The Russians are on Hitler's side. Wehrmacht special purpose divisions

1. As of June 22, 1941 tank forces The USSR was superior to the Germans by 4 times, aviation - by 5 times. The amount of artillery was overwhelming. Reports with reference to ermalex76.livejournal.com

Soviet tanks of the old modification were superior in their characteristics to their German counterparts. The T-34 and KV-1 tanks had no analogues in Hitler's Germany and were the horror of the German army; American technology was used in their production. The USSR was waiting for war and preparing for it.

2. In six months of fighting, the Germans managed to destroy all the tank armadas of the USSR: if in June 1941 the USSR had over 20 thousand tanks, then in December there were barely 900 of them on the entire eastern front.

3. German aces The Luftwaffe had 200-300 shot down Soviet planes, while the most famous Soviet ace, Ukrainian Kozhedub, had about 60 shot down German planes, the rest even less.

4. During the war years, 1,700 cities were destroyed on the territory of the USSR.

5. As a result of the fighting, 70 thousand Soviet villages were burned. Many were never reborn

6. 27 million died Soviet citizens.

7. 3-5 million people went missing. Those who survived fled anywhere abroad, just not to the USSR.

8. The lion's share of losses in the war (40% in industry, 25% among soldiers, 15% in general human losses) fell on Ukraine. It was for the colossal losses that Ukraine was given a seat in the UN (the official wording during the formation of the UN General Assembly)

9. In the first six months of the war alone, almost 4 million Soviet soldiers and officers surrendered to the Germans (as of June 1941, there were 5.3 million soldiers in the Red Army, that is, almost the entire personnel army created to participate in World War II surrendered , the rest were in Transcaucasia and the Far East).

10. The total number of Soviet soldiers and officers who surrendered during the war years was about 6 million (almost the same number Germany lost killed on all fronts).

11. According to the NKVD-MGB, from German soldiers and officers, 3 million children were born on the territory of the USSR. And this is only the data taken into account (many of the “German” children were recorded by their mothers as “Soviet”).

12. The total number of Russian and Soviet citizens who took up arms in the war against the USSR is up to 3 million people, many of whom previously served in the Red Army.

13. Only in 1944, a record number of 1 million Russian volunteers signed up for the Wehrmacht to jointly fight against Soviet “liberation.” These were not special, not elite units. These were actually military units people's militia. Many of them, after “liberation”, went into the forests and continued to fight as “forest brothers” in the territory of Belarus and the Baltic States... Many went to the West...

14. In addition to the “militia,” “ideological” Russian units fought against the USSR. They fought under Russian tricolors and St. George's ribbons. Among them:

1st Russian National Army

Russian Corps

Muravyov's battalion

1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina"

Russian People's National Army

29th SS Division (Russian First) (Russian People's Liberation Army)

30th SS Division (Second Russian)

Russian Liberation Army

SS Regiment "Varyag"

SS Regiment "Desna"

Russian personnel in the SS division "Charlemagne"

Russian personnel in the SS division "Dirlewanger"

Zuev's squad

15. Russian soldiers fought on Hitler’s side, including in the elite SS troops under the leadership of:

- outstanding figure anti-Bolshevik struggle of General Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov (chief of the Main Directorate Cossack troops),

- Shkuro Andrei Grigorievich (camping ataman of the Cossack camp, SS Gruppenführer),

- Helmut von Pannwitz (Supreme Ataman of the Cossack camp, SS Gruppenführer),

- Pavlov Sergei Vasilyevich (camping ataman of the Cossack camp),

- Domanov Timofey Nikolaevich (campaign ataman of the Cossack camp, major general of the Wehrmacht),

- Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminsky (29th SS Grenadier Division, later RONA (Russian People's Liberation Army).

Russian soldiers under the leadership of:

- General Andrei Andreevich Vlasov (ROA - Russian Liberation Army);

- Shteifon Boris Alexandrovich, commander of the Russian Security Corps;

- Sultan-Girey Klych Shakhanovich (Caucasian division).

16. In addition to individual Russian divisions, consisting of German Wehrmacht every division that fought in Eastern Front, already in 1942 had at least 15% of Russian volunteers total number up to a million people - the so-called HiVs (HilsWillige - “volunteer assistants”), and divisions such as the 707th and 442nd were practically Russian in composition, having Germans only as commanders.

17. In addition, in addition to HiVi, the Wehrmacht had big number separate “eastern battalions” that were part of the “Eastern Troops” of the Wehrmacht. All of them were made up of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and many dozens of other nationalities of Russia.

18. As part of the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht, Colonel General F. Paulus, surrounded in Stalingrad, and numbering 220 thousand people - almost every fourth, more than 50 thousand people - was a Russian volunteer. The volunteer division “von Stumpfeld”, composed of them, rushed into the most dangerous sectors of the front in the Stalingrad cauldron and stopped resistance only after the surrender of the entire group.

19. Russians also fought in all the most elite German SS troops: “Adolf Hitler”, “Reich”, “Totenkopf”, “Wallonia”, “Viking”, “Charlemagne”, “Nibelungen”, as well as the elite division “Greater Germany” "

20. In total, about 40 Russian military-political volunteer organizations are known (not counting Belarusian and national men), which set as their goal the destruction of the USSR and were aligned with an alliance with Germany:

Muravyov's battalion

Fighting Union of Russian Nationalists

Brotherhood of Russian Truth

Higher German school for Russian officers

Division "Russia" also - Division "Russland"

SS Volunteer Regiment "Varyag"

Green Army special purpose

Cossack Stan

Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR)

Lokot Republic

People's Socialist Party

People's Labor Union of Russian Solidarists

Zeppelin Organization

Republic of Zueva

RONA

Russian Imperial Union-Order

Russian Civil Auxiliary Police,

Sevastopol

Russian Corps

Russian detachment of the 9th Army of the Wehrmacht

Russian National Labor Party

Russian Fascist Party

Hivi

Russian auxiliary police (Schutzmannschaft)

28th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division "Wallonia"

15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps

1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina", also known as 1st Russian National SS Detachment

29th SS Grenadier Division (Russian Nr.1)

30th SS Grenadier Division (2nd Russian)

VVS KONR (VVS ROA)

1st Division ROA / VS KONR (600-infantry division of the Wehrmacht)

2nd Division ROA/AF KONR (650th Infantry Division)
600th Russian Wehrmacht Division

602nd Ost-battalion

645th Battalion

ROND/RNSD

Russian Guard fascist party

Corps of the Russian Monarchist Party "Russen" (Russia) - news and propaganda agency

21. The largest association of former Russian citizens who fought during WWII - the Polish anti-communist Home Army - numbered over 300 thousand people (Poland until 1915 was part of the Russian Empire for a hundred years, AK soldiers were born in Russia) was defeated by the communists at the hands of Hitler during the time of the Warsaw Uprising.

22. The SS division “Galicia” (“Galicia”), unlike Russian formations, is not a collaborator. The soldiers of "Galicia" have never been Russian citizens, nor Soviet.

23. The USSR was considered a vassal of Germany, which financed it. Tukhachevsky's conspiracy had the goal of overthrowing the stubborn imperial Stalin and transferring power in the country to the pro-German government. The conspiracy was exposed with the help of British intelligence.

24. Having entered the war with the USSR, Hitler was counting on a quick campaign, which was supposed to end with the overthrow of Stalin through a coup in Moscow. The seizure of Ukraine and Belarus was agreed with the conspirators. Hitler waited for a coup in Moscow until the beginning of 1944.

25. Stalin knew about Hitler’s attack at least four days in advance. The order to put troops on combat readiness was given on June 18. However, four days later the directive was not communicated to the division commanders.

26. The actions of a number of commanders of the Red Army in June 41 went against the war plan. Instead of planned attacks from prepared fortified areas on the flanks and rear of the advancing German troops, commanders give groundless orders to retreat, abandoning equipment along the way.

27. Greatest threat German army represented 6 tank corps Red Army, which consisted of 300 KV-1 and T-34 tanks. The Germans did not have the forces capable of fighting him. But the corps was withdrawn to the rear, where it ran out of fuel along the way. The threat to the German army ceased to exist without a single shot being fired.

28.V Brest Fortress, contrary to the repeated demands of the General Staff for six months (!), two divisions were concluded and found themselves trapped. The army hospital was completely removed from the front line - the hospital was located on an island in the middle of the Neman, actually on German territory... The history of the Brest Fortress is a story of shame and betrayal.

29. Immediately after the start of the war, Stalin changed the commander of the Moscow military district, and the “collective junta” imposed on him - the GKO - never assembled. On paper State Committee was a defense, but in fact Stalin forbade its members to gather together...

