Cossacks in the Wehrmacht army. What Cossacks fought for Hitler. Faithfully and truly

One of the important and poorly covered issues of World War II is the question of the participation of the Cossacks in the war on the side of the German troops. And although many are here very categorically that this supposedly could not be, the facts indicate the opposite - however, despite the available undeniable evidence, the most important thing here is to find out why this happened and what were the reasons for this.

The fact is that, unlike other projects for the formation of national units from former citizens The USSR, Hitler and his inner circle looked favorably on the idea of ​​forming Cossack units, as they adhered to the theory that the Cossacks were descendants of the Goths, which means that they belonged not to the Slavic, but to the Nordic race. In addition, at the beginning of Hitler's political career, he was supported by some Cossack leaders.

The main reason why many Cossacks fought on the side of Germany was the policy of genocide against the Cossacks (as well as many other groups of the population of the former Russian Empire), pursued by the Bolsheviks since 1919. We are talking about the so-called decossackization. Dekulakization - not to be confused with dispossession of kulaks - is a policy pursued by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War and in the first decades after it, aimed at depriving the Cossacks of independent political and military rights, eliminating the Cossacks as a social and cultural community, an estate of the Russian state.

The policy of decossackization resulted in a massive Red Terror and repression against the Cossacks, expressed in mass shootings, hostage-taking, burning of villages, inciting nonresidents against the Cossacks. In the process of decossackization, requisitions of livestock and agricultural products were also carried out, the resettlement of the poor from among the nonresidents to the lands that previously belonged to the Cossacks.

Cossacks on the side of the 3rd Reich fought about the same as in the 1st world war fought from the Cossack population of southern Russia. There are full grounds for the existence of a version of a civil war between the Cossacks and the USSR, which took place within the 2nd World War. In fact, the Cossacks during the war were divided into 2 parts - one fought on the side of the USSR, the second as part of the Wehrmacht troops.

Background

1919 year

From the Directive of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "To all responsible comrades working in the Cossack regions":

... To carry out a mass terror against the rich Cossacks, exterminating them without exception; to carry out a merciless mass terror against all the Cossacks who took any direct or indirect part in the struggle against Soviet power ...

... "Liberating" the Cossack lands for the settlers, 30-60 people were shot in the villages per day. In just 6 days, over 400 people were shot in the villages of Kazanskaya and Shumilinskaya. In Vyoshenskaya - 600. This is how the “decossackization” began ...

1932 year

... the Cossack of the Samburovskaya stanitsa of the Severo-Don district Burukhin, when grain procurers came at night, "went out onto the porch in full ceremonial Cossack uniform, with medals and crosses, and said:" You will not see bread from an honest Cossack for the Soviet government "...

... The rebels put up a desperate resistance. Every inch of the earth was defended by them with extraordinary ferocity ... Despite the lack of weapons, the numerical superiority of the enemy, on big number the wounded and killed and the lack of food and military supplies, the insurgents held out for a total of 12 days, and only on the thirteenth day did the battle along the entire line cease ... [Soviets] Day and night they shot everyone against whom there was the slightest suspicion of sympathy for the rebels. There was no mercy to anyone, not children, not old people, not women, not even seriously ill ...

1941 year

... In the first battle he went over to the side of the Germans. He said that I would take revenge on the Soviets for all my relatives as long as I was alive. And I took revenge ...

1942 year

... In the summer of 1942, the Germans came with the Cossacks. They began to form a volunteer Cossack regiment. I was the first in the village to volunteer for the 1st Cossack regiment (1st platoon, 1st hundred). Received a mare, a saddle and harness, a saber and a carbine. I took the oath of allegiance to Father Quiet Don ... Father and mother praised me and were proud of me ...

According to S.M. Markedonov, “through the Cossack units on the side of Germany in the period from October 1941 to April 1945. about 80,000 people passed. " According to the research of V.P. Makhno - 150-160 thousand people (of which up to 110-120 thousand are Cossacks and 40-50 thousand are not Cossacks). According to the data given by A. Tsyganok, as of January 1943 in the German armed forces formed 30 military units from the Cossacks, from individual hundreds to regiments. According to V.P. Makhno, in 1944 the number of Cossack formations reached 100 thousand: 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps - 35-40 thousand; in the Cossack Stan 25.3 thousand (18.4 thousand in combat units and 6.9 thousand in support units, non-combatant Cossacks and officials); Cossack reserve (Brigade Turkul, 5th regiment, battalion Krasnova N.N.) - up to 10 thousand; in the Cossack units of the Wehrmacht, not transferred to the formation of the 1st Cossack division (deployed later in the 15th corps) 5-7 thousand; in parts of Todt - 16 thousand; 3-4 thousand air defense assistants in SD units; the loss of the Cossacks on the side of Germany during the war amounted to 50-55 thousand people.

Cossack Stan (Kosakenlager) - a military organization during World War II, which united the Cossacks as part of the Wehrmacht and SS. By May 1945, upon surrender to the British captivity, it numbered 24 thousand military and civilians.

The XV Cossack SS Cavalry Corps (XV. SS-Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps) is a Cossack unit that fought on the side of Germany during World War II, created on February 25, 1945 on the basis of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of Helmut von Pannwitz (German. 1. Kosaken-Kavallerie-Division); On April 20, 1945, he became a member of the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, becoming the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps of the Armed Forces of the KONR.

In October 1942, in Novocherkassk, occupied by German troops, with the permission of the German authorities, a Cossack gathering was held, at which the headquarters of the Don Army was elected. The organization of Cossack formations within the Wehrmacht begins, both in the occupied territories and in the emigre environment. The creation of the Cossack units was headed by the former colonel of the tsarist army Sergei Vasilyevich Pavlov, in Soviet time worked as an engineer at one of the factories of Novocherkassk. Pavlov's initiative was supported by Petr Nikolaevich Krasnov.

From January 1943, the German troops began to retreat, part of the Cossacks with their families moved with them to the west. In Kirovograd, S. V. Pavlov, guided by the declaration of the German government of November 10, 1943, began to create the "Cossack Camp". Under the command of Pavlov, who received the title of "marching chieftain", Cossacks began to arrive from almost all of the South of Russia.

When the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops (Hauptverwaltung der Kosakenheere) was formed in Berlin on March 31, 1944, headed by P. N. Krasnov, S. V. Pavlov became one of his deputies. In June 1944, Cossack Stan was relocated to the region of the cities of Baranovichi - Slonim - Yelnya - Stolbtsy - Novogrudok.

On June 17, 1944, Colonel Pavlov was killed. The former White Guard centurion T.N. Domanov was appointed as the marching chieftain of the Stan. In July 1944 Stan moved for a short time to the Bialystok area.

The Cossacks took an active part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. In particular, the Cossacks from the Cossack police battalion formed in 1943 in Warsaw (more than 1000 people), the convoy guard hundreds (250 people), the Cossack battalion of the 570th security regiment, the 5th Kuban regiment took part in the hostilities against the poorly armed rebels. Cossack camp under the command of Colonel Bondarenko. One of the Cossack units, led by cornet I. Anikin, was tasked with seizing the headquarters of the head of the Polish insurrectionary movement, General T. Bur-Komorowski. The Cossacks captured about 5 thousand rebels. For their zeal, the German command awarded many of the Cossacks and officers with the Order of the Iron Cross.

On July 6, 1944, it was decided to transfer the Cossacks to northern Italy (Carnia) to fight against Italian anti-fascists. Later, Cossack families moved to the same area, as well as Caucasian units under the command of General Sultan-Girey Klych.

In the Cossack Camp, which settled in Italy, the newspaper “Cossack Land” was published, many Italian towns were renamed into stanitsa, and local residents were partially deported.

In March 1945, units of the 15th SS Cossack Corps participated in the last major offensive operation of the Wehrmacht, successfully operating against the Bulgarian units on the southern face of the Balaton salient.

In April 1945, the Cossack Stan was reorganized into a Separate Cossack Corps under the command of the Campaign Ataman, Major General Domanov. At that time, the corps numbered 18,395 combatant Cossacks and 17,014 refugees.

