Georgian Uprising on Texel

Corsendonk

I was watching the BBC excellent programme "Coast" the other night on the coast of the Netherlands and at the end they had a piece on the Uprising of Georgian soldiers recruited into the German army on the Dutch island of Texel. I was aware that the Germans recruited a league of nations into its forces over the course of the War. The Georgians seening that they had joined the wrong side seemed to have took a last desperate gamble of rebelling against the Germans in the hope of redeeming themselves if shipped back to the USSR. The fighting on Texel didn't finished until two weeks after VE day as the Germans refused to surrender to the Georgians. Does anyone have more information on the uprising and what happened the Georgians after?

jonniebgood1

I saw this Coast episode. The Texel.net website has a good summary of what happened. I have read about it in more detail after watching the program in a book about holland called hungry winter here http://books.google.ie/books?id=_eNGEV_QL64C&pg=PA213&dq=texel+georgians&hl=en&ei=TggCTri4K82FhQfAvuCtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=chapter%20russian%20drama&f=false (note pages missing). The georgians were part of a german 882nd georgian army that had been forced to join the german army. They stormed German troops in the middle of night but were unable to take fortified positions. They expected the allies to support them but this never happened.

While hundreds of thousands of Russians were dying of starvation and misery in German prisoner of war camps, the Georgians were treated with some kind of benevolence. Georgia was one of the last states to have been annexed by the Soviet Union. It was speculated that the Georgians would be easier to persuade to defect than the Russians.

Because a longer stay in captivity could also end adversely for the Georgians, the Georgians allowed themselves to be used as the enemy’s auxiliary troops. When it looked like the Germans were going to lose the war, the Georgians feared for their future upon their return to their country, but also if the allied forces were to invade.
Revolted

When the time seemed most right, the battalion of Georgians on Texel revolted, hoping that other Russian battalions along the coast would do the same. In the night of April 5 and 6, 1945 they killed the Germans that they had shared quarters with. An estimated four hundred Germans were killed in the socalled Russian War.
Under fire

However, the Georgians were unable to get a hold on two large batteries, which contained only German soldiers. These batteries, located high up in the dunes, and the heavy batteries of Vlieland and Den Helder already started blasting the Georgian battalion, and with them the population of Texel, on April 6. In Den Burg only, hundreds of grenades were fired.

Naturally, the Germans soon sent reinforcements to the island to stop the Georgian revolt. With the occupation of the batteries, these new troops took around five weeks to suppress the uprising of the Georgian battalion, which consisted of around 800 men http://www.texel.net/en/about-texel/history/the-uprising-of-the-georgians/

The German reinforcements overpowered the Georgians when allied support didnt materialise. When they had retaken the island they set about executing the Georgian prisoners that they had taken http://books.google.ie/books?id=_eNGEV_QL64C&pg=PA213&dq=texel+georgians&hl=en&ei=TggCTri4K82FhQfAvuCtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=prisoners%20executed%20close%20range&f=false. There were some georgian survivors as the people of the island tried to hide them from the German army.

ejmaztec

I was surprised that the Georgians were allowed to return home as heroes, considering how they happened to be on Texel in the first place. Perhaps Stalin's being a Georgian helped them in some way, or perhaps they were disposed of later on when the Soviet propaganda machine had finished with them.

That particular Coast programme was also interesting when they gave the Indian (ex-Commonwealth POWs, captured in North Africa) Nazi's a mention.

donaghs

ejmaztec wrote: »

I was surprised that the Georgians were allowed to return home as heroes, considering how they happened to be on Texel in the first place. Perhaps Stalin's being a Georgian helped them in some way, or perhaps they were disposed of later on when the Soviet propaganda machine had finished with them.

I don't think there is any evidence that the went back to a heroes welcome in the USSR? Every other example I've read of Soviet people fighting for Hitler is that they were likely to be executed first, and or else sent to a Gulag. Even Soviet troops taken prisoner who remained loyal to Stalin were very badly treated when they returned home (e.g. sent to Gulags).

Also after the war, there were large transfers of prisoners, "displaced peoples" etc. The Western Allies shipped many people back to the new Eastern Bloc without too much thought about the fate awaiting them.

According to wikipedia: "After arrival at a collection camp in the Soviet Union, 26 Georgians were singled out and banished together with their families and nearly all others disappeared into Stalin’s Gulags. Those still alive in the mid-1950s were rehabilitated and allowed to return home".

I understand that since the end of the Cold War, and Georgian independence their reputation has be revised in a more positive light.

Manach

Thanks for that interesting post.
Given the experiences of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, even being in the victorious Red Army did not preclude one being sent to a gulag.

BlaasForRafa

donaghs wrote: »

According to wikipedia: "After arrival at a collection camp in the Soviet Union, 26 Georgians were singled out and banished together with their families and nearly all others disappeared into Stalin’s Gulags. Those still alive in the mid-1950s were rehabilitated and allowed to return home".

