The poor state of Russian conscripts mobilized by Vladimir Putin has led to the unanimous conclusion that Russia lacks men capable or willing to fight in a war of aggression against Ukraine.

The many videos and media showing Russians showing up to registration centers in a drunken state, with no experience or even military age, are sure to amuse any unbiased observer.

In fact, what is happening is tragic, the unanimous conclusion is that something like this can only happen in Russia. But everything is not quite like that, and Putin is not the first to try to turn ordinary civilians into professional soldiers in moments of crisis.

The first telling example of the 20th century in this sense was England itself during the First World War, forming the so-called “friendly battalions”, which had such dramatic consequences during the Battle of the Somme.

The Volkssturm was Adolf Hitler’s last attempt to change the course of the war

In the last months of the Second World War, hastily recruited civilian units appeared in the thinned ranks of the German army, cornered on all fronts. Volkssturm, or “people’s storm”, loosely translated, was the last attempt of the Nazi regime to continue its existence.

The similarity between the appearance of this people’s militia and the mobilization of Russian recruits today is explained by the fighting ability of these units, the lack of desire of the soldiers to fight, but, perhaps most importantly, the presence of a certain dose of desperation on the part of the leaders.

Volkssturm – Hitler’s Civilian Population (YouTube/German Federal Archives)

Prerequisites for the formation of Volkssturm units

Although clearly a measure born of desperation, conscription of men previously deemed unfit for military service was Germany’s only solution at the time.

Thus, the Wehrmacht was on the verge of collapse after the relentless advance of Soviet troops on the eastern front, as well as after the landing of the Allies in Normandy, which took place in early June 1944. The nightmare of German strategists, which they tried to avoid for many years, the battle on two fronts became real.

At the same time, a number of previous events, such as the defeat of the DAK (AfrikaKorps) troops in North Africa, the collapse of the Italian front, the demoralizing siege of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-1943, and last but not least the loss of the Romanian allies defending the Balkan front against the Russians, led for Germany to a constant reduction of its military forces. Simply put, the Nazi regime ran out of troops.

Who did the volkssturm squads consist of?

Theoretically, after long years of war, Germany has already exhausted its human reserves, which, although large, were not inexhaustible. Thus, for recruitment to the Volkssturm, it was enough to be male and between the ages of 16 and 60. Thus, workers previously considered necessary for military production suddenly became impossible.

There were also problems related to the lack of uniforms (many of them were in civilian clothes, wearing a simple armband with the insignia of the unit to which they belonged), to which we add the fact that these units were poorly armed, and as well as military training. was very short and therefore caused ridicule.

It is possible that these auxiliary troops could have some contribution to the conduct of the fighting, but they were never available to the leaders of the German army, being subordinate to the politician through his territorial representatives.

As for the will of these troops to fight, you can’t look at things in black and white.

So we have, first of all, the older recruits, many of whom had military experience during the First World War, who were well aware that they were being led to certain death, then there was a category of young and very young members who were, for the most part, washed brainwashed by Nazi propaganda, many of them still dreamed of “final victory”.

The use of this people’s militia in battles and their zero effect in the conduct of hostilities

The Volkssturm was sent both to the western front to keep up with the Allies, but especially to the eastern front to try and stop the Russian advance. The effectiveness of such troops, to put it mildly, of dubious quality, was questionable from the very beginning. The subsequent course of events will justify those who were against the formation of these parts.

As I said, they were not under the effective military command of military commanders, depending on civilian administrative leaders on the ground, some people apparently without military experience.

If against the Russians they preferred to fight to the end, refusing to surrender to the Red Army for obvious reasons, the situation was different on the Western Front. Thus, the number of deserters will reach an alarming level, because the Germans know very well that they will be treated well by the Allies.

Volkssturm units will participate in battles until the end of the Third Reich, in early May 1945, as part of the troops that made up the garrison of Berlin, besieged by the Russians. Casualties were heavy, which was to be expected, given that these were untrained and ill-equipped recruits whose morale was questionable from the start.

Anti-mobilization protests in Russia Photo: Oleksandr Zemlianichenko / AP / Profimedia

Attempting to use this kind of troops is an attempt to preserve dying regimes

From this point of view, the “partial mobilization” ordered by Putin is not very different from what happened in the last period of Nazi Germany.

In essence, we are dealing with the same factors, referring to the urgent mobilization of conscripts unsuitable for active military service by age and training, as well as their inadequate provision and equipment. As for the morale of recruits, the long queues at the borders of Russia for those who want to escape from mobilization speak volumes.

Throughout history, turning civilians into soldiers through simple recruitment, without instruction, training or proper equipment, has been nothing more than the swan song of certain regimes in clinical death.

Literature:

– Liddell Hart – History of World War II

– Anthony Beaver – The Fall of Berlin

– Duffy, Christopher – Red Storm in the Reich: The Soviet Campaign in Germany

– David Welch – The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda.

Read other articles by Andrii Stan:

• The battle in which the Russian general sent 11 thousand Romanian soldiers to their deaths
  • • • • • Finn, who enlisted in three armies to fight against one enemy. How Laurie Torney became the subject of books and films
• “Not a step back”: the famous Stalin’s order 227 and blockade special forces
• Battle of Wizna or “Polish Thermopylae”
• The story of Andriy Vlasov, Stalin’s successful general who defected to the Germans: traitor or anti-communist?
• Who was Stepan Bandera: a hero for Ukraine, a terrorist for Russia/ Putin mentioned in his speech on Victory Day
• How war propaganda works: from the genocide in Rwanda to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Lend-Lease or how the USA helped Russia not to disappear Genocide of Ukrainians, which Russia would like to forget.
• Russia’s behavior then and now: from Katyn to Buchi, or how Russian propaganda tries to change history
• The Battle of Turtukaia is one of the most shameful defeats in the history of the Romanian army
• The history of two Chechen wars: Russia “wanted” and then “quick and clean” intervention
• Why the Russian blitzkrieg failed in Ukraine. Will the Ukrainian army be able to resist the Russian invasion like the Finns in 1939?/ Similarities and differences