were not fulfilled. Nevertheless, in April 1944, Himmler ordered the establishment of the new Albanian volunteer division that Hitler had authorised. It was subsequently named after the medieval Albanian warrior Skanderbeg. By this point, the Germans and some members of the Albanian puppet government believed that about 50,000 ethnic Albanians could be recruited to join the Waffen-SS. The Germans had initially envisioned a force of 10,000–12,000 men for the Albanian SS division. Himmler saw the Muslim Albanians as a potential source of manpower in Germany's war against the Yugoslav Partisans, who faced significant difficulties in recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join their ranks. On 17 April 1944, the Albanian battalion of the 13th SS Division was transferred via rail directly from combat in Bosnia to Kosovo to form part of the new Albanian division. The head of Waffen-SS recruitment, SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, reported to Himmler that the Albanians "... were quite sad about leaving." Himmler himself expected "great usefulness" from the unit since the Albanians that fought in the 13th SS Division had proven to be "highly motivated and disciplined" in the fight against the Partisans in the NDH. After the war, Bosnian Muslim former members of the 13th SS Division stated that while with the division the Albanians had shot unarmed civilians and were "very brutal". On 23 May, Fitzthum noted the failure of the Albanian units that had been used in operations against the Partisans. He reported that he had dissolved four Albanian battalions organised by the Wehrmacht, describing most Albanian army and gendarmerie officers as "totally corrupt, unusable, undisciplined and untrainable." The Germans found that Kosovo Albanians were more cooperative than Albanians from Albania-proper. This was mainly because they feared a return to Yugoslav rule. Thus, many of the division's recruits were Kosovo Albanians, although some were refugees from Albania-proper. The quality of most of these recruits was poor, and only between 6,000 and 6,500 were considered suitable to receive training. Those that were accepted were a combination of about 1,500 former Royal Yugoslav Army prisoners of war, elements of the failed Albanian army and gendarmerie, volunteers from both pre-war and expanded Albania, and conscripts from families that had more than two sons. Unlike the Albanians in the Handschar division, who received extensive training in France and then Neuhammer training grounds in Germany, the new recruits underwent a very short training period of only six weeks. The Albanians