1st Cossack Division

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1st Cossack Division

1st Cossacks Division.svg

Troop registration
active August 4, 1943 to April 1945 (surrender)
Country Flag of Germany (1935–1945) .svg German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service cavalry
Strength Most recently: 25,000
Second World War German-Soviet War
Commanders
commander Helmuth von Pannwitz
Wehrmacht Cossack, 1941

The 1st Cossack Division , also the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division , was a cavalry division of the Wehrmacht , which consisted mainly of Cossacks . The large association was set up on August 4, 1943 under its commander General Helmuth von Pannwitz from the "Pannwitz Reiterverband".

history

Among the Soviet volunteers who served in the Wehrmacht after the German attack on the Soviet Union were defected Cossack units. Both Cossack emigrants and Soviet members of the Cossack population of the annexed areas served in the German Wehrmacht. Gradually larger cavalry units and associations emerged, mainly from Don Cossacks , Kuban Cossacks and Terek Cossacks . Many Cossacks had sympathy for the German side because of their opposition to Stalinist rule. German propaganda also promised to found an independent Cossack state.

The retreat after the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad was accompanied by numerous Cossacks who served in the Wehrmacht. Since the Germans feared that the Cossack cavalry division on the Eastern Front could no longer be reliable with the beginning of the defeat, it was deployed in the Balkans .

The 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, set up in the summer of 1943 at the Mielau military training area in East Prussia , numbered around 10,000 men. It was the only major association of Cossacks in the east. The trunk of the division was made up of the Cossacks from the Kherson reception camp in the Ukraine, Cossacks from the Don, Kuban, Terek, Siberia, Transbaikalia and Ussuria. The officer and non-commissioned officer corps was formed from former prisoners of war of the Red Army and from Cossacks from western countries who had emigrated after the First World War and who had agreed to collaborate. The form of organization, armament and equipment corresponded to that of the East Prussian cavalry brigades.

In November 1944, the Waffen-SS formally took over control of all Cossack associations and started the XV. Forming Cossack Cavalry Corps from two Cossack divisions. The SS only formally exercised administrative control over the Wehrmacht Cossack troops, as these continued to be under their operational leadership.

The combat strength of all Cossack units was around 25,000 men at the end of the war and thus had corp strength, which, however, were only used in Yugoslavia to fight partisans. Members of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division carried out a large number of war crimes with looting, rape and shootings in the Yugoslav rebellion area. Other Cossacks were also used in regular infantry units after training.

At the end of February 1945 the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division was commanded by Colonel von Baath and operated in the area of ​​the 2nd Panzer Army in Croatia - breakdown:

  • Don Cossack Cavalry Regiment 1 (Colonel Wagner)
  • Siberian Cossack Cavalry Regiment 2 (Colonel Baron Ernst Gustav von Nolcken )
  • Kuban Cossack Regiment 4 (Lieutenant Colonel von Klein)
  • Cossack Artillery Regiment 1 (not established)

At the end of the war in 1945, around 35,000 Cossacks and, in addition to the combat units, their family members, the so-called Cossack Stans, fled from northern Italy to Carinthia and East Tyrol , where they were taken prisoner by the British near Lienz . The units of the XV. Cossack cavalry corps had withdrawn fighting in the Völkermarkt area in Carinthia until the end of the war . It was not until May 12, 1945 that the British army capitulated, which led to the Lienz Cossack tragedy , in which the members of the Wehrmacht and their families were handed over to the Red Army and mostly liquidated immediately. A large number of the Cossacks committed suicide before extradition.

Other Wehrmacht Cossack associations

  • Cossack Department 600 (Wehrmacht), August 1941
  • Cossack teaching and training regiment 1 (Wehrmacht), set up in August 1943, Mielau military training area
  • Volunteer (Cossack) Tribe Regiment 5 (Wehrmacht), March 17, 1944
  • Cossack Division 69 in the 3rd Cavalry Division , renamed from Cossack Division at the end of 1944
  • XV. SS Cossack Cavalry Corps, set up in Croatia on February 1, 1945, subordinate to the corps: 1st and 2nd Cossack Division, 3rd Cossack Division only partially set up. In fact, however, the SS may only have exercised purely administrative control over the Cossacks.

See also

literature

  • Harald Stadler, Martin Kofler / Karl C. Berger: Escape into hopelessness. The Cossacks in East Tyrol . Studien Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2005, ISBN 3-7065-4152-1 .
  • Klaus Christian Richter: The history of the German cavalry 1919–1945 , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, 1st edition 1978, ISBN 3-87943-603-7 .
  • Isaak Babel : The cavalry army ( Budjonny's cavalry army ) . Malik, Berlin 1926; from d. Soot. new translation, ed. u. come over. v. Peter Urban. Friedenauer Presse, Berlin 1994. (Orig. I. Babel: Konarmija. Moskva / Leningrad 1926). ISBN 3-921592-84-4 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 2. The Land Forces 1–5 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://de.rbth.com/lifestyle/2014/03/20/die_letzt_schlacht_der_kosaken_28613
  2. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller: On the side of the Wehrmacht. Hitler's foreign helpers in the “Crusade against Bolshevism” 1941–1945, Berlin, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-448-8 , pp. 207–212
  3. ↑ Military History Research Office (Ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 5/2: Organization and Mobilization of the German Sphere of Power , Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-06499-7 , p. 160