While the division remained "volunteer" in name, few of the conscripted ethnic Germans actively sought entry into the unit. "SS Reichsführer" Himmler had announced that the wishes of the "Volksdeutsche" were irrelevant, while in connection with the Balkan Germans the SS head of recruitment Gottlob Berger remarked: ""kein Mensch [kümmert] [sich ja] darum, was wir unten mit unseren Volksdeutschen tun"" ("no person cares what we do with our ethnic Germans in the South"). Ethnic Germans in the Balkans were therefore powerless and could not oppose conscription into the SS. The unwillingness of ethnic Germans to serve in the unit is illustrated by a mutiny of 173 Croatian Germans of the division in 1943 in Bosnia. Apparently the men of mixed ancestry did not speak German and were mistreated by their superiors as a result. Himmler intervened personally in the problem and even ordered any NCO that insulted the mother of the Croatian German troops to be shot on the spot (the insulting of mothers being common in the Balkans). Many of these men preferred service in the Croatian Home Guard for a variety of reasons. In 1942, the Pančevo-based unit was declared a Mountain Division. They were issued with a significant amount of non-standard German weapons and used captured equipment such as Czech machine guns like the ZB-53 and French light tanks. They were provided with excellent German-made mountain artillery such as the 10.5 cm Gebirgshaubitze 40 howitzer and 7.5 cm Gebirgsgeschütz 36 mountain gun. When the division was formed, it was assigned to the Balkans as an anti-Partisan mountain division. In October 1942, the division led a German-Bulgarian anti-guerrilla offensive by the name of Operation Kopaonik against the Chetniks in the Kopaonik, Goč and Jastrebac mountains of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. The operation was aimed at the destruction of the Rasina Corps of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, commanded by Major Dragutin Keserović, whose headquarters was located in the village of Kriva Reka. Germans and Bulgarians cleared the Chetnik free territory and in the process committed war crimes against the Serbian civilian population. The Chetniks successfully withdrew from the German-Bulgarian ring to territory that was beyond the reach of the occupation forces.