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On July 28, 1944, the Skanderbeg SS Division and the 7th Prinz Eugen SS Division attacked the village of Velika in the Lim valley. SS Skanderbeg and SS Prinz Eugen were alleged to have massacred 428 civilians, of which 120 were children and burned down 300 Serbian houses. This was during a German military operation known as Unternehmen Draufganger or Operation Daredevil. The Axis Order of Battle consisted of the following Nazi formations: the Kosovar Albanian 21st SS Skanderbeg Division, the 14th SS Regiment from the 7th SS Division “Prinz Eugen”, the Kampfgruppe Bendl, the Kampfgruppe Stripel, parts of the Brandenburg Regiment, and the 5th SS Police Regiment. Operation Draufganger was aimed at the 2nd Assault Corps NOVJ which was formed on October 11, 1943 from the 2nd Proletarian Division and the 3rd Assault Division and was conducted in the Andrijevica area in the Lim valley area between Montenegro and Kosovo-Metohija. The action was conducted from July 18 to 26 to prevent the breakthrough of the Operative Group of the Division into Serbia. The Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division was broken or decimated during the operation while other units suffered significant casualties and the German plan failed. |
SS Brigadefuehrer Otto Kumm commanded the Prinz Eugen SS Division during this action. He would command the division from January 30, 1944 to January 20, 1945. He was replaced by SS Oberfuehrer Schmidhuber who would return to command the Prinz Eugen SS Division after Skanderbeg was reorganized as a Battle Group on January 20, 1945 to the end of the war on May 8, 1945. Prinz Eugen and Skanderbeg were part of the 5th SS Corps of 2nd Panzer Army, commanded by Lothar Rendulic, which was part of Army Group F.
Milunka Vucetic personally witnessed the murder of the three-year-old Serbian child Tomislav Vucetic, who was then skinned alive by Kosovar Albanian troops in the Skanderbeg SS Division:
I approached the house of Milovan Vucetic. Around afternoon an army from Ivanpolje came into the area. We decided to take them bread, salt, which we had.When the army approached, I saw how in the olive grove Tomislav, the son of Milovan Vucetic, played. Two soldiers took him, a third ran over…one took out a knife and began to skin the child alive from his eyes downwards. I could not watch what occurred. I began screaming and his mother Leposava-Lepa ran over to protect him. She was killed.
Another survivor of the massacre, Radoje Knezevic, recalled the role of the Kosovar Skanderbeg SS Division:
I was only 11 years old when Hitler’s Division “Skanderbeg” and “Prinz Eugen” burned down the village of Velika and killed about 428 persons. Our family paid a heavy price that day. On that day my mother Stojanka was killed and then her body burned. The same fate befell my two brothers Nedeljko (5 years old) and Ratko (11 months old). My sister Raba (18 years old) was killed as she was trying to protect her mother and young brothers, And she too was burned.
Divna Vucetic, a survivor of the massacre, recalled:
I heard news of massacres in the surrounding villages so I became concerned for the safety of my children, the two eldest of whom I sent into the woods…I held in my lap my one year old son, Boza. On the threshold my daughter Persida approached, who was only three years old, and after her my two nieces, four year old Kata and three year old Nata, and daughters Cvete and Dusana Vucetic….A soldier approached with a gun…I told him that I wanted to bring him bread, as I was ordered to. He replied to that: “Germany has bread!” He spoke our language [Serbian] perfectly. He then shot at me, killing my son Boza in my lap, and wounding me in the right hand.
The division tagesbefehl or daily command report of the commander of the Skanderbeg SS Division, Schmidhuber, read as follows for July 25, 1944:
,,Operation ‘Draufganger’ was completely successful. It tied up strong enemy elements and diverted the partisan leadership from conducting their planned operations. The army has expressed its recognition for the efforts made by the participating troops and their commanders.”
The Skanderbeg SS Division daily report for August 1. read as follows:
,,Special recognition goes to the excellent commitment of the reinforced 14th Gebirgsjager Regiment under the command of Ostubaf.The remaining regimental units were then redeployed through the Cakor Mountain pass between Berane in Montenegro and Pec in Metohija on August 1. The II/14 was transported to Pec in Kosovo-Metohija. On August 2, they moved into the Rashka area on the Ibar.”