Shamil company
Company Schamil was the code name of a deployment of the Brandenburgers , a special unit of the Wehrmacht , which took place between August 25 and December 10, 1942 as part of the German summer offensive in the direction of the Caucasian oil fields (→ Company Edelweiss ). The company was named after Imam Shamil , who organized the resistance against the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century .
course
Deposed in Duba-Jurt , a Chechen town in the Argun Gorge, south of Grozny , the units marched northwest towards the advancing German regular troops and tried to catch the mostly Muslim Caucasus tribes, such as the Chechen groups around Hassan Israilov to incite open attacks against the central Soviet power. These groups should then be used against the Red Army , occupy strategically important points and tie up Soviet troops.
Shortly after the detachment, the group was involved in the first skirmishes with Soviet forces and withdrew in front of units of the Soviet militia and the NKVD until September 12, south towards the town of Borzoi, where Chechen resisters were located. After a detour to the village of Oschnoi deep in the Caucasus, the group began the march back to the German lines on September 25th, escaping Soviet encirclement attempts three times.
The German command was in contact with a total of two Chechen resistance groups, whose members, according to the unit leader's report written in April 1943, wanted to fight the German soldiers without further difficulties. The main objective of the company failed not because of the will of the Chechen resistance, but because of the inadequate organization of the necessary weapons supplies by the relevant Wehrmacht departments, which were not informed about the deployment. Due to the lack of weapons, the creation of the planned “second front” in the Caucasus did not materialize.
The retreat of the German forces was slow and was interrupted by another Soviet attack in early November after the command had carried out an attack on a column of motor vehicles. On December 10, 1942, the Germans finally met other units of the Wehrmacht in the village of Werchni Kurp.
consequences
The company was intended as a test case for the integration of the local anti-Soviet resistance in the conquest of the German armed forces. Due to the defeat at Stalingrad and the subsequent withdrawal from the Caucasus, the Wehrmacht initially refrained from further action in the area of the Chechen resistance. It was not until 1944 that renewed attempts were made to provoke a local uprising in Kalmykia (→ Kampfgeschwader 200 ).
The Soviet State Security Service NKVD became aware of the cooperation between Chechens and Germans. This information was used by the Politburo of the CPSU as a pretext for the deportation of the entire Chechen and Ingush population to Central Asia and the dissolution of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR on March 7, 1944.
literature
- Daniel Bohse: Is there a “second front” in the Caucasus? The deportation of the Chechens and Ingush in the years 1942–1945 and the fairy tale of the collective collaboration with the German aggressor in Halle's contributions to contemporary history , No. 9, 2001; ISSN 1433-7886 ; ( online ; PDF; 544 kB)
- Theodore Shabad: The Geography of the USSR ; Oxford University Press 1951.
- Michael Heinz: "Brandenburger" in the Caucasus. The OKW company "Schamil" 1942, M.Heinz-Verlag Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-00-057557-0
Web links
- Map and report on the Schamil company from April 27, 1943 on the website of the German Federal Archives
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The Brandenburger Command and Front Unit ( Memento of the original from March 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved from bundesarchiv.de on July 10, 2014.
- ↑ Bohse: Punishment of a “second front” in the Caucasus , p. 45.
- ↑ Shabad: The Geography of the USSR , S. 229th
