San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks
Faculty Publications Economics
11-1-1974
Operation Keelhaul—Exposed
JEFFREY ROGERS HUMMEL San Jose State University, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation JEFFREY ROGERS HUMMEL. "Operation Keelhaul—Exposed" Reason (1974): 4-9.
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Economics at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Operati~n Keelhaul Expos~d JeffreyRogers Hummel of Tyler Kent, the Sedition Trials, the provoking of the Pearl Harbor attack, the concentration camps for Japanese-Americans, and many others that might be At 5:00 A.M. on Sunday, the sleepy prisoners of mentioned; all are events involving raw and brutal war were abruptly surprised by the glare from state power or perfidy, and yet the details of none of searchlights mounted on tanks surrounding the com them are even today generally known. But of all the pouhd. Soldiers barged in, followed by a convoy of shocking and yet unknown crimes perpetrated by the trucks. The prisoners were lined up, searched, and :u.s. Government during World War II, Operation loaded lying face downward onto the trucks. With Keelhaul ~undoubtedly the most massive. Its well-armed guards beating any of the prisoners who ' victims were e tho sands of refugees, both soldiers moved, the trucks drove to the railhead where .the. and civilians teeing~....the West from the successful prisoners were unloaded i.nto waiting cattle cars. The advance of e Red armies through Eastern Europe. empty trucks returned and picked up load afte~ load. Th$£iwek hoping to escape Communist tycanny and When all 3000 prisoners had been stuffed aboard, the fi lum, but instead they were all collected by train carted them off for eventual transfer to slave the Allied ar111ies and forcibly repatriated into the ' . labor camps or to be executed. The date was anxious arms of the Soviets. Febru ary 1946. The location was Plattl ing, a town in Bavaria, Germany. The prisoners were Russian, but OPERATION KEELHAUL By Julius Epstein. Old the soldiers were not German. They were Americans Greenwich: The Devin·Adair Co. 1973. 255 pp. of the 101st Airborne Division who were engaging in $8.95. an operation that became commonplace in Europe at the close of World War II. For the Russian prisoners were refugees from Stalin's dictatorship, remnants of THE LESSER EVIL the Second KONR Division of Vlasov's anti-Commu · Like the prisoners at Plattling, many of those nist army. They were being repatriated, by force, to forcibly repatriated were Russians who had fought in the Soviet authorities as part of what was officially German uniforms. When the German armies had first labeled, after one of the most severe forms of torture invaded the Soviet Union, many Russians considered ever used aboard sailing ships, OPERATION KEEL the event a golden opportunity for overthrowing HAULI Stalin and liberating Russia. Even after Hitler disillu· Smith Hempstone, in his review of Solzhenitsyn's sioned them by implementing . Rosenberg's cruel and The Gulag Archipelago, 1918·1956, estimates that insane Ostpolitik, there were still a good number who "Not one American in 100,000 has heard of 'Opera· felt that German oppression was the lesser of two tion Keelhaul' ..." So far as I know, until the evils. Further, many officers of the · Wehrmacht publication of Julius Epstein's volume, information disagreed with the Ostpolitik, and it wasn't very long on ' Operation Keelhaul could only be found in this before OKH headquarters was silently tolerating the country in a few scattered articles from newspapers employment of Russian deserters and prisoners of and magazines and also in three books: Our Secret war, first as support troops, where they came to be Allies, Eugene Lyons' history of Russian opposition known as Hilfsfreiwillige, and later as combat troops, to Communism; The East C8me West, Peter J . " who were called Osttruppen. Huxley-Blythe's account of the Cossacks during the In 1uly of 1942, the Germans captured- General War; and The Politician, Robert Welch's treatise on Andrei A. Vlasov, a Soviet war hero who had been Eisenhower. During the. fervor that accompanied the awarded the Order of the' Red Banner for his Second World War, the United States Government successful defense of Moscow from the initial German assumed d ictatorial and awesome powers, even by onslaught. By the time of his capture, Vlasov had today's standards, and that is perhaps why no other become so disenchanted with the Soviet system that period offers so many undisclosed skeletons in the he proposed to the Gelll)ans that they help him closet-scandals covered-up or glossed over. The case recruit and lead a Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armis (ROA), Russian Army of Liberation. VIBSOv's propo .hffrey Rogert Hummel ~ived 8 B.A. in history from sals did succeed in gaining a few concessions from the Grove City Colll!{ltt In 1971. He hM spent the 111ft -1111 yeert Ostpolitik: the Osttruppen were given official sanc in the Al-my, and entertJd gniduete school this fell. tion, recruited until they totaled nearly one million
4 reason november 1974 )
~ men, and even issued ROA insignia. However, the ROA was never allowed to organize above the ). battalion level and, for the most part, was humiliated .