30. Western Ukraine, from the point of view international law, was not part of Poland, since the Versailles system determined eastern border Poland along the Curzon Line. Western Ukrainian people's republic was proclaimed simultaneously with the Polish one on November 1, 1918, and on January 21, 1919, it became part of the conciliar Ukraine. While the Poles and the Bolsheviks were sorting out their relations, the West did not interfere, but as soon as the Red Army crossed the “Curzon Line” in 1920, it followed military intervention Entente, as a result of which the Red Army suffered a crushing defeat on the approaches to the former Russian city- Warsaw.

31. Western Ukraine was occupied by Poland in 1921. Ukrainian soldiers were imprisoned in concentration camps, and in western Ukraine they created occupation regime- the so-called “rehabilitation mode”. The only one who recognized and legalized this occupation was the USSR, which thus intended to shake up the situation in Poland from the inside and, after its weakening, seize the Privislensky region - a former province of the Russian Empire.

32. Poland justified its occupation of western Ukraine in the West by the need to protect against the threat of Bolshevism. The West turned a blind eye to this, but did not legally recognize it. That is why the activists of “Galicia” were not considered collaborators and were not subject to extradition to either the USSR or Poland. Ukrainians were given the opportunity to emigrate under a protection program to the United States.

33. Stalin, when he entered the war against Poland in 1939 on the side of Hitler, acted as a defender of the Versailles system, because he appealed to the right of Ukrainians to their own state. That is why in September 1939, Stalin, unlike Hitler, was not recognized by the West as an aggressor (he was recognized as an aggressor after the attack on Finland), because formally Western Ukraine joined to the Ukrainian state- Ukrainian SSR.

34. Ideology of the OUN (Organizations Ukrainian nationalists) was created by a Russian nobleman from Melitopol Dmitry Dontsov.

35. The goal of the OUN was to restore an independent Ukraine within the officially recognized borders of 1918-1919. At first they fought against the Soviet and Polish occupation with the help of Germany. When it became clear that Hitler was not going to give independence to Ukraine, the OUN opposed the Reich - the only case of this kind during the entire Second World War.

36. Stepan Bandera never fought for Hitler. At the beginning of the war he was imprisoned in German concentration camp Sachsenhaus. They released him only in September 1944, exhausted mentally and physically. Subsequently, Bandera lived in the American zone of occupation.

37. Stepan Bandera's two brothers were imprisoned in Auschwitz, where they were executed by the Nazis. The third brother was liquidated by Nazi agents.

38. Stepan Bandera's father was captured at home by the NKVD and shot at the beginning of the war.

39. In the “Ukrainian Legion” - the formation of the Wehrmacht in 1941-42 - Ukrainians served under contract. After the expiration of the one-year contract, the Legion soldiers refused to renew it due to persecution by Bandera. After which they were not shot, not convicted, but... released into civilian life...

40. Ukrainian Rebel Army was created on Pokrov. The celebration of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary is the main distinctive holiday of the Orthodox world. In this way, the OUN members demonstrated their struggle against the satanic regimes in the Kremlin and Berlin. Now it is the day of the Ukrainian Army.

41. Cells and detachments of the OUN-UPA in underground conditions acted exclusively in a network way - they were connected not by leadership, but by ideas. This ensured a constant influx of volunteers fighting for the ideas of building a new society. Cells are spread throughout Ukraine, not only western Ukraine.

42. “Young Guard” in Krasnodon - an OUN-UPA cell that united young people with the ideas of a free Ukraine. Young Guards, as children, witnessed one of the most inhumane crimes of the communist regime - the Holodomor, when thousands of Donbass peasants were destroyed by artificial famine.

43. On Yalta Conference(February '45) Churchill wrote that Stalin's position in Ukraine was uncertain. The people, “liberated” from Hitler, refuse to recognize Soviet power. Mass cases disobedience from Odessa to Lvov...

44. In 1945, after the victory in Germany, the UN began to restore pre-war borders. To consolidate his takeovers of 1939-40, Stalin proclaimed Ukraine (as well as Belarus) as founding members of the UN. Thus, it turned out that it was not the USSR that seized Polish lands, but Ukraine, as a member of the UN, restored its sovereignty of 1918. In the same way, Ukraine regained Transcarpathia - as a member country of the UN and a participant in the Versailles system. International law has recognized this legal justification as correct.

45. In the 50s, the United States excluded Ukraine from the list of targets nuclear bombings in case of war with the USSR, since Ukraine is a separate subject of international law from the USSR, despite the fact that it was stuffed to the brim with troops and weapons.

46. After the collapse of the USSR, no one disputes the sovereignty of Ukrainian territories, since Ukraine is one of the heirs of Austria-Hungary (1918) and the founder of the world order since 1945. Despite all the calls and promises from Moscow, no one joined the deriban. The reason is legitimacy.

47. The USSR suffered so much in the war with Germany and the rebel peoples huge losses that he never recovered from them. Ultimately, the victorious country collapsed, and defeated Germany, on the contrary, recovered.

48. Soviet Union was destroyed by the Russian Federation. On June 12, 1990, the Russian Federation announced its secession from the USSR, which launched a “parade of sovereignties.” Next year- this is the agony of the USSR in the fight against the RSFSR.

49. In 1991 Russian Federation takes it for himself fascist symbol- the Vlasov tricolor, under which Hitler’s collaborators fought.

50. In 2005 official symbol“Victory” over “fascism” becomes the St. George ribbon, which was the official symbol of the Russian fascist party and all Russian collaborators of Hitler.

51. The future conquerors of Europe - German pilots and tank crews - trained at military bases created by Germany on the territory of the USSR. Germany was prohibited from developing its armed forces, so they were developed abroad on the territory of the USSR.

52. The National Socialists came to power in Germany with the help of Stalin, according to the concept of world socialist revolution, i.e., the plan for a hybrid conquest of the world, developed in the USSR after the failure of the campaign in Europe in 1920 and the collapse of the socialist revolutions in Bavaria and Hungary... Hitler is a participant in the socialist revolution in Bavaria, and Mussolini is a participant in the socialist movement in Italy.

53. The technology for promoting ISIS completely copies the technology for bringing the Nazis to power. Help the radicals in order to use them as an icebreaker for the collapse of the world order, and then become good police officers and gain the sympathy of the world. Just as there was an imitation of the struggle against the National Socialists in the 20s and 30s, so now fake threats are being made against ISIS. At the same time, FSB officers supervise and develop ISIS cells on Russian territory.

54. The formations of Kovpak and the UPA acted together in raids in the Carpathians against the Nazis in 1943; Commissar Rudnev was a supporter of the union, for which Soviet agents liquidated him.

55. Stalin personally never celebrated “Victory Day,” and since 1947 he forbade mentioning it at all.

According to some, during the Great Patriotic War, a million Soviet citizens went to fight under the tricolor flag. Sometimes they even talk about two million Russians who fought against the Bolshevik regime, but they probably also count 700 thousand emigrants. These figures are cited for a reason - they serve as an argument for the assertion that the Great Patriotic War is the essence of the Second Civil War of the Russian people against the hated Stalin. What can I say?

If it really happened that a million Russians stood under the tricolor banners and fought tooth and nail against the Red Army for a free Russia, shoulder to shoulder with their German allies, then we would have no choice but to admit that yes, the Great Patriotic War really became the Second Civil War for the Russian people. But was it so?

To figure it out this way or not, you need to answer several questions: how many of them were there? who were they? How did they get into the service? how and with whom did they fight? and what motivated them?

The cooperation of Soviet citizens with the occupiers took place in different forms, both in terms of the degree of voluntariness and the degree of involvement in the armed struggle - from the Baltic SS volunteers who fought fiercely near Narva, to the “Ostarbeiters” forcibly driven to Germany. I believe that even the most stubborn anti-Stalinists will not be able to enroll the latter in the ranks of fighters against the Bolshevik regime without crooking their souls. Typically, these ranks include those who received rations from the German military or police department, or held weapons received from the hands of the Germans or pro-German local government.

That is, the maximum number of potential fighters against the Bolsheviks includes:

foreign military units of the Wehrmacht and SS;

eastern security battalions;

Wehrmacht construction units;

Wehrmacht support personnel, they are also “our Ivans” or Hiwi (Hilfswilliger: “voluntary assistants”);

auxiliary police units (“noise” - Schutzmannshaften);

border guard;

“air defense assistants” mobilized to Germany through youth organizations;

HOW MANY ARE THERE?

