The Turkistan Legion

Our Flemish correspondent VH has done some research on the role played by the Muslims of Central Asia in World War 2, in collaboration with the Nazis:

Turkistan SwastikaWhen trying to find out a bit more about the Turkistan Muslims in Xinjiang, I stumbled upon this photo.

Though Muslim Nazi collaboration is mostly known for the notorious Muslim Handschar (Sword) SS division, the Turkistan Muslims were incorporated into the volunteer Östtürkischer Waffen-Verband der SS and fought mainly in France, North Italy, and — like the Handschar — in Yugoslavia. They were involved in the killing of over 800,000 Yugoslav citizens — 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Roma, with the help of Muslims in Bosnia (Bosnian 13th Waffen Handschar), Kosovo and Albania (Albanian Skanderbeg 21st Waffen SS division).

The first “Turkistan Legion” was mobilized in May 1942, originally consisting of only one battalion but having been expanded to 16 battalions and 16,000 soldiers by 1943 (Öst Battalions).

The all-Muslim “Turkistanische Legion” wore a badge picturing a mosque and the text “BiZ ALLA Bilen, TURKISTAN”: “Allah is with us, Turkistan,” equivalent of Gott mit uns (God with us), which was the German Army motto).

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There is also a film of this Muslim-National Socialists alliance, “Uyghur s army and German troops (Turkistanische legion)”:



And here’s a still from the movie.

Maybe all this is well known, but I was surprised to find out that even Turkistan Muslims (and Muslims from the surrounding region) were involved in the National Socialist struggle. The Muslim contribution to the Nazi bloodshed is from a wider source than I — in all my innocence — ever thought.

21 thoughts on “The Turkistan Legion

  1. First off, if the video is supposed to be embedded, it’s not working–I just see blank whiteness where it’s supposed to be… just thought I’d let you know.

    Second, I’m so glad you mentioned the role of Muslim SS divisions in Yugoslavia. I have been doing a lot of research on the Balkans recently in preparation for an essay and have learned about those Bosnian and Albanian SS divisions. The average person doesn’t seem to know too much about them, much less their very existence. I actually just had a fight with someone recently who actually denied that they had done anything wrong.

  2. Natalie, I’m watching the embedded video right now, and it works OK. It worked on Dymphna’s machine, too.

    So it must be either a transient problem, or one particular to your computer.

  3. Natalie, you might also want to read this pamphlet about the Nazi roots of Palestinian nationalism. It has quite a bit about the Bosnian connection.

    Further, I have a stack of pictures I scooped from the Internet for the Danish translation of the pamphlet. Drop me a line on email if you could use them.

    There was also a book published in German recently about the dreaded mufti. The issue has finally come to light.

  4. Few people realize that there are only two degrees of separation between Yasser Arafat and ADOLPH HITLER.

    VH: Maybe all this is well known, but I was surprised to find out that even Turkistan Muslims (and Muslims from the surrounding region) were involved in the National Socialist struggle. The Muslim contribution to the Nazi bloodshed is from a wider source than I — in all my innocence — ever thought.

    Please keep up the good work. In order to counter the palliating blather of such taqiyya-spewing shills as Tariq Ramadan and Amr Khaled, Islam’s bloody past, present and future must be thrown up at every opportunity.

    There is a pattern to Islam’s history which exhibits every single worst trait of abuse, predation and genocide in human history. It is this fact which must forcibly be superimposed upon Islam’s phony image of peacefulness.

  5. Well, now the video’s loading fine for me… it must have been just a silly page load error or something.

    Henrik, I’ll be sending you an email after I post this…

  6. I don’t get it.

    I thought I was pretty familiar with WW2 on the eastern front but I did not know of these guys and I have some questions:

    As far as I know, all the western Turkic peoples liks Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Usbek and Tajik were, at the time, part of the USSR and hence, these guys must have been “Soviet” citizens. Eastern Turkic are, as far as I know, Uigurs only and they are (were) Chinese.
    How the hell did they get into the Nazi SS? Were they made prisoners and offered the German uniform? That late into the war, I would imagine that the criteria to become an SS were not that stringent anymore but these guys look like straight out of the “Untermenschen” picture book of Nazi racial “science”.

    And how did a mere 16 battalions manage to kill 700,000 Serbs, my Slavic heroes?

  7. teacher.paris —

    Please don’t paste long URLs into the comments; they make the post page too wide and mess up the appearance of the permalink page.

    Use link tags; the instructions are at the top of the full post’s comment section.

