Battle of the Bulge, EUROPA WOCHE Nr. 100 Jan. 23, 1945 GERMAN NEWSREEL

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Episode 223

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EUROPA WOCHE Nr. 100

January 28, 1945

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The Russian Liberation Army was a collaborationist formation, primarily composed of Russians, that fought under German command during World War II. The army was led by Andrey Vlasov, a Red Army general who had defected, and members of the army are often referred to as Vlasovtsy. In 1944, it became known as the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.

Vlasov agreed to collaborate with Nazi Germany after having been captured on the Eastern Front. The soldiers under his command were mostly former Soviet prisoners of war but also included White Russian émigrés, some of whom were veterans of the anti-communist White Army from the Russian Civil War (1917–23). On 14 November 1944, it was officially renamed the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, with the KONR being formed as a political body to which the army pledged loyalty. On 28 January 1945, it was officially declared that the Russian divisions no longer form part of the German Army, but would directly be under the command of KONR.

During the march south in May of 1945, the first division of the ROA came to the help of the Czech partisans in the Prague uprising against the German occupation, which started on May 5. Vlasov was initially reluctant to agree to that move, but ultimately did not resist General Bunyachenko's decision to fight against the Germans.

The first division engaged in battle with Waffen-SS units that had been sent to level the city. The ROA units, armed with heavy weaponry, fended off the relentless SS assault, and together with the Czech insurgents succeeded in preserving most of Prague from destruction. Due to the predominance of communists in the new Czech Rada ("council"), the first division had to leave the city the very next day and tried to surrender to US Third Army of General Patton.[citation needed] The Allies, however, were not interested in aiding or sheltering the ROA, fearing such aid would harm relations with the USSR.

More than a thousand soldiers were initially taken into Allied custody by the 44th Infantry Division and other U.S. troops. In a move that Allied command kept secret for many years, they were then forcefully handed over to the Soviets by the Allies, due to a previous agreement between Churchill and Stalin that all ROA soldiers would be returned to the USSR. Some Allied officers who were sympathetic to the ROA soldiers permitted them to escape in small groups into the American-controlled zones.

The Soviet government labelled all ROA soldiers (vlasovtsy) as traitors, and those who were repatriated were tried and sentenced to detention in prison camps. Vlasov and several other leaders of the ROA were tried and hanged in Moscow on August 1, 1946.