Cossacks in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS

Soviet Cossack Volunteers

The Kuban Cossacks suffered heavy losses during the Holodomor and the subsequent Soviet extermination of Ukrainians and their culture in the Kuban region. The Holodomor was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It is also known as the Ukrainian Genocide. According to higher estimates, up to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished as a result of the famine. A U.N. joint statement signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million perished. It has been proposed that the Soviet leadership used the man-made famine to attack Ukrainian nationalism, and thus it could fall under the legal definition of genocide. Between 1917 and 1941, more than half of the Don Cossacks population were killed or deported. The heirs of those deported during the Soviet Terror can still not return to their homeland. This is because the law of Restitution does not recognize them as victims of communism. During World War II, the Don Cossacks mustered the largest single concentration of Cossacks within the German Army, the XV.SS-Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps. A great part of the Cossacks were former Soviet citizens who elected to fight not so much for the German Reich as against the Soviet Union. Credit: Wikipedia. Image: Cossack volunteers with Wehrmacht officer in Ukraine 1943. By the war's end, the Cossack units had come under the command of the Waffen-SS. Many Cossacks retreated into Austria and surrendered to British troops in May 1945. They were promised safety by the British but were subsequently forcibly transferred back to the USSR. PC. Fair use.