Editing Pyotr Krasnov (section)

==World War II==
During World War II, Krasnov continued his "German orientation" by seeking an alliance with Nazi Germany. A major motivation on his part was the repression of the Cossacks and the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] by the Soviet government.<ref name="Shambarov">{{cite book|last=Shambarov|first=Valery|title=Kazachestvo Istoriya Volnoy Rusi|publisher=Algorithm Expo, Moscow|year=2007|isbn=978-5-699-20121-1}}</ref> Upon hearing of the launching of [[Operation Barbarossa]] on 22 June 1941, Krasnov immediately issued a statement of support for the "crusade against [[Jewish Bolshevism|Judeo-Bolshevism]]" and declared: <blockquote>"I wish to state to all Cossacks that this is not a war against Russia, but against Communists, Jews and their minions who trade in Russian blood. May God help the German sword and Hitler! Let them accomplish their endeavor, similar to what the Russians and Emperor Alexander I did for Prussia in 1813."{{sfn|Beyda|Petrov|2018|p=405}}</blockquote> By all accounts, Krasnov was extremely elated when he heard of Operation Barbarossa and believing it to be the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union and the "liberation of Russia from Judeo-Bolshevism".{{sfn|Beyda|Petrov|2018|p=405}} Krasnov contacted [[Joseph Goebbels]], the German [[Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Minister of Propaganda]], and asked for permission to speak on Radio Berlin's Russian language broadcasts to deliver pro-Nazi speeches, which was granted.{{sfn|Beyda|Petrov|2018|p=405}} From late June 1941 onward, Krasnov was a regular speaker on Radio Berlin's Russian-language station and delivered very antisemitic speeches that portrayed the Soviet government as the rule of "Judeo-Bolsheviks" and the German forces advancing into the Soviet Union as liberators.{{sfn|Beyda|Petrov|2018|p=405}} Krasnov came into contact with officials of the [[Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories|''Ostministerium'' (Eastern Ministry)]] headed by [[Alfred Rosenberg]], the Baltic German émigré intellectual who besides being the "official philosopher" of the NSDAP was considered to be the resident Nazi expert on the Soviet Union.

In January 1943, Rosenberg appointed Krasnov to head the Cossack Central Office of the ''Ostministerium'', making him the point man for the ''Ostministerium'' in its dealings with the Cossacks.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=248}} The previous head of the Cossack Central Office, Nikolaus Himpel, who was a Baltic German like Rosenberg, had failed to inspire many Cossacks to join the German war effort.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=248}} Just as Rosenberg, Himpel was fluent in Russian but spoke it with a pronounced German accent, which made him a figure of distrust to the Cossacks. Rosenberg realized that he needed a leader who was a Cossack himself to inspire more recruitment and turned to Krasnov after it was discovered that his first choice, the Prague-based Cossack separatist leader Vasily Glazkov, had no following.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=248}} Krasnov was aged and had to walk with a cane, but he was known for his political skills. Though "not universally popular", he was relatively well respected amongst the Cossacks as a former ''ataman'' of the Don Cossack Host and as a popular novelist.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=248}} The Don Host was the largest and oldest of the 11 Hosts, which gave him a certain prestige as a former Don Host ''ataman''. He managed to avoid for the most part the feuds that characterized the Russian diaspora, which made him an acceptable leader.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=248}} He agreed to organise and head Cossack units out of [[White emigres]] and Soviet (mostly Cossack) prisoners of war, to be armed by the Nazis. The Nazis, in turn, expected Krasnov to follow their political line and to keep to a separatist Cossack orientation. Krasnov, who considered himself a Russian first and a Cossack second, was not in sympathy with Rosenberg's notion of establishing a Nazi puppet state to be called "[[Cossackia]]" in southeastern Russia.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=255}} Rosenberg favoured an approach that he called "political warfare" to "free the German ''Reich'' from Pan-Slavic pressure for centuries to come".{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=225}} Rosenberg envisioned breaking up the Soviet Union into four puppet states and added Cossackia as the fifth puppet state in 1942.

In September 1943, the soldiers of the newly formed [[1st SS Cossack Cavalry Division]] learned that their division would not, as expected be sent to fight on the Eastern Front, but would go to the Balkans to [[Bandenbekämpfung|fight communist partisans]].{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=250}} At the request of the division's commander, General [[Helmuth von Pannwitz]], Krasnov travelled to address the division.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=250}} Krasnov tried to assuage the wounded feelings of the Cossacks, who did not want to go to the Balkans, by assuring them that the fight against the Partisans was part of the same struggle against "the international Communist conspiracy" on the Eastern Front, and he promised them if they did well in the Balkans, they would ultimately go to the Eastern Front.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=250}}

On 31 March 1944, Rosenberg created a "government-in-exile" in [[Berlin]] for Cossackia headed by Krasnov, who, in turn, appointed ''ataman'' Naumenko of the Kuban Host as his "minister of war".{{sfn|Newland |1991|p=141}} The "government-in-exile" was recognized only by Germany. At a meeting with the Cossack separatist Vasily Glazkov in Berlin in July 1944, Krasnov stated that he did not agree with Glazkov's separatism but was forced under pressure from Rosenberg to appoint three supporters of Cossackia to important positions in the Cossack Central Office.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=255}} In November 1944, Krasnov refused the appeal of General [[Andrey Vlasov]] to join the latter's [[Russian Liberation Army]].{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=257-258}} Krasnov disliked Vlasov as a former Red Army general, who had defected after his capture in 1942 and because as an old man, he was unwilling to submit to take orders from a much younger man.{{sfn|Mueggenberg|2019|p=257-258}} In addition to this, Krasnov demanded that Vlasov gave a guarantee that in the future Cossacks would receive all the rights they had under the tsarist government, and never reached any agreement with his movement despite all of Vlasov's efforts.{{sfn|Strik-Strikfeldt|1973|p=210}} At the end of the war, Krasnov and his men voluntarily surrendered to British forces in Austria.{{when|date=December 2024}} All of them were promised upon surrender by Major Davis that as White Russian emigres, they would not be repatriated to the Soviets.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/repatriation-dark-side-world-war-ii-part-1/|title=Repatriation — the Dark Side of World War II, Part 1|date=February 1995 }}</ref>{{better source|date=December 2024}}