| Unit Name: | Russian Liberation Army |
| Dates: | 1943 (as Osttruppen) / 1944 (officially) – 1945 |
| Allegiance: | (until January 1945) Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (since November 1944) |
| Type: | Infantry Air force |
| Size: | 125,000 troops (1945) |
| Notable Commanders: | Andrey Vlasov (since January 1945) Sergei Bunyachenko Mikhail Meandrov |
| Identification Symbol Label: | Badge |
| Identification Symbol 2 Label: | Flags of the KONR and ROA |
| Nickname: | Vlasovites ("Vlasovtsy") |
| March: | We Are Marching in Wide Fields |
| Battles: | World War II |
The Russian Liberation Army (German: Russische Befreiungsarmee; Russian: Русская освободительная армия, Russian: Russkaya osvoboditel'naya armiya, abbreviated as Russian: РОА, Russian: ROA, also known as the Vlasov army (Russian: Власовская армия, Russian: Vlasovskaya armiya) was a collaborationist formation, primarily composed of Russians, that fought under German command during World War II. Since January 1945, the army was led by Andrey Vlasov, a Red Army general who had defected, and members of the army are often referred to as Vlasovtsy (Russian: Власовцы). In 1944, it became known as the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Russian: Вооружённые силы Комитета освобождения народов России, Russian: Vooruzhonnyye sily Komiteta osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii, abbreviated as Russian: ВС КОНР, Russian: VS KONR).[1]
Vlasov agreed to collaborate with Nazi Germany after having been captured on the Eastern Front. The soldiers of the ROA command were mostly former Soviet prisoners of war but also included White Russian émigrés, some of whom were veterans of the anti-communist White Army from the Russian Civil War (1917–23). The ROA esisted only in Nazi propaganda until November 1944, while the Osttruppen referred to as "ROA" by the Nazi propaganda served directly under German command and were not formalized as separate units, while the image of Vlasov was a mere propaganda weapon. On 14 November 1944, it was officially formed as the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, with the KONR being formed as a political body to which the army pledged loyalty. On 28 January 1945, it was officially declared that the Russian divisions no longer form part of the German Army, but would directly be under the command of KONR, and Vlasov became the commander in chief of the ROA.
While for the Nazis the ROA was a propaganda weapon, the Russian defectors and collaborators behind the enterprise attempted to present a democratic political program while avoiding the Nazi antisemitism and chauvinism and form a political movement independent of the Nazi control. In May 1945, the 1st divison of the ROA, while being the only completed division of the existing three, switched sides and joined the anti-Nazi Prague uprising.
These volunteers (called Hiwi, a compression of Hilfswilliger, which can be translated as "those willing to help") were not under any Russian command or control; they were exclusively under German command carrying out various non-combat duties. A number of them were employed at the Battle of Stalingrad, where it was estimated that as much as one quarter of the 6th Army's strength was USSR citizens. Soon, several German commanders began to use them in small armed units for various tasks, including combat against Soviet partisans, driving vehicles, carrying wounded, and delivering supplies.[2]
As a result, some Red Army soldiers surrendered or defected in hopes of joining an army that did not exist. Many Soviet prisoners of war volunteered to serve under German command just to get out of Nazi POW camps, which were notorious for starving Soviet prisoners to death.[3]
Meanwhile, the newly captured Soviet general Vlasov, along with his German and Russian allies, was desperately lobbying the German high command, hoping that the green light would be given for the formation of a real armed force that would be exclusively under Russian control. They were able to win over only Alfred Rosenberg to some extent.[3]
Although Hitler's staff repeatedly refused to even consider the idea, Vlasov and his allies reasoned that Hitler would eventually come to realize the futility of a war against the USSR without winning over the Russian people, and respond to Vlasov's demands.[3]
Irrespective of the political wrangling over Vlasov and the status of the ROA, by mid-1943 several hundred thousand ex-Soviet volunteers were serving in the German forces, either as Hiwis or in Eastern volunteer units (referred to as Osteinheiten ("Eastern units") or landeseigene Verbände). These latter were generally deployed in a security role at the rear of the armies and army groups in the East, where they constituted a major part of the German effort to counter the activity of Soviet partisan forces, dating as far back as early 1942. The Germans were, however, always concerned about their reliability.
Following the German defeats in the summer of 1943 the units began to disintegrate. On 12 September for example, 2nd Army had to withdraw Sturm-Btl. AOK 2 in order to deal with what was described as "several mutinies and desertions of Eastern units". A 14 September communication from the army states that in the recent period, Hiwi absenteeism had risen considerably.[4] Following a series of attempted or successful mutinies, and a surge in desertions,[5] the Germans decided in September 1943 that the reliability of the units had fallen to a level where they were more a liability than an asset. In an October 1943 report, the 8th Army concluded grimly: "All local volunteers are unreliable during enemy contact. Principal reason of unreliability is the employment of these volunteers in the East."[6] Two days previously, the German army had given permission to the KTB to take harsh measures in the event of further cases of rebellion or unreliability, investing regimental commanders with far-reaching powers to hold summary courts and execute the verdicts.
