Andrei Grigoriyevich Shkuro (; ; – 17 January 1947) was a Russian military officer of Cossack origin. He was a

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...

(1919) of the White Army, and later a Nazi collaborator.

Biography

Early life

He was born in the ''

stanitsa A stanitsa or stanitza ( ; ), also spelled stanycia ( ) or stanica ( ), was a historical administrative unit of a Cossack host, a type of Cossack polity that existed in the Russian Empire. Etymology The Russian word is the diminutive of the word ...

'' of Pashkovskaya (now part of Krasnodar) in Kuban Oblast into a Cossack family. Shkuro graduated from Cossack Sotnya of the Nikolaevsky Cavalry School in 1907 and served in the Kuban Cossack Host. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Shkuro became the commander of a special partisan unit which executed several daring raids behind German lines. During the war, Shkuro was promoted to the rank of

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

for his heroic performance.

Russian Civil War

In the spring of 1918, after the establishment of the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

régime, Shkuro organized an anti-Bolshevik Cossack unit in the area of Batalpashinsk in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

. In May and June 1918 he raided Stavropol, Yessentuki and Kislovodsk. After officially joining Denikin's Volunteer Army, he became the commander of the Kuban Cossacks

brigade A brigade is a major tactical military unit, military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute ...

which soon increased in size and became a division. In May 1919 Shkuro, as a young lieutenant-general, had a whole cavalry

corps Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was formally introduced March 1, 1800, when Napoleon ordered Gener ...

of Cossacks under his command. Shkuro, though charismatic and audacious, showed bravery which often bordered on the reckless; he received several wounds, and also acquired a reputation for his cunning. Many in the White Army's high command, however, considered him undisciplined and somewhat of a "loose cannon". According to Soviet historians his forces (including his chief of staff Yakov Slashchov) were particularly cruel and prone to looting. In contrast, in his memoirs (which Shkuro dictated in 1921) he describes many instances in which he spared the lives of enemies, including even Bolshevik

commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and ...

s (whom the Whites usually summarily executed). Shkuro claimed that he saved from execution a Red Army

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers. A battalion is commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several Company (military unit), companies, each typically commanded by a Major (rank), ...

of Jewish volunteers taken prisoner by the Whites, and that he spoke out against and prevented

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s against the Jewish population. ''Beloye Delo, Drozdovtsi i Partizani''(''White Cause''), Moskva Golos 1996, A.G. Shkuro, ''Zapiski Belogo Partizana'' (''Notes by a White Partisan'') p. 224-226. When Denikin's volunteer army took

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

in August 1919, however, it inflicted a large-scale pogrom on the Jews. Over 20,000 people died in two days of violence. After these events, Supresskin, the representative of the

Kharkov Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

Jewish community, spoke to Shkuro, who stated to him bluntly that "Jews will not receive any mercy because they are all Bolsheviks". Dr Sergeichuk, V. Symon Petliura kak protyvnyk Yevreyskykh Pogromov (Symon Petlura in opposition to Jewish Pogroms, Zerkalo Nedeli, No. 21 (86) 25 — 31 May 1996 Although the White Army general Pyotr Wrangel valued initiative he also demanded discipline from his subordinates. Wrangel ended up disliking Shkuro, and upon reorganizing the army Wrangel did not give him a command position; this prompted Shkuro's resignation. Shkuro claimed that to the detriment of the anti-Bolshevik cause, both Denikin and Wrangel did not sufficiently understand Cossack society, and that as a result some of their decisions alienated the Cossacks — even though the White Cossacks remained deeply hostile to the policies of the Bolsheviks.

In exile

After the defeat of the Whites, Shkuro lived as an exile, primarily in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

. For the first few years he and a few other Cossack partners, displaying their great horsemanship, performed in circuses as trick riders across Europe. In addition, he continued to conduct

anti-Soviet Anti-Sovietism or anti-Soviet sentiment are activities that were actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union. Three common uses of the term include the following: * Anti-Sovietism in inter ...

activities. Russian

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social exile or self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French verb ''émigrer'' meaning "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Hugueno ...

memoirs depict Shkuro as a very lively man who enjoyed social gatherings with plenty of dancing, singing, drinking, and vivid storytelling about times past.

Second World War

In 1941, Shkuro agreed to be one of the organizers of anti-Soviet Cossack units consisting of White émigrés and Soviet (mostly Cossack) prisoners of war in alliance with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. He, along with many other exiles, hoped that this would lead to the eventual destruction of the Soviet Union. In 1944, Shkuro was placed in command of the "Cossack Reserve", which were primarily deployed in Yugoslavia against the partisans. In 1945, Shkuro was detained by the British forces in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and handed over to the Soviet authorities in Operation Keelhaul. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced Andrei Shkuro to death. On 17 January 1947, he was executed, together with Pyotr Krasnov, by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

References