We will probably never know the exact numbers, since no one really counted them, but some estimates are available to us. A lower estimate can be obtained from the archives of the former NKVD - until March 1946, 283,000 “Vlasovites” and other collaborators in uniform were transferred to the authorities. The upper estimate can probably be taken from Drobyazko’s works, which serve as the main source of figures for proponents of the “Second Civil” version. According to his calculations (the method of which he unfortunately does not disclose), the following passed through the Wehrmacht, SS and various pro-German paramilitary and police forces during the war years:

250,000 Ukrainians

70,000 Belarusians

70,000 Cossacks

150,000 Latvians

90,000 Estonians

50,000 Lithuanians

70,000 Central Asians

12,000 Volga Tatars

10,000 Crimean Tatars

7,000 Kalmyks

40,000 Azerbaijanis

25,000 Georgians

20,000 Armenians

30,000 North Caucasian peoples

Since the total number of all former Soviet citizens who bore German and pro- German uniform, they estimate at 1.2 million, then the share of Russians (excluding Cossacks) remains about 310,000 people. There are, of course, other calculations that give a smaller total number, but let’s not waste time on trifles, let’s take Drobyazko’s estimate from above as the basis for further reasoning.

WHO WERE THEY?

Hiwi and construction battalion soldiers can hardly be considered civil war fighters. Of course, their work freed up German soldiers for the front, but this also applies to the “ostarbeiters” to the same extent. Sometimes hiwi received weapons and fought alongside the Germans, but such cases in the unit's combat logs are described more as a curiosity than as a mass phenomenon. It is interesting to count how many there were who actually held weapons in their hands.

The number of hiwi at the end of the war Drobiazko gives about 675,000, if we add construction units and take into account the loss during the war, then I think we will not be much mistaken in assuming that this category covers about 700-750,000 people out of a total of 1.2 million. This is consistent with with the share of non-combatants among the Caucasian peoples, in the calculation presented by the headquarters eastern troops at the end of the war. According to him, of the total number of 102,000 Caucasians who passed through the Wehrmacht and SS, 55,000 served in the legions, Luftwaffe and SS and 47,000 in hiwi and construction units. It should be taken into account that the share of Caucasians enrolled in combat units was higher than the share of Slavs.

So, out of 1.2 million who wore a German uniform, only 450-500 thousand did this while holding a weapon. Let's now try to calculate the layout of the actual combat units of the eastern peoples.

75 Asian battalions (Caucasians, Turks and Tatars) were formed (80,000 people). Taking into account 10 Crimean police battalions (8,700), Kalmyks and special units, there are approximately 110,000 “combat” Asians from total amount 215,000. This completely hits the Caucasians separately with the layout.

The Baltic states endowed the Germans with 93 police battalions (later partly consolidated into regiments), with a total number of 33,000 people. In addition, 12 border regiments (30,000) were formed, partly staffed by police battalions, followed by three SS divisions (15, 19 and 20) and two volunteer regiments, through which perhaps 70,000 people passed. Police and border regiments and battalions were partly recruited to form them. Taking into account the absorption of some units by others, a total of about 100,000 Balts passed through the combat units.

In Belarus, 20 police battalions (5,000) were formed, of which 9 were considered Ukrainian. After the introduction of mobilization in March 1944, police battalions became part of the army of the Belarusian Central Rada. In total, the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKA) had 34 battalions, 20,000 people. Having retreated in 1944 along with German troops, these battalions were consolidated into the Siegling SS Brigade. Then, on the basis of the brigade, with the addition of Ukrainian “policemen”, the remnants of the Kaminsky brigade and even the Cossacks, the 30th SS Division was deployed, which was later used to staff the 1st Vlasov Division.

Galicia was once part of Austro-Hungarian Empire and was seen as potentially German territory. It was separated from Ukraine, incorporated into the Reich as part of the General Government of Warsaw and put on the waiting list for Germanization. On the territory of Galicia, 10 police battalions (5,000) were formed, and subsequently a recruitment of volunteers for the SS troops was announced. It is believed that 70,000 volunteers showed up at the recruiting sites, but so many were not needed. As a result, one SS division (14th) and five police regiments were formed. Police regiments were disbanded as needed and sent to replenish the division. Galicia's total contribution to the victory over Stalinism can be estimated at 30,000 people.

In the rest of Ukraine, 53 police battalions (25,000) were formed. It is known that a small part of them became part of the 30th SS Division, the fate of the rest is unknown to me. After the formation in March 1945 of the Ukrainian analogue of the KONR - the Ukrainian National Committee - the Galician 14th SS Division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian and the formation of the 2nd began. It was formed from volunteers Ukrainian nationality recruited from various auxiliary formations, they recruited about 2,000 people.

About 90 security “ostbattalions” were formed from Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, through which approximately 80,000 people passed, including the “Russian National People’s Army”, which was reformed into five security battalions. Among other Russian military formations, one can recall the 3,000-strong 1st Russian national brigade of the SS Gil (Rodionov), which went over to the side of the partisans, the approximately 6,000-strong “Russian National Army” of Smyslovsky and the army of Kaminsky (“Russian Liberation People’s Army”), which arose as so-called self-defense forces Lokot Republic. Maximum scores the number of people who passed through Kaminsky’s army reaches 20,000. After 1943, Kaminsky's troops retreated along with German army and in 1944 an attempt was made to reorganize them into the 29th SS Division. For a number of reasons, the reformation was canceled, and the personnel were transferred to complete the 30th SS Division. At the beginning of 1945, the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Vlasov army) were created. The first army division is formed from the "ostbattalions" and the remnants of the 30th SS division. The second division is formed from “ost battalions”, and partly from volunteer prisoners of war. The number of Vlasovites before the end of the war is estimated at 40,000 people, of which about 30,000 were former SS men and former battalions. In total, the Wehrmacht and SS fought with weapons in their hands in different time about 120,000 Russians.

The Cossacks, according to Drobyazko’s calculations, fielded 70,000 people, let’s accept this figure.

HOW DID THEY GET INTO SERVICE?

Initially, the eastern units were staffed with volunteers from among prisoners of war and local population. Since the summer of 1942, the principle of recruitment of the local population has changed from voluntary to voluntary-forced - an alternative to voluntary joining the police is forced deportation to Germany, as an “Ostarbeiter”. By the fall of 1942, undisguised coercion began. Drobyazko, in his dissertation, talks about raids on men in the Shepetivka area: those caught were offered a choice between joining the police or being sent to a camp. Since 1943, mandatory military service in various “self-defense” units of the Reichskommissariat “Ostland”. In the Baltic states, SS units and border guards were recruited through mobilization since 1943.

HOW AND WHO DID THEY FIGHT?

Initially, the Slavic eastern units were created for security service. In this capacity, they were supposed to replace the Wehrmacht security battalions, which were sucked out of the rear zone like a vacuum cleaner by the needs of the front. At first, soldiers of the eastern battalions guarded warehouses and railways, but as the situation became more complicated, they began to be involved in anti-partisan operations. The involvement of the eastern battalions in the fight against the partisans contributed to their disintegration. If in 1942 the number of “ost-battalion members” who went over to the partisan side was relatively small (although this year the Germans were forced to disband the RNNA due to massive defections), then in 1943 14 thousand fled to the partisans (and this is very, very a lot, with average number eastern parts in 1943 about 65,000 people). The Germans did not have any strength to observe the further decomposition of the eastern battalions, and in October 1943 the remaining eastern units were sent to France and Denmark (disarming 5-6 thousand volunteers as unreliable). There they were included as 3 or 4 battalions in the regiments of the German divisions.

Slavic eastern battalions, with rare exceptions, were not used in battles on the eastern front. Unlike them significant amount Asian Ostbattalions were involved in the first line of advancing German troops during the Battle of the Caucasus. The results of the battles were contradictory - some performed well, others, on the contrary, turned out to be infected with deserter sentiments and produced a large percentage of defectors. By the beginning of 1944, most of the Asian battalions also found themselves on the Western Wall. Those who remained in the East were brought together into the Eastern Turkic and Caucasian SS formations and were involved in the suppression of the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings.

In total, by the time of the Allied invasion, 72 Slavic, Asian and Cossack battalions had been assembled in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with a total number of about 70 thousand people. In general, the remaining battalions performed poorly in battles with the allies (with some exceptions). Out of almost 8.5 thousand. irrecoverable losses, 8 thousand were missing, that is, most of them were deserters and defectors. After this, the remaining battalions were disarmed and involved in fortification work on the Siegfried Line. Subsequently, they were used to form units of the Vlasov army.

In 1943, Cossack units were also withdrawn from the east. The most combat-ready formation of the German Cossack troops is the 1st, formed in the summer of 1943. Cossack division von Panwitz went to Yugoslavia to deal with Tito's partisans. There they gradually gathered all the Cossacks, expanding the division into a corps. The division took part in battles on the Eastern Front in 1945, fighting mainly against the Bulgarians.

