SOVIET DEFECTION TO THE GERMANS IN WORLD WAR II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00415R013200050001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 48
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 19, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

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d.
CLASSIFICATION
. COUNTRY USSR/Germany
SUBJECT Soviet Defection to the Germans in World
War II '
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
RESTRICTED
SECURITY INFORMATION
INFORMATION REPORT REPORT
CD NO.
STAT
DATE DISTR.
NO; OF PAGES
19 Nov. 1952
1
, NO. OFENCLS.
(LISTE 1 (44 pages)@
D BELOW) '
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
STAT
,TtfS D,964ENT 'CONTANS IN.FORMTtON AFFECTING THE NATION DEPE4t
OF?At UNITED STATES, WITHIN THE MEANINO.OF?TITLE 18, SECTIONS 793
f
AN 794, OF THE U.S. cooe., AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISS!ON OR REV;*
LATION OF ITS CONTENTS TO OR RECEIPT BY AN UNAUTHORIZED,PERSOOS
PROHIBITED BY LAW., THE:REPR,ODUCTION of,,Tnis !.olot tS PROHIBITED.:
STAT
study entitled "Soviet
vezection to the Germans in tne Wary and dated June'1952.
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RESTRICTED
SOVIET DEFECTION TO THE MIRTIANS IN TH7; WAR.
JUNE 1952
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00V171T D1771CTI07 TO ?IiTi.G7T.NS IN TH-J
Contents.
Intreductory Note
1. German policy
KITL's policy
ROT:11)Gis theories
Thu tattitn2e of the Gormnn 4rmy.
Im)rovisation, un-)fficial
an:1 broken pr:wiises
The VI,30V movement non sDurce uf
int,llience
(C)
Pr c:
1
2
2
3
14
2. Thb first impact
i a Ronction La the Tialtie ritates
4
b The situation in -2.ussia proper r
.)
The renctim ::LT the Posnts P
J
The roc.cfl-n of the j.ntelli':entsia 6 .
o Thu mntives )f Vie inolli':untsin 6
f The intellifuntsia threw -)ver the
Soviot -.ime 7
. ( ) The Germ.nns un)rpared. 8
3. The Military Picture
' a Defeat rnther then defeatism
8
b Motives for desertion 9
c Readiness of the d,sertors to fiht
on the Gormf-In side 10
i . Deserti:711 n.fter 1941
1The 10
GM, :=..,NN Or)eration 11
0-.)oratiln 31IIIIRST:=2 11
Desertion in the later stai7es of
the wnr 12
Th(; cTavinco c.)mmuniFAr; 12
Thu lesson of Rod -.,rmy ,aosortion 13
14.
Russians in Germfm Service.
(a) "RuT:sia can -1-11y be c'nquere'rl by
Russ inns"
The Kiwis
o Statistics of Hiwis
Russian YI in anartionn unite
o The case of 134 Infnntry Division
The effect of Gorman military reverses
0)eration GIILLTORT: formntion of
01'; 41114
13
14
15
15
16
16
16
5. The VL.1-.00V Movement: First Phase.
chanc in Geruden policy 17
The Military PsycholoTical L2berntery 18
Mntives 19
ci No possibility of internal revolt 20
o Tho Smolensk Proramme 20
Dabundorf 21
VI,L30V't tour of occupief. Russia 22
Potentialities of the VI,i,30V Movement 22
/6.
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6. The 12ussian Civil Ponulation.
Chant() of opinion after Stalinrad 23
Tlffectiveness of Soviet rumour propacanda23
Otronr;th of anti-Soviet foolins 24
Orif;in of the Partisan movement 24
Tho anti-Soviet partisans 25
German failure to exploit the
partisan movement 26
3oviet reaction to the VLY,SOV Movement 27
1,11umpts to penetrate the VLi.,SOV
movement 27
L083011 of the VI,0V Movement 28
The National Minorities.
(a) Gorman failure to exploit national
minorities 28
R3The Cossacks . 29
German failure to C,Istin-;uish
separatism from Chauvinism 29
.,. Tho German failure summarizod
Operation Zeppelin 30
Tho sicnificance of the nati rialist
revolts 31
8. The VLL,30V Movement: ;".3o3onl. phase
' a Tho DabeniJorf period
32
b :Belated official spr?noorshid of the
VL.ZiOV .1avement 32
1
ro f Tho Prai:uo Manifesto
The Prc,77ramme of Iacjil 35
34
."
The HIPLI-VL.i,JOV Laroomont 33
The formation of K01.7.a 34
KON,.. and the questi-)n of nationalist
separatism 36
The last days of the V70V ,nly 36
Influence of the VISOV.moment on
the 1:ussinn 7:;:mirtin 37
9. $ ummary and Conclusions
37
i.ppendix: Gurces.
;A. Our earn stuC.ies en reels 41
T). U3 2tudios 11.npu1iL;hed and/or
restricted) 41
0. German eument 42
D. Rinoinn :'.-cuments
71. Oral materials 43
F. Publishod Materials 43
G. Forthcmin-; publicati:na L.
R. Materials kn are t- oxiat which have
not been exl-itod by us. 44
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SOVIET DEFECTION TO THE GERMANS IN THE WAR.
Introductory Note.
- The following pages contain an attempt to examine the
main features of Soviet defection to the Germans during
the late war; and to draw frem German experience the
conclusions which appear of relevance to problems which
confront us today. The main sources of information will
be found listed in an Appendix. While we have been unable
to obtain access to all the material which we should like
to see (Appendix Section H) we are satisfied that we have
semi enough to enable us to assess accurately the main
features of Soviet defection during the late war; and that,
while certain further aspects of the question still remain
to be explored, the broad picture which we have presented
is. fully confirmed.
i(o German polio z.
- (a) HITLER's poliey.
Tho outstanding feature of the Geyman campaign against
Russia was that it was embarked on without any clearly
formulated political plan. This was essentially consistent
with HITLER's outlook, since from his point of view the
campaign did not raise any political problems. He visualised
it as an enterprise in which the Germans, as a superior
race, would fulfil their destiny by taking over the territory
and natural riches of a sub-human and inferior population.
There is no evidence that hu was at any time concerned
with what would happen to this population in the process.
What is quite certain is that the idea of co-operation
between Germany and the Russian population against the
Soviet Government was abhorrent to him as both derogatory
to German dignity and dangerous to German security. HITLER
was quite willing for any form Of propaganda to be used
to ,the Russians which was considered helpful in the campaign.
ThUs, the campaign against Russia was initiated in general
toms as a campaign of liberation from Bolshevism. But -
HITLER does not at any time appear to have realised that
propaganda can only be effective if it bears some relation-
al-4p to the truth. GOMBELS, in whom over-all responsibility
for propaganda rested, does seem, if the diaries published
in: his name are authentic, to have, grasped this weakness
in all German propaganda to the population of Russia.
But his unwavering personal loyalty to HITLER prevented
hia from taking any action to remedy this weakness.
HITLER's outlook on the Russian campaign found practical
expression in the excesses of the SS, under the direction
of1HIMMLER, of the civilian administrators of the type of
KOpH or KUBE, and later of those responsible for the
recruitment of labour, under SAUCKEL. It was those men who
had the ear of HITLER and spoke the same language. Their
/views wore in
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views wore in the last resort bound t) prevail on any
question affecting Russia as csainst the views of ROSENBERG,
whom HITLTIR rather despised. There were many military
figures whose views differed from HITLERts; but in any case
he never completely trusted his generals.
(b) ROSENBERG's theories.
ROSENBERG was familiar with Russia, whore he had
spent his early youth. The country had fascinated him,
and he was obsessed with the danger that this fascination
Might Intimately deflect the pure German race from-its
historic mission and destiny, and leave intact a Russian
state which in fifty years t time would once again threaten
"Aryan" culture, - and even more farmidttly since it would
by that time have benefited from Gorman administrative talent.
lionce he evolved a policy of dismemberment of greater
Russia, with separate Baltic, Ukrainian, and Caucasian
states. The Russian core which remained would suffer a
4iminution in standar ds of living as a result, and a very
elnsiderablo decrease in population (40 million w)uld die
in the process, according to the views of officials of
ROSENBERGts ministry). Within the limitations of this
"hard" decision, an he called it, ROSIINBERG was anxious to
Win over the Russian and other populations of the Saviet
Union to the German side, and ts one ArTage the formation
Of anti-Communist governments - always provided that this
did not threaten to revive the Great Russian menace.
However, within the franewark of the German system, ROSENBERG's
Ministry for rkzstern Affairs counted for little in the face
Of the policy on the soot which had the support of the SS,
and hence of HITIM. The efforts, which he directed at
HITLER, at the civil administration and at the SO ta bring
Obant even modest changes in the system of occupation
rlemained without effect.
(c) The attitude of the German Army.
The third policy was to be f)und in the army. The
"army pr)paganda plan which was prepared in. Juno 1(7)141 for
Operation Barbarossa clearly echoed R031.11T3ERG's central
idea - but with a significant modification. The main line
was:- the Germans come as liberators and have no enmity
against the Russian people. Then followed an instruction
that while local languages should be used in administration,
c4).re oh 'old be taken to prevent the population from
prematurely" drawing the inorence that a deliberate dis-
memborment of the Soviet Union was being aimed at. Perhaps
tho army had realised the danger inherent in ROS-fINB7IRG's
ideas that their effect on the Rod Army and on the Russian
population might stiffen resistance. However, the army
directive of Juno 1941 was oven moro remarkable for its
omissins; nothing was said about the encouragement of
deserters nor about the utilizatien of Russian deserters
or prisoners as fighters on the German side. There wore
ne instructions about the form of local dministration,
nor was anything said about the promises which might or
might ra:)t be made to the peasants on the future policy
with regard to the collective farms.
/These omissions
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?
These ouiosions may have bcon due to tho fact that
it was never f_ntended that the army sh)uld ply any significant
part in tho adminivtrati-,n of occupied -brritory. It is
h,70vor rjoe likely .that thuy al,e to bu explained by the
fact that no one had given those problems ueniou_s thought.
This iv c nfirmud by the fact that, although a department
for tactic .--!l propagnda in thc, field existed in tho Gorman
army, it played virtually no part in the early stages of
the cc. cm - i.e. in th:. most vital otaos. It is, for
examplo, very strihin.z t, n:)to that Russian deserters wore
at e?unted or listed separately from thove taAen prisoner
in combat until Fay 192. In fact, it was not until the
first victori.uis advance had been halted that any curious
attenti::,n was devoted field prpaganda to th,, enemy no
a weapon in warfare.
(c1) -
improvisation,. oroom..'anda and broken
oromices.
The immediote a nseu-Lonce of th.e lack of any clear
di-rectives on policy towa..,dri the population Iii7c8 that tho army
authorities imorPvised policy on the soot. Tho rasults
achieved by them-wero not lasting, in the sene that thuir
effects W0iG so'n -.-,vo-:taken by the 33 and the civil admin-
i!stration which followed in their waho. In the co-urse
time, and in bartMula-.' afte: the end )f 19)41 when it
blecame evident that tho Go:man advance into Russia Wr.2 not
going to be the easy success which had.beed u)nfieotly
expected, un)fficial olanninL; fan oropaganda and political
warfaro and exoerimnts of vari_lus kinds wero instituted.
These efforts too.: place unbelznown t- HITL D., often in an
atm-.sohure of c,nspiracy, and in many instonco of disloyalty
to the HITLER regime. Thoy wee, oh rtlivod, hoc cu before
lhng they we:0 in turn fruetrated by the 33 whch new it ?
cOuld rely on NITT:JQ'ri vuoprt. re over, any success which
ouch efforts could achie.ve was necovsarily temporary and
spasmodic because nono of the experiments attempted corres-
pnded to any reality of effective national policy. To
take one instance: considerable success was achieved fnr
a!timu in the summer of 1943 by :dr ant line propaganda
promising deserters that they would bo given thc ,pportunity
to enlist to fight aTr...inst the 37LLIN regime*. But this
iporati-n was d-miled to failure when in the event deserters
were n t allowed t- enlist, or were enlisted for labour
or for service elseloere than an the astern front -
fact whch soon became kn:wn on the Russian aide and was
interpreted as OViC,CDCG of yet another broken promise.
The whole of the VILSOV movement, right up to November 1944,
when it was taLon over by the SS, devolppod in just ouch
i.series of somi-conspirat-rial exoeriments without official
oUpport. The SUODiCi113 attitude of HITLER and his entourage
to the expLriments with VLASOV and similar experiments in
the exploitation of the considcrablu ootential disloyalty
an the Soviet side wa.s, n, doubt, not allayed by the fact
that the pri7ae movers in such experiments wore nearly always
pcIrsno those loyalty t HITI,T2 was questionable - von
BPLiIICHIT3C1T. v:)n BOCK, von GIIRSDO-271-0, von TR:?nCICO-./, von \.
SCITINK7VD0-1.17, vL)n riTAU:71:1:1:a3711,,G , vsn 200(11j7:35" s ,rno of whom
WOTO later to be implicated in the conspiracy to ao.assinote
:HITLER. Some of them, if not disloyal by usual standards,
/wore kn-wn to be
See section 3.
i?-? sof 4 ?
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RES TRMIP
-L1.-
wore known to be criticol of HITLM and even disillusioned
by Nr.Zi8M to en extent which in a totalitorian rugimo
epproximeted to treason. Among such Wrt6 Captain OTRIK-
STRIKFMDT. A Boltic Ruosion in sorvice'with the German
ho was largely responsible for the building up of
the VLASOV mwcmont, participeted personally in ell its
stages, and was the most important Gorman figure to combine
-.an understanding of the 2ussian situation with that of the
political difficulties on the Gorman side. . Whether the
Germen commanders in the field Wore as innocent of J.T.ITLR's
:intentions towards the Russian population as they sometimes
maintain today is porheps 000n to doubt. Accordino to
-SCILMLENBErn the army was informed at the outsut of the
:campaign of the proposed "mess destruction of Jews and
Communists". It in perhaps the more likely answer that they
often accepted HITLIT1's policy as n means to victory in
the first,'victori.,us stages, and grew disillusiined and
?critical Pertly from wht they saw of the treatment of the
Russian population, and portly because they realised thet
e good political opportunity won being thrown away by the
blindness of their own lenders.
(,) Tho VLASOV movement (Is :71 source of intellif,ence.
The mentors of German policy - HTTLY11, HITT4L2, and
the $S - remained impervious t- the need -fir r polioticol
plan in reloti)n t' Russia until it woo much t)o late.
They ignored the I-4:-:rnins of those army officers who wore
aware of the opp-rtunity which wan beiog squandered. They
else disregardej the advieu offered to them by the many
zlinti-Comolunist senior Red Army officers who had fallen into
their hnnds by th,, en,.: of 1941. These officers, wh, included
Lioutonent-Genoral LUKT.;, an army group commender, all
Urged the need from the Gorman point of view of setting
nati nal Rur.7sion Coramittec,.and of giving the land.
to the poasants. They els() wRrned the Gurmons that the effect
of the treatment of the eivilion population by the SS end
by the civilianrIccupti,)n c!uthitios wiuld be to drive
the populotion into the partisan band5 and to stiffen the
morale of the Red Amy, Those virninrsa WOUG all ignored,
and no cncerted effort t) exploit the potentiolities of
the tensions within the Soviet Union in the German interest
lit0A3 ever mode. The value of the VIZIJOV rivemont and similar
experiments on n ..9.)nrco of iutelligence is therofore mainly
confined to the light which th0o. con throw oo the ootontially
disloyal elements within the Soviot state. It is from this
angle that German attempts will be considered in the following
sections.
2. T h e first impac t.
(n) Reaction in the Bnitic Status.
Sufficient evidence is now available on the first
rection of the oopulation of occupied Rui t the Gorman
invasion to state certain basic foots with fair certainty.
/In the throe
*: His recollectirds and some of the documentary evidence
preserved by him have formed an important souroe of OUT
information on this subject.
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In1tho throo Baltic.countrius, which hni. only recently boon
forcibly incorporatod in the USSR, the roacti:m woo ono of
unqualifiod welcome. They reL:arded the war as nn opportunity
ofrogaining their loot indeponThnce, 0117, offered the
Gormans every assistance to this ca.:. Thor() was lore
sonic voluntoorin to enlist. Thu :'fly partisan activity
in :the oarly stagss, and that principally in Lntvin, was
due to offorta of communist undorround organisations which
had boon loft behind whon the Sovi,,t forces retreated, nnf,
was on a smallEcale. The fniluro of the Germnns 13:: exploit
more fully tho potontial assistance which the Baltic countrios
could have offered was beyond n11 doubt duo to their deter-
mination to exploit them t7, na gront on oxtont aa the
:ausisians, and t their policy of at all costs prcvonting
thd ro-cmorzonce o2 these counrivas national indopendonce.
: (b) Tho Situation in 1usk.-31a=er.
