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They wore regular Wehrmacht uniforms and not Waffen-SS ones, as has occasionally been incorrectly alleged. Both Cossack divisions were made part of the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps, totalling some 25,000 men. The 2nd Cossack Division, under the command of Colonel Hans-Joachim von Schultz, formed in 1944, existed for a year. In 1943, after the 1st Cossack Division was formed under the command of General Helmuth von Pannwitz, Cossack émigrés such as Andrei Shkuro and Pyotr Krasnov took leading positions in the movement.
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The Cossack National Movement of Liberation hoped to gain an independent Cossack state, to be called Cossackia, after the war. You will always feel warm and comfortable even in conditions of severe winters. A Cossack detachment of the 4th Guards Corps marched in Red Square during the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945. Papaha and Kubanka hats are special gorgeous warm and comfortable hats which were used by Don Cossacks in WW2 and it is very popular headgear in present days. Many ethnic Cossacks served in other divisions of the Red Army and in the Navy, including Boris Shaposhnikov, Markian Popov, Aksel Berg, Arseniy Golovko, Oka Gorodovikov, Lev Dovator, Pavel Belov, General Dmitry Karbyshev, Dmitry Lavrinenko, pilot Grigory Bakhchivandzhi and engineer Fedor Tokarev. Oka Gorodovikov formed 49 Cossack cavalry divisions during the war. Their distinction in battle eventually led all to be merited as Guards. Later these corps units were increased in size and reduced to eight. The first Cossacks units were formed as early as 1936 by 1942 there were 17 Cossack corps units in the Red Army (as opposed to two in the German forces). They were used for frontal patrols and logistics on the open prairies (steppes), which they knew well. Their service was crucial on the Southern theater of the Eastern Front. The vast majority of the ethnic Cossacks fought against the Nazis in the ranks of the Red Army and of the Red Navy on all war theaters. For three days in 1919, during the Ukraine Civil War, Cossacks in Proskurov murdered 1,500 Jews.Their leader, Ivan Samosenko, was executed for war crimes.