Mehdi "Mikhailo" Huseynzade, a Partizan of Azerbaijani Turk descent

[Partizan]

Lieutenant Mehdi Huseynzade (Azerbaijani: Mehdi Hüseynzadə; Russian: Мехти Гусейнзаде; December 22, 1918, Novxanı, Azerbaijan – November 2, 1944, Vitovlje, Slovenia) was an Azerbaijani guerrilla and scout during World War II. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on April 11, 1957.

Biography

Early years
Mehdi Huseynzade was born on 22 December 1918 in the village of Novxanı in the Baku province of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Huseynzade graduated from the Baku Art School, then studied at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Foreign Languages. After returning to Baku in 1940, Huseynzade continued his education at the Azerbaijan University of Languages.[1]

World War II
In August 1941, two months after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Huseynzade was drafted into the Red Army. After graduating from the Tbilisi military infantry school in 1942, he was dispatched to the Soviet-German front line, where he commanded a mortar platoon during the Battle of Stalingrad.

In August 1942, near the town of Kalach-na-Donu, Huseynzade was seriously wounded and captured by the Germans. He spent the 1.5 years in the German PoW camps in Northern Italy and Yugoslavia. In the early 1944, along with two other Azerbaijani POWs, Javad Hakimli and Asad Gurbanov,[2] Huseynzade managed to escape and join the Yugoslav-Italian guerilla corps.[3] During the same year, he became a commander of the special reconnaissance diversionary unit of the 11th Corps' Staff of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, where he got his nickname Mikhailo.[2]

Guerrilla Mikhailo
In the middle of January 1944, Mikhailo with the fighters has grasped topographic maps of the opponent. Next month Mehdi in the form of the German officer has made way into German barracks and, having enclosed a mine to fire extinguishers, had blown up the central premise.[4]

On April 2, 1944, Huseynzade with another Azerbaijani guerrilla, Mirdamat Seidov, installed a delayed-action mine in the "Opchina" cinema in Trieste. The explosion killed 80 and wounded 260 Germans, of which 40 died later in hospital. At the end of April 1944, Huseynzade, Hans Fritz and Ali Tagiyev blew up a bridge near the Postayno railway station, which led to a 24-car train crash. In May, Huseynzade and Seidov blew up a casino, where 150 German officers died and 350 were wounded. Growing concerned about these attacks, Germans set a reward of 400,000 Italian liras for killing Huseynzade.[1]

Death
On November 2, 1944, returning from a successfully executed mission to destroy a German ammunition depot, Mikhailo stumbled upon a German ambush near the town of Vitovlje, Slovenia. After an unequal scramble with German forces, killing 25 of them, Huseynzade ran out of bullets and used the last one to kill himself.

Awards and honors

His life and heroism during World War II was described in Imran Gasimov's book On distant shores ("Uzaq sahillərdə"), and the movie made in Soviet years by Azerbaijanfilm movie studio. A football stadium in Sumgayit was named after him. Monuments in his honour have been erected in Baku, as well as in his hometown of Novkhany, Azerbaijan, and near Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

Family

Mehdi Husein-Zade had two sisters — Bikya Khanum and Huriet. Nephew Agshin Alizadeh became well-known Soviet and Azerbaijani composer, People's Artist of Azerbaijan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Huseynzade

I am not only Turk who happens to be a Partizan it seems :)

His grave in Slovenia:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/521519_324291144353402_37006657_n.jpg

[Alenka]

Shame on me, this is the first time I hear about this Hero.
Thank you for posting

[Partizan]

Shame on me, this is the first time I hear about this Hero.
Thank you for posting

You're welcome :) I thought he was popular in Slovenia, as I know there is a documentary movie about his life, in Slovene:


Premiere of the documentary film "His name was Mikhailo" on Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union's hero Mehdi Huseynzade was held June 2-3 in Slovenia, Azerbaijan's chargé d'affaires in Slovenia Geray Muradov told Trend.

