Penal military unit

Penal battalions, penal companies, etc., are military formations consisting of convicted persons for which military service in such units was either the assigned punishment or an alternative to imprisonment or capital punishment.

France

• See Régiment pénal de l'Île de Ré, formed in 1811
• See Battalion of Light Infantry of Africa formed in 1832 and made up of men with prison records who still had to do their military service or soldiers with serious disciplinary problems.
• See Disciplinary Company of the Foreign Regiments in the Far East (1946-1954)

Italy

• See Battaglione di rigore of Genio Lavoratori (Italian Social Republic)

Nazi Germany

• See Afrika-Brigade 999 (AKA Bewährungseinheiten 999, Strafbataillon 999, Bewährungstruppe 999, Division 999).
• See Dirlewanger Brigade (AKA SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, later 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS).
• See 500th SS Parachute Battalion (AKA SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500) was the parachute unit of the Waffen-SS.
• See Strafbattalion (Wehrmacht Heer unit)

Saudi Arabia and Syria

There have been reports that convicts from Saudi prisons have been set free prematurely on the condition that they will join in the Syrian Civil War against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Soviet Union

• See shtrafbat (NKVD prisoner battalions in World War II)

See also

• Military prison
• Barrier troops
• March battalion
• Galvanized Yankees – American Civil War, Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the Union

References

• Conquest, Robert, Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps, Methuen Press, (1978) ISBN 978-0-670-41499-4
• Hatch, Gardner N., American Ex-prisoners of War: Non Solum Armis, Turner Publishing Company, (1988), ISBN 978-1-56311-624-7
• Krivosheev, G.F. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century, London, Greenhill Books, 1997, ISBN 978-1-85367-280-4, available online (in Russian) [1].
• Lebed, Alexander (Gen.), My Life and My Country, Regnery Publishing, Inc. (1997) ISBN 978-0-89526-422-0
• Manazeev, Igor, A 'Penal' Corps on the Kalinin Front, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 15, Issue 3, September 2002 OCLC 201968754
• Mawdsley, Evan, The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union 1929-1953, Manchester University Press (2003), ISBN 978-0-7190-6377-0
• Suvorov, Viktor, Inside The Soviet Army, Hamish Hamilton (1982), ISBN 0-241-10889-6
• Tolstoy, Nikolai, Stalin's Secret War, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1981), ISBN 0-03-047266-0
• Toppe, Alfred, Night Combat, Diane Publishing (1998), ISBN 978-0-7881-7080-5

External links

• Yefim Golbraikh memoirs, including his serving commander of a penal company (Russian)
• Article on Penal Units from Voice of Russia
• [2]