According to some, during the Great Patriotic War, a million Soviet citizens went to fight under the tricolor flag. Sometimes they even talk about two million Russians who fought against the Bolshevik regime, but they probably also count 700 thousand emigrants. These figures are cited for a reason - they serve as an argument for the assertion that the Great Patriotic War is the essence of the Second Civil War of the Russian people against the hated Stalin. What can I say?
If it really happened that a million Russians stood under the tricolor banner and fought tooth and nail against the Red Army for a free Russia, shoulder to shoulder with their German allies, then we would have no choice but to admit that yes, The Great Patriotic War truly became the Second Civil War for the Russian people. But was it so?
To figure it out this way or not, you need to answer several questions: how many of them were there? who were they? How did they get into the service? how and with whom did they fight? and what motivated them?
The cooperation of Soviet citizens with the occupiers took place in different forms, both in terms of the degree of voluntariness and the degree of involvement in the armed struggle - from the Baltic SS volunteers who fought fiercely near Narva, to the “Ostarbeiters” forcibly driven to Germany. I believe that even the most stubborn anti-Stalinists will not be able to enroll the latter in the ranks of fighters against the Bolshevik regime without crooking their souls. Typically, these ranks include those who received rations from the German military or police department, or held weapons received from the hands of the Germans or pro-German local government.
That is, the maximum number of potential fighters against the Bolsheviks includes:
foreign military units of the Wehrmacht and SS;
eastern security battalions;
Wehrmacht construction units;
Wehrmacht support personnel, they are also “our Ivans” or Hiwi (Hilfswilliger: “voluntary assistants”);
auxiliary police units (“noise” - Schutzmannshaften);
border guard;
“air defense assistants” mobilized to Germany through youth organizations;
HOW MANY ARE THERE?
We will probably never know the exact numbers, since no one really counted them, but some estimates are available to us. A lower estimate can be obtained from the archives of the former NKVD - until March 1946, 283,000 “Vlasovites” and other collaborators in uniform were transferred to the authorities. The upper estimate can probably be taken from Drobyazko’s works, which serve as the main source of figures for proponents of the “Second Civil” version. According to his calculations (the method of which he unfortunately does not disclose), the following passed through the Wehrmacht, SS and various pro-German paramilitary and police forces during the war years:
250,000 Ukrainians
70,000 Belarusians
70,000 Cossacks
150,000 Latvians
90,000 Estonians
50,000 Lithuanians
70,000 Central Asians
12,000 Volga Tatars
10,000 Crimean Tatars
7,000 Kalmyks
40,000 Azerbaijanis
25,000 Georgians
20,000 Armenians
30,000 North Caucasian peoples
Since the total number of all former Soviet citizens who wore German and pro-German uniforms is estimated at 1.2 million, that leaves about 310,000 Russians (excluding Cossacks). There are, of course, other calculations that give a smaller total number, but let’s not waste time on trifles, let’s take Drobyazko’s estimate from above as the basis for further reasoning.
WHO WERE THEY?
Hiwi and construction battalion soldiers can hardly be considered civil war fighters. Of course, their work freed up German soldiers for the front, but this also applies to the “ostarbeiters” to the same extent. Sometimes hiwi received weapons and fought alongside the Germans, but such cases in the unit's combat logs are described more as a curiosity than as a mass phenomenon. It is interesting to count how many there were who actually held weapons in their hands.
The number of hiwi at the end of the war Drobiazko gives about 675,000, if we add construction units and take into account the loss during the war, then I think we will not be much mistaken in assuming that this category covers about 700-750,000 people out of a total of 1.2 million. This is consistent with with the share of non-combatants among the Caucasian peoples, in the calculation presented by the headquarters of the eastern troops at the end of the war. According to him, of the total number of 102,000 Caucasians who passed through the Wehrmacht and SS, 55,000 served in the legions, Luftwaffe and SS and 47,000 in hiwi and construction units. It should be taken into account that the share of Caucasians enrolled in combat units was higher than the share of Slavs.
So, out of 1.2 million who wore a German uniform, only 450-500 thousand did this while holding a weapon. Let's now try to calculate the layout of the actual combat units of the eastern peoples.
75 Asian battalions (Caucasians, Turks and Tatars) were formed (80,000 people). Taking into account 10 Crimean police battalions (8,700), Kalmyks and special units, there are approximately 110,000 “combat” Asians out of a total of 215,000. This completely hits the Caucasians separately with the layout.
The Baltic states endowed the Germans with 93 police battalions (later partly consolidated into regiments), with a total number of 33,000 people. In addition, 12 border regiments (30,000) were formed, partly staffed by police battalions, followed by three SS divisions (15, 19 and 20) and two volunteer regiments, through which perhaps 70,000 people passed. Police and border regiments and battalions were partly recruited to form them. Taking into account the absorption of some units by others, a total of about 100,000 Balts passed through the combat units.
In Belarus, 20 police battalions (5,000) were formed, of which 9 were considered Ukrainian. After the introduction of mobilization in March 1944, police battalions became part of the army of the Belarusian Central Rada. In total, the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKA) had 34 battalions, 20,000 people. Having retreated in 1944 along with German troops, these battalions were consolidated into the Siegling SS Brigade. Then, on the basis of the brigade, with the addition of Ukrainian “policemen”, the remnants of the Kaminsky brigade and even the Cossacks, the 30th SS Division was deployed, which was later used to staff the 1st Vlasov Division.
Galicia was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was seen as potentially German territory. It was separated from Ukraine, included in the Reich, as part of the General Government of Warsaw, and put in line for Germanization. On the territory of Galicia, 10 police battalions (5,000) were formed, and subsequently a recruitment of volunteers for the SS troops was announced. It is believed that 70,000 volunteers showed up at the recruiting sites, but so many were not needed. As a result, one SS division (14th) and five police regiments were formed. Police regiments were disbanded as needed and sent to replenish the division. Galicia's total contribution to the victory over Stalinism can be estimated at 30,000 people.
In the rest of Ukraine, 53 police battalions (25,000) were formed. It is known that a small part of them became part of the 30th SS Division, the fate of the rest is unknown to me. After the formation in March 1945 of the Ukrainian analogue of the KONR - the Ukrainian National Committee - the Galician 14th SS Division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian and the formation of the 2nd began. It was formed from volunteers of Ukrainian nationality recruited from various auxiliary formations; about 2,000 people were recruited.
About 90 security “ostbattalions” were formed from Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, through which approximately 80,000 people passed, including the “Russian National People’s Army”, which was reformed into five security battalions. Among other Russian military formations, one can recall the 3,000-strong 1st Russian national brigade of the SS Gil (Rodionov), which went over to the side of the partisans, the approximately 6,000-strong “Russian National Army” of Smyslovsky and the army of Kaminsky (“Russian Liberation People’s Army”), which arose as so-called self-defense forces Lokot Republic. Maximum estimates of the number of people who passed through Kaminsky’s army reach 20,000. After 1943, Kaminsky's troops retreated along with the German army and in 1944 an attempt was made to reorganize them into the 29th SS Division. For a number of reasons, the reformation was canceled, and the personnel were transferred to complete the 30th SS Division. At the beginning of 1945, the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Vlasov army) were created. The first army division is formed from the "ostbattalions" and the remnants of the 30th SS division. The second division is formed from “ost battalions”, and partly from volunteer prisoners of war. The number of Vlasovites before the end of the war is estimated at 40,000 people, of which about 30,000 were former SS men and former battalions. In total, about 120,000 Russians fought in the Wehrmacht and SS with weapons in their hands at different times.
The Cossacks, according to Drobyazko’s calculations, fielded 70,000 people, let’s accept this figure.
HOW DID THEY GET INTO SERVICE?
Initially, the eastern units were staffed with volunteers from among prisoners of war and the local population. Since the summer of 1942, the principle of recruitment of the local population has changed from voluntary to voluntary-forced - an alternative to voluntary joining the police is forced deportation to Germany, as an “Ostarbeiter”. By the fall of 1942, undisguised coercion began. Drobyazko, in his dissertation, talks about raids on men in the Shepetivka area: those caught were offered a choice between joining the police or being sent to a camp. Since 1943, compulsory military service has been introduced in various “self-defense” units of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. In the Baltic states, SS units and border guards were recruited through mobilization since 1943.
HOW AND WHO DID THEY FIGHT?
Initially, the Slavic eastern units were created for security service. In this capacity, they were supposed to replace the Wehrmacht security battalions, which were sucked out of the rear zone like a vacuum cleaner by the needs of the front. At first, soldiers of the eastern battalions guarded warehouses and railways, but as the situation became more complicated, they began to be involved in anti-partisan operations. The involvement of the eastern battalions in the fight against the partisans contributed to their disintegration. If in 1942 the number of “ost-battalion members” who went over to the partisan side was relatively small (although this year the Germans were forced to disband the RNNA due to massive defections), then in 1943 14 thousand fled to the partisans (and this is very, very quite a lot, with the average number of eastern units in 1943 being about 65,000 people). The Germans did not have any strength to observe the further decomposition of the eastern battalions, and in October 1943 the remaining eastern units were sent to France and Denmark (disarming 5-6 thousand volunteers as unreliable). There they were included as 3 or 4 battalions in the regiments of the German divisions.
Slavic eastern battalions, with rare exceptions, were not used in battles on the eastern front. In contrast, a significant number of Asian Ostbattalions were involved in the first line of advancing German troops during the Battle of the Caucasus. The results of the battles were contradictory - some performed well, others, on the contrary, turned out to be infected with deserter sentiments and produced a large percentage of defectors. By the beginning of 1944, most of the Asian battalions also found themselves on the Western Wall. Those who remained in the East were brought together into the Eastern Turkic and Caucasian SS formations and were involved in the suppression of the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings.
In total, by the time of the Allied invasion, 72 Slavic, Asian and Cossack battalions had been assembled in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with a total number of about 70 thousand people. In general, the remaining battalions performed poorly in battles with the allies (with some exceptions). Of the almost 8.5 thousand irretrievable losses, 8 thousand were missing in action, that is, most of them were deserters and defectors. After this, the remaining battalions were disarmed and involved in fortification work on the Siegfried Line. Subsequently, they were used to form units of the Vlasov army.
In 1943, Cossack units were also withdrawn from the east. The most combat-ready formation of German Cossack troops, the 1st Cossack Division of von Panwitz, formed in the summer of 1943, went to Yugoslavia to deal with Tito’s partisans. There they gradually gathered all the Cossacks, expanding the division into a corps. The division took part in battles on the Eastern Front in 1945, fighting mainly against the Bulgarians.
The Baltic states contributed the largest number of troops to the front - in addition to three SS divisions, separate police regiments and battalions took part in the battles. The 20th Estonian SS Division was defeated near Narva, but was subsequently restored and managed to take part in the last battles of the war. The Latvian 15th and 19th SS divisions came under attack from the Red Army in the summer of 1944 and could not withstand the blow. Large levels of desertion and loss of combat capability are reported. As a result, the 15th Division, having transferred its most reliable composition to the 19th, was withdrawn to the rear for use in the construction of fortifications. The second time it was used in battle was in January 1945, in East Prussia, after which it was again withdrawn to the rear. She managed to surrender to the Americans. The 19th remained in Courland until the end of the war.
Belarusian policemen and those freshly mobilized into the BKA in 1944 were collected in the 30th SS Division. After its formation, the division was transferred to France in September 1944, where it took part in battles with the Allies. Suffered heavy losses, mainly from desertion. Belarusians ran over to the allies in droves and continued the war in Polish units. In December, the division was disbanded, and the remaining personnel were transferred to staff the 1st Vlasov Division.
The Galician 14th SS Division, barely sniffing gunpowder, was surrounded near Brody and almost completely destroyed. Although she was quickly restored, she no longer took part in battles at the front. One of her regiments was involved in suppressing the Slovak uprising, after which she went to Yugoslavia to fight Tito’s partisans. Since Yugoslavia is not far from Austria, the division managed to surrender to the British.
