Mutiny in Villefranche

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BoroXXX
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Mutiny in Villefranche

#1

Post by BoroXXX » 11 Dec 2004, 12:52

The Mutiny

The SS Gebirgs Pioneer Battalion 13 was based in Villefranche de Rovergue capital of an arrondissement in the region of Aveyron near Lyon, only since August 6, 1943. Some 200 Bosnian were brought to the town and placed in a German training camp. During September 17-18, four division recruits, including two officer cadets - their names were Ferid Dzanic, Nikola Vukelic, Eduard Matutinovic (alias Bozidar Bozo Jelenek, alias Leopold), and Lutfija Dizdarevic - from the battalion, persuade their compatriots to support them to mutiny against their German officers. Their goal was to approach French liberation movement and Anglo-America, and then to come back to their homeland.

A high-school ground that became barrack for SS Gebirgs Pioneer Battalion 13.

Initially, they succeed to get support from a number of soldiers for their cause. On the night of September 16th, the mutiny was begun. The mutineers executed five German officers, held many others Germans, and successful establishing control over entire garrison. By 08:00 a.m. they controlled the entire town.

When the news about the mutiny was hear by the German Command, they were quickly brought in reinforcements and begun the siege of the town. Heavy fighting lasted until 20:00 p.m. Meanwhile, a division imam, Waffen-Obersturmführer der SS Halim Malkoc, convinces the rank and file troops to German side. The mutiny fizzles out and loyal Bosnian and a few Germans who had managed to evade the mutineers put it down. Two of the mutineers were killed. One captured. Only five or six mutineers managed to escape, including Eduard Matutinovic, with helped by the French people and join the French Resistance.

Although what happened in Villefranche de Rovergue was a mutiny, the fact was that only very few soldiers participated in the uprising. From the investigation after the incident, the fault of the mutiny could be squarely placed on the communists who had planted by Tito within the division as a means of disrupting training and recruitment, and a handful of malcontents. Not only did a great majority of the troops not participate in the mutiny, but also most either had no idea it was happening or actively help to quash it.

Himmler was furious at his officers had treated the Bosnian but had no choice but to shoot the mutineers. The SS then purged the division. Fourteen mutineers were shot; 825 unreliable men were shipped to Germany and informed that they were to volunteer for the labor service or not be fed. Some 536 men volunteered for the Organization Todt and were sent to labor gangs working on the Siegfried Line; but 265 holdouts were sent to the concentration camp at Neuengamme where few, if any, survived the war.

The SS believed that the French population had somehow abetted the mutiny. A part of their suspicion was true because the courageous people of Villefranche de Rovergue did not only help the mutineers but also hiding some of them, waiting the time join the French Resistance, after the failed uprising.

This rebellion itself, the first within the Nazi military system during the World War II, was highly esteemed by the French citizens of Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The French witnesses called this insurrection la révolte des Croates. According to Louis Erignac, Villefranche-de-Rouergue was the first free city of occupied France. So, when the city was liberated in 1944, they decided to pay tribute to these tragic victims by naming one of its streets as Avenue des Croates to honor the graves of the brave soldiers they called les Croates. [Even today citizens of the city regularly commemorate this tragic event (September 14th). In 1952 the participants of the Croatian Partisan Movement planned to build up a memorial to the Croatian victims in Villefranche-de-Rouergue (with a sculpture of Vanja Radaus), but this has been prevented by the (ex) Yugoslav government in Belgrade under the pretext that in this way the "quislings" would be honored. So the only thing that existed to remember them is a wooden sign hidden by the trees blossoming reads champs des martyrs yougoslaves (Field of the Yugoslavian Martyrs) at the entrance of the field where the martyrs were executed].

To stiffen the resolve of the Bosnian volunteers, the division was sent to the more Germanic environment of Neuhammer in Silesia, Germany. Departures for the Neuhammer training area began on October 1. To restore the order in the division, Himmler sent the Grand Mufti to use his religious charisma.
source:
http://oktorino.tripod.com/id4.html

All I knew about that subject is that mutiny happened (when it did) and all I found closer on the topic is this article. Can anyobody supply more infos?

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Juha Hujanen
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#2

Post by Juha Hujanen » 11 Dec 2004, 17:42

Have a look at Lepre's excellent Himmler's Bosnian Legion.It covers the mutiny in details.

Cheers/Juha


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G. Trifkovic
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#3

Post by G. Trifkovic » 11 Dec 2004, 18:36

Since you 're in Zagreb,you'll easily find the book titled "13.ss divizija Handzar-istine i lazi" by Zija Sulejmanpasic.It was printed in Zagreb in 2000.

