Who were the “heroes” of the ROA and other national formations of the Wehrmacht and what did they fight for? A million under the tricolor flag, or how many Russians fought for Hitler

Vladimir Batshev, a former Soviet dissident, lives in Frankfurt am Main, where he publishes two literary magazines: the monthly Literary European and the quarterly Bridges. In parallel with this, he studies the history and fate of Russian soldiers who, for one reason or another, during the Second World War found themselves on the other side of the front and took up arms to fight against Soviet Russia. His monumental four-volume work “Vlasov” is about this. Today Vladimir Batshev answers questions from the Russian Voice of America service.

Semyon Reznik: Volodya, your book is called “Vlasov,” but its content goes far beyond the scope of the biography of General Vlasov and his army. In general, I must say that since childhood I have become accustomed to the fact that all the traitors, traitors, and collaborators during the Second World War were Vlasovites, that is, they were all from the army of General Vlasov. The most unexpected thing I learned from your book is that, in fact, Vlasov’s army was relatively small compared to the total number of Russians who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht. I would like to start our conversation with statistics. What was the size of Vlasov’s army? And what was the number of Russians who fought on that side of the front?

Vladimir Batshev: Vlasov’s army really wasn’t very large. His two divisions, which had already been formed, represented no more than 40 thousand fighters. Plus he had a poorly armed and not yet fully formed third division. This is also about 10-12 thousand fighters. Adjoining Vlasov was the Cossack corps of General Helmut von Panivitz, which became part of the ROA. These are 45 thousand Cossacks who fought in Yugoslavia. It included the Russian corps, formed from emigrants, who fought in Serbia: about six thousand people. And a few more Cossack units, the Kalmyk corps and others. In total there are about 120 thousand people. This is what we can call ROA - Russian Liberation Army.

S.R.: So, in fact, this is exactly what the Vlasovites were?

V.B.: These were the same Vlasovites who wore a chevron with the St. Andrew’s flag on their sleeves, black and blue on a red background. Famous icon.

S.R.: How many Russians fought on that side?

V.B.: Until the forty-third year, the Germans did not have records. And as of 1943 - 800 thousand. Considering that many died in the battles (and the Russians were used on the front lines: the Germans knew that the Russians had nothing to lose, they would fight to the end), we can assume that in total there were approximately one million two hundred to one million three hundred thousand people. In 1943, when Hitler demanded that all Russians be removed from the Eastern Front and transferred to the Western Front, the generals grabbed their heads: this was impossible, because every fifth person on the Eastern Front was then Russian.

S.R.: I know that you originally conceived the book “Vlasov” in three volumes. But then a fourth volume was needed. For what?

V.B.: Firstly, the part concerning the role of the NKVD as the organizer of the so-called “ partisan movement" Secondly, the role of occupation had to be reconsidered. I come to the conclusion that the occupation was a blessing for the occupied territories. Of course, as we talked to you last time, this cannot be said about Jews and Gypsies, who were exterminated without exception, and this does not apply to prisoners of war.

S.R.: Wait, was the occupation a good thing for the rest of the population? In what sense does this mean?

V.B.: The occupiers came, but at the same time the liberators. They returned what the people had been deprived of for twenty-five years: freedom of trade, freedom of speech, freedom of religion...

S.R.: Do you think that the Germans brought this to the territories liberated from Stalinist totalitarianism? That such things as freedom of religion and freedom of speech appeared on the bayonets of the German troops there? This seems strange to me...

V.B.: Certainly! Certainly! Nowhere were so many newspapers published as in the occupied territory. Six newspapers and two magazines were published in Odessa!

S.R.: But the point is not in quantity, but in what was written in them. Was it possible to criticize Hitler there? Germany?

V.B.: Germany was not allowed. It was impossible. But Stalin, the communist order - please talk about everything that people have experienced over twenty-five years... For a historian, these newspapers of the occupied territories are simply a treasure.

S.R.: Well, I think that here we will not agree. Of course, under the German occupation it was possible to scold and criticize and write terrible things about the Stalinist regime, but not about Hitler’s!

V.B.: Absolutely right. Absolutely right.

S.R.: I won’t call it freedom of speech.

V.B.: You know, compared to what the people were deprived of for twenty-five years, it was still some kind of freedom.

S.R.: No, we won’t agree on this. Let's move on to another one. What interested me most in the last volume of your book is what happened after the Victory, when the Soviet army, together with the allied army, defeated this terrible force– German militarism, the Wehrmacht, Hitler, Nazism – and came to Europe. What happened to these people, who were called “Vlasovites” in Russia. Some of them were Vlasovites, some were not, but they fought on the other side and, naturally, had to bear responsibility for this.

V.B.: First, what does it mean to be responsible? Why weren't German soldiers held accountable if they fell into Allied hands?! They were in prison camps - that's all. True, when they fell into Soviet hands, they received the standard five to ten years, they were sent to Siberia for restoration national economy.

And the Russians who fell into the hands of the allies were treated very vilely. They were promised that they would not be handed over to the Soviets, but according to the Yalta Agreement, everyone who was a citizen of the USSR on September 1, 1939 was subject to return. And those who were in military uniform on June 22 should all the more have been returned - to the hands of SMERSH. And they had a very sad fate. Most of the officers were shot immediately. The privates were sent to camps. The British and Americans, especially the British, gave them away. They handed over the Cossacks...

S.R.: Handed over to the Soviet side! Against their will!

V.B.: Yes! Soviet side! They deceived them. They said that the officers would go to the conference. And they really thought that they were being invited to some kind of conference to discuss the situation with the Cossacks. And they were transported there from Spital to a place called Judenburg, and right on the bridge they were handed over to the advisers... And there were mass suicides of Cossacks there. There is a monument there. This year I will go there. There will be a meeting of the last remaining people who survived this.

S.R.: Very few survived.

V.B.: Very few.

S.R.: How many people were extradited?

V.B.: Total number There were three million people repatriated. This is three million people who were returned to Russia.

S.R.: Yes, but many of them probably returned voluntarily? Especially those who belonged to the civilian population?

V.B.: Part - yes. But for the most part, people who even looked at destroyed Europe had little desire to return. And there were about 80-100 thousand people who belonged to armed groups.

S.R.: Were they also issued?

V.B.: Yes, they were issued.

S.R.: And their fate, of course, was the hardest, the saddest?

V.B.: Of these, less than a thousand survived Stalin, and in 1955, when there was an amnesty, they were released.

S.R.: Did the others die?

V.B.: Yes. In 1955, Adenauer arrived to establish diplomatic relations (before that there were no diplomatic relations between the USSR and West Germany)...

S.R.: Yes, I remember this visit of Adenauer to Moscow, and the then agreement on the repatriation of all German prisoners of war...

V.B.: Citizen! I emphasize – citizens of Germany! And those Russians who managed to obtain German citizenship during the war also fell under this.

S.R.: This is a very interesting detail. Does this mean that those Russians who received German citizenship during the war were subject to this agreement and were also repatriated?

V.B.: Yes. And captured Russian emigrants who were citizens of other countries.