The KONR armed forces were formed in early 1945. Although the 1st Vlasov division was staffed almost entirely by punitive veterans, many of whom had already been to the front, Vlasov brainwashed Hitler by demanding more time for preparation. In the end, the division still managed to move to the Oder Front, where it took part in one attack against Soviet troops on April 13. The very next day, the division commander, Major General Bunyachenko, ignoring the protests of his German immediate superior, withdrew the division from the front and went to join the rest of Vlasov’s army in the Czech Republic. The Vlasov army carried out the second battle against its ally, attacking German troops in Prague on May 5.
WHAT MOVED THEM?
The driving motives were completely different.
Firstly, among the eastern troops one can distinguish national separatists who fought for the creation of their own national state or at least a privileged province of the Reich. This includes the Baltic states, Asian legionnaires and Galicians. The creation of units of this kind has a long tradition - remember, for example, the Czechoslovak Corps or the Polish Legion in the First World War. These would fight against the central government, no matter who sat in Moscow - the tsar, the secretary general or the popularly elected president.
Secondly, there were ideological and stubborn opponents of the regime. This may include the Cossacks (although their motives were partly national-separatist), part of the personnel of the eastern battalions, and a significant part of the officer corps of the KONR troops.
Thirdly, we can name opportunists who bet on the winner, those who joined the Reich during the victories of the Wehrmacht, but fled to the partisans after the defeat at Kursk and continued to run away at the first opportunity. These probably made up a significant part of the eastern battalions and local police. There were some from that side of the front, as can be seen from the change in the number of defectors to the Germans in 1942-44:
| 1942 | 79,769 |
| 1943 | 26,108 |
| 1944 | 9,207 |
Fourthly, these were people who hoped to break out of the camp and, at a convenient opportunity, go to their own. It’s hard to say how many of these there were, but sometimes there were enough for a whole battalion.
AND WHAT DOES IT END UP?
But the picture that emerges is completely different from what is painted by ardent anti-communists. Instead of one (or even two) million Russians united under the tricolor flag in the fight against the hateful Stalinist regime, there is a very motley (and clearly not reaching a million) company of Balts, Asians, Galicians and Slavs, each fighting for their own. And mainly not with the Stalinist regime, but with the partisans (and not only Russians, but also Yugoslav, Slovak, French, Polish), Western allies, and even with the Germans in general. Doesn't sound much like a civil war, does it? Well, perhaps these are the words to describe the struggle between partisans and policemen, but the policemen fought not under a tricolor flag, but with a swastika on their sleeves.
For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that until the end of 1944, until the formation of the KONR and its armed forces, the Germans did not provide the opportunity for Russian anti-communists to fight for the national idea, for a Russia without communists. It can be assumed that if they had allowed this earlier, more people would have rallied “under the tricolor flag,” especially since there were still plenty of opponents of the Bolsheviks in the country. But this is “would” and besides, the grandmother said two things. But in real history, no “millions under the tricolor flag” were observed.
Of all the peoples of the former USSR, the Russians gave Hitler the most allies and collaborators. The slogans “grandfathers” and “I remember I’m proud” are pronounced by the Russian people with a double meaning - after all, millions of Russian grandfathers fought on the wrong side of the trenches, as the Kremlin agitprop presents it.
Meet: Russians in the service of the Third Reich and the SS
In modern Russia, at every opportunity from television screens - in the news, historical programs or some kind of show, they like to reproach their neighbors for the fact that during the Second World War, SS units, police units or organizations supporting anti-Bolshevik, anti-Soviet sentiments.
First of all, it goes to the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, with their SS divisions, formed one, respectively, in each of these countries - Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. And also the SS division “Galicia” formed on the territory of Ukraine is especially mentioned in these programs or broadcasts. At the same time, their own SS units, formed from Russians, are cynically kept silent. If it were the will of the current fighters against the “Bandera” and “forest brothers”, they would no doubt try to erase the Vlasov ROA from their own history.
To finally appear in all their glory - the one and only fighters for saving the world during the Second World War.
However, history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. And the truth, no matter how bitter and unpleasant it is, and no matter how much the current generation of Russians would like to hide it, cannot be avoided, glossed over or embellished.
And, in addition to the well-known ROA - the Russian Liberation Army, under the leadership of the former Soviet general A.A. Vlasov, who, by the way, made a significant contribution to the victory of the Soviet troops near Moscow in 1941 and was appointed to command the surrounded by the 2nd Shock Army, helplessly abandoned by the Soviet command in the Volkhov forests and swamps, there are also other little-known SS divisions and units formed from Russians. Little known primarily to the Russian fighters themselves and their collaborators.
Yes Yes. Unlike the Latvians or Estonians and Ukrainians, who were only one division at most, there were not even several Russian SS units.
Here they are:
SS Volunteer Regiment "Varyag".
1st Russian national SS brigade "Druzhina".
15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps.
29th SS Grenadier Division "RONA" (1st Russian).
30th SS Grenadier Division (2nd Russian).
36th SS Grenadier Division "Dirlewanger".CORPS OF SS TROOPS OF THE MAIN OPERATIONAL DIRECTORATE OF THE SS FHA-SS (TROOP-SS)
15th Cossack Russian Corps of SS troops FHA-SS - 3 divisions, 16 regiments.
29th Russian FHA-SS - 6 regiments.
30th Russian FHA-SS, 1st formation 1944, - 5 regiments.BRIGADES OF THE MAIN DIRECTORATE OF IMPERIAL SECURITY SS RSHA-SS
1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina" - 3 regiments, 12 battalions.
1st Guards Brigade ROA “Sonderkommando Љ113″ SD - 1 battalion, 2 companies.
SS Brigade of the Center for Anti-Bolshevik Struggle (CPBB) - 3 battalions.
Reconnaissance and sabotage formation of the Main Team "Russia - Center" of the Sonderstaff "Zeppelin" RSHA-SS - 4 special forces detachments.
As you can see, there are Russian SS divisions and individual regiments, brigades, corps, and even reconnaissance and sabotage units. So why do modern Russian “Herodotus”, when they brand Estonians, Latvians or Ukrainians with shame on the next May 9th, do not remember the Russian SS units?
Everything is very simple. Such an example does not fit with the image of the Russian soldier-liberator (as if only Russians served in the Red Army and there were no Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, Armenians, or the same Latvians or Estonians), supposedly “the only one who did not stain” himself connection with German fascism.
And, you can argue and prove for as long as you like whether they participated or did not participate in punitive operations against civilians, whether they reached the size of a full-blooded division or did not reach the size, whether they fought at all or were just on paper, but the fact remains a fact - Russian divisions There were SS, and they fought on the side of the Third Reich.
But, in addition to the Russian SS units themselves, who fought with weapons in their hands on Hitler’s side, there were other military units and units consisting of Russians in the service of the Wehrmacht. Which, according to the already established “good” tradition, the new Russian historians and patriots themselves “forget” to talk about. Meanwhile, as they say, there is something to see. Eg:
MAIN COLLABORATION FORMATIONS. ARMED FORCES OF THE "UNION STATE"
Armed forces of the Congress of the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) (1 army, 4 corps, 8 divisions, 8 brigades).
Russian Liberation Army of the Congress of the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (3 divisions, 2 brigades)."ARMY" OF THE WEHRMACHT
Russian Liberation Army of the Wehrmacht - 12 security corps, 13 divisions, 30 brigades.
Russian Liberation People's Army - 5 regiments, 18 battalions.
Russian National People's Army - 3 regiments, 12 battalions.
Russian National Army - 2 regiments, 12 battalions.AVIATION BODY
Air Force KONR (Aviation Corps KONR) - 87 aircraft, 1 air group, 1 regiment.SECURITY CORPS OF THE ARMY REAR AREAS OF THE VERMACHT
582nd Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 11 battalions.
583rd Security (Estonian-Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 10 battalions.
584th Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 6 battalions.
590th Security Cossack (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 1 regiment, + 4 battalions.
580th Security Cossack (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 1 regiment, + 9 battalions.
532nd Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 13 battalions.
559th Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 7 battalions.EASTERN LEGIONS OF THE WEHRMACHT
Russian Legion "White Cross" of the Wehrmacht - 4 battalions.ABWERH DIVISIONS
“Special Division “Russia”” by General Smyslovsky - 1 regiment, + 12 battalions.ABWERH BRIGADES
Brigade "Graukopf" - "RNNA" of General Ivanov - 1 regiment, + 5 battalions.WEHRMACHT DIVISIONS OF SPECIAL PURPOSE
442nd Special Purpose - 2 ROA regiments.
136th Special Purpose - 2 ROA regiments.
210th Special Purpose Stationary Infantry (Coastal Defense) - 1 regiment, + 2 separate ROA battalions."NATIVE" SECURITY CORPS AND SELF-DEFENSE
Russian Wehrmacht security corps in Serbia - 1 brigade, + 5 regiments.
Russian "People's Guard" of the General Commissariat "Moscow" (Rear Area of Army Group "Center") - 13 battalions, + 1 cavalry division.RUSSIAN-CROATIAN
15th Special Purpose Mountain Rifle Corps of the 2nd Tank Army:
Russians - 1 security corps, 5 regiments; Croatian - 2 divisions, 6 regiments.
69th Special Purpose Corps of the 2nd Tank Army: Russian - 1 division, 8 regiments; Croatian - 1 division, 3 regiment.
Thus, just as the majority of foreign SS units and divisions were Russians, so in the Wehrmacht units itself, most of the collaborators were the same Russians. But how many Russians in total, at least approximately, fought on the side of Hitler and the Third Reich? Is it even possible to calculate their total number? I guess, yes.
According to various estimates by different researchers, the total number of Russians who fought on the side of the Third Reich ranges from zero (in fact, these are the calculations of the current “ardent Russian patriots”) and up to two million. But, most likely, the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, between these two figures.
Moreover, the Germans themselves, as of 1943, put the total number of Russians who fought on the side of the Third Reich at 800 thousand people.
So, for example, Vlasov’s army itself was not very large.
Adjoining Vlasov was the Cossack corps of General Helmut von Panivitz, which became part of the ROA. These are 45 thousand Cossacks who fought in Yugoslavia. It included the Russian corps, formed from emigrants, which fought in Serbia. In total there are about 120 thousand people. This is what was actually called ROA.
Thus, the ROA alone produced approximately 120 thousand Russians who fought on Hitler’s side.
By adding to these 120 thousand all the other known Russian SS divisions, security regiments and units, formations and detachments, we will just reach the figure of 1 million Russian (!!!) soldiers on the side of the Third Reich. In general, if we take into account that soldiers died in battles and reinforcements were constantly sent to military units, then to these 800 thousand - a million, we can safely add at least another 200-300 thousand Russians.
A very remarkable thing about the actual number of Russians who fought on Hitler’s side is the fact that when in 1943 Hitler demanded that all Russians be removed from the Eastern Front and transferred to the Western Front, the generals grabbed their heads: this was impossible, because every fifth on the Eastern Front the front was then Russian.
So it turns out that those who today so vigorously vilify their neighbors for collaborating with the fascist regime were themselves the most massive and loyal supporters of the Third Reich and Hitler during the Second World War. Perhaps this is precisely what explains the incomprehensible craving for neo-Nazi symbols and ideology in modern Russia. So maybe it’s enough to reproach others for the speck in their eye, when they themselves have a log sticking out of each eye?
I am not a historian and have not verified the data provided.
If readers have serious objections, they will be listened to with interest.
