Essentially what you are seeing is the soldiers dilema, the either a firing sqaud for disobeying orders, or the noose for war crimes.
And “voluntary” was something pretty much unknown in Europe of the 1940’s.
I still say its a lynching and gives war crimes trials a very bad name. The guy was tried and his conviction, quashed. Will you accuse him of being every damn guard in every death/concentration/work camp in occupied europe?
Same apology in advance as before, no hijack is intended but the topic just piques my curiosity something awful 
Indeed. After 100,000+ Bosnian and Bosniak civilians were killed by the Cetniks in Eastern Bosnia and at least another 103,000 were sent by Germans and Croats to the Jasenovac concentration camp to be slaughtered by the Ustache, it seemed a good idea to raise a Bosnian division to defend Bosniaks and Bosnia from further retribution. Evidently one German general remarked that “The Muslims [Bosniaks] bear the special status of being persecuted by all others”
So, a division was raised by the Germans to exploit this fact, and it only got 10,000 or so volunteers, half of the expected turnout. The war progressed and the division got tinier and tinier until Bosnians started deserting “in droves” and it was disbanded completely. During its short time the division saw fighting almsot exclusively in Bosnia and Herzegovina, though it also spent about half in hour in far western Serbia. It fought mostly against Tito’s Partizans, where it was mostly unsuccessful.
Now, I’m quite curious as to how the Handzar division (or the Kama division, which, as you state, did no fighting whatsoever) managed to, as Argent asserts, make it all the way to Greece to “happily” capture and kill Greek Jews…?
Oh, undoubtedly there were some but it’s important to know that there was public disparagement and prejudice against Bosnians and Bosniaks so the numbers were surely quite limited. Most ended up either not involved at all or fighting alongside Tito’s Partizani, the only group in the area not actively persecuting Bosnians or Bosniaks.
Though I’m also curious as to your definitions here as
was born in Rajnovici, Serbia and saw himself as a Muslim Croat. His brother, Osman, and his son, Nihad, also saw themselves as such. Not one of them was Bosnian-born nor did they consider themselves Bosniak. Indeed, in his post-wartime life he wrote of the need for cooperation between Muslim and Catholic Croats :eek:.
Now,
was Bosnian and did unfortunately stray to being the NDH’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. He spent half his wartime career as Minister of Assistance to War Ravaged Areas for the NDH, whose “main funtion was to provide security, housing and food to the over 300,000 refugees from various areas of the NDH, mostly Muslims displaced by Cetnik massacres in eastern Bosnia, in Herzegovina and in Sandzak”. The other half of his career was spent as the Minister of Foreign Affairs where his job was to try to facilitate cooperation between the various anti-communist (anti-Partizan) factions in the area (he failed), a job which he was rightly executed for after the war.
I have no idea who this guy is, to be completely honest :D. What did he do? Was he a bad guy? I’m sure both the NDH and the VNS both needed trash collectors and other public servants at the time, though I’m not sure they deserve to be blamed for the holocaust 
I don’t think they did. I think he’s confusing the Bosnians with the Albanians, because some Albanians did participate in the Holocaust in Greece.
I thought Croatian Muslims were also defined as Bosniaks…that all Serbo-Croatian Muslims were considered Bosniaks, whether they lived in Bosnia proper, Serbia, or Croatia.
I have to admit, I don’t know much about him, although it’s possible he was born in Tuzla.
No, but they may rest a little easier.
-Capt. James T. Kirk