S.R.: Thank you, Vladimir Batshev. I must congratulate you on the completion of such a grandiose work. These are four very thick, solid volumes with a large number documents, photographs, certificates. We may not agree with some of your assessments. It is impossible to disagree with your other assessments, since they are strictly based on the materials. Overall, this is an important work that will remain in history, in literature, because everyone who is interested in the Second World War will have to turn to it.

High command and officer corps of the ROA. Separation of ROA

On January 28, 1945, after the completion of the preparatory work that had been in full swing since September 1944, the existence of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, united under the name of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), became a reality. On this day, Hitler appointed Vlasov commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces and gave him command of all Russian formations, both newly formed and those resulting from regroupings. Since 28 January 1945, the Germans considered the ROA to be the armed forces of an Allied power, temporarily subordinate operationally to the Wehrmacht. By Order No. 1 of the same date, Major General F.I. Trukhin was appointed chief of staff and permanent deputy commander-in-chief. It is unlikely that General Vlasov could have found a more successful candidate for this post. Coming from a noble-landowner family, a former student at St. Petersburg University, a former tsarist officer, Trukhin in the 30s taught “tactics of higher formations” at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army and, according to Major General P. Grigorenko, was, except for the military theorist G.S. Isserson, the only “extraordinary personality in the Academy.” The war found Trukhin in the post of chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the Baltic Special Military District (North-Western Front). A talented man with deep military knowledge, a strong character and impressive appearance, Trukhin belonged to the brightest representatives and true leaders of the Liberation Movement. His deputy, Colonel, and then Major General V.I. Boyarsky, a descendant of the Ukrainian Prince Gamaliya, former adjutant to Marshal of the Soviet Union M.N. Tukhachevsky, a graduate of the Frunze Military Academy, was also an outstanding personality. He was captured by the Germans while being the commander of the 41st rifle division. Colonel von Henning, who was involved in volunteer formations, described Boyarsky in 1943 as “an exceptionally intelligent, resourceful, well-read soldier and politician who has seen a lot in the world.” From the very beginning, Boyarsky's position was characterized by independence and open opposition to the Germans, whom he treated as an equal and demanding enemy. This position was so obvious that in July 1943, Field Marshal Bush removed Boyarsky from his post as “staff officer for training and leadership of eastern troops” under the 16th Army. The adjutant of the so-called leadership group of the army headquarters was Lieutenant A. I. Romashkin, the head of the chancellery was Major S. A. Sheiko, and the translator was Lieutenant A. A. Kubekov. In fact, the “high command of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” (or, in other words, “the headquarters of the KONR Armed Forces”) performed the functions of the War Ministry.

An idea of ​​the tasks of the headquarters is given by its organization as of the end of February 1945.

1. Operations department.

Head of the department: Colonel A. G. Neryanin. Born in 1904 in working family, graduated with honors from the Frunze Military Academy and the General Staff Academy. The Chief of the General Staff, Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov called Neryanin “one of our most brilliant army officers.” While serving in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), he was the head of the operational department of the headquarters of the troops of the Ural Military District. He was captured in November 1941 in the Rzhev-Vyazma region, being the head of the operational department of the 20th Army headquarters.

Deputy head of department: Lieutenant Colonel Korovin. Heads of subdepartments: Lieutenant Colonels V.F. Ril and V.E. Mikhelson.

2. Intelligence department.

Head of the department: Major I. M. Grachev. Head of counterintelligence: Major A.F. Chikalov.

3. Communications department.

Head of the department: Lieutenant Colonel V. D. Korbukov.

4. Department of military communications.

Head of the department: Major G. M. Kremenetsky.

5. Topographic department.

Head of the department: Lieutenant Colonel G. Vasiliev.

6. Encryption department.

Head of the department: Major A. E. Polyakov. Deputy: Lieutenant Colonel I.P. Pavlov.

7. Formations department.

Head of the department: Colonel I. D. Denisov. Deputy: Major M. B. Nikiforov. Heads of subdepartments: captains G. A. Fedoseev, V. F. Demidov, S. T. Kozlov, Major G. G. Sviridenko.

8. Combat training department.

Head of the department: Major General V. Assberg (aka Artsezov or Asbjargas) - Armenian, originally from Baku, graduated military school in Astrakhan, in 1942 he was a colonel, commanded tank troops one of the armies. Although he managed to lead his troops out of encirclement near Taganrog, he was sentenced to death, but then again thrown into battle and this time captured.

Deputy head of department: Colonel A. N. Tavantsev. Head of the 1st subsection (training): Colonel F. E. Cherny.

Head of the 2nd subsection (military schools): Colonel A. A. Denisenko.

Head of the 3rd subsection (charter): Lieutenant Colonel A. G. Moskvichev.

9. Command department.

Head of the department: Colonel V.V. Pozdnyakov. Born in 1901 in St. Petersburg, in 1919 he joined the Red Army, after appropriate training he was the head of the chemical service (nachkhim) of various military schools, regiments and divisions. In 1937 he was arrested and tortured. In 1941, near Vyazma, he was captured as the head of the chemical service of the 67th Rifle Corps. Deputy: Major V.I. Strelnikov. Head of the 1st subsection (General Staff officers): Captain Ya. A. Kalinin.

Head of the 2nd subsection (infantry): Major A.P. Demsky. Head of the 3rd subsection (cavalry): senior lieutenant N.V. Vashchenko.

Head of the 4th subsection (artillery): Lieutenant Colonel M. I. Pankevich.

Head of the 5th subsection (tank and engineering troops): Captain A. G. Kornilov.

Head of the 6th subsection (administrative, economic and military sanitary services): Major V.I. Panayot.

10. Propaganda department.

Head of the department: Colonel (then Major General) M. A. Meandrov. Born in Moscow in 1894 in the family of a priest. My father, a priest of the Church of St. Chariton in Moscow, was expelled in 1932 and died in exile. Meandrov graduated from the Alekseevsky Infantry School in Moscow in 1913, before the war he taught tactics at the Kremlin Infantry School, until July 25, 1941, the chief of staff of the 37th Rifle Corps, then deputy chief of staff and chief of operations department b-th army. He was captured in the Uman region. Deputy: Major M.V. Egorov.

Inspector of propaganda in the troops: Captain M. P. Pokhvalensky.

Inspector of propaganda among volunteers in Wehrmacht formations: Captain A.P. Sopchenko.

The song and dance ensemble, as well as a military orchestra, were subordinate to the propaganda department.

11. Military legal department.

Head of the department: Major E. I. Arbenin.

12. Financial department.

Head of the department: Captain A.F. Petrov.

13. Department of armored forces.

Head of the department: Colonel G.I. Antonov. Born in 1898 into a peasant family in the Tula province. He was captured as a colonel, commander of the tank forces of one of the armies. Deputy: Colonel L.N. Popov.

14. Artillery department.

Head of the department: Major General M.V. Bogdanov (in the Red Army he was a major general, division commander). Deputy: Colonel N.A. Sergeev. Combat training inspector: Colonel V. A. Kardakov. Artillery Inspector: Colonel A. S. Perchurov. Inspector for combat weapons: Lieutenant Colonel N. S. Shatov.

15. Department of material and technical supply.

Head of the department: Major General A. N. Sevastyanov (in the Red Army he was a brigade commander).

Commander of the Logistics Service: Colonel G.V. Sachs.

Food supply inspector: Major P.F. Zelepugin.