Since it was felt that the reliability of Russian volunteers would improve if they were removed from contact with the local population, it was decided to send them to the Western Front,[7] and the majority of them were re-deployed in late 1943 or early 1944.[8]
Many of these battalions were integrated into the divisions in the West. A number of the Russian soldiers were on guard in Normandy on D-Day but, without the equipment or motivation to fight the Allies, most promptly surrendered.
A total of 71 "Eastern" battalions served on the Eastern Front, while 42 battalions served in Belgium, Finland, France, and Italy.[9]
The Russian Liberation Army Air Arm was disbanded in July 1944 before seeing combat.
Robert Conquest wrote that Vlasov's " program shows that he was entirely out of sympathy with Nazism, and only concerned with a democratic Russia."[10] Ideologically, the Vlasov movement was between the Russian nationalism of the NTS, as its ideologues surrounded Vlasov with the support of the Nazis, and the other POWs which held to more social democratic views;[11] some of Vlasov's close associates like described themselves as Marxists, Zykov was also described as a Bukharinist. Despite being captured by the Nazi secret police and killed, ostensibly for his Jewish origins and for his views, before the formation of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia and the creation of its Manifesto, the political organization of the Vlasovites, Zykov was a major ideologue of the Vlasov army and participated in writing of the other Vlasovite program documents. The Vlasovites opposed their programs, the Smolensk Declaration, Vlasov's open letter "Why I Decided to Fight against Bolshevism", the Prague Manifesto of the KONR and Bloknot Propagandista (an important document which was written by rather minor members of the KONR as open for discussion and was not recognized as an official program), both to the Western capitalism and Stalinism, which was called by the word "Bolshevism" and described in the Manifesto not as socialism, but as "state capitalism", and proclaimed their devotion to "completing the Revolution" of 1917 without distinguishing the February Revolution and the October Revolution, and to ideals of either a "Russia without Bolsheviks and Capitalists" (Smolensk Declaration and the open letter), or a welfare state (Bloknot Propagandista); the influence of the NTS on the Manifesto is seen in the description of the future system of Russia as a "national-labour" system, some of Vlasov's chief commanders joined the NTS. All of these documents granted the basic democratic freedoms and rights, including the right of the nations to self-determination and to separate from Russia and did not contain antisemitic remarks and invectives; Bloknot Propagandista also contained an attempt in critique of Marxism and denied both internationalism and national chauvinism. However, antisemitic remarks were made in one of the speeches of Vasily Malyshkin and in and in Georgi Zhilenkov's interview to the Völkischer Beobachter; Vlasov was critical of such remarks and replied to the Nazi concerns that "the Jewish question" "was an internal Russian problem and would be dealt with after they [the ROA] had accomplished the primary aim of overthrowing the existing regime"; however, antisemitism frequently appeared in the pro-Vlasov Nazi and collaborationist newspapers, including the ones edited by Zykov, often in form of articles reprinted from the Völkischer Beobachter with the citation of the source. The program documents were also written as a compromise with Nazism to various extents: the Smolensk declaration included some pro-Nazi points ("Germany was not fighting the war against the Russian people and their homeland but merely against Bolshevism"), and the Manifesto included a number of criticims of the Western Allies as a compromise with Himmler's insistence to add antisemitic points.[12]
The Nazis were suspicious of Vlasov, his organisation and his ideological position, and the Gestapo warned about the possibility of the Vlasovites betraying the Reich. The suspicions and criticism of the Vlasovites from the Reich officials was summarised in a document by the Ministry of Propaganda official Eberhard Taubert who described his concerns about the movement being "not National Socialist": "It is significant that it does not fight Jewry, that the Jewish Question is not recognized as such at all"; instead it presented "a watered-down infusion of liberal and Bolshevik ideologies", and Taubert described the concern with "strong Anglophile sympathies" and it "toying with the idea of a possible change of course" while not "feel[ing] bound to Germany".[13] [14] [15]
The ROA did not officially exist until autumn of 1944, after Heinrich Himmler persuaded a very reluctant Hitler to permit the formation of 10 Russian Liberation Army divisions.
On 14 November in Prague, Vlasov read aloud the Prague Manifesto before the newly created Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. This document stated the purposes of the battle against Stalin, and spelled out 14 points which the army was fighting for. German insistence that the document carry anti-Semitic rhetoric was successfully parried by Vlasov's committee, but they were obliged to include a statement criticising the Western Allies, labelling them "plutocracies" that were "allies of Stalin in his conquest of Europe".