June 2, the premiere took place in the Slovenian city of Nova Gorica, June 3 - in Shempas settlement, where earlier the Azerbaijani Government has constructed Mehdi Huseynzade's monument.

The documentary film "His name was Mikhailo" was shot in summer of 2008 in Slovenia, Austria and Italy. It is based on interviews with people who knew personally Mehdi Huseynzade and fought together with him, Muradov said. There as citizens of Azerbaijan and Slovenia, as well as Italy among them.

The decision to make this film was taken during the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Slovenia in August 2006.

Mehdi Huseynzade, whose friends called him Mikhailo, was a Soviet lieutenant, a partisan and intelligence agent, became famous for daring operations against the German and Italian invaders during the Second World War in Yugoslavia and Italy. He became the hero of the three countries - Italy, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union posthumously.

The event dedicated to the presentation was attended by Tahir Aliyev, director of the film, working in the studio "Salname" under the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture.

Public figures of Slovenia, members of Parliament, the diplomatic corps, residents of Nova Gorica and Shempas, as well as representatives of Slovenia's partisan movement, Mehdi Huseynzade's former comrades also were invited to the event.

Azerbaijan's chargé d'affaires in Slovenia Geray Muradov, who is also consultant of this film and mayor of the city of Nova Gorica, addressed with opening speech at the event.

http://pda.trend.az/en/1698974.html

[Partizan]

Some documentaries about this comrade(All in Azeri Turkish):

0pyLLzL0gRg

BrafUvAAY0U

_emgatJBpKs (With Russian intro)

I wish I could add documentary in Slovene but I couldn't find it.

[Gospodine]

Haven't heard of this particular fellow but men from the Caucasus and Central Asia serving in Europe during WW2 is nothing unusual (on both sides).

Not many people know but on D-Day the Atlantic Wall was defended by thousands of non-German conscripts and POWs (even Koreans):
http://thisiswarblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/germanys-foreign-volunteers-helped-man-the-atlantic-wall/

Also, the -zade suffix in last names is an Iranian Patronymic?

[Hayalet]

Also, the -zade suffix in last names is an Iranian Patronymic?
Yes.

[Leliana]

I'm sorry but guerilla fighters and partizans deserve such fate. :stop00010: No army on the world ever accepted and accepts guerilla fighters and partizan warfare of people who don't use uniforms.


In August 1942, near the town of Kalach-na-Donu, Huseynzade was seriously wounded and captured by the Germans. He spent the 1.5 years in the German PoW camps in Northern Italy and Yugoslavia. In the early 1944, along with two other Azerbaijani POWs, Javad Hakimli and Asad Gurbanov,[Huseynzade managed to escape and join the Yugoslav-Italian guerilla corps.
So he was kept in fair and not inhumane conditions in a German PoW camp. If he were weak from starvation or mistreatment he couldn't manage to escape. No guilt on the Germans there!


In the middle of January 1944, Mikhailo with the fighters has grasped topographic maps of the opponent. Next month Mehdi in the form of the German officer has made way into German barracks and, having enclosed a mine to fire extinguishers, had blown up the central premise.
He used the uniform of a German officer? :mad: In all countries and armies of the world, such act leads to a death penalty, above all in war times! The US army did the same, and the Russians too.

On April 2, 1944, Huseynzade with another Azerbaijani guerrilla, Mirdamat Seidov, installed a delayed-action mine in the "Opchina" cinema in Trieste. The explosion killed 80 and wounded 260 Germans, of which 40 died later in hospital.
What an asshole!? These Germans were not in action and not on a mission, and very likely unarmed on that evening.

At the end of April 1944, Huseynzade, Hans Fritz and Ali Tagiyev blew up a bridge near the Postayno railway station, which led to a 24-car train crash. In May, Huseynzade and Seidov blew up a casino, where 150 German officers died and 350 were wounded.
Coward act. If such things happens then no one shall be surprised that an army decides to undertake cruel acts as a form of revenge. Human nature is out of control in war times and coward terrorist acts just raise the hate and anger.


