Bronislaw Kaminski

Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminski (Russian: Бронислав Каминский in Russian) was the commander of the RONA (Russkaya Ovsoboditelnaya Narodnaya Armiya) unit, a Russian armed force that fought against the Soviet forces in alliance with Nazi Germany and was later incorporated into the Waffen SS.

Engineer Bronislaw (also spelled Bronislav) Kaminski was born in 1899 to a Polish father and German mother in Tsarist Russia. He fought on the side of the Red Army during the Russian civil war, then studied at a polytechnical university. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1937 for criticising Stalin's policy of collectivization. Kaminski made it out of prison in 1941 and became an engineer at a distillery in the Bryansk region of Russia, near Belarus.

When the Nazi Germans occupied the Bryansk region during their blitzkrieg campaign Kaminski's classmate, engineer Constantine Voskoboinik (who had also been a victim of political oppression), was placed by the Germans in charge of the city Bryansk. Kaminski became Voskobonik's assistant, and the two of them immediately organized several thousand volunteers to combat the Soviet partisans who were counterattacking from the forests of Bryansk. This formation soon grew to 10,000 men and was called by them the Russian National Liberation Army (abbreviated in Russian as "RONA").

By an arrangement with the German authorities, the RONA was able to control several raions of Russia, within which they proclaimed the Lokot Republic, under a German suzerainty that was very liberal compared to anywhere else in Nazi occupied Russia. The government administration was run by Russians, the presence of Axis troops was minimal, and relations with Nazi German authorities carried on almost an allied character. Private enterprise was permitted and collective farming was abolished.

When Constantine Voskoboinik was killed in action against the partisans, Bronislaw Kaminski was named as the head leader or "burgomeister" of the Bryansk region as well as commander of the RONA. Through his recruitment and draft he raised the RONA's ranks to 20,000 men. The Soviet partisans nicknamed him the "master of the Bryansk forests".

The Soviets made attempts at getting Kaminski and his men to defect, with promises of an amnesty and re-enlistment. Kaminski adamantly refused, although several hundred of his men managed to desert or defect to the Soviet side.

By the end of 1943, Kaminski had to evacuate to Belorus, where he set up another autonomous republic in Lepel. The Germans filled the RONA's ranks with Belorussian police, prisoners of war, and ex-convicts, then reclassified the unit into the Waffen SS as "Russian SS Division No. 1" Kaminski was promoted to SS General-Major, and was also awarded with an Iron Cross for Eastern Peoples (first class).

In 1944, Himmler asked Kaminski to assist the other SS divisions in the quelling of the Warsaw uprising. Kaminski oliged and sent about 1700 volunteers from its ranks to Warsaw. SS commander Frolov gave his men full permission to rob and pillage, which many of them did.

The misconduct of the Warsaw group was used by Himmler as a pretext for having Kaminski and his head group of men executed after trial by courtmarshal. The men of RONA were given a false explanation, that Kaminski had been killed by Polish partisans. When this intial explanation was rejected by Kaminski's men, the Gestapo took Kaminski's car, threw it into a ditch, shot it up with a machine gun, and smeared goose blood all over it - offering that as evidence.