The 7th Waffen SS Mountain Division was raised for war in the rugged terrain of Yugoslavia. The unit included a huge number of
Volksdeutsche
, ethnic Germans recruited from outside the Reich. After numerous anti-guerrilla operations in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, towards the end of the war it was employed against units of the Bulgarian Army and Red Army forces in the difficult mission of covering the withdrawal of German forces retreating from Greece and Albania. It was one of the few Waffen-SS formations to be used in offensive actions during the final phases of the war. Prinz Eugen fought a brutal, ugly war in the Balkans; it was an effective combat force, but also capable of extreme cruelty towards prisoners and civilians. This work is the most extensive illustrated history of the unit to date.