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The following is a lightly edited machine translation of this article:

The beautiful little cemetery, tucked away on a gently sloping hill between man-high hedges, could be in St. Petersburg, Odessa or near Kyiv. Polished as if from Stalin’s heyday, a golden Soviet star gleams on the large marble memorial plaque; beneath it, in Cyrillic script, are phrases that begin with courage and end with a heroic death.

There is talk of ‘resistance’, of ‘overwhelming superiority’ and, time and again, of ‘bravery’. It is not only the inscription that expresses gratitude and reverence for those buried here: not a single leaf or twig lies on the meticulously raked flowerbeds. The rose bushes on the graves are trimmed as if with a ruler. Fresh candles are burning everywhere.

Yet the more than five hundred Georgians honoured here did not fall in their homeland, nor on the Russian front of the ‘Great Patriotic War’. The military cemetery is located on Texel, a Dutch North Sea island, just a few kilometres from the mainland and the port city of Den Helder. It was here that one of the final battles of the Second World War on European soil took place, a merciless partisan war that continued to claim victims for weeks after [Berlin’s] surrender on 8 May 1945.

It was a battle between former comrades-in-arms. The Georgians were members of the ‘Georgian Legion’, one of the legendary ‘Eastern Legions’ — those combat units of the Wehrmacht that had been formed from former Soviet prisoners of war and volunteers.

More than three thousand folk lost their lives in this bloodbath. Yet hardly any history book mentions this absurd and brutal episode. And when the Netherlanders celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their liberation this year, they did so on 4 and 5 May, the day of the Wehrmacht’s surrender in the Netherlands. Peace forgot the battle for Texel a second time.

Until the spring of 1945, Texel had been virtually spared from combat operations. [Axis] troops had occupied the island in June 1940 and expanded it with massive bunker and fortification complexes as part of the ‘Atlantic Wall’; the Netherlandish resistance movement had issued the order to keep the peace on the island — it had many members in hiding there. And the Dutch North Sea coast had been strategically sidelined since the Allied landings in France in 1944. There was nothing left to defend here and nothing to conquer.

The Georgians, numbering eight hundred men in total, arrived on Texel in January 1945. Together with four hundred Germans, they formed the Georgian Infantry Battalion 822 and were under [the Third Reich’s] command. Many were former prisoners of war from the Russian campaign. To escape the appalling conditions in the prisoner-of-war camps and the almost certain death that awaited them there, many of them had agreed to collaborate.

When word came that part of the battalion was to be deployed against the Allies on the Netherlandish mainland, the Georgians decided to rebel. The code name for the uprising was ‘Day of Birth’. For many, it became the day of their death.

The Georgians took the unsuspecting [Axis officials] by surprise whilst they were asleep or on guard duty. They killed them mostly with daggers and bayonets. Often, the victims and perpetrators knew each other: they had served together for months, sometimes even celebrating together.

The uprising took the [Axis] completely by surprise. ‘We never noticed anything to suggest sabotage or plans for an uprising,’ said Klaus Breitner, the Wehrmacht battalion commander, when questioned long after the war. ‘We even considered it completely out of the question, as the Georgians were wearing German uniforms. That,’ said Breitner with unshakeable Wehrmacht honour, ‘says it all.’

The Georgians had previously ‘carefully calculated’ exactly how many [Axis officials] each of them had to kill — no prisoners were taken that night. Huug Snoek, a member of the Netherlandish resistance who had joined the Georgians, reports: ‘We stopped scattered Germans and asked for the Georgian password, which of course nobody knew. It was a swift affair. Every German was shot.’ Within a few hours, almost all the [Axis personnel] in the battalion were dead.

The [Axis] headquarters “Texla”, a bunker complex not far from Den Burg, the largest town on Texel, was quickly captured. However, the Georgians did not achieve their goal of bringing the entire island under their control: the heavily fortified coastal batteries in the north and south remained in [Axis] hands.

It was from there that the ‘Texel Special Report’ was sent to the Führer’s bunker in Berlin, informing them of the uprising. The reply came swiftly: ‘Liquidate all Georgians immediately!’

