Nikolai Grigorievich Nazarenko (19 December 1911 – 20 November 1992) was a
Don Cossack
Don Cossacks (russian: Донские казаки, Donskie kazaki) or Donians (russian: донцы, dontsy) are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host (russian: До ...
emigre leader who served as president of the World Federation of the Cossack National Liberation Movement of Cossackia and the Cossack American Republican National Federation.
Emigre and spy
Nazarenko was born in
Starocherkasskaya
Starocherkasskaya (russian: Старочерка́сская), formerly Cherkassk (), is a rural locality (a ''stanitsa'') in Aksaysky District of Rostov Oblast, Russia, with origins dating from the late 16th century. It is located on the righ ...
in the territory of the Don Cossack Host. The Don Cossacks in common with the other Cossack Hosts of the Russian empire were a privileged group, being granted exemption from taxation, allowed to own their own land and to elect most of the officials of the Host government (through not the ''ataman'' who headed the Host who was always appointed by the Emperor) in exchange for serving as one of the main bulwarks of the House of Romanov. The culture of the Cossacks was centered around riding horses and warfare. For a certain period of time every year, the men of the Host had to leave their farms to serve in the Imperial Russian Army as irregular cavalry or alternatively as a para-military police force in one of the provinces of the vast Russian empire, which served to increase the popular identification of the Cossacks as one of the most important bulwarks of the system . In 1913, the 2 million people of the Don Cossack Host owned 13 of the 17 million hectares of the land by the banks of the river Don and whose income was double that of a typical Russian ''muzhik'' (peasant). The Don Cossacks spoke their own dialect of Russian and the men dressed in distinctive colorful uniforms, which marked them out. Every Host had its own uniform, but a common aspect of all Cossack uniforms was that the men wore a ''gazyr'' (a bullet carrying vest), a wool hat known as the ''papakha'' and carried around a type of sword called the ''shashka''. The Cossack Hosts who had long owned their land quickly came into conflict with the new Bolshevik regime, and all of the ''atamans'' committed their Hosts to fight for the White Army in the Russian Civil War. In 1918 Nazarenko's family fled to
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
. Nazarenko grew up in Romania and subsequently enlisted in the Romanian Army.
Owing to his Russian language skills, he was recruited as a spy for Romania. Nazarenko was sent on an espionage mission for Romania into the Soviet Union in 1933, but was captured crossing the
Dniester
The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and th ...
river at night and imprisoned. After escaping from prison, Nazarenko settled in
Taganrog
Taganrog ( rus, Таганрог, p=təɡɐnˈrok) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population:
History of Taganrog
Th ...
in 1935. Taganrog was in the traditional territory of the Don Cossack Host, and many of the local people were hostile to the Soviet regime. Using an assumed name, Nazarenko was able to take command of a Don Cossack militia being sent to support the Red Army in the fall of 1941. At the factory he worked in, a militia was recruited to fight for the Red Army, and Nazarenko had enough knowledge of military matters to be given command with the rank of First Lieutenant. Nazarenko subverted his workers' militia unit and persuaded them to fight for Germany instead. The fact that most of the men in the workers' militia were fellow Don Cossacks who had lost their land under the Soviet regime greatly assisted Nazarenko with persuading his unit to switch sides.
World War II
As German forces approached the Mius river, Nazarenko's workers' militia company attacked the Red Army. Nazarenko and his men were positioned on the second line, and seeing the Wehrmacht was close by, he gave the orders to attack the Red Army's first line. In October 1941, the XIV Panzer Corps of the Wehrmacht discovered that the 9th Soviet Army was engaged in battle against a Cossack formation led by Nazarenko, which surprised them. After being relieved by the Wehrmacht, Nazarenko and his 80 surviving men were sent to the rear. Nazarenko met General Gustav von Wietersheim and insisted to him that his loyalties were to Germany. Nazarenko argued that he wanted to overthrow the Soviet regime and he saw
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
as the beginning of the "liberation" of his people. Nazarenko and his men were enlisted into the Wehrmacht as a reconnaissance battalion, wearing German uniforms with the words ''Kosaken'' stamped on them.
On 23 October 1941, Nazarenko and his men formally took an oath of loyalty to
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, swearing he would obey and fight for Hitler for the rest of his life. Nazarenko was given a German officer's peaked hat, which he altered by the removing the red, white and black roundle and replacing it with the blue and white of the Don Cossack Host. He followed the XIV Panzer corps to Rostov and was shortly transferred over to the 1st Panzer Army. The Cossack Reconnaissance Battalion was primarily used for anti-partisan duties and for guarding Red Army POWs, and was judged to be successful in performing these duties. The Cossack units serving with the Wehrmacht had an extremely brutal reputation when it came to anti-partisan duties, being used to do "dirty work" that the Germans did not wish to do themselves such as shooting Jews.
