The Muslim Nazis: Handschar

About this episode

This episode explores the complex history of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division and the human stories behind the so-called 'Muslim Nazis' during World War II.

After nearly five years, we have finally arrived at the point where we began this series about the so-called “Muslim Nazis.” We still have a little ways to go before we can call this story complete, but the image that inspired this half-decade deep dive into one of the darkest and strangest corners of the Second World War can finally be fully developed. It took a journey across two continents and multiple countries, and context that spans two of the most—if not the most—controversial historical developments of the twentieth century, that is, the nascent Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the birth, death, and civil war of the old Yugoslavian kingdom. Only such a bizarre creation as the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the Third Reich’s SS could result from such a complex web of geopolitics, nefarious figures, and chaotic and unbelievably violent forces and events. And yet, there was always a human side to this story. The human side came not from the great figures of the story—the Grand Mufti’s or the Heinrich Himmler’s—but rather the men themselves and their own accounts of just what happened to bring them, the sons of Bosnia, into the arms of the Nazis, to say nothing of the…

People in this episode

Host: Alexander von Sternberg

Topics covered

• World War II
• Nazi Germany
• Bosnian history
• Geopolitics
• Human stories
• Military history

Keywords

• Muslim Nazis
• 13th Waffen Mountain Division
• Bosnia
• Heinrich Himmler
• Grand Mufti
• Second World War
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Yugoslavia

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: 13th Waffen Mountain Division

Places: Bosnia

More episodes of History Impossible

• Understanding the Abyss: Holocaust Scholarship into the 21st Century · May 21, 2026 · 1h 7m
• The Flight from Hitler's Shadow: Making Martyrs of Evil · April 16, 2026 · 1h 46m
• Martyrs, Militants, Monetizers, and Madmen (w/ Crackpot History) · February 25, 2026 · 2h 8m
• Color Coded Alliances and Islamism's Useful Suckers (w/ Eli Lake) · February 13, 2026 · 1h 17m
• The Forgotten Green Brown Alliance · February 3, 2026 · 1h 52m
• War for the Frontiers of History and America (w/ Jack Henneman of The History of the Americans) · December 1, 2025 · 2h 22m