Cossacks in the German Army 1941-1945

by Samuel J. Newland

The Cossacks who wore German uniforms saw their service not as treason to the motherland, but as an episode in the revolution of 1917, part of an ongoing struggle against Moscow and against Communism. Their reward was forced repatriation into Stalin's Gulag at the hands of Western powers in 1945.

Genres: History

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samuel J. Newland's work is a finely researched study of the Russian and Soviet people who took arms and fought alongside the invading Germans in the Second World War. The book is particularly focused on the Cossacks in the German army.

The first three to four months of Operation BARBAROSSA saw only victories for the German army. Not only were vast tracts of land taken, but the German army seemed to be "tearing the vitals out of the Red Army." In the last half of July 1941, German forces succeeded in completing the encirclement of Russian forces in Smolensk, and that resulted in the capture of 300,000 POWs. The culmination of these staggering victories came in the period from August 28 to September 26, 1941, when General Ewald von Kleist and General Guderian’s Panzer Corps joined cast of Kiev. After weeks of slaughter over 650,000 Russians were captured, together with roughly 1,000 tanks and 3,000 transport vehicles.

Nevertheless, within such impressive successes the roots of defeat could also be found. German Blitzkrieg depended on speed, the experience of well-equipped units and the ability of German forces to concentrate their maximum effort on a Schwerpunkt (the mailed fist of armour and firepower). Although the Germans advanced at an unprecedented pace through the first three months of the war, smashing Soviet armies at a rate which would have mortally wounded any other European power, in fact the further they penetrated the Soviet land mass, the less able they were to "cripple the Soviet colossus," writes Newland.
When the Germans launched their offensive into Soviet territory on June 22, 1941, their forces were stretched across a front which reached from the Baltic Coast to the Rumanian frontier. This was a distance of roughly 1,500 miles. But, as the German armies moved eastward, their successes stretched the length of the battle-lines which became increasingly longer, causing logistical and transportation problems of night­marish proportions. Therefore, the crucial issue for the Russian campaign was mobilizing the manpower and equipment necessary to destroy the Red Army and to occupy the enormous land mass. The more successes the Germans had, however, and the thinner their forces were spread, the more difficult it was to mobilize the forces for final victory. Schwerpunkt became increasingly difficult to achieve due to the enormous land mass of Russia.
On top of that, as the Germans were to learn belatedly, the Soviet mobilization machinery was well-organized: once the war started, the Soviet mobilization apparatus, aided by the National Military Organization, put one million additional men into the field before July was out, and continued to mobilize more.
The German army had planned to strike Soviet Russia with maximum force, and within six to eight weeks destroy possible Soviet resistance. Due to the immense manpower and industrial capabilities of the Soviet Union, BARBAROSSA failed miserably. Con­sidering the drain on German manpower and the Soviet regenera­tive ability, the question remains as to how the Germans were able to continue this offensive for so long.
"The solution to the manpower problem is not easily found in the official policy of the Nazi party and the overall intent of the Russian campaign, at least for Hitler and the majority of the party hacks, was the destruction of the Slavic Stale and the subordination of its people. The German army, however, had to pursue a more pragmatic and less doctrinaire policy," reveals Newland. In short, the Wehrmacht, desperate for manpower, began recruiting Russian civilians and prisoners of war to fill the ranks of its depleted forces.

While today it might seem incomprehensible, considering Nazi atrocities, that any substantial number of con­quered people could welcome the advance of the German army, narrates Newland, many Ukrainians, Cossacks, Tatars, and Armenians still dreamed of autonomy, and naively believed that the German invasion offered liberation. Consequently, as the German soldiers advanced, they found a large number of Soviet people willing to welcome them. They also found out some of the Soviet soldiers facing them were willing to fight on the German side in order to bring about the destruction of the Stalinist system. The idea of sparking a massive revolt of the Soviet peoples had occurred to some German officers, even before the German attack had been launched. The year 1941, however, was not the time for open appeals for the liberation of Russia or for German planners to utilize significant numbers of Slavic soldiers in the campaign to destroy Bolshevism. "Drunk as they were with the heady wine of success", the men at the top saw no reason to change their plans for the Russian campaign, explains Newland. For the commanders at the front, on the other hand, the situation was quite different because manpower shortages only became more dire with each passing week of the campaign. Due to this desperate need for replacements and the willingness of Soviet soldiers and civilians to work with the Germans, local commanders began on their own initiative to recruit various Soviet peoples to fill their depleted units as early as the autumn of 1941.

