24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Karstjäger
The 24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS was a German mountain infantry division. Founded in 1942 as a company, the unit consisted mainly of Volksdeutsche from Yugoslavia and the South Tyrol province of Italy. The division was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
About 24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Karstjäger in brief
The 24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS was a German mountain infantry division. Founded in 1942 as a company, the unit consisted mainly of Volksdeutsche from Yugoslavia and the South Tyrol province of Italy. Although focused on anti-partisan operations, it also saw action in the wake of the Italian surrender when it moved to disarm Italian troops in Tarvisio and protect ethnic German communities in Italy. At the end of the war it successfully fought to keep passes into Austria open, allowing German units to escape the Balkans and surrender to British forces. The remnants of the unit became some of the last Germans to lay down their arms when they surrendered to the British 6th Armoured Division on 9 May 1945. A joint Italian-German study implicated the division in 23 separate war crimes involving the killing of a total of 277 people between theItalian surrender and the war. The division was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
It was never more than theoretical and the division was soon reduced to the W Affen Mountain Brigade of theSS. Throughout its existence as a battalion, division and brigade, it was primarily involved in fighting partisans in the Karst Plateau on the frontiers of Yugoslavia, Italy, and Austria; the mountainous terrain required specialised mountain troops and equipment. The company was formed at the SS training centre in Dachau on 10 July 1942 from soldiers of the supply services training and replacement battalion of the 23rd Waffin Mountain Division. It had a battalion strength of around 500 troops in November 1942, and as the SS-Freiwilligen-Karstwehr Battalion, it spent the first six months of 1943 training in Austria. The unit drew its recruits mainly from among the Germans of Yugoslavia and SouthTyrolians, with the officer cadre being drawn from SS geological detachments.
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