The Baltic States gave greatest number troops to the front - in addition to three SS divisions, separate police regiments and battalions took part in the battles. The 20th Estonian SS Division was defeated near Narva, but was subsequently restored and managed to take part in last battles war. The Latvian 15th and 19th SS divisions came under attack from the Red Army in the summer of 1944 and could not withstand the blow. Reported on a large scale desertion and loss of combat effectiveness. As a result, the 15th Division, having transferred its most reliable composition to the 19th, was withdrawn to the rear for use in the construction of fortifications. The second time it was used in battle was in January 1945, in East Prussia, after which it was again withdrawn to the rear. She managed to surrender to the Americans. The 19th remained in Courland until the end of the war.

Belarusian policemen and those freshly mobilized into the BKA in 1944 were collected in the 30th SS Division. After its formation, the division was transferred to France in September 1944, where it took part in battles with the Allies. Carried big losses, mainly from desertion. Belarusians ran over to the allies in droves and continued the war in Polish units. In December, the division was disbanded, and the remaining personnel were transferred to staff the 1st Vlasov Division.

The Galician 14th SS Division, barely sniffing gunpowder, was surrounded near Brody and almost completely destroyed. Although she was quickly restored, she no longer took part in battles at the front. One of her regiments was involved in suppressing the Slovak uprising, after which she went to Yugoslavia to fight Tito’s partisans. Since Yugoslavia is not far from Austria, the division managed to surrender to the British.

The KONR armed forces were formed in early 1945. Although the 1st Vlasov division was staffed almost entirely by punitive veterans, many of whom had already been to the front, Vlasov brainwashed Hitler by demanding more time for preparation. In the end, the division still managed to move to the Oder Front, where it took part in one attack against Soviet troops April 13. The very next day, the division commander, Major General Bunyachenko, ignoring the protests of his German immediate superior, withdrew the division from the front and went to join the rest of Vlasov’s army in the Czech Republic. The Vlasov army carried out the second battle against its ally, attacking on May 5 German troops in Prague.

WHAT MOVED THEM?

The driving motives were completely different.

Firstly, among the eastern troops one can distinguish national separatists who fought to create their own nation state or at least a privileged province of the Reich. This includes the Baltic states, Asian legionnaires and Galicians. The creation of parts of this kind has a long tradition - just remember Czechoslovak Corps or the Polish Legion in the First World War. These would fight against the central government, no matter who sat in Moscow - the tsar, the secretary general or the popularly elected president.

Secondly, there were ideological and stubborn opponents of the regime. This may include the Cossacks (although their motives were partly national-separatist), part of the personnel of the eastern battalions, and a significant part of the officer corps of the KONR troops.

Thirdly, we can name opportunists who bet on the winner, those who joined the Reich during the victories of the Wehrmacht, but fled to the partisans after the defeat at Kursk and continued to run away at the first opportunity. These probably made up a significant part of the eastern battalions and local police. There were some from that side of the front, as can be seen from the change in the number of defectors to the Germans in 1942-44:

1942	79,769
1943	26,108
1944	9,207

Fourthly, these were people who hoped to break out of the camp and, at a convenient opportunity, go to their own. It’s hard to say how many of these there were, but sometimes there were enough for a whole battalion.

AND WHAT DOES IT END UP?

But the picture that emerges is completely different from what is painted by ardent anti-communists. Instead of one (or even two) million Russians united under the tricolor flag in the fight against the hateful Stalinist regime, there is a very motley (and clearly not reaching a million) company of Balts, Asians, Galicians and Slavs, each fighting for their own. And mostly not with Stalin's regime, but with partisans (and not only Russians, but also Yugoslav, Slovak, French, Polish), Western allies, or even with the Germans in general. Doesn't sound much like a civil war, does it? Well, perhaps these are the words to describe the struggle between partisans and policemen, but the policemen fought not under a tricolor flag, but with a swastika on their sleeves.

For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that until the end of 1944, until the formation of the KONR and its armed forces, the Germans did not provide the opportunity for Russian anti-communists to fight for national idea, for Russia without communists. It can be assumed that if they had allowed this earlier, more people would have rallied “under the tricolor flag,” especially since there were still plenty of opponents of the Bolsheviks in the country. But this is “would” and besides, the grandmother said two things. And in real story no “millions under the tricolor flag” were observed.

