23rd Waffen Mountain Division of The SS Kama (2nd Croatian) - History

History

The Germans wanted to establish a second Muslim SS division, as Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had a goal to expand Waffen SS recruiting in the Balkans and form two territorial corps of two divisions each in both the Bosnian region of the Independent State of Croatia and Albania, which with the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen would form a Balkan SS mountain army of five divisions.

On 28 May 1944, Adolf Hitler gave his formal approval for the creation of the division, and its formation began on 19 June. It was initially to be created and trained in Bosnia but Himmler, following the advice of the then commander of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), SS Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of Waffen SS Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig, agreed to form the division in the neighbouring Bačka region of southern Hungary instead. Sauberzweig believed Ustaše interference would undermine the morale of the recruits. Orders were given to SS Handschar to provide a cadre for the new division, and SS Standartenführer Hellmuth Raithel, commander of the 28th Waffen Mountain Infantry Regiment of SS (2nd Croatian) of SS Handschar, was appointed as the new division's commanding officer. On 21 June, Himmler promoted Sauberzweig to SS Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of Waffen SS and appointed him to command the Bosnian territorial corps, the IX Waffen Mountain Corps of the SS (Croatian), which was to form in Bácsalmás, Hungary.

Beginning on 23 June, nearly 1400 men of SS Handschar that had been selected for transfer to SS Kama were assembled in Bošnjaci in northern Srijem and were moved to southern Hungary in mid-July. They included three non-commissioned officers from every company of SS Handschar. The 10,000 men necessary to form the division were to be obtained through a combination of volunteers, conscription of Muslims born in 1926 and 1927 who had not volunteered for particular Ustaše units, and if necessary, from the various Muslim militias in the Independent State of Croatia. These men were to be made available to the Germans by 15 September 1944. However, by mid-August, the key Waffen SS recruiting officer SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger reported to Himmler that there were insufficient reliable Muslim men available, and Catholic Croats would also be accepted into SS Kama.

During Ante Pavelić's visit to Hitler in September 1944, General Đuro Grujić, chief of Pavelić's Military Office, indicated to the Germans that it would be difficult to recruit another 5,000 men to complete the division given the fact that 5,000 had already been assigned.

By September, morale was waning within SS Kama just as it completed the final phase of its training in Hungary. Rumours that the Germans were going to abandon the Balkans and leave the Muslims to defend themselves, along with the deteriorating military situation, both contributed to this. Due to high rates of desertion from SS Handschar, Sauberzweig proposed a plan to disarm the Bosnians in both SS Handschar and SS Kama, but Himmler instead opted for a plan to transport the 2,000 Bosnians of SS Kama to the area of operations of SS Handschar in Bosnia and re-organise both divisions there, with key support arms units from SS Handschar being centralised under the direct control of IX SS Mountain Corps, which would also move to Bosnia. The plan included the German cadre of SS Kama being used to form a new SS infantry division in Hungary under the command of SS Oberführer Gustav Lombard.

The staff of IX SS Mountain Corps headquarters left Hungary and arrived in the village of Andrijaševci, near Vinkovci in the Srijem region on 3 October 1944. It became partially operational on 7 October. In the meantime, Russian forces continued to advance into Hungary, and on 9 October 1944 a telegram was sent by the commander of Waffen SS Forces in Hungary to IX SS Mountain Corps in Bosnia announcing that "battle ready units from SS Oberführer Lombard's division (31st SS Volunteer Grenadier Division) and Bosnians from the Division Kama had been thrown into the fighting in Bacska (Bačka)". As a result, the return of SS Kama to Bosnia was delayed.

The Bosnians of SS Kama were soon withdrawn from the front line in Hungary and had begun the move to Bosnia to join SS Handschar when they mutinied on 17 October 1944. Raithel quickly regained control of the situation, but the mutiny meant the end of the division. A small number of reliable Bosnians from SS Kama were used as replacements in SS Handschar, and the division was formally dissolved on 31 October 1944.