Russian Protection Corps (Wehrmacht)

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The Russian Protection Corps Serbia ( Russian Русский охранный корпус ; Serbian - Cyrillic Руски заштитни корпус ) was an armed force made up of anti-communist Russian emigrants during World War II in German-occupied Serbia .

history

Picture of the commander of the Russian Protection Corps Lieutenant General Boris Alexandrovich Schteifon

The corps was founded on September 12, 1941 by Russian emigrants under the leadership of the German military commander and the Serbian collaboration government in Belgrade . The corps was commanded by Lieutenant General Boris Alexandrowitsch Schteifon (1881-1945). From the end of 1941 to the beginning of 1944, the corps served primarily as a protection force for war-essential factories and mines in Serbia, initially under the name of the Russian Protection Corps, then as a Russian Factory Protection Group . On December 1, 1942, the corps was incorporated into the Wehrmacht and later fought against the communist-led Yugoslav partisans and anti-communist Serb Chetniks. In late 1944, it fought against the Red Army during the Soviet Belgrade offensive . The German army later withdrew to Bosnia and Lower Styria . After the death of Boris Schteifon in Zagreb , on April 30, 1945, the Russian Colonel Anatoli Rogozhin (1893–1972) took command and led his troops north to surrender to the British in southern Austria.

Unlike most of the other Russian formations that fought for Nazi Germany, Rogozhin and his men were not treated as Soviet citizens. They were released from forced repatriation to the Soviet Union, eventually released and allowed to settle in the West.

literature

  • MV Nazarov: The Mission of the Russian Emigration. Rodnik, Moscow 1994, ISBN 5-86231-172-6 .
  • IB Ivanov, NN Protopopov: Russkii Korpus Na Balkanakh Vo Vremia II Velikoi Voiny, 1941–1945: Vospominaniia Soratnikov I Documenty Sbornik Vtoroi. St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg 1999, ISBN 5-288-02307-7 .
  • Philip J. Cohen: Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (=  Eastern European studies . No. 2 ). 4th edition. Texas A&M University Press, 1999, The Russian Corps, pp. 49 f .