Bulgarian SS anti-tank brigade (1st Bulgarian)

The question of creating a Bulgarian volunteer legion as part of the SS troops to participate in the “crusade against Bolshevism” was first voiced by Himmler in December 1942, but Tsar Boris III refused, since the formation of the Bulgarian military unit as part of the German army could weaken the Bulgarian armed forces.

After September 9, 1944, Bulgaria switched to the side of the troops of the anti-Hitler coalition , and with the support of the Patriotic Front , the Bulgarian troops began to conduct military operations against the Germans, the military-political leadership of the Third Reich decided to use the remaining Bulgarians.

The first step was the creation by the Abwehr of a sabotage and terrorist group (of six Bulgarians), which was deployed to Bulgaria with the task of acting behind the front line ^[1] (the group was destroyed in the Pirin Territory) ^[2] .

In the future, it was decided to create an armed unit from the Bulgarians ^[1] .

Himmler ordered the formation of the Bulgarian Grenadier Regiment, which was to become the basis for the creation of the 1st Bulgarian SS Grenadier Division ( German Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS (bulgarische Nr. 1) ). Himmler initially set strict criteria for enlistment in the Bulgarian SS regiment: only those Bulgarians who managed to escape to Yugoslavia after the coup in Bulgaria or fled to the Germans from the Bulgarian armies who arrived on the Soviet-German front should be candidates.

Established on September 16, 1944 in Vienna , the exiled Bulgarian National Government announced the creation of the “Bulgarian Liberation Corps” under the command of Colonel Ivan Rogozarov and called on all Bulgarians aged 17 to 55 years living in Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia to volunteer ^{[ 3]} .

In October 1944, the registration of candidates for service in the SS troops from among Bulgarian citizens began. In addition to a group of Bulgarian officers (who were on a business trip in Germany and expressed a desire to transfer to German military service) and who switched to the German side, defectors from the Bulgarian army to the legion began to recruit Bulgarian immigrants living in German-controlled territories ^[1] .

The creation of the Bulgarian military unit, later known as the 1st Bulgarian SS Grenadier Regiment ( German: Waffen-Grenadier Regiment der SS (bulgarisches No. 1) ), took place in the SS training camp Truppenübungsplatz Döllersheim in Dollersheim (located near the Austrian Linz ) ^[4] . By the beginning of January 1945, 25 officers, 56 sergeants and about 500 soldiers of the Bulgarian army arrived in the camp.

In the future, the created part was replenished at the expense of Bulgarian students studying in German educational institutions (after September 9, 1944, Bulgarian students were discontinued, they were deprived of breadcards and faced with a choice: either sign up for military service or be employed in the workplace) ^[1] . A total of 150 students enrolled in the universities of the Reich - activists of the nationalist organization Brannik (12 of them girls, students of medical universities in Vienna) replenished.

The Germans recruited the last candidates among the Bulgarian prisoners of war ^{[1] [4]} . As a result, Himmler recruited a little over 700 people. Most of the soldiers already had experience in battles with the Yugoslavs, and some even underwent military training, so the training passed quickly.

As a result, Himmler allowed the creation of an SS anti-tank brigade. Bulgarian personnel called themselves the “Anti-Tank Legion” in honor of the detachments of Bulgarian revolutionaries who fought against the Turkish yoke in the 1860s.

Lists of personnel of the unit were not preserved, but the number of Bulgarians serving in the legion is estimated from 500-600 to 800 people, while some of the candidates deserted without waiting for graduation and sending to the front ^[1]

The Bulgarian brigade was an integral part of the SS troops, but a strange mixture of the SS code of honor and the charters of the tsarist army of Bulgaria operated on the territory of its camp. The situation was similar with military ranks: in all foreign documents, military personnel of the brigade appeared under the SS ranks, while according to the documents of their unit they continued to wear Bulgarian ranks. Their correspondence is given below: the ranks in the Bulgarian brigade are given in Bulgarian, and the corresponding ranks of the SS troops are recorded in Russian.

