Andrey Vlasov
Encyclopedia : A : AN : AND : Andrey Vlasov
General Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (Russian: Андрей Андреевич Власов; alternative transliterations of his names appear as Andrei Andreievich and as Vlassov or (in German) Wlassow) (September 14 (September 1 O.S.), 1900 – August 2, 1946) was a Soviet Army General who later cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
Early career
Born in Lomakino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Vlasov was originally a student at a Russian seminary. He quit his study after the Russian Revolution and in 1919 he joined the Red Army fighting in the southern theatre in the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Crimea. He distinguished himself as an officer and gradually rose through the ranks of the Red Army.
He joined the Communist Party in 1930. He became one of Stalin's most trusted military leaders. Following the outbreak of war in 1941, Vlasov played an important role in the defence of Moscow. Described by some historians as "charismatic", Vlasov was decorated following his efforts in the defence of Moscow including on Order of Lenin and of Kiev. After this success Vlasov was put in charge of a group of shock troops that were to try and lift the Siege of Leningrad. His expedition was unsuccessful and this force, the 2nd shock army (2-ая Ударная Армия), was destroyed in June 1942.
Defection
One version:
Vlasov was forced into hiding in German occupied territory. The Germans found him on July 12 1942, and soon sent him to a special prison for high-ranking officers. There he informed the Germans of his desire to defect.
Alternative version:
Vlasov was captured in summer 1942 after German forces had encircled his army. Marshal Kirill Meretskov in his memoirs depicted Vlasov as a sheer "careerist" who withdrew himself from the command of the encircled army. Soviet relief forces broke the encirclement several times, but without organized support from within the encirclement, they failed to secure the withdrawal of Vlasov's army. As the result, according to Meretskov's figures, sixteen thousand men of the encircled army escaped through a narrow (only 300 to 400 meters wide) "corridor" along the railway line, six thousand were killed in action and eight thousand were missing in action. From the post-war search and exhumation efforts in 1980s and later it is now obvious that most of the MIAs should be presumed dead.
Vlasov's German captors persuaded him to assist them to fight Stalin. Vlasov blamed Stalin and the excesses of the Soviet police state and for his defeat and capture.
German client
Vlasov argued that Germany should set up a Russian provisional government and recruit a Russian army of liberation under his command. Vlasov wrote an anti-Bolshevik leaflet which aircraft dropped by the millions on Soviet forces, and as a direct consequence thousands of Soviet troops deserted.
Vlasov founded the Russian Liberation Committee, in hopes of creating the Russian Liberation Army—known as ROA (from Russkaya Osvoboditel'naya Armiya). Together with some other captured Soviet generals, officers and soldiers, the army's goal was to overthrow Stalinism and create an independent Russian state. Vlasov offered a democratic system of government. Many Russian POWs as well as soldiers who received Vlasov propaganda leaflets were interested in becoming a part of this army.
Even though no Russian Liberation Army had yet existed, the Nazi propaganda department issued Russian Liberation Army patches to Russian volunteers and tried to use Vlasov's name in order to encourage defections (a strategy they found effective). Several hundred thousand former Soviet citizens had served in the German army wearing this patch, but never being under Vlasov's command.
Hitler was very wary of Vlasov and his intentions. He made it clear in a speech to his high command that such an army would never be created, then issued directives to dismantle any such efforts and to sequester all of Vlasov's supporters in the German army. He worried that Vlasov could succeed in overthrowing Stalin, which would halt Hitler's dreams of expanding Germany to the Urals. German commanders therefore pulled away Russian volunteer forces from direct battles with the Red Army and sent them to other fronts.
Vlasov had frequent doubts about the success of his mission, which was dealt a nearly fatal blow when Hitler found out about a speech Vlasov made in Pskov, calling the Germans "guests" (something Hitler found belittling). Vlasov was ordered under house arrest, and he threatened to return to the POW camp, dissuaded at the last minute by his confidants.
Only in the closing stages of the war did Germany finally agree to give Vlasov a green light for his Russian Liberation Army, whereupon Vlasov formed and chaired the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.
One Russian division was deployed under Vlasov's command on the lake Oder, but again they did little fighting against the Soviets.
Final days
One important action fought by the Russian Liberation Army took place against an SS force intending to subdue the Prague Uprising with hope to obtain credit with Allies. The ROA prevented the SS from putting down the uprising, but were then asked to leave by the communist forces which had led the uprising.
Vlasov and the rest of his forces, desperate to escape the revenge of the Red Army, attempted to head west to join with the Allies in the closing days of the war in Europe. In May 1945, Vlasov and his men surrendered to western Allied forces.
The British and Americans had little interest in providing aid to Nazi collaborators that would anger an important ally, and thus rebuffed Vlasov's requests for long-term asylum. Vlasov and most of his supporters came into the hands of the Soviet authorities, either directly or indirectly. Only the principality of Liechtenstein ignored the USSR demands to extradite them and permitted those men the option of emigration to Argentina.
Soviet authorities sent Vlasov and his men to Moscow, and in a summary trial held in the summer of 1946 sentenced him and eleven other senior officers from his army to death. They were hanged on August 2 1946. This was the last sentence to death by hanging in the Soviet Union. The remaining soldiers were loaded into boxcars and sent back to Russia. It was reported that some of them were machine gunned as they got off the train; however the majority of surviving Vlasov soldiers and low-ranking officers were not executed, but imprisoned to labor camps. Some of them were among 55,000 collaborators that were pardoned by the post-Stalin Soviet government on September 17, 1955.
Review of his case
A popular movement, named "For Faith and Fatherland," applied in 2001 to the military prosecutor for a review of Vlasov's case. The military prosecutor concluded however that the law of rehabilitation of victims of political repressions did not apply, and there was no grounds to reopen the case.
Literature and film
The history of the Russian Liberation Army is described in
- Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt: Against Stalin and Hitler. Memoir of the Russian Liberation Movement 1941-5. Macmillan, 1970, ISBN 0333115287
- Русское издание: Вильфрид Штрик-Штрикфельдт: Против Сталина и Гитлера. Изд. Посев, 1975.
- Анатолий Бахвалов: Генерал Власов. Предатель или герой? Изд. СПб ВШ МВД России, 1994.
- [General for Two Devils 1995]
See also
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.