WHO ARE THE HEROES OF TODAY’S GEORGIA?
Part II. Will the monument to the Nazi saboteurs be built at the place of the exploded memorial in Kutaisi?

Last year the Memorial glorifying the heroes of the Great Patriotic War was demolished in Kutaisi due to the Saakashvili’s order. That was allegedly done in order to vacate the place for the future parliament building. But it would be no wonder if yet another ugly and pompous monument dedicated to the "Georgian independence warriors who fought in the ranks of German army in the 1941-1945" will be built instead of it at any other place in Georgia. There are all the grounds for that.

Continuation. Beginning is given here: http://www.win.ru/win/3602.phtml

They’ve been preparing the stab in the back

"Tamara-1" special squad was composed of four groups — each of them was headed by the German commander. Liaison officers and demolitionists were also German. Each group included 2 3 Georgian immigrants and couple of former Georgian Red Army soldiers.

As the Georgian Foreign Affairs Ministry web-site states, "target of the field engineers-demolitionists was the carrying out of the diversions — including demolition of the railway bridges, highways, weapon and rations storehouses, telephone poles and the transformer kiosks... Main objective of the immigrants, meanwhile, was the conduct of the propagandistic work among the locals. They were to explain that after defeating the Soviets the collective farms were to be dismissed while the peasants would have obtained the land plots and the right for the private property again. Establishing the contacts with the underground resistance movement was also part of the immigrant squad members’ responsibilities — according to the data of German intelligence, it was largely widened thanks to the Georgians who defected from the Red Army. By that time, considerable part of them were hiding at the mountainous regions of Georgia that adjoined the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range — the very area where the ‘Tamara-1’ groups were to be dropped. For the former Georgian war prisoners the main selection criterion for participation in this special operation was the knowledge of the territory where the volunteers were to act after the landing. For the most part, former Red Army soldiers — being the natives — were to play the role of the group guides".

Abwehr leadership planned to cause the uprisings in some Georgian regions. That’s how it was recounted by the official Georgian historian: "Having established the contact with the nationalistic-geared-up natives, they were to create the rebellious organizations — capable of helping the Wehrmacht during the German invasion to Georgia — from them. While accomplishing this mission, special attention was to be paid at making the contacts with the armed Georgian deserters from the Red Army. Mass partisan movement willing to fight against the Soviet occupation was to be created on these grounds. Large-scale national riots were to be organized at the approach of the foremost Wehrmacht troops".

German war prisoners of the Red Army — who were to be liberated from the camps located at the Georgian Social Republic territory after the assaults — should have played significant role in these riots. The very hope for such human fuel as deserters and people who avoided the Red Army mobilization was rather strange. The latter were on the run due to the banal cowardice rather than profound ideological causes and, therefore, couldn’t have been of any use for Germans.

"In order to exert the psychological pressure at the local population and create the feeling that front is near, German command considered dropping the volunteers wearing the Wehrmacht uniform to be reasonable. Special password was made up for every group that was intended to ease the paratroopers’ search of each other. In case if they had lost the communications with each other they were either to hide and wait for the offensive of the German troops or move in the Northern direction, fighting their way to the Wehrmacht battle orders in the Caucasus.

Prior to the German breach into the Georgian territory, volunteers should have confined themselves with propagandistic work among the natives, collecting the information, discovering and examining the potential sabotage objects. Active rebellious and subversive operations were to be timed to the Wehrmacht offensive. Meanwhile servicemen of the special squad were ordered to conduct the diversions at the freeways that led to the passing of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range in order to mess up the redeployment of the reinforcements and the equipment supplies for the Soviet troops. According to some information, main subversive operations were to be carried out at the Military Georgian Road."

Traitors’ ace turned out to be trumped

Soviet 351st division that guarded the Mamison passing, which almost completely consisted of the Georgian servicemen, played the significant role in Abwehr plans. "By October of 1942, 795th Georgian Wehrmacht battalion was deployed not so far from the 351st Soviet division that guarded the Mamison passing — at the Urukh Canyon in Ossetia. German command also planned to use it during their breakthrough to the Georgian territory at this sector of the front...Had the military operation of the Georgian breach started, personnel of the 351st division was to become an object of the propagandistic attack from the front side — where the Georgian legionaries were deployed — as well as from the home front — by the ‘Tamara-1’ volunteers. Remained data sources indicate that Soviet Captain Irakly Gavasheli has managed to secretly pass the plan of the Soviet Mamison passing defensive positions to the Germans. In case of the German attack Gavasheli (who seemingly was a commander of a certain battalion of the 351st division that was deployed at the Mamison passing) promised to leave his positions without a fight and retreat to Georgia with his troops".

But already at the stage of paratroopers’ landing series of mistakes took place that eventually led to the failure of a whole "Tamara-1" mission. Saboteurs have never managed to establish the communications between the groups and coordinate their actions. But the most important thing is that they have never discovered the expected support of the native population. Some certain Georgian traitors have hided and fed the saboteurs for some time. However all the infiltrated militants of "Tamara-1" were rapidly revealed by the NKVD¹ authorities and either captured or destroyed by the extermination squads. Native population rendered great support to the Soviet security officers.

