Armenische Legion

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For other uses, see Armenian Legion.
Armenian Legion

Armenian Bergmann freiwillige (voluntaries) during rest performing Berd (Fortress), the traditional Caucasian warriors' dance after celebrating victory over Russian partisans.
Active June 8, 1944
Country Germany
Branch Wehrmacht
Commanders
General Drastamat Kanayan

The Armenian Legion (German: Armenische Legion) was the name given to the 812th Armenian Battalion, which was a foreign unit of the German Wehrmacht during World War II, comprised largely of Red Army POWs, under the voluntary leadership of Drastamat Kanayan. The battalion was trained by SS officers.[citation needed]

American historian Alexander Dallin notes that Armenian and Georgian battalions were sent to the Netherlands as a result of Hitler's distrust for them, many of which deserted.[1]

Contents

[edit] Background

While 300,000 to 500,000 Soviet Armenians, as well as 20,000 Armenian Americans, fought against the Nazis during World War II, a Nazi-commanded "Armenische Legion" was formed to advance Nazi war ends in occupied Europe.[2] The majority of the soldiers were former Soviet Red Army POWs, who opted to fight for German forces rather than face the "genocidal conditions"[3] of the Nazi POW camps.

Some Berlin-based representatives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaks), though repudiated by the official party organs, made an agreement with the Nazis in 1942 to support the Germans against the Soviet Union.[4]

The veterans of Armenian detachment units, who escaped to the U.S. after World War I, came back to Europe and created the Armenian Legion.[5] General Drastamat "Dro" Kanayan (a one-time leader of the Democratic Republic of Armenia [4]) led the legion,[6] and fought on the Eastern front. French scholar Yves Ternon, who made a study of the issue, suggested that while there were no "substantial" fascistic inclinations among Armenian populations in general, Kanayan was an exception; Ternon characterized "Dro" as possessive of substantial "fascist deviation".[7]

[edit] Size

According to Joris Versteeg, a Dutch journalist, about 18,000 Armenians were serving in the German armed forces during the war.[8]

"The long-termed struggle for liberation of Caucasus and the Caucasian people was addressed by the establishment of the Free Caucasus movement, which had been personally suggested and approved by Adolf Hitler."[9]

[edit] Activities

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The legion took part in the German occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and Caucasus.[5] Several Jewish soldiers serving in the Red Army and captured as POWs were saved by some of the Armenians in the Legion. Josef Moisevich Kogan, a Jewish Red Army soldier captured by German forces, noted the help he received by an Armenian doctor in the 812th when he was sneaked into the battalion itself and later escaped with the help of Dutch underground resistance members.[8] Other instances included Jews being sent inside the battalion to evade detection by the Nazis.[10] Hans Houterman reported that a battalion in Holland where the legion was stationed revolted.[11]

At the end of the war, remaining members in the battalion surrendered to the oncoming Western Allied forces. If not detained by them, they were turned over to Soviet authorities who, under an order enacted by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, were sent to Gulag camps in Siberia as punishment for surrendering to Axis forces and "allowing themselves to be captured"; a fate suffered by nearly all of the former Soviet prisoners of the war.[8]

[edit] Nazi perspective

Nazi Germany's leader at the time, Adolf Hitler, expressed his doubts on the Armenian and other Soviet battalions.[8] "Speaking about military units from Soviet peoples, Hitler said: 'I don't know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples... I consider only the Muslims to be reliable... All others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider the formation of these battalions of purely Caucasian peoples very risky, while I don't see any danger in the establishment of purely Muslim units... In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don't trust the Armenians either.'"[10]

The Nazis recruited a comparable force from among the ethnic Turks captured during the conflict, known as the Turkistanische Legion.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dallin, Alexander. German Rule in Russia: 1941-1945. Octagon Books: 1990.
  2. ^ Auron, Yair. The Banality of Denial, page 261.
  3. ^ Auron, Yair. The Banality of Denial, page 261.
  4. ^ a b R. G. Suny. "Soviet Armenia" in R. G. Hovannisian, The Armenian people from ancient to modern times, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 366-367, ISBN 0312101686
  5. ^ a b Auron, Yair. The Banality of Denial, page 238.
  6. ^ Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990 p. 357
  7. ^ Auron, Yair. The Banality of Denial, page 261.
  8. ^ a b c d Auron The Banality Of Denial. p. 262
  9. ^ - Freiwillige vom Kaukasus. A. Jeloschek, F. Richter, E. Schutte, J. Semler, L. S. Verlag, Graz-Stuttgart, 2003.
  10. ^ a b Auron The Banality Of Denial. p. 263.
  11. ^ Houterman, Hans: Eastern Troops in Zeeland, Netherlands, 1943-1944. Bayside, NY: Axis Europa Books, 1997