In the previous article, “Cossacks in the Great Patriotic War,” it was shown that, despite all the grievances and atrocities of the Bolsheviks against the Cossacks, the overwhelming majority of Soviet Cossacks maintained their patriotic positions and in difficult times took part in the war on the side of the Red Army. Most of the Cossacks who found themselves in exile also turned out to be opponents of fascism; many emigrant Cossacks fought in the Allied forces and participated in resistance movements in various countries. Many Cossacks, soldiers and officers of the White armies who found themselves in exile really hated the Bolsheviks. However, they understood: when an external enemy invades the land of your ancestors, political differences lose their meaning. To the German proposal for cooperation, General Denikin replied: “I fought with the Bolsheviks, but never with the Russian people. If I could become a general in the Red Army, I would show it to the Germans!” Ataman Krasnov took the opposite position: “Even with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks.” And he really collaborated with the devil, with the Nazis, whose goal was the destruction of our country and our people. Moreover, as usually happens, General Krasnov soon moved from calls to fight Bolshevism to calls to fight the Russian people. Two years later from the start of the war, he declared: “Cossacks! Remember, you are not Russians, you are Cossacks, an independent people. The Russians are hostile to you. Moscow has always been an enemy of the Cossacks, crushed them and exploited them. Now the hour has come when we, the Cossacks, can create his life independent from Moscow." By collaborating with the Nazis who destroyed Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, Krasnov betrayed our people. Having sworn allegiance to Hitler's Germany, he betrayed our country. Therefore, the death sentence handed down to him in January 1947 was quite fair. The statement about the massive nature of the transition of Cossack emigrants to the side of the German army in the Second World War is a vile lie! In fact, only a few atamans and a certain number of Cossacks and officers went over to the enemy’s side along with Krasnov.
Rice. 1. If the Germans had won, we would all be driving Mercedes like these
The Great Patriotic War became a difficult test for all Soviet peoples. The war forced many of them to make difficult choices. And the Hitler regime made quite successful attempts to use some of these peoples (including the Cossacks) in the interests of fascism. Forming military units from foreign volunteers, Hitler always protested against the creation of Russian units within the Wehrmacht structure. He didn't trust the Russians. Looking ahead, we can say that he was right: in 1945, the 1st KONR division (Vlasovites) voluntarily withdrew from its positions and went west to surrender to the Anglo-Americans, exposing the German front. But many Wehrmacht generals did not share the Fuhrer’s position. The German army, advancing through the territory of the USSR, suffered huge losses. Against the backdrop of the Russian campaign of 1941, Western campaigns turned out to be a cakewalk. The German divisions were losing weight. Their qualitative composition has changed. On the endless expanses of the East European plain, landsknechts laid down in the ground, having experienced the intoxication of victories and the sweetness of European triumph. The killed seasoned militants were replaced by new recruits who no longer had a sparkle in their eyes. The field generals, unlike the “parquet” generals, did not disdain the Russians. Many of them, by hook or by crook, contributed to the formation of “native units” in their rear areas. They preferred to keep collaborators away from the front line, entrusting them with the protection of facilities, communications and “dirty work” - fighting partisans, saboteurs, encirclement and carrying out punitive actions against the civilian population. They were called "hiwi" (from the German word Hilfswilliger, wanting to help). Units formed from Cossacks also appeared in the Wehrmacht.
The first Cossack units appeared already in 1941. There were several reasons for this. The vast expanses of Russia, the lack of roads, the decline in motor transport, and problems with the supply of fuel and lubricants simply pushed the Germans towards the massive use of horses. In German chronicles you will rarely see a German soldier on a horse or a horse-drawn gun: for propaganda purposes, operators were ordered to remove the motorized parts. In fact, the Nazis used horses en masse both in 1941 and in 1945. Cavalry units were simply irreplaceable in the fight against partisans. In forest thickets and swamps, they were superior to cars and armored personnel carriers in cross-country ability, and moreover, they did not need gasoline. Therefore, the emergence of “Khiwi” detachments from Cossacks who knew how to handle horses did not encounter obstacles. In addition, Hitler did not classify the Cossacks as Russians, he considered them a separate people, descendants of the Ostrogoths, so the formation of Cossack units did not encounter opposition from NSDAP functionaries. And there were many Cossacks dissatisfied with the Bolsheviks, the policy of decossackization carried out for a long time by the Soviet government made itself felt. One of the first to appear in the Wehrmacht was the Cossack unit under the command of Ivan Kononov. On August 22, 1941, the commander of the 436th regiment of the 155th Infantry Division, Major of the Red Army Kononov I.N. built up his personnel, announced his decision to go over to the enemy and invited everyone to join him. So Kononov, the officers of his headquarters and several dozen Red Army soldiers of the regiment were captured. There Kononov “remembered” that he was the son of a Cossack esaul, hanged by the Bolsheviks, that his three older brothers died in the fight against Soviet power, and yesterday a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and a military order-bearing officer became a staunch anti-communist. He declared himself a Cossack, an opponent of the Bolsheviks, and offered his services to the Germans in forming a military unit of Cossacks ready to fight the communist regime. In the fall of 1941, the counterintelligence officer of the 18th Reich Army, Baron von Kleist, made a proposal to form Cossack units that would fight the Red partisans. On October 6, the Quartermaster General of the General Staff, Lieutenant General E. Wagner, having studied his proposal, allowed the commanders of the rear areas of Army Groups North, Center and South to form Cossack units from prisoners of war for use in the fight against the partisans. The first of these units was organized in accordance with the order of the commander of the rear region of Army Group Center, General von Schenkendorff, dated October 28, 1941. Initially, a squadron was formed, the basis of which were soldiers of the 436th regiment. The squadron commander, Kononov, made a voyage to nearby prison camps for the purpose of recruitment. The squadron that received replenishment was later transformed into a Cossack division (1, 2, 3rd cavalry squadrons, 4, 5, 6th Plastun companies, mortar and artillery batteries). The strength of the division was 1,799 people. It was armed with 6 field guns (76.2 mm), 6 anti-tank guns (45 mm), 12 mortars (82 mm), 16 heavy machine guns and a large number of light machine guns, rifles and machine guns. Not all captured Red Army soldiers who declared themselves Cossacks were such, but the Germans tried not to delve into such subtleties. Kononov himself admitted that in addition to the Cossacks, who made up 60% of the personnel, under his command there were representatives of all nationalities, including the Greeks and French. Throughout 1941-1943, the division fought against partisans and encirclement in the areas of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Smolensk, Nevel and Polotsk. The division was given the designation Kosacken Abteilung 102, then it was changed to Ost.Kos.Abt.600. General von Schenkendorff was pleased with the Kononovites; in his diary he characterized them as follows: “The Cossacks’ mood is good. Their combat readiness is excellent... The behavior of the Cossacks towards the local population is merciless.”
Rice. 2. Cossack collaborator Kononov I.N.
The former Don ataman General Krasnov and the Kuban Cossack General Shkuro became active promoters of the idea of creating Cossack units in the Wehrmacht among the Cossacks. In the summer of 1942, Krasnov published an appeal to the Cossacks of the Don, Kuban and Terek, in which he called on them to fight against Soviet power on the side of Germany. Krasnov stated that the Cossacks would fight not against Russia, but against the communists for the liberation of the Cossacks from the “Soviet yoke.” A significant number of Cossacks joined the German army when the advancing Wehrmacht units entered the territory of the Cossack regions of the Don, Kuban and Terek. On July 25, 1942, immediately after the Germans occupied Novocherkassk, a group of Cossack officers-collaborators appeared to representatives of the German command and expressed their readiness “with all their strength and knowledge to help the valiant German troops in the final defeat of Stalin’s henchmen.” In September, in Novocherkassk, with the sanction of the occupation authorities, a Cossack gathering was held, at which the headquarters of the Don Army was elected (from November 1942 it was called the headquarters of the Campaign Ataman), led by Colonel S.V. Pavlov, who began organizing Cossack units to fight against the Red Army. From the volunteers of the Don villages, the 1st Don Regiment was organized in Novocherkassk under the command of Captain A.V. Shumkov and the Plastun battalion, which formed the Cossack group of the Marching Ataman, Colonel S.V. Pavlova. The 1st Sinegorsk Regiment was also formed on the Don, consisting of 1,260 Cossacks and officers under the command of military foreman (former sergeant) Zhuravlev. Thus, despite active propaganda and promises, by the beginning of 1943, Krasnov managed to assemble only two small regiments on the Don. From the Cossack hundreds formed in the villages of the Uman department of the Kuban, under the leadership of military foreman I.I. Salomakha began the formation of the 1st Kuban Cossack Cavalry Regiment, and on the Terek, on the initiative of military foreman N.L. Kulakov of the 1st Volga Regiment of the Terek Cossack Army. Cossack regiments organized in the Don and Kuban in January-February 1943 took part in battles against the advancing Soviet troops on the Seversky Donets, near Bataysk, Novocherkassk and Rostov. In 1942, Cossack units began to appear as part of Hitler’s troops on other fronts.
The Cossack cavalry regiment "Jungschulz" (Regiment von Jungschulz) was formed in the summer of 1942 as part of the 1st Tank Army in the Achikulak region. The regiment consisted of two squadrons (German and Cossack). The regiment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel I. von Jungschultz. By the time it was sent to the front, the regiment was replenished with two Cossack hundreds and a Cossack squadron formed in Simferopol. On December 25, 1942, the regiment consisted of 1,530 people, including 30 officers, 150 non-commissioned officers and 1,350 privates, and was armed with 56 light and heavy machine guns, 6 mortars, 42 anti-tank rifles, rifles and machine guns. Since September 1942, the Jungschultz regiment was on the left flank of the 1st Tank Army in the Achikulak-Budennovsk area, fighting against the Soviet cavalry. At the beginning of January 1943, the regiment retreated to the northwest in the direction of the village of Yegorlykskaya, where it united with units of the 4th Tank Army. Subsequently, the Jungschultz regiment was subordinated to the 454th Security Division and transferred to the rear of Army Group Don.
On June 13, 1942, the Platov Cossack cavalry regiment was formed from the Cossack hundreds of the 17th German Army. It consisted of 5 cavalry squadrons, a heavy squadron, an artillery battery and a reserve squadron. Wehrmacht Major E. Thomsen was appointed commander of the regiment. In September 1942, the regiment guarded the Maikop oil fields, and in January 1943 it was transferred to Novorossiysk. There, together with German and Romanian troops, he conducted counter-guerrilla operations. In the spring of 1943, the regiment fought defensive battles on the “Kuban bridgehead”, repelling attacks by Soviet naval landings northeast of Temryuk. At the end of May 1943, the regiment was removed from the front and transferred to Crimea.
