aspects of raising the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) in the NDH in addition to his duties commanding the 7th SS Division. In his strongly apologetic divisional history of the division which he later commanded, Otto Kumm claims that his division captured Bihać and Bosanski Petrovac, killed over 2,000 Partisans and captured nearly 400 during Case White. After a short rest and refit in April, the division was committed to Case Black in May and June 1943, during which it advanced from the Mostar area into the Italian governorate of Montenegro killing, according to Kumm, 250 Partisans and capturing over 500. The historian Thomas Casagrande notes that all German units fighting partisans routinely counted the civilians they had murdered as partisans. Therefore, it can be assumed that the reported number of inflicted casualties included many civilians. The division played a decisive role during the fighting. Although Himmler had already planned to award Phleps the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his role in organising the 7th SS Division, it was for the achievements of his division during Case Black that Phleps received the award. Phleps was also portrayed in the SS-magazine Das Schwarze Korps. He received the Knight's Cross in July 1943, while being also promoted to Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS (lieutenant general), and placed in command of the V SS Mountain Corps. In May 1943, Phleps became frustrated by the failure of his Italian allies to cooperate with German operations, which was demonstrated in his reputation for forthright speech. During a meeting with his Italian counterpart in Podgorica, Montenegro, Phleps called the Italian corps commander General Ercole Roncaglia a "lazy macaroni". Phleps scolded his Wehrmacht interpreter, Leutnant Kurt Waldheim for toning down his language, saying "Listen Waldheim, I know some Italian and you are not translating what I am telling this so-and-so". On another occasion, he threatened to shoot Italian sentries who were delaying his passage through a checkpoint. On 15 May 1943, Phleps handed over command of the division to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen SS Karl von Oberkamp. While under Phleps' command, the division committed many crimes against civilian population of the NDH, especially during Case White and Case Black. These included "burning villages, massacre of inhabitants, torture and murder of captured partisans", thence the division thereby developed a distinctive reputation for cruelty. These charges have been denied by Kumm,