WHO AND IN WHAT QUANTITY OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR FOUGHT ON THE SIDE OF FASCIST GERMANY Our opponents (and for me – enemies) along that front line in Novorossiya, in defiance of our identification of them with genetic traitors - Bandera’sites, give some crazy figures about a million, otherwise and two Russians who fought on the side of the Germans. Some even agree that this amount of the Russian population of the USSR fought in the Vlasov army alone. Follow the materials in the group. There will be a continuation of the topic below. I will display information about those who collaborated with the fascists in percentage to the number of peoples mentioned below, according to the 1939 census. Very interesting data is obtained. And for Ukrainians as well. Almost ahead of the rest. And they were far ahead of the Russians in terms of the number of traitors. 3 times ahead. The vaunted Cossack women also turned out to be among the leaders in traitors. It’s in vain that Kolya Kozitsyn crucifies that they have always stood guard over the people. More often people were sold or robbed, as in Novorossiya now. The Kazan Tatars pleased us, last place by the number of collaborators. This was a revelation for me. But the Crimeans are in the lead, crests are far behind, having 4.6%, compared to the Ukrainians, with their 0.9% of the population in 1939. I didn't expect anything else. I know how en masse they surrendered to the Germans during the Patriotic War. They were not evicted from Crimea for their pretty eyes. Russians, by the way, accounted for 0.3% of those collaborating with the Germans. The descendants of Bandera and Shukhevych are sad. And now on the topic of who sold the Motherland and how. And for how many pieces of silver. Even talking about two million Russians who fought against the Bolshevik regime (the essence is against their people), they probably also count 700 thousand emigrants. Despite the fact that not all of them were ethnic Russians. These figures are cited for a reason - they serve as an argument for the assertion that the Great Patriotic War is the essence of the Second Civil War of the Russian people against the hated Stalin. What can I say? If it really happened that a million Russians stood under the tricolor banner and fought tooth and nail against the Red Army for a free Russia, shoulder to shoulder with their German allies, then we would have no choice but to admit that yes, The Great Patriotic War truly became the Second Civil War for the Russian people. But was it so? To figure out whether this is true or not, you need to answer several questions: how many of them were there, who were they, how did they get into the service, how and with whom did they fight, and what motivated them? WHOM TO COUNT? The cooperation of Soviet citizens with the occupiers took place in different forms, both in terms of the degree of voluntariness and the degree of involvement in the armed struggle - from the Baltic SS volunteers who fought fiercely near Narva, to the “Ostarbeiters” forcibly driven to Germany. I believe that even the most stubborn anti-Stalinists will not be able, without bending their hearts, to enroll the latter in the ranks of fighters against the Bolshevik regime. Typically, these ranks include those who received rations from the German military or police department, or held weapons received from the hands of the Germans or pro-German local government. That is, to the maximum potential fighters against the Bolsheviks include: foreign military units of the Wehrmacht and SS; eastern security battalions; Wehrmacht construction units; Wehrmacht support personnel, they are also “our Ivans” or Hiwi (Hilfswilliger: “voluntary assistants”); auxiliary police units (“noise” - Schutzmannshaften); border guard; “air defense assistants” mobilized to Germany through youth organizations HOW MANY ARE THERE? We will probably never know the exact numbers, since no one really counted them, but some estimates are available to us. A lower estimate can be obtained from the archives of the former NKVD - until March 1946, 283,000 “Vlasovites” and other collaborators in uniform were transferred to the authorities. The upper estimate can probably be taken from Drobyazko’s works, which serve as the main source of figures for proponents of the “Second Civil” version. According to his calculations (the method of which, unfortunately, he does not disclose), the following passed through the Wehrmacht, SS and various pro-German paramilitary and police forces during the war years: 250,000 Ukrainians 70,000 Belarusians 70,000 Cossacks 150,000 Latvians 90,000 Estonians 50,000 Lithuanians 70,000 Central Asians 12, 000 Volga Tatars 10,000 Crimean Tatars 7,000 Kalmyks 40,000 Azerbaijanis 25,000 Georgians 20,000 Armenians 30,000 North Caucasian nationalities Since the total number of all former Soviet citizens who wore German and pro-German uniforms is estimated at 1.2 million, the share of Russians (excluding Cossacks) remains about 310,000 people. There are, of course, other calculations that give a smaller total number, but let’s not mince words, let’s take Drobyazko’s estimate from above as the basis for further reasoning. WHO WERE THEY? Hiwi and construction battalion soldiers can hardly be considered civil war fighters. Of course, their work freed up German soldiers for the front, but this also applies to the “ostarbeiters” to the same extent. Sometimes hiwi received weapons and fought alongside the Germans, but such cases in the unit's combat logs are described more as a curiosity than as a mass phenomenon. It is interesting to count how many there were who actually held weapons in their hands. The number of hiwi at the end of the war Drobiazko gives about 675,000, if we add construction units and take into account the loss during the war, then I think we will not be much mistaken in assuming that this category covers about 700-750,000 people out of a total of 1.2 million. This is consistent with with the share of non-combatants among the Caucasian peoples, in the calculation presented by the headquarters of the eastern troops at the end of the war. According to him, of the total number of 102,000 Caucasians who passed through the Wehrmacht and SS, 55,000 served in the legions, Luftwaffe and SS and 47,000 in hiwi and construction units. It should be taken into account that the share of Caucasians enrolled in combat units was higher than the share of Slavs. So, out of 1.2 million who wore a German uniform, only 450-500 thousand did so while holding weapons. Let's now try to calculate the layout of the actual combat units of the eastern peoples. 75 Asian battalions (Caucasians, Turks and Tatars) were formed (80,000 people). Taking into account 10 Crimean police battalions (8,700), Kalmyks and special units, there are approximately 110,000 “combat” Asians out of a total of 215,000. This completely hits the Caucasians separately with the layout. The Baltic states endowed the Germans with 93 police battalions (later partly consolidated into regiments), with a total number of 33,000 people. In addition, 12 border regiments (30,000) were formed, partly staffed by police battalions, followed by three SS divisions (15, 19 and 20) and two volunteer regiments, through which perhaps 70,000 men passed. Police and border regiments and battalions were partly recruited to form them. Taking into account the absorption of some units by others, in total about 100,000 Balts passed through the combat units. In Belarus, 20 police battalions (5,000) were formed, of which 9 were considered Ukrainian. After the introduction of mobilization in March 1944, police battalions became part of the army of the Belarusian Central Rada. In total, the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKA) had 34 battalions, 20,000 people. Having retreated in 1944 along with German troops, these battalions were consolidated into the Siegling SS Brigade. Then, on the basis of the brigade, with the addition of Ukrainian “policemen”, the remnants of the Kaminsky brigade and even the Cossacks, the 30th SS Division was deployed, which was later used to staff the 1st Vlasov Division. Galicia was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was seen as potentially German territory. It was separated from Ukraine, incorporated into the Reich as part of the General Government of Warsaw and put on the waiting list for Germanization. On the territory of Galicia, 10 police battalions (5,000) were formed, and subsequently a recruitment of volunteers for the SS troops was announced. It is believed that 70,000 volunteers showed up at the recruiting sites, but so many were not needed. As a result, one SS division (14th) and five police regiments were formed. Police regiments were disbanded as needed and sent to replenish the division. Galicia's total contribution to the victory over Stalinism can be estimated at 30,000 people. In the rest of Ukraine, 53 police battalions (25,000) were formed. It is known that a small part of them became part of the 30th SS Division, the fate of the rest is unknown to me. After the formation in March 1945 of the Ukrainian analogue of the KONR - the Ukrainian National Committee - the Galician 14th SS Division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian and the formation of the 2nd began. It was formed from volunteers of Ukrainian nationality recruited from various auxiliary formations; about 2,000 people were recruited. About 90 security “ostbattalions” were formed from Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, through which approximately 80,000 people passed, including the “Russian National People’s Army”, which was reformed into five security battalions. Among other Russian military formations, one can recall the 3,000-strong 1st Russian national brigade of the SS Gil (Rodionov), which went over to the side of the partisans, the approximately 6,000-strong “Russian National Army” of Smyslovsky and the army of Kaminsky (“Russian Liberation People’s Army”), which arose as so-called self-defense forces Lokot Republic. Maximum estimates of the number of people who passed through Kaminsky’s army reach 20,000. After 1943, Kaminsky's troops retreated along with the German army and in 1944 an attempt was made to reorganize them into the 29th SS Division. For a number of reasons, the reformation was canceled, and the personnel were transferred to complete the 30th SS Division. At the beginning of 1945, the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Vlasov army) were created. The first army division is formed from the "ostbattalions" and the remnants of the 30th SS division. The second division is formed from “ost battalions”, and partly from volunteer prisoners of war. The number of Vlasovites before the end of the war is estimated at 40,000 people, of which about 30,000 were former SS men and former battalions. In total, about 120,000 Russians fought in the Wehrmacht and SS with weapons in their hands at different times. The Cossacks, according to Drobyazko’s calculations, fielded 70,000 people, let’s accept this figure. HOW DID THEY GET INTO SERVICE? Initially, the eastern units were staffed with volunteers from among prisoners of war and the local population. Since the summer of 1942, the principle of recruitment of the local population has changed from voluntary to voluntary-forced - an alternative to voluntary joining the police is forced deportation to Germany, as an “Ostarbeiter”. By the fall of 1942, undisguised coercion began. Drobyazko, in his dissertation, talks about raids on men in the Shepetivka area: those caught were offered a choice between joining the police or being sent to a camp. Since 1943, compulsory military service has been introduced in various “self-defense” units of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. In the Baltic states, SS units and border guards were recruited through mobilization since 1943. HOW AND WHO DID THEY FIGHT? Initially, the Slavic eastern units were created for security service. In this capacity, they were supposed to replace the Wehrmacht security battalions, which were sucked out of the rear zone like a vacuum cleaner by the needs of the front. At first, soldiers of the eastern battalions guarded warehouses and railways, but as the situation became more complicated, they began to be involved in anti-partisan operations. The involvement of the eastern battalions in the fight against the partisans contributed to their disintegration. If in 1942 the number of “ost-battalion members” who went over to the partisan side was relatively small (although this year the Germans were forced to disband the RNNA due to massive defections), then in 1943 14 thousand fled to the partisans (and this is very, very quite a lot, with the average number of eastern units in 1943 being about 65,000 people). The Germans did not have any strength to observe the further decomposition of the eastern battalions, and in October 1943 the remaining eastern units were sent to France and Denmark (disarming 5-6 thousand volunteers as unreliable). There they were included as 3 or 4 battalions in the regiments of the German divisions. Slavic eastern battalions, with rare exceptions, were not used in battles on the eastern front. In contrast, a significant number of Asian Ostbattalions were involved in the first line of advancing German troops during the Battle of the Caucasus. The results of the battles were contradictory - some performed well, others, on the contrary, turned out to be infected with deserter sentiments and produced a large percentage of defectors. By the beginning of 1944, most of the Asian battalions also found themselves on the Western Wall. Those who remained in the East were brought together into the Eastern Turkic and Caucasian SS formations and were involved in the suppression of the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings. In total, by the time of the Allied invasion, 72 Slavic, Asian and Cossack battalions with a total number of about 70 thousand people had been assembled in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In general, the remaining battalions performed poorly in battles with the allies (with some exceptions). Of the almost 8.5 thousand irretrievable losses, 8 thousand were missing in action, that is, most of them were deserters and defectors. After this, the remaining battalions were disarmed and involved in fortification work on the Siegfried Line. Subsequently, they were used to form units of the Vlasov army. In 1943, Cossack units were also withdrawn from the east. The most combat-ready formation of German Cossack troops, the 1st Cossack Division of von Panwitz, formed in the summer of 1943, went to Yugoslavia to deal with Tito’s partisans. There they gradually gathered all the Cossacks, expanding the division into a corps. The division took part in battles on the Eastern Front in 1945, fighting mainly against the Bulgarians. The Baltic states contributed the largest number of troops to the front - in addition to three SS divisions, separate police regiments and battalions took part in the battles. The 20th Estonian SS Division was defeated near Narva, but was subsequently restored and managed to take part in the last battles of the war. The Latvian 15th and 19th SS divisions came under attack from the Red Army in the summer of 1944 and could not withstand the blow. Large levels of desertion and loss of combat capability are reported. As a result, the 15th Division, having transferred its most reliable composition to the 19th, was withdrawn to the rear for use in the construction of fortifications. The second time it was used in battle was in January 1945, in East Prussia, after which it was again withdrawn to the rear. She managed to surrender to the Americans. The 19th remained in Courland until the end of the war. Belarusian policemen and those freshly mobilized into the BKA in 1944 were collected in the 30th SS Division. After its formation, the division was transferred to France in September 1944, where it took part in battles with the Allies. Suffered heavy losses mainly from desertion. Belarusians ran over to the allies in droves and continued the war in Polish units. In December, the division was disbanded, and the remaining personnel were transferred to staff the 1st Vlasov Division. The Galician 14th SS Division, barely sniffing gunpowder, was surrounded near Brody and almost completely destroyed. Although she was quickly restored, she no longer took part in battles at the front. One of her regiments was involved in the suppression of the Slovak uprising, after which she went to Yugoslavia to fight Tito’s partisans. Since Yugoslavia is not far from Austria, the division managed to surrender to the British. The KONR armed forces were formed in early 1945. Although the 1st Vlasov division was staffed almost entirely by punitive veterans, many of whom had already been to the front, Vlasov brainwashed Hitler by demanding more time for preparation. In the end, the division still managed to move to the Oder Front, where it took part in one attack against Soviet troops on April 13. The very next day, the division commander, Major General Bunyachenko, ignoring the protests of his German immediate superior, withdrew the division from the front and went to join the rest of Vlasov’s army in the Czech Republic. The Vlasov army carried out the second battle against its ally, attacking German troops in Prague on May 5. WHAT MOVED THEM? The driving motives were completely different. Firstly, among the eastern troops one can distinguish national separatists who fought for the creation of their own national state or at least a privileged province of the Reich. This includes the Baltic states, Asian legionnaires and Galicians. The creation of units of this kind has a long tradition - remember, for example, the Czechoslovak Corps or the Polish Legion in the First World War. These would fight against the central government, no matter who sat in Moscow - the tsar, the secretary general or the popularly elected president. Secondly, there were ideological and stubborn opponents of the regime. This may include the Cossacks (although their motives were partly national-separatist), part of the personnel of the eastern battalions, and a significant part of the officer corps of the KONR troops. Thirdly, we can name opportunists who bet on the winner, those who joined the Reich during the victories of the Wehrmacht, but fled to the partisans after the defeat at Kursk and continued to run away at the first opportunity. These probably made up a significant part of the eastern battalions and local police. There were also those on the other side of the front, as can be seen from the change in the number of defectors to the Germans in 1942-44: 1942 - 79,769 people 1943 - 26,108 people 1944 - 9,207 people Fourthly, these were people who hoped to escape from the camp and at a convenient opportunity to move on to your own. It’s hard to say how many of these there were, but sometimes there were enough for a whole battalion. And finally, the fifth category - people who wanted to survive more accurately. This includes the bulk of the hiwi and construction workers, who received much more nutritious rations than in the camp. AND WHAT DOES IT END UP? But the picture that emerges is completely different from what is painted by ardent anti-communists. Instead of one (or even two) million Russians united under the tricolor flag in the fight against the hateful Stalinist regime, there is a very motley (and clearly not reaching a million) company of Balts, Asians, Galicians and Slavs, each fighting for their own. And mainly not with the Stalinist regime, but with the partisans (not only Russians, but also Yugoslav, Slovak, French, Polish), Western allies, and even with the Germans in general. Doesn't sound much like a civil war, does it? Well, perhaps we can use these words to describe the struggle between partisans and policemen, but the policemen fought not under a tricolor flag, but with a swastika on their sleeves. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that until the end of 1944, until the formation of the KONR and its armed forces, the Germans did not provide the opportunity for Russian anti-communists to fight for the national idea, for a Russia without communists. It can be assumed that if they had allowed this earlier, more people would have rallied “under the tricolor flag,” especially since there were still plenty of opponents of the Bolsheviks in the country. But this is “would” and besides, my grandmother said it in two. But in real history, no “millions under the tricolor flag” were observed. List of sources 1. S.I. Drobyazko Eastern formations as part of the Wehrmacht (dissertation) 2. S. Drobyazko, A. Karashchuk Russian Liberation Army 3. S. Drobyazko, A. Karashchuk Eastern volunteers in the Wehrmacht, police and SS 4. S. Drobyazko, A. Karashchuk Eastern legions and Cossack units in Wehrmacht 5. O.V.Romanko Muslim legions in the Second World War 6. J.Hoffmann History of the Vlasov army 7. V.K.Strik-Strikfeldt Against Stalin and Hitler 8. N.M.Konyaev Vlasov. Two faces of a general.

