Does anyone have photographs of Ukrainian wehrmacht volunteers?

Cheers

Linked below is great article on Ukrainian volunteers defecting from the SS to join the French resistance with before and after pictures.

http://forum.ottawa-litopys.org/france/sorobey.htm

An interesting read, thanks for posting this. If anyone has any info on slavic volunteers in the wehrmacht I would be very interested in them.

Heinz

Yes these ex SS Ukranians defected to the Free French Resistance because they didn't
want to be sent back to Mother Russia lol, so imho their motives were slightly circumspect

This reminds me of another unit that went against their SS masters, the SS-Handschar, they
tried their hand at mutiny and they too were based in France 1944, in a town called Villafranche
but their mutiny did not work, these too were being sent back home and imho i reckon a few of them
got cold feet when they realised what could happen if they fell into the tender mercies of the Soviets



Pipes

_________________
"Schreite mit stolzer Geringschatzung durch den Pfuhl menschlicher Unzulassigkeit"
"Stride with proud disdain through the swamp of human inadmissibility" Jochen Peiper 1915-1976

SS-Gren/Heinrich Stohler, Second Battle Group

Handschar mutinied because they WERE'NT being sent home , they signed up to defend their homes , and feared they were being sent elsewhere to fight .

_________________
Jäger Stefan Halle 3./I./Geb.Jag.Reg.100

Yes mate, my bad
I did write some posts about the Handschar somewhere?, what i meant to say
was that they weren't to keen about fighting in the SOVIET especially when
they realised that the Russians would shoot them if captured, hence some
removed their armsheild insignia so they couldn't be identified

_________________
"Schreite mit stolzer Geringschatzung durch den Pfuhl menschlicher Unzulassigkeit"
"Stride with proud disdain through the swamp of human inadmissibility" Jochen Peiper 1915-1976

SS-Gren/Heinrich Stohler, Second Battle Group

A good book to get is (Galacia Division. The Waffen SS 14th Grenadier division 1943 1945 Michael o Logustz Schiffer military history ISBN 0-7643-0081-1.)
Not a lot of photos but a good history of the division including manpower leaders etc.

Worth a read.

_________________
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the crotch of the person who screws up your day and may their arms be too short to scratch.

GeFoPo

Not exactly.
During the summer and fall of 1944, both the Russians and Yugoslav partisans were giving members of Balkan SS divisions amnesties for switching sides or simply surrendering. Towards the very late 1944, the partisans wanted revenge, they chose to seek out every 7th and 13th SS man making his way to the western allies in Austria. Certain specialist battalions of 13. SS fought on the eastern front as early as August when detached from the division.

The armshields were removed as early as April 1944, because the Chessboard had nothing to do with Bosnian identity. Hiding of the SS tattoos, Soldbuchs and anti partisan badge entries was something that was on every SS man's mind.
Nothing exists to imply that the Russians solely targetted Handschar division members apart from other SS men. Thats pure post war speculation.

The Russian 57th army could care less for who they faced, especially an understrength division in front of them. Although their underestimation of the division's positions at Haromfa, St Marton, Nagyatad and Heresznye did cost them a good deal in killed and wounded, in atleast a dozen occasions.

Thats the story behind the 1944 mutiny, in which two officers were executed for not ordering their troops out of Bosnia.



The 1943 mutiny was not a division-wide event. One isolated pionier company had 3-4 rotten apples that timed their coup well to cause some unrest before being put down by loyal Bosnians. Most of the ring leaders were Croatian communists, with one being a Bosnian for sure.

The backbone of the division, 27th and 28th Regiments showed no signs of disloyalty.
The mutiny didnt work because of that company's imam (Halim Malkoc)



how? when they had a year of fighting the partisans ahead of them. Most of the battalion and regiment level awards the unit was written up for came for their actions on the Danube and for covering the retreat of German units across the Mura with the Bulgarian 1st and Soviet 57th army on their heels. Not to mention keeping the railways open for the retreating Axis troops out of Greece in the summer of 1944.