I. A. Gilyazov

LEGION "IDEL-URAL"

Introduction

The Great Patriotic War is gradually moving away from us into the distant past. This war, one of the bloodiest in human history, largely determined the course of subsequent historical events. It became a huge tragedy for millions of people. Its traces, perhaps, remain today in the souls of not only war veterans and those who survived the horrors of war while working on the home front, but they can probably be felt in the feelings of post-war generations, each of which in their own way is trying to understand the greatness and tragedy of this large-scale disaster. Therefore, the undying interest in military issues of modern historical science is obvious. It would seem that the theme of the Great Patriotic War has been studied far and wide by researchers. Thousands of monographs and articles have been published on the history of the war, and there are also major multi-volume studies.

And yet, war is such a multifaceted and multidimensional phenomenon that even after more than 60 years it is hardly possible to study every nuance of it with all scrupulousness and objectivity. There are also certainly subjects that have been little or insufficiently studied by researchers, the so-called “blank spots.” And indeed, for some time, topics in the history of war remained closed to study. For political reasons, they were tabooed. Historians could think about them to themselves, but they had neither the opportunity nor the permission to study them.

One of these problems is the very sensitive and ambiguously perceived topic of Soviet collaboration during the war years or the topic of military and political cooperation of a certain part of Soviet citizens with Germany - the occupation authorities, the Wehrmacht and the SS, and the political institutions of the Third Reich. Obviously, many have heard about General Andrei Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Army, about the Eastern legions created by the Nazis from prisoners of war of representatives of the Turkic-Muslim peoples of the USSR, including the Idel-Ural legion. In Soviet times, these topics were mentioned in historical literature and journalism, but the information was, firstly, very dosed, and secondly, very unreliable. We should have formed the opinion that such military formations as the ROA or the Eastern Legions were pitiful, absolutely helpless appendages of the Wehrmacht, consisting entirely of traitors and renegades. If honest people joined them, then only with the clear intention of turning the weapons they received against the enemy. It turned out that the Eastern legionnaires then almost all defected to the partisans - in Belarus, Ukraine, France or Holland, that the Eastern legions initially opposed the Germans and resisted all attempts to use them in the fight against the Red Army or the partisans. But everything, it turns out, is far from so simple and smooth. Even if we pay attention only to quantitative indicators and remember that during the war there were at least 700,000 Soviet citizens in the German armed forces, mostly prisoners of war, the question naturally arises: how did this happen? Could there really be so many “traitors” and “renegades”? To explain all this as elementary betrayal would be to a large extent a simplification and trivialization of the problem. For all its painfulness and ambiguity, it should be looked at more broadly and unbiasedly.

In the post-Soviet era, when historians were able to study the past more freely, when previously closed archives were opened, topics that had previously been vetoed attracted and are attracting special and intense interest. They also evoke an interested reaction from readers. And the problem of Soviet collaboration during the Second World War really began to be studied quite intensively. Especially a lot of historical literature is devoted to the personality of General Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Army - dozens of books, studies and collections of documentary materials have already been published. The history of the Eastern Legions is not ignored either.

So we can state with satisfaction that in a fairly short time, even a certain tradition has developed in the study of Soviet collaboration during the Second World War. Several different approaches to assessing this phenomenon have emerged in the historical literature. Particularly representative is the group of those researchers who, to a certain extent, continue the line of Soviet historiography and, without much doubt, equate collaboration with betrayal. But at the same time, there is an attempt in some studies to provide a more comprehensive and, in our opinion, more objective coverage of this problem.

This book is an attempt to examine the phenomenon of Soviet collaboration using the example of representatives of Turkic-Muslim peoples. Based on the sources at my disposal, I will try to present the course of historical events related to this plot, introduce the reader to its different sides, and express my own opinions about the phenomenon of collaboration. The task of the historian in this case is not to act as an accuser or defender, but to strive to present the events that took place in the past as impartially and objectively as possible, without going to extremes. It is clear that from the heights of today it is quite easy to label and describe everything in two colors - black and white. And a war, especially one like the Second World War, is a phenomenon so complex that two colors are clearly not enough to represent all its sides. It should be borne in mind that when studying the past, we must have the broadest possible understanding of it, and not select from it only “winning”, heroic or convenient plots that at the moment seem “politically consistent” or “useful”.

This book is the result of work in archives and libraries in Germany. Special interest for me were documentary materials from various institutions of National Socialist Germany, both military and civilian: materials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Occupied Affairs eastern territories(Eastern Ministry), SS Main Directorate, command of the Eastern Legions and various military formations of the Wehrmacht. The ideological orientation of this documentation was never lost sight of. These documents were the product of a brutal totalitarian regime, so the need for a strictly critical approach to them was obvious to me. Alas, not all of the sources from the Second World War have survived; many were irretrievably lost. And yet, the available material allows us to reproduce with sufficient accuracy one of the large-scale military-political scams of the Third Reich - an attempt to organize military and political cooperation with representatives of the Turkic-Muslim peoples of the USSR and its results.

I express my gratitude to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung), which made it possible for me to conduct a targeted and in-depth search in German archives. I am very grateful to all my colleagues whose advice helped me in writing this work - the staff of the Seminar on East European History at the University of Cologne: its then director, Professor Andreas Kappeler (currently University of Vienna), Dr. Christian Noack (currently University of Dublin), Dr. Guido Hausmann (currently University of Freiburg), and in addition, Professor Ingeborg Baldauf (Berlin), Professor Gerhard Simon (Cologne), Professor Adolf Hampel (Hungen) , Dr. Patrick von zur Mühlen (Bonn), Dr. Sebastian Zwiklinski (Berlin). I remember with warmth and sadness my late colleagues Professor Gerhard Hepp (Berlin) and Dr. Joachim Hoffmann (Freiburg). Many colleagues in Russia also did not stand aside - I sincerely thank the writer Rafael Mustafin (Kazan), deputy chief editor of the “Book of Memory” Mikhail Cherepanov (Kazan) and former leader Center for Public Relations of the KGB of the Republic of Tatarstan Rovel Kashapov. Options for this study were discussed at meetings at Kazan State University, and valuable comments on the text were made by many colleagues in the departments of history of the Tatar people, history of Tatarstan, modern national history and historiography and source studies of KSU - Professor Mirkasym Usmanov, Professor Indus Tagirov, Professor Alter Litvin, Professor Ramzi Valeev, Professor Rif Khairutdinov, Professor Alexander Litvin, Associate Professor Valery Telishev, Associate Professor Zavdat Minnullin, Associate Professor Dina Mustafina. In addition, the observations of professors Nikolai Bugai (Moscow) and Ksenophon Sanukov (Yoshkar-Ola) were also very important for me.

Contemporaries of the events described helped me a lot; conversations with them made it possible to more vividly and imaginatively imagine what was happening. With sincere respect I remember the late lawyer Heinz Unglaube (Lauenburg), former head of the Tatar Mediation. I wish good health to Tarif Sultan (Munich), a former member of the “Union of Struggle of the Turkic-Tatars of Idel-Ural”, an outstanding figure in the Tatar post-war emigration.

Muslim Legion "Idel-Ural" and Belarusian partisans

The transition of the 825th battalion of the Idel-Ural legion to the side of the Belarusian partisans

By now, much has been written about the attempts of Nazi Germany to attract the eastern peoples of the USSR to the military and political cooperation. Among them, the emphasis was placed on the Volga Tatars, the Nazis’ interest in whom was not accidental. Back in the First World War, Germany and Turkey, being allies, tried to attract the Turks to the fight against the allied forces of the Entente and Tsarist Russia 1.

During the Second World War, the turn of the ideologists of National Socialism towards the Turkic nationalities of Russia occurred at the end of 1941. Most researchers explain this by a change in the military situation on the Eastern Front. Defeat near Moscow, major losses Nazi troops caused an acute shortage of manpower. In addition, the war has clearly become protracted. It was then that the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories of the East Alfred Rosenberg suggested that Hitler use prisoners of war different nationalities The Soviet Union against its own homeland.

In pursuance of Hitler's directive, during 1942, under the leadership of the Eastern Ministry, a number of “national committees” were created: Volga-Tatar, Turkestan, Crimean Tatar, Georgian, Kalmyk, etc. One of their main tasks was the creation in contact with the German high command national military formations- legions.

In March 1942, Hitler signed an order to create the Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Turkestan and Mountain (from the peoples of Dagestan) legions. The order to create the Volga-Tatar Legion (the legionnaires themselves called it “Idel-Ural”) was signed in August 1942.

The training of command staff of national formations was carried out through a special reserve camp of the Eastern Ministry of Wustrau, located 60 km from Berlin. Here the Germans gathered prisoners of war of different nationalities of the USSR who had higher and secondary education. After appropriate indoctrination and security checks, they were enrolled in the legion.

The text of the oath read:

“I am ready in the ranks of the German army to use all my strength to liberate my Motherland, and therefore I agree to join the legion. By this, I consider the oath I previously took in the Red Army to be invalid. I undertake to unquestioningly obey the orders of my superiors."

Recruitment of persons suitable for service in the Volga-Tatar Legion was carried out in special prisoner-of-war camps in Poland, where Volga Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Maris, Mordovians and Udmurts were kept.

Such camps were Seltsy (Sedlce), Demblin, Kieltsy, Holm, Konski, Radom, Czestochowa, stations Krushino, Jedlino, Veseloe. The base camp for the formation of battalions of the Idel-Ural legion was the camp in Yedlino. In total in 1942-1943. Seven combat battalions of the Volga-Tatar National Legion were formed (Nos. 825 to 831), as well as engineer, headquarters or reserve and some work battalions. According to various sources, from eight to ten thousand legionnaires served in them.

Of all the above units, the fate of the 825th battalion in connection with its transition to the side of the partisans has been studied in most detail. However, in the literature, when describing the details of the uprising in the battalion, there are serious factual errors, inaccuracies and arbitrary interpretations.

Firstly, in a number of publications in past years there was an intention to connect the uprising in the 825th battalion with the name of Musa Jalil4. Only in last years Studies have appeared that prove that the uprising was prepared without the participation of the poet-hero. Clandestine work in the Volga-Tatar Legion began long before M. Jalil had the opportunity to join it5.

On the contrary, according to available documentary evidence, this uprising had a strong influence on the poet and became a powerful incentive for his involvement in anti-fascist work.

The second discrepancy concerns the number of partisans who defected to the side. Figures are quoted from 506 to 900-930 people, based on the testimony of partisan commanders. Military historian M. Garayev cites data from the German field police, according to which 557 legionnaires went over to the partisans 6.

Such discrepancies in the coverage of the transition of the 825th battalion to the side of the partisans forced the author to resort to the original source. Thanks to the Naberezhnye Chelny local historian S. Lurie, we came into our hands with a report from the commissar of the 1st partisan detachment, Isak Grigorievich Grigoriev, to the commissar of the 1st Vitebsk partisan brigade, Vladimir Andreevich Khabarov, about the admission of personnel of the 825th battalion to the detachment, dated March 5, 1943. I

It comes from a direct participant in the events, endowed with certain authority and written immediately after the event at the request of a higher commander.

This allows us to conclude that the report of Commissar I. Grigoriev is the most objective document of all describing the fact of the 825th battalion going over to the side of the partisans. All other documents - both Soviet and German - appeared later and, in our opinion, are not without opportunism.

At the same time, it is necessary to supplement the picture of the transition described by Commissar Grigoriev with some comments about the situation before and after the uprising of the legionnaires. They are made possible by information obtained during the author’s personal conversations in 2004 with the former intelligence officer of the “Alexey’s Brigade” (A.F. Domukalov) Nina Ivanovna Dorofeenko, as well as information from documents of the partisan underground of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk and the Museum of M. F. Shmyrev in Vitebsk.

After the successful offensive of the 4th Shock Army during the Battle of Moscow in 1941-1942. In the north-west of the Vitebsk region, a gap appeared in the front line, called the “Vitebsk Gate”. They became the main artery connecting the mainland with the partisan detachments of Belarus and the Baltic states.

In 1942 - early 1943 In the Surazh-Vitebsk region, behind enemy lines, there was a vast partisan zone, on the territory of which collective farms operated, newspapers were published, and a hospital operated.

The partisan brigades that grew out of the detachment of “Father Minaya” burned fascist garrisons and supplied the army with valuable intelligence information. The German command could not tolerate this situation and from time to time sent punitive expeditions to the “Vitebsk region”. One of these expeditions called " Ball lightning", with the involvement of the 82nd Army Division and punitive detachments, was organized in early February 1943. The enemy, whose number was 28 thousand people, managed to encircle a six thousand-strong partisan group in the Vitebsk region.

Cossack detachments consisting of Ukrainian nationalists were thrown against M. Biryulin’s brigade. To replace them, the 825th battalion arrived in the villages of Senkovo, Suvari and Gralevo along the banks of the Western Dvina on February 20. The Biryulin residents held the defense on the other side of the river, which did not separate the warring sides for long...

According to some information, the 825th battalion was supposed to enter battle within three days. This was probably one of the weighty arguments that prompted the partisan command to accept the legionnaires’ offer to go over to the side of the partisans.

The partisans themselves were afraid that such a large and well-armed military unit would come to them: in the event of provocation, the partisans would face inevitable defeat, since M. Biryulin’s brigade consisted of only 500 people.

But with a positive outcome, they received significant reinforcements of men, weapons and ammunition.

It was also unknown how the legionnaires would behave after the transition - the Cossack punishers who preceded them were particularly cruel to the civilian population and partisans. Therefore, it was a big risk on the part of M. Biryulin and G. Sysoev.

The transition of the 825th battalion to the side of the partisans was of great importance.

It disrupted the general course of the German offensive against the partisans in the Vitebsk region and complicated their position on the right flank, where the enemy received unexpected reinforcements in manpower and weapons. 7 The Germans began to fear sending legionnaires to the eastern occupied regions.

Immediately after the uprising, the 826th battalion, ready to be sent to the Eastern Front, was redeployed to Holland, to the Breda area. The news of the success of the uprising spread widely among other legions and undoubtedly intensified the struggle of the anti-fascist underground.

On February 28, 1943, M. Biryulin’s detachment broke through the encirclement of the Nazis and dealt them a crushing blow from the rear in the Shchelbovo forests. At the same time, former legionnaires did not spare themselves in battle. This is how researchers of the history of the Vitebsk underground described this episode: “In the area of ​​the village. The Popovichi detachment destroyed 6 fascist tanks, a car and captured several Nazi soldiers.

In this operation, the partisans I. Timoshenko, S. Sergienko, I. Khafizov, I. Yusupov and A. Sayfutdinov especially distinguished themselves. The fighter N. Garnaev and the Komsomol organizer of the extermination battalion created from the Tatars, Akhmet Ziyatdinovich Galeev, showed great heroism. The Komsomol organization filed a petition with the Surazh underground Komsomol district committee to give him a recommendation to join the party. The partisan company under the command of Kh. Latypov, consisting of Tatars, was a threat to the Nazis.”8

When studying the history of the uprising and the further fate of the former legionnaires, attention is drawn to the fact that at present the names of only some of them have been established. The fate of the majority remains unknown.

Muslim Legion "Idel-Ural" and Belarusian partisans

Several years ago, a group of researchers, which included the author of this publication, S. Lurie, R. Mustafin and some former KGB employees of the Republic of Tatarstan, tried to find documentary traces of the remains of the 825th battalion dating back to the period after February 23, 1943.

The former commander of the 1st Vitebsk Partisan Brigade, M. Biryulin, in a conversation with S. Lurie then explained that since the Germans repeatedly tried to send agents to the partisans under the guise of escaped prisoners of war, the partisan leaders at first did not fully trust the rebels.

In this regard, it was ordered to distribute them among detachments of several brigades: 1st Vitebsk, 1st Belarusian Brigade named after. Lenin Komsomol, etc. Therefore, trying to find former legionnaires as part of these partisan formations, we turned to the book “Partisan formations of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War (June 1941 - July 1944)”, which provides data on national composition some partisan brigades at the time of their connection with units of the Red Army 9:

	1st Vitebsk Brigade	Brigade named after Lenin Komsomol	1st Belarusian Brigade
total partisans of them:	247	363	756
– Belarusians	143	284	486
– Russians	81	60	170
– Ukrainians	13	3	27
– other nationalities	10	14	69
nationality not established		2	4

Even if we count that the 99 people included in the columns of the table as “other nationalities” and “nationality not established” include Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvashs, then where are the remaining at least four hundred former prisoners of war legionnaires?

In a conversation with S. Lurie, M. Biryulin gave the following explanations.

Firstly, former prisoners of war, unlike partisans from local residents, did not know the area well where the battles with punitive expeditions of the Nazis took place, they were less oriented in it, so they often died in swamps or were ambushed by punitive forces.

Secondly, it was not possible to change everyone’s clothes; they fought on the side of the partisans in their gray-green German overcoats, and many local residents and partisans from neighboring detachments could kill them, mistaking them for Germans.

Thirdly, some detachment commanders, who at first did not really trust the rebels, sent them into the first ranks of the attackers during the offensive, and during the retreat they left them to cover the withdrawal of the main forces of the detachment.

All this led to the fact that losses among former legionnaires were significantly greater than among local partisans.

In addition, the lightly wounded were treated in their detachment, and the seriously wounded were transferred across the front line to army hospitals by plane. After being treated in hospitals, local partisans, as a rule, returned to their units, while former prisoners of war were sent ( for the most part after checking in filtration camps) in part of the active army, most often in penal battalions.

According to the Belarusian researcher A. Zaerko, the 825th battalion was disbanded after going over to the partisans. Its personnel joined the 1st Vitebsk, 1st Belarusian partisan brigades and the “Alexey’s brigade”. The bulk of the Tatars remained in G. Sysoev’s detachment 10.

In a memo from the organizer of the Vitebsk Regional Party Committee, K. I. Shemelis, it was reported that a total of 476 legionnaires were disarmed. Of these, 356 people were sent to the detachments of the 1st Belarusian Brigade under the command of Ya. Z. Zakharov, 30 people remained in the 1st Vitebsk Brigade M. F. Biryulin. A separate Tatar company 11 was formed in the detachment of G.I. Sysoev.

The National Archives of the Republic of Belarus contains an interesting document describing the fate of the legionnaires who ended up in the partisan “Alexey’s brigade”. Judging by it, in February-March 1943, during the punitive operation “Ball Lightning”, part of the “Alexey’s brigade” was pushed out of the front line by the Nazis.

Among these partisans were former soldiers and officers of the 825th battalion. Many of them, if not all, were arrested by SMERSH.

On June 22, 1943, there were 31 people from the 825th battalion in special purpose camp No. 174 in Podolsk. Their fate is unknown 12.

An important explanation was given by one of the veterans of the KGB of the Republic of Tatarstan, retired colonel L. N. Titov. According to his testimony, in the summer of 1943, army units and partisan formations behind enemy lines received an order from SMERSH to “remove” from their ranks former prisoners of war who had transferred from the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), national legions and other military formations of Nazi Germany.

Legionnaires from partisan detachments were sent by plane to the mainland, where they ended up in special NKVD camps.

During the interrogations, detailed lists of legionnaires were compiled, which were used by local NKVD authorities to track soldiers returning home. These individuals remained under the control of the security authorities until the early 70s. In addition, in the post-war years, state security agencies searched for legionnaires who hid their service in the Volga-Tatar Legion and other collaboration units.

Thus, one of the documents compiled by Tatarstan security officers in 1951 provides a list of 25 legionnaires (including four who served in the 825th battalion) who were arrested, convicted and held in special camps of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs 13.

