Caucasians fought for Hitler

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

After the failure of the fascist plan of "lightning war" in the fields of Smolensk and Moscow region, the secret services of the Third Reich radically changed the forms and methods of their activities. In addition to purely tactical reconnaissance in the front line, they launched large-scale reconnaissance and sabotage work deep in the Soviet rear in the hope of stirring up pro-fascist uprisings, the result of which would be the seizure of oil fields and other strategic objects by the Germans. At the same time, special emphasis was placed on the republics of the North Caucasus with a difficult internal situation and the presence of hotbeds of resistance in the person of anti-Soviet rebel movements. One of these regions was at that time Checheno-Ingushetia, towards which the German military intelligence (Abwehr) turned its gaze.

TROUBLE REPUBLIC

The growth of activity of religious and gangster authorities was observed in the Chechen Republic of the ASSR even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, thereby exerting a serious negative impact on the situation in the republic. Focusing on Muslim Turkey, they advocated the unification of the Muslims of the Caucasus into a single state under the protectorate of Turkey.

To achieve their goal, the separatists called on the population of the republic to resist the measures of the government and local authorities, and initiated open armed demonstrations. Particular emphasis was placed on the treatment of Chechen youth against serving in the Red Army and studying in FZO schools. At the expense of deserters, who went into an illegal position, bandit formations were replenished, which were pursued by units of the NKVD troops.

So, in 1940, the rebel organization of Sheikh Magomet-Khadzhi Kurbanov was identified and neutralized. In January 1941, a large armed uprising was localized in the Itum-Kalinsky region under the leadership of Idris Magomadov. In total, in 1940, the administrative bodies of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic arrested 1,055 bandits and their accomplices, from whom 839 rifles and revolvers with ammunition were confiscated. 846 deserters who evaded service in the Red Army were tried. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War entailed a new series of bandit sorties in Shatoisky, Galanchozhsky and Cheberloevsky districts. According to the NKVD, in August - November 1941, up to 800 people took part in armed uprisings.

DIVISION NOT REACHING TO THE FRONT

Being in an illegal position, the leaders of the Chechen-Ingush separatists counted on the imminent defeat of the USSR in the war and led a wide defeatist campaign for desertion from the ranks of the Red Army, disrupting mobilization, and putting together armed formations to fight in Germany's favor. During the first mobilization from August 29 to September 2, 1941, 8000 people were to be conscripted into construction battalions. However, only 2,500 arrived at their destination, in Rostov-on-Don, the remaining 5,500 either simply avoided appearing at the recruiting offices or deserted along the way.

During the additional mobilization in October 1941 of persons born in 1922, out of 4733 conscripts, 362 people avoided appearing at the recruiting stations.

By the decision of the State Defense Committee, in the period from December 1941 to January 1942, the 114th national division was formed from the indigenous population in the ChI ASSR. As of the end of March 1942, 850 people managed to defect from it.

The second mass mobilization in Checheno-Ingushetia began on March 17, 1942 and was supposed to end on the 25th. The number of persons to be mobilized was 14,577 people. However, by the appointed time, only 4,887 were mobilized, of which only 4,395 were sent to military units, that is, 30% of the assignment. In this regard, the mobilization period was extended until April 5, but the number of mobilized people increased only to 5,543 people. The reason for the disruption of mobilization was the massive evasion of conscripts from conscription and desertion on the way to assembly points.

At the same time, members and candidates for members of the CPSU (b), Komsomol members, officials of regional and village Soviets (chairmen of executive committees, chairmen and party organizers of collective farms, etc.) evaded the draft.

On March 23, 1942, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Chechen Republic of the ASSR Daga Dadaev, mobilized by the Nadterechny RVK, escaped from the Mozdok station. Under the influence of his agitation, another 22 people fled with him. Among the deserters were also several instructors of the Komsomol RK, a people's judge and a district prosecutor.

By the end of March 1942, the total number of deserters and evaders in the republic reached 13,500 people. Thus, the active Red Army received less than a full-fledged rifle division. In the conditions of mass desertion and the intensification of the insurgent movement on the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in April 1942, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR signed an order to cancel the conscription of Chechens and Ingush into the army.

In January 1943, the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the ChI ASSR applied to the NKO of the USSR with a proposal to announce an additional recruitment of volunteer servicemen from among the inhabitants of the republic. The proposal was approved and the local authorities received permission to recruit 3,000 volunteers. According to the order of the NCO, the conscription was ordered to be carried out in the period from January 26 to February 14, 1943. However, the approved plan for the next conscription was also miserably failed this time both in terms of execution and in the number of volunteers sent to the troops.