Organizationally, the Bulgarian part of the SS consisted of two small infantry battalions reinforced with anti-tank weapons, an anti-tank artillery battalion and combat support teams: communications, medical, combat engineer and headquarters. The commander of the regiment and brigade in combination was Colonel Ivan Rogozarov, the former Minister of Labor of Bulgaria and the head of the auxiliary Labor Forces of the country, twice a gentleman of the Order for Courage. The first battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Georgi Malkov, the former chief of staff of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Bulgarian Army and a participant in the defense of Veliko Tarnovo from the Soviet troops. The second battalion was led by Captain Tsvetan Bogorov. The anti-tank battalion was led by Captain Lebibov, and the medical team obeyed the reserve major , Dr. Luke Bilyarsky. The chief of staff of the brigade was a German with Bulgarian roots on his mother Paul Brilling, the SS Sturmbanfuhrer and a member of the NSDAP since 1939. In the ranks of the legionnaires, according to some unconfirmed and unproven information, even SS officers and non-commissioned officers who trained the Bulgarians in the camp served.

The brigade was armed with small arms ( Parabellum , Walter P38 and Browning 1910 pistols, Mauser 98k carbines, MP-40 submachine guns and MG-34 machine guns), rifle grenade launchers, several 50-mm mortar grenade launchers 36 , as well as anti-tank grenade launchers of Panzerfaust and Panzershrek , various anti-tank rifles , grenades and mines .

The artillery division was armed with 16 75-mm anti-tank guns (in the states, there should have been 24) and two 88-mm flak 36 anti-aircraft guns , which were also used as anti-tank guns. Students were also armed with uniform knives, and daggers, bayonets, and officers even wore sabers .

The brigade had at its disposal motor vehicles - Opel Blitz and Fiat trucks, several Opel captain cars and motorcycles, as well as one Fizeler-156 Shtorh plane, which was piloted by aviation lieutenant Pyotr Bochev (transferred to Brigade German Goering ).

The Bulgarian brigade did not have its own standard and, therefore, did not fight under the flag of the Third Reich - a red banner with a white circle and a black swastika . However, the banner of the Bulgarians still existed: it was the national Bulgarian flag , which depicted the coat of arms of Bulgaria embroidered with silver, and the motto “Freedom or death” was written a little lower. The banner was made by Stella Rogozarova, the wife of the brigade commander, and the Orthodox priest in Graz consecrated it. The banner was always carried out in the presence of the German command, which had never objected to its use.

The dress uniform did not differ from the SS uniform, except that on the right buttonhole a silver Bulgarian lion was depicted instead of the letters SS created from the Zig runes. On the forearm of the left sleeve was a shield-shaped patch of national colors. However, in the Bulgarians there was a strong nationalist sentiment, and this led to the fact that the soldiers brazenly ripped off cockades with the image of a dead head and tore off the SS epaulets, attaching their own Bulgarian epaulets and cockades with Bulgarian lions. Many wore Bulgarian caps and caps, and the standard bearer of the brigade, Officer Radoinov, wore a full Bulgarian uniform. In the spring of 1945, camouflage blouses and trench coats began to come to the brigade, which not everyone got. Helmets were exclusively German, only some soldiers had buckles with lions.

Civilian Behavior

With discipline, things were very bad - the team was sadly famous for its scandalous behavior in Dollersheim. The Bulgarians now and then fought and fought in Dollersheim, breaking windows in houses and very often organizing drunken fights. It was not possible to stop the spreading drunkenness in the Bulgarian brigade until the end of the war. Both civilians and soldiers became victims of fights. In early March 1945, a Volkssturm soldier was shot in a cafe in front of civilians, and another nearly died from a knife wound. Colonel Rogozarov managed to hide the perpetrators, but after this incident, soldiers were forbidden to carry personal pistols and knives. Despite such fights, several of the Bulgarian legionnaires created families by marrying Austrians.