    ———————-

    teacher.paris said…

    *The following is a break down of the Foreign Units of the Waffen-SS, by no means all inclusive.

    link

    Country/Ethnicity – Estimated # of volunteers- Name of Waffen-SS Units

    Albanian 3,000 -21st SS Division

    Belgian: Flemish 23,000 -5th SS Div., 27th SS Div.

    Belgium: Walloon 15,000 -5th SS Div., 28th SS Div.

    British Commonwealth (English) 50 -The British Freikorps

    Bulgaria 1,000 in the Bulgarisches Reg.

    Croatia (includes Bosnian Muslims) 30,000 7th SS Div., 13th SS Hanshar Div.23rd SS Div.

    Denmark 10,000 in Freikorps Danemark, 11th SS Div.

    India3,500 in the Volunteer Legion

    Estonia 20,000 in the 20th SS Div.

    Finland 1,000 in a Volunteer Battalion.

    Hungarians 15,000 in the 25th SS Div., 26th SS Div. 33rd SS Div.

    Latvia 39,000 in the 15th SS Div., 19th SS Div.

    Netherlands 50,000 in the 23rd SS Div., 34th SS Div.

    Norway 6,000 in the 5th SS Div., 6th SS Div.11th SS Div., .

    France 8,000 33rd SS Div.

    Italy 20,000

    Poland/Ukraine 25,000 14th SS Div.

    Russian (Belorussia) 12,000 29th SS Div., 30th SS Div.

    Russian (Cossack) 40,000 XV SS Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps

    Russian (Turkic) 8,000 Ostürkische SS, Tatarishe SS

    Rumania 3,000 Waffen-Grenadierregiment der SS (rumänisches 1)

    Serbia 15,000 Volunteer Corps

    Spain 1,000 Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 101

    Sweden, Switzerland & Luxemburg 3,000 5th SS Div., 11th SS Div.

  8. TC:

    First, kudos to you for saying that Serbs are your heroes 🙂

    To answer your question: I’m not entirely sure about the western Turkic people’s origins with the Nazis, but I can tell you quite a bit about the Balkan involvement. When Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, Croatia, Albania, and present-day Bosnia allied themselves with the Nazis. The Serbs significantly did not. The Nazis formed SS divisions made up of Croats, Albanians, and Bosnians, the latter two being mostly Muslim. The Nazis didn’t like the Serbs (because the Serbs didn’t like them), so they gave free rein to their Muslim SS divisions, telling them they could go kill Serbs. As a result, many, many Serbs were massacred. These SS divisions were very, very efficient at killing innocent civilians and displayed brutality that shocked even German SS officers. Croats also perpetrated atrocities against Serbs as well.

    The reason for all this resentment against the Serbs was because of religion. There was always a traditional rivalry between Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Croats (Catholics). And there was obviously loads of rivalry between Albanians and Serbs, being the Albanians were Muslim–need I say any more? The Croats were lead by a very pro-Nazi leader who saw the alliance with the Nazis as a way to get back at the Serbs, so to speak. The Albanians saw it the same way.

    Of course, nowadays all you hear about regarding Serbia is how their leaders in the 1990s were “war criminals” who perpetrated so-called “ethnic cleansing” against innocent Muslims. In reality, it was the opposite: the Balkans wars of the 1990s consisted of Bosnians and Albanians killing innocent Serbs solely on the basis of religion. The Serbs defended themselves (obviously) but somehow you only hear of bad things they did, not what the other side did. Yes, the Serbs did do some nasty things, but it was in response to their enemies’ atrocities.

  9. German Defence Lawyer Sylvia Stolz has been sentenced to 3 and-a-half years in prison and disbarred for 5 years.

    Below are her comments to the court.

    She says the Court is perverting and repressing the truth with the cudgel of “Holocaust,” making a mockery of justice. Her trial has made clear the criminal absurdity of prosecuting “Holocaust Denial.” How can one deny something that never existed? She says these entire proceedings began as a show trial in a kangaroo court and never progressed beyond that point. The main proceedings were projected with smoke and mirrors and the official fairy tale of “Holocaust” was enforced by undisguised force. She observes that the political intent of the Court is the ultimate eradication of the German Nation and its replacement by a mongrelized and deculturated population of mindless consumers.

    Sylvia says she is confident that she has succeeded in exposing this Court to the whole world as an agent that is hostile to the German Nation. By openly and flagrantly violating the law, this Court flees before the truth. Incessantly, like turning a prayer wheel, it has rejected her every evidentiary motion with the cynical pretext of “abuse of court procedure.” ….. She has hope and faith that the German Nation will someday bring this treacherous Court to justice.