In February 1942, Alexander Siusiukin, a Don Cossack serving in the Red Army contacted the Wehrmacht, saying many of his fellow Don Cossacks viewed Hitler as a liberator and were prepared to do anything to assist in Germany's victory. Siuskukin was put into touch with Nazarenko and a means of communication were opened. By 1942, Nazarenko, through his rank was only first lieutenant was commanding a force of 500 men. On 14 October 1942, Nazarenko attended Pokrov, the Orthodox feast honoring the
Intercession of the Theotokos
The Intercession of the Theotokos, or the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, is a Christian feast of the Mother of God celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches on October 1 (Julian calendar: ...
by the Virgin Mary with the ''Altman'' Pavlov. After Pokrov, Nazarenko toured the countryside dressed in a uniform combining aspects of the traditional Cossack dress such as wearing a ''gazyr'' and a ''papakha '' while carrying a ''shashka'' together with the German uniform, praising Hitler as a "liberator".
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
, the Minister of the East (''Ostministerium''), favored an approach called "political warfare" in order to "free the German ''Reich'' from Pan-Slavic pressure for centuries to come". Under Rosenberg's "political warfare" approach, the Soviet Union was to be broken up into four nominally independent states consisting of the Ukraine; a federation in the Caucasus; an entity to be called Ostland which would comprise the Baltic states and Belorussia (modern Belarus); and a rump Russian state. Rosenberg was a fanatical anti-Semite and a Russophobe, but he favored a more diplomatic policy towards the non-Russian and non-Jewish population of the Soviet Union, arguing that this was a vast reservoir of manpower that could be used by the ''Reich''. Initially, Rosenberg considered the Cossacks to be Russians, and he ascribed to the popular German stereotype of Cossacks as thuggish rapists and looters. However, as the numbers of Cossacks rallying to the ''Reich'' continued to grow into 1942, Roseberg changed his opinion, deciding that the Cossacks were not Russians after all, instead being a separate "race" descended from the Goths. The ''Ostministerium'' was supported by the SS, whose "racial experts" had concluded by 1942 the Cossacks were not Slavs, but rather the descendants of the Ostgoths and thus were Aryans. Rosenberg decided that after the "final victory" Germany would establish a new puppet state to be called
Cossackia
Cossackia (russian: Казакия) is a term sometimes used to refer to the traditional areas where the Cossack communities live in Russia and Ukraine, and to the lands of the Zaporizhian Host. Depending on its context, "Cossackia" may mean the ...
in the traditional territories of the Don, Kuban, Terek, Askrakhan, Ural and Orenburg Hosts in southeastern Russia. Most of the Cossack leaders such as General
Pyotr Krasnov
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov ( rus, Пётр Николаевич Краснов; 22 September (old style: 10 September) 1869 – 17 January 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was a Don Cossack historian and officer, promot ...
tended to reject the concept of "Cossackia", but since it was German policy to promote "Cossackia", they had little choice in the matter. Nazarenko seems to be one of the Cossack leaders to actually embrace the idea of "Cossackia".
In August 1943, Nazarenko's company of 500 was incorporated into the
1st Cossack Cavalry Division
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 We ...
, which was formed and trained in Mielau (modern
Mława
Mława (; yi, מלאווע ''Mlave'') is a town in north-east Poland with 30,403 inhabitants in 2020. It is the capital of Mława County. It is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship.
During the invasion of Poland in 1939, the battle of Mława was ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
). When the 1st Cossack Division was formed, Nazarenko was given ''soldbuch'' (paybook) number 1 in recognition for being the first of the first Cossack to fight for Germany. The ''soldbuch'' had considerable symbolical significance in the Wehrmacht and being awarded a ''soldbuch'' with a high number was a mark of trust. By the summer of 1943, Nazarenko was involved in a relationship with a German woman living in Mielau. One of her neighbors denounced her for sleeping with a Slav, leading to her arrest by the Gestapo. Nazarenko complained to his commander, General
Helmuth von Pannwitz, saying he had been faithful to his oath to Hitler and had been fighting for the ''Reich'' for almost two years. Through Pannwitz was able to use his influence to have the woman released, the incident had soured her enough to cause her to end the relationship. Nazarenko later stated that Pannwitz wanted "the creation of an unified spirit" in the 1st Cossack Division and tried to encourage his officers to treat the Cossacks with respect. Pannwitz put Nazarenko in charge of a counter-intelligence unit to investigate Soviet spies in the 1st Cossack Division. The 1st Cossack Division was sent not in the Soviet Union as expected, but instead to Bosnia and Croatia. When the Cossack Division was transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS, Nazarenko also became a part of the SS.
