History 07/01/20 Why Vlasov was afraid to surrender to the red army
Sometimes the prisoner would not take it simply because there was no time to bother with prisoners: it is necessary to advance further, and not leave a significant portion of soldiers to escort prisoners, Then prisoners could be shot. But often did not take prisoners soldier specific categories. The war has its own unspoken rules. They keep the element of cruelty, and only merciful warriors can count on the mercy of his enemy. Even during the great Patriotic war, when unprecedented atrocities have become commonplace, some entities or categories of soldiers of the Wehrmacht deserved a monstrous bloody crimes special reputation, which did not allow related to soldiers and officers to rely on the pardon.
Snipers
for Example, usually the soldiers did not take prisoners, and immediately shot or otherwise killed German flamethrower and snipers. Therefore, those, if time was aware of the possibility of capture, threw the “evidence” – your precious rifles or scopes. Snipers were feared and hated: a sniper could kill hundreds of people, often those die in agony, as the sniper is more profitable to wound rather than to kill the enemy. Wounded to attract their mates (i.e., new goals), and screaming than frighten his comrades. German sniper Josef Allerberger, fought on the Eastern front and killed not less than 257 of the red army (including several women), cynically admitted in his memoirs: “I have seen how inhuman screams of the wounded me of Russian fighters and demoralize their comrades and the Soviet attack was sharply weakened and stopped”; Allerberger “tried to hit in the stomach as many fighters as possible”, and also tried to get into the kidneys, that “the wounded had started for the beast to scream and howl”. And he knew that that he in any do not take prisoners: “the Sniper who captured, waiting for the massacre”. Before every major fight, Allerberger look after the place where he could hide his rifle in case of a sudden appearance next to his Russian trenches.
SS
Soldiers of the SS, the organization recognized a criminal, also frequently did not take prisoners. That is, the SS served the “death factory” – a concentration camp; they participated in the brutal human experiments, conducted ethnic cleansing, executions of Jews and Communists, the massacre of civilians, women, children… For their cruelty had no limits, they had no ideas about military honor. Their crimes they enjoyed and felt proud. And the response was hatred and contempt. The soldiers deserved called them “animals”. Before you capture a SS cut stripes, or wore a different form, so as not to provoke the army and not be immediately shot. In the SS divisions also served many hated the red marauders of the Federal German countries – Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Flemish, etc. They are often used in punitive operations against the guerrillas (and, hence, they killed civilians, that is the partisan “supporters”).
their Glory was so bad that even General Vatutin contrary to all the rules openly gave the order “Hungarians in take no prisoners” – under Voronezh Hungarian part had done so much atrocities, what hope for the mercy they could not. Even after the war, the SS hid his past and fled to Latin America, as they had to fear not only prosecution, but also revenge hunters for Nazis, sometimes engaged in lynching.
Vlasov
Not to say that a tendency not to take prisoners was a mass of collaborators in the red army. No, acted situational, and a lot depended on the specific part and mood of the Soviet soldiers. Many could not hold back his hatred for traitors and shot surrendering Vlasov on the spot. Gunner Kidail Kano recalled that “none of us then were not interested in the reasons why the former soldier was to serve the Germans, whether for ideological reasons, or that used in the pow camp with hunger not to die…” To the Vlasov treated with boundless hatred. Kano described the episode that occurred at his eyes with a column of captured Vlasov: “One of the tankers got behind the levers of T-34 and crashed into the convoy, began to push, someone managed. The tanker then was given to the Tribunal…”
even If the price of their freedom and risk to life krasnoarmeyets could do this, what can we say about the moment of surrender in a combat situation – there is often Vlasov gave no quarter. Veteran L. S. Swerdlow recalled one occasion his part surrounded the barn with ingrained Vlasov: “Destroyed every single prisoner they had to take was not going to”.
Konstantin Dmitriev
Source:
© Russian Seven
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