The fatal mistake of General Turkul.
Finishing the collection, I consider it my duty to devote a few lines to the memory of the last chief of the Drozdovsky division - General Anton Vasilyevich Turkul, whose name is inextricably linked with the glory of the division.
In the order of General Lampe on the EMRO No. 6 dated August 21, 1957, a sad message was made:
“On the night of August 19-20 in Munich, after a serious illness and painful operation, Major General Anton Vasilyevich Turkul died.
The Knight of the Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George and the St. George Arms of the Russian Federation prematurely left the white ranks Imperial Army and the valiant chief of the Drozdovsky division of the Volunteer and Russian armies on the Southern Front of the Civil War for the liberation of Russia.
The hearts of the white volunteers, the comrades-in-arms of the deceased, and all Russian people who knew about the deceased and his heroic service to Great Russia will sadly shrink at this painful news.
The Drozdovites close to General Turkul will have a hard time experiencing this loss, and they have the honorable duty of preserving his ashes and bringing them with them to the revived Motherland when this happens by the will of God. Eternal memory!
I will not be mistaken if I add to this that high quality A.V. Turkul created his military glory, which surrounded the deceased always and everywhere, regardless of whether he was a junior officer, captain, colonel, general - head of the Drozdov division. And this fighting word was more than deserved by him.
General Kharzhevsky, in an article dedicated to the memory of General Turkul, wrote this:
“I, who came into contact with him from the very beginning of the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks until the end of it, remember many things that are never forgotten. Before the start of the campaign, Drozdovtsev - Captain Turkul - sergeant major of the glorious 2nd Officer Company of the Detachment of General Drozdovsky. He arrived in the detachment with already completely strengthened convictions that only armed struggle was possible with the Bolsheviks. He came to the Detachment while at the front Great War commander of a shock battalion, with “evidence” that war is the element in which his talents are fully manifested on the path of fulfilling his duty to the Motherland. All the orders available to an officer in his rank, including the Order of St. George and the Arms of St. George, clearly testified that he was not inactive on the front of the Great War and that from there he brought his combat happiness, skill, and his impulse, which, however, , showed up when needed and always ensured success. Operations that seemed to others to be very risky, in his hands, taking into account psychological and other aspects, were carried out with extraordinary confidence, which was passed on to his subordinates. And Anton Vasilyevich Turkul affirmed all this before our eyes from the very first days of the struggle to the last.
At the end of the Drozdovtsy campaign, in Novocherkassk. A.V. Turkul took over the 2nd company, with which he went out on the 2nd Kuban campaign. In it, during heavy battles for the station. Korenovskaya in July 1918, he was seriously wounded in the leg, the treatment of which was delayed. He returned to the regiment at the beginning of 1919 and soon took over the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Officer Regiment.
Already at this period of time, A.V. Turkul revealed his other properties and qualities, which, in addition to his purely military talents, attracted the hearts of his subordinates to him: his constant cheerfulness, which did not leave him in the most difficult moments of continuous battles, always inspired confidence and in success, and in a safe exit from difficult, sometimes seemingly hopeless, situations. It is difficult to dwell here on the operations he performed, even the most striking of them. And you don’t know what is brighter: the defense of the Donetsk basin in the spring of 1919, when the Drozdovites, along with other volunteers, bleeding, stubbornly held this important area for several months; whether the capture of Lozova, which was interfering with the general operation to capture Kharkov, when, by order from above, the 1st battalion and its Commander were assigned upon returning to the regiment, at Izyum station, a guard of honor consisting of the entire officer company; Kharkov, Sevsk, Komarichi station with its armored trains. It is difficult to single out the most striking operations. Already with the general withdrawal of the armies of Southern Russia, the actions of the 1st Drozdovsky Regiment, under the command of Colonel Turkul, are distinguished by bright moments of exceptional activity and manifestation of the personal initiative of the regiment commander.
The military talents of General Turkul were especially evident when he commanded the Drozdovsky division in the second half Crimean period, when the division revealed its maneuverability. A.V. Turkul did not like to scatter battalions, much less companies, along the entire front of a given division’s sector, just as he did not like indecisive operations that amounted to pushing back the enemy. He strengthened the previously outlined system: to keep the entire division in a fist, protected by patrols throughout the division's entire sector, without even being embarrassed by enemy penetration in individual sections of the division. And at a certain moment he planned a large-scale operation to completely clear the entire front of the division from the enemy, and often on a larger scale, in order to help neighbors. There was even a certain “pattern” for such operations, both in the conduct of the operation itself and in the fact that the entire division took part in it. The division chief only determined the place and time of the strike, mostly at dawn, and the scale of the environment. The lead battalion made a breakthrough, and then a long, several miles long, column of the division on carts joined this breakthrough and “enveloped” the entire indicated area. From the head of the column, where the division chief was always located, orders came for “details”; who will “actually” take the cut off armored trains that have gone to our rear, who will “clear” this or that area, etc. These “raids” of the Drozdovsky division, in their consequences, were always very noticeable both for the enemy and for our front.
As an indicator of the mood and spirit of the division's units, one episode dating back to this period is typical. General Turkul intensively replenished the division's reserve battalion with prisoners. The regiments at the front were replenished in the same order. General Turkul intended to arm this battalion accordingly, attract it to the division and bring it into battle as part of the division, while creating a battle situation in which the reserve battalion would acquire both impetus and complete confidence in its abilities. Then, I would petition the High Command to rename the reserve battalion into the 4th rifle regiment divisions. General Turkul's intentions came true, but in a completely different order. The situation on the right bank of the Dnieper (the Trans-Dnieper operation) became more complicated and prompted the High Command to urgently call the reserve battalion of the Drozdovsky division to this front. In order to evaluate the brilliant combat performance of the reserve battalion, General Wrangel “promoted” it to the 4th Infantry Regiment of General Drozdovsky by telegraph.”
According to General Kharzhevsky and his impression, the “period of defense of the Donetsk basin” in the spring of 1919, in which Captain Turkul, commander of the 1st battalion, was the permanent “Chief of Defense of the Nikitovsky Knot”, was one of the most striking. Not by the brilliant successes associated with the large number of prisoners, taken guns, etc., but by the tenacity that was shown by him in the defense of a large sector, by the assessment of the constantly changing situation and by the exceptional maneuverability of the companies and, especially the reserve (“mobile reserve" - on the train at Nikitovka station), which ensured the success of the defense with insignificant forces.
L.V. Turkul valued the concept of the feeling of mutual benefit unusually highly. All units of the division and all types of weapons were imbued with this feeling to a high degree. In this case, in fairness, it is impossible to give preference to one over the other.
Of course, the majority of commanders of all levels were at the top of the division, and very often independently carried out operations in the spirit as General Turkul would have carried them out, but there can be no dispute that no less often, and in difficult conditions, only personal the participation of A.V. Turkul determined both the nature of the operation and the speed of its progress, and ensured success.