Beyond the countrics of the periphery, i.e. in i1Zussic
proc)or, the 1-Zussinns had in most casco nchieved sum? form
of ovacuntion bcfore the Gorman entry, with a. grontor or
lossor deree of chaos. The soccous of the evacuation
varied accorlin na tho centre was m-.)e or lona rumItu in .
tho path of thu Gorman advance. In 1,Auv, 17.)r example, which
was not unto-rod until miCL-Soptumbur 1941, at lunst a third
of the poo111ati-.1n ha.:1 boon ovacuated, or hod fled. The
evacuatin in Aost cases c2riou2 the bulk 7y2 industry
and of the workers engaL;od in it, and party (and.KVD)
officials. Basically th,..:rufm2c in s ocr no it is possible
to Dmorali-so 0 situtim whi,th was ossontially flui,
and at timoa chaotic, the classe72 .)f the .0pulation with
whom the Gcrmans moat often foun1_ thomsolvea in eootact
wer the ponnts and tho "i7ItolliEeatain". Tho
"intellientaia" includes, in Soviet terminoloy, tochnicians,
senior administrators, members of the loomed r)fosaiu)ns,
teachers, writers, and army officors - in gonornl, n11 with
a higher than secondnry cohool onc?.tion. ?w u tho bulk
of the communist party was in 1941 (as it is now) rucrnited
from tho intelligentsia, the latter incluod a fair
proportion of onrty membors.
(o) The ronotin of the Pons ants.
The roaction of the poaaanta vine in goncral OdO of.
woldomc. It is no/ often asserted thnt this /Gloom() was
confined t) thc Ukraine, but thia view doos not appear to
be 4nrroct. 111(. welcome may vi. ii have boon somewhat more
exuberant in the Ukraine, a fact probably to he 0100lnined
by the mono exuberant nTti mai_ character of the Ukrainian.
It Mny nlso hay? boon :1-c,e to thc Proparntory notivities in
tho1Ukrnino of agonts of P,OS:.]1TBG's ministry (which
were suspected by H.T. Foroign Office na carly as 1938).
Thoponsaats welooMo wasiMIndod ea a very simple bsois:
they disliked collootivisation, and they wanted the land.
Beyond that thoy were ct intcrostod in anythinA very much -
absence ci freedom for example, did not figurc ns a ,=;round
for 1thoir disentont with the Goviut re,gimo. Two aspects
of the roaction of tho peasants to the advent of the Gertaans
in 11941 wore of particular sinificance. The first 'xis
their desire n?.t only t) receive lnarl by sub-_-livisioo of
/tho colloctive farms
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tho colloctivo forms, but their Closiru to rocuive it ot tho
honda of somo rocogniood ond outoblishod nClmtnictrotion
(thc collopso of tho Soviot r.:gimo woo ot thG outset of
tho wor token for gronted) which could givo thu' o voila,
Permnnont title. Tho occ:)nd notoblo foot wns tho comploto
dbsonoo of nny spontoncous rioting or dis.Drgoniscd scizuce
of the lund. It would no doubt hovc boon atornly out
clown by the Guruons iIa roolisod tho cconomic voluo of
tho colloctive forms no less thou tho Soviet outhoritios.
Btt tho foot romoino thot there wore 11.-) known inotances
of whot 11:!(1 hithorto boon thu troditionul mondfcstation
of the lilussion ponsonto' rcoction to the bruokdown of tho
ntthority which keeps him in subjoetioa. 7buthor this
c4rious foot woo duo t?.; o chngo in tho choroctor of tho
Ithssion poosont us tho rosult of ten yooro .)f colloctivisotion;
or possibly to the removol, through thu opoortunitioa provided
by tho Sovjt roij_mo for odvoncemont, of potontiol rin, loodors
or n rovolt,- or to s:me othr runn ic o ouostion which
wOuld well ropcy further study.
(a) Tho reoctio.:1 of tho int111-)entplo.
The rooction of the intolligontsin woo morG c...)m=qcx.
The romnnnt of the oL:, pro-1917 intolligentsio oh we.-1 .)pon
oftGr oll, tho Gormono woo, :.luropono, on: it
wna o relief t) turn t? thom oftor oll h po of over coGing
L4 end to 8-)viot rub o v?nishod. Tho cu Of thu now
Sty-lot intelligontoto wos diffrunt, on: from nu point of
view of lossons t) be lcomt for the moru im:?rtnt. The
emergonco of this new oloso from the do-21;: moso )2 thu peoplo
isi nrobobly tho most rilificont of oil thu ch:r.ngo br.ught
shout by the Sovict ruL;ime. Tho Gormono, cortolnly, found
mulch to be ostonishoJ1 ot when they first conic in contoct
with tnom, not lunst tho luvol of intulligenee of thu uppor
stirotum of this closs. (Subsocuont intolligonee tutc
cnrried out by tho Clemons on -2,ussion prisonorc uhowod thnt
while 715 wor.. well bolo tho 7luct 71uropuon ovGragc, 25
wc4o won above it. It to .mportont to consider thu ottitudo
of this closs, os it oppoored t- thu Gormons. It con
bc:fairly sofoly estiwtod ot not loss thou twelvo uillion
of. thu populotion, whilo its importondo in keoping the
SeViot rgimo in being is wull out of proportion t, its
numbers.
(b) Th, motivoc of tho
The intulligontsio hod grown up in circumotonces of
pr14viloo ond, within the limitotins of o totolitorinn
regime,- of rosponsibility. Their knowlejzu of thu west,
at '!ntly rote in 1941, victs virtuolly confined to the -.1.71
purty clich6s on tho sub joct. 1vun if thoy did not toko
these very scriously, they hn: nothing to put in thoir
They woro fully conscioof thcir supriority to wcotornors,
evon to n victorious i.ovodor. Thoy boostc,: of the:_r tuchnicol
oxpicrience rind skill, of the n-dvontnge of substontiol forced
lobOur resouroos which onoblod TZu.osio to C_isrord tho ordinory
economic lows of coot of production or monpower wootogo,
rind of thoir own ochiovomonts. In 190, ot ony rote, thoy
shod littlo concorn for the misorius of the m-:spos, rind
of the pcosonto in porticulor. In oil tho pions on:, projects
,ahlc, thoy suomiuod
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which they submitted to the Germans their primary coecern
appeared to bo to ensure the continuance of their own position
in authority, without which they believed the country could
not be governed. For exam-el?, the agronomists in authority
in the e lleetive farms opeosod the abolition of collectivisation
on the ground that it would decreese production. It may bo
that this gulf between the ietellectuals and thu masses should
not be overetreseed, and that at times of particular sufferings
the latent bond buteeon the two classes becomes more evident.
(Certainly this npecars to have bon se during the rigours
of collectivisation between 1)29 and 1933). Ho:Geyer the
Gormne also found that as time went on and the sufferings
inflicted by German T_cupntion became widespread, this gulf
between tho privileged and the rdEJOGI3 tended to disappear.
The intelligentsia had ne eertieul-.r political ideas. They
were certeinly not cenvi Ou(-1 comeuniste, even in the ease
of prrte members, IT/1108u -utlouk did not generelly differ from
that of the nen-perty intelligentsia. They were not perticulnrly
chauvinistic, in seite of their conecieueness of superiority,
and they wer..; reee:)tive t: such ideee as that of a greater
-eluretpeen unity. In ener-1 it would give a felse impression
to sagest tha their m ,tivec we:; the urely selfish ones
of preserving intec their own erivileges: their main motive
in ft-et was a form 5f idealism, of devotioe t.)viord Zo-2 tho
greater adveneement of their country. But this they believed
coull not be achieved ezitheut conditions which ennbled them
to give of their bust.
(f) Thu intellieentsia throw over the Soviet regime.
Another striking feature of the outlook of the
intelligentsia was the complete ehsence of loyalty to the
Sovit eystem. They had felt the rigours of its oppreueion
and detested it, thYugh with u7 l.ftinn a finger to resist
it. It cannot be stressed too NUCiA that the .Germane discovered
no traces of any underer)und opposition, nor any trecus of
secret adherents of the former Joelelist parties, nor any
groups essecieted with the executed opposition leaLers of
the thirties, like DUEILA=. It was plain that the
intelligentsip., whatever their opinions of it, had served the
recite loye37ay - nte?eny rate since the purges of the thirties
had emoved/any whoca\ p,rivato doubts were likely t) effect
their c)nduct. Thc eurges dourly had Jena their work
thoroughly. On the ether hand, this loyalty did not survive
the regime for long. The intellieentsin, like the peeSants,
were in no deubt that the Soviet rnegime was finished, and
they were reedy to throw it over without regret, and to work
with the Germans. Their loyalty was not to the regime, but
to their work: they would co-oeernte with any regime which
held out hope that their work towards the advancement of the
material welfare of their country would continue. Again it
must be stressed that this applied equally to members end
non-members of the Communist Party. (Even-Soviet published
sourCes occasionally admit that there were party members who
readily co-operated with the Gerunns). Party membership ?
in the case of the Russian technician intellectual is an
accident or incident of his career: it does net otherwise
reffet his outlook, or make him different from his non-
par4' colleague. Exception should be made for the EEND (MVD)
effiOers and officials, and for professional party
/functionaries
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;
-8-
functionnrios, to whom different conoidorations ray woll apply.
With these the Gormnns did not Came in contnct, since they
for the most part escaped or went underground to organize
tho partisans. The few who entered Gorman service did s0
in their old capacity as police, and no doubt the transition
was nn easy one.
((.) Tho Gormnns unprepared.
: Thus tho two main classes with whom the Germans first
caMo into contact, tho peasants and the intolligontsia, wore
both ready to co-operate, if for different motives: the
poasnnta wanted land, the intelligontsin privilogcs arid an
opportunity to work. Tho quosti.)no most froquontly raised
by the populntion were: what form of government would be
ostallishod? Would industry be impr?,vod? dtould indopendent
arti8anry be allowod? ....foul,/ the collective farms be abolished?
Gormnn official policy had, f..)r reasons already stated, no .
nnewor t2 any of these 2uont1ons. Military commanders on
the spot improvised nnoworo as boot they could. ? But oither
their answers were evasive, or their promises ware nocess!-rily
made only -t-) be broken. .(STRIK-TRIKFLDT, wh-) at the
bedinnin of the camoaign wax, serving on the staff of Von
BOCK with Army Group Centro, oven wont so far no to attempt
to Iform on his own initiative some kind of National Ruesian
CoOmittue at SMOLDNSK). The civilian and SS administration
whilch followed in the wake of the army coon reveLlod the real
nature of Germany's intentions. .As is wull known the 'recults
of this aeLminietratin on a p-)tentially willing and co-
operntivo pooplU vier?, from the German point of view, disastrous.
But before analysing the furthe developments in aceupied
RusSinn torritory after the first impact, it is necessary
to consider the question of the Red Army,
3. The Military Picture.
(n) Dofeat rather than defentism.
Tho scale on which prisoners fr'm thu Rod Army foil
int Gorman c:notiviti ws unprecedented in military history.
The total for the fist five nth be c-mfirmed boyond
doubt aL at luast 3,850,000; and for the whole campaign as
well over 5,000,000. Thus, come two thirds of all nric)nors
tnken VIC:0 captured during the first tenth of thc, ":)_:a:io(.7. of
fighting. -Those fnctc hay,: frecluently been cited in support
of the ententlin that tile Red Army displayed its hostility
to the Soviet regime by mass surrender at the first opportunity.
The ovidanoe Joel] not clu.:,ort this view. All G(,rman official
npprociatins concludu that the vast number of -risonors was
aboVo all duo t) the mthttr? situntion, i.e. to defoct and
not to defeatism, and that in the majority of CrIBOS troops
foudht tenacitusly until overwhelmed. -2xt;:rnal fnctoro confirm
thin conclsion. Had there boon a prevnlunco of mass defeatism
in tho Rod ;:rmy ono w,uld have expected large surrenders to
hnvotaken place immodintuly, in the first weeks. In fact,
ns Gorman claims she;. nithugh quite sizeable numbers of
prisHnors were taken in July and August 1941, the really
astrOnomio claims relate to Soptomber and early OctH,ier.
Morobver, rlthouTh surrenders of whole units did occcoi-mally
/take place, it is
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take place, it :Is doubtful if they t- ok place as frequently
as has boon asserted. For example, on the whole front of
Army Group Centre during 1941 there was only one single
instance of surrender by a whole unit, that of an artillery
battery. It in n)table that, Qs in the case of the civilian
population, there is n evidence whatever that the Germans
found within the :ed 1,71.nvr any orge,:lised opposition or under-
ground. The Russian reaction is also revealing. The re- -
appointment on 1ah July of military commissars provided
some evidence that all was not well with army morale. However,
in official pronouncements signs of panic first appeared only
on 18th Soptember 1941, when Pravda admitted that the danger
was grave, - significantly adding n warning that the Germans
aimed to ro-organize the collective farms for the purpose of
exploiting them in their own interest. L month later, on
- 19th October, ZHIJKOV was givon coni iand on the Toscow front,
over tho head of the "old guard' commanders who -had failed,
and the ITY.VD troops were concentrated at the disposal of
Major-General SIMILOY. There is ample evidence of panic in
'Moscow about this -time, if only in tho reports of trials and
executions for treason and defeatism. Had mass desertiems
been taking place in the first stages of the campain, one
wOuld have expected those signs of panic to have appeared
earlier than September.
(b) Motives for desertion.
However, if the large numbers of prisoners in the early
sta,gos were mainly acc,unted for by military defeat, there
was nevertheless a hih degree ef desertion. No accurate
estimates are possible, since the Germans at first Kept no
separate count of deserters. The motives of the deserters
in the early stages, s far aa can be estimated on scanty
information, were in the re-:t majority Of Cf_::1;es neither
cowardice, nor desire ?Ji. themselves. In fact, the early
prisoners usually came over expecting t be immediately, ?
as they had boon told they weuld be by their urn pr,pa:Jandn.
The impulse to :desert came fr im dislike of the Soviet .reime.
14 tho cas6 of the peasant the object of dislike was the col-
lective farm system. The officerc, whosu outlook corresponded
in many ways to that al' the int(A_lientsia in the civil
70oulation, often c-mbined a general LiFJlike of the rej_mu
with a sense of resentment at the politictl system of control
in the :Zed 1,rmy, which hape,..ed their initiative in doing
their jobs in the field. (The system c'Z' political commicsnrs
lasted for about a.year after 16th July 1941. Too much
significance need not bo attached tl the temflorary reintro-
duction of political Ci213:.:Y]2E3 sine, oven without the
-
commissars the politieel system of c etrol remains very
stringent. The commissar system, ULiuj in emerencies,
merely has the effect of increasinly centralising this control).
MOreover every -.;:Zussinn sol :ler knew that by deserting, or
indeed by allowing himselft ull priener; he was not
only committing a seriouz crime hi.mself, but was- endangering
his family. There were a IIIIAb(,P of instances of bombing of
prasoner camps by Soviet planes in the early stages of the
war which were designed t ? emphasise these facts.
/(c) Readiness
4. 4
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(c) Roadiness of the desertors to firrht on the Gort:ann sido.
Thu result of all those fnctors wns thnt noorly oil
doscrters and mnny prisonors immedintoly offored their sorvicos
to fight on tho Germnn sio ond thus help to overthrow tho
Soviet re,imo. This ffor, in the soldiers' oyos, hoth wiped
out tho diegrnce of doserti-)n or surrondor, ond prosentod it
chanco of snving his rrin lifu. This desire of the deserter
to chongo side's and fight, which corrosondod to thu civilinn
collaborotor's anxiety for thc inmodioto settin:; up of some
anti-Soviet Russian government to which ho could givo his
allogionce ond servico,- wns the cnrdinnl feature of oil anti-
SoViut tendencies insido the USSR- throuhout the wor. It
ljt-113 ignorod by thu Germnns, bocnuse it run counter t) tho
plans with which HIT= and th SS hod ombnrked on the wnr.
On tho other bond, os ?vents WLJP6? to show, the minor succossos
achiovod by the) nrmy nuth)rities is spite of or unbeknown to
HIT= wero duo solely toa carect assessment of tho strength
of this fnctor. Nunnwhilo, in the curly stnges of the wnr
tho Gormnn authorities, cm1oi1
nin lf]tality with Doliticol
ineptitnTle, ollowed the reserv)ir of potential ollis
represented by their -Russian oriolnurs liternlly to rot.
Only 1,100,000 WCP0 olivo by 7ebruory 1942. Hnlf a million
died botwoon November 1941 and Jnnunry 1942 olone. The foto
of the pris-)ners in Germnn hoods soon become known in the
Russian linos. Together with the hniting of the Germon ndvonco
beforu Moscow this -knowledgo noted no n powerful deterront to
would-ho dosorturs.
(d) Desertion. oftl, 1941.
Nevortholoss, desortin dil not coact) oltogther.
idthough oftor 1941 it nuver attninol pr.)portin-ns which
threatened the fihting cr?Lpacities of the loSI Lrmy (oxcapt
perhnps in the Caucasus) it n'netholess remainod of
sitnificonco, if only its OViaCnCu of n ptentiol clement of
dibloynity in the Red 1-,rmy. One instnnce is worth recounting.
In: ;,pril 1942, during ane of tho few 'RuFsion nirborno operotions,
n company WoL- C:1)2'1;2,20:I in orror in Germon occupiod territory.
It:surrendord with put fighting. Thu whole compony, including
the compnny commissar nr-rued tho proposal .of tho local
Gormon commander thnt it should fight on tho Gormon sido.