The corps came under the control of the commander of the ROA, General A. Vlasov. And on April 30, the commander of the German troops in Italy, General Retinger, decided to surrender. Under these conditions, the leadership of the Stan ordered the Cossacks to move to eastern Tyrol, to the territory of Austria. The total number of the Cossack Camp at this time was about 40 thousand Cossacks with families. On May 2, 1945, the crossing of the Alps began, and on Easter May 10 we arrived at the town of Lienz. Soon other Cossack units approached the same place, in particular, under the command of General A.G. Shkuro.

But Lienz and Judenburg turned out to be a trap for the Cossacks. It was there that the forcible extradition by the British and Americans to the Soviet Union, according to various sources, took place from 45 to 60 thousand Cossacks who fought on the side of the German Wehrmacht. The action was accompanied by a large number of victims. All this was part of "Operation Keelhaul" (English Keelhaul from keel - drag under the keel as punishment) - an operation of the British and American troops to transfer to the Soviet side the citizens of the USSR who were on the territory under their control: Ostarbeiters, prisoners of war, as well as refugees and citizens of the USSR who served and fought on the side of Germany.

It was held in May - June 1945.

The agreement on repatriation was reached at the Yalta conference and concerned all displaced persons who in 1939 were citizens of the Soviet Union, regardless of their desire to return to their homeland. At the same time, some of the former subjects of the Russian Empire, who had never had Soviet citizenship, were also extradited.

On May 2, 1945, the leadership of the Cossack Camp announced an order to move to Austrian territory in East Tyrol with the aim of an honorable surrender to the British. The number of Stan at that time was, according to the data given by M. Shkarovsky with reference to Austrian historians, 36,000, including: 20,000 combat-ready bayonets and sabers and 16,000 family members (also with reference to Italian scientists - “about 40,000 people ").

On the night of 2 to 3 May, the Cossacks began crossing the Alps. With. Ovaro, the Italian partisans blocked the mountain road and demanded the surrender of all vehicles and weapons. After a short intense battle, the Cossacks cleared their way. The transition was led by Generals P. N. Krasnov, T. I. Domanov and V. G. Naumenko.

On May 6, almost all Cossack units of the Stan, in difficult weather conditions, crossed the icy Alpine Pass Plekenpass, crossed the Italian-Austrian border and reached the Oberdrauburg region. On May 10, another 1400 Cossacks came to East Tyrol from the reserve regiment under the command of General A.G. Shkuro. By this time, the Cossack Stan reached the city of Lienz and settled on the banks of the Drava River, the headquarters of Krasnov and Domanov were located in the Lienz hotel.

On May 18, the British came to the Drava Valley and accepted the surrender. The Cossacks surrendered almost all their weapons and were distributed in several camps in the vicinity of Lienz.

Initially, on May 28, by deception, under the guise of a summons to a "conference", the British isolated from the main mass and handed over to the NKVD about 1,500 officers and generals.

From seven o'clock in the morning on June 1, the Cossacks gathered on the plain outside the fence of the Peggets camp around the field altar, where a funeral service was held. When the moment of communion came (18 priests were receiving communion at the same time), British troops appeared. British soldiers rushed into the crowd of resisting Cossacks, beat and stabbed them with bayonets, trying to drive them into cars. Firing, using bayonets, rifle butts and clubs, they tore the barrage of unarmed Cossack cadets. Beating up everyone indiscriminately, fighters and refugees, old people and women, trampling small children into the ground, they began to separate separate groups of people from the crowd, grab them and throw them into the trucks.

The extradition of the Cossacks continued until mid-June 1945. By this time, over 22.5 thousand Cossacks were deported from the vicinity of Lienz to the USSR, including at least 3 thousand old emigrants. More than 4 thousand people fled to the forests and mountains. At least a thousand died during the operation by British troops on June 1.

In addition to Lienz, from the camps located in the Feldkirchen-Altofen region, about 30-35 thousand Cossacks from the 15th Cossack Corps were taken to the Soviet zone, which, with battles, in full order broke through to Austria from Yugoslavia.

M. Shkarovsky cites the following figures with reference to archival documents (in particular, to the report of the head of the NKVD troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front Pavlov of June 15, 1945): from May 28 to June 7, the Soviet side received 42 913 people from the British from East Tyrol (38 496 men and 4417 women and children), including 16 generals, 1410 officers, 7 priests; over the next week, the British caught 1,356 Cossacks who had escaped from the camps in the forests, 934 of them were handed over to the NKVD on June 16; individual suicides and the liquidation of the NKVD in place of 59 people are noted as "traitors to the homeland."

After the transfer of the Cossack generals to the Soviet government, a number of commanders and privates were executed.

The bulk of the extradited Cossacks (including women) were sent to the Gulag camps, where a significant part of them died. It is known, in particular, about the sending of the Cossacks to the camps of the Kemerovo region and the Komi ASSR with work in the mines. Teenagers and women were gradually freed, some of the Cossacks, depending on the materials of their investigative cases, as well as the loyalty of their behavior, were transferred to a special settlement regime with the same job. In 1955, according to the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On amnesty for Soviet citizens who collaborated with the occupation authorities during the Great Patriotic War" of September 17, the survivors were mainly amnestied, lived, worked in the USSR and kept silent about their military past.

The question of the rehabilitation of the Cossacks is still very acute. In different years, it was either carried out or canceled. For example, on January 17, 2008, a deputy of the State Duma from the United Russia party, ataman of the Great Don Host Viktor Vodolatsky signed an order to create a working group for the political rehabilitation of ataman Krasnov. According to the deputy chieftain for ideological work, Colonel Vladimir Voronin, who is part of the working group, Krasnov was not a traitor: Krasnov was executed for betraying his homeland, although in fact he was not a citizen of Russia or the Soviet Union, which means he did not betray anyone.

Historian Kirill Aleksandrov believes that, in fact, the rehabilitation has already taken place. At the same time, the Cossacks hardly need rehabilitation - after the coup of 1917, they fought as best they could against the hated Bolshevik regime and, for the most part, did not repent of this in the future (as, for example, it is written in the memoirs of the Cossacks in the collections of N. S. Timofeev.) Moreover, since the Russian Federation is the legal successor of the USSR, the rehabilitation of the real enemies of the Soviet power on behalf of this power is absurd. According to Aleksandrov, the actual rehabilitation of such persons will become possible only when in Russia a full legal assessment is given to all the crimes that the Bolsheviks committed, starting from November 7, 1917.

During the Great Patriotic War, over 100 thousand Cossacks were awarded orders, and 279 received the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But in the post-Soviet period, people remember more about those who swore allegiance to the Third Reich.

The last days of the Great Patriotic War were marked not only by the desperate resistance of the most fanatical Nazis, but also by the massive flight to the West of collaborationist formations.
The accomplices of Hitler's executioners, who shed a lot of blood in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union, and then "distinguished themselves" in a number of European countries, hoped to take refuge with their Western allies. The calculation was simple: ideological contradictions between Moscow, Washington and London made it possible to impersonate unjustly persecuted "fighters against communism." In addition, in the West, they could close their eyes to the "pranks" of these "fighters" on the territory of the USSR: in the end, the victims were not the inhabitants of civilized Europe.
In recent decades, one of the most cultivated myths is the story of the "betrayal in Lienz", where the Western allies handed over tens of thousands of "innocent Cossacks" to the Stalin regime.
What kind of events actually took place in the Austrian town of Lienz in late May and early June 1945?

"May the Lord help German weapons and Hitler!"

