The Development Stage
The movement began spontaneously at the outbreak of the Soviet-German war in June 1941. White Russian emigres, veterans of the White movement, began seeking sympathetic ears in the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and trying to find a means of creating armed units that would be used on the Eastern Front (such as the Russian Corps).
Meanwhile, captured Soviet officers who were frustrated with the Stalinist regime also found several sympathetic ears in the German army and propaganda departments. The most notable was General Andrey Vlasov, who began emerging as the potential head of a yet to be united and defined Russian Liberation Movement.
The German propaganda department began exploiting the idea of a Russian Liberation Army (which did not exist) in order to encourage defections, printing up propaganda leaflets encouraging surrender and dropping them in Soviet zones. Most defectors, however, were immediately sent to a labor camp.
Read more about this topic: Russian Liberation Movement
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