Fairly occurnte figures of desorters n.ro ovilablo after Mny
1942. Thoy show tho number of deserters ns 10 - 15,000 it
month up to thu Russinn victory ot Stalingrad, or perhaps
10;.1S of the total of prisoners taken. i,ftor Stolingrod tho
figurus dropped rapidly. This is not surprising, sinco
this Russian victory wic by oil occounts o turning point in
Russian moralo, militory ond civilinn. It wits the first
point in the war at which the clavicti-m thnt the S.wiet
regime wns finished r,ovu woy to tho boliof thnt the Gcrmnns
would ultimatoly be dofentod. ;And it wits chorncteristic of
all Russinn dosertion to thu C-,:;rmons in tho wnr that oven if
the causa cousins wits often hostility to thu rogimo, tho
calsn sine gun non wits in the grunt majority of cases the
military defeat of thnt re2:imo. ILI-ICV0P, while .,iese-2ti-)n to
the Germans decreased, accunt must also be trion of tho
fairly extonsivo desertinns to the von us anti-Soviet bonds
of guerillas which took placo betwoen 1942 and 1944. Tiles?
anti-Soviet guorillas (who are doalt with lotcr) totnllod
several hundrod thousands, ond dosertors from tho army formed
n considorable proportion of thorn.
/(e) Tho MRGIAL.NN
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? 4
(0) The Onura ti !on..
:There are several lossons of intc.,,reot to bo learnt from
the :picture of desertions to the. G,..rmano from the Red 4;rmy
durik: the :)oriod 19142 - 19145. The first vp!::o thc relotively
greator reodiness of tr:)-Dpo of noti -.nal minorities with whom
thc Oormans now came int!, co..-itct, t.) desert. This woo parti-
cularly so in the cope of tri'aDo of CalletSitzil nationality,
though it noplied as well t tr-).--pa of some the nationalities
of Critral Loin. Li the Crlucosus, in the spring and summcr
of 1914-2 , the Lbwchr semi-officially ;mointaine,7. !detachment
of some 1700 ?Lod /any Dris-iners of the 1711ri:ME3 nati-)nolities
of the Coucosus -rtrtly for c:3mbot duties, ond partly for
divorsi -nory :),-)err'.tions in the Cnolc.-:lous in th, enemy rear.
The Operati in went by thu name of F.;712.GI,LIT.TT and woo commanded
by 0137I.Z.L.-ETID111,4k. It ochievod considerable SUCCOSSOS in
inducinf desorti fr on Cal-Leos:Lon tr..),D)s n it fr nt, mainly
by nropogando pr7)misin?: that desorters w )u1-.11. bu immodiotcly
recruited t , fig,ht aga.inst the Soviet re,:imo. In. the case
of r,t1 lirmonion 7.ivisi?)n -%f t*:!e 1,rmy the .3111-LG:LJ:1IT dotach-
ment! achieve: such marked oucness with their pr:ipa.7a.Jiao thot
this; division woF.; hc.-totily ::rithdrown from tho fr-)nt. There
were! no desertions from. the :=I.,!_37:T. aotnchmont. T'.;7:111,;,TIND:7].1),
also claims , it k.o n It boon p )ssible t check this
from; any other sources, that his unit in t uch with
commUnioto in Tiflis ond 1-1,..;-;otiotik: with them. The communists
were; to orgonize to revolt ak; :)Den no the Geor,71an militory
rondo pa.00es t , the Gorman a.:Ivance. Nothing como
of those k!gotio ti ons t ? the C- mom wi thfarowal about
this: time. Thu readinoos of Cnucr-.sinno t desert
Is however fully confirta;d b )-th fro some contLmpornry
intelligence sHurcoo on.1 from Gu r-,1-an rec'irds. Thus.4'.rm;,,r
Grout) L., which wr1:- o:):?fil to 70 - 80 na!Live Rod 4..rmy
in the Caucosus until Decc:-.1ber 1942 recorded a fnilj avcrage
of 96 deserters frorn tb. Lcd Lrmy between ricptembor cad
DocoMber 1942, or 15. 2i f total pris )nero taken; the overall
pm .i)Orti,,n of deserters to pris ours for the whole ft -nt nit
thot time woo Lobut
(f) 01cr-tion
14 minor Doliticol waCaro SUCCOSLI woo achievod by the
Germans in the ol-)r: and si:ummer of 1943. This wos the 0E.1.1
proprgando o;:)erati-)n 1,zno,an 1L If The G,)1:".-lni1.5. first
began to devoto come intdreLit t fr nt lino ]!:)roDanondo
clesignod to induce desertion in the summer of 1914-2 - opporontly
cluring thc period of militar!.:7 success they did not fin:7, the
time to think much obout its inDortance. Even aftor 19/42
thei? front line pro)a.-!:anda VILE noither loll co-ordinated nor,
so fbr as no con judr:e from the :COW examploo, of a kind
likely to prove successful. It was crude, -usually anti-
Semitic, and ab:-)ve all booed on promises of material benefit
(not very convincing to any Russian soldier who hrta hearJ1
somelthing, of what ha.)pcnod in :lussion prisoner com),-; in 19141).
Several reports of intorrozati-ms !:12 pris :nuns during 1942
rind 1943 stress that material promises were useless 00 an
incentive to desert in the case of soldiers used to hardship:
/what was required,
* one of our sources of informotion.
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what was reouired, say these rcports, woo a promise that tho
deserter would be allowed to enlist t:1 fight mainst the
Soviet regime. This is exactly what the SILDS2STIF
operation L-c:,),,A0,2, ss its main keynote. Ito timing, in the
spring of 1943, also coincided with the peak period of the
propaganda success of the semi-illicit VL.:i2OV movement,
which lirmy and libwehr authorities succeeded in cnductinfl
until stopped by HITL:Ta. S=722T.71-a-F therefore started off
on favourable soil. Indeed, an OK.71 Order of 20th L.?:)ril, 1943,
whiCh immediately preceded the propaanda camsaiL7A noted that
desertion was now on ?t-kc increase. For the first time.
this Order laid down separate, and :.:eed, treatment of deserters.
SILBERST=IF, whish esse- was ci widespread and intensified
appeal to "come over and fih STLLIN", achieved quite a measure
of success - particularly if it is borne in mind that the
Germans were now no lonecr ndvancin. The number of deserters
rose steadily from 2,500 in Hay to 6,500 in July. Of 104
divisiYns questi-)nod on the value of the speration, 97 reported
favourably. The exeeriment was shortlived, as all such
Germsn experiments: the Order of 20th .Lpril was'disrezarded,
and the 3ILB-122=IF promise was not kept.
(r*) Desertion in the later star7es of the war.
The third point of interest in the later history of
desertions from the -aed army was a nyticeable increase, in
numbers at the end of 1944 end in 19145 (the numbers were
nc:7Li7ible in the first nine months of 19h4). In 1945, for
example, there were nearly 2,030 deserters, includin about
50 Whe deserted to a unit of the W,,SOV army in March, on
Geran seil on the OCiGY. However, this slie:ht increase in
the!num.ber of deserters is )rebably correctly attributed by
German sources to three causes: reset:bed Soviet attacks
(in!seme sectiens of the Ueuthern front) which in German
observation always led to increased numbers of deserters;
desertiens by aussians wh.) had been in German service, had
been recaptured by the -2.ussians in their advance, and drafted
intb penal battalions; and desertions by Ukrainians who, as
the result of the aussian advance were hem:; victimized on
account of the resistance activities of the c?uerrillas in
,losItern Ukraine. Thu deserti-ns in this later phase de not
therefore (71,:, much to the picture elven in the earlier phases.
(h) The convinced communists.
The story would not be complete without emohnsisinr:, the
fact that there were, and reeeined, am?nd the prisoners captured
by the Germans a preportien of cenvinced communists, whom
nothin would induce t) corporate with the Germans iii any
waY. It is difficult te estimate this 7)reps.)rtisn in 1941 -
1943, i.e. before -aussian victory became certain. Some indication
of the pr'oportion may be provided by VI,i'MV's estimate,
madlo at the end of 191-14 in discussim with.HIHTIL:1 (as reported
by an 33 officer who was present), of the preperti-7n of
convinced communistel; amonp: poisoners in German hands as
/15 ,
? . ? ? ___ .? ? ? . ? _
anc ti:Js neecInt ef whst VLASOV sz.id fl7cm a Nazi,
it is possible that VLLSOV included in the 15',/ both convinced
coMmunists and these who, for patriotic reasins, would refuse
to ally themselves with Germany, even if they were opposed
to the Soviet reflime. The Nazis did not draw any distinction
between these two catoories.
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15%. If this estimate vies right and honest, the proportion
in 1941 and 1942 could scnrcoly hove boon higher, and was
prebobly lower. Lgain, according to VI,S0V, at the end of
191111 30'/- would rondily have enlisted to fight agninst tho
Soviet regime under his command, and under the aegis of n
Russian notionnl committee. 55 in VLLSOV's estimate wore
a undecided, but could eventually be persuaded. The estimate
of 30% woe in the event shown to hove boon nn undor-ostimnto.
(i) Tho lesson of Rod .:rmy dorortion.
The significance of those figures of deserters and
prisoners willing to enlist on the Gormon side is however
secondary. The fact of major importance was that right
up to a time when a Russian victory was, nlroody probnblo,
the Rod 4',rmy contained within it n eetentially larrN; number
of men who could with comenrotive ease be persuaded to enlist
to fight ainst the Soviet rej_me. Even the rudimentary and
spasmodic efforts of the Gcymnno t.) win over this potontial
oily wore sufficient to reveol, if only by the rapidity with
which even those efforts won a rsponse, the true optimum
conditions for their success: the formotion of some form
of notienal 2cussion g vernment; and the sottin up - n
Russian nrmy under :=Zu,lsian cea-donc:.
4. Russians in German Sorvic e.
(n) "Russin con enlv be cennuered Rwsions".
The loc, of a pre-pagonJe plan nnd to determinatien ef
HITIZIR with regard to the no buss of the Russian campaign led
to unco-ordinated efforts by individuals to exploit whet
they believed to be the -)p.:)ortunities offered by anti-Soviet
feeling both in the .1c(7. 1-acv and in the occupied te.2riterics.
In the second half of 1941 STRIK-STRIKPELDT, wh) seems t)
have been the first t) cenceive the je,.en of n cleer oelitical
plan, Wes serving on the staff of Lrmy Group Centre, He won
some]support from its commander, von BOCK, and was thus
ennbled t, t)ur freely in the occupied territory, unmolested
oven by the 8S. The Russian Notinal Committee which he sot
up aft Smolensk addressed an a22eel t-) H-3:?1,a. The nonl
remninod unanswered, rend cvei. von BOCK wns not prepore.d to
support nn idee which ran so much counter to the official
viow STRIK-3TRI1Z2MDT then, in :7flvember 1941, .-)rc;:i)nre'l
lengthy r,eport, tho je-:A; of which wes that the Germans should
set Up a Russian natimol .pr;visinol government, an:. create
n Russian Lrmy ef Lneratien, an: at the some time put n
stop to the h-)rrifyin: conitions in the orisener camps and
in oCcupied torritery which were turning oven the nnti-Soviet
Russians into enemies. This, the first of a series of smiler
reports which were to be prepared in the course of -the next
two years by STRIK-STRIK=DT and othc,r experts wh) tek r.
similar V1,171, reached v )1-1 The latter accepted
its o-nclusiono end noted in the narr:-7in: "Thiri can be C,CCif31VC
for tho issue of the wryr. 1Zussfv: c.T.:n only bo conquer.-1 by
Itursio.no". Shortly afterwards alLaTCHITSCH we: dismissed -
/whothr or n t so
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whether or not as the result of endeavours ?t- get the sug.gestions
in the report implemented 'is not known. Thorc is Cfln10 evidence ?
that von Ba:XCHITSCH was in teuch with what ho believed to
bc an "opposition" in the Red Lrmy, but which was in fact
an NKVD invention.
(b) The Hiwis.
- However, while any farreaching political plan was thus
doomed to failure at the outset, this did not prevent individual
commanders on their own initiative' and often without higher
authority aware of what Was lia)penin, from attempting
to exploit on the spot the readiness of Russian prisoners to
servo against the Soviet rezime. The employment of Russian
prisoners for non-combatant duties was permitted, and tons
of thousands, and Inter hundreds of thousands, were so employed.
These Hilfswill1ro ("Hiwis") became an integraa part of the
GerMnn army and local commanders became incrensinly dependent
on this manpower as the war progressed. In .7eneral, there
was no political idea behind their employment. They were
under German command, thouh their c)nditions of service
were until into in the war far inferior to thoce which applied
to Germans; and they wore 11 distinctive t.) indicate
that thoy were part of any separate 11uesinn or volunteer
unit. They never formed part of the VI,L3OV i'army, and never
came under VL:iSOV's command oven when, in the later stares
of the war, they bean to be used on an increcsini7 scale for
combatant duties. For the [:renter part of the war these
Hiwis, as well as some of the units formed of Russian minority
natienals, came under the overall command of General NOY:STRING,
who had for many years been nilitary -;ttacha in Moscow.
K07]STRI1TG, and n number of Commanders in the field wh exploited
Hiwi manpower and became de7)endent upon it, found-themselves
constantly at odds with the higher auth)rities over the fate
of these aussians. They had t- stru=le both for betterment
of their conditions of service, and ainst demands such as
those of S.i.UCKLIL, who was nnxinus t secure the manpewor for
the civilian labour market, as Ostnrbeiter. To a certain
extent, the supporters of the Kiwis also fund themselves at
odd d with the VLLSOV Lrmy of Liberation, which durin its
short period of existence prpvided a powerful counter-
attraction to the Hiwi. The result was that, with the
German's natural propensity to give n theoretical basis
to an empirical practice, the generals -interested in the
Hiwis developed a doctrine - they wore- for the most part
either of Baltic origin, or, like 1C.0:13Y2ING, experienced in
RusSian questions, and many, if not all, wore in greater or
looser degree out of sympathy with HITLM's more extreme doc-
trines. They came to believe that the defeat of ST,ZIN's
regime could be achieved by the development of ::eod human
relations with an increasing number of Rueinns?from the aed
;irmy. In their relations with 1Zussim officers they implied,
if they did not se state, that after the overthrow of STA-.LIN
the inhuman Nazi plans for Russia would also come to an end.
The enormous numbers whom they were _able to enlist as Hiwis,
as the war progressed, a' doubt served to increase their
confidence in their theory.
/(c) Statistics of Hiwis
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(c) Statistics of Hiwia.
The number of Hiwis in service in the German army was
at least 220,000 in the middle of 1943. A year later there
were] at loaat half n million, and the total number of Russians
in German military service was at the lowest estimate a
million, i.e. n tenth of the whole German armed forces. By
the bnd of 1943 already a Russian canpany was a common sight
in clGerman battalion. The figures alone aro impressive,
particularly if one recalls that after the death of nearly
three million Russian prisoners by the spring of 1942, the
HiwiS represented n very substantial praportion of the total
numbor of Russians in German ca:ativity. But several factors
must: pe sot nainat this. In the first place, the readiness
of pris7mers to volunteer for Kiwi duties can easily be
explained by the desire to escape from the conditions of
prisoner camps, without any particular anti-Soviet impetus.
That this explanation is probably correct is sw:eested by
the fact that when the VLASOV army was formed there was a rush
fromall the more active anti-Soviot elements among the
Hiwi to enlist in it. 00c-ndly, KOMTRDTG's claim that the
incr t-so in the numlJers of deserters at the end of 1944 was
the direct result of, his successful efforts in mid-1944 to
imprOve the c liditi6ns of the Hiwis is probably wren. The
abominable conditions of Prisaner camas in 1941 undoubtedly
acted both as a deterrent to would-be deserters and as a
matiVe to enlist in the Hiwis; but improvement of relations
withjliwis did not materially satisfy the impetus of Russian
pris)ners to fight under Ruasian authority and flag in a
Russian anti-Soviet army.
(d) Russian PW in anti-partisan units.
Apart from the official Hiwi movement, there were several
Unofficialor semi-official attempts by local commanders and
by the Abwehr to exploit Russian prisoners more actively,
and even in a political direction. These experiments were
csoecially associated with ;Irmy Group Centre, though also
with 18 Army on the Northern Front commanded by General
LINDEMANN. One such experiment was the fairly widespread
use or small volunteer intollience units for anti-partisan
Toccohnaissance, recruited mostly from captured Red Army
officers and NC0s, who had never passed thxnufzh prisoner camps,
had had no contact with the civilian administration, and had
consebuently not been antagonised by its behaviour to the
civilian pooulation. Soviet partisans were also often
recruited to their detachments. About three quarters of the
personnel of those detachments, which were commanded by a
Russian officer and were directly responsible to GOO I (Int)
at ArMy or Corps HQ, were Groat Russians. Their employmentwas cOnsidered a complete 8UCC030, since the fact that they
had te operate by surprise and deception put thoir loyalty to
the Germans, or disloyalty to the Soviet regime, to a severe
test. Thus, out of 700 in the area of 18 Yirmy in 1943,
therowere only four instances of desertion to the Soviet
partidans.
/(c) The case of
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(e) The case of 134 Infantry Division.