Currently, out of 10 thousand participants in the Idel-Ural legion, about two dozen people have been officially rehabilitated. There is still a difficult search ahead for biographies and documents regarding the organizers of the uprising in the 825th battalion: a doctor from Chuvashia, Grigory Volkov, who called himself Zhukov, unit commanders Rashid Tadzhiev, Alexander Trubkin, Khusain Mukhamedov, Akhmet Galeev, Anatoly Mutallo, I.K. Yusupov, V. Kh. Lutfullin, Kh. K. Latypov and others, as well as intelligence officer Nina Buinichenko, who left Belarus for Vilnius after the war. The feat they accomplished in February 1943 has not yet been adequately celebrated.

I The original of this document is kept in the Vitebsk Regional Museum of M. F. Shmyrev. S. Lurie rewrote it in 1979, when he was in Vitebsk as the leader of a search party of students from Naberezhnye Chelny Secondary School No. 28, who were making a trip to the places of partisan glory in Belarusian Polesie.

NOTES:

1. See: Gainetdinov R.B. Turkic-Tatar political emigration: the beginning of the twentieth century - the 30s. – Naberezhnye Chelny, 1977. – pp. 55-59.

2. Mustafin R. A. In the footsteps of a broken song. – Kazan, 2004. – P. 82.

3. Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Tatarstan, f. 109, op. 12, d. 9, l. 29-92.

4. Mustafin R. In the footsteps of a broken song. – Kazan, 1981 – 335 p.; Zabirov I. Jalil and the Jalilites. – Kazan, 1983 – 144 p.; Kashshaf G. According to the will of Mussa Jalil. – Kazan, 1984 – 224 p.; Bikmukhametov R. Musa Jalil. Personality. Creation. Life. – M., 1989 – 285 p.

5. Cherepanov M. Were the legionnaires Jalili // Kazan Vedomosti. – 1993. – February 19; Akhtamzyan A. In memory of participants in the resistance to Nazism during the Great Patriotic War // Tatar News. – 2004. – No. 8 (121); Mustafin R. A. In the footsteps of a broken song. – Kazan, 2004. – 399 p.

6. Garayev M. Ours! The transition of the Tatar battalion to the side Belarusian partisans// Tatarstan. – 2003. – No. 7.

7. See: Gilyazov I.A. On the other side. Collaborators from the Volga-Ural Tatars during the Second World War. – Kazan, 1998. – P. 107-108.

8. Pakhomov N.I., Dorofeenko N.I., Dorofeenko N.V. Vitebsk underground / 2nd edition revised and expanded. – Minsk, 1974. – P. 124.

9. See: Partisan formations of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War (June 1941 - July 1944). – Minsk, 1983. – 281 p.

10. Zaerko A. The illusory nature of the second oath: “Turkic volunteers” in the forests of Belarus // Political interlocutor. – 1991. – No. 12. – P. 28.

11. National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NA RB), f. 3793, op. 1, d. 83, l. 87.

12. NA RB, f. 3500, op. 2, bundle 12, d. 48, l. 128-128 vol.

13. Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Tatarstan, f. 109, op. 12, d. 9, l. 120-130.

Report from the commissar of the 1st partisan detachment I. Grigoriev to the commissar of the 1st Vitebsk partisan brigade V. Khabarov on the admission of personnel of the 825th battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion to the detachment

March 5, 1943

Report from the detachment commissar I. G. Grigoriev to the brigade. According to your instructions, I inform you about the dissolution and transfer to our detachment [from] the Volga-Tatar Legion of the 825th battalion.

The Volga-Tatar Legion consisted of our Tatar prisoners of war, captured by German troops in 1941 and early 1942 in the cities of Bialystok, Grodno, Lvov, Kerch, Kharkov. Until May 1942, they were in prisoner of war camps and endured hunger and atrocities from outside German soldiers and officers.

On June 19-20, 1942, the Germans began to concentrate Tatars from all prisoner of war camps into the mountains. Sedlice, after which they were sent under heavy security to the mountains. Radom, they were divided into 3 groups of 900 people, i.e. into 3 battalions.

Hitler's envoy, Lieutenant General of the Eastern Legions, gave a speech:

“Hitler frees you Tatars from captivity, creates good conditions for you and creates a legion, which is tasked with liberating his Tatar Republic from the Bolsheviks... The power of the Bolsheviks was completely destroyed by German troops, we arm you and send you to study. After your studies, you, the liberated people, must clear your national territory from the Bolshevik partisans hiding in the forests and swamps who are harming our army.”

From July 1942 to February 1943, they underwent combat training in combating partisans. There was an exam at the beginning of February. Those who distinguished themselves more in their studies were appointed commanders of platoons and squads, and Major Zeks (actually Tsyok. - G.R.) was assigned to this battalion. This legion was sent to the 82nd division, located in Vitebsk.

On February 19, intelligence officer of the secret group “B”, partisan Nina Buinichenko, reported that the Volga-Tatar Legion of the 825th Battalion to fight partisans in the Surazh-Vitebsk-Gorodok triangle had arrived from Radom. This battalion will be located in the villages of Senkovo, Suvar and Gralevo in the Vitebsk region (where several companies of partisans were located).

On February 20, I took two fighters from reconnaissance and at night, making my way through the Dvina to the village of Senkovo, I gave the task to an illegal partisan group led by Nina Buinichenko: when this legion arrives, find out their moral state, outline the situation at the fronts.

If it will be positive result- send hostages to the detachment, preferably officers. On February 21, 1943, this battalion was located in the above villages.

In the house of our illegal partisan Nina Buynichenko, a doctor from the Zhukov battalion settled down, with whom frank conversations quickly began. Zhukov told her that he had an idea to go over to the side of the Red Army in the mountains. Radome.

He has 6 people from the command staff who are also thinking about the transition and named their positions and surnames: adjutant to the battalion commander Major Zeks - Tadzhiev, headquarters company commander Mukhamedov, assistant commander Latypov, platoon commanders Isupov (Yusupov . - G.R.), Galiev, Trubkin and (platoon commander) their economic unit Rakhimov.

After these conversations, Zhukov asked Nina to speed up communication with the partisans. Nina advised Zhukov to send four Tatars to our detachment for negotiations, and also advised him to take Mikhalchenko, a resident of the village of Suvara, as a guide, dressing him in their uniform so as not to leave any traces.

Zhukov listened attentively and quickly went to his comrades with whom he had a conversation.

At 19 o'clock (probably February 22 - G.R.), having arrived home, Zhukov informed Nina that Trubkin, Lutfulin, Galiev and Fakhrutdinov had been sent with Mikhalchenko, dressed in a German uniform. He warned Nina that if the partisans fired at them, she would bear personal responsibility. Nina replied that I had agreed on the meeting place with the detachment commissar Grigoriev, they would be met. Our ambush at the appointed place met the representatives and took them to the detachment headquarters.

The representatives asked for one rocket, meaning: “Received well. Start preparations." The rocket was given.

The headquarters of our detachment assigned the representatives the task of destroying all German officers and traitors from the Tatars, withdrawing all personnel with full weapons, convoys and ammunition. After the destruction of the headquarters, pull up (personnel) to the bank of the Western Dvina and the rubbish dumps of the Ruba plant, give 3 red flares, which would indicate: “Ready for the transition, accept”, 3 signals with a flashlight: “white, red, green”, which means: “ The representative went to the middle of the Western Dvina, where I was supposed to meet him.

Two of the Tatars - Trubkin and Lutfulin - were left hostages in their detachment, and Galiev and Fukhrutdinov were sent back to the legion to organize and carry out assigned tasks. At 11 o'clock at night one white rocket was fired in the village of Suvar, according to the agreement, which meant: “Returned safely. We begin to destroy the Germans."

We reported this to the brigade headquarters, Biryulin, and asked to send a representative. Anashchenko and the chief of staff Kritsky, who were present and observed this process, were expelled... While observing their operation to destroy the Germans and traitor Tatars, explosions of grenades, machine-gun bursts and single shots from rifles and machine guns were heard. It was the Tatars who completed our task. At 0.30. nights received signals with a flashlight - white, red and green, according to the agreement.

The commander settled in an ambush with a group of partisans, and I, with the company commander Streltsov, headed along the Dvina towards Ruba to meet the representatives. We met Fakhrutdinov with his two comrades, with the question: “What is your rank?” I answered: “The commissar of the Sysoev partisan detachment is Grigoriev.”

“The task is completed. They killed 74 Germans, three company commanders - Suryapov, the commander of the 2nd company Minozhleev and the commander of the 3rd company Merulin. The personnel with weapons, transport and ammunition will be tightened. Please accept.

At the same time, I inform you that our headquarters driver turned out to be a traitor and secretly took Major Zex in a car from (Suvarey, Senkovo?), whom they wanted to capture alive and deliver to you. In Senkovo, battalion doctor Zhukov, Tazhdiev (or Tadzhiev) and Rakhimov were arrested, who were tasked with destroying the Germans (in Senkovo?). Please speed up the appointment, I’m wounded, please provide assistance.”

Streltsov was ordered to be taken to the first aid station for assistance, and he himself met the gun crews and personnel. On the way, he held a small meeting and informed them that they were joining the partisans for now, with the intention of transporting them beyond the front line.

The meeting was very joyful, many laughed with joy, and some cried, remembering the conditions, the torment they experienced while in captivity, hugging and kissing me, shouting that we are again with our own, comrade is with us. Stalin, etc.

Based on the order of the brigade commander, those who arrived on the territory of our detachment were forced to disarm, the personnel were sent to the disposal of the brigade in the territory of the peat plant, and some of the weapons were sent to the economic part of the brigade. Obviously, brigade commander Comrade. Biryulin proceeded from the fact that our brigade, especially our detachment, had been fighting since February 14 with an expedition against the partisans, and an excessive concentration of people could lead to undesirable results, and besides, they were in German uniform.

There was no desire in the detachment to disarm, since the detachment headquarters had the intention of putting them into battle, but they had to carry out the order of their superior comrade.

506 people with weapons arrived at the territory where our detachment was located: 45 mm cannons - 3 pieces, heavy machine guns - 20, battalion mortars - 4, company mortars - 5, light machine guns - 22, rifles - 340, pistols - 150, rocket launchers - 12, binoculars - 30, horses with full equipment, ammunition and food - 26.

Later they arrived in separate small groups.

Following the instructions of the brigade commander, Comrade. Biryulina, we have disarmed the personnel and placed them at the disposal of the brigade.

The weapons, in addition to guns and heavy machine guns, were sent to the brigade's maintenance unit. After talking at headquarters, the detachments decided to take responsibility for part of the personnel, gun crews and machine gunners of heavy machine guns, which were used to fight the expedition against the partisans. It should be noted that [they] fought exceptionally bravely in battles, and many of them distinguished themselves in battles and retained their weapons.

The brigade sent personnel to all detachments and brigades located in the triangle of Vitebsk, Surazh, Gorodok.

3 officers were sent to the rear of the Soviet Union, to the headquarters of the partisan movement, of which I inform you.

Commissar of the partisan detachment Grigoriev.

From the funds of the Vitebsk Regional Museum of M. F. Shmyrev. Copy.

ADDENDUM 1

Let us list some approaches that were used by the German military in working with soldiers of the Muslim Legion. The general principles of the work are listed in the post-war memoirs of General von Heigendorff: “The volunteers from the eastern nations were consistent Muslims who could not be supporters of Bolshevism. We supported Islam, and this was manifested in the following:

1. Selection of suitable personnel and their training in the mullah schools in Göttingen and Dresden-Blausewitz;

2. Creation of the positions of chief mullah and mullah at all headquarters, starting with the headquarters of the commander of the Eastern Legions;

3. Identification of mullahs with special insignia (turban, crescent);

4. Distribution of the Koran as a talisman;

5. Allocating time for prayers (if this was possible due to the service);

6. Exemption from service on Fridays and during Muslim holidays;

7. Taking into account Muslim prescriptions when creating menus;

8. Providing mutton and rice during festivals;

9. Location of Muslim graves using a compass to Mecca, inscriptions on the graves were accompanied by an image of a crescent;

10. Attentive and tactful attitude towards other people’s faith.”

Von Haigendorff wrote that he always demanded from his subordinates a tactful attitude towards Islam:

“...do not show curiosity and do not take photographs of Muslims during prayer, do not drink alcohol in front of them or offer it to Muslims, do not have rude conversations about women in front of them.”

He believed that “a true Christian will always find a common language with a true Muslim” and complained that in communicating with Muslims, “alas, a lot of mistakes were made, which gave rise to distrust in the latter towards the German people as a whole.”

It was in the spring, and especially in the summer and autumn of 1944, that the leadership of the SS actively became involved in the cause of religious propaganda, which, as mentioned above, to a certain extent was a consequence of disagreements and conflicts between various authorities and leaders of Germany at that time. True, it cannot be said unequivocally that until that time the SS stood aloof from these problems.

SS Chief Himmler clearly sought to demonstrate to everyone that at this critical moment it was he and the SS in all respects who were better able than, for example, Rosenberg and his Eastern Ministry to organize work with eastern peoples, including the best use of the Muslim factor in German interests. Moreover, alarming information for Germany began to arrive from abroad that the Soviet Union was very actively engaged in religious propaganda among Muslims in the Middle East.

“The Soviet embassy in Cairo attracts many Muslims because its walls are decorated with sayings from the Koran. It uses general Islamic ideas, linking them with Bolshevik and nationalist ideas.

As opposed to the Higher Islamic School in Cairo (meaning Al-Azhar University. - I.G.) the Bolsheviks reopened an Islamic educational institution in Tashkent. They are, to some extent, trying to revive the ideas of Lenin, who once already tried to use Enver Pasha to launch a pan-Islamic assault under the leadership of the Bolsheviks,” Ambassador Langmann reported to the Foreign Ministry on June 15, 1944. The SS took up the matter seemingly thoroughly: already on April 18, 1944, the SS leadership ordered 50 copies of the Koran translated into German from one of the Leipzig libraries (apparently for study).

The SS provided for the creation of an Eastern Turkic military unit led by the German Muslim SS Standartenführer Harun el-Rashid. And one of the main means for raising the religious self-awareness of Muslims was seen as the activity of the so-called schools of military field mullahs, organized at that time.

The first courses for training mullahs (they were not yet called a school) opened in June 1944 at the University of Göttingen, supported by the Islamic Institute.

The course was led by the famous Orientalist, Professor Berthold Spuhler; in matters of ritual, he was assisted by the above-mentioned Lithuanian Mufti Jakub Shinkevich and the Chief Mullah of the Turkestan National Committee Inoyatov. According to I. Hoffmann, by the end of 1944 there were six graduations of students, each of them studied on courses for about three weeks. Professor Spuhler, back then, in 1944, compiled his own memos about each course - these data are used below for brief description courses in Göttingen.

Among the students were both persons who had already been appointed mullahs in various military formations, and those who were just beginning their religious careers. The courses studied the Koran and commentaries on it, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, some of the most important issues of Muslim teaching, and the history of the Turkic peoples.

Graduates-mullahs had to demonstrate during their studies their preparedness to conduct worship services, lead the necessary ceremonies (funerals, religious festivals, etc.), as well as the ability to resist “hostile ideological machinations.”

The main language in the courses was “Turkic in its various dialects” (as defined by Spuhler), but most often Uzbek, partially Tajik and Russian. At the same time, sometimes difficult situations arose with some representatives of Caucasian nationalities (Avars, Chechens, etc.) who did not understand Russian or any Turkic language.

There were difficulties, according to Shpuler, with ensuring religious literature- for the listeners there was, for example, no text of the Koran translated into Russian or Turkic languages.

Only at the end of 1944, through the efforts of the general of volunteer formations, was it organized to distribute to all Muslim legionnaires a miniature Koran as a talisman, which in a tin box could be worn on the chest and which could only be read with a magnifying glass. Mullahs who passed the final exams received the appropriate insignia - turbans decorated with a crescent and a star.

Joachim Hoffmann believes that “the many-sided efforts of the Germans to strengthen the Muslim faith in the eastern legions should have generally borne fruit”, that documents indicate: “the mullahs sent to the formations, as a rule, showed themselves to be particularly convinced opponents of Bolshevism.”

ADDENDUM 2

Lists of former military personnel of the 825th battalion of the Volga-Ural Legion

In a memo to the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement dated March 3, 1943, brigade commander Ya. Zakharov wrote:

“The growth of a partisan brigade mainly occurs:

1) at the expense of the population of Surazh, Vitebsk and Gorodok districts;

3) at the expense of prisoners of war leaving German camps”3.

Further, Y. Zakharov notes that the human reserve from the local population was practically exhausted by 1943. The replenishment that arrived in his brigade from among the former servicemen of the 825th battalion played a very important role and served as a resource for the formation of several new brigade detachments.

At the end of October 1943, a new, third, punitive operation of the Nazis against the partisans began. Zakharov’s brigade was in the center. Within two weeks, the brigade's detachments were completely cut off from their partisan bases and pushed east, closer to the front.

The brigade commander, Y. Zakharov, urgently flew to Moscow, where the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD) was planning a large-scale operation to break through the partisan formations of the Vitebsk zone to their own, to reunite with units of the Red Army. Y. Zakharov was appointed commander of the partisan group. On October 23, 1943, after 19 days of fighting, as a result of a swift and unexpected maneuver for the Germans, detachments of the 1st Belorussian and 2nd Vitebsk, named Lenin Komsomol and named after Kutuzov partisan brigades united with units of the Red Army in the area of ​​operation of the 334th Infantry Division, formed in 1941 in Kazan and subsequently received the name “Vitebsk” for the liberation of the named city.

In Zakharov’s brigade, out of 711 people on the payroll, 461 people emerged from the breakthrough. 318 fighters were sent to the Surazh district military registration and enlistment office for further service in the ranks of the Red Army (including 54 former soldiers of the 825th battalion who fought in the partisans)4, 120 people were left to restore Soviet and party work in the liberated areas of the Vitebsk region.

In November 1943, the 1st Belarusian Partisan Brigade was disbanded, the detachment of A. Gurko III, replenished from other brigades, numbering 248 people (including about a dozen Tatars) was left behind enemy lines in the Kholopnichensky district of the Borisov region and operated until the summer of 1944.

In the brigade of Alexei Damukalov (“Alexei”) IV, the names of the detachments were numbered and personal. Tatars - mostly specialists (scouts, machine gunners) - served in detachments No. 4 "Death to Enemies", No. 6 "Sailor", No. 9 "Victory", No. 15 "Falcon", No. 16 "Komsomolets", No. 17 "Avenger" , No. 36 “Marat”. After connecting with units of the Red Army, part of the fighters of the Alexei brigade was sent behind enemy lines to the Borisov region as part of A. Gurko’s detachment.

The Lenin Komsomol brigade operated in the Surazhsky and Gorodoksky districts. This was one of the first partisan formations in the Vitebsk region. Its commander, Daniil Raitsev, was appointed to this position already in July 1941. There were few Tatars in the brigade.

After joining the Red Army units in November 1943, five former legionnaires were sent to undergo further training. military service at the disposal of the Surazh RVK, one fighter - for service in the Vitebsk regiment of the NKVD. D. Raitsev himself went on a short vacation to Tatarstan, where in the village. His wife Maria, evacuated from Belarus in 1941, was in Yutaza, Bavlinsky district.

D. F. Raitsev lived a long life and kept almost the entire archive of the partisan brigade. Recently, the widow of a partisan handed over documents to the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Hero of the Soviet Union M. Shmyrev, which are now being analyzed by specialists, and, as the museum’s management promises, interesting materials regarding our compatriots will be made public.

