Shalva Maghlakelidze

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Shalva Maglakelidze during the DRG in 1920

Shalva Maghlakelidze (also spelled as Maglakelidze; Georgian: შალვა მაღლაკელიძე, German: Schalwa Maglakelidse) (1893-1970) was a Georgian politician and commander of the Georgian Legion of the Wehrmacht.

A graduate of Berlin University and PhD in Justice, he served as a high-ranking official in the Georgian government of 1918-1921. In 1919-1920 he was a Governor General of Tbilisi.

Following the Soviet invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, Maglakelidze was forced to leave the country in 1921. In January 1929 he together with Giorgi Shvangiradze was an initiator of the “Iveria” society in Riga, Latvia, which was soon joined by the Armenian émigrés, and in June it was renamed into the Caucasian Society. One of the main activities of the society was providing aid for destitute countrymen. [1] In 1933, because of internal strife, all the Georgians left the Caucasus Society, and in November established the Georgian Society of Latvia. The most active figure of the Society, Maglakelidze had close contacts with the centres of Georgian political emigration in France.

He was one of the founders and first Chairman of the organization of Tetri Giorgi (1925-1945) and the Union of Georgian Traditionalists (founded in 1942) both created by the Georgian political émigrés in Germany. A member of the Georgian National Committee in Berlin, he led the Caucasian Committee with the beginning of the World War II.

During the war, Maglakelidze served in the Nazi forces and commanded the Georgian Legion (Georgische Legion) of Wehrmacht formed by the Georgian patriots to fight the Soviet Union and restore the state independence of Georgia. In 1941 he created the order of the Queen Tamar of the Georgian Legion (Such order was created by the Committee of Independence of Georgia in 1914-1918). In 1944, Maglakelidze was promoted major general of Wehrmacht. After the WW2, he lived and worked in West Germany. In 1949-1954, he was a military advisor to Konrad Adenauer. On January 26, 1954 he founded the organization "Unity of Georgian Soldiers Abroad" in Munich. In August, 1954 Maglakelidze was kidnapped by the Soviet KGB agents.