An interesting instance was the employMent right from
the start of the campaign of a largo number of Rucsian prisoners
for general combatant duties by 134 Infantry division -
apparently in complete disregard of the official policy with
regard to such emoloyment then in force. As early as July
1941 nil prisoners and deserters worc. offered enlistment in
the division on the same footing as Germans. Nnny prisoners,
and most deserters accepted. By November 1942 nearly half
the i strength of the division was made up of Russians, armed
almost entirely with captured Rusaian weapons. The officers
were both Russian and German - the commander of the anti-
partisan battalion, for example, was a Rod Army officer, who
was, given a free hand to choose his own NCOs from among
prisoners. In addition to the anti-partisan battalion, there
were several nrtillory batteries, anti-tank and engineer
platoons, and a oioncer battalion. The commander of the
division states that the employment of these Russians, given
good treatment, was a complete success. There wore only
three cases of desertion.'
(f) The effect of Gorman mthtary reverses.
The above are two instances out of many of the employ-
ment of Russians for combatant service on the "good tr:oat-
ment" basis of the Hiwi_school of German generals. In general,
the success claimed by Gorman commanders in the employment
of these troops on the :astern Front may well have been true -
so 'long as the Germans napeared to be winning. In many instances
the turn of the tide in 1943 was followed by desertions and
the Germans responded by shifting m)st of their Russian
volunteers over to the "Jost. That the Russian Hiwi should
react to German reverses by cutting.his losses and by
desertina even to the Rod .i,rmy vies natural enough. . (Different
considerations applied in the case of the national minorities,
whose morale often remained butter, oven in defeat). The
HIi was a mercenary pure and simple. His service with the
Germans was not inspired by any political ideal, even an
illusory one. Be that as it may, it is important to
remember that many of the Hiwis deserted not to the Rod Army,
but to the many anti-Soviet bands of partisans which by 1943
were operating in Soviet-occupied territories. The ideologists
of the VI4.:,SOV movement claimed that if Ruasians couIa be
attracted into Gorman service by a political ideal which
held out some hope of a now future Russia, a mass army of
uSinfl5 could be created. This army, by winning over
substantial proportion of the Red iamy to its side, would
bring about the overthrow of the Soviet regime.
) ()aeration G.R.,',UKOPP: formation of R. N. N. A.
An opportunity to make Some attempt t- put this idea
into practice, behind the backs of HITLM and the SS, came
early in 1942. This was the operatim known to the Germans
as !GR.AUKOPF, which took place nt Osintorf (a village, in the
Or$ha neighbourhood) in the ara of Lrmy Group Centre. The
operation originated officially as an bwchr plan to create
a Small detachment of Russians for special mission duties,
and was suggested by two emigre officers, IVANOV and S.KHAROV.
Inafact the official plan was camouflage for a more ambitious
/scheme.
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scheme. Rocruiting.in tho prisonor camps be7an in February 1942
and !evokod rnpid responso. By tho ond of 1942, in spite of
theioriginal limit of a thousand, tho unit was between five
and !six thousand strong, and a force of fifty thousand or
oven eighty thousand VIC:2 7)cinr: actively planned. The unit
was planned on lines which were latJr t) form the basis of
tho VL OJ ;irmy: it wao kn)wn to the Russians as tho Russian
Notional Peoples' Army (am,). Russian uniforms wore worn,
and all the officers wore former Rad Army efficors, with thc
oxception of throL emigre officers. Tho Germans wore ropresentod
=rely by a detnchmont of two :.bwohr officers and a few
ORs.1 Training and weapons wore Russian. Tho oath of allegiance
vins taken not to HITIal, but to the Gnmander, Colonel
BOY:iLSKY. Political training was in the hands of General
ZHIL77:NKOV, (a figure of groat im:)ortance in the VL40V
movement), a formor communist party secretary in n Moscow urban
district. Tho political doctrine currant at Osintorf was
that STALIN was 7,nomy No. 1, cul2 could nnly bo destroyod
with Gorman aid; but that thereafter o strong Riu_sian army
with full support e2 the Russian civil population vioald defeat
HITIO,R. The main aim, therefore, was t spread defection in
the 'aed Army in ardor t ,!ci ndhorents. The fact that such
openly seditious ideas, from the Nazi point of view, were
posSible anywhero on Gorman-occupied soil '.;,ocom.:s more in-
telligible' when sow; of the principa1 figures on the Gorman
side are considored: Colonel v-In GM'3DO:=, G30 I (Int)
of tho Army dr 'up and Commander ').17: the Abwehr Kommondo
condorned, was later one aP the m)st activ fiur.:,s in the
3TLI177711NBJ]RG cnspiracy; General von wh male on
attempt on HITL-T.Vs life soma tine efar,. von JTU=IraG,
was ialso on the staff of the Lrmy Group; `fliRIK-3TRIK27-1DT,
who without over bein:; implicated in any c ns.Aracy aainst
HITIZ2 had loot his early T.Tazi illusins by 1942, wr:Li -vci the
staff of the .Lbwehr officer attache t-, van GRJDORF2. That
in s4ch circumstances the experimnt was c?:_omed t.) failure
goes without Layin[:: 1fore (lu?) 1942) an :JL;
inspoction resulted inthewh l organisotion jCill disbonded.
The Rod Army and :)-fficerE, wore dismissed, and the
troops put under German Command on normal Hiwi linos. A
.large number of them, near': the whole battalion aco,rain.-: to
some: nccount, deserted t- tho Iwd Army, an:', further German
reprisals fllowed. (The fact that the (}.,:man officers
concerned apparently suffered action suosts
that the se(,itious doctrines preached within tiy:, unit were
not :discovered by the 3Fi). In terns of military action the
"RNOAH achieved little MTi, than some cuccoopos a:7inst
pnrtisons. Its main employment hn7. boon in anti-partison
worfkare. The chief importance of 111111,11 consisted in tho fact
that it laid the future of the VL,gOV MOV.-MCAlt; and c nsoquontly
that the germ of this movement ::row in on ctmm1oherc of
loyalty to ITF:TLM alm7)Et of ermspirocy. f:-.ct;r is of
some assistance in assessing the lotivec which, at about the
time] whon the "RNM.." wos its inevitable end, induced
VLA30V to become the he of a widor mlvemont.
5. l'ho? VLA 3 OV Movement: First Phos 0.
(a) A change in German -.1-dicy.
Towards the latter part of 1942 signs of change been=
obsetvablo in the Gorman official ottitudo an political war-
fare! against' Russia. Pressuro by tho army :7:;enorals who in
grontor or lesser degree opplsed ,lussion policy,
/combined with the
? ,
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combined with the halting of the German advance, hod led to ,
this chenco. :riven li.::.ITZ was amiv; those in favour of a new
ltnc. The oppositi)n of 203NBTIRG was sufficiently overcome
to secure his agreement first to the creation of a school for
traininn Russian prisoners es pr-?a:;andists, and later to
the ostensible settin[: up of a Russian Army of Liberetin.,
end of n Russian National Liberation Movement, heeded by a
Rtssinn Nati-nal Committee. HITLJ2.'s consent to these moves,
which on the fece of it were n radical departure from all
his avowed policy hitherto, was ale') secured. A good deal
of light on HITLZ's attitude -t. the whole matter is thrown
bY the records of a meotin.r held by HITLI2 with his Chiefs
of Staff in Juno 1943 on the whole quoutiml of political
warfare -against Russia. HITL71's attitude was quite clear.
The Russian Liberation Army and Movement were permitted so .
long as they remained nithilv but a facade. For the
strictly limited purpose of prYT)eanda .t the :led Army, in
order to encourage desertion, the existence of the Army and
the Movement could be publicised. 3o for as practice was
concerned,. it wee to make no differnne of any kind. There
was to be ri.o Russian Liberation Lrmy. Russian prisoners were
to be employed es heretfore on labour or in the limited
capacities officially permitted to Hiwis. Above all, no
propaganfta of any kind was t) be permitted behind the front
line, among yrisoncrs or in v,ccupied territory, ani the very
eXistence of the movement was not to be disclosed in Germany.
HIM=R's attitude (as a..)pears from a report made by him
in the Spring of i9143) was ossontilly the same. In his view
the prooari:ation among ermans of the doctrine that Russia can
be c-nquered only by Russians, or the like, would be devastating
to German morale; and he was also in full agreement with
Htmna that the existence on German or German-occupied
sell of Russian troops with any .kind of independent command
was s. serious menace .t- Gersrm security.
(b) The Military Psycholor,iCal Laboratory.
Tho movement which is c. frCocictcd with the name -,'IC General
VLASOV was therefore launched as a sham. It was_ioreover in
its ambit strictly limited to Great Rus;oiano:.other arrange-
"ments were afoot for the political end rlitary exploitation
of the prisners of the minority nationallies*t? However,
fOr a period of some months, fr)m lnte 1942 until the summer
of 1943, the German enthusiasts connected with the movement,
10) notably STRIK-STRIKFELDT, succeeded by a process of intrigue,
at times almost of c-mspiracy, in menocuvrin7 for more signi-
ficant results than 117.TL-T1's strictly limited sanction could
have secured, or tolerated. The ideology of the m)voment
'originated in the 8o-called Military Psychological Laboratory
1 in Berlin, which was attached to the Ostproamnde-Abtoilung
?
of the ..IT Ministry. Until the end of 1942 it was directed
by Von GRO.T. (also a Baltic German and a former officer in\
the Imperial Russian Army) and thereafter by ST2IK-3T2IKFILI)T...
The Laboratory, which was an institute for the study of emotions,
of political warfare, normally housed a small number of Russian
prisoners c7msiderea to be of special interest and who were
allowed certain privileges in return for their assistance in
/tho work. A
4.: See Section 7.
i,Lu I .1,14,1 ri.e.?
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the work0 now impetus was :iVen t) this small institute
byithe arrival ofr ZEIL:ITIOV, who hal boon dismissed from
Osintorf after the 03 had become awar..; of the G:;.:AiKOPIP
experiment; and about the same time by the- arrival of
ZYKOV. The latter, who was the onG man mainly responsible
Coo the formulation of the ideas of the 'VL30V movement, was
a Somewhat mysterious figure, of c)utstanding ability in
prepaganda. Hc was a Jew, - though this fact was naturally
concealed from the German authorities - and is said to have
been at one time assistant to BILITILIN, and himself a prminent
oppositionist. 3ince the name he adopted was certainly a
pseudonym there is no way of checkin this,. Though violently
nnti-Jtalinist, he was very loft wing, almost communist, in
his views, and incidentally very anti-British.. Ho offered
hie services as a propagandist immediately on surrender.
-
These tw, factors, combined with his hitherto unexplained
dibappearance in 19:14, he led to rumours that he wns an
NKVD agent. But in view of his sinal services t the movement
it is difficult t see what his mission 23 an agent could
have been. It seems much more probable tlYA he Was killed
by the Germans. Other figures, later of prominence in the
VI.,4,30V movement, such as MU:HITT, were also at the Lab oratory
in the late summer of 1942. The idea of launching a :ausstan
Liberation J.!.ovement, Which originated in this LabOratorY,
required for its gMplementation a military figure to head it.
There wore already several Lieutenant Generals to choose from
in German caotivity. ZHI=INKOV was a political general and
was clearly unsuited for that reason. nother refused out-
right to have anything cl.-) with the project. 4", third,
LUKIN, though strongly anti-Soviet, refluied (according to
KODSTRING) on the grounds that he wluld not be a party to any
moVement launched by the Germans so ion:; dismemberment of
RuSsia remained the Gorman policy. VL0V, who accepted
after considerable persuasion, was in many respects an admirable
cheice: he enjoyed an enormous reoutation in the 2cd Lrmy
as the much decorated and publiciLud hero of the stand before
Moecow; and his honesty and qualities of leadership inspired
the confidence of all who cone into contact with him. Ho
arrived in Lugust or 3optembor 1942 in the Laboratory,
together with General ELLY3IIKIN, to joio 71/K0V and ZHILT]NKOV
and the others who were already there.
(c) VLLOOV's Mntives.
VLL00Vis motives are n)t easy to assess. They wore not
motivGs of personal aggrandizement - all who knew him testify
t.r_) that. Nor, on the 'other hand, was he impelled to join the
German side by any long-standing antagonism t) the Soviet
regime. He had not himself been implicated in any opposition
(11,LYSHKIN, for exam)le, had been through the hanle of the
NKVD during the purges connected with the name of rillllai,CITZUKY),_
had had a successful career in the army, and was a member of
the communist party. He was, it is true, the sgi of 2
peasant, and his father had boon victimized during the
collectivization. But this remote event can hardly by itself
hate engendered bitter enmity to the Soviet regime only after
ton years of faithful and successful service. Certainly
VI4,00V showed consijlerabL.; resentment at the system of police
and political c-ntrol in the :ed 4-,rmy, which, like so many
Roa LrMy officers be regarded as inconsistent with the dignity
of an officer. lifter his victory at Moscow VI.:,30V himself
had been summoned to the Politbureau end kept standing, like
/a schoolboy, in the
RESI tuU L
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kc!TL-r.,
, -20-
n schoolboy, in the aw:ust presence. Perhaps thia latent
resentment, combined with the shattorin defe-t and appallinc
carnage inflicted -il his troo?os ':):,Co:c his capture both .
contributed t7) his decision in the autumn of 1942 to turn aainst
8TLLIN. 3TRIK-3TRIK2TILDT, who was r(..is:.lonsiblu for all the
neotiatias with VLL:20V, says that thu factor which finally
persuaded VI.....,3OV ,ia:-. the belief that by his action he would
be !able to alleviate the sufferings of the :lussian -?-)risoners
y
in German hands.
(d) No possibility of internal revolt.
Certainly, neither VI,...30V nor any of the loaders of his
movement, had any illusions about FIT= or Nazism. Indeed,
ns:has.jften been observed, the striking feature of all
Vlasovite utterances vice the almost total absence of references
to:HITLM or 'any of the fetishes of Nazi ideology, - all the
more remarkable in the case of orisoners of war with little
or :n-, status. The relatively few anti-semitic utterances,
for examole, which can be found in speeches and ?propagandn
are not in the circumstances a matter fflr w)nder. That is
more remarkable Is that anti-semitism?never figured officially
in the programme. The references t-) Germany, in programmes,
and in pr:Jpa:7anda, were always in the form of "alliancc. of
the Russian and German pepleo". In numerous public utterances
VI...i3OV an::_ others :;ot very ner t.:) hintin7 that EITIZMI would
not lest forever. HII.1141, in his ru)ort on the VI,J..WV
movement already referred to, quotes in. extenso a speech
made by vliaov to German officers in the spring of 1945 in
MoA.ilev. In this speech VLi0V freely criticized the German
policy of occupation, thu humiliating treatment of the r.:-.masion
workers in German industry, and the flood of Nazi propa7anda
which depicted the Ru? sian as an Untermensch. So lou: no
this continued, he maintained, the vies n.1 prospect of success
for any wisfcmcnt which aimed at cnaucring 1:ussin with the
aid of the ii.ussians. IIIIIML11.. -Liteq with dismay that many of
the German officers present 1.-1:):)eared to agree with VL;liOV's
via is. Thu atmosphurc in which VLLOV bc7an his sorvice with
the Germans was one in which hostility t) HITL:.-LZ waE; scarcely
cncealed by the German officers with wh)m he mostly came
into c-mtact, and therefore one in which he culP easily .
persuade himself that the overthrow of arLzir would be rapidly
succeeded by the overthrow of .TTITI=. On the other hand, it
was also true .that in the eyes of his 1Zuosian followers
alliance with the Ger.no was com,Ahinj?: for which a c)nvincing
t form of justification haf: to be devised. VI.0V repeatedly
expressed. his n-nviction that ther9 was no possibility of
any internal revolt against CMLINm. But he believed that
a decisive defeat inflicted on thu ..,Icid Lrm:i by the German army
with the aid of a ntional Volunteer Russian army would rally
the bulk of the aussian population to the side -Yf the Russian
volunteers and thereby bring about JTLLIN's overthrow.
(0) The Cmolensk Prorammo.
. The VL,',30V movement, no planned in the Military Psychological
Laboratory, was much .1a-ra ambitious than IITTL:1 had any
inttntion of allowing. It coAprised thu settihr: up of a
_ /litional Committee
* This view was also 1-Jhcf, by General LUKIN.
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National Committee headed by VLLOOV with certain administrative
responsibilities in occupied Russia; the formation of a
Liberation Lrmy planned to grow to the size of a million;
and the open and public inauguration of the movement at a
meeting at Omolonsk. Lccordin t) some aceunts 1JI21:1R
was persuaded to agree to this, but changed his mind at the
last moment. It seems much moee probable that the plan as
outlined never got beyond the stage of e private conspiracy
to hoodwink HITL and his entourage, and that it did not
come off. _jet any rate, all that haepened was a broadcast to
Russia at the end of 1942, from Berlin of an inauguration
supposed to be taking place at Omolons7e and Lhu Programme
of the movement. The Lrmy of Liberation, 7hich the Ilea
LrmY were informed, did not ceme inte exist The shoulder
flash "ROL" was issued to Hiwis to lend som, :stance to the
propaganda story, but otherwise their statu ,:emnined as
befere. The Programme, which was the work of YKOV, contained
thirteen points. Apart from guarantees of the pore nal
freedoms and provisions for securin social justice .7.n:d
private initiative in a Russia freed of "Bolsheviks and
Capitalists", it guaranteed ab)liti'm of the collective
farMs. The Ipr:)ramme did net deal with questions ef the
nati-nal boyone vaemely guaranteeing "freedom of
natipnalities", dismeelermcnt policy therefore
remained unaffected by it.
