the absence of suitable instructors.Шаблон:Sfn Later, less-involved members of the Wehrmacht stated that the principal issue regarding the unit's reliability may have been that the Germans did not work closely with the Albanians at the local level.Шаблон:Sfn In mid-October, the division was engaged in heavy fighting around Đakovica.Шаблон:Sfn It also aided the Wehrmacht in its orderly withdrawal from Kosovo, covering the Wehrmacht's flanks and engaging the Partisans.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn By this time, desertions had significantly affected the division's strength, and its 86 officers and 467 NCOs were left with a force of only 899 men, about half of whom were Albanian.Шаблон:Sfn On 24 October, Generaloberst Alexander Löhr, the commander of Army Group E, ordered that all Albanian members of the division be disarmed and released.Шаблон:Sfn Between 19 September and 23 October, 131 anti-fascist guerrillas had been shot or hanged by members of the division acting on Schmidhuber's orders.Шаблон:Sfn

On 1 November 1944, the division was disbanded.Шаблон:Sfn Kosovo Albanians took up arms against the Partisans upon learning that the region would not be unified with Albania after the war, despite earlier Partisan promises. Atrocities occurred when 30,000 Partisans were sent to Kosovo to quell Albanian resistance in the region.Шаблон:Sfn Between 3,000 and 25,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed in the ensuing violence.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn

Aftermath and legacy

The remaining German troops and former naval personnel were reorganised as the regimental Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfred Graf. The unit withdrew from the Kosovo region in mid-November along with the rest of the German troops in the area.Шаблон:Sfn Many Serbs and Montenegrins then took revenge against the region's ethnic Albanians, especially collaborators and those who had been members of the division.Шаблон:Sfn In his strongly apologetic history of the 7th SS Division, which he commanded at the time,Шаблон:Sfn Otto Kumm wrote that Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg reached Ljubovija on the Drina river, it was placed under the command of the 7th SS Division, which was securing the river crossings in that area.Шаблон:Sfn According to Kumm, the Kampfgruppe held the towns of Zvornik and Drinjača during the first half of December 1944 as part of the Ljubovija bridgehead. It withdrew across the Drina and fought its way north, towards Brčko on the Sava river, where it relieved the Wehrmacht forces holding the town.Шаблон:Sfn In late December, the Kampfgruppe's assault gun battery was committed to the Syrmian Front at Vinkovci.Шаблон:Sfn The remainder of the Kampfgruppe was deployed to Bijeljina.Шаблон:Sfn

In January 1945,Шаблон:Sfn the handful of naval personnel that survivedШаблон:Sfn were transferred to the 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division 30 Januar,Шаблон:Sfn and the remnants of the former division were reorganised as II Battalion of the 14th SS Volunteer Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 7th SS Division. On 21 January 1945, Schmidhuber was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS and placed in command of the 7th SS Division.Шаблон:Sfn After the war, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged.Шаблон:Sfn In February 1945, the battalion was disbanded altogether and its remaining manpower was assigned to the German police regiment near Zagreb.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn

The division itself was considered to have been a military failure.Шаблон:Sfn Not one of its members was awarded an Iron Cross while serving in it.Шаблон:Sfn Schmidhuber and the staff of XXI Mountain Corps blamed the division's failure solely on the Albanian personnel. Schmidhuber claimed that Albanians had stagnated culturally since Skanderbeg's time in the fifteenth century, and both he and the corps staff claimed that the Albanians had not developed national or state traditions. Schmidhuber argued that the legend of Albanian military achievements was just a saga.Шаблон:Sfn Further, he claimed that "[w]ith a light mortar you can basically chase him [the Albanian] around the world. During the attack he goes only as far as he finds something to steal or sack. For him, the war is over when he captures a goat, a ploughshare or the wheel of a sewing machine."Шаблон:Sfnm Fitzthum was one of the harshest critics of their soldiers. Fitzthum complained to Hitler personally: 'For the currently existing Albanian formations an alteration in the future cannot be expected to be brought about even by thorough training. They will never become a serious and employable troop'. Fitzthum went as far as saying that "the Albanian soldier is undisciplined and cowardly".Шаблон:Sfn Fitzthum additionally angrily wrote to Himmler, that one battalion dissolved after being attacked by a few planes and the rest just disappeared.Шаблон:Sfn Professor Paul Mojzes writes that the division was better known for committing atrocities against Serbs than it was for contributing to the German war effort.Шаблон:Sfn Its role in deporting Jews from Kosovo has been challenged by the Albanian historian Shaban Sinani, who claims that the division did not participate in any deportations on the Germans' behalf.Шаблон:Sfn David Patterson, a historian specializing in anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, writes that the division "played a major role in rendering the Balkans Judenrein in the winter of 1943–1944."Шаблон:Sfn It was reported that some soldiers from the division deserted the division to join the partisan unit led by Gani Kryeziu after refusing to fight it.Шаблон:Sfn

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.Шаблон:Sfn Excluded from this judgement were those who were conscripted into the Waffen-SS and had not personally committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.Шаблон:Sfn

During the Kosovo War of 1998–1999, the American journalist Chris Hedges alleged that some Kosovo Liberation Army leaders were directly descended from members of the division and were ideologically influenced by it.Шаблон:Sfn Malcolm has challenged this claim.Шаблон:Sfn

Insignia

The division's identification symbol, used on its vehicles, was a black Albanian double-headed eagle.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Despite its short existence, a collar patch depicting the goat-crested helmet of Skanderbeg was designed and manufactured for the division, but it was withdrawn from service after a trial as it was unrecognisable from a distance. As a result, officers of the division wore the collar patch with the SS runes, and enlisted ranks wore a plain black collar patch.Шаблон:Sfn Photographs exist of a machine-woven cuff band with the title Skanderbeg,Шаблон:Sfn but this was awarded to the 14th SS Volunteer Gebirgsjäger Regiment of the 7th SS Division in the latter part of 1944, and not to this division.Шаблон:Sfn Albanian members of the division wore an arm shield on their upper left arm depicting a black Albanian double-headed eagle on a red shield with black backing.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Many of the division's Muslim members wore traditional grey-coloured skull caps with the SS eagle and death's head on the front instead of the standard SS field cap.Шаблон:Sfn Others wore the traditional Albanian highlander hat, the qeleshe.Шаблон:Sfn

Order of battle

The principal units of the division and order of battle were:Шаблон:Sfn

  • 50th Waffen Gebirgsjäger (Mountain Infantry) Regiment of the SS (1st Albanian) (I, II, III battalions)
  • 51st Waffen Gebirgsjäger Regiment of the SS (2nd Albanian) (I, II, III battalions)
  • 21st SS Reconnaissance Battalion (four companies)
  • 21st SS Freiwilligen (Volunteer) Panzerjäger (Anti-tank) Battalion (three companies)
  • 21st SS Gebirgs (Mountain) Artillery Regiment (four battalions)
  • 21st SS Freiwilligen Pioneer Battalion (three companies)
  • 21st SS Feldersatz (Replacement) Battalion
  • 21st SS Freiwilligen Signals Battalion (three companies)
  • 21st SS Mountain Supply Troop

See also

Footnotes

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Citations

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References

Books

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Websites

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Further reading

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