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Operation Keelhaul was a forced repatriation of Russian civilians (non-Soviet citizens) and Soviet citizens to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. While forced repatriation focused on
Soviet Armed Forces The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and t ...
POWs A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
of
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
and Russian Liberation Army members, it included other Soviet citizens under Allied control.
Refoulement Non-refoulement () is a fundamental principle of international law that forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which they would be in likely danger of persecution based on "race, religion, nationality, member ...
, the forced repatriation of people in danger of persecution, is a human rights violation and breach of international law. Thus, Operation Keelhaul has been called a war crime, especially in regards to the many civilians forced into Soviet work camps, many of whom had never been Soviet citizens, having fled Russia before the end of the
Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...
. The operation was carried out in
Northern Italy Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative region ...
and
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
by British and
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
forces between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947. Anti-communist Yugoslavs and Hungarians, including members of the fascist
Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
regime that ran the Jasenovac concentration camp, were also forcibly repatriated to their respective governments. Three volumes of records, entitled "Forcible Repatriation of Displaced Soviet Citizens-Operation Keelhaul," were classified Top Secret by the U.S. Army on September 18, 1948, and bear the secret file number 383.7-14.1.


Yalta Conference

One of the conclusions of the
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
was that the western
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. This immediately affected the liberated Soviet prisoners of war, but also extended to all Soviet citizens, irrespective of their wishes. In exchange, the Soviet government agreed to hand over several thousand western Allied prisoners of war whom they had liberated from German prisoner of war camps.


Treatment of prisoners and refugees

The refugee columns fleeing the Soviet-occupied parts of Europe included
anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
s, civilians, and Nazi collaborators from eastern European countries. They added to the mass of ' displaced persons' from the Soviet Union already in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
, the vast majority of whom were Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers ( Ost-Arbeiter). Soviet subjects who had volunteered for the German Army '' Ostlegionen'' and/or '' Waffen SS'' units were forcibly repatriated. These included Russian
Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
s of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps with their relatives, who were transported from the Western occupation zones of Allied-occupied Austria to the Soviet occupation zones of Austria and
Allied-occupied Germany Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Franc ...
. Among those handed over were White émigré-Russians who had never been Soviet citizens, but who had fought for Nazi Germany against the Soviets during the war, including General Andrei Shkuro and the '' Ataman'' of the Don Cossack host Pyotr Krasnov. This was done despite the official statement of the British Foreign Office policy after the Yalta Conference, that only Soviet citizens who had been such after 1 September 1939, were to be compelled to return to the Soviet Union or handed over to Soviet officials in other locations (see the Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II). The actual "Operation Keelhaul" was the last forced repatriation and involved the selection and subsequent transfer of approximately one thousand "Russians" from the camps of
Bagnoli Bagnoli is a western seaside quarter of Naples, Italy, well beyond the confines of the original city. It is beyond Cape Posillipo and, thus, looking on the coast of the Bay of Pozzuoli. Industrialization and World War II Bagnoli was one o ...
,
Aversa Aversa () is a city and '' comune'' in the Province of Caserta in Campania, southern Italy, about 24 km north of Naples. It is the centre of an agricultural district, the ''Agro Aversano'', producing wine and cheese (famous for the typical ...
,
Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the ci ...
, and Riccione. Applying the "McNarney-Clark Directive", subjects who had served in the German Army were selected for shipment, starting on 14 August 1946. The transfer was codenamed "East Wind" and took place at St. Valentin in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
on 8 and 9 May 1947. This operation marked the end of forced repatriations to the Soviet Union after World War II, and ran parallel to '' Operation Fling'' that helped Soviet defectors to escape from the Soviet Union. On the other side of the exchange, the Soviet leadership found out that despite the demands set forth by Stalin, British intelligence was retaining a number of anti-Communist
prisoners A prisoner (also known as an inmate or detainee) is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement, captivity, or forcible restraint. The term applies particularly to serving a prison sentence in a prison. ...
under orders from Churchill, with the intention of reviving " anti-Soviet operations". The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, which was recruited from Ukrainians in
Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...
were not repatriated, ostensibly because Galicia had belonged to Poland prior to September 1939, but in reality because MI6 wished to use the prisoners in future operations. The officer in charge of screening the 14th Division for war criminals, Fitzroy Maclean, admitted in an interview in 1989 that it was "fairly clear that there was every probability that there were war criminals amongst them", but argued that in the context of the Cold War, such men were needed to fight against the Soviet Union. On 23 March 1947, the United Kingdom granted asylum to the entire 14th Division, whose men were subsequently settled in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The Soviet government protested against this decision, stating that most of the men in the division had previously served in German police units in Galicia and were deeply involved in perpetrating war crimes, but using a brief written by
Pavlo Shandruk Pavlo Feofanovich Shandruk ( uk, Павло Шандрук, pl, Pawło Szandruk, February 28, 1889 in Volhynia – February 15, 1979 in Trenton, New Jersey) was a general in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic, a colonel of the ...
, an officer in the division as its basis, the Foreign Office issued a statement denying the 14th division had been involved in war crimes.