In accordance with the order of the German command of June 18, 1942, all prisoners of war who were Cossacks by origin and considered themselves such, the Germans were to be sent to a camp in the city of Slavuta. By the end of the month, 5,826 people of such a contingent were already concentrated here, and a decision was made to form a Cossack corps and organize the corresponding headquarters. Since there was an acute shortage of senior and middle command personnel among the Cossacks, former Red Army commanders who were not Cossacks began to be recruited into Cossack units. Subsequently, the 1st Cossack School, named after Ataman Count Platov, was opened at the headquarters of the formation, as well as a non-commissioned officer school. From the available Cossacks, first of all, the 1st Ataman Regiment was formed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Baron von Wolf and a special fifty, intended to carry out special tasks in the Soviet rear. Cossacks who fought during the Civil War in the detachments of generals Shkuro, Mamantov and other White Guard formations were selected for it. After checking and filtering the arriving reinforcements, the formation of the 2nd Life Cossack and 3rd Don Regiments began, followed by the 4th and 5th Kuban, 6th and 7th Combined Cossack Regiments. On August 6, 1942, Cossack units were transferred from the Slavutinsky camp to Shepetovka to barracks specially designated for them. By the fall of 1942, 7 Cossack regiments were formed at the center for the formation of Cossack units in Shepetovka. The last two of them - the 6th and 7th consolidated Cossack regiments were sent to fight the partisans in the rear area of the 3rd Tank Army. In mid-November, the I and II divisions of the 6th regiment received the designations - 622 and 623 Cossack battalions, and the I and II divisions of the 7th - 624 and 625 Cossack battalions. From January 1943, all four battalions were subordinated to the headquarters of the Eastern Special Forces Regiment 703, and later consolidated into the 750th Eastern Special Forces Regiment under the command of Major Evert Woldemar von Renteln. A former officer of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment of the Russian Imperial Army, an Estonian citizen, he volunteered for the Wehrmacht in 1939. From the beginning of the war, he served as a translator at the headquarters of the 5th Panzer Division, where he formed a company of Russian volunteers. After Renteln's appointment at the head of four Cossack battalions, this company, under the designation "638th Cossack" remained at his personal disposal. The tank emblems worn by some of Renteln's officers and soldiers indicated their affiliation with the 638th Company and were worn in memory of their service in the tank division. Some of its ranks took part in battles at the front as part of tank crews, as evidenced by the signs in the photographs for participation in tank attacks. In December 1942 - January 1943, the 622-625 battalions took part in counter-partisan operations in the Dorogobuzh area; in February-June 1943 in the Vitebsk-Polotsk-Lepel area. In the fall of 1943, the 750th regiment was transferred to France and divided into two parts: the 622 and 623 battalions with the 638th company under the command of Renteln were included in the 708th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht as the 750th Cossack Grenadier Regiment (from April 1944 - 360th), and the 624th and 625th battalions were added to the 344th Infantry Division as the third battalions of the 854th and 855th Grenadier Regiments. Together with German troops, the battalions were deployed to guard the French coast from Bordeaux to Royon. In January 1944, the 344th Division, together with Cossack battalions, was transferred to the Somme estuary area. In August-September 1944, the 360th Cossack Regiment retreated to the German border. In the fall of 1944 and winter of 1945, the regiment operated against the Americans in the Black Forest region. At the end of January 1945, together with the 5th Cossack training and reserve regiment, he arrived in the city of Zvetl (Austria). In March, he was included in the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps to form the 3rd Plastun Cossack Division, which was never created until the end of the war.
By mid-1943, the Wehrmacht already had up to 20 Cossack regiments of varying numbers and a significant number of small units, the total number of which was up to 25 thousand people. In total, according to experts, about 70,000 Cossacks served in the Wehrmacht, parts of the Waffen-SS and in the auxiliary police during the Great Patriotic War, most of whom were former Soviet citizens who defected to Germany during the occupation. Military units were formed from the Cossacks, which subsequently fought both on the Soviet-German front and against the Western allies - in France, Italy and especially against partisans in the Balkans. Most of these units carried out security and escort service, participated in the suppression of the resistance movement to Wehrmacht units in the rear, in the destruction of partisan detachments and representatives of the civilian population “disloyal” to the Third Reich, but there were also Cossack units that the Nazis tried to use against the Red Cossacks for the purpose of so that the latter also go over to the side of the Reich. But this was a counterproductive idea. According to numerous testimonies, the Cossacks in the Wehrmacht tried to avoid direct clashes with their blood brothers, and they also went over to the side of the Red Army.
Yielding to pressure from the generals, Hitler in November 1942 finally agreed to the formation of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division. The German cavalry colonel von Pannwitz was instructed to form it from the Kuban and Terek Cossacks to protect the communications of the German army and fight the partisans. Initially, the division was formed from captured Red Army Cossacks, mainly from camps located in the Kuban. In connection with the Soviet offensive near Stalingrad, the formation of the division was suspended and continued only in the spring of 1943, after the withdrawal of German troops to the Taman Peninsula. Four regiments were formed: 1st Don, 2nd Terek, 3rd Combined Cossack and 4th Kuban, with a total strength of up to 6,000 people. At the end of April 1943, the regiments were sent to Poland to the Milau training ground in the city of Mlawa, where large warehouses of equipment for the Polish cavalry had been located since pre-war times. Cossack regiments and police battalions, volunteers from the Cossack regions occupied by the Nazis began to arrive there. The best of the front-line Cossack units arrived, such as the Platov and Jungschultz regiments, Wolf's 1st Ataman Regiment and Kononov's 600th Division. All arriving units were disbanded, and their personnel were reduced to regiments according to their affiliation with the Don, Kuban, Siberian and Terek Cossack troops. The regimental commanders and chiefs of staff were Germans. All senior command and economic positions were also occupied by Germans (222 officers, 3,827 soldiers and non-commissioned officers). The exception was Kononov's unit. Under the threat of a riot, the 600th division retained its composition and was transformed into the 5th Don Cossack Regiment. Kononov was appointed commander, all officers remained in their positions. The division was the most “Russified” unit among the Wehrmacht collaborationist formations. The junior officers, commanders of combat cavalry units - squadrons and platoons - were Cossacks, commands were given in Russian. After completion of formation on July 1, 1943, Major General von Pannwitz was appointed commander of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division. It would be hard to call Helmut von Pannwitz a “Cossack”. A natural German, moreover, 100% Prussian, coming from a family of professional military men. In World War I he fought for the Kaiser on the Western Front. Participant of the Polish campaign of 1939. He took part in the storming of Brest, for which he received the Knight's Cross. He was a supporter of recruiting Cossacks to serve the Reich. Having become a Cossack general, he defiantly wore a Cossack uniform: a hat and a Circassian coat with gazyrs, adopted the son of the regiment, Boris Nabokov, and learned Russian.
Rice. 3. Helmut von Pannwitz
At the same time, not far from the Milau training ground, the 5th Cossack training reserve regiment was formed under the command of Colonel von Bosse. The regiment did not have a permanent composition, it consisted of Cossacks who arrived from the Eastern Front and occupied territories and, after training, were distributed among the regiments of the division. A non-commissioned officer school was created at the 5th training reserve regiment, which trained personnel for combat units. The School of Young Cossacks was also organized - a cadet corps for teenagers who had lost their parents (several hundred cadets).
The finally formed division included a headquarters with a convoy hundred, a field gendarmerie unit, a motorcycle communications platoon, a propaganda platoon and a brass band. Two Cossack cavalry brigades: 1st Don (1st Don, 2nd Siberian and 4th Kuban regiments) and 2nd Caucasian (3rd Kuban, 5th Don and 6th Terek regiments). Two horse artillery divisions (Don and Kuban), a reconnaissance detachment, a sapper battalion, a communications battalion, divisional units of medical service, veterinary service and supply. The regiments consisted of two cavalry divisions of three squadrons (in the 2nd Siberian Regiment the 2nd Division was scooter, and in the 5th Don Regiment it was Plastun), machine gun, mortar and anti-tank squadrons. The regiment was armed with 5 anti-tank guns (50 mm), 14 battalion (81 mm) and 54 company (50 mm) mortars, 8 heavy and 60 MG-42 light machine guns, German carbines and machine guns. The division consisted of 18,555 people, including 4,049 Germans, 14,315 lower-ranking Cossacks and 191 Cossack officers.
The Germans allowed the Cossacks to wear traditional uniforms. The Cossacks used hats and kubankas as headdresses. The papakha was a tall fur hat made of black fur with a red bottom (among the Don Cossacks) or white fur with a yellow bottom (among the Siberian Cossacks). The Kubanka, introduced in 1936 and in the Red Army, was lower than the papakha and was used by the Kuban (red bottom) and Terek (light blue bottom) Cossacks. The bottom of the hats and kubankas was additionally trimmed with silver or white braid arranged crosswise. In addition to papakhas and kubankas, the Cossacks wore German-style headdresses. Among the traditional clothes of the Cossacks are the burka, bashlyk and cherkeska. Burka is a fur cape made of black camel or goat hair. Bashlyk is a deep hood with two long panels that are wound like a scarf. Circassian - outerwear decorated with gazyrs on the chest. Cossacks wore German gray breeches or traditional dark blue breeches. The color of the stripes determined membership in a particular regiment. Don Cossacks wore red stripes 5 cm wide, Kuban Cossacks wore red stripes 2.5 cm wide, Siberian Cossacks wore yellow stripes 5 cm wide, Terek Cossacks wore black stripes 5 cm wide with a narrow blue edging. At first, the Cossacks wore round cockades with two crossed white peaks on a red background. Later, large and small oval cockades appeared (for officers and soldiers, respectively), painted in military colors.
Several variants of sleeve patches are known. At first, shield-shaped patches were used. Along the upper edge of the shield there was an inscription (Terek, Kuban, Don), and under the inscription there were horizontal colored stripes: black, green and red; yellow and green; yellow light blue and red; respectively. Later, simplified stripes appeared. On them, membership in one or another Cossack army was indicated by two Russian letters, and below, instead of stripes, there was a square divided by two diagonals into four parts. The color of the top and bottom as well as the left and right parts were the same. The Don Cossacks had red and blue units, the Terek Cossacks had blue and black units, and the Kuban Cossacks had red and black units. The patch of the Siberian Cossack army appeared later. The Siberian Cossacks had yellow and blue colored segments. Many Cossacks used German cockades. Cossacks who served in tank units wore "death's heads". Standard German buttonholes, Cossack buttonholes, and eastern legion buttonholes were used. The shoulder straps were also varied. Elements of the Soviet uniform were widely used.
Rice. 4. Cossacks of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of the Wehrmacht
After the formation of the division was completed, the Germans were faced with the question: “What to do with it next?” Contrary to the repeatedly expressed wishes of the personnel to get to the front as soon as possible, the Nazis did not strive for this. Even in Kononov’s exemplary regiment there were cases of Cossacks going over to the Soviet side. And in other collaborationist units they crossed not only individuals, but also entire groups, having previously killed the Germans and their own officers. In August 1943, in Belarus, the multinational brigade of collaborationists Gil-Rodionov (2 thousand people) went over to the partisans in full force. It was an emergency with big organizational consequences. If the Cossack division rebels and goes over to the enemy’s side, there will be much more problems. In addition, already in the first days of the formation of the division, the Germans recognized the violent nature of the Cossacks. In the 3rd Kuban Regiment, one of the cavalry officers sent from the Wehrmacht, while reviewing “his” hundred, called out a Cossack he did not like. First he scolded him sternly and then hit him in the face. He hit me purely symbolically, in German, with a glove pulled from his hand. The offended Cossack silently took out his saber... and there was one less German officer in the division. The German authorities rushed in and formed a hundred: “Russian Schwein! Whoever did this, step forward!” The whole hundred stepped forward. The Germans scratched their heads and... the officer was “written off” as a partisan. And send these to the Eastern Front?! The incident with the Gil-Rodionov brigade finally dotted the i’s. In September 1943, instead of the Eastern Front, the division was sent to Yugoslavia to fight Tito's partisan army. There, on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, the Cossacks fought against the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. The German command in Croatia very quickly became convinced that the Cossack cavalry units were much more effective in the fight against partisans than their motorized police battalions and Ustasha detachments. The division conducted five independent operations in the mountainous regions of Croatia and Bosnia, during which it destroyed many partisan strongholds and seized the initiative for offensive operations. Among the local population, the Cossacks gained notoriety. In accordance with the orders of the command for self-sufficiency, they resorted to requisitioning horses, food and fodder from the peasants, which often resulted in mass robberies and violence. Villages whose population was suspected of collaborating with the partisans were razed to the ground by the Cossacks. The fight against partisans in the Balkans, as in all occupied territories, was carried out with great cruelty - on both sides. The partisan movement in the areas of responsibility of von Pannwitz's division quickly faded and came to naught. This was achieved through a combination of competently conducted anti-partisan operations and cruelty towards the partisans and the local population. Serbs, Bosnians and Croats hated and feared the Cossacks.