    Sylvia describes how the Defense was forced to accept the contents of the indictment, and this caused the Court’s desired verdict to be the inevitable consequence. In the absence of material evidence, the Court relied on its infantile rulings that “Abuse of Procedure = Criminal Act.” Thanks to this judicial sleight of hand, there was no assumption of innocence and the Court did not have to prove guilt.

    Sylvia asks: to what is Grossmann referring when he mentions “domestic and foreign” court verdicts? Could he be referring to the Nuremberg show trials? The Allied Military Tribunal was nothing but a postwar Talmudic Inquisition conducted by Germany’s enemies. It featured witnesses with “built-in credibility” and Jewish testimony that could never be questioned or authenticated.

    She asks: what would people like Grossmann do without the official obligatory fairy tale of “Holocaust?” Her trial has again demonstrated that world political powers are players in the “Holocaust” game (or “Holocaust Industry” as Prof. Norman Finkelstein calls it, he should know, since both of his parents were interned at Auschwitz during the War.) This explains why objective historical research is still suppressed, sixty-three years after the end of the War. As an example of ongoing intellectual repression in Germany Sylvia refers to the “Hermann Case” in which a popular commentator was fired for referring to such positive aspects of National Socialism as its family policy and the construction of Autobahns.

    Sylvia demonstrates that the Court’s procedural system is very, very simple. It consists of disallowing all evidentiary motions as “abuse of Court procedure,” which is a criminal act. She says that the District Attorney’s closing tirade was beneath all legal criticism, nothing but purest slander and abuse…..Then Sylvia shows how powerful interests profit greatly by inculcating a negative self-image into German society, with their incessant propaganda and brainwashing. If Germans were as evil as Grossmann depicts them, they would long ago have skinned him alive.

    She points out that under the present Talmudic Inquisition, anyone who calls attention to the destructive nature of Judaism can be punished. Glenz tells the Court Reporter to write that remark down as well. Sylvia observes that today, no one is allowed to say anything the least bit derogatory about Jews, and yet the necessary first step toward changing and improving conditions in Germany is recognizing the cause of our malaise. She says that Horst Mahler’s writings provide the proof for this, and she will stand by this assertion. Glenz orders the Reporter: “Put that in too!”

    Sylvia continues and remarks that Germany now stands under the yoke of world Judaism. Glenz threatens: “We are going to cut off your final address if…” But Sylvia ignores him and says that following World War II, the real criminals took over the world. Glenz growls “I’m warning you!” but Sylvia again urges the public to consider the causes of Germany’s plight and continue gathering and considering the material evidence. She tells the Court that National Socialism is not dead, regardless of how much Grossmann and his ilk wish it were dead. She says that National Socialism represents what is good and enduring in the German spirit. Idealism and patriotism are rigidly suppressed at this time but they cannot be suppressed forever.

    Turning toward Grossmann and the Court, she asks:

    “Is he German? Or is he perhaps related to that Moshe Grossmann who for four years following the end of World War II continued torturing and murdering German slaves in the East, as the Jewish author John Sack reports in his book An Eye for an Eye?”

    Then she turns to the Bench and asks:

    “What about you — are you Germans?” “German” stands for honor and steadfastness! Think of Deutsche Treue! Nobody can call what is going on in this court as “honorable.” In this court, the only “justice” is inspired by the Talmud!”

    Sylvia expresses her faith that history will take its inevitable course and “the truth will win out.” She says that since the trial began she has been prepared for her preordained conviction — she told them at the beginning that she knew her verdict was handed down, even before her indictment. To the Bench she says

    “And you, my high-and-mighty judges, will never again experience inner peace… Your depiction of National Socialism as a criminal system will see to that. You are willing accomplices to the brainwashing and degradation of the German people…. Adolf Hitler accurately recognized the Jewish problem, the malevolent power of the Jews in certain respects… Yes, I share the values of National Socialism!”

    Sylvia replies,

    “If my actions bring a little more light into this dark hour for Germany, then I will gladly go to prison! It does not bother me that I am officially ridiculed and insulted by this despicable court and atrocious government… My high and mighty judges, you are convicting yourselves, not me.”

    Source: http://twincities.indymedia.org/
    newswire/display/32751/index.php

  10. jus to be clear, teacher.paris, everything below the “Below are her comments” line was written or attributed to this lawyer, and the article you linked to, right? I want to confirm that because I know some people will take what you’ve quoted and simply say that you wrote it, then use that as slander material.