Quartering inspector: Captain A.I. Putilin.

16. Engineering department.

Head of department: Colonel (surname unknown). Deputy: Colonel S.N. Golikov.

17. Sanitary department.

Head of the department: Colonel Professor V.N. Novikov. Deputy: Captain A.R. Trushnovich.

18. Veterinary department.

Head of the department: Lieutenant Colonel A. M. Saraev. Deputy: Captain V.N. Zhukov.

19. Protopresbyter.

Archpriest D. Konstantinov. Confessor of the army headquarters: Archpriest A. Kiselev.

Although the army headquarters was not yet fully staffed at the beginning of March 1945, it contained as many officers as the entire Reichswehr Ministry in 1920. The administrative and economic department under the command of Captain P. Shishkevich, as well as the economic company under the command of Senior Lieutenant N.A. Sharko, was subordinate to the commandant of the headquarters, Major Khitrov. The security of the senior command staff, KONR and army headquarters was entrusted to a security battalion under the command of Major N. Begletsov. The head of security, Captain M.V. Kashtanov, was responsible for Vlasov’s personal safety. In addition, the headquarters was assigned an officer reserve camp under the command of Lieutenant Colonel M.K. Meleshkevich with an officer battalion (commander M.M. Golenko). At the direct disposal of the headquarters were also a separate construction battalion (commanded by engineer-captain A.P. Budny), a special-purpose battalion of the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, as well as the so-called auxiliary troops. These troops, formed from special personnel and workers transferred from technical units, under the command of Colonel Yaroput, at Vlasov’s personal request received military status, although at first they were intended to be attached directly to KONR for technical maintenance. The chief of staff of the auxiliary troops was first Lieutenant Colonel K.I. Popov, and just before the end of the war, Colonel G.I. Antonov.

Almost all of the army staff officers listed here were previously generals, colonels and staff officers of the Red Army. This alone makes clear the groundlessness of the later Soviet assertion that senior Soviet officers refused to join the ROA and therefore some nameless traitors were appointed as officers. Meanwhile, back in 1944, circles of national minorities hostile to Vlasov complained to the Eastern Ministry that former Soviet generals and colonels, people who once belonged to the “Stalinist guard,” “retained all their privileges and differences and enjoy all the benefits of life,” occupying leading positions in ROA. Except former officers In the Red Army, leading positions in the ROA were also occupied by some old emigrants. Vlasov, who understood the value of the political and military experience of emigrants, repeatedly spoke out in favor of cooperation with them and even introduced some into his inner circle. In this regard, it is worth mentioning one of his adjutants, Colonel I.K. Sakharov, the son of Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army K.V. Sakharov, former chief of staff of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. Colonel Sakharov took part in the Spanish Civil War on the side of General Franco and, like another old officer, Lieutenant Colonel A.D. Arkhipov, until the end of the war he commanded a regiment in the 1st Division of the ROA. Vlasov appointed a former regimental commander as the head of his personal office tsarist army Colonel K. G. Kromiadi. The officer for special assignments at the headquarters was Senior Lieutenant M.V. Tomashevsky, a lawyer, a graduate of Kharkov University, who, in order to avoid reproaches of careerism, refused the rank of ROA major. Generals Arkhangelsky and A. von Lampe, as well as General A. M. Dragomirov and the famous military writer, professor, General N. N. Golovin, who lived in Paris, who before his death managed to draw up the charter of the internal service of the ROA, joined the Liberation Movement. The head of the personnel department of the headquarters of the auxiliary troops was Colonel Shokoli of the Tsarist and White armies. The Directorate of Cossack Troops, created in 1945 under the KONR, was headed by the ataman of the Don Army, Lieutenant General Tatarkin. The ataman of the Kuban army, Major General V. G. Naumenko, Cossack generals F. F. Abramov, E. I. Balabin, A. G. Shkuro, V. V. Kreiter and others also supported the Vlasov movement. General Kreiter, later the plenipotentiary representative of the KONR in Austria, gave Vlasov the jewelry that had once been taken from Russia by the army of General Wrangel. However, over time, there were fewer and fewer such officers in the ROA, and by 1945 we can already talk about the deliberate pushing aside of old emigrants. Chief of Staff Major General Trukhin was especially wary of them. For example, he initially rejected the request of Major General A.V. Turkul to enlist in the army, fearing to associate the ROA with the name of this general, who became famous during the civil war as the commander of the Drozdovsky division of Wrangel's army. In addition, some former senior emigrant officers, ready to join the ROA, put forward impossible demands, hoping to occupy leading positions. They had some reasons for this: after all, in the Cossack corps, which was formed by Major General Turkul back in 1945, or in the 1st Russian National Army under Major General Holmston-Smyslovsky, command was the prerogative of old emigrants, and the former Soviet officers occupied lower positions. Meanwhile, older officers for the most part fell behind latest achievements military science, but it was not easy for them to relearn. In any case, the friction between old emigrants and former Soviet soldiers, noted in volunteer formations, also manifested itself in the ROA. This is evidenced, for example, by the story of Major General B. S. Permikin, the former staff captain of the tsarist army, the founder and commander of the Talab regiment, which was part of Yudenich’s northwestern army and distinguished itself in the battles of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo in 1919. In 1920, Permikin commanded General Wrangel's 3rd Army in Poland. IN ROA Vlasov appointed him senior teacher of tactics at the officer school. But in the camp of the 1st ROA Division the former White Guard officer was treated so rudely that in February 1945 Permikin chose to join the ROA Cossack Corps that was being formed in Austria under the command of Major General Turkul.

The appointment of a commander and the formation of a high command meant, at least externally, the completion of the process of isolation of the ROA, its formation as an independent unit. Indeed, it soon became clear that the Liberation Army had gained independence in at least two important areas: military justice and military intelligence. We have only fragmentary information about the military court, but it is clear from them that the position of the chief military prosecutor was established at the army headquarters, attempts were made to create a judicial order of movement “from top to bottom” and, in cooperation with the legal department of the KONR, to develop instructions and instructions for the prosecutor's office. supervision and conduct trials. There is involuntary evidence from the Soviet side that Vlasov, being the commander-in-chief, also served as the supreme judge of the ROA: at the Moscow trial of 1946, he was accused of shooting several “prisoners of war.” In fact, the story is like this. Six ROA fighters, sentenced to death by a military court for spying for the USSR, were under arrest in the headquarters area in April 1945 air force ROA in Marienbad, since only there there were premises from which it was impossible to escape. During his stay in Marienbad, Vlasov was shown the verdict, which, according to eyewitnesses, he approved extremely reluctantly, and only after it was proven to him that it was illogical to convince the Germans of the autonomy of the ROA and at the same time refuse to perform basic legal functions. The independence of the ROA was also manifested in the fact that the military court of the 1st division in last days war sentenced the German officer Ludwig Catterfeld-Kuronus to death on charges of spying for the Soviet Union.

