Tom, the Skanderbeg Division was formed not by the Albanians, but by the Germans at the direction of Heinrich Himmler. The Germans organized, trained, and paid the soldiers. The commander was always a German as well as almost all the officers and most of the NCOs (some were Volksdeutch, many were from the German navy where not too many ships were left afloat!).
The division was formed not in 1945, but in March-April 1944 and became operational in June 1944. It was manned with 6,491 Albanians and somewhat over 2000 Germans. Within months 3,500 of the Albanians had deserted. By mid-autumn, it's strength had dwindled to less than a regiment--almost all Germans.
It was obviously not a promise of "Greater Albania" that was the incentive for Albanians to join, since "Greater Albania" (i.e. boundaries that encompassed all the Albanian population of the Balkans) already existed at that time--the Italians and Germans had already set that up a couple years before.
The Skanderbeg Division only existed as a division for a few months, was not effective, and most of the Albanians deserted as soon as they'd received a weapon and a couple month's pay. Contrast that with, for example, the Serb Volunteer Corps that worked for the Serb Quisling government under Nedic in Belgrade. The Serb Volunteer Corps was operational for four years (1941 - 1945), grew to over 10,000 volunteers, and included no Germans. It was organized, recruited, and commanded by Serbs. The Nazis praised it as a very effective ally.
lolol....that is my message to you...Do you know what SOS and LOL means? Let me explain s l o w l y f o r
y o u.... you had me going there for a few minutes. Okay LOL means.....Lack of Learning. yes, markus, that is you. SOS, for you civilians or if you were military you had a LOL.....SOS, son, means SAME OLE S#*T....dig.
Now, about the Skenderburg division....your sources. LOLOL...did you check yor source..it vas un Albanian source, smart guy.... :)) Now, granted, there are some Serbian sources that do tell the truth. The Albanian sources traditionally "leave out" or modify certain key bits of things called facts.....that are relevant to the true nature and perspective.
I needed that laugh.....thanks. I have to had it too ya...for someone not knowing the truth you sure have this misinformation rehearsed very well.....not a bad job.
Mark, I don't have the time to educate you or deal with the misinformation in a post..read the truth if you want. Otherwise, others can read.
I have been doing research in the history of Kosovo for a good while. I have discovered that “history books” post dated 1991 -1992 are fabricated and full of incorrect historical assertions. To many people not familiar with Balkan history, the violence and bloodshed that took place in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s is incomprehensible. So, we can ask ourselves just how is it possible that such atrocities could occur in Europe on the eve of the new millennium and continue under our noses? The answer to this is to be found in the events that took place in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia, the country was dismembered and divided among the axis powers, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. Croatia was granted independence as an axis puppet state and ruled by Ante Pavelic, the Fascist Ustashi leader. Croatia was awarded by Hitler all of Bosnia-Hercegovina with its large Serbian and Jewish population. Pavelic and the Ustashi proceeded with a campaign of genocide directed against the Serbian and Jewish populations of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Frightful massacres took place.
Ustashi gangs savagely slaughtered tens of thousands of Serbs in Croatia, often forcing them into their Orthodox Churches and burning them alive. Other Serbs were given the choice of conversion to Roman Catholicism or death. Yet others were driven out of Croatia into Bosnia or Serbia. Thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies were exterminated in Croatian camps. At the most infamous of these, Jasenovac, close to 100,000 victims was killed-and not by gas- but by the bullet, the club or knife. In Bosnia, similar massacres of Serbs took place. The Muslims of Bosnia often assisted the Ustashi killers. Later in the war, the Germans recruited a Muslim SS Division, which gained notoriety for its atrocities against the Serbian civilian population.
After the invasion of Yugoslavia the Italians occupied Kosovo and when Italy dropped out of the war in 1943, the Germans entered Kosovo and promised the province independence. They raised a SS Division from among the Albanian population; the infamous Skenderberg Division, which set about methodically to slaughter Serbs in Kosovo.
Guess what!!!! Today, as I write, December 15, 2005, the Skenderburg Division is operating in Macedonia as a unit of the ANA. They formed during the last 90’s.
The SS high Comm in WWII, planned to create a mountain division of 10.000 men. The Higher SS and Police Command in Albania, in conjuction with the Albanian National Committee, listed 11.398 possible recruits for the Waffen SS mountain division. Most of these recruits were "kossovars", shqiptar Ghegs from Kosovo Metohija in Serbia. The Shqiptar Tosks were found mainly in southern Albania. Most of the Shqiptar collaborators with the nazi forces were theNazi forces were the so-called Kossovars, ethnic Shqiptars from the Kosmet of Serbia. The Nazi German-sponsored Albanian gendarmes, special police and para-military units were made up by Kossovars. The Kossovars were under the direct control of the Albanian Interior Minister Xhafer Deva.
