Michas Hanko

Michas Ganko

Michas Hanko ( Belarusian Міхась Ганько ; born February 28, 1918 in Kaledsino , Vilnius Governorate ; † after 1947) was a Belarusian political activist, head of the Belarusian youth service and officer of the Dallwitz airborne battalion .

Life

Michas Hanko was studying medicine at Vilnius University when the German-Soviet War broke out in 1941 and he was drafted into the Red Army . Hanko was captured and freed by the Germans after being recruited by Fabijan Akintschyz , the leader of the Belarusian National Socialist Party . Hanko was sent to a German propaganda school and returned to Minsk in early 1942 to work in the propaganda department of the General Commissariat. From June 22, 1943 he was head of the Belarusian Youth Office , a youth organization oriented towards the Hitler Youth and editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Žyve Belarus" ("Long live Belarus"). Hanko was a participant in the Second Belarusian People's Congress and maintained very close ties with the German occupying forces. In early 1945, when the war was clearly lost, he changed his mind about full collaboration with the Third Reich, feeling that independence from Belarus needed a more independent approach. Hanko served in the Dallwitz airborne battalion and wrote for its newspaper "Smagar" (fighter). In May 1945 he found himself on Czech territory, his future fate after the dissolution of the Dallwitz airborne tapestry remains uncertain. According to one report, he is said to have returned to the BSSR to fight in an anti-communist guerrilla until 1947. After that, he is said to have fled to the West, although there is no reliable evidence.

Individual evidence

1. ^ 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. 452