According to some, during the Great Patriotic War, a million Soviet citizens went to fight under the tricolor flag. Sometimes they even talk about two million Russians who fought against the Bolshevik regime, but here they probably also count 700 thousand emigrants. These figures are cited for a reason - they serve as an argument for the assertion that the Great Patriotic War is the essence of the Second Civil War of the Russian people against the hated Stalin. What can I say?

If it really happened that a million Russians stood under the tricolor banner and fought tooth and nail against the Red Army for a free Russia, shoulder to shoulder with their German allies, then we would have no choice but to admit that yes, The Great Patriotic War truly became the Second Civil War for the Russian people. But was it so?

To figure out whether this is true or not, you need to answer several questions: how many of them were there, who were they, how did they get into the service, how and with whom did they fight, and what motivated them?

The cooperation of Soviet citizens with the occupiers took place in different forms, both in terms of the degree of voluntariness and the degree of involvement in the armed struggle - from the Baltic SS volunteers who fought fiercely near Narva, to the “Ostarbeiters” forcibly driven to Germany. I believe that even the most stubborn anti-Stalinists will not be able to enroll the latter in the ranks of fighters against the Bolshevik regime without crooking their souls. Typically, these ranks include those who received rations from the German military or police department, or held in their hands what they received from the hands of the Germans or pro-German local government.

That is, the maximum number of potential fighters against the Bolsheviks includes:
foreign military units of the Wehrmacht and SS;
eastern security battalions;
Wehrmacht construction units;
Wehrmacht support personnel, they are also “our Ivans” or Hiwi (Hilfswilliger: “voluntary assistants”);
auxiliary police units (“noise” - Schutzmannshaften);
border guard;
“air defense assistants” mobilized to Germany through youth organizations;

HOW MANY ARE THERE?

We will probably never know the exact numbers, since no one really counted them, but some estimates are available to us. A lower estimate can be obtained from the archives of the former NKVD - until March 1946, 283,000 “Vlasovites” and other collaborators in uniform were transferred to the authorities. The upper estimate can probably be taken from Drobyazko’s works, which serve as the main source of figures for proponents of the “Second Civil” version. According to his calculations (the method of which, unfortunately, he does not disclose), the following passed through the Wehrmacht, SS and various pro-German paramilitary and police forces during the war years:
250,000 Ukrainians
70,000 Belarusians
70,000 Cossacks
150,000 Latvians

90,000 Estonians
50,000 Lithuanians
70,000 Central Asians
12,000 Volga Tatars
10,000 Crimean Tatars
7,000 Kalmyks
40,000 Azerbaijanis
25,000 Georgians
20,000 Armenians
30,000 North Caucasian peoples

Since the total number of all former Soviet citizens who wore German and pro-German uniforms is estimated at 1.2 million, that leaves about 310,000 Russians (excluding Cossacks). There are, of course, other calculations that give a smaller total number, but let’s not waste time on trifles, let’s take Drobyazko’s estimate from above as the basis for further reasoning.

WHO WERE THEY?

The number of hiwi at the end of the war Drobiazko gives about 675,000, if we add construction units and take into account the loss during the war, then I think we will not be much mistaken in assuming that this category covers about 700-750,000 people out of a total of 1.2 million. This is consistent with with the share of non-combatants among the Caucasian peoples, in the calculation presented by the headquarters of the eastern troops at the end of the war. According to him, of the total number of 102,000 Caucasians who passed through the Wehrmacht and SS, 55,000 served in the legions, Luftwaffe and SS and 47,000 in hiwi and construction units. It should be taken into account that the share of Caucasians enrolled in combat units was higher than the share of Slavs.

So, out of 1.2 million who wore a German uniform, only 450-500 thousand did so while holding weapons. Let's now try to calculate the layout of the actual combat units of the eastern peoples.

75 Asian battalions (Caucasians, Turks and Tatars) were formed (80,000 people). Taking into account 10 Crimean police battalions (8,700), Kalmyks and special units, there are approximately 110,000 “combat” Asians out of a total of 215,000. This completely hits the Caucasians separately with the layout.

The Baltic states endowed the Germans with 93 police battalions (later partly consolidated into regiments), with a total number of 33,000 people. In addition, 12 border regiments (30,000) were formed, partly staffed by police battalions, followed by three SS divisions (15, 19 and 20) and two volunteer regiments, through which perhaps 70,000 men passed. Police and border regiments and battalions were partly recruited to form them. Taking into account the absorption of some units by others, in total about 100,000 Balts passed through the combat units.