Now our search and research group is processing lists of former servicemen of the 825th battalion, identified in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus in December 2009 and transferred to us thanks to the goodwill of the Department of Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus and the invaluable assistance of the staff of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus.

Today we are publishing only the first, largest of the newly identified lists of our compatriots enrolled in the detachment of G. Kurmelev of the brigade of Y. Zakharov. It is based on a list of the detachment compiled in July 1943. Some information was clarified using a later list compiled on the basis of the first in November of the same year. If there is a discrepancy in the data, information from both lists is given.

The following information is published about each person: last name, first name, patronymic (the latter is not indicated for everyone); year of birth; nationality; education; partisanship; Place of Birth; where and what he did before the war (for some - with an indication of the pre-war salary for the position held); military rank; date of joining the partisan detachment; position held in the detachment; home address; where he got into the detachment from.

IN square brackets Either missing parts of the text are given, or, if possible, clarified names of regions, districts, and settlements are given. Double-readable surnames, first names and patronymics (the lists were compiled not from personal documents, but mainly from the words of the respondents, so mistakes by partisan clerks in writing unpronounceable Tatar names and surnames were inevitable) and discrepancies in the lists are given in parentheses.

Titles and names that require clarification are given with a question mark.

We hope that the published list will be a documentary basis for the further work of military commissariats and municipalities to search for relatives and bring to them information about the unknown heroes of the last war, who undoubtedly committed a feat in Belarusian Polesie back in February 1943.

Published in abridged form.

NOTES:

1. Gainetdinov R. Transition of the 825th battalion of the Idel-Ural legion to the side of the Belarusian partisans // Gasyrlar Avaza - Echo of Centuries. – 2005. – No. 1. – P. 23-30; It's him. New documents about the transition of the 825th battalion of the Volga-Ural Legion to the side of the partisans // Gasyrlar avazy - Echo of centuries. – 2009. – No. 1. – P. 58-72.
2. National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, f. 1336, op. 1, d. 109, l. 110 rev.
3. Ibid., f. 1450, op. 5, d. 3, l. 165.
4. Ibid., no. 5, l. 104-112.

List of personnel of the partisan detachment G. S. Kurmelev VI
1st Belarusian Partisan Brigade Ya. Z. Zakharov VII (1943 and 1944) VIII

Detachment No. 1 Comrade Kurmeleva

1. Shoistanov Count (Garif?) Togatynovich- 1911 [year of birth], Tat[arin], [education] - 4th grade, b[es]p[party]; [place of birth] - B[ashkir] Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Kandr[inskiy] district [ayo]IX, village Kakhovskaya [Kaznakovka?]; [where and by whom did he work before the war] - on a collective farm, collective farmer; [rank] - private, [time of joining the detachment] - 02.26.43, [military specialty] - private; [home address] - Bash[kir] Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Kandrin[skiy] district, Star. village council, Kakhovskaya village; [from where he arrived in the detachment] - [from] captivity, disappeared [without] news 03/6/43 [year]X.

2. Dovlekaev Efim Stepanovich- 1910, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (1st grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; Stalingrad[hellish] region XI, Leninsk[y] district, Bakhtiyarovsky village soviet, on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.26.43, private; Stal[ingrad] region, Leninsky district, Bakhtiyarovsky village council; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

3. Nigmadzyanov Gazyad- 1911, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (1st grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; Kazan region [TASSR], Kokmor [Kukmorsky] district [ayo]nXII, village of Shemordan, Shemordan, assistant driver with a salary of 400 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Kokmorsky district, Shemordan village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

4. Ubeikin Fedor Petrovich- 1920, Chuvash, 3rd grade, b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region [TASSR], Aksubaysky [Aksubaevsky] district; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.26.43, private; Kazan region, Aksubay district; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

5. Izmailov Gazis Ibrahimovich- 1910, Tat[arin], small[lo]gr[amotny], b[es]p[party]; Kazan region [TASSR], Dubyazsky district [aio]nXIII, village Bolshoy] Bitaman; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Dubyazsky district, Bolshoy village Bitaman; from captivity.

6. Bikeev Zakhar Zakharovich- 1922, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (1st grade[ass]), Komsomol; BASSR, Yumaguzinsky district, Mutaevo village, Central Asia, worker with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Yumaguzinsky district, Mutaevo village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

7. Galimulin Yarulkha (Yarulla?) Galimulinovich- 1912, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (1st grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; Kazan region [TASSR], Baltach. [Baltasinsky] district, village of Burbash; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region [TASSR], Baltachin. district, Burbash village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

8. Guzairov Khoilan (Heigal) Pelgurovich- 1912, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (2nd grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; Kazan region [TASSR], Dubyazsky district, Karakul village; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Dubyazsky district, Karakul village; from captivity.

9. Zakirov Garif Zakirovich- 1908, Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region [TASSR], Novosh[eshminsky] district, village of Verkh. Nikitino, Arkhangelsk, salesman with a salary of 400 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Novosheshminsk district, Verkhnekamensk rural council, Verkhnekamensk village. Nikitino; from captivity.

10. Guleev Akhmat (Akhmet) Tuktonyazovich- 1913 (1915), Turkmen, 5th grade, b[es]p[party]; Turk. ASSR, Adzhipulak district, village of Artizan; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Ordzhonikidze region XIV, Turmen district, Chur village council, village of Chur [Chur aul]; from captivity.

11. Gorshkov Semyon Fedorovich- 1917, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (3rd grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; Kazan region [TASSR], Krasnoarmeysky [Kyzyl-Armeysky] district [ayo]nXV, village Chuvyaltan [Chuvash Eltan] (Krasnodar), Tuapse, worker with a salary of 550 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Krasnoarmeysky district, Chuvyaltan village (Krasnodar); from captivity.

12. Chebotarev Shavket Abdulovich- 1918 (1919), Tat[arin], 2nd grade, b[es]p[party]; Kuyb[yshevskaya] region, XVI, Baryshevsky [Baryshsky] district, village St. Timoshkino [Starotimoshkino] (St. Ilyushino); Art. Timoshkino, a loader with a salary of 300 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kuib[yshevskaya] region, Baryshsky district, St. Timoshkino; from captivity.

13. Sibagatullin Gatav- 1917, Tat[arin], 2nd grade, b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Atninsky district, village of M[alaya] Atnya; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Atninsk district, village of M[alaya] Atnya; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

14. Nasardinov Vasbiy Nasardinovich- 1913, Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Ilishevsky district, village Itaevsk (?) [Iteevo?], Ilishevo, forester with a salary of 110 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Ilishevsky district, Itaevsk village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

15. Belyakov Ilya Alekseevich- 1915, Mari, 6th grade; Mari ASSR, Yoshkar-Olinsky district, village of Tarkhanovo; on a collective farm, supply manager; junior sergeant, 02.26.43, private; Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Yoshkar-Olinsk district, village of Tarkhanovo; from captivity.

16.Gareev Ramay Sakhipovich- 1913, Tat[arin], small [lo]gr[amotny] (1st grade[ass]), b[es]p[party]; NSO [ Novosibirsk region]XVII, Yurga; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private, NSO [Novosibirsk region], art. Yurga; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

17. Shafikov Abdulkhan Shafikovich- 1914, Bashkir, secondary [education], Komsomol; BASSR, Belokataysky district; village Uchashovo [Verkhnee Utyashevo?], village Uchashovo, paramedic; private, 02.23.43, private; Belokat[ai] district, Uchashovo village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

18. Magdeev Nabi Khadyatovich- 1914, Bashkir, secondary [education], Komsomol; Chelyab[insk] region, Kra[sno]arm[eyskiy] district, Taukaevo village, Kunashak, teacher with a salary of 420 rubles; private, 02.26.43, private; Chelyab[insk] region, Kra[sno]arm[eyskiy] district, Taukaevo village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

19. Valeev Abdulkhai- 1920, Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Alkievsky [Alkeevsky] district, village of Starye Urgagary; Central Asia, tinsmith with a salary of 350 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Alkievsky district, village of Starye Urgagary; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

20. Akhmadulin Eniet Nigamatovich- 1918, Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Sterlib[ashevsky] district; on a collective farm, collective farmer; junior sergeant, 02.23.43, private; Sterlib[ashevsky] district, Buzatov[sky] village [council], Asanay village; from captivity.
21. Latypov Mubarak - 1914 (1909), Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[party]; BASSR, Lenin. (?) district, village of Urmada (?), ROM, machin[ist] with a salary of 285 rubles; private, 02.26.43, private; BASSR, Lenin. district, Suleimbekov [village] council, village of Urmada; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

22. Nurzalov (Nurzipov) Fatkhulla- 1909, Tat[arin], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; Stal[ingrad] region, Astrakhan, Astrakhan, worker with a salary of 300 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Stalin[grad] region, Astrakhan, Urymansk[y] (Narimanovsky?) district, Balyanka village; from captivity, went missing on March 6, 1943.

23. Sibagatullin Ibragim S.- 1922, Tatar[in], 7th grade, b[es]p[artist]; TASSR, Dubyazsky district, Bolshoy village Sulabash; on a collective farm, collective farmer; lieutenant, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Dubyazsky district, Bolshoy village Sulabash; from captivity.

24. Ryazyapin Kashaf Zaripovich- 1921, Tatar[in], 7th grade[ass], b[es]p[artist]; BASSR, Kugarchinsky district, village of Kugarchin [Kugarchi]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Kugarchinsky district, village of Kugarchin; from captivity.

25. Makhmutov Foyaz (Fayaz) Kutuzovich (Kutdusovich)- 1914, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Yanaul district, village Istyakovo [Istyak]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Yanaul district, Istyakovsky rural council, Tash-Elga village; from captivity.

26. Akhmadeev Manur Orslanovich (Arslanovich)- 1919, Tatar[in], 4th grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Kand[inskiy] r[ayo]nXVIII, village of Kandrakul; manager of a store with a salary of 350 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Kandr. district, village of Kandrakul village council, village of Kandarkul; from captivity.

27. Khaybulin Maftah (Miftah) F.- 1912, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Ushalinsky [Uchalinsky] district, Ushalinsky village [council], village of Moldashevo [Muldashevo], mine, miner with a salary of 800 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Ushalinsk[y] district, Ushalinsk[y] village [soviet], village of Moldashevo; from captivity.

28. Kalimulin Yarolla (Yarulla) Garifovich- 1916, Tatar[in], 2nd class[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region, Buinsky district, village of Serki-Grishino [Cherki-Grishino]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02/23/43 private; Kazan region, Buinsky district, village of Serki-Grishino; from captivity.

29. Kabirov Kasim Shakirovich- 1917, Tatar[in], 5th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Voroshilovsky [Menzelinsky? Sarmanovsky?] district, Narodkino villageXIX; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan, Voroshilovsky district, Narodkino village; from captivity.

30. Kalimulin Khazis Khaibulovich- 1921, Udmurt, 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; Ufa region XX, Yanaul district, Orlyansky [Orlovsky?] village council, Narkan village [Karman-Aktau?]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.22.43, private; BASSR, Yanaulsky district, Orlyansky rural council, Narkan village; from captivity.

31. Bogapov (Vogapov) Khasyan Ismailovich- 1921, Tatar[in], 5th grade[ass], b[es]p[artist]; Penza[ena] region, Kadushkinsky [Kadoshkinsky] district, village of Latyshevka [Latyshovka]; Donbass, hammerman with a salary of 400 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Penza[en] region, Kadushkinsky district, Latyshevka village; from captivity.

32. Mustafin Nurgali M.- 1909, Tatar[in], 4th grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Tsipinsky (Tsipyinsky) district [ayo]nXXI, village of Tiongir [Tolonger]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Tsipinsky district, Tolonger village; from captivity.

33. Khairulin Gabdrakhim Agap- 1910, Tatar[in], 4th grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; Kuyb[yshevskaya] region XXII, N. Buyansky district XXIII, village of Mullovka; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kuyb[ysh] region, Buyansky district, village of Mullovka; from captivity.

34. Garipov Khatip Garipovich- 1914, Tatar[in], 2nd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan[skaya] region, Kalininsky district XXIV, Azaevsky [Adaevsky?] rural [council] council, village of Umeney [Ulimanovo]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan[skaya] region, Kalininsk[y] district, village. Smarter; from captivity.

35. Fazullin Galim Zinatovich- 1917, Bashkir, 10th grade, b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Miyakinsky district, village Meneuz-Tamak; regional financial department, chief accountant with a salary of 715 rubles; lieutenant, 02/23/43, assistant to the commander in the [platoon]; BASSR, Miyakinsky district, village Meneuz-Tamak; from captivity.

36. Galiev Akhmet Galievich- 1913, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Bondyugovsky [Bondyuzhsky] XXV chemical plant, st. Yarukhana, 47/18, chemical plant, worker with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Bondyugovsky chemical plant, st. Yarukhana, 47/18; from captivity.

37. Tanmurzin Iziyat Tanmurzinovich- 1919, Mari, 4th grade, b[es]p[artist]; BASSR, Kaltachievsky [Kaltasinsky] district, Koyanka [Koyanovo] village; Red Army, private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Kaltachievsky district, Koyanka village; from captivity.

38. Zinnatulin Sag. Zinat[ovich]- 1921, Tatar[in], 7th grade[ass], b[es]p[artist]; TASSR, Sarman[ov]skiy district, village of Demet. Orlova [Dimitarlau]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Sarman[ovsky] district, village of Demet. Orlova; from captivity.

39. Garipov Khatib Zaripovich- 1914, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Kalinin[skiy] district, village of Uman [Ulimanovo?]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Kalinin [aion] district, Uman village; from captivity.

40.Akhmadeev Shamal Gar[ipovich]- 1922, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Tuba district, village of Tubi [Tubinsky]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Tuba district, Tubi village; from captivity.

41. Galeev Akhmet Ziyatdinovich- 1916, Tatar[in], 10th grade[ass], Komsomol; Chelyabinsk region, Troitsk, st. Zhukova, Troitsk, school director with a salary of 600 rubles; Sergeant, 01/28/42, private; Chelyab[insk] region, Mekhansk. [Miass] district, village of Ishkino; from the environment.

42. Sibagatulin G.- 1921, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Rybno-Slobodsky district, Bolshaya Elga village; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR Rybnoslobodsk district, Bolshaya Elga village; from captivity.

43. Ilmurzin Ilinbay- 1914, Mari, 3rd grade, b[es]p[artist]; BASSR, Kaltasinsky district, Kokush village; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Kaltasinsky district, Kokush village; from captivity.

44. Orskudinov Fatkhush- 1911, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Aktanysh district, village of Bugazino [Buaz-Kul]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR Aktanysh district, Bugazino village; from captivity.

45. Akhmadeev Khusan (Hasan)- 1910, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Agryz district, station Agryz, st. K. Marx, Agryz, warehouse manager with a salary of 285 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Agryz district, st. K. Marx, 132; from captivity.

46. Mukhamedzhanov Gazis M.- 1921, Tatar[in], small[lo]gr[amotny], b[es]p[party]; TASSR, Baltachinsky [Baltasinsky] district, Baltasinsky rural [council] council, village of Sardygach; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Baltachinsk district, Baltachin village council, Sardygan village; from captivity.

47. Gazizov Mirula (Nurulla?) Gazizovich- 1914, Tatar[in], 2nd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Rybno-Slobodsky district, Bolshoy village Oshnyak, on a collective farm, weighman with a salary of 450 rubles, private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Rybno-Slobodsky district, village of Bolshoi Oshnyak; from captivity.

48. Ayupov Mabaraksha (Mubaraksha) A.- 1911, Tatar[in], 5th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kuyb[yshevskaya] region[a]XXVI, Starokultinsky [Starokulatskinsky] district [aion], village. N. Zelenitsa [Novye Zimnitsa], Baku, baker with a salary of 300 rubles, private, 02.23.43, private; AzSSR, Baku, Stalin district, st. Frunze, 181; from captivity.

49. Amirov Rustam Abaz[ovich]- 1916, Tatar[in], 5th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Meleuzovsky district, village. Zerga [Zirgan]; Samarkand, savings bank, employee with a salary of 400 rubles, sergeant, 02.23.43, private; BASSR, Meluzovsky district, st. Smolnenskaya, 86; from captivity.

50. Baziitov Sadikh (Sadyk) H.- 1916, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; Penza[ena] region, Gorodishchensky district, st. Chaadaevka, s. V. Razyap; on the collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02.23.43, private; Penza[skaya] region, Gorodishchensky district, st. Chaadaevka, s. V. Razyap; from captivity.

51. Nikolaev Mikhail Mironovich- 1918, Tatar[in], 5th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Chugar (?) district [ai]nXXVII, village of Fedotovo; on the collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Chugar (?) district, Fedotovo village; from captivity.

52. Abdullin Gabdur Abdul[ovich]- 1919, Tatar[in], 7th grade, b[es]p[artist]; Kazan, Tatar district (?), village Kurkhaibak (?), Kazan, turner with a salary of 300 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan region, Tatar district, Kurkhaibak village; from captivity.

53. Gazizov Khazip- 1914, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Aznakaevksy district, village of Kormala [Karamaly], Saratov, driver with a salary of 450 rubles, driver, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Aznakaevksy district, Kormala village; from captivity.

54. Nasyrov Rubani Nasyrovich- 1910, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region, Sarman[ov] district, N. Shavtali [Lower Chershily?]; on the collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Sarman[ov]skiy district, village N. Shavtala; from captivity.

55. Sulikov Eremey Alexandrovich- 1909, Mari, 3rd grade, b[es]p[artist]; NSO [Novosibirsk region], Tashtanovsky [Tashtagol] district, Ust-Selezen village, Ust-Selezen, store manager with a salary of 500 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; b[es]p[party], NSO, Tashtanovsky district, Ust-Selezen village; from captivity.

56. Mukhamadzyanov Abdull Akhmetovich- 1909, Tatar[in], 2nd class[assa], b[es]p[arty]; TASSRXXVIII, Buzovyazovsky district [aio]nXXIX, village Kurmanay [Kurmanaevo?]; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Buzovyazovsky district, Kurmanai village; from captivity.

57. B Iktashev Shanuvali (Manuvali) M.- 1919, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], Komsomol; TASSR, Rybno-Slobodsky district, village of Stary Arysh, Red Army, private, 02.23.43, squad commander; TASSR, Rybno-Slobodsky district, village of Stary Arysh; from captivity.

58. Zeyadinov Sadry (Sadri) Zeyadinovich- 1914, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Naberezhnye Chelny district XXX, St. Gardale [Old Gardali], Makeevka, Sofia mine, rock worker with a salary of 400 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Makeevka, st. Carbit Colony; from captivity.

59. Avdeev Alexander Mabinov[ich]- 1911 (1915?), Tat[arin], n[e]gr[amotny], b[es]p[party]; Astrakhan district, fish factory No. 1, st. Batumi, fish factory, helmsman with a salary of 200 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Astrakhan district, No. 4, st. Batumi; from captivity.

60. Seradeev (Serazeev) Yarkhan Abzalovich- 1913, Tatar[in], 7th grade, b[es]p[artist]; TASSR, Kulanginsky XXXI district, village Karaton [Karatun], Grozny, driver with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Kulanginsk district, Karaton village; from captivity.

61. Ifatullin Igenat- 1913, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Dubyazsky district, village of Biknarat; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, TASSR, Dubyazsky district, village of Biknarat; from captivity.

62. Kachalov Mikhail Ivanovich- 1907, Mordvin[in], 4th grade, b[es]p[arty]; Mord[ov] Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Atyashevsky district, Selishchi village, Chelyabinsk, water utility, mechanic with a salary of 700 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Mord[ov] Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Atyashevsky district, village of Selishchi; from captivity.

