The GULAG Operation was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

military operation in which German and Soviet anti-communist troops were to create an anti-Soviet

resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized group of people that tries to resist or try to overthrow a government or an occupying power, causing disruption and unrest in civil order and stability. Such a movement may seek to achieve its goals through ei ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

during World War II by liberating and recruiting prisoners of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

GULAG The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

system. Despite ambitious plans, only a small group of former Soviet POWs was airlifted to the

Komi Republic The Komi Republic (; ), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia situated in the northeast of European Russia. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Syktyvka ...

in June 1943. Members of the group were captured or killed days after landing.

Ambitious plans

The plan was designed in mid-1942 by Soviet POWs in German captivity in the

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POW camp, primarily by an

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

officer, Brigade Commander , and a

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

officer, Colonel Mikhael Meandrov. The plan, part of the German efforts to create anti-communist resistance behind the Soviet lines, called for a naval and air invasion of Siberia by allied German and anti-Soviet Red Army forces, targeting the GULAG penal system camps, recruiting more anti-Soviet forces from the prisoners, and thus opening a second front in the war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. The plan called for the creation of insurgent activity in the extensive region from the

Northern Dvina River The Northern Dvina (, ; ) is a river in northern Russia flowing through Vologda Oblast and Arkhangelsk Oblast into the Dvina Bay of the White Sea. Along with the Pechora River to the east, it drains most of Northwest Russia into the Arctic Oc ...

to the

Yenisey The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the list of rivers by length, fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal a ...

and from the extreme north to the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway, historically known as the Great Siberian Route and often shortened to Transsib, is a large railway system that connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway ...

. The region of the planned actions was divided into three operational zones: Northern (right shore of the flow of northern Dvina), central (near the

Pechora River The Pechora (; Komi: Печӧра; Nenets: Санэроˮ яха) is the sixth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Northwest Russia and into the Arctic Ocean, it lies mostly in the Komi Republic but the northernmost part crosses the Nenets A ...

) and eastern (from the

Ob River The Ob (; ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia, and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Alta ...

to the Yenisey). Landing force members had to seize the GULAGS, free and arm the prisoners and deportees and move with them in the general direction of the south.

Implementation and aftermath

The plan, part of the larger Operation Zeppelin, was analysed and tentatively approved by the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA) and steps were taken towards implementing it. About 150 Soviet POWs were conscripted into the units that were to be used in the operation: two assault groups of 50–55 people each, the group of the radio operators consisting of 20–25 people and the support (medical) female group of 20 people. On 2 June 1943, the first group of 12 former Soviet POWs, trained by the Germans and dressed in

uniforms, were airdropped in the

. On 9 June, the group was however detected (two killed, rest taken prisoner) by real NKVD troops. Soon after this failure, the Germans decided to abandon the operation. The anti-communist group that Bessonov founded in the

POW camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, an ...

was disbanded, and he himself was transferred to the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

. Some of Bessonov's organisation members were employed in other German anti-Soviet operations, without any notable successes. Bessonov and Meandrov survived the war to be executed by the Soviet authorities after being transferred to their custody.

References

External links

Biography of Bessonov

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gulag Operation 1943 in the Soviet Union Battles and operations of the Soviet–German War Collaboration with Nazi Germany Guerrilla wars Gulag Insurgencies in Europe June 1943 in Europe Military operations of World War II involving Germany Rebellions against the Soviet Union Rebellions in the Soviet Union

Ambitious plans

Implementation and aftermath

See also

References

External links