After the Civil War, tens of thousands of White Army veterans, including its Cossack formations, settled in Europe. Someone tried to integrate into a peaceful life in a foreign land, while someone dreamed of revenge. In Germany, the revanchists established certain ties with the National Socialists even before Adolf Hitler came to power.
This contributed to the formation of a specific attitude towards the Cossacks among the leaders of the Third Reich: they were declared by the ideologists of National Socialism to belong not to the Slavic, but to the Aryan race. This approach allowed at the very beginning of the aggression against the USSR to raise the question of the formation of Cossack units to participate in the war on the side of Germany.
On June 22, 1941, the Ataman of the Great Don Army, Pyotr Krasnov, proclaimed: "I ask you to convey to all the Cossacks that this war is not against Russia, but against the communists ... May God help German weapons and Hitler!"
With the light hand of Krasnov, from the Cossack veterans of the Civil War, the formation of units for participation in the war against the USSR began.
Historians usually say that the extensive cooperation of the Cossacks with the Nazis began in 1942. However, already in the fall of 1941, reconnaissance and sabotage units formed from the Cossacks were operating under Army Group Center. The 102nd Cossack squadron of Ivan Kononov was engaged in the protection of the rear of the Nazis, that is, the fight against partisan detachments.
By the end of 1941, as part of the Nazi troops, there were 444 Cossack hundred in the 444 security division, 1 Cossack hundred of 1 army corps of the 18th army, 2 Cossack hundred of 2 army corps of the 16th army, 38 Cossack hundred of the 38th army corps of the 18th army and 50 Cossack hundred in as part of the 50 army corps of the same army.

Cossack camp in the service of the Fuhrer

The Cossacks in Hitler's service proved to be excellent: they were merciless to the Red Army men, they were not almond-shaped with the civilian population, and therefore the question arose of creating larger formations.
In the fall of 1942, a Cossack gathering was held in Novocherkassk with the permission of the German authorities, at which the headquarters of the Don Army was elected. The formation of large Cossack units for the war of the USSR was due to the involvement of the population of the Don and Kuban, dissatisfied with the Soviet regime, recruiting from among Soviet prisoners of war, as well as due to an additional influx from the emigrant environment.
Two large associations of Cossack collaborationists were formed: the Cossack Stan and the 600 regiment Don Cossacks... The latter would then become the basis of the 1st SS Cossack Cavalry Division, and then the 15 SS Cossack Cavalry Corps under the command of Helmut von Pannwitz.
However, by this time the situation at the front began to change dramatically. The Red Army seized the initiative and began to drive the Nazis to the West.
The collaborationist Cossacks had to retreat, and this made them even more fierce.
In June 1944, the Cossack Stan was relocated to the area of ​​the cities of Baranovichi - Slonim - Yelnya - Stolbtsy - Novogrudok. The Cossacks celebrated their not so long stay on the territory of Belarus with cruel reprisals against captured partisans, as well as bullying of the civilian population. For the inhabitants of Belarusian villages who survived this time, the memories of the Cossacks are painted exclusively in gloomy tones.

Faithfully and truly

Back in March 1944, the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops was formed in Berlin, headed by Pyotr Krasnov. Ataman approached the service of the Fuhrer creatively. Here are the words from the oath of the Cossacks to Hitler, developed personally by Peter Krasnov: “I promise and swear by Almighty God, before the Holy Gospel, that I will faithfully serve the Leader of New Europe and the German people Adolf Hitler and fight Bolshevism, not sparing my life, to the last drops of blood. All the laws and orders from the chiefs appointed by the Leader of the German people, Adolf Hitler, have been given, I will carry out with all my strength and will. " And we must pay tribute to the Cossacks: Hitler, unlike their homeland, they served faithfully.
After the punitive actions against the partisans of Belarus, the Cossacks collaborators left an unkind memory of themselves on the territory of Poland, taking part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. The Cossacks from the Cossack police battalion, the guard-guard unit, the Cossack battalion of the 570th security regiment, the 5th Kuban regiment of the Cossack camp under the command of Colonel Bondarenko took part in the hostilities against the rebels. For their zeal, the German command awarded many of the Cossacks and officers with the Order of the Iron Cross.

"Cossack Republic" in Italy

In the summer of 1944, the German command decided to transfer the Cossacks to Italy to fight local partisans.
By the end of September 1944, up to 16 thousand collaborationist Cossacks and their family members were concentrated in northeastern Italy. By April 1945, this number will exceed 30 thousand.
The Cossacks settled in comfort: Italian towns were renamed into stanitsa, the city of Alesso was named Novocherkassk, and the local population was forcibly deported. The Cossack command explained to the Italians in manifestos that the main task was to fight Bolshevism: "... now we, the Cossacks, are fighting this world plague wherever we meet: in Polish forests, in the Yugoslav mountains, on sunny Italian soil."
In February 1945, Peter Krasnov moved to Italy from Berlin. He did not lose hope of getting from the Nazis the right to create a "Cossack republic", at least on the territory of Italy. But the war was coming to an end, and its outcome was obvious.

Surrender in Austria

On April 27, 1945, the Cossack Camp was reorganized into a Separate Cossack Corps under the command of the marching chieftain, Major General Domanov. At the same time, he was transferred under the general command of the head of the Russian Liberation Army, General Vlasov.
But at this moment the Cossack command was more concerned with another question: to whom to surrender?
On April 30, 1945, General Retinger, commander of the German forces in Italy, signed a ceasefire order. The surrender of the German troops was to begin on May 2.
Krasnov and the command of the Cossack camp decided that the territory of Italy, where the Cossacks "inherited" punitive actions against the partisans, should be abandoned. It was decided to go to Austria, to East Tyrol, where to achieve an "honorable surrender" to the Western allies.
Krasnov hoped that the "fighters against Bolshevism" would not be extradited to the Soviet Union.
By May 10, about 40 thousand Cossacks and members of their families were concentrated in East Tyrol. 1400 Cossacks from the reserve regiment under the command of General Shkuro also came here.
The headquarters of the Cossacks is located in a hotel in the city of Lienz.
On May 18, representatives of the British troops arrived in Lienz, and the Cossack camp solemnly capitulated. The collaborators surrendered their weapons and were assigned to camps around Lienz.

Extradition by force

In order to understand what happened next, you need to know that the allies had obligations to the USSR. According to the agreements of the Yalta Conference, the United States and Great Britain pledged to transfer to the Soviet Union displaced persons who were citizens of the USSR before 1939. In the Cossack camp by May 1945, those were the majority.
There were also several thousand white emigrants to whom this norm did not apply. However, the allies in this case acted decisively in relation to both.
The thing is that the Cossacks managed to earn notoriety in Europe. The Warsaw Uprising, which was suppressed by the Cossacks, was organized by the Polish émigré government based in London. The anti-partisan actions in Yugoslavia and Italy, marked by violence against the civilian population (the deportation was already mentioned above), also did not cause delight among the British command.
The "Cold War" had not yet begun, and for the British and Americans, the Cossacks were bloody punishers, Hitler's henchmen, who swore allegiance to the Fuehrer, with whom there was no reason to stand on ceremony.
On May 28, the British carried out an operation to arrest and extradite the highest ranks and officers of the Cossack camp to the Soviet side.
On the morning of June 1, in the Peggetz camp, British troops began an operation to massively extradite collaborators to the Soviet Union.
The Cossacks tried to resist, and the British actively used force. Data on the number of killed Cossacks vary: from several dozen to 1000 people.
Part of the Cossacks fled, there were cases of suicide.

One - the gallows, the other - the term

The report of Pavlov, chief of the NKVD troops of the III Ukrainian Front, dated June 15, 1945, provides the following data: from May 28 to June 7, the Soviet side received 42,913 people from the British from East Tyrol (38,496 men and 4,417 women and children), of which 16 were generals , 1410 officers, 7 priests. Over the next week, the British caught 1,356 Cossacks who had escaped from the camps in the forests, 934 of them were handed over to the NKVD on June 16.
The leaders of the Cossack camp, as well as the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, were brought to trial in January 1947. Pyotr Krasnov, Andrey Shkuro, Helmut von Pannwitz, Timofey Domanov by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on the basis of Art. 1 of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 19, 1943 "On measures of punishment for German-fascist villains guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and prisoners of the Red Army, for spies, traitors to the Motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices" to death by hanging. An hour and a half after the sentencing, he was carried out in the courtyard of the Lefortovo prison.
What happened to the others? According to those who write about the "Lienz tragedy", "they were sent to the Gulag, where a significant part perished."
In fact, their fate did not differ from the fate of other collaborators, for example, the same "Vlasovites". After the examination of the case, each received a sentence in accordance with the degree of guilt. Ten years later, in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On amnesty for Soviet citizens who collaborated with the occupation authorities during the Great Patriotic War," the Cossack collaborationists who remained in prison were amnestied.

