In the previous article "Cossacks in the Great Patriotic War" it was shown that, despite all the insults and atrocities of the Bolsheviks against the Cossacks, the overwhelming majority of Soviet Cossacks resisted their patriotic positions and took part in the war on the side of the Red Army in a hard time. Most of the Cossacks who found themselves in emigration also turned out to be opponents of fascism, many Cossacks-emigrants fought in the Allied troops 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 that when an external enemy invades the land of your ancestors, political differences lose their meaning. General Denikin replied to the German proposal for cooperation: "I fought with the Bolsheviks, but never with the Russian people. If I could become a general in the Red Army, I would show the Germans!" Ataman Krasnov adhered to the opposite position: "Though with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks." And he really collaborated with the devil, with the Nazis, whose goal was to destroy our country and our people. Moreover, as usually happens, from calls to fight Bolshevism, General Krasnov soon moved on to calls to fight the Russian people. Two years after the start of the war, he said: "Cossacks! Remember, you are not Russians, you are Cossacks, an independent people. The Russians are hostile to you. Moscow has always been the enemy of the Cossacks, oppressed and exploited them. Now the hour has come when we, the Cossacks, can create his life independent of Moscow. " Cooperating 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 imposed on him in January 1947 was quite fair. The statement about the massive nature of the transition of the Cossacks-emigrants to the side of the German army in the Second World War is a heinous lie! In reality, together with Krasnov, only a few atamans and a certain number of Cossacks and officers went over to the side of the enemy.
Rice. 1. If the Germans had won, we would all be driving such "Mercedes"
The Great Patriotic War became an ordeal for all Soviet peoples. The war presented many of them with difficult choices. And the Hitlerite regime made quite successful attempts to use a certain part 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 in the structure of the Wehrmacht. He did not trust the Russians. Looking ahead, we can say that he was right: in 1945, the 1st division of the KONR (Vlasovites) voluntarily withdrew from its positions and went west to surrender to the Anglo-Americans, exposing the German front. But many generals of the Wehrmacht did not share the position of the Fuhrer. The German army, moving through the territory of the USSR, suffered huge losses. Against the backdrop of the 1941 Russian campaign, the Western campaigns proved to be an easy walk. The German divisions have lost weight. Their qualitative composition changed. In the endless expanses of the East European Plain, Landsknechts lay down in the ground, knowing the hop of victories and the sweetness of European triumph. The killed hardened militants were replaced by replenishment, which 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. They preferred to keep the collaborators away from the front line, entrusting them with the protection of facilities, communications and "dirty work" - fighting partisans, saboteurs, encircled people and carrying out punitive actions against the civilian population. They were called "hivi" (from the German word Hilfswilliger, willing to help). Appeared in the Wehrmacht and units formed from the Cossacks.
The first Cossack units appeared already in 1941. There were several reasons for this. The vast Russian expanses, the lack of roads, the loss of vehicles, problems with the supply of fuels and lubricants simply pushed the Germans to the massive use of horses. In the German chronicle, you rarely see a German soldier on a horse or a horse-drawn weapon: for propaganda purposes, operators were ordered to remove motorized units. In fact, the Nazis massively used horses both in 1941 and in 1945. The cavalry units were simply irreplaceable in the fight against the partisans. In forest thickets, in swamps, they surpassed cars and armored personnel carriers in cross-country ability, moreover, they did not need gasoline. Therefore, the emergence of detachments "hivi" from the Cossacks who knew how to handle horses did not meet any obstacles. In addition, Hitler did not attribute the Cossacks to the Russians, he considered them a separate people, the descendants of the Ostrogoths, so the formation of Cossack units did not meet with opposition from the NSDAP functionaries. Yes, and there were many dissatisfied with the Bolsheviks among the Cossacks, the policy of decossackization, pursued by the Soviet government for a long time, made itself felt. One of the first 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 rifle division, Major of the Red Army Kononov I. N. built personnel, announced his decision to go to the enemy and invited everyone to join him. So Kononov, officers of his headquarters and several dozen Red Army men of the regiment were taken prisoner. There Kononov "remembered" that he was the son of a Cossack Esaul who was hanged by the Bolsheviks, that his three older brothers had died in the struggle against Soviet power, and that yesterday's member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and a military order-bearer officer became a staunch anti-communist. He declared himself a Cossack, an enemy of the Bolsheviks and offered the Germans his services in the formation of a military unit from 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 to use them 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 Schenckendorff, dated October 28, 1941. Initially, a squadron was formed, the basis of which were the soldiers of the 436th regiment. Squadron commander Kononov made a voyage to the nearby POW camps for the purpose of recruiting. The squadron that received replenishment was later reorganized into a Cossack division (1, 2, 3 rd cavalry squadrons, 4, 5, 6 plastun companies, mortar and artillery batteries). The number of the division was 1799 people. In service consisted of 6 field guns (76, 2 mm), 6 anti-tank guns (45 mm), 12 mortars (82 mm), 16 easel and a large number of light machine guns, rifles and machine guns. Not all prisoners of the Red Army, 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 constituted 60% of the personnel, representatives of all nationalities, including the Greeks and the French, were under his command. During 1941-1943, the division fought against partisans and encircled people 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 Schenkendorf was pleased with the "Kononovtsy", in his diary he characterized them as follows: "The mood of the Cossacks is good. The combat readiness is excellent … The behavior of the Cossacks in relation to the local population is merciless."
Rice. 2. Cossack collaborator I. N. Kononov
The former Don Ataman General Krasnov and the Kuban Cossack General Shkuro became active guides among the Cossacks of the idea of creating Cossack units in the Wehrmacht. 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 the Soviet regime on the side of Germany. Krasnov declared 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 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 collaborator 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." In September, in Novocherkassk, with the sanction of the occupation authorities, a Cossack gathering gathered, 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 started organizing Cossack units to fight the Red Army. From the volunteers of the Don villages in Novocherkassk, the 1st Don Regiment was organized under the command of 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 Cossacks and officers under the command of the military foreman (former sergeant major) Zhuravlev. Thus, despite active propaganda and promises, by the beginning of 1943 Krasnov managed to assemble only two small regiments on the Don. Of the hundreds of Cossacks, formed in the villages of the Uman department of the Kuban, under the leadership of military foreman I. I. Salomakhi, the formation of the 1st Kuban Cossack Cavalry Regiment began, and on the Terek, on the initiative of the military foreman N. L. Kulakov of the 1st Volga Regiment of the Terek Cossack Host. 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 the Nazi troops and 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 Jungschulz. By the time it was sent to the front, the regiment had been replenished with two Cossack hundreds and a Cossack squadron formed in Simferopol. On December 25, 1942, the regiment numbered 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-Budyonnovsk region, fighting against the Soviet cavalry. At the beginning of January 1943, the regiment withdrew to the northwest in the direction of the village of Yegorlykskaya, where it joined up with units of the 4th Panzer Army. Subsequently, the Jungschultz regiment was subordinated to the 454th security division and transferred to the rear of the Don Army Group.
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 weapons squadron, an artillery battery and a reserve squadron. Major of the Wehrmacht 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-partisan operations. In the spring of 1943, the regiment fought defensive battles on the "Kuban bridgehead", repelling the attacks of the Soviet amphibious assault northeast of Temryuk. At the end of May 1943, the regiment was withdrawn from the front and withdrawn to the 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 to be such, the Germans were to send to the camp in the city of Slavuta. By the end of the month, 5826 people of such a contingent 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. The Cossacks who fought during the Civil War in the detachments of Generals Shkuro, Mamantov and in 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, the Cossack units were transferred from the Slavutinsky camp to Shepetovka to the barracks specially designated for them. By the fall of 1942, 7 Cossack regiments were formed by the center of the formation of Cossack units in Shepetovka. The last two of them - the 6th and 7th combined Cossack regiments were sent to fight the partisans in the rear area of the 3rd Panzer 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 were consolidated into the 750th Eastern Special Forces Regiment under the command of Major Evert Voldemar von Renteln. A former officer of the Life Guards of the Cavalry Regiment of the Russian Imperial Army, an Estonian citizen, he joined the Wehrmacht in 1939 as a volunteer. From the beginning of the war, he served as an interpreter at the headquarters of the 5th Panzer Division, where he formed a company of Russian volunteers. After Renteln's appointment at the head of the four Cossack battalions, this company under the designation "638th Cossack" remained at his personal disposal. The tank emblems worn by some of the officers and soldiers of Renteln just indicated their belonging to the 638th company and were worn in memory of their service in the tank division. Some of its ranks participated in the battles at the front as part of tank crews, as evidenced by the signs on the photographs for participating in tank attacks. In December 1942 - January 1943, 622-625 battalions took part in counter-partisan operations in the Dorogobuzh area; in February-June 1943 in the Vitebsk-Polotsk-Lepel region. In the fall of 1943, the 750th regiment was transferred to France and divided into two parts: 622 and 623 battalions with a 638 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 - in the 344th Infantry Division as the third battalions of the 854th and 855th Grenadier Regiments. Together with the German troops, the battalions were involved in the protection of the French coast from Bordeaux to Royon. In January 1944, the 344th division, together with the Cossack battalions, was transferred to the area of the mouth of the Somme. In August-September 1944, the 360th Cossack regiment retreated to the German border. In the fall of 1944, in the winter of 1945, the regiment operated against the Americans in the Black Forest. At the end of January 1945, together with the 5th Cossack training and reserve regiment, he arrived in the city of Tsvetle (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 the middle of 1943, the Wehrmacht had up to 20 Cossack regiments of various sizes and a solid number of small units, the total number of which was up to 25 thousand people. In total, according to experts, in the Wehrmacht, parts of the Waffen-SS and in the auxiliary police during the Great Patriotic War, about 70,000 Cossacks served, most of whom are former Soviet citizens who defected to Germany during the occupation. From the Cossacks, military units were formed, which later fought both on the Soviet-German front and against the Western allies - in France, in Italy and especially against the partisans in the Balkans. Most of these units carried out security and escort service, participated in suppressing the resistance movement to Wehrmacht units in the rear, in the destruction of partisan detachments and civilians "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 as part of the Wehrmacht tried to avoid direct clashes with their brothers in blood, and they also went over to the side of the Red Army.
Yielding to the pressure of the generals, Hitler in November 1942 finally gave his consent 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 at 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 Donskoy, 2nd Tersky, 3rd Consolidated 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 town of Mlawa, where large warehouses of Polish cavalry equipment 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 Yungshultz regiments, Wolf's 1st Ataman regiment and Kononov's 600th division. All arriving units were disbanded, and their personnel were reduced to regiments belonging to the Don, Kuban, Siberian and Tersk Cossack troops. The regiment commanders and chiefs of staff were Germans. All top command and economic positions were also held by the 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 reorganized into the 5th Don Cossack regiment. Kononov was appointed commander, all officers remained in their posts. The division was the most "Russified" unit among the Wehrmacht's collaborationist formations. The junior officers, the commanders of the combat cavalry units - squadrons and platoons - were Cossacks, the commands were given in Russian. After the completion of the formation on July 1, 1943, Major General von Pannwitz was appointed commander of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division. Language will not turn to call Helmut von Pannwitz a "Cossack". Natural German, moreover, 100% Prussian, comes from a family of professional military men. During the First World War he fought for the Kaiser on the Western Front. Member of the Polish campaign in 1939. Participated in the storming of Brest, for which he received the Knight's Cross. He was a supporter of attracting Cossacks to the service of the Reich. Having become a Cossack general, he defiantly wore a Cossack uniform: a hat and a Circassian coat with gazyry, 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, consisted of Cossacks who arrived from the Eastern Front and the occupied territories and, after training, were distributed among the regiments of the division. At the 5th training reserve regiment, a non-commissioned officer school was created, which trained personnel for combat units. Also, the School of Young Cossacks was organized - a cadet corps for teenagers who have lost their parents (several hundred cadets).
The finally formed division included: a headquarters with a hundred convoy, 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 Tersky regiments). Two horse-artillery battalions (Donskoy and Kuban), a reconnaissance detachment, a sapper battalion, a communications battalion, divisional units of the medical service, veterinary service and supply. The regiments consisted of two cavalry divisions of a three-squadron composition (in the 2nd Siberian regiment, the 2nd division was a scooter, and in the 5th Don regiment, 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 light machine guns MG-42, German carbines and machine guns. The division numbered 18,555 people, including 4049 Germans, 14315 Cossacks of lower ranks and 191 Cossack officers.
The Germans allowed the Cossacks to wear their traditional uniforms. Cossacks used hats and Kubanks as headdresses. The papakha was a high fur hat made of black fur with a red bottom (for the Don Cossacks) or white fur with a yellow bottom (for the Siberian Cossacks). The Kubanka, introduced in 1936 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 papas and kubanks was additionally trimmed with silver or white galloon, located crosswise. In addition to caps and Kuban women, the Cossacks wore German-style headdresses. Among the traditional clothes of the Cossacks, one can name a burka, a hood and a Circassian. Burka - a fur cape made of black camel or goat hair. Bashlyk is a deep hood with two long panels wound like a scarf. Circassian - outerwear decorated with gasses on the chest. The Cossacks wore German gray breeches or breeches in the traditional dark blue color. The color of the stripes determined the belonging to a particular regiment. Don Cossacks wore red stripes 5 cm wide, Kuban Cossacks - red stripes 2.5 cm wide, Siberian Cossacks - yellow stripes 5 cm wide, Terek Cossacks - black stripes 5 cm wide with a narrow blue edging. At first, the Cossacks wore round cockades with two crossed white pikes on a red background. Later, large and small oval cockades appeared (for officers and soldiers, respectively), painted in military colors.
There are several variants of the sleeve patches. At first, shield-shaped stripes 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, belonging to one or another Cossack army was designated by two Russian letters, and below, instead of stripes, there was a square divided by two diagonals into four parts. The colors of the top and bottom and the left and right parts were the same. The Don Cossacks had units of red and blue, the Terek ones - blue and black, and the Kuban ones - red and black. The stripe of the Siberian Cossack army appeared later. The Siberian Cossacks had yellow and blue segments. Many Cossacks used German cockades. Cossacks who served in tank units wore "dead heads". The standard German collar tabs, Cossack collar tabs, and the collar tabs of the Eastern legions were used. 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
At the end of the formation of the division, the Germans faced the question: "What to do with it next?" Contrary to the repeated wishes of the personnel to get to the front as soon as possible, the Nazis did not strive for this. Even in the exemplary Kononov regiment, there were cases of Cossacks going over to the Soviet side. And in other collaborationist units, they crossed not only alone, but also in whole groups, having previously killed the German and their officers. In August 1943, in Belarus, a multinational team of collaborators Gil-Rodionov (2 thousand people) went over to the partisans in full force. It was an emergency with great organizational conclusions. If the Cossack division rises and goes over to the side of the enemy, there will be much more problems. In addition, already in the first days of the formation of the division, the Germans learned the violent disposition of the Cossacks. In the 3rd Kuban Regiment, one of the cavalry officers sent from the Wehrmacht, while inspecting "his" hundreds, called out of action a Cossack he did not like. First he chastised him severely, and then hit him in the face. He struck purely symbolically, in German, with a glove pulled from his hand. The offended Cossack silently took out his saber … and in the division there was one German officer less. The rushing German authorities lined up a hundred: "Russisch Schwein! Who did this, step forward!" The whole hundred took a step. The Germans scratched their heads and … the officer was "written off" to the partisans. 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 cavalry Cossack units in the fight against the partisans were much more effective 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 of the offensive. Among the local population, the Cossacks have earned themselves a bad reputation. In accordance with the orders of the command on 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. The fight against partisans in the Balkans, as in all the occupied territories, was fought with great cruelty - and from both sides. The partisan movement in the areas of responsibility of the division of von Pannwitz quickly faded and faded. This was achieved through a combination of competently conducted anti-partisan operations and cruelty against 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, as a special administrative and political body to attract the Cossacks to their side and control the Cossack units by the Germans, the "Main Directorate of Cossack Troops" was formed, headed by Krasnov. In August 1944, SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, appointed commander-in-chief of the reserve army after the assassination attempt on Hitler, secured the transfer of all foreign military formations to the SS. The Cossack Troops Reserve was created, which was engaged in recruiting volunteers for Cossack units among prisoners of war and eastern workers, at the head of this structure was General Shkuro. It was decided to deploy a 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 suppressing the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, a factory guard battalion from Hanover, the 360th Cossack regiment von Renteln from the Western Front. 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 sent to replenish 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" developed by Krasnov of the 15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps practically literally reproduced the text of the pre-revolutionary military oath, only "His Imperial Majesty" was replaced by "the Fuhrer of the German people Adolf Hitler", and "Russia" by "New Europe". General Krasnov himself took the military oath of the Russian Empire, but in 1941 he changed this oath and prompted many thousands of Cossacks to do so. Thus, the oath of allegiance to the Russian Empire was replaced by Krasnov's oath of allegiance to the Third Reich. This is a direct and undoubted betrayal of the Motherland.
All this time, the corps continued to conduct hostilities with the Yugoslav partisans, and in December 1944 came into direct contact with units of the Red Army on the Drava River. Contrary to the fears of the Germans, the Cossacks did not scatter, they fought stubbornly and fiercely. During these battles, the Cossacks completely destroyed the 703rd Infantry Regiment of the 233rd Soviet Infantry Division, and the division itself inflicted a heavy defeat. In March 1945, the 1st Cossack Division, as part of the 15th corps, took part in heavy battles near Lake Balaton, successfully operating against the Bulgarian units. By order of 1945-25-02, the division was already officially transformed into the XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps. This had little effect on the division itself, practically in no way. The uniform remained the same, the skull and bones did not appear on the hats, the Cossacks continued to wear their old buttonholes, the soldier's books did not even change. But organizationally, the corps was part of the structure of the "black order" troops, and SS liaison officers appeared in the units. However, the Cossacks were Himmler's fighters for 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), 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 the "Vlasovites" as a supplement.
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 of the KONR: Kalmyk Regiment (up to 5,000 people), Caucasian Horse 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, the SS Gruppenfuehrer G.von Panwitz had 30-35 thousand people.
Of the other Cossack formations of the Wehrmacht, no less dubious glory went to the Cossacks, united in the so-called Cossack Stan under the command of the marching chieftain Colonel S. V. Pavlova. After the retreat of the Germans from the Don, Kuban and Terek, along with the Cossack detachments, a part of the local civilian population, who believed in fascist propaganda and feared reprisals from the Soviet government, left. The Cossack Stan numbered up to 11 Cossack foot regiments; in total, up to 18,000 Cossacks were subordinate to the Campaign Ataman Pavlov. After some Cossack units were sent to Poland to form the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, the main center for the concentration of Cossack refugees who left their lands along with the retreating German troops was the headquarters of the Campaign Ataman of the Don Army S. V. Pavlova. By the fall of 1943, two new regiments, the 8th and 9th, were formed here. 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. Due to the danger of the 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 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, a broad 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 had 3 Plastun battalions, mortar and anti-tank batteries. For their armament, Soviet captured weapons provided by German field arsenals were used.
In Belarus, a 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 Campaign Ataman of the Cossack Camp S. V. Pavlov (according to other sources, due to poor coordination of actions, he came under "friendly" fire from the police). In his place was appointed military sergeant T. I. Domanov. In July 1944, due to the threat of a new Soviet offensive, Cossack Stan was withdrawn from Belarus and concentrated in the area 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 to accommodate the Cossacks. Here the Cossacks formed a special settlement "Cossack Stan", which 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 infantry 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 stanitsa self-defense (Donskoy, Kuban and Consolidated Cossack) and a Special detachment of Colonel Grekov. In addition, the Group had 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, gendarme and commandant foot, as well as a Special Cossack parachute and sniper school disguised as a car school (special group "Ata). 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 added to the combat units of the Cossack Stan. 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. On April 27, 1945, the number of the Cossack Camp was 31,463 people. Realizing that the war was lost, the Cossacks developed a rescue plan. They decided to evade retaliation into the territory of the British occupation zone in East Tyrol with the aim of an "honorable" surrender to the British. In May 1945, "Cossack Stan" moved to Austria, to the area of the city of Linz. Later, all of its inhabitants were arrested by the British and transferred to Soviet counterintelligence agencies. The "Cossack administration" headed by Krasnov and his military units were also arrested in the area of the city of Judenburg, and then also handed over by the British to Soviet authorities. Nobody was going to shelter punishers and obvious traitors. In early May, Campaign Ataman von Pannwitz also led his corps to Austria. With a battle through the mountains, the corps went to Carinthia (South Austria), where on May 11-12, he laid down his arms in front of the British. The Cossacks were assigned to several POW camps in the vicinity of Linz. Pannwitz and the other Cossack leaders did not know that these maneuvers had already decided nothing. 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 our 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 homeland, then His Majesty's subjects fulfilled their obligations. Moreover, the British did even more than the Yalta agreements demanded of them, and a thousand and a half Cossack emigrants, who had never been citizens of the USSR, were given into the hands of SMERSH and left their homeland after the defeat in the civil war. And just a few weeks after surrender, in June 1945, over 40 thousand Cossacks, including the Cossack commanders Generals P. N. and S. N. Krasnovs, T. I. Domanov, Lieutenant General Helmut von Pannwitz, Lieutenant General A. G. The skins were issued to the Soviet Union. In the morning, when the Cossacks gathered for the formation, the British suddenly appeared. The soldiers began to grab the unarmed people and force them into the trucks they had brought. Those who tried to resist were shot on the spot. The rest were loaded and taken away in an unknown direction.
Rice. 7. The internment of the Cossacks by the British at Linz
A few hours later, a convoy of trucks with traitors crossed the checkpoint on the border of the Soviet zone of occupation. The punishment of the Cossacks was measured by the Soviet court according to the gravity of their sins. They did not shoot, but the terms were given "not childish". Most of the extradited Cossacks received long sentences in the Gulag, and the Cossack elite, who sided with Nazi Germany, was sentenced to death by hanging by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court. The verdict began as follows: on the basis of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 39 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 "… and so on. Simultaneously with the USSR, Yugoslavia urgently demanded the extradition of the Cossacks. Servicemen of the 15th corps were accused of numerous crimes against the civilian population. If the Cossacks were handed over to the Tito government, their fate would have been much more sad. 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 British prisoner of war camp, Pannwitz came to the camp commandant and demanded that he be included in the number of repatriates. He said: "I sent the Cossacks to their death - and they went. They chose me ataman. Now we have a common destiny." Perhaps this is just a legend, and Pannwitz was simply taken along with the others. But this story about "Father Pannwitz" 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 15 to 16 January 1947. On January 16, at 15:15, the judges retired to pronounce the 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, G. von Pannwitz, as well as the leader of the Caucasians, Sultan Kelech-Girey, to death for conducting armed struggle against the Soviet Union through the detachments formed by them. " At 20:45 on the same day, the sentence was carried out.
Least of all would I want the Wehrmacht and SS Cossacks to be perceived as heroes. No, they are not heroes. And it is not necessary to judge the Cossacks by them as a whole. 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 questions: "Are these units reliable?" is it dangerous to send them to the front? " It was quite the opposite. Hundreds of thousands of Cossacks selflessly and heroically defended not the regime, but their homeland. Regimes come and go, but the Motherland remains. Here they are - really heroes.
But life is a striped thing, the stripe is white, the stripe is black, the stripe is colored. 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 at a reception with Empress Elizaveta Petrovna about Russian society the classic phrase: "Patriotism in Russia has always been bad. Every fifth ready patriot, every fifth ready traitor, and three out of five hang 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, sovereign, that you are for Russia, and then we will manage. " For three centuries, nothing has changed, and now it is the same. After the traitor tsar Gorbachev came the collaborator tsar Yeltsin. And in 1996, many of the executed Cossack generals of the Wehrmacht were rehabilitated by the collaborationist authorities of Russia according to the decision of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office with the tacit consent of the masses, and some even 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, already 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 quit. In 1998, in Moscow, near the Sokol metro station, a memorial plaque to A. G. Shkuro, G. von Pannwitz and other Cossack generals of the Third Reich. The elimination 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 plate with the names of the collaborators of the Great Patriotic War carved on it was simply smashed by unidentified persons. A criminal case was initiated, which did not come to completion. Today in Russia there is a monument to the 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.
Diagnostics and preparation of causes, effects, sources, origins and history of Russian collaboration is not only theoretical, but also of great practical interest. Not a single significant event in Russian history was without the pernicious influence and active participation of defectors, traitors, defeatists, capitulators and collaborators. The above-quoted position, formulated by Field Marshal Saltykov regarding the peculiarities of Russian patriotism, provides a key to explaining many mysterious and incredible events in Russian history and life. Moreover, it can be easily extrapolated and extended to other key spheres of our public consciousness: politics, ideology, state idea, morality, morality, religion, etc. There are no spheres in our social, cultural and political life where militant activists of certain extreme trends and points of view would not be represented, but it is not they who give stability to society and the situation, but the very "three out of five" who are oriented towards the power, and above all on the royal. And in this regard, Saltykov's words highlight the colossal role of the Russian tsar (general secretary, president, leader - no matter what his name is) in all spheres and events of our life. Some articles in this series have shown many of these seemingly incredible events in our history. In them, our people, led by the "right" kings, were capable of incredible upsurge, exploits and sacrifices for the sake of the Motherland in 1812 and 1941-1945. But under the useless, worthless and corrupt kings, the same people were able to overturn and rape their own country and plunge it into the bloody bacchanalia of the Troubles of 1594-1613 or the revolution and the subsequent civil war of 1917-1921. Moreover, the God-bearing people under satanic rule was able to crush a thousand-year-old religion and outrage temples and their own spirit. The monstrous triad of our time: perestroika - shootout - restoration of the national economy - also fits into this vile series. Adepts of good and evil beginnings are always present in our life, these are the very "every fifth" who constitute the active lobby of patriotism and collaboration, religion and atheism, morality and debauchery, order and anarchy, law and crime, etc. But even in these conditions, only an unlucky king can lead the people and the country to outrages and bacchanalia, under whose influence these very "three out of five" join the adherents of disorder, debauchery, anarchy and devastation. A completely different result is achieved with the "path" 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 been demonstrating an enviable example of political agility and agility for a long time in countering the various challenges of his contemporary world. He managed to curb the entropy and bacchanalia of the collaborationist rule of the 80s-90s, successfully intercept and straddle the social and national-patriotic part of the rhetoric and ideology of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party, thus attract the electorate and achieve 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 a devil with horns, which has already happened more than once in our history. In these seemingly perfectly clear conditions, the most important issue in our modern life is the question of the continuity of the "tsarist" power, or rather the power of the first person, in order to continue the course towards sustainable development. At the same time, for all the paramount importance of this issue, one of the biggest mysteries of Russian history is that it has not yet been completely resolved positively and constructively in relation to our conditions. Moreover, the desire to resolve it is not even observed now.
