The Kalmykian Voluntary Cavalry Corps was a unit of about 5,000 Kalmykian volunteers who chose to join the Wehrmacht in 1942 rather than remain in Kalmykia as the German Army retreated before the Red Army. (In 1943 Stalin subsequently declared the Kalmykian population as a whole to be German collaborators and had them deported to Siberia suffering great loss of life.) When Erich von Manstein led the 16th Motorized Infantry Division into Kalmykia in early 1942 he already had some Kalmykian advisors from a committee drawn together by Goebbels for propaganda purposes. These were supplemented by other Kalmykians who had settled in Belgrade following their flight with White Russian emigres after the Russian October Revolution.
Order of Battle
In 1942 their order of battle was the following:
- 1st Battalion
- 2nd Battalion
- 3rd Battalion
- 4th Battalion
- 5th Battalion
Each battalion was comprised of 5 squadrons. Kalmyk Kavallerie Korps acted within German Wehrmacht as an independent allied force with all leadership positions taken by Kalmyks. Most of the officers were Kalmyks themselves, with previous Soviet military experience. A few Germans that were present within the corps performed only auxiliary and administrative functions. The Kalmykian Voluntary Cavalry Corps fought with the Nazi army behind the lines, especially around the Azov Sea. At the end of 1944, the surviving Kalmyk cavalry troops, together with their families, retreated with the German army. About 2,000 went to Silesia, Poland and 1,500 to Zagreb, Croatia, where they were reorganized to fight against the partisans. After the war, nearly all of the surviving Kalmyk soldiers along with the Kalmyk families that accompanied them were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union.