It appears to the appropriate American authori· It was pJ e chance that during the war we found ties who have given most careful consideration ourselves on territory held by the Germans and to this situation, that the clear intention of the took up arms against the Soviet regime with Convention is that prisoners of war shall be German help. We wore German uniforms be treated on the basis of the uniforms they are cause we had no others, but our should er \'Yearing, and ... the containing powers shall not emblems of rank and the badge on our sleeve, look behind the uniforms to determine ultimate the Russian St.. Andrew CroSS"; are all part of our questions of ci~izenship or nationality.... country's age-old tradition. Our men are Rus· sians. We fought for a democratic ideal against There are numerous aliens in the United States the Communist tyranny now gripping our coun· Army, including citizens of enemy countries. try. We are fighting for a political idea and are The United States Government has taken the not traitors or mercenaries. We had only one position that these persons are entitled to the aim. The sacred aim of saving Russia. Had the full protection of the Geneva Convention and Zulus fought against Stalin instead of the Ger· has informed the German Government over a mans, we would have joined them because only year ago that all prisoners of war entitled to one thing matters.,... to destroy Stalin and Com· repatriation under the convention should be munism.(3] november 1974 reason 5 Meanwhile, the First KONR Division had side physicians to attend a special conference with higher stepped into Czechoslovakia, turned on their German British officials. Over 2000 Cossack officers, inclu· allies, and liberated Prague. T hey had done so in ding the very aged Peter Krasnov, who had led the answer to the pleas which the Czech underground had White armies allied with the British during the Civil addressed to the American forces under General War but had not been in Russia since, boarded a Patton but which the Americans were unable to convoy of over 75 vehicles escorted by 25 Bren gun answer because they were being held back on orders carriers, and thl!n were taken, not as they had been from Eisenhower. Since the Red army was close told to a conference, but to the waiting Soviets at behind the KONR troops, however, they quickly Judenburg. Even the Communists were surprised to marched off to SchiUsselburg, Austria. Here they see among their prisoners General Krasnov and so made contact with the American forces, Which many old emigres, and were very pleased at the disarmed them and then left them at the mercy of the unexpected opportunity to take vengeance on their advancing Red army, refusing to let the division flee old enemies. Krasnov and his associates, like Vlasov, through American lines. The unit disintegrated as its were subsequently hanged. members either tried to escape as best they could Back at Leinz, word of the fate of their officers with the Soviet commandos hunting them down, or and of the XV Corps had filtered back to the else committed suicide. remaining Cossacks, who organized a passive resist· Two of Vlasov's generals, Meandrov and Maltzev, ance in which the soldiers and cadets would link arms who had surrendered to the Americans, slit their and form a protective chain around t he older men, wrists when they discovered they were going to be womel), and children. That is what they did at dawn ) repatriated. They were rushed to hospitals and given on June 1st, when the camps were surrounded by expert treatment. After thl!y recovered, they were British Bren gun carriers and armed troops. At a turned over to the Communists. Vlasov himself was signal, the troops advanced into the crowd$ and began being ·transferred to an American headquarters by an clubbing the Cossacks with rifle butts and batons. American convoy when a Red army detachment Those who tried to run away were shot in the feet intercepted the convoy and removed Vlasov and his and legs. The victims were thrown onto a convoy of staff. The fact that the American escort offered no waiting trucks, which took them to the nearby resistance le nds credence to the charge that the rail road siding. As each cattle-car was filled, it was rendevous was prearranged. One year later, Izvestia bound shut with barbed wire and another car was announced that Vlasov a'nd all his major subordinates loaded. Many tried to commit suicide aiong the banks had been hanged. of the Drava river. One woman, who was dragged out .. . downstream