Slovenians in waffen-ss

[Henrik Andersson]

Croat fight in waffen-ss.
Serbians fight in waffen-ss.
Bosnians fight in waffen-ss.
Albaninans fight in waffen-ss.
But slovenians?
Try to finde info, but dont finde nothing.

[TPMM]

24. Waffen-Gebirgs-(Karstjäger) Division der SS - this is an answer for your question.

[Henrik Andersson]

More info please!

[sid guttridge]

Hi HA,

Serbians fought in the Waffen-SS?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Annelie]

Yes, Slovenians did serve in the waffen ss

" http://www.srpska-mreza.com/handzar/handzar.htm "

apparently 6,000.

Try Foreign Legions of the Third Reich by David Littlejohn.

Actually I happen to know one personally whom fought in Russia
but not with the foreign legions.

[Henrik Andersson]

Serbiches Freiwlillingen Korps SDK tranform to waffen-ss 9/11 1945.
But no ss-symbol was wearing.

Thanks fore info about slovenians. If somebody now more please send more.

[sid guttridge]

Hi HA,

So the Serbs were co-opted into the Waffen-SS rather than fought for it?

Cheers,

Sid.

[pzrmeyer2]

Hi HA,

So the Serbs were co-opted into the Waffen-SS rather than fought for it?

Cheers,

Sid.

this is new to me too. Anyone know approx how many Serbs fought for/in the Waffen SS?

I would think the numbers are miniscule, especially any Krajina or Bosnian Serbs.

[Annelie]

The assal state of Serbia was under a German military administation
headed by General Heinrich Danckelmann, but was, like the "Proctectorate"
of Bohemia Moravia, allowed to have its own civil government with powers to raise a prescribed number of internal security troops. Prime Minister Milan Nedic, a former chief of staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army, might be compared to Petain in France iinsofar as the favored cooperation with the Germans iin order to prevent his country from falling prey to communist influence. The German authorities were willing to aalow the arming of up to 10,000 men for self-defense purposes obviously this would ease the burden of their own troop security.

A. the Serbian State Guard S.D.S. An armed police force or gendarmerie, which incorporated the Drina and Danube Regiments of the former Royal Yugoslave Gendarmerie. It had strength of 153 officers and 1,779 other ranks.

b. the Serbian Frontier Guard or S.G.S. This was a static frontier defense force.

c. The Serbian Vounteer corps or S.D.K. This was th emost overtly collaborationists of the three. It consisted largely of members of pre war Yugoslav fascist party known simply as Zbor or of its youthful Command, it was formed in Belgrade in Septemberr l941. It was popularly referred to as the Ljoticevci after its commander, the erstwhile Zbor chief, Dimitrije Ljotic. The S.D.K. consisted of 12 companies, each of about 120 to 150 men. In Jan. l943 when the name Volunteer Corps replaced Volunteer Command, the formation was reorganized into five battalions, each with three companies. Early in l944, the five battalions were expaned into five regiments (of three battalions each, except the 5th Regiment which had only one). At the same time an artillery division (it was, in fact only about 500 men) was added. Arms for the S.D.K. were supplied both by the Serbian government and the German Military authorities.

As was previously stated the S.D.K. was absorbed into the waffen SS on 27th Nov. l944 . In March 1945 it was rechristened the Serbian S.S.

[TPMM]

Chris Bishop in 'Hitler's foreign divisions' writes, that there were approx. 10 000 Serbians in SS.
As Annelie wrote, there was SDK organisation, absorbed into SS on 27th Nov. 1944. While absorbed, it was renamed as Serbisches Freiwilligen Korps. It's soldiers were using German equipment, but dressed in pre-war uniforms of Jugoslavian Republic without SS insingnia on them. But SFK was a part of SS.
SDK and later SFK were fighting against growing partisant forces in Jugoslavia. In march 1945 SFK withdrew into Austria and later surrendered to British Army. Brits gave all Serbs into Tito's soldiers hands' and most of ex-SSmen were executed.



Division I mentioned earlier, 24. Waffen-Geb.-(Karst) Div. der SS, was the division were Slovenians fought for.

[Marko]

The number of Slovenian volunteers in Waffen-SS is negligible and estimated at most in several hundreds, nothing near the unsourced figure of 6,000 mention above. It's however true that after the victory over Yugoslavia Germany de facto annexed the northern part of Slovenia and began drafting men into Wermacht, part of whom were from late 1942/ early 1943 onwards being procured by the Waffen-SS, when the latter abandoned its exclusively volunteer concept. After the fall of Italy in 1943 another potential source for Waffen-SS recruitment emerged with the creation of Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland in the parts previously occupied by Italy. The able bodied men had to volunteer for service either in local defense formations, Waffen-SS, RAD, etc. The number of volunteers for W-SS (among Slovenes) was very low so it was then planned to transform the Slovenian Home Guard into a Waffen-SS division but due to the negative reaction among their Slovene counterparts (Rupnik) the idea was abandoned altogether. In this regards there was also an individual initiative by the commander of SS-Karstwehrbataillon (the predecessor of SS-Karstjäger-Brigade) SS-Staf. Brand to expand his unit by absorbing Slovene volunteers, he even took initial steps by absorbing a small group of Slovenian domobranci attached to his command, what would eventually be the reason for his dismissal. Authors of various text on the SS-Karstjägers (Corbatti, Michaelis, Munoz) all claim that among other nationalities Slovenians also served in the unit, unfortunately these are both unspecified and unsourced, so there's no way in telling how many really served and in any case the number is small.

As for the Serbs, the SDK or SFK isn't regarded as a Waffen-SS unit, its status is similar to the XV.Kossaken Korps; these units were administered by the Waffen-SS but not integrated into it, so you can't count these men as proper Waffen-SS volunteers. See also this excellent article on SDK: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=90 .

Marko

[Henrik Andersson]

How many slovenians fight in Karstjäger?

[pzrmeyer2]

It's however true that after the victory over Yugoslavia Germany de facto annexed the northern part of Slovenia and began drafting men into Wermacht, part of whom were from late 1942/ early 1943 onwards being procured by the Waffen-SS, when the latter abandoned its exclusively volunteer concept

weren't these mostly Volksdeutche who inhabited these areas as opposed to ethnic slovenes?

[Marko]

It's however true that after the victory over Yugoslavia Germany de facto annexed the northern part of Slovenia and began drafting men into Wermacht, part of whom were from late 1942/ early 1943 onwards being procured by the Waffen-SS, when the latter abandoned its exclusively volunteer concept

weren't these mostly Volksdeutche who inhabited these areas as opposed to ethnic slovenes?

According to statistics of the Deutsche Kulturbund, prepared for internal purposes, roughly 28,000 Volksdeutsche lived in the entire Slovenia in January 1941 and according to the Yugoslav census from 1931 - cca. 25,000. About half of these belonged to the so-called Gotschee enclave (in the Italian part), which were in 1941/42 forced by the German authorities to resettle in the German part of Slovenia vacated by forced deportations of Slovenes. The entire population of the German part numbered about 800,000.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

This subject has come up on Feldgrau before.

From memory, it was mentioned then that one of the German Army's assault gun "aces" was a Slovene.

I will try to dig it out.

Cheers,

sid.