By February 1945, only one division, the 1st Infantry (600th Infantry), was fully organised, under the command of General Sergei Bunyachenko. Formed at Münsingen, it fought briefly on the Oder Front before switching sides and helping the Czechs liberate Prague.
A second division, the 2nd Infantry (650th Infantry), was incomplete when it left Lager Heuberg but was sent into action under the command of General Mikhail Meandrov. This division was joined in large numbers by eastern workers, which caused it to nearly double in size as it marched south. A third, the 3rd Infantry (700th German Infantry), had only begun formation.
Several other Russian units, such as the Russian Corps, XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps of General Helmuth von Pannwitz, the Cossack Camp of Ataman Domanov, and other primarily White émigré formations, had agreed to become a part of Vlasov's army. However, their membership remained de jure as the turn of events did not permit Vlasov to use the troops in any operation (even reliable communications were often impossible).
A small group of ROA volunteers fought against the Red Army on 9 February 1945. Their fighting spirit earned them the praise of Heinrich Himmler.[16] The only active combat the Russian Liberation Army undertook against the Red Army was by the Oder River on 11 April 1945, largely at the insistence of Himmler, as a test of the army's reliability. After three days, the outnumbered 1st Division had to retreat.
On 28 January 1945, it was officially declared that the Russian divisions no longer formed part of the German Army, but would be directly under the command of KONR.[17]
Vlasov then ordered the first division to march south to concentrate all Russian anti-communist forces loyal to him. As an army, he reasoned, they could all surrender to the Allies on "favorable" terms, which particularly meant no repatriation to the Soviet Union. Vlasov sent several secret delegations to the Allies to begin negotiating a surrender, hoping they would sympathise with the goals of ROA and potentially use it in an inevitable future war with the USSR.
During the march south, the first division of the ROA came to the help of the Czech partisans in the Prague uprising against the German occupation, which started on May 5, 1945. Vlasov was initially reluctant to agree to that move, but ultimately did not resist General Bunyachenko's decision to fight against the Germans.[18]
The first division engaged in battle with Waffen-SS units that had been sent to level the city. The ROA units, armed with heavy weaponry, fended off the relentless SS assault, and together with the Czech insurgents succeeded in preserving most of Prague from destruction.[19] Due to the predominance of communists in the new Czech Rada ("council"), the first division had to leave the city the very next day and tried to surrender to US Third Army of General Patton. The Allies, however, were not interested in aiding or sheltering the ROA, fearing such aid would harm relations with the USSR.[9]
More than a thousand soldiers were initially taken into Allied custody by the 44th Infantry Division and other U.S. troops. In a move that Allied command kept secret for many years, they were then forcefully handed over to the Soviets by the Allies, due to a previous agreement between Churchill and Stalin that all ROA soldiers would be returned to the USSR. Some Allied officers who were sympathetic to the ROA soldiers permitted them to escape in small groups into the American-controlled zones.
The Soviet government labelled all ROA soldiers (vlasovtsy) as traitors, and those who were repatriated were tried and sentenced to detention in prison camps. Vlasov and several other leaders of the ROA were tried and hanged in Moscow on August 1, 1946.[20]
The composition of the VS-KONR was as follows:[17] [16]
| Included members of the disbanded Kaminsky Brigade. Had a total of around 20,000 men. | |||
| Not fully armed or prepared, had 11,856 men. | |||
| 700th (Russian) Infantry Division 3rd Division of the KONR | Did not finish forming, had about 10,000 unarmed men. |
Air elements
I. Ostfliegerstaffel (russische) (1st Eastern Squadron-Russian) (1943–1944)
II. Störkampfstaffel (Night Harassment Squadron) 8 (1945)
KONR Air Force
Two ace pilots of the Soviet Air Force, Semyon Trofimovich Bychkov and, defected and became part of the ROA air force, which was commanded by Major General . The air force was disbanded in July 1944.
| Insignia | Rank | Translisteration | Comparative rank in the Army | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collar | Shoulder | |||
| Генерал | General | General der Waffengattung | ||
| Генерал-лейтенант | General-leytenant | Generalleutnant | ||
| Генерал-майор | General-mayor | Generalmajor | ||
| Полковник | Polkovnik | Oberst | ||
| Подполковник | Podpolkovnik | Oberstleutnant | ||
| Майор | Mayor | Major | ||
| Капитан | Kapitan | Hauptmann | ||
| Поручик | Poruchik | Oberleutnant | ||
| Подпоручик | Podporuchik | Leutnant | ||
| Фельдфебель | Fel'dfebel' | Feldwebel | ||
| Унтер-офицер | Unter-ofitser | Unteroffizier | ||
| Ефрейтор | Yefreytor | Gefreiter | ||
| Солдат | Soldat | Soldat | ||
| Source: | [21] | |||