According to the ideology of National Socialism, the Slavs were "a subhuman species", incapable of intellectual development and unable to comprehend the aspirations of Western philosophy and Western civilization. While these ideas were not universally accepted by all Germans, they did affect many. As Soviet volunteers appeared in the German ranks in increasing numbers, prejudices against Slavic peoples became increasingly evident. Despite the unwillingness of the German High Command and the Fuhrer to permit widespread recruiting of Soviet volunteers, however, their use continued throughout 1941 and dramatically increased from 1942 through 1945. Especially numerous proved to be the instances of Cossacks being recruited in the German Army.

In his brief but interesting history of the Cossack people, Newland establishes that – although the debate on their origins might never be settled – the Cossacks emerge as a noticeable group in historical accounts written after the 1400s. They acquired prominence for their role in guarding the steppes of southern Russia. While the fall of the Mongol Empire brought peace to the Russians, the Muscovite state was still subject to regular Tatar raids.
By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries two distinctive groups of Cossacks emerged on the steppes, that is, in terms of the services they performed. The first were the free Cossacks who served as guides, patrolled the steppes, and were known to turn to banditry if the need arose. They lived a free and almost nomadic existence on the steppes. The other group was the town Cossacks, in essence cavalry units based in frontier communities. These Cossacks were virtually mercenaries who fought for pay or occasionally received land grants for their services.
The traditional Cossack governmental structure centred on a local societal group called a host (voiska). Since earliest times, Cossack hosts had gathered together in a democratic style of meeting or assembly. They would discuss items of concern or questions of policy, and ultimately reach decisions by acclamation. From their number they elected an Ataman (headman) to represent the host and carry out the decisions of the assembly. As the voiskas grew in size, the Ataman utilized a council of elders, composed of former Atamans and other local leaders, to give their advice in the interim since assembly meetings were infrequent. As it slowly extended its control over the voiskas, the Russian govern­ment did not obliterate this traditional societal structure, but instead asserted its control over it – the Cossacks began to effectively serve the crown in times of civil disorder.

The Bolshevik rule proved highly unpopular among the Cossacks since the Bolsheviks stabled their horses in churches, pillaged Cossack farms for supplies, and used the Revolution as an excuse to wage their personal vendettas. The Bolsheviks had pledged recognition of the Cossacks, their military units and their traditional uniforms, but once in power they quickly forgot their pledge. Their broken promises and the privations of the early 1920s fed
the discontent in the Cossack regions. After a brief period of relief provided by the New Economic Policy, the collectivization of agriculture, beginning in 1929, brought new misery to them, narrates Newland.

Consequently, when the German army launched its offensive against the Soviet Union, there were substantial numbers of Cossacks who regarded the prospect of liberating themselves from the "Bolshevik yoke". Furthermore, the Cossack emigre communities in France, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Germany watched the German advance with enthusiasm and, from the beginning of the campaign, offered volunteers from their ranks to liberate the Cossack territories from Bolshevism.

According to Newland, it is difficult to determine when exactly the first Cossack volunteers were organized. Somewhere on the eastern front in the summer or autumn of 1941 German commanders began to use Cossack cavalry for scouting or reconnaissance purposes. As happened in so many other instances with volunteer units, success brought about an expansion of their use. Throughout 1941-42 German records indicate numerous examples of Cossack volunteer units being organized all over the eastern front. "It is important to remember that since so much of this recruitment was at least in part clandestine, it would require a total review of all German army records to ferret out every individual citation on Cossack volunteers," points out the author.
Occasionally the Germans acknowledged the assistance of their eastern volunteers. As an example, a 1943 issue of Die Wehr­macht, the official armed forces magazine, included a major article entitled “Unsere Kosaken” (“Our Cossacks”). The article featured the Cossacks fighting against the Soviet Army and the Soviet-backed partisans operating in the German rear areas. According to the article, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Tatars and Caucasians were fighting side by side with the German army against the hated Bolsheviks; the nationality that was first in its hatred of the Bolshevik system was the Cossacks.

