XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps

XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
Generalkommando XV. SS-Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps
Nazi Cossacks in 1942
Active	1 February 1945 – 8 May 1945
Country	Germany
Type	Cavalry
Commanders
Notable commanders	Helmuth von Pannwitz

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The XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps was a cavalry corps in the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Background

In October 1942, the Germans established in the Kuban a semi-autonomous Cossack District and were now in the position to recruit Cossacks from these areas, the POW camps, and defectors from the Red Army. Of the latter, the most significant was the desertion of an entire Red Army regiment (Infantry Regt. 436) that had defected to the Germans in August 1941. Its commander, Major Ivan Kononov, was a Don Cossack. He went on to serve under the Germans.

History

In April 1943, German officer Helmuth von Pannwitz was authorised to set up a first Cossack Division composed of two brigades, which trained throughout the summer in Mława (Mielau), north of Warsaw. The division was then not, contrary to their hopes, sent to fight the Red Army, but instead it was ordered, in September 1943, to proceed to former Yugoslavia and fight Josip Broz Tito's partisans. There, the Cossacks took part in several major offensives against the Partisans including Operation Rösselsprung, the attack on Tito's headquarters in Bosnia from which Tito evaded capture only by the narrowest of margins. During the summer of 1944 the two brigades were upgraded to become the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division and 2nd Cossack Cavalry Division. On February 25, 1945, these divisions were combined to become XV Cossack Cavalry Corps.^[1]

By the end of the war, the SS took control of all foreign units within the German forces. On February 1, 1945, the Corps was transferred to the Waffen-SS.^[2] Pannwitz accompanied his troops when they were repatriated by the British to the Soviet Union in the Operation Keelhaul, and was executed in Moscow in 1947.

See also

• Collaboration during World War II
• Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts

Notes

References

• Tessin, Georg (1970). Die Landstreifkräfte 15–30 [Ground forces 15 to 30]. Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS 1939-1945 (in German). 4. Osnabrück: Biblio.

Further reading

• François de Lannoy: Les Cosaques de Pannwitz: 1942 - 1945. Bayeux: Heimdal, 2000. ISBN 2-84048-131-6
• Samuel J. Newland: Cossacks in the German Army. U.S.Army War College, Frank Cass and Co. Ltd 1991, ISBN 0-7146-3351-8