The war ended a long time ago, almost seven decades ago, but many of its pages still inspire the souls of citizens of post-Soviet countries. During World War I (it is also called Germanic and imperialist), Russian soldiers did not go over to the side of the enemy. The Great Patriotic War in this aspect was different from previous wars. In the Red Army, many real heroes distinguished themselves.
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 German banners. Among them were outstanding individuals. Who are the “heroes” of the ROA and other military units of the Wehrmacht, where did they come from? First things first.
Vlasov
Lieutenant General of the Red Army Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov was an outstanding Soviet commander. This can be said today without any irony. After a civil war, he devoted more than two decades of his life to strengthening the defense of the USSR, distinguished himself in China (1938-1939), taught military science, skillfully commanded troops, was an excellent organizer. Since the beginning of World War II, Vlasov has been on the most responsible and difficult sections of the front, defending Kiev and Moscow. Was injured. He gained his authority in the army by military labor, which partly explains the unfortunate fact that even some Heroes sided with the Germans. ROA was equipped mainly with prisoners of war, and there were many. Pilots of the Soviet Air Force Tennikov, Bychkov and Antilevsky did not receive their Golden Stars in Tashkent ...
Heroes of the ROA. Who is it?
Other talented commanders fought against their own in the Russian liberation army. Deputy Vlasov for propaganda work was the brigade commissar of the Red Army G. Zhilenkov - a former secretary of the Moscow city committee of the AUCPB. So, he was a political worker, and he remained. Two order-bearing generals, a teacher at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, Malyshkin and Trukhin, were in charge of organizational matters. The hero of the Liepaja defense Blagoveshchensky, as well as Shapovalov, who defended Crimea skillfully in 1941, were not left without work by the Germans. Generals of the Red Army both.
What did the Vlasovites and Ukrainian nationalists dream about?
A. A. Vlasov was a military man, and most likely understood that even if he won, Hitler would not have enough resources to hold the occupied territories for a long time. It is possible that he believed that if two dictators fought among themselves for a long enough time, then they would exhaust their state apparatuses enough so that the remaining regime fell by itself. It was on the basis of further political prospects that there were contradictions with the Nazi leadership of both Stepan Bandera and Andrei Vlasov. Declaring the possibility of states independent of Germany, they aroused the anger of the Führer, whose plans did not at all include creating a free Russian state and, all the more, “non-fallow Ukraine”. What the “heroes” of the ROA and the UPA dreamed about was utopia. Perhaps they did not understand this.
The fate of traitors
Two tsarist generals, Shkuro and Krasnov , fought on the side of the Vlasov army. They were the heroes of the First World War and caused considerable damage to their future allies. During the Brusilov breakthrough, the Cossacks, personally led by Krasnov, strung hundreds of Austrian soldiers at their peak. "Wolf Hundred" Shkuro carried out deep raids behind enemy lines.
Ivan Dobrobabin, one of the famous Panfilov’s defenders of Moscow, was shell-shocked, captured, where he agreed to cooperate with the Germans.
These and other "heroes" of the ROA after the war were executed or served long sentences. Some of them were fortunate enough to escape, their fate was more prosperous 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 respected traitors with respect.