Waffen-SS Muslims Come to Buchenwald
Posted on March 25, 2025 by Baron Bodissey
Handschar Division: Waffen-SS volunteers from Bosnia-Herzegovina
Waffen-SS volunteers from Bosnia-Herzegovina during drill exercises, here a staff infantry company
Below is an account of a rarely-discussed historical occurrence: the consigning of deserters from the Muslim Handschar Division of the Waffen-SS to the Buchenwald concentration camp, near the end of the Second World War.
It’s somewhat surprising that this report is willing to acknowledge “the philosophical connections between National Socialism and Islam.”
Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Die Welt:
Handschar Division: How Muslims of the Waffen-SS came to Buchenwald
At the end of 1944, at least two transports of Muslim prisoners reached the Buchenwald concentration camp. The more than one hundred Bosnians were members of the Waffen-SS and deserted in their homeland. To date, little is known about their fate.
The weather was unusually mild for a March 23rd. The Buchenwald concentration camp said goodbye to Latif Kostura on this spring day in 1945 with a mix of sunshine and clouds, according to the weather reports. The farmer from Visoko, Bosnia had spent the entire winter on the Ettersberg over Weimar. His fight for survival lasted exactly 123 days. Now he and a handful of men who had been brought to Buchenwald with him were free — on parole.
All of them belonged to one of the most unusual prisoner groups in Buchenwald. According to the available files online from the Arolsen Archives in Buchenwald, 56 men arrived at the concentration camp in Thuringia on November 21, 1944 from Mostar. All of them were Muslims. All were members of the Waffen-SS in the 13th Mountain Infantry “Handschar” Division before their arrests. A second transport with some 50 Muslim deserters of this unit arrived in Weimar on 23 December via the Dachau concentration camp.
https://gatesofvienna.net/2025/03/waffen-ss-muslims-come-to-buchenwald/#more-59004
