21st SS Skanderbeg Moutain Division

The 21st SS Division Skanderbeg was created following the Nazi invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Throughout 1942 and 1943 both the Wehrmacht and SS sought to utilise local manpower to maintain law and order, and fight off Yugoslav Partisan and communist Albanian Resistance activity in the region. For their part Albanian leaders hoped to form an "army, which will be able to safeguard the borders of Kosovo and Metohija and liberate the surrounding regions"[1]

In 1943 a number of Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak region were recruited into the Waffen-SS Handschar Division. They were teamed up into Battalion I/2 (later I/28) and received first rate training in Neuhammer, Germany. This was perhaps the best trained and equipped Nazi Albanian military formation during the war but, ironically, was transferred directly from combat in Bosnia to Kosovo via rail on 17 April 1944 following the creation of Skanderbeg. The head of Waffen SS recruitment, SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger reported to Himmler that the Albanians "...were quite sad about leaving."[2]

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