Rice. 5. Cossack officer in the forests of Croatia
In March 1944, the “Main Directorate of Cossack Troops” was formed, headed by Krasnov, as a special administrative and political body to attract the Cossacks to their side and control the Cossack units by the Germans. In August 1944, Reichsführer SS Himmler, appointed commander-in-chief of the reserve army after the assassination attempt on Hitler, achieved the transfer of all foreign military units to the jurisdiction of the SS. A Reserve of Cossack Troops was created, which recruited volunteers for Cossack units among prisoners of war and eastern workers; General Shkuro was at the head of this structure. It was decided to deploy the very effective Cossack division into a corps. This is how the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps arose. The corps was completed on the basis of the already existing 1st Cossack Cavalry Division with the addition of Cossack units sent from other fronts. Two Cossack battalions arrived from Krakow, the 69th police battalion from Warsaw, which took an active part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, a factory guard battalion from Hannover, and the 360th von Renteln Cossack Regiment from the Western Front. Through the efforts of the recruiting headquarters created by the Cossack Troops Reserve, it was possible to gather more than 2,000 Cossacks from among emigrants, prisoners of war and eastern workers, who were sent to complete the 1st Cossack Division. After the unification of most of the Cossack detachments, the total number of the corps reached up to 25,000 soldiers and officers, including up to 5,000 Germans. General Krasnov took the most active part in the formation of the corps. The “oath” of the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, developed by Krasnov, reproduced almost verbatim the text of the pre-revolutionary military oath, only “His Imperial Majesty” was replaced by “Führer of the German people Adolf Hitler”, and “Russia” by “New Europe”. General Krasnov himself took a military oath to the Russian Empire, but in 1941 he changed this oath and encouraged many thousands of Cossacks to do so. Thus, the oath of allegiance to the Russian Empire was replaced by Krasnov with an oath of allegiance to the Third Reich. This is direct and undoubted betrayal of the Motherland.
All this time, the corps continued to conduct combat operations with Yugoslav partisans, and in December 1944 it came into direct contact with Red Army units on the Drava River. Contrary to the fears of the Germans, the Cossacks did not run away and fought stubbornly and fiercely. During these battles, the Cossacks completely destroyed the 703rd Rifle Regiment of the 233rd Soviet Rifle Division, and inflicted a heavy defeat on the division itself. In March 1945, the 1st Cossack Division, consisting of the 15th Corps, took part in heavy battles near Lake Balaton, successfully operating against Bulgarian units. By order of February 25, 1945, the division was already officially transformed into the XV Cossack SS Cavalry Corps. This had little effect on the division itself, practically nothing. The uniform remained the same, the skull and crossbones did not appear on the hats, the Cossacks continued to wear their old buttonholes, and the soldiers’ books did not even change. But organizationally the corps was part of the structure of the “black order” troops; SS liaison officers appeared in the units. However, the Cossacks were Himmler's fighters for only a short time. On April 20, the corps was transferred to the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) to General Vlasov. In addition to all their previous sins and labels: “enemies of the people”, “traitors to the Motherland”, “punishers” and “SS men”, the Cossacks of the corps also received “Vlasovites” in addition.
Rice. 6. Cossacks of the XV SS Cavalry Corps
At the final stage of the war, the following formations also operated as part of the 15th Cossack Corps KONR: Kalmyk regiment (up to 5,000 people), Caucasian cavalry division, Ukrainian SS battalion and a group of ROA tankers. Taking into account these formations, under the command of Lieutenant General, and from February 1, 1945, Gruppenführer of the SS troops, G. von Panwitz, there were 30-35 thousand people.
Of the other Cossack formations of the Wehrmacht, no less dubious fame went to the Cossacks, united in the so-called Cossack Stan under the command of the marching chieftain Colonel S.V. Pavlova. After the Germans retreated from the Don, Kuban and Terek, part of the civilian local population, who believed fascist propaganda and feared reprisals from the Soviet government, left along with the Cossack detachments. The Cossack Stan consisted of up to 11 Cossack foot regiments; in total, up to 18,000 Cossacks were subordinate to the Marching Ataman Pavlov. After some Cossack units were sent to Poland to form the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, the main center of concentration of Cossack refugees who left their lands along with the retreating German troops became the headquarters of the Marching Ataman of the Don Army, S.V., who settled in Kirovograd. Pavlova. By the fall of 1943, two new regiments, the 8th and 9th, were formed here. To train command personnel, it was planned to open an officer school, as well as a school for tank crews, but these projects could not be implemented due to the new Soviet offensive. Due to the danger of Soviet encirclement in March 1944, the Cossack Stan (including women and children) began to retreat west to Sandomierz, and then was transported to Belarus. Here, the Wehrmacht command provided 180 thousand hectares of land in the area of the cities of Baranovichi, Slonim, Novogrudok, Yelnya, and Capital to accommodate the Cossacks. The refugees settled in the new place were grouped according to their belonging to different troops, into districts and departments, which outwardly reproduced the traditional system of Cossack settlements. At the same time, a broad reorganization of the Cossack combat units was undertaken, united into 10 infantry regiments of 1,200 bayonets each. The 1st and 2nd Don regiments made up the 1st brigade of Colonel Silkin; 3rd Don, 4th Combined Cossack, 5th and 6th Kuban and 7th Tersky - 2nd brigade of Colonel Vertepov; 8th Don, 9th Kuban and 10th Terek-Stavropol - 3rd brigade of Colonel Medynsky (later the composition of the brigades changed several times). Each regiment included 3 Plastun battalions, mortar and anti-tank batteries. They were armed with Soviet captured weapons provided by German field arsenals.
In Belarus, the group of the Marching Ataman ensured the security of the rear areas of Army Group Center and fought the partisans. On June 17, 1944, during one of the anti-partisan operations, the Marching Ataman of the Cossack Stan, S.V., was killed. Pavlov (according to other sources, due to poor coordination of actions, he came under “friendly” fire from the police). In his place, military foreman T.I. was appointed. Domanov. In July 1944, due to the threat of a new Soviet offensive, the Cossack Stan was withdrawn from Belarus and concentrated in the area of Zdunskaya Wola in northern Poland. From here he began his transfer to Northern Italy, where the territory adjacent to the Carnic Alps with the cities of Tolmezzo, Gemona and Ozoppo was allocated for the placement of the Cossacks. Here the Cossacks formed a special settlement “Cossack Stan”, which came under the command of the commander of the SS troops and police of the coastal zone of the Adriatic Sea, SS Chief Gruppenführer O. Globocnik, who entrusted the Cossacks with ensuring security on the lands provided to them. On the territory of Northern Italy, the combat units of the Cossack Stan underwent another reorganization and formed the Marching Ataman Group (also called a corps) consisting of two divisions. The 1st Cossack Foot Division (Cossacks from 19 to 40 years old) included the 1st and 2nd Don, 3rd Kuban and 4th Terek-Stavropol regiments, consolidated into the 1st Don and 2nd Consolidated Plastun brigades, as well as headquarters and transport companies, cavalry and gendarmerie squadrons, a communications company and an armored detachment. The 2nd Cossack Foot Division (Cossacks from 40 to 52 years old) consisted of the 3rd Consolidated Plastun Brigade, which included the 5th Consolidated Cossack and 6th Don Regiments, and the 4th Consolidated Plastun Brigade, which united the 3rd Reserve regiment, three village self-defense battalions (Donskoy, Kuban and Consolidated Cossack) and Colonel Grekov’s Special Detachment. In addition, the Group included the following units: 1st Cossack Cavalry Regiment (6 squadrons: 1st, 2nd and 4th Don, 2nd Terek-Don, 6th Kuban and 5th Officer), Ataman Convoy Cavalry Regiment (5 squadrons), 1st Cossack Junker School (2 Plastun companies, a heavy weapons company, an artillery battery), separate divisions - officer, gendarmerie and commandant foot, as well as the Special Cossack parachute sniper school disguised as a driving school (special group "Ataman" ). According to some sources, a separate Cossack group “Savoy”, withdrawn to Italy from the Eastern Front along with the remnants of the Italian 8th Army back in 1943, was also added to the combat units of the Cossack Stan. The units of the Marching Ataman Group were armed with over 900 light and heavy machine guns of various systems (Soviet "Maxim", DP (Degtyarev infantry) and DT (Degtyarev tank), German MG-34 and "Schwarzlose", Czech "Zbroevka", Italian "Breda" " and "Fiat", French "Hotchkiss" and "Shosh", English "Vickers" and "Lewis", American "Colt"), 95 company and battalion mortars (mostly Soviet and German-made), more than 30 Soviet 45-mm anti-tank guns and 4 field guns (76.2 mm), as well as 2 light armored vehicles captured from the partisans. On April 27, 1945, the strength of the Cossack Stan was 31,463 people. Realizing that the war was lost, the Cossacks developed a rescue plan. They decided to escape retribution to the territory of the British occupation zone in East Tyrol with the goal of an “honorable” surrender to the British. In May 1945, the "Cossack Stan" moved to Austria, to the area of the city of Linz. Later, all its residents were arrested by the British and handed over to Soviet counterintelligence agencies. The “Cossack Administration” led by Krasnov and its military units were also arrested in the area of the city of Judenburg, and then also handed over by the British to the Soviet authorities. No one was going to shelter the punishers and obvious traitors. In early May, Campaign Ataman von Pannwitz also led his corps to Austria. The corps fought through the mountains to Carinthia (Southern Austria), where on May 11-12 it laid down its arms before the British. The Cossacks were distributed among several prison camps in the vicinity of Linz. Pannwitz and other Cossack leaders did not know that these maneuvers no longer solved anything. At the Yalta Conference, Great Britain and the United States signed an agreement with the USSR, according to which they pledged to extradite Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones of occupation. Now is the time to keep your promises. Neither the British nor the American command had any illusions about what awaited the deportees. But if the Americans took this matter carelessly and, as a result, a huge number of former Soviet citizens avoided returning to their Soviet homeland, then His Majesty’s subjects definitely fulfilled their obligations. Moreover, the British did even more than the Yalta agreements required of them; one and a half thousand emigrant Cossacks, who were never citizens of the USSR and left their homeland after defeat in the civil war, were also given into the hands of SMERSH. And just a few weeks after the surrender, in June 1945, over 40 thousand Cossacks, including Cossack commanders Generals P. N. and S.N. Krasnov, T.I. Domanov, Lieutenant General Helmut von Pannwitz, Lieutenant General A.G. The skins were given to the Soviet Union. In the morning, when the Cossacks gathered for formation, the British unexpectedly appeared. The soldiers began to grab unarmed people and herd them into supplied trucks. Those who tried to resist were shot on the spot. The rest were loaded and taken away in an unknown direction.
Rice. 7. Internment of Cossacks near Linz by the British
A few hours later, a convoy of trucks with traitors crossed the checkpoint on the border of the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviet court measured the punishment for the Cossacks according to the severity of their sins. They didn’t shoot me, but they gave me “not childish” sentences. Most of the extradited Cossacks received long sentences in the Gulag, and the Cossack elite, who supported Nazi Germany, were sentenced to death by hanging by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The sentence began as follows: on the basis of Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 39 of April 19, 1943 “On penalties for Nazi villains guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices"… etc. At the same time as the USSR, Yugoslavia urgently demanded the extradition of the Cossacks. Soldiers of the 15th Corps were accused of numerous crimes against civilians. If the Cossacks had been handed over to Tito’s government, their fate would have been much sadder. Helmut von Pannwitz was never a Soviet citizen and therefore was not subject to extradition to the Soviet authorities. But when representatives of the USSR arrived at the English prisoner of war camp, Pannwitz came to the camp commandant and demanded that he be included among those repatriated. He said: “I sent the Cossacks to their death - and they went. They chose me as chieftain. Now we have a common fate.” Perhaps this is just a legend, and Pannwitz was simply taken along with the others. But this story about “Old Man Pannvits” lives on in certain Cossack circles.
