Nazi auxiliary units (WW II) There was no overall policy for the formation of auxiliary units. Most were formed after the invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941 because of manpower shortages in the Wehrmacht and, later, Waffen SS but rapidly acquired political significance. The origins of Hitler's policy towards the USSR and occupied territories (Ostpolitik) could be found in Mein Kampf and rested on the assumption that Slavs were Untermenschen (subhumans). The length of the campaign and the population's response to Nazi policies forced the military to argue for changes.
Between June and November 1941, the Germans took 3, 800, 000 POWs and some of these began to be used in auxiliary capacities. These Hilfswillige (Hiwis) worked at first in non-combatant positions—drivers, ammunition carriers, etc.—and gradually in military capacities as local militia, in partisan combat, and as regular units with German officers. Statistics were inaccurate and designed to mislead the authorities as to the extent of non-Aryans in the armed forces. On 15 December 1942 Gen Heinz Hellmich was appointed General der Osttruppen and in 1943, Gen Ernst Köstring replaced him. On 1 January 1944 the position was renamed General der Freiwilligeverbände (volunteer units). It is estimated that by the end of the war there were more than 800, 000 Soviet nationals in the Wehrmacht.
Many auxiliaries considered themselves members of the Russkaya Osvoboditel'naya Armiya (Russian Liberation Army) under the command of captured Red Army Lt Gen Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov and sewed badges on their uniforms to indicate their allegiance. This army never existed although it was mentioned in propaganda, beginning with the Smolensk Manifesto of December 1942. In June 1943, at the Berghof conference, Hitler forbade further attempts to form a Russian army and Vlasov was kept under virtual house arrest until the summer of 1944 when after further discussions the Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii (the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, KONR) was formed. The publication of the Prague Manifesto in November 1944 signalled the creation of two divisions numbering initially about 10, 000 men recruited from POW camps and not the Wehrmacht. The 1st Division fought with the Czech nationalists against SS troops and the Wehrmacht in Prague in May 1945. The 2nd KONR Division never saw active service. When it became clear that the Americans were not going to enter Prague, the division tried to enter the American zone. Refused permission to do so, the army disbanded and many were captured by the Red Army.
In contrast to the controversy surrounding the creation of a Russian army, the formation of the Ostlegionen was sanctioned in 1941 and was fostered by Rosenberg in the Ostministerium. The Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, North Caucasian, Turkestan, and Volga Tartar legions were formed. There was a cavalry corps of Kalmyks and a Volga Tartar formation. Sizes of formations varied and most were stationed on the eastern front. Cossacks were allowed to have their own military formations because some of their émigré leaders had supported Hitler in the 1920s for his anti-Bolshevism. Consequently they were considered to be ‘Goths’ and not Untermenschen Slavs. However, numbers are unclear as the terms ‘Cossack’ and ‘Ukrainian’ were widely used to describe Soviet citizens. Nazi policy was inconsistent and attempts to create self-governing Cossack areas never came to fruition. On 15 April 1942, a Cossack division under the command of Lt Gen Helmuth von Pannwitz was formed with regiments from the Don, Kuban, Terek, and Siberia. The émigré Gen P. N. Krasnov headed a directorate of Cossack forces created in March 1944 and refused to join Vlasov; his men moved south and surrendered to the British in Italy.
The other significant auxiliary formation was the Spanish Blue Division. Ostensibly despatched to the Soviet front in gratitude for help during the Spanish civil war, and as part of Franco's campaign against communism, the division was perhaps part of the price Franco felt he had to pay to deny Hitler the right to roll through Spain to take Gibraltar or in some other way commit him irrevocably to the war on the Axis side. Formed in 1941, commanded by Maj Gen Augustín Muũoz Grandes and from December 1942 by Maj Gen Esteban Infantes, it originally numbered 17, 692 men. It became the German 250th Infantry Division with 262nd, 263rd, and 269th Regiments and 250th Artillery Regiment. It saw action in the USSR in October 1941 on the Volkhov, and later was involved, ironically, in surrounding Vlasov's Second Shock Army. Part of the Leningrad front, it was recalled in late 1943 with the smaller Spanish Legion remaining until spring 1944. Approximately 47, 000 served with the division: 22, 000 were casualties and 4, 500 were killed or died.
Bibliography
- Andreyev, C., Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement (Cambridge, 1987).
- Dallin, A., German Rule in Russia (
2nd edn. , London, 1981). - Hoffmann, J., Die Ostlegionen (Freiburg, 1976).
- Kleinfeld, G., and Tambs, L., Hitler's Spanish Legion: The Blue Division in Russia (Carbondale, Ill., 1979).
- Longworth, P., The Cossacks (London, 1969)
— Catherine C. L. Andreyev