Critics

British historian and monarchist
Nikolai Tolstoy Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (russian: Граф Николай Дмитриевич Толстой-Милославский; born 23 June 1935), known as Nikolai Tolstoy, is a British monarchist and historian. He is a former ...
described the scene of Americans returning to the
internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
after delivering a shipment of people to the Soviet authorities: "The Americans returned to
Plattling Plattling is a town in the district of Deggendorf, Bavaria, Germany, on the river Isar, 9 km southwest of Deggendorf, just before it enters the Danube. Attractions Romanesque Jewel – Church Saint Jakob Romanesque pillars basilica with ...
visibly shamefaced. Before their departure from the rendezvous in the forest, many had seen rows of bodies already hanging from the branches of nearby trees." Notably, his accounts have been widely disputed by historians, who pointed out his reliance on three partial eyewitness accounts 40 years afterwards.
Nigel Nicolson Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician. Early life and education Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben ...
, a former British Army captain, was Tolstoy's chief witness in the libel action brought by Lord Aldington. In 1995, he wrote:
Fifty years ago I was a captain in the British Army, and with others I supervised the Jugoslav (Yugoslav) 'repatriation', as it was euphemistically called. We were told not to use force, and forbidden to inform them of their true destination. When they asked us where they were going, we replied that we were transferring them to another British camp in Italy, and they mounted the trains without suspicion. As soon as the sliding doors of the cattle-trucks were padlocked, our soldiers withdrew and Tito's partisans emerged from the station building where they had been hiding, and took over command of the train. The prisoners and refugees could see them through cracks in the boarding, and began hammering on the insides of the wagons, shouting abuse at us for having betrayed them, lied to them, and sentenced at least the men among them to a grotesque death. There is now no doubt about their hideous fate, and to those of us on the spot there was little doubt then. Shortly after the first trainloads had been despatched, we heard the stories of the few survivors who escaped back to Austria, and thousands of manacled skeletons have since been disinterred in Slovenian pits.
Ghinghis Guirey, an American on one of the repatriation screening teams, reported:
The most unpleasant aspect of this unpleasant business was the fear these people displayed. Involuntarily one began to look over one's shoulder. I heard so many threats to commit suicide from people who feared repatriation that it became almost commonplace. And they were not fooling.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repr ...
called this operation "the last secret of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
." He contributed to a legal defense fund set up to help Tolstoy, who was sued for
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...
in a 1989 case brought by Lord Aldington over war crimes allegations made by Tolstoy related to this operation. Tolstoy lost the case in the British courts; he avoided paying damages by declaring bankruptcy.


See also

*
Swedish extradition of Baltic soldiers The Swedish extradition of Baltic soldiers, or simply the Extradition of the Balts ( sv, Baltutlämningen), was a controversial political event that took place in January 1946, in the aftermath of World War II when Sweden, a neutral country ...
* Western betrayal * Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II * Bleiburg repatriations * Collaboration during World War II * Russian Liberation Army * Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war * XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps


References


Books

*


Further reading

*Tolstoy, Nikolai. '' Victims of Yalta'', originally published in London, 1977. Revised edition 1979. *Epstein, Julius. ''Operation Keelhaul'', Devin-Adair, 1973.


External links


Return to the scene of the crime
Rutland Herald Online {{World War II Aftermath of World War II in the United Kingdom Aftermath of World War II in the United States Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union American collusion with Soviet World War II crimes British collusion with Soviet World War II crimes People extradited to the Soviet Union Post–World War II forced migrations Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations Soviet Union–United States relations