German Attitude

Anti-German sentiments were very strong in the brigade, since the legionnaires considered the Nazis to be the same invaders and invaders as the Soviet soldiers. The soldiers were waiting for the defeat of Germany and secretly provided assistance to the Red Army. However, students from the nationalist organization Brannik were ardent German supporters and maintained discipline in the legion. The most reliable unit was the 1st company of Stefan Zamfirov, a former officer of the Bulgarian gendarmerie. He had personal accounts with the Bolsheviks: his wife was killed by communist partisans. Desiring to prevent any manifestations of sympathy for the Communists, Zamfirov introduced iron discipline and mutual responsibility in his company, which suppressed any anti-German actions.

The Conspiracy of Micho Zlatkov

In April 1945, the formation ceased: the Soviet troops advanced to Berlin , and the Wehrmacht urgently needed help. The Bulgarian brigade was thrown into battle, which became part of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps , which defended Vienna at the Morava River boundary. On April 4, the brigade received orders to go to the front and began to prepare for a meeting with the 46th Soviet Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front , which participated in the battles for Bulgaria. However, at the last minute Rogozarov found out that candidate officer Micho Zlatkov was preparing a conspiracy and was going to destroy the brigade headquarters, and then go over to the side of the Soviet soldiers. The colonel immediately began an operation to search for a traitor and soon shot him, and all his associates were arrested.

The Germans, who learned about the shooting, immediately sent a detachment of field gendarmerie and a Volkssturm group. The troops demanded that the Bulgarians surrender their weapons at the time of the investigation, but in response to this, the Bulgarians started firing. One legionnaire was killed, and Colonel Rogozarov hardly persuaded the Bulgarians not to shoot. 28 people were arrested, 8 of them were shot by gendarmes upon a court verdict. Only six were able to justify. Rogozarov and Brilling spent a month to hide these circumstances from the supreme command, but it was too late - Vienna and Berlin fell, and the Germans kept only Prague . As a result, the Bulgarians nevertheless rushed into battle.

The Battle of Stockkeru

On May 5, 1945, the commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps ordered the brigade to advance from Dollersheim and take up defenses in the northeast of the city of Stockerau , where there was the most tank-dangerous line of defense. During the night of May 5-6, the brigade managed to arrive in the combat formations of the SS division, whose number could not be established. She got her line of defense, where anti-tank fortifications were not built. Colonel Rogozarov began to prepare soldiers for street battles, and he urged civilians to flee the city as soon as possible - for this he allocated the brigade's motor vehicle, which was accompanied by the company of the 2nd battalion and a medical team. As it turned out, several people escaped from the brigade, but in general, the legionnaires were preparing for battle. After the war, veteran of the brigade Stoyan Popyankov said that although Germany had already lost the war, he had to show the strength of his detachment to Soviet and German soldiers. Before the battle, the legionnaires began to write on the walls of the houses the same phrase “God bless Bulgaria” ( Bulgarian God save Bulgaria ) to strengthen their fighting spirit.

On the morning of May 6, pilot Pyotr Bochev reported that Soviet troops had gathered at the approaches to the city — tanks with infantry on armor and numerous howitzers. A few hours later he flew out again and did not return - according to some people, he was shot down and died in battle. At 9 o’clock in the morning the first shots began - the Bulgarians collided with units of the very 46th Army, which was the first to enter Bulgaria. It was against her that they began to conduct the most aggressive battles, and this stubbornness (as well as the stamina of the German SS men) did not allow the Soviet units to advance to Stockerau. At 6 p.m. the shooting ceased: the Bulgarians destroyed 14 tanks and two self-propelled guns , and in total the 46th Army lost 29 armored vehicles . According to the Bulgarians, more than a hundred Soviet soldiers died at the hands of the Bulgarian legionnaires, thirty were captured. Rogozarov placed the prisoners in the basement of a commercial warehouse, took their clothes and locked them there. Also, according to the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians managed to shoot down the Il-2 attack aircraft from the Ofenor anti-tank rifle, which, inadvertently, was downed. The loss of the Bulgarians amounted to 98 people killed and 46 missing. The wounded were evacuated to German hospitals, but after they were captured by Russian units, seven people were executed on charges of high treason in Sofia on September 29, 1945 (among them was Georgi Malkov).