(f) Dabendorf.
That the movement was not entirely still-born was due
to the energies of the enthusiasts at the Laboratory wh
strove hard to make it a god deal more effective than . ?
HITLT1R intended. They achieved some measure of success in
two Ways. The first was the transfermation of the small
lablratory into a larger school for training Russian prisoners
as plropaeandists, which in 1943 was transferred from Berlin
ti Dklbendorf. At the one time publication of two newspapers
each printed in large issues was started. Ostensibly the
papers were for dropoin across the lines to Lrmy soldiers.
In practice they circulated in large nuMbors in the prisoner
camps end am-mg the Hiwis, achievin the result which HIT1112
had been anxious to prevent, the publication of the existence
of the movement inside Germany. The Dabondorf school, in
which several thousand eris,nors were trained ns pr-yeagandists,
soon: became the real centre of the movement. On the one
hand it provided an opportunity for dovel ping an ideology
in the minds of Russian prisoners and for teachin them the
factS about 3oviet history which were perverted in communist
teaching. ? On the other, the proDagandi,ts when trained usually
returned to their Hiwi units or industrial occupations they
helped to spread the ideas which they had imbibed, and thus
to keep alive faith in a movement which had little objective
existence. Tho influence of Dabendorf has generally been
exaggerated in retrospect by its participants. But it appears
to be true that, at any rate for the best part of 1943, the
Germans left the Russians a fairly free hand both in running
-their newspapers end in the teaching. We possess a. :oocl deal
of material relating to the instruction at Dabenderf, and more
could probably be obtained. It provides a most valuable guide
to the lines upon which the retraining of the communist-
d)Minatod mind can be effectively achieved, and Duch of it is
/of current enterest.
a A-
? ol? tio ?
n
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of Current intoreot. files of the tw) newspapors, . arya and
Dobirovolets, for 19).45 ore not avoiloble in 71n.1ond, but there
nrcl sold to bo such files in oxistenco in private hands in
Germny.
VILOV's tour of occupied Russia.
. ; The other achievement, asin without HITL:'s knowledge,
woo: thc orcmnisotion of o -propana tlur by VIL3OV in the
cony sprin of 1943 in occupied Zucnio. Juciflaf from such
contomporory occounto on ore olvAlobL: and from thu
rccol-
locti of participnntio, thu tour was o emsi,2croblo success
with FAA_ sectionr; the population. Lecorjin o report
by thu Chicf of the .iccurity Police on: ;:cerut ;JGTViCO the
newD of the f-)rmation of o Nationc.1 au.. don Committee woo
"uraverslly welcomed" by the p:)-)ulotion, with thu exce-ption
of the "Dm-Bolshevik circles". However, the knowlede thot
VLLSOV hod boon tourin the poop:pied turritTry reached
in :6pril 1943, with thu rosult thot the tour woo immodiately
st)Pood. VIEJOV romsino-7. therooftr in Borlin under o form
of house arrest. ,-3y the on.:. vJ thc, immmur of 194.J, aftGr
HITLM's conferunc0 with hi cY.efs of toff, to whLch reference
hosboon made, the moveyient moribunJ, on remained ao
until its suJdn revival ot th- 01-17- of 19LIJI. HIM:I.!. had not
succooJed dfl provontin tk-)J14.1::, of i. tu exiotenc, from reachin[;
RusSion priconors in Gur,.n c.;,nm)o. 173ut tho fLi1u2G to imple-
ment any of the yromisoo upon which
thu WIL b2LUd
nottrolly led t) Jumorolisoti)n thum.
(h) Potentialities of thu VT;JOV movement. ,
; The abortive efforts to Aut-oanoeuvre HITL.A wore,
however, suffici(,nt to dem-nstrste thot potentirJly, ew,n in
1943 Elfter thu TiT:.LITG.71D victory, o auEsian Liboroti-)n
movement could still hop? to r:ther rood deal of suDoort.
Ther nre four fr:cts which "7)e-.r nut this vieq. First, the
immediote ond enthusiostic rosp)nsc t) reoruitmunt for the
LibOrotion Lrmy - until it hofon to be tiyA it did
not :exist. :joconJly, thu rIsp)nno of thu civilian p)pulation
in the occupied torritry t VT,...bOV's t:Yur -.o7ain ot a timo
when b-th the notuToof tho qr.g: widely ana the
c..nVictiln thot the :,:ed Lrmy 7;oulL sfter oil boot the Germans
woo !gninin: :,:round. Thirdly, thG effect on till, IZod
It Will be recoiled that thu front pr)paondo
operation woo ilIMIUTted soon after the V1,30V movumGnt, in
May 1943. -LIven before the oporsti)n, desertins hod
oubstontially increascd - the numb or of aesertol,s hod Joublod
froM 1,000 in February to 2,000 in I.:r:rch. In July, after
two Months of 311,73T=IP, which drew lar?7cly on VI,IJOV
prno-(1[:anJo material, ther:: wore 6,500 Jesurturs. floroover
therc aopoar to be n) other renno to occount for these
increases. In fact, German evi.J.enco booed oneoptur._.J aussian
field posts sh%wo tht by thL, on. of 1942 thoro was in i;eneral
a morkeJ rise in mnrole in thG dod"rny cud thr..t
patrliotic pro)nr!nTh ws t.) oh w its effect. The
incresserJ trend trworTh desertin oust therefore .)e occounted
for by reo;p-mc to on offer of on )pportunity t Ci. 'ht fir the
overthrow of ',ELLIN under thc-aercis of a -ilussion National
Committee. The most important ovidunce, hoever, is proviclled
/by the 3oviut rcaction
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by the Soviet reaction to the VILSOV movement. But ansideration
of this reaction must be postponed until the next section,
so that the developments inside IWEsia, both German and Soviet
occuOied, can first be examined.
6. The iZussiEtn Civil Po.iulation..
Chenrre 7)f opinion after
The I-Ipes which the, civil poulation of occupied r-J:ussia
placed on the Germans as liberators were rapidly chr.ttcred.
The german administrati-n. either could not or did not tr:mble
to conceal its bartaity. Prisoners died ooenly in tons
of tly:)usands in the camps. Jewish poulations were rounded
up and massacred. 3,ave reprisals on villaers :Col, partisan
activity s)n followed. The dicilluaionment of the po2ulation
was the more 'itter in the. early phae -vr the war when it
was universally believed that the chancc of
victbry. The new master was worse than the old.
.Zifter the Stalinrad' victory the situation chanr:ed. Jill
accounts a[;ree that this point 7epros nted the turn of the tide
in pUblic opinion. The ultimate vintry of the 1-Zed Lrmy was
now Th.ccepted. In February 1943 the Chief 22 the Security
PoliCe and Secret Service reported from the Ukraino that
"theibolief that the :10.-11 Lrmy would c.,oner or later collapse
which was widespread until now, has been shattered". In
addition to Stalind, the effect of Soviet prpar:ande boznn
to tell, both in Soviet occupied :lussia, and in the new
territories which were be-11v re-connilerod by the 1.,:ed
The intense patriotic pranda 1)0c:an .t) have its effect.
Acain, the Germans ha.,rmde litt1L, headway with the rebuild.inE;
and 'u-o.unin of churches. by the time the :cd Lrmy returned,
offiCial Soviet oolicy t?wards the Church had chani,:e, end
the Soviet auth,_)ritic,c therefore [Ternured the popularity on
this account which the Germans ha sounn?iered.
(b) Effectiveness of Soviet rumour properandn.
4ibove all, the Soviet authritios made very skilful use
of r4mour pr-)par:an.',a amn.7 the p.)pulation (Grman surces
are Omohatic that rumour in the mst effective of all m,thods
of pr-pa:;ena in?-2ussf.a). 7verythinr:; w)ul.:: be different after
the War. The collective farms be abolished, the Church
would come into its own, an: there woull be relaxation of
the dictatorship. The omnipresent partisan movumont made it
easy to spread such rumours not only in Soviet occupied
Russia, but in german 1(7..C12.)i,.;j torritry es well. They were
roadly believed by a population which had now 11)thin much
elso!to hope for. The effect was particularly evident in the
case of the peasentE. In Juno 19L1.3 I:013;TITLIIG belatedly issued
loiSlation aholishinf the collective farms. To his eabnish-
mentLtho peasants refused to accept the lent. No one with
any Un,:lerstanlinr; of the Russian peasant need have been astonished.
.i.nxiOus to acquire his lend in 1941, when he expected the
Germans to win, he was now equally anxious not to stick his
neck out when he bolicve that the -2,0: Lrmy wnull win, by
acceptin.,: enythinf from the Germans. lint ha been civen his
/lam-. in 1q41.
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lona:in 1941, there is little .:loubt thot the returninr
communists 7u1.1 hove founi a bitter enemy rearte
fight on every plot - just so JA..7. the White iamiLs in the
Civil Wr1r.
.-(c) Strenr:th of anti-Soviet fcelirws.
Yet, although the ti-.e of anti-Soviet feeling h. bccun
to tiarn in 19b,3, there woo ovi'.ence to show tiat anti-
Soviet elements were still str:ntc. The imme.ainte response
won by VIALSOV's props on tour in the sprinc, of 1945 ..7.emon-
stratel. that the appeal of o -.ZuEsion national !-;,vernment anS1
of oliboration orm; (f2r it wou os such thot VLLSOV portroyeq
his movement) Wtle still str-,n:-:. In port the resp)nse came from
those, porticularly from on 1: the intelliontsin, who hod
burnt their boots by c-opertin:: with the Germons. They haa
nothin but the worst to fear Cr )U1 the returnin Soviet pDwor,
therefor,.. naturally clutche:'. ot ony strow which offere,.',
somoeucape from the -'_ilemna of the Nazi onvil or the Soviet
hommer. report by the Chief of the Security Police on.
Secret Service on public fuelin in 7;clerussin, 1-oto 16th
Lpril 1943, woo probably typical of oll occuiod uscia et
that :date. This report divirles the populotion int-1 three
groups. First, o relatively such openly pro-ODviet Troup
in ctmtoct with the portisons snI formin: the moin vehicle
for Soviet rumour pr)oogns.:.a. Next, "by for the largest section
of the population", which ha. 2ricinally shown syr..1pathy with
the Germons, but woo now in o stote of hestation, in port as
the r,sult of the military situotion, on:. in port es the result
of Germon occu.pation. The which woe "quite smoll",
an: Which ws openly pro-German, consiute.7, moinly of o
few intellectuals sn.:1 of some .)f the peaunts. It ho:1 no
conttlet with the populotion. The author of the rep rt concludes
that., if post mistakes in Germon policy 'Jere rcctifica, if
the laml were Jiven to the peosant an.7 an ia.7.upen',ent
Russian rr:ministr;.tion Wore set up, the 7root bulb. f the
population cou1.7. btill be w n -?ver t the German silo. But
the btren:-:th of the anti-Sovit elements 1 19439 octuol or
ootentiol, ols.) oopeors from on exominti-:)o .)f come of the
lesser known aspectL of the portison movement in Germon
occupioC1 Russia.
( ) Tho oriin the Portico n Movement.
The Soviet cloim that the portisan move-lent pri::inotod
witlythe networks of unC.or[:roun communist cells which wore
leftbehina on the with,lrawal of no od .rny F.)DurLi for
the mst port to bG folse. That the Soviet authorities realise
that it is folse is aln-) evident from the attention which
they have boon devotin:: in recent years to the re-writin:: of
memoirs on..7. books A-;alin'; with partisan exploits, on:T. published
immediately ofter tho war, which fove o aifferent, ond presumably
more truthful, picture. In some cases it was true that the
commUniLt organisation was oble t ::et the portion m-wement
;75oint7 almost from the start of the occupation. This wos so,
for example, in the Lenin[...,ra crc, - occor.lin7 to 'letailed
oviCIOnce otninea in 191A1 by the Pb. hut for the most part
the communist ornnistion in the ,orly stoes. broke .7.-1n,
or disappeare.7., or collobrateT., or was focer2 with thretenin
hostility by the popultion. It woe only by the summJr of
/1942 thot s strong
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1942 thclt n stronr; control orzonisation succeeded in recon-
striacting the network of communit c,ntrD1 which should hove
functioned from thu atnrt. The first pnrtionn activity,
whioh ViCle alrearly quite considernble in 1941 an.: early 1942,
wool mninly the work of twa clnuses: deoerter or strlurs
fraM the :led 'i-rmy who wore afraid t) surrender to the Germano,
or to rank? their wny bnok t their units; end omnll banT_s
Of townspople and villncero wh t..)ok t-1 the woods. Theo()
numerous 3an2.s in 1941 nnd 1942 WCI76 of n very mixed politico]:
outlook. Some wore anti-GermLn fr:im the stnrt. loreover,
the number of the onti-Germano increased rapidly as Germnn
reprioals oninst villners, rmd other action, such no the
roundin up of the populntion for export no slave lnbour,
drove n :rowin?,7, number into the woo,f_e end into the bands. But
some of the bends were "noutrn1", i.e., anxious ob?wc nil
to be left alone to live no bust they could in the woogo and
mnrshes. Others were ncti-uay onti-Soviet.
? (0) The nnti-Govit partins.
Ls time wont on, certainly by the enil of 19b2, thu cd
thu comunist pnrty, and the :TIND (the Int-ter wno mainly
responsible for thu im:ludiLtu c:ratrT)l of pnrtisnn operations)
hodoucceeded in weldin:: the ooettortd bands into a ,:/ore
disciplined 0n co-ordinateJ 71ovement - though nat without
n grunt don 1 of difficulty. soocial un2.er[;roun.1 communist
party network ..t3 in existence 'r,y then no n brnnch of the -al
RusOia Communist Party. It h--.d ito own stntute, hierarchy
findpnrty dinci2iinu. ":1ven c?, throu::hout 19!.43 ned 19)1 quite
extensive nnti-Sovict ,perntino were the
attention of the TrIDT-) tro)ps in wide arens of both Ooviet
occupied ilussin nnd o2 territries recoptured fr-m the
GerMans, 7?uch of this netivity rulnte: t-) nruna of thu
nntionnl minorities - pLuticulnrly in Centrnl Lriia, the
Caucasus, end the Ukrnino42. But in 101Join, in such crone
no the Drynnok Forests, nu:. Hoscmi, Voronezh, and
Ta4av orovinceo,.the returnia cd rniy was met by quite
conSidcrable bnndo of onrtisnns. They were a mixed bL:: of
deserters, local inhnbitnnts, and plain robbers. Their numbers
were reinf:)rcel, as the -2.01 rmy apprchel, both by deserters
fr-M th cd :,rmy and by deserters fro..1. the Hiwis. The total
strenth of this m-vement (Inc:ID:ling the very oubstantial
bands in t1-1.; minority republic,o) was estimnted by the German
Soullrity Service in the sr ii.: of 1944 nt three hundred
thoUsland to five hundred th-)usnnd. It vine unco-ordinnted,
andiwith-ut nny clear olitical Lim, end never oresuntod much
more then n nuisonce to the :_lLed :Irmy end the 710.0. The nttitude
of the lacol pooulntion wno one of "friendly but oassivo
noutrnlity". Its importance, if nnythin, icy in the oatentinl
dnnor that the reTalnr particnn 1)rude, which hnd boon brought
to heel only with difficulty, night bec..2me infected, and might
desert to rinfarce the anti-communists, or to join the bandits
in Oscnpin from the shockles of nuth-irity. There is i-.:ood
ovi4lonco, (bnced on the in.terro;_:ati-)ns both by Germans end
by Officers of the VIJ.,i3OV movement of hi ti rankilv prtisano)
that the P.M via well ownre of this danc,or. . This oppenred
in its strenuous efforts tl secure the maximum of controliseJ
control OV02 the mov._iment. It was nloo evident from the policy
whi.Ch it ::::)ptor.7. of no fnr ao possible ovoidini: the rein-
forCemont of portisan bands from the local oopulntion
/(there are
Soo next suction.
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(there aro instances of bonds whore an many no four fifths
did hot cmsist of local inhabitonts). Moreover, the
apprehensions of the 'Soviet authrities with regard t-) the
loyalty of the partisans wore clear from the fact th't upon
the rec')nouest of territory by thc h Lrmy, all partisan
bonds were, as on almost general rule, not incorporated
in the army, but disarmed, disbanded, and sent off to the
rear, ? eithor for dispersal or for re-embodiment in the 2ed
LrmYns individuals, distributed over many different units.
!(f) German 2ilure to exploAt the Dartisan movement.
