21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg
The 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg 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 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.
The division was supplied with captured Italian Carro Armato M15/42 tanks, but they proved to be unreliable.
7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen
The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", initially named the SS-Volunteer Division Prinz Eugen, 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 1942 to 1945, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in occupied Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1941 from both Reich Germans and Volksdeutsche – ethnic German volunteers and conscripts from the Banat, Independent State of Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The division surrendered on 11 May 1945 to Yugoslav Partisan forces.
Vehicles of Prinz Eugen's 7th Panzer Battalion (including SOMUA S35 and Hotchkiss H39 tanks) laagering on the outskirts of a Bosnian town in 1941
Prinz Eugen soldiers disarming the Lim-Sandžak Chetnik Detachment prior to Operation Schwarz, May 1943
Prinz Eugen MG 42 position on the Dalmatian coast, 1943
Otto Kumm as an SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in March 1943. Kumm commanded the 7th SS through some of its hardest fighting in 1944, and ended the war with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords