Betrayal of Cossacks at Lienz (Repatriation of Cossacks after WWII)

[HollywoodMarine]

http://www.lienzcossack.net/index_files/Image10.gif


Repatriation of Cossacks after WWII

The Betrayal of the Cossacks, also known as the "Tragedy of Drau" and the "Massacre of Cossacks at Lienz" refers to the forced repatriation to the USSR of the Cossacks and ethnic Russians who were allies of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

The repatriations were agreed to in the Yalta Conference; most of the repatriated people were Soviet citizens, although some claimed to have left Russia before the end of the Russian Civil War, or to have been born abroad. Those Cossacks and Russians were described as fascists who had fought the Allies in service to the Axis powers, yet the repatriations included non-combatants as well (i.e., women, children, the aged). The Cossacks who fought the Allies did not see their war service as treason to the Russian motherland, but as an episode in the Russian Revolution of 1917 — their continuing fight against the Communist Government in Moscow, in particular, and against Bolshevism, in general. Nikolai Tolstoy describes this and other events resulting from the Yalta Conference, as the “Secret Betrayal,” for going unpublished in the West. In the history of the Cossack repatriations to the USSR, the British repatriation at Lienz, Austria, is the most recognized and studied, because the Cossacks fought the British.


Background

During the Russian Civil War (1917–23), thousands of Russians integral to the Volunteer Army and the White Movement fought the Bolshevik Red Army. Cossack Hosts (of which there were eleven at the start of the First World War, 1914–18) composed much of the White Movement, and so were the strongest counter-revolutionary force against the Bolshevik Government. For that, Leon Trotsky imposed Decossackization as collective punishment of the Cossacks, provoking many, especially the Don Cossacks and the Kuban Cossacks, to escape Russia for the Balkans where they established the Russian All-Military Union, the ROVS.

The Cossacks who remained in Russia endured more than a decade of continual repression, e.g. the portioning of the lands of the Terek, Ural, and Semirechye hosts, forced cultural assimilation (i.e. the Ukrainization of the Kuban Host,[citation needed] and repression of the Russian Orthodox Church), deportation, and, ultimately, the Soviet famine of 1932-1933. The repressions ceased and some privileges were restored after publication of And Quiet Flows the Don (1934) by Mikhail Sholokhov.


The Second World War

On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and attacked the USSR, thus bringing Russia into World War II. During the attack some ROVS, especially the Cossack émigré generals Pyotr Krasnov and Andrei Shkuro, asked Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’s permission to fight beside Nazi Germany against Communist Russia. Goebbels welcomed their idea and by 1942 General Krasnov and General Shkuro had mustered a Cossack force — mostly from Red Army POWs captured by the Wehrmacht — who would be under the command of General Helmuth von Pannwitz.

The Wehrmacht recognized the Cossacks as military units with their own uniforms and insignia; the 1st Cossack Division was established the next year. Although the Cossack units were formed to fight the Communists in Russia, by the time they formed, the Red Army had already liberated most of the Nazi-occupied territory, so they were deployed to the Balkans to fight the Communist Yugoslav Partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito. By the war’s end, the Cossack units had come under the command of the Waffen-SS. Under their direction, and already imbued with an extreme anti-Semitic ideology, many Cossacks actively participated in the Holocaust, rounding up and executing local Jews at their area of operations and committing atrocities against civilians accused of supporting partisans.


Effect of Yalta and Tehran Conferences

The agreements of the Yalta and Tehran conferences, signed by President Roosevelt, Premier Joseph Stalin, and Prime Minister Churchill, determined the fates of the Cossacks who did not fight for the USSR, because many were POWs of the Nazis. Stalin obtained Allied agreement to the repatriation of every Soviet citizen held prisoner because they feared that the Soviets either might delay or refuse repatriation of the Allied POWs whom the Red Army had liberated from Nazi POW camps. After Yalta, Churchill questioned Stalin, asking, “Did the Cossacks and other minorities fight against us?” Stalin replied, “They fought with ferocity, not to say savagery, for the Germans” — true of most Cossacks who fought against the USSR, notably the Tatar Caucasian Division; however, the Cossacks who fought against the Western Allies did so reluctantly.

In 1944, General Krasnov and other Cossack leaders had persuaded Hitler to allow Cossack troops, as well as civilians and non-combatant Cossacks to permanently settle in the sparsely settled Carnia, in the Italian Alps. The Cossacks moved there and established garrisons and settlements, requisitioning houses by evicting the inhabitants, with several stanitzas and posts, their administration, churches, schools, and military units. There, they fought the partisans and persecuted the local population, committing numerous atrocities. When the Allies progressed from central Italy to the Italian Alps, Italian partisans under General Contini ordered the Cossacks to leave Carnia and go north to Austria. There, on the Drava River, near Lienz, the British army imprisoned the Cossacks in a hastily established internment camp. For a few days, the British fed them, giving the Cossacks the impression that they understood their problem as political refugees. Meanwhile, the Red Army’s advance units approached to within a few miles east, rapidly advancing to meet the Allies. Most Cossacks believed that, under British protection, they were safe from repatriation to the USSR.

On 28 May 1945, the British army transported 2,046 disarmed Cossack officers and generals — including the cavalry Generals Pyotr Krasnov, Andrei Shkuro, and Kelech-Giray — to a nearby Red Army-held town. There they were handed over to the Red Army commanding general, who ordered them tried for treason. Many Cossack leaders had never been Soviet citizens, having fled revolutionary Russia in 1920, hence they could not be guilty of treason Nonetheless, some were executed immediately. The high-ranking officers were tried in Moscow, and then executed — most notably, General Pyotr Krasnov was hanged in a public square. General Helmuth von Pannwitz of the Wehrmacht, who was instrumental to the formation and leadership of the Cossacks taken from Nazi POW camps to fight the USSR, decided to share the Cossacks’ Soviet repatriation, and was executed for war crimes with five Cossack generals and atamans in Moscow in 1947.

On 1 June 1945, the British placed 32,000 Cossacks (with their women and children) into trains and trucks, and delivered them to the Red Army for repatriation to the USSR; like repatriations occurred that year in the American occupation zones in Austria and Germany. Most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and in Siberia and many died; some, however, escaped and others lived until Nikita Khrushchev's amnesty in the course of his de-Stalinization policies (see below). In total, some two million people were repatriated to the USSR at the end of the Second World War, but historians calculate that the number of repatriated Cossacks is 45,000-50,000; others calculate (without consensus) some 15,000–150,000.


Lienz

On 28 May 1945, the British Army arrived at Camp Peggetz, in Lienz, where there were 2,479 Cossacks, including 2,201 officers and soldiers. They went to invite the Cossacks to an important conference with British officials, informing them that they would return to Lienz by six o’clock that evening; some Cossacks worried, but the British reassured them that everything was in order. One British officer told the Cossacks: “I assure you, on my word of honour as a British officer, that you are just going to a conference”. The Lienz Cossack repatriation was exceptional, because the Cossacks forcefully resisted their British repatriation to the USSR; a Cossack noted: “The NKVD or the Gestapo would have slain us with truncheons, the British did it with their word of honor.”

The first to commit suicide, by hanging, was the Cossack editor Evgenij Tarruski. The second was General Silkin, who shot himself. . . . The Cossacks refused to board the trucks. British soldiers [armed] with pistols and clubs began using their clubs, aiming at the heads of the prisoners. They first dragged the men out of the crowd, and threw them into the trucks. The men jumped out. They beat them again, and threw them onto the floor of the trucks. Again, they jumped out. The British then hit them with rifle butts until they lay unconscious, and threw them, like sacks of potatoes, in the trucks. — Operation Keelhaul (1973), by Julius Epstein.

The British transported the Cossacks to a prison where the Soviets assumed their custody. In the town of Tristach, Austria, there is a memorial commemorating General Helmuth von Pannwitz and soldiers of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who were killed in action or died as POWs.


Other Repatriations

Judenburg, Austria
On the 1st and 2nd of June, 18,000 Cossacks were handed over to the Soviets near the town of Judenburg, Austria; of those in custody, some 10 officers and 50–60 Cossacks escaped the guards’ cordon with hand grenades, and hid in a nearby wood.

Fort Dix, New Jersey, USA

Although repatriations are thought to have occurred only in Europe, it also occurred in the United State at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where 154 people were repatriated to the USSR after the Second World War; three committed suicide in the US, and seven were injured. Julius Epstein described the scene:

First, they refused to leave their barracks when ordered to do so. The military police then used tear gas, and, half-dazed, the prisoners were driven under heavy guard to the harbor where they were forced to board a Soviet vessel. Here the two hundred immediately started to fight. They fought with their bare hands. They started — with considerable success — to destroy the ship's engines. . . . A sergeant . . . mixed barbiturates into their coffee. Soon, all of the prisoners fell into a deep, coma-like sleep. It was in this condition that the prisoners were brought to another Soviet boat for a speedy return to Stalin's hangmen.


Aftermath

After the death of Stalin in 1953, Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization of the USSR conferred a partial amnesty for some labor camp inmates on 27 March 1953, then extended it on 17 September 1955. Yet, some specific political crimes were omitted from amnesty: people convicted under Section 58.1(c) of the Criminal Code, stipulating that in the event of a military man escaping Russia, every adult member of his family who abetted the escape or who knew of it is subject to five to ten years’ imprisonment; every dependent who did not know of the escape is subject to five years’ Siberian exile.


Memorials

In Lienz, Austria, there is an eighteen-gravestone cemetery commemorating the “Tragedy of the Drau”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_of_Cossacks_at_Lienz

[StukaJr]

It's somewhat ironic to apply "betrayal" to the individuals whom committed treason. Wearing your enemy's
uniform and participating in combat in foreign (opponent's) armed forces is treason, maximum punishment
was and still is appropriate method for treason (be it UK, US or Soviet Union). Being part of the group that
actively participated in atrocities against civilian population of occupied does not lend any additional lenience.

It's not a perfect world - giving Kosaks a free pass to settle in the West lets a lot of Nazi criminals go free,
turning them over to the Soviets means some will get formerly executed while not having participated in the
atrocities. My only feeling about this is - "Cry me a river?"

[G-AWZT]

The Brits also betrayed the Serb Chetniks and their leader Mihailovic. They were handed over to Tito's Communists and executed. The Chetniks incidently, rescued and saved more Allied airmen shot down over Yugoslavia than the Partisans.

[Winger]

It's somewhat ironic to apply "betrayal" to the individuals whom committed treason. Wearing your enemy's
uniform and participating in combat in foreign (opponent's) armed forces is treason, maximum punishment
was and still is appropriate method for treason (be it UK, US or Soviet Union). Being part of the group that
actively participated in atrocities against civilian population of occupied does not lend any additional lenience.

It's not a perfect world - giving Kosaks a free pass to settle in the West lets a lot of Nazi criminals go free,
turning them over to the Soviets means some will get formerly executed while not having participated in the
atrocities. My only feeling about this is - "Cry me a river?"

The term betrayal seems to be misapplied. As if to imply these individuals were proper Soviet puppets to begin with which is far from the case. Or, that we owed them any allegiance once we interned them as POWs. Where else could they send them but back to the USSR? Needless, many of them had the punishments coming to them considering their acts regardless of the side they chose; Stalin's form of Soviet didn't leave much to be desired when compared to the Nazis at the time so its perfectly reasonable as to why they joined the opposing force.

[SoSo]

Shameful! Operation Keelhaul, involving my own country as well, has to rank as one of America's most disgraceful and treacherous acts. However, it's said that some Allied officers, disgusted at what they had been commanded to do, secretly helped some of their prisoners to escape forced repatriation, giving them nonperishable food, false documents, money, and stolen German uniforms or civilian clothing, so they could quietly slip away and disappear in the chaos of post-VE Day Europe. But who can say for sure? It's one of those historical events that may never be verifiable, because those who took part in it are no longer here to tell us their stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Keelhaul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poljana

[StukaJr]

The term betrayal seems to be misapplied. As if to imply these individuals were proper Soviet puppets to begin with which is far from the case. Or, that we owed them any allegiance once we interned them as POWs. Where else could they send them but back to the USSR? Needless, many of them had the punishments coming to them considering their acts regardless of the side they chose; Stalin's form of Soviet didn't leave much to be desired when compared to the Nazis at the time so its perfectly reasonable as to why they joined the opposing force.

The "free" kosaks or members of ROA, polizei volunteers etc did waste most of the war in pens, only to then distinguish themselves by torching villages and hanging jews - actual military engagements against individuals wearing military uniforms were an exception, not a rule. Joining non-combat military service to save own life is understandable, excelling at being a murderous bastard is not.

Finally, the proper Soviet puppet in the worst of purges/famine had much better chance of survival everyday life in occupied territory under the Germans. The proper Soviet puppet also had the right of choice what form of government they wanted to live under and certainly had a voice against being killed by freedom loving kosaks for disagreeing with their outlook. Also, the proper Soviet puppets had enough humanity to let enough of these Kosaks to survive for years to be pardoned - not give them the Nazi "desired" choice of burning out the village and hanging everybody with ethnicity betraying name.*

____________

* now, I don't understand what brand of stupid this behavior takes, but hanging jews in Yugoslavia or suppressing Warsaw 1944 uprising (which was started by anti-communist Poles) has nothing to do with storming Lubyanka or fighting the Soviet ideology (especially when it involves brutality against civilian populace of certain heritage inside/outside of the country) - I will excuse your mindless copy+paste of "Soviets bad, joining Nazis not as bad" thoughtless bs. Also, mind that 40K+ of "repatriated" kosaks represents insignificant fraction of population of occupied territories that opted to trade masters for land and power.

[Winger]

The "free" kosaks or members of ROA, polizei volunteers etc did waste most of the war in pens, only to then distinguish themselves by torching villages and hanging jews - actual military engagements against individuals wearing military uniforms were an exception, not a rule. Joining non-combat military service to save own life is understandable, excelling at being a murderous bastard is not.

Finally, the proper Soviet puppet in the worst of purges/famine had much better chance of survival everyday life in occupied territory under the Germans. The proper Soviet puppet also had the right of choice what form of government they wanted to live under and certainly had a voice against being killed by freedom loving kosaks for disagreeing with their outlook. Also, the proper Soviet puppets had enough humanity to let enough of these Kosaks to survive for years to be pardoned - not give them the Nazi "desired" choice of burning out the village and hanging everybody with ethnicity betraying name.*

____________

* now, I don't understand what brand of stupid this behavior takes, but hanging jews in Yugoslavia or suppressing Warsaw 1944 uprising (which was started by anti-communist Poles) has nothing to do with storming Lubyanka or fighting the Soviet ideology (especially when it involves brutality against civilian populace of certain heritage inside/outside of the country) - I will excuse your mindless copy+paste of "Soviets bad, joining Nazis not as bad" thoughtless bs. Also, mind that 40K+ of "repatriated" kosaks represents insignificant fraction of population of occupied territories that opted to trade masters for land and power.

Good stuff. Getting me very interested in this history. Will have to do more reading. As to the Soviet/Nazi bad reference I think you misinterpret. Both sides had some equally brutish characters and I could see why some Cossacks would turn to get back at their "oppressors".

[CPL Trevoga]

Vae victis

"Woe to the vanquished"

[StukaJr]

Good stuff. Getting me very interested in this history. Will have to do more reading. As to the Soviet/Nazi bad reference I think you misinterpret. Both sides had some equally brutish characters and I could see why some Cossacks would turn to get back at their "oppressors".

I'm afraid that when you talk about tens of thousands out of particular population slice of tens of millions (fractions of a percent), you hit the narrow percentage margin of people behaving badly that are hardly representative of class struggle against "oppressors". And mind you, the land and power promised by the Axis occupiers in exchange for service were quite tempting... Never mind how much "oppression" one has
to suffer to start butchering those whom are equally "oppressed" :|

[pocoloco]

It's somewhat ironic to apply "betrayal" to the individuals whom committed treason...

Tad off-topic, so these same standards would have applied to, say American rebels against the English crown? All I'm saying that there's always two sides on the coin. Kosaks did choose the wrong side, no denial there though.

Also Finland had to return 55000 Ingrian Finns back to Soviet Union after the WW2.

[gaijinsamurai]

I'd be willing to bet that the people who survived the seige of Leningrad or the concentration camps didn't shed many tears for the Cossacks who sided with Hitler.

[G-AWZT]

I'd be willing to bet that the people who survived the seige of Leningrad or the concentration camps didn't shed many tears for the Cossacks who sided with Hitler.



No they were most likely sent to gulags ( those in the concentration camps, forced labor, or POWs) after the war. Stalin saw them as traitors.

[Abyr]

No they were most likely sent to gulags ( those in the concentration camps, forced labor, or POWs) after the war. Stalin saw them as traitors. Numbers and statistics, here, or else you will look like a clueless brainwashed tard who speaks out of his ass.

From all those POW who were freed from 1941 to 1 October 1944, 19 out of 20 privates and sergeants (more than 95% of them) successfully completed their background check and were sent back to Army, hospitals, factories etc, 3.98% of them were arrested.

If you take POW officers, less than 3% (2.87%) were arrested. However ~36% were sent as privates to penal battalions (the number for privates and sergeants was 0.86%).

Source: "Справка о ходе проверки б/окруженцев и б/военнопленных по состоянию на 1 октября 1944 г".

[AlexMartin2]

No they were most likely sent to gulags ( those in the concentration camps, forced labor, or POWs) after the war. Stalin saw them as traitors.

I know this particular topic not very well, but I believe there is a statistic numbers, about how many Soveit POWs were sent to Gulags after captivity by Germans.
The number was something between 10 to 20 percent of these who was POWs. Other captives were either sent to fronts immediately, or sent home (if they were wounded/unable to fight anymore).

UPD: Abyr was faster and had more precise numbers.

[Kilgor]

The Cossacks had suffered terribily with genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Bolsheviks, so its no wonder they had turned against the system when they had the chance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decossackization

[Mango Madness]

^Yeah, it's no wonder these Nazi-cossacks killed jews and committed atrocities against civilians
/sarcasm

"In the period that General Krasnov's White Cossack forces controlled the Don province, from May 1918 to February 1919, the "All-Great Don Host" punitive organs sentenced some 25,000 people to death"

Poor, innocent cossacks...

"The civilians had suffered terribily with genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the cossacks, so its no wonder they implemented decosssackization when they had the chance."

[Jurinko]

Soviet citizens siding with Germans is not that much different from German citizens siding with Soviets. Future DDR leadership come from "Free Germany" committee.

Our Czechoslovak pilots in UK were technically traitors as well, but higher moral ground of the western Allied side makes it OK. The only hypothetical moral ground Soviets had against Germans is, that Germans stroke first.

[Mango Madness]

^Oh look another EE Soviets=Nazi's guy

[TakeIt]

The only hypothetical moral ground Soviets had against Germans is, that Germans stroke first. There goes the thread..

[HollywoodMarine]

The only hypothetical moral ground Soviets had against Germans is, that Germans stroke first.

Its spelled "struck", while "stroke" is what skank does to us in the back seat of a car. I agree with TakeIt... let's get back on track.

[Vityaz]

^Yeah, it's no wonder these Nazi-cossacks killed jews and committed atrocities against civilians
/sarcasm

"In the period that General Krasnov's White Cossack forces controlled the Don province, from May 1918 to February 1919, the "All-Great Don Host" punitive organs sentenced some 25,000 people to death"

Poor, innocent cossacks...

"The civilians had suffered terribily with genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the cossacks, so its no wonder they implemented decosssackization when they had the chance."
:|
You do know that anywhere from a half to two thirds of the Cossack population actually fought in Red Army cavalry units, despite having had their entire way of life and much of their population destroyed by the the Soviet state. How nice to see them unequivocally viewed as traitors.

And no, it was not vengeful "civilians" who did the butchering of the Cossacks, it was the Red Army and GPU (predecessor to the NKVD and KGB) under the direct orders of Lenin, who feared such a counterrevolutionary threat to the new regime like the Catholic population of the Vendee were to the French Republic. The "civilians" were victims and largely Cossacks themselves, as in women and children.
I strongly recommend the Civil War chapter of Albert Seaton's Horsemen of the Steppes. Even if morally grey in other areas, the Red Army were decidedly not the good guys in this time and place.

[Mango Madness]

^I was referring to the cossacks that fought with the Nazi's and committed the atrocities against their own people, hell even just because they fought against their own people.

I wasn't suggesting that literally 'the civilians' did the decossackization, but that there was also 'a reason' for decossackization (because they were hostile to the state), just as Kilgor was trying to justify the cossacks who joined the Nazi's.

[LineDoggie]

^Yeah, it's no wonder these Nazi-cossacks killed jews and committed atrocities against civilians
/sarcasm

"In the period that General Krasnov's White Cossack forces controlled the Don province, from May 1918 to February 1919, the "All-Great Don Host" punitive organs sentenced some 25,000 people to death"

Poor, innocent cossacks...

"The civilians had suffered terribily with genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the cossacks, so its no wonder they implemented decosssackization when they had the chance."So what You are saying is the Cossacks deserved it for crimes committed in the 1918-1919 time period?

And then the Soviets ignored those crimes until 1945?
1. How many who participated in the 1918-19 crimes were wearing German Uniforms in 1945?
2. What stopped the SU from meting out justice for the 21 years the Cossacks were under SU control 1920-1941?

They Betrayed their Nation, that is clear, but your supposition is absurd to say the treatment in 1945 was deserved due to actions in 1918.

[JCR]

"Genocide" on cossacks can't really be possible because being a Cossack is a way of life, not a nationality.
Of course most cossack families follow this way of life for centuries, but cossacks are russian, ukrainian or any other nation living there.
You can't commit genocide on cossacks just as you can't commit genocide on campers or hippies.

[Vityaz]

The Cossacks under Soviet jurisdiction were, quite simply, not allowed to be Cossacks. The communists had taken their horses, their weapons, their hereditary service, their tsar and church, and forced them onto collective farms. To me it speaks volumes about their loyalty to their native land that the majority of them defended it by serving in the army of a state that took their identity and treated them like dirt. And although history has damned those who fought for the Germans, I wouldn't dismiss all of them as devoted Nazis and murderers. Some had real cause to fight against the Soviet state, but their tragic mistake was taking up such a perhaps otherwise justified struggle in company with those who wanted to destroy their people. This is what makes them traitors, not their motives against communism.

[Mango Madness]

So what You are saying is the Cossacks deserved it for crimes committed in the 1918-1919 time period?

And then the Soviets ignored those crimes until 1945?
1. How many who participated in the 1918-19 crimes were wearing German Uniforms in 1945?
2. What stopped the SU from meting out justice for the 21 years the Cossacks were under SU control 1920-1941?

They Betrayed their Nation, that is clear, but your supposition is absurd to say the treatment in 1945 was deserved due to actions in 1918.
Derp! Read post again, where does it say that I said they deserved it. Let me spell it out for you even clearer. I wasn't the one who started the "they were justified" post about the cossacks joining the Nazi's, Kilgor did. My response was aimed to show the fallacy of that argument since you could say the same "they had their reasons" crap about the bad things the Soviets did to the cossacks.

Why didn't you get all indignant at Kilgor's post and say "So are you saying the Soviet victims of the Nazi cossacks deserved to be killed?". It's exactly the same logic. Oh wait, he was criticising the Soviets/Russia, better let that one slide. Classic Linedoggie.

[Winger]

The only hypothetical moral ground Soviets had against Germans is, that Germans stroke first.

As inflammatory as that statement is, I can't help but agree to it while pointing out it they were Stalinized Soviets.

[StukaJr]

Never mind - recycling what's been said prior in the posts.

[Hollis]

Sometimes even good people make bad decisions and then suffer from them. I watch a documentary on the partisans who fought the nazis in Western Russia. It said at first the locals thought of the nazis a liberators because they did not realize the nazis was not the same German Army that they experienced in WWI. It is easy to be selective in the blame, WWII in Europe was because of the nazis. What precipitated from WWII was because of the nazis. If hind sight was available to the people back then, they would have probably made different, if not better decisions.

I am not saying there were no collaborators, bad people making bad choices.

[therifleman]

What about all the german communists who went over to the SU during the war to help the propoganda machine? Why weren't they shot as traitors after the war? They were after all, commiters of treason and "traitors" to Germany, right?

[Difool]

This is a topic suitable even to bring up Russians against each other. Cossacks are viewed very different by other Russians in general. I guess that most think that fighting against the German invaders has been a national duty to all Soviet people wether communists or not.
So from that point it's clear that even for today's Russia the betrayal weights heavier than their nationalistic orientation.
Still it's remarkable that many cossacks allied with Nazi-Germany to fight the political system of the SU. The cossacks have always fought for Russia and still do.
Nonetheless a tradegy stays a tradegy and the whole WWII is the biggest tradegy of mankind.
Today the Cossacks are again part of Russia's society and armed forces.

[Russianlynxy]

This is a topic suitable even to bring up Russians against each other. Cossacks are viewed very different by other Russians in general. I guess though that most think that fighting against the German invaders has been a national duty to all Soviet people wether communists or not.
So from that point it's clear that even for today's Russia the betrayal weights heavier than their nationalistic orientation.
Still it's remarkable that many cossacks allied with the Nazi-Germany to fight the political system of the SU. The cossacks have always fought for Russia and still do.
Nonetheless a tradegy stays a tradegy and the whole WWII is the biggest tradegy of mankind.

x2. I wholeheartedly agree. I am part Cossack on one side of my family.

What I don't understand is how the Western Allies play in to this. The betrayal of the Cossacks is entirely a Russian issue, the only interest foreign powers may have in it is to encourage non-monolithic behavior in Russian society. "They fought against the Soviet Union, so they MUST be good"

The role of Cossacks in Russian history is not black and white, there has been a lot of positive things as well. They are a militant society with own hierarchy even today.

[zad]

What about all the german communists who went over to the SU during the war to help the propoganda machine? Why weren't they shot as traitors after the war? They were after all, commiters of treason and "traitors" to Germany, right?

Communists cause is not a country but the liberation of the working class, fighting for Germany in WWII would had made them traitors to their class and their cause. Back in 33 nazis banned the KPD and hunted their members, many of them went abroad to continue the struggle, many served in the International Brigades in Spain. For the german communists the enemy was the nazi party, they had been fighting it since the 20s, they continued the fight until victory.

[Difool]

What I don't understand is how the Western Allies play in to this. The betrayal of the Cossacks is entirely a Russian issue, the only interest foreign powers may have in it is to encourage non-monolithic behavior in Russian society. "They fought against the Soviet Union, so they MUST be good"

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Often enough a very dangerous game.

[Kilgor]

^I was referring to the cossacks that fought with the Nazi's and committed the atrocities against their own people, hell even just because they fought against their own people.
.

That is a perfect description of the Soviet Regime itself.

[nemowork]

x2. I wholeheartedly agree. I am part Cossack on one side of my family.

What I don't understand is how the Western Allies play in to this. The betrayal of the Cossacks is entirely a Russian issue, the only interest foreign powers may have in it is to encourage non-monolithic behavior in Russian society. "They fought against the Soviet Union, so they MUST be good"


A lot of allied prisoners were stuck behind soviet lines when Germany collapsed, there are lots of ways their lives could have become a lot less pleasant if Stalin wanted to play dirty.
Why risk your own people for someone who had fought for the enemy?

Unpleasant logic but with most of europe either living in displaced persons camps, bombed out or close to starving there wasn't a lot of sympathy going round.

[Hast2]

That is a perfect description of the Soviet Regime itself.

By siding with enemy, who is commuting terrific crimes against your own people, you become a criminal yourself. Even if your goals and intentions are noble.

[Kilgor]

By siding with enemy, who is commuting terrific crimes against your own people, you become a criminal yourself. Even if your goals and intentions are noble.

obviously you missed the reference to the Hitler Stalin pact and the division and occupation of their respsective spheres.

[Connaught Ranger]

A lot of allied prisoners were stuck behind soviet lines when Germany collapsed, there are lots of ways their lives could have become a lot less pleasant if Stalin wanted to play dirty.
Why risk your own people for someone who had fought for the enemy?

Unpleasant logic but with most of europe either living in displaced persons camps, bombed out or close to starving there wasn't a lot of sympathy going round.

A very valid point, there are I believe still some numbers of American P.O.W.'s

known to have been held in Nazi P.O.W. camps in areas over-ran by advancing Soviet troops,

and last reported being seen boarding trains heading east, but they failed to be repatriated.

Connaught Ranger.

[jmanscram]

What about all the german communists who went over to the SU during the war to help the propoganda machine? Why weren't they shot as traitors after the war? They were after all, commiters of treason and "traitors" to Germany, right?

The most basic answer to this is Germany lost the war.:roll:

[merk666]

cossaks were free russians, settled on empire borders during centuries, like american pioneers or cowboys. their traditional folk uniform was and is a military uniform of russian empire. What nation wears the military uniform of another nation?
also cossaks had very traditionalist, orthodox, anti-jewish, conservative mind - thats why decossakisation took place in 1920'th.
modern revival of cossacks is the revival of russian conservatism. Because if their strong conservative, imperial and fighting traditions, they were used in old russian army as strike forces, and as police special forces.
cossak - liberal is incredible, cossak - strong conservative - is the true.

[Glaz]

Sometimes even good people make bad decisions and then suffer from them. I watch a documentary on the partisans who fought the nazis in Western Russia. It said at first the locals thought of the nazis a liberators because they did not realize the nazis was not the same German Army that they experienced in WWI.
My jewish great-grandfather was a russian army soldier in ww1, was captured by the germans (he actually made an escape, but that's another story), and was treated quite well per family lore accounts.

[HollywoodMarine]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2008-0335%2C_Russland%2C_Kosaken_in_der_Wehrmacht.jpg
Cossacks take an oath to Hitler, 1942.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/KubanCossacks2.jpg
Soviet Kuban Cossack regiments marching through Red Square, during Victory Parade after the Great Patriotic War, 24 June 1945.


Second World War

During the Second World War Cossacks found themselves on both sides of the conflict once again. While most historians agree that the majority of the Russian Cossacks fought in the ranks of the Red Army, a substantial number of them also served with the Nazis. This can be explained by harsh repressions that many of them suffered under the collectivization and Decossackization policies pursued by Joseph Stalin. Like other peoples of the Soviet Union, who suffered persecution under Stalin, many Cossacks dreaming of autonomy greeted the advancing German army as liberators.

While the core of the Nazi collaborators was made up of former White Army refugees, many rank-and-file Cossacks defected from the Red Army to join the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). As early as 1941, the first Cossack detachments, created out of prisoners of war, defectors and volunteers, were formed under German leadership. The Dubrovski Battalion formed of Don Cossacks in December 1941 was reorganised on 30 July 1942 into the Pavlov Regiment, numbering up to 350 men. The Cossacks were successfully utilized for anti-partisan activity in the rear of the German army.

The Cossack National Movement of Liberation was set in the hope of creating an independent Cossack state, Cossackia. It was not until 1943 that the 1st Cossack Division was formed under the command of General Helmuth von Pannwitz, where Cossack emigrees, like Andrei Shkuro and Pyotr Krasnov, took leading positions. The 2nd Cossack Division under the command of Colonel Hans-Joachim von Schultz, formed in 1944, existed only for a year, as both Cossack divisions were transferred into the Waffen-SS and merged into the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps in 1945. The Corps contained regiments of different Cossack groups: Don, Kuban, Terek and Siberian Cossacks. At the end of the war in 1945, they surrendered to the British Army in Allied-administered Austria, hoping to join the British to fight Communism. There was little sympathy at the time for a group who were seen as Nazi collaborators and who were reported to have committed atrocities against resistance fighters in Eastern Europe. They were accordingly handed over to the Soviet Government. At the end of the war, British commanders repatriated between 40 to 50 thousand Cossacks, including their families, to the Soviet Union. An unknown number were subsequently executed or imprisoned. Reportedly, many of those punished had never been Soviet citizens. This episode is widely known as the Betrayal of the Cossacks.

The majority of the Cossacks fought in the ranks of the Red Army on the Southern theatre of the Eastern Front, where open steppes made them ideal for frontal patrols and logistics. A Cossack detachment marched in Red Square during the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945.

The Cossack units of the Red Army acquired a reputation for cruelty towards civilians during the war. Halina Kahn, a young Polish Jewish woman in the Lodz Ghetto remembers, "We are free, the war is over, the Russian Army is coming in. That was a terrible agony: they were Cossacks and they had been on the front for three or four years, dirty and black, and they saw women for the first time and would take the women and girls to the barracks. They raped these hungry women and left them like little heaps of rubbish."

[Connaught Ranger]

cossaks were free russians, settled on empire borders during centuries, like american pioneers or cowboys. their traditional folk uniform was and is a military uniform of russian empire. What nation wears the military uniform of another nation?
also cossaks had very traditionalist, orthodox, anti-jewish, conservative mind - thats why decossakisation took place in 1920'th.
modern revival of cossacks is the revival of russian conservatism. Because if their strong conservative, imperial and fighting traditions, they were used in old russian army as strike forces, and as police special forces.
cossak - liberal is incredible, cossak - strong conservative - is the true.

And their decendents are still being very anti-jewish today, somethings never change.

[Vityaz]

And their decendents are still being very anti-jewish today, somethings never change.
And some ARE Jewish. :)

[savushka]

obviously you missed the reference to the Hitler Stalin pact and the division and occupation of their respsective spheres.

Oh cry me a river
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement

[Switek]

The moral judgment of different attitude of Cossacks during WW2 isn't easy. Many of them intended to fight against Soviet regime but turned themselves into the most brutal Nazi war machine, responsible for slaughtering many civilians across whole Central and Eastern Europe. But without knowledge what was Bolshevik, Stalinist Russia in 1930's it's impossible to understand why so many soviet citizens (not only Cossacks) collaborated with Nazis. In some extent Eastern Front during WW2 was a front of Russian civil war... Paradoxically it's a part of Russian heritage regardless whether some try to deny it or not.

[merk666]

But without knowledge what was Bolshevik, Stalinist Russia in 1930's it's impossible to understand why...
pls! tell me about "Bolsheviks" ideology, because my grandpa was exactly this "****ing bloody bastard". If you know more than "FBB" pls put it here, and i ll compare it with reality.

[Switek]

pls! tell me about "Bolsheviks" ideology, because my grandpa was exactly this "****ing bloody bastard". If you know more than "FBB" pls put it here, and i ll compare it with reality.

Ah, at first glance I thought you were kidding.... let's start so from basics:

Stalinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism)

[Ataman]

The moral judgment of different attitude of Cossacks during WW2 isn't easy. Many of them intended to fight against Soviet regime but turned themselves into the most brutal Nazi war machine, responsible for slaughtering many civilians across whole Central and Eastern Europe.

Evidence?


But without knowledge what was Bolshevik, Stalinist Russia in 1930's it's impossible to understand why so many soviet citizens (not only Cossacks) collaborated with Nazis. In some extent Eastern Front during WW2 was a front of Russian civil war... Paradoxically it's a part of Russian heritage regardless whether some try to deny it or not.

Massive exaggeration as always.
Considering how ruthless the Communist behavior towards the population was I'm not surprised that some people changed sides. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is what most of them probably thought. Rather short-sighted...

[JCR]

In some extent Eastern Front during WW2 was a front of Russian civil war... Paradoxically it's a part of Russian heritage regardless whether some try to deny it or not.

Some german strategists tried to turn it into the russian civil war, but ultimately Hitler always saw it as a campaign of racial extermination and those russians were merely expedient to him. There was actually quite a power struggle within the german military on how to conduct the eastern war and among many of the former WW1 east front generals the idea of an anti-communist crusade was more popular than that of Lebensraum, but in the end the Lebensraum faction won.
There was never an official stop to this support anticommunists and seperatists but in the end they were tools.
There was not enough german manpower to even remotely control the occupied areas, so these people came in handy.
There were german decisionmakers who genuinely wanted to support an independent ukraine (Oberländer) or a non communist russia, but even those had one thing in common, their antisemitism.
Especially Oberländer (later Adenauer's adviser on the east and sentenced to death in absentia in east Germany) was an endless lobbyist for Bandera and the likes even with Hitler.
But as I said, these people might have regarded slavs as equals but they were as antisemitic as the rest or even worse.

[merk666]

let we do not read wiki about stalinism, because bolshevism and stalinism are diffrerent. lenin was "bolshevik", but obviously was not the "stalinist". moreover he alarmed the Party about possibility of Stalinism ("letter to congress"). So - what do you meant as "bolshevism" - the stalinism? it like to speak to astranaut that earth is flat and stays on three elephants.

[Switek]

Evidence?


One of many but characteristic

Wola Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wola_massacre)


Massive exaggeration as always.
Considering how ruthless the Communist behavior towards the population was I'm not surprised that some people changed sides. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is what most of them probably thought. Rather short-sighted...May be an exaggeration but you backed my words.

[Switek]

let we do not read wiki about stalinism, because bolshevism and stalinism are diffrerent. lenin was "bolshevik", but obviously was not the "stalinist". moreover he alarmed the Party about possibility of Stalinism ("letter to congress"). So - what do you meant as "bolshevism" - the stalinism? it like to speak to astranaut that earth is flat and stays on three elephants.

Irrelevant! For many there's no significant difference between them ...

[merk666]

Irrelevant! For many there's no significant difference between them ...
for many there is no difference between square and square root of a number... and what? if you not feel difference - it cant mean than there is no difference in reality.

[MainLord]

Evidence?


http://www.khatyn.by/en/
http://www.khatyn.by/en/genocide/


There were many ratified documents of the plan "OST", but the most forthright remarks were made by the head of the Number One Colonization Department of the central political administration of the ministry of the occupied eastern territories affairs of Wetzel. In conformity with that plan, 25% of Belorussians were supposed to be Germanized, if they perfectly corresponded to the racial characteristics, and the remaining 75% were supposed to be killed. In conformity with the plan "OST", 120 - 140 million people were supposed to be annihilated in the Soviet Union and in Poland.The tragedy of Khatyn


March 22, 1943. All inhabitants of the village of the Khatyn - young and old, women and kids — were driven into the shed. When all people were finally in the shed, the door was locked and the Nazis covered the shed with straw, spilt benzine over and set fire to it. In a moment the wooden shed was ablaze. The children were crying and suffocating in the smoke. The adults were trying to rescue them. The doors of the shed could not bear the force and the pressure of the dozens of people and so they crashed down. Horror-stricken people in their burning clothes took to heels. But the fascists with their machine guns dispassionately killed those who tried to escape from the flames of fire. 149 people, including 75 children under age were burned alive. The youngest baby was only 7 weeks old. The village was then looted and burned to the ground. 117532


The unique "Cemetery of villages" which you will not find anywhere in the world has been built on the ground of the Belorussian village of "Khatyn". 185 other Belorussian villages which shared the fate of Khatyn are also symbolically buried here. (the 186th unrestored village is Khatyn itself). The grave of the village is a symbolic site of fire. There is a pedestal in the form of a flame tip in the center. It symbolises the fact that the vilage was burnt down. There is the soil of each village in the mourning urn. The soil of each village which suffered like Khatyn and which was never restored. The name of the village and the region to which it belonged is also written by the grave.In Byelorussia during the war killed every fourth person.
Overall, the USSR has lost during the WWII killed more than 25 million people. The losses among the troops - 12 million, losses among the civilian population - almost 14 million.
That says a lot about what the war waged by Nazi Germany. Generally, if it were not such a policy of genocide against the civilian population, the war would end in much earlier and with other results, because a significant number of Soviet citizens who had first looked at the Germans as liberators from communism, but the illusion quickly evaporated when it became clear that together with communism is supposed to destroy a considerable part of the civilian population.

[MainLord]

World War II casualties of the Soviet Union

117553117554

[Switek]

World War II casualties of the Soviet Union

117553117554

I'm very glad that awareness that World War 2 began on September 1 1939, pierces the consciousness of the Russians ;)

[MainLord]

I'm very glad that awareness that World War 2 began on September 1 1939, pierces the consciousness of the Russians ;)

It's very easy. There are two different concepts for Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and other citizens of the former USSR. WWII and GPW.

World War II began on Sept. 1, 1939 with Hitler's attack on Poland. The Great Patriotic War began with Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union June 22, 1941.

Since the main theater of war is Eastern front after 1941, that is common, particularly in the conversation, talking about the Second World IMPLIED Great Patriotic War.
But if you open up Soviet history textbook, then as the start of the Second World War there will be specified precisely on Sept. 1, 1939, but this is the beginning of the war, so to speak, legally.

Actually WWII began earlier, with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , and much more earlier with the Munich Pact, (an initiative of the signing of which belongs to France and Britain) that permitting Nazy German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, after which in the carve-up of Czechoslovakia took part Hungary and Poland.

How much do you think these historical facts are widely known "pierces the consciousness" in Poland, Britain, France, USA? I got the impression that most are familiar only with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, am I mistaken?

[Atlantic Friend]

In the respect of the National Russians, Lichstenstein, of all nations, showed more fortitude than all the Allies combined.

[MainLord]

And in general, can any of the following dates to choose as the beginning of WWII


January 13, 1935 - Referendum in Saarland, Germany's accession to
March 7, 1936 - Germany's troops occupy Rhineland
October 25, 1936 Creating the axis of the Berlin-Rome
November 25, 1936 - Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
November 6, 1937 to the pact joins Italy
July 7, 1937 - The invasion of Japanese troops in China.
July 29, 1938 - the beginning of the collision of the USSR and Japan, Manchukuo.
September 29, 1938 - Munich agreement between Britain, France, Germany and Italy. (On the Sudetenland)
November 1938 - Poland invaded Czechoslovakia Těšínské Region
November 1938 - Hungary occupied the southern parts of Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ukraine.
February 24, 1939 - Hungary and Manchukuo join the Anti-Comintern Pact
March 27, 1939 - Spain joins Anti-Comintern Pact
April 1939 - Italy invaded Albania.
August 23, 1939 Non-Aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the USSR
August 26, 1939 Autonomy Croatia
September 1, 1939 - Germany's attack on Poland
September 3, 1939 - Britain, France, India, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
September 5, 1939 - U.S. declare neutrality in the European War
September 6, 1939 - South Africa declares war on Germany.
September 10, 1939 - Canada declares war on Germany
September 17, 1939 - USSR invasion in Poland
September 28, 1939 - Treaty of Amity and the border between the USSR and Germany (Section Poland)
September 28, 1939 treaty of mutual assistance between Estonia and the USSR.
October 5, 1939 treaty of mutual assistance between Latvia and the USSR.
October 10, 1939 - Treaty of Mutual Assistance between Lithuania and the Soviet Union, Section of Lithuania.
October 19, 1939 - Soviet invasion of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
November 30, 1939 - the invasion of the Soviet Union to Finland.
December 14, 1939 - Soviet Union expelled from the League of Nations
March 12, 1940 - Peace treaty of the USSR - Finland
April 9, 1940 - The invasion of German troops in Denmark
May 10, 1940 - German troops invade the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium
May 14, 1940 - Holland surrenders.
May 15, 1940 - German troops invade in Amsterdam and in northern France.
May 27, 1940 - Belgium surrenders
June 10, 1940 - Italy declares war on France. Canada declares war on Italy.
June 14, 1940 - German troops enter Paris
June 15, 1940 - Soviet invasion of Lithuania,
June 17, 1940 - Soviet invasion of Estonia and Latvia.
28 June 1940 - Commissioning of Soviet troops on the territory of Bessarabia
July 1940 accession of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to the USSR
August 2, 1940 - the formation of the Moldavian SSR
September 13, 1940 - the beginning of hostilities in north Africa
October 28, 1940 - Italy declares war on Greece.
March 1, 1941 - Bulgaria joins the Axis. Germany to send troops into Bulgaria
March 25, 1941 - Yugoslavia joined the Axis.
March 27, 1941 - a coup d'état in Yugoslavia
April 5, 1941 - Treaty between the USSR and Yugoslavia, a non-aggression.
April 6, 1941 - Germany declared war on Yugoslavia and Greece. On the same day Yugoslavia declared war on Bulgaria.
April 10, 1941 - Yugoslavia declares war on Hungary.
April 13, 1941 - the USSR and Japan signed a neutrality pact.
April 17, 1941 - Surrender of Yugoslavia
April 21, 1941 - Surrender of Greece
June 15, 1941 - Croatia joins the Axis
June 22, 1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the USSR