EThis aspect of the partisan movement must be soon in
conjunction with thu opinion of the German security
autherities that the Germano missed the opportunity of exploiting
the anti-Smiet elements in the partisan movement. Thorn
are indications that there was sme truth in this viow, and
that, n the curly stages of the froo and unco-ordinated partisan
actiVity there wel%, many partisans who wore ready to ho won
over into one camp or the other, depending on the opportunities
or treatment which they were offered. Ls a ca-,tured partisan
commander told the Germans in .Pcruary 1943: 970 in the woods
believe that communism - which 70 - 80 per cent of us hate
will: at least give us a chance t live". There were a number
of instances at the outset of the v/: .r in which armed groups
sprang up under local leders fpr the purpse of pr touting
and administerin:: their hme turritries. Those groups
declared themselves anti-oviet and friendly to thu Germans;
above all, they wanted loft alone. There werc cases
whero they distribute,d thu collectivised land and not up
primitivn elected administrations. The German policy of
disarmino. these grope and retakin.: their ly.nd soon turned
themiintn active anti-German partisans. In some eases they
follivictims to the :J.Ga L'rmy or the MVD, who were quick to
disellver the existence or these patches of liberty and to
destrv them whenever they coul. In one instance one such
local anti-Soviet commander, wh, raised a bond of three
thousand, successfully resisted the repeated attempts blth
of the US to disarm his forces afl of Soviet paratrn)ps to
destroy them. Hc was eventually contacted by Soviet emissaries
with on offer of a free pardon, and ended by winning a decoration
for his band for its action on the 7Joviot side. There is
nu reason to doubt that if those bands had been encouraged
theywould hav.3 left the Germano unmolested, ond woull also
probably have f)ught the .end Lrmy on its return in defence
of their newly recovered land. The emergence of the VLLUOV
movement cave the Germano fresh opi,ortunities of winninj, over
o good number of the ?partisans which they likewise failed to
exploit. ":7;ven in 1W2 and 194:-5, with the whole record of
Gorman administration in occupied :.-assia in their min7.s,
many of those mon retained sufficient resentment against the
Soviet regime and fear of the :turn of thu IZed .rmy to respond
to any offer which hell out the hops of giving them the support
of an anti-Soviet administration. In the summer of 1942
General von 30I111IC-IND02,17 (one of th0 group of generals who
were !active in urging a revision of Gorman occupation policy
in RUssia) attempted to create an area in the Smolensk-Vitebsk-
Orsha triangle in which administration would he loft to the
Dussians. In return thu Russian administration would guarantee
tolvop the area free from partisans. Some stops were token
to put this plan into operation: i met with immediate response,
/but within a short
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but within a short time von SCLE;NR.dNDG.2;2 was forced to
abonden it, and withdraw his offer, no doubt under pressure
from higher authority*.
(r) Soviet Reaction to the VL3OV Movement.
The main evidence for the potential strength of a
Russian liberntion movement as an attraction to the partisans
and to the civil population in 1943 can be derived from the
Soviet reaction to the inaufluration of the VL;130V movement.
It isiquite clear that the Soviet authorities treated it
seriously. They presumably knew little or nothinf: of the
disunity Orion-; the German authoriti'..,s, and of the difficulties
under! which the sponsors of the VL.OV movement were labourinr;
in an endeavour to outwit ITITLM. They certainly o'..Ypear to
have regarded the chanf:e in policy as a oolitical move
frauht with c-me donr;er from their point ?):17 view. L flood
of 3o1iet Jul:a was ruleased, in lea:acts and news?apers,
directed mainly at the partisans. The choice of the partisans
as thU main tarot for this proa ri.:da was in part due to the
fact that the oartisans had the boot oortunity of passinc;
it on t7 the civil proulation under Germnn occu2ation. But
in 12,-..rt it must have -been due t) the fear of the effect of
the new German move on the partisans themselves. ..dossi)Cjs
n fair selection of this )r:anda material from Gorman
sources. In one sons? of c-urse anti-VL.L.10V propnanda was
on an: easy wicket. The past Garan record in :Zussia provided
ample material with which t denirate anyone in any f.)rm
of alliance with the Germans. Many of the anti-Soviet bands
1ivedlby briDmda[;e. It was easy to saldle the ITL .0V
movement-with much of the unov)ulority which this briandoge
evoke. On the one hand it is true that this i):2paanda was
in lnrce du:-;ree successful: ,-Irmy defectors in the
laterstor;es of the war 2:1r examplu, nearly all had heard
of the Vlacovites as briands, while only on isolated few
were aware of the political movement. But on the other hand
it is :also true that the half-heartel, semi-conspiratorial
and short lived nature of the Gorman )olitical effort in the
first half of 1943 never i-:ave the iliticr.l side of the move-
ment t proper chance to become widely ;;TL-wn. Its abrupt
cessation merely added a further item to the hot of broken
.Garman promises and added t, disillusionment, thus strenTthening
the chances of Soviet ap?eals to patriotism.
(h) Jitter:lots to oenetrate the VIJOV movement.
]von more instructive, L3 revualin Soviet apprehension,
is the Gestapo material containin: interc(2pted conversations
between Soviet security detachments, instructions t, the
nortiSans t, kill VI,i'iSOV, and thu like. The Soviet authorities
also Made a number of attemptL to penetrate the VI,0V move-
ment,!thouh not, apparently, with veiv if:reat success.
communist cell was formed at Dabendorf in 1943, which stayed
a revolt. It was promptly sl_Ippressed, an thure is no evidence
that it was an liKvp inupireJ, as distinct from a local and
spontnneous action. Several N.L:VD a,:ents were uncovered
(often owinn to the efforts of the NTS) with missions to
/assossinate VLASOV.
* This account was r:iven by KROMI,".DI, later VLii3OV's Chef
do Cabinet, who made the proposal t2 von SCTP.]NKT;NDOD.F.
"
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?28?
assasSinate VL4..30V. One au,ent, who was discovered in the
course of 1943, was of particular interest. Ho was char2.ed
with a comprehensive mission of organisilv extensive
penetration of the orr;anis:Aion and of disrupting it with
propaanda. Tho gist of this propaganda was to be that the
communist party would be dissolved after the war, that thc
colloetivo farms would be abolished, and past mistakes put
ri[tt,without the help of foroin invaders; and that Vlaso ite
defectors to the Rsd ;Army would be well received. :Attempts
were also aooarently mode by the WIND to enlist the help of
rirrhtwin[2 emizrOs in Germany in disruptinp; the VLhSOV movement:
the story out out t them was that the "opposition" inside
the ao hrmy (contact throughout most of the wor Booms to
hove been maintained by the NKVD with some emire circles in
Germany, ostensibly in the name of a Rod .rmy "opposition",
headed by'ROKOSSOVSKY) was strnly opposed ta the overthrow
of Stalinism until Germany had been defeated. There is also
said to have been, though this is at prosent quite unc.-)nfirmed,
some attempt made throuji the Japanese to dissuade, the Germans
from 6..-ntinuing with the VLLOOV movement.
(i) Lesson of the VI,hUOV Movement.
There is little doubt therefore that the Soviet authorities
considered that the aussian Liberation77ovement (which they
were not to know was little :lorCJ than a sham) had to be .taken
seriously. Its importance in terms of its effect on the civil
popultion, at any rate in occupied ilUESin, lay not in what
it acnieved, ? which was little enou:h. It lay in the fact
that the hesitant and incompetent effort which was made was
suffiient te reveal that a genuine all out political effort,
had it boon made even comparatively as late as-1943, miht
hove Created a serious situation for the Uoviet auth-,ritios.
7. The Notional Minorities.
(a) Gorman failure to exnloit national minorities.
The German hondlin:; of the prblem of the national
minorities durin; the war with KuLsin followed a pattern of
ineptitude which closely parallelled their handling of the
problem of Russia as a whole. The s)mewhot fanciful theories
of RO87.,N=G on the sub?division of Russia did at any rate
contain some ollowance for nati-mal independence which, if
implemented, might in some parts of' occupied :lussia have
givonHan impetus to nationalist feulins. But in the early
victrious stages of the eam:,aign the Germans 'Jere solely
intent ?.,n exploitati-)n, :undi:7furent to the political handling
of the c.,ncluered population, end o'_.ove all hostile t ? any
form of administrati-7,n which .!.)ore cven e comlance ef national
independence. In the Baltic e')untries, which were the first
to bcinvadod, the en)rmous fund of ;77oodwill which Treeted
the GLrmanr-J as -liberators fret the Russians was throws away.
Immediate offers to form volunteer legions to ficht for the
liberation :If their countries were rejected. In the Course
of time the. Germans realised the value -)f prisoners ,f the
national minorities in their hands, at any rate as cannon
fodder, mat permitted the formation of ritienal unite from
/the few surviving
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the few survivinp; prisoners as intecral ports either of the
Gorman army or of the SS. They wore recruited to fif:ht
"are,ninst Bolshevism" and nationalist propar;anda was not
permitted. Officers of these nationalities were in-coneral
not trusted and until nearly the end of the war not pieced
on aneclual footing: with Gorman officers. The result was
that the recruitin,, drives were treated with suspicion.
Tho reports of the Chief of the Security Police and Secret
Servide rolatint; to the Baltic countries for the end of 1942
and the be[;innine of 193 show, for example, thet by that
date the Gcrmans had ion lost the confidence of the anti-
Soviet inhabitants. Partisans, at once anti-German and anti-
Soviet, were already in operation.
(B: The Cossacks.
In the case of the Cossacks (Who arc a social dc.sto erla
not ninotional minority) the Germans allowed more independence
from the first. The Cossacks were permitted their own
officers and ideolo,j_cal oroo yrnort. The result was aoparent
in the hir;her euality of trrJ.)s which this policy produced.
-AthoUe:h used meE-Htly on the eastern front there were no
dosertiens to the ,-;x)d ,..rmy from the sixty thousand Cossacks
fir;htim- on the German side. In entrast, the other -minority
troop, which wore motly used in the -lest, showed varyine
dec7ees of breakdown in mA2ale. t a later stare, in 1943
and 1944 the formation of nation..1 committees, usually
headed by membere of the old oniration (i.e. net by ',.Zod
limy -Prisoners) was at last sanctionod. But this move in
any CrEiG came much too late t meke any difference. Lt the
crucial periods, when the latent national feeliivs of the
more Separatist elements within the U33:1 could have been
rallied under a banner of fi.Thtin[: for their independence,
Gorman policy failed to prevido any focal point for such
aspirations.
(c) Gorman failure to dietin
sh cc oratiem from
Chauvinism.
4part from this [-C,noral fail-Luc which cheracts.rised
Gorman handline: of this suerti-n, a f:tudy of the policy
pursued towards individual natienal ;r once provides abundant
evidence of the doctanctire 1,norance with which minorities
were Often handled. _This was in part due to the prec?-nceived
th_cories which prevailed _n0 , G' ont ,:ura::;e an in
part. to an almeEt excluive_relinee 11)r politidai_leadership
he old:emires? rether_than_ontthe new:Ze.I.I.ymzep04:enors.?
saccr-c-rmuifyi, with crntom7orarvJ,Celfations_in _their pert.of.
Ihe Tho emiH,C-loadors, encourneed by the op it shown
Lor their theories, became even more extreme, amf more
divorded from reality. One form of this enoeure-:ument of an
extruMist separatist unl'eality was the promotion of nationalist
movements which hod virtually no existence .)utside the
ime:einatiens of their emi,7:re sz)ns:)rs. Doloruesian'nr.tional
separatism is one intrnoo of this. 'rlhen in March 19114 it
Central Ihite ?ftlthenian (BoloruEsian) Council, or do b:, was
formed, headed by natinlists from former Pglish Belorussia,
its advocacy of sepc.ratiom for Belorussia found no response
whatever amonr: the Belorussians from the 3oviet side. Their
anti-communism was boned not on oppositiin to :11113sia, as
such, but on oppositin t- the Soviet regime. The same is
to a ler;i:e extent true when one contrasts "Iestern Ukraine
-:Irotorn
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and Eastern U77rninc. In tho former, which hui never boon
under 2ussinn dominntion, natinnlist cu ratjcu ecomo the
lOatt1flT forco. In tho 1712otern Ukraine, on the othur hand,
it 'n at moLt a holf-hoarted forco, if thot. the ?
ronson was that tho main imoetus t. roaistanco CEIMJ from tho
Lno A_znrro instance from the cotalcue of Gcrmnn
inuotitudon was tho sp-nsorinn of an Idel-Ural 701:7a Tntnr
so)nrntist movement after 1943. This_7roup was united
noithor in race, lanunD..), nor relicjon. Ito mnin renson
for opposition to tho Soviet refj_me wao baceJ not on nntionnlist
foclinz, but on hotrod of colloctivization.
(d) The Germon fniluro summarized.
: In (;cnorol, tho Gormnn failuro lay in the Cr. at that thoy
did not, whon they had thu op)ortunity, ce7lont thu nationalist
fcalins of thosL territories wh,ne noti.nalism runny doco
exist with s military formntion of that nLtinality cud a
cenuino sopnratist movomunt to correspond to it. 'Thus,
nataonnl ormies could hnvc boon recruitcd in the Baltic .itates
to 'fi[jht under the orJ,cro of prvisinnl nati--)nol committoes;
or Goorij_on or Lzerbaidzhani committees could hnvc, boon formed
at the outset, to which troops of the nntionnliti-s formed
of Prisonors of nor could hnve bun oub)rdinated, to frioTht
in tho Gaucncus, nnf, t- co-ordinnto and sup?ort nnti-nnl
risincs in thcir own turrities still undor Joviot occupation.
ThcAnininture irfIGLITT\T operation alone showeJ wiT:t cood ruaults
could ho .)btoined by thio olicy. Lc n result of
their failure to purso such n :)71icy tho Grranns received
little or no holo from the ootcatinl dissident forces within
thelminority torritirius of tho 15T32. dt tho same time, by
thconcournement of oxtrcimiat separatist -)nasions in tho
field of emi;Tre politic, where thoy could serve n useful
purpose, they only scrvod to wunken tho force and cohesion
of tho VILSOV Committoo when it was ';)clu.tedly
forted at the and of 1944.
! (e) Oporation Zeppolin.
Some timo in 1944 a lnr:e scale intellienco operntion
"Zejpolin" was carried out in the UCATZ. Dotnils, or indeod
thopurposo, of tho opernti-)n nro not known, ',nit thoru oxisto
a lcin rcoort V thu (German) (217ief of Socurity Police and
Secrot Sorvice m the resistance movements in tho U13R in 1943
and 1944. Thu information which it contains was 1)ased on
the dntorrontion of pris,ners arid deserters, and thu compro-
honsiive picture, which it ;:ives throws n curtain mount of
on thu ruletivo atrenth of nationalist ccntroo of
rcsiatancc. In 7oneral, the r000rt noted a considornYle
increase of opposition in the 3oviet interior since tho c.:2;in-
nin of 1942. It hod "monifostod itaelf in [_;.rerAeot strcncth
in tho national resistance nivements of the 1(-9-tern Ukraine,
Control Lain and the Cnucosus, viiuch dorived their support
from brood nr)ups of the population". In thu -,Zussinn area
tho etnti-Covict partisans (orroncously doacribed no "VI,LSOV
hande) and doserter-bandita (to whom referunce has already
boon rondo) wore active. In all, thu report lists a hundred
odd hands or centres, with a total strenth catimacd at
throe hundrei7_ thousond t- five hundred thusand. In the
/al-Jounce of any
'1: IAV'ef
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Z IJ
t.J
absence of any co-erin.ted plan or suoport from outside,
notmeruly by material reinforcements, but by a policy which
would give individuals thu ?olino that thoy were fightini7
for something worth while, in both of which tho report notes
somewhat grimly "there hoc_ been an for only very fueble
prress", thu iIKITD nd'tho iJ Lrmy were able t suppress
allHrevolts, if not completely, at any rate sufficiently to
localizu thu disturbances. Thu report thun ',:ocoods to list
and classify in detail the location, nature and extent of
each centre of resistance. These may bo summarised us
follows, so far as relates to thu minority territories:-
(i) Ukraine
In Western Ukraine thu nationalist Ukrainian
2evolutionary Yirmy , - anti-German, anti-]Zussian,
i and anti-Polish. "In contrast...the groups .)f partisans
....oast of the Dniepr aro not so radically nationalist"
and many features in common with the .17100V bands
of the Western 1323]2".
i) Far East and Central 1,sia.
In Siberia, and the inr Erlstern Provinces strong
and active anti--Soviet bands Woe re??orted, some thirty
thousand strong in the Irkutsk area, Their octivities
against the Siberian 2ailway were said to be supported
by the Japanese. In thu the
guerrilla movemunt was said to be nationalistic in
character. Thu numerous and strong bands of Control
lisin were in general anti-Swict rather than str-ngly
nationalistic. This was the case, for exam:a?, with the
bonds in Kazakhstan. In Turkmenistan however, where
the resistance movsment was str-Tiust, thuro wr-s a strong
nationalistic movement, - which tho author of thu. report,
attributed to support from lif:!,hanf.ston. In
Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan the numur-us bands, formed
prep:mderantly from deserters from the IZed Lrmy, enjoyed
full support of the loeal population. In some instances,
at any rate, notinalist fuuli. appeared to predominate
amen7 these bands t.)o.
4iiY The Caucasus.