The trial of the Cossack generals of the Wehrmacht took place within the walls of the Lefortovo prison behind closed doors from January 15 to 16, 1947. On January 16 at 15:15, the judges retired to pronounce their verdict. At 19:39 the verdict was announced: “The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced generals P.N. Krasnov, S.N. Krasnov, S.G. Shkuro, von Pannwitz G., as well as the leader of the Caucasians Sultan Kelech-Girey to death for conducting armed struggle against the Soviet Union through the detachments they formed." At 20:45 the same day the sentence was carried out.
The last thing I would like is for the Cossacks of the Wehrmacht and SS to be perceived as heroes. No, they are not heroes. And there is no need to judge the Cossacks as a whole by them. In that difficult time, the Cossacks made a completely different choice. While one Cossack division and several other small formations fought in the Wehrmacht, more than seventy Cossack corps, divisions and other formations fought in the Red Army on the fronts of the Second World War, and the Soviet command was not tormented by the questions: “Are these units reliable?”, “Are they not reliable?” Is it dangerous to send them to the front? It was quite the opposite. Hundreds of thousands of Cossacks selflessly and heroically defended, if not the regime, but their homeland. Regimes come and go, but the Motherland remains. These are truly heroes.
But life is a striped thing, a white stripe, a black stripe, a colored stripe. And for state patriotism and heroism there are also black stripes, which is not surprising for Russia. In this regard, three centuries ago, Field Marshal Saltykov said a classic phrase about Russian society at a reception with Empress Elizaveta Petrovna: “Patriotism in Rus' has always been bad. Every fifth is a ready-made patriot, every fifth is a ready-made traitor, and three out of five are hanging out like something in an ice hole.” depending on what kind of tsar. If the tsar is a patriot, then they are kind of like patriots, if the tsar is a traitor, then they are always ready. Therefore, the main thing, empress, is that you be for Rus', and then we will manage." Nothing has changed in three centuries, and now it’s the same. Following the traitor Tsar Gorbachev came the collaborationist Tsar Yeltsin. And in 1996, many executed Cossack generals of the Wehrmacht by the collaborationist authorities of Russia were rehabilitated according to the decision of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office with the tacit consent of the masses, and some also clapped their hands. However, the patriotic part of society was outraged by this, and soon the decision on rehabilitation was canceled as unfounded, and in 2001, under a different government, the same Main Military Prosecutor's Office decided that the Cossack commanders of the Wehrmacht were not subject to rehabilitation. But the collaborators did not stop. In 1998, a memorial plaque to A.G. was installed in Moscow near the Sokol metro station. Shkuro, G. von Pannwitz and other Cossack generals of the Third Reich. The liquidation of this monument was undertaken on legal terms, but the neo-Nazi and collaborationist lobby in every possible way prevented the destruction of this monument. Then, on the eve of Victory Day 2007, the slab with the names of collaborators from the Great Patriotic War carved on it was simply broken by unidentified persons. A criminal case was initiated, but was not completed. Today in Russia there is a monument to those same Cossack units that were part of the army of the Third Reich. The memorial was opened in 2007 in the village of Elanskaya, Rostov region.
Diagnosis and analysis of the causes, consequences, sources, origins and Russian collaborationism is not only of theoretical, but also of great practical interest. Not a single significant event in Russian history has occurred without the pernicious influence and active participation of defectors, traitors, defeatists, capitulators and collaborators. The above-cited position formulated by Field Marshal Saltykov regarding the characteristics of Russian patriotism provides the key to explaining many mysterious and incredible events in Russian history and life. Moreover, it is easily extrapolated and extended to other key spheres of our social consciousness: politics, ideology, state idea, morality, ethics, religion, etc. There are no areas in our social, cultural and political life where militant activists of one or another extreme movements and points of view are not represented, but it is not they who give stability to society and the situation, but those very “three out of five” who are oriented towards power, and above all to the royal one. And in this regard, Saltykov’s words highlight the colossal role of the Russian Tsar (Secretary General, President, Leader - no matter what his name is) in all spheres and events of our life. Some of the articles in this series have shown many of these seemingly incredible events in our history. In them, our people, led by the “correct” kings, turned out to be capable of incredible ascent, feats and sacrifices for the sake of the Motherland in 1812 and in 1941-1945. But under useless, worthless and corrupt kings, the same people were able to overthrow and rape their own country and plunge it into the bloody orgy of the Troubles of 1594-1613 or the revolution and subsequent civil war of 1917-1921. Moreover, the God-bearing people under satanic power turned out to be able to crush a thousand-year-old religion and abuse the temples and their own spirit. The monstrous triad of our time: perestroika - shootout - restoration of the national economy - also fits into this vile series. Adherents of evil and good principles are always present in our lives, these same “every fifth” who constitute the active lobby of patriotism and collaboration, religion and atheism, morality and debauchery, order and anarchy, legality and crime, etc. But even in these conditions, the people and the country can only be led to excesses and bacchanalia by an unlucky king, under whose influence these very “three out of five” join the adherents of disorder, debauchery, anarchy and destruction. A completely different result is achieved under the “way” king, who will indicate the correct Path, and then, in addition to the adherents of order and creation, these same “three out of five” will also join them. Our current president has long demonstrated an enviable example of political dexterity and agility in countering the various challenges of the modern world. He managed to curb the entropy and bacchanalia of the collaborationist rule of the 80-90s, successfully intercept and ride the social and national-patriotic part of the rhetoric and ideology of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party, thereby attracting the electorate and achieving stability and high ratings. But under other circumstances, these same “three out of five” will easily go over to another “king”, even if he is the devil with horns, which has happened more than once in our history. In these seemingly completely clear conditions, the most important issue in our modern life is the question of the continuity of the “royal” power, or rather the power of the first person, in order to continue the course towards sustainable development. At the same time, despite the arch-importance of this issue, one of the biggest mysteries of Russian history is that it has not yet been resolved positively and constructively in relation to our conditions. Moreover, there is no desire to resolve it now.
In previous centuries, the country was hostage to the feudal system of succession to the throne with its unpredictable dynastic and gerontological twists. Monstrous and tragic examples of genealogical and genetic mutations of royal families and senile schizophrenia of elderly monarchs ultimately pronounced a death sentence on the feudal system of power. The situation was aggravated by acute interpersonal and group contradictions. As the historian Karamzin noted, in Russia, with rare exceptions, each subsequent tsar began his reign by pouring a bucket of dirt on the previous one, although he was his father or brother. The next bourgeois-democratic system of change and inheritance of power was built on the laws of political Darwinism. But the centuries-old history of multi-party democracy has shown that it is not productive for all human populations. In Russia, it lasted only a few months after the February revolution and led to complete paralysis of power and the collapse of the country. After the overthrow of the autocracy and the February democracy, neither Lenin, nor Stalin, nor the CPSU solved the problem of the continuity of “tsarist” power. The monstrous fights for power between the heirs after Lenin and Stalin are a disgrace to the system they created. A repeated attempt to introduce bourgeois democracy into the USSR during the period of perestroika again led to the paralysis of power and the collapse of the country. Moreover, the phenomenon that gave birth to the CPSU in the form of Gorbachev and his clique, perhaps, has no analogues in world history. The system itself has degenerated gravediggers for themselves and the country, and they committed their atrocity almost out of the blue. Legend has it that Socrates, while drunk, bet a drinking buddy a liter of white that he would destroy Athens with just his tongue. And he won. I don’t know with whom and what Gorbachev argued with, but he got it even “cooler.” He destroyed everything and everyone with his one language and created a “catastrophe”, and without any repression, with his only language, he achieved tacit consent to the surrender of 18 million members of the CPSU, several million employees, officers and employees of the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Soviet Army and about as many non-party activists. Moreover, millions of people not only silently agreed, but also clapped their hands. In this multi-million army there was not a single real guardsman who, based on past experience, even tried to strangle the traitors with his officer’s scarf, although there were several million of these scarves hanging in the wardrobes. But that's not so bad, that's history. The trouble is that the problem has not yet been solved. The story of Medvedev's regency is a clear confirmation of this. But as the experience of many countries shows, in order to create a stable and productive system of succession to power of the first person in order to continue the course towards sustainable development, democracy is not at all necessary, although it is desirable. All we need is responsibility and political will. There is no democracy in the PRC, and every 10 years there is a planned change of supreme power; they do not expect the death of the “king” there.
In general, I am very worried about the future. In our conditions, typical bourgeois democracy does not inspire confidence and optimism. After all, the mental characteristics of our people and their leaders are not very different from the mentality of the people and leaders of Ukraine, and if they are different, then in an even worse direction. Failure to resolve the issue of continuity of power and course will lead the country to a catastrophe, in comparison with which perestroika is nothing.
Issues of economic and social injustice have recently begun to powerfully overlap with the unsettled political processes. Currently, the working people are becoming acutely aware of this problem. Even in VO, which is not specialized for this topic, sharp articles about social injustice have recently begun to appear (“Salaries of gentlemen”, “Letter from a Ural worker”, etc.). Their ratings are off the charts, and comments on them clearly and unambiguously indicate the beginning of the process of accumulation of social entropy in the working class. Reading these articles and comments to them, you involuntarily recall the words spoken in the State Duma by P.A. Stolypin, that there is no more greedy and unscrupulous gentleman and bourgeois in the world than in Russia, and that it was not for nothing that the expressions “world-eater kulak” and “world-eater bourgeois” appeared in the Russian language then. Stolypin then unsuccessfully called on the gentlemen and the bourgeoisie to moderate their greed and change the type of social behavior, otherwise he predicted a disaster. They did not change their type of behavior, they did not moderate their greed, a catastrophe took place, the people slaughtered them like pigs for their greed. Now it's even more interesting. In the 80-90s, the decomposed and degenerated party nomenklatura, in addition to unlimited power, also wanted to become the bourgeoisie, i.e. make the factories, factories, houses, and steamships under her control during her lifetime hereditary property. A powerful propaganda campaign was launched to criticize socialism and praise capitalism. Our gullible and naive people believed and suddenly, out of some fright, decided that they could not live without the bourgeoisie. After that, he gave, and in a completely democratic way, to the nomenklatura, liberals and cooperators free passes to the bourgeoisie and an unprecedented credit of social and political trust, which they mediocrely squandered and continue to squander. Something similar has already happened in Russian history and is described in more detail in the article “The Last Great Cossack Revolt. The Rebellion of Emelyan Pugachev.”
It looks like things will end with the slaughter of the gentlemen again. But God forbid we see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless. And the culprit for everything will again be the master’s and bourgeois greed, just as senseless and merciless. It is best if Putin deals with this most odious part of the comprador and criminal bourgeoisie and nomenklatura as planned. But, apparently, it’s not fate, he STILL has some kind of agreement with them. Such consent gives rise to permissiveness and impunity, further corrupts the masters and the bourgeoisie, and all this abundantly feeds and stimulates corruption. This situation simply infuriates honest people, regardless of social status, standard of living and education. What the working class says and thinks about this in their kitchens and over a “glass of tea” is simply impossible to convey in the language of normative vocabulary. But humanity has accumulated colossal experience in the fight against corruption and presumptuous oligarchy over its history.
At the end of the 20th century, Lee Kuan Yew, the permanent Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990, especially distinguished himself and succeeded in this matter. People say that in the last years of his life he was listed as an adviser to our president. Although the East is a delicate matter, Lee Kuan Yew's recipes are outrageously simple and obvious. He said: “Fighting corruption is simple. It is necessary that there is a person at the top who is not afraid to imprison his friends and relatives. Start by seating three of your friends. You know exactly why, and they know exactly why.”
It was precisely during such a difficult period of our history - Gorbachev’s perestroika, Yeltsin’s “reforms” and Putin’s “managed democracy” - that an attempt was made to revive the Cossacks again. But, like all events of this period and our time, this revival is taking place very ambiguously against the general background of economic and political turmoil, often raising more questions than answers. But that's a completely different story.