Galicia was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was seen as potentially German territory. It was separated from Ukraine, incorporated into the Reich as part of the General Government of Warsaw and put on the waiting list for Germanization. On the territory of Galicia, 10 police battalions (5,000) were formed, and subsequently a recruitment of volunteers for the SS troops was announced. It is believed that 70,000 volunteers showed up at the recruiting sites, but so many were not needed. As a result, one SS division (14th) and five police regiments were formed. Police regiments were disbanded as needed and sent to replenish the division. Galicia's total contribution to the victory over Stalinism can be estimated at 30,000 people.

In the rest of Ukraine, 53 police battalions (25,000) were formed. It is known that a small part of them became part of the 30th SS Division, the fate of the rest is unknown to me. After the formation in March 1945 of the Ukrainian analogue of the KONR - the Ukrainian National Committee - the Galician 14th SS Division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian and the formation of the 2nd began. It was formed from volunteers of Ukrainian nationality recruited from various auxiliary formations; about 2,000 people were recruited.

About 90 security “ostbattalions” were formed from Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, through which approximately 80,000 people passed, including the “Russian National People’s Army”, which was reformed into five security battalions. Among other Russian military formations, one can recall the 3,000-strong 1st Russian National SS Brigade of Gil (Rodionov), which went over to the side of the partisans, the approximately 6,000-strong “Russian National Army” of Smyslovsky and the army of Kaminsky (“Russian Liberation People’s Army”), which arose as so-called self-defense forces Lokot Republic. Maximum estimates of the number of people who passed through Kaminsky’s army reach 20,000. After 1943, Kaminsky's troops retreated along with the German army and in 1944 an attempt was made to reorganize them into the 29th SS Division. For a number of reasons, the reformation was canceled, and the personnel were transferred to complete the 30th SS Division. At the beginning of 1945, the armed forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Vlasov army) were created. The first army division is formed from the "ostbattalions" and the remnants of the 30th SS division. The second division is formed from “ost battalions”, and partly from volunteer prisoners of war. The number of Vlasovites before the end of the war is estimated at 40,000 people, of which about 30,000 were former SS men and former battalions. In total, about 120,000 Russians fought in the Wehrmacht and SS with weapons in their hands at different times.

The Cossacks, according to Drobyazko’s calculations, fielded 70,000 people, let’s accept this figure.

HOW DID THEY GET INTO SERVICE?

Initially, the eastern units were staffed with volunteers from among prisoners of war and the local population. Since the summer of 1942, the principle of recruitment of the local population has changed from voluntary to voluntary-forced - an alternative to voluntary joining the police is forced deportation to Germany, as an “Ostarbeiter”. By the fall of 1942, undisguised coercion began. Drobyazko, in his dissertation, talks about raids on men in the Shepetivka area: those caught were offered a choice between joining the police or being sent to a camp. Since 1943, compulsory military service has been introduced in various “self-defense” units of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. In the Baltic states, SS units and border guards were recruited through mobilization since 1943.

HOW AND WHO DID THEY FIGHT?

Initially, the Slavic eastern units were created for security service. In this capacity, they were supposed to replace the Wehrmacht security battalions, which were sucked out of the rear zone like a vacuum cleaner by the needs of the front. At first, soldiers of the eastern battalions guarded warehouses and railways, but as the situation became more complicated, they began to be involved in anti-partisan operations. The involvement of the eastern battalions in the fight against the partisans contributed to their disintegration. If in 1942 the number of “ost-battalion members” who went over to the partisan side was relatively small (although this year the Germans were forced to disband the RNNA due to massive defections), then in 1943 14 thousand fled to the partisans (and this is very, very quite a lot, with the average number of eastern units in 1943 being about 65,000 people). The Germans did not have any strength to observe the further decomposition of the eastern battalions, and in October 1943 the remaining eastern units were sent to France and Denmark (disarming 5-6 thousand volunteers as unreliable). There they were included as 3 or 4 battalions in the regiments of the German divisions.

Slavic eastern battalions, with rare exceptions, were not used in battles on the eastern front. In contrast, a significant number of Asian Ostbattalions were involved in the first line of advancing German troops during the Battle of the Caucasus. The results of the battles were contradictory - some performed well, others, on the contrary, turned out to be infected with deserter sentiments and produced a large percentage of defectors. By the beginning of 1944, most of the Asian battalions also found themselves on the Western Wall. Those who remained in the East were brought together into the Eastern Turkic and Caucasian SS formations and were involved in the suppression of the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings.

In total, by the time of the Allied invasion, 72 Slavic, Asian and Cossack battalions with a total number of about 70 thousand people had been assembled in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In general, the remaining battalions performed poorly in battles with the allies (with some exceptions). Of the almost 8.5 thousand irretrievable losses, 8 thousand were missing in action, that is, most of them were deserters and defectors. After this, the remaining battalions were disarmed and involved in fortification work on the Siegfried Line. Subsequently, they were used to form units of the Vlasov army.

In 1943, Cossack units were also withdrawn from the east. The most combat-ready formation of German Cossack troops, the 1st Cossack Division of von Panwitz, formed in the summer of 1943, went to Yugoslavia to deal with Tito’s partisans. There they gradually gathered all the Cossacks, expanding the division into a corps. The division took part in battles on the Eastern Front in 1945, fighting mainly against the Bulgarians.

The Baltic states contributed the largest number of troops to the front - in addition to three SS divisions, separate police regiments and battalions took part in the battles. The 20th Estonian SS Division was defeated near Narva, but was subsequently restored and managed to take part in the last battles of the war. The Latvian 15th and 19th SS divisions came under attack from the Red Army in the summer of 1944 and could not withstand the blow. Large levels of desertion and loss of combat capability are reported. As a result, the 15th Division, having transferred its most reliable composition to the 19th, was withdrawn to the rear for use in the construction of fortifications. The second time it was used in battle was in January 1945, in East Prussia, after which it was again withdrawn to the rear. She managed to surrender to the Americans. The 19th remained in Courland until the end of the war.

Belarusian policemen and those freshly mobilized into the BKA in 1944 were collected in the 30th SS Division. After its formation, the division was transferred to France in September 1944, where it took part in battles with the Allies. Suffered heavy losses mainly from desertion. Belarusians ran over to the allies in droves and continued the war in Polish units. In December, the division was disbanded, and the remaining personnel were transferred to staff the 1st Vlasov Division.

The KONR armed forces were formed in early 1945. Although the 1st Vlasov division was staffed almost entirely by punitive veterans, many of whom had already been to the front, Vlasov brainwashed Hitler by demanding more time for preparation. In the end, the division still managed to move to the Oder Front, where it took part in one attack against Soviet troops on April 13. The very next day, the division commander, Major General Bunyachenko, ignoring the protests of his German immediate superior, withdrew the division from the front and went to join the rest of Vlasov’s army in the Czech Republic. The Vlasov army carried out the second battle against its ally, attacking German troops in Prague on May 5.

WHAT MOVED THEM?

The driving motives were completely different.

Firstly, among the eastern troops one can distinguish national separatists who fought for the creation of their own national state or at least a privileged province of the Reich. This includes the Baltic states, Asian legionnaires and Galicians. The creation of units of this kind has a long tradition - remember, for example, the Czechoslovak Corps or the Polish Legion in the First World War. These would fight against the central government, no matter who sat in Moscow - the tsar, the secretary general or the popularly elected president.

AND WHAT DOES IT END UP?

But the picture that emerges is completely different from those painted by ardent anti-communists. Instead of one (or even two) million Russians united under the tricolor flag in the fight against the hateful Stalinist regime, there is a very motley (and clearly not reaching a million) company of Balts, Asians, Galicians and Slavs, each fighting for their own. And mainly not with the Stalinist regime, but with the partisans (and not only Russians, but also Yugoslav, Slovak, French, Polish), Western allies, and even with the Germans in general. Doesn't sound much like a civil war, does it? Well, perhaps we can use these words to describe the struggle between partisans and policemen, but the policemen fought not under a tricolor flag, but with a swastika on their sleeves.

For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that until the end of 1944, until the formation of the KONR and its armed forces, the Germans did not provide the opportunity for Russian anti-communists to fight for the national idea, for a Russia without communists. It can be assumed that if they had allowed this earlier, more people would have rallied “under the tricolor flag,” especially since there were still plenty of opponents of the Bolsheviks in the country. But this is “would” and besides, my grandmother said it in two. But in reality, no “millions under the tricolor flag” were observed.

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IN modern Russia at every opportunity from TV screens: in the news, historical programs or some kind of show, they like to reproach their neighbors for the fact that during the Second World War, SS units, police units or organizations supporting anti-Bolshevik, anti-Soviet sentiments were formed on their territory.