Death
On November 2, 1944, returning from a successfully executed mission to destroy a German ammunition depot, Mikhailo stumbled upon a German ambush near the town of Vitovlje, Slovenia. After an unequal scramble with German forces, killing 25 of them, Huseynzade ran out of bullets and used the last one to kill himself.
I don't believe that story that he killed '25 of them' but he deserved what he received! He fully deserved it.

Partizans are not included in international war laws. They act outside of war laws, they are treated outside of war laws.

[Sultan Suleiman]

...

The funniest part here is that you believe that Germans "fought in accordance with common laws of War" :lol:

You people invaded an entire continent, planed and in some cases started to exterminate native population and then wondered why did they start shooting back any way they could. Am I the only one who smells the stench of German hypocrisy or what?

[Leliana]

Hm maybe it's a cultural thing. :icon_ask: Some countries have war heroes, others praise partizans who fought without ethics, moral and beyond all international laws.

If our German army were as 'evil' as you say, your cheap 'hero' haven't seen a German PoW camp where he survived for 1,5 years in good shape but had been shot on spot like in all the horror stories about our people.

[Sultan Suleiman]

Hm maybe it's a cultural thing. :icon_ask: Some countries have war heroes, others praise partizans who fought without ethics, moral and beyond all international laws.

If our German army were as 'evil' as you say, your cheap 'hero' haven't seen a German PoW camp where he survived for 1,5 years in good shape but had been shot on spot like in all the horror stories about our people.

Are you insane?

You planed and then tried to wipe out tens of millions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost) and here you are whining about "German superior morals" :picard1:

Our freedoms we owe to men like him, men who did what ever it took to force you sick genocidal bastards out of our lands.

[legolasbozo]

Hm maybe it's a cultural thing. :icon_ask: Some countries have war heroes, others praise partizans who fought without ethics, moral and beyond all international laws.

If our German army were as 'evil' as you say, your cheap 'hero' haven't seen a German PoW camp where he survived for 1,5 years in good shape but had been shot on spot like in all the horror stories about our people.

you always talk about barbarian turks, vandal muslims, but germany invaded entire continent. not even one muslim. So admit your history, get over your it, instead of attacking us.

[Methmatician]

not even one muslim.

Islam invaded three continents actually :D

[Partizan]

I'm sorry but guerilla fighters and partizans deserve such fate. :stop00010: No army on the world ever accepted and accepts guerilla fighters and partizan warfare of people who don't use uniforms.
So he was kept in fair and not inhumane conditions in a German PoW camp. If he were weak from starvation or mistreatment he couldn't manage to escape. No guilt on the Germans there!

Partizans are mostly last chance of people, when armies and states can't protect them. This guy's story is an interesting one, though. He fought for a land, a people which has almost nothing similar with him. I generally like to glorify patriotic/nationalist Turks who fought for motherland but this guy deserves a mention since his story is interesting and a good example of an "internationalist" hero. Most of people(no matter of nation and religion) would prefer to stay in POW camps and have good dialogue with whoever imprisons them, for being treated better. Not everybody would have guts to escape and almost nobody would think about fighting for a foreign people(and even sacrificing his life for the sake of them).



He used the uniform of a German officer? :mad: In all countries and armies of the world, such act leads to a death penalty, above all in war times! The US army did the same, and the Russians too.

If you read all of story, he is not a guy who would give a flying f*ck to being executed.


What an asshole!? These Germans were not in action and not on a mission, and very likely unarmed on that evening.

It is modern warfare, Leylacım. We aren't in good ole' days while people were fighting chest to chest with swords. In my book, bombing a barracks in night is not a "brave" thing either, in Medieval standards of course. It is the world where a guy who sits in front of a missile control can kill tens of thousands of people with only one click. However, the guy in story could have been caught or harm himself while sabotaging. He dashed himself to death.