Forgot heroes, remember traitors

The liberated veterans of the Cossack camp did not spread about their "exploits", since the attitude in Soviet society towards such as they were was appropriate. At that time it was customary to sing the praises of their suffering only in emigre circles, from which this unhealthy tendency migrated to Russia in the post-Soviet period.
Against the background of 27 million Soviet citizens who died during the Great Patriotic War, it is simply blasphemous to talk about the "tragedy" of renegades who swore allegiance to Hitler and performed dirty work for him.
The Cossacks in the Great Patriotic War had real heroes: soldiers of the 4th Guards Cavalry Kuban Cossack Corps and 5th Guards Cavalry Don Cossack Corps. 33 soldiers of these units were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands were awarded orders and medals. All in all, during the Great Patriotic War, over 100 thousand Cossacks were awarded orders, and 279 received the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The irony of fate is that these real heroes are remembered much less often than those who were overtaken by just retribution in 1945.

In the fall of 1941 - three months after the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR - Cossack units were formed, which became part of the Wehrmacht. They enjoyed the confidence and disposition of the German command.

In April 1942, the question of the Cossack units was discussed at the headquarters of the Fuhrer. Hitler gave the order to use them to fight the partisans, as well as in hostilities at the front as "equal allies."

Cossack units were formed at the front and in the rear of the active German army. They were created from prisoners of war - natives of the Don, Kuban and Terek regions. The first of these units was formed by order of the commander of the rear area of ​​Army Group Center, General Schenkendorf, in October 1941. It was a Cossack squadron under the command of the former Major of the Red Army I. Kononov, and it consisted of defectors.

It should be noted that cases of mass surrender were not so frequent. The most significant episode was associated with the transition to the side of the Germans on August 22, 1941 in the Mogilev region of the 436th regiment of the 155th rifle division, commanded by Major Kononov. Some of the fighters and commanders of this regiment formed the backbone of the first Cossack squadron in the Wehrmacht, then five more squadrons were created, and a year later, under the command of Kononov, there was already a Cossack division of 2 thousand people.

Cossack units were also formed by the headquarters of the 2nd, 4th, 16th, 17th and 18th field, 3rd and 1st tank armies.

Let's take a look at a selection of photos in which "equal allies" and their owners!

1. Cossack of the cavalry regiment of von Jungschulz, 1942-1943.

2-3. Squadron badge and variant of the sleeve insignia of the von Jungschultz Cossack Cavalry Regiment.

4. Cossack of the Cossack unit as part of the German mountain rifle division, 1942-1943.

5. Centurion of the 1st Don Volunteer Cossack Regiment, 1942-1943.

6. The standard of one of the Don volunteer Cossack units.

Commander of the 5th Don Wehrmacht Regiment, former Red Army Major Ivan Nikitovich Kononov (left) with his adjutant.

The caption to the photo from the magazine DIE WEHRMACHT No. 13, for June 23, 1943, literally: “Der Kommandeur des Kosakenregiments, Oberstleutnant K. (links). und sein Adjutant, Major B. (rechts). Beide sind Offiziere der alten Zaren · Armee ". ("The commander of the Cossack regiment, Lieutenant Colonel K. (left) and his adjutant, Major V. (right). Both officers of the old tsarist army").

A centurion (a rank in the Cossack troops of the Wehrmacht, equivalent to the rank of chief lieutenant) waves a whip on a village street.

A Wehrmacht Cossack is dancing surrounded by comrades in a village on the Eastern Front.

Cossacks from the 5th Don Wehrmacht Regiment are dancing for a German correspondent. Original photo caption:

In wildem Rhythmus stampfen die tanzenden Kosaken den Boden. Die Seitengewehre funkeln. Kameraden stehen

im Umkreis und klatschen den Takt.

(In a wild rhythm, dancing Cossacks trample the ground. Bayonets shine. Their friends stand nearby and clap to the beat.)

For the amusement of the Hungarian invaders, a Cossack policeman cuts captured Soviet partisans with a saber !!

Cossacks from the German troops, armed with captured PPShs, descend the hillside.

Cossacks from the German troops, armed with captured PPSh, talk during a smoke break on a hillside.

Cossacks from the German troops in formation.

A Cossack from the Russian Guard Corps in Yugoslavia with a German non-commissioned officer in Belgrade.

A group of Cossacks from the German troops on the southern sector of the Eastern Front. Cossacks are dressed in Soviet greatcoats, caps with earflaps and hats with cockades. Second from left is a German winter camouflage suit. Armament - PPSh submachine guns and rifles.

Cossacks from the German troops are reading the magazine "Signal". The German propaganda magazine "Signal" was published on different languages, including in Russian since 1942.

A Don Cossack from the German troops firing from a cannon during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944

Cossacks (in a helmet - a Cossack officer) watching the battle during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Terek Cossacks from self-defense units.

A Cossack of the XV Wehrmacht Cavalry Corps throws a 7.92 mm Mauser carbine (Karabiner 98 kurz) during surrender.

In the background, a British soldier and allied vehicles.

The total number of Cossacks who fought on the side of the Third Reich in 1941-1945 reached one hundred thousand. These "fighters for the fatherland" fought together with the Nazis against the Red Army until the last days of the war. They left a bloody trail behind them from Stalingrad to Poland, Austria and Yugoslavia.

For comparison, we present a table on the number of collaborators among different nationalities and ethnic groups of the population of the USSR!

Estimated number of representatives of various peoples of the USSR in the composition of the German armed forces

Peoples and national groups	Number of	Notes (edit)
		Incl. about 70,000 Cossacks. Of the rest, up to 200,000 were in the ranks of the "hivi" *. Up to 50,000 (including 30-35 thousand Cossacks) were part of the SS troops. At the end of the war, more than 100,000 were made up of the Armed Forces of KONR ** (including 50,000 - ROA ***).
Ukrainians		Up to 120,000 - as part of the auxiliary police and self-defense, about 100,000 - in the Wehrmacht, mainly as "hivi", 30,000 - as part of the SS forces ****.
Belarusians		Up to 50,000 as part of the auxiliary police and self-defense (including BKA *****), 8,000 as part of the SS troops, the rest as part of the Wehrmacht and auxiliary formations.
		40,000 in the SS troops, 12,000 in the border guard regiments, up to 30,000 in the Wehrmacht and auxiliary formations, the rest in the police and self-defense.
		20,000 in the SS troops, 20,000 in the border guard regiments, 15,000 in the Wehrmacht and auxiliary formations, the rest in the police and self-defense.
		Up to 20,000 in the Wehrmacht, up to 17,000 in auxiliary formations, the rest in the police and self-defense.
Azerbaijanis		13,000 - in combat, 5,000 - in auxiliary units of the Azerbaijan Legion, the rest - as part of various parts of the Wehrmacht) incl. in the Turkestan Legion) and the SS.
		11,000 - in combat, 7,000 - in auxiliary units of the Armenian Legion, the rest - as part of various parts of the Wehrmacht and SS.
		14,000 - in combat, 7,000 - in auxiliary units of the Georgian Legion, the rest - as part of various parts of the Wehrmacht and SS.
Peoples of the North Caucasus		10,000 - in combat, 3,000 - in auxiliary units of the North Caucasian Legion, the rest - as part of various parts of the Wehrmacht and SS.
Peoples of Central Asia		20,000 - in combat, 25,000 - in auxiliary units of the Turkestan Legion
Peoples of the Volga region and the Urals		8000 - in combat, 4500 - in auxiliary units of the Volga-Tatar Legion ("Idel-Ural").
Crimean Tatars		As part of 10 battalions of auxiliary police and self-defense units
		As part of the Kalmyk cavalry corps
		Incl. up to 150,000 in the Waffen SS, 300,000 in the ranks of the Khivi, up to 400,000 in the ranks of the auxiliary police and self-defense

* Hivi (Hilfswillige) - volunteers
** KONR - Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
*** ROA - Russian Liberation Army
**** SS - SS- Schutzstaffeln - Security detachments of the armed formations of the Nazi party)
***** BKA - Belarusian Regional Abarona - Belarusian Regional Defense

Anatoly Lemysh 02/22/2011 2017

Russian corps and divisions of the SS

Russian corps and divisions of the SS

15th (Cossack) SS Cavalry Corps
29th SS Grenadier Division
30th SS Grenadier Division
1001st Abwehr Grenadier Regiment

Even the Nazis were shocked by the "exploits" of the Russian SS men from the 29th division during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising - at the very time when other Russian soldiers, in Red Army uniforms, for two months indifferently watched the agony of the doomed city from the opposite bank of the Vistula. The 29th Russian SS Division earned such an odious reputation that the Germans were forced to disband it.

