The Nart sagas are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhaz, Circassian, Ossetian and to some extent Chechen-Ingush folklore.
The Karachays or Karachai are an indigenous Caucasian-Turkic ethnic group native to the North Caucasus. They are primarily located in their ancestral lands in Karachay–Cherkess Republic, a republic of Russia in the North Caucasus. They have a common origin, culture, and language with the Balkars.
The Georgian Legion was a military formation of Nazi Germany during World War II, composed of ethnic Georgians. It was formed by Georgian émigrés and prisoners of war; its declared aim was the eventual restoration of Georgia's independence from the Soviet Union under Nazi Party's doctrine and supervision. Some components of the Georgian Legion fell under the operational control of Waffen-SS.
The Brandenburgers were members of Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht special forces unit during World War II.
Azerbaijani SS volunteer formations were recruited from prisoners of war, mainly from the Soviet Union and the countries annexed by it after 1939. Nazi Germany organised them to fight against the Soviet Union.
The Battle of the Caucasus was a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus as part of the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler had issued a directive to launch an operation into the Caucasus named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
The Turkestan Legion was the name for the military units composed of the Turkic peoples who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Most of these troops were Red Army POWs who formed a common cause with the Germans. Its establishment was spearheaded by Nuri Killigil, a Turkish theorist of Pan-Turkism, which sought to separate territories inhabited by Turkic peoples from their countries and eventually unite them under Turkish rule.
The Azerbaijani Legion was one of the foreign units of the Wehrmacht. It was formed in December 1941 on the Eastern Front as the Kaukasische-Mohammedanische Legion and was re-designated 1942 into two separate legions, the North Caucasian legion and the Azerbaijani legion. It was made up mainly of former Azerbaijani POW volunteers but also volunteers from other peoples in the area. It was part of the Ostlegionen. It was used to form the 162nd (Turkistan) Infanterie-Division of the Wehrmacht in 1943. similar to other Ostlegionen, it was organised to replenish the dwindling German manpower on the Eastern front and to "save the German blood at the front"
The Nachtigall Battalion, also known as the Ukrainian Nightingale Battalion Group, or officially as Special Group Nachtigall was a subunit under command of the German Abwehr special-operations unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800 in 1941. Along with the Roland Battalion it was one of two military units which originated on February 25, 1941, when the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, sanctioned the formation of a "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. The Legion was composed of volunteer Ukrainians many of whom were members or supporters of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). The Battalion participated in early stages of Operation Barbarossa with Army Group South between June and August 1941.
The 131st Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was a motorised infantry unit of the Soviet Army and of the Russian Ground Forces.
The Special Group Bergmann or the Bergmann Battalion was a military unit of the German Abwehr during World War II, composed of five German-officered companies of the Caucasian volunteers.
Operation Schamil was a code-name for a German Abwehr operation to airdrop special forces ahead of the main attacking force against the Soviet town of Grozny which was a major oil production and refining center and, together with Maykop and Baku, was the primary objective for the German 1942 summer offensive by Army Group A led by Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm List. It was named after Imam Shamil.
Balkar and Karachay nationalism is the national sentiment among the Balkars and Karachai. It generally manifests itself in:
A large number of Soviet citizens of various ethnicities collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. It is estimated that the number of Soviet collaborators with the Nazi German military was around 1 million.
Among the approximately one million foreign volunteers and conscripts who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Finns, Danes, French, Hungarians, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Swedes, Swiss along with people from Great Britain, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Balkans. At least 47,000 Spaniards served in the Blue Division.
The 444th Security Division was a rear-security division in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany. The unit was deployed in German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, in the Army Group South Rear Area.
The North Caucasian Legion and the Mountain-Caucasian Legion legions were created in accordance with the order of 19 February 1942. Initially, its soldiers, recruited from the camps of prisoners of war, deserters, and partly from representatives of emigration were included in the Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion. On 2 August 1942, in accordance with the order of 19 February 1942, all fighters of Muslim North Caucasian and Mountain Caucasian origin were separated from the Caucasian-Mohamedan Legion into separate North Caucasian / Mountain-Caucasian legions. These Legions consisted of Abkhazians, Circassians, Kabardians, Balkars, Karachays, Chechens, Ingushes, and the peoples of Dagestan. The Kurds, Talyshs and North Ossetians appeared later. According to the researcher Traho R. "The total number of North Caucasian volunteers since the beginning of the war against the USSR and until 1945 amounted to 28-30 thousand people". Formally, both of these legions were the Armed Forces of the so-called North Caucasus National Committee.
Israfil Israfilov, Israfil Muhammedbey, or in short Israfil-Bey was Russian, Azerbaijani and Polish military officer, Standartenführer of the Waffen-SS.
Sultan Shakhanovich Klych-Girey was a Russian and Circassian general of Crimean Tatar descent. A career military officer, Klych-Girey participated in the suppression of Russian Revolution of 1905, fought in World War I and the Russian Civil War for the Russian Empire and White movement before becoming a supporter of Circassian nationalism as a White émigré. During World War II, he collaborated with Nazi Germany and served in Cossack collaborationist units, for which he was repatriated to the Soviet Union and executed by hanging in 1947.
