Armenian Legion
The Armenian Legion (; Haykakan legion) was a military unit in the German Army during World War II. It primarily consisted of Soviet Armenians, who wanted to fight the Soviets for an independent Armenia and commanded by General Drastamat Kanayan. 812th Battalion The short-lived Republic of Armenia, established in 1918, was occupied by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920 and incorporated shortly after into the Soviet Union. This was something which members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF; Dashnaks) political party never reconciled themselves with, as many of them were imprisoned, killed, or expelled by Soviet authorities following the Soviet takeover. In 1942, in order to fight Turkey's anti-Armenian politicking, a number of Dashnaks entered into negotiations with Berlin, and reluctantly agreed to participate in the formation of a military legion. This was a move, however, that was officially repudiated by ARF party organs. The majority of the soldiers in the 812th Battalion legion were drawn from the ranks of the Red Army, prisoners of war who had opted to fight for the German Army rather than face the brutal conditions of the Nazi POW camps, though a number of Armenian veterans who had escaped to the United States after World