Andrey Vlasov

Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was born September 14, 1901, and rose to Soviet general, fighting the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Moscow in 1941-1942 before his capture during an attempt to lift the siege of Leningrad. After defection, he became the nominal head of the Russian Liberation Army, though the Nazis kept it a paper force for propaganda and forbade him real political or military activity until November 1944, when Himmler, desperate for manpower, authorized actual formations from Soviet POWs. Vlasov and his circle tried to build an anti-Stalinist movement independent of Nazi control, one Robert Conquest called democratic, aimed at "completing the Revolution" of 1917 while rejecting Nazi antisemitism. In January 1945 the ROA declared independence from the Wehrmacht; by May its 1st division fought alongside the Prague uprising against the Germans. Captured by Soviet forces with American assistance, Vlasov was tortured and hanged for treason after a secret trial on August 1, 1946.