At night, the Bulgarian brigade began to retreat west. Rogozarov ordered the execution of the prisoners, but Lieutenant Khadzhilalchev refused to do this, for which he was demoted to the rank and file, but was not removed from command of his company. The SS units remaining in Stockerau had to hold him for another day (which they did, holding out in the town until May 7 ), while the command of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps was assigned to the Bulgarian Brigade to occupy and prepare for defense the city of Horn, a key point of the next defensive line of the corps.

In the last days of the war, the advanced mobile detachment of the 47th division of the Red Army (the division of self-propelled artillery, two companies of machine gunners and a sapper unit), commanded by Major I. A. Rapoport and Major M. K. Gordienko, who was tasked to enter the line of connection with the American troops, crossed the Ibbs River in the Kümmelsbach region, where the detachment’s servicemen captured three serviceable “tiger” tanks abandoned by German crews. Having placed the captured “tigers” in the vanguard of the convoy, the detachment continued its movement towards the city of Amstetten , while due to the presence of German tanks, the detachment managed to walk for some time next to the retreating enemy units, catching up and overtaking them. Having overtaken the units of the retreating Hungarian division, Rapoport's squad caught up with another group of enemy troops retreating along the road, which consisted of Romanians and Bulgarian SS men who sought to surrender to the American army. Having spotted the landings from Soviet machine gunners on the sides of self-propelled guns, Romanians and Bulgarians threw weapons on the road and scattered to the sides ^[5] .

Zirsdorf Bombing and the Disappearance of the 2nd Battalion

Horn was 60 kilometers away, and Rogozarov expected his troops to arrive in Horn by morning. However, numerous retreating German troops moved along the highway, making movement difficult. In the morning the brigade was in Zirsdorf, where a traffic jam formed on the bridge. At that moment, Soviet Pe-2 aircraft appeared in the sky, which dropped bombs and started firing from cannons and machine guns. The bridge was destroyed, most of the Germans and several Bulgarian legionnaires died in this bombing, as a result, half of the artillery had to be abandoned. But an even greater loss was the 2nd battalion, which disappeared in full force. His commander, captain Bogorov, who rushed in search of him, also disappeared. Many Germans from other units also lagged behind.

As it turned out, most of the 2nd battalion fled in fear, and only the company of Lieutenant Khadzhilakov kept the order. As part of the 17th Volkssturm Corps, his soldiers hid in the mountains of western Austria, where they fought until May 12 . When two-thirds of the personnel had already been destroyed (some still ran away), Khadzhilakov decided to disband his company and, using fake documents, make his way to Burgas . Surviving soldiers moved into the zone of American occupation, while someone settled in Austria.

Horn Battles

By 12 o’clock on May 7, the remains of the brigade, in which there were only 300 people, arrived in Horn. But the 2nd SS Panzer Corps never reached the city, because it was pushed to the south. The troops of the 43rd Corps under the command of General Karl Ludde began to defend the line. Colonel Rogozarov and SS Sturmbanfuhrer Brilling were accepted by the general and received assurances that the Germans would defend the city until the last soldier, and the Bulgarians would pour in its defense. The Bulgarians were entrusted with protecting the Weissgarten castle, which belonged to princes from the Battenberg clan, the clan of the first Bulgarian prince Alexander I.

Before the battle, the colonel addressed the soldiers with a speech, urging them to defend the city to the end and stand up for the honor of the Bulgarian army and the Bulgarian people. The soldiers performed the song “Breaking the Dawn Gap”, and the female legionaries laid bouquets of flowers on the castle steps. After the war, Stoyan Popyankov wrote that the Bulgarians were ready to join the battle immediately after the colonel’s speech. At the end of the ceremony, Second Lieutenant Angelichkov and one Podofitser, who tried to surrender to the Red Army, were arrested and shot.