Nazarenko served as a translator and an interrogator of POWS for the Wehrmacht and SS in Romania in 1944. Nazarenko was accused of executing Red Army POWs and of hanging Jews from the lampposts in
Odessa, claims which he denied, through he stated in an interview that Jews were his "ideological enemies". In 1944 while living in
Belgrade, Nazarenko married the daughter of General
Vyacheslav Naumenko, the ''ataman'' of the Kuban Cossack Host. Towards the end of World War II, Nazarenko was in Berlin serving as the intelligence chief for the Cossack "government-in-exile" set up by
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
and headed by
Pyotr Krasnov
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov ( rus, Пётр Николаевич Краснов; 22 September (old style: 10 September) 1869 – 17 January 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was a Don Cossack historian and officer, promot ...
. Nazarenko's father-in-law Naumenko served as the "minister of war" in the "government-in-exile" for Cossackia. At the end of World War II, Nazarenko was in Munich, where he surrendered to the Americans. He was not repatriated by the Americans to the Soviets. From 1945 to 1949, Nazarenko worked in Bavaria for the U.S Army Counter-Intelligence Corps, being used as a translator and an investigator into possible Soviet agents living in the Displaced Persons camps.
Republican activist
In 1949, he immigrated to the United States, living at various locations in the New York-New Jersey area. In the United States, Nazarenko founded and led the Cossack War Veterans' Association made up of veterans of the 1st Cossack Division. A number of Cossacks who served in the ''
Ostlegionen
''Ostlegionen'' ("eastern legions"), ''Ost-Bataillone'' ("eastern battalions"), ''Osttruppen'' ("eastern troops"), and ''Osteinheiten'' ("eastern units") were units in the Army of Nazi Germany during World War II made up of personnel from the ...
'' and the
Waffen-SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
ended settling in
Australia, where they were welcomed as almost matching the Australian ideal of the perfect immigrant as they were white, Christian and anti-Communist with the only black mark against being that they were not Anglo-Irish. Australia came to take in a very number of the Cossacks after 1945, being one of the main destinations for Cossack refugees. Nazarekno spent much time visiting Australia after 1950 to maintain contacts with the Cossacks living there. As the organiser of the annual Captive Nations day parade held every July in
New York starting in 1960, Nazarenko had a certain degree of local prominence. In the 1968 and 1972 elections, Nazarenko campaigned for the Republican candidate,
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
in his capacity as the president of the Cossack American Republican National Federation. At some point, Nazarenko became involved with the
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) was an international ultra-nationalist organization founded as a coordinating center for anti-communist and nationalist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries. The ABN format ...
(ABN). In 1969, ''ABN Correspondence'', the journal of the ABN, listed him on its board of directors as the Organization Representative for the "Cossackian War Veterans".
In 1969, Nixon founded the National Republican Heritage Groups Council, whose first president was a Hungarian immigrant, Laszlo Pasztor, who began his political career as an activist for the fascist
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...
in his native Hungary. The National Republican Heritage Groups Council was designed to reach out to so-called ethnic communities in the United States on behalf of the Republican Party with a special focus on reaching Americans of Eastern European background. Pasztor had much success in the 1968 election as a Republican activist working in neighborhoods inhabited by Eastern European immigrants or the descendants of Eastern European immigrants, leading Nixon to make the Heritage Group a permanent part of the Republican Party. Pasztor in turn recruited Nazarenko into the Heritage Groups Council. The Heritage Croup Council was founded at a conference in Washington D.C. held between 29 and 31 October 1969, with Nixon speaking to the founders at the White House on 30 October 1969. Nazarenko attended the conference, where he was listed as representing the Cossacks. ''ABN Correspondence'' described Nazarenko as representing both "Cossackia" and the American Friends of the ABN at the 1969 conference. In 1974, Nazarenko had given himself the rank of colonel and was listed as one of the leaders of the Captive Nations field committee in New York state, where according to Nixon's papers, his address was 21 S Weatern Highway, Blauvelt, New York.