63. Davletbaev Fakhardin- 1916, Tatar[in], 2nd class[ass], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Krasnosolsky [Krasnousolsky] district XXXII, village Yuluk [Yulukovo], on a collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02/23/43, private; Ufa, Krasnosolsky district, Kusaadinsky village council, village of Yuluk; from captivity.

64. Nabiulin Safa- 1914, Tatar[in], 7th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region, Kaybitsky district, village Burunduk [Chipmunks], Moscow, military unit, driver with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Kazan, Kaybitsky district, Burunduk village; from captivity.

65. Sagitov Yalal Badardinovich- 1920, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Chelyabinsk region, village of Kunachak [district center Kunashak], Chelyabinsk, artel, worker with a salary of 1,700 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Chelyabinsk, st. Stalin, 57 B; from captivity.

66. Galeev Mekhamed (Mukhamed) Sadykovich- 1910, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; TASSR, Naberezhnye Chelny, Tsentralnaya, 37, Naberezhnye Chelny, bookseller with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Naberezhnye Chelny, Tsentralnaya, 37; from captivity.

67. Akhmetgaleev Gazis- 1914, Tatar[in], 3rd grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan, Uzbekistan, sausage maker with a salary of 500 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Uzbekistan, Bukhara, st. Lenina, 38; from captivity.

68. Batorbaev Kasim Mus.- 1916, Kazakh, 3rd grade, b[es]p[party], Goryev [Guryev] region XXXIII, Dengi [Dengiz] district XXXIV, p. Butakhon; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Goryevskaya region, Dengisky district, village. Butakhon; from captivity.

69. Karimov Abdul Karimovich- 1922, Tatar[in], 2nd class[assa], b[es]p[arty]; Omsk region XXXV, Yarkovsky district, Matmas village; on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; Omsk region, Yarkovsky district, Stalin's collective farm; from captivity.

70. Mirsayakov Salikhyan- 1911; TASSR, Muslimovsky [Muslyumovsky] district, Rokhmatullina collective farm, on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Muslimovsky district, Rokhmatula collective farm; from captivity.

71. Shafeev Adbull Kamald[inovich]- 1918, Tatar[in], 1st class[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kuyb[yshevsk] region XXXVI, S. Kul[atk]insky district, Kiryushkino village, KIM distillery, operator with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Tula region, Kim[ov] district, Bronsky village council; from captivity.

72. Anderzhanov Abdulbagap- 1922, Tatar[in], 7th grade, b[es]p[artist]; Gorky[ovskaya], region, Krasno]Okt[Yabrsky] district, Pitsa [Pilna] village, Moscow, electrician with a salary of 450 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Moscow, Kalanchevskaya st.; from captivity.

73. Mukhamedgaleev Khurmatul- 1920, Tatar[in], 7th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; Kazan region, Baltachsky [Baltasinsky] district, ShemordanXXXVII station, Tashkent, concrete worker with a salary of 500 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Tashkent; from captivity.

74. Enikeev Gummer Mukhariam[ovich]- 1918, Tatar[in], secondary [education], Komsomol; BASSR, Blagovar [ayon] district, village of Kargali [Upper Kargaly], Davlekan [ovo], teacher with a salary of 550 rubles; sergeant, 02/15/42, company commander; BASSR, Blagovarsky district, village of Kargali; from encirclement, in the Soviet rear - August 1943

75. Kamaltinov Zaki Nurgal[ievich]- 1923, Tatar[in], 6th grade[ass], Komsomol; Molot[ov] region XXXVIII, Bardinsky [Bardymsky] district [ayon]n, village of Kazy (?), on a collective farm, collective farmer; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Kaybitsky district, village. Chipmunk; from captivity, missing.

76. Khafizov Fathul Khafizovich, - 1915, Tatar[in], secondary [education], b[es]p[party]; TASSR, Muslimovsky [Muslyumovo] district, Muslyumovo village, Kazan, teacher; private, 02.23.43, private; TASSR, Muslyumovo district, Muslyumovo village; from captivity, disappeared [without] news.

77. Yusupov Ishak Kalniz[ovich]- 1911, Tatar[in], secondary [education], b[es]p[party]; Astrakhan, st. Batumskaya, 8/26, Astrakhan, worker with a salary of 400 rubles; private, 02.23.43, private; Astrakhan, st. Batumskaya, 8/2; from captivity, disappeared [without] news.

78. Aflyatonov (Aflatunov) Talip- 1919, Tatar[in], 4th grade[assa], b[es]p[arty]; BASSR, Yarnyakinsky [Ermekeevsky?] district, village of Yanganayak (?); on a collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02/23/43, private; BASSR, Yarnyakinsky [Ermekeevsky?] district, village of Yanganayak (?); from captivity, disappeared [without] news.

79. Salimzyanov Kadyr Khal.- 1923, Tatar[in], 4th grade[ass], b[es]p[arty]; NSO [Novosibirsk region], Chanovsky district, village Ch. Kushkul [Koshkul]; on a collective farm, collective farmer, private, 02/23/43, private; NSO, Chanovsky district, Ch. Kushkul village; from captivity, killed 03/06/43 [g.].

NA RB, f. 1450, op. 5, d. 2, l. 47-107.

The publication was prepared by Rustem Gainetdinov

The foreign word “collaborationism” (French collfboration - cooperation, joint actions) is still classified as unpronounceable, although it was borrowed to refer to actual events that occurred more than five decades ago during the Second World War. Yes, writing about “traitors, traitors to the motherland” is not easy. It is possible that this publication will be followed by a reaction like thunder from heaven: “It’s impossible! Write better about the heroes...”

I would like the reader to take into account here: the newspaper text is not a decree on an award or a court verdict. Our goal is not to elevate, but to understand a person who, in the grip of circumstances, had to take a double oath and three times, together with others who enlisted in the ranks of the Idel-Ural legion, shout “Heil!”

It is known that the overwhelming majority of prisoners of war, including the “Vlasovites” and the so-called legionnaires, who joined the Germans under the banner of the fight against Stalinism in order to create independent nation states, were “calculated” and, with the active assistance of the allies, were returned to the USSR and convicted. Even those who languished in German prisons for many years fell under the millstone of repression. concentration camps. Few of them, after serving a long term, were released. And which of these unfortunate people, in conditions of colossal moral pressure dared to write memoirs? Such cases are rare. That is why we believe that the memoirs of former prisoner of war Ivan Skobelev are of historical value. Despite the completely understandable subjective interpretation of events, one cannot ignore new information about the actions of the underground group, which included a former political worker of the Second shock army, poet Musa Jalil, guillotined by the Nazis (later Hero of the Soviet Union, Lenin Prize laureate).

A few words about the fate of the memoirs. A native of the Chuvash village of Nizhny Kurmey, Orenburg region, Ivan Skobelev (1915) wrote them at the request of the writer and journalist, editor-in-chief of the Orenburg television studio Leonid Bolshakov, who was interested in Chuvash history (author of the brochure “Chuvash Correspondents of Leo Tolstoy”). Apparently, after the triumphant return of Musa Jalil’s “Moabit Notebooks” to the USSR during the short-term “thaw”, the author began to hope that the attitude towards other prisoners of the camps, as well as towards all victims of the war, would change. Once again mentally walking along the bumpy roads of war, he, of course, was looking for a way to gain mental stability (keeping colossal information and impressions inside is an incredible test). To tell, to confess, to justify oneself before posterity, perhaps the author thought about this too.

Valery ALEXIN.

Brief historical background

The Volga-Tatar Legion (Idel-Ural Legion) is a Wehrmacht unit consisting of representatives of the Volga peoples of the USSR (Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Udmurts). Volga-Tatar legionnaires (about 40 thousand people in total) were part of 7 reinforced field battalions; 15 economic, sapper, railway and road construction companies; and 1 battle group of the East Turkic SS unit. Organizationally, it was subordinate to the Headquarters of the Command of the Eastern Legions (German: Kommando der Ostlegionen).

The legion was created in Jedlino (Poland) on August 15, 1942. The ideological basis of the legion was the creation of an independent Volga-Ural Republic (Idel-Ural). The leading role in the ideological training of the legionnaires was played by emigrants - members of national committees formed under the auspices of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories.

The Volga-Tatar Legion used a variant of the patch that looked like a blue-gray oval with a yellow border. In the center of the emblem there was a vault with a vertical arrow. Idel-Ural was written on top in yellow letters, and Tatar Legion was written below. The round cockades on the headdresses had the same color combination as the stripes.

At the very first clashes with the enemy, many legionnaires, most of whom were recruited against their will from among prisoners of war, went over to the side of the Red Army and the Allied armies. An underground organization led by Musa Jalil made a great contribution to maintaining the spirit of the legionnaires and the rejection of Nazi views.

Volga-Tatar legionnaire "Idel-Ural", 1944

War

The first day of the war passed like all previous days, except for the message about the beginning of the German invasion. On June 23, some of the soldiers took the oath. For the first time we held live ammunition in our hands, for the first time we saw simple and explosive bullets. But they got the same rifles - the old model with a triangular Russian bayonet. The war has begun, but we have not yet seen machine guns.

The people knew that a conflict with Germany was inevitable. The rank and file greeted the war calmly. We considered the concluded pact of friendship and non-aggression as an absurdity in the policy of our government. It was only strange to listen to the Red Army soldiers being prohibited by their commanders from talking about Germany as a state hostile to us.

In the evening we left our newly inhabited tents and dugouts and made a trek of about sixty kilometers to the West. We thought we were going to be loaded to be sent to the front. The mood was cheerful and fighting. First big hike I didn’t exhaust him at all, although I wanted to sleep and rest.

They began to take a position and dig trenches. When everything was done, an order came: to gather to replace the deployment. This time we went back 25 km. Why was such maneuvering necessary, for the entire division? Why are we marking time? The command was confused and continued to be academically liberal. The fact that the commanders forgot the practice also speaks of confusion. civil war.

Marking time ended on June 29 or 30; in the evening we were loaded onto a train and overnight we were transferred to the town of Gorodok, Vitebsk region. Upon the arrival of the division, new mobilizations arrived. They could not be equipped or armed. They were forced to be sent to Vitebsk.

The first battles began on July 3 or 4, and ended successfully. Several armored vehicles and tanks were hit. They brought in several captured fascists. They behaved impudently. They shouted: “Rus kaput.”

At dawn next day the attack of the main enemy forces began...

While crossing the highway we ran into a German ambush. We did not know the number of the enemy. To disperse the fire, they decided to split into several groups. I stayed in the center. At the appointed time, we crawled forward and opened fire on the enemy. I don’t remember how long the fight lasted. The cartridges in the clip ran out, the last grenade remained. On command he rose to attack. I don’t remember anything further.

Soon the Germans approached, collecting trophies.

Captivity

By evening we found ourselves in a camp built right in the field. About two hundred people were gathered here, all from the battlefield.

The first days I suffered greatly from my wounds. There was a shrapnel sticking out in his side, and a bullet had riddled his neck under his jaw. I could neither drink nor speak.

We were soon lined up for departure. A special team arrived on bicycles and motorcycles. As soon as we left the gate, the sick and those wounded in the leg were shot before our eyes. The same fate befell those who fell along the way.

In Vitebsk, a camp was built on a huge square where there used to be warehouses of the People's Commissariat of Defense. There were a lot of prisoners here. We were let in without any account registration. There were many soldiers without tunics and caps, like me. There were also commanding officers with insignia, well-groomed officers, clean, as if they had not seen war. These people were very special. They smoked, many already held positions of barracks elders.

Doctors and paramedics arrived and began treating the wounds. The Germans did not use our dressings; they handed them over to the camps. They pulled the fragment out of me and cleaned my side of the crushed bones. Surgeon Petrov, having examined me, said: “You will live if you do not die in this hell.”

Among the clean-cut dandies, some wore white armbands with a black letter “P” (policeman) on their sleeves. Most of them spoke Ukrainian among themselves. They were armed with belts with a heavy buckle, which they used when necessary. They beat me mercilessly, with pleasure. They caught “witches,” that is, they were looking for commissars and Jews. We lived in a separate block and ate separately.

Jews and commissars were put in a ring specially fenced off with barbed wire and held with the inscription “Judas”, “commissar”, “weathervane” (fugitive) hanging on their chests, then they were hanged in front of the prisoners.

This is how I learned about the fascist order in captivity.

With the stamp "A" (Asian)

There was a rumor: the Germans were allowing Ukrainians and Belarusians home, but only civilians. Having been hungry for three days, he exchanged torn civilian clothes for three rations of bread. I wanted to leave this hell. That's how I got to the stage. We were brought to the city of Borisov. The next day they started giving me commissions. When they began to undress, many were found wearing Red Army underwear and wounds. Without giving us time to come to our senses, we were sent to a prisoner of war camp. They took us to work here. They fed us twice, gave us two liters of good barley gruel for five people, and two more loaves of bread.

Red Army uniforms were soon distributed. Afterwards, they were divided into groups according to nationality, and large letters were painted on the backs of their overcoats and tunics with oil paint: “r” (Russian), “u” (Ukrainian), “b” (Belarusian), “a” (Asian). In the blocks, Russians were assigned as policemen as Ukrainians, Belarusians as Asians, etc.

According to the Internet.

Already in the first weeks and months of the war, the Wehrmacht began to use Soviet prisoners of war as auxiliary personnel (cooks, drivers, grooms, laborers, cartridge carriers, sappers, kitchen assistants, messengers, signalmen) directly in its combat units. Later they were mobilized into security and counter-guerrilla units. By the end of 1942, these people were brought into the so-called “eastern battalions”.

By the last period of the war, when Germany's reserves of manpower had dried up, they remembered those who tried from the very first days of the war to become an ally of Germany and in the future to gain at least a minimum of independence for their people. At the first stage of the war, they were brushed aside like annoying flies. Of course, after all, Germany was strong, and its army stood right next to Moscow. At a critical moment, the Germans remembered the prisoners of war. A paradoxical situation arose at the front towards the end of the war, when it was discovered that the few German military units consisted of 40-50 or more percent natives of the Soviet Union and various exotic countries. So, after the storming of the Reich Chancellery, Soviet soldiers looked in surprise at the corpses of its dead defenders with Asian eyes.

After the end of the war, some of the legionnaires, with the support of influential friends from a number of governments of Muslim countries, took refuge in the Middle East and Turkey. Those who remained in the USSR were repressed.

Soldiers of the newly created legion "Idel-Ural", 1942

Through the circles of hell

They drove us to Minsk on foot. There were many executions along the way. The first victims remained on the outskirts of the city of Borisov, near the fertilizer warehouse. They fed us without salt for more than a week. When they passed by this warehouse, exhausted people mistook the fertilizer for salt, and the front column rushed forward and created a dump. The convoy opened fire on the crowd with machine guns and machine guns.

...A new camp was built on the territory of Lithuania on the site of a military camp. The entire area is covered with greenery. There are gigantic linden trees all around. Luxurious barracks. But nothing made us happy except the grass that grew abundantly in the camp. The hungry pounced on pasture. They ate raw grass, ate it with water and salt. We didn't eat enough! And there was nothing tastier than plantain. They ate and stocked up. As a result, 1500-2000 people ate all the grass over a huge area in three days. And the prisoners kept coming and coming. Even the trees inside the camp were gnawed. They broke windows to use a piece of glass to scrape off tree fibers for food. The luxurious linden trees now stood completely bare.

The weather was damp and cold. The inhabitants of the camp were concentrated in barracks and stables. The food was bad. All stories about past life, about work and relatives ended with memories of some memorable dinner. For this mass, consisting of adults and intelligent people, all thoughts revolved only around food. If they had said that we would feed him and then shoot him, perhaps no one would refuse such “mercy.” They didn't think about life. We fell asleep and woke up dreaming of food.

Prisons are the same everywhere. I came to this conclusion later. I mean not only the external and internal structure, but also the regime, etc. - dampness, darkness, punishment cells, investigation rooms with torture equipment. Such were the prisons in Stetin, Gdansk, Brest, Minsk, and after the war - in Cheboksary. How much sophistication they have for greater human suffering! How carefully the staff is selected for this!

People who have not gone through the circles of hell sometimes argue: here it is good, but here it is bad, but before execution the condemned person is given enough to eat and even drink. These people are dreamers, boasters, they inflate their worth, as if they have seen a lot in life.

It’s hard and hungry everywhere in prisons. But in prisons, where you are looked at as an enemy and treated like a dangerous animal, it is even harder.

Processing of our camera began at the end of January 1942. Seven Lithuanians passed before me, three of them returned to the cell from the first interrogation - beaten beyond recognition.

It was my turn. The interrogation began peacefully and quietly: who, where, how did they get captured? For the first time I said my last name, where I was from and what my nationality was. To the accusations that I was retained for spy work, that I was a communist, I responded with a categorical refusal. Then he fell out of his chair from the blow. They beat us with anything.

According to the stories of my comrades, I lay motionless for three days.

Soon we were loaded onto the train. They gave us 100 grams of liver sausage and a loaf of bread for the journey. Everyone ate all this immediately, and for three days they rode hungry.

We unloaded in the afternoon at one of the small railway stations in Saxony. In Stadtcamp No. 314 they went through sanitary treatment, were given old-time German tunics and shod in wooden lasts. A tin plate with a number was hung around his neck. My number is 154155 (probably according to the number of prisoners).

The British, Americans, French and Greeks lived here in separate zones. All of them, compared to us, looked like well-fed stallions. They were not forced to go to work and were fed well. They wore new army clothes and shoes, in accordance with the uniform of their countries. They were allowed to receive letters and parcels through the Red Cross. They played sports games and read newspapers. The Germans treated them as equals. At the same time, Soviet prisoners were dying of hunger, beatings and hellish conditions specially created for them.

General of the Eastern Forces (General der Osttruppen) Lieutenant General X. Helmich inspects a battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion. Summer 1943

The reason for the change is unknown to the prisoner

In Statcamp No. 314 we were imprisoned in a bloc of national minorities. Georgians and Armenians occupied separate zones here, Volga and Central Asian nationalities were located at the other end. After sanitization we were given overcoats, boots with socks and trousers. The food here was different.

We did not know the true reason for this change. They explained in their own way that the war had dragged on, the Germans, fearing for their own skin, were trying to smooth out their crimes, etc. To be convincing, they recalled that there was an ultimatum note from Molotov to Germany about responsibility for violations of international rules for holding prisoners of war. In a word, everyone invented something, proved something, reasoned in anticipation of good things.

The strong and well-fed stood apart, ruled over the weak, chose best places and tried to stand out in front of the camp authorities.

During my 10-year stay in the camp after the war, I had to meet such “world eaters” more than once. They settled in here too, becoming the same as they were in the fascist camps - thieves, robbers and murderers of honest workers. They never realized their guilt for the ruined souls, in many cases through their fault, in fascist captivity. They grumbled at the Soviet government, at Stalin, at the party. They hated the people and lived only for their belly.

They were brought to Poland, to the city of Sedlice. I ended up on the “weak team” of the Tatar camp. They divided us into companies, platoons and squads. Two battalions had been formed before us, and drills were already underway. There were no weapons. They fed according to the norm of a German soldier.

Soon the purpose of bringing and forming became somewhat clear. I was especially struck by the introduction of the hour of namaz (prayer) and the obedient execution of it by the prisoners. From somewhere there were mullahs, and they were by no means old men.

In the “weak company,” except for me and two Mordvins, everyone was Tatars. Nobody knew that I was Chuvash, because I spoke Tatar perfectly.

