Armenian Legion
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The Armenian Legion was the name given to the 812th Armenian Battalion which was a foreign unit comprised of about 18,000 Armenians that were conscripted into the German Wehrmacht during World War II. Many of these soldiers were former Soviet Red Army POWs, forced to fight for German forces rather than on their own choosing (See Ost battalions for more information). The battalion was lead by Armenian Drastamat Kanayan.Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. Palgrave Macmillan: 1990 p. 357 Of the 18,000 men in the battalion, 11,000 made up field battalions while the remaining 7,000 served in non-combat duties such as logistic supplies and first aid. The legion was stationed in Axis-occupied Holland for a large duration of the war.
There has been wide speculation that the battalion was involved in deporting Jews to concentration camps during the war, although such allegations remain unconfirmed. However, many Jewish soldiers serving in the Red Army and captured as POWs were saved by some of the Armenians in the Legion. Josef Moisevich Kogan, himself a Jewish Red Army soldier captured by German forces, noted the help he received by an Armenian doctor in the 812th when he was snuck into the battalion itself and later escaped with the help of Dutch underground Resistance during World War II members.Auron, Yair. The Banality Of Denial: Israel And The Armenian Genocide. Transaction Publishers: 2004: p.262 Other instances included Jews being sent inside the battlation to evade detection by the Nazis.Ibid. p.263 Hans Houterman reported that a battalion in Holland where the legion was stationed revolted.Houterman, Hans: Eastern Troops in Zeeland, Netherlands, 1943-1944. Bayside, NY: Axis Europa Books, 1997
Nazi Germany's leader at the time, Adolf Hitler, expressed his doubts on the Armenian and other Soviet battalions; remarking: "I don't know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples...I consider only the Muslims to be reliable....All others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider the formation of these battalions of purely Caucasian peoples very risky, while I don't see any danger in the establishment of purely Muslim units....In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don't trust the Armenians either".Auron The Banality Of Denial. p. 263. American historian Alexander Dallin notes that Armenian and Georgian battalions were later sent to the Netherlands as a result of Hitler's distrust for them, many of which deserted.Dallin, Alexander. German Rule in Russia: 1941-1945. Octagon Books: 1990.
At the end of the war, remaining members in in the battalion surrendered to the oncoming Western Allied forces. If not detained by them, they were turned over to Soviet authorities who, under an order enacted by Soviet leader Josef Stalin, were sent to Gulag camps in Siberia as punishment for surrendering to Axis forces and "allowing themselves to be captured"; a fate suffered by nearly all of the former Soviet prisoners of the war.
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