GULAG Operation
Anti-Soviet military operation in Siberia
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The GULAG Operation was a German military operation in which German and Soviet anti-communist troops were to create an anti-Soviet resistance movement in Siberia during World War II by liberating and recruiting prisoners of the Soviet GULAG system. Despite ambitious plans, only a small group of former Soviet POWs was airlifted to the Komi Republic in June 1943. Members of the group were captured or killed days after landing.
| GULAG Operation | |
|---|---|
| Part of Operation Zeppelin | |
A punishment cell block in one of the subcamps of Vorkutlag. The GULAG Operation planned to liberate prisoners from camps like Vorkutlag in the Komi ASSR and recruit them for anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare. | |
| Type | Guerrilla warfare |
| Location | |
| Planned | Mid-1942 |
| Planned by | Soviet POWs in German captivity |
| Commanded by | Ivan Georgievich Bessonov Mikhael Meandrov |
| Objective | Instigate a guerrilla war in Siberia against Soviet authorities |
| Date | 2–9 June 1943 |
| Outcome | Operational failure
|
| Casualties | 4 (2 in June 1943, Bessonov and Meandrov after end of war) |
Ambitious plans
The plan was designed in mid-1942 by Soviet POWs in German captivity in the Hammelburg POW camp, primarily by an NKVD officer, Brigade Commander Ivan Georgievich Bessonov,[1][2] and a Red Army officer, Colonel Mikhael Meandrov.[3] 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.[1][2][3]
The plan called for the creation of insurgent activity in the extensive region from the Northern Dvina River to the Yenisey and from the extreme north to the Trans-Siberian 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) and eastern (from the Ob River to the Yenisey).[3] 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.[1][2]
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.[1] 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.[3]
On 2 June 1943, the first group of 12 former Soviet POWs, trained by the Germans and dressed in NKVD uniforms, were airdropped in the Komi Republic. On 9 June, the group was however detected (two killed, rest taken prisoner) by real NKVD troops.[1][2][3]
Soon after this failure, the Germans decided to abandon the operation. The anti-communist group that Bessonov founded in the POW camp was disbanded, and he himself was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[1][3] 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.[2][3]
See also
- Anti-Soviet partisans
- Other Axis-affiliated anti-communist guerrillas:
- List of uprisings in the Gulag
- Yugoslav Partisans, a communist-led World War II resistance movement