Chapter 9 02. The most famous traitor

According to the latest figures released by Russia, the Soviet Red Army captured more than 5.7 million people during World War II.Of the more than 5.7 million people, 1.9 million returned to the Soviet Union after the war. Of course, most of the rest died in prisoner-of-war camps. Many people stayed in Europe and were unwilling to return to the Soviet Union. There is a joke. In the Stalin era, a Soviet immigrated to the United States. When he entered the customs, he was found carrying a very large portrait of Stalin in his luggage.The U.S. customs officer was very surprised and asked this person, what are you doing with this thing?The Soviet man said, this cures my homesickness, as long as I take out this portrait and look at it, I don't want to go back to the Soviet Union.

Many Soviet prisoners of war also had this idea and stayed in Europe.The most surprising thing is not the large number of captured Soviet troops, what is the most surprising thing?Among the more than 5.7 million captured Soviet troops, 1 million actually rebelled and shot at their motherland. Among these traitors, the most famous is the former Red Army Lieutenant General Vlasov, commander of the Second Assault Army.He was the biggest traitor and the most famous traitor in the Soviet Army during World War II. Why would such a Soviet general betray the country and surrender to the enemy?The process is indescribable.Vlasov joined the Red Army at the age of 18. He was very heroic when he fought against the so-called "White Army" during the civil war. As soon as the civil war ended, he studied at the Leningrad Higher Cavalry School and studied with the famous Zhukov and Rokossov. Ski is a classmate.The Leningrad Higher Cavalry School was the cradle of senior Soviet officers, because at that time tanks were not the main combat arm, and cavalry was the king of the army.

In the 1930s, Vlasov was sent to China as a military adviser and once helped Chiang Kai-shek train the army.After returning home, Vlasov served as division commander.After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, in July 1941, Vlasov served as the commander of the newly formed 37th Army and participated in defensive operations in Kyiv.As a result, the Battle of Kyiv became the largest encirclement battle in human history, and the defense of the Soviet army completely collapsed.Vlasov escaped by chance and returned to his position on foot.In the Kyiv battle, being able to come back alive is a skill.

So Stalin ordered Vlasov to be taken to Moscow by plane and awarded him the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.It can be seen that Vlasov is a figure in Stalin's mind, and Stalin also appointed him as the commander of the 20th Army to defend Moscow. In November 1941, the German army broke through the Soviet defense line from behind, and Moscow was in danger. At that time, Vlasov was ordered to lead the 7th and 8th Infantry Divisions in person, and forced the march to block the breakthrough in time, making great contributions to the defense of Moscow.Then, with the cooperation of friendly forces, Vlasov led his troops to launch a counterattack, blocking the Germans on the front line of the Moscow Canal.During the Moscow counter-offensive, Vlasov served as the vanguard again, leading the 20th Army to take the lead.It can be said that Vlasov was a general in the defense of Moscow.Once the battle was over, Stalin appointed Vlasov as deputy commander of the Volkhov Front and commander of the Second Shock Army.

After Vlasov was promoted, he immediately put into work with unprecedented vigor, tried every means to organize a counterattack, and led his troops deep into the enemy's rear, seriously threatening the flanks of the German Eighteenth Army.It's a pity that the early rafters rotted first. This buddy made too fast progress, while the other Soviet troops made slow progress and failed to break through the German defense line.In this way, the German Northern Army Group adjusted its deployment, mobilized a large number of reinforcements, and encircled Vlasov's Second Assault Army.The Soviet troops in the encirclement reached 130,000 people. Vlasov desperately broke through. The infantry division serving as the avant-garde opened a passage, but the German army finally sealed the breakthrough.

On June 25, 1942, Vlasov ordered the Second Shock Army to break out in small groups.In fact, it is to announce the disintegration of the entire group army, let's take care of each other.The leaders of the group army were divided into 3 groups, covered by the submachine gun company of the headquarters, and prepared to retreat to the position of the 46th Infantry Division, which was still fighting, but they were quickly dispersed by the firepower of the German army. Vlasov fled to a small village, and when he was thinking about how to go next, soldiers from the German 38th Infantry Army rushed in and aimed their submachine guns at Vlasov.Vlasov had no choice but to slowly raise his hands, and said to the German soldiers in a low voice, don't shoot, I am Lieutenant General Vlasov, commander of the Second Assault Army, and take me to see your supreme commander.

In this way, Lieutenant General Vlasov became one of the 3 million Soviet prisoners of war at the beginning of the Soviet-German War, and his political identity suddenly went from heaven to hell. They were treated inhumanely here.To be honest, the German army treated British and American prisoners of war well, because both parties were signatories to the Geneva Convention, but the Soviet Union was not. This is an important reason.Another reason is that the Germans feel that the Anglo-Americans are as noble as themselves, and even say that the British are "honorary Germans", while the Slavs are inferior and should be eliminated.Therefore, among the 270,000 British and American Allied soldiers captured by the German and Italian troops, less than 9,000 died in the end, while more than 30,000 of the more than 90,000 Allied soldiers captured by the Japanese army died.However, the Soviet army did not have such good treatment. Except for a small number of captured Soviet soldiers who escaped, most of them died of hunger and cold.

All this made Vlasov, who was a lieutenant general, extremely terrified.The only thing that has been difficult in the ages is death. It is very difficult for a person to fall into this situation without fear of life and death.If you command thousands of troops on the battlefield and are killed by bullets all at once, it is very honorable, and you are a hero who died for the country.But in the concentration camp, the dignified general was abused five times and six times, and finally tortured to death, which would make people very desperate. This time is a test of one's will, and Vlasov did not persevere.But what really prompted his swift defection was a sad order from his motherland.