Mullah calls to worship

When they lined up for prayer, I lined up at the back. The command came (in Tatar, of course): “Sit down to pray.” An internal protest held me like an idol. The mullah's voice brought me to my senses, and I broke ranks and took up the flank. He stood there for 20-30 minutes while the mullah read a prayer and then ranted about the coming of “happy time.”

After the prayer, they dragged me to the officer: “Why didn’t you pray?” Through an interpreter he answered that I was a Christian and Chuvash by nationality.

This incident changed my situation somewhat. If earlier they looked at him as a “strung man” (he was terribly thin, instead of 72 kg he weighed only 42). They were freed from uniforms and drills. Thanks to this incident, I became closely acquainted with the Tatar Yangurazi, with whom we fought in the same division.

This act played an important role in my future life in Germany and contributed to my meeting with Musa Jalil.

Soon battalion commanders began to be led into the city in groups with one accompanying person. They visited “Soldatenheims”, “Wufs” (bardak), from where they brought schnapps and bimbra (moonshine). Though belated, but true news began to arrive: Leningrad was standing, the Germans’ attempts to reach the Volga had failed. But prostitutes also spread false information.

On one of the difficult days, three “gentlemen” in civilian clothes arrived at the Sedlica camp. They began to call prisoners to the camp headquarters. An elderly Tatar was talking to me. By the way, he spoke his native language poorly.

A few days later we were put in a passenger carriage and sent to a special camp of the Eastern Ministry. Most likely, this was a filtration (checking) point: mainly the intelligentsia of all nationalities of the USSR were concentrated here.

After 2-3 months I found out: General Vlasov was gathering a million-strong army for a campaign against Stalin. A little later I had to meet Vlasov himself.

Barracks

The tie presses on the neck like a collar

The camp had a club and a library with publications in Russian. There were many books by emigrant writers here. The club showed films and gave lectures on the National Socialist program. They brought Mein Kampf straight to the barracks.

These days there was a rumor that the chairman of the Union of Tatar Writers, Musa Jalil, was nearby in a quarantine camp. There were people among us who knew him. This is Alish (children's writer, before the war - head of the pioneer department of the Tatar regional committee of the Komsomol), an employee of the editorial office of the newspaper "Red Tataria" Satarov.

Two weeks later, everyone was summoned to the camp headquarters, forced to fill out and sign a form with the following content: “Prisoner of war such and such is released, and at the same time undertakes to the German authorities to work wherever he is sent.” Under penalty of death, they agreed not to communicate with German women.

After that they took us to Berlin. Here they took me into the warehouse of one of the stores and dressed me in civilian clothes. Leaving the store, I told my friend that a paper collar with a German tie pulled over my neck was pressing on my neck like a collar.

From the memoirs of prisoner of war Rushad Khisamutdinov

...The Tatars were reluctant to join the German legion. Then the Nazis decided to find a person who could carry away all the prisoners with him. The recruiters were persistent. It is known that high-ranking officials fussed a lot around Musa Jalil at that time - Rosenberg, Unglaube, and the notorious “president” of the imaginary state “Idel-Ural” Shafi Almaz. But at first Musa did not want to hear about serving with the Germans. Only later, realizing that the Nazis’ idea opened up the opportunity for him to engage in anti-fascist propaganda in the legions, did he agree. The path that Musa took was difficult and dangerous.

...After the arrival of new reinforcements, a musical chapel (cult platoon) was organized. Thirteen people were selected as “artists”. None of them were professional artists. Gainan is a teacher, Abdulla is a senior political instructor, etc. However, our Yedlny “musicians” - Garif Malikov, Ivan Skobelev, Sadykov and others also did not have any special education.

From the book “Memories of Musa Jalil”, Kazan, 1966.

Lieutenant General X. Helmich at the next inspection of the battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion. Presumably - 1943

Which Tatars do the Chuvash agree with?

For three weeks we lived in the third-class hotel "Anhalter Baykhov". We ate in the canteen using ration cards. We didn’t speak the language, so we had to sit in our room. Sometimes we went for a walk in the city.

During this time, I became closely acquainted with Alishev, Shabaev, Bulatov, Sabirov. I developed a particularly good relationship with Alishev. I appreciated him for his frankness and simplicity. From him I learned that the poet Musa Jalil, the favorite of the Tatar people, would soon arrive here.

The group was often taken on excursions and to theaters. A guy from Donbass, an institute student, was assigned to us foreign languages by the (dubious) surname Sultan. He also issued food cards, stamps and pfennigs. Sometimes some of the “goons”, including me, were not taken on excursions, since due to our thinness the Germans might have formed an unsatisfactory image of the Tatars. On such days, we killed time by studying German from a soldier's handbook.

One evening we wandered into a “birnetube”, which was located in the basement where the Belgians and French gathered. For the first time I saw the situation described by Gorky and other writers: a beer hall, drowning in smoke and dirt, with made-up and disheveled girls on men’s laps. Behind the counter stood a pot-bellied, red-faced owner who carefully took stamps and pfennigs, as well as contraband goods, gold rings and other souvenirs and poured schnapps or ersatz beer.

Our appearance did not go unnoticed. Three Frenchmen surrounded us. We didn’t understand them, they didn’t understand us either, the phrase “Russishen Gefagen” (Russian prisoners) explained everything. The French sat us at a table and offered us beer, but we refused due to lack of money. They tapped us on the shoulder, called us comrades, and offered us cigarettes. But soon a policeman came up and took us to the hotel, ordering the hostess not to let us go anywhere alone.

Days passed full of languor and anxiety. One day the group was ordered to be on site. At 18 o'clock the translator Sultan took us to the Exceldzer restaurant.

I had never seen such luxuriously decorated rooms before: hundreds of tables, booths, the shine of chandeliers, serving buffets, flitting waiters... The smell of high-grade cigarettes was intoxicating. There is no war here, here there is no knowledge of hunger, pain or hardship.

We were led through a huge hall, probably with the aim of showing how richly the fascist degenerates live and confidently behave.

In no big hall Several men and women greeted us. They turned out to be Tatars who had remained in Germany since the First World War (the women were their wives and daughters). Our arrival revived the company. Among the prisoners they looked for their fellow countrymen and loved ones. Soon an old Tatar appeared, who in Sedlice selected the people he needed. With him came a medium-sized, baggy-dressed, haggard-looking man. He modestly greeted Alishev (hugged him) and walked forward behind the old man. It was Musa Jalil (Gumerov, as he introduced himself).

They offered to take a seat. The German and the old man announced the opening of an evening of dating the Tatars in Berlin with “newly arrived gentlemen” (effendi). An old Tatar man, whose name was Shafi Almaz, said that we were gathered to fight Bolshevism in order to form independent national states with the help of the fascists. And we, the “flower of the nation,” had to lead this matter. It was announced that a leadership center called “Tatar Mediation” was being created in Berlin under the Eastern Ministry. A newspaper in the Tatar language "Idel-Ural" will be published.

Then there was dinner using the unused cards. The ladies wanted to hear Tatar songs. Nazipov and a young guy spoke, whose last name I don’t remember. Then they began asking Musa Jalil to read something. He readily agreed and read humorous poems. One of them, I remember, was called “Parachute”.

My acquaintance with Jalil took place on the same evening. He came up to me himself. At first they spoke Russian, and then switched to Tatar. He asked how long I had been in captivity, where I fought, how I was captured. I don’t know what impression I made on Jalil, but after that the attitude of the “well-fed” towards me changed somewhat.

The following days they settled into the premises allocated for “Tatar mediation”. Responsibilities were then assigned. All this happened without Jalil's participation.

“Tatar Mediation” was located on Noenburger Street on the third floor of a brick building. The second floor was occupied by “Turkestan mediation” (Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, etc.).

A day later, a meeting of mediation workers took place. Many Germans were present, there was even an SS general (later they found out that they were a representative of the Eastern Ministry, Professor von Medsarich and two secretaries: Frau von Budberg and ladies-in-waiting Debling). There were three Tatars in military uniform who arrived from the legion. At this meeting it was announced: “Tatar mediation” will be the center of the struggle for the liberation of the Tatar people from Bolshevism and the establishment of such independence as it was before their conquest by the Russians.

Gunafin, Sultan, Gilyadiev and someone else spoke, called to fight for a “just cause,” focused on the Fuhrer, and at the end they shouted: “Heil Hitler!”

When these tirades ended, they asked: “What will our Chuvash friend say?” I answered: “If there were as many of my relatives here as there are Tatars, a lot could be said, but for now I can only say one thing: I am in solidarity with the Tatars.” Frau von Budberg translated my words to the Germans. Shafi Almaz asked: why did I speak in Russian when I speak Tatar perfectly? “I didn’t speak, but answered your question. To speak, you need to prepare,” I answered.

During the break, M. Jalil came up to me. He asked: with which Tatars do the Chuvashs stand in solidarity? There was no one nearby, and I boldly answered: we were and will be in solidarity with all our neighbors, regardless of nationality. He shook my hand and turned to Yangurazi who had approached: “You seem to be great friends, this is the second time I’ve seen you together.” The friend replied: “Yes, we are from the same division.”

After that, they talked in Tatar: where he was captured, who else was with the Germans, etc. But then Jalil was called to the “boss”.

It was soon announced that Unglaube would lead the organization from the Germans, and Shafi Almaz from the Tatars (translators Sultan and Jalil). Organizational and propaganda departments were created, as well as an editorial office (Ishmaev, Gilyadiev, Alishev, Satarov, Sabirov, etc.). Yangurazi and I were left out of work.

Everyone was given food cards and a monthly salary. We had to start living in a private apartment, we had to report to work every day.

Soon we were given foreign passports. We went through a commission to determine our race (they measured our head, eye shape, and God knows what else). And what do you think? I, a Chuvash, and 15 other Tatars received an assessment similar to the Aryan race. Everything matched in size. Then we laughed that we were canonized.

Musa Jalil

Tell the prisoners living word

The first weeks passed unnoticed. The German and Shafi Almaz, the translators Sultan and Jalil, were constantly going somewhere. It became known about the existence of a Tatar legion in the town of Seltsy near the city of Radom. In addition, working battalions were formed. The Demblin fortress (Poland) became the collection base for prisoners of war of all Volga nationalities.

During this time, the first issues of the newspaper "Idel-Ural" were published. Their content can be assessed as illiterate and pathetic.

Relations with the nationalist Tatars worsened. They came up with the nickname “kefer” (non-religious) for me because when they met, I loudly said “hello” and responded to their address only in Russian. All this infuriated my enemies.

On this basis, an explanation took place with Almaz and Unglaube. The first expressed sharp indignation at my behavior. If it weren’t for the support of Frau Budberg, who had a negative attitude towards ignoring the Russian language, I would have been sent to a concentration camp.

After this “bath” we walked along the street with Yangurazi. Jalil met us and asked if it was possible to spend a little time together with inseparable friends? The conversation turned to how we settled in and what we needed. When I talked about the “bath,” he replied: “You, Skobelev, will not be sent anywhere, you are more needed here.” He suggested changing the attitude towards “sofas”, rebuilding his character, pulling himself together, becoming a “master” himself. Let them think and report to the boss that the conversation was beneficial.

You say: you’re tired of idleness,” Jalil continued. - You, Yangurazi, are a communist, and Ivan is a Komsomol member. Consider yourself temporarily excommunicated from your organizations. You have a weapon - the teachings of Lenin - Stalin, which you have no right to forget. Look around: how many camps are there with Soviet people! After all, the absolute majority there are our peers. Look for communists and Komsomol members among them. Find and speak a living word, a word of hope. Instill in them faith in victory, that Stalin and the party have not forgotten them.

Next, Jalil gave specific tasks: first, to study Berlin well; the second is to find out how many camps are and where they are located; third, make acquaintances and make friends with smart and serious people. He promised that we would receive additional instructions soon.

After that, he said that he had been in the legion. 4 battalions have already been created there, there is one Chuvash company. Legionnaires are armed and trained to use German weapons. Among the commanders are Tatars and Germans. There is a colonel who graduated from the Academy. Frunze.

We talked about our colleagues in misfortune. M. Jalil gave each one an assessment. We parted when it got dark. He left by electric train, and we went by tram past the prison, where the poet later languished and was executed.

That night we could not sleep, we talked until dawn: the meeting turned our lives upside down.

From a letter from I. Skobelev to L. Bolshakov

I promise to write to you in detail about everything - about the comrades and enemies with whom I had to work in Berlin from September 1942 until the end of the war. I felt bad for Musa Jalil until he was appreciated. Personally, while under investigation in the Soviet counterintelligence in Germany, and then in the Ministry of State Security in Cheboksary, I told Minister Mitrashov, his deputy Lebedev and investigator Ivanov, but not in order to justify myself (for I was no longer afraid, more than what I had - they couldn’t give it to me, the execution was later replaced by ten years), but in order to rehabilitate the comrades who died, in order to preserve their good name. But, alas, they did not listen to us, but on the contrary, they mocked us and punished us.

And the information, which was confirmed by the “Moabit notebooks” transmitted by a Belgian comrade, was presented by many of those arrested during interrogations. At that time the memory was fresh. Much, much could be said about the communist organization created by Musa Jalil in Berlin.

Let's tell the prisoners about Vlasov's adventurism

Musa Jalil informed us from time to time about the situation at the fronts and about the guerrilla war in the rear. The circle of our acquaintances expanded, from wherever there were Soviet people in Berlin: from Kharkov, Voroshilovgrad, Kyiv, Smolensk, etc. They were waiting for us and asked us to come more often. I had to travel especially a lot during the days of mourning for the Nazis after February 11, 1943. A hastily handwritten leaflet marked “Read and pass on to a comrade” reported the defeat and capture of the Germans at Stalingrad. People cried and laughed with joy, including the French, Belgians, Bulgarians, etc. They kissed anyone they met with a prisoner of war badge on their chest.

Jalil laughed heartily when I told him about this. He teased: “Well, Ivan, is there anything to do with the time now?” And then he seriously generalized: “This is how international solidarity is forged. Keep in mind that you and I are doing serious and dangerous work. Although we are not fighting, we are fighters and are in a difficult area...”

We showed up for “mediation” in the morning. After 10 o'clock we went to the university to study German.

Each group was necessarily introduced to M. Jalil. He clarified the information based on our observations. The poet had a phenomenal memory, and was especially good at remembering faces.

And what a fan of Stalin he was! He wholeheartedly believed in his infallibility.

The myth of the superiority of the Aryan race over others began to fade. Posters on this topic were taken down on trams. The attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war has changed. Policemen and watchmen no longer always punished people for not wearing a badge. They began to look through their fingers at the loopholes under the barbed wire through which they were released into freedom without a pass. If someone was stopped, they were no longer punished, as before, with solitary confinement and beatings. The short answer - where he went (“to tsum ferluben” - to his beloved) - only caused a smile from the watchmen.

It was difficult to understand the reason for such changes. Musa warned that all this could be connected with the machinations of General Vlasov. Hitler accepted him and agreed to mobilize an army of millions to fight Stalin at fascist grub. The Vlasov traitors renamed the organ of Russian emigrants “Russian Word” to “New Word”. A photograph of Hitler with Vlasov appeared in one of the newspaper issues.

It was necessary to explain to the prisoners Vlasov’s adventurism. To implement this task, Jalil organized a meeting “in the same place, at the same hour.” According to the text he compiled, it was necessary to multiply the leaflets and “scatter” them at places of appearance. And Yangurazov and I sat all night and copied a leaflet that said: “Vlasov hired himself as a servant to Hitler. He's going to sell Soviet people just as Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel and Krasnov were sold to the imperialists in their time. The time will come, Vlasov and his inspirers will be punished. Our cause is just, Victory will be ours. Communist Party Bolsheviks in Berlin."

One day, accompanied by a sergeant major, the commander of the Tatar legionnaires, Colonel Alkaev, appeared. Then we found out: he came to Berlin demoted for his connections with the Poles and had to be under supervision.

The colonel became attached to Yangurazov and me. From confidential conversations we learned that Shakir Alkaev came from the Russified Kasimov Tatars (born near Moscow). By the end of the civil war, he commanded a squadron and was awarded an order for the storming of Perekop. At the end of the 40s he graduated from the General Staff Academy and met the war with the rank of colonel.

He viewed the Vlasov adventure as a cunning move conceived to defeat fascism. He gave an example from the history of past wars: military leaders, while in captivity, armed and raised uprisings of prisoners and struck from the rear. He did not want to believe that Vlasov was a traitor, since he had once served under his command.

I told Jalil about these reasonings. “This is a private matter,” came the answer. “He can think and fantasize everything, but we cannot agree with Vlasov’s actions.”

Volga-Tatar legionnaire "Idel-Ural"

With a researcher's certificate

Chuvash Fedor Blinov conveyed a letter to Musa Jalil through a courier, saying that he was glad that the Tatars had begun to publish their newspaper, and asked if it was possible to organize inserts in Chuvash. The poet advised us: carefully, under a plausible pretext, prevent this.

Along with the publication of the newspaper “Idel-Ural”, at the end of March, under “Mediation”, the so-called “Correspondence” in German began to be published for German officers and soldiers among the Tatar units. The process of processing materials for this publication went like this: articles were written in Tatar, then all this was translated into Russian, and then the secretary translated it into German and reprinted it on a matrix, after which it was reproduced on a rotary machine.

One day my friend Yangurazov was offered to translate into Russian. He worked hard for a long time, but it didn’t work out. Then he turned to me. The secretary praised our work, after which we began to be entrusted with translations of more serious things.

I personally had to translate an article by M. Jalil about the founder of modern Tatar literature G. Tukai, composer N. Zhiganov, a review article on the development of Tatar literature. Before sending them for translation into German, the author reviewed the manuscripts and was satisfied. The articles were saturated real facts, taken from Soviet reality.

While Jalil was away, we spent three days at the dacha near Berlin with the emigrant Gilmanov (we worked for a suit taken from him for the colonel). From him we learned about the life of Shafi Almaz, the head of the mediation. A former merchant from Petrograd managed to save his capital in a foreign bank and began working at a trade mission in Berlin. In 1928, he renounced Soviet citizenship and became an emigrant. In Berlin, he became a homeowner, living on the income he received from rent.

Gilmanov himself is a former prisoner, worked for the owner and married his daughter. I missed my homeland greatly. Before the First World War, until he was taken to the front, he even worked as a farm laborer.

Gilmanov ran a grocery store, and through him we began to get tobacco or cigarettes for the colonel.

M. Jalil advised us to use this contact, if possible, to obtain information about the state of affairs at the fronts. We knew that Gilmanov had a receiver.

During this conversation, M. Jalil said that it was necessary to send two propagandists with lectures to the Tatar units located in Poland. “We entrust you with the following topic: tell your relatives about the origin of the Chuvash. It’s a good topic, the lecture can be prepared so as not to touch on modern politics, etc.”

I began to object: they say, I don’t know the history of the origin of the Chuvash at all, I’ve never been interested in it. Jalil responded to this: “Study literature and you will know everything. You will have access to the Berlin Library. First of all, familiarize yourself with the works of Professor Ashmarin.” Then he told me how to use the catalogue.

And he said to Yangurazov: “You are a geographer, so prepare a lecture on the geographical location of the areas where Tatars and Bashkirs live.”

At the end he added that we should look into Russian restaurants in Berlin in the evenings. There is only a sign there from the Russians, but our compatriots gather there. Your task is to sit, listen and remember who is going there.