But on the evening of May 7, Ludde could not stand it and secretly entered into radio communications with the command of the 46th Army, having concluded a secret agreement on surrender on the morning of May 8. The occupation of the city dragged on for a day “thanks” to the German units that entered the battle. The Soviet command promised free access to the Bulgarians in the area of ​​responsibility of the American army, if they disarm the SS men and give them to the Red Army. Over the Bulgarian brigade there was a real threat of captivity by their own allies. But one of the officers of the headquarters of General Ludde about midnight reported everything to Colonel Rogozarov. He immediately raised the brigade on alarm and, with the support of several dozen Gestapo soldiers in the city, tried to seize the general’s headquarters and isolate the location of the Wehrmacht soldiers loyal to him. Soon, a battle began in the city, which dragged on until three in the morning of the next day.

The Bulgarians could not capture the city, they had twenty people killed. The panicked legionaries fled northwest, abandoning all artillery and all vehicles. At dawn, they hid in the forest, where Colonel Rogozarov gave them a halt. News of the impending surrender drove the soldiers into despair, and Paul Brilling, not wanting to surrender, committed suicide. Three more people died from injuries, and they were buried with Brilling in a mass grave. A few more people hurried east to surrender to the Russian troops. The brigade commander did not allow the captain Zamfirov to shoot at them and ordered to immediately stop the halt. The surviving officers went to the zone of responsibility of the American troops, where they could count on better conditions for surrender than before the Red Army.

Breakthrough to the West

The weakened brigade headed towards Gmünd . A couple of hours later, they noticed a Po-2 aircraft from a night bomber regiment of the 5th Soviet Air Army . The commander of the artillery division captain Lebibov shot down the plane from the MG-34 machine gun and captured its crew - two young pilots. However, the Bulgarians released the girls, bandaging their wounds and leaving in the care of the priest of the village of Budvasser. There, the girls were waiting for the arrival of Soviet troops. In the same village, the legionnaires took several carts and horses, exchanging them from the residents for their trucks, which ran out of fuel. Putting on the carts of the wounded, who could not move independently, the brigade continued its march west. The night from May 8 to 9 found her south of the city of Tsvetl , where she ended up with the fleeing Germans.

In the morning, Soviet artillery began shelling the column. Rumors circulated that the Red Army blocked the path to the west. Legionnaires and Germans took up a circular defense , but within an hour they fired only at two light tanks. Soon, the Bulgarians sent three patrols under reconnaissance under the command of captain Zamfirov, lieutenant Crvenich and sergeant-major Kovachev. When they returned, they reported that Soviet armored vehicles and truck infantry were moving along the highway to Gmund in the direction of the Czechoslovak border. The Bulgarians were in the rear of the enemy, and it was already problematic to break through to the west, and the Bulgarians did not want to surrender - the Soviet troops sent without question to the camps of all members of the national SS formations. However, Colonel Rogozarov found a way out of this situation.

He ordered the three dozens of the most fair-haired legionnaires to change into uniforms taken from prisoners captured in Stockerau and arm themselves with captured PPSh assault rifles . The rest, hiding under their clothes hand weapons (grenades, pistols, knives), were supposed to depict prisoners. Having built up in a convoy surrounded by disguised prisoners, the brigade moved west, having in the castle carts with wounded and small arms hidden at the bottom. Ahead was Rogozarov, who was fluent in Russian. He was dressed in the uniform of a Soviet captain. During the day, several mechanized convoys of Soviet troops overtook the brigade, but everyone believed that the machine gunners were leading the captured Fritz somewhere.

In the evening, a few detachments of Soviet intelligence motorcyclists blocked the way for the Bulgarians a few kilometers from the Czechoslovak border. Either the direction of the movement of the column seemed suspicious, or the German boots gave out disguised legionnaires, but the motorcyclists sent their automatic rifles to the Bulgarians, and the officer who commanded them went to Rogozarov and demanded to provide documents to accompany the prisoners. The colonel grabbed a pistol and killed the officer, but he himself was killed by machine gun fire. The legionnaires hardly killed the resistance and captured twenty people.