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Collaborationism was common during the Great Patriotic War. According to historians, up to one and a half million Soviet citizens defected to the enemy’s side. Many of them were representatives of the Cossacks.
Uncomfortable topic
Domestic historians are reluctant to raise the issue of the Cossacks who fought on Hitler’s side. Even those who touched upon this topic tried to emphasize that the tragedy of the Cossacks of World War II was closely intertwined with the Bolshevik genocide of the 20s and 30s. In fairness, it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks, despite claims against the Soviet regime, remained loyal to their Motherland. Moreover, many Cossack emigrants took an anti-fascist position, taking part in resistance movements in various countries.
Among those who swore allegiance to Hitler were Astrakhan, Kuban, Terek, Ural, and Siberian Cossacks. But the overwhelming majority of collaborators among the Cossacks were still residents of the Don lands.
In the territories occupied by the Germans, Cossack police battalions were created, whose main task was to fight the partisans. So, in September 1942, near the village of Pshenichny, Stanichno-Lugansk district, Cossack policemen, together with Gestapo punitive detachments, succeeded in defeating a partisan detachment under the command of Ivan Yakovenko.
Cossacks often acted as guards for Red Army prisoners of war. At the German commandant's offices there were also Cossack hundreds who performed police tasks. Two such hundreds of Don Cossacks were stationed in the village of Lugansk and two more in Krasnodon.
For the first time, the proposal to form Cossack units to fight partisans was put forward by German counterintelligence officer Baron von Kleist. In October 1941, Quartermaster General of the German General Staff Eduard Wagner, having studied this proposal, allowed the commanders of the rear areas of Army Groups North, Center and South to form Cossack units from prisoners of war for use in the fight against the partisan movement.
Why did the formation of Cossack units not encounter opposition from NSDAP functionaries, and, moreover, was encouraged by the German authorities? Historians answer that this is due to the doctrine of the Fuhrer, who did not classify the Cossacks as Russians, considering them a separate people - descendants of the Ostrogoths.
Oath
One of the first to join the Wehrmacht was the Cossack unit under the command of Kononov. On August 22, 1941, Red Army Major Ivan Kononov announced his decision to go over to the enemy and invited everyone to join him. Thus, the major, the officers of his headquarters and several dozen Red Army soldiers of the regiment were captured. There, Kononov recalled that he was the son of a Cossack esaul, hanged by the Bolsheviks, and expressed his readiness to cooperate with the Nazis.
The Don Cossacks, who defected to us to the side of the Reich, did not miss the opportunity and tried to demonstrate their loyalty to the Hitler regime. On October 24, 1942, a “Cossack parade” took place in Krasnodon, in which the Don Cossacks showed their devotion to the Wehrmacht command and the German administration.
After a prayer service for the health of the Cossacks and the imminent victory of the German army, a letter of greeting to Adolf Hitler was read, which, in particular, said: “We, the Don Cossacks, are the remnants of those who survived the cruel Jewish-Stalinist terror, fathers and grandsons, sons and brothers of those killed in a fierce struggle with the Bolsheviks, we send you, the great commander, the brilliant statesman, the builder of the New Europe, the Liberator and friend of the Don Cossacks, our warm Don Cossack greetings!”
Many Cossacks, including those who did not share admiration for the Fuhrer, nevertheless welcomed the Reich's policy aimed at opposing the Cossacks and Bolshevism. “No matter what the Germans are, it can’t get any worse,” such statements were heard very often.
Organization
General leadership for the formation of Cossack units was entrusted to the head of the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops of the Imperial Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories of Germany, General Pyotr Krasnov.
“Cossacks! Remember, you are not Russians, you are Cossacks, an independent people. The Russians are hostile to you,” the general never tired of reminding his subordinates. – Moscow has always been an enemy of the Cossacks, crushing them and exploiting them. Now the time has come when we, the Cossacks, can create our own life independent of Moscow.”
As Krasnov noted, widespread cooperation between the Cossacks and the Nazis began already in the fall of 1941. In addition to the 102nd volunteer Cossack unit of Kononov, a Cossack reconnaissance battalion of the 14th Tank Corps, a Cossack reconnaissance squadron of the 4th security scooter regiment and a Cossack sabotage detachment under the German special services were also created at the headquarters of the rear command of Army Group Center.
In addition, from the end of 1941, hundreds of Cossacks began to regularly appear in the German army. In the summer of 1942, the cooperation of the Cossacks with the German authorities entered a new phase. From that time on, large Cossack formations - regiments and divisions - began to be created as part of the troops of the Third Reich.
However, one should not think that all the Cossacks who went over to the side of the Wehrmacht remained loyal to the Fuhrer. Very often, Cossacks, individually or in entire units, went over to the side of the Red Army or joined the Soviet partisans.
An interesting incident occurred in the 3rd Kuban Regiment. One of the German officers sent to the Cossack unit, while reviewing a hundred, called out a Cossack he did not like for some reason. The German first scolded him sternly and then hit him in the face with his glove.
The offended Cossack silently took out his saber and hacked the officer to death. The rushing German authorities immediately formed a hundred: “Whoever did this, step forward!” The whole hundred stepped forward. The Germans thought about it and decided to attribute the death of their officer to the partisans.
Numbers
How many Cossacks fought on the side of Nazi Germany during the entire period of the war?
According to the order of the German command dated June 18, 1942, all prisoners of war who were Cossacks by origin and considered themselves such were to be sent to a camp in the city of Slavuta. By the end of June, 5,826 people were concentrated in the camp. It was decided to begin the formation of Cossack units from this contingent.
By mid-1943, the Wehrmacht included about 20 Cossack regiments of varying strengths and a large number of small units, the total number of which reached 25 thousand people.
When the Germans began to retreat in 1943, hundreds of thousands of Don Cossacks and their families moved with the troops. According to experts, the number of Cossacks exceeded 135,000 people. After the end of the war, a total of 50 thousand Cossacks were detained by the Allied forces on Austrian territory and transferred to the Soviet zone of occupation. Among them was General Krasnov.
Researchers estimate that at least 70,000 Cossacks served in the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS units and auxiliary police during the war, most of whom were Soviet citizens who defected to Germany during the occupation.
According to historian Kirill Alexandrov, approximately 1.24 million citizens of the USSR performed military service on the side of Germany in 1941-1945: among them, 400 thousand were Russians, including 80 thousand in Cossack formations. Political scientist Sergei Markedonov suggests that among these 80 thousand, only 15-20 thousand were not Cossacks by origin.
Most of the Cossacks extradited by the allies received long sentences in the Gulag, and the Cossack elite, who sided with Nazi Germany, were sentenced to death by hanging by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
WHO AND IN WHAT QUANTITY OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR FOUGHT ON THE SIDE OF FASCIST GERMANY Our opponents (and for me – enemies) along that front line in Novorossiya, in defiance of our identification of them with genetic traitors - Bandera’sites, give some crazy figures about a million, otherwise and two Russians who fought on the side of the Germans. Some even agree that this amount of the Russian population of the USSR fought in the Vlasov army alone. Follow the materials in the group. There will be a continuation of the topic below. I will display data on those who collaborated with the fascists as a percentage of the number of peoples mentioned below, according to the 1939 census. Very interesting data is obtained. And for Ukrainians as well. Almost ahead of the rest. And they were far ahead of the Russians in terms of the number of traitors. 3 times ahead. The vaunted Cossack women also turned out to be among the leaders in traitors. It’s in vain that Kolya Kozitsyn crucifies that they have always stood guard over the people. More often people were sold or robbed, as in Novorossiya now. The Kazan Tatars were pleased, they were in last place in terms of the number of collaborators. This was a revelation for me. But the Crimeans are in the lead, crests are far behind, having 4.6%, compared to the Ukrainians, with their 0.9% of the population in 1939. I didn't expect anything else. I know how en masse they surrendered to the Germans during the Patriotic War. They were not evicted from Crimea for their pretty eyes. Russians, by the way, accounted for 0.3% of those collaborating with the Germans. The descendants of Bandera and Shukhevych are sad. And now on the topic of who sold the Motherland and how. And for how many pieces of silver. Even talking about two million Russians who fought against the Bolshevik regime (the essence is against their people), they probably also count 700 thousand emigrants. Despite the fact that not all of them were ethnic Russians. These figures are cited for a reason - they serve as an argument for the assertion that the Great Patriotic War is the essence of the Second Civil War of the Russian people against the hated Stalin. What can I say? If it really happened that a million Russians stood under the tricolor banner and fought tooth and nail against the Red Army for a free Russia, shoulder to shoulder with their German allies, then we would have no choice but to admit that yes, The Great Patriotic War truly became the Second Civil War for the Russian people. But was it so? To figure out whether this is true or not, you need to answer several questions: how many of them were there, who were they, how did they get into the service, how and with whom did they fight, and what motivated them? WHOM TO BE COUNTED? The cooperation of Soviet citizens with the occupiers took place in different forms, both in terms of the degree of voluntariness and the degree of involvement in the armed struggle - from the Baltic SS volunteers who fought fiercely near Narva, to the “Ostarbeiters” forcibly driven to Germany. I believe that even the most stubborn anti-Stalinists will not be able, without bending their hearts, to enroll the latter in the ranks of fighters against the Bolshevik regime. Typically, these ranks include those who received rations from the German military or police department, or held weapons received from the hands of the Germans or pro-German local government. That is, to the maximum potential fighters against the Bolsheviks include: foreign military units of the Wehrmacht and SS; eastern security battalions; Wehrmacht construction units; Wehrmacht support personnel, they are also “our Ivans” or Hiwi (Hilfswilliger: “voluntary assistants”); auxiliary police units (“noise” - Schutzmannshaften); border guard; “air defense assistants” mobilized to Germany through youth organizations HOW MANY ARE THERE? We will probably never know the exact numbers, since no one really counted them, but some estimates are available to us. A lower estimate can be obtained from the archives of the former NKVD - until March 1946, 283,000 “Vlasovites” and other collaborators in uniform were transferred to the authorities. The upper estimate can probably be taken from Drobyazko’s works, which serve as the main source of figures for proponents of the “Second Civil” version. According to his calculations (the method of which, unfortunately, he does not disclose), the following passed through the Wehrmacht, SS and various pro-German paramilitary and police forces during the war years: 250,000 Ukrainians 70,000 Belarusians 70,000 Cossacks 150,000 Latvians 90,000 Estonians 50,000 Lithuanians 70,000 Central Asians 12.0 00 Volga Tatars 10,000 Crimean Tatars 7,000 Kalmyks 40,000 Azerbaijanis 25,000 Georgians 20,000 Armenians 30,000 North Caucasian nationalities Since the total number of all former Soviet citizens who wore German and pro-German uniforms is estimated at 1.2 million, the share of Russians (excluding Cossacks) remains about 310,000 people. There are, of course, other calculations that give a smaller total number, but let’s not mince words, let’s take Drobyazko’s estimate from above as the basis for further reasoning. WHO WERE THEY? Hiwi and construction battalion soldiers can hardly be considered civil war fighters. Of course, their work freed up German soldiers for the front, but this also applies to the “ostarbeiters” to the same extent. Sometimes hiwi received weapons and fought alongside the Germans, but such cases in the unit's combat logs are described more as a curiosity than as a mass phenomenon. It is interesting to count how many there were who actually held weapons in their hands. The number of hiwi at the end of the war Drobiazko gives about 675,000, if we add construction units and take into account the loss during the war, then I think we will not be much mistaken in assuming that this category covers about 700-750,000 people out of a total of 1.2 million. This is consistent with with the share of non-combatants among the Caucasian peoples, in the calculation presented by the headquarters of the eastern troops at the end of the war. According to him, of the total number of 102,000 Caucasians who passed through the Wehrmacht and SS, 55,000 served in the legions, Luftwaffe and SS and 47,000 in hiwi and construction units. It should be taken into account that the share of Caucasians enrolled in combat units was higher than the share of Slavs. So, out of 1.2 million who wore a German uniform, only 450-500 thousand did so while holding weapons. Let's now try to calculate the layout of the actual combat units of the eastern peoples. 