Read Terror in the Balkans Online
Authors: Ben Shepherd
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Military, #World War II, #Science & Math, #Earth Sciences, #Geography, #Regional
The Devil’s Division
229
Serbia Command reported in January that the pressure from the Parti-
sans in the 718th’s area was now greater than in any other German divi-
sional area in the NDH. Even though White I brought it some respite,
then, it was starting from a low base.61 Moreover, the 718th Infantry
Division’s moderation had already been apparent—even though it was
very relative, took time to develop, and dimmed for a time during Opera-
tion Jajce—before it became a light division. And even the ferocity of the
718th’s troops during the Jajce operations was smoothed by divisional
command’s indifference, rather than driven by a conscious attempt to
incite it. In other words, a division of poorer fi ghting power was not nec-
essarily always going to deport itself more ruthlessly.
By the same token, divisions that enjoyed greater fi ghting power were not
necessarily going to act with more restraint. This becomes clear when
comparing the 369th Infantry Division with the 373d.
Between May and July 1943, the 373d’s fi rst three months in the NDH,
the quality of its troops was considerably superior to that of the 369th’s.
Granted, they suffered shortages in specialist clothing and artillery for
mountain warfare, pack animals, suitable trucks, and interpreters.62 But
troop discipline and morale in the 373d was signifi cantly higher. An
after-action report by the division’s pioneer battalion commented on the
men’s “excellent” combat performance and their willingness to fi ght to
the end.63 At the end of June divisional command itself was similarly
upbeat about the troops’ mood.64 And the 373d, it seems, had itself to
thank. It credited itself with spotting the danger signs of sinking troop
morale, and moving immediately to counter them: “a noticeable dete-
rioration in discipline . . . was countered with appropriate measures.
The troops’ self-confi dence has risen, particularly in comparison with
Croatian (Army) units.”65 Not only was the troops’ morale healthy, but
their numbers also. In March the operations section reported that the
division’s roster of 10,730 men was actually fi fty-six more than it was sup-
posed to have.66
Yet if the 373d’s approach to its men’s discipline and morale was more
rigorous than the 369th’s, its approach to counterinsurgency was no less
harsh than the 369th’s. For an operation the division launched in the
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terror in the balk ans
Cardaci region of southern Bosnia in early July, it directed that “suspect
persons are to be arrested. Those found with a weapon in their hands are
to be shot . . . Settlements which have aided the Partisans . . . are to be
razed to the ground. The bandits must be combated with ruthless harsh-
ness.”67 An order from mid-July, issued by the divisional commander
himself, Major General Emil Zellner, expressed the hope that “all units
under me or cooperating with me will continue to conduct themselves
with such ruthlessness against the Partisans in the cause of pacifying the
land . . . Our common struggle is against the disruption of order and the
Bolshevik-infected bandits!”68 Indeed, this directive contrasts not just
with those the 717th and 718th Infantry Divisions were producing at this
time, but even with those of the 369th. For ideological language as crude
as this, with all its talk of “Bolshevik infection,” is nowhere to be found
even in the 369th’s fi les during this period.69
Otherwise, though the condition of their troops was very different,
there was little difference in the pitiless attitudes of the divisional com-
mands of both the 369th and 373d. Whatever was hardening those atti-
tudes so intensely, then, it was more than just the condition of the troops.
Firstly, unlike the offi cers of the 717th and 718th Infantry Divisions, the
offi cers of the 369th and 373d Infantry Divisions were newcomers to the
NDH, to Bosnia, to the region’s labyrinthine interethnic relations, and to
counterinsurgency generally. This meant they had had no experience of
the complex reality on the ground. It also meant, by extension, that they
were less likely to see the need for a balanced, restrained, and insightful
approach, which engaged the population rather than terrorized it. Such,
after all, is the loathing with which regular forces have so often regarded
irregular forces, that the intricacies of cultivating a population caught
between Partisans and Germans were particularly likely to be lost on a
counterinsurgency unit that was “new to the game.” Granted, given the
interethnic mayhem besetting the region by this time, it is diffi cult to
conceive of how a relatively restrained approach might have succeeded
anyway. The point, however, is that some German army offi cers were
inclined to attempt something at least resembling such an approach,
while others were not.
The Devil’s Division
231
And there was greater chance of such an attempt coming from a unit,
such as the 718th Infantry Division, that had been stationed in one region
for a longer period.70 Following its experience of 1942, the 718th better
understood that it was the survival pressures civilians were facing, and
not any “Bolshevik infection,” that were the most compelling reason why
many were joining or aiding the Partisans. The 369th and 373d Infantry
Divisions’ offi cers were perhaps too new to the region for them to have
fully learned these lessons yet.
And as before, the life infl uences and experiences that shaped a divi-
sional commander’s standpoint need considering also. The information
the sources provide on the social origins of the commanders in question
is too patchy for any conclusions to be drawn from it.71 There is more
information on the offi cers’ military specialisms. Dippold, Neidholt, and
Zellner had all, at some earlier time in their careers, served in one of the
new, technocratic military branches, or had received or provided specialist
training.72 One might therefore expect them to have felt frustrated, perhaps
to the point of brutalization, by the demodernized conditions many coun-
terinsurgency units in the NDH endured. Fortner, on the other hand, did
not undergo such specialist training. But the professional route he took
during the interwar years possessed a hardening potential of its own.
Instead, important clues as to what separated more radical offi cers
like Neidholt and Zellner from their more measured colleagues can be
found in where these offi cers were born and the experiences they under-
went during the Great War.
