Operation Keelhaul (keelhaul – drag under the keel, punishment applied in the English navy) is present a virtually forgotten crime committed already after the end of planet War II by the English on those citizens of the erstwhile USSR who joined Hitler in the fight against Bolshevikism. The action was declared secret and kept secret (also in the West) until the 1970s, by which Alexander Solzhenitsyn called it "the last secret of the Second planet War". Operation Keelhaul was the consequence of the Yalta Agreements providing, inter alia, that the Western Allies would hand over to the USSR authorities all its citizens. The exact evidence of this “bloody agreement” was: “...to release to the russian Union all persons, besides against their will, and, if necessary, by force, which on September 1, 1939 were citizens of the russian Union or on June 22, 1941, were soldiers of the Red Army and were imprisoned in German uniforms or as voluntary allies of Germans.”
The Cossacks are laying down weapons. Austria May-June 1945/Kadr from the movie "Józef Mackiewicz. In search of the truth.”Churchill and Roosevelt agreed with the demands of the russian leader, although they most likely figured out what the destiny of the people they spent. The most crucial interests of England and the United States were (as always) and that respective tens of thousands of people would die... Stalin said, "It's just statistics."
Stalin sought revenge on all the citizens of the USSR, who (in his opinion) betrayed their homeland due to the fact that they raised their hand on the Bolshevik power fighting in the German-formed units. For him, the traitors were besides prisoners – soldiers of the Red Army who got into German captivity. Stalin besides treated russian forced laborers with large distrust, who could “infect themselves” with Western ideals.
Operation Keelhaul was culminated in an action called the “Tragedy in the Drawa Valley” launched at dawn on June 1, erstwhile the English forcibly expelled Stalin (total) almost 43 1000 soldiers and civilians collaborating with Hitler. These were mostly units formed in Italy, and which had penetrated Austria to lay down their weapons against the Allies. Among the Soviets were soldiers of the Ukrainian 14th SS Grenadiers Division, the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps, Cossack State, the Caucasian SS Combat Union, and high-ranking officers: Andrei Szkuro, Piotr Krasnow, Timofey Domanov and Sultan Girej-Klycz. It should be added that the Soviets besides received civilians from rolling stock: women, children, old people, clergymen. The English even expelled Stalin to Tsar's Russian citizens who emigrated to the West, and after the outbreak of the war – to fight Bolshevikism – decided to cooperate with Hitler. The English did not consider that the Tsaric refugees were never russian citizens (only citizens of France or England).
On the drama of the release of the full powerful anti-bolshevik Cossack camp in the Drawy Valley, in the first days of June 1945 (in which respective twelve people were killed and suicides issued to the Soviets of people), Józef Mackiewicz wrote in his fresh “Contra” – a large author and a staunch anti-communist.
It is worth reminding here (for: Our history.pl) the pacification of the largest Cossack camp by the English: "On 1 June 1945, at dawn, the Cossacks set off with a large procession which headed towards the field chapel in Paggetz. The praying crowd of Englishmen surrounded them with soldiers and tanks. There was already a train at the railway station, and many trucks in the drainage. Shortly after prayer, the English threw themselves at a crowd that began to flee: into the mountains or jumping consecutive to Drawa. The brutal ‘repatriation’ lasted until 5 p.m. At least a fewer twelve people died in the camp. English soldiers did not hesitate to shoot the opposition Cossacks or stab them with bayonets. Among the victims were women, aged and children. Many were beaten to death with wooden batons, many drowned in Drawa. The English have finished on June 2. The image of the Kozak tragedy in the Drawa valley was completed by local Austrian villagers, robbing the Cossack camp. According to the NKVD reports of 15 June 1945, the vocab towards Stalin the British in Austria alone in the period 28 May – 7 June gave the Soviets 42,913 Cossacks, including 16 generals. Nearly 70 percent of the officers were not russian citizens and as agreed in Yalta were not subject to “repatriation”.
What was the destiny of the captives? any Soviets shot at the scene, it is in their (Austrian) business zone. Only a fewer survived the play. The operation was considered classified and present seems to be a forgotten crime – not to say silent. (Until the question is raised erstwhile the English will release secret papers concerning Poland from their archives.)
One of the fewer anti-bolshevik troops who failed to get into russian hands was General Poliakov, who in 1949 wrote to General Denisov, an Ataman in America: “The future historian will give an impartial verdict on this bitter tragedy, a judgement on these representatives ’Proud Albion’, who have disgraced the ruler of the seas in the past and who are unworthy to call themselves members of the modern civilized human race."
Who present remembers Operation Keelhaul, or hell, which the English prepared to those who surrendered to them to avoid Stalin's vengeance and whom the English had told (they gave Cossacks the word of honor to an English officer) that they would not be given to the Soviets? Poles know precisely what it was like to keep their word by England and France in 1939. It is worth remembering the words of de Gaulle, who claimed that “people have friends, nations—never” and Tony Blair, who, during his office, utilized to say something like this: “we English never follow emotions, but practice”...
More about Operation Keelhaul in the movie “Józef Mackiewicz. In Search of Truth” (since 36 min.).
