Belarusian Black Cats

The Belarusian Black Cat partisans (Belarusian: Чорны кот, Čorny Kot) was a German-trained Belarusian nationalist and anti-Soviet guerrilla unit of the SS-Jagdverbände during World War II.[1] It was a part of the German clandestine operation known as Liebes Kätzchen stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea. The Belarusian Black Cat guerrilla group led by Michas' Vitushka was parachuted behind Soviet lines in late 1944. They operated in Belavezha Forest (Białowieża) throughout 1945 but with limited success.[2][3][4][5] Infiltrated by NKVD, they were destroyed in 1945.[6]

History

During the Soviet counteroffensive of 1944, special German sabotage units of local Eastern European collaborators were trained in Dahlwitz near Berlin,[7] by SS-Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny to infiltrate the Soviet rear.[4]

Skorzeny arranged a meeting with the leaders of the former administration in Byelorussia [Weißruthenien], all of whom had beat a hasty retreat to Berlin in June and July 1944. These men, Radislaw Ostrowsky, V.I. Rodko and Mikola Abramchyk, agreed to cooperate in finding recruits and staff for several sabotage schools that could train infiltrators. Such line-crossers, it was felt, could serve as rallying points for partisans who had already fled to the woods. Two SD facilities were established, one at Dahlwitz, near Berlin, and a second at Walbuze, in East Prussia. Radio communications, encoding, demolitions and assassination techniques were taught at these schools. FAK 203 also established a Byelorussian camp at Insterburg, which was run by Major Gerullis. This facility was later evacuated to Boitzenburg, in Pomerania, and was eventually transferred to Jagdverband Ost.

In the late summer and autumn of 1944, FAK 203 sent several teams into Soviet-liberated area of Byelorussia, and these detachments were followed by a thirty-man paratroop unit codenamed the 'Black Cats' and led by Michael Vitushka. A number of groups with radio transmitters were also air-dropped into the area east of Vilna, where they operated so effectively that the Germans made plans for large-scale parachute drops in the region, although such operations were impossible to execute because of the shortage of aircraft. Other detachments filtered through the dense Bielavieza Forest, near Byalistok, and such squads had considerable success in rousing the 'forest fugitives' to greater levels of insurgency.[8]

The Front Reconnaissance Units (Frontaufklärungskommando, or FAK) 202, 203 and 204 were deployed by Abwehr near the front lines. Each group of the Unternehmen Wildkatze was equipped with four all-purpose Ninolit charges, hand grenades, Nipolit pressure-release bomb, and Nipolit incendiary bomb (hexagonal) with pushpull igniter.[9] The Wildkatze paratroopers came from Reichskommissariat Ostland. They were led by an intelligence staff officer (Ic), and split into FAK commandos based on the country of origin. Latvians were called "Forest Cats", Ukrainians, "Steppe Cats", and the Belarusians, "Black Cats".[2] As part of the Nazi effort to combat the growing Soviet partisan movement in Belarus during the war, some thirty Belarusians from the espionage and sabotage outfit known as "Čorny Kot" (Black Cat) led by Michał Vituška age 37,[10] were airdropped by the Luftwaffe on November 17th 1944 behind the lines of the Red Army.[11] At that time, the German forces had already been expelled from the present-day Belarus during Operation Bagration.[12]

Further information: Operation Scherhorn

Black Cats experienced some initial successes due to disorganization in the rear of the Red Army. In the city of Minsk they engaged in gun robberies causing death.[13] Other German-trained Belarusian nationalist units also slipped through the Białowieża Forest in 1945. However, the NKVD secret police informants infiltrated these units in June 1945.[14] As the result, they were ambushed and killed in short order.[6] According to Belarusian nationalist historian Siarhiej Yorsh[15] some armed anti-Soviet resistance continued in Belarus by mid-1950s.[7] American intelligence agents described the Black Cats as “a loose alliance of bandit groups with little strength as a controlled movement.”[16]

Vituška himself eventually managed to escape to the West along with several other Belarusian Central Rada leaders, and the subsequent reports of his death differ greatly. According to some reports, he was killed in action on 7 January 1945 airdropped back behind the Soviet front. Other reports claim he was still alive in 1946.[17] Vituška was eventually hunted down according to British historian Perry Biddiscombe, captured and executed. He continued to live on in Belarusian nationalist ideology.[1]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Perry Biddiscombe: The SS Hunter Battalions. The Hidden History of the Nazi Resistance Movement. Tempus, Stroud 2006, p. 66.
  2. 1 2 Dawid Wowra (January 22, 2014). "Belarusian Resistance, documentary by PartyzanFilm 2008 (transcript)". Based on Bialoruski ruch oporu by Siarhiej Jorsz. Scribd.com. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  3. ↑ Andrew Wilson (2011). Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship (Google Books preview). Yale University Press. ISBN 0300134355. , p. 109. Operation Black Cat.
  4. 1 2 Stephen Dorril (2002). MI6: Inside the Covert World. Belorussia. Simon and Schuster. p. 217. ISBN 0743217780. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  5. ↑ Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (2012). "Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas". The Second Soviet Occupation. Transaction Publishers. p. 167. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  6. 1 2 Dudar (March 25, 1999). "Belarusian "Black Cats" of Otto Skorzeny". John Loftus "The Belarus Secret", edited by Nathan Miller, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1982. ISBN 0-394-52292-3. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on October 25, 2009. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  7. 1 2 реж. Тележников А. (28 January 2011) [2008]. "Беларускі пасляваенны антысавецкі супраціў 1944−1957 гг". док. фильм по книге С. Ерша и С. Горбика «Беларускі супраціў». ПартызанFilm.
  8. ↑ Alexander Perry Biddiscombe (2006). The SS Hunter Battalions: The Hidden History of the Nazi Resistance Movement 1944-45. Tempus. p. 66/67. ISBN 0752439383.
  9. ↑ Headquarters US Forces European Theater Interrogation Center. "The German Sabotage Service" (PDF). APO 655 – via direct download.
  10. ↑ Блинец Андрей (5 March 2003). "По следам "Чёрного Кота"" [In the footsteps of a "Black Cat"]. Сайт «Белорусской деловой газеты». Archived from the original on 2010-06-02. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
  11. ↑ Antonio J. Muñoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians: Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944, Europa Books 2003, p. 453.
  12. ↑ Матох Василий (17 April 2006). "Лесные братья // Информационно-аналитический еженедельник "БелГазета"" [Forest Brothers]. № 15 (534). Belgazeta.by. Archived from the original on 2012-12-09 – via Internet Archive.; "фотоматериалами". Istpravda.ru. на сайте «Историческая правда». 4 December 2012.
  13. ↑ Alice Singer-Genis (2011). I Won't Die Hungry: A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir. Google eBook. AuthorHouse. p. 67. ISBN 1456736507. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  14. ↑ Antonio J. Muñoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians: Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944, Europa Books 2003, p. 452.
  15. ↑ Vadim Sidorovich: Naliboki Forest: Historical outline and ethnographical sketch. Minsk 2016. p. 1040-1044
  16. ↑ Mark Alexander: Nazi Collaborators, American Intelligence, and the Cold War. The Case of the Byelorussian Central Council. University of Vermont Graduate College Dissertations and Theses, Nr. 424, 2015, p. 97 (PDF)
  17. ↑ S. Putnik (20 November 2007), Generał Wituszka – "Czarny Kot" białoruskiego podziemia (Polish), Portal Informacyjny Kresy24.pl. Re

Further reading

External links

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