  11. Natalie. This site provides documentation with photographs of the close relationship that Islam shared with Hitler.
    Whenever i hear British muslims refer to themselves as the Jews of Europe, knowing what i know a terrible anger builds inside of me.
    After all muslims played a very large part in the extermination process of Jews, Gypsies, Serbs and all those other poor souls.
    The badge worn by Jews to single them out after all was an islamic way of identifying non muslims, apart from the wearing of different coloured clothing for both Jews and Christians.

    http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/

  12. teacher.paris: [per Sylvia Stolz] Sylvia asks: to what is Grossmann referring when he mentions “domestic and foreign” court verdicts? Could he be referring to the Nuremberg show trials? The Allied Military Tribunal was nothing but a postwar Talmudic Inquisition conducted by Germany’s enemies. It featured witnesses with “built-in credibility” and Jewish testimony that could never be questioned or authenticated. [emphasis added]

    After reading “Aftermath” by Ladislas Farago, it is quite clear that Nuremburg was a “show trial”, just not in the sense that Stolz implies.

    So many high ranking Nazis went unprosecuted and, instead, were permitted to resume profitable German careers and lives that it was almost a travesty of justice. Farago’s book details the conspicuous lack of German interest over apprehending Martin Borman, Hitle’s second in command.

    Anyone who doubts the Holocaust needs to watch the Nova show, Holocaust on Trial. For good or bad, the Nazis were sticklers for details and record keeping. Exacting blueprints were unearthed that incontrovertibly demonstrate how the death camps were specifically designed for the bulk processing of human beings and their corpses. During WW II’s course, approximately one victim per second was murdered in these ghoulish constructions.

    Farago’s book details how Eichman participated in a field group’s execution of some Russian Jews and the personal trauma that this Nazi thug subsequently underwent due to his participation. German soldiers assigned to the death squads all displayed symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) after committing these mass murders.

    THE DEATH CAMPS WERE SPECIFICALLY CREATED AS A WAY OF CIRCUMVENTING TROOPS EXPERIENCING THE TRAUMA INVOLVED IN SLAUGHTERING HUMAN LIFE ON SUCH A VAST SCALE.

    While it can be debated whether Holocaust Denial is a crime, it’s certainly understandable why it is in Germany. Further, Holocaust Denial is symptomatic of a deeper and, possibly, criminal mentality. Holocaust Deniers deserve being strapped down and forced to view Alain Resnais’ Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog).

    gatesofvienna: Whenever i hear British muslims refer to themselves as the Jews of Europe, knowing what i know a terrible anger builds inside of me.

    Yet further proof of how Muslims are utterly immune to irony. There is no irony in how Europe’s Muslims are readying themselves for the cattle cars. The stark aggression and violent predation inflicted wherever they go literally requires their victim cultures to use any and all means of self-defense.

    The key difference being that Europe’s Jews, Gypsies, disabled and homosexuals had no plot to take over the world and were unjustly murdered merely for being who they were.

    No such innocence can be assigned to Europe’s Muslim population or the ummah as a whole. They are the willing inheritors of genocide writ large and have been its avid practitioners since the inception of Islam.

    The only tragedy of the coming Muslim holocaust is that they themselves could have avoided it but adamantly refused to moderate their own mandate to impose Global Cultural Genocide on our world. Let their epitaph be one word: Hubris.

  13. For gits and shiggles, here’s a piece I wrote a few years back. It is of direct pertinence to this thread and continues to be relevant even now. Comments and observations are invited.

    —————————–

    A Tool to Fight Islamofacism – The Nazi Similarities

    I have been working on how to convincingly argue against the rise of jihadist Islam with less informed people that I know. The rise of Islamist terrorism represents such a virulent threat to our world’s stability that I have resolved to devise a tool whereby moral relativism and multiculturalism can be put paid. The single most persuasive feature whereby Islamism can be isolated as the pathological meme it has become is by showing the immense commonality shared by it and Nazism.

    I invite all readers to participate in this assessment. There is a wealth of historical and political expertise residing here that can very ably assist in proving or disproving this idea, and I’d really enjoy developing such a concept if it is of worth. What follows are a dozen of the principal similarities and shared beliefs that I find these two murderous ideologies have in common:

    Foremost among them is the pursuit of genocide, no other single feature should overshadow the menace connoted by this filthy goal.

