Krutoy Slava Leonidovich (died 6 June 1944) was a Russian Ost soldier who served in the German 716th Static Infantry Division on the Western Front of World War II. He was killed in action at Omaha Beach in Normandy on 6 June, D-Day, 1944.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Krutoy Slava Leonidovich was born on 8 September 1917 in the town of Zhlobin, Gomel Governorate, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The son of a railway worker and a seamstress, Krutoy grew up in a modest household during the turbulent years of the Russian Civil War and the early Soviet era. His father, Leonid Fyodorovich, was an ardent supporter of Soviet industrialization and worked as a foreman in a rail depot. His mother, Olga Mikhailovna, supplemented the family's income by tailoring clothes for local factory workers.
Military Service[]
Krutoy was conscripted into the Red Army in 1938 and assigned to the 6th Rifle Division as an infantryman. He served along the western Soviet frontier and took part in the Winter War (1939–1940) against Finland, where he experienced brutal combat in the Karelian Isthmus. During Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, his division was encircled and nearly destroyed in the Battle of Smolensk. Captured by the advancing German Heeresgruppe Mitte (Army Group Center) in August 1941, he was sent to Stalag 352 in Belarus, one of the many Soviet POW camps where starvation and disease claimed thousands of lives.
Defection and Service in the Wehrmacht[]
Facing near-certain death in captivity, Krutoy opted to enlist in the Ostlegionen, German auxiliary units composed of former Soviet prisoners. By early 1942, he had joined the Russische Schutzkorps, a Wehrmacht-aligned formation that provided logistical support and anti-partisan operations in occupied Ukraine. Though initially serving in rear-echelon duties, Krutoy was eventually transferred to front-line infantry service in early 1943, as German manpower shortages worsened.
By mid-1943, he was reassigned to the 716th Static Infantry Division, a German second-line unit responsible for coastal defense along the Normandy coast in France. Unlike frontline divisions, the 716th was composed mainly of older Germans, convalescents, and foreign volunteers, including a significant number of Osttruppen like Krutoy. Armed with outdated equipment and lacking proper mobility, the division was spread thin along the Atlantic Wall, manning bunkers, trenches, and pillboxes near the key landing zones of the future Allied invasion.
Death at Omaha Beach[]
By June 1944, Krutoy was stationed at Widerstandsnest (Resistance Nest) 62, a heavily fortified strongpoint overlooking the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach, near the village of Vierville-sur-Mer. On the morning of 6 June, he and his fellow soldiers awoke to the thunderous barrage of the Allied naval bombardment. His position, manning an MG 42 machine gun, was one of the first to open fire on the 1st Infantry Division and the 29th Infantry Division of the United States Army as they attempted to land.
Despite suffering heavy bombardment, Krutoy and his fellow defenders inflicted devastating casualties on the first wave of American troops, mowing down scores of men as they disembarked into the chest-deep water. However, as the battle raged, American destroyers and artillery systematically targeted the German bunkers, forcing many defenders to abandon their positions. At some point during the late morning, as the Americans began breaching the German defenses, Krutoy was struck by an armed soldier and gunned down, one of thousands to die in such a matter.