Terror in the Balkans (108 page)

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