Having received the certificate, we became “research workers.” I re-read Ashmarin’s small book in the Berlin library several times and made a synopsis. I rummaged through the works of Academician Marr. I found and read the poem “Narspi” in Pettoki’s translation.

They worked in the library until lunch, then went about their business. Most often they visited their friends in the camps. Among the new friends I could name a Chuvash man named Tolstov, who works at the Siemens plant. When it was not possible to meet a friend or a “ferloben” (bride), they had to be called through the watch. Then the certificates of “research workers” were used.

We regularly visited Russian restaurants. These establishments were visited more often by emigrants, Vlasovites, and Cossacks. A Russian choir performed there and Russian jazz played.

Once at the Troika restaurant, a tipsy old lady sat down next to us. She began to explain that she was a landowner from the Samara province. She kept asking if the estate would be returned to her if the Germans won. We sarcastically replied that they would return it, even the interest would be paid off. She began to sob.

Once we saw Ataman Shkuro - a small, frail old man with a red mustache. He walked around in full regalia with a saber on his side, accompanied by his retinue. It somewhat reminded me of a cocky rooster.

At the end of May, news came from the legion: Idel-Ural special correspondent Satarov with a group of 5-6 people fled. The investigation began. Almaz, Sultan and others went to the scene of the incident. This incident gave rise to a reorganization in the command of the legion. All the key positions were occupied by the Germans, and we became executive assistants. The Legion was reinforced with a special company, and the Gestapo department was strengthened. From this Jalil concluded: Satarov was in a hurry.

One of the variants of the "Idel-Ural" patch

The Latinized alphabet was not accepted

In June 1943, the first Allied air raid on Berlin took place. According to German newspapers, up to five hundred bombers took part in the bombing. They threw mostly incendiary bombs. The streets adjacent to the center were burning. A terrible panic arose. There is nothing left of fascist self-confidence. People prayed and cursed everyone, even Hitler. Then I realized how unstable the enemy's rear was.

Our lectures were ready, read and approved by M. Jalil. After the check, the German told us that we would soon be performing at the rest house in front of the legionnaires. But the departure did not take place. A young Chuvash, Kadyev (Kadeev - Ed.), arrived to mediate. He was summoned from somewhere by an employee of the Eastern Ministry, Benzing, who at one time defended his dissertation on the material of the Chuvash language. It turns out that they have known each other for a long time. While in the camp since 1942, Kadyev helped Benzing learn the Chuvash spoken language. The purpose of his visit is to begin editing the Chuvash section of the Idel-Ural newspaper.

A few days later, another boy arrived - Vasily Izosimov, who graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages. He was a sergeant major or a company clerk and was captured in 1941. He was very useful to us, he carried out our tasks carefully.

Yangurazov and I were called to Berlin. Before the trip, M. Jalil warned: after Satarov’s escape, special surveillance was established over everyone. The next day, the legionnaires were gathered in the square, where we gave our lectures. Then the oath-taking ceremony of the third and fourth battalions took place in the presence of a mullah, who sat with the Koran. After each paragraph he shouted: “Ant item” (I swear). The front rows repeated, and those in the back shouted obscenities in rhyme.

After the ceremony, a luncheon was held in honor of those who took the oath. Then a meeting took place in the Christian company - with the Chuvash, Mordovians, Udmurts and Mari. There were 150 people in the company. There I met Fedor Dmitrievich Blinov, who later bore the name of his theater nickname - Paimuk. He came from a wealthy merchant family. An economist by profession, he graduated from the Moscow Institute. Plekhanov. Terrible nationalist! Everyone was running around with the idea of ​​​​creating an independent Chuvash state. He couldn't stand Tatars. Despite the fact that I was among them for more than six months, I did not know a single one Tatar word. He expressed his contempt for them openly. He insisted on transferring Christian companies under the authority of Vlasov.

By this time, a Chuvash page appeared in Idel-Ural, which was difficult to read (Kadyev and I, with the participation of Dr. Benzing, developed an alphabet based on Latin letters). About this, Jalil laughed for a long time: “You can’t think of anything better, Ivan. Let them waste paper, support typesetters, and the result is a donut hole.” And Paimuk attacked me, accusing me of mocking the people. He insisted that a separate newspaper be published in Russian. “What kind of nationalists are we if we read in Russian,” I answered him. “As for the alphabet, this issue is not subject to discussion, because it was approved by the minister himself.”

Then I received many letters from him with complaints about the newspaper, about the Tatars, about the emblem, until he came to Berlin to edit the Russian newspaper Svobodnoe Slovo.

I had a chance to see how the legionnaires were armed. We attended tactical training and a training ground. I met my fellow villager Andrei - still very young. From him I learned that all my brothers went to the front from the very first days of the war. We had a heart-to-heart talk. When asked what he should do next, he advised: upon arrival at the front, turn your weapons against the Nazis and go to your own. And he warned me: be careful “with the long elderly Chuvash” (we were talking about Paimuk).

In the evening there was an amateur concert. Some recognized me from the first prayer, came up and had a casual conversation. Gestapo servants also hung around here.

We arrived in Berlin, occupying a separate carriage. My fellow villager Andrei was also with the legionnaires. Jalil was waiting for us at the mediation office. He sat in a straw hat, in a white shirt and wrote something in a notebook.

When they told how they took the oath, what they shouted in the back rows, he burst out laughing: “That’s neat, well done…”

Then he said that the legionnaires would rest in a newly organized camp in Pomerania. They will be served by their own people, for this purpose 10 people have been sent there, among them the undesirable type Gunafin S., appointed as the head of this camp. He also advised me to meet old man Yagofarov. We were pleased to learn that German offensive in the Kursk direction there was choking, many commanders of the fronts and armies were displaced. He ordered me to inform my camp friends about this.

In the rest home, fate brought me together with Nafikov, Anzhigitov, Khalitov. Subsequently, in June 1945, it was next to them that I had to sit on the bench of a military tribunal and, as the leader, answer for myself, for them, and for the entire activity of the nationalist organization in Berlin. Then, while in the death cell in Brest-Litovsk, forgetting that he was sentenced to death, he argued with them until he was hoarse, defending Soviet power and the collective farm system.

One day (I don’t remember the date) I came home late. The hostess said that there was a guest who had been waiting for me for 20-30 minutes and said that we were friends. From the way she described him (hefty, short, dark-haired), I realized that Jalil was waiting for me. He needed me urgently, but I couldn’t leave at 10 pm.

In the morning, Jalil came up to me as I stood at the Tempel Bridge and read the morning edition of the Berliner Zeitung. As always, he was in a black suit, a white shirt with a turn-down collar in the Russian style, without a hat. I remember his lively eyes. He was cheerful. He demanded a detailed story about my trip to Dresden. Then we talked about who to send there for permanent work. He ordered to tell Yangurazov that Berlin, in any case, remains with us along with the colonel. Why did the colonel get involved here? I didn't ask about this. I think they were in close contact even earlier when they were in camp.

This time we spoke to him in different topics. He asked if I knew Chuvash writers and poets. I said that in my youth I personally knew Y. Ukhsai, but I did not see Khuzangai, but I know one of his poems. He admitted that I don’t know Chuvash literature well.

From the Legion's dossier

What did captivity look like? There are many cases, similar and not very similar to each other. A typical scenario: tens and hundreds of thousands of warriors found themselves in huge cauldrons of encirclement and, having lost all possibility of resistance, hungry, exhausted, without ammunition, they became a crowd. There are many photographs of those years, confiscated from the Germans: our soldiers look like a faceless mass with their hands raised or wandering under the protection of a few guards.

Many were captured in battle, being wounded, shell-shocked, unable to resist or use their weapons. Many cases are described when warriors, trying in groups to break through to their own people, were captured. Often circumstances forced commanders to disband their units so that people could fight their way out of encirclement.

There were many cases when troops found themselves deprived of the most necessary things, went hungry and, under the psychological influence of the enemy, went over to his side.

According to the German historian I. Hoffmann, at least 80 flew to the German side Soviet pilots on their planes. They formed a group under the command of former Soviet Colonel V. Maltsev, which took part in hostilities along with three Estonian and two Latvian air squadrons.

During the war, soldiers defected to the enemy. It is believed that there were no more than 1.4-1.5% of defectors captured in the first year of the war. Subsequently, this figure decreased. Of the 38 transit camps operating in the zone of the German Army Group Center, two were designed specifically for defectors.

According to the Internet.

According to the data available in the archives, the formation of the so-called national legions from prisoners of war was typical for all camps. At first, volunteers were announced, but since there were not enough of them, they signed up forcibly, under threat of death.

This is how the battalions of the Idel-Ural Legion were formed by “volunteers”. The Germans divided the camp into two parts. In one, hundreds of prisoners were still dying from hunger and typhus. In another - the so-called half-legion - three meals a day were introduced. To join the demi-legion, neither a subscription nor even verbal consent was required. It was enough to simply move from one half of the camp to the other. Many could not stand such “visual” propaganda.

Convinced that the formation of the legion was going too slowly, the Germans simply drove Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash prisoners from the place of formation and announced that from now on they were all “Eastern volunteers.” Following the form, the German officer, through an interpreter, asked who did not want to serve in the legion. There were also such. They were immediately taken out of action and shot in front of the others.

Lieutenant General X. Hellmich awards legionnaires

Failure

After a four-day stay in the rest home, I was urgently called to Berlin. I was supposed to be met, but I decided to get off where passenger trains usually do not stop, but this time, for some reason, the driver made an exception. The owner of the apartment upset me by telling me that my place had been searched and that she had been interrogated.

In the office where I came, they were perplexed: they said they were looking for me, they didn’t find me, but then I showed up myself.

Soon I was summoned for interrogation: when and where did I meet with Jalil, what kind of relationship did I have with Bulatov, Shabaev. The interrogation lasted four hours. After signing up that I wouldn’t tell anyone about the conversation, I was told to wait. Then the secretary came out and, quietly congratulating me, said that I was beyond suspicion. What happened to Jalil, where is he now? These questions swarmed in my head.

Later, the circumstances of the failure became known. Jalil came to the legion with leaflets, and in the evening he convened an underground meeting, which the provocateur infiltrated. The Gestapo learned about the meeting. The underground members were caught in full force: they found leaflets printed on our rotary machine. 27 people were arrested, including the provocateur.

I admit, Yangurazov and I were at a loss; we didn’t know what to do next to develop the business we had started. And questions came from the bottom: what to do, how to explain to people the destruction of the center? It was necessary to direct the work along the established channel; we had no right to stop the fight started by Jalil.

On the fourth day after the failure, we held a meeting of the remaining center. We decided to wait ten days to see how events around the arrested would develop. All grassroots organizations were instructed to temporarily cease all communications. Yangurazov was assigned to talk to Colonel Alkaev to see if he would agree to head the military mediation department, a position that should have been used to continue the work of Jalil and his friends.

Significant events took place after Jalil's arrest. Group escapes of legionnaires have become more frequent. On the Eastern Front, the 4th battalion completely went over to the Red Army, and the 3rd was surrounded and disarmed. Two more battalions had to be transferred to the category of working units; the Germans were afraid to trust the soldiers with weapons. All this was the result painstaking work Jalil.

Eh, Musa, you taught me not to be afraid of death, you said: “Having passed several deaths, there is no need to tremble before the last one.”

Kurultai

A kurultai (congress) is scheduled to be convened on October 23 or 25, where the decision to create the Volga-Tatar Committee should be approved. On the recommendation of Professor F. Mende, I should be elected a member of the committee there and assigned to head the national department.

They learned the news from the colonel: contact had been established with German anti-fascists. True, they are not communists, but social democrats. They have a press organ, and there are many Russians with them! Anti-fascists know about the misfortune that befell M. Jalil’s group.

Dozens of prisoners of war from France and Poland came to the old university Greifswald for the kurultai. All hotels are occupied by command staff of delegates. There are places reserved for privates in the barracks. The colonel and I were given a separate room in the hotel.

Unit commanders come to us one after another, many of whom I already know. They are happy to see me and get to know Alkaev. The Colonel is a very interesting, highly erudite person, at the same time simple and approachable. Knows Vatutin, Konev, Rokossovsky well. After graduating from the Academy. Frunze served as chief of staff of the division of the Kyiv Special Military District when Vlasov commanded there, then he was replaced by Konev. He was captured wounded and shell-shocked.

The Kurultai took place on October 25, 1943. Shafi Almaz made a report on the goals and objectives of the Volga-Tatar Committee. There were no others willing to come to the podium. Therefore, we immediately moved on to the election of committee members. At the suggestion of Sh. Almaz, a governing body was created of 12 people, and I was elected head of the financial department.

Memorial to the victims of Nazism on the site of the Plötzensee military prison in Berlin, where Musa Jalil and other 10 legionnaires were executed on August 25, 1944 for underground anti-Nazi activities

Visiting the old professor

At the end of March 1944, we went on a business trip to Czechoslovakia - Prague. Paimuk obtained an audience with Professor F. Mende and received permission to go to the Chuvash professor Semyon Nikolaev, an emigrant, professor at the University of Prague. He already wrote him a letter from the camp.

In Prague, the professor's house was quickly found. Semyon Nikolaevich burst into tears when he heard native speech. The evening was spent culturally. There was a lot of dishes on the table, but there was nothing to eat. The schnapps I took with me loosened my tongues. Only then did I understand why this extravagant Paimuk, who had worked in high positions before the war, brought me here. He wanted to coordinate with the professor the options for the coat of arms of Chuvashia.

The glass did its job. But the professor guessed that there were disagreements between us and did not let the dispute flare up. He asked how the Chuvash live. I figuratively described how tractors and combines work in the fields, that schools with 10 years of education are open in all large villages, that there is no difference between Russians and Chuvashs. Paimuk tried to object, but I snapped that he did not work among the Chuvash at all.

The professor emigrated long before the revolution. I knew Lenin personally and met him in France and Switzerland. At the Prague Conference he supported the Menshevik platform, stayed here and got a job as an assistant professor at the university, and got married.

Regarding the coat of arms, he answered Paimuk: it’s gratifying that you support the Chuvash, and a coat of arms is needed when there is a state. But you fight so that this people retains its freedom and language, and the culture takes root, especially since, as Mr. Skobelev claims, there has been success in this regard, etc.

The next day I got sick. The use of schnapps had an effect. And Paimuk went to look at the city.

The professor and his wife Tessie began asking about the Soviet Union and Stalin. I won’t hide it, life in captivity, communication with different people made me political erudite person. I didn’t lose face when talking about the Soviet people: how the country prospered, how good and free life was, how all nations, including the Chuvash, were equal. He added that this is a typical representative of our people. Then I again saw the old man, the professor, crying.

The next day I got out of bed. Together with the professor and his wife we ​​visited the sights of Prague.

They returned to Berlin with nothing. Paimuk was angry with me for defaming him in the eyes of the professor. I reported to the bosses that the professor did not recommend abandoning the common coat of arms of Idel-Ural, since the Chuvash will become part of the Volga-Tatar state, there is no need to have their own coat of arms. They agreed with my opinion and Paimuk was shown the bullshit.

According to the Internet.

It must be admitted, paradoxical as it may seem, the well-known orders No. 270 (August 1941) and 227 (July 1942) brought “clarity” to the consciousness of many prisoners of war. Having learned that they were already “traitors” and their bridges had been burned, and also having learned the “delights” of the fascist camps, they naturally began to think about what to do. To die behind barbed wire or?.. And here propagandists, German and from former ones, are agitating to join the Ostlegions, promising normal food, uniforms and liberation from the daily debilitating camp terror.

It is known that the orders mentioned were caused by extreme crisis situations. But they, especially No. 270, pushed some of the confused, hungry people (with the help of agitators) to join the armed forces of the Germans. It must be borne in mind that the Germans subjected recruited candidates to some kind of test, giving preference to those who were able to prove their disloyalty to Soviet power. There were also those who slandered themselves in order to survive.

And finally, mention should be made of the executions of prisoners of war. At the same time, any political considerations were completely ignored. So, in many camps, for example, all “Asians” were shot.

When joining the “eastern troops”, prisoners of war set out for each of their own purposes. Many wanted to survive, others wanted to turn their arms against the Stalinist regime, others wanted to break out from under the power of the Germans, go over to their own people and turn their arms against the Germans.

The dog tags for the personnel of the eastern formations were made according to the model of the dog tags for German soldiers. The numbers 4440 indicate the serial number, the letters Frw - rank, in this case - Freiwillige - volunteer (i.e. private). 2/828 WOLGATAT. LEG. - 2nd company of the 828th battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion.

Among the ruins of Berlin

Work has become easier. Total mobilization took all the camp guards to the front, their places were taken by the elderly and crippled. Ostarbeiters hide their badges, which may come in handy when the time comes to expose the fascists. You can enter the camp areas freely. The unity of people has increased. People began to slowly arm themselves.

German morale began to decline. This was especially noticeable after the unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life.

A Polish uprising broke out in Warsaw. Anglo-American troops landed. After air raids, ruins remain in residential areas of Berlin.

Food became difficult; rations were reduced to a minimum. The black market is thriving. Leaflets of German anti-fascists began to appear on the walls more and more often.

But Hitler's machine continued to work.

Tatar nationalists began to spawn. Three of them transferred to the SS troops, receiving the rank of Orbersturmführer (senior SS lieutenants). Others marry German women. I, to some extent, had to share the fate of the latter.

Sonia Fazliakhmetova, my main contact, had to be left in Berlin at all costs. The Gestapo said: if only they were husband and wife... Sonia agrees. The marriage was soon arranged. After losing shelter, they found a basement with an iron stove and a pipe and settled down there. We lived like this until the end of March. Although Sonia became a wife, she remained a girl.

At the beginning of April, an order was received to evacuate all institutions from Berlin, including our committee. I told Yangurazov that I would not go anywhere. He grabbed the suitcases and quickly took Sonia away. We went to Charlottenburg, where Sh. Almaz used to have an apartment and where M. Jalil used to live. Everything there was destroyed, except for the garage room, where there was a bed and an iron stove. They ate by the light of the burning stove, made the bed, and after six months of marriage lay down next to each other for the first time. From that night, Sonia actually became my wife.

Troops poured into Berlin. They began to build barricades and fortifications on the streets.

As night falls, the prisoners leave to the east. I consult with Yagofarov: the most dangerous legionnaires must be locked up.

On April 28, at 10 o’clock, Soviet intelligence arrived, questioned the route, and moved on. Then the main forces began to approach, and staff officers appeared.

The general yells obscenities: what kind of establishment is this, who is the eldest? Having received a comprehensive answer, he lined up the people, looked and gave the command: take me to counterintelligence, and the rest will be escorted by the commandant’s platoon. That's how I met my people.

Monument to Musa Jalil in Kazan

Death sentence commuted to 10 years in prison

Beatings began in the counterintelligence departments of the division and the army. They only accepted testimony about hostile activity; everything else was fairy tales. M. Jalil and underground work are fiction.

Then a quick trial by the military tribunal of the 65th Army took place. The case of “traitors to the Motherland Skobelev and his group” was heard. The petition was not accepted. The only question of the court is: do you plead guilty? The answer was no. Me, Nafikov and Izmailov (or Ismailov) were sentenced to death.

But not only in the tribunal, but also in the Ministry of State Security in Cheboksary did not want to hear about anything other than treasonous activity. The verdict was final and not subject to appeal. He did not ask for pardon, although he was called three times in 24 hours. Tired, broken. I wanted to die. There would have been forces to fight the enemy, but here we had our own.

The sentence was not carried out; they were sent to the Brest-Litovsk prison. There he testified to a representative of the Supreme Military Collegium, who wrote everything down without any objections. A couple of months later, a decision was made to replace the death sentence with 10 years in prison.