In regard of the "Tamara-2" squad we may only denote that they were mere Wehrmacht mercenaries who took part in special operations that were not connected to the Georgian warfare, though they’ve still been used mainly at the Caucasus. During the group activities, "capture of the strategic military and industrial objects, their occupation prior to their destruction by the retreating Red Army troops was the top-priority goal, as long as it was vitally important for the Wehrmacht offensive at the Caucasus". Some zealous Georgian demolitionists have even been awarded with the Iron Cross.

For whom was the Kutaisi monument demolished?

The very manner of speech that is used in the repeatedly mentioned publication at the Georgian Foreign Affairs Ministry website unintentionally amazes us. We’ve already noted that the Georgian historian is writing in Russian, though he doesn’t always stick to the accepted rules of the Russian grammar. Mind that he is constantly writing "Wehrmacht" using the capital letter, while using only lower case letters in the "Red Army" word combination. It seems to be a mere trifle but, as Sherlock Holmes used to say, there is nothing more important as the trifles. Author permanently uses such terms as "Soviet militarists", "Red brass". And here’s another malapropism:

"Everyone is aware of the fact that according to the Soviet security terminology it were, first of all, the high-minded adversaries of the Soviet regime who were dubbed ‘bandit groups’, ‘single bandits’, ‘armed illegal immigrants’, ‘bandit henchmen’, ‘deserters’ and so on. Thus, we should assume that the majority of more than 19 and a half thousand people mercilessly ‘withdrawn’ by the security forces in 1942-43 to be mere Georgian patriotic rebels — their only guilt was their unwillingness to spill their blood to protect Stalin’s criminal empire. These people were potential Wehrmacht allies, whom they, frankly speaking, considered to be their liberator from the Kremlin yoke. Alongside with the rest, the abovementioned data completely disprove all the insinuations of both Soviet historians and contemporary Stalinism’ adherents from Georgia, claiming the certain ‘unity of the USSR nations’ to take place during the Second World War period."

So in today’s Georgia it’s not Meliton Kantaria’s companions-in-arms who are proclaimed to be the heroes of the Second World War but Hitler’s saboteurs — or, at least, the Red Army deserters.

Striving to justify the deeds of the Georgian Hitler’s henchmen, author writes: "According to remained archive documents, Georgian servicemen of the 351st division were as much unwilling to die for salvation of the Red Army dominion in the Caucasus as the rest of the Georgian citizens who were forcefully driven to the front...Just as in any other Soviet ‘national’ units, blunt mockery of the Russian commanding officers at the human dignity of the Georgian servicemen was prospering in the 351st infantry division. It went up to the point that on the 12th of December, 1942, regiment commissioner O. Museridze — deputy division commander in charge of policy — had to personally address C. Charkviani — the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party and member of the trans-Caucasian Military Council — demanding to raise the question of dismissal of General-Major V. Sergatsky — his division commander. He has accused Sergatsky of the great-power chauvinism displays against his Georgian subordinates".

But if there were only Russian officers at the division command, then where did the Georgian political supervisor come from?! However, author, apparently doesn’t trouble himself with the logical constructions — which is proven by the excerpt about the punishment of the saboteurs captured by the Red Army. He writes: "In the second half of 1943 after the months-long tortures, the sentences were handed out — due to the best traditions of Stalin’s justice". Afterwards he denoted that only two Georgians and four Germans were sentenced to death, one Georgian was convicted to 25 years of imprisonment, two of them were convicted to 20 years and ten more saboteurs and the natives who assisted them, were convicted to 10 years in prison! That is indeed the "best traditions of justice", all jokes aside! Having all the grounds to convict every single subversive to the capital punishment — mind the war-time laws — terrorists and their henchmen were pardoned in fact! They could have hardly expected the softer punishment even at the most democratic country in the world!

Let me remind you once again that this was published at the official web-site of the Georgian foreign policy body. It was addressed to the Russian reader, at that — i. e. to all the Russian-speaking population of the Russian Federation and the CIS. Therefore this article is designed to acquaint the general reader with almost the official position of the Georgian leadership on the matter of the Second World War events.

Well, Saakashvili has already dubbed the period of Soviet rule over Georgia the "Soviet occupation", not even being embarrassed by the circumstance that it was Georgian native who reigned over the country for last 30 years. He also wasn’t confused by the fact that for every ruble of the produced Georgian goods, "occupants" have spent four from the state budget to upkeep the Georgian state. It was the example of Saakashvili who opened the "Museum of Soviet occupation" in Tbilisi that inspired his friend Yuschenko to create the same "profanarium" in Kiev. Last year the Memorial glorifying the heroes of the Great Patriotic War was demolished in Kutaisi due to the Saakashvili’s order. That was allegedly done in order to vacate the place for the future parliament building. But it would be no wonder if yet another ugly and pompous monument dedicated to the "Georgian independence warriors who fought in the ranks of German army in the 1941-1945" will be built instead of it at any other place in Georgia. There are all the grounds for that.

By Yaroslav Butakov

¹ People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.