UNHAPPY DIVISION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1943, Page 4

UNHAPPY DIVISION

SLOVAKS ON THE EASTERN FRONT DECIMATED BY GERMANS. AFTER SUFFERING HEAVY LOSSES IN BATTLE. The Slovak Division sent by Hitler to the Soviet-German front was made up of soldiers of the former Czechoslovak Regular Army and included both Slovaks and Sudeten Germans, says “Soviet War News.” In its ranks were quite a few Hitlerite agents from Hlinka’s gang. Many of its officers, were Sudeten Germans.

In the first few days after its arrival at the front the division was routed by the Red Army in the valley of the River San. Later it was repeatedly replenished, and fought at Kiev and Kharkov, losing heavily whenever it went into action. During last summer’s offensive the Slovak Division was used in the Krasnodar, Novorossisk and Tuapse areas. During the first year of the war it lost 6,200 men. Last summer and autumn it lost another 2,000. In January, 1943, badly battered by the Red Army, it began a disorderly retreat in which it abandoned its arms and vehicles. Slovak soldiers began to surrender en masse to the Red Army. One Slovak regiment was preparing an organised surrender when the Germans discovered their intention and shot every tenth man. This fact is confirmed by many Slovak prisoners. The Slovaks fought unwillingly and did everything possible to evade action. During their retreat they hid in cottages, where they waited until the Red Army arrived, and then surrendered. Relations between the Slovaks and the Germans were very strained. Red Army men captured an Order of the Day prohibiting Germans from mixing singly with the Slovak troops, in view of the frequent assassinations of Germans by Slovaks. News that Czechoslovak military units were being formed in the Soviet Union to fight the German-Fascist enslavers made a strong impression on the Slovak soldiers. According to a war prisoner of the Second Company of the “David” Regiment, “The Slovaks remember their pleasant life in democratic Czechoslovakia. This is why many Slovak soldiers are eager to join the Czechoslovak groups. This is also why they have been surrendering since they heard that a Czechoslovak Army was being formed in the U.S.S.R.” In view of their low fighting efficiency, and the probability that most of them would desert at the first opportunity, the German Command decided to disarm the Slovak troops. They attempted to do this at the end of February, but failed. The Slovaks decided to destroy their arms rather than surrender them to the Germans, who thereupon hurriedly evacuated these “unreliable elements” to the rear.