Soviet propaganda went to any lie in order to disown the glaring fact: more than a million Soviet citizens took part in the hostilities on the side of Germany. This corresponded to the staffing of approximately 100 rifle divisions.

So, in Russia, with its traditional cult of patriotism, after twenty years of Bolshevik rule, several times more citizens fought on the side of the external aggressor than in all the White Guard armies put together. The centuries-old history of the country, and indeed the history of wars, has never known this. There was nothing even remotely similar in any other country participating in the Second World War.
This is what politicians and journalist who are trying to present Stalinism as an almost legitimate form of existence for the Russian state should be reminded of more often.

By the end of 1942, Russian battalions with the numbers:
207,263,268,281,285,308,406,412,427,432,439,441,446,447,448,449,456,510,516,517,561,581,582,601,602,603,604,605,606,607,608,609,610,611,612,613,614,615,616,617,618,619,620,621,626,627,628,629,630,632,633,634,635,636,637,638,639,640,641,642,643,644,645,646,647,648,649,650,653,654,656,661,662,663,664,665,666,667,668,669,674,675,681.

Only after the defeat at Stalingrad did the German leadership begin the formation of SS volunteer divisions, and by the beginning of 1944, the Ukrainian, Lithuanian and two Estonian Waffen SS divisions were formed.

Maybe it’s enough to fuck with the "Galicia" division in the 44th, when in the 42nd the Russian SS battalions fought against us?
Stalin's telegram after the end of the Polish campaign read: "The friendship between Germany and the Soviet Union, based on jointly shed blood, has the prospect of being long and lasting."
Before that, in Russia, a monument to Iosif Vissarionovich was recently displayed (though left in Yakutia), I think that "pipl shavaє" is coming closer to the chervonozoryannoy ...
Alle, it’s hard to guess, even to the ear of BBB itself, the SRSR "is clearly in the process of the National Socialist Velikonіmechchinoy,"

From a speech by V. Molotov in the Kremlin, April 1940. We convey the most cordial congratulations of the Soviet government on the splendid success of the German Wehrmacht. Guderian's tanks broke through to the sea at Aberville on Soviet fuel, the German bombs that razed Rotterdam to the ground were stuffed with Soviet pyroxylin, and the shells of the bullets that hit British soldiers retreating to the boats near Dunkirk were cast from Soviet copper-nickel alloy ... ...

Deyaki niyak cannot return from fault. 60 (sixty) rocky yak BBB ended. Ukraine is only 14 (fourteen) years old is an independent state. Yaku krainu "zradzhuvali" warriors in 40-45 rock? Why did you fight for her stench?

The Vlasovites should not be perceived as a national movement, they are rather an internal opposition to the Stalinist regime. We should look for analogies in the Baltics and Western Belarus. There, as in the Western Ukraine, opposition to totalitarianism was reinforced by the goals of national self-determination, especially in the Baltics.

