The Cossacks who enlisted were formed into the Cossack Cavalry Squadron 1/82 of the 40-th Panzer Corps, under the leadership of a Cossack Captain named Zagorodnyy (later a recipient of the prestigious Iron Cross First Class). One of the first such units was formed from willing Don and Kuban Cossack renegades taken prisoner near Millerovo in southern Russia (in the summer of 1942), when a Wehrmacht Captain named Kandutsch (the Intelligence Officer of the 40-th Panzer Corps) suggested that Cossack collaborators might be useful in guarding of Soviet prisoners-of-war whose large volumes made them difficult to handle while the German combat units were more urgently required for combat duties rather than guarding of prisoners. Lieutenant Colonel von Freitag-Loringhoven (the Intelligence Officer of Army Group 'South') initiated the recruitment of the first Cossacks in the Cossack homelands, to serve in Cossack units subordinated to the Germans. To Cossacks during Czardom but unceremoniously abolished by the Bolsheviks. The obvious hope of restoring the past freedoms and honours assigned Soon the very first localĬossack volunteers began to offer their services to the Germans, with Outskirts of the city of Ordzonikidze the Germans managed to occupyĪlmost the entire homeland of Don Cossacks as well as of Kuban Cossacks. In the south, where it almost reached the borders of Georgia and the The end of that year the front-line extended along the Caucasus range By, the Axis capturedĪll of the northern banks of the lower Don River in the comingĭays they drove deep to the south, in the direction of Caucasus. Ukraine by the end of 1941, and was in a striking distance from the The German Army Group 'South' had just completed its conquest of Time being, even more promising to the Germans on the eastern front than they did back The hope of materializing this aim, but this was only a brief episodeĪnd nothing came out of this efforts. The First World War, the Germans made plans to establish a satelliteĭon Cossack state in southern Russia in fact the German ImperialĪrmy even secretly provided arms to a faction of Don Cossacks with Important!!: Some dates are in a day / month / year format (for instance ).Ĭossacks in German Service: As early as theġ8-th century there were Cossack troops in the service of Frederick the Miscellaneous Axis Military Formations of WWII (Eastern Europe).

Cossacks back to war german