As for the intelligence service, at first both military and civilian intelligence were under the jurisdiction of the security department, created under KONR at the insistence of the Russians under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel N.V. Tenzorov. He was a man of character, although he had never been involved in such matters, a former physicist, an employee of one of the Kharkov research institutes. His deputies were Major M.A. Kalugin, former boss special department of the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District, and Major A.F. Chikalov. The counterintelligence department was headed by Major Krainev, the investigative department by Major Galanin, the secret correspondence department by Captain P. Bakshansky, and the personnel department by Captain Zverev. Some of the intelligence officers - Chikalov, Kalugin, Krainev, Galanin, Majors Egorov and Ivanov, Captain Bekker-Khrenov and others - previously worked in the NKVD and, obviously, had some idea of ​​​​the work of the secret police. Perhaps the rest, although they were workers, architects, directors, school directors, oil workers, engineers or lawyers before the war, also turned out to be good intelligence officers. There were also representatives of the old emigration in this department, such as the officer for special assignments Captain Skarzhinsky, Senior Lieutenant Golub and Lieutenant V. Melnikov.

After the army headquarters moved from Berlin to the Heiberg training ground in Württemberg (to the place of training of troops) in February 1945, military intelligence was organizationally separated from civilian intelligence, and under the supervision of Major General Trukhin, the creation of the ROA's own intelligence service began. The intelligence department, organized at army headquarters, was, as already mentioned, entrusted to the major, and then to Lieutenant Colonel Grachev, a graduate of the Frunze Academy. On February 22, 1945, the department was divided into several groups: intelligence about the enemy - led by Lieutenant A.F. Vronsky; reconnaissance - it was commanded first by Captain N.F. Lapin, and then by Senior Lieutenant B. Gai; counterintelligence - commander Major Chikalov. By order of Major General Trukhin dated March 8, 1945, the department received reinforcements, so that in addition to the chief, there were now twenty-one officers working in it: Major Chikalov, four captains (L. Dumbadze, P. Bakshansky, S. S. Nikolsky, M. I. . Turchaninov), seven senior lieutenants (Yu. P. Khmyrov, B. Gai, D. Gorshkov, V. Kabitleev, N. F. Lapin, A. Skachkov, Tvardevich), lieutenants A. Andreev, L. Andreev, A. F. Vronsky, A. Glavay, K. G. Karenin, V. Lovanov, Ya. I. Marchenko, S. Pronchenko, Yu. S. Sitnik). Later, Captain V. Denisov and other officers joined the department.

After the war, some intelligence officers were suspected of being Soviet agents. It's about, first of all, about Captain Bekker-Khrenov, an experienced counterintelligence officer who held the post of head of a special department in the Red Army tank brigade, and about senior lieutenant Khmyrov (Dolgoruky). Both appeared at the Moscow trial of 1946 as witnesses for the prosecution, with the latter posing as Vlasov’s adjutant. The role of the chief of counterintelligence of the ROA, Major Chikalov, who served in the border troops of the NKVD, then a political worker of a large partisan association operating in the Dnieper-Plavnya region, is also mysterious. Chikalov was captured at the end of 1943 along with the commander of this group, Major I.V. Kirpa (Kravchenko), and in 1944 both joined the Liberation Movement. The leaders of the ROA had no doubts about the authenticity of Chikalov’s spiritual revolution, however, according to some information, Vlasov was warned back in 1944 that Chikalov should not be trusted. After the war, Chikalov acted in West Germany as a Soviet agent and was recalled to the USSR in 1952, shortly before his exposure. Notable in this regard is the article by former senior lieutenant Khmyrov in the Soviet weekly “Voice of the Motherland,” which states that Chikalov was killed in Munich in 1946, and Khmyrov slanderously associates Colonel Pozdnyakov with this murder. As the head of the personnel department, Pozdnyakov knew the officers of the army headquarters like no one else and even after the war retained some of the profiles. In one of his articles, Pozdnyakov wrote that Chikalov was unsympathetic to him as a former security officer, emphasizing, however, that he had no complaints about Chikalov’s work and that post-war affairs may not have any connection with the affairs of the war years. However, Pozdnyakov categorically denied that Soviet agents managed to get into the intelligence department.

The department faced difficulties of a different kind. Such, for example, as the methods of work of the counterintelligence officer of the 1st ROA division, Captain Olkhovnik (Olchovik), who was accustomed to acting independently and reporting the results only to the division commander, Major General S.K. Bunyachenko, without informing the intelligence department of the army headquarters. In addition, counterintelligence information often turned out to be insignificant, relating to the incompetent statements of this or that officer or soldier, violations of discipline, drunkenness on duty, the use of gasoline for private trips, etc. , and Trukhin, for whom the most important thing was to identify Soviet connections, seriously thought about replacing Major Chikalov with Captain Becker-Khrenov, to whom he wanted to assign the rank of lieutenant colonel back in 1944. While the counterintelligence group fought against Soviet espionage with varying success, the intelligence group finally took up matters not intended for German eyes: on the orders of Major General Trukhin, it tried to establish contacts with American troops at the end of the war. In general, the work of the intelligence service of the ROA headquarters was first negatively affected by the distrust of German counterintelligence, then by organizational problems and a jealous attitude on the part of volunteer associations not subordinate to Vlasov. Nevertheless, the intelligence service has achieved some success.

The growing importance of intelligence in the ROA is evidenced by the creation at the beginning of 1945 of the ROA intelligence school in the “Hunting Lodge” near Marienbad under the leadership of one of the most talented intelligence officers, Senior Lieutenant Yelenev. In the Soviet interpretation, this school, designed to train intelligence officers and agents, mainly in the field of tactics, looks like a dangerous center of espionage, sabotage, terror and even the preparation of an uprising in the rear of the Soviet army - the latter charge was brought against Vlasov personally. It is the existence of this school, the Military College Supreme Court The USSR was considered a particularly serious charge, although in the Soviet army military intelligence is considered a legitimate and honorable branch of the military, and practical training at the “Hunting Lodge” was unlikely to differ much from training in the corresponding Soviet institutions. Moreover, the school’s structure resembled a Soviet educational institution. Apart from the spirit that reigned here, everything about it was Soviet: the cadets wore Soviet uniforms and Soviet orders and medals, called each other “comrade” instead of the “master” accepted in the ROA, read Soviet books and newspapers, listened to Soviet radio and even ate in order, established in the Red Army. The cadets studied map orientation and cartography, methods of collecting and transmitting intelligence data, Soviet regulations, learned to use Soviet-made vehicles, weapons and radio transmitters, learned to handle explosives, etc. On March 11, 1945, Vlasov and Major General Maltsev came to the school on the occasion of the graduation of the first twenty people. Vlasov addressed the graduates with a speech in which he once again emphasized the importance military intelligence. He said:

Only those few who are completely devoted to the ideas of the Liberation Movement and are ready to bear all the hardships of this extremely important work in war conditions are worthy of the honorary title of ROA intelligence officer. Russia, liberated from Bolshevism, will never forget their exploits.

