World War 2 In Review: SS Cossack Cavalry Corps

Cossack serving with the Germans on the Eastern Front, 1944.

A number of men from conquered armies fought alongside the Germans during World War II. Known as patriotic traitors many combined items of their national uniform with that of the German Army. One of the more colorful volunteer groups were the Cossack units.

Foreign units attached to the Wehrmacht during the course of World War II varied considerably in strength and fighting capabilities; many of these units were virtually useless as front line soldiers, however, some of these units did achieve some status as an elite and among these were those units comprised of Cossacks.

The XV Cossack Cavalry Corps was raised in March 1943 from Cossack POWs, anti-Communist partisan units, and groups from various Cossack communities. The Cossacks were placed under the overall command of General von Pannwitz who understood them and held them in high esteem. German officers and senior NCOs assigned were selected for their sympathetic handling of the Cossacks and major command positions were held by the Germans until the end of the war.

Regiments were made up from the main Cossack communities. The first regiment organized was the 1st Don Regiment, followed by the 2nd Terek, 3rd Kuban (a regiment made up from Caucasian units), the 4th Kuban and the 5th Don Regiments. Shortly after there was another reorganization when the 2nd Tereks was renumbered 6th, and replaced by the 2nd Siberian Regiment.

The strength of a regiment was about two thousand men, each with its own signals and anti-tank units.

In September 1944, the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps came under the jurisdiction of the SS and was designated the “SS Cossack Cavalry Corps.” The attachment to the SS control was just about in name only, there was no substituting their own or standard Wehrmacht insignia for the SS pattern. Their officers and NCOs remained Wehrmacht and no SS personnel were with them.

At the end of the war, the Cossacks surrendered to the British Army, and were forcibly repatriated back to Russia where many of them were executed. Von Pannwitz, although a German, elected to go back to Russia with them and was tried by the Russians and hanged.

Uniform

In the early days a mixture of both Cossack national dress and standard German Army uniform was worn, which made them one of the most colorful German fighting units.

The Cossacks retained their fur caps (Papacha). The cap was black, the national emblem silver and the crown of the cap in its own distinguishing color — red for the Don and Kuban Cossacks, yellow for the Siberians, and pale blue for the Terek Cossacks.

Decorating this cloth panel was a white cross of tracing braid. The jacket was the normal issue German field service tunic which was field gray, buttons silver with a dark green collar piped in white, with the normal Army “Litzen” collar patch in white.

The national arm shields were worn on either arm according to the division. The patch was roughly divided into thirds from top to bottom. The topmost third bore the title of the unit in Cyrillic script in white. The lower two thirds was quartered into triangles and colored red and blue (red at the top and bottom), with the word “Don” at the top for the Don Cossacks.

The pants were the standard German cavalry breeches in field gray, and down the outside of each pant leg was a red stripe for the Don Cossacks. The boots were the normal issue German brown cavalry boots. The one major fixture that a Cossack would never be without was his saber or “Shasqa.”

German Cossack Cavalry, Russian Front, 1942.

A group of cavalrymen from the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division. This unit was formed in 1943 from prisoners of war and the various ad hoc formations of Cossack deserters that had been gathered by Wehrmacht field commanders. It also included men recruited from the short lived autonomous “Cossack District” that was located in the Kuban region south of Rostov-on-Don.