“Vlasov didn’t see himself as a traitor to Russia; he sought to liberate his homeland from the ruthless Stalin.”

By Mari K. Eder

IT WAS JUST after VE Day in May of 1945 when James Hayes, a major in the U.S. Army’s 80th Infantry Division, was enjoying a break outside of his regiment’s command post in Hungary. As the young officer sipped a coffee, prisoners from the defeated German Sixth Army (reformed after the defeat at Stalingrad) were shuffling by with their heads down.

As the column trudged along, a GI approached. The man was escorting what appeared to be a German general staff officer. Hayes waved the sentry over. The Wehrmacht officer in tow saluted sharply and then in rapid-fire German asked to be sent forward saying he had orders for a “General Vlassov” (actually spelled Vlasov). 

The stranger described the general as “a renegade Cossack” in the employ of the Third Reich who led an army of Russian deserters against their Soviet countrymen. According to the German officer, he was to order the turncoat Vlasov to “link up with the Americans and immediately attack the Russians in Austria.”

The American listened politely to the wild story but, unmoved, sent the officer standing before him to join his defeated comrades as they marched into captivity. Hayes learned much later that Vlasov, along with many of his lieutenants had been turned over to the Soviets and executed for treason.

“One man’s traitor is another man’s hero,” Hayes would later reflect. [1]

Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was originally a general in the Soviet Red Army. Captured in 1942 during the fight to lift the German siege of Leningrad, Vlasov would go on to join the Axis. He was soon placed at the head of a fictitious army of other defectors dreamed up by Nazi propagandists. Rumours of this make-believe “Russian Liberation Army” or Russkaya osvoboditel’naya armiya (ROA) were planted in the Soviet ranks to damage morale in the Red Army and foment desertion. In 1944, however, as the manpower available to the Third Reich dwindled, Vlasov lobbied SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to make the ROA a reality.

But would Hitler approve such a plan? After all, the Führer viewed Russians, and all Slavic peoples for that matter, as sub-human untermenschen. Yet according to Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and War Production, the Nazi leader had developed a grudging respect for the tenacity of the Russian soldier. Hitler approved the plan.

Vlasov was soon combing German army POW camps for possible Russian turncoats. One prisoner he approached was Ivan Philippovich Makarov.

A machine gunner with the Red Army, Makarov was taken prisoner near Stalingrad in 1942 and placed in a POW camp.

“A tall skinny man dressed in a strange uniform would visit us,” he recalled years later in his memoirs. “In perfect Russian he encouraged us to voluntarily join the Russian Liberation Army (ROA).”

The stranger promised food, clothes, weapons and, following a certain German victory over Russia, land to settle on.

At least 50 men signed up each day, but Makarov refused to join. He eventually escaped and found his way back to his unit, making it through until the end of the war.[2]

What Makarov didn’t know was that the stranger who tried to recruit him was Vlasov, who just happened to be the machine gunner’s former commander in the offensive in Leningrad in 1942.

Interestingly, Vlasov was no Bolshevik and didn’t see himself as a traitor to Russia. Instead, he sought to liberate his homeland from the ruthless Stalin and his betrayal of the Russian people.

Most sources agree upon the facts of Vlasov’s life story. Born a peasant in 1901 in Nizhny Novgorod, he joined the Red Army at age 18. He served, received an education and later joined the Communist party in hopes of advancing himself. 

Vlasov’s disillusionment with communism came about after his parents were denounced for owning a cow. The up-and-coming Vlasov had gifted them the animal, which had raised the couple’s stature above that of members of the community. A jealous neighbour turned them in.

Despite his growing enmity for the regime, Vlasov would go on to become a highly decorated commander in the Red Army.

He survived the purges of the 1930s and would be throw into action amid the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941. By December of that year, then a major general, he was ordered to report to Stalin, meeting the dictator in a bunker beneath the Kremlin. The situation for the U.S.S.R. was desperate. The German army was closing in on the capital, elites were evacuating for the east and an atmosphere of panic reigned across the city.

Stalin asked Vlasov his advice. The general was adamant that the Red Army fight on. This pleased Stalin, who confidently named Vlasov as the first commander of the 20th Army defending Moscow.

Vlasov promptly counterattacked the superior German force, disrupting their advance. Snowstorms worked to his advantage. The addition of reinforcements from Siberia likewise helped push the advancing enemy back from the capital.[3]

Although the losses in the Battle of Moscow were staggering, with an estimated 1.2 million Soviet deaths, the victory made Vlasov the first general to defeat the German invaders in a major battle. 

“This is a man who knows how to fight not only with resolution, not only with courage, but with passion as well,” reported American correspondent Eve Curie.[4]

Stalin proclaimed Vlasov a Hero of the Soviet Union and personally awarded him the Order of the Red Banner, promoting him to lieutenant general on Jan. 24, 1942.