When the 14th Panzer Corps moved into the vicinity of the River Mius, during mid-October 1941, they were surprised to find an engagement in progress behind the Red Army’s front line. Thinking that an advance German unit was trapped, they quickly pressed their attack. They found not German troops but a Russian militia unit which had attacked the Soviet Army from the rear. The militia group was commanded by 1st Lieutenant Nicholas Nazarenko, a Don Cossack who had a long-standing tradition of opposition to the Soviet regime.
An agreement was struck whereby the Cossacks could retain their identity and receive German uniforms, ammunition and supplies. Nazarenko’s unit was called the “Cossack Reconnaissance Battalion” and Nazarenko became its leader. The basic uniform issued to the battalion was German, but its members all wore a white armband with a large К (for Kosak) printed in black on the armband. Shortly thereafter, the battalion was transferred to the First Panzer Army.
In 1942, increasing numbers of Cossacks were deployed in the Wehrmacht. The reasons for the greater deployment is the original German advance into Russia (1941) had taken the Wehrmacht into the western fringes of Don Cossack territory. When Novocherkassk, the Cossack capital, fell to the advancing German army on June 22, 1942, the com­mander of Army Group South authorized the Cossacks to retain their weapons and form military units to assist the Germans.
Notably, despite the leadership shown by Cossacks such as Nicholas Nazarenko, the Germans sought to exert their leadership over the Cossacks. They did not make use of Cossacks in any major leadership role in commanding large military formations. Instead, they chose a German cavalry officer Helmuth von Pannwitz, who would become a highly significant figure in the formation of Cossack units.

Von Pannwitz had a genuine love for Slavic people and an understanding of their languages, customs and beliefs. The years he spent in Poland when he had worked closely with the peasants caused him to ignore the Nazi "inferior-people" theories and proceed with his plans to mobilize the former Soviet citizens. His choice of the Cossacks as the specific nationality he hoped to mobilize was due to the fact that the Cossacks had apparently impressed Hitler with their tradition as excellent soldiers.
When von Pannwitz was awarded the Oak Leaves for his Knight’s Cross because of his heroic actions during the encirclement of the German Army at Stalingrad, he scored himself a brief audience with Hitler, which proved to be significant – the Fuhrer indicated his knowledge of Pannwitz' activities with Cossacks and gave his implicit approval of the project. Thus, with Hitler’s apparent acceptance, the creation of a Cossack division seemed imminent.

Interestingly, Von Pannwitz was concerned not only with developing a strong combat-ready division, but also with creating cultural units which would promote the traditions of the hosts within the division. With this goal in mind, the division staff had a cultural and propaganda platoon consisting, relays Newland. This platoon was responsible for editing and publishing a weekly paper entitled Kasatschi Klitsch (The Cossack Call). A special service group worked with new recruits and gave basic political orientation and lectures on Bolshevism and its evils.
Von Pannwitz showed a good deal of wisdom with this appeal to the past in order to build a strong unified fighting unit, narrates Newland. For example, he coped with the confusion provided by Red Army agents who joined the divisions to carry out subversive activities by organizing a special unit commanded by a former Bolshevik commissar to ferret out “Red” agents.
The Cossacks themselves had some bad habits which caused concern among the German cadre – at the conclusion of a victorious battle over a village, excessive alcohol, together with the intoxication from winning a baltle, sometimes led to destruction, looting and even rape. Punishment in such instances was "swift and often severe". The Cossack troops were punished by their Cossack commanders, and death sentences and confinement to a dark cell with bread and water, were used to maintain discipline and order.