and revived, turned out to be a doctor FATE OF THE COSSACKS who had earlier killed her daughter and mother with The victims of Operation Keelhaul included not overdoses of morphine rather than let them suffer only soldiers wearing German uniforms, but also repatriation. Her second attempt at suicide suc civilians, as the fate of the Cossacks illustrates. During ceeded. Isolated British troops, fearing for their lives the War; the German high command took a much in the melee, opened fire. The Bren gun carriers more enthusiastic attitude towards enlisting the sup· advanced to compress the crowds, and one woman port of those U.S.S.R. nationalities that it did not threw her bab.Y and then herself under the tracks to consider Slavic, and therefore Untermenschen. be crushed. Two Cossack men approached a British Among these were Georgians, T urkomens, Cauca· officer and addressed him in Russian. As the officer • sians, etc., but the primary beneficiaries were the asked his interpreter for a translation, both men slit \ Cossacks.( 4] Some 250,000 Cossacks joined the their own throats and ; stumped to the ground, 0 German armies . fighting Stalin, including 80,000 twitchihg and dying. "Our blood is on you and you r organized into the XV Cavalry Corps. When the children," was the.translation of their statement. An German forces were slowly pushed out of Russia, not engineer from Novotcherkassk shot his twelve-year· only did the Cossack troops withdraw, but large old son, his one-year·old daughter, his wife, and then numbers from the Cossack nation went with them. himself. Hundreds killed themselves in various fash· The trek was long and arduous, but at the end of the ions. war nearly 30,000 Cossacks-families, with many All day long the trucks drove between the camps women, children, and ola men- had put themselves and the railroad, and load after load was locked into under the protection of the 11th British Armored the train. Toward evening, 60 freigt1·cars full started Division near Le inz, Austria. They had been joined by their journey to the U.S.S.R. Still more remained in many old Cossack emigres who. had left Russia during the camps, b'Ut the British decided to cease efforts for the Civil Wars from 1917 to 1920 and had since lived the day. The follow ing' day the Cossacks received a in Yugoslavia or Germany. Most of the troops of the respite, but on :June 3rd the·repatriations commenced· r..v Cossack Cavalry Corps had already been repatri · again:" There was a slight change of policy as this time ated at Judenburg, but the Cossacks at Leinz did not the British finally decided to segregate those who had know this when, on May 28, 1945, the British be;en Soviet citizens on September 1, 1939, from the ordered all the Cossack officers, military officials, and old emigres and only repatriate the former. By the
6 reason november 1974 .. end of the 4th, the entire valley had been cleared of glass. They managed somehow to set fire to one refugees; the repatri~~tinns were complete. of their barracks and threw themselves into the flames, having first soaked themselves in spilled EUROPEAN REPATRIATES ~ gasoline.- Ten otth men were burned to death. Citizens of Eastern European co tries (other than There were 275 ses of suicide or attempted Russia) coming under Communist subjugation were suicide. (8)
also victims of Operation Keelhaul. he anti·Commu I nist Croatfan Utashi, fleeing from Tito's partisans, Another report about Oachau was carried in the Stars were disarmed by the Bri~ish at Bleiburg in Austria and Stri'pes for January 26, 1946: and turned over to the Yugoslav dictator.[5} Several thousand Hungarians who had fought the advance of " It just wasn't human," one guard said. "The the Soviet armies retreated and surrendered to the , G.l.'s quickly cut down those who hanged Americans. They were repatriated to Budapest where thef"(lselves from rafters. Those who were still many were publicly e~ecuted.[6} · conscious were screaming in Russian, pointing .. .