Capitulation

The soldiers buried Ivan Rogozarov with the highest honors and hurried on. On the night of May 10, they managed to cross the border in the region of Ceske Velenice. An avant-garde patrol under the command of captain Zamfirova, advancing on captured Soviet motorcycles, ran into Czech partisans. They managed to capture a few, but Zamfirov limited himself only to flogging them, and then released them. Going to the outskirts of the settlement of Trgove-Sweeney, Zamfirov found scouts of the 3rd American army . At 10:30 in the morning, he signed the surrender at the headquarters of the American tank regiment, after which, together with the American captain, he went to the location of the brigade and announced the terms of surrender to his comrades. Having been built for the last time, two hundred and fifty of the last legionnaires solemnly said goodbye to their battle flag, after which the standard bearer podofitser Radoynov burned it. A few hours later, the Bulgarians arrived in the desired area, laid down their arms and raised a white flag. They also transferred all Soviet prisoners and were soon transferred to the rear of the 3rd American Army. Thus ended the short but difficult battle path of the Bulgarian SS anti-tank brigade.

After a short stay in several prisoner-of-war camps in Czechoslovakia, the Bulgarians went to Austria, to Bad Ischl camp, where they were to remain until their liberation. The conditions in the camp were terrible, but the hardy Bulgarians endured them. Officers and soldiers were strictly separated, strict punishment was imposed for communication between them, but the commanders were able to maintain contact with their subordinates. A few were released after six months, the rest had to wait another year for their release. Soon, the legionnaires were recruited by the CIA for intelligence operations in communist Bulgaria. One of them, captain Zamfirov, twice landed in Bulgaria in 1946, and in January 1947 crashed during his third landing.

After the war ended, the legionnaires began to return to Bulgaria, all in all, until the end of October 1945, 428 people returned to Bulgaria ^[1] .

They were arrested, but none of them was executed.

The commander of the 2nd battalion company, Lieutenant Khadzhilakov, who was arrested in Burgas with fake documents, was sentenced to two years in prison (thanks to the help of his older communist brother and the fact that they learned about his refusal to shoot Soviet soldiers at the trial).

Several people were serving sentences in Soviet camps. There were those who returned to civilian life. Of those remaining in exile, the majority returned to their homeland after the declaration in Bulgaria in 1954 (a year after the death of Stalin ) of an amnesty for participants in the anti-Soviet struggle and political prisoners. At that time, legionnaires who had served long sentences in prisons were also released. Almost every year, several former legionnaires gathered in a restaurant held by a former doctor of the Bilyarsky brigade in Pestera.

In 1992, the Union of Veterans of the Anti-Tank Legion was organized, meetings of which were organized annually. Dr. Luka Bilyarsky was elected the first chairman of the union, and after his death in 1993, Kostadin Hadzhilalkov, a former lieutenant of the 2nd battalion, became chairman. At the beginning of 1995, there were 42 veterans of the Bulgarian SS brigade in the union, 5 of whom lived in the USA, 2 in Austria and Macedonia, one in Germany, and all the rest in Bulgaria.

There are almost no documents on the Bulgarian anti-tank brigade. There is still debate about the size and its true name, as well as the possibility of its existence as such ^{[6] [7]} . The only official materials on this issue are the protocols of the legionnaires process, which tried to organize a rebellion before being sent to the front, but almost all experts consider them to be fake. At the moment, the only source of information on this issue is only the memoirs of the brigade veterans.

• S. Popyankov. Nie swear to you, Bulgaria! Sofia, 1995.
• From the anti-Soviet protest against the disident movement (1944-1990). Sofia, 1996
• Hristo Rodolyubov. The farce and blood of the Bulgarian SS // military historical almanac "Echo of War", No. 2, 2008

• Mikhail Kozhemyakin. Bulgarische Nr 1. Bulgarian parts
• Bulgarian armored fighter legion. Bulgarian anti-tank brigade as part of the SS troops (translation of an article by Mikhail Kozhemyakin) (Bulgarian)
• Colonel Ivan Rogozarov and the Volunteer Corps (Bulgarian)
• Dimitar Mitev. Unknown Bulgarian Grenadier Regiment (Bulgarian)