Hi,

I visted the German Military Cemetery at Cannock Chase in England today, and found the grave of Batsche Alimob, who died 4th April 1945 in the UK, and he was described as 'Hiwi' – short for Hilfswilliger.

My understanding was that Hiwi's were civilians, or deserters, or POW's from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus or Russia who 'agreed' to work for the German military during WW2.

The German War Graves Commission has – apparently – no record of this person, and the UK Commonwealth War Graves Commission has very limited information – but it does state that he was a German national, though not where he was from.

My question to you is 'Batsche Alimob' a German name, or this person much more likely to be a Ukrainian, or Russian, or Polish civilian or soldier who 'agreed' to serve the German military, but who's name was unpronounceable by the German soldiers he worked with/for, and so he was given a nickname – and then somehow he managed to get from the Eastern Front to the Western Front, then get captured by British/US/Canadian forces, and taken to a POW camp in the UK, presumably with others from the unit he was assigned to, before dying aged 23?

I'm going to contact the CWGC to see if they have any more information on this man, and whether – as he died in the UK – he would have a British Death Certificate, which might have more biographical information on him.

There are some 5000 German, Austrian, and a handful of Ukrainian Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen from both wars buried at Cannock Chase – if you've someone buried there, it's a very beautiful, peaceful, well maintained cemetery.

Thanks for your help.

by CatJarmansPants

6 comments

  1. > My question to you is ‘Batsche Alimob’ a German name

    No.

    > and so he was given a nickname

    Possible. Though it’s not a nickname a German would think of.

    Maybe it’s also the real name, and the German transliteration just really screwed it up (plus, they may have made mistakes in transliterating).

  2. No, it could be a Turkish person named Ali Muhammed Bahçe or something, and they messed up reading the name from whereever they got it from; or it could be a double screwup, as Bahçe to Batsche would be a German-native error.

  3. „Batsche Alimob” was likely a Soviet Hiwi (volunteer auxiliary) who worked with the German army during WWII. The name is probably a misspelling (possibly “Alimov”), common among Central Asian recruits. Many Hiwis died in captivity and were buried at Cannock Chase alongside German soldiers.

  4. Alimov is a Russian (I think Tartar?) family name. The Russian cyrillic letter that sounds like V looks like a Latin B, so this might be a sort of typo.

    Batsche could be a German Family name but not a first name.

  5. I found some references for “Алимоб” on Uzbek sites. “Батша” might be from Bashkir language , but anyway it is written in German way. I agree both look very Asian, in particular South Ural / East from the Caspian Sea, not sure how to call that part of Asia

  6. German here. “Batsche Alimob” is not a german name. He was a “HiWi” or “Hilfswilliger”, a prisoner of war who worked for the german Wehrmacht.

Comments are closed.