The XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps[a] was a World War IIcavalrycorps of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party, primarily recruited from Cossacks. It was originally known as the XIV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps from September 1944, after Helmuth von Pannwitz's 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of the Wehrmacht was transferred to the SS, before being renumbered as XV in February 1945. The two brigades of the division were expanded when the corps was formed, so they became the new 1st and 2nd Cossack Cavalry Divisions. A third division was also planned on but never officially activated, with only one separate brigade being established. Although the corps was officially part of the Waffen-SS, its members never wore any SS insignia and its officers remained the same as before.
In late April 1945, shortly before the end of the war, the corps was transferred from the SS to the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, becoming the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps of the VS KONR.[b]Ivan Kononov was appointed the corps commander with the title Ataman of All Cossack Forces, but this change was not implemented before the end of World War II in Europe. The Cossack Corps, led by Pannwitz, retreated from occupied Yugoslavia with the rest of the Wehrmacht's Army Group F and surrendered to the Western Allies in Austria in May 1945.
Background
Cossacks in the Wehrmacht, 1942A German interpreter speaking to Cossacks in the Kuban bridgehead, 1943
During the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), Cossack leaders and their governments generally sided with the White movement. After the Soviets emerged victorious in the civil war, a policy of de-Cossackisation was instituted between 1919 and 1933, aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a separate cultural and political group.[3] Cossacks in exile joined other Russian émigré groups in Central and Western Europe, while those in Russia endured continual repression.
In October 1942, the Germans established a semi-autonomous Cossack District in the Kuban. This put them in a position to recruit Cossacks from these areas and mobilise them against the Red Army. This was in contrast to soldiers of the ROA, who had been recruited from POW camps and Red Army defectors, most soldiers of the German Cossack units had never been citizens of the Soviet Union.[4]
History
In the summer of 1944, Heinrich Himmler and the SS became interested in gaining control of the 1st Cossack Division under Helmuth von Pannwitz. In July 1944 Himmler discussed the organisation of a Cossack fighting unit in the Białystok region and requested from Adolf Hitler, that the Cossack Division would be placed in the organisational structure of the SS. On 26 August 1944 he met with Pannwitz and his chief of staff. Himmler planned to gather all Cossack units to form a second Cossack division and proposed the transfer of the 1st Cossack Division to the SS. All units were to be placed under Pannwitz's command. Though initially reluctant, Pannwitz eventually agreed to place his division under SS administration.[5] Both German cadre and Cossack troops would retain their traditional uniforms and their Wehrmacht or Cossack rank. Pannwitz hoped to raise his unit's low morale and to receive more supplies and better equipment.[6] The Cossacks did not wear the SS runes or receive any ideological indoctrination.[7]
In September 1944, the XIV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps was established on the basis of the 1st Cossack Division. The Cossacks fought an engagement against the Red Army on 25 December 1944 near Pitomača to prevent them from crossing the Drava River. The commander of the 5th Don Cossack Cavalry Regiment, Ivan Kononov, was awarded the Iron Cross, first class, after the battle.[8]
In November 1944 the 1st Cossack Division was taken over by the Waffen-SS. The SS Führungshauptamt reorganised the division and used further Cossack combat units from the army and the Ordnungspolizei to form a 2nd Cossack Cavalry Division. Both divisions were placed under the command of the XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps on 1 February 1945. With the transfer of the 5th Volunteer Cossack Depot Regiment from the Volunteer Depot Division on the same day the takeover of the Cossack units by the Waffen-SS was complete.[9][10] According to Samuel J. Newland, the corps, composed of the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Brigades and the 1st and 2nd Division, was actually formed on 25 February 1945, when it was officially created by the High Command.[11] The corps was initially subordinated to Army Group F in Croatia, and since March 1945 to Army Group E in Croatia.[12] During their time there, they were known by the locals as Čerkezi ("Circassians"), despite the corps' Cossack ethnic makeup.[13]
The corps supported the German offensive Operation Spring Awakening in Hungary by launching an offensive against a Soviet bridgehead at Valpovo on the Drava. During April the corps was engaged in minor actions and then began to withdraw from Yugoslavia on 3 May 1945. Senior officers had concluded that the corps should fight their way back to Austria in order to be captured by the British. According to one source, Pannwitz felt that the West would have great use for the corps as an anti-Bolshevik formation. The 2nd Division covered the withdrawal of the 1st Division against partisan forces. Unaffected by the German surrender on 8 May and partisan demands to surrender, the Cossack units continued fighting on their way to the British zone. On 10 May Pannwitz surrendered to the British, while the last divisional elements reached the British zone on 13 May 1945.[14]
The regiments of the corps each had a patch with two main colors, a black border, and Cyrillic letters that represented each Cossack host.[17] The latter included ВД (Don Host), ПСВ (Regiment of the Siberian Host), КВ (Kuban Host), or ТВ (Terek Host).[18]
Though the division had fought westwards to surrender to the western Allies, the British later surrendered all Cossack units to the Red Army. Several thousand were killed in a mass execution near Lienz, Austria, while the commanding officers, including Pannwitz, were put on trial and executed in 1947. Gravestones near Lienz mark the location of the mass graves.[19]
Littlejohn, David (1987). Foreign Legions of the Third Reich. Vol.4. San Jose: R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN0-912138-17-3.
Mueggenberg, Brent (2019). The Cossack Struggle Against Communism, 1917-1945. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN978-1-4766-7948-8.
Naumenko, Vyacheslav (1970). Великое Предательство[The Great Betrayal] (in Russian). Vol.2. New York: All Slavic Publishing House. ISBN978-1-9869-3235-6.
Newland, Samuel J. (1991). Cossacks in the German Army, 1941-1945. London, England: Frank Cass. ISBN0-7146-3351-8.
Tessin, Georg (1977). "Die Waffengattungen – Gesamtübersicht" [The military branches – overview]. Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945 (in German). Vol.1. Osnabrück: Biblio.
Tessin, Georg (1966). "Die Landstreitkräfte 1-5" [Ground forces 1 to 5]. Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945: (in German). Vol.2. Frankfurt am Main: Mittler.
Tessin, Georg (1970). "Die Landstreitkräfte 15–30" [Ground forces 15 to 30]. Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS 1939-1945 (in German). Vol.4. Osnabrück: Biblio.
Werth, Nicholas (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN0-674-07608-7.
Further reading
François de Lannoy: Les Cosaques de Pannwitz: 1942 - 1945. Bayeux: Heimdal, 2000. ISBN2-84048-131-6
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