1. Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminski was a Soviet Nazi collaborator.
23 Facts About Bronislav Kaminski
1. 2.
The unit is regarded as one of the most brutal units, with Bronislav Kaminski himself feared by his subordinates.
3.
Bronislav Kaminski's behavior made the Germans lose confidence in him: in August 1944, he was court-martialed and executed.
4.
Bronislav Kaminski's brigade was later disbanded and its remaining personnel absorbed into General Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army.
5.
Bronislav Kaminski was born in Vitebsk Governorate, the Russian Empire, now in Polotsk District, Belarus.
6.
Bronislav Kaminski's father was an ethnic Pole and his mother was an ethnic German.
7.
Bronislav Kaminski studied at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and then served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.
8.
Bronislav Kaminski was accused of "belonging to a counter-revolutionary group".
9.
Bronislav Kaminski became Voskoboinik's deputy; working with Heinz Guderian the two collaborators organized a militia of 10,000 armed men with the aim of crushing the Russian partisans.
10.
On 19 July 1942, after approval by the Commander of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, Schmidt and the 532 Area commander, Bronislav Kaminski received a degree of autonomy and nominal self-governing authority, under the supervision of Major von Veltheim and Colonel Rubsam.
11.
Bronislav Kaminski administered local government and established his own courts, jails and newspaper.
12.
From June 1942, Bronislav Kaminski's militia took part in an action, "Operation Vogelsang", as a part of General Werner von Gilsa's Kampfgruppe Gilsa II.
13.
Bronislav Kaminski ordered the collection of abandoned Soviet tanks and armored cars.
14.
Each time, Bronislav Kaminski narrowly avoided death and any captured conspirators were punished by execution.
15.
On 29 July 1943 Bronislav Kaminski issued orders for the evacuation of the property and families of the RONA brigade and the Lokot authorities.
16.
On 15 February 1944, Bronislav Kaminski issued an order for the brigade and Lokot administration to retreat further west to the Dzyatlava area in western Belarus.
17.
In June 1944, the brigade was absorbed as a part of the Waffen-SS and renamed Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, with Bronislav Kaminski being given the rank of Waffen-Brigadefuhrer der SS, the only man with such rank.
18.
On 1 August 1944 Bronislav Kaminski received a new rank - Waffen-Brigadefuhrer and Major-General of the Waffen-SS.
19.
In 1944 Bronislav Kaminski took part in the crushing of the Warsaw Uprising, in the Ochota area, where the Bronislav Kaminski Brigade committed numerous atrocities.
20.
Bronislav Kaminski thought himself to have direct authority from the SS commander Heinrich Himmler and he did not want to accept orders from SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who was in charge of German forces in Warsaw.
21.
Frolov noted in 1944 that Bronislav Kaminski gave his men permission to loot and many did.
22.
The men of the brigade were given the false explanation that Bronislav Kaminski had been killed by Polish partisans.
23.
When Bronislav Kaminski's men rejected this explanation, the Gestapo took Bronislav Kaminski's car, pushed it into a ditch, shot it up with a machine gun, and smeared goose blood all over it, as evidence.