German General Behind the Devil’s Division in Yugoslavia: Fritz Neidholdt
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As partisan resistance spreads across Yugoslavia in 1943, German occupation forces launch brutal anti-partisan operations across the Balkans. Villages are burned, civilians executed, and entire communities destroyed in reprisals meant to crush support for Tito’s resistance movement.
One of the units at the centre of this campaign is the 369th Croatian Infantry Division, known as the Devil’s Division. Commanded by German Wehrmacht general Fritz Neidholdt, the division becomes feared for its operations in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro, where eyewitnesses and postwar investigations link its soldiers to mass killings, destruction of villages, and attacks against civilians during Operations Weiss and Schwarz.
Fritz Neidholdt’s story follows his path from the German Empire and the First World War to the rise of Nazi Germany and the brutal occupation of Yugoslavia during the Second World War. It also examines the crimes attributed to the Devil’s Division, Neidholdt’s extradition to Yugoslavia after the war, the 1947 Belgrade war crimes trial, and how he ultimately paid for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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