penal units in world war II and other wars

rittmeister

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it's all the same

whatever 999: jailbirds
whatever 500: convicted soldiers

the military renames stuff all the time - it's part of what they do

not to be confounded with schwere panzerabteilung 501 et al
 

Kirk's Raider's

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Here is a paper about blocking detachments... It is long but scrolls to page 19 and start at 3.1 for it talks about Russian Blocking Detachments at Stalingrad... They sent in an artillery strick against a unit defecting to the German side...

LINK: http://www.jasonlyall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/BLOCKING.pdf
Blocking units are certainly interesting . They are only practical in conventional warfare with a very defined battle field
ISIS at least in 2014 to say 2016 was more of a conventional light mobile Infantry force. The main ISIS mode of transport was light pick -up trucks.
In guerrilla warfare by definition blocking units just aren't practical.
In the pre machine gun era say prior to 1905 soldiers armed with single shot rifles or even bolt action rifles would have difficulty as an effective blocking unit. Not to argue it wasn't done but machine guns,armor, and aircraft really aid in the effectiveness of a blocking unit.
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5fish

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I found a British one... Royal African Corps

from wiki...

The Royal African Corps was a unit in the British Army officially established on 25 April 1804. Fraser’s Corps of Infantry had been raised for the defense of the Island of Goree, Senegal in August 1800. The regiment was one of several penal battalions composed primarily of deserters and condemned men from the hulks, with some additional Black soldiers being attached to the unit.[1]

Originally raised in 1800 as the Goree Corps, this unit subsequently was renamed the African Corps. On 25 April 1804 the distinction of "Royal" was added to the title. In 1806 a detachment of the Royal African Corps was sent to serve in the West Indies as the Royal West India Rangers. The remainder of the Corps continued to perform garrison duties in various African colonies until 1819, when the four companies serving in Sierra Leone and Gambia were disbanded.[2]

Prior to 1817 several companies of the Royal African Corps had been posted to the Cape Colony. Its behavior there was complained of by local residents. By now recruited from foreigners as well as British Army deserters and convicts, the Corps was finally disbanded in 1821. [3]
 

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Kirk's Raider's
Here Galvanized Yankees ? https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Penal_military_unit

it's part of what they do
This site listed above includes Galvanized Yankees as penal military units... I think the should be made for this... and correct American history...

See Galvanized Yankees; during the American Civil War, Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the Union were allowed to join the Union Army and serve on the western frontier.
 

rittmeister

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This site listed above includes Galvanized Yankees as penal military units... I think the should be made for this... and correct American history...

See Galvanized Yankees; during the American Civil War, Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the Union were allowed to join the Union Army and serve on the western frontier.
why should they? for a penal unit they need to be convicted of sth - they weren't - it's a lot more like the french recruiting for the foreign legion in pow camps - they didn't call dien bien phu die letzte schlacht der [waffen-]ss (the last battle of the ss) for nothing.
 
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rittmeister

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I found new names for what I think are just the same units... Dirlewanger?
not comparable - these people were selected and let lose to terrorize (mostly) civilians. i'm against the death penalty but that's different when it's war related. i wouldn't have lost any sleep if someone had every single one of them pose against a wall. they were truly marauders (i never understood why the b-26 endet up with that ghastly name).
 

rittmeister

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they were handpicked for their job
from your link above:

On 14 June 1940, the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg (Oranienburg Poacher's Unit), a part of the Waffen-SS was formed. Himmler made Dirlewanger its commander. Within a couple of years, the unit grew into a band of common criminals. In contrast to those who served in the German penal battalions for committing minor offences, the recruits sent into Dirlewanger's band were convicted of major crimes, i.e. premeditated murder, rape, arson, burglary, etc. Dirlewanger provided them with an opportunity to committ atrocities on such a scale that even the SS executioners complained. Martin Windrow, the British historian, described them as a "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units." Some Nazi officials romanticized the unit, viewing the men as "pure primitive German men" who were "resisting the law".

the reason why the recruited poachers comes from one of himmler's and berger's shared 'hobbies'.
 

Kirk's Raider's

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Here Galvanized Yankees ? https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Penal_military_unit



This site listed above includes Galvanized Yankees as penal military units... I think the should be made for this... and correct American history...

See Galvanized Yankees; during the American Civil War, Confederate prisoners of war who swore allnce to the Union were allowed to join the Union Army and serve on the western frontier.
Yes but unlike in WWII there was no one to shoot him if said galvanized Yankee would desert. On the other hand a white man literally in the middle of nowhere has a very limited chance if successfully deserting. Not that there were exceptions to the rule.
Another example of a type of penal battalion was that after WW2 the French told their captured SS prisoners that they had a choice:
They could "volunteer" to join the French Foreign Legion and frolic with the natives in the warm sun during the French-Indochina War of 1945 to 1954 or they could be turned over to Soviets and enjoy the refreshing bracing weather of Siberia with plenty of healthy exercise.
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rittmeister

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Yes but unlike in WWII there was no one to shoot him if said galvanized Yankee would desert. On the other hand a white man literally in the middle of nowhere has a very limited chance if successfully deserting. Not that there were exceptions to the rule.
Another example of a type of penal battalion was that after WW2 the French told their captured SS prisoners that they had a choice:
They could "volunteer" to join the French Foreign Legion and frolic with the natives in the warm sun during the French-Indochina War of 1945 to 1954 or they could be turned over to Soviets and enjoy the refreshing bracing weather of Siberia with plenty of healthy exercise.
Kirk's Raider's
got a link for that? the french didn't sent anyone to russia who had not especially been asked for. the main reason for joining were
  • the conditions in french camps
  • no place to go (after all they had lost)
  • the russian presence it what was to become the gdr
  • entnazifizierung in (western) germany
also, a lot of those men were good at fighting wars but hardly anything else
 

Kirk's Raider's

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got a link for that? the french didn't sent anyone to russia who had not especially been asked for. the main reason for joining were
  • the conditions in french camps
  • no place to go (after all they had lost)
  • the russian presence it what was to become the gdr
  • entnazifizierung in (western) germany
also, a lot of those men were good at fighting wars but hardly anything else
If you actually read what I wrote the French offered a choice to their SS prisoners. I never said the French actually sent any captured SS to the Soviets. However the SS prisoners were given a very distinct choice. Also in English there is a concept that proper nouns should be capitalized .
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rittmeister

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If you actually read what I wrote the French offered a choice to their SS prisoners. I never said the French actually sent any captured SS to the Soviets. However the SS prisoners were given a very distinct choice. Also in English there is a concept that proper nouns should be capitalized .
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so you don't have a source for the french offering that choice, right?

... there's also a concept to not use apostrophes with the plural s.
 

Kirk's Raider's

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I did a little searching around. There was in article on a site named "Wehrmacht award" and one poster cited three authors who estimated that 3k to 5k former SS enlisted in the FFL immediate post WWII. There were also non German SS in the FFL. Definitely non German SS would be motivated to join the FFL if the French wanted to send them back to a now East Block country i.e. Romania.
I read a long time ago about the French threatening German SS with the choice of being sent to the Soviets vs joining the FFL. Some mention was made of the FFL recruiting German POWs as early as 1944.
The French were definitely aware that by 1944 the OSS was arming and training the Viet Minh so the French knew even after Japanese forces left Indo-China things would go smoothly.
It certainly made sense for the French to use coercion to get needed volunteers to Indo-China. Some SS volunteers jumped ship while going through the Suez Canal.
Keep in mind not everything in history gets recorded right away I.e. American troops killing German or non German Wehrmacht at D Day or all of the US and South Korean Army massacres in Vietnam.
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