The 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian) was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The division was composed of German officers and Bosnian Muslim soldiers. Named Kama after a small dagger used by Balkan shepherds, it was one of the thirty-eight divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Formed on 19 June 1944, it was built around a cadre from the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) but did not reach its full strength and never saw action as a formation. Elements of the division fought briefly against Soviet forces in southern Hungary in early October 1944 alongside the 31st SS Volunteer Grenadier Division. They were soon disengaged from the front line in Hungary and had begun a move to the German puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, to join the 13th SS Division when the Bosnian Muslim soldiers of the Kama division mutinied on 17 October 1944. The cadre quickly regained control, but the mutiny resulted in the division being formally dissolved on 31 October 1944. Background After the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941, the extreme Croat nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed Poglavnik (leader) of an Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH, from the ). The NDH combined almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate". NDH authorities, led by the Ustaše Militia, immediately launched a campaign of mass killings, expulsions and forced religious conversions to Catholicism targeting the Serbian Orthodox population living within the borders of the new state. Despite Pavelić's assurances of equality with the predominantly Catholic Croats, many Muslims quickly became dissatisfied with Ustaše rule. An Islamic leader reported that not one Muslim occupied an influential post in the administration. By early 1942, fierce fighting had broken out between the Ustaše, Chetniks and Partisans in NDH territory. Some Ustaše militia units became convinced that the