COSSACK PARTS 1941-1943
The appearance of the Cossack units in the Wehrmacht was largely facilitated by the reputation of the Cossacks as irreconcilable fighters against Bolshevism, won by them during the Civil War. In the early autumn of 1941, from the headquarters of the 18th Army, the General Staff of the Ground Forces received a proposal to form special units from the Cossacks to fight the Soviet partisans, initiated by the army counterintelligence officer Baron von Kleist. The proposal received support, and on October 6, Quartermaster General of the General Staff, Lieutenant General E. Wagner, allowed the commander of the rear areas of Army Groups North, Center and South to form by November 1, 1941, with the consent of the respective chiefs of the SS and police , - as an experiment - Cossack units from prisoners of war for their use in the fight against partisans.
The first of these units was organized in accordance with the order of the commander of the rear area of ​​Army Group Center, General von Schenkendorff, dated October 28, 1941. It was a Cossack squadron under the command of Major of the Red Army I.N. Kononov. During the year, the command of the rear area formed 4 more squadrons, and by September 1942, the 102nd (from October - 600th) Cossack division was under the command of Kononov (1, 2, 3 horse squadrons, 4, 5, 6th Plastun companies, machine-gun company, mortar and artillery batteries). The total strength of the division was 1,799 people, including 77 officers; in service there were 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 (mostly Soviet production) ... During 1942-1943. divisions of the division waged an intense struggle with partisans in the areas of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Smolensk, Nevel and Polotsk.
From the hundreds of Cossacks, formed at the army and corps headquarters of the German 17th Army, by order of June 13, 1942, the Platov Cossack cavalry regiment was formed. It consisted of 5 cavalry squadrons, a heavy weapons squadron, an artillery battery and a reserve squadron. Major of the Wehrmacht E. Thomsen was appointed commander of the regiment. From September 1942, the regiment was used to guard the restoration of the Maikop oil fields, and at the end of January 1943 it was transferred to the Novorossiysk region, where it guarded the sea coast and at the same time participated in the operations of German and Romanian troops against partisans. In the spring of 1943, he defended the "Kuban bridgehead", repelling Soviet amphibious assault northeast of Temryuk, until at the end of May he was withdrawn from the front and withdrawn to the Crimea.
The Cossack Cavalry Regiment "Jungschulz", formed in the summer of 1942 as part of the 1st Tank Army of the Wehrmacht, bore the name of its commander, Lieutenant Colonel I. von Jungschulz. Initially, the regiment had only two squadrons, one of which was purely German, and the second consisted of defector Cossacks. Already at the front, the regiment included two hundred Cossack local residents, as well as a Cossack squadron formed in Simferopol and then transferred to the Caucasus. As of December 25, 1942, the regiment numbered 1,530 people, including 30 officers, 150 non-commissioned officers and 1,350 privates, and was armed with 6 light and heavy machine guns, 6 mortars, 42 anti-tank rifles, rifles and machine guns. Beginning in September 1942, the Jungschulz regiment operated on the left flank of the 1st Tank Army in the Achikulak-Budennovsk region, taking an active part in battles against the Soviet cavalry. After the order of January 2, 1943 on a general retreat, the regiment withdrew to the north-west in the direction of the village of Yegorlykskaya, until it merged with the units of the 4th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht. Later he was subordinated to the 454th Security Division and transferred to the rear area of ​​Army Group Don.
In accordance with the order of June 18, 1942, all prisoners of war who were Cossacks by origin and considered themselves as such were to be sent to the town of Slavuta. By the end of the month, 5826 people were already concentrated here, and a decision was made to form a Cossack corps and organize a corresponding headquarters. Since there was an acute shortage of senior and middle command personnel among the Cossacks, former commanders of the Red Army, who were not Cossacks, began to be recruited into the Cossack units. Subsequently, at the headquarters of the formation, the 1st Cossack named after the ataman Count Platov was opened a cadet school, as well as a non-commissioned officer school.
From the available composition of the 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 perform special tasks in the Soviet rear. After checking 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 Consolidated Cossack regiments. On August 6, 1942, the formed Cossack units were transferred from the Slavutinsky camp to Shepetovka to the barracks specially designated for them.
Over time, the work on organizing the Cossack units in Ukraine acquired a systematic character. The Cossacks who found themselves in German captivity were concentrated in one camp, from which, after appropriate processing, they were sent to the reserve units, and from there they were transferred to the newly formed regiments, divisions, detachments and hundreds. Cossack units were originally used exclusively as auxiliary troops to guard POW camps. However, after they proved to be suitable for a wide variety of tasks, their use took on a different character. Most of the Cossack regiments formed in Ukraine were involved in the protection of roads and railways, other military facilities, as well as in the fight against the partisan movement on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus.
Many Cossacks joined the German army when the advancing units of the Wehrmacht 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 came to the representatives of the German command and expressed their readiness "to help the valiant German troops with all their strength and knowledge in the final defeat of Stalin's henchmen," and in September in Novocherkassk, with the approval of the occupation authorities, it gathered Cossack gathering, at which the headquarters of the Don Army was elected (since November 1942 it was called the headquarters of the Campaign Ataman), headed by Colonel S.V. Pavlov, who began organizing Cossack units to fight the Red Army.
According to the order of the headquarters, all Cossacks capable of carrying weapons were to appear at the assembly points and register. The village chieftains undertook to register the Cossack officers and Cossacks within three days and to select volunteers for the organized units. Each volunteer could write down his last rank in the Russian Imperial Army or in the white armies. At the same time, the chieftains were supposed to provide the volunteers with combat horses, saddles, checkers and uniforms. Armament for the units being formed was allocated in agreement with the German headquarters and commandant's offices.
In November 1942, shortly before the start of the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad, the German command authorized the formation of Cossack regiments in the Don, Kuban and Terek regions. So, from the volunteers of the Don villages in Novocherkassk, the 1st Don Regiment was organized under the command of the captain A.V. Shumkov and the Plastun battalion, which made up the Cossack group of the Campaign Ataman Colonel S.V. Pavlova. On the Don, the 1st Sinegorsk Regiment was also formed, consisting of 1260 officers and Cossacks under the command of the military sergeant major (former sergeant major) Zhuravlev. The formation of the 1st Kuban Cossack Cavalry Regiment began from the hundreds of Cossacks, formed in the villages of the Uman Department of the Kuban, under the leadership of the military foreman I. I. Salomakhi, and on the Terek, on the initiative of the military foreman N.L. Kulakov - 1st Volga Regiment of the Terek Cossack Host. The Cossack regiments organized in the Don in January - February 1943 took part in heavy battles against the advancing Soviet troops on the Seversky Donets, near Bataisk, Novocherkassk and Rostov. Covering the retreat to the west of the main forces of the German army, these units staunchly repulsed the onslaught of the superior enemy and suffered heavy losses, and some of them were completely destroyed.
Cossack units were formed by the command of the army rear areas (2nd and 4th field armies), corps (43rd and 59th) and divisions (57th and 137th infantry, 203, 213, 403, 444 and 454 th security). In tank corps, such as in the 3rd (Cossack motorized company) and 40th (1st and 2 / 82nd Cossack squadrons under the command of M. Zagorodny, the driver), they were used as auxiliary reconnaissance detachments. In the 444th and 454th security divisions, two Cossack divisions of 700 sabers each were formed. As part of the 5-thousandth German equestrian unit "Bozelager", created for the security service in the rear area of ​​the Army Group "Center", there were 650 Cossacks, and some of them were a squadron of heavy weapons. Cossack units were also created as part of the armies of German satellites operating on the Eastern Front. At least it is known that a Cossack detachment of two squadrons was formed under the Savoy cavalry group of the Italian 8th Army. In order to achieve proper operational interaction, it was practiced to combine individual units into larger formations. So, in November 1942, four Cossack battalions (622, 623, 624 and 625, previously 6, 7 and 8 regiments), a separate motorized company (638) and two artillery batteries were combined into the 360th Cossack regiment, led by the Baltic German Major E.V. von Rentelnom.
By April 1943, the Wehrmacht included about 20 Cossack regiments numbering from 400 to 1000 people each and a large number of small units, totaling up to 25 thousand soldiers and officers. The most reliable of them were formed from volunteers in the villages of the Don, Kuban and Terek, or from defectors at the German field formations. The personnel of such units were mainly represented by natives of the Cossack regions, many of whom fought with the Bolsheviks during the Civil War or were repressed by the Soviet regime in the 1920s and 1930s, and therefore were vitally interested in the struggle against the Soviet regime. At the same time, in the ranks of the units that were formed in Slavut and Shepetovka, there were many random people who called themselves Cossacks only in order to escape from the prisoner of war camps and thereby save their lives. The reliability of this contingent has always been a big question, and the slightest difficulties seriously affected its morale and could provoke a transition to the side of the enemy.
In the fall of 1943, some Cossack units were transferred to France, where they were used to guard the Atlantic Wall and in the fight against local partisans. Their fate was different. So, the 360th regiment of von Renteln, stationed in battalions along the coast of the Bay of Biscay (by this time it was renamed the Cossack Fortress Grenadier Regiment), in August 1944 was forced to fight a long way to the German border through the territory occupied by partisans. The 570th Cossack battalion was directed against the Anglo-Americans who had landed in Normandy and on the very first day surrendered in full force. The 454th Cossack Cavalry Regiment, blocked by French regular troops and partisans in the town of Pontalier, refused to surrender and was almost completely destroyed. The same fate befell the 82nd Cossack Division of M. Zagorodny in Normandy.
At the same time, most of those formed in 1942-1943. in the cities of Slavuta and Shepetovka, the Cossack regiments continued to operate against the partisans on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus. Some of them were reorganized into police battalions, numbered 68, 72, 73 and 74. Others were defeated in the winter battles of 1943/44 in Ukraine, and their remnants merged into different units. In particular, the remnants of the 14th Consolidated Cossack Regiment, defeated in February 1944 near Tsumany, were included in the 3rd Cavalry Brigade of the Wehrmacht, and the 68th Cossack Police Battalion in the fall of 1944 was included in the 30th SS Grenadier Division (1st Belarusian), sent to the Western Front.
After the experience of using Cossack units at the front proved their practical value, the German command decided to create a large Cossack cavalry unit as part of the Wehrmacht. On November 8, 1942, Colonel G. von Pannwitz, a brilliant cavalry commander, who also knew Russian well, was appointed at the head of the formation, which still had to be formed. The Soviet offensive near Stalingrad prevented the implementation of the plan for the formation of the formation in November, and it was possible to start its implementation only in the spring of 1943 - after the withdrawal of German troops to the line of the Mius River and the Taman Peninsula and the relative stabilization of the front. The Cossack units that retreated together with the German army from the Don and the North Caucasus were gathered in the Kherson region and replenished at the expense of the Cossack refugees. The next stage was the consolidation of these "irregular" units into a separate military unit. Initially, four regiments were formed: 1st Donskoy, 2nd Tersky, 3rd Consolidated Cossack and 4th Kuban with a total strength of up to 6,000 people.
On April 21, 1943, the German command issued an order to organize the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, in connection with which the formed regiments were transferred to the Milau (Mlawa) training ground, where, since pre-war times, there were warehouses for equipment of the Polish cavalry. The best of the front-line Cossack units, such as the Platov and Yungshultz regiments, Wolf's 1st Ataman regiment and Kononov's 600th division, also arrived here. Created without taking into account the military principle, these units were disbanded, and their personnel were reduced to regiments belonging to the Don, Kuban and Tersk Cossack troops. The exception was Kononov's division, which was included in the division as a separate regiment. The creation of the division was completed on July 1, 1943, when von Pannwitz, promoted to the rank of Major General, was confirmed as its commander.
The finally formed division included a headquarters with a hundred convoy, a field gendarmerie group, 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 the 2nd Caucasian (3rd Kuban, 5th Don and 6th Tersky regiments), two horse-artillery divisions (Don and Kuban), a reconnaissance detachment, a sapper battalion, a communications department, logistic service units (all divisional parts wore the number 55).
Each of the regiments consisted of two cavalry divisions (in the 2nd Siberian regiment, the 2nd division was a scooter, and in the 5th Donskoy - Plastun) of a three-squadron composition, machine-gun, mortar and anti-tank squadrons. The regiment numbered 2,000 staff members, including 150 German personnel. It was armed with 5 anti-tank guns (50-mm), 14 battalion (81-mm) and 54 company (50-mm) mortars, 8 heavy and 60 light machine guns MG-42, German carbines and machine guns. Above the staff, the regiments were given batteries of 4 field guns (76.2 mm). Horse-artillery battalions had 3 batteries of 75-mm cannons (200 people and 4 guns in each), a reconnaissance detachment - 3 scooter squadrons from among the German personnel, a squadron of young Cossacks and a penalty squadron, a sapper battalion - 3 sapper and engineer-construction squadrons , and the communications division - 2 telephonists and 1 radio communications squadron.
On November 1, 1943, the number of the division was 18,555 people, including 3,827 German lower ranks and 222 officers, 14,315 Cossacks and 191 Cossack officers. All headquarters, special and rear units were staffed with German personnel. All regimental commanders (except I.N. Kononov) and divisions (except two) were also Germans, and each squadron had 12-14 German soldiers and non-commissioned officers in economic positions. At the same time, the division was considered the most "Russified" of the regular formations of the Wehrmacht: the commanders of the combat cavalry units - squadrons and platoons - were Cossacks, and all commands were given in Russian. In Mokovo, not far from the Milau training ground, a Cossack training and reserve regiment was formed under the command of Colonel von Bosse, which bore the number 5 according to the general numbering of spare parts of the Eastern troops. The regiment did not have a permanent composition and at various times numbered from 10 to 15 thousand Cossacks, who constantly arrived from the Eastern Front and the occupied territories and, after appropriate training, were distributed among the regiments of the division. A non-commissioned officer school operated under the reserve training regiment, which trained personnel for combat units. The School of Young Cossacks was also organized here - a kind of cadet corps, where several hundred teenagers who have lost their parents passed military training.
In the fall of 1943, the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division was sent to Yugoslavia, where by that time the communist partisans under the leadership of I. Broz Tito had noticeably intensified their activities. Due to their great mobility and maneuverability, the Cossack units turned out to be better adapted to the mountain conditions of the Balkans and acted here more efficiently than the clumsy Landwehr divisions of the Germans, who carried a guard service here. During the summer of 1944, units of the division undertook at least five independent operations in the mountainous regions of Croatia and Bosnia, during which they destroyed many partisan strongholds and seized the initiative for offensive actions. Among the local population, the Cossacks have earned themselves a bad reputation. 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 massive robberies and violence. The villages, the population of which was suspected of aiding the partisans, were compared to the ground by the Cossacks with fire and sword.

