These efforts were reasonably successful as some 8000 men had volunteered by 14 April, including a number of deserters from the Croatian military.This wasn't anywhere near enough as more men were needed to flesh out the division so they recruited a number of Volksdeutsche and Muslims from the Croat Army and Ustasche (the Croat fascist party's armed militia). This helped only somewhat so Himmler reluctantly permitted Bosnia Catholics to enlist, but not to exceed 10% of authorized strength. The exact figures are uncertain, but one contemporary estimate was as high as 2800 Catholic volunteers, but this is contradicted by a mention of only 400 or so a year later. What ever the exact number the division was firmly Muslim in practice with imams serving at the battalion level, except for the all-German signal battalion. In contrast no German SS unit had Christian chaplains at all. All members of the division wore the fez, the standard head covering in Bosnia of the Muslims.
It was originally intended to form the division in Bosnia from a cadre supplied by 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division Prinz Eugen, but the training areas were too crowded with the 117. Jäger Division also being formed. The SS was also tired of the Croatian government's petty obstructionism and decided to train the division in Germany. The first trainloads of recruits were shipped to the Wildflecken training ground not too far from Schweinfurt in late May. However in early June, they decided to train it in France instead. Beginning early the next month the Bosnians were sent to various towns near the city of Le Puy. By this time the Bosnians only numbered fifteen thousand and were desperately short of trained officers and NCOs as a number of the older men who had served in the Austro-Hungarian Army had been deemed unsuitable. To fill out the division the SS demanded that all Muslims in Croat service be turned over and that a draft of military-age men be conducted. This mostly completed the division, but at the cost of stripping most of the manpower that had been defending the Muslim villages from the depredations of the marauding royalist Chetniks, fascist Croatian Ustasche, and communist partisans. Morale in the division dropped when reports were received of soldiers's villages destroyed and families killed.
Tito had planted a number of Communists in the division and some of these were able to stage a mutiny in the engineer battalion in mid-September. They were initially able to take persuade a number of soldiers to support them and execute their German leadership, but it was put down by loyal Bosnians and a few Germans who had managed to evade the mutineers. The Germans then purged the division of over 800 Bosnians suspected of disloyalty. They were shipped to Germany and informed that they were to volunteer for the labor service or not be fed. Some 536 "volunteered" for the Organization Todt, but 265 hold-outs were sent to the concentration camp at Neuengamme where few, if any, survived the war.
The SS believed that the French population had somehow abetted the mutiny and decided to bring it to Germany where such divisive influences were non-existant. Departures for the Neuhammer training area in Silesia began in 1 October. There the SS filled out the division with Germans as well as a thousand new recruits from Bosnia. Many of the Germans had seen combat with the senior SS divisions in Russia and replaced many of the older officers and NCOs who were deemed marginal. Basic training was completed on 20 November, squad drills on Christmas Eve, and platoon training on 9 January. Company and battalion training was conducted until the division was shipped back to Bosnia in mid-February.
At this time Handschar (Scimitar) consisted of the 27. and 28. Gebirgsjäger Regiments, each with three battalions (each regiment had the I., II., and IV. battalions as the III. battalion had been dissolved after the mutiny to fill out the remaining units); an artillery regiment of four battalions, and reconnaissance, flak, and anti-tank battalions, as well as the usual supporting units.
Almost immediately upon arrival Handschar was pitched into anti-partisan operations, but the first battalion of the 28th Regiment wasn't to stay long in Bosnia. It was composed of ethnic-Albanian Muslims from Kosovo and Himmler ordered it utilized to serve in the newly forming 21. Waffen-Gebirgs-Division der SS Skanderbeg raised from Albanian Muslims on 17 April. The battalion was reformed from new recruits and men from the rest of the division. This wasn't the last 'donation' to a new unit as Hitler granted permission to form a second Bosnian division on 28 May 44. Handschar had to provide a cadre for the new division, 23. Waffen-Gebirgs-Division der SS Kama, but ongoing operations prevented any men from being released until June. Handschar gave up 54 officers, 187 NCOs, and 1137 men to Kama. In addition it also provided some men for the newly formed IX. Waffen-Gebirgs-Korps der SS (kroat.), including its divisional commander! These losses, coupled with the previous leadership shortage, hampered its combat operations as few Bosnians were judged suitable for promotion. The addition of 500 young Croatian Volksdeutsche hardly compensated Handschar for its losses. Around this time that the division reorganized somewhat and renumbered its Gebirgsjäger battalions in strict sequence.
Handschar was almost continually on operations until early September when V. SS Mountain Corps decided to pull it back into its base area in northeastern Bosnia. Unfortunately for it, Tito decided to keep up the pressure by launching an offensive in just that area almost exactly coinciding with Handschar's return. Coupled with the obvious decline in Germany's military prospects after the defection of Romania, desertion rates skyrocketed. Only some 200 had deserted between February and 15 June, but over two thousand disappeared, with weapons, between 1 and 20 September! Many switched sides, especially after Tito offered an amnesty, but a number joined the Ustasche or simply went home to defend their families. Obviously Handschar no longer had the manpower to fill all of its units so Himmler ordered it reorganized on 24 September. Each of its Gebirgsjäger regiments had its third battalion disbanded. Most of its specialty units were to be removed from its control and subordinated directly to IX. SS Mountain Corps. They were renumbered from 13 to 509 in recognition of this, but the advancing Soviets rendered this moot.
After a hundred or so Bosnians of the divisional escort company deserted in mid-October, an enraged Himmler ordered that all unreliable Bosnians be disarmed and their weapons be turned over to Germans. Most of the Bosnians were assigned to labor units. This action reduced the number of Bosnians in the division to equality with the number of Germans. Himmler had plans to reorganize the division into a brigade or to send it to what was left of Poland to finish rebuilding, but 2nd Panzer Army couldn't spare it.
In mid-November Handschar was moved into Hungary as part of a desparate attempt to throw back the Soviet bridgeheads over the Danube at Apatin and Batina. Despite some temporary German successes, the Soviets succeeded in breaking through the German defenses until they stopped, exhausted, west of Kaposvár. This was a quiet sector for most of the winter of '45 as the Budapest-Vienna axis was far more promising for the Soviets. However at the end of March the Soviets and Bulgarians decided to evict the Germans from their Margarethestellung (Margarethe Position) running from the western end of Lake Balaton to the Croatian border. 2nd Panzer Army had little to stop them and was forced to withdraw to the German frontier, but there it was able to stop their half-hearted offensive. Handschar attempted to retreat to the Anglo-American lines further to the west in early May and managed to reach them by 12 May by going along the mountain ridges to avoid the Soviet pursuit. There it surrendered to the British.
Commanders:
Brigf. Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig (9 August 43-19 June 44)
Brigf. Desiderius Hampel (19 June 44-8 May 45)
Strength:
| 31/12/43 | 360/1931/18,774 |
| 15/2/44 | 377/2078/18,653 |
| 30/6/44 | 391/2244/16,501 |
| 20/8/44 | 346/1950/15,811 |
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