Beyda, Oleg/Petrov, Igor Soviet Turncoats. General Andrei Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Army, 1942-1945

In April 1945, in one of the last battles of the Second World War, Russian troops in German uniforms fought against the advancing Red Army on the Oder to the east of Berlin. Why did the Russians fight against their compatriots and how did the Soviet collaboration come about? In this insightful and meticulously researched study, Oleg Beyda and Igor Petrov provide answers to these questions and vividly explore the wider issue of Soviet citizens' collaboration with the Axis powers. Their work sheds fascinating new light on this long-suppressed aspect of the German-Soviet war, a crucial issue that remains highly controversial in Russia today. The most famous figure in this complicated story is Andrei Vlasov, the captured Red Army general who defected to the Germans and became commander of the Russian Liberation Army. His career during the war and that of other Soviet prisoners of war and Russian emigrants who joined him are the central figures of the story. The motivations of these men varied: while some switched allegiance out of conviction, many POWs had the choice between collaboration or a slow death in a German prison camp. As the book shows, the Russian Liberation Army remained a German propaganda project for most of its history, a hodgepodge of scattered but effective military units of former POWs under strict German command. Nevertheless, Vlasov and his officers sometimes tried to pursue their own policy independently of their German masters. At the very end of the war, in Prague, Vlasov's units fought against German troops in a desperate attempt to "please" the Allies and switched sides again. The challenges these men faced and the choices they had to make between loyalty, anti-Bolshevism and survival make this book a fascinating read.