Why Stalin deported the Tatars from Crimea

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

The debate about how and why this tragedy happened is becoming more and more acute. What were the reasons for the deportation? What actually happened on the territory of Crimea during the war? There are very few living witnesses of those events left who could tell about how everything really happened.

But what is not told by numerous eyewitnesses, and what is recorded in Soviet and German chronicles is enough to understand that resettlement was the only and most correct decision. Indeed, out of 200,000 of the total Crimean Tatar population, 20,000 became Wehrmacht fighters, that is, almost all men of military age.

How would they get along with the Red Army men who returned from the front, what would the war veterans do to them, having learned about what the Tatar punitive forces were doing on the territory of the Crimea during the German occupation? A massacre would begin, and resettlement was the only way out of this situation. And there was a reason to take revenge on the Red Army, and this is not Soviet propaganda, there are plenty of facts about their atrocities both from the Soviet and German sides.

So, in the Sudak region in 1942, a group of self-defenders-Tatars eliminated the reconnaissance landing of the Red Army, while the self-defenders caught and burned 12 Soviet paratroopers alive.

On February 4, 1943, Crimean Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshuy and Koush captured four partisans from the detachment of S. A. Mukovnin.

The partisans L. S. Chernov, V. F. Gordienko, G. K. Sannikov and Kh. K. Kiyamov were brutally killed: stabbed with bayonets, laid on fires and burned. Particularly disfigured was the corpse of the Kazan Tatar Kh. K. Kiyamov, whom the punishers, apparently, took for their fellow countryman.

The Crimean Tatar detachments also dealt with the civilian population just as brutally.

It got to the point that, fleeing from reprisals, the Russian-speaking population turned to the German authorities for help - and received protection from them!

Since the spring of 1942, a concentration camp operated on the territory of the Krasny state farm, in which at least 8 thousand Crimean residents were tortured and shot during the occupation.

According to eyewitnesses, the camp was guarded by Crimean Tatars from the 152nd auxiliary police battalion, whom the head of the camp, SS Oberscharführer Speckman, recruited to carry out the "dirtiest work."

With particular pleasure, the future "innocent victims of Stalinist repressions" mocked defenseless prisoners.

With their cruelty, they resembled the Crimean horde of the distant past.

The local Tatar population of the villages looked at the Soviet prisoners of war with contempt, and sometimes threw stones.

In addition, the Crimean Tatars helped the Germans to look for Jews and political workers among the prisoners of war.

Mass burning was also practiced: living people, tied with barbed wire, were stacked in several tiers, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Eyewitnesses claim that “those who were lying below were the luckiest ones” - they were suffocating under the weight of human bodies even before the execution.

For serving the Germans, many hundreds of Crimean Tatars were awarded special insignia approved by Hitler - “For courage and special merits shown by the population of the liberated regions who participated in the struggle against Bolshevism under the leadership of the German command.

So, according to the report of the Simferopol Muslim Committee, for 1943-01-12 - 1944-31-01:

“For services to the Tatar people, the German command was awarded: a sign with swords of the II degree issued for the liberated eastern regions, the chairman of the Simferopol Tatar committee, Mr. Dzhemil Abdureshid, a sign of the II degree, Chairman of the department of religion, Mr. Abdul-Aziz Gafar, an employee of the department of religion Mr. Fazil Sadyk and Chairman of the Tatar table Mr. Takhsin Cemil.

Mr. Cemil Abdureshid took an active part in the creation of the Simferopol Committee at the end of 1941 and, as the first chairman of the committee, was active in attracting volunteers to the ranks of the German army.

Abdul-Aziz Gafar and Fazil Sadyk, despite their advanced years, carried out work among volunteers and did significant work to establish religious affairs in the Simferopol region.

Mr. Takhsin Dzhemil in 1942 organized the Tatar table and, working as its chairman until the end of 1943, provided systematic assistance to the needy Tatars and families of volunteers."

In addition, the personnel of the Crimean Tatar formations were provided with all kinds of material benefits and privileges. According to one of the decisions of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKB), "any person who actively fought or is fighting against partisans and Bolsheviks" could apply for "giving him land or paying him a monetary reward of up to 1,000 rubles."

