Russian Corps - Formation

Formation

General Mikhail Skorodumov, a veteran of the White movement, referred to the German occupational forces, asking for permission to form an armed "Separate Russian Corps" which would defend the Russian population against the communist partisans. In return for being armed and supplied by the Germans, Skorodumov set forth six conditions:

1. Only one commander of the Corps is responsible to the German command. All units and ranks of the Corps are responsible only to the commander of the Corps, who is confirmed by the German command, and the leaders that are picked by the commander of the Corps.
2. Units of the Russian Corps cannot be integrated into German units, they are entirely independent.
3. The Russian corps wears the old Russian uniform, the materials for which must come from the old Serbian supplies.
4. The officers of the corps do not make any oaths.
5. When the Corps finishes its formation and communism in Serbia is defeated, the German command transfers the Corps to the Eastern Front.
6. The Russian Corps may not be used against any government, nor against the Serbian national forces of Draža Mihailović.

In point 5, Skorodumov reasoned - as many Russian white emigres at the time - that it would be possible to take advantage of a foreign war in order to break open a civil war in Russia and overthrow Joseph Stalin's government, which could only be achieved with force. The Corps, he reasoned, was to become the seed of this resistance.

On 12 September 1941, after receiving the written approval of German Colonel Kevish, Skorodumov ordered the formation of the Corps. Three days later he was arrested by the Nazis for forming a "separate Russian corps" and was replaced by his assistant, General Boris Shteifon (who was half Jewish from his father's side), another White army veteran. Shteifon continued the formation of the Corps. At the same time, he was engaged in a diplomatic war with the German command in an attempt to win as much independence and freedom of action as possible. The Corps was a part of the German armed forces and took an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Several thousand Russian emigres living in Yugoslavia and in surrounding Eastern European countries enlisted in the Corps, men from age 16 to those in their seventies were admitted. At the beginning the Corps heavily lacked men in their twenties because most were conscripted into the Yugoslav Royal Army and were either taken prisoner, living in exile, or with the Chetniks. Most volunteers were either young men who grew up in the Russian Cadet Corps of Yugoslavia, or seasoned veterans of the Russian Tsarist and White armies. Consequently, many commissioned officers had to enlist as privates or non-coms. Officers and generals were permitted to wear their old rank on the shoulderboards, while using their collar to display their Corps rank.

The Corps consisted of five regiments, armed with German, Italian, and Yugoslav weaponry. The Corps was not allowed to have heavy artillery, according to Shteifon's speculation this was done to prevent the Corps from becoming a fully fledged, independent armed unit. The Corps initially instituted White Army uniforms, combined with Serbian royalist regalia, but were forced to switch to German uniforms later. These German uniforms were "Russified" by the inclusion of a Russian cockade and Russian medals of distinction. The Corps followed at first the Tsarist military charter for commands, then briefly switched to the 1927 Soviet charter before being forced to conform to the German Wehrmacht charter.