The topic of the transfer of the Red Army soldiers to the service of Nazi Germany has been worked out in detail and well covered. But the situations when the Nazis worked for the Soviet side remain in the shadows. We'll shed some light.
Even before the start of the war
The first defectors from the Germans appeared even before the invasion of the Nazi troops in the USSR. There were several dozen of them. They all named the date of the start of the war - June 22, 1941. In Moscow, they did not believe in this information, because, according to intelligence, the war was supposed to start in May, but this did not happen, and the date of the invasion was called a new one several times. Information from the defectors was regarded as misinformation. Not everyone ran over for ideological reasons, someone tried to avoid punishment. For example, on June 18, a German sergeant-major came to the location of the 5th Army of the Kiev Military District, who, as the reason that pushed him across, named fear of a tribunal for hitting an officer.
The most famous defector was Alfred Liskov. He came over to our side on June 21 at 21.00 and reported to Soviet officers that German troops had received an order to attack the USSR on June 22. The thirty-year-old corporal of the 222nd Regiment of the 75th Infantry Division was sent to Moscow and later used in anti-Hitler propaganda. Due to mutual enmity with the leader of the Comintern Georgy Dimitrov, Liskov was arrested in January 1942 on the last denunciation, but in the summer he was released and sent to the Novosibirsk region, where his traces are lost.
In the midst of fighting
The anti-fascist Wehrmacht servicemen went over to the side of the Red Army even in the most difficult times for the Red Army, even took part in the partisan movement. The names of at least Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel and Friedrich Rosenberg have been documented. Fritz Schmenkel's father died in street battles with the Nazis, he himself tried to avoid mobilization, but failed. In November 1941, in the Smolensk region, he went over to the partisans. The invaders appointed a large sum and two months' leave for his capture.
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The command of the Red Army did not count only on the conscientiousness of enemy soldiers and carried out propaganda work. In particular, at the beginning of October 1941, 158 prisoners of war signed an "Appeal to the German people." In February 1942 - "Declaration 176", signed by the officers, followed by "Protest 115".
For regular work with defectors, Stalin created the committees "Free Germany" and "Union of German officers." The latter was led by General of Artillery Walter von Seydlitz - Kurzbach. And Bismarck's great-grandson, Luftwaffe Lieutenant Heinrich von Einsiedel became the deputy head of Free Germany.
In May 1942, the Central Anti-Fascist School (TsASh) was opened in the Gorky Region, where training took three months. Then TsASh was transferred to Moscow. The Central Anti-Fascist Courses were created in the prisoner camp No 165 in the Ivanovo region.
The Battle of Stalingrad led not only to a turning point in the war, but also to the capture of the highest-ranking German officer, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. He received the rank, already being surrounded, which was tantamount to an order to commit suicide - the German field marshals did not surrender. Paulus broke with tradition. In the future, he willingly collaborated with the Soviet command.
The Soviet side conducted 2.7 thousand radio broadcasts in German, including those with the participation of captured German officers and Paulus himself.
There is a legend about the participation of military units formed from captured Germans against the Nazi troops. No documentary evidence of this has been found. Most likely, the Vlasov ROA failed to form something like the Vlasov ROA out of the Germans, which does not exclude the participation of individual former Wehrmacht servicemen in hostilities on the side of the Red Army.
Konstantin Baranovsky