Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was a notable Soviet military figure during World War II, recognized for his transition from a Red Army general to a controversial collaborator with Nazi Germany. Born into a prosperous Byelorussian farming family, Vlasov pursued education and joined the Red Army during the tumultuous years of the Russian Civil War. His military career was characterized by technical expertise and gradual advancement, earning him commendations such as the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner for his efforts in significant battles against German forces.
As the war progressed, Vlasov grew disillusioned with Stalin's leadership following heavy losses and restrictions on his command. This discontent led him to consider collaboration with the Germans, who sought to utilize his reputation to form an anti-Bolshevik army. Despite the promise of support, the German regime's racial ideology ultimately limited his efforts. Vlasov became the commander of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR), which aimed to rally Russian defectors but had minimal impact on the war.
After the conflict, Vlasov was captured and faced trial in the Soviet Union, where he was executed for treason. His legacy is complex; while he became a symbol of anti-Stalinist resistance for some, he is also seen as a pawn in the larger machinations of Nazi propaganda. Vlasov's story reflects the desperation and turmoil of a nation grappling with war and political oppression.
Subject Terms
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov
Soviet army general and Nazi collaborator
- Born: September 14, 1900
- Birthplace: Lomakino, near Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
- Died: August 1, 1946
- Place of death: Moscow, Soviet Union (now in Russia)
Major offense: Treason
Active: July, 1942-May, 1945
Locale: Russian front during World War II
Sentence: Death by hanging
Early Life
Little is known about the early years of Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (AN-dray an-DRAY-yuh-vich VLAS-ahv). He was the youngest son of a Byelorussian farmer who earned money on the side as a tailor. As such, Vlasov’s father was the kind of prosperous middle-class farmer that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin identified as a kulak, a repressed group. Vlasov sought betterment through education, first as a student in a seminary and then in an agricultural college. Events of the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) forced the seminary to close and interrupted his agricultural studies. In 1919, Vlasov was drafted into the Red Army.
Military Career
Throughout his Red Army career, Vlasov avoided politics and was a military technician; his career advanced in a steady, unspectacular manner. Between 1938 and 1939, he served as military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese government and thus avoided Stalin’s purges (the systematic political repression and persecution of Soviet citizens). Subsequent postings earned Vlasov the Order of Lenin for his ability to rebuild and renovate substandard units.
When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, Vlasov held corps and then army commands. His desperate defense near Kiev and last-minute breakout resulted in his promotion to command of the Twentieth Army near Moscow. Under Vlasov, this army played a significant role in the Russian counterattack and eventual German defeat.
Awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his actions, Vlasov was transferred to the Second Shock Army outside Leningrad, where he was ordered to break the siege. With too few troops and limited artillery, failure was inevitable. Stalin forbade retreat and doomed Vlasov’s forces to encirclement and annihilation. Disillusioned, Vlasov was ready to surrender and denounce the Soviet purges and incompetence, as well as Stalin’s criminal negligence.
Vlasov’s fame in the Moscow battles made him an attractive catch for German propagandists. The most persuasive was Captain Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, Vlasov’s German interpreter and confidant. German authorities sought to convince Vlasov to lead the anti-Stalinist Russians and dismantle the Soviet state.
From the beginning of World War II, thousands of angry and vengeful Russians saw the war as an opportunity to destroy the Stalinist system. After bloody fighting depleted many German units, German officers willingly incorporated Russian volunteers as auxiliaries in both combatant and noncombatant roles. Strik-Strikfeldt and others wanted to use Vlasov’s name and reputation to spur Russian desertions and raise a vast “anti-Bolshevik army.” Such a dream was antithetical to the racial ideology of Adolf Hitler, which denigrated Slavs and realized that any Russian state, communist or not, would naturally oppose German efforts at colonization in Russia.
Although opposed to the actual formation of a Russian anti-Bolshevik army, Hitler allowed Vlasov to write propaganda leaflets. Germany’s dwindling troop strength in the fall of 1944 convinced Nazi official Heinrich Himmler to utilize the military power of a Russian anti-Bolshevik army. Himmler thus engineered the creation of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (the Komitet Osvobozhdyeniya Narodov Rossi, known as the KONR), with Vlasov as its commander. Although more than one million Russians changed sides during the war, Himmler allowed the KONR to form only two divisions. Created too late to have an impact on the fighting, the KONR forces had little effect on the war’s outcome. Vlasov and other defectors were either captured by the Russians or, after surrendering to the Western allies, transferred to Russia for trial.
Legal Action and Outcome
Vlasov and high-ranking KONR officers were interrogated, tried, and sentenced to death for treason by Russian authorities and then hanged. The trials were typical Stalinist show trials, held to demonstrate the fate of collaborators. Such trials were essential if the Soviet state were to prevent further disloyalty nurtured by Soviet mismanagement during the war. Most of the lower ranks of the KONR and other collaborationist groups were either executed or condemned to penal servitude in Russian labor camps.
Impact
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was the best known and highest ranking of the more than one million Soviets who fought as German auxiliaries in the anti-Stalin resistance during World War II. While certain German officers convinced Vlasov that Germany would support the KONR movement, the nature of Nazi Germany’s structure and leadership ensured that this was a fantasy and doomed Vlasov.
Nevertheless, Vlasov represented the most significant and dangerous threat to Stalin’s control of Russia. Because he was an accomplished, famous, and decorated general, Vlasov’s repudiation of Stalin’s leadership and communist ineptitude resonated with thousands of Russians. Even in the war’s last days, propaganda appeals issued in Vlasov’s name enticed many Russian soldiers to desert and join the KONR. Because German propagandists used Vlasov’s name so widely in their efforts to destabilize Soviet Russia, Vlasov became, for Stalin, the face of treason. During the Cold War, many in the West portrayed Vlasov as Russia’s lost hope for a leader who might have overthrown Stalin and eliminated communism, which made Vlasov famous. However, Hitler’s policies ensured that Vlasov could never be anything but a propaganda contrivance.
Bibliography
Anders, Wladyslaw. Russian Volunteers in Hitler’s Army. Bayside, N.Y.: Axis Europa, 1998. A good overview of the organization and history of German units built upon Russian defectors, including the KONR.
Andreyev, Catherine. Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987. One of the most insightful studies of Vlasov’s ideology and the objectives of the anti-Stalinist Russians.
Munoz, Antonio J. The Osttruppen. Vol. 2 in Hitler’s Eastern Legions. Bayside, N.Y.: Axis Europa, 1997. A good treatment of the organization, equipment, and history of the Russian volunteer forces.
Strik-Strikfeldt, Wilfried. Against Stalin and Hitler: A Memoir of the Russian Liberation Movement, 1941-1945. New York: Macmillan, 1970. As Vlasov’s confidant, Strik-Strikfeldt provides contemporary insight into Vlasov’s personality and ideology.