· As the dust settled on defeated Germany, the first a' the guns of the guards and then at Allied armies started the huge task of herding themselves, begging·to be shot." together all the prisoners of war and refugees and concentrating them in OP1(Displaced Persons) camps. "Even when we were trying to help and send Many had in their possession Allied leaflets dropped them to hospitals they refused to live. One had from the air which branded as a lie the Nazi charges stabbed himself in the chest and seemed almost that prisoners would be shipped to Russia. Neverthe out when we put him on a litter and loaded him less, special repatriation teams of Allied and Soviet onto a truck. Every time he moved blood officials went through the camps questioning and spurted from the wound. Two MP's could not screening in order to sort out all who might have been subdue him. Two of them· broke their billies residents of the Soviet Un io n or the Eastern Europe· hitting him on the head." [9} an countries. Those to be repatriated were sent to special camps which were policed by British and Such horror scenes wer~ the rule in L) ndreds of \ . American troops under the supervision of Soviet other DP camp's all over Germany, 1t.:i";, France, officials, who insured that any anti-Communist Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In fact, Operation propaganda or activity was suppressed. In Julyl1945, Keelhaul even reached the 'United States. Many the operation of the DP camps was- t.ransferred"from Russians were brought as prisoners of war to camps the G·5 of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied chiefly in ldahd. At the end of the war, they were all Expeditionary Force) to UNRRA (United Nations boarded on Soviet ships at Seattle and Portland Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). Herbert except for almost 200 who had put UR. tl)e most Lehman and later Fiorella LaGuardia, as heads of violent resistance and were instead move"d to Fort UNRRA, assumed the task of forced repatriation Oix, N.J. There, another attempt was made to with the same enthusiasm that they displayed when repatriate them in w'hich the MP's used,tear-gas. The using UNRRA funds to finance the solidification of three who committed suicide are buried . in the the Lublin Gang's hold on Poland. National ·Cemetery at Salem, N.J. The remainder, Ghinghis Guirey, an American on one of the when forced aboard the Soviet vessel, rioted and screening teams, reported: dismantled the ship's engines with their bare hands. The ship could not leave port, ·so the. Russian The most· unpleasant aspect of this unpleasant prisoners were returned to Fort Oix. Finally, the business was the fear these people displayed. American authorities made a third attempt at repatri· Involuntarily one began to look over one's ation by surreptitously mixing barbiturates into the shoulder. I heard so many threa~ to commit prisoners' coffee and loading them on a Soviet ship suicide from people who feared repatriation that while they were unconscious. The third attempt it became almost commonplace. And they were succeeded. not fooling. [7) The r.nany Polish officers serving in Italy with Polish units loyal to the Mikolajczyk government in exile in Another observer, a priest, confirmed the attempts at England committed suicide when they realized that suicide when the day for repatriation came at the DP they would be repatriated to the authority of Stalin's camp at Dachau: · · Lublin Gang. In short, the Allied armies tracked down everyone In Oachau, where' there were no prisoners of war who could conceivably be construed as a Russian or but just ordinary d,eportees, Ostarbeiter, Ameri· Eastern European citizen-men, women,.and children, cans ordered them handcuffed in order to tuni soldiers and civilians, · those who had fought with them over more conveniently. The unfortuniue Germany and th~ who had fought against Germany men, driven \ to desperation, smashed window -collected them together and brutally handed 'them panes with their heads and cut their throats with over to Stalin and his minions. It is estimated that
november 1974 reason 7 7 ' \ f between two to five million victirns were i n~olvedl . ~ Italian, and W~ German Governments up to the The excuse of tho$e who participated in and executed ·{fi1o incident involving Kodirka, the Lithuanian o'peration Keelhaul was that they were "acting i;inder seaman;· and relates the entire issue to international orders," that forced repatriation was required by the law and the Geneva Convention. He concludes that Yalta Agreement. However. 