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A large number ofSoviet citizens of various ethnicitiescollaborated withNazi Germany duringWorld War II. It is estimated that the number of Soviet collaborators with theNazi German military was around 1 million.
Mass collaboration ensued after the German invasion of the Soviet Union of 1941,Operation Barbarossa.[1] The two main forms of mass collaboration in theNazi-occupied territories were both military in nature. It is estimated that anywhere between 600,000 and 1,400,000 Soviets (Russians and non-Russians) were “military collaborators” with theWehrmacht in some way either asHiwis (orHilfswillige) or in some other capacity, including 275,000 to 350,000 "Muslim and Caucasian”.[2] Ahead of the subsequent implementation of the more oppressive administrative methods by theSS. As much as 20% of the German manpower (when including Hiwis) inSoviet Russia was composed of former Soviet citizens, about half of whom wereethnic Russians.[3][better source needed] TheUkrainian collaborationist forces comprised an estimated 180,000 volunteers serving with units scattered all over Europe.[4] The second type of mass collaboration was the formation of indigenous security formations (majority ethnic Russian) running into hundreds of thousands and possibly more than 1 million (250,000 volunteers in theEast Legions alone). Military collaboration – wrote Alex Alexiev – took place in truly unprecedented numbers suggesting that, more often than not, the Germans were perceived at first as thelesser of two evils compared to theUSSR by the non-Russian citizens of the Soviet Union.[5]
In the autumn of 1941,Field Marshal von Bock had sent to Hitler's Headquarters a detailed project for the organization of a Liberation Army of some 200,000 Russian volunteers, and for the formation of a local government in the province of Smolensk. It was returned in November 1941 with the notation that "such thoughts cannot be discussed with the Führer," and that "politics are not the prerogatives of Army Group Commanders." Of course, Field-Marshal Keitel, who wrote this notation, did not show the project to Hitler.[6]
The Russian Liberation People's Army (Русская освободительная национальная армия, РОНА; in Latin, RONA), later reformed as Waffen-Sturmbrigade "RONA" and nicknamed the "Kaminski Brigade" after its commander,Waffen-BrigadefuhrerBronislav Kaminski, was a collaborationist force originally formed from a Nazi-led militia unit in the"Lokot Republic" (Lokot Autonomy), a small puppet regime set up by the Germans to see if a Russian puppet government would be reliable. Kaminski and the leader of the government and the founder ofNational Socialist Labor Party of Russia,Konstantin Voskoboinik, killed by partisans in 1942, formed a unit that had a strength of 10,000—15,000. As theRed Army advanced, the Kaminski troops were forced to retreat intoBelarus, and then intoPoland in 1944. There, the RONA was reorganized into an SS brigade, the majority of whom were Russians, with the rest comprising other Soviet ethnicities includingUkrainians,Belarusians andAzerbaijanis.[9] In August, 1,700 brigade troops under Major Yuri Frolov were sent toWarsaw to quell an uprising. During it, the RONA troops became infamous for their atrocities, committing murder, rape, and theft. Some were reported to have left the combat zone with carts full of stolen goods. About 400 soldiers were lost in combat, including Frolov.
At the end of August, Bronislav Kaminski was killed. His death was surrounded with mystery as, while official records state that he was killed by Polish partisans, it is believed that Kaminski was executed by the SS. The reasons are thought to be his unit's war crimes and/or now thatHeinrich Himmler supported the Russian Liberation Army of GeneralAndrey Vlasov, he wanted to eliminate a potential rival. The rest of the brigade was reformed into the29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "RONA", which was disbanded in November 1944. Its remaining 3,000–4,000 members were sent to join Vlasov's army.[10]
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{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Source: Wen Sie Verderben Wollen [Gebundene Ausgabe] by Jürgen Thorwald, pp. 82-83. ASIN: B0000BOL08.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)