History 10/01/20 Volunteer regiment “Vikings”: how Russian immigrants fought in the SS
during the Second world war, the Nazis formed of Russian emigrants of several collaborationist connections. One of them – SS volunteer regiment “Vikings”, which was headed by the most intransigent whites who settled in Yugoslavia.
Immigrants against Partizan
the pre-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a leading center of the white Russian emigration, and in Belgrade settled the most “right”, the monarchist-minded refugees from Russia. According to 1937 the country’s population of 27 thousand Russian.
After the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Third Reich, the Germans decided to use militant anti-communism immigrants. Still the sympathy between the Russians and the Serbs by that time because of political turmoil came to naught. Huge number of former whites joined the Russian guard corps of the Wehrmacht to fight with the Communist partisans of Josip Broz Tito. However, views of immigrants had the authority of Heinrich Himmler, aimed at attracting the “Legionnaires” of all the European Nations.
the Prehistory of the regiment “Vikings” (in German Warager) began in March 1942, when Serbia was established, the battalion of auxiliary police.
“Creating this part was the result of the “competitors” of the Wehrmacht – the SS, or rather the commander of the police forces and the SS in Serbia gruppenführer August Meissner, who expressed dissatisfaction prevailed in the Russian spirit ROCK, monarchist and insufficiently loyal to the Nazi ideology,” writes researcher Alexey Timofeev in the book “Russian factor. The second world war in Yugoslavia”.
a battalion Commander was appointed Mikhail Semenov, a former officer of the Volunteer army, which is one of the last in 1920 evacuated from the Crimea. He was standing on a very anti-Bolshevik positions, leading Monarchist Association in Osijek. Occupants trust was unsuccessful because, among other things, he was listed as “Volksdeutsche”. Proving the existence of “German roots”, Semenov joined the volunteer SS division “Prinz Eugen”.
the newly formed battalion consisted of 500 to 600 people. The German command was the idea to drop them off in Novorossiysk, to help the Wehrmacht to seize the black sea coast. However sending a battalion to the Eastern front fell. Fighters Semenova remained in Yugoslavia, performing the same functions as protective casing. Almost the entire war they fought with Tito’s partisans and was responsible for order in the Yugoslav cities.
Calling the “Varyag”
in the Autumn of 1944 to Slovenia from Silesia were transferred to a separate Cossack battalion, commanded by SS-hauptsturmführer Gennady Grinyov. Combining five hundred Cossacks from the emigrant battalion, the Germans formed a full regiment of the SS, called “first special”. It was headed by the same “background Semenov”, received the rank of standartenfuhrer. Green became his Deputy.
the number of the regiment due to the involvement of Soviet POWs, whom the recruiters were found in neighboring Austria, was brought in February 1945 to 2.5 thousand people. The structural position of the division was very strange. It supply took place according to the Waffen SS, but at the same time, “Vikings” wore the insignia of the Russian liberation army. Formally they were subordinated to major General Anton Turkolu – the former commander of the Drozdovsky division Wrangel, who during the Second world war was supported by General Vlasov.
to Fight with the red Army immigrants-SS did not have. Firing from the guerrillas of Tito in the spring of 1945, they went from Macao to Italy, where he surrendered to the British. Subsequently, the fate of the soldiers of the regiment were different. Prisoners of war were issued by the Soviet Union, immigrants also escaped repatriation, however, and any penalty for service in the SS. The British treated them the same as other soldiers of the Russian corps, which “Varyag” was joined in the laste days of the war. Semenov himself was in the American occupation zone, where he maintained ties with the Russian monarchists. In Brazil, where standartenführer moved in his later years, he continued to engage in public and political activities. Died Mikhail Semenov in 1965 at the age of 71.
Timur Sagdiyev
Source:
© Russian Seven
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