Eastern Legions

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Armenian volunteers, 1941

In contrast to the Russian Liberation Army ( Vlasov Army ), the Eastern Legions of the Second World War were units of the German Wehrmacht made up exclusively of members of the non-Russian minority peoples of the Soviet Union .

These included military associations consisting of Kalmyks , Azerbaijanis , North Caucasians , Armenians , Georgians , Turkestans , Crimean Tatars and Volga Tatars . The concept of the Eastern Legions should not be confused with that of the Eastern troops , which described the entirety of all troops from the Russian area who served in the Wehrmacht, with the exception of the Baltic and Ukrainian formations.

The number of Ostlegionnaires who switched from the Soviet to the German side is a matter of dispute. According to Soviet research, the number of volunteers did not exceed 40,000, other figures estimate it to be over 100,000.

Positioning and organization

On June 22, 1941, the German Reich began the war against the Soviet Union with the attack on the Soviet Union . At this time the formation of Russian associations or troops of minority peoples was not planned (the battalions of the " Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists " were an exception ). According to the General Plan Ost , the Soviet Union should be overthrown in a blitzkrieg and then serve as a German area of ​​exploitation and colonization. Hitler's political conception hardly allowed any cooperation with the population of the western Soviet republics, even if they asked to be allowed to take part in the fight against the Red Army .

When Operation Barbarossa failed, the Wehrmacht soon ran out of troops to carry out security tasks in the occupied territory. The military leadership therefore soon pushed to be allowed to recruit local reinforcements, which was initially only permitted to a limited extent, but with the condition that the units not be used at the front. The first Baltic units were set up from Estonian units as part of the security divisions of Army Group North to take over police tasks. Although these were subordinated to the SS in November 1941 , the Wehrmacht resorted to these units when they urgently needed reserves to stop the Soviet winter offensive. In the autumn of 1941, there were first major actions by Soviet partisans in the German hinterland. To combat this, the army groups were authorized on October 6, 1941 to recruit hundreds of Cossacks from prisoners of war to use in their own hinterland. The recruitment of these prisoners, who belonged to the Russian ethnic group, soon increased, until on March 24, 1942, Hitler's instigation, the establishment of further Russian units was prohibited.

However, this prohibition did not apply to members of the largely Muslim minority peoples of the Soviet Union. Hitler himself was much more positive towards them than towards the Russian peoples. He described them as the most reliable nations in the fight against Bolshevism with "mostly good military virtues" . After some concerns about the attitude of Turkey , the formation of troops of Christian Georgians and Armenians was finally allowed. It is unclear who was instrumental in bringing about this decision by Hitler. The historian Joachim Hoffmann suspected that this was due to efforts by the Wehrmacht and the East Ministry , which were perhaps supported by the intercession of the Turkish generals Erden and Erkilet.

The "Command of the Eastern Legions"

Infantry battalions of the "Command of the Eastern Legions in Poland"
legion 1st wave
(autumn 1942)
2nd wave
(spring 1943)
3rd wave
(autumn 1943)
total
Turkestan 6th 5 3 14th
Azerbaijani 2 4th 2 8th
North Caucasian 3 1 3 7th
Georgian 2 4th 2 8th
Armenian 2 4th 3 9
Volga Tartar 0 3 4th 7th
15th 21st 17th 53

In the course of the formation of the Hundreds to fight partisans, a first unit of various non-Russian nationals had already been set up in the area of Security Division 444 . This "Turk Battalion 444", which was deployed between Perekop and the Dnepr estuary , was the first of its kind. However, according to a guideline of the Quartermaster General in the Army General Staff of November 15, 1941, the experience of the Refer to the Foreign Office / Defense II . Abwehr II already had extensive experience in setting up non-Russian units. On their behalf there was already a training program led by Major Andreas Mayer-Mader ("Company Tiger B") for Turkestan volunteers (later Turkestan Infantry Battalion 450 ) and the Caucasian Special Association of Miners set up by Lieutenant Theodor Oberländer . The Army High Command (OKH) decided to use the Turkestan model as the basis for the establishment of the Eastern Legions . The "Tiger B company" was placed under the OKH on January 13, 1942 and Major Mayer-Mader was appointed head of the training staff.

The order of January 13, 1942 initially provided for the formation of two associations of prisoners of war in the General Government: a Turkestan legion (Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Tajiks) and a Caucasian-Mohammedan legion (Azerbaijanis, North Caucasians). An order of February 8, 1942 determined the establishment of an Armenian Legion and a Georgian Legion . On August 2, 1942 another restructuring took place. The members of the Caucasian mountain peoples were withdrawn from the Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion (later the Azerbaijani Legion ) and combined into a separate North Caucasian Legion . In addition, on August 15, 1942, an order was issued to set up a Volga Tartar legion . Thus a total of six Eastern Legions emerged in the General Government .

