Sjalwa Loladze

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Shalwa Loladze was in service with the Red Army. As a commander of a Soviet squadron his airplane was brought down above Ukraine in 1942. He was taken prisoner by the German Army. To avoid the terrible conditions of a German prisoner-of-war camp he decided to join the Georgian Legion which served the German Army. Here he became lieutenant of the Georgian 882nd Infantry Battalion. Because of different revolts of Georgian troops in Eastern Europe the German Army decided to station these troops in the West. The battalion of Loladze therefore arrived on Texel on 6 February 1945. 2 months later the battalion was told to fight the Allies on the Dutch mainland. According to the battalion a revolt was the only chance to prevent this. Led by Loladze they started their revolt on 6 April at 01:00 and in the early morning 180 German soldiers were killed. However, the tide would soon turn after German reinforcements reached the island. Five weeks later the battalion surrendered. During the revolt 565 Georgians, 120 local citizens and around 800 Germans died. Shalwa Loladze was one of them. He was shot in the back on 25 April. A large number of the Georgians are buried on the Georgian cemetery on Texel. After the war the surviving 228 Georgians returned to their own country.