Andrey Vlasov Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov or " Wlassow " ( , – August 2 , 1946 ) was a Russian Red Army general who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II . Early career . Born in Lomakino , Nizhny Novgorod Governorate , Russian Empire , Vlasov was originally a student at a Russian Orthodox seminary . He quit the study of divinity after the Russian Revolution , briefly studying agricultural sciences instead , and in 1919 joined the Red Army fighting in the southern theatre in Ukraine , the Caucasus , and the Crimea . He distinguished himself as an officer and gradually rose through the ranks of the Red Army . Vlasov joined the Communist Party in 1930 . Sent to China , he acted as a military adviser to Chiang Kai - shek from 1938 to November 1939 . Upon his return , Vlasov served in several assignments before being given command of the 99th Rifle Division . After just nine months under Vlasov ' s leadership , after an inspection by Semyon Timoshenko , the division was recognized as one of the best divisions in the Army in 1940 . Timoshenko presented Vlasov with an inscribed gold watch , as he ' found the 99th the best of all . The historian John Erickson says of Vlasov at this point that [ he ] ' was an up - and - coming man . In 1940 , Vlasov was promoted to major general , and on June 22 , 1941 , when the Germans and their allies invaded the Soviet Union , Vlasov was commanding 4th Mechanized Corps . Shortly after the invasion began , Vlasov ' s corps retook Przemyśl , holding it for six days . As a lieutenant general , he commanded the 37th Army near Kiev and escaped encirclement . He then played an important role in the defense of Moscow , as his 20th Army counterattacked and retook Solnechnogorsk . Vlasov ' s picture was printed ( along with those of other Soviet generals ) in the newspaper Pravda as that of one of the " defenders of Moscow " . Described by some historians as " charismatic " , Vlasov was decorated on January 24 , 1942 , with the Order of the Red Banner for his efforts in the defence of Moscow . Vlasov was ordered to relieve the ailing commander Klykov after the Second Shock Army had been encircled . After this success , Vlasov was put in command of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front and ordered to lead the attempt to lift the Siege of Leningrad — the Lyuban - Chudovo Offensive Operation of January – April 1942 . Other forces ( the Volkhov Front ' s 4th , 52nd , and 59th Armies , 13th Cavalry Corps , and 4th and 6th Guards Rifle Corps , as well as the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front ) failed to exploit Vlasov ' s advances and his army was left stranded in German - held territory . The 2nd Shock Army was surrounded and , in June 1942 , destroyed . Defection . After Vlasov ' s army was surrounded , he himself was offered an escape by aeroplane . The general refused and hid in German - occupied territory ; ten days later , on July 12 , 1942 , a local farmer exposed him to the Germans . Vlasov ' s opponent and captor , German general Georg Lindemann , interrogated him about the surrounding of his army and details of battles , then had Vlasov imprisoned in occupied Vinnytsia . Vlasov claimed that during his ten days in hiding he affirmed his anti - bolshevism , believing Stalin was the greatest enemy of the Russian people , and there is evidence that suggests Vlasov may have changed sides in a bid to give his countrymen a better life than the one they had under Stalin . His critics , including Marshall Kirill Meretskov ( who had endorsed Vlasov ' s promotion to executive officer of the Volkhov front ) and most Soviet historians , argued that Vlasov adopted a pro - Nazi German stance in prison out of opportunism , careerism , and survival , fearing Stalinist retribution for losing his last battle and his army . German prisoner . While in prison , Vlasov met Captain Wilfried Strik - Strikfeldt , a Baltic German who was attempting to foster a Russian Liberation Movement . Strik - Strikfeldt had circulated memos to this effect in the Wehrmacht . Strik - Strikfeldt , who had been a participant in the White movement during the Russian civil war , persuaded Vlasov to become involved in aiding the German advance against the rule of Stalin and bolshevism . With Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Boyarsky , Vlasov wrote a memo shortly after his capture to the German military leaders suggesting cooperation between anti - Stalinist Russians and the German Army . Vlasov was taken to Berlin under the protection of the Wehrmacht ' s propaganda department . There he , together with other Soviet officers , began drafting plans for the creation of a Russian provisional government and the recruitment of a Russian army of liberation under Russian command . Vlasov founded the Russian Liberation Committee , in hopes of creating the Russian Liberation Army — known as ROA ( from " Russkaya Osvoboditel ' naya Armiya " ) . In the spring of 1943 , Vlasov wrote an anti - Bolshevik leaflet known as the " Smolensk Proclamation " , which was dropped from aircraft by the millions on Soviet forces and Soviet - controlled soil . Even though no Russian Liberation Army yet existed , the Nazi propaganda department issued Russian Liberation Army patches to Russian volunteers and tried to use Vlasov ' s name in order to encourage defections . Several hundred thousand former Soviet citizens served in the German army wearing this patch , but never under Vlasov ' s own command . Adolf Hitler