Cheers,

Gaius

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Allen Milcic
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#4

Post by Allen Milcic » 11 Dec 2004, 18:53

I most certainly warmly recommend George Lepre's well researched and documented book. The Sulejmanpasic book is good as well, especially the part of the book on the pre-Handschar muslim militias in Bosnia.

Allen/

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#5

Post by G. Trifkovic » 11 Dec 2004, 19:13

Ah,so you've read it Allen.Yea,it sheds some light on that unfortunate unit, but I think that mr. Sulejmanpasic is making angels out of them.According to his book,division never commited any warcrimes whatsoever.According to the ex-Yu regime it was sister-unit of Dirlewanger's brigade on terms of butchery and barbarism (the funniest part was statement of the commision which dealt with the crimes of the unit ,which,among other, says that each member got special throat-slitting knife and hence the name "Handzar".Good God,what rubbish!!! ).I doubt heavily in both.I presume I 'll live in darkness until I get Lepre's book...
Off the topic abit,but have you read Otto Kumm's book Allen? How does he depict his boys? "Soldaten wie alle anderen",I suspect...

Cheers,

Gaius

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Allen Milcic
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#6

Post by Allen Milcic » 13 Dec 2004, 16:35

Hi Gaius:

Lepre's book remains the single volume on the "Handschar" that can be relied on for proper information. It neither vilifies the division, which all former-YU sources and myriad western books are guilty of, nor does it come across as an attempt to beatify the members. It describes the unit as a competent anti-guerilla unit that fought hard while in eastern Bosnia, mainly in order to help save the Muslim population from the excesses of the Cetniks and the Partizans, as well as the policies of the NDH regime. Crimes occur, as is unfortunately the norm during guerilla warfare, but not on an organized or massive basis.

I recommend Kumm's book on the 'Prinz Eugen' as well, definitely worth the investment.

Best regards,
Allen/

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#7

Post by G. Trifkovic » 13 Dec 2004, 17:32

Are there any examples of war-crimes commited by the division in Mr. Lepres book? There aren't any in Mr.Sulejmanpasic's book,and I doubt that those men didn't exercise revenge for the attrocities commited by chetniks .What was the attitude of german officers?
I wouldn't be placing organised genocidal crimes by chetniks on equal footing with occasional excesses by Partisans-I don't have to remind you that the slaughter of muslim population was ideologicaly based ( directive sent by Draza Mihailovic on 20.december 1941 describing the aims of Chetnik movement),whereas NOP tried to win over the population "for the cause" regardless of nationality.

Any mention of "reprisals" in Kumm's book?

Gaius

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#8

Post by George Lepre » 14 Dec 2004, 00:01

Precise information regarding possible Handschar atrocities was hard to come by during my research on the 13th Division. Here is what I found:

I. Bela Crkva Incident (page 150):

While compiling inforation on Operation "Wegweiser" in the Bosut Forest, one of the sources I used was the diary of Jörg Deh, a company commander in Handschar's 27th Infantry Regiment. Deh states that his unit entered the small village of Bela Crkva on the morning of 12 March 1944 and "found the enemy (the Partisans) gone, having murdered all of the town's inhabitants." However, I obtained a copy of the original Wegweiser operations order (Einsatzbefehl) and found that elements of the division's reconnaissance battalion and another company from the 27th Regiment had operated in this area two days previously. Nevertheless, Deh was adamant that the Partisans were responsible for the crime.

I did some further research on this incident but found nothing. I checked with the Zentralle Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, the chief office that investigates Nazi crimes, but they possessed no further information. No Partisan document in the Zbornik dokumenata book series mentions it either.

II. Possible Executions of Partisan POWs (pages 223 and 264):

a.) In post-war literature, a Yugoslav (Serbian) historian, Jeremija Jeso Peric, accused the Handschar Division of killing several hundred Partisan POWs sometime in mid-1944. I believe that his accusation bears some weight as it mentions several of the victims by name. But if this crime indeed took place, it was not intended as an anti-Serbian action, as a number of the victims were Muslims (one was a high official in the ZAVNOBiH). When I asked several former division members about this, they all stated that POWs were always handed over to Croatian authorities for intelligence purposes.

b.) Mr. Peric also stated that a Handschar unit executed several Partisan POWs from the 17th Majevica Brigade in October 1944. This coincides with a successful ambush conducted by Handschar's 28th Infantry Regiment near Vukosavci. The 17th Majevica sustained heavy casualties in this action, losing among others a battalion commander.

