Table of contents:
- Features of the technology of recruiting the Nazis
- How did the future agents of the Abwehr train
- How fighters were recruited into the "Greyhead Special Force" (RNNA)
- Why Sonderverband Graukopf (RNNA) didn't recruit pilots and tankers
Video: How the Third Reich recruited Soviet soldiers and military experts: What they scared and what they offered
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Wanting to speed up their victory, the Germans had a plan to use Soviet prisoners of war for this. To recruit Red Army soldiers in the camps, any means were used - from intimidation by hunger and backbreaking work to the processing of consciousness with anti-Soviet propaganda. Psychological pressure and hard physical existence often forced soldiers and officers to go over to the side of the enemy of the Red Army. Some of them became excellent performers and killed their people. And some, after landing in the rear, went to surrender to Soviet units, not hiding about recruitment.
Features of the technology of recruiting the Nazis
It is now no secret that the Soviet Union in the first year of the war suffered not only great human losses in those killed, but also lost millions of soldiers and commanders due to the capture of their captives. German historian, author of the book "They are not our comrades … Wehrmacht and Soviet prisoners of war in 1941-45." Christian Streit calculated that by the end of the winter of 1942, about 2 million Soviet soldiers and officers had been killed in German captivity, starved to death and disease. Ignoring the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which entered into force on June 19, 1931, the Nazis deliberately doomed the Red Army soldiers to death, depriving them of medical care and sufficient food. Difficult physical and moral conditions were created for Soviet prisoners of war for a reason, but with a specific purpose - to recruit a psychologically crushed and exhausted enemy in order to use him in the fight against the Red Army.
Recruitment technology based on intimidation and deprivation paid off, as emaciated, morally weakened people often went to work with the Nazis just to escape from the hell of concentration. However, the Germans soon noticed that the tactics of the usual consent to cooperation was ineffective: many newly-made agents, after being thrown into the rear, either surrendered to the Soviet authorities, or simply stopped communicating.
To improve the quality of recruitment, the Germans began to use more sophisticated methods. One of these methods was to force the Red Army soldier to become a traitor, forcing him to give out important information about the former unit. Another common way is to defame a captured soldier by spreading false rumors about his participation, for example, in punitive operations against civilians and partisans.
How did the future agents of the Abwehr train
Intelligence schools, which were created in the occupied territories of the USSR, were involved in the training of recruited prisoners of war. The teachers and instructors in such schools consisted of members of the security service (SD) and military intelligence of the Wehrmacht. The entire teaching staff spoke fluent Russian and was well acquainted with the realities of the Soviet country, having met and studied them even before the start of the war.
The main part of the new agents in schools was taught sabotage - to blow up bridges, railways, power lines, and also to set up exploding trains with manpower, ammunition and military equipment. In addition, the obligatory part of the program was drill training, topography, engineering, skydiving, study of the structure and organization of the armed forces of the USSR.
After leaving school, sabotage groups were formed, and then their participants met with the highest ranks of German intelligence: German officers checked the reliability and preparedness of agents for the upcoming operation.
How fighters were recruited into the "Greyhead Special Force" (RNNA)
The Germans needed prisoners of war not only for reconnaissance and sabotage, but also for the organization of the so-called Russian National People's Army (RNNA). The recruitment of soldiers for the RNNA volunteer battalion was first handled by Russian emigrants from Berlin, and later by the RNNA officers, who earned trust in their deeds and diligence.
Several camps existed to select prisoners of war for the newly created army. According to the description of one of the organizers and leaders of the Russian Army, Konstantin Kromiadi, the selection was always carried out according to the same established scheme. Namely: the receiver, after arrival, showed the certificate signed by Field Marshal von Kluge. After that, the prisoners were lined up, the recruiter made an agitation speech in front of them, and if there were volunteers among the prisoners, they were put on a special list and taken out of the camp.
With a lack of volunteers, prisoners of war were intimidated, promising them death by starvation and backbreaking work in the camps. Sometimes ideological propaganda was used, spiced with provocative questions with an anti-Soviet bias. For example: “What will the struggle for collective farms give you? Do you want to fight for the Soviet concentration camps? One method or another usually worked, and the recruiter received the required number of future RNNA soldiers.
Why Sonderverband Graukopf (RNNA) didn't recruit pilots and tankers
If at first those who wanted to join the RNNA were recruited, not paying attention to the type of troops in which the prisoners of war were, then a little later the representatives of the White emigration refused to accept tankers and pilots. This was explained by the ideological insecurity of Soviet officers and fighters who had previously served in the air force and tank units. According to the historian S. G. Chuev: “If, after the selection of suitable candidates, there were tankers and pilots on the list, they were screened out. The White emigres did not trust them, believing that these types of troops consisted exclusively of communists and Komsomol members loyal to the Soviet system”.
The leadership of the RNNA had reason to believe that after arriving in Osintorf, the place where the new army was formed, the former pilots and tankers would begin to secretly conduct anti-Nazi propaganda. To protect the contingent from the destructive influence of this category of prisoners of war, the headquarters of the Russian Army decided to tighten the rules for recruiting volunteers in the camps. However, with the course of the war, these restrictions were not observed as punctually as initially - exceptions were made for some captured pilots and tankers.
And also the fascists turned Soviet children into Aryans, and then what came of it.
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