In a memorandum to Stalin on 10 May 1944, Beria stated two reasons for the deportation of the Crimean Tatars: “treason” against the Soviet people and the “undesirability” of these inhabitants along the border. The next day, the allegation of mass collaboration was repeated in the decision of the State Defense Committee No. 5859cc on the eviction of the Tatars.

However, in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union not a single nation exists that did not, to some extent, collaborate with the Nazis. If this applies to all people who came under German occupation, why were the Crimean Tatars such an exception?

About 15–20,000 Crimean Tatars went through the German “volunteer formations” (“Hiwi”) during the war. Incidentally, this number was never in the ranks of these units simultaneously. What is also often forgotten is that in the “Tatar” battalions, apart from the Crimean Tatars, were other nationalities. Between 15–16,000 were Tatar, which amounted to 6.5–7% of the entire Crimean Tatar population.

The fate of the collaborators is indeed greater than the average in the occupied areas of the USSR. But this is not enough to charge it with “total collaboration.”

These charges also do not take into account the specificity of “small nations” who completely fell under the occupation. Therefore, modern public moods should be taken into account for this game. The hope for small nations to escape on their own was useless. The Nazis also flirted with the national feelings of the indigenous Muslim peoples of the Soviet Union. In this context, it is worth mentioning that 180,000 so-called “Turkestan-men” served in the Wehrmacht, although the war did not spread to Central Asia.

Overall, the Crimean Tatars fought more in the Red Army ranks than in the various military and paramilitary formations associated with the Wehrmacht and the occupational authorities.

The maximum number of Crimean Tatars in the “Tatar” auxiliary detachments of the German armed forces at the end of 1943 amounted to 15–16,000.

The most efficient part, the 5–6,000 “Hiwis,” were evacuated from the Crimea along with the 11th Wehrmacht Army and fought outside the peninsula.

Out of the three thousand personnel of the Schuma battalion, a third were disarmed by the Germans and placed in concentration camps. Most likely, these thousand people still ended up in a GULAG after the war. Part of the “selfdefense” moved to the side of the partisans, including the whole of A. Rajimov’s company.

Close to 3,500 men from the German volunteer formations were evacuated to the west with the retreating Wehrmacht. In actuality, Beria’s informants believed that about 5,000 “active minions” were evacuated but the rest, mostly women and children, were shipped to Romania and Bulgaria via sea ports from 14 to 26 April 1944.

The fate of the Crimean Tatars developed differently. After 1944, 2,500 of those enlisted were reformed and re-located into East-Turkish units of the Battle Group “Crimea”. More than 800 “Hiwi” were sent to the 35th Grenadier Division. The remaining were enrolled in the Volga-Tatar Legion in France and supported anti-aircraft units. Therefore, all together about 8,5–9,000 male collaborators came from the Crimea. By the time of Germany’s surrender, only about 3,500 “volunteers” were still alive. The rest died or disappeared. At the end of the war, a very significant part of them were returned to the USSR, where they were sent to GULAGs.

In Crimea, about 5,500 Crimean-collaborators remained, of whom almost a thousand were killed in battles.

Immediately after the expulsion of the Nazis from Crimea, the Soviet state security services began hunting for “anti- Soviet elements”, mainly through paramilitary groups.

In accordance with Beria’s proposal from 5 July 1944, there were 7,833 arrested, carried out with more than 15,000 rifles and automatic rifles, more than 700 machine guns and 5 million ammunition. The fate of these people, of which almost 6,000 were Crimean Tatars was obvious – arrest, detention, camps.