8$ Epstein conclusively forced repatriation, under any circumstances, is a demonstrates, the Yalta Agreements; while calling for "crime against humanity, violating international law a system ()f repatriation;· said absolutely nothing and humanitarian principles." [ 1 1) Although a truly about the use of force, and furthermore, Operation comprehensive account of Operation Keelhaul will Keelhaul was already in full swing in June 1944, eight probably have to await the release of the official months prior to Yalta. documents, Epstein has certainly performed a great ' service by publishing a book, the first exclusively WHO WAS TO BLAME? devoted to the subject, that may finally bring Welch and Huxley-Blythe, in their previous ac· Operation Keelhaul to the attention of the American counts, have asserted that the ind ividual bearing the public. primary responsibility for originating and implement· ing Operation Keelhaul was the commander of IMPLICATIONS SHAE F, Genera l Eisenhower. Epstein avoids making To libertarians, Operation K!!elhaul is significant any final assessment of guilt, but much of his for two reasons. First, it represents an instructive case evidence s upports and none of it contradicts those study of the fantastic power that even a supposed ly accusing ·Eisenhower. Whatever Eisenhower's initial democratic state can ruthlessly wield during wartime. c ulpabi lity, it was certainly compounded by the Not only were the Allied governments able to distortions of the truth about the affair that he perpetrate the crime, but afterwards, they were able published in his book, Crusaae in Europe: to impose what Harry Elmer Barnes has appropriately called an "historical blackout" so effective that it These policies and agreementS [Yalta] we first lasted for nearly '30 years. Secondly, it is a chilling tried to apply without deviation, but we qu ickly comment on the motives of those who ran the u:s. saw that their_...rigid application wou ld often Go~ernment at the time and, by implication, on those violate the fundamental humanitarian principles who run it now. It is fashionable, even among we espoused. Thereafter we gave any indiv idual libertarians, to laugh off' e)( planations which ascribe who objected to · return the benefit of the evi l and deceitfu l (as opposed to well-meaning but doubt. [10] misguided) motives to our political masters in Wash· ington as "conspiracy theory. " However, no one has Incidents at the DP camps in Rimini and Pisa in Italy · yet produced a satisfactory explanation of · how indicate that Operation Keelhaul W/lS still being Operation Keelhaul resulted from misguided idealism enforced at least as la.te as,1947, long after Eisenhow. or liberal b lindness, It seems, at least to me, that any er had moved up from SHAEF to the Joint Chiefs of explanation that falls short of including clandestine Staff. · Soviet-American collusion at some level is obviously The reason, of course, that the responsib ility for inadequate. Operation Keelhaul remains so obscure is that all the Be that as it may, it is interesting in conclusion to relevant documents still remain locked up and inac· observe that the Soviets do not share the U.S . cessi.ble. Three volumes of records; entitled "Forcible' Gove rnment's reticence about publicizing Keelhau.l. Repatriation of Displaced Soviet Citizens-Operation When the U.S.S. R. Government released several hun Keelhaul," were classified Top Secret by the U.S. dred survivors of forced repatriation in 1955-after Army on September 18, 1948,.and bear the secret file 10 years in Siberian slave-labor camps-a Russian number 383.7·14. 1. Other documents are being held newspaper carried the follow ing: under .wraps in the UNRRA Archives by the U.N. Seeretariat and in the British Archives by the British We have let "them" out [referring to the old Government. Epstein, who earlier.was instrumental in Cossack emigres] and we have forgiven "our uncovering the truth about the Katyn Forest massa own" [referring to the Vlasov soldiers] . c.re, has been attempting for 20 years, . since 1954, to get the .veil of secrecy removed from· the Keelhaul Whether they were Vlasov men or prisoners of documents. So far, h is efforts, including a suit under war who did not want to return to the mother· the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, have land does not matter 'now. All their sins have proven fru itless: been forgiven . . Consequently, the account in Epstein's book is far from complete and even slightly disjointed. He has But the English and American bayonets, trun· pieced together reports from partic ipants, eyewit · cheons, machine guns and tanks used against nesses, and 5urviving victims to give a few incidents them will never be forgotten. and Jhen fitted them into a narrative that brings forced rep~tr i ation through the policies of the Austri · No Russian will ever fo rget Lienz, Dachau ,
8 reason november 1974 Plattling, Toronto, and other places of extradi· (3) Quoted by Peter •J. H uxley·Biythe, The Em Came Wert (C