So, as of March 7, 1943, 2986 "volunteers" were sent to the Red Army out of those recognized as fit for combat service. Of these, only 1806 people arrived at the unit. Along the route alone, 1,075 people managed to defect. In addition, 797 more "volunteers" fled from the district mobilization points and along the route to Grozny. All in all, from January 26 to March 7, 1943, 1872 persons liable for military service from the so-called last "voluntary" conscription in the Chechen Republic of the ASSR deserted.

Among those who escaped were again representatives of the regional and regional party and Soviet assets: secretary of the Gudermes RK VKP (b) Arsanukaev, head of the department of the Vedensky RK VKP (b) Magomayev, secretary of the Komsomol regional committee for military work Martazaliev, second secretary of the Gudermes RK Komsomol Taimaskhanov, chairman of the Galanchaozh district Khayauri.

IN THE BACK OF THE RED ARMY

The leading role in disrupting the mobilization was played by the underground Chechen political organizations - the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers and the Chechen-Gorsk National Socialist Underground Organization. The first was led by its organizer and ideologist Khasan Israilov, who became one of the central figures of the insurrectionary movement in Chechnya during the Great Patriotic War. With the outbreak of the war, Israilov went into an illegal position and until 1944 led a number of large bandit formations, while maintaining close ties with German intelligence agencies.

Another organization was headed by the brother of the famous revolutionary in Chechnya A. Sheripov - Mayrbek Sheripov. In October 1941, he also went into an illegal position and amassed several bandit detachments around him, consisting mainly of deserters. In August 1942, M. Sheripov raised an armed uprising in Chechnya, during which the administrative center of the Sharoevsky district, the village of Khimoy, was defeated, and an attempt was made to seize the neighboring regional center, the village of Itum-Kale. However, the rebels lost the battle with the local garrison and were forced to retreat.

In November 1942, Mayrbek Sheripov was killed as a result of a conflict with accomplices. Some of the members of his bandit groups joined Kh. Israilov, some continued to act alone, and some surrendered to the authorities.

All in all, the pro-fascist parties formed by Israilov and Sheripov had over 4,000 members, and the total number of their rebel detachments reached 15,000. In any case, these are the figures that Israilov reported to the German command in March 1942. Thus, in the immediate rear of the Red Army, a whole division of ideological bandits was operating, ready at any moment to provide significant assistance to the advancing German troops.

However, the Germans themselves understood this. The aggressive plans of the German command included the active use of the "fifth column" - anti-Soviet individuals and groups in the rear of the Red Army. It certainly included the bandit underground in Checheno-Ingushetia as such.

"ENTERPRISE" SHAMIL"

Having correctly assessed the potential of the insurrectionary movement for the advancing Wehrmacht, the German special services set out to unite all the bandit formations under a single command. To prepare for a one-time uprising in mountainous Chechnya, special emissaries of the Abwehr were supposed to be sent as coordinators and instructors.

The 804th regiment of the Brandenburg-800 special purpose division was aimed at solving this problem, directed to the North Caucasian sector of the Soviet-German front. Subdivisions of this division, on the instructions of the Abwehr and the Wehrmacht command, carried out sabotage and terrorist acts and reconnaissance work in the rear of the Soviet troops, captured important strategic objects and held them until the main forces approached.

As part of the 804th regiment, there was a Sonderkommando of Chief Lieutenant Gerhard Lange, conventionally called "Enterprise" Lange "or" Enterprise "Shamil". The team was staffed by agents from among the former prisoners of war and emigrants of the Caucasian nationalities and was intended for subversive activities in the rear of the Soviet troops in the Caucasus. Before being sent to the rear of the Red Army, the saboteurs underwent nine months of training at a special school located in Austria near the Mosham castle. Here they taught subversion, topography, taught how to handle small arms, self-defense techniques and the use of fictitious documents. The direct transfer of agents behind the front line was carried out by Abwehr command-201.

On August 25, 1942, from Armavir, a group of Ober-Lieutenant Lange in the amount of 30 people, staffed mainly by Chechens, Ingush and Ossetians, was parachuted to the area of the villages of Chishki, Dachu-Borzoy and Duba-Yurt of the Ataginsky region of the Chechen Republic of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to commit sabotage and terrorist acts and organizing an insurrectionary movement, timing the uprising to the beginning of the German offensive on Grozny.