The American scholar Leonard Weinberg described the recruitment of activists such as Pasztor and Nazarenko into the Republican Party in the late 1960s as the beginning of a tilt towards a more right-wing stance within the GOP. Several other members of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council, whose members were mostly Eastern European had connections to fascist causes such as the Romanian-American Florian Galdau who served in the Legion of the Archangel Michael (the
Iron Guard) in his native Romania, the Slovak-American Met Balco who organised "annual commemorations of the Slovak Nazi regime", the Ukrainian-American Bohdan Fedorak who was a member of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization esta ...
(OUN) and whose wartime past was "questionable", and the Bulgarian-American Radi Slavoff who had been a member of a fascist group in Bulgaria.
The American scholar Jaimee A. Swift wrote the 25 members of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council were almost exclusively concerned with foreign policy and rarely addressed domestic issues.
She also noted that despite the stated purpose of the council to improve outreach by the Republican Party to ethnic minorities that the council never had Jewish and Afro-American members.
Swift felt it was revealing that most of the members of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council had links to the
World Anti-Communist League
The World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD) is an international non-governmental organization of anti-communist politicians and groups. It was founded in 1952 as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) under the initiative of Chiang Kai-sh ...
, which was a gathering of various extreme right-wing groups from around the world.
The exclusion of the Jews and blacks from the council was justified under the grounds that those two communities had "special" concerns. The journalist
Russ Bellant felt that the argument for "special concerns" for Jewish-Americans and Afro-Americans was specious as Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans and native Indians could also be said to have "special" concerns, but members of these groups were represented on the council. Bellant noted that many members of the council made it clear that they would not welcome Jewish and black members, which he felt was the real reason for excluding Jews and blacks. In 1972, Nazarenko converted the Cossack War Veterans' Association into the World Federation of the Cossack National Liberation Movement of Cossackia. Nazarenko took part in
Captive Nations
"Captive Nations" is a term that arose in the United States to describe nations under undemocratic regimes. During the Cold War, when the phrase appeared, it referred to nations under Communism, Communist administration, primarily Soviet Union, Sov ...
day parades in his Cossack uniform and as the president of the Cossack American Republican National Federation was active in Republican politics. The Austrian-born American author
Julius Epstein described Nazarenko in the early 1970s as living in a modest house in New York together with his wife and father-in-law Naumenko.
In 1978, Nazarenko dressed in his blue Don Cossack uniform led the Captive Days day parade as parade marshal in New York city, and he told a journalist: "Cossackia is a nation of 10 million people. In 1923 the Russians officially abolished Cossackia as a nation. Officially, it no longer exists...America should not spend billions supporting the Soviets with trade. We don't have to be afraid of the Russian army because half of it is made up of Captive Nations. They can never trust the rank and file".
The journalist Hal McKenzie described Nazarenko as having "cut a striking figure with his white fur cap, calf-length coat with long silver-sheathed dagger and ornamental silver cartridge cases on his chest."
The Captive Nations Day parade in New York was described as being very colorful with people from Europe, Asia and Cuba appearing in their traditional national costumes while the Chinese dragon dance performed to gongs and drums by the Chinese members of the Captive Nations committee added to the atmosphere.
A sign of the politics of the Captive Nations committee was that one of the "captive nations" being honored in the parade was Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe), which at the time was ruled over by a right-wing white supremacist government locked into a war with the left-wing black guerrillas of the Soviet backed Zimbabwe African People's Union and the Chinese backed Zimbabwe African National Union.
Rhodesia had been included as one of the "captive nations" under the grounds that the Rhodesian government had been "betrayed" by the United States and the United Kingdom which were pressuring Rhodesia to allow majority rule and that majority rule in Rhodesia was the equivalent of handing the country over to the Communists.
On 21 July 1984, Nazarenko, gave a speech at a diner for the Captive Nations Committee in New York. Nazarenko began by praising those who fought for Nazi Germany in the ''
Ostlegionen
''Ostlegionen'' ("eastern legions"), ''Ost-Bataillone'' ("eastern battalions"), ''Osttruppen'' ("eastern troops"), and ''Osteinheiten'' ("eastern units") were units in the Army of Nazi Germany during World War II made up of personnel from the ...
'' and the
Waffen-SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
as heroes. Turning to his main subject, Nazarenko stated: "There is a certain ethnic group that makes its home in Israel. This ethnic group works with the Communists all the time. They were the Fifth Column in Germany and in all the Captive Nations...They would spy, sabotage and do any act in the interest of Moscow. Of course there had to be the creation of a natural self defense against this Fifth Column. They had to be isolated. Security was needed. So the Fifth Column were arrested and imprisoned. This particular ethnic group was responsible for aiding the Soviet NKVD. A million of our people were destroyed as a result of them aiding the NKVD...You hear a lot about the Jewish Holocaust, but what about the 140 million Christians, Moslems and Buddhists killed by Communism? That is the real Holocaust and you never hear about it!". The audience roared its approval and Nazarenko's speech was the best received of the evening.
