SS Polizei-Selbstschutz-Regiment Sandschak
| SS Polizei-Selbstschutz-Regiment Sandschak | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1943 — 1944 |
| Size | 2,000 |
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| Engagements |
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| Commanders | |
| Founded and effectively controlled | Karl von Krempler |
| SS and Police Leader | August Meyszner |
SS-Polizei Selbstschutz Regiment Sandschak (from German; "SS-Police Self-Protection Regiment Sandžak"), known in Serbian as Krempler Legion (Serbian: Легија „Кремплер"/Legija „Krempler") was a Schutzstaffel (SS) unit established on the territory of Sandžak by the senior Waffen-SS officer Karl von Krempler in Axis occupied Yugoslavia. He went to the Sandžak region (named after the Ottoman administrative unit "Sanjak") in October and took over the local volunteer militia of around 5,000 anti-communist, anti-Serb Muslim men headquartered in Sjenica.
The SS-police "self-defence" regiment Sandžak was created by joining three battalions of Albanian collaborationist troops with one battalion of the Moslem militia. The Germans could not provide uniforms, arms and equipment for more than one battalion of Muslims, so other Muslim fighters remained within units of Moslem militia. This formation was sometimes thereafter called the Kampfgruppe Krempler or more derisively the "Muselmanengruppe von Krempler". As the senior Waffen-SS officer, Karl von Krempler appointed Sulejman Pačariz as the formal commander of the unit, but as the key military trainer and contact person with German arms and munitions, he remained effectively in control. At one point around 2,000 members of the SS regiment operated in Sjenica. The supreme commander of all police forces was SS and Police Leader August Meyszner who was responsible only to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler regarding the police actions.
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