Kaminski Brigade
Kaminski Brigade, also known as Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, was a collaborationist formation composed of Russian nationals from the territory of the Lokot Autonomy in Axis-occupied areas of the RSFSR, Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
| Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA | |
|---|---|
Brigade's commanding officers during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, August 1944 | |
| Active | November 1941 – October 1944 |
| Disbanded | October 1944 1951 |
| Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Waffen-SS (1944) |
| Type | Auxiliary police |
| Role | Bandenbekämpfung |
| Size | Brigade |
| Colors | White, Blue, and Red |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Bronislav Kaminski Christoph Diehm |
| Insignia | |
| Shoulder patch | |
It was founded in late 1941 as auxiliary police with 200 personnel. By mid-1943 it had grown to 10,000–12,000 men, equipped with captured Soviet tanks and artillery. Bronislav Kaminski, the unit's leader, named it the Russian People's Liberation Army (Russian: Русская освободительная народная армия (РОНА), romanized: Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Narodnaya Armiya, (RONA)).
After the Wehrmacht lost the Battle of Kursk in August 1943, RONA personnel retreated to the territory of Byelorussia, especially to the Lepel area of Vitebsk, where they participated in German security operations, committing numerous atrocities against the civilian population . The unit was absorbed into the Waffen-SS in June 1944. After Operation Bagration (June to August 1944), the RONA retreated further west, and by the end of July 1944, the remains of the Kaminski unit (3 to 4 thousand—some sources estimate 6 to 7 thousand) assembled at the SS training camp at Neuhammer (now Świętoszów). On the base of the Kaminski unit, SS leaders planned to form an SS division – the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS RONA (1st Russian).
The Warsaw Uprising began on the same day that Heinrich Himmler signed an order for the establishment of the division (1 August 1944). The division formation was never implemented and part of the brigade was sent to Warsaw, where the unit again committed numerous atrocities. On 18 August 1944, Kaminski was killed in unknown circumstances. By August 27, 1944, having found the brigade too undisciplined and unreliable, the German commanders removed it from Warsaw. The unit was sent to Slovakia, and deployed against Slovak partisans. After the end of October 1944 the brigade was disbanded and the remaining personnel absorbed into General Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army.
After the war, former members of the brigade and supporters of the Lokot Autonomy formed a partisan movement, which slowly degenerated into organized crime groups and was suppressed in 1951.