III. Allegations of Large-Scale Massacres of Serbian Civilians:

Post-war Yugoslav communist and Serbian nationalist writers have accused the Handschar Division of large-scale massacres of Serbian civilians. What led me to question the "large scale" aspect of these accusations was the fact that there were over 13,000 Cetniks operating in northeastern Bosnia when the Handschar Division arrived there in March 1944. Within weeks of its arrival, the Handschar Division was taking part in joint operations with the Cetniks (Unternehmen Fliegenfänger is a notable example). They maintained liaison officers at each other's command posts and I know of at least one occasion when Cetnik officers requested (and received) artillery strikes from SS-Art. Rgt. 13 against Partisan targets. If the Handschar Division was slaughtering Bosnia's Serbian Orthodox population, would the Cetniks, i.e. the latter's own family members, be cooperating with them at the same time?

IV. Post-War Trial:

Thirty-eight German ex-division members were extradited to Yugoslavia to stand trial after the war, but only ten were charged with specific offenses. However, two additional officers committed suicide before their scheduled extradtions.

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#9

Post by G. Trifkovic » 14 Dec 2004, 01:28

Thank you,Mr. Lepre, You have been most helpfull!

Cheers,

Gaius

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#10

Post by ninoo » 14 Dec 2004, 04:05

Hi,

Mr. Lepre said:
If the Handschar Division was slaughtering Bosnia's Serbian Orthodox population, would the Cetniks, i.e. the latter's own family members, be cooperating with them at the same time?
The Germans also killed Serbs, but the Chetnik still made some military cooperations with them.
The more strange story is, the Chetnik even made some collaborations with the Nr. 1 Serb's killers: the Ustasha!!! (during the last phase of war, the same periode with Chetnik-'Handzar' collaboration)
In this case, I will only said that the collaboration was only because military necessity. It doesn't matter that your enemy had been killed your family if both of you also face a more menacing commonly enemy.
Recently, during Bosnian War you could see about Moslem's Brcko under Abdic (?...sorry, forget his name) which collaborated with Serbs against Izetbegovic Moslem army...strange enough if you heard about Serbs atrocity stories against Moslems in mass-media...

Best Regards
Last edited by ninoo on 14 Dec 2004, 05:08, edited 1 time in total.

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#11

Post by G. Trifkovic » 14 Dec 2004, 04:21

about Moslem's Brcko under Abdic
Actually,it was Velika Kladusa,rather than Brcko...

Gaius

P.S. His first name is Fikret.

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#12

Post by ninoo » 14 Dec 2004, 04:45

Hi Gaius,

Thanks for the correction :D

and you asking:
What was the attitude of german officers?
You must be know about Fegelein story about the division. Even if he - a mass murderer himself during his time in SS cavalry brigade in Eastern Front - only boasted about the 'Handzar' story, you still could a short report from Sauberzweig in Lepre's book that said.
SS-Brigadeführer Sauberzweig admitted that the Bosnian Moslems didn't like the idea that a community must be build from all faiths in Bosnia. He also acknowledges that many Moslem soldiers in his division were quick to settle old scores.
What do you think about:
were quick to settle old scores.
?

Best Regards

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#13

Post by G. Trifkovic » 14 Dec 2004, 05:31

What do you think about: Quote:
were quick to settle old scores.
?
I don't see what are you aiming at.Could you clear it up a bit,please?
And another thing-what about the Fegelein-boastin story? I never heard it before.

Gaius

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#14

Post by ninoo » 14 Dec 2004, 05:48

Hi Gaius,
I don't see what are you aiming at.Could you clear it up a bit,please?
I just want to know your opinion when you read Sauberzweig wrote that many Moslem soldiers in his division
were quick to settle old scores
. According to you, what does it (were quick to settle old scores) mean? Join a party with Serbs? :)
what about the Fegelein-boastin story?
SS-Brigadeführer Hermann Fegelein, described to Hitler the fanaticism and bestiality of the Bosnian Moslems troops, which even appealed the SS leaders as follows:
"The enemy takes off (abhauen) with all its things when they (Bosnian Moslems) move in. They killed them only with their knives. There was one man who was wounded. He allowed his arm to be bandaged and then went on to finish-off 17 more of the enemy with his left hand. Cases also occur where they (the Bosnian Moslems) cut the heart out of their enemy."
However, in Lepre's book, the division aide-de-camp said that Fegelein description is only a dream - a wildest one that Fegelein take from Karl May stories.

Best Regards

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Allen Milcic
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#15

Post by Allen Milcic » 14 Dec 2004, 16:31

Mr. ninoo:

First of all, I would appreciate it if you canned the unnecessary sarcasm, i.e. the "join a party" or equally 'humorous' quips. Not funny, provocative, and they do not advance the discussion in any positive way. Say what you have straight-up, or do not bother saying it at all.

When and where did Hermann Fegelein serve with the "Handschar" Division for him to be able to comment on them in any way? When and where did he allegedly make this statement about the Bosnian Muslims, to whom, and where was it recorded?

Are you claiming, then, that the "Handschar" Division did commit numerous war-crimes, and that Lepre's book is incorrect or incomplete?

Allen/

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