The group was airlifted behind the front line with the task of organizing, together with the anti-Soviet resistance movement, a fight against the Soviet army. With great difficulty, we managed to obtain 20 thousand liters of gasoline necessary for this action. There is also information that such groups were more than once led across the front line by scout Senior Lieutenant Tulinov, and they suffered heavy losses. When forming the officer corps, as well as when creating the military legal service and military intelligence, the Russians were guided by their own ideas. An officer of the Liberation Army was designated as a representative new Russia in “European society” and differed from his comrades in the volunteer formations under German command. He was not just a military specialist who mastered his craft, but also a Russian patriot, devoted to the ideals of the liberation struggle, his people and fatherland. In the brochure “ROA Warrior” published in 1945. Ethics, appearance, behavior “The first of the qualities of an officer is the requirement put forward by Suvorov of absolute honesty in the service and in personal life. In relation to subordinates, the type of “father-commander” common in the old Russian army is taken as a model, who by personal example, justice and paternal care wins the respect and love of the soldiers. An ROA officer has no right to humiliate the dignity of his subordinates or other people. It is worth mentioning one more point: an ROA officer is obliged to spare civilians, respect their national and religious feelings, and be generous to the defeated enemy. Under the editorship of Major General Trukhin, by December 1944, a regulation was developed on the service of officers and military officials of the ROA, which we can judge from the reviews of Colonels Boyarsky and Meandrov. According to this provision, in wartime, when assigning ranks from warrant officer to the rank of army general proposed by Boyarsky, it was necessary to proceed only from the achievements of a given officer, and not from the principle of seniority in service, while merits at the front were to be rated higher than in the rear. It was necessary to distinguish between rank and position and take into account the ranks received in the Red Army. Thus, the methods of appointment and promotion of officers also indicate the originality and independence of the Liberation Army.

Until 1944, the appointment and promotion of officers was handled by Kestring, a German general of volunteer formations, and he, on his own responsibility, could appoint only “compatriots” (Volksdeutsch), that is, in the case of the USSR, people from the Baltic republics. In relation to the pilots, the corresponding functions were performed by the inspector for foreign personnel of the Luftwaffe Vostok. Based on “personal qualities, military merit and political reliability,” the officer was assigned a certain rank within a given volunteer unit (in most cases corresponding to his rank in the Red Army), and the personnel department of the army or the Luftwaffe allowed him to wear a German uniform with the appropriate insignia. After the Reich recognized the Russian liberation movement in September 1944, a procedure was temporarily established by which the Russians submitted applications for officers of the emerging ROA to the general of volunteer formations. Finally, on January 28, 1945, Vlasov himself received the right, as Commander-in-Chief of the KONR Armed Forces, to appoint officers to his subordinate formations at his own discretion, determine their rank and promote them. However, there were some restrictions, indicating that the Germans were still clinging to the last possibility of control over Vlasov. For example, in order to promote generals - or to assign the rank of general - it was necessary to obtain the consent of the head of the SS Main Directorate through the OKW. As before, except for the right to appropriation now given to Vlasov another rank a sanction was also necessary for the assignment of German insignia, which was distributed by the army personnel department on behalf of the general of volunteer formations and the Luftwaffe personnel department on behalf of the then inspector for eastern personnel of the Luftwaffe. This condition, caused by the requirement to comply with the well-known rules of equality, remained in force only as long as the ROA soldiers wore German insignia. The Russian side made efforts to return Russian shoulder straps to the Liberation Army, introduced back in 1943 in the then Eastern troops, but then replaced by German ones. Let us note, by the way, that this was the only point in which the wishes of the Russians were in tune with the aspirations of Hitler, who on January 27, 1945 spoke out against issuing German uniforms to the Vlasovites.

In practice, however, the promotion of officers was already carried out exclusively as the Russians desired. A qualification commission organized at army headquarters under the command of Major Demsky determined the rank of newly arrived officers. The appointments of junior officers were made by Major General Trukhin together with the head of the personnel department of the headquarters, Colonel Pozdnyakov, and the issue of appointing staff officers was decided by General Vlasov together with Trukhin and Pozdnyakov. We have no information about the objections of the German side. So, for example, the head of the SS Main Directorate, Obergruppenführer Berger, who, like his representative at Vlasov, SS Oberführer Dr. Kröger, tried to support the Liberation Movement, in February-March 1945 unconditionally agreed to provide Colonels V.I. Boyarsky, S.K. Bunyachenko, I.N. Kononov, V.I. Maltsev, M.A. Meandrov, M.M. Shapovalov and G.A. Zverev with the rank of major general. As for the other officers, the friendly understanding established between Colonel Pozdnyakov and Captain Ungermann, responsible for personal affairs at the headquarters of the general of volunteer formations, served as a guarantee of a friendly attitude towards the requests of the Russians.

Concerned about his prestige in relations with the Germans, Vlasov considered it unnecessary to personally prepare proposals for promotion. They were signed by the head of the personnel department of the army headquarters, Pozdnyakov. After the war, this was interpreted in such a way that for the Germans the word of Commander-in-Chief Vlasov had no value; they listened to the opinion of another person “ German agent“at the headquarters of the ROA. Soviet propaganda, seizing on this argument, tried to present the hated person as its journalistic and political activity Pozdnyakov was an instrument of the SD, Gestapo and SS, attributing to him all sorts of atrocities. To be convinced of the absurdity of these statements, from which it follows that Vlasov and the leading officers of the Liberation Army were at the mercy of a Gestapo agent, one need only look at Pozdnyakov’s official position. In his service, he was associated with the headquarters of the general of volunteer formations, but had nothing to do with the Gestapo and SD, and cooperation with them was absolutely excluded for organizational reasons. General of Volunteer Units Kestring wrote about this, this was emphasized by the former head of the Wehrmacht propaganda department, Colonel Hans Martin, who assured that he knew Pozdnyakov well from his previous work. Both of them, as well as Kestring’s former adjutant Captain Horvath von Bittenfeld (after the war - Secretary of State and Chief of the Office of the Federal President) speak of Pozdnyakov’s impeccable honesty, his patriotism and organizational abilities. However, if he had not possessed these qualities, it is unlikely that he would have been able to become Vlasov’s operational adjutant, and then take the responsible post of head of the command department.

After Vlasov was appointed commander-in-chief, the ROA soldiers were sworn in:

“I, a faithful son of my fatherland, voluntarily join the ranks of the troops of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. In the face of my compatriots, I solemnly swear to honestly fight under the command of General Vlasov to the last drop of blood for the good of my people, against Bolshevism.”*

The German side could not come to terms with the fact that the soldiers would swear allegiance personally to Vlasov, and clauses hinting at an alliance with Germany were included in the oath. In particular, it was said: “This struggle is being waged by all freedom-loving peoples, led by Adolf Hitler. I swear to be faithful to this union." This formulation was personally approved by the Reichsführer SS, and the Russians thus managed to avoid taking the oath to Hitler personally.

At the very end of the war, ROA soldiers still wore German insignia on their gray uniforms, which led to a fatal misunderstanding: the Americans saw this as proof of their belonging to the Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, not to mention the fact that the French soldiers of de Gaulle and the Polish General Anders in 1944-45. They were also not easily distinguished from American or British soldiers; the Vlasov soldiers, even outwardly, lacked the main sign of belonging to the Wehrmacht: the emblem of an eagle with a swastika. On March 2, 1945, the OKW urgently issued a belated order on this topic:

Members of Russian formations subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia are obliged to immediately remove the German emblem from their caps and uniforms. Instead of the German emblem, it is worn on the right sleeve sleeve badge, and on the cap is the cockade of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). German personnel communicating with the ROA are ordered to remove the ROA sleeve insignia.