^

^


Coward act. If such things happens then no one shall be surprised that an army decides to undertake cruel acts as a form of revenge. Human nature is out of control in war times and coward terrorist acts just raise the hate and anger.



Are you insane?

You planed and then tried to wipe out tens of millions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost) and here you are whining about "German superior morals" :picard1:

Our freedoms we owe to men like him, men who did what ever it took to force you sick genocidal bastards out of our lands.

Second this post.

[Gospodine]

Thanks Leliana for hijacking this thread with some kind of apologist diatribe for Germany's actions in WW2.

What in the hell does that have to do with asymmetrical warfare as a force multiplier in desperate conditions?

But hey, if you want to play holier-than-thou...


He used the uniform of a German officer? :mad: In all countries and armies of the world, such act leads to a death penalty, above all in war times!


The Gleiwitz incident (German: Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz; Polish: Prowokacja gliwicka) was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II in Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident


Operation Himmler (less often known as Operation Konserve or Operation Canned Goods) was a false flag project planned by Nazi Germany to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland. Operation Himmler was arguably the first act of the Second World War in Europe.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler


Operation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. German soldiers, wearing captured British & US Army uniforms and using captured vehicles were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greif

It should be noted these German infiltrators also spoke excellent, American-accented English to further their deceitful tactics.


Coward act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS#Poland


Dirlewanger's preferred method of operation was to gather civilians in a barn, set it on fire and shoot with machine guns anyone who tried to escape; the victims of his unit numbered about 30,000.


"the Dirlewanger brigade burned prisoners alive with gasoline, impaled babies on bayonets and stuck them out of windows and hung women upside down from balconies."[24]

This is the same Oskar Dirlewanger who raped two 13-year old girls, practiced necrophilia and who tried to escape Germany at the end of the war dressed as a civilian under a false name.

Honourable until the very end.

http://www.xtimeline.com/__UserPic_Large/112066/evt110520155401364.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oIAhQMTG-dU/TSqXXRJWo-I/AAAAAAAAFgA/_8PdpTp2PL4/s1600/brutal-germans-ww2-nazi-killing-squads-eisantzgruppen-005.jpg
http://russian-victories.ru/russian_nurse_hanged.jpg
http://www.kawvalley.k12.ks.us/schools/rjh/marneyg/09_holocaust/09_warton_einsatzgruppen1.jpg
http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/13/media-13445/large.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oIAhQMTG-dU/TS1NJ_lhJmI/AAAAAAAAFiA/rSm31elFccw/s640/einsatzgruppen-brutal-germans-nazi-death-squads-ww2-003.jpg

^ More non-cowardly behaviour.


If such things happens then no one shall be surprised that an army decides to undertake cruel acts as a form of revenge. Human nature is out of control in war times and coward terrorist acts just raise the hate and anger.

These "cruel acts as a form of revenge"; do they fully abide by the Geneva Convention and other "Laws of War" which you seem to hold in such high esteem (as quoted below)?

:picard1:


Partizans are not included in international war laws. They act outside of war laws, they are treated outside of war laws.

You can't have it both ways. Either you abide by rules and regulations to the letter or you don't at all.

Nobody wins a Nobel Prize for "Attempted Peace".

Germany's high moral ground went out the window on the day of the Gleiwitz Incident in 1939.

Hell it went out the window the day the Reichstag burned down because it had been deliberately set on the fire by the Nazis so that Hitler could pass the Enabling Act and gain control of Germany.

"War Laws" is an oxymoron. You can't sanitize and sanctify chaos. As is the notion that asymmetrical warfare can be "outlawed".

You can't kill ideas, principles or dictionary definitions. You can only kill men.