Both the North Co.ucaaus and TranscaucaLia were
iactive centres of resistance. In tn., latter, strongly
Aaationalist movements wure reported in Ge )r-L:io and in
zurbaidzhan; in Lrmenio there were "no traces of
any nationally conscious" resistance movements. In tiry,
!North CrillerIBU3 the principal contrus of nationalist
resistance was amolv the Ch;chuns and Inushi (wh:, were
'later liquidated by wholesale dop-)rtations). Their
-resistance lasted until September 1943.
(f) Tho significanco of the nationalist revolts.'
In the details of activity enumerated thero aru listod
not only raids, but fairly large scole battles lasting some-
timeS for several days. Thu impprtance of this activity,
howeVer, does not liu mainly in its scale. In the absence
.of CC-ordination and support it was inevitably bound to fall
befork: thu onslaught of the YKVD and the R.ed Jirmy, an it had
on a .number of occasions in the past. The significance of
/these revolts lay
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these revolts lay rather in the Pact that, in contrast te the
guerrilla activity in eccupiod western Russia, they started
for the most pnrt as a spentancous anti-Soviet, or anti-
RusSian revolt, for behind the line, without se far as is
kneWn any cmtact with the Gorman forces, and with little
hope of success.
8. 1 Thu VLLSOV Movement: The Second
Phas o.
(a) The DrIbendorf period.
Lfter the abertive effort in 19/43 to launch the Russian
Liboratim movement, of which VI,:i3OV's prepean:a teur and
theISILBST=17 operatien were the only c ncrete. results,
German political warfare eeainst Russia once mere fell into
abeyance. There was no Liberation Lrmy in existence - the
national minority units and formations and the niwie all
remained as heretofore. T;c).rly in 19144 the bulk of Russian
treeps in German service were transferred t the Testern
front. VI,e3OV was powerless te prevent this and wee fecced
to Write a letter neprevine the transfer. The only c-)ncrete
result s;ained between the autumn ef 1943 and the secend half
of 19)44 was the develepment of a more complete political
idoelogy at Dclbendorf, mainly under the dynamic influence of
ZYKOV. The Dabonderf "raauates" worked to epreae this
idoOloty amory_; awl.? and the many Russians employed in
in_lUstry (thevOstarbeiter). .:7;ven in the face of German
defeats, they appear to have succeeacd in keopilv alive
some hope that the Germans would at lent come rean:1 te the
view that flauesia can be c.mouered )nly by -,lussians", would
at last permit the formation of zen army of liberetion, and
that then the tido would tum. The imrtance of the ideology
developed in Dnbenderf, which f'und expression in the Manifesto
of the Liberatien Tleveeent when it was revived in H)vember
1944, is twofold. In the first place it has entered inte
the political creed of a lerce sectien of the ')eviet
and therefore frms the eolitieel basis upen which expl-itation
of this part -ef the er.117:ratien will deoend. ;Jecendly, it
was;larg,ly inspired and develed by a man wh) in 7utleek
fully represented the new 3eviet intellientsia, in fact in
moot respects a communist, save ..n hia epp)sitien t) 32.a,T7.
ZYKOV was els- - if internal evieenee is any 7aide, - riehtly
credited with the pr)naatien oP the ideas ef 'YU:IL:11117's
opposition. This was the meet im)ertant oppositiln movement
in Soviet hist ry, and the -nly me whish was able to cemmand
support in the leadership of th:, Pod .rmy. Thu Dabonaerf
idoelo7y is therefore still worth study eon bade for
prel:;a:an'.a to the UTS.1.
-(b) belated official se-)ns7,rship of the VT,OV Movement.
In the summer of 1944 HIiPLdII, hitherto an inveterate
opponent beth of the VLOV movement and of VtLGOV, chaived
his mind, and was persuaded by the. Hond of the SS Pve,paandn
Department, ts enter into discussions with VL.i.,30V
for the resuscitation of the LL:eration Movement. Ls Supreme
/commander of all home
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Commander of nil home forces since the summer of 1944,
HITUILfl1?. had now in theory acquired command over all :.Lassians
arr]. Russian minority nationals in Germany. Of ITITL's
attitude at this dote nothinr3 is hnvm. Presumably he left
HI1MI,71 fru,ohand..ZOTTB.ARG's prustir,:o on Russian
questions had fallen considerably. His recent policy and
that of his ministry, in oncouraxi:in[: the settini.:: up of national
cemMittees, still made him hostile t) any sueation of a
national ,113.ssinn movement. On thG other hand VL..,OV and his
followin,7 hod boon much antaL;oniced by the develpm,nts of
2001113MG's nationalities policy, a fact which made
allithe readier t:.) troat even with HI :171L and the 03. The
deal between Erfulq and VL:i0V was essentially a marrion.c
of envenience, with little confidencc, on either niic. Prom
HTMUL:11,1's point of view it was a question of tryin anythirm
that micht help in a desperate situation. 17,1,30V and his
followers know that Germany was beaten and that it vine much
too into to "canouer T-Zussia with the aid of RuFsiana". But
they had burnt their boots. They stnd a bettor chance of
durviV:r.A. United in-Ta.--6-grin movement thLn on in.lividuals
.kinwn to have collaborated with the Nazis. 80MG of them
hoped that after the defeat of Germany the Western Lilies
would take some stops to atom the avence of the nodLrmy, .
endthoreforc believed that a deal with them wuld 'Oe possible.
(VI,40V himself a)parently had little confiJence in thin
chance). There are several accounts which suyzest that c? ntact
wan established with the Lmerieans early in 1945., if not before,
end: it is the case that L'IMO ap)roach was made to .the British,
in an attempt to reach on aTreement about the future of the
VLtIOVLrmy after the collapso .)f Germany.
(c) The 1IIMIILTh2 - VLZ3OV Lnrcement.
HIM=7i and VI,L0OV met in Seotembor 1944*. HI171I;d2 was
prepared to..cree t all deman'ils. VI,LJOV was t- have command
of all Russian troops, Hiwis, the formations end
units composed of Minority nationals, an: of the CoLsaoks.
COmmittee for the 14.11-411-e--4_Pe::,p1es of 1?.11;ia was
to be net up. illthe101 provisional, in the senr.A5Th t the
ultimate future of the minority nationalities would be
decided ? after victory, it was to be representative -of all
the p000105 of the U23. The RO3LTABHRG policy was thus
ostensibly completely abandoned. For his port VL.0V claimed
that ho could ultimately form on army )f a million. (Bvents
showed that ho was probably rilat - had he been allowed
a free hand.) No specific limit was ar7reed on for the
Liberation rmy, but the immediate olan accepted was that
five divisiens should be formed by It February 1945, On:
further twenty by the end of March. It was also arced
that the conditions of the 1,1uesion forced labourers in
Germany (the Ostarbeiter) should be improved.
Whether the fact was tha- HIMPIL1,3R never i,itended to
implement thia ar_;reoment in full, or whether it w;-:"E; that
he had not reckoned with the opposition from various interested
quarters - the Ostministurium and izo==A- and it
committees, the local comman2ors in chare of 'awls, or the
lobOur authorities ii chare of the Oatarbeiter - little of
thiS orvramme was realised. The notional minrity and
Cossack troops
* We hove an eye witncs account of this meetinn from an
Fin officer who w,aa present.
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CosSack troops never came under VLSOV'- command ox t
0 15 projoc c only t.w)
were in fact over formed, and the formation of a third
attempted, by the ond of the war. It was not for lack of
volunteers. The $S could not, or would not, find thc
necessary equipment and the rival authorities wh- disapproved
of HIISILTI a arranemonts obstructed the transfer of the
necessary manpower. Military defeat added to the chaos of
divided authority and rivalry of command which thrhout
characterized the Nazi dictatorship. The total number of
troops which at any time ca:Jo under VI,,MV's actual command
did not exceed ninety thouSanl.
(d) The formation of K01-11t.
On the political side-of the Pro::rammo, the Committee
for the LiberatiTia .rf the Peoples of Russia was inaugurated
at a solemn meeting in Prague on 14th November 1944. Unlike
its ]shadowy predecessor, the Smolensk Committee, the now
ComMittee (abbreviated -t) r:011) was widely publicised amon-
the Russians in German hands. It was headed by VL.OV, and
consIsted of seven members, and no candidate member who ries
UkIrainian. One of the seven members was an SS appinted
white emigre, an obedient Nazi and spy. The inawniration
inclUded the publication of a Manifesto embo,:lyin now pro-
gramme, to which a ion:; list of si[Jnatures (includin those
of Ukrainians, Caucasians, Turkis and others of non-Russian
nationality) was appended. The response was immediate -
sixty-two thousand volunteered the day after the Pra7ue
meetin, hccordin-to numer:Jus-accounts one million two
hundred thousand in all volunteered between the d?ate of the -
mo.-ting and the end of the war. To come extent this response
was no doubt duo t the same motives as those which may have
inspired VLi,20V himself: the Hiwis, or Ostarbeiter may have
felt that they had burnt their boats, and that nA any rate
there was bettor chanco of safety from the Red Lrmy in an
organisation than individnallzr. But in part, at any rate,
thisresponse was due t-) the appeal which the KONIZ orogramme
holdiout to the opponents of the Soviet reci'me who had spent
year in German prison camps.
!(e) Tho Prauo Manifesto,The .
Prague Manifesto reiterated the points of the Smolensk
programme - and to the peasants, the guarantees of freedom
and Social security. Like the Smolensk programme, it Was .
characterised by the absence of Nazi ideology - anti-semitism,
or any reference to HITLI32. 1,ccordin to numerous accounts
VLiiJOV and other loaders, such as M-ZYSHKITT, had no hesitation
in their public speeches after November 1944 in criticising
Nazi .barbarism in Russia in the pest; or in ridiculing-any
suggestion that the Germans coul;f. ever hope to subjup:ato the
Russians". But there were throe inn:ivations which reflected
tho developments which had been takin!-!, place in Dabendorf.in
the past two years. In the first place, KON2 was no longer
a Ruecinn national c-mmittee, but a committee claiming to
represent all the peoples of Russia. The first aim of the
new pro,7rammo Was accordinly stated to be equality of all
the peoples of Russia, and_ their right to self determination
and independence. In his inaugural and subsequent speeches
/171,20V stressed the
LIESTRTTP
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VLASOV stressed the need for unity until victory had been won,
with a right for each ef the pe-)plc:s t) determine its own
future after victory. 3ecendly, a now idea was crib diedwhich
had boon evolved by ZYUV: the liberation from OTLIZN's regime
was stated to be undertaken with the object of fulfilling the
February l'ovelution. In that revolution the Ilussian people
bud won its freedom frem Tsarist oppression. Thereafter
the Bolsheviks had by deceit and force deprived it of the
fruits of that victory. The overthrow of ST.Z.LIZ would thus
not turn the clock back, but on the contrary give the peeole
the chance t-) enjg the achievement;, of their own revolution
of Which they had been deerived. The impe'rtance of this
forMulation, particularly for the ',1ussinn intelligentsia, which
while dissatisfied with the now order is not prepared to see_
a return t the old, is obvious. (It is worth noting,
incidentally, that the VILd0V ideology never included any
demand for the return of the Constituent Lssembly, which the
Bolsheviks dispersed in 1918, let alone any claim for the rights
of legitimate succession of the overthrown Pi-)visienal Govern-
ment of 1917). Thirdly, the Manifesto stressed that there
would be n) vengeance against anyone who rejected Stalinism,
regadlose of whether he had supported it formerly thrlugh
conviction or coercion. This is again a point of eTJeociel
appeal to the Goviet intellieentsia; experience in eccueied
-.1ussia during the early pert ef the V.P, end subsequetly in
the VLLMV movement, had fully deer)nstrated that willieness
of the intellieentsiat turn aeeinst the Tj)viet reeime wes
as likely t, aeeear in the case of a meciber of the Communist
Party as in the case a non-member.
!(f) The Proergnme o- Tq:Yv2
_
The new programme reflected the influence of the 173,
or Sblidarist party. This, the strngost an. best ergenised -
em1gr6 party at the time had earticipatod in the werk of
Dabendorf and the VI,Z;CV m:wement; at the seme time it had
pursued its own conspiratorial activities in occueie'. :aussia,
which had by 1944 ;:ot its membere int trouble with the 7azi
autheritics. Its authoritarian d-;ctrine and c nspiret)rial
habits made it at times a disturbinT clement in the VL4.,3OV
moveMent. However, the twe directors of the ideoleeic-al
section on KONR were now b th of the 700, and Point 2 of the
KONXPregramme embodied literally the ITTS demand for the
establishment of a "natipnal rder for thse whe work". The
ideolo[7y of the new Committee also reflected, th.lueh not in the
Manifesto, an intention t) link the now, liberated 1-Zussin to
world intornationallorganisations. VI,;,30V later node an
unsuccessful attempt to broadcast fr m Prague radio a. messe
to the United Nations preparatory session at San 7rancisco.
Lgain, the importance of this idea lies in its ?lotential appeal
to the intelligentsia: thoso who are likely to be repelled
by a 'promise of self-determination -If the peoples -)f 71ussia
(andparticularly of the Ukraine, the loss. ?f which wnuld
deprive Russia of the bulk of her food production) may be induced
to accept the principle within the framework of a sura-
natilnal order. 3T2IK-STRIET;LDT in his long discussions with
the Itussian intelligentsia in )ccupiod 2ussia in 1941 also found
among them a rope:_y resp mac to the idea of -a federal.,luesia
which would ultimately form part of a greater ::]uropean organisation.
KONE and the
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(g) KONR and the question of nationalist seporetism.
Since the whole K011:2 movement came too late to have any
chance of success, its significance lios mainly in the realm
Of ideas; and in particular in its attempt to solve the
conflict between RuEsinn nationalist and anti-scoaratist
feeling and the copara oceL e s - minorities.
It did not -me Mid adhieve groat success. -But it did
achieve a formulation of a basis for compromise which, evoked
Some responso.? Moreover much of the difficulty in winning
Over the national minorities to a policy of unity of effort
was directly attributable to the background of German disunity
and intrigue. National .committees wore set up by KONR in an
endeavour to attract the minorities into the fold. There
wore some successes notable instance was the acceptance
Of VI,SOV's leadership by General NiiUMT_INKO, the- J'eteman of
the Kuban Cossacks. There wore also many offers from
Caucasians and Ukrainians, serving under German Command in.
the separate natiinal units, to transfer to the Russian
limy of Liberation. Pormissien to transfer was refused by
the ROSJUMMG National .Committees. The latter, and in some
cases the troops themselves, r6fused to hove anything to do
With what they regarded as a Groat Russian manoeuvre to
keep the non-RuGsian minorities in subjection t. Russi.
In port, at any rate, this reaction was the result of the
policy of encouraging extremist nationalism which 20.377:111G
hod latterly boon pursuing. To the very lnst, members )f
his Ostministorium such as Von 11727, were engaged in trying
to maintain a rival organisation of minorities te that of
KONR and working to prevent unification under VL,,30V.
IOMML-:TI's promise, if he over intended to fulfil it, orovcd
Of little value in the face of Gormen politieal rivalries,
and the hostility of nationalist extremists.
(h) The last days of the-VLSOV
The two divisions of the Liberation law which actually
came into existence saw little military action. The Gsrmens
were anxious to commit them in action at the Odor to stem ?the
RUssian advance. VL.L.30V refused: he had either already
decided that his best plan lay in surrender as a complete
force to the Western :anus, or possibly aid not wish to
cOmmit his troops to action until he had boon given his
promised 25 divisions, - i.e., whet was in his view a
ltirEo enough force t exercise political influence when facing
the Rod army. The story of the VL;iSOV forces in the last
fow months is so confused that it will probably never be
known in detail. One regime, under Colonel sL.KFILaov, went
into action on the Odor against the Red iermy. It conducted
intensive frent line )repaeanda: there were some fifty
deserters to it from the Red 4',rmy. The number is not lerge,
bUt the fact of -.1ed ,',/,my soldiers desertin to VL4.,COV on
German soil n few weeks before the final defeat of Germany
is remarkable enough 'in itself. The tvj., divisons mode
their way into Czechoslovakia. In the last days of the
German occupation of Pratio the First Division under General
BIJNY4.,CEITZTKO turned against the Germans and helped the Czech
rosistance in their fight n(:Anst tho C. Both divisions
surrendered to the limcricrins.
a
/(i) Influence of
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h??
t Ta!7r
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(i) Influence of tho VI.,SOV movement on tho 7Zussian TImif;ration
- Perhaps the most lastinfl effect of HIMMIZIR's-belated
attempt to revive the VI,1,30V movement has been its influence on
the post-war Russian cmie7ration. One of the larco political
parties, CLONR, has grown entirely out of the VI,J30V adherents
and idoolorsy; while oven the NTS' has in the end boon forced -.
by the appeal which the I/L:130V movement holds for the Russian
?mile:ration to support it in retrospect as a patriotic movement.