I understand that since the end of the Cold War, and Georgian independence their reputation has be revised in a more positive light.

It just occurred to me that the Georgians would most likely have been recruited by Army group A which operated in that area in 1942-43. Its commander Field Marshal Von Kleist was charged after the war by the soviets with "alienating, through friendship & generosity, the peoples of the Soviet Union" which shows the utter vindictiveness of Stalins USSR.

ejmaztec

donaghs wrote: »

I don't think there is any evidence that the went back to a heroes welcome in the USSR? Every other example I've read of Soviet people fighting for Hitler is that they were likely to be executed first, and or else sent to a Gulag. Even Soviet troops taken prisoner who remained loyal to Stalin were very badly treated when they returned home (e.g. sent to Gulags).

Also after the war, there were large transfers of prisoners, "displaced peoples" etc. The Western Allies shipped many people back to the new Eastern Bloc without too much thought about the fate awaiting them.

According to wikipedia: "After arrival at a collection camp in the Soviet Union, 26 Georgians were singled out and banished together with their families and nearly all others disappeared into Stalin’s Gulags. Those still alive in the mid-1950s were rehabilitated and allowed to return home".

I understand that since the end of the Cold War, and Georgian independence their reputation has be revised in a more positive light.

Knowing all this, and the fate of the Cossacks for example, was the reason for my surprise, when the programme announced that the Texel Georgians were sent home as heroes. I can imagine the Soviets making a big thing about the brave Georgians fighting the Nazis, but then conveniently failing to mention that they had been allied to the Germans previously. I think that it was more likely that there was a good photo on the front of Pravda, and then a bullet to the back of the head for each of them afterwards.

Perhaps the Coast researchers didn't do the full research, or didn't want to prevent the Russian TV companies from buying the series?

ejmaztec

I found a post on the following forum, which seems to be a copy of what was originally on the Texel.net website before it was changed to include less information than is on Texel.net now:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?97288-Europes-Last-WWII-BattleField-Texel

This is the bit that's relevant to what became of the Georgians (as far as the mid 1950s anyway). It does look ambiguous however, in that the last paragraph seems to be at odds with what is written earlier.

The remaining Georgians, now operating as a Partisan unit away from their fixed positions, were still fighting German troops when the Canadians landed on Texel on May 20th, two weeks after the cessation of hostilities on the Dutch mainland. The members of the former 822nd Battalion refused to voluntarily disarm and leave Texel until the Canadians spoke on their behalf to the Soviet authorities.

The local Canadian commander was so impressed by their resistance that he refused to class the Georgians as enemy personnel. Instead the Canadians treated them at all times as Displaced Persons. They did not have to disarm until their evacuation to Wilhelmshaven on 16 June 1945. Even then, officers were permitted to retain side arms.

In a letter signed by Major General Foulkes, the commander of the 1st Canadian Corps, the Civil Affairs staff officer, Lt. Colonel Lord Tweedsmuir, wrote directly to the Soviet High Command. He praised the Georgians as valiant Soviet allies whose rebellion had resulted in over 2300 German casualties. He also requested that the Red Army receive the Georgians as heroes and that they be immediately rehabilitated.

Lord Tweedsmuir accompanied the Georgians, guarded by personnel from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, to Wilhelmshaven and spoke on their behalf to Soviet Liasion Officers in that city. In 1946, the Soviet daily newspaper 'Pravda' praised the Texel Georgians as 'Soviet patriots' and as rebelling 'POWs' who had liberated Texel. The group’s rehabilitation by Moscow did not occur until the middle of the 1950s. Their acceptance back in the Soviet Union perhaps was on the strength of the Canadian involvement and the highly controversial letter in defiance of the Western Allies' overall policy of non-interference in Soviet handling of their returning citizens. In fact, few of the ‘Texel Georgians’ apparently had been punished for volunteering in the German army. The Texel Georgians were only a small part of the Wehrmacht's 30,000-strong Georgia Legion.

During the Russian or Georgian war (as it is known on Texel) approximately 800 Germans, 570 Georgians, and 120 Tesselan natives were killed. The destruction was enormous; dozens of farms went up in flames. The bloodshed lasted beyond the German capitulation in the Netherlands and Denmark on May 5, 1945, and even beyond Germany's general surrender on May 8, 1945. Not until May 20, 1945 were newly arrived Canadian troops able to pacify "Europe’s last battlefield".

The fallen Georgians lie buried in a ceremonial cemetery at the Hogeberg near Oudeschild. The survivors faced the same fate as most Soviet POWs: forced repatriation, under the terms of the Yalta Conference, often followed by incarceration and occasionally - execution. Stalin considered anyone captured by the enemy to be a traitor, subject to appropriate punishment.