75 Asian battalions (Caucasians, Turks and Tatars) were formed (80,000 people). Taking into account 10 Crimean police battalions (8,700), Kalmyks and special units, there are approximately 110,000 “combat” Asians out of a total of 215,000. This completely hits the Caucasians separately with the layout. The Baltic states endowed the Germans with 93 police battalions (later partly consolidated into regiments), with a total number of 33,000 people. In addition, 12 border regiments (30,000) were formed, partly staffed by police battalions, followed by three SS divisions (15, 19 and 20) and two volunteer regiments, through which perhaps 70,000 men passed. Police and border regiments and battalions were partly recruited to form them. Taking into account the absorption of some units by others, in total about 100,000 Balts passed through the combat units. In Belarus, 20 police battalions (5,000) were formed, of which 9 were considered Ukrainian. After the introduction of mobilization in March 1944, police battalions became part of the army of the Belarusian Central Rada. In total, the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKA) had 34 battalions, 20,000 people. Having retreated in 1944 along with German troops, these battalions were consolidated into the Siegling SS Brigade. Then, on the basis of the brigade, with the addition of Ukrainian “policemen”, the remnants of the Kaminsky brigade and even the Cossacks, the 30th SS Division was deployed, which was later used to staff the 1st Vlasov Division. Galicia was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was seen as potentially German territory. It was separated from Ukraine, included in the Reich, as part of the General Government of Warsaw, and put in line for Germanization. On the territory of Galicia, 10 police battalions (5,000) were formed, and subsequently a recruitment of volunteers for the SS troops was announced. It is believed that 70,000 volunteers showed up at the recruiting sites, but so many were not needed. As a result, one SS division (14th) and five police regiments were formed. Police regiments were disbanded as needed and sent to replenish the division. Galicia's total contribution to the victory over Stalinism can be estimated at 30,000 people. In the rest of Ukraine, 53 police battalions (25,000) were formed. It is known that a small part of them became part of the 30th SS Division, the fate of the rest is unknown to me. After the formation in March 1945 of the Ukrainian analogue of the KONR - the Ukrainian National Committee - the Galician 14th SS Division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian and the formation of the 2nd began. It was formed from volunteers of Ukrainian nationality recruited from various auxiliary formations; about 2,000 people were recruited. About 90 security “ostbattalions” were formed from Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, through which approximately 80,000 people passed, including the “Russian National People’s Army”, which was reformed into five security battalions. Among other Russian military formations, one can recall the 3,000-strong 1st Russian national brigade of the SS Gil (Rodionov), which went over to the side of the partisans, the approximately 6,000-strong “Russian National Army” of Smyslovsky and the army of Kaminsky (“Russian Liberation People’s Army”), which arose as so-called self-defense forces Lokot Republic. Maximum estimates of the number of people who passed through Kaminsky’s army reach 20,000. After 1943, Kaminsky's troops retreated along with the German army and in 1944 an attempt was made to reorganize them into the 29th SS Division. For a number of reasons, the reformation was canceled, and the personnel were transferred to complete the 30th SS Division. At the beginning of 1945, the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Vlasov army) were created. The first army division is formed from the "ostbattalions" and the remnants of the 30th SS division. The second division is formed from “ost battalions”, and partly from volunteer prisoners of war. The number of Vlasovites before the end of the war is estimated at 40,000 people, of which about 30,000 were former SS men and former battalions. In total, about 120,000 Russians fought in the Wehrmacht and SS with weapons in their hands at different times. The Cossacks, according to Drobyazko’s calculations, fielded 70,000 people, let’s accept this figure. HOW DID THEY GET INTO SERVICE? Initially, the eastern units were staffed with volunteers from among prisoners of war and the local population. Since the summer of 1942, the principle of recruitment of the local population has changed from voluntary to voluntary-forced - an alternative to voluntary joining the police is forced deportation to Germany, as an “Ostarbeiter”. By the fall of 1942, undisguised coercion began. Drobyazko, in his dissertation, talks about raids on men in the Shepetivka area: those caught were offered a choice between joining the police or being sent to a camp. Since 1943, compulsory military service has been introduced in various “self-defense” units of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. In the Baltic states, SS units and border guards were recruited through mobilization since 1943. HOW AND WHO DID THEY FIGHT? Initially, the Slavic eastern units were created for security service. In this capacity, they were supposed to replace the Wehrmacht security battalions, which were sucked out of the rear zone like a vacuum cleaner by the needs of the front. At first, soldiers of the eastern battalions guarded warehouses and railways, but as the situation became more complicated, they began to be involved in anti-partisan operations. The involvement of the eastern battalions in the fight against the partisans contributed to their disintegration. If in 1942 the number of “ost-battalion members” who went over to the partisan side was relatively small (although this year the Germans were forced to disband the RNNA due to massive defections), then in 1943 14 thousand fled to the partisans (and this is very, very quite a lot, with the average number of eastern units in 1943 being about 65,000 people). The Germans did not have any strength to observe the further decomposition of the eastern battalions, and in October 1943 the remaining eastern units were sent to France and Denmark (disarming 5-6 thousand volunteers as unreliable). There they were included as 3 or 4 battalions in the regiments of the German divisions. Slavic eastern battalions, with rare exceptions, were not used in battles on the eastern front. In contrast, a significant number of Asian Ostbattalions were involved in the first line of advancing German troops during the Battle of the Caucasus. The results of the battles were contradictory - some performed well, others, on the contrary, turned out to be infected with deserter sentiments and produced a large percentage of defectors. By the beginning of 1944, most of the Asian battalions also found themselves on the Western Wall. Those who remained in the East were brought together into the Eastern Turkic and Caucasian SS formations and were involved in the suppression of the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings. In total, by the time of the Allied invasion, 72 Slavic, Asian and Cossack battalions with a total number of about 70 thousand people had been assembled in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In general, the remaining battalions performed poorly in battles with the allies (with some exceptions). Of the almost 8.5 thousand irretrievable losses, 8 thousand were missing in action, that is, most of them were deserters and defectors. After this, the remaining battalions were disarmed and involved in fortification work on the Siegfried Line. Subsequently, they were used to form units of the Vlasov army. In 1943, Cossack units were also withdrawn from the east. The most combat-ready formation of German Cossack troops, the 1st Cossack Division of von Panwitz, formed in the summer of 1943, went to Yugoslavia to deal with Tito’s partisans. There they gradually gathered all the Cossacks, expanding the division into a corps. The division took part in battles on the Eastern Front in 1945, fighting mainly against the Bulgarians. The Baltic states contributed the largest number of troops to the front - in addition to three SS divisions, separate police regiments and battalions took part in the battles. The 20th Estonian SS Division was defeated near Narva, but was subsequently restored and managed to take part in the last battles of the war. The Latvian 15th and 19th SS divisions came under attack from the Red Army in the summer of 1944 and could not withstand the blow. Large levels of desertion and loss of combat capability are reported. As a result, the 15th Division, having transferred its most reliable composition to the 19th, was withdrawn to the rear for use in the construction of fortifications. The second time it was used in battle was in January 1945, in East Prussia, after which it was again withdrawn to the rear. She managed to surrender to the Americans. The 19th remained in Courland until the end of the war. Belarusian policemen and those freshly mobilized into the BKA in 1944 were collected in the 30th SS Division. After its formation, the division was transferred to France in September 1944, where it took part in battles with the Allies. Suffered heavy losses mainly from desertion. Belarusians ran over to the allies in droves and continued the war in Polish units. In December, the division was disbanded, and the remaining personnel were transferred to staff the 1st Vlasov Division. The Galician 14th SS Division, barely sniffing gunpowder, was surrounded near Brody and almost completely destroyed. Although she was quickly restored, she no longer took part in battles at the front. One of her regiments was involved in the suppression of the Slovak uprising, after which she went to Yugoslavia to fight Tito’s partisans. Since Yugoslavia is not far from Austria, the division managed to surrender to the British. The KONR armed forces were formed in early 1945. Although the 1st Vlasov division was staffed almost entirely by punitive veterans, many of whom had already been to the front, Vlasov brainwashed Hitler by demanding more time for preparation. In the end, the division still managed to move to the Oder Front, where it took part in one attack against Soviet troops on April 13. The very next day, the division commander, Major General Bunyachenko, ignoring the protests of his German immediate superior, withdrew the division from the front and went to join the rest of Vlasov’s army in the Czech Republic. The Vlasov army carried out the second battle against its ally, attacking German troops in Prague on May 5. WHAT MOVED THEM? The driving motives were completely different. Firstly, among the eastern troops one can distinguish national separatists who fought for the creation of their own national state or at least a privileged province of the Reich. This includes the Baltic states, Asian legionnaires and Galicians. The creation of units of this kind has a long tradition - remember, for example, the Czechoslovak Corps or the Polish Legion in the First World War. These would fight against the central government, no matter who sat in Moscow - the tsar, the secretary general or the popularly elected president. Secondly, there were ideological and stubborn opponents of the regime. This may include the Cossacks (although their motives were partly national-separatist), part of the personnel of the eastern battalions, and a significant part of the officer corps of the KONR troops. Thirdly, we can name opportunists who bet on the winner, those who joined the Reich during the victories of the Wehrmacht, but fled to the partisans after the defeat at Kursk and continued to run away at the first opportunity. These probably made up a significant part of the eastern battalions and local police. There were also those on the other side of the front, as can be seen from the change in the number of defectors to the Germans in 1942-44: 1942 - 79,769 people 1943 - 26,108 people 1944 - 9,207 people Fourthly, these were people who hoped to escape from the camp and at a convenient opportunity to move on to your own. It’s hard to say how many of these there were, but sometimes there were enough for a whole battalion. And finally, the fifth category - people who wanted to survive more accurately. This includes the bulk of the hiwi and construction workers, who received much more nutritious rations than in the camp. AND WHAT DOES IT END UP? But the picture that emerges is completely different from what is painted by ardent anti-communists. Instead of one (or even two) million Russians united under the tricolor flag in the fight against the hateful Stalinist regime, there is a very motley (and clearly not reaching a million) company of Balts, Asians, Galicians and Slavs, each fighting for their own. And mainly not with the Stalinist regime, but with the partisans (not only Russians, but also Yugoslav, Slovak, French, Polish), Western allies, and even with the Germans in general. Doesn't sound much like a civil war, does it? Well, perhaps we can use these words to describe the struggle between partisans and policemen, but the policemen fought not under a tricolor flag, but with a swastika on their sleeves. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that until the end of 1944, until the formation of the KONR and its armed forces, the Germans did not provide the opportunity for Russian anti-communists to fight for the national idea, for a Russia without communists. It can be assumed that if they had allowed this earlier, more people would have rallied “under the tricolor flag,” especially since there were still plenty of opponents of the Bolsheviks in the country. But this is “would” and besides, my grandmother said it in two. But in real history, no “millions under the tricolor flag” were observed. List of sources 1. S.I.Drobyazko Eastern formations within the Wehrmacht (dissertation) 2. S.Drobyazko, A.Karashchuk Russian Liberation Army 3. S.Drobyazko, A.Karashchuk Eastern volunteers in the Wehrmacht, police and SS 4. S. Drobyazko, A.Karashchuk Eastern legions and Cossack units in the Wehrmacht 5. O.V.Romanko Muslim legions in the Second World War 6. J.Hoffmann History of the Vlasov army 7. V.K.Strik-Strikfeldt Against Stalin and Hitler 8.N. M. Konyaev Vlasov. Two faces of a general.
