honestly id not be suprised if the infromation about deserters joining ith the soviets being heavily suppressed/classsified.
Fritz Schmenkel was born in Stettin (today Szczecin, Poland) in 1916. His father, Paul Krause, a brickyard worker and communist, was murdered by SA members in 1932. This caused Fritz to join the Young Communist League of Germany.
After working in several different jobs, Schmenkel was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in December 1938. There, he was trained to become a Kanonier. His dislike of military discipline, opposition to Nazism and being absent without leave led to him being imprisoned several times, culminating in a sentence of 18 months' imprisonment, which he served in a military prison in Torgau. In July 1941, after the beginning of Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Schmenkel volunteered to fight on the Eastern Front, and he was released from prison.
While serving in Belarus in November 1941, Schmenkel deserted and went into hiding near the village of Podmoshe (Yartsevsky District, Smolensk Oblast). He made contact with a Soviet partisan unit named "Death to Fascism". Despite their initial suspicions and repeated interrogations, Schmenkel convinced the partisans that he had a genuine desire to fight against the Nazis. He won their trust by killing a German soldier who, by coincidence, attempted to set fire to the house where the partisans had their base. Schmenkel was accepted as a member of the partisans, who gave him the nom de guerre "Ivan Ivanovich" (or Vanya – the short form of Ivan).
Schmenkel proved himself to be valuable to the partisans; wearing captured German uniforms, including one belonging to a Wehrmacht general, Schmenkel led German military units into ambushes arranged by the partisans. This helped the partisans capture entire units of Wehrmacht soldiers, as well as ammunition and food. Schmenkel quickly rose through the ranks of the partisans. In March 1943, he travelled to Moscow at the behest of the Red Army, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and received further military training. He was appointed deputy commander of a special operations (sabotage and intelligence) unit, which operated in a German occupied area north of the city of Orsha.
In December 1943, Schmenkel was captured by German forces. He was taken to Minsk, where a German military court sentenced him to death on 15 February 1944; he was executed by firing squad a week later.[1][2]
what a fucking legend
Communists have a proud history of telling Nazis to fuck off
Amazing how they went ahead with that after the precedent of the 999th division
Uncritical support to the worms that live in fascists' brains
Imagine spending years wanting nothing more than freedom and the ability to oppose the nazis, then they just hand you a gun. I'm suprised they even got to the front.
Wait? You're telling me the memo said, "Let's send the communists to fight WITH the Soviets?"
Oh cra....
You're all talking shit, but this is a really good idea if you don't think about it.
Yeah the idea was to make them fight against their comrades to break their will, turns out they'd fight with their comrades lol.
Also it was just 800 people? My dad knew one of them, he later got into trouble because there were obviously pictures of him in Wehrmacht uniform and the French threw him in jail because of that :sadness:
Imagine being imprisoned by the Nazis for years just for the war to end and the French throwing you in jail for a few months until the misunderstanding comes to light
the captain gets a dollar, I get a dime, thats why I revolt on company time
defection was is always a choice for all those nazi soldiers "just doing their jobs"
Tbh there was a solid chance you give communists a gun they'd immediately try and kill other communists
