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Line 892:
Line 892: − − ===Balkans=== − [[File:Nazi diversity.jpg|right|300px|thumb|[[Muslim]] members of the Waffen SS 13th division at prayer during their training at Neuhammer, Germany, in November 1943.]] − The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ''Handschar'' (1st Croatian) was a mountain infantry division of the Waffen SS, an armed branch of the German [[Nazi Party]] that served alongside the [[Wehrmacht]]. From March to December 1944, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against Yugoslav anti-Nazi partisan resistance forces in Independent State of Croatia, a [[fascist]] [[puppet state]] of [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Italy]] that encompassed almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] and parts of [[Serbia]]. − − The division was named Handschar, after a local fighting knife or scimitar carried by [[Ottoman]] [[police]]men 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 [[multiculturalism|multi-ethnic]] military force. Composed mainly of [[Bosnian]] [[Muslims]] and mostly German Yugoslav ''Volksdeutsche'' officers and non-commissioned officers, the members of the division took an oath of allegiance to [[Adolf Hitler]] and the Croatian ''Poglavnik'' Ante Pavelić. − − The division earned a reputation for brutality and savagery, not only during [[combat]] operations but also for atrocities committed against [[Serb]] and [[Jew]]ish civilians. Most of the members became [[prisoners of war]] of the [[British]]. Subsequently, 38 officers were extradited to communist [[Yugoslavia]] after the war to face criminal charges, and ten were executed. Hundreds of former members of the division fought in the 1947–48 [[jihad]] in [[Mandatory Palestine]] and against the [[1948 Israeli War for Independence]].<ref>Seth J. Frantzman, [https://www.jpost.com/magazine/features/strange-bedfellows Strange bedfellows], ''JPost'', May 7, 2008.<blockquote>Muslim Bosnians trained by the Nazis later volunteered to fight against Israel in 1948.</blockquote></ref><ref name=rm13apr22/>
→Balkans
Kursk was the last German offensive of any strategic significance in the East; henceforth, they would conduct a fighting retreat. Germany already suffered from a grave shortage of war resources, when Hitler ordered the offensive and lost a huge number of tanks such as the new Tigertank and the Panther.
Kursk was the last German offensive of any strategic significance in the East; henceforth, they would conduct a fighting retreat. Germany already suffered from a grave shortage of war resources, when Hitler ordered the offensive and lost a huge number of tanks such as the new Tigertank and the Panther.
===Operation Bagration and the Vistula front===
===Operation Bagration and the Vistula front===