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How the Russians Fought Against Stalin Under the SS Flag

A relatively unknown piece of history – the Russian SS RONA division, which became renowned primarily for its unruliness, drunkenness, and extreme brutality that shocked even the battle-hardened SS veterans.

This is not exactly a well-known corner of interwar history. And, frankly, it’s no wonder – such matters were hardly suited to the simplistic propaganda narrative of the victory of good (read: Stalin) over evil (read: Hitler) that the Soviets preferred.

Thus, in the postwar period not only in Czechoslovakia but throughout the entire Eastern Bloc, schools were hardly taught that at the beginning of the war the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were allies, that they, along with the Slovaks, jointly invaded Poland, that the killing of the Polish army’s elite in the Katyn forest was carried out, and that even the Russians themselves formed one of the SS brigades. And yet all of that was true. Today, we will take a closer look at that very Russian infantry (grenadier) division of the SS, which, among other things, became notorious for its massacre of Poles during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.

Right from the start, it should be noted that the armed resistance against Soviet power by citizens of the USSR was fairly widespread among the peoples incorporated into the Soviet Union. Consider, for example, the so-called “Banderites,” Ukrainian fighters for independence who preferred to join the Germans rather than continue serving the Soviets. Today, however, we will focus on the Russian People’s Liberation Army – that is, the 29th Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as RONA.

The Formation of an Anti-Soviet Unit

As a result of the fighting and the rapid advance of the German army, vast areas in the occupied parts of the USSR fell outside the control of both Soviet and Reich authorities. In these areas, combat units of local anti-Soviet volunteers began to appear, formed to protect the population from the violence inflicted by disorganized Soviet units. From the shattered formations of the Red Army, the foundations were laid for partisan units both in favor of and against the Soviets.

RONA was founded at the end of 1941 as an auxiliary police force with 200 members, its purpose being to fight partisans, or more precisely, to protect the local population from the violence committed by the remnants of Soviet units. The area that RONA controlled after the German army’s advance was roughly 150 km long and 50 km wide. It was armed mainly with captured weapons that did not have matching uniforms, and its primary distinguishing mark was a white armband featuring a black swastika cross.

By mid-1943, the unit had grown to between 10,000 and 12,000 men, equipped with captured Soviet tanks and artillery. Bronislav Kaminski, the unit’s commander, renamed it the Russian People’s Liberation Army – RONA. In 1942, by forcibly mobilizing local inhabitants into his home defense force, Kaminski transformed it into a sort of small regular army of the Lokot Autonomy (or “Lokot Republic”) and into a “private” army under his personal command. Over time, after verifying the anti-Soviet motivations of its members, cooperation with the German occupation forces was initiated.

*Bronislav Kaminski, founder of RONA*

That such a unit was formed specifically in the Lokot area is no coincidence. Before the war began, the Eastern Front’s Lokot region was designated primarily for imprisoning people who were not allowed to return to their former homes in the large cities of the Soviet Union – Kaminski himself being one of them. It is hardly surprising, then, that, just as in Ukraine, these people initially regarded the Nazis not so much as occupiers but as liberators from Soviet terror.

The Formation of a Regular Army

At the outset, due to a lack of military clothing and boots (some units were even barefoot), the Germans supplied Kaminski’s brigade with used uniforms, which, however, were sufficient for only four battalions. By the end of 1942, the Lokot Autonomy’s home defense force had grown to 14 battalions, representing almost 8,000 armed men. From November 19, 1942, until December 1942, an inspection was carried out in Lokot at the behest of Alfred Rosenberg. In January 1943, the brigade numbered 9,828 men; its armored unit was equipped with one heavy KV-II tank, two medium T-34s, three light BT-7 tanks and two BT-5s, as well as three armored cars (one BA-10 and two BA-20s).

In the spring of 1943, the brigade’s structure was reorganized – five regiments of three battalions each were formed, along with an anti-aircraft battalion (armed with three AAA guns and four heavy machine guns) and an armored unit. A separate “guard” battalion was also established; the total strength of the brigade was estimated at up to 12,000 men.

Together with other units under German command, the brigade participated in actions against partisans and also took part in retaliatory operations against the civilian population. In the summer of 1943, the brigade began to suffer heavy desertions, partly due to recent Soviet victories and partly due to partisan efforts to “turn” as many of Kaminski’s soldiers as possible. In the course of these efforts, several attempts were made on Kaminski’s life. Each time, Kaminski narrowly escaped death and executed the conspirators. Several German officers passing through Lokot reported seeing bodies hanging from gallows in front of Kaminski’s headquarters. Fearing the collapse of command, a German liaison staff was attached to Kaminski’s headquarters to restructure the brigade and restore stability.