The Partisans knew the stakes involved and fully accepted their fate if defeated. A lot of Partisans even wanted to be martyrs for their cause.

War isn't about looking pretty and winning the support of misty-eyed, liberal idealists who live with their parents; it's about getting the job done.

Partisan-like movements have triumphed in the face over whelming odds time and time again in the American Revolutionary War, the Second Boer War, the Arab Revolt led by T.E. Lawrence, Finland's Winter War, the Soviet Partisans in Belarus/Ukraine/Russia, in the Vietnam War, and in Afghanistan.

Leiliana better tell Special Forces units around the world they're doing it all wrong; the correct and "honourable" thing to do would be to announce your presence to the enemy, parade march with flags, stand in a line, and take turns dueling it out like the Prussian Infantry.

Today's most elite fighting units are most similar to history's partisans, guerrillas, freedom fighters and revolutionaries than to any standing army.

Look at SFOD-D, the Special Activities Division or the Navy SEALS.

They wear no distinguishing uniforms, they speak foreign languages, they operate in countries against which no formal declaration of war has been made, they sabotage civilian and military infrastructure alike, take no prisoners, murder innocents, and are denied their very existence by their governments if caught or killed.

Asymmetrical warfare works.

Hypocrisy doesn't.

[Gospodine]

I should make it clear that I don't believe that every member of the Wehrmacht was a baby-killing psychopathic rapist who took sadistic delight in murder of innocents.

Nor am I saying that ANY side in WW2 has the right to claim a greater degree of moral superiority or less culpability in mass murder than the other. None of the Allied Powers are free from charges of war crimes; especially not the Soviets and especially not the Americans/Brits for their incendiary bombing campaigns.

Nor am I too fond of talking about the Holocaust as I don't agree with the state of Israel's existence or with the Jewish Victim Complex and Antisemitism being used as tools to silence gentile opposition towards their repressive influence around the world.

But for Leliana to say "No army on the world ever accepted and accepts guerilla fighters and partizan warfare of people who don't use uniforms."

:picard1:

Even George Bush himself said (on the Iraqi Insurgency): "They're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."

Even if you can be so ignorant as to disregard things like the Afghan Mujahideen, the American Founding Fathers, the Northern Alliance, the Algerian War of Independence, and countless other globally-recognized and Western-backed insurgencies that were deemed legitimate opposition to Imperialistic/Colonial oppression; you surely can't claim that Partisan movements during WW2 lacked a legitimate basis because they didn't fight "honourably" (in actuality if we compared irregular forces to standing armies in terms of civilian casualties perpetrated during WW2; there's no comparison).

Especially when you're comparing them to the Nazis.

I mean you're talking about people who had everything taken away from them, disarmed, dispossessed and displaced; and you're expecting them to remain respectful of their occupiers after they've raped their nation literally and figuratively?

Nobody would act that way if put in the same position.

[Partizan]

Now, moved to Slovenian section :thumbs

[Žołnir]

Ofc. German army also did terrible things after all armies do shit regardless, that is why there were many anti-German paramilitary groups in the first place but lets stick to the topic now.

Not terrible fan of Partizans (but then again i am not fan of either sides of war) altho i have Partizans from both sides of family but yeah its cool stuff and yes we have many documentaries bout history. :) Sadly many people don't watch them and besides those who do don't always have time or simply didn't saw it, etc. For example there is mosque look house from early 20th century in Primorska which is considered special case of historical architecture.

Sidenote during Habsburg-Turkish wars some Turk prisoners of war were settled in area of modern Slovenia as Slaves. Over time they all converted and were assimilated by locals. Their legacy is mostly in surnames like Oman, Šalamun, etc.

[Permafrost]

A red he might have been, but this does not belittle his heroic acts. Slovenia lost huge chunks of territory due to ideologically retarded communist leadership, but if it weren't for people like him, simple folk, I guess the losses would have been tenfold.

Večna mu slava :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFNqd3LMXBg