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Turncoat Generals – Commanders From History Who Switched Sides

Khalid Elhassan April 3, 2025 17 min

Turncoat - Benedict Arnold — Benedict Arnold. Smithsonian Magazine

12. The Painful End of a Turncoat

Vlasov in Soviet custody after the war. Traces of War

Vlasov’s only combat against the Red Army took place while in charge of a turncoat division near the Oder River in February, 1945, in the war’s closing stages. Afterwards, he was forced to retreat to German-controlled Czechoslovakia. In May, 1945, a few days before WWII ended, Vlasov’s division turned coat once again, this time against the Germans and in support of a Czech uprising. At war’s end, Vlasov tried to escape to the Western Allies’ lines, but was captured by Soviet forces, who discovered him hiding under blankets in a car. He was flown to Moscow and held in its dreaded Lubyanka Prison, where he was tortured for months. He was tried for treason in the summer of 1946 along with eleven of his leading subordinates. All were found guilty and sentenced to death, and on August 1^st, 1945, Vlasov and his fellow traitors were hanged.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.