Left to right: Wehrmacht General Rudolf Toussaint, SS General Werner Lorenz and Soviet General Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov in Prague Castle's Spanish Hall Nov. 14, 1944.
Posted on 05/05/2005 11:24:35 AM PDT by sergey1973
PING ! Another incredible WWII story.
"Soviet Propaganda said that Vlasov was a traitor, turncoat, deserter turned Nazi ally."
He was.
"In fact he tried to arm Soviet POW's to take on both Stalin and Hitler at the final months of WWII and he took Nazis on in Prague."
Yup. He flipped when it looked like Germany was winning, then tried to flip back when it became obvious that Germany was losing.
"Operation Keelhaul", there is more to the story.
" He flipped when it looked like Germany was winning, then tried to flip back when it became obvious that Germany was losing."
Sounds like the Russian John Kerry...
Can anyone recommend a good book on this story?
There are plenty of blind spots of WWII we are not aware pr have no full knowledge about. Playing between Hitler and Stalin--two mass murderers--was not unusual for political figures to save themselves and their people. France and Britain declared the war on Germany after it attacked Poland in September 1939, but they did not come actually to aid Poland. One of the theories is that because they hoped that Hitler will attack Stalin afterwards and two tyrannies clash and destroy each other.
Finnish leader general Mannerheim joined Hitler in 1941 to attack Soviet Union because he wanted to recover territories lost to USSR in 1939-1940 Soviet-Finnish war. However, he made a separate peace with USSR when Hitler was loosing in 1944. His clever maneuvers between Hitler and Stalin, saved Finland from coming under occupation of either.
General Franko also carefully played with Hitler. He used his aid in 1936-1939 to crush pro-Stalin Spanish "Republicans", but he did not allow Hitler to cross Spain and take Hibraltar straits during WWII.
At this point, I'm not aware on a good book about Vlasov.
"Vlasov's Army" and its leader, were, by any yardstick, all traitors. What is not revealed in this article is that these men were fairly undisciplined, committed awful atrocities on the civilians wherever they went, and were totally unreliable the brief time they fought against the Reds.
The pity is that the Soviets treated all "liberated" POW's as though they were "Vlassovites." It wasn't much of a liberation.
Left to right: Wehrmacht General Rudolf Toussaint, SS General Werner Lorenz and Soviet General Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov in Prague Castle's Spanish Hall Nov. 14, 1944.
Try Googling for "russian army of liberation" as well as "the Vlasov Army." There is some info as well on Jason Pipes' site Feldgrau.com. As for books, there are references in several of Solzhenitzyn's works, notably One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and the Gulag Archipelago. Unfortunately, as the article indicates, there just ain't a bunch out there in print. I researched this many moons ago as an MI guy after learning that several Russians captured by Afghan mujahideen were actually deserters who had heard of a Vlasov-type organization in Afghnaistan.
Vlasov's army never fought the Red Army, but they did have some skirmishes with the Germans during the last days of WW2. However, about a million ex-Red Army soldiers did serve both officially and un-officially in the German Army during WW2, many of them in combat against both the Soviets and the Allies.
Gen. Vlasov in Soviet uniform
General Andrei Vlasov and writer Ilya Ehrenburg, 1942
Read about an attempt to create a "Vlasov's army" during the soviet invasion of Afghsnistan in "Charlie Wilson's war".
The lie of totalitarian ideology generated myths. Myths that became the truth for several generations of soviet people. Some of the myth's protagonists were used to intimidate, others were elevated to heroes' ranks, and some, particularly spright mythmakers contrived to earn, with their labors, titles, rank, and quite comfortable social goods.
But history is a scary thing, and sooner or later the truth, no matter how ugly, becomes known. Men, however, do not hurry to part company with myths. It is easier that way...
From the yellowed photograph intelligent, slightly ironic eyes look at me. The oldfashioned platter-glasses, poignantly repaired with electrician's tape, add an impression that they belong to an academician. If not for the unifrom and the general's stars in the buttonholes, one would assume tha tthe man on the photograph is a school teacher.
[...]
Thanks annalex--very interesting site and posts about Vlasov. Hopefully we'll learn all the truth (or as much as possible) about him and other previously unknown or undiscussed aspects of WWII.
Russian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII
by Lt. Gen Wladyslaw Anders and Antonio Munoz
http://www.feldgrau.com/rvol.html
Read the Russian article. The thrust of it is that Vlasov was, and remained, an operative of the Kremlin tasked to organize the Soviet POWs in German detention. He was declared traitor and executed following his voluntary reunion with the Red Army, because the story of his exploits fooling the Nazis was inconvenient to disclose. The article advances this as a plausible hypothesis, pointing out some holes in the official version of events.
The article also gives some background on him as a capable general who distinguished himself defending Kiev and Moscow.
The idea of Vlasov as Soviet Agent made to fool Nazis to organize Soviet POW's and then turn weapons against them is just a theory and I doubt its validity. There are plenty of wild theories in this World. Anyway, I think Vlasov played own game trying to save abandoned Soviet POW's in a way he could. I'm not idealizing him, but at least we deserve to know more about him.
"At this point, I'm not aware on a good book about Vlasov"
"Marching Toward Doom", which came out around 1970 (?) was the Vlasov story, IIRC.
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