was very wary of Vlasov and his intentions . On April 3 , 1943 , Hitler made clear in a speech to his high command that such an army would never be created , then issued directives to dismantle any such efforts and to sequester all of Vlasov ' s supporters in the German army . He worried that Vlasov might succeed in overthrowing Stalin , which would halt Hitler ' s dreams of expanding Greater Germany to the Urals . Hitler began taking measures against Eastern Volunteer units , especially Russian ones , arranging for their transfer to the west . Vlasov was permitted to make several trips to Nazi - occupied Russia : most notably , to Pskov , where Russian pro - German volunteers paraded . The populace ' s reception of Vlasov was mixed . While in Pskov , Vlasov dealt himself a nearly fatal political blow by referring to the Germans as mere " guests " during a speech , which Hitler found belittling . Vlasov was even put under house arrest and threatened with being handed over to the Gestapo . Despondent about his mission , Vlasov threatened to resign and return to the POW camp , but was dissuaded at the last minute by his confidants . According to Shalamov , Vlasov emissaries lectured to the Russian prisoners of war , explaining to them that their government had declared them all traitors , and that escaping was pointless . As Vlasov proclaimed , even if the Soviets succeeded , Joseph Stalin would send them to Siberia . Only in September 1944 did Germany — at the urging of Heinrich Himmler , initially a virulent opponent of Vlasov — finally permit Vlasov to raise his Russian Liberation Army . Vlasov formed and chaired the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia , proclaimed by the Prague Manifesto on 14 November 1944 . Vlasov also hoped to create a Pan - Slavic liberation congress , but Nazi political officials , generally prejudiced against the Slavs , would not permit it . Commander of the ROA . Vlasov ' s only combat against the Red Army took place on February 11 , 1945 , on the river Oder . After three days of battle against overwhelming forces , the First Division of the ROA was forced to retreat and marched southward to Prague , in German - controlled Bohemia . On May 6 , 1945 , Vlasov received a request from the commander of the first ROA division , General Sergei Bunyachenko , for permission to turn his weapons against the Nazi SS forces and aid Czech resistance fighters in the Prague uprising . Vlasov at first disapproved , then reluctantly allowed Bunyachenko to proceed . Some historians maintain it was the bitterness of the ROA against the Germans which caused them to switch sides once again , while other historians believe the sole purpose of this action was to win favor from the western Allies and possibly even the Soviet side , in the light of the nearly completed military annihilation of the German Reich . Two days later , the first division was forced to leave Prague as communist Czech partisans began arresting ROA soldiers in order to hand them over to the Soviets for execution . Vlasov and the rest of his forces , trying to evade the overpowering Red Army and wishing to preserve their ranks for a future war of liberation , attempted to head west to surrender to the Allies in the closing days of the war in Europe . On May 10 , 1945 , Vlasov and his men reached western Allied forces and surrendered to them . Final days . Vlasov was taken into American captivity and held in a city in Tirol . He and his generals continued talks with the British and the Americans , explaining the principles of their liberation movement and trying to persuade the western Allies to grant asylum to its participants . However , Vlasovalong with many of his men and other Nazi collaboratorswas forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union . Soviet authorities sent Vlasov to Moscow , where over the course of a year he was held in the Lubyanka prison . A summary trial held in the summer of 1946 and presided over by Viktor Abakumov sentenced him and eleven other senior officers from his army to death for treason . The twelve men were hanged on August 1 , 1946 . These were among the last death sentences in the Soviet Union carried out by hanging ( from then on Soviet death penalty was carried out by firing squad ; later a group of Cossack leaders allied with the Germans , including Pyotr Krasnov , Andrei Shkuro , and Helmuth von Pannwitz , suffered the same fate ) . Memorial . A memorial dedicated to General Vlasov and the participants in the Russian Liberation Movement was erected at the Novo - Diveevo ( ) Russian Orthodox convent and cemetery in Nanuet , New York , USA . Twice annually , on the anniversary of Vlasov ' s execution and on the Sunday following Orthodox Easter , a memorial service is held for Vlasov and the combatants of the Russian Liberation Army . Review of his case . In 2001 , a Russian Federation - based social organization , " " For Faith and Fatherland " " , applied to the Russian Federation ' s military prosecutor for a review of Vlasov ' s case , saying that " Vlasov was a patriot who spent much time re - evaluating his service in the Red Army and the essence of Stalin ' s regime before agreeing to collaborate with the Germans " . The military prosecutor concluded that the law of rehabilitation of victims of political repressions did not apply to Vlasov and refused to consider the case again . However , Vlasov ' s Article 58 conviction for anti - Soviet agitation and propaganda was vacated . Literature and film . Books : Documentaries :