Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Peninsula of Nazis: Russian Crimeans who served Hitler

This article is important enough to translate to English in order to put Crimea into its proper historical context vis-a-vis Russia's accusations of "nationalism" and "fascism" in certain regions of Ukraine. You are free to read or Google translate it yourself; the original is here. [Emphasis below mine].


March 24, 2014 | CRIME.in.UA

Recently, thanks to the brilliant follower of Adolf Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian citizens who felt their homeland was Ukraine (not Russia or the Soviet Union) were automatically branded "Banderites" and "neo-Nazis."

For what purpose since the 2000's have our so-called "brothers" stamped all Ukrainian patriots and ordinary Ukrainians to whom is alien the "Russian world" with the stamps "Banderites" (banderovtsy), "Nazi collaborators" and the like?  Why does comrade Putin hate people who fought for the independence of their country against all comers: the Germans, the Red Army and Soviet partisans?  Probably because in the plans of that Nazi there is no place for an independent Ukraine, just as there was not in Hitler's plans.

Today we offer to lift the curtain and shed light on a number of facts that "Putin & Co." does not like to remember, preferring to pretend that it was not in Russia's history of betrayal of millions of Russians during World War II. That it did not exist in the great history of the great Russian millions, as if they just drowned in the endless pages of time.

The Russian media loves to make noise about the "complicity of banderovtsy with fascists," concealing the massive scale of collaboration in Crimea, including Sevastopol, in the period of the German-Romanian occupation. And today, this period of time is still a mystery of mysteries.

But not everything was so simple. If in the western regions of Ukraine, UPA [Ukrainian Resistance Army] protected its people from the Nazi aggressors, in the southeastern regions and in Crimea, it was more difficult -- on the contrary, legions became collaborators to help the invaders oppress native people. Since the middle of the summer of 1942 they went under the same banner under which now walks the Russian community, and wore the same uniform worn by the current Crimean Russian Cossacks.

And, by the way, they all spoke Russian. The absolute majority of Germany's supporters -- Russian Liberation Army (ROA) formations in the territory of Ukraine and Crimea -- were created mostly ​​of Russian-speaking collaborators.

And if Ukrainian battalions "Roland" and "Nachtigall" are a favorite topic of the Russian media, then it is time to tell you about homegrown Crimean Cossacks whose descendants today have lined up in the service of the Moscow as "fighters against fascism," but who in fact are fighting exclusively with the Ukrainian state. Even on the day of celebration of Victory over Nazism on May 9, under the flags of ROA they love to walk the streets of Sevastopol and demonstrate that "in the city of Russian glory" there is no limit to cynicism. The archives and statistics, and documentary research of many Russian writers are packed with dry eloquent facts.

So, Crimea put up "only" 45,000 (!) bayonets in the 11th German Army of Manstein who participated in the storming of Sevastopol.

In the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht were formed nine separate Russian companies.

Crimean "volunteers," unlike the UPA , who defended their land, took part in the siege of Leningrad. Crimean Tatars, by the way, did not take part in the "Wehrmacht," so any theses about "Crimean Tatar traitors" can find no basis in fact here.

Modern Crimean "fighters against fascism" are somehow not in a hurry to to tell Crimeans, how, and with whom, in Simferopol in February 1942 was formed the 5th Simferopol Cossack Squadron, Cossack Cavalry Regiment "Von Yungshultz" and the 1st Andrew Hundred near Simferopol.

In addition, Russian Hitlerites on the peninsula formed four Russian Cossack battalions, which became the basis of the Russian Cossack Security Division "Von Schulenburg." This Division was finally destroyed in battles with UPA in 1944.

In February 1942, in Simferopol, by the headquarters of the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht was formed the 5th Simferopol Rejtarskiy Cossack squadron, on the basis of which was established Cossack Rejtarskiy regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel von Schulze's 1st Panzer Army.  In 1943 the regiment, as one of the best in the fight against the Red Army and the guerrillas, was included in the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of the Waffen SS, and later expanded and was reorganized into the 15th Waffen SS Cossack Corps.

It should be noted that Hitler included Crimea in the Reikskomisariat "Ukraine". Therefore, it was the 15th SS Cossack Corps, formed in Crimea, not the SS Division "Galicia," that became the first collaborationist unit in Ukraine that was fully included in the Waffen-SS.

Corps-- not division, and still much more. Therefore, Lviv with its Division "Galicia" and two battalions that had not sworn allegiance to the Fuehrer and the Reich mostly went over to UPA, in great contrast to Crimean Cossacks.

In addition to the above facts, inhabitants of Crimea formed three Russian battalions marching in the Wehrmacht, 560th and 994th field battalions of the ROA. Besides the Cossack Corps, first in Sevastopol, and then in Simferopol were well-outfitted headquarters, command and two battalions of the 1st Grenadier Division of the SS "Russia" and initiated the formation of the 2nd Division.

Residents and prisoners of war in Sevastopol formed the 381st Sevastopol Educational Field Division of the Wehrmacht .

Coastal defenses from Sevastopol to Feodosiya in 1942-1944 were provided the team "Kringsmarine Black Sea," in which officers were Germans, and soldiers were Russian, exclusively recruited from the local population and prisoners of war. Although these "kringsmarintsy" at the approach of the Red Army shot their officers and went over to the partisans -- nevertheless, for two years they loyally served the invaders.

Separately, we should mention the Crimean police battalions -- the so-called "Hіwі" ("Volunteer helpers " -- helpers of the Nazis, of course).  In Sevastopol, a battalion was formed of 450 locals that guarded the seaport, and likewise in Crimea "helpers" blockaded Soviet partisans in the mountain forests.

If we compare the number of collaborators pf Crimea and Western Ukraine in their relation to the number of the local population in 1941, we obtain interesting results. In the western regions of Ukraine the number of collaborators that fell in the service of the occupiers (even including the general list of Ukrainian Division "Galicia" and battalions "Roland " and "Nachtigall") was about 2.5% of the total population of the region.  In Crimea -- it was almost 12%.

Today in the Crimea again operate the henchmen of a new Hitler -- from Moscow. Only now they are not fighting against the Soviet power, but against the Ukrainian government. And at the same time against Ukrainian citizens, who do not even really know how to speak Ukrainian .

And so that such "national traitors" would not stay on "native Russian land," Cossacks and FSB agents advise them "delicately" in Russian to leave their home and their Motherland. Because in Russia there is no place for Ukraine. In the twisted imagination of the Moscow Fuhrer there exists only "Little Russia" -- "a petty historical misunderstanding."

Section "Delta" group "IS ." Based primarily on research by Miroslav Mamchak.

Source: Flot2017.

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