The military partnership that emerged among the division ranks on the battlefields was consolidated already during their stay in exile with the active participation of General Turkul. In new forms of struggle, the barriers between types of weapons have been erased and the Drozdovtsy represent a single, friendly family.
Brilliant combat activity A.V. Turkula, on the one hand, constant cheerfulness, which had a great influence on those around him (he was unfamiliar with the feeling of depression), and a sense of camaraderie, on the other hand, is his invaluable contribution to the life of the Drozdov family.. This explains there is a heavy feeling of irreparable loss among her.”
Vl. Novikov, in his memoirs about General Turkul, writes:
“General Turkul! Like a rapier, tense into a string, this name of an unprecedented, ringing heroism is pierced, flashing like lightning on the fields of the tragic struggle for Russia. Like a fanfare of a swift ray of military glory, this name shines over the iron regiments of the never-broken Drozdov division.
Warrior - by the grace of God! A knight without fear and reproach! Anton Vasilyevich is a caring friend, a selfless comrade, a loving father. General Turkul is a strict, demanding and merciless Division Chief, who surveys the battlefields with his eagle eye and dominates them with boundless will, spiritual elasticity and the brilliance of military talent.
General Turkul! This name will never disappear from the annals of Russian military glory! And future generations, studying the heroism of their fathers and grandfathers, will pronounce it respectfully and proudly!
In his book “Drozdovtsy on Fire,” General Turkul, describing the personality of his military comrade-in-arms Colonel Peters, writes: “The son, it seems, of a gymnasium teacher, a student at Moscow University, he went to the big war as a reserve ensign... If not for the war, he would probably I would have ended up as a gymnasium teacher somewhere. But combat fire revealed the real essence of Peters, his genius...”
Do these words not apply with greater right to General Turkul himself? A realist, then service in a civilian department, then a volunteer in a provincial infantry regiment... But then the fires of war broke out. And what lay at the bottom of the soul suddenly soars with the dazzling fireworks of a found calling.
Without any special military education, by the end of three years of the Great War he was already a staff captain of the 75th Sevastopol Infantry Regiment, a holder of the Order of St. George, the Arms of St. George and all orders available to a chief officer. His military reputation in the division is so high that in the days of the collapse it is he who becomes the organizer and commander of the Shock Battalion in his division, which should serve as an example of courage and feat to stop the collapse of the army that had lost its honor.
At the beginning of the heroics of the White struggle, he is only a sergeant major of the officer company of the Drozdovsky detachment, and by the end of it, he is the Chief of the Drozdovsky division, bearing the name of its founder. This is no longer a career. This is a rise the likes of which are few in military history.”
Three days after the death of General Anton Vasilyevich Turkul, all Russian Munich came to see him off on his last earthly journey. He was also seen off by many who knew him, local residents. After the funeral service, his coffin was temporarily placed in the crypt of the Munich cemetery, but was soon transported to France. There, in the Sainte-Genevieve des Bois cemetery near Paris, where the Gallipoli monument stands, at the imposing monument to “General Drozdovsky and his Drozdovites”, in the Drozdovsky section of the cemetery, General Turkul sleeps eternal sleep in a foreign land, awaiting his return to the liberated and resurrected national Russia.
Today, December 24, Russian National Socialists honor with blessed memory the anniversary of the birth of the greatest Russian general, who selflessly fought for the greatness and power of the Russian Fatherland on the fields of three great wars, Anton Vasilyevich Turkul A. You can return to the biography of this legendary White warrior, who became a general at the age of 28, countless times. Anton Turkul- an example for all of us. An example of Honor, Loyalty, Intransigence. An example of a courageous brave man marching, laughing, into a bayonet attack on the enemy. For the eternal ideals of the people and the Motherland.
“He is the most terrible soldier of the most terrible civil war. He is a wild madness of attacks without a single shot, a chin cut by the blued handle of a revolver, the fumes of fierce fires, a whirlwind of madness, death and victories,” wrote about the last commander of the Drozdov officer division, General Turkul He is a well-known writer Ivan Lukash, a former member of the Volunteer Army.
The fearless commander of “Drozdov” himself spoke about his struggle like this: “We fought for the Russian people, for their freedom and soul, so that they, deceived, would not become a Soviet slave”...
General Turkul was born exactly 123 years ago, on December 24, 1892, near Tiraspol, Kherson province in the family of a Russian employee. He graduated from a real school and served in the civil department. In 1910 he voluntarily joined military service private as a volunteer II category in the 56th Zhitomir Infantry of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich infantry regiment, who lived in Tiraspol. In January 1913 Turkul was transferred to the reserve with the rank of junior non-commissioned officer. With the outbreak of World War I, he completed an accelerated military school course and was released as an ensign into the 75th Sevastopol Infantry Regiment. By the end of the war Turkul was wounded three times, promoted to staff captain, awarded the Golden Arms of St. George, the Order of St. George 4th degree and other military orders.
After February revolution Anton Turkul, without hesitation, joined the shock battalion. At that time, the front was supported exclusively by these “suicide squads”, which only volunteers joined. Their distinctive sign was a chevron with a skull and crossbones on the left shoulder - a symbol of their readiness to give their life for their Motherland without hesitation.
After the Bolshevik revolution Turkul As part of the volunteer detachment of Colonel M. G. Drozdovsky, he made a 1200-kilometer hike from the Romanian city of Iasi to Novocherkassk.
In the Second Kuban campaign in the summer - autumn of 1918 he commanded a company of the officer regiment of the 3rd Drozdovsky Infantry Division. In the battles near Korenevka on July 16, he was seriously wounded in the leg and returned to duty only at the beginning of 1919. Civil War ended up as the head of Drozdovskaya rifle division with the rank of major general. He was awarded the newly established White Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which only 338 people received.
The Drozdovites loved their commander and called him “sam” behind his back. Often in the attacking chains one heard: “I arrived. Well, now let’s give the reds life.” Turkul he really was an unbending fighter, as Alexei Tolstoy would say, “a distinct fighter.” During the civil war he lost three brothers. One was raised at bayonet by revolutionary sailors who burst into the hospital where he was being treated. The second was burned alive for the brand new crimson shoulder straps of the Drozdovsky division. It is not known exactly how the third brother died. Anton Vasilyevich himself, repeatedly wounded in attacks, always repeated: “My life and fate are inseparable from the fate of the Russian army, captured by a national catastrophe.”
With prisoners Turkul He didn’t screw around, mercilessly shooting commissars and painters. After a short conversation and “psychological visual analysis” (a close look into the eyes), Turkul put ordinary Red Army soldiers into formation with the “blackbirds”. Turkul felt special hatred for the officers loitering in their own white rear areas, firmly “defending” various rear departments. Front against Soviet troops held back by 13-16 year old Drozdov boys and volunteers. Raids and entire expeditions were organized against the “rear rats”, and opportunists caught in their course were put into service by order of Turkul.