    1) The way Islamists seek to recreate Hitler’s “final solution” and routinely speak of “finishing the job” begun by the Nazis as reflected in connections between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini, Yasser Arafat and Adolph Hitler. This vile goal and its counterpart, Holocaust Denial, represent a central feature of these evil ideologies.

    2) To this day, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains among one of the best-selling books in the Middle East. The popularity of Hitler’s writings is a direct reflection of its shared content with the qur’an.

    3) Restoration of lost glory with respect to the Caliphate or the reconstruction of post-WWI Germany’s Reich both represent similar goals whose attainment would mean death on a massive scale for the globe’s population.

    4) Assigning blame to the Jews for lack of success is used as a misdirection and scapegoat with regard to the actual faults of poor leadership or failed military adventurism.

    5) Cultural purity as a dominant theme of philosophical chauvinism to elevate existing ideology above any possible dissent or questioning as personified by German “übermensch” or Islamic jihadist mentality.

    6) The tacit approval shown by both moderate Muslims and WWII Germans for absolutism and the atrocities committed in its name despite any infrequent outward condemnation made by either of them.

    7) The impossibility of negotiating with Nazis or Islamists due to their ideological mandates and pursuit of global dominance.

    8) An absolute prohibition of apostasy under penalty of death similar in nature to rigidly enforced ideological purity within Nazi ranks.

    9) The use of atrocities and crimes against humanity as legitimate tools of war.

    10) Commingling religious tenets and fascist doctrine with the intent of disguising political ideology as theistic creed.

    11) The imperative aspect of totally eliminating such a dire threat to world peace. Both Nazism and Islamism are wholly incompatible with modern civilization.

    12) The totally unacceptable nature of appeasing or coexisting with such a dangerous mindset.

    If those who are interested could please condense, clarify or correct any of the above points, I’d be grateful. I seek to establish an undeniable construct whereby average people can both recognize the threat posed by Islamists and argue against them to their fellow citizen. Unfortunately, the collective memory of WWII is fading rapidly from global consciousness but memory of the Holocaust itself is just strong enough to remain in service of this cause.

    If the tide of Islamist fascism is to be stemmed, we will need to develop tools like the one I am mentioning here. I make no claim of inventing this notion, but seek to solidify it such that ordinary people can gain a better understanding of the threat and share it more clearly with others around them.

  14. gatesofvienna, I agree with you completely. And thanks for the link–it’s very interesting.

    teacher.paris, I wasn’t trying to say that you necessarily espoused the ideas of the person whose quotes you posted. I just get frustrated with people who deny the Holocaust (again, I’m not saying you do).

    Zenster, your comments are interesting as usual. The trial at Nuremberg was the first of its kind, and therefore wasn’t perfect. It had good aspects and bad aspects. One of the good aspects was how quite a few of the defendants got the death penalty. I wish that precedent were still present in some international courts. But loads of Nazis were never prosecuted, which is bad. And the involvement of the Russians is questionable in my eyes. They committed some very nasty atrocities during the war, such as the Katyn Massacre. I don’t really think they were in a position to judge.

    And I really like the piece you wrote in your second comment.

  15. Ok, nevermind, Wiki answered my question. Here it is, in case anybody was wondering how those Turkic muslims got into the SS:

    “The Turkestan Legion (German: Turkistanische Legion) was the name for the military units comprised of the “freiwillige” Turkic peoples who fought in the German Army during World War II. Most of these troops were Red Army POWs, who opted to fight for the Nazis in the hopes of establishing an independent state in Central Asia after the war.

    Although Turkic peoples had been perceived initially as “racially inferior”, this attitude officially already changed in the Autumn 1941, when the Nazis attempted to harness the anti-Russian sentiment of Turkic peoples in Russia for political gain. The first “Turkistan Legion” was mobilized in May 1942, originally consisting of only one battalion but having been expanded to 16 battalions and 16,000 soldiers by 1943. Under the Wehrmacht’s command, these units were mobilized exclusively on the Western front, isolating them from the Red Army, on the war fronts of France and north Italy.

    Much of the Turkestan Legion was ultimately imprisoned by British forces and repatriated into Russia, where they would face persecution and reprisals by the Russian government in the wake of the conflict, for having fought alongside the fascist forces.”

  16. It’s funny that many of you are using this article as an excuse to further scapegoat Muslims and Islam as “pure evil.” By your same (lack thereof) logic, being anti-religious is pure evil because people such as Stalin and Pol Pot were anti-religious.

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