History 22/02/20 How many Soviet citizens refused to return to the USSR after the Second world
the category of “defectors” were different – collaborators (“Vlasov” and other supporters of the Nazis) at home awaiting trial and the GULAG (at best), a similar fate was, many prisoners of war, not even collaborated with the Germans. And “Ostarbeiters” did not want to return to the Soviet Union because it had to evaluate the benefits of life in the West – even as forced laborers.
abroad was 5 million?
This is data on the number of Soviet citizens, including deported for forced labor (“Ostarbeiters”) and prisoners of war – declassified files of the chief Commissioner SNK USSR for repatriation Affairs Philip Golikov. Most of the subject to repatriation (3 million people) were located in the area controlled by the allies. Of the total number who were liberated from the Nazis territories 1.7 million were prisoners of war, among whom were collaborators (often family, departed with the Germans during the retreat and received the status of “displaced persons”).
According to the Agency F. Golikov, representatives of all these categories of potential returnees initially, there were 6.8 million people, the other to the end of the war either died or were destroyed by the Nazis during the great Patriotic war.
So how many left?
Historians Mikhail Geller and Alexander Nekrich, resulting in his book, “Utopia in power” about 500k “potential immigrants” who remained in the West after world war II, wondered why in the declassified official data of the Ministry of Philip Golikov repatriated so the numbers vary widely with the number of “internally displaced citizens of the USSR [in Germany and satellite countries during the war]” referred to this office?
According to research by the Institute of history Academy of Sciences of the USSR Vladimir Poletaeva, Strizhkova Yuri and Vladimir Telpuchowski, such a “disconnect” in the statistics of repatriated due to the fact that of the satellite countries of Nazi Germany massively exported Soviet citizens who were not local residents – these people could be there not because they were at one time forcibly “deported” (captured).
the Figure in 500 thousand remaining in the West, Soviet citizens confirmed by Russian historian Viktor Zemskov, indicating that this number is optimal for the capabilities to receive such a contingent Western countries.
it is Noteworthy that approximately the same findings came from the declassified Soviet statistics of the office for repatriation (with a difference of minus 50 thousand people). According to official information, mainly talking about the Soviet Germans and the inhabitants of the Western regions of the Soviet Union – that they are, in the opinion of the Ministry of Philip Golikov, were the backbone of “the defectors”. According to management, more than 80 thousand of them settled in West Germany, and the majority (over 100 thousand) in England. The largest Diaspora did not want to return home chose for their new residence Australia (over 50 thousand people) and America (more than 35 thousand citizens of the former USSR).
Nicholas Syromyatnikov
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© Russian Seven
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