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Azeri SS Volunteer Formations were volunteer prisoners of war, mainly from the USSR, and also from the countries annexed by Russia after 1939. They were organised to fight against the Soviets on the German side. ==Origins== The sweeping initial victories of Operation Barbarossa produced hundreds of thousands of non-Russian soldier prisoners in the POW cages of the German Army. All of them were hungry, many were starving. In a mere eight months of 1941-42, the invading German armies killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs through starvation, exposure, and summary execution. Conditions in the prison camps were atrocious. "There were no barracks or permanent housing. The camps were simply open areas fenced off with barbed wire. The prisoners had to lie in the sun, then in mud, and in the fall—with temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius—faced the possibility of freezing to death."〔The German Army and Genocide, by Hamburg Institute for Social Research p. 142”〕 The foreign Waffen beginnings were shrouded in great secrecy, for fear of Hitler who was categorically opposed to any form of participation of Soviet citizens in the war against Russia. But the needs of the army on the Eastern Front induced German commanders to accept the services of volunteers to fight the Soviet regime even against the clear orders of the Supreme Command.〔Russian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in World War II by Lt. Gen Wladyslaw Anders and Antonio Munoz”〕 Tens of thousands of them were Muslims, where the majority of them came from the Soviet Union. In December 1941 a top secret memorandum ordered that the OKW was to create two Muslim units: the Turkestanische Legion, consisting of Muslim volunteers from Central Asia; such as Turkomans, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Karakalpaks, and Tajiks, and the Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion from Caucasian Muslims volunteers; such as Azeris, Dagestanis, Chechens, Ingushes, and Lezgins.〔The Soviet war against ‘Fifth Columnists’ Jeffrey Burds Vol 42(2), 267–314. ISSN 0022–0094. ”〕 The German courting of the Soviet Muslims was part of Hitler's schemes for bringing Turkey onto his side and to advance control of the oil fields in the Middle East and Baku. The most numerous of the Soviet Muslims that served the Germans were the Turkestanis. The first Turkestani volunteers were integrated as one battalion of the 444th Sicherungs Division in November 1941, and became an auxiliary force to help the Germans fight the local partisans. Major Andreas Meyer-Mader was appointed as commander of the 444th Battalion. Meyer-Mader, an Austrian, had served on the staff of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist Army before World War II.〔The Devil's Shadow. Stuart Pearson”〕 According to Argumenty i Fakty newspaper, 40,000 Azerbaijani nationals fought for Third Reich, while 700,000 Azerbaijanis were conscripted into the armies of the Soviet Union.〔( Hitler ordusunda 40 min azərbaycanlı olub ) 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Azeri SS Volunteer Formations」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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