From that moment on, the banner of the Liberation Army became - instead of the Reich banner - the white-blue-red naval flag with the St. Andrew's cross, established by Peter I, and the standard of the commander-in-chief was with tricolor tassels and the image of St. George the Victorious on a blue background. The official seal of the ROA read “Armed Forces of the Peoples of Russia.” If further evidence is required to confirm the autonomous status of the Liberation Army, then we can add that the Wehrmacht was represented in it - as in the allied armies of Romania, Hungary and other countries - only by liaison officers who did not have command powers: an OKW general under the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the KONR and groups communications with Russian divisions. With the exception of some connections of a purely formal nature, the Russian Liberation Army was legally and in fact completely separated from the Wehrmacht.

So, the Wehrmacht and the ROA were now officially considered allies. What many senior officers of the German army have been striving for for several years has happened. But this did not at all mean a transition to new, cloudless relations between Russians and Germans. In the army, especially at the lowest level, there was distrust of the Russians, born of ignorance and misunderstanding. It was difficult for the Germans to see the Russians as equal allies. There are many examples that clearly demonstrate how easily this mistrust grew into serious conflicts. This is the story of Captain Vladimir Gavrinsky, an officer from Vlasov’s personal guard. While on assignment for the commander-in-chief, the captain at the Nuremberg station argued with a German pilot over a seat in a second-class compartment. The railway sergeant-major arrived in time and instantly resolved the conflict by shooting the Russian officer in cold blood. But this happened in February 1945... The news of the murder of this honored officer, who received several orders for brave actions in the rear of the Red Army, reached the members of the KONR during a meeting in Carlsbad, causing them deep indignation. The Germans present at the meeting were also very upset by this incident. Vlasov sent a telegram to the Reichsführer SS expressing protest, and the Germans tried to hush up the matter. Captain Gavrinsky was given a military funeral of the highest order, which was attended by the city commandant of Nuremberg and senior German officers. However, Vlasov’s demand to bring the killer to trial was not fulfilled, and the sergeant major was simply transferred to another unit without any fanfare.

But the Russians did not forget about past enmity and previous humiliations. Thus, in a secret report from the intelligence department at army headquarters, dated 1945, an increase in hostility towards the Germans in the 1st ROA division was noted. In this phenomenon they saw the influence of Major M.A. Zykov, an outstanding man, but extremely contradictory and mysterious. In 1943, Vlasov appointed Zykov responsible for the press in the then nascent Liberation Movement. In the summer of 1944, Zykov was apparently arrested in Berlin by the Gestapo. His ideas enjoyed great success among students of propagandist courses in Dabendorf, who now occupied officer positions in the formations of the ROA. Therefore, some authors believe that political officers, like Zykov, who was previously Bukharin’s confidant and corps commissar in the Red Army, deliberately sowed discontent among the officers, driving a wedge between the ROA and the Wehrmacht. There are also clear hints of the influence of the “brilliant Jew Zykov” in the statement of a former employee of Vlasov dated December 23, 1944. He informed the Eastern Ministry, which already did not have particularly friendly feelings towards Vlasov, that the general’s entourage included people “opposed to everything German”, “who in advance remove from the propagandist course programs everything that is directed against the Anglo-Americans” and - that it was especially noted that “they remain completely silent about the Jewish question.” An example of such a way of thinking could also be the statement of Captain Voskoboynikov, recorded at the same time, which sounded provocative to National Socialist ears: “Jews are nice, intelligent people.”

According to the same source, there was secret agitation in the ROA not only against the Germans themselves, but also against the volunteer units still under their command. Agents or proxies of the ROA allegedly tried to sow confusion in the Eastern troops, persuading the soldiers to join Vlasov, “who will solve the Russian question without the Germans.” In the spirit of Soviet propaganda, these agitators called the officers of the Eastern Troops, many of whom had been fighting for more than a year, “Gestapo men, traitors and mercenaries,” contrasting them with genuine leaders who “did not sell out to the Germans,” that is, they went directly from captivity to Vlasov. These statements seem unlikely, since such a distinction would contradict the very principles of the KONR, which considered all Russian volunteers to be participants in the Liberation Movement, regardless of their location. Finally, we should not forget that most of the leading figures of the ROA came from the Eastern Troops, such as Major General Bunyachenko, who commanded a Russian regiment during the German offensive. The leadership of the ROA resolutely opposed all such anti-German movements, which developed more latently than on the surface. The head of the main propaganda department of the KONR, Lieutenant General Zhilenkov, was inclined to regard such sentiments as a targeted enemy provocation. In the military newspaper KONR “3a Rodinu” dated January 7, 1945, he wrote:

A soldier of the liberation army must show maximum respect towards his allies and take daily care to strengthen the military friendship of Russians and Germans... Therefore, soldiers and officers of the liberation army must show maximum correctness and full respect for the national orders and customs of the country on whose territory they will be forced to fight against Bolshevism.

Vlasov himself, former witness Since, after the battle for Kyiv, Stalin in the Kremlin demanded that Beria use all means to incite “hatred, hatred and once again hatred*” against everything German, it was in overcoming this hatred between the two peoples that he saw the foundations of his policy, although he himself was quite critical of the Germans and soberly. His personal attitude towards the German allies is evidenced by his statement in a speech delivered on February 10, 1945 at the training ground in Munsingen on the occasion of taking command of the 1st and 2nd ROL divisions. In the presence of eminent German guests, he told the assembled troops:

During the years of joint struggle, friendship between the Russian and German peoples was born. Both sides made mistakes, but tried to correct them, and this indicates a commonality of interests. The main thing in the work of both parties is trust, mutual trust. I thank the Russian and German officers who participated in the creation of this union. I am convinced that we will soon return to our homeland with those soldiers and officers whom I see here. Long live the friendship of the Russian and German peoples! Long live the soldiers and officers of the Russian army! *

In his speech, Vlasov never mentioned Hitler and National Socialism. Therefore, the official German report about the ceremony in Munsingen emphasizes how difficult it is to adhere to the equality demanded by Vlasov. And it was precisely this condition that Vlasov put forward as the main principle of the relationship between the Germans and the ROL.

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The war ended a long time ago, almost seven decades ago, but many of its pages still stir the souls of citizens of post-Soviet countries. During the First World War (also called German and imperialist), Russian soldiers did not go over to the side of the enemy. The Great Patriotic War in this aspect differed from previous wars. Many real heroes distinguished themselves in the Red Army.

ROA (Russian Liberation Army) has become our shame. No army in the world could compare with ours in the number of defectors, forced and voluntary. Approximately 130 thousand soldiers, officers and generals of the Red Army stood under the German banner. Among them were extraordinary personalities. Who are the “heroes” of the ROA and other military formations of the Wehrmacht, where did they come from? First things first.

Vlasov

Lieutenant General of the Red Army Andrei Andreevich Vlasov was outstanding Soviet commander. This can be stated today without any irony. Having gone through the civil war, he devoted more than two decades of his life to strengthening the defense capability of the USSR, distinguished himself in China (1938-1939), taught military science, skillfully commanded troops, and was an excellent organizer. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Vlasov has been in the most critical and difficult sectors of the front, defending Kyiv and Moscow. Was wounded. He gained his authority among the troops through military labor, which partly explains the unfortunate fact that even some Heroes went over to the side of the Germans. The ROA was staffed mainly by prisoners of war, and there were many of them. Soviet Air Force pilots Tennikov, Bychkov and Antilevsky received their Gold Stars not in Tashkent...