The glory of Turkul also reached the opposite front line. The opposing Red units were especially alarmed by the presence at the front of Turkul himself and his machine-gun units, distinguished by their extraordinary skill in handling deadly machines.
April 7, 1920 for successful landing operation By order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Turkul was promoted to the rank of major general. At the very end of the struggle in the South of Russia, on August 6, 1920, General Turkul, in battles in Northern Tavria, took command of the Drozdovskaya rifle division from General Staff Lieutenant General Keller. Under the skillful command of General Turkul, the Drozdovskaya division fought with honor until the evacuation in November 1920. At the end of October, the Drozdovskaya division played a decisive role in the counter-offensive of the strategic reserve of the Russian army near Yushun, ensuring the successful evacuation of the army and refugees while suffering the least losses.
This is what the general wrote in his memoirs about the last battles of the Drozdovites on Russian soil: “The chains of the Reds, colliding, rolling over each other, fled under our attack, when we, the White Guards, in our last battle, as in the first, rifles on belts, with extinguished cigarettes in their teeth, silently walked at full length towards the machine guns. In the last attack near Perekop, the Drozdovsky regiment overthrew the Reds and took up to one and a half thousand prisoners. At the front, apart from the brutally battered brigade of the Kuban Division, there was no cavalry to support the attack. Under crossfire, shot from all sides, the 1st Drozdovsky Regiment had to retreat. About seven hundred dead and wounded were carried out of the fire. On the same day, an order for a general evacuation was received, and the Drozdovsky division, terribly thinned out, but firm, moved to Sevastopol. End. This was the end, not just for the whites. This was the end of Russia. Whites were a selection of the Russian nation and became victims for Russia. The struggle ended with our crucifixion. “Lord, Lord, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps all crucified Russia was praying with us then in the darkness of death.”
In exile he headed the association of former Drozdovites, among whom he enjoyed great authority. He was a supporter of continuing the active struggle against Bolshevism. In 1933, his people prepared an assassination attempt on L. Trotsky-Bronstein, expelled from the USSR, which failed due to opposition from Soviet agents.
Wanting “to unite all those who in the difficult emigrant night... did not break away from their fatherland and people, who... fought and stood in battle fire for the Fatherland, were a white warrior of Russia and remained such a warrior,” Turkul formed on June 28, 1936 on the basis of the Drozdovsky association, the military-political organization Russian National Union of War Participants (RNSUV) with its center in Paris. Soon, RNSUV departments arose in Albania, Argentina, Belgium, Greece, China, Uruguay, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries. The organization published the newspaper “Signal” and the magazines “Military Journalist” and “Always for Russia” (the latter words were also placed on the badge of Turkulov members). The motto of the RNSUV was: “God - Nation - Social Justice.” IN program documents The Union said: “The democratic fabrications and imitations of “European models” of Russian liberals are a pathetic parody of the sovereign course of Russian history, they are a grimace of history, a disease of the nation.
Undoubtedly, the revival of the Russian Empire is possible only through the revival of its historical, national core - the monarchy. If Russian Empire will be, then it will only be monarchical. But the 20-year domination of the USSR by non-Russian communist authorities could not pass without a trace. The realization of the need for a monarchy for the Russian Empire may not occur the next day after the overthrow of the communist authorities. The task of the national dictatorship is to help the Russian nation take its historical path. This task is not easy... Therefore, both the Russian nation will have to deserve its Emperor, and Russian Emperor“to deserve Russia.”
The “leading role of the Russian People” was especially stipulated: “The high lot” that fell to the lot of the Russian People (Great Russians, Ukrainians, Little Russians and Belarusians) imposes on it a special historical responsibility.” Therefore, he would have to occupy "the responsible position of the leading arbiter of the Empire."
In the financial and economic sphere, an unconditional limitation of the “autocracy of financial capital” was envisaged. “A single government bank can perfectly fulfill the economic function of private banks, without their irresponsible politicking. This is especially important for Russia. Allowing freedom of capitalist activity after the overthrow of the communist government means deliberately handing over the country to the flow and plunder of international predatory capital. But, of course, it is impossible to completely do without foreign capital in impoverished Russia. It is a matter of special control to establish how private foreign capital can be used” (“Signal” [Paris], 1939, No. 58). Turkul himself stated: “We took fascism and national socialism as the basis for our political thinking, which have shown in practice their viability and defeated communism in their homeland. But, of course, we refract these doctrines in Russian history and apply them to Russian life, to the aspirations and needs of the Russian people... Our ideal is the fascists of all countries and peoples in which their national honor burns, in which their national truth is strong and who understand and pay tribute to both other people's honor and other people's truth. Not use and exploitation, but mutual respect and good neighborly peace and union - this is what we expect and what we see from the fascist idea” (Signal, 1938, No. 32).
Considering that “an explosion of effectiveness is needed to liberate Russia from the bloody clutches of Judeo-Marxism,” the leadership of the RNSUV in September. 1937 became part of the Russian National Front, which united a number of patriotic organizations in emigration. In April 1938 Turkul, captain Larionov and several right-wing Russian emigrants were deported as “undesirable persons” to Germany by the decision of the pro-communist French government of M. Blum.
General Turkul lived first in Berlin, and after the signing of the Soviet-German Pact in August. 1939 moved to Rome. In the pre-war period, they established friendly relations with Heinrich Himmler.
On the eve of the Second World War, he wrote: “Any blow to the Comintern on the territory of the USSR will inevitably cause an explosion of anti-communist forces within the country. It will be our duty to join these forces. We will then strive to ensure that somewhere, even on a small piece of Russian land, the Russian tricolor banner rises” (“Signal”, 1939, No. 48). Therefore, Turkul and his supporters joined the “Russian liberation army" - at the beginning of 1945 he formed a volunteer brigade, planning to deploy it in separate building. First of all, he enlisted the ranks of the ranks of the RNSUV, EMRO (ORVS) and other military organizations of the Russian Diaspora. In April, the group included 5,200 ranks. On March 25, 1945, according to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of KONR, Gen. Vlasov, the Russian Corps was subordinated to General Turkul, but Turkul did not have time to take command.
After 1945 in Germany, chairman of the Committee of Russian Defectors. Collaborated with the magazines “Volunteer” and “Sentry”. In 1950, in Munich, under the leadership of the general, the Committee of the United Vlasovites (KOV) was formed, which published the magazine “Volunteer”, the internal communication organ of the ROA cadres. KOV united a small, but ideologically most healthy part of the Vlasovites.
Turkul died in Munich on August 19, 1957. He was buried in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve des Bois next to the monument to “General Drozdovsky and the Drozdovites.”
General Turkul in 1948 wrote his memoirs about the Civil War “Drozdovtsy on Fire” (another name is “For Holy Rus'”). This work is recognized as one of the most emotional, living books telling about the Civil War: “My book is dedicated to them, these future white fighters. In the images of their predecessors, the fallen white soldiers, whose souls continue to live in their souls, may they draw that impulse and that sacrifice that will help them complete the struggle for the liberation of Russia.” Undoubtedly, this book should be read by every Russian person.