This fact cannot be ienored in any dealinr7s with those two
parties. It has two unfortunate consequences. One is that while
in the eyes of NTS or'SBONR adherents the VLLSOV movement was a
patriotic Russian m)vement of liberation, only opportunistically
allied -t:) the Germans (which is true enouh) there aro many
inside tho Sovieon t:) whom as the result of 3oviet propa,-;anda
the; name of vLoav is associated with little more thanireason
or banditry. The seconj is that the handinu over 'after the war
of VAA80V end other lenders and adherents to tho 8ovict authorities
by the .aliedenutherities hns c)vcred the latter with Ndium
which it will be difficult .over to eradicate. The ex-Vlasevitos
may work with us or with the Y]mericans. But in their eyes the
alliance will be re[:arded as little loss opportunistic than .
that which they concl.!dee. with the Gormnns. On the other hand,
tholtradition of ROT7a may perhaps some day still erevido a basis
forlbrinr4n about unity between Russians and neti.mal minorities
in the omiration, oven thueh the first experiment on those
lines has net proved a success.
9. E3ummary Concl,usions.
The Germans never attempted to develop a policy tawards
RusSic
durinn the war which hal any chance of attractin[7 the
support of the majority -)17 tho population. Basically this was
becuse any such policy would have been quite inconsistent with
GerMan intontiens of subjueatin[: and in part dostroyinc the
population of the country, and oxploitin ite res:!urces. The
Russian reaction to the German invasien showed that there was
probhbly no onontencous mass defeatism. ror was there any
orucnised internal opnosition mevement in exist ace waitinc for
its opportunity to overthr')w the reeime. But there wore wide-
spread sectins of the civil eneulation, rl.tably anent:, the
intellieentsia, i.e., the technicians and bureaucrats-, who wore
quite ready t jettis-u their re[:ime when its ultimate military
defeat appeared a probability - but only erovided that some
alternative wee offered ti them which wuld eive them an
opportunity to work in the intersts of their country, and in
conditions which orerp their erivileed position. The
latter the ,,T rearded no their natural ripht. rain, there wore
widelsectiens which were ready tH be w_m ever by an aperoach
appropriate te their.acpi:Jetins; tho peasants by the premise
of land, some of the minrity natie,nalitios by n promise of
independence. Lbove all, in thG Rod .:irmy, althouch the first
reaction to the invasi)n of a f Teieen army was in the main
stubborn fic:htin7, there was a lerr;o element which was reedy to
desert. The motives which induced the Red .irmy r2ier t) desert
on allare:c scale woro in part military defeat; end in pert
the hope that by desertinL: to the Germans ho would be r:iven an
opportunity to fie;ht er!ainst tho 3ovicet, rer:ime. Which of the
two Motives prudominnted is impossible te say. But, while
/military defeat
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military defeat Certainly stren7thened any existin will to desert,
hoStility to the Soviet rccime just as certainly olayed n
part in civinn rise to it. This was evident from tho fact-
thft.lt tho will to desert continued even when a Soviet military
viCtory seemed assured. The paradox that those .ed Lrmy
soldiers who had particularly distinr.uished themselves in
fithtin on the Russian EijO often proved the best fihters
on tho German side showed -that, whatever the motive far
deSertion, it was not primarily cowardic,e. Probably tho
SoViet deserter reauired the opportunity to take up arms
acainot his own government b7Yth as moral justification for
deSortion, and to assure himself some hope of pers nal survival
acainst Soviet venceance. But of the fact that the offer of a
chance to "ficht aainst ST.:,LIN" was tho best incentive to would-
bodeserters there is no possibility of doubt. Those con-
clusions omerce from a study of Jdusainn reacti no t-.), the
abortive and somi-c)nspiratorial ejTorts at political warfare
conducted mainly by German elements not fully 1Val to the
Nazi rocimc: and from the reaction to the belated and half-
hearted efforts OC the SS to revive the VL'iSOV movement in the
ladt stars of thu war.
: Conclusions relevant -t-? cmditions today can be drawn
only with caution. Circumstances soldm repeat themselves in
an identical manner. It is important to remember that it is
very probable that the full odium for the Gorman occupation
of IZussin will fall an any TRj or British troops which should PVer
find themselves in oeu2ati,)n of 1.Zth_sinn soil. For one thinc,
S:Tviet propaanda will MCLG every effort ta identify us with
theiGermans (as it does lar:7ely now in its pr.)pand. about MiTO
and l the Bonn j-,zreement). For another, the -2ussian population
hasilittle experience upon which to rely t) diStincuish between
different :lestern nations. The Germans started with a welcome,
and corned odium thron7h their acti)ns. We shall almost
certainly start with odium, and have to urn wolc:)me throwt
ourHacti-ns. Moreover, the 2oviGt nuth)ritios have made
substantial chances in their system of c-)ntrol and in their
political propa7anda, presumably in tho liy:ht of the experience
of thc war. These have as yet n)t been fully studied. However,
in the event of war which brine lliod tro:ype lot conflict
with the iloct Army, curtain infrencus aftpenr justified on what
Yalied policy shTuld be. As in 1941, there ic no rerun to
expect spntaneous moss desertion, or indeed any immcdiate
larce scale defection except as the result of military defeats
on a correspondinc scale to thu.dofeata inflicted. on the
GerMans in 1941. Nevertheless, a correct political campain will
once acain provide an opportunity, (such as the Germans throw
away) to increase desertins t a scale MIcre it be; ins to .
affect enemy military resistance.
The first reouirements will be thG creation fr.)m tho start
of a :ussian Liborati)n 1,rmy under 2ussian command, and under
a IZUssian flaT, as well cr.-3 the sottin7 up of a auseian
National Committee; intensive front line propa-:anda (it is
worth recalliiv that the Germans found leaflets dropped in
quantities of twenty and even forty million at a time. in-
adequate); and El declaration of war aims of a kind to attract
bath the peasants and the intellientsia. In the event of tho
entry of Lllied troops ont) :cussian soil the sot tin; up of a
local 2ussian administration should be the first aim; if
the land cannot for technical reasons be distributed immediately,
concrete promises must be rTiven of the conditions on which the
peasants will acquire land; since the aim must bo primarily
RESTRICTFE
/to win over the
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to win over the intelliontsia many of whom are communist
partY members, any "docommunizotion" policy which does myt
recognise that mombershio of the communist party does not in
apprporiate circumstoncos pr,clude disloyalty t the 3oviot
regiMe will be very unwise. In the CC'IOG of the minority
republics, on immediate oromiac of independence and the
enrolment of national form time w-)uld be essential in the
-
case of the Laltic States, ond possibly in the caso of some
of the natinalities of the Caucasus, .such a Georgia. In
the case of the Ukraine such a policy would undoubtedly be
interpreted as a policy of cripplin:: Russia, and would
in all probability powerfully strorcthen resistance in Russia
as a whole. In general, military on,2: intellience expl-Atation
of minority nationalism sh)u12. as far as Dossiblc avAd'ovort
commitment to .a policy of granting inde-2,unClencc. Horeover
the advantages gained by such exploitation must always be
woijted against the dicadvanta";e that encoura:emont of
separatist m-)vements on a wide scale may have the effcct of
unitin the heart of :ussio r_?.oinst what it will fu is a
ropetitiTn of .:,:0211-,N=G's policy o..r di:-;memberment.
Conclusions relatin;,: tc.-) peace time c-)nditims are
noccgsarily more conjectural. There are h,-YYfevor curtain
important rspocts.in which German exerience in the war affords
a guide to our policy towards Russia in present day caditions.
The imo-, ' .17rnal revolt in the UT3R can only come, if
ot-q.1...2._from_the r.eLlIzLon._ lOOO is masee_ a:.:ainst the
Soviet Union an 77177777-7ill arv 7.4,4nr'Gn and
77.)tontt7-71--ru t I jj ?ie-1.)P th-' .1 -.177x tibi Lr3-2
defeaVer; In v!orcls, the intelli:ent van::, the
hi'77'M,.r-s.t.rille army will only chane over; if at all,
t on7.77-r7crrs17-777=1.7-717.737-7-717.7ricjr,_; ernr-77=7-777777t
of ii7JVC11:7-friti-n-Y717:77-51-Ta1TtiVatT"S-trat
pea5nts-cannot-r:5hnW"n; the nAi:.7d777=7Frtief:: ma b
all lexperionce showa_lalal_tbuy_Lnd 0VD
cop'Cr:Vitt-h-1=757=-7aA2nal,uLL1,:,-..-7121;.howevor violent. Unless,-
thoite'in7R72-771Titaln7ous co-ordinated n2.1,:pillinol??ics.L
andsatoliiTes alonr tpo
conert-ta-rtinItf-i-atd hq...,:-)f little no nuirance value,
in 1042 tria-1943-.77-Oh the other hanfT-777-TITiTTTEETT,olised
trt-ot-bf the V1i6lo 3 uriet system, i.e., not only of ]-2ussia
but of the whole constellati-m, makes the intellientsia,
incluain: the army and part: intellientsia, a particularly
attractive target. If opportunities slauld present themselves
far intelligence operati.= against this target, - whether they
arise in conditions of peac,, or in c,nditions of war - it is
obvious that the prospect of success will depend to a consider-
able extent on the pr-,pa-:-.,,anda preparation which has been made
befOrehand. The fact that wo shall in all probability be
heavily tarred in Russian oyes with the German brush, makes
thejiced for such preparatory prpc.arile even more vital.
So rf,..,r ovart propnga. r:1;7.nly that
nf the US;C, it sticii1d b%!,v(; the funcj.amental twofold aim of
buildingl up the picture of invincible Western strength, solidarity,
and potential; and of conveying the belief that not only
have we no hostile aims against the population of Russia, or
any section of it, but that we are not prepared to compromise
at tts expense with the present regime - (as opponents of the
regtmc inside Russia believe we have so often done in the past)
Only in this way can a sense of solidarity between the outside
world and any opposition which may over form in the ussa be
achieved. It must be admitted that at present the =ZS Russian
/service is
A ,i'-,0914.1TcP
4'1.4 ?;
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service is singularly unsuccessful in these aims. Moreover,
it is doubtful whether with its preent compositim it can over
be expected to achieve them, - at any rate, without fixed
political warfare directives of a kind which were used for the
German Service during the war. The importance of broadcastng
to Russia is cardinal, not because of its effect on the masses
(though there is some basis for the view that propaganda can
prove more effective in influencl.n ootentialdefeators than
actual oz)ertticns desY,,, to induce individuals to defect).
It: is important because some of those whom We should
pOticularly seek to win over, i.e. the members of the
have greater opportunity of listening, and
aro in many instances bound to -listen to or road monitored -
reports for the purpose of their duties. Howcgor, since
there are a number of things which cannot be said in overt
propaganda, the assault on the intelligentsia cannot be
made effectively without some medium of covert propaganda,
or: at any rate some medium, such as a controlled omigr6
group, which can if necessary be officially disavowed-. The
theme of such covert propaanda should complement the overt
prepagnnda: that Western military strength is defensive and
not aggressive, and has therefore no quarrel with the Russian
people or Russian interests; that nonetheless dictators such
asSTALIN-are, like HITLER, always liable to start wars-in
order to preserve their own unpopular regimes; that in such
an! event the first aim inside Russia must be the overthrow
of: the regime; and that in any case they can :prevent war from
arising by overthrowing their regime before it starts. The
vielent reaction of VYSHINSKY, much publicised in Russia, to
the recent US appropriations for aid to Eastern refugees
reveals that the rulers of the USSR are still as sensitive to
any political warfare move against their regime as they
preyed in 1943 when the VLASOV movement seemed to them to be
gathering force. To the argument that they will react to
political warfare by military action it may with truth be
rejoined that they are more likely to interpret absence of
effective political warfare by the West as a sign of weakness,
inviting a "Blitzkrieg".
,
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Appendix.
..5)- 0 TT t C E S.
A. ?,0.11r own studios and records.
1. A number of papers proparcd by DRS at the request
of JIC on "The Use by the Germans of Soviet Notionals
against the Soviet Union in the Late War".
JIC(Germany)(49)100: "The Scale of Russian
Desertion in the. Bate Wor".
3. Four papers, circulated in 1950, which contain the.
results of special investi7Itions in Germany under-
taken by us:-
5.
"The 1JL-',30V Movement
"The Motives behind
Movement.
"VLASOVTSI and other
in the period of the
subsequent doliverio
(d) "War or Revolution?"
Miscellaneous interrogation n:ports of Germans and
of Russian defectors.
1940 - 1945"
the Formation f the VL;130V
enti-Communist Russians
German collapse, end the
s to the Soviet Union".
Contemporary intelligence reports on disloyalty in
the Red Army, and on the VI,j?30V movement.
B. US Studios (unpublished end/or restricted).
?1. "The VLASSOV Movement" - by CiiiNCIL',VAIDZ71, Juno 1950.
-2. "Experiences with -Russian Volunteers in the fight
against Bolshevism" - by General KoTmar.ffG, with a
commentary by an anonymous member of the, Control
Administration for occupied territories (undated).
3. "German Psycholou,icol Warfare n7,ainst Russia" -
based on materials from the files of the Wehrmacht
'Propaganda Abteilun:: - by Genevieve C. Collins, prepared
for the 07)orations Research office at John Hopkins
University, WEshinr:ton. -6th February 1950.
L. "Planning for the =active Use of Soviet Prisoners
of War" - (State Doportment: undated).
/5. "Russian
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"Russian anti-communist forces in the German war" -
2nd February 1949 (Based entirely on captured German
documents).
6. George FISCH-DR: "Russian Defection", November 1950.
"Psychology of the Russian People durin;,: the time
of the War" - undated, by an anonymous emir;ro.
C. German Documents.
. I. Weekly reports of Chief of Security Police on
occupied uasR from 3rd July 1942 to 21st May 1943.
2. ROSDNDDRG correspondence recardin administration
of Russia: 1st April 1941 to 31st May 1941.
! 3. Repport by HITIML72 on the VLA30V Movement of
22nd May 19113, with several annexes.
4. ReDrt by Chief of Security Police on Guerrilla
'Lands and Resistance Movements in the Soviet
Union 1943 - 1944 (dated 12th May 1944).
5. Report by Prowl? Heere Ost on desertions from the
Red Army (undated, but apparently late 1944 or
early 1945).
6. Miscellane:Jus materials e-latainin security services'
information on penetrtin of the V.L.,MV m;)vement.
. Miscellaneous
movements in
- 8. Interrtion
officers (end
Lieut-General
mr.tcrial on resistance and f:uurrilla
occu)i(cl Russia. ?
of captured senior Rod Army
of 190 -an.7. early 1941) includinc
LUKIN.
9. Niscellaneus matorials on policy t-)wards 3nd
experience with :the national minrities.
.D. d-bassian Documents.
1. Interrogation ,::,f al captured RussL.n ;)artisan lender
by an officer of the VLA60V movement in 1943.
2. Miscellaneous reports, )ro:-_:rammes, articles, and
memoirs rolntiflc to the work -f the Dabendorf
Propa:ianda Contre in 1943 - 1944.
/3. Mj pers)nal
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3. MS personal diary of a Russian (non-party)
intellectual coverinr: the whole period of the German
occupation of Kiev.
4. Colloctin of miscellaneous documents on Soviet
propar;anda directed against the VLI130V movement during
1943.
E. Oral materials.
Roports of extensive discussilns with en:, quoationin:;
of Germans connected with the Vhz,50V movement
STRIK-STRIKPELDT) and of various RtiLcians now in exile
formerly connected with the VL,30V movement.
(Note:- This material, to::cther with items listed under
L.3., has!becn of the most value in throwinL-: new
on cort-in aspects).
Published Materials.
1. Two articles by th.. Menshevik D. NIKOL,',EVSKY,
published in 1948 in New Y.,rk.
2. The report of a meeting between HITLIIR and his
Chiefs of Staff on 8th June 1943, published in the
Journal of Modorn Histry for March 1951.
_ . . . _ _ _
3.
D. DVINOV, "The Vli.LiOV Movement", 1949. (in Ru7:sian.-
very.prejudiced and inaccurate).
. 4. E.11. DWING=9 General gLIISSOW 1941. (largely
fictional).
5. P. KLEIST, Zwischen ST,LIN und HITLT2, 1950.
6. The full report and collection of documents used
in evidence at the Nurember Trial (The 13aue Series).
7. Numerous articles published in the emicre press
since 1946.
8. Press and wireless reports of 1941 - 1945, Russian
and German.
94 i., number of post-war Soviet publications, especially
partisan memoirs.
/G. Forthcoming
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A(
G. orthcomi;r publications.
. i larger work than the one listed under B.6. on
Soviet defection by George FISCHER, which is due for
publication shortly.
E2. work on the VLLSOV movement by the Gorman military
journalist THOMII.LD is expected to be published .in
the summer and is believed to be based on German
documents which have escaped the net and remained
in Germany.
3. The memoirs of HILGER covering the period of the war
are shortly duo for publicntion in US', and may be
valuable on the official German attitude to the
VLLSOV movement.
H. laterials known to efist which have not been exolored
)2T Us,
Extensive holdings of captured German document in
the USJ. These include the voluminous records of
the departments, civil and military, responsible for
the occupation of Russia; numerous interrogation
reports of deserters; records of the propcf:mda
departments; and other miscellaneous records which
have a direct hearing on the question of Soviet morale
during the war. ,
2. Some materials in .private possession in Germany
mainly on the propagnndo re-indoctrinatin work
at Dabendorf. These are believed t include files
of the two main newspapers produced by the VIL:.SOV
propacanda department.
r'e
?
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