Jonathan Trigg - Hitlers Jihadis: Muslim Volunteers of the Waffen-SS

I would like to express my thanks to a number of people, without whose help and support this book would never have been written. First to the surviving Muslim and non-Muslim veterans themselves from the huge array of formations covered in this book. The fate of many Waffen-SS survivors after the War was often harsh and sometimes arbitrary, but whereas in the West retribution most often came in the guise of judicial punishment such as imprisonment and loss of civil rights, in the East it was a different story. Put bluntly, most survivors of the fighting didnt survive the peace. Stalin and Tito did their level best to exterminate their fellow countrymen who had fought against them. As those familiar with the first two volumes in the series will know, in them I follow the lives and wartime careers of members of the units I cover from pre-War, through recruitment and training, to combat and the end of hostilities. This has not been possible in this volume, as no single formation is the theme of the book and post-War retribution so seriously denuded the ranks of men able and willing to talk about their experiences. For those that lived through the immediate post-War bloodbath it is inevitable that their numbers dwindle year by year, but as ever, without the help and patience of the veterans in answering endless questions on obscure details that happened more than 60 years ago this book would have been impossible to write. Thanks yet again to Frau Carina Notzke at the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg, and a new friend at the archive in Koblenz, Frau Martina Caspers. My pigeon German is not improving but they still humour me and have been enormously helpful.

To Shaun at The History Press for never stopping pushing, and a massive thanks to the printing version of Gandalf the Wizard, my best friend Tim at County Print on the photographic side, you can make magic out of mud, it really does make all the difference. My research was made much more interesting and easier by the internet. There is a vast community online that is all networked together, and there is almost always someone who knows someone who can help with any topic. Some of the best resources out there are military history websites and their users, two of the finest being Troy Tempests www.feldpost.tv/forum and Jason Pipess team at www.feldgrau.net, to them a heartfelt thanks. One of an authors greatest challenges in military history is the issue of finding photographs that are both interesting and illustrative of the text, and maybe even to find the ever elusive but always worthwhile goal of pictures that havent been published before. As always, people have been very kind with both their time and treasured possessions, so my thanks to the ever informative and knowledgeable James Mcleod in particular, to Mr R. P. Croston and Bruno Beger PhD, as well as Ostbataillon 43, Sandtrooper and Rene Chavez.

Special thanks goes to George Lepre, whose book on the SS-Handschar Division is by far the most definitive text on that misunderstood and little regarded formation, and who in my opinion has set new standards in writing objectively on such a controversial topic.

Several people helped me with proof reading and have helped with the text, made suggestions and amendments and corrected mistakes to improve the writing and flow, for that I thank them, and whilst I have of course made every effort to achieve accuracy if there are any mistakes then they are entirely my own.

Thank you as well to everyone who has bought and read Hitlers Gauls and Hitlers Flemish Lions , I hope that this third instalment does not disappoint. This has been without a doubt the hardest volume to research and write but that in itself has been hugely rewarding.

As ever I must pay tribute to the amazing resilience of my beautiful wife who I am trying desperately to convert into a fan of military history one day darling! And specifically for school show and tell in Lydgate here is a big mention for our two incredible children, Maddy and Jack, they have even started to read my books and are on page 5 of Hitlers Gauls , bless them! But as Maddy always says, Its alright dad but its not as good as Paul Jennings!

Military ranks: Waffen-SS ranks are used throughout for Waffen-SS personnel. A conversion chart to comparative British Army ranks has been provided as Appendix B. For officers and soldiers of the German Army ( Heer ) their ranks are given in firstly their original German and then the British Army equivalents in brackets. Red Army and Partisan ranks are given directly in British Army terms.

Military terminology: As far as possible the military terminology used is that of the time and the army involved, on occasion an attempt has been made to translate that terminology into modern British Army parlance in order to aid understanding.

Unit designation: All German orders of battle use the original unit designation of the time and then an English translation e.g. Gebirgs Korps is followed by Mountain Corps in brackets, and this is continued throughout except in certain circumstances where it is further simplified to improve the flow of the text or to establish authenticity, as in the relevant chapter titles. Again, to remain true to the time, Russian and Yugoslav Partisan formations are numbered, while German formations at corps or army level are either written or use the original Roman numerals. Smaller units such as divisions and regiments are numbered.

Foreign words: Where non-English words are used they are italicised unless in common usage and English translations are either given before or immediately afterwards. If then used often in the text they are no longer italicised.

Measurements: Distances are given in miles but weapon calibres are given in their usual metric form.

Place names: Particularly as regards places in the Balkans and the Soviet Union I have stuck with one spelling if there are several, mostly the one in common usage at the time, but have also tried initially to include other derivations in brackets to aid the reader following the ebb and flow of campaigns on any modern maps they may have.

Serbo-Croat: German has its umlauts, French has its accents, and Serbo-Croat has its own inflections as well, however as they are less well known than their western European counterparts I have not used them but have instead used English spelling to indicate the correct pronunciation when appropriate, e.g. the royalist Serb resistance movement led by Draza Mihailovic were the cetniks, the pronunciation of the c is a ch, so I have spelt it as chetniks. I apologise to any Serbo-Croat speakers who balks at my simplicity or litany of linguistic mistakes!

Names of peoples: Particularly as regards the names of the Muslim peoples of the former Soviet Union I have tried to use the most commonly accepted name, so I have used the Crimean Tartars, for instance, instead of the other form, Tatars.

This book, the third in the Hitlers Legions series, is a significant departure from its predecessors which dealt firstly with a single nationality, the French volunteers of the SS-Charlemagne in Hitlers Gauls , and secondly with the ethnic Flemings of the the SS-Langemarck in Hitlers Flemish Lions . This book, in contrast, seeks not to document a single nation or ethnic group and its contribution to the uniformed German war effort and the Waffen-SS in particular, but to bring together in one volume the entire panoply of different formations and units fighting on a plethora of fronts who shared one common, defining bond: adherence to Islam.