Anton Vasilyevich Turkul was born in 1892 in Tiraspol into the family of a Russian employee. He graduated from a real school and served in the civil department. In 1910, he voluntarily entered military service as a private as a volunteer II category in the 56th Zhitomir Infantry Regiment of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, stationed in Tiraspol. In January 1913, Turkul was transferred to the reserve with the rank of junior non-commissioned officer. With the outbreak of World War I, he completed an accelerated military school course and was released as an ensign into the 75th Sevastopol Infantry Regiment. By the end of the war, Turkul was wounded three times, promoted to staff captain, awarded the Arms of St. George, the Order of St. George 4th degree and other military orders.
After the February revolution, Turkul became the organizer and commander of the shock battalion of his division. In conditions of the disintegration of the army, the front was supported exclusively by the so-called “suicide units.” After October revolution and the dissolution of the shock units, Anton Vasilyevich and a group of his comrades enlisted in the detachment of the general staff of Colonel Mikhail Gordeevich Drozdovsky. At the end of the Yassy-Don campaign, in Novocherkassk he took command of an officer company. Since January 1919, Turkul commanded the 1st battalion of the 2nd officer general Drozdovsky regiment. On October 24, 1919, with the rank of colonel, he took command of the 1st officer rifle regiment of the Drozdovsky division
On April 7, 1920, for the successful landing operation Perekop-Khorly, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Turkul was promoted to the rank of major general. At the very end of the struggle in the South of Russia, on August 6, 1920, General Turkul, in battles in Northern Tavria, took command of the Drozdovskaya Rifle Division from the General Staff of Lieutenant General Keller. Under the skillful command of General Turkul, the Drozdovskaya division fought with honor until the evacuation in November 1920. At the end of October, the Drozdovskaya division played a decisive role in the counter-offensive of the strategic reserve of the Russian army near Yushun, ensuring the successful evacuation of the army and refugees while suffering the least losses
This is what the general wrote in his memoirs about the last battles of the Drozdovites on Russian soil: “The chains of the Reds, colliding and rolling over each other, fled under our attack when we, the White Guards, in our last battle, as in the first, rifles on our belts, with extinguished cigarettes in their teeth, they silently marched at full speed towards the machine guns. In the last attack near Perekop, the Drozdov regiment overthrew the Reds and took up to one and a half thousand prisoners. At the front, except for the brutally battered brigade of the Kuban division, there was no cavalry to support the attack under the cross. fire, shot from all sides, the 1st Drozdovsky regiment had to retreat. About seven hundred killed and wounded were taken out of the fire. On the same day, an order was received for a general evacuation, and the Drozdovsky division, terribly thinned out, but strong, moved to Sevastopol. .
End. This was the end, not just for the whites. This was the end of Russia. Whites were a selection of the Russian nation and became victims for Russia. The struggle ended with our crucifixion. “Lord, Lord, why have you forsaken me?” “Perhaps all crucified RUSSIA prayed with us then in the darkness of death.”
In exile, Gen. Turkul was studying active work, sought to continue the fight against Bolshevism. During the Civil War he lost three brothers. One of them, who served under his command, was brutally tortured by the Bolsheviks, who took him prisoner and found brand new crimson officer’s shoulder straps with the monogram “D” in his overcoat pocket.
After the Crimean evacuation and the famous "Galliopoli seat", General Turkul moved to Bulgaria, and in the early 30s he moved to France. In exile, the general headed the Drozdovsky units, which were part of the Russian General Military Union. However, the apolitical nature of the EMRO, which was completely inconsistent with the current situation, the controversial selection of personnel, as well as a noticeable decline in activity, prompted Turkul to create the Russian National Union of Participants in the War (RNSUV) in 1936. RNSUV stood entirely on the monarchical platform. “Our ideal is the Orthodox Kingdom-Empire,” said the publications of the Union. “Our ideal is a fascist monarchy” is the well-known cry of the gene. Turkula. The motto of RNSUV is “God, Fatherland, Social Justice.” The newspaper "Signal", published twice a month from 1937 to 1940, became the Union's press organ. After in April 1938, by decree of the government of L. Blum, the general was included in the list of “undesirable persons” and expelled from France without explanation, he settled in Germany.
During World War II, Anton Vasilyevich commanded a separate Cossack brigade (approximately 5,200 people), which fought against international Bolshevism; at the very end of the war, it became part of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (AF KONR). After the war, in Germany, Turkul spent several months in prison after denunciation to the occupation authorities.
General Turkul in 1948 wrote memoirs about the Civil War - “Drozdovtsy on Fire” (another name is “For Holy Rus'”). This work is recognized as one of the most emotional, living books telling about the Civil War: “My book is dedicated to them, these future white fighters. In the images of their predecessors, fallen white soldiers, whose souls continue to live in their souls, may they draw from that the impulse and that sacrifice that will help them complete the work of the struggle for the liberation of Russia."
In 1950, in Munich, under the leadership of the general, the Committee of the United Vlasovites (KOV) was formed, which published the magazine “Volunteer” - the internal communication organ of the ROA cadres. KOV united a small, but ideologically most healthy part of the Vlasovites.
General Anton Vasilyevich Turkul died on August 19, 1957 in Munich. He was buried on the outskirts of Paris in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve des Bois next to the monument to “General Drozdovsky and the Drozdovites.”
Eggplants of the Drozdovsky division
Little soldiers, war is not a game of checkers,
Rifles are not pointers and death is not a teacher,
The time has come for confusion, civil strife
And you, leaving your mother’s foot, stepped into the line.
Boys from the gymnasium. What have you seen in your life?
For pranks not guilty of a twig on the backside...
And then they rushed into the attack and the formation collapsed.
Mustacheless, innocent, but with eagle eyes
We were looking for those who had disappeared, who led you with them.
Near Kharkov, or in Rostov, you lay down without shedding blood,
For Rus', mired in mud, for faith fallen into darkness
And they paid with their lives someone else’s difficult debt!
A.V. Turkul. Eggplants
It is known that high school students, realists, and cadets, children of the Volunteer Army, went into attacks in our chains shoulder to shoulder with the officer and the student. Officers, students, captured Red Army soldiers and child volunteers went into the fire together in the ranks.
The volunteer boys I’m trying to talk about are perhaps the most tender, beautiful and sad thing in the image of the White Army. I always looked at such volunteers with a feeling of pity and silent shame. No one felt sorry for them as much as they did, and it was a shame for all the adults that such boys were doomed with us to bloodshed and suffering. Piteous Russia also threw children into the fire. It was like a sacrifice.
