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 Nazi Germany’s attempts to attract the eastern peoples of the USSR to 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. The defeat near Moscow and large losses of fascist German 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 of different nationalities of the Soviet Union against his 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 recent years have studies 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, numbering 28 thousand people, managed to encircle a 6,000-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 the national composition of some partisan units brigades at the time of their connection with Red Army units 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 cured in hospitals, local partisans, as a rule, returned to their units, while former prisoners of war were sent (mostly after being checked in filtration camps) to units of the active army, most often to 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 of the 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 at the hands of 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 the result is positive, 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 met the representatives at the appointed place 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 the Eastern peoples, including better using the Muslim factor. 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. Even then, in 1944, Professor Spuhler compiled his own memos about each course - these data are used below for a brief description of the 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 the provision of religious literature - for 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 after Lenin Komsomol and named after Kutuzov partisan brigades united with units of the Red Army in the area of operation of the 334th rifle 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 for further military service at the disposal of the Surazh RVK, one fighter was sent to serve in the Vitebsk NKVD regiment. 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 Archive 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 are given either missing parts of the text, or, if possible, clarified names of regions, districts, settlements. 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 [council] council, 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 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[ass], 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 [ass], 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, Bolshoi 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[assa], 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 XXIX, 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[assa], 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[ass], 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
Name:
Idel-Ural
General content of the project:
Project of the national state of Tatars and Bashkirs. Depending on the current - either as part of Russia, or as a sovereign state.
Attempts at implementation led to the emergence of several projects:
– Zabulak Republic, which existed in the Tatar part of Kazan (March 1 - March 28, 1918),
– Cultural-national autonomy of the Turkic-Tatars of Inner Russia and Siberia (S. N. Maksudov),
– Ural-Volga State (G. Sharaf),
– Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Socialist Republic.
Initiating countries:
Tatar and Bashkir nationalists
Flag/logo:
Flag of the state of Idel-Ural (based on the book “Idel-Ural” by Gayaz Iskhaki, 1933):
Flag of Idel-Ural project of the 1990s. According to the constitution of Tatarstan, it is the flag of the three Volga Turkic republics - Bashkiria, Tatarstan and, possibly, Chuvashia:
Flag of the Volga Bulgars (amateur, 2000s):
Map:
reference Information:
The February Revolution led, among other things, to an increase in the political activity of the Tatar people. A broad discussion began on ways to develop Tatar statehood. Initially, various forms of both territorial and cultural-national autonomy of the Tatar people were proposed.
The 1st All-Russian Muslim Congress (beginning of May 1917, Moscow) adopted a resolution on territorial autonomy and a federal structure. The organization of autonomy was proclaimed at the Millat Majlis, the coordinating body of the National-Cultural Autonomy of the Muslims of the Turkic-Tatars of Inner Russia and Siberia, elected at a joint meeting of the 1st All-Russian Muslim Congress with the 1st All-Russian Muslim Military Congress and the Congress of the All-Russian Muslim Clergy on July 22 ( August 4) 1917 in Kazan.
The 2nd All-Russian Muslim Military Congress [Kazan, January 8 (21) - February 18 (March 3), 1918] adopted a resolution on the creation of the Idel-Ural State within the RSFSR (the entire Ufa province, part of the Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, Orenburg , Perm, Vyatka provinces) and the formation of its legislative and executive bodies “Milli Idara” (National Administration) consisting of three ministries (spiritual, education and finance) and two committees (military and foreign affairs). At the congress there was a split in relation to the Constituent Assembly and the Soviets. The left faction left the congress. However, after the work of the elected bodies (collegium) began, at the first meeting on January 16 (29), 1918 in Kazan, the chairman of the Collegium G. Sharaf proposed to approve the proposals of the left faction (not supported by the Congress). After the adoption of this version of the Regulations by a majority vote, members of the Board G. Gubaidullin and N. Khalfin resigned from its membership as a sign of protest.
Also, during the creation of the project, there was controversy about the inclusion of the Bashkir people in the Tatars (“Tatar nation”).
In Moscow, the People's Commissariat of Nationalities, on instructions from the Council of People's Commissars, is developing a project for the Tatar-Bashkir Republic as a Soviet alternative to the Idel-Ural State.
On March 22, 1918, the 2nd version of TBSR appears. The Bolsheviks soon launched a further offensive against the “bourgeois nationalists.”
