Skopnenko B. Creating Czechoslovak military units on the territory of the USSR during the Second World War and their participation in the war operations of the Red Army (1941-1945)

This candidate thesis is a comprehensive study of the process of organization of the Czechoslovak military units in the Soviet Union during the Second World War and their participation in hostilities, together with the Red Army. In September 1938, Czechoslovakia yielded the Sudetenland; in March 1939, Czechoslovakia lost both its freedom and independence. Its army was demobilized and the troops sent home. But many soldiers refused to compromise their pride and honor and began to look for alternative ways to resist the Nazis. They fought in domestic resistance organizations, in the Polish and French armies, in Britain's Royal Air Force where they gained renown in the Battle of Britain, in North Africa and Middle East. But the largest group by far was in the USSR. The First Czechoslovak Independent Field Battalion, which was formed in Buzuluk, in the Urals, was the first Allied unit fighting alongside the Red Army in Soviet territory. It was formed from former members of the Czechoslovak Legion, Czechoslovak citizens living in the Soviet Union, Slovak prisoners-of-war and defectors, and Volhynian Czechs. Lieutenant colonel Ludv?k Svoboda was made the commander of the unit on 15 July 1942. By the end of the war at the front were 18,087 soldiers of the Czechoslovak Army Corps, and together with the rear and educational part of his number was 31725 persons.