Teenagers, children of the Russian intelligentsia, universally responded to our call. I remember how, for example, in Mariupol almost all of the senior classes of local gymnasiums and colleges joined us. They ran away from their mothers and fathers to us. They followed us when we left the cities. Cadets made their way to us from all over Russia. Russian youth undoubtedly gave all their love to the White Army, and the Volunteer Army itself is a wonderful image of Russian youth who rebelled for Russia. The boys managed to squeeze through to us through all fronts. They reached the Kuban steppes from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Irkutsk, and Warsaw. How many times have I had to interview such tramps, tanned ragamuffins in dusty, worn-out shoes, emaciated white-toothed boys. They all wanted to volunteer and named their relatives, the city, the gymnasium or the building where they studied. - How old are you? “Eighteen,” the newcomer blurts out, although he himself, as they say, is three inches from the pot. You just shake your head. The boy, seeing that they don’t believe him, wipes the dirty sweat from his cheek with a monkey’s paw and shifts from foot to foot: “Seventeen, Mr. Colonel.” - Don't lie, don't lie. So it came to fourteen. All the cadets, as if by agreement, announced that they were seventeen. - But why are you so small? - you sometimes ask such an eagle. - But we are not tall in the family. We are all so short. Of course, I had to be tough in the ranks. But with what unbearable pity you sometimes look at a little soldier, all fourteen years old, standing for something under a rifle - drying a bayonet, as we said. Or how your heart suddenly sank when you noticed in the fire, in the very heat, a pale childish face with widened eyes. It seems that no loss hit my soul as much as the unknown murdered boy with his arms outstretched in the dusty grass. Drozdov's crimson cap rolled far away and lay there, sweaty bottom up. The boys were like our younger brothers. Often they were the youngest in our families. But the system is the system. I remember how our regiment approached the village of Torgovoy in battle formation. From the Kapustina farm, which is to the right railway , shooting rang out. The fourth Don hundred of the 2nd cavalry officer regiment, walking ahead, rushed to attack the farm. Suddenly a huge cloud of dust rose towards the Don people. Apparently, the Reds launched a counter attack. When the gray haze cleared slightly, we saw strange humpbacked shadows jumping towards us in the dust. It was from the shooting and fire that the camels fled from the farm. We caught the lanky camel force. The fourth hundred burst into the farm. The Reds were knocked out. The entire regiment joined Kapustin. A fast river rushed behind the farm. The Reds lay behind her. The 9th company of Colonel Dvigubsky rushed to attack the wooden pedestrian bridge. The Reds from across the river repelled the attack. The company lay down near the bridge under machine-gun fire. The wounded moaned, the air thundered dryly from the fire. The entire regiment lay down in chains along the river bank. The battle was heating up. The day was sparkling and hot. People in chains were suffocating from the stuffiness. My 2nd company was in reserve. Fortunately, we had coolness and shade: we stood under the wall of a huge brick barn. The 1st battery rolled a field gun into the barn, a hole was made in the wall, and our cannon opened rapid fire at the red machine guns. The Reds noticed the cannon and concentrated their fire on the barn. All the artillerymen and the chief of the gun, Colonel Protasovich, were wounded, it was easy for them to be lucky. This fight lasted a long time; the barn hummed and shook. But such a pleasant coolness came from the stone wall that my company, tired after the night march, rested even in this roar. Some slept standing, leaning against the wall, others squatted with a rifle between their knees. That’s when I truly understood the saying “even guns can’t wake you up.” I, too, dozed off, shivering, however, from the nearby cannon thunder. Suddenly a sharp shout was heard from the commander, Colonel Zhebrak: “Captain Turkul!” I jumped to my feet. -Or don’t you see that the commander-in-chief is coming? Dusty Zhebrak stood in front of me, wiping his mustache and eyebrows with a handkerchief. My company clanged to its feet and lined up along the barn. Many of them had rather confused faces from sleep. I looked into the shining field. From the rear, General Denikin and his staff are galloping towards us from the rear, raising fine dust, on a gray horse under the yellow and black St. George badge. The badge flutters in the sun above the heads of the convoys like a piece of molten gold. - Immediately attack, wade! - Zhebrak shouted to me. None of us knew whether there was a ford or how deep it was, but I quickly took my wallet, cigarette case, and watch out of my pocket, stuffed everything into my cap so it wouldn’t get wet, and commanded: “Company, follow me!” The red badge shone ever closer. It seemed to everyone that the gray-haired commander-in-chief was looking only at him. I rushed from the shore, followed by the whole company, knocking out noisy cascades of water. I made a bad noise, immediately fell into a hole, and went under the water with my head. He surfaced, snorting. What a dazzling solar trembling, how loudly the Red machine guns cackle over the water. I started swimming. Next to me, sneezing like a poodle, sailed Lieutenant Dimitrash with a Lewis machine gun. Melentius' reddish wet head shone in the sun. I felt a viscous bottom under my feet. Three platoons in my company were officers, and the fourth was boys. All the soldiers of the fourth platoon were, strictly speaking, teenage boys. We called them eggplants, which is the same as a flask, a necessary accessory for a soldier’s combat equipment. But in the eggplant itself, rattling peacefully and cheerfully at the soldier’s belt, there is nothing combative. The remote eggplants rushed into the river with us, but immediately all of them went under the water. The guys of the fourth platoon who were blowing bubbles, to tell the truth, had to help all the time, simply pulling them out of the water like wet puppies. The water was up to my armpits. Only our wet heads and outstretched arms with sparkling rifles were visible above the water. We crossed the river under furious fire. The wet ones, breathing hoarsely, climbed to the shore, and you should have seen how our boys, who had just swallowed water and sand, with a daring “hurray” rushed to attack the red chains lying near the shore, on the houses from which machine guns were rattling loudly. The Reds retreated. We took the farm. We had few losses, but all of them were heavy: there were eight wounded in the heads and arms in the water. The river, which had been muddied and red with blood, rushed again with a fresh noise. The 9th company, as soon as we crossed the river, launched a frontal attack on the bridge. The bridge has been taken. However, General Denikin has already described this entire daring attack in his notes. After the battle, half naked on the green meadow, laughing, twisting and wringing out our shirts and underpants, how happy we all were and how happy we were that our attack was observed by the commander-in-chief himself. We laughed a little at our eggplants. “Don’t have eggplants,” they said in the company, “where to cross the river.” Thanks to the fourth platoon, I helped: I swallowed all the water from the river... The eggplants were not offended. I remember what other reinforcements came to us during the campaign. Just boys. I remember that near Bakhmut, at the Yama station, up to a hundred volunteers came with the echelon of the 1st battalion. I was already in command of the battalion at that time and delayed its advance only in order to receive them. I looked, and the most yellow-throated suckers, to put it bluntly, chicks, fell out of the carriages like peas. They poured out of the carriages and lined up. The sonorous voices of schoolchildren. I approached them. They cost well, but what children's faces they all have! I don’t know how to greet such brave fighters. - Do you know how to shoot? “That’s right, we can,” all the replenishment answered