Vlasov was soon placed at the head of the Second Shock Army and ordered to break the siege of Leningrad, a mission that would prove more challenging. Facing superior enemy numbers once again, Vlasov’s forces slammed into the German lines in the spring of 1942 but were quickly surrounded. Supporting units failed to relieve them; without reinforcements, the front collapsed. Vlasov and his soldiers were trapped. The general was offered the opportunity to escape; a plane was sent for him. He refused to leave his men. 

Hiding in the fields, forests, and on farms, he was eventually captured by the Germans. He later remarked to friends that his time on the run gave him pause to consider how Stalin’s oppressive rule was destroying Russia.

As a high-ranking POW, Vlasov was moved to Berlin. His time in captivity afforded the general more time to ruminate over the failure of the Red Army high command to reinforce his offensive at Leningrad, while reflecting on the country’s oppressive leadership.

“The Bolsheviks were not keeping their promises and were denying the people basic justice,” he said.[5]

That December Vlasov issued an open letter from the German capital denouncing the regime in Moscow. Dubbed the “Smolensk Declaration,” the general voiced his opposition not only to Stalin but the entire Soviet system. The call to action read in part: “Bolshevism is the enemy of the Russian people. It has brought countless disasters to our country. Arise and join the struggle for freedom! Long may peace with honour with Germany prevail!”[6]

Having risked everything with his declaration, Vlasov spent more than a year recruiting POWs from Germany’s vast network of prisoner of war camps. Branded as spies and traitors from the moment they were captured, Russian POWs had nothing to lose and little to live for. Most feared returning to home. It was Soviet policy to send repatriated Russian POWs, both soldiers and officers alike, to concentration camps unless they could prove they had only been captured only after being seriously wounded.[7] With many facing certain imprisonment upon their release, it’s no surprise that many signed up for service in the ROA. In fact, as many as 130,000 of an estimated 5.7 million Red Army POWs would sign up. Some were anti-communists; many were simply desperate to get out of the German camps, seeking better food and treatment. It was even rumoured at the time that current Russian president Vladimir Putin’s father joined the ROA to fight against Stalin.[8] 

Ironically, the ROA’s first real battle was their last. Pitted against a fresh Red Army division near Prague in the spring of 1945, Vlasov’s men saw the end of the Third Reich was at hand and turned against their German captors, pushing the surprised Nazis back and liberating the city. Amid the confusion of the battle, the Red Army surged forward. But far from rewarding the soldiers of the ROA for turning on the Germans, the Soviets exacted vengeance on the turncoats.

Vlasov’s army broke and fled, many of its members scattered across the region. With Germany’s surrender just days later, ROA fugitives streamed south and west, away from the Soviet formations toward American lines, where they hoped for a more sympathetic reception. 

On May 8, U.S. forces in Europe ceased being a fighting army and transformed into the role of peaceful occupiers. Patton’s Third Army, 4th Armored Division, 37th Tank Battalion was assigned to move into the area southwest of Prague and Pilsen. Led by the renowned Lieut. Col. Creighton Abrams, the unit had been first in Bastogne to relieve the 101st Airborne Division five months earlier. Now, Abrams’ tank companies were encamped in Czech villages, where company-grade officers served as temporary ‘mayors’ for the newly liberated populace.

The situation in southwestern Czechoslovakia was chaotic. Even after Berlin’s capitulation, groups of German soldiers in the field continued to fight the Soviets in defiance of orders to surrender. The fugitives continued to push towards the U.S. held territory; the First, Second and Fourth Ukrainian armies pursued. By May 10, German holdouts were surrendering at the rate of 35,000 a day.[9]

Captain Richard Donohue was the American commandant for the village of Schlüsselburg. It was here that the fleeing General Vlasov turned himself. With thousands of his troops having given up to U.S. forces already, Vlasov wanted to ensure they wouldn’t be summarily turned over to the Soviets for execution. 

Donohue listened to the high-ranking fugitive’s account of his role in the war with amazement. The captain shook the general’s hand and promised to do what he could for him. Donohue learned that the options were limited. Suspicions between the Western Allies and the Soviets were rising and Red Army commandos were already scouring the countryside looking for the turncoat general.

On the afternoon of the 12th Vlasov was being transported in a U.S. Army convoy when his vehicle was stopped by Soviet troops and he was seized.[10] The Red Army soldiers were part of the 25th Tank Corps of the 13th Army of the First Ukrainian Front. Vlasov and several of his immediate commanders and staff were quickly sent back to Moscow to face trial. 

A transcript from the initial interrogation records the back-and-forth between Vlasov and his captors.