On the same day, another group of six people landed near the village of Berezhki, Galashki region, led by a native of Dagestan, a former emigrant Osman Guba (Saidnurov), who, to give due weight among the Caucasians, was named in the documents "Colonel of the German Army". Initially, the group was tasked with advancing to the village of Avtury, where, according to German intelligence, a large number of Chechens who had deserted from the Red Army were hiding in the forests. However, due to the error of the German pilot, the paratroopers were thrown much west of the designated area. At the same time, Osman Guba was to become the coordinator of all armed bandit formations on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia.

And in September 1942, another group of saboteurs in the amount of 12 people was thrown out on the territory of the ChI ASSR under the leadership of non-commissioned officer Gert Reckert. The Abwehr agent Leonard Chetvergas from the Reckert group, who was arrested by the NKVD in Chechnya, testified during interrogation about its goals: active struggle against Soviet power at all stages of its existence, that the peoples of the Caucasus truly desire the victory of the German army and the establishment of German order in the Caucasus. to an armed uprising against Soviet power. By overthrowing Soviet power in the Caucasian republics and handing it over to the Germans, ensure the successful advance of the advancing German army in the Transcaucasus, which will follow in the coming days. The landing groups preparing for the landing in the rear of the Red Army were also tasked with preserving the oil industry of Grozny from possible destruction by retreating units of the Red Army."

EVERYONE HELPED THE DIVERSANTS

Once in the rear, the paratroopers everywhere enjoyed the sympathy of the population, ready to provide assistance with food and accommodate for the night. The attitude of local residents to the saboteurs was so loyal that they could afford to walk in the Soviet rear in German military uniforms.

A few months later, Osman Guba, arrested by the NKVD, described his impression of the first days of his stay on the Chechen-Ingush territory during interrogation: “In the evening, a collective farmer named Ali-Mahomet came to our forest and with him another named Mahomet. who we are, but when we took an oath on the Koran that we were indeed sent to the rear of the Red Army by the German command, they believed us. They told us that the terrain we are on is flat and it is dangerous for us to stay here. they recommended going to the mountains of Ingushetia, since it would be easier to hide there. After spending 3-4 days in the forest near the village of Berezhki, accompanied by Ali-Mahomet, we went to the mountains to the village of Hai, where Ali-Mahomet had good friends. a certain Ilaev Kasum, who took us to his place, and we stayed overnight with him. Ilaev introduced us to his son-in-law Ichaev Soslanbek, who escorted us to the mountains …

When we were in a hut near the village of Hai, we were often visited by various Chechens passing along the nearby road, and usually expressed sympathy for us ….

However, the Abwehr agents received sympathy and support not only from ordinary peasants. Collective farm chairmen and leaders of the party and Soviet apparatus willingly offered their cooperation. "The first person with whom I spoke directly about the deployment of anti-Soviet work on the instructions of the German command," Osman told Guba during the investigation, "was the chairman of the Dattykh village council, a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Ibragim Pshegurov. I told him that I was an emigrant, that we had been dropped. by parachutes from a German plane and that our goal is to help the German army in the liberation of the Caucasus from the Bolsheviks and to carry out a further struggle for the independence of the Caucasus. Pshegurov said that he sympathized with me. He recommended now to establish contacts with the right people, but to speak openly only then, when the Germans take the city of Ordzhonikidze."

A little later, the chairman of the Akshi village council, Duda Ferzauli, came to the Abwehr envoy. According to O. Gube, “Ferzauli himself came up to me and in every possible way proved that he was not a communist, that he was obliged to fulfill any of my tasks … At the same time, he brought half a liter of vodka and tried in every possible way to appease me, as a messenger from the Germans. take it under my protection after their area is occupied by the Germans."

Representatives of the local population not only sheltered and fed the Abwehr saboteurs, but also sometimes took the initiative to carry out sabotage and terrorist acts. Osman's testimony to Guba describes an episode when a local resident Musa Keloev came to his group, who said that he was ready to complete any task, and he himself noticed that it was important to disrupt the railway traffic on the narrow-gauge Ordzhonikidzevskaya - Muzhichi road, since they were transported along it military cargo. I agreed with him that it is necessary to blow up a bridge on this road. To carry out the explosion, I sent along with him a member of my parachute group, Salman Aguev. When they returned, they reported that they had blown up an unguarded wooden railway bridge."