From Brest I was taken to an internal MGB prison, where I spent more than a year in solitary confinement. The conditions here were no better than in the army counterintelligence. After everything that I have experienced, we can conclude: the person is very tenacious.

Yangurazov and Colonel Alkaev were tried together. They gave me 10 years without losing my rights. I met the first one in the transit prison in Orsha. He didn't recognize me. After a few remarks, everything was restored in his memory and he began to cry.

Sonia waited for me for a long time. She returned to Krasnodon. In the repatriation camps, officers pestered her and slowed down her departure. I asked her not to wait for me, because I was not sure that I would survive this nightmare. At that time, there was arbitrariness in the camps, not only on the part of the administration, but also on the part of thieves and crooks.

One by one, familiar guys from the legion and the workers' battalion began to gather in the camp: Maksimov, Aleksandrov, Izosimov and others, who were sentenced to 25 years. I pulled myself together, gathered 30 people, became a foreman and did not allow anyone to be offended.

Sonia married in 1957 and had two children. I don’t write to her and don’t let her know. I looked for Yangurazov in Ufa, but did not find him. I don’t know anything about Izosimov either.

Leonid Naumovich, are you asking if I was rehabilitated? No. I didn't write anywhere. I was afraid that I would again encounter callous people who work according to a stencil. Fate was still kind to me: I am alive and can tell people about Jalil, Alishev, Samaev and other heroes. From mouth to mouth, people passed on my stories about M. Jalil and his comrades who fought against fascism in their lair. Among the Chuvash and Tatars I am held in high esteem and respect. The latter call me “Ivan Effendi”.

I would like people like Vasily Izosimov, Tikhon Egorov, Ivan Sekeev, Alexey Tolstov, not to mention my beloved friend Saidulmulyuk Gimrailovich Yangurazov, with whom I became related, to be rehabilitated. I can say that in the difficult struggle under captivity there were people who risked more than I did. Where are they, my faithful assistants - Sonia, Raya from Donbass and Maria from Krasnodar, the Sailor (I don’t remember the name) with his fearless team.

I would like to return to the party, but, alas, the road there is now thorny.

In recent years, under the guise of our underground, many have written and referred to me as the main organizer of the work after Jalil. But I don’t ask myself anything.

I was indignant at the article in Pravda Vostoka (December 1968), which was written by an associate professor from Tashkent (I don’t remember his last name). There are people who attach themselves to the name of Jalil.

Now I believe that Michurin was the traitor. He was arrested along with Jalil's group. Those who ended up in a German prison did not leave without betrayal. He eventually joined the French resistance. Just think, this rat escape from a sinking ship is presented in the Pravda Vostoka newspaper as a heroic act.

I would like the Tatar comrades working on the legacy of M. Jalil not to believe such versions. The structure of the underground organization was a five-member system. Not a single person knew the members of the other five. The lower classes did not know M. Jalil as the organizer and leader of the underground.

I find it hard to believe that, having arrived at the legion accompanied by Sultan Fakhretdinov, he would have risked holding an underground meeting. And it’s hard to believe that the leaflets, so skillfully hidden among the materials prepared for the Germans, would have fallen into the hands of the Gestapo that same night. I am still inclined to think that Jalil was betrayed by one of the authoritative persons whom he trusted, hoping for his education and army rank.

How Michurin sucked up to Colonel Alkaev, who we needed after Musa’s execution. But he was not very happy to be in a close relationship with him. He warned that this man had very dubious character traits.

I watched it the other day Feature Film"Moabite Notebooks". The outline of the plot is true. But there are embellishments, a lot of inaccurate information about Jalil’s stay in Berlin. His friends who helped him work in the lair of the fascists, who formed the core of the underground, are not shown at all. Much attention is paid to everyday life during the stay with Sh. Almaz, as well as to the beautiful lady who was not there. Jalil and Alishov refused to edit the newspaper, but they collaborated with the editors, otherwise they would not have been left free. The work of the poet among the ostarbeiters is not shown at all. Therefore, the picture turned out to be sketchy; many do not even understand why he was executed.

Prepared

Valery ALEXIN

Volga-Tatar Legion (Idel-Ural Legion) (German Wolgatatarische Legion, German Legion Idel-Ural, Tat. Idel-Ural Legions, İdel-Ural Legionı) - a Wehrmacht unit consisting of representatives of the Volga peoples (Tatars, Bashkirs , Mari, Mordovians, Chuvash, Udmurts).

Volga-Tatar legionnaires were part of 7 reinforced field battalions (about 12.5 thousand people).

Organizationally, it was subordinate to the Headquarters of the Command of the Eastern Legions (German: Kommando der Ostlegionen).

Legion soldier in Wehrmacht uniform.

Ideological basis

The formal ideological basis of the legion was the fight against Bolshevism and Jews, while the German side deliberately spread rumors about the possible creation of the Idel-Ural Republic. The leading role in the ideological training of the legionnaires was played by emigrants - members of national committees formed under the auspices of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories. Prominent figures of the national movements of the period 1918-1920 (Shafi Almas) were especially popular among them. The Muslim legionnaire camps were repeatedly visited by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who made calls for holy war against the “infidels” in alliance with Germany. In the Muslim legions, the positions of mullahs were introduced, who sometimes combined religious functions with command ones, being at the same time platoon commanders. The military and political training of soldiers ended with a collective oath to Hitler and the presentation of a flag.

No promises were made to any of the nationalities of the USSR regarding the creation of a national republic under a German protectorate, following the example of the Ustasha in Yugoslavia or the Slovaks.

Moreover, published materials highlighting Hitler’s categorically negative point of view regarding the need or possibility of allowing the creation of national state entities under a German protectorate in territory occupied by Germany do not allow us to talk about Germany’s goals in relation to legionnaires other than their assistance to Germany in the fight against Bolshevism and control over territories supplying resources to Germany.

Symbolism

One of the options for the Idel-Ural legion patch

The Volga-Tatar Legion used a variant of the patch that looked like a blue-gray oval with a yellow border. In the center of the emblem there was a vault with a vertical arrow. Idel-Ural was written on top in yellow letters, and Tatar Legion was written below. The round cockades on the headdresses had the same color combination as the stripes.

Creation logic

The OKH order to create the legion was signed on August 15, 1942. Practical work on its formation began in Jedlino (Poland) on August 21, 1942.

Future legionnaires arriving from prisoner of war camps were already in preparatory camps divided into companies, platoons and squads and began training, which at the first stage included general physical and drill training, as well as the assimilation of German commands and regulations. The drills were conducted by German company commanders with the help of translators, as well as by squad and platoon commanders from among the legionnaires who had undergone two weeks of training at non-commissioned officer courses. Upon completion of the initial training course, recruits were transferred to battalions, where they received standard uniforms, equipment and weapons and moved on to tactical training and the study of the material part of weapons.

In addition to 7 field battalions, during the war, construction, railway, transport and other auxiliary units were formed from prisoners of war - natives of the Volga region and the Urals - that served the German army, but did not directly participate in the hostilities. Among them were 15 Volga-Tatar separate companies.

Organizational structure of field battalions, participation in hostilities

Passage in solemn march

At the beginning of 1943, in the “second wave” of field battalions of the eastern legions, 3 Volga-Tatar battalions (825, 826 and 827th) were sent to the troops, and in the second half of 1943 - the “third wave” - 4 Volga-Tatar (with 828th to 831st).

Each field battalion consisted of 3 rifle, machine gun and headquarters companies of 130-200 people each; V rifle company- 3 rifle and machine-gun platoons, in the headquarters - anti-tank, mortar, engineer and communications platoons. The total strength of the battalion was 800-1000 soldiers and officers, including up to 60 German personnel (Rahmenpersonal): 4 officers, 1 official, 32 non-commissioned officers and 23 privates. The German commanders of battalions and companies had deputies from among representatives of the nationality of legionnaires. The command staff below the company level was exclusively national. The battalion was armed with 3 anti-tank guns (45 mm), 15 light and heavy mortars, 52 light and heavy machine guns, rifles and machine guns (mostly captured Soviet ones).

At the end of 1943, the battalions were transferred to Southern France and stationed in the city of Mand (Armenian, Azerbaijani and 829th Volga-Tatar battalions). The 826th and 827th Volga Tatars were disarmed by the Germans due to the reluctance of the soldiers to go into battle and numerous cases of desertion and were converted into road construction units. The 831st Volga-Tatar battalion was among those detached from the Wehrmacht at the end of 1943 to form a regiment within the SS troops under the command of career intelligence officer Major Mayer-Mader.

Kurultai of the peoples of Idel-Ural in March 1944

Underground anti-fascist organization in the legion

Since the end of 1942, an underground organization had been operating in the legion, whose goal was the internal ideological disintegration of the legion. The underground workers printed anti-fascist leaflets that were distributed among the legionnaires.

For participation in the underground organization on August 25, 1944, 11 Tatar legionnaires were guillotined in the Plötzensee military prison in Berlin: Gainan Kurmashev, Musa Jalil, Abdullah Alish, Fuat Saifulmulyukov, Fuat Bulatov, Garif Shabaev, Akhmet Simaev, Abdulla Battalov, Zinnat Khasanov, Akhat Atnashev and Salim Bukharov.

The actions of the Tatar underground led to the fact that of all the national battalions (14 Turkestan, 8 Azerbaijani, 7 North Caucasian, 8 Georgian, 8 Armenian, 7 Volga-Tatar battalions), the Tatar ones were the most unreliable for the Germans, and they fought the least against the Soviets troops.

The fate of the legion battalions

825th Battalion

It began to be created in October-November 1942 in Yedlino and numbered up to 900 people. Major Tsek was appointed commander.

On February 14, 1943, the battalion was solemnly sent to the front and on February 18 arrived in Vitebsk. The main part of the battalion was stationed in the village of Gralevo on the left bank of the Western Dvina.

Already on February 21, representatives of the legionnaires, acting on behalf of an underground organization in the legion, contacted the partisans and agreed on a general uprising of the battalion at 23:00 on February 22. Despite the fact that the Germans became aware of the plans of the legionnaires, and they made arrests an hour before the uprising, capturing the leaders of the uprising, nevertheless, under the leadership of Khusain Mukhamedov, about 500-600 legionnaires with weapons in their hands and with a large amount of equipment went over to the side of the partisans. Only 2 platoons of the battalion failed to escape (they were not notified in time) and the arrested legionnaires. The remaining legionnaires were urgently taken to the rear and assigned to other units.

D I haven’t written to you for a long time, but this time I have a solid reason: the documents (photocopies) attached to the letter. I think that you will already appreciate their significance at first glance. Our Central State Archives is located in Potsdam. I went there at the very beginning of my search (late 50s - early 60s), but then I was informed that all documents relating to Soviet prisoners of war were removed from the archives by the Soviet occupation authorities after their liberation...

But time flows, and in recent years our archive has managed to acquire in Germany (on microfilm) a large number of documents from the times of fascism and war, including materials about the legions.

I am sending you three documents (in two letters):

1. A document stating that the “Kurultai of the Peoples of Idel-Ural” took place in Greifswald in 1944. We knew about this, but all my attempts to find witnesses or traces of the Kurultai in Greifswald were unsuccessful. Now there is an opportunity to read a detailed report about this congress.

2. In April 1943, the first issue of the magazine “Germanca - tatarca belesma” I was published in German and Tatar. Chief editor: Garif Sultan.

No. 14 forwarded to you is dedicated to the first anniversary of Vestnik. This anniversary was celebrated on July 20, 1944 in Swinemünde (now Swinoujscie in Poland). You can read this issue yourself in Tatar. It also contains an excerpt from the book of the well-known professor von Mende, “The National Struggle of the Turkic Peoples in Russia.”

3. The third document is especially interesting: a report from the command of the Eastern Legions from Radom on May 15, 1943 about emergency incidents. First, about the “emergency” in the Armenian and Azerbaijani legions, but on page 2: “In December 1942, an underground communist cell was discovered in the Volgo-Tatar Legion.” Maybe it was part of the organization that Musa belonged to? Then the methods of "clandestine cell operation" are described. On April 27, 1943, a military court sentenced the cell members to six years in hard labor prison. The author of the report considers the sentences too “soft” and criticizes the long period between the discovery of the cell and the sentence. The intimidating effect was not achieved in the field battalion, which during this time was sent to the front. “The battalion refused to fight when they tried to bring it into battle” (825th battalion?).

I have three more documents in my hands, which I will send to you when you confirm receipt of this letter.

There are a large number of other documents in the archive that should be viewed. But who can do this? Documents are on microfilm, they are not easy to read on the screen even by Germans; you need to read carefully sheet by sheet so as not to miss two or three important phrases.

I am tied to house 2 by family circumstances and am not capable of such work. If you are interested in this source and its use, you should come to Berlin and make a detailed agreement with the management of the archive. Then you need to find a smart guy or girl from Berlin or Potsdam among the students or former students of the Kazan University and assign him or her to work in the archive. Of course, they need to be morally or financially interested in this and familiarized with what is still known about the fate of the Jalilovites. Maybe you can interest Beate Homan? 3. These are my preliminary thoughts and suggestions.

Reply immediately upon receipt of my letters; then I will send you three more documents. Write how you, your family, Albert 4 are doing. I hope he wasn't offended by me for returning the photos to him. But this is not just a gift, but a relic, and in the event of my death it could simply disappear 5. Last week I called Amina Khanum 6 at 130-21-19 - no connection! Has her number changed?

I am waiting for your answer Your Leon Nebenzal.

Notes:

Leon Nebenzahl (1910-1991) - German translator, scientist, former editor-in-chief of the German edition of the journal Problems of Peace and Socialism. Provided significant assistance in searching for materials about M. Jalil. It was he who found in the archives documents about the execution of the poet and his associates.

At this time, Nebenzahl's wife Ilsa was seriously ill, who soon died.

Beata Homan, a former KSU student from the GDR, wrote her thesis about M. Jalil.

Albert Musaevich Zalilov (born in 1935) is the son of M. Jalil from his first marriage. Lives in Kazan. I met L. Nebenzal during his military service in the GDR.

We are talking about the original photograph of M. Jalil with a dedicatory inscription.

Amina Jalil, the poet's widow. Her phone number actually changed.

KURULTAI IN GREIFSWALDE 1

On March 4 and 5, 1944, the Kurultai of the peoples of Idel-Ural (Tatars, Chuvash, Bashkirs, Mordovians, Udmurts and Mari) was held in Greifswald, calling for a fight against Bolshevism.

Along with delegates of the peoples of Idel-Ural, representatives of military and civilian institutions took part in it Greater Germany, representatives of friendly nations, brothers in arms. Mr. Shafi Almas, head of the national organization of Turko-Tatars, called for a fight against Bolshevism and was welcomed.

This is not the first meeting of representatives of Idel-Ural. During their development, the Turkic-Tatar people repeatedly convened national meetings at which issues vital for the people were discussed.

The memory of the National Assembly in 1917 is fresh in our memory. It brought us the independence of our people, and we witnessed how the Bolsheviks destroyed our state of Idel-Ural. The Finnish people of 3 ½ million won their independence from the tsarist autocracy. 25 years have passed and the Finnish people have not been shaken. It grows, develops its culture, lives and feels like one family.

The population of Idel-Ural is much stronger, more numerous, and the mineral resources are significant. Isn't Idel-Ural viable? Centuries have shown that small nations cannot free themselves from the clutches of the Anglo-Americans and Bolsheviks, no matter how hard they try. It is clear that we will not free ourselves from the oppressors without the help of larger nations.

Freedom does not fall from the sky, it must be won. To found your own state, you need to create an economic and political foundation. We have it.

We have a homeland. This is Idel-Ural. It is infinitely rich in good land, extensive forests, minerals, and numerous rivers. Gold, silver, oil, iron, bauxite, platinum, lead, oil... There is everything you want. Our people are hardworking people. Among us there are many engineers, technicians, teachers, doctors, writers, poets, composers and politicians.

Russian tsarism, and subsequently Bolshevism, forced our people to disperse throughout the vast territory of Russia, and one part to leave its borders.

The ranks of fighters for the happiness of our people must multiply.

MEETING OF TURKO-TATAR IDEL-URAL MARCH 3-5, 1944

In total, almost 200 delegates gathered in Greifswald on March 3, 1944.

After the report from Mr. Shafi Almas, reports were given by active employees of the Tatar leadership and legionnaires. A solution was developed, which was conveyed to the German government through prof. von Mende.

The exhibition opened on March 5, 1944 handmade and paintings of Volga Tatar legionnaires of working battalions.

On the afternoon of March 5, 1944, a demonstration took place in the largest hall in the city of Greifswald, the Stadt Hall. The hall was filled to capacity.

Particular respect was shown to the Volga-Tatar legionnaires by the fact that their illustrious General von Heikendorff personally appeared at the meeting and made a speech as the first representative of the Wehrmacht.

Then a report was made by the representative of the State Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions, Mr. Professor von Mende. He gave a short overview of German eastern policy, taking into account the problems that arise due to the presence of national minorities, especially Turkic peoples in the Russian space. Then he highly appreciated the work of the Wehrmacht, especially the legion and the Tatar leadership in their joint activities and expressed gratitude to them.

Then the commanders of the Tatar military units, the commander of the legion, Oberleutnant von Seckendorff, and the commander of the column leadership headquarters, Colonel Boller, spoke. He gave a brief report on the tasks and activities of the military units he led.

This worthy and interesting meeting ended with an excursion and propaganda trip to Prague. [The following pages are missing. Apparently, the congress resolution follows - P.M.].

6. To complete these tasks, it is necessary that the Combat Alliance have a permanent central authority- presidium Fighting Union- with the following divisions:

1. Organizational department.
2. Military department.
3. Propaganda department.
4. Finance department.

The presidium may include both representatives of the Turkic-Tatars and the Finno-Ugric peoples of Idel-Ural.

7. In order to implement the most necessary measures of the Combat Union, it is necessary to establish a National Fund. The National Fund must collect as follows:

1. Constant deductions from the monthly income of all representatives of our people.
2. Various donations.

C. Military activities

The fight with arms in hand is now our most sacred task. The meeting considers it necessary to ensure the following activities.

Application to the High Command of the German Wehrmacht with a request to allow the organization of independent Tatar military units (regiments, divisions) from volunteers of our peoples, as far as possible under the leadership of their own national commanders, as was the case with the Cossacks or in the Russian Liberation Army.

Invite the High Command of the German Wehrmacht to create its own battle banner of the Tatar Legion, its own uniform and insignia for the Tatar units and, if agreed, develop appropriate proposals.

D. Combat Alliance Program.

Instruct the Conference commission to develop a political program for the Fighting Union for the independence of the peoples of Idel-Ural and present it to the next meeting.

E. The materials of the Meeting will be included in a brochure and published in Tatar, German and Russian.

Signatures of the members of the Presidium of the Meeting

Note:

1. The text is written in German, typed and is part of a report to the high military command of Nazi Germany about the kurultai that took place. Apparently, the report was written based on the transcript of the congress. Thus, the first part uses the abstracts of the speech of the main speaker, the head of the Tatar committee, Shafi Almas. Per. 3. Nigmatullina.

Archive number: T. 175 Roll 163, 2.696. 254-260.

GERMAN-TATAR NEWSLETTER 1

1. Celebrating the anniversary of our newsletter in Swinemünde

Many famous people accepted the invitation. They spoke out about the political and propaganda work of the newsletter.

The editor-in-chief of the bulletin, G. Sultan, made a report. Employees of the Volga-Tatar Military Union and guests took part in the discussion.