“You betrayed the Homeland and,” one questioner asserts. “[You] led a fight against the Soviet regime. Under what circumstances did you establish criminal contact with the Germans?”

Vlasov agreed with their accusations and offered an explanation.  

“Since 1937 I have harboured enmity for the policies of the Soviet government.”[11] 

He continued, discussing his disillusion with Stalin’s leadership and his conviction that the Russian Army would be defeated in the war.

Of course, Vlasov’s prediction about the Red Army’s ultimate defeat didn’t come true, but he wasn’t wrong in his assessment of the Stalin regime.

It’s estimated that by the end of the war there were 35 to 37 general officers in the ROA, plus another 4,000 in the officer corps, an unprecedented number of officers defecting to fight for the other side. [12]

Vlasov wasn’t seen again until August of 1946, when, following his trial for treason, he and 11 of his immediate subordinates and staff were hanged in the yard at Butyrka Prison, the bodies then taken to Donskoy Crematorium in the centre of Moscow. The mixed ashes were buried in a nearby mass grave. There are three mass graves at Donskoy, holding the remains of an estimated 10,000 people, all victims of Stalin’s purges.[13]

For 27 years after Vlasov’s execution, little was published or spoken of the ROA. But in 1973 several new commentaries appeared that either sympathized with his ambitions or condemned them. But the fact remains that since Lenin’s rise to power in 1921, Andrey Vlasov “has been the only Russian to have led an open political and military campaign on Russian soil against the Soviet regime.”[14]

It should surprise no one that he remains a controversial figure in Russia, still unforgiven for his betrayal.

Yet for his part, Vlasov remains a hero in the Czech Republic and is still venerated as the liberator of Prague. On April 30, 2022, the city erected a monument to the ROA on the outskirts of the capital, paying homage to the ROA’s role in the liberation. The move was condemned by the Russian Foreign Ministry.[15]

One man’s traitor is another man’s hero. Andrey Vlasov believed deeply in the cause to oppose communism. He thought that even one victory against the Red Army would result in dozens of other Russian generals joining his cause and then the overthrow of Stalin would only be a matter of time. It was a belief born of desperation and perhaps delusion. He remains the only Russian leader to fight against, as he insisted, not his country, but his country’s leadership.

Vlasov never accepted defeat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mari K. Eder is the author of the upcoming book Delusion, Deceit and Destiny: The Lost Cause of Andrey Andreyvich Vlasov. A retired U.S. Army Major General and a strategic communications expert, she is the author of the best-selling book The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line.  

FOOTNOTES

[1] Maj. Dean James Dominique, U.S. Army Ret. And Col. James Hayes, U.S. Army Ret. One Hell of A War: Patton’s 317th Infantry Regiment in WWII. Wounded Warrior Publications, 2014. P. 226.

[2] Makarov, Ivan Philippovich. Born Under a Lucky Star: A Red Army Soldier’s Recollections of the Eastern Front of World War II. Anastasia Walker, 2020. P.53.

[3] Steenberg, Sven. Vlasov. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1970. Translated from the German by Abe Farbstein. Pp. 16-20.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Andreyev, Catherine. Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Émigré theories. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1987. P. 38.

[6] Overy, Richard. Russia’s War 1941-1945, Penguin Books 1997. Pp. 125-126.

[7] Nyaradi. Pp. 135-136.

[8] Richie. Email, “Book Proposal: The Traitor’s Girl.”

[9] “Nazi Fanatics Fleeing Toward American Lines,” The Capital Times, Madison, WI, May 11,1945, P. 1.

[10] Steenberg. Pp. 207-208.

[11] Federal Archive Agency of Russia, The Russian State Archive of Social and Political History. The Vlasov Case: History of Betrayal. Vol. 2, 1945-1946. Rosspen Publishing House, 2015. P. 8.

[12] Resunkov, Victor (2016). “The FSB and General Vlasov,” Radio Svoboda, RFERL in Russian https://www.svoboda.org/

[13] “Donskoy Cemetery and Crematorium, Moscow,” https://coldwarsites.net/country/russia/donskoy-cemetery-and-crematorium-moscow/

[14] Tolstoy, Nikolai. The Secret Betrayal 1944-1947.Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1977. Pp. 301-303.

[15] “Prague Marks the 75th VE-Day Anniversary with a New Monument to Nazi Collaborator Vlasov,” RRJ (Remembrance, Research & Justice: Heritage of WWII in the 21st Century), Apr. 5, 2020. https://eng.remembrance.ru/2020/05/04/prague-marks-the-75th-ve-day-anniversary-with-a-new-monument-to-nazi-collaborator-vlasov/#:~:text=On%20April%2C%2030%202020%2C%20a%20monument%20to%20fallen,with%20a%20German%20Wehrmacht%20helmet%20can%20be%20found.