The Cossack Division engaged in several important operations in 1944 against both Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Army. In the first few days of May, 1944, the division participated in an anti-partisan sweep entitled Operation SCHACH. The aim of the operation was to clean the Petrova Gora region, which was a stronghold for Tito’s partisans.
In the summer of 1943, the Soviet army launched a powerful offensive against Rumania. This offensive caused Rumania to terminate her alliance with Germany and join the Allied cause in support of the Soviet advance. Despite Hitler’s desire to separate volunteers, including the Cossacks, from the Soviet front, the rapid Soviet advance into the Balkans brought them into pitched battles with the Cossack Division. The most significant engagement occurred on December 25, 1944 when the 133rd Soviet Infantry Division launched an attack on Pitomacha on the River Drava. Opposing the Soviet Division, the Cossack Division fought bravely and successfully.

However, it was indeed too late on all fronts. While the Cossack Division was successfully destroying the Soveit Division on the River Drava, the combined British and American armies had already gathered along the western border of Germany for the final attack "into the heart of" The Third Reich. Moreover, the Soviet army was on the eastern fringes of Germany, preparing to launch its final attack. "No amount of National Socialist optimism could alter the fact that Germany was losing the war," concludes Newland.

For the Cossack Corps, an ultimate Soviet victory brought about a major problem; given its location, it would be captured by the Red Army. Yet, even while the war was coming to an end, the Cossacks faithfully fulfilled their final duties. They supported the March 9, 1945 German offensive in Hungary by launching its own offensive against the enemy bridgehead at Volpovo on the River Drava. After this last successful counter-offensive, the Cossack Corps engaged in a number of minor actions during the month of April, and then began to prepare itself for the withdrawal from Yugoslavia.

It was felt that the Cossacks’ best chance of survival lay with the British. Although von Pannwitz sought to surrender the corps conditionally, it soon became obvious that there was no freedom for negotiations – the British expected full and unconditional surrender. On May 10, after General von Pannwitz was assured that the Cossacks would be protected from Yugoslavs, the Cossack Corps surrendered.

In the days following the surrender, von Pannwitz tried repeatedly to obtain some type of assurance from the British that his men would remain safe in Western captivity. He implored his captors either to utilize the Cossacks as an organized military unit or to hand them over to the Americans. "In every instance, in dealing with their captives, the British army was very correct and polite, but was by and large non-committal about the future of the Cossacks. The traditional responses given seemed to say wait until an official decision has been made," describes Newland.

As he further reveals, in reality, the decision for the Cossacks, Caucasians, Georgians, and a myriad of displaced persons of Soviet nationality, had already been made at the Yalta Conference, where representatives of the major Allied powers met to conclude the final strategy and the necessary agreements which would bring to a close the war in Europe. Among the problems to be resolved was the Soviet demand for the immediate return of all Soviet prisoners of war and any displaced persons of Soviet nationality caught up in the Western theatre of operations.
Therefore, negotiations between Moscow and the other Allied powers had already sealed the fate of von Pannwitz and his Cossacks.

General von Pannwitz and a number of the German officer cadre were surrendered to the NKVD at Judenburg, Austria, on May 28, 1945. The Cossack units encamped at Althofen were informed that they would be moved to Italy on May 26, 1945. The British army loaded the Cossacks into trucks and proceeded to take them to Judenburg. There they turned the Cossacks over to the NKVD and an uncertain fate.

The final, tragic episode was what happened to the members of the Cossack nation camped close to Lienz, Austria. A band of refugees who had left their homeland in early 1943, these Cossacks had been moved repeatedly since their departure with the retreating Wehrmacht following the Stalingrad disaster. On the morning of May 28, 1945 the officer corps were loaded into vehicles and transported to the Austrian village of Spittal. The next day they would be turned over to Soviet authorities.
Generally, on May 28-29 between 1,500 and 2,000 Cossack and Caucasian officers were handed over to Soviet authorities by the British army. The leadership of the Cossack Corps, both German and Cossack, perished in the hands of the NKVD. Moscow announced in 1947 that General Krasnov and General Helmuth von Pannwitz had been sentenced to death and hanged. Thus, the story of the Cossack Corps ended.

Samuel J. Newland has done a wonderful job recounting the unique, tragic episode of Cossack recruitment during World War II. "Cossacks in the German Army" is engaging and has an impressive bibliography. Recommendable for anyone who is interested in the less known incidents of WWII.