First of all, it goes to the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, with their SS divisions, formed one, respectively, in each of these countries - Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. And also the SS division “Galicia” formed on the territory of Ukraine is especially mentioned in these programs or broadcasts. At the same time, cynically keeping silent about their own SS units formed from Russians. If it were the will of the current fighters against “Bandera” and “ forest brothers“, then they would no doubt try to erase the Vlasov ROA from their own history.

To finally appear in all their glory, the one and only fighters for saving the world during the Second World War.
However, history does not tolerate subjunctive mood. And the truth, no matter how bitter and unpleasant it is, and no matter how much one wants to hide it, the current generation of Russians cannot avoid, gloss over or embellish.

And, in addition to the already notorious ROA - the Russian Liberation Army, under the leadership of the former Soviet general Vlasov A.A., who, by the way, made a significant contribution to the victory of Soviet troops near Moscow in 1941 and commanded the 2nd shock army, there are also other little-known SS divisions and units formed from Russians. Little known primarily to the Russian fighters themselves and their collaborators. Yes Yes.

Unlike the Latvians or Estonians and Ukrainians, who were only one division at most, there were not even several Russian SS units.

Here they are:

SS Volunteer Regiment "Varyag".
1st Russian national SS brigade "Druzhina".
15th SS Cossack Cavalry Corps.
29th SS Grenadier Division "RONA" (1st Russian).
30th SS Grenadier Division (2nd Russian).
36th SS Grenadier Division "Dirlewanger".

CORPS OF SS TROOPS OF THE MAIN OPERATIONAL DIRECTORATE OF THE SS FHA-SS

15th Cossack Russian Corps of SS troops FHA-SS - 3 divisions, 16 regiments.
SS FHA-SS (TROOP-SS)
29th Russian FHA-SS - 6 regiments.
30th Russian FHA-SS, 1st formation 1944, - 5 regiments.

BRIGADES OF THE MAIN DIRECTORATE OF IMPERIAL SECURITY SS RSHA-SS

1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina" - 3 regiments, 12 battalions.
1st Guards Brigade ROA "Sonderkommando Љ113" SD - 1 battalion, 2 companies.
SS Brigade of the Center for Anti-Bolshevik Struggle (CPBB) - 3 battalions.
Reconnaissance and sabotage unit Main Team"Russia - Center" of the Sonderstaff "Zeppelin" RSHA-SS - 4 special forces units.

As you can see, there are Russian SS divisions and regiments and corps and brigades, and even reconnaissance and sabotage formations. So why do modern Russian “Herodotus”, when they brand Estonians, Latvians or Ukrainians with shame on the next May 9th, do not remember the Russian SS units?
Everything is very simple. Such an example does not fit with the image of the Russian soldier-liberator (as if only Russians served in the Red Army and there were no Ukrainians, no Belarusians, no Georgians, no Armenians, no Latvians or Estonians), the only one who did not stain himself with connections with German fascism.
And, you can argue and prove for as long as you like whether they participated or did not participate in punitive operations against civilians, whether they reached the size of a full-blooded division or not, whether they fought at all or were just on paper, but the fact remains - Russian divisions There were SS and they fought on the side of the Third Reich.
But, in addition to the Russian SS units themselves, who fought on Hitler’s side with weapons in their hands, there were other military units and units consisting of Russians in the Wehrmacht’s service. Which, according to the already established “good” tradition, the new Russian historians and patriots themselves “forget” to talk about. Meanwhile, as they say, there is something to see. Eg:

MAIN COLLABORATION FORMATIONS. ARMED FORCES OF THE "UNION STATE"

Armed forces of the Congress of the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) (1 army, 4 corps, 8 divisions, 8 brigades).
Russian Liberation Army of the Congress of the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (3 divisions, 2 brigades).

"ARMY" OF THE WEHRMACHT

Russian Liberation Army of the Wehrmacht - 12 security corps, 13 divisions, 30 brigades.
Russian Liberation People's Army - 5 regiments, 18 battalions.
Russian National People's Army - 3 regiments, 12 battalions.
Russian National Army- 2 regiments, 12 battalions.

AVIATION BODY

Air Force KONR (Aviation Corps KONR) - 87 aircraft, 1 air group, 1 regiment.

SECURITY CORPS OF THE ARMY REAR AREAS OF THE VERMACHT

582nd Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 11 battalions.
583rd Security (Estonian-Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 10 battalions.
584th Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 6 battalions.
590th Security Cossack (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 1 regiment, 4 battalions.
580th Security Cossack (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 1 regiment, 9 battalions.
532nd Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 13 battalions.
559th Security (Russian) Corps of the Wehrmacht - 7 battalions.

EASTERN LEGIONS OF THE WEHRMACHT

Russian Legion "White Cross" of the Wehrmacht - 4 battalions.

ABWERH DIVISIONS

“Special Division “Russia”” by General Smyslovsky - 1 regiment, 12 battalions.

ABWERH BRIGADES

Brigade "Graukopf" - "RNNA" of General Ivanov - 1 regiment, 5 battalions.

WEHRMACHT DIVISIONS OF SPECIAL PURPOSE

442nd Special Purpose - 2 ROA regiments.
136th Special Purpose - 2 ROA regiments.
210th Special Purpose Stationary Infantry (Coastal Defense) - 1 regiment, 2 individual battalions ROA.

"NATIVE" SECURITY CORPS AND SELF-DEFENSE

Russian security corps Wehrmacht in Serbia - 1 brigade, 5 regiments.
Russian "People's Guard" of the General Commissariat "Moscow" (Rear Area of Army Group "Center") - 13 battalions, 1 cavalry division.

(RUSSIAN-CROATIAN)

15th Special Purpose Mountain Rifle Corps 2nd tank army:
Russians - 1 security corps, 5 regiments, Croatian - 2 divisions, 6 regiments.
69th Special Purpose Corps of the 2nd Tank Army: Russians - 1 division, 8 regiments, Croatian - 1 division, 3 regiments.

Thus, most, both in the foreign SS units and divisions there were Russians, and in the Wehrmacht units itself, most of the collaborators were the same Russians. But how many Russians, at least approximately, fought on the side of Hitler and the Third Reich? Is it even possible to count them? total? I guess, yes.

According to various estimates by different researchers, the total number of Russians who fought on the side of the Third Reich ranges from zero (actually the calculations of today’s ardent Russian patriots, who manage to classify all Russian SS units and divisions as Ukrainians, Belarusians and Latvians with Georgians) and up to two million. But, most likely, the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, between these two figures.

Moreover, the Germans themselves, as of 1943, put the total number of Russians who fought on the side of the Third Reich at 800 thousand people.

So, for example, Vlasov’s army itself was not very large. His two divisions, which had already been formed, represented no more than 40 thousand fighters. Plus there was another poorly armed and not yet fully formed third division. This is approximately 10-12 thousand more soldiers.

Adjoining Vlasov was the Cossack corps of General Helmut von Panivitz, which became part of the ROA. These are 45 thousand Cossacks who fought in Yugoslavia. It included the Russian corps, formed from emigrants, who fought in Serbia: about six thousand people. In total there are about 120 thousand people. This is what was actually called ROA.

Thus, the ROA alone produced approximately 120 thousand Russians who fought on Hitler’s side.

By adding to these 120 thousand all the other known Russian SS divisions, security regiments and units, formations and detachments, we will just reach the figure of 1 million Russians!!! soldier on the side of the Third Reich. In general, if we take into account that soldiers died in battles and reinforcements were constantly sent to military units, then to these 800 thousand - a million, we can safely add another 200-300 thousand Russians.

A very remarkable thing about the actual number of Russians who fought on Hitler’s side is the fact that when in 1943, Hitler demanded that all Russians be removed from the Eastern Front and transferred to the Western Front, the generals grabbed their heads: this was impossible, because every fifth on the Eastern Front was Russian then.

So it turns out that those who today are so intensely vilified for collaborating with fascist regime his neighbors, he himself was the most massive and loyal supporter of the Third Reich and Hitler during the Second World War. Perhaps this is precisely what explains the incomprehensible craving in modern Russia for neo-Nazi symbols and ideology.

So maybe it’s enough to reproach others for the speck in their eye, when they themselves have a log sticking out of each eye?

Although this is no longer even from the region science fiction. Because then you will have to recognize the past as it really was, and this is neither partial nor heroic and not as idealistic as it has been portrayed for more than 70 years. And as one Soviet comrade from the top said: “Who needs your truth if it interferes with living.”

This is how the current and subsequent generations of Russians will most likely live, basing their knowledge of history primarily on myths, silence, and in some places outright lies.