In previous centuries, the country was hostage to the feudal system of succession to the throne with its unpredictable dynastic and gerontological tricks. Monstrous and tragic examples of genealogical and genetic mutations of royal surnames and senile schizophrenia of aged monarchs eventually passed the death sentence on the feudal system of government. The situation was aggravated by acute interpersonal and group contradictions. As noted by the historian Karamzin, in Russia, with rare exceptions, each subsequent tsar began his reign by pouring a tub of dirt on the previous one, although he was his father or brother. The next bourgeois-democratic system of changing and inheriting power was built on the laws of political Darwinism. But the centuries-old history of multiparty democracy has shown that it is not productive for all populations of people. In Russia, it lasted only a few months after the February revolution and led to a complete paralysis of power and the disintegration of the country. After the overthrow of the autocracy and the February democracy, neither Lenin, nor Stalin, nor the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 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 in the USSR during the perestroika period again led to the paralysis of power and the disintegration of the country. Moreover, this phenomenon, which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gave birth to in the form of Gorbachev and his clique, perhaps has no analogues in world history. The system itself degenerated the gravediggers for itself and the country, and they did their atrocity practically out of the blue. Legend has it that Socrates, in a drunken state, argued with a drinking companion for a liter of white that he would destroy Athens with his own tongue alone. And he won. I don’t know with whom and what Gorbachev argued with, but he did it even “cooler”. He destroyed everything and everyone with his own language and created a "catastrophe", and without any repression, with his own language, he achieved the tacit consent to 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 so many the same non-party activists. Moreover, millions of people not only tacitly agreed, but also clapped their hands. In this multi-million army, there was not a single real guardsman who, according to the experience of the past, at least tried to strangle the traitors with his officer's scarf, although there were several million of these scarves hanging in the wardrobes. But this is all half the trouble, this is history. The trouble is that the problem has not been solved yet. The story of Medvedev's regency is a vivid confirmation of this. But as the experience of many countries shows, in order to create a stable and productive system of succession of 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 that is needed is responsibility and political will. There is no democracy in the PRC, and every 10 years there is a planned change of the supreme power, the death of the "king" is not expected there.
In general, I am very worried about the future. Typical bourgeois democracy in our conditions does not inspire confidence and optimism. After all, the mental characteristics of our people and its leaders do not differ much from the mentality of the people and leaders of Ukraine, and if they differ, then for the worse. The unresolved issue of the continuity of power and course will lead the country to a catastrophe, in comparison with which perestroika is just a flower.
The unsettled political processes have recently been heavily overlaid by issues of economic and social injustice. At present, the working people are beginning to become acutely aware of this problem. Even in a non-core for this topic, "VO" has recently begun to appear harsh articles about social injustice ("The Salaries of Gentlemen", "Letter from the Ural Worker", etc.). Their ratings are off the charts, and comments to them clearly and unequivocally testify to the beginning process of the accumulation of social entropy in the working class. Reading these articles and comments to them, one involuntarily recalls the words spoken in the State Duma by P. A. Stolypin, that there is no more greedy and shameless master and bourgeois in the world than in Russia, and that it was not for nothing that the expressions “kulak-the world-eater” and “bourgeois-world-eater” appeared in the Russian language at that time. Stolypin then in vain urged the gentlemen and the bourgeoisie to moderate their greed and change the type of social behavior, otherwise he predicted a catastrophe. They did not change the type of behavior, they did not moderate their greed, the catastrophe took place, the people slaughtered them like pigs for being greedy. Now it's even more interesting. In the 80-90s, the decayed and degenerated party nomenclature, in addition to unlimited power, also wanted to become a bourgeoisie, i.e. Factories, factories, houses, steamers subject to her during her lifetime should be made hereditary property. A powerful propaganda campaign was launched to criticize socialism and praise capitalism. Our trusting 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 tickets to the bourgeoisie and an unprecedented credit of social and political trust, which they ineptly 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 Riot. The Uprising of Yemelyan Pugachev".
It seems that the matter will again end in cutting out the gentlemen. But God forbid to see the Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. And the blame for everything will again be the master's and bourgeois greed, the same senseless and merciless. It is best if Putin will deal with this most odious part of the comprador and criminal bourgeoisie and nomenclature in a planned manner. But, apparently, not destiny, he still has some kind of agreement with them. Such consent gives rise to permissiveness and impunity, further corrupts the gentlemen 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 it in kitchens and over a "glass of tea" is simply impossible to convey in the language of normative vocabulary. But mankind has accumulated over the course of its history a colossal experience in the fight against corruption and presumptuous oligarchy.
At the end of the 20th century, the prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, who was irreplaceable 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 easy. It is necessary that there was a person at the top who would not be afraid to plant his friends and relatives. Start by placing three of your friends. You know exactly why, and they know exactly why."
It was precisely in such a difficult period of our history - Gorbachev's perestroika, Yeltsin's "reforms" and Putin's "controlled democracy" - that an attempt was made to revive the Cossacks. But, like all events of this period and our time, this revival is taking place in a very ambiguous way against the general background of economic and political turmoil, often raising more questions than answers. But that's a completely different story.