Heroes of the ROA. Who is this?

In the Russian Liberation Army, other talented commanders also fought against their own. Vlasov's deputy for propaganda work was the brigade commissar of the Red Army G. Zhilenkov, the former secretary of the Moscow city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus. So, he was a political worker, and he remained one. Two decorated generals, teachers at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, Malyshkin and Trukhin, were in charge of organizational issues. The hero of the Liepaja defense, Blagoveshchensky, as well as Shapovalov, who skillfully defended Crimea in 1941, were not left idle by the Germans. Both generals of the Red Army.

What Vlasovites and Ukrainian nationalists dreamed of

A. A. Vlasov was a military man, and most likely understood that even in the event of victory, Hitler would not have enough resources to hold the occupied territories for a long time. It is quite possible that he believed that if two dictators fought among themselves long enough, they would weaken their state apparatuses enough for the remaining regime to fall on its own. It was on the basis of future political prospects that both Stepan Bandera and Andrei Vlasov had contradictions with the Nazi leadership. By declaring the possibility of states independent of Germany, they aroused the wrath of the Fuhrer, whose plans did not include creating a free Russian state, much less an “independent Ukraine.” What the “heroes” of the ROA and UPA dreamed of was utopia. Perhaps they didn't understand it.

The fate of traitors

Two Tsars and Krasnov fought on the side of the Vlasov army. They were heroes of the First World War and inflicted considerable damage on their future allies. During this time, the Cossacks, led personally by Krasnov, strung hundreds of Austrian soldiers onto their pikes. Shkuro's "Wolf Hundred" conducted deep raids behind enemy lines.

Ivan Dobrobabin, one of the famous Panfilovites who defended Moscow, was shell-shocked and captured, where he agreed to cooperate with the Germans.

These and other “heroes” of the ROA were executed after the war or served long prison sentences. Some of them were lucky enough to escape, their fate developing more prosperously under the sun of Argentina, Australia and other distant countries. It is unlikely that they will ever be remembered with a kind word in their homeland. We have never treated traitors with respect.

The history of the creation, existence and destruction of the so-called Russian Liberation Army under the command of General Vlasov is one of the darkest and most mysterious pages of the Great Patriotic War.

First of all, the figure of its leader is surprising. Nominee N.S. Khrushchev and one of I.V.’s favorites. Stalin, Lieutenant General of the Red Army, Andrei Vlasov was captured on the Volkhov Front in 1942. Coming out of encirclement with his only companion, the cook Voronova, he was handed over to the Germans by the local headman in the village of Tukhovezhi for a reward: a cow and ten packs of shag.
Almost immediately after being imprisoned in a camp for senior military personnel near Vinnitsa, Vlasov began to cooperate with the Germans. Soviet historians interpreted Vlasov’s decision as personal cowardice. However mechanized corps Vlasov proved himself very well in the battles near Lvov. The 37th Army under his leadership during the defense of Kyiv too. By the time of his capture, Vlasov had the reputation of one of the main saviors of Moscow. He did not show personal cowardice in battles. Later a version appeared that he was afraid of punishment from Stalin. However, leaving the Kyiv Cauldron, according to the testimony of Khrushchev, who was the first to meet him, he was in civilian clothes and leading a goat on a rope. No punishment followed; moreover, his career continued.
There are other versions. One of them says that he was a GRU agent and fell victim to the post-war “showdowns” in the Soviet intelligence services. According to another version, he was an active participant in the conspiracies of the “marshals” and “heroes.” I went to establish contacts with the German generals. The goal was to overthrow both Stalin and Hitler. The latter version is supported, for example, by Vlasov’s close acquaintance with those repressed in 1937-38. military. For example, he replaced Blucher as an adviser under Chiang Kai-shek. In addition, his immediate superior before his capture was Meretskov, a future marshal who was arrested at the beginning of the war in the case of “heroes,” confessed, and was released “based on instructions from policymakers for special reasons.”
And yet, at the same time as Vlasov, regimental commissar Kernes, who had gone over to the German side, was kept in the Vinnitsa camp. The commissioner came to the Germans with a message about the presence of a deeply secret group in the USSR. Which includes the army, the NKVD, Soviet and party bodies, and takes an anti-Stalinist position. A high-ranking official of the German Foreign Ministry, Gustav Hilder, came to meet with both. There is no documentary evidence for the last two versions. But let’s return directly to the ROA, or, as they are more often called “Vlasovites”. We should start with the fact that the prototype and the first separate “Russian” unit on the side of the Germans was created in 1941-1942. Bronislaw Kaminsky Russian Liberation People's Army - RONA. Kaminsky, born in 1903 to a German mother and a Pole father, was an engineer before the war and served a sentence in the Gulag under Article 58. Note that during the formation of RONA, Vlasov himself was still fighting in the ranks of the Red Army. By mid-1943, Kaminsky had 10,000 soldiers, 24 T-34 tanks and 36 captured guns under his command. In July 1944, his troops showed particular cruelty in suppressing the Warsaw Uprising. On August 19 of the same year, Kaminsky and his entire headquarters were shot by the Germans without trial or investigation.
Approximately simultaneously with RONA, the Gil-Rodionov Squad was created in Belarus. Lieutenant Colonel of the Red Army V.V. Gil, speaking under the pseudonym Rodionov, in the service of the Germans created the Fighting Union of Russian Nationalists and showed considerable cruelty towards the Belarusian partisans and local residents. However, in 1943, he went over with most of the BSRN to the side of the red partisans, received the rank of colonel and the Order of the Red Star. Killed in 1944. In 1941, the Russian National People's Army, also known as the Boyarsky Brigade, was created near Smolensk. Vladimir Gelyarovich Boersky (real name) was born in 1901 in Berdichevsky district, it is believed that in a Polish family. In 1943, the brigade was disbanded by the Germans. From the beginning of 1941, the formation of detachments of people calling themselves Cossacks was actively underway. Quite a lot of different units were created from them. Finally, in 1943, the 1st Cossack Division was created under the leadership of German Colonel von Pannwitz. She was sent to Yugoslavia to fight the partisans. In Yugoslavia, the division worked closely with the Russian Security Corps, created from white emigrants and their children. It should be noted that in the Russian Empire, Kalmyks, in particular, belonged to the Cossack class, and abroad all emigrants from the Empire were considered Russian. Also in the first half of the war, formations subordinate to the Germans from representatives of national minorities were actively formed.
Vlasov’s idea of ​​​​forming the ROA as the future army of Russia liberated from Stalin, to put it mildly, did not cause much enthusiasm among Hitler. The leader of the Reich did not at all need an independent Russia, especially one with its own army. In 1942-1944. The ROA did not exist as a real military formation, but was used for propaganda purposes and to recruit collaborators. Those, in turn, were used separate battalions mainly to perform security functions and fight partisans. Only at the end of 1944, when the Nazi command simply had nothing to plug the cracks in the defense, was the green light given to the formation of the ROA. The first division was formed only on November 23, 1944, five months before the end of the war. For its formation, the remnants of units disbanded by the Germans and battle-worn in battles that fought on the side of the Germans were used. And also Soviet prisoners of war. Few people here looked at nationality anymore. The deputy chief of staff, Boersky, as we have already said, was a Pole, the head of the combat training department, General Asberg, was an Armenian. Captain Shtrik-Shtrikfeld provided great assistance in the formation. And also figures white movement, such as Kromiadi, Shokoli, Meyer, Skorzhinsky and others. In the current circumstances, most likely, no one checked the rank and file for nationality. By the end of the war, the ROA formally numbered from 120 to 130 thousand people. All units were scattered over gigantic distances and did not constitute a single military force.
Before the end of the war, the ROA managed to take part in hostilities three times. On February 9, 1945, in the battles on the Oder, three Vlasov battalions under the leadership of Colonel Sakharov achieved some success in their direction. But these successes were short-lived. On April 13, 1945, the 1st Division of the ROA took part in battles with the 33rd Army of the Red Army without much success. But in the battles of May 5-8 for Prague, under the leadership of her commander Bunyachenko, she showed herself very well. The Nazis were driven out of the city and were no longer able to return to it. At the end of the war, most of the Vlasovites were extradited Soviet authorities. The leaders were hanged in 1946. Camps and settlements awaited the rest. In 1949, of the 112,882 special Vlasov settlers, Russians made up less than half: - 54,256 people. Among the rest: Ukrainians - 20,899, Belarusians - 5,432, Georgians - 3,705, Armenians - 3,678, Uzbeks - 3,457, Azerbaijanis - 2,932, Kazakhs - 2,903, Germans - 2,836, Tatars - 2,470, Chuvash - 807, Kabardians - 640, Moldavians - 637, Mordovians - 635, Ossetians - 595, Tajiks - 545, Kyrgyz -466, Bashkirs - 449, Turkmen - 389, Poles - 381, Kalmyks -335, Adyghe - 201, Circassians - 192, Lezgins - 177, Jews - 171, Karaites - 170, Udmurts - 157, Latvians - 150, Maris - 137, Karakalpaks - 123, Avars - 109, Kumyks - 103, Greeks - 102, Bulgarians -99, Estonians - 87, Romanians - 62, Nogais - 59, Abkhazians - 58, Komi - 49, Dargins - 48, Finns - 46, Lithuanians - 41 and others - 2095 people. Alexey Nos.