For one thing, both the 369th and 373d Infantry Divisions were com-
manded by men who had had considerable experience of the eastern
front, both on the defensive and on the offensive into the territory of the
Russian Empire, during the Great War.73 Neidholt served in a variety
of posts at army, divisional, brigade, and company level on the eastern
front between March 1915 and April 1917. Zellner served on the eastern
front against the Russian army from September 1914 until August 1916,
fi rst with the Austro-Hungarian 11th Field Gun Regiment and then with
the 70th
Honvéd
Field Howitzer Regiment. He then served with the 16th
Field Artillery Regiment in the campaign against Rumania from Sep-
tember 1916, before being transferred to the Italian front, presumably
in early 1917, following that campaign’s conclusion.74 Two of the 373d’s
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terror in the balk ans
regimental commanders also saw extensive action on the eastern front,
again in both defensive and offensive roles, during the Great War. One
was Colonel Nikolaus Boicetta of the 384th Croatian Grenadier Regi-
ment, the other Colonel Alois Windisch, who commanded the 383d
Croatian Infantry Regiment.75
By contrast, neither Dippold nor Fortner spent any time on the eastern
front during the Great War. Indeed Dippold, like Fortner, spent the entire
duration of his Great War on the western front. Coincidentally, moreover,
his experience of that battlefront was cut short, like Fortner’s, after two
years. He was captured by the British in September 1916, the exact same
month as his colleague in the 718th.76 Some of the 718th’s regimental com-
manders likewise experienced the Great War in ways that were less bru-
talizing than they might have been. Colonel Joachim Wüst, for instance,
fought entirely on the western front during the Great War. However, born
as he was in 1900, Wüst spent only the last six months of the war in com-
bat.77 It was a similar picture with Colonel Rudolf Wutte. Wutte was born
in Austria in 1897. He served on the eastern front, but only briefl y, from
October 1914 to February 1915. He then returned to his previous post in the
military machinists’ school at Pola. From September 1915, until the begin-
ning of 1918, he served on the cruiser
Novara
in the Adriatic before taking
up various technical posts on the home front until the end of the war.78
That extensive eastern front experience during the Great War helped
to radicalize an offi cer’s conduct during World War II was suggested by
the case of the 342d Infantry Division in Serbia. It is suggested here also.
And General Zellner and Colonel Boicetta, both Austrian-born, had
also participated in the invasion of Serbia during the Great War.79 In Ser-
bia in 1941, General Boehme had exploited the memory of the 1914 inva-
sion to immensely brutal effect.80 Bosnia in 1943 was not Serbia in 1941.
But when Boehme invoked the Serbian atrocities of 1914 to justify his call
for vengeance against the Serbs in 1941, he may also have been tapping
into wider Austrian perceptions about the “backwardness and savagery”
of southern Slavs generally. These were perceptions to which General
Conrad had given voice in his memoirs decades before.81 In any case, to
many offi cers the interethnic slaughter that ravaged Bosnia in 1943 may
have seemed another symptom of such savagery, alongside the Serbian
“barbarism” of 1914. Offi cers faced with the latter, during a formative
The Devil’s Division
233
time of their lives, in 1914 may well have been more likely to lash out in
response to the former in 1943. Indeed, any offi cer of Austrian origin
was subject to such collective memory, even if he had not actually served
in the Balkans during the Great War. And offi cers encountering ethnic
Serbs in Bosnia during 1943 may have drawn a particularly strong con-
nection with the purported Serbian savagery of 1914.
Habsburg origins and eastern front experience may well have also
hardened another of the divisional commanders serving in the NDH in
1943. Lieutenant General Karl Eglseer was appointed commander of the
714th Infantry Division in March of that year. Eglseer served briefl y on
the eastern front in 1914, before being badly wounded and captured by
the Russians at the end of that year. He was not to see action again until
spring 1918, when he rejoined his old regiment on the Italian front.82 But
even though he was out of the action, his experience as a prisoner of war
may well have affected him profoundly. Until the Bolshevik Revolution,
captured offi cers of the Central powers, unlike their men, enjoyed privi-
leged arrangements in line with the terms of the Geneva Convention. But
the Bolshevik Revolution transformed their situation. The Bolsheviks’
pronouncement of captured offi cers as class enemies, stoppage of their
monthly allowance, and the terrible economic hardships ravaging Rus-
sia at this time all caused their conditions to deteriorate markedly.83 It is
likely that this experience contributed to Eglseer’s own radicalization.
Eglseer’s conduct at the time of the 1938 Anschluß certainly marks
him out as a convinced follower of National Socialism.84 Chief of staff
of the Austrian 6th Infantry Division when the Anschluß took place, he
quickly supplanted his non-Nazi superior, Brigadier General Szente, as
divisional commander. Such was his buoyant mood that, twelve days
after the Anschluß, he quashed pending disciplinary charges against
two soldiers “in view of the enthusiasm which the reunifi cation of Aus-
tria with Germany has released.”85
On arriving in Bosnia as the new commander of the 714th Infantry Divi-
sion, Eglseer issued directives that set him apart from commanders such as
Fortner and Dippold. For he was singularly keen on issuing “why we fi ght”–
type directives to the troops.86 He also stressed, underlining the point for
effect, that “
there is no such thing as a non-combatant! Anyone who runs
away or does not take part in the battle will come before a military court!”
87
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terror in the balk ans
Eglseer’s particularly acute concern for discipline may be attributed
to his Great War experiences. He had seen discipline collapse among
frontline troops just before his capture on the eastern front in 1914.88 He
had probably also seen it, though the available sources do not explicitly
say so, among the disintegrating Habsburg armies on the Italian front in