loudly and cheerfully. I really didn’t want to accept them into the battalion - mere children. I sent them for training. For two days we chased the boys with gun techniques, but I didn’t know what to do with them next. I didn’t want to split them into companies; I didn’t want to take the children into battle with me. They found out, or rather, sensed that I did not want to accept them. They followed me, as they say, on my heels, begged me, made noise like jackdaws, everyone swore that they knew how to shoot and attack. We were all very young then, but this pity for childhood, thrown into the fire of battle, to be tormented and burned in it, was unbearable. Not me, but someone else still had to take them with them. With a constricted heart, I ordered them to be divided into companies, and an hour later, under the fire of machine guns and a red armored train, we advanced on the Yama station, and I listened to the ringing voices of my daring boys. We took the pits. Only one of us was killed. It was a boy from the new addition. I forgot his name. The evening dawn was burning over the field. The rain had just passed, the luminous air was unusually serene and clean. A long puddle on the field road reflected the yellow sky. Dew smoked over the grass. That boy in the rolled up soldier's overcoat, with raindrops on it, lay in a rut on the road. For some reason I really remember him. His frozen eyes were half open, as if he was looking at the yellow sky. On his chest they found a crumpled silver cross and a black oilcloth notebook, a school general notebook, wet with blood. It was something like a diary, or rather, poems copied according to the gymnasium and cadet custom, most often by Pushkin and Lermontov... I crossed my completely childish hands, cold and covered in raindrops, with a cross on my chest. Then, as now, we all considered the Russian people great, generous, brave and fair. But what kind of justice and what kind of generosity is there in the fact that a Russian boy is killed by a Russian bullet and lies on a rut in a field? And he was killed because he wanted to defend the freedom and soul of the Russian people, the greatness, justice, and dignity of Russia. How many hundreds of thousands of adults, big ones, should have gone into the fire for their fatherland, for their people, for themselves instead of that little boy. Then the child would not go into attacks with us. But hundreds of thousands of adults, healthy, big people did not respond, did not move, did not go. They crawled along the rear, fearing only for their, at that time, still well-fed human skin. And the Russian boy went into the fire for everyone. He sensed that we had truth and honor, that the Russian shrine was with us. All future Russia came to us because it was they, the volunteers - these schoolchildren, high school students, cadets, realists - who were supposed to become the creative Russia that follows us. All future Russia defended itself under our banners; she realized that the Soviet rapists were preparing a fatal blow for her. Poor officers, romantic staff captains and lieutenants, and these volunteer boys, I would like to know what kind of “landowners and manufacturers” they defended? They defended Russia, a free person in Russia and the human Russian future. That is why honest Russian youth, the entire Russian future - everything was with us. And this is absolutely true: boys are everywhere, boys are everywhere. I remember how in the same battle near Torgovaya we captured carriages and railway platforms from the Reds. We didn’t have armored trains then. And so in Torgovaya our valiant artillerymen and machine gunners set up their hasty and desperate armored train. A simple railway platform was blocked with bags of earth and fishing line, and a cannon and several machine guns were rolled in behind this cover. The result was a bulk trench on wheels. This freight platform was attached to a very ordinary steam locomotive, not covered by armor, and the extraordinary armored train moved into battle. Every day he boldly attacked the Reds' armored trains and forced them to leave with his mere daring. But after each battle we buried its fighters. He achieved victory at a heavy price. In the battle near Peschanokopskaya, several Red armored trains fell on him. They always overwhelmed us with numbers, always overwhelmed us with mass, with human caviar. Our armored train was constantly firing back from its light field gun. All his sandbags were scattered, the iron platform was torn apart - he still fought back. It was commanded by Captain Kovalevsky. The armored train caught fire from direct hits. And only then did he begin to move away. He came towards us like a huge column of crimson smoke, but his cannon was still thundering. Captain Kovalevsky and most of the crew were killed, the rest were wounded. A burning armored train was approaching us. On a torn-up iron platform, among collapsed and burnt bags of earth, sharp holes, bodies in smoldering overcoats, among blood and smoke, machine gunner boys, blackened by smoke, stood and madly shouted “hurray.” We buried the valiant dead with military honors. And the next day the new team was already going to this desperate site, which for some reason we called the “Ukrainian hut”; they walked carefree and cheerfully, even singing. And they were all young men, boys of sixteen, seventeen years old. High school student Ivanov, who went on the Drozdov campaign, or cadet Grigoriev - will anyone and when write down at least some of the thousands of all these children's names? I remember high school student Sadovich, who came with us from Iasi. He was sixteen years old. Fleet-footed, white-toothed, dark-haired, with a mole on his cheek called a shibzdik. It’s somehow strange to think that now he has become a real man, with a mustache. In the battle near Peschanokopskaya, they sent me this guy from the platoon for communication. We entered Peschanokopskaya after a short but stubborn battle. My second company received orders to occupy the station. We approached it in the dark. I sent sergeant major captain Lebedev with the second half-company to inspect the station and the tracks. It was then that Sadovich asked me for permission to also see what was happening at the station. I allowed it, but advised him to be careful. Half a company walked along the tracks. Sadovich rushed to the station. There was deep silence. The station was apparently abandoned by the Reds. I ordered the entire company to be brought there, and I myself went forward. Footsteps echoed dully in the empty station halls. I went out onto the platform. There was one dim kerosene lantern looming there. Black night fell all around. Suddenly it seemed to me as if some shadow flashed in a yellowish circle of light; in the darkness there was a noise, a dull fuss, a suppressed cry: “Mr. Captain, Mr...” I saw how three big ones attacked the fourth, small one, and recognized, or rather, felt, our little boy in the little one. I ran there with a Mauser in my hand. Sadovich was strangled. I killed two people with shots. The third dived into the darkness, but Sadovich had already woken up and rushed after him. Stomping dully, they rushed past me in the darkness. I listened to their rapid breathing. Sadovich caught up with the third and stabbed him with a bayonet from a running start. These three were the red ambush left at the station. Healthy, with shaved heads, in leather jackets , most likely, Red Army security officers. Even now I can’t understand why they didn’t immediately pin little Sadovich, but instead the three of them piled on him to strangle him. The way the seasoned Soviet kats at night, in the light of the station night light, fell to strangle the boy, often seems to me even today to be the personification of all Sovietness. Pavlik, my cousin, a handsome, tall boy, a cadet of the Odessa Corps, was also an eggplant. When I left with Drozdovsky, he was with his mother, but he knew that I was either in Romania or making my way with a detachment through the Russian south to Rostov and Novocherkassk. And then at night, after crossing the Bug, a young ragamuffin approached our outpost. He called himself my cousin, but he had such a comradely appearance that the officers did not believe him and brought him to me. During the time I