Uprising after uprising

Thrown into Chechnya, the Abwehr contacted the leaders of the rebels Kh. Israilov and M. Sheripov, and a number of other field commanders and began to fulfill their main task - organizing an uprising in the rear of the Red Army. Already in October 1942, the German paratrooper Reckert, who had been abandoned a month earlier in the mountainous part of Chechnya, together with the leader of one of the gangs, Rasul Sakhabov, provoked a massive armed uprising of the inhabitants of the villages of the Vedensky district of Selmentauzen and Makhkety. To localize the uprising, significant forces of the regular units of the Red Army, which were defending the North Caucasus at that time, were pulled together. This uprising took about a month to prepare. According to the testimony of captured German paratroopers, enemy aircraft dropped 10 large batches of weapons (over 500 units of small arms, 10 machine guns and ammunition and them) into the area of the village of Makhkety, which were immediately distributed to the rebels.

During this period, active actions of armed militants were noted everywhere in the republic. The scale of banditry in general is evidenced by the following documentary statistics. During September - October 1942, the NKVD authorities liquidated 41 armed groups with a total number of over 400 "regular" bandits (excluding the uprising in the villages of Selmentauzen and Makhkety). 60 single bandits voluntarily surrendered and were captured. On November 1, 1942, 35 active bandit groups and up to 50 individuals were identified.

Subversive actions of the Abwehr were not limited only to Checheno-Ingushetia. The Nazis had a powerful base of support in the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, inhabited mainly by Chechens. A wave of banditry has also risen here. So, for example, in September 1942, the inhabitants of the village of Mozhgar, sabotaging the implementation of economic measures, brutally killed the first secretary of the Khasavyurt district committee of the CPSU (b) Lukin and the whole village went to the mountains.

At the same time, the Abwehr sabotage group of 6 people under the leadership of Sainutdin Magomedov was thrown into this area with the task of organizing uprisings in the regions of Dagestan bordering Chechnya. All members of the group were dressed in the uniform of German officers. However, by the measures taken by the state security authorities, the group was quickly localized, and a bale of fascist literature was found at the site of its landing.

TO BE CONTINUED?

Despite the fact that the attempts of the German special services to blow up Chechen-Ingushetia from the inside failed, the command of the Wehrmacht as a whole positively assessed the assistance provided to him by the rebels and, as the trophy documents, as well as the testimony of the prisoners, count on it in the future.

In August 1943, the Abwehr threw three more groups of saboteurs into the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. As of July 1, 1943, 34 enemy paratroopers were listed on the territory of the republic on the territory of the republic, including 4 Germans, 13 Chechens and Ingush, the rest represented other nationalities of the Caucasus.

In total, for 1942-1943. the Abwehr threw about 80 paratroopers into Chechen-Ingushetia to communicate with the local bandit underground, of which more than 50 were traitors to the Motherland from among the former Soviet servicemen, natives of the Caucasus. In the overwhelming majority, they were either captured or eliminated by the state security organs, but some of them, mainly the Germans, still managed to return to the front line with the help of guides from the local population who sympathized with the Nazis.

From the testimony of prisoners and intelligence reports, the leadership of the USSR and the Red Army received information that the rebel forces of Chechen-Ingushetia were intended to be used by the Nazis in 1944 when conducting large-scale landing operations in the Kalmyk and Nogai steppes, with the prospect of being seized from the military-industrial regions of the Urals. and Siberia, as well as from the westernized front of the entire Caucasian region with its reserves of the main strategic raw material - oil. The real confirmation of the existence of such a scenario is the outlined by the Abwehr in the spring of 1944.an operation code-named "Roman Numeral II", during which it was supposed to land 36 cavalry squadrons (the so-called "Dr. Doll's corps") in the Soviet rear, formed by their number of Caucasian and Kalmyk prisoners of war who had betrayed their homeland.

Since the loss of oil fields in the North Caucasus and Baku would have turned into a complete disaster for the advancing Red Army, the country's leadership took preventive measures aimed at depriving German troops of a support base. As a result, at the end of 1943 - beginning of 1944, some of the peoples of the North Caucasus, including the Chechens and Ingush, as those who provided and could provide the greatest assistance to the Nazis in the future, were deported to the deep rear.

However, the effectiveness of this action, the victims of which were mainly innocent old people, women and children, turned out to be illusory. The main forces of the armed bandit formations, embittered and driven to despair, as always, took refuge in the remote mountainous part of the republic, from where they continued to make bandit sorties for several more years.

ONLY BY 1970 THE LAST GAND OF "REBELS" FORMED BY Fascist special services was liquidated in Chechnya

The Central Archive of the FSB contains declassified materials of the criminal case of the resident of the German intelligence service Osman Saidnurov (undercover pseudonym - Guba), who was abandoned in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1942 to form bandit groups and organize an uprising in the Caucasus

At the beginning of 1943, the fascist emissary Osman Gube was arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence and gave frank testimony, which contributed to the almost complete defeat of the Caucasian "insurgent" movement. Here are some excerpts from the interrogation minutes of the fascist resident.

