I ask these questions because I never heard of this division until I came across a photo:
It alleges these are the members of this SS division were mostly Bosnian Muslims, they are depicted above performing Islamic prayers. From limited, admittedly non-scholarly tertiary sources (I only find blogs and wikis that regurgitate the same limited knowledge on this topic). I understand their involvement as a foreign division of SS troops was to protect their homeland, rather than the propaganda and Aryan supremacy of Hitler's Reich. It also states Himmler's fascination with Islam in its ability to create 'Fearless soldiers'. My findings also suggested that some of the most decorated German soldiers from the European theater were apparently from this division.
My understanding of marginalized persons in Nazi Europe included the Jews, Communists, homosexuals and fringe intellectuals. What accounted for the accommodation of these Muslim troops' customs and rituals? Would the remnants of their actions be what led to eventual crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s?
I posted here in hopes a historian can help a fellow intellectual follow a lead with scholarly sources or material for further research. I would be very appreciative of this sub's help to develop my research prospects.
I find this incredibly fascinating as in my entire American school education my knowledge of "Muslim troops" were from European colonies or allies to the Vichy. I never heard anything about a regiment of this type or Muslims in the European theater other than an anglo-indian spy Nora Baker (Noor Inayat Khan) which was through my own research out of a scholarly institution.
One of the regrettable features of the contemporary internet is that there is a disproportionate amount of time and effort devoted to covering this one Waffen-SS division that was a failure. As the multi-authored study on Muslim volunteers concluded in the anthology The Waffen-SS: A European History:
But as the authors of these case studies demonstrate, the Muslim SS units were far from being a military success story, and the German efforts did not really pay off. Even greater was the disappointment for the Muslim partners of the Germans. The SS leadership and the German officers did not trust their Muslim soldiers and did not treat them as equals. The Germans could not keep the promises they had made regarding religious and political autonomy or security and safety in Muslim home regions. Muslim casualties were enormous throughout the war, for Muslim units were mainly deployed in bloody anti-partisan operations and in civil-war-like scenarios in the eastern and south-eastern theatres of war, where many Muslim soldiers got involved in atrocities and war crimes. An even higher number of soldiers deserted: thousands went over to the partisans, taking their weapons with them. An unknown number joined bands and irregular units. Towards the end of 1944, most Muslim units were defunct, and many of their former recruits fought within the ranks of units which were on the side of the victors and which would soon vanquish Nazi Germany and its multinational SS empire—an empire that had proven to be a trap rather than a promise for Europe’s Muslims.
The experiment of the Handjar division was a failed one and pretty marginal to the German war effort. Yet this division serves an outside importance online, especially within Islamophobic circles, to prove the affinities between Nazism and Islam, with little attention devoted to what life in the Handjar actually entailed or even if its recruits considered themselves Islamic.
u/commiespaceinvader has written a number of posts on this subject, such as this one, this one, an here along with others I have probably forgotten.
Thank you for your comprehensive response. I am glad to find a body of intellectuals that could help guide my various intrests and studies. I will look at your linked posts as well as try to find a copy of the boom you cited.