At half past four, the two heavy batteries began shelling Den Burg; the [Axis soldiers], who had received reinforcements, formed up for a counter-attack. ‘Everyone sensed that we were on the verge of losing the war, but first we wanted to take revenge on the Georgians,’ reported Breitner.

Many civilians also fell victim to the [Axis’s] ruthless tactics. [Axis] artillery fired on every settlement where Georgians were suspected to be present.

A fierce partisan battle raged for two weeks, devastating almost the entire island. In the end, the Georgians, vastly outnumbered, held only the lighthouse in the north of Texel.

Time and again, [Axis] soldiers charged up the hill. They were completely exposed to the Georgian snipers. When the [Axis] finally managed to capture the lighthouse, the Georgians inside the tower committed suicide. It was the Wehrmacht’s last victory.

But the Texel War was not yet over: [Axis officials] had vowed to catch ‘every rebel’. On 22 April, they organised a manhunt: with more than two thousand men marching in a chain a few metres apart, they combed the entire island.

Quite a few Georgians had still entrenched themselves in the minefields on the beach, which [Axis employés] did not dare to enter. They preferred to hunt down those Georgians—mostly wounded or completely exhausted—who were hiding with Netherlandish farmers. If they were caught, their helpers’ farms were burnt down and they themselves were shot: first they had to dig their own graves and strip naked — they were not to be executed whilst wearing [an Axis] uniform, according to orders.

All over Texel, farms were burning; everywhere, new mass graves were being dug, and suspected as well as actual collaborators amongst the population were shot. The [Axis] officers, in particular, behaved with such fanaticism as if the final victory of the Third Reich were to be won on Texel.

Even the surrender of [Axis] troops in Holland on 5 May did nothing to change this. The Allies were nowhere to be seen, and the [Axis soldiers] refused to hand over their weapons. Instead, they continued their hunt for ‘mutineers’ and ‘deserters’.

The war after the war lasted two long weeks: the Netherlanders had decorated the streets and houses and were awaiting their Allied liberators, who did not come. Instead, [Axis] troops, fully armed and sometimes singing cheerfully, marched through the towns. There were repeated skirmishes with Georgians.

It was only an arrangement organized by the Netherlanders that put a stop to the worst of the shooting: the [Axis forces] were allowed to move freely — and armed — around the island during the day, whilst the Georgians were permitted to do so after sunset.

One of the last casualties of the Battle of Texel was the baker Theo Smit. He had helped some Georgians during the uprising; now, on 17 May, a few of them dropped by to thank him.

Among them was a young soldier who wore his revolver openly in its holster. Smit asked him to put ‘that thing’ away, saying, ‘that junk frightens me’. The Georgian then removed the cartridges from the pistol, said, ‘Then you needn’t be afraid any more,’ and pulled the trigger. The bullet in the barrel, which he had forgotten, fatally struck Theo Smit.

It was not until 20 May, when Canadian troops landed on the forgotten island, that the [Axis] troops were disarmed. The Canadian commander put the Georgians’ losses at 470 and the [Axis’s] at 2,347 men. In a letter to the Soviet General Staff, he mentioned the heroism and bravery of the Georgians. He was aware of the danger that they faced.

[The Kremlin] announced that all Soviet soldiers who had ever collaborated with the Germans would be punished. Twenty-six Georgians were deported along with their families, whilst others were sent to labour camps. It was not until the mid-1950s that they were rehabilitated and allowed to return to their homeland.

Their Netherlandish helpers also faced trouble because of their heroism. During the Cold War, many of them who had tried to maintain contact with Georgian friends were monitored and harassed by the Netherlandish secret service.

This is another reason why, five decades after the war, the Battle of Texel has been almost forgotten. Apart from a small group that looks after the Georgian cemetery and has displayed a few photos in a small corner of the local history museum, most Texel residents have successfully repressed the memory of this history.

And the German tourists who have been flocking to the island for decades are unaware of it anyway.

Contrary to what many casual observers have asserted, the Texel Uprising was not Europe’s last WWII battle. I’ll be talking about that one in five days.

Further reading: Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler’s Revenge, April–May 1945 (interview with author)