Vlasovites, or fighters of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) are controversial figures in military history. Until now, historians cannot come to a consensus. Supporters consider them fighters for justice, true patriots Russian people. Opponents are unconditionally confident that the Vlasovites are traitors to the Motherland, who went over to the side of the enemy and mercilessly destroyed their compatriots.

Why did Vlasov create the ROA?

The Vlasovites positioned themselves as patriots of their country and their people, but not of the government. Their goal was supposedly to overthrow the established political regime in order to provide people with a decent life. General Vlasov considered Bolshevism, in particular Stalin, the main enemy of the Russian people. He associated the prosperity of his country with cooperation and friendly relations with Germany.

Treason to the Motherland

Vlasov went over to the enemy’s side at the most difficult moment for the USSR. The movement that he promoted and in which he recruited former Red Army soldiers was aimed at the destruction of the Russians. Having sworn an oath of allegiance to Hitler, the Vlasovites decided to kill ordinary soldiers, burn villages and destroy their homeland. Moreover, Vlasov presented his Order of Lenin to Brigadeführer Fegelein in response to the loyalty shown to him.

Demonstrating his devotion, General Vlasov gave valuable military advice. Knowing the problem areas and plans of the Red Army, he helped the Germans plan attacks. In the diary of the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich and the Gauleiter of Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, there is an entry about his meeting with Vlasov, who gave him advice, taking into account the experience of defending Kyiv and Moscow, on how best to organize the defense of Berlin. Goebbels wrote: “The conversation with General Vlasov inspired me. I found out that Soviet Union had to overcome exactly the same crisis that we are overcoming now, and that there is certainly a way out of this crisis, if you are extremely decisive and do not succumb to it.”

In the wings of the fascists

Vlasovites took part in brutal massacres of civilians. From the memoirs of one of them: “The next day, the commandant of the city, Shuber, ordered all the state farmers to be expelled to Chernaya Balka and the executed communists to be properly buried. So stray dogs were caught, thrown into the water, the city was cleared... First from Jews and merry ones, at the same time from Zherdetsky, then from dogs. And bury the corpses at the same time. Trace. How could it be otherwise, gentlemen? After all, it’s not the forty-first year already—it’s the forty-second year! Already the carnival, joyful tricks had to be slowly hidden. It was possible before, in a simple way. Shoot and throw on the coastal sand, and now - bury! But what a dream!”
ROA soldiers together with the Nazis smashed partisan detachments, talking about it with rapture: “At dawn they hung captured partisan commanders on poles of the railway station, then continued to drink. They sang German songs, hugged their commander, walked through the streets and touched the frightened nurses! A real gang!

Baptism of fire

General Bunyachenko, commander of the 1st Division of the ROA, received an order to prepare the division for an attack on the bridgehead captured by Soviet troops with the task of throwing back in this place Soviet troops on the right bank of the Oder. For Vlasov’s army it was a baptism of fire - it had to prove its right to exist.
On February 9, 1945, the ROA entered its position for the first time. The army captured Neulevin, southern part Karlsbize and Kerstenbruch. Joseph Goebbels even noted in his diary “the outstanding achievements of General Vlasov’s troops.” ROA soldiers played a key role in the battle - thanks to the fact that the Vlasovites noticed in time a camouflaged battery of Soviet anti-tank guns ready for battle, the German units did not fall victim to the bloody massacre. Saving the Fritz, the Vlasovites mercilessly killed their compatriots.
On March 20, the ROA was supposed to seize and equip a bridgehead, as well as ensure the passage of ships along the Oder. When during the day the left flank, despite strong artillery support, was stopped, the Russians, whom the exhausted and discouraged Germans were waiting with hope, were used as a “kulak”. The Germans sent Vlasovites on the most dangerous and obviously failed missions.

Prague Uprising

The Vlasovites showed themselves in occupied Prague - they decided to oppose the German troops. On May 5, 1945, they came to the aid of the rebels. The rebels demonstrated unprecedented cruelty - they shot at a German school with heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, turning its students into a bloody mess. Subsequently, the Vlasovites retreating from Prague clashed with the retreating Germans in hand-to-hand combat. The uprising resulted in robberies and murders civilian population and not only German.
There were several versions of why the ROA took part in the uprising. Perhaps she was trying to earn forgiveness Soviet people or sought to obtain political asylum in liberated Czechoslovakia. One of the authoritative opinions remains that the German command issued an ultimatum: either the division carries out their orders, or it will be destroyed. The Germans made it clear that the ROA would not be able to exist independently and act according to its convictions, and then the Vlasovites resorted to sabotage.
The adventurous decision to take part in the uprising cost the ROA dearly: about 900 Vlasovites were killed during the fighting in Prague (officially - 300), 158 wounded disappeared without a trace from Prague hospitals after the arrival of the Red Army, 600 Vlasov deserters were identified in Prague and shot by the Red Army