Where the Iron Crosses Grow

In October 1941, AOK 11 began forming the first Tatar volunteers into an 80-man security detachment, which was soon expanded to a 345-man unit once most of the Crimea was overrun.¹¹ In November, Manstein ordered that POWs of Crimean Tatar origin were to be released. Other Tatars supported the Wehrmacht in unarmed roles as well: as truck drivers, manual laborers in quartermaster units, interpreters, and guides. The Tatars also proved willing to identify communists, Jews, and Soviet agents among the general population. However, the initial recruiting and training efforts were haphazard, producing security units with negligible capabilities.

On November 23, 1941, the Simferopol Muslim Committee was established. The rump administration included recruitment and propaganda departments, intended to bolster the authority of the German occupation – not local autonomy. The AOK 11 referred to the civil administration they established in the Crimea using the old Ukrainian term “Starosta,” in order to suggest continuity with traditional communal councils.¹² In January 1942, the committee was allowed to begin distributing a newspaper known as Azat Krym (“Free Crimea”), which regularly included pro-German and anti-Semitic items.

Once it became clear in January 1942 that the Wehrmacht was going to be operating in the Crimea for a while, AOK 11 began a serious effort to form Tatar volunteers into more useful units. The Germans began a widespread recruiting campaign in rural Tatar villages, using the local Muslim committees, and among the thousands of captured Red Army prisoners. Eventually, over 9,000 Tatars volunteered for service as auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht, which enabled AOK 11 to form 14 self-defense companies (Schuma). Some of these companies participated in mopping up the Soviet landing around Sudak, where they ruthlessly hunted down isolated Red Army soldiers. Some Tatars were recruited to fill combat losses in AOK 11. Saterov Vetut was assigned to 3. Kompanie of Pionier-Bataillon 132, and wrote that, “From now on things will be better for us than ever would have been possible under the Soviets. For us Tatars comes a new, good era. In the future we will no longer work for others, but for ourselves.”¹³

After the fall of Sevastopol, the Wehrmacht began referring to the Crimean Tatars as an “allied people” and decided to increase the level of support provided to arming the Crimean Tatars. By November 1942, these original companies were expanded to eight Schutzmannschaft battalions and assigned to populated areas; these auxiliary troops were provided German uniforms and captured Soviet small arms, led by older German reservists. The Schutzmannschaft battalions proved useful for manning numerous checkpoints throughout the Crimea, coast watching, and conducting local security sweeps.¹⁴

Some Crimean Tatars took to the German occupation very quickly, and openly collaborated in return for not having their property confiscated. Others were even more enthusiastic and saw the German conquest as an opportunity to even old scores with Russian oppressors. Allegedly, some of the Tatar committees orchestrated the murder of large numbers of ethnic Russian communities in the Crimea in retaliation for earlier ethnic-cleansing operations; yet hard data on these allegations – made after the Soviet liberation of the Crimea in 1944 – is lacking. It is clear the Einsatzgruppe D recruited Crimean Tatar auxiliaries to assist in their ethnic-cleansing operations. Allegedly, Schutzmannschaft Bataillon 152 (tatarische) operated the “Red Farm” concentration camp in 1942–43 near Simferopol, where thousands of civilians with suspected links to the Soviet partisan movement in the Crimea were tortured and murdered. After the war, Soviet authorities unearthed hundreds of human skeletal remains at this site, but like the Katyn Forest situation, the Soviets attempted to mask who murdered these victims. Perhaps they were victims of Crimean Tatar retribution, but it is also possible that they were victims of the Red Terror in the 1920s or even Soviet ethnic cleansing in 1944.