At the very end of 1944, the 1st Cossack Division had to face parts of the Red Army that were trying to unite on the river. Drava with Tito's partisans. In the course of fierce battles, the Cossacks managed to inflict a heavy defeat on one of the regiments of the 233rd Soviet rifle division and force the enemy to leave the previously captured bridgehead on the right bank of the Drava. In March 1945, units of the 1st Cossack Division (by that time already deployed into a corps) participated in the last major offensive operation of the Wehrmacht during World War II, when the Cossacks successfully operated against the Bulgarian units on the southern face of the Balaton salient.
The transfer of foreign national formations of the Wehrmacht to the SS in August 1944 was reflected in the fate of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division. At a meeting held in early September at Himmler's headquarters with the participation of von Pannwitz and other commanders of the Cossack formations, it was decided to deploy the division, replenished with units transferred from other fronts, to the corps. At the same time, it was planned to carry out mobilization among the Cossacks who found themselves on the territory of the Reich, for which a special body was formed at the SS General Staff - the Cossack Troops Reserve, headed by Lieutenant General A.G. Skin. General P.N. Krasnov, who since March 1944 headed the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops created under the auspices of the Eastern Ministry, appealed to the Cossacks to rise up to fight Bolshevism.
Soon, large and small groups of Cossacks and entire military units began to arrive at von Pannwitz's division. Among them were two Cossack battalions from Krakow, the 69th police battalion from Warsaw, a factory guard battalion from Hanover and, finally, the 360th von Renteln regiment from the Western Front. The 5th Cossack training reserve regiment, stationed until recently in France, was transferred to Austria (Tsvetle) - closer to the division's area of ​​operations. Through the efforts of the recruiting headquarters created by the Cossack Troops Reserve, it was possible to collect more than 2,000 Cossacks from among the emigrants, prisoners of war and eastern workers, who were also sent to the 1st Cossack Division. As a result, within two months the size of the division (not counting the German personnel) almost doubled.
A group of Cossack signalmen of the 2nd Siberian regiment of the 1st Cossack cavalry division. 1943-1944
By order of November 4, 1944, the 1st Cossack Division was transferred to the subordination of the SS General Staff during the war. This transfer concerned, first of all, the sphere of material and technical supply, which made it possible to improve the provision of the division with weapons, military equipment and vehicles. So. for example, the division's artillery regiment received a battery of 105-mm howitzers, a sapper battalion - several six-barreled mortars, a reconnaissance detachment - StG-44 assault rifles. In addition, the division, according to some sources, was given 12 pieces of armored vehicles, including tanks and assault guns.
By order of February 25, 1945, the division was transformed into the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps. The 1st and 2nd brigades were renamed into divisions without changing their size and organizational structure. On the basis of Kononov's 5th Don regiment, the formation of the Plastun brigade of two-regimental composition began with the prospect of deployment in the 3rd Cossack division. Horse-artillery divisions in divisions were reorganized into regiments. The total number of the corps reached 25,000 soldiers and officers, including from 3,000 to 5,000 Germans. In addition, at the final stage of the war, together with the 15th Cossack corps, such formations as the Kalmyk regiment (up to 5,000 people), the Caucasian cavalry division, the Ukrainian SS battalion and a group of ROA tankmen, taking into account which, under the command of the Gruppenfuehrer and Lieutenant General of the troops, acted SS (from February 1, 1945) G. von Pannwitz was 30-35 thousand people.
After the units assembled in the Kherson region were sent to Poland to form the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, the main center of concentration of the Cossack refugees who left their lands along with the retreating German troops became the headquarters of the Campaign Ataman of the Don Cossack S.V. Pavlov, based in Kirovograd. ... By July 1943, up to 3000 Donets had gathered here, from which two new regiments were formed - the 8th and 9th, which probably had a common numbering with the regiments of the 1st division. To train the command staff, it was planned to open an officer's school, as well as a school for tankers, but these projects could not be implemented due to the new Soviet offensive.
In the late autumn of 1943, Pavlov was already subordinate to 18,000 Cossacks, including women and children, who formed the so-called Cossack Stan. The German authorities recognized Pavlov as the Campaign Ataman of all Cossack troops and pledged to provide him with all possible support. After a short stay in Podillya, Kazachiy Stan in March 1944, due to the danger of Soviet encirclement, began to move westward to Sandomir, and then was transported by rail to Belarus. Here the command of the Wehrmacht provided 180 thousand hectares of land for the placement of the Cossacks in the area of ​​the cities of Baranovichi, Slonim, Novogrudok, Yelnya, Capital. The refugees settled in the new place were grouped by belonging to different troops, by districts and departments, which outwardly reproduced the traditional system of Cossack settlements.
At the same time, an extensive reorganization of the Cossack combat units was undertaken, united in 10 foot regiments of 1200 bayonets each. 1st and 2nd Don regiments made up the 1st brigade of Colonel Silkin; 3rd Donskoy, 4th Consolidated Cossack, 5th and 6th Kuban and 7th Tersky - 2nd brigade of Colonel Vertepov; 8th Donskoy, 9th Kuban and 10th Tersko-Stavropol - 3rd brigade of Colonel Medynsky (later the composition of the brigades changed several times). Each regiment consisted of 3 Plastun battalions, mortar and anti-tank batteries. For their armament, Soviet captured weapons provided by German field arsenals were used.
The main task assigned to the Cossacks by the German command was to fight the partisans and ensure the security of the rear communications of Army Group Center. On June 17, 1944, during one of the anti-partisan operations, S.V. Pavlov. His successor was the military sergeant major (later - colonel and major general) T.I. 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 ​​the town of Zdunskaya Wola in northern Poland. From here began its transfer to Northern Italy, where the territory adjacent to the Carnic Alps with the cities of Tolmezzo, Gemona and Osoppo was allocated for the placement of the Cossacks. Here the Cossack Stan became subordinate to the commander of the SS forces and the police of the coastal zone of the Adriatic Sea, SS Ober Gruppenfuehrer O. Globochnik, who instructed the Cossacks to ensure security on the lands provided to them.
On the territory of Northern Italy, the combat units of the Cossack Camp underwent another reorganization and formed the Group of the Campaign Ataman (also called the 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, combined into the 1st Don and 2nd Consolidated Plastun brigades, as well as headquarters and transport companies, horse and gendarme 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 battalions of the village self-defense (Donskoy, Kuban and Consolidated Cossack) and the Special detachment of Colonel Grekov. In addition, the Group consisted of 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), the 1st Cossack cadet school (2 Plastun companies, a company of heavy weapons, an artillery battery), separate divisions - officer, gendarmerie and commandant foot, as well as the Special Cossack parachute and sniper school disguised as a motorcycle school (Special group ). According to some sources, a separate Cossack group "Savoy" was added to the combat units of the Cossack Camp, which was withdrawn to Italy from the Eastern Front along with the remnants of the Italian 8th Army back in 1943.
Cossack refugees. 1943-1945
The units of the Campaign 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", British "Vickers" and "Lewis", American "Colt"), 95 company and battalion mortars (mainly Soviet and German production), more than 30 Soviet 45-mm anti-tank guns and 4 field guns (76.2-mm), as well as 2 light armored vehicles, repulsed from the partisans and named “Don Cossack” and “Ataman Ermak”. As hand-held small arms, mainly magazine and automatic rifles and Soviet-made carbines, a number of German and Italian carbines, Soviet, German and Italian machine guns were used. The Cossacks also had a large number of German faust cartridges and English grenade launchers captured from the partisans.
As of April 27, 1945, the total number of the Cossack Stan was 31,463 people, including 1,575 officers, 592 officials, 16,485 non-commissioned officers and privates, 6304 non-combatants (unfit for service due to age and health status), 4222 women, 2,094 children under the age of 14 and 358 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17. Of the total number of Stan, 1,430 Cossacks belonged to the first wave of emigrants, and the rest were Soviet citizens.
In the last days of the war, due to the approach of the advancing Allied troops and the intensification of the actions of the partisans, the Cossack Stan was forced to leave Italy. In the period from April 30 to May 7, 1945, having overcome the alpine passes, the Cossacks crossed the Italo-Austrian border and settled in the valley of the river. Drava between the cities of Lienz and Oberdrauburg, where surrender to the British troops was announced. Already after the official cessation of hostilities, units of the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps of von Pannwitz broke through from Croatia to Austria, also laying down their arms in front of the British. And less than a month later, on the banks of the Drava, the tragedy of forced extradition broke out in Soviet Union tens of thousands of Cossacks, Kalmyks and Caucasians, who were awaited by all the horrors of Stalin's camps and special settlements. Together with the Cossacks, their leaders, generals P.N. Krasnov, his nephew S.N. Krasnov, who headed the headquarters of the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops, A.G. Shkuro, T.I. Domanov and G. von Pannwitz, as well as the leader of the Caucasians Sultan Kelech-Girey. All of them were convicted in Moscow at a closed trial on January 16, 1947, and sentenced to death by hanging.

