German-Russian volunteer Armenian Legion cap cockade
These badges were all found at the same place. The guy who found them said the following:
"I found all the cockades and Jäger badges north of Berlin in a former camp. I suspect that since there were a large number, they should probably be passed on to the Cossacks and Eastern front units. But then the war ended, and everything was hidden. "
These badges were worn on the Ubanka(Typical Cossack fur cap), see attached picture. Could also be worn on a visor cap or side cap. They were always sewn in place and you can see the 4 holes meant for that purpose.
These were used together with their "German "uniform with special insignia and the well known cloth patch we is much more commonly encountered.
These cockades are extremely hard to find, if you ever find them most are newly painted.
Condition is good with almost complete ORIGINAL paint. Stamped iron.
Roughly 35 x 25 mm.
Roughly 11,600 – 33,000 men enlisted in the Armenian units so these badges were only made in rather small qty's.
HISTORY;
The Armenian Legion (German: Armenische Legion; Armenian: Հայկական լեգիոն Haykakan legion) was a military unit in the German Army during World War II. It primarily consisted of Soviet Armenians, who wanted to fight the Russians for an independent Armenia and commanded by General Drastamat Kanayan.
The short-lived Republic of Armenia, established in 1918, was conquered by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920 and incorporated shortly after into the Soviet Union. This was something which members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF; Dashnaks) political party never reconciled themselves with, as many of them were imprisoned, killed, or expelled by Soviet authorities following the Soviet takeover.
In 1942, in order to fight Turkey's anti-Armenian politicking, a number of Dashnaks entered into negotiations with Berlin, and reluctantly agreed to participate in the formation of a military legion.[3] This was a move, however, that was officially repudiated by ARF party organs.
The majority of the soldiers in the 812th Battalion legion were drawn from the ranks of the Red Army, prisoners of war who had opted to fight for the German Army rather than face the brutal conditions of the Nazi POW camps,[5] though a number of Armenian veterans who had escaped to the United States after World War I also came back to Europe to join it. Command of the unit was given to a former Defense Minister of Armenia, General Drastamat Kanayan (Dro). Kanayan was among the minority in the legion who volunteered, under the hope of freeing Soviet Armenia from the control of Moscow.
Through the span of active service, the 812th Battalion participated in the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the North Caucasus. One unit comprising a part of the Armenian Legion, was the 4th Battalion of the 918th Grenadier Regiment, 242 Infanterie-Division, one of the few Eastern Legion units to be given German insignia after March 18, 1944. The battalion participated in the unsuccessful defense of Toulon.[8]
At the end of the war, morale among the men in the unit began to collapse; many in the legion deserted or defected. Hans Houterman reported that in one case, a battalion in the Netherlands where the legion was stationed even revolted. Many men surrendered to the Western Allied forces. If not detained by them, they were turned over to Soviet authorities who, in accordance with an order proclaimed by Joseph Stalin, sent them to camps in Siberia as punishment for surrendering to Axis forces and "allowing themselves to be captured", a fate suffered by nearly all of the former Soviet prisoners of the war.[
Several Jewish Red Army POWs were saved by some of the Armenians in the Legion and there were several instances of Jews being sent to the battalion to evade detection by the Nazis. Josef Moisevich Kogan, a Red Army soldier captured by the Germans, for example, stated that he received help by an Armenian doctor in the 812th Battalion when he was sneaked into the battalion itself, later escaping with the help of the Dutch underground.