On 17 May 1985, he attended a speech given by President
Ronald Reagan at a meeting of the Republican Heritage Groups Council at the
Omni Shoreham Hotel
The Omni Shoreham Hotel is a historic resort and convention hotel in Northwest Washington, D.C., built in 1930 and owned by Omni Hotels. It is located one block west of the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street. The hotel is know ...
representing the Cossack American Republican National Federation. The next day, Nazarenko was interviewed by the American journalist
Russ Bellant. Before Bellant, Nazarenko produced a briefcase full of anti-Semitic literature on the "Jewish question", Cossack publications and memorabilia from his service in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. Bellant described Nazarenko as a muscular man standing 6'1 with a flamboyant mustache and an unnatural energy for a man of his age together with an immense capacity to consume vodka, to chain-smoke and to express his raging hatred for Jews and Russians. In common with many other Cossack emigres, Nazarenko insisted the Cossacks were a distinctive nation who were not Russians despite speaking Russian. Nazarenko told Bellant that Jews were his "ideological enemies", claiming that Jews invented Communism to oppress Gentiles, and that he was proud to have fought for Nazi Germany. Nazarenko when questioned, denied the Holocaust, saying that "Jews didn't die from gas chambers. Those mountains of bones are from people who staved to death or died of disease". In 2014, Bellant recalled: "I interviewed the Cossack guy; he showed me his pension from service in the SS in World War II, and how he was affiliated with free Nazi groups in the United States, and he was just very unrepentant."
Nazarenko also told Bellant that he was in contact with "patriotic" publications such as ''Thunderbolt'' (a white supremacist magazine edited by
Edward Reed Fields), ''
The Spotlight
''The Spotlight'' was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published in Washington, D.C. from September 1975 to July 2001 by the now-defunct antisemitic Liberty Lobby. ''The Spotlight'' ran articles and editorials professing a "populist and ...
'' and ''
Instauration'', submitting them articles. Nazarenko lived comfortably on a veteran's pension provided by the West German government. Nazarenko boosted to Bellant that when meeting Nazis: "They respect me because I was a former German Army officer. Sometimes when I meet these guys, they say 'Heil Hitler!'". Much of Nazarenko's time in the 1980s was taken up with trying to discredit the Office of Special Investigations, the branch of the Justice Department responsible for investigating accused Nazi war criminals living in the United States, which he called part of a "Communist" plot to deport him from the United States.
In an article in the ''New York Times'' in 1988, Bellant asked for the Republican Party to expel Nazarenko. The chairwoman of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council, the Chinese-born
Anna Chennault
Anna Chennault, born Chan Sheng Mai, later spelled Chen Xiangmei (, actual birth year 1923, but reported as June 23, 1925 – March 30, 2018), also known as Anna Chan Chennault or Anna Chen Chennault, was a war correspondent and prominent Republ ...
was very active in the 1988 election as a Republican activist and she was very dismissive of the charges that the East European members of the council had been Axis collaborators in the war. Chennault had starting in the 1950s become one of the leading spokeswoman for the right-wing "China Lobby" that believed the Communist regime in China was only temporary and that the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan would one day take back the mainland, and accordingly was opposed to American recognition of the People's Republic of China. In connection with her work with the "China Lobby", Chennault had been the long-time chairwoman of the Chinese-American Republican Federation and the Asian-American Republican Federation before being promoted up to become chairwoman of the National Republican Heritage Groups Council in 1987. In late 1988, Nazarenko was expelled from the GOP together with 7 other ethnic organizers with Nazi ties. However, Nazarenko was allowed to remain a member of the Republican Heritage Groups Council, which in effect allowed to retain his Republican party membership. On 28 October 1989, a report written by Chennault and others appeared which denied there were any issues with Axis supporters on the National Republican Heritage Groups Council. By 1989, Nazarenko was allowed to resume his Republican Party membership.
Books and articles
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External links
Will Bush Purge Nazi Collaborators from the GOP?George H.W. Bush Used Nazi Collaborators to Get ElectedWhite Supremacy, Nazism, and the Republican PartyNazarenko's CIA File 1952Nazarenko's CIA File 1951Nazarenko's CIA File 1949
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nazarenko, Nikolai
1911 births
1992 deaths
American Holocaust deniers
Don Cossacks
Russian collaborators with Nazi Germany
New York (state) Republicans