Michal Wituschka

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Michal Apanassawitsch Wituschka ( Belarusian Міхал Апанасавіч Вітушка ; born November 5, 1907 in Nyasvish , Russian Empire ; † January 7, 1945 ) was a Belarusian politician and leader of the Black Cats , a unit of the SS hunting associations .

Life

Wituschka was born on November 5, 1907 in Nyasvish. His cousin Dzmitryi Kasmovich became chief of the Smolensk auxiliary police . Vituschka finished the Belarusian grammar school in Klezk and Vilnius . Wituschka then studied at the Charles University in Prague and at the Technical University of Warsaw . In Warsaw he was active in the Belarusian student movement. From 1939 to 1940 Wituschka was police chief in Nyasvish . In August 1941 he became the commander of the Belarusian Self-Protection Corps . He was also chief organizer of the police in Minsk. Wituschka belonged together with Winzent Hadleuski and Usewalad Rodska to the leadership of the Belarusian Independent Party founded in 1942 . From 1942 to 1943 Wituschka organized units of the Belarusian Self-Protection Corps in the Bryansk , Mahiljou and Smolensk regions . He joined the White Ruthenian Self-Help Organization and was a major in the White Ruthenian Home Guard . In addition, Wituschka took part in the Second Belarusian People's Congress. At the beginning of the summer of 1944 he became an officer in the Dallwitz airborne battalion .

Black cats

In 1944, at a meeting with the Belarusian collaborators Radaslau Astrouski , Usewalad Rodska and Mikola Abramtschyk , the officer of the Waffen-SS Otto Skorzeny decided to work together to find recruits and personnel for sabotage operations and for training infiltrators. Two SD systems were built: one in Dallwitz and another in Walbuze in East Prussia. There, the recruits were taught the use of radio links, coding, demolition and killing techniques. In Dallwitz at Insterburg which was airborne battalion Dallwitz formed. Wituschka led a thirty-person group called Black Cats , which belonged to the SS hunting associations.

In the summer and autumn of 1944, the various units of the SS-Jagdverband Ost were parachuted behind the lines of the Red Army. Wituschka himself and his black cats were dropped off east of Vilnius on November 17, 1944 . The black cats initially achieved initial successes, but after a while they were infiltrated by the NKVD . He succeeded within three months in eliminating the network of the SS Hunting Association in Belarus. The entire movement was liquidated by 1946 at the latest. While some of the paratroopers managed to escape to the west, Wituschka himself was captured and executed . According to the KGB , he is said to have been killed in combat on January 7, 1945.

Alleged activities in the post-war period

In the Belarusian nationalist hagiography , Vitushka lived on. Although most witnesses were in agreement that almost all of the anti-Soviet resistance was liquidated in 1946 and although Wituschka was already dead, he was during the Cold War , other Belarusian Nazi collaborators to Western intelligence services advertised as leader of a large anti-Soviet underground army. This partisan movement is said to have been active in the western and central parts of Belarus and Lithuania under the name Black Cats . Radaslau Astrouski , the president of the Beloruthenian Central Council, claimed 50,000 partisans were under the command of Vitushka and were scattered in the forests and depths of Belarus, where they would attack tanks, the armored police and troop patrols. The former general of the White Ruthenian Home Guard Franzischak Kuschal told the CIA that he had contacts with the Black Cats and gave details of their activities. CIA agents described the Black Cats as "a loose alliance of bandit groups with little strength to become a controlled movement" and did not trust the reliability of Kuschal's statements, especially regarding the quality and strength of the alleged guerrilla movement. Nonetheless, high-ranking US agents showed an increasing interest in the black cats in order to undermine the power of the Soviet Union . The historian Sjarhej Jorsch also reports on Vituschka's activity as the leader of an anti-Soviet guerrilla, although these claims cannot be verified.

Aftermath

Vitushka's alleged anti-Soviet partisan movement, which is said to have been active in the post-war period, continues to be heroized in Belarusian nationalist circles. On November 5, 2007, several activists of the Malady Front organization in Nyasvish were arrested by the police after celebrating Michal Wituschka's centenary. At a demonstration on March 25, 2014, activists of the Malady Front appeared with a banner on which Michal Wituschka was depicted and which carried the inscription "Heroes do not die".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Нашествие призраков прошлого, KGB press release ( Memento from May 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
  2. ↑ John Loftus : America's Nazi Secret. TrineDay LCC 2010, ISBN 978-1936296040 , p. 189
  3. ^ A b Antonio J. Munoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians. Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944. Europa Books, Bayside NY 2003, ISBN 1-891227-42-4 , pp. 452f.
  4. ^ Andrew Wilson : Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship , Yale University Press, New Haven 2012, ISBN 978-0-300-13435-3 . P. 108
  5. ^ A b Perry Biddiscombe: The SS Hunter Battalions. The Hidden History of the Nazi Resistance Movement . Tempus, Stroud 2006, p. 65.
  6. ^ Antonio J. Munoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians. Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944. Europa Books, Bayside NY 2003, ISBN 1-891227-42-4 , p. 453.
  7. ↑ John Loftus: America's Nazi Secret. TrineDay LCC 2010, p. 118
  8. ↑ a b c Perry Biddiscombe: The SS Hunter Battalions. The Hidden History of the Nazi Resistance Movement . Tempus, Stroud 2006, p. 66.
  9. ^ A b Stephen Dorrill: MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service. Simon and Schuster, 2002. p. 220
  10. ↑ John Loftus: America's Nazi Secret. TrineDay LCC 2010, p. 306
  11. ^ Antonio J. Munoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians. Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944. Europa Books, Bayside NY 2003, ISBN 1-891227-42-4 , p. 453.
  12. ↑ KUSCHEL, FRANCIS on foia.cia.gov Statements of General Franzischak Kuschal to the CIA (English)
  13. ↑ Mark Alexander: Nazi Collaborators, American Intelligence, and the Cold War. The Case of the Byelorussian Central Council. University of Vermont Graduate College Dissertations and Theses, No. 424, 2015, p. 97 ( PDF )
  14. ↑ Vadim Sidorovich: Naliboki Forest: Historical outline and ethnographical sketch. Minsk 2016, p. 1041ff.
  15. ↑ Niasvizh: Police Detain 'Young Front' Activists for Celebrating Vitushka's Birthday. In: Spring96. November 5, 2007, accessed April 22, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Малады Фронт тлумачыць, каго лічыць героямі , svaboda.mobi (Belarusian)
personal data
SURNAME Wituschka, Michal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Вітушка, Міхал Апанасавіч (Belarusian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belarusian politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Nyazvish , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1945
Place of death Soviet Union