At the same time, his family was to receive from the social security departments of the city or district administration a monthly subsidy in the amount of 75 to 250 rubles.

After the publication on February 15, 1942 by the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions of the "Law on a New Agrarian Order", all Tatars who joined volunteer formations and their families were given full ownership of 2 hectares of land. The Germans provided them with the best plots, taking away the land from the peasants who did not join these formations.

As noted in the already cited memo of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Crimean ASSR, Major of State Security Karanadze in the NKVD of the USSR "On the political and moral state of the population of Crimea":

“People who are members of volunteer units are in a particularly privileged position. All of them receive wages, food, are exempt from taxes, received the best allotments of orchards and vineyards, tobacco plantations taken from the rest of the non-Tatar population.

Volunteers are given items stolen from the Jewish population.

Vineyards, orchards, cattle that belonged to them earlier are returned to the kulaks at the expense of the collective farms, and they estimate how many offspring this kulak would have during the collective farm system, and give out from the collective farm herd."

In response, the chairman of the Tatar committee said the following:

“I speak on behalf of the committee and on behalf of all Tatars, being sure that I am expressing their thoughts. One call of the German army is enough and the Tatars, one and all, will fight against the common enemy. We are honored to have the opportunity to fight under the leadership of the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, the greatest son of the German people. The faith embedded in us gives us the strength to trust the leadership of the German army without hesitation. Our names will later be honored along with the names of those who stood up for the liberation of the oppressed peoples."

Another 4 thousand to fight the partisans of the Crimea. In total, with the number of 200 thousand Tatars, 20 thousand volunteers were sent to serve the Germans.

After the approval of the general measures, the Tatars asked permission to end this first solemn meeting - the beginning of the struggle against the atheists - according to their custom, with prayer, and repeated the following three prayers for their mullah:

1st prayer: for the achievement of an early victory and a common goal, as well as for the health and long years of the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.

2nd prayer: for the German people and their valiant army.

3rd prayer: for the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht who fell in battle.

April 10, 1942. From the message to Adolf Hitler, received at the prayer service for more than 500 Muslims in the city of Karasu Bazaar:

“Our liberator! Only thanks to you, your help and thanks to the courage and dedication of your troops, we were able to open our houses of prayer and perform prayers in them. Now there is not and cannot be such a force that would separate us from the German people and from you. The Tatar people swore an oath and gave their word, having signed up as volunteers in the ranks of the German troops, hand in hand with your troops to fight against the enemy to the last drop of blood. Your victory is the victory of the entire Muslim world. We pray to God for the health of your troops and ask God to give you, the great liberator of nations, long years of life. You are now the liberator, the leader of the Muslim world - Adolf Hitler Gaza.

Our ancestors came from the East, and until now we have been waiting for liberation from there, but today we are witnessing that liberation comes to us from the West. Perhaps for the first and only time in history it happened that the sun of freedom rose in the West. This sun is you, our great friend and leader, with your mighty German people, and you, relying on the inviolability of the great German state, on the unity and might of the German people, bring us, oppressed Muslims, freedom. We have made an oath of allegiance to you to die for you with honor and arms in hand and only in the fight against a common enemy.

We are confident that we will achieve, together with you, the complete liberation of our peoples from the yoke of Bolshevism.

On the day of your glorious anniversary, we send you our heartfelt greetings and wishes, we wish you many years of fruitful life for the joy of your people, us, the Crimean Muslims and the Muslims of the East."

The concentration camp operating on the territory of the Krasny state farm in 1942-1944 was the largest Nazi concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of Crimea, in which about 8 thousand Soviet citizens were tortured during the years of occupation.

The German administration was represented by the commandant and the doctor.

All other functions were carried out by the soldiers of the 152nd Tatar SD Volunteer Battalion.

The camp guards were distinguished by a particularly "creative" approach to the extermination of prisoners. In particular, mothers with children were repeatedly drowned in pits with feces dug under the camp toilets.

All these horrors are not an invention of Soviet political instructors, but a bitter truth. There are many more examples of the “innocence of the Crimean Tatars”.