The Skanderbeg Division of WWII, not to be confused with the current unit, was formed and trained in Kosovo and was made up mostly of muslim Shqiptar Kossovars. There were only a small number of Albanians from Albania proper in the division. The Skanderbeg Mountain Division of the Wafen SS was thus essentially a Kosovo or Kosmet Division. The Division was stationed and operated in Kosovo and other Serbian regions almost exclusively.
The Skanderbeg division engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Serbian Orthodox Christian populations of the regions under occupation by the division in Kosovo Metohija, Montenegro, and southern Serbia. Balkan Historian Robert Lee Wolff, in the "Balkans in Our time", described the genocide committed against Kosovo Serbs by the Shqiptar 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS Skenderbeg as follows:
In the regions annexed by the Albanians, their so-called Skanderbeg division, made up of members of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, massacred Serbs with impunity.
Historian L.H. Stavrianos, in "The Balkan Since 1453", described the genocide committed against Orthodox Serbs by the Shqiptar Skanderbeg Division in these terms: Yugoslav Albanians, organized in their fascist Skanderbeg Division, conducted an indiscriminate massacre of Serbians.
The Skanderbeg Division played a role in the Holocaust, the genocide if European Jewry, by rounding up scores of Kosovo Jews in a group roughly 500 persons deemed enemies of the Third Reich when the division occupied Prizren in Kosovo Metohija. The division sought to create ethnically pure Kosovo, ethnically cleansed of Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies the untermenschen (subhuman), who were targeted for extermination.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared the Shutzstaffel or SS criminal organization and every individual member of SS was found to Be a war criminal guilty of "planning and carrying out crimes against humanity". The Shqiptar Kosovars in the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division "Skanderbeg" committed war crimes and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The Shqiptar planned and carried out crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Orthodox Serbians of Kosovo were the victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This genocide would contribute in the Shqiptar goal and policy to create an ethnically pure, Shqiptar Kosovo, in an attempt to create a greater Shqiperia or greater Albania. Following World war II, the Yugoslav Communist dictatorship allowed the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbs to continue, and indeed, gave greater impetus and legitimacy to the policy.
Ironically, the UN, USA and NATO are finishing where the Nazi’s left off in WWII.
During World War II, the Axis powers dismembered and occupied Yugoslavia and created a greater Albania by annexing the Serbian region of Kosovo-Metohija by Nazi Germany, Germany formed a Shqiptar "Kosovar" Waffen SS Division, the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" which engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The result was that the Shqiptars, with the help of Germany, were able to virtually exterminate the Serbian and Jews populations of Kosovo, thereby creating an ethnically pure, Nazi German-sponsored Greater Albania or Greater Shqiperia.
The Albanian Committee of Kosovo organized massive campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian inhabitants of Kosovo-Metohija. A contemporary report described the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Serbs as follows:
“Armed with material supplied by the Italians, the Albanians hurled themselves against the helpless settlers in their homes and villages. Accoring to the most reliables sources the Albanians burned many Serbian settlements, killing some of the people and driving out others who escaped to the mountains. At present other Serbian settlements are being attacked and the property of indviduals and of communities is either being confiscated or destroyed. It is not possible to ascertain at the present the exact number of victims of those atrocities, but it may be estimated that at least between 30,000 and 50,000 perished.”
Bedri Pejani, the Muslim leader of the Albanian National Committee, called for the extermination of Orthodox Serbian Christians in Kosovo-Metohija and for a union of a Greater Albania with Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Rashka (Sandzak) region of Serbia into a Greater Islamic State. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini, was presented the Pejani plan which he approved as being in the interest of Islam. The Germans,however, rejected the plan.
As the war progressed Serb guerilla bands retaliated against the perpetrators of these crimes with counter massacres of their own. The horrors committed in Yugoslavia during the war, where over a million people perished, were not forgotten. In Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo, there were few Serbs who had not lost friends or relatives during the Second World War.
http://www.snd-us.com/history/savic_01.htm
http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/istorija/savic_skenderbeyss.html
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/071.shtml
http://freeserbs.org/~mladich/Kosmet/skenderbeg