Collaboration was widespread during World War II. According to historians, up to one and a half million Soviet citizens went over to the side of the enemy. There were quite a few representatives of the Cossacks among them.

Inconvenient topic

Domestic historians are reluctant to raise the question of the Cossacks who fought on the side of Hitler. 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 1920s and 1930s. In fairness, it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks, despite their claims to the Soviet regime, remained loyal to the Motherland. Moreover, many émigré Cossacks 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, Siberian Cossacks. But the overwhelming majority of collaborationists among the Cossacks were still residents of the Don lands.
In the territories occupied by the Germans, Cossack police battalions were created, the main task of which was to fight the partisans. So, in September 1942, near the Pshenichny farm of the Stanichno-Lugansk region, the Cossacks-policemen, together with the punitive detachments of the Gestapo, succeeded in defeating the partisan detachment under the command of Ivan Yakovenko.
Often the Cossacks acted as overseers of Red Army prisoners of war. Under the German commandant's offices, there were also hundreds of Cossacks who carried out police tasks. Two such hundreds of Don Cossacks were stationed in the village of Luganskaya and two more - in Krasnodon.
For the first time, a proposal to form Cossack units to fight the partisans was put forward by the German counterintelligence officer Baron von Kleist. In October 1941, the 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 to use them in the fight against the partisan movement.
Why did the formation of Cossack units not meet with opposition from the 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 - the 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, Major of the Red Army Ivan Kononov announced his decision to go over to the enemy and invited everyone to join him. Thus, the major, his staff officers and several dozen Red Army men of the regiment were captured. There Kononov recalled that he was the son of a Cossack Esaul who was hanged by the Bolsheviks, and expressed his readiness to cooperate with the Nazis.
The Don Cossacks who had defected 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, to which the Don Cossacks showed their loyalty to the command of the Wehrmacht and the German administration.
After a prayer service for the health of the Cossacks and the quick victory of the German army, a welcome letter was read to Adolf Hitler, which, in particular, said: “We, the Don Cossacks, the remnants of those who survived the cruel Jewish-Stalinist terror, fathers and grandchildren, sons and brothers of those who died in a fierce struggle with the Bolsheviks, helm to you, the great commander, brilliant Statesman, the builder of New Europe, the Liberator and friend of the Don Cossacks, your warm Don Cossack greetings! "
Many Cossacks, including those who did not share admiration for the Fuhrer, nevertheless welcomed the Reich's policy of opposing the Cossacks and Bolshevism. “Whatever the Germans are, it won't get any worse,” such statements were heard very often.

Organization

General leadership in the formation of the Cossack units was entrusted to the head of the Main Directorate of the Cossack Forces of the Imperial Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories of Germany, General Peter 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 the enemy of the Cossacks, crushed and exploited them. Now the time has come when we, the Cossacks, can create our own life independent of Moscow. "
As Krasnov noted, extensive cooperation of the Cossacks with the Nazis began 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 appear regularly in the German army. In the summer of 1942, the cooperation of the Cossacks with the German authorities entered a new phase. Since that time, 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 Cossacks who went over to the side of the Wehrmacht remained loyal to the Fuhrer. Very often, the Cossacks, one by one or in whole 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 inspecting hundreds, called out of action a Cossack that he did not like. The German first scolded him severely, and then hit him in the face with a glove.
The offended Cossack silently took out his sword and hacked the officer to death. The rushing German authorities immediately lined up a hundred: "Who did this, step forward!" The whole hundred took a step. The Germans thought about it and decided to blame the death of their officer on the partisans.

Numbers

How many Cossacks during the entire period of the war fought on the side of Nazi Germany?
According to the order of the German command of 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, 5826 people were concentrated in the camp. It was decided to start the formation of Cossack units from this contingent.
By the middle of 1943, the Wehrmacht included about 20 Cossack regiments of different staffing 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 with their families moved along with the troops. According to experts, the number of Cossacks exceeded 135,000. After the end of the war on the territory of Austria, the allied forces detained and transferred to the Soviet zone of occupation a total of 50 thousand Cossacks. 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 years, most of whom were Soviet citizens who defected to Germany during the occupation.

According to historian Kirill Aleksandrov, about 1.24 million citizens of the USSR carried out 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 issued by the allies received long sentences in the Gulag, and the Cossack elite, which sided with Nazi Germany, was sentenced by the Military Collegium The Supreme Court The USSR was facing the death penalty by hanging.