At the end of 1942, Heinrich Himmler (Commander in Chief of the SS) and Gottlob Berger (in charge of recruitment of the SS) analyzed the possibility of including Bosnian and Albanian Muslim volunteers in the Waffen-SS. With the approval of Hitler, the task was entrusted to SS General Artur Phleps and Palestinian Arab nationalist leader and Muslim religious leader Amin Al-Husayni, who quickly began the recruitment and training of 21,065 men, the vast majority Muslims, assigning one imam for each battalion and one mullah for each of their regiments. The Handschar Division was formally constituted on February 10, 1943.
The name Handschar, with which the 13th Division of the Waffen-SS was distinguished, is derived from the Serbo-Croatian word Handzar which means scimitar, the typical Arabic sword with a long curved blade. For this reason his image was used as a symbol of the Division. Another characteristic element of the uniform was the use of the green "fez" Turkish hat. The main objective of this Division was to fight against the communist partisans of Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who maintained a guerrilla war against the occupation of the countries of the Berlin-Rome Axis.
In autumn of 1944, Germany withdrew its regular Balkan army and the Handschar Division began to disintegrate due to the desertion of some soldiers who saw the war lost by the rapid advance of the Red Army and felt the need to march home to protect their families. This also because of the fear of reprisals from the partisans since the Division had acted very violently against them. The rest of the members of the Handschar Division continued to fight until their surrender to the British troops in Austria on May 8, 1945.