To browse Academia. Third Reich's main special forces unit, known as the "Brandenburg", continues to capture the public imagination even after almost eight decades since the end of the biggest conflict in world history. The exploits from the early phase of the Second World War, notably those that took place in the Soviet Union and North Africa, invariably occupy a central place in these narratives.
In stark contrast, the "Brandenburg" 's service in occupied Yugoslavia has, at best, received scant coverage despite the fact that all of its major sub-units saw action there at one point or another. Using largely unpublished primary sources, the article at hand will seek to outline the unit's involvement in what has once been aptly described as "the Wehrmacht's Balkan quagmire".
It will also argue that its performance in counterinsurgency warfare did not live up to its general reputation. During World War II, German and Axis forces in Southeast Europe subdued failed states and minor powers in transformational campaigns of lightning speed with minimal but overwhelming force. When protracted rebellion began in the Balkans, fed by existing ethnic and religious violence, this could not be halted by the coalition's superior conventional military.
One solution was the creation of dedicated counter-insurgency forces manned from local populations. The example of one of these, the Prince Eugen-Mountain Division, is examined in this article. While a success in the military sense it brought about increased problems that reflected the lack of effective Axis national and theater-level policies.
Both took place in a small area of the so-called Independent State of Croatia. The events have attracted interest among Danish scholars as well as in popular literature. Unfortunately, western scholarship has largely been restricted to memoirs by former Waffen-SS soldiers and a few reports from German military units.
