1st Cossack Division

1st Cossack Cavalry Division
Insignia of the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division
Active	1943–45
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Army
Type	Cavalry
Role	Anti-partisan operations
Size	Division
Part of	XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
Engagements	World War II
Commanders
Notable commanders	Helmuth von Pannwitz
Insignia
Identification symbol	Don Cossack insignia

The 1st Cossack Cavalry Division (German: 1. Kosaken-Kavallerie-Division) was a Russian Cossack division of the German Army that served during World War II. It was created on the Eastern Front mostly out of Don Cossacks already serving in the Wehrmacht, those who escaped from the advancing Red Army and Soviet POWs. In 1945, the division was transferred to the Waffen SS, becoming the 1st SS Cossack Cavalry Division (1. SS-Kosaken-Kavallerie-Division). At the end of the war, the unit ceased to exist.

Upon the formation of the unit in April 1943, the Division was dispatched to Croatia, where they were placed under the command of the Second Panzer Army and were used to provide rear area security to the army.

The Division's first fighting engagement was on October 12, 1943, when the unit was dispatched against Yugoslav partisans in Fruška Gora Mountains. In the operation the Cossacks aided by 15 tanks and 1 armoured car captured the village of Beocin with the partisan HQ. During that operations, many villages were burned, including a one monastery on Fruška gora, and around 300 innocent Serbian villagers were killed. Subsequently, the unit was used to protect the Zagreb-Belgrade railroad and the Sava valley. Several regiments of the division took part in several anti-partisan operations and guarded the Sarajevo railroad against the partisans. As part of a wide anti-partisan operation Napfkuchen the Cossack division was transferred to Croatia, where it fought against partisans and chetniks in 1944.