History 20/01/20 Some Cossack leaders have become traitors in the Great Patriotic
a Long time the Cossacks were a special military class, the privileged and favored by the rulers of the Russian Empire. Of course, that largely determined their sad fate after the 1917 revolution, the Cossacks lost their privileges, lands were decossackization and dekulakization, collectivization and discrimination for participation in the White movement. They replenish the category of the disfranchised, and the beginning of the great Patriotic war many Cossacks immediately become potential collaborators, ready to take up arms against the hated Soviet government. In turn, the Germans were not just happy to use the enemies of the Bolsheviks in the war against the red army, but also summed up by this special theory, according to which Cossacks are supposedly descendants of the Aryans, OST-ready, not Slavs. In the result Third Reich was able to join the ranks of their armies of the Cossack formations, the warriors who wanted to take revenge for losing the civil war. Many of the Cossacks fought for Hitler until the very end, and even in 1944, in conversations with each other wondered how they will get land in the Kuban region after the victory. Moreover, some wanted by Hitler to create then a sovereign state of the Cossacks.
part of the Cossacks fought in the German regular units, but the majority (from 70 to 100 thousand people) — in a special collaborationist formations: ROA, RONA, 1st Cossack division Russian corps, the Russian detachment of the 9th army of the Wehrmacht, etc. were the Cossacks and the most heinous and criminal divisions — the SS: the SS Volunteer regiment “Vikings”, in the 1st Russian national SS brigade “Druzhina”, in 30-th Grenadier division of the SS and in the 15th SS Cossack cavalry corps. In contrast to just parts of Russian collaborators, purely Cossack forces enjoyed the confidence of the Fuehrer as a fairly reliable. They have been used in battle nand the Eastern front, to fight the guerrillas in the Balkans and in Italy, the second front in 1944. The Germans were pleased with them, especially when the Cossacks were sent to fight against the guerrillas. General von Schenkendorff, who commanded the Cossacks in such battles, wrote with satisfaction in his diary that “the behavior of the Cossacks against the local population merciless.”
of Course, all these units are staffed officers (which is a few hundred people, at least 690, captured by the USSR in may 1945), and these people can be called Cossack atamans-SS, as the chieftains were called any of the Cossack commanders. But in the narrower sense, the chieftain is a “father” or “grandfather” (the word “ataman”, probably of Turkic origin), the head of the high-level, authoritative leader of a large number of Cossacks. And these people had two.
Cossack army ataman, General Krasnov Pyotr Nikolayevich, believed that it is necessary to fight “even with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks” and agreed to side with Hitler (with him, from among the emigrants went a few Cossack chieftains of lower rank). Once the red was a successful Russian officer, fought on the side of the whites. After their defeat, Krasnov had to emigrate. But to accept defeat, he could not. As soon as in 1941 the war began, red was one of the first welcomed the Germans. First, he agitated the Cossacks to fight against the Communists, but soon it got to the point that the red Cossacks called on all to cease to consider themselves to be Russian and start all Russian (and not only the Bolsheviks) to hate. “Remember — he said — you are not Russian, you Cossacks, independent people. Russians are hostile to you.” For many of the Cossacks Krasnov was the spiritual leader in the war against the Soviet Union. From September 1943 the chieftain was the head of the Main Department of Cossack troops of the Imperial Ministry of the occupied Eastern territories of the Third Reich, led the organizational work in the army. In may 1945 he was taken prisoner by the British and transferred to the Soviet Union. Inglorious end was already close. 19 Jan 1947 Krasnov taken prisoner by the Soviet Union and tried in Lefortovo prison as a traitor, was sentenced to death. The last word Krasnov admitted his guilt of treason and the Russian people and was sorry I did it. “I do not find their justification,” he finished. The Nazi chieftain was hanged on the same evening.
the Kuban Cossack ataman General Shkuro, Andrei Grigorevich and Krasnov, emigrated after the defeat of the White matter, in which he took part as Lieutenant-General. During the Second world war, he became a SS, so much hated skins of the Communists. In 1944, Shkuro was already appointed to command the reserve of the Cossack troops at the Main headquarters of the Waffen SS, and there he led the preparation of the Cossacks to serve in the corps of the SS. In 1945, Shkuro fled to Austria, but was also taken by the British and returned to the Soviet Union. A. G. Shkuro was sentenced to death along with Krasnov and hanged. All attempts of rehabilitation of the hanged leader in the 1990s failed, wearing SS uniform do not deserve a pardon, regardless of the motives of their actions.
Konstantin Dmitriev
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© Russian Seven
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