did not see him, he suddenly grew powerfully, like a boy. He became taller than me, but his voice cracked funny. Pavlik left home after me to join the detachment. He wandered a lot and only caught up with me on the Bug. He went on a campaign with my company. In Novocherkassk I was ordered to allocate a platoon to form the 4th company. Pavlik went to the 4th company. He darkened from the tan, like everyone else, and became stern and attentive. He grew into man before my eyes. In the battle near Belaya Glina, Pavlik was wounded in the shoulder, leg and seriously in the arm. My hand cramped; She did not unbend and began to dry out. The fair-haired, cheerful boy turned out to be disabled at the age of eighteen. But he served honestly even with one hand. Having barely rested in the infirmary, he arrived at my regiment. I will not hide the fact that I felt sorry for the emaciated boy with a withered arm, and I sent him on vacation to Odessa to have a good rest. My mother was there then. Pavlik later cheerfully told me how his mother, who had to live in Odessa under the Bolsheviks, read in Soviet reports about the White Guard Turkul with his “white bandits”, which, apparently, were quite afraid of his comrades. The mother could not even think then that this terrible White Guard Turkul was her son, Tosya at home, a young and, in general, modest staff captain. When Pavlik revealed to my mother the secret that I was the white Turkul, my mother did not want to believe it for a long time. Soviet reports portrayed, honored and glorified me as such a formidable figure that even my own mother did not recognize me. Pavlik, who returned from Odessa, was unfit to be a soldier without an arm, and I enrolled him in my headquarters. At the same time, in secret from Pavlik, I nominated him for promotion to the rank of officer. In one battle, after our retreat, I and my headquarters came under severe fire. We were standing on a hill. Red wings strongly. Columns of earth and dust were thrown up all around. For some reason I turned back and saw how the signal soldiers lay down in the hard grass near the hill, and my Pavlik lay down with them, pressing his face to the ground. He definitely felt my gaze, raised his head, immediately stood up and stretched out. And he himself began to blush, blush, and tears came out of his eyes. In the evening, having settled down for the night, I rested in the hut on a camp cot; suddenly I hear a light knock on the door and a voice: “Mr. Colonel, may I come in?” - Come in. Pavlik entered; stood at the door like a soldier, silent. - What do you want, Pavlik? He somehow shook himself and, not at all like a soldier, but shyly, like a home, said: “Tosya, I give you my word of honor, I will never lie in the fire again.” - Come on, Pavlik, what are you... Poor boy! I began to calm him down as best I could, but only a vacation to the economic department, to kutya with my mother, Aunt Sonya, as he called her, convinced Pavlik, it seems, that we were just as loyal friends and daring soldiers as earlier. On December 23, 1919, early in the morning, Pavlik went to his aunt Sonya for kutya. I woke up in the morning darkness, heard his cautious young voice and the light creak of his steps on the hard snow. On that cold, misty morning, several officers went on vacation with Pavlik in carts. They were joined on the way by two refugees from Rostov, intelligent ladies. I don't know their names. They all trudged carefree through the snow and frozen puddles to the utility section. On the way, at an oncoming farm, we made a stop. The grooms unharnessed the horses and led them to watering. It was then that the Red partisans attacked them. Some grooms managed to jump onto their horses and gallop away. In the evening, frozen, shrouded in steam, they rushed to me in Kuleshovka and confusedly told how a crowd of partisans had attacked, how they had heard shooting, screams, moans, but did not know what had become of ours. At night, in severe frost, with a team of foot scouts and two companies of the first battalion, I rushed to that farmstead on a sleigh. I was feverish with unusual anxiety. At dawn I was at the farm and captured almost the entire crowd of these Red partisans. They moved to our rear across the ice of the frozen Sea of Azov, maybe forty miles from Mariupol or Taganrog. The attack was so sudden that no one had time to take up arms. Our officers, women and Pavlik were tortured with the most brutal tortures, mocked by all the mockery and still alive they were put under the ice. The owner of the house where Pavlik stayed told me that “the partisans searched that soldier, young, stately and withered, and found brand new crimson shoulder straps in his overcoat pocket. Then they began to torture him.” One of the staff clerks, knowing that I had already submitted a report on Pavlik’s promotion to officer, wanting to please Pavlik, slipped the crimson shoulder straps of a second lieutenant into his overcoat pocket on the way. No one was found under the ice. For many years I was silent about Pavlik’s martyrdom, and for a long time my mother did not know what happened to her son. To all the mothers who gave their sons to the fire, I would like to say that their sons brought the sacred spirit of the spirit to the fire, that in all the purity of their youth they lay down for Russia. God sees their sacrifice. I would like to tell mothers that their sons, soldiers at almost sixteen years old, with tender hollows on the backs of their heads, with boyish skinny shoulders, with children’s necks, tied with home scarves on the campaign, became sacred victims for Russia. Young Russia all entered the fire with us. Extraordinary, bright and beautiful was this young Russia in the fire. There had never been one like that one, under battle flags, with child volunteers, sweeping through attacks and blood in a shining vision. That Russia that shone in fire will still exist. For the entire Russian future, that Russia, poor officers and little warriors, will still become a Russian shrine.
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Anton Vasilievich Turkul(born December 24, 1892 in Tiraspol, Russian Empire; died August 20, 1957 in Munich, Germany) is an officer of the Russian Imperial Army with the rank of staff captain, to whom he was introduced for his services in the battles of the First World War, a staunch monarchist, one of the leaders of the White Guard movement during the Civil War, commander of the Drozdov division, Major General of the Russian Army Baron Wrangel, after the defeat and evacuation of the Russian Army - a White emigrant, one of the most valuable double agents of foreign intelligence Soviet Union.
His father was an employee in Tiraspol. In 1909, Anton graduated from high school in Odessa. In 1910, he voluntarily enlisted as a private in the 56th Zhitomir Infantry Regiment, stationed in Tiraspol. At the beginning of 1913, Turkul received the rank of non-commissioned officer and was transferred to the reserve.
After the outbreak of World War I, he was drafted into the army and sent first to the 43rd reserve infantry battalion, and then to the 75th Sevastopol Infantry Regiment. During the war, Anton Vasilyevich was repeatedly wounded, awarded several orders and promoted to the rank of staff captain.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, Anton Vasilyevich joined the counter-revolutionary White Guard. At the end of 1920, after the defeat and flight of Wrangel’s troops from Crimea, he ended up in Turkey, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and from there later moved to Bulgaria, where in the fall of 1923, together with detachments of white emigrants, he participated in the suppression of the communist uprising.
In the late 1920s, Anton Vasilyevich became a secret agent of the British Foreign Intelligence Service MI6 officer Dick Ellis. In 1930, in Belgrade, Turkul and another MI6 agent, Claudius Voss, created a terrorist Russian emigrant organization, later called the National Labor Union (NTS).
In 1931 Turkul moved to France. Once in Paris, he began to work closely with the so-called Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which was founded by Baron Wrangel. At this time, Anton Vasilyevich held the positions of publisher and editor of the Volunteer magazine.
