THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN THE CREATION OF THE 21st DIVISION OF THE SS - SKANDERBEG AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN THE WAR CRIME IN VELIKA
Keywords:
religious extremism, Greater Albania, war crimes, SS division “Skanderbeg”, ballists, volunteers, intelligence services.Abstract
The paper deals with the role of fanaticized religious leaders in the creation of the 21st Division of the SS “Skanderbeg”, developed on the basis of the ideas of the League of Prizren which laid the foundations of the so-called "Greater Albania". The authors analyze the activities of the German Counter-Intelligence Service “Abwehr” in the creation of such an “elite” division, whose operatives and agents skillfully mislead religious leaders and religiously fanaticized aghas and beys in order to preserve occupying power in the Balkans without the involvement of German regular troops. Within this unit there were numerous ballist and volunteer forces from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, Northern Albania, Western Macedonia, but also from Plav and Gusinje (Montenegro) and from the Raška area, while only the commanding staff (officers and non-commissioned officers) were Germans. Since the creation of this unit, religious and nationalist fanatics were attempting to ethnically cleanse the multinational region from all Non-Albanians, committing mass crimes against the unprotected population. The list of crimes committed by this unit is very long, but definitely the most brutal was the one committed on 28 July 1944. On that day, in an event that is known in historiography as “The Velika Massacre”, for just two hours and fifteen minutes in the villages beneath the mountain Čakor called Velika and Gornja Ržanica the fanatics blinded by their religion murdered and then burned down most of their 458 victims, of which 120 were children.
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