As early as February 18, 1942, the “Eastern Legions' Organization Staff” was formed for the organizational management of the new associations, and on January 23, 1943 it was officially called the “Eastern Legions Command” . This staff had its seat initially in Rembertów and from the summer of 1942 in Radom . The legions, whose commanders were subordinate to the commander of the Eastern Legions, were set up on the surrounding military training areas. The legions themselves were down-to-earth agencies which, equipped with permanent staff, took care of the personnel matters of the non-Russian prisoners of war and formed them into reinforced field battalions. These field battalions were then sent individually to the front. By the autumn of 1942, a first wave of 15 field battalions had been formed. Since they had major deficiencies in equipment and training, when the 2nd wave (21 field battalions) was set up in the spring of 1943, a clear improvement was worked towards. In the autumn of 1943, the 3rd wave comprised another 17 field battalions. The total of 53 field battalions that had been set up by the "Command of the Eastern Legions" in Poland meant that the German Eastern Army was strengthened by 53,000 men. In addition, four “Turk Labor Battalions” and one “Turk Labor Substitute Battalion” were created from the less qualified prisoners of war , which in turn were combined to form a separate labor association.

From mid-June 1943, the literature mentions Ernst Köstring, first as inspector of the German-commanded Turkic People's Associations (Turkistani Legion), and from January 1, 1944, this general then as the commander of all eastern “volunteer” associations in the Army High Command. On May 4, 1945, he lost this post after being captured in the West.

Eastern Legions in Ukraine

While the command of the Eastern Legions in Radom was mainly concerned with non-Russian prisoners of war from the areas of Army Groups North and Central , the area of Army Group South was initially excluded. The approximately 7,000 non-Russian prisoners were administered by the 11th Army in the Crimea , which planned to organize them into construction companies. However, the quartermaster department at OKH saw this as a waste and wanted these prisoners to be formed into combat units. Since the focus of the offensive planned for 1942 ( Blue Case ) was also to be in the south of the Eastern Front, the OKH expected a very large number of other non-Russian prisoners in this area and considered the logistical problem of transporting these prisoners to Radom and the units formed from them in turn to the front. It therefore decided to create a second command post in the area of ​​Army Group South for the establishment of the new formations.

Remaining after the war

Most of the legionaries settled in the Munich area after 1945 and were financed by the Bavarian administration or later state government and provided with permanent papers as so-called "expellees". To avoid being condemned as collaborators , they did not return to the Soviet Union. In the further course the CIA ( Bavaria belonged to the American occupation zone ) and the state government competed for influence over the group and each supported different religious factions of the fighters. The processes have been intensively researched and presented by various authors in the years since 2000.

See also

literature

Footnotes

  1. Joachim Hoffmann: The Eastern Legions 1941 - 1943 - Turkotartars, Caucasians, Volga women in the German army , Freiburg / Breisgau 1976, p. 9.
  2. ^ Federal Archives (Ed.): Europe under the swastika. Occupation and collaboration (1938-1945), eight-volume document edition, supplementary volume 1, Berlin, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-8226-2492-6 , p. 313.
  3. Joachim Hoffmann: The Eastern Legions 1941 - 1943 - Turkotartars, Caucasians, Volga women in the German army , Freiburg / Breisgau 1976, p. 25.
  4. Joachim Hoffmann: The Eastern Legions 1941 - 1943 - Turkotartars, Caucasians, Volga women in the German army , Freiburg / Breisgau 1976, p. 24.
  5. ^ Joachim Hoffmann: The Eastern Legions 1941–1943. Turkotartars, Caucasians, Volga women in the German army , Freiburg / Breisgau 1976, pp. 37–39.
  6. Bertold Spuler reported to Köstring in April 1944 and made suggestions for the training of prayer leaders and others. Similar religious cadres of lower rank for Muslim fighting groups under German command. Above all, Spuler wanted to get himself into the business for this training and was successful with it. Peter Heine has Spuler's numerous explanations; five “ Mullah courses” were numbered consecutively in 1944 and summarized: The Imam Courses of the German Wehrmacht in 1944, in Gerhard Höpp , Ed .: Foreign experiences. Asians and Africans in Germany, Austria and Switzerland until 1945. Series: Zentrum Moderner Orient, Studien, 4. Verlag Das arabische Buch, Berlin 1996. ISBN 3-86093-111-3 , pp. 229–238, here 229.
  7. Joachim Hoffmann: Die Ostlegionen 1941 - 1943. Turkotartaren, Caucasian, Volga women in the German army , Freiburg 1976, p. 59.

Web links

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