A successful Soviet counteroffensive forced the brigade, along with the families of its members, to flee alongside the retreating Germans. On July 29, 1944, Kaminski issued an order to evacuate the property and families of the RONA brigade members and Lokot authorities. Up to 30,000 people (of whom 10–11,000 were brigade members) were relocated by the Germans by the end of August 1943 to the Lepel area in Vitebsk, Belarus. According to postwar Soviet estimates, as many as 10,000 civilians were killed during the existence of Kaminski’s formation.

Those members of RONA who failed to retreat before the advancing Red Army used their experience in anti-partisan warfare to fight against Soviet security forces as anti-Soviet partisans until the late 1940s.

Transformation into an SS Unit

In March 1944, the brigade was renamed Volksheer-Brigade Kaminski. From April 11, 1944, it was attached to the SS-Kampfgruppe von Gottberg, which also included the infamous Dirlewanger Brigade, and participated in a series of anti-partisan operations: *Regenschauer* (reportedly resulting in as many as 7,000 partisans killed), *Frühlingsfest* (reportedly 7,011 partisans killed and 1,065 weapons captured), and *Kormoran* (reportedly 7,697 partisans killed and 325 weapons captured). However, the fact remains that these operations mostly involved unarmed civilians who were mercilessly shot as “suspected partisans” or deported for slave labor, and whose villages were burned to the ground.

In June 1944, the brigade was incorporated into the Waffen-SS. With its transfer to the Waffen-SS, the brigade was renamed Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA.

*Bronislav Kaminski and members of Volksheer-Brigade Kaminski during the “Frühlingsfest” operation, Belarus, May 1944*

Warsaw 1944

In August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising broke out, disrupting the planned training of the unit. Together with Dirlewanger’s and other units, they were sent to suppress the uprising. However, by August 27, the German commanders had decided that the brigade was too undisciplined and unreliable. After nearly a month of fighting, the brigade still had not achieved any of its main objectives. The German commander in Warsaw, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, later testified at postwar trials that the unit “had no combat value whatsoever; neither its officers nor its soldiers had even a hint of tactical understanding.”

He went on: “I saw Kaminski’s men loading entire trucks with stolen jewelry, gold watches, and precious stones. Seizing stocks of alcohol was more important to the brigade than taking a position in the very street they were ordered to capture. Every attack was immediately halted because, after seizing their target, the units dispersed into free-roaming, looting hordes.” Kaminski himself participated in the looting in Warsaw and claimed that he was collecting for his “Russian Liberation Fund.” Generalmajor Günter Rohr, the commander of Warsaw’s southern sector, demanded that the brigade be removed from his command. Bach-Zelewski agreed because the unruly unit was hampering his efforts to suppress the uprising. Once replacement units became available, Kaminski was withdrawn from the front after losing approximately 500 men during the fighting in Warsaw.

During the Warsaw battles, RONA units committed acts of looting, rape, murder of civilians, and plunder. Even during the retreat from Russia, signs of deteriorating morale were evident within the brigade, and after the operations in Warsaw, its discipline had deteriorated to such an extent that it was incapable of even carrying out punitive operations. According to Polish historians, soldiers of this Russian unit killed a total of 15,000 people during the Warsaw Uprising.

At the time of the Warsaw actions, Kaminski was summoned to Lodz for a conference of Nazi leadership. However, he never arrived. Officially, during an alleged ambush in which Kaminski and several RONA functionaries (including the brigade’s chief of staff, Obersturmbannführer Ilya Shavykin) were killed, Polish partisans were blamed. Some sources state that he was brought before a military court and then executed by a firing squad, while others claim he was shot after being captured by the Gestapo.

After the War

After the end of World War II in Europe, a portion of the former RONA and Lokot personnel was repatriated by the Western Allies to the Soviet Union. Already in December 1946, former officers Mosin, Vasyukov, Frolov, and Zacharcov were sentenced to death by Soviet courts, while other members of the brigade received lengthy prison sentences or were immediately executed by SMERS (counter-intelligence) operatives upon capture.

Some of the repatriated brigade members and supporters of the Lokot Autonomy formed partisan groups around Lokot, but the movement gradually disintegrated into criminal gangs, and the last large group was eliminated in 1951. In the 1950s and 1960s, dozens more former members were found in the USSR; some were also sentenced and executed.

And the last person from the Lokot/RONA personnel to be prosecuted was Antonina Makarova, who was responsible for at least 168 executions – though likely around 1,500. Makarova was arrested in 1978, convicted of high treason, sentenced to death, and executed in 1979.


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