“Question: - How did you get to the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic?

Answer: - On the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia, I was thrown from a plane belonging to the German army on August 25, 1942 and landed in the area of the villages of Arshty - Bereshki, Galashki region.

Question: - How many people were dropped by the Germans at the same time as you? Name them

Answer: - Four. Ramazanov Ali, 45 years old, a native of the Kazikumuk region of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, who lived in the Crimea, where he was engaged in silver engraving; Hasanov Daud, 35 years old, a native of the village of Untsukul, Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; Batalov Akhmed, 30 years old, Chechen, native of the Shali region of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; Agayev Salman, a Chechen, a native of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, served in an airborne unit in the Red Army and together with a group of 15 people at the beginning of 1942 was transferred to the Crimea to join the partisans, but the next day the Germans were detained and recruited …

Question: - With what task did you arrive in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR?

Answer: - Recruiting local residents. Intelligence activities. Organization of blowing up bridges and other structures with the expectation of disrupting the movement of units of the Red Army. Encourage the local population to sabotage and disrupt the measures of the Soviet authorities to supply the Red Army with food. Carry out pro-fascist agitation among the population and spread rumors about the imminent arrival of German troops, their imminent seizure of the entire Caucasus, promising independence on behalf of the German command to all Caucasian peoples. Organize, if possible, an uprising in mountainous areas and seize power into your own hands, uniting bandit bands and rebel groups for this purpose …

The fact that the intention of the fascist special services to raise an uprising in the Caucasus was not groundless, evidenced by the documents of local political agencies, recently declassified in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

According to the military commissariats, in March 1942, out of 14,576 Chechen conscripts, 13,560 people deserted, who went to the mountains and joined the gangs.

At the end of August 1943, the head of the political department of the military commissariat of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Colonel Ivanov, reported to the higher leadership: “In Shatoevsky, Itum-Kalinsky, Cheberloevsky,The situation in Sharoevsky and other regions remains tense.

1. On 12.8.43, a group of bandits entered the regional center of the Achaluk region, armed with machine guns and rifles. The bandits started shooting, attacked the apartment of the policeman Bistov, opened fire on the windows. Bistov managed to escape, and his 14-year-old daughter was killed.

2. 18.8.43 from the collective farm named after The "2nd five-year plan" of the Achaluk region was taken away by the bandits of the collective farm horses.

3. 18.8.43 in the area of villages. Buta, an armed gang of up to 30 people attacked the convoy with a cargo of the Sharoevsky general store.

4. On August 19, 1943, a group of an armed gang in the Kirinsky village council stole up to 300 heads of sheep.

5. In Achkhoi-Martanovsky district 13.8. 43 in the village of Chu-Zhi-Chu, the chairman of the village council, comrade Larsonova, was killed by a group of bandits.

At present, measures are being taken to liquidate the counter-revolutionary bandit groups in the republic."

Reading these documents, one involuntarily draws attention to the fact that even in wartime the bandit sorties in Chechnya were not as bloody and cruel as they are today. Perhaps that is why some of the bandit groups managed to avoid destruction, and they hid in the mountains for quite a long time after the war?

Recently I had the opportunity to talk on this topic with the KGB Major General Eduard Boleslavovich Nordman. Here's what he said:

- In 1968 I took part in a routine inspection of the work of the KGB in Checheno-Ingushetia. From conversations with local Chekists, I unexpectedly learned that two gangs that were formed during the war years are still hiding in the mountains. True, their activities have lost any political connotation. They just survived, robbed the local population. But it did not betray its offenders - due to its peculiar mentality.

When I returned to Moscow, they began to invite me to the offices of the commanding officers and ask me about the situation in Checheno-Ingushetia. When it came to bandit formations, they stopped me: they say, you didn’t speak, I didn’t hear. Only to the secretary of the Central Committee Kirilenko, I was able to tell this story to the end and proposed to create a department for combating banditry in the republican KGB to solve the problem. Andrei Pavlovich replied: “Do you understand what you are saying? So many years have passed since the war, and we will sign that we have not yet finished off the fascist henchmen? A shame!" I plucked up courage, went to Andropov, reported the situation. At the same time, he added: “After all, neither the Ministry of Internal Affairs nor the KGB have prescribed the fight against banditry in their duties due to the absence of such a problem. Nobody is chasing those "atavistic" gangs. Yuri Vladimirovich immediately ordered the creation of a special department. By 1970, the gangs in Checheno-Ingushetia were done away with. True, twenty years later they appeared in even greater numbers … But that's another story.