10. Marked Down for Payback
Andrey Vlasov was eventually put in charge of the 2nd Shock Army after its commander fell ill. However, his new command was cut off and encircled as it advanced towards Leningrad, and was destroyed in June, 1942. Vlasov managed to escape temporarily, but he was captured 10 days later. In captivity, he agreed to switch sides. Taken to Berlin, he and other Soviet traitors began drafting plans for a Russian provisional government, and for recruiting a Soviet turncoat army. That sealed him and their fates should Germany lose the war. The Soviets marked them down for vicious payback.
In 1943, Vlasov wrote an anticommunist leaflet, millions of copies of which were dropped on Soviet positions. Using Vlasov’s name, the Nazis recruited hundreds of thousands of Soviet defectors, forming them in a so-called Russian Liberation Army. However, although they were nominally under Vlasov’s command, they were kept strictly under direct German control, with Vlasov exercising little or no authority.