On August 16, 1941, Stalin signed the famous and brutal order No. 270. The order stated: "If commanders and political workers conceal their identities, desert or surrender to the enemy during the battle, they will be regarded as deliberate defectors. Their family members will be regarded as family members of deserters who have betrayed the motherland and will be arrested... instruct Every soldier, if his unit is surrounded, must do everything possible to fight until the last moment to break out of the encirclement. If the commander or political commissar does not actively organize to repel the enemy, but chooses to surrender to the enemy, he can use all means to destroy them... "

This order was later developed to the point that the family members of all defectors would be executed, even those who had escaped from POW camps, would all be shot. In the eyes of the Soviet commander, there are no prisoners of war, only defectors.They think that as long as a soldier is captured, he is a traitor.This point is consistent with the understanding of Eastern countries such as Japan and China. If you are not dead, you are a traitor.Originally, during the process of the Soviet Union’s external expansion, the ethnic conflicts caused were very sharp. Ukrainians, Cossacks, people from the three countries along the Baltic Sea, Chechens, and Kalmyks were oppressed on a daily basis. Positively, even treating the Germans as liberators.Therefore, as soon as this order came out, the soldiers were even more distracted and pushed them into the arms of the enemy.These people will think, you are too cruel to be the boss!Anyway, he is dead anyway, and his family will be hurt, so why not surrender, and still have something to eat.

Order No. 270 did not have any positive impact on reducing the number of Soviet prisoners of war. Two months after the order was issued, the number of Soviet prisoners of war increased by another 1.3 million!During the entire Soviet-German War, the number of captured Soviet troops reached 5.7 million, of whom more than 1 million were rebels. They formed the Russian Liberation Army or similar volunteers, turned their guns, and fought against the motherland. There is a saying: "Generals have the will to die, and soldiers have no greed for life." The rebellion of Soviet soldiers is closely related to the fact that Soviet officers never set an example, but collective corruption.A piece of exposing material on the 59th Army of the Soviet Union is the best illustration of the problem: The leaders and political commissars of the unit were obsessed with women and were addicted to alcohol. Instead of doing their jobs well during the battle, they ran amok on the front line.For example, Korovin, the deputy director of the Engineering Department of the Group Army and the "Hero of the Soviet Union", led people into the army cafeteria after drinking heavily, pulled out his pistol, asked the chef for sausages, jam and bread, and after getting it, he even took the jam bottle. He hit the ground and ordered the adjutant to plant mines in the canteen.This person also publicly lived with the female typist of the headquarters, went to the bathhouse to take a bath together, and became a "model" for his subordinates. Furthermore, Samoilov, Chief of Artillery Staff of the Army Group, wrote in a love letter to typist Tugarinova: "My dear, if you don't want to destroy our friendship, please take back what you said today and don't talk to me again. If you eat together. This makes me very sad, you have hurt me a lot, and everything I do for you is out of good intentions. I like you, or I am used to being with you." The author of this love letter has also become a "model" for the artillery unit. If the officers just do something like that, it's just affecting the mentality of the soldiers.Avtukhov, a member of the military committee of the independent telephone company of the unit, lived with the company assistant female military doctor. Therefore, she was not allowed to go to the company to treat the wounded soldiers, which aroused the resentment of all the staff. The female pilots, typists, correspondents, and medical staff serving the group army were all harassed by their superiors. A health worker named Ulanova pushed away the minister of health who was trying to make a move. As a result, the officer became enraged and pulled out a pistol He fired several shots at the ground, and to his misfortune, the bullet bounced off and hit him in the leg. The Fifty-ninth Army is a vivid "wine and sex" army.Dorofeev, the commander of the 378th Infantry Division, summed it up best. Once, after fooling around with a group of female doctors for two days and two nights, he said to his subordinates: "The women here are prostitutes, you have to use them, you These commanders don't miss this opportunity..." In such an environment, Soviet soldiers will definitely have doubts about their beliefs. Can such an army win?The officers are addicted to drinking and sex, but let the soldiers bleed and die. Is such an officer worthy of the soldiers to work for them? Therefore, many Soviet soldiers defected to the enemy.In the prisoner-of-war camp, Vlasov also lost confidence, thinking that the Soviet Union had lost the war, and the only thing to do was to cooperate with the Germans and establish a puppet regime that bowed to Germany.Vlasov believes that this can save Russia from shedding some blood. Only by "cooperating" with Germany can the Soviets shed less blood.This idea became more and more firm in Vlasov's mind.He said to his subordinates: "Is it not a crime to shed more blood? Isn't the main enemy of the Russian nation Bolshevism and Stalin? Isn't it the first sacred duty of every Russian to rise up against Stalin and his accomplices?" ? I have finally come to the conclusion that it is my duty to mobilize the Russian nation in the struggle against the Bolshevik regime and the building of a new Russia." Although Vlasov's words were to make excuses for his own betrayal and tried to drag others into the water, his behavior was typical, showing that the Soviets at that time did not agree with Stalin's despotism.This kind of thinking tied Vlasov to the fascist chariot and served as the leader of the pro-German Russian Liberation Army. Vlasov wanted to side with the Germans, but the Germans didn't appreciate it at first, because they didn't trust him and were unwilling to use him.It is said that when the German general reported to Hitler at that time, he said to Hitler: "Vlasov has an idea..." Hitler immediately interrupted the general, saying that Vlasov did not deserve an idea, who would approve it? They wear German uniforms?We don't have that many German uniforms for them to wear. It was not until the last two years of World War II, when the war was very unfavorable to the German army, that the German army used Vlasov.