The speeches of President Kayum Khan 2 and Major Rudanchinsky 3 were greeted with enthusiasm. Deputy burgomaster Swinemünde Mildebrat spoke.

A report on the tasks of the newspaper was made by the head of the Tatar Committee in the Ministry of the Reich, in charge of the occupied eastern regions 4.

The commander of the Turkic work brigade, Colonel Boller, conveyed greetings and congratulations to the commander of the volunteer formations and announced the inclusion of Tatar volunteers in the German armed forces. He also appreciated the propaganda work of political activists.

Adding to the political part was the Tatar choir of the Turkic work brigade, which performed Tatar songs. The conductor, private assistant professor Corporal Mampel, gave each time explanations about the meaning and character of individual songs. Then Tatar dances were shown.

Wattenberg,
major general and commander
volunteer units

2. The meaning and objectives of the newsletter.

Editor-in-Chief Sultan. Speech on July 20, 1944 at an event in Swinemünde.

Everything that our people created, that they aspired to, remained within our nation and was not known to the general public. Therefore, Europe saw us through Russian glasses.

The Soviet government keeps its borders locked and has shamelessly forgotten its promises of the revolutionary year 1917 and has become an enemy of any manifestation of nationalism. Under such management, freedom of the press became impossible, as did a serious solution to the national problem.

Bolshevism killed the free press, left it in the hands of the Jews and turned it into an apparatus for transmitting orders, boring propaganda, unheard of lies and false information.

It is therefore not surprising that we could not enter into relations with the European press and did not have the right to translate into European languages works of our historians and writers.

Paragraph 25 of the Soviet Constitution is false, as are the rest of the paragraphs of the Stalinist Constitution.

It is clear to all honest people who hate Bolshevism that these “rights” and all the guaranteed “freedoms” only serve to strengthen the power of Stalin and his clique.

Most Russian newspapers are influenced by Russian chauvinist circles. They are trying to prove that the Tatars, Tur-Kestans, Caucasians, Ukrainians, Kalmyks, etc. received culture from the hands of the Russians as “savage peoples”. This implies the need for educational work.

Our meeting today should lead to deeper joint German-Tatar work.

3. Speech by our correspondent at the Volga-Tatar meeting

[CONCEPTUAL]

Tatar youth look to the future with hope. I hope that the fate of our people has turned better side. The Turkic-Tatar people, who at one time were free and as strong as the Russian people, became smaller and weaker after the loss of independence. But the desire for a free life among our people has not faded. From generation to generation he carried the hope that his time would come. If Emperor Napoleon had solved the national problem in Russia in his time and given the oppressed nations a chance for liberation, he would not have had to run away.

I have the honor, as a representative of the Turkic-Tatar youth, to speak with German political leaders. Take every opportunity to get acquainted with the history of our people and get rid of misconceptions about them. We can proudly say that culturally Russians have learned a lot from us. We are Europeans just like other peoples. We are an outpost of Europe in Asia.

We are grateful to the German people for giving us the opportunity to actively fight for freedom. We are connected by a common destiny and common interests.

We contrast the idea of ​​world Bolshevism, which could be realized in the event of the triumph of Soviet Russia, with the idea of ​​a great new Europe of free peoples under the leadership of the German people.

Today’s meeting is a great event for us, the Tatar youth gathered here.

Notes:

The "German-Tatar Newsletter" began to be published in Berlin in April 1943 in German and Tatar. The editor-in-chief is Garif Sultan, currently living in Munich. The first anniversary of the founding of the bulletin was celebrated on July 20, 1944. in the city of Swinemünde, where the Legionnaires' Rest House was located and where the leaders of the legion and the Tatar Committee came specially. Three articles of the Bulletin are published: one about the celebration of the anniversary of the Bulletin, the second is the speech of Tarif Sultan and the third is his speech at the kurultai in Greifswald.

President Veli Kayum Khan is the president of the Turkestan Committee in Berlin.

Major Rudanchinsky is obviously a representative of the ROA (Russian Liberation Army of General Vlasov).

The head of the Tatar Committee in the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions of Hitler's Reich was lawyer Heinrich Unglaube.

FROM THE REPORT OF CRIMINAL COUNSELOR 1

<...>The suppression of communism within the Radom district is, however, difficult because, according to reliable reports and facts about repeated heavy losses suffered by the communists in Radom and the surrounding area, all organizational work has been transferred to the border district of Grojec. In addition, there is reliable information that a complete restructuring of the organization in the Radom region is envisaged, which is carried out with great care in the selection of functionaries. Proof of this activity was brought by an action carried out back in May 1944 in the Weichsel region in Janowiec, thanks to which the local PPR committees that were in the process of organizing were defeated 2 .

The approach of the Eastern Front, as well as the beginning of the invasion in the West, influenced a new rise in disintegration in the eastern people's formations of the Wehrmacht still located here. In two cases, it was possible to get in touch with representatives of these groups through the communications service, namely:

a) at the beginning of June 1944, to a non-commissioned officer of the Volga-Tatar infantry battalion 830, who was looking for connections with communist gangs. He named the intermediary about 20 representatives of his company, whom he identified as reliable, with the help of whom it was planned to flee into the forest on the night of June 17/18, 1944, after killing German personnel and emptying the storage of weapons and uniforms, as well as seizing vehicles. Since further hesitation became impossible, on June 12, 1944, after training a unit of commanders of the eastern groups, the instigators were almost quietly arrested, three days later - the other 19 members of the formation. 17 of them were released by a military court, and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Although such a decision is legally justified, it does not contribute to security in terms of actual needs, so that, taking into account the settlement that was achieved last year by the then Abwehr station in Krakow in the redeployment of suspicious Eastern People's Security Police elements, the matter will once again be discussed with the commander of the Eastern groups .

b) a few days later, it became known about a similar phenomenon of decomposition in the Turkonarod infantry battalion 791, Volanow camp, near Radom, also through the communications service. And here it was envisaged, having seized all the weapons, to transport the entire stronghold of 42 people into the forest, to the communist gangs. First of all, while working together with the field gendarmerie, on June 23, 1944, 6 representatives of this formation were captured, and four days later the next 4, who basically confessed. The remaining 16 detainees are holding on.

c) the next incident of this kind occurred in the prisoner of war team camp in the Eastern Railway Repair Plant. Radom way. All 11 inhabitants of the camp were captured. In all these cases, it turned out that the leaders of these operations were educated in the communist youth union "Komsomol" and, in part, worked for a long time as propagandists in the party. The two main instigators are teachers by profession. Despite these bad experiences with the Eastern peoples brought into battle in the East (the constant development of their resistance after the withdrawal of the Eastern Front), there was no general change in the Eastern people's formations, as it became known from Wehrmacht circles.

The accumulation of these cases over 14 days in Radom alone showed that all eastern popular formations are sensitive to decay, and success occurs at the slightest attempts to influence them by communist elements.

<...>At the end of June 1944, two 14-year-old Polish students who were appointed communist couriers to convey orders were captured in Ostrovitsa and near Skaryshev. The interrogation of one of these students, the son of a Polish police captain, revealed that numerous illegal youth groups were organized in Warsaw. They form circles of communist “young pioneers” under the national banner. According to the testimony of this intelligent young man, who only after his acceptance into the organization learned that it was led by communists, in Warsaw the influence of communists on Polish student youth is very strong. According to reliable reports that arrived a year ago, the famous Polish KZMP functionary Wlodimierz Aleksandrov was sent from Moscow to the General Governorate last year to organize this work with young people.

Notes:

This excerpt is an excerpt from a lengthy report by a criminal adviser (rank of German military police, signature illegible), written in German and typed (no opening pages). The report was written on July 5, 1944 in Radom (Poland), where units of the Volga-Tatar, as well as the Armenian and Azerbaijani legions were located. After analyzing the situation in the Armenian and Azerbaijani legions, the criminal adviser moves on to the situation in Poland, around the city of Radom, where the underground members of the “pro-communist regiment” have intensified their work.

PPR - Polish People's Rada, under whose banner underground groups were created.

Archive number: PL 30 Roll 1 A, ca 200 ff.

COMMENTARY ON DOCUMENTS

On July 16, 1941, in a conversation with Rosenberg, Lammers, Keitel and Goering, Adolf Hitler self-confidently said: “Our iron principle is and must always remain an unshakable rule: never allow anyone other than Germans to bear arms.”1 . He repeated this thought several times, varying in different ways: “Only a German has the right to bear arms, and not a Slav, not a Czech, not a Kazakh and not a Ukrainian” (see: V. Kral. Crime against Europe. M., 1968, p. .16).

But the crushing retaliatory strikes of the Soviet Army and the failure of the “blitzkrieg” plans forced the Nazis to hastily look for sources of replenishment of human resources and ultimately abandon this “iron principle.”

In the second half of 1941, a few detachments of “volunteers” appeared in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, recruited from among prisoners of war, mainly Russians and Ukrainians.

The Nazis also made an attempt to play on the national feelings of prisoners of war and set one people against another. At one of the meetings imperial minister occupied territories of the eastern regions of Baron von Rosenberg, with the participation of representatives of the propaganda department of the armed forces, SD employees and the operational headquarters of the armed forces of the Fuhrer's main headquarters, it was decided to “eliminate existing errors in the treatment of people of the East” and discuss the candidacies of “representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, Turkestan, Tatars and Kazakhs capable of working in the interests of Germany’s victory" (see: M. Aminov, M. Minullin. Song as a banner. - "Soviet Tataria", 1969, November 16).

As we see, the fascists began to “eliminate errors in the treatment of people of the East” not out of humane considerations, but solely “in order to save valuable Aryan blood,” hoping to replenish their reserves of cannon fodder. And one of the most compelling “arguments” that forced the Germans to look for allies in the “peoples of the East” was the defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow.

In March 1942, Hitler signed an order to create Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani legions from Soviet prisoners of war of Caucasian nationality, and Turkestan and mountain legions from prisoners of war from Central Asia and Dagestan. Somewhat later, namely on August 28, 1942, the first batch of Tatars and Bashkirs, as well as Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts and Mordovians, was delivered to a military camp located three kilometers from the Polish station of Yedlino and 12 kilometers from the city of Radom. By this time here already full swing The formation of the Azerbaijani legion was underway. September 5, 1942 - the day the first batch of prisoners of war from the Volga region were sworn in - was later officially declared the birthday of the new Volga-Tatar Legion (as it was called in German documents) or the Idel-Ural Legion, as emigrants preferred to call it.

If during the formation of the Vlasov Russian Liberation Army (ROA) the fascists made every effort to recruit volunteers, then when creating the national legions the principle of voluntariness was not observed even for appearances. Usually, in prisoner of war camps, people were sorted according to nationality, then representatives of each nationality were forcibly driven to the places where “their” legions were formed, dressed in German uniforms and prepared to be sent to the front.

A former translator and teacher of the German language of the Volga-Tatar Legion, Friedrich Bidder, said: “People came to us physically completely exhausted, exhausted. Only a few, mainly from among those who had been captured recently, retained some semblance of military bearing. Neither "None of them, of course, were asked for consent to fight on the side of the German army. After a certain quarantine period had expired, when people gained a little strength, the physically strongest were selected for combat teams. The rest were sent to work companies" (The text of F. Bidder's story is stored in my personal archive. For more information about this, see: R. Mustafin. In the footsteps of a broken song. M., 1981).

The Nazis, of course, understood that it was difficult to force people to fight against their Motherland with a whip alone, on pain of starvation. Some kind of ideological carrot was required. It was then that the idea of ​​creating so-called “independent national states” like the “Idel-Ural States” in place of dismembered Russia came to light.

The theoretical development of this ideological screen was carried out on behalf of headquarters by Berlin University professor Gerhard von Mende. The practical implementation of measures to create an emigrant committee for the peoples of the Volga region and the Urals was entrusted to a representative of the military command, former lawyer Heinrich Unglaube.

The deceit and hypocrisy of the Nazi leaders is clearly visible from the fact that they equally flirted with both the “national” committees and the Vlasov elite. If the first they promised separation from Russia and “independent” statehood, then the second - the preservation of “a united and indivisible Russia without the Bolsheviks.” In fact, the Nazis did not even think about fulfilling their promises: they needed to get cannon fodder at any cost.

Goebbels's propaganda did its best to portray Hitler as almost the savior of the Asian nations. For this purpose, through the servants of the Reich - the mullahs - even rumors were spread that Hitler had accepted the Mohammedan faith. The newspapers never tired of repeating that the legions were called upon to “liberate” the Tatars, Bashkirs and other peoples “oppressed by the Bolsheviks, New York Jews and London bankers.” But the materials classified as “secret” did not hide the true purpose of organizing the legions. It was extremely simple: “deepening contradictions between nationalities in order to dominate them” and, of course, “the combat use of legions against the Soviet army and partisans.”

Initially, the Nazis had high hopes for these formations.

The headquarters of the Volga-Tatar Legion was located in Radom (Poland). Major General Heikendorff, who arrived here with the remnants of his division, defeated in battles on the Eastern Front, was appointed as the representative of the German command at the legion. The personnel of this division occupied all command posts in the legion. Major von Zickedorff was appointed commander of the Tatar Legion. The legionnaires (after they had gained some strength) were regularly given drill, fire and political training.

However, despite all efforts, Hitler’s command practically never managed to use any of the units of the Volga-Tatar Legion in combat operations against the Soviet army or Soviet partisans.

The Tatar committee created in Berlin was called vaguely “Tatarishe mittelyitelle” - “Tatar mediation”. He reported directly to the Eastern Ministry (also called the Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories) headed by Alfred Rosenberg. The head of the committee was Shafi Almas, as he called himself. His real name and surname is Gabdrakhman Gabidulovich Shafeev. He was born in 1895 in the Dubyazsky district of Tatarstan. He traded and had a store in Orenburg, Moscow and Kazan. After the October Revolution, he emigrated to Turkey, then to Germany. The Tatar committee also included emigrants Prof. Akhmet Temir, manufacturer A. Yaushev, and Mullah Gani Usmanov. Then they were joined by legionnaires from among the Tatar prisoners of war.

During the creation of legions and national committees, there was a struggle between two principles. One of them was put forward by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Said Mohammed el-Hussein, who lived in Berlin at that time. He stood for the “pan-Islamic amalgam,” that is, for the unification of all Muslims without distinction of nationalities under the green banner of the prophet. His approach was also supported by the SS leadership led by Himmler.

However, the second approach triumphed: division not along religious, but along national lines. He was supported by the department of A. Rosenberg.

A special newspaper in the Tatar language, “Idel-Ural,” was published for Tatar legionnaires. Its first issue, edited by Sh. Almas, was published on November 14, 1942. The magazine "German-Tatar Information Bulletin", a copy of which (in microcopy) was discovered by L. Nebenzalem, also served the same purpose.

Newly discovered documents allow us to shed additional light on the history of Idel-Ural - already from German side. As we see, the idea of ​​national unification in itself was perhaps not bad. In any case, in the report of Sh. Almas and in the speech of G. Sultan one can find correct and relevant thoughts that are heard in our periodicals today. But what was behind this? Who and what goals did this idea serve? That is the question.

This nuance was subtly felt by Musa Jalil and his military comrades, and not only them. It must be admitted that the overwhelming majority of legionnaires did not succumb to the bait of Nazi propaganda and remained faithful to the principles of internationalism.

The immediate chief of the Tatar committee in the Eastern Ministry, Unglaube, wrote in his report after visiting the fourth (828th) battalion of the Idel-Ural legion, formed in Deblin (Poland): “These people [prisoners of war. - P.M.] themselves are completely under "under the influence of hostile propaganda and are absolutely devoid of the opposite influence. And that is precisely why they pose a great danger to the Tatar future."

And here is another authoritative opinion: “The influence of the Tatar committee on volunteer formations was very negligible. The latter were mainly left to themselves and to German officers... The newspaper [we are talking about Idel-Ural. - P.M.] was published in Tatar language, but had supplements where articles were published in other languages. In general, the newspaper was pale and uninfluential."

These words belong to the chief of the “national” committees from Himmler’s department, Dr. Oltssha.

Arrests in the Tatar Legion began in December 1942, that is, at the very beginning of its formation. They continued in the summer of 1943 and did not stop until the end of the war. The connection with the Polish Resistance movement, about which witnesses of those years spoke a lot, also receives documentary confirmation.

At the beginning of March 1944, in the city of Greifswald, not far from Dresden, the congress of the Turkic-Tatars “Idel-Ural” took place with great fanfare. The congress was held under the slogan of the struggle against Bolshevism. Here, finally, the official elections of the Tatar committee and its chairman Shafi Almas, who was clearly aiming for the presidency of the future, took place" Tatar state"His henchmen were aiming for the role of "ministers." Carried away by the game of briefcases, the "ministers" were ready to forgive their leader for his laziness, his inability to lead, and the habits of a small money dealer. Of course! Finally, they took shape in the "real" national committee- something like an emigrant government!

But their joy was premature. The complete unreliability of the Tatar Legion, which had emerged by this time, and in addition to all this, the trial of the eleven Jalilites, which coincided with the proclamation of the committee, played their role. A. Rosenberg did not approve the “committee” and ordered it to be named henceforth facelessly - “The Union of Struggle against Bolshevism”, that is, even nominally not recognizing its right to some kind of national representation. With this, the seasoned Hitler wolf once again made it clear that the committee was just a camouflage, hiding behind which the Nazis tried to throw people into battle against their homeland.

The military significance of the Volga-Tatar Legion for the Wehrmacht was essentially zero. The uprising in the first and other battalions of the legion and mass escapes to the partisans were the reason that the Nazi command did not dare to send any of the formations of the Idel-Ural legion to the Eastern Front. It is not at all by chance that the Wehrmacht command considered the Tatar Legion one of the most unreliable and repeatedly made attempts to re-form its combat battalions into workers (see: Nebenzal. Poet and fighter. - Memoirs of Musa Jalil. Kazan, 1964, p.182). Only one thing stood in the way - an acute shortage of people, and then the rapidly approaching agony of the Reich.

Moreover, the underground fighters managed not only to thwart the Nazis’ dark plans, but to turn the weapons of many legionnaires against the Nazis themselves. From among the legionnaires there were many participants in the Resistance movement who fought against fascism not only on their own land, but also in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy.

One of the first partisan detachments in Poland was the detachment of senior lieutenant P.K. Finansov. It was organized in the fall of 1942 by underground workers from the working battalion of the Idel-Ural legion, located in the Janova-2 area near Warsaw. This detachment forever entered the history of the joint struggle of the Soviet and Polish people against fascism (see: M.I. Semiryaga. Soviet people in the European Resistance. M., 1970, pp. 23-30).

And in 1944, hundreds of Soviet prisoners, Tatars and Bashkirs who had escaped from various formations of the legion fought in the ranks of the Polish partisans, mainly the Army of Ludova.

In France, in the Issel area, as part of the seventh battalion of the fifth district of the Resistance forces, the “Russian group N 2352” led by N. Galiev was actively operating. It included more than seventy former legionnaires who fled to the partisans. Former Idel-Ural legionnaires crushed the fascists as part of the Maquis detachments also in the departments of Haute-Loire, Corrèze, Cantal, Loire and Puy-de-Don. The name of Senior Lieutenant G. Sadykov, who became the captain of the Resistance forces, was widely known in those years in the south of France.

Hundreds of former legionnaires who went over to the side of the Soviet partisans from the first battalion and workers' companies fought in the partisan brigades of Belarus, Ukraine, Leningrad, Kalinin, Bryansk and other regions.

Rafael Mustafin