In the same year, he attempted to organize an assassination attempt on Trotsky, who was deported from the USSR, who settled on the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara.
In 1935, Turkul caused a split in the EMRO, founding and heading the Rissky National Union of War Participants (RNSUV). For this step, the general was expelled from the Russian All-Military Union, and in 1938 he was expelled from France.
In 1938-1939, Anton Vasilyevich lived in Berlin, Rome, and then returned to Bulgaria again and settled in Sofia.
During World War II, Turkul collaborated with the authorities fascist Germany. Anton Vasilyevich was a member of the Max Klatt spy network (German: Max Klatt - an operational pseudonym in the German Abwehr of another Soviet double agent, Richard Kauder), which served as a channel for transmitting Soviet disinformation to the Germans.
In the period between 1941 and 1943, Anton Vasilyevich unsuccessfully worked on the restoration of the RNSUV.
In May 1943, he attempted to establish contact with the Berne headquarters of the resident of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Allen Dulles, with a view to possible cooperation. However, after the initial failure, he turned for support as an intermediary in establishing contact with the Georgian prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli, who was in exile.
At the final stage of the Second World War, in 1945, Anton Vasilyevich led the preparation of the formations of the so-called Russian Liberation Army (ROA) and commanded a volunteer brigade in Austria.
After the end of World War II in Europe, Turkul moved to Germany, where he took the post of chairman of the Committee of Russian Defectors.
Subsequently, the US Strategic Services Unit used Anton Vasilyevich to identify communist agents among the emigrants who were illegally sent across the border after the war.
In 1946, the joint British-American Special Counter-Intelligence Unit used Turkul to recruit his longtime colleague Claudius Voss. Meanwhile, as a result of an investigation conducted by the US Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), a suspicion arose that during the war Anton Vasilyevich was an agent not only of the Abwehr.
In July 1946, he attempted to move from Germany to South America, and this route was taken by US Army counterintelligence officials as confirmation that Turkul was not an agent of the Soviet Union. In September 1946, he, along with two other members of the Max Klatt spy network (these were Richard Kauder himself and Longin Fedorovich Ira), were arrested and taken to the city of Oberursel (German: Oberursel), located in the American occupation zone. There Anton Vasilyevich was interrogated by agents of the American CIC and Gilbert Ryle from the British MI6.
American POW investigator Arnold M. Silver wrote the following about Anton Vasilyevich, clearly underestimating him:
“The US Strategic Services Division, based in Frankfurt am Main, with which I was closely associated, for some reason took with admiration the “Turkul affair”, although in reality he was a useless fool who attached himself to the Klatt spy network as a person supposedly recruited informants in the USSR. In fact, he did not recruit a single informant during all this time, although Klatt managed to convince the Abwehr that Turkul was one of the main agents of German foreign intelligence.”
Anton Vasilyevich was released in the summer of 1947, after which he again headed the National Labor Union, which over time achieved patronage from the West German group composed of former Abwehr officers intelligence service under the name "Gehlen Organization" (German: Organization Gehlen).
Since 1948, he tried to unite various Russian anti-communist associations through the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (SBONR), which he founded.
At the end of 1955, when the British MI6 ceased its participation in National Labor Union operations in the Soviet Union, it assured the Americans that the former White General was not a Soviet double agent.
Anton Vasilyevich Turkul died on the night of August 20, 1957 in one of the Munich hospitals and on September 14 was buried in the famous Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (French: Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois) in the suburbs of Paris.
Turkul Anton Vasilyevich (1892-1957) - Major General. Born in the city of Bendery into a noble family. In 1909 he graduated from the Odessa Richelieu Gymnasium. He served in active military service as a non-commissioned officer. First world war began volunteering in the 75th Sevastopol Infantry Regiment. Earned two soldier's St. George's Cross and was promoted to officer. Staff captain - at the end of the war. Awarded 5 orders, including the Order of St. George 4th degree and St. George's weapon. With the rank of staff captain, he commanded a shock assault battalion, the emblem of which was an image of a skull and crossbones as a sign of contempt for death. After the Bolshevik coup, Turkul, as part of a volunteer detachment of Colonel M. G. Drozdovsky, made a 1,200-kilometer hike from the Romanian city of Iasi to Novocherkassk. He ended the civil war as the head of the Drozdovskaya rifle division with the rank of major general. He was awarded the newly established White Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which only 338 people received.
In 1919 - commander of the 1st and 2nd officer general of the Drozdovsky regiment in the Volunteer Army and in the All-Russian Socialist Republic. In the Russian Army, General Wrangel was promoted to major general and appointed head of the Drozdov division. After the evacuation of Crimea, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the consolidated Drozdovsky regiment. In 1933, his people prepared an assassination attempt on L. Trotsky-Bronstein, expelled from the USSR, which failed due to opposition from Soviet agents. Wishing to “unite all those who are in the difficult emigrant night... did not break away from his fatherland and people, who... fought and stood in battle fire for the Fatherland, was a white warrior of Russia and remained such a warrior,” Turkul on June 28, 1936 formed on the basis of the Drozdovsky association the military-political organization Russian National Union of War Participants ( RNSUV) with its center in Paris. Soon, RNSUV departments arose in Albania, Argentina, Belgium, Greece, China, Uruguay, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries. The organization published the newspaper "Signal" and the magazines "Military Journalist" and "Always for Russia" (the latter words were also placed on the badge of Turkulov members). The motto of the RNSUV was: "God - Nation - Social Justice." The program documents of the Union stated: “Democratic fabrications and imitations of “European models” of Russian liberals are a pathetic parody of the sovereign course of Russian history, they are a grimace of history, a disease of the nation. Undoubtedly, the revival of the Russian Empire is possible only through the revival of its historical, national core - the monarchy. If there is a Russian Empire, it will only be monarchical."
In April 1938, Turkul, Captain Larionov and several right-wing Russian emigrants, by decision of the pro-communist French government of M. Blum, were expelled as “undesirable persons” to Germany. General Turkul lived first in Berlin, and after the signing of the Soviet-German Pact in August. 1939 moved to Rome. On the eve of the Second World War, he wrote: “Any blow to the Comintern on the territory of the USSR will inevitably cause an explosion of anti-communist forces within the country. It will be our duty to join these forces. We will then strive to ensure that somewhere, even on a small piece of Russian land, the Russian tricolor banner rises” (“Signal”, 1939, No. 48).
Therefore, Turkul and his supporters joined the Russian Liberation Army, and in 1945 he formed a volunteer Cossack brigade, planning to deploy it into a separate corps. In 1945, A. V. Turkul was the head of the department for the formation of ROA units and the commander of a volunteer brigade in Austria. After 1945 in Germany, chairman of the Committee of Russian Defectors. After the war, he collaborated in the magazines “Volunteer” and “Sentry”. Died on August 20, 1957 in Munich. He was buried on September 14, 1957 in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve des Bois near Paris.