Operation Keelhaul

Operation Keelhaul was a forced repatriation of Soviet citizens and members of the Soviet Army in the West to the Soviet Union (although it often included former soldiers of the Russian Empire or Russian Republic, who did not have Soviet citizenship) after World War II. While forced repatriation was mainly of Soviet Armed Forces POWs of Germany and Russian Liberation Army members, it included many other people under Allied control. Refoulement, the forced repatriation of people in danger of persecution, is a human rights violation and breach of international law. In addition many such POWs did not wish to return to the Soviet Union however they were forced to do so by various Allied soldiers, often at gun point or have been otherwise tricked into doing so. Thus Operation Keelhaul qualified as a war crime under Article 2 and 3 of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War and qualified as a breach especially regarding the many civilians forced into Soviet work camps, many of whom had never been Soviet citizens having fled Russia before the end of the Russian Civil War.

The operation was carried out in Northern Italy and Germany by British and American forces between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947. Anti-communist Yugoslavs and Hungarians, including members of the fascist Ustaše regime that ran the Jasenovac concentration camp, were also forcibly repatriated to their respective territories of origin.

Three volumes of records, entitled "Forcible Repatriation of Displaced Soviet Citizens—Operation Keelhaul", were classified Top Secret by the U.S. Army on September 18, 1948, and bear the secret file number 383.7-14.1.