By decree of March 24 (signed by Stalin and Vakhitov), Kharbi Shuro was liquidated, and in April Milli Shuro was abolished with confiscation of property, on May 1 the activities of Milli Idar and all related institutions were prohibited, and the Milli Fund was confiscated.
At the end of May, the All-Russian Central Muslim Council ceased its activities. Some of the deputies of the National Assembly formed the “Small Majlis”, which continued to work in the territories free from the Bolsheviks. Although in July 1918, together with the rebel Czechoslovak Corps, the National Administration of the Ural-Volga State was partially restored, in fact this did not change anything.
At the end of 1918, the remnants of the troops of the All-Russian Muslim Military Council (Harbi Shuro) entered Kolchak's army as the 16th Tatar regiment.
The head of the Idel-Ural State, Sadri Maksudi, illegally traveled abroad at the end of 1918.
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea of recreating the Ural-Volga state was popular among Tatar national public figures.
Kazan ideologists declared the existence of a special Volga-Ural civilization and the need to create a Volga-Ural state. This area with the peoples inhabiting it - Tatars, Russians, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, etc. - was declared a homogeneous community different from Russia, within which the administrative boundaries between the territories were recognized as conditional.
Relevance of the project:
The growth of Islamization and the influence of the ideology of Tatar nationalism have actualized the Idel-Ural project, although the consequences of this growth do not affect regions outside of Tatarstan (medium)
Reasons for implementation:
Ethnic and religious differences between the Volga regions and the neighboring “Russians”.
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 topic 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 various aspects, 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 war, especially one like the Second World War, is such a complex phenomenon 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. Of particular interest to me were the documentary materials of various institutions of National Socialist Germany, both military and civilian: materials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Eastern Ministry), the Main Directorate of the SS, the 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 the 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 the University of Vienna), Dr. Christian Noack (currently the 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 the former head of the KGB Public Relations Center 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.
Volga-Tatar Legion (Idel-Ural Legion)- a Wehrmacht unit consisting of representatives of the Volga peoples of the USSR (Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari, Mordovians, Chuvash, Udmurts). Volga-Tatar legionnaires were part of 7 reinforced field battalions (12.5 thousand people). Organizationally subordinate to the Headquarters of the Command of the Eastern Legions (German). Kommando der Ostlegionen)
Description
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 national movements of the period -1920 (Shafi Almas) were especially popular among them. The camps of Muslim legionnaires were repeatedly visited by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who called for a 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 other goals of Germany 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. At the top it was written in yellow letters Idel-Ural, and below - Tatar Legion. The round cockades on the headdresses had the same color combination as the stripes.
Story
Legion fighter in German uniform
Creation logic
Arriving from prisoner-of-war camps, future legionnaires 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
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; in the 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. 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.
Switching to the side of the Red Army
The battalions did not demonstrate high combat effectiveness due to the fact that some of the legionnaires recruited against their will deserted or went over to the side of the Red Army. The first successful attempt was made in February 1943 in the 825th Volga-Tatar battalion, which at that time was on security duty in the Vitebsk region. An underground organization had been operating in this battalion since the end of 1942. The underground fighters of Vitebsk established contact with her, provided local partisans with detailed information about the battalion and took an active part in organizing the transition of its personnel to the side of the partisans. As a result, on February 23, 1943, near Vitebsk, the 825th battalion (over 800 people with 6 anti-tank guns, 100 machine guns and machine guns and other weapons) almost in its entirety went over to the side of the First Vitebsk Partisan Brigade. Most of them were subsequently repressed by the Stalinist regime.
For participation in the underground organization on August 25, 1944, 11 Tatar legionnaires were guillotined in the Plötzensee military prison in Berlin: Musa Jalil, Abdulla Alish, Gainan Kurmashev, Fuat Saifulmulyukov, Fuat Bulatov, Garif Shabaev, Akhmet Simaev, Abdulla Battalov, Zinnat Khasanov, Akhat Atnashev and Salim Bukharov.
Notes
Links
- Gilyazov I. A. Legion "Idel-Ural". - Kazan: Tatknigoizdat, 2005. - 383 p. - ISBN 5-298-04052-7
- Karashchuk A., Drobyazko S. Eastern legions and Cossack units in the Wehrmacht. - AST, 2000. - 48 p. - (Military-historical series “Soldier”: Uniform. Armament. Organization). - 7000 copies. - ISBN 5-237-03026-2
- Romanko O. V. Muslim legions in the Second World War. . - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. - 320 p. - 7000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-019816-7, 5-9578-0500-9
- Yurado K.K.