Muhamed Hadžiefendić

Muhamed Hadžifendić
Born	January 1898 Tuzla, Austria-Hungary
Died	7 October 1943 Tuzla, Independent State of Croatia
Buried at	Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Allegiance	Austria-Hungary  Kingdom of Yugoslavia  Independent State of Croatia  Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Croatian Home Guard Waffen SS
Years of service	1914-1943
Rank	SS-Sturmbannführer
Battles/wars	World War I World War II

Muhamed Hadžiefendić (1898–1943) was Croatian Domobran senior officer and commander of the Croatian Home Guard unit 'Volunteer Detachment of People's Uprising' (also called Hadžifendića legija), a World War II Croatian Muslim militia in Independent State of Croatia.

Life

Muhamed Hadžiefendić was born in Tuzla. After primary education in his hometown, he attended the Commercial Academy in Sarajevo. It was the wish of his father that he inherit and lead the family business but instead he showed more interest in pursuing a military career. During the First World War he volunteered for the Habsburg Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry and returned from the war with the rank of lieutenant. He succeeded his father in his commercial affairs but also continued his military training, studying emergency examinations at the Military Academy in Belgrade, Serbia.

World War II

In 1938 he was appointed a reserve Major in the Yugoslav Royal Army. In 1941 the Nazis invaded and Croatia (including Bosnia) became a separate state under a Fascist regime.

In April 1941 Major Hadziefendic refused to follow orders, deserted, and organised the local population to fight against the desintegrating Yugoslav Army in Vodice near Sibenik (western Croatia). With the formal proclamation of the NDH (Independent State of Croatia) on 10 April 1941, he returned to to his native Tuzla, Bosnia. In December 1941 he visited the Croatian Marshall Slavko Kvaternik, and requested permission to create a Domobran formation that would consist of Tuzla Muslims. Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić was offered commission and was appointed to command the Croatian III. 8th Battalion Infantry Regiment in Tuzla. During a Chetnik attacks in early November 1941 the Home Guards (domobrane) of III. Battalion erupted into panic and began to withdraw in disarray. Major Hadžiefendić restored discipline and order with a gun in his hand and the Home Guards returned to the site, but the Major quickly realized that he could secure greater resolve from arming local people. Most of the Home Guard under his command were in fact conscripts from nearby Slavonia. He surmised that these Croat conscripts did not have much motivation to fight so far from their homes amd that the armed forces of the NDH were not able to provide effective protection of the Muslim population from Chetnik attacks and massacres. Therefore on 7 December 1941 Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić met with the Croatian Minister of Home Guard Brigades (the Hrvatsko domobranstvo), outlining his own proposals. Ustaše Vojskovođa Slavko Kvaternik agreed with this idea and Hadžiefendić returned to Tuzla.

On 20 December the Major met with local mayors, representatives of the military government and other prominent people to discuss forming a local volunteer force. This was formally established two days later and initially consisted of a Company deployed in the villages east of Tuzla and around Živinice, which were then directly threatened by Chetnik attacks. Less than four months later in May 1942 the Volunteers Department was renamed Hadžiefendićeva legija (Hadžiefendić Legion) and formally recognised as a special Home Guard volunteer regiment. The regiment consisted of a headquarters in Tuzla and six battalions deployed in the cities and towns in northern Bosnia (Tuzla, Gracanica, Brcko, Bijeljina, Zvornik and Puračiću). The people commonly referred to it as the Hadžiefendićeva legija, whilst the Partisans and the Chetniks called it the "Muslim Legion". The formation was highly motivated and fought well, but was poorly equipped by the Croatian government in Zagreb and lacked proper military training.

In 1942 Major Hadžiefendić was sick and spent some time recuperating in hospitals in Zagreb.

Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić was also involved in the recruitment of local Muslim men into the Waffen SS in 1943. In March 1943 SS Standartenführer Karl von Krempler travelled to Tuzla in central Bosnia and met with Hadžiefendić, and on 28 March Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić escourted von Krempler to Sarajevo where he introduced him to the leader of the Islamic clergy in all Bosnia, the Reis-ul-Ulema, Hafiz Muhamed Pandža, and other leading Bosniak politicians not involved with the Ustaše. In July 1943 Major Muhamed Hadžiefendić joined the Waffen SS and became an SS-Sturmbannführer.

Over July to August 1943 there were major desertions from the Hadžiefendić Legion to the Partisans, organised by Partisan spies. Major Hadžiefendić was ambushed by Communist partisans and arrested on 7 October 1943. The Communists brought him before a kangaroo court and condemned him to death with over 50 other senior citizens of Tuzla (including Bosniaks, Croats and even Serbs), who the Communists deemed "hostile elements". The mortal remains of Hadžiefendić were later transferred and buried in front of the Jalske mosque in Tuzla.

Post war

A few years ago there were modest initiatives to Major Hadžiefendić officially rehabilitated and to have a street named after him Tuzla, but it failed due to a media campaign launched by a Bosnian left party.

References

• Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History, 1994
• Fikret Karčić, The Bosniaks and the Challenges of Modernity: Late Ottoman and Hapsburg Times (1995)
• Johann C. Allmayer-Beck, Erich Lessing: Die K.u.k. Armee. 1848-1918. Verlag Bertelsmann, München 1974, ISBN 3-570-07287-8
• Stefan Rest: Des Kaisers Rock im ersten Weltkrieg. Verlag Militaria, Wien 2002, ISBN 3-9501642-0-0
• Werner Schachinger, Die Bosniaken kommen! - Elitetruppe in der k.u.k. Armee 1879-1918. Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz 1994, ISBN 978-3-7020-0574-0
• k.u.k. Kriegsministerium „Dislokation und Einteilung des k.u.k Heeres, der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine, der k.k. Landwehr und der k.u. Landwehr“ in: Seidels kleines Armeeschema - Herausg.: Seidel & Sohn Wien 1914
• Lepre, George (2000). Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945 Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 0764301349 , page.118.

External links

• http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=7033

Persondata
Name	Hadziefendic, Muhamed
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1898
Place of birth	Tuzla, Austria-Hungary
Date of death	1943
Place of death	Tuzla, Independent State of Croatia