Obstacles
The movement encountered several obstacles, which lasted to the very end of the war:
- The Russophobia of the Nazis. Adolf Hitler and some of his closest men were avid Slavophobes, as were many adherents of Nazi party ideology. Hitler was enraged when he learned of how many German generals and officers were supportive of forming a Russian based army and forbade even the mention of the idea in his presence. Russian patriotism was suppressed, and Russian white emigres were kept as far from Nazi occupied Russia as possible in order to prevent the emergence of Russian nationalism. In contrast, many generals and officers of the Wehrmacht found themselves tempted by the idea of un-burderning the German army from the Eastern Front.
- The "Eastern Policy". The conduct of the Nazis towards the Soviet population was so inhumane that it tremendously impeded the credibility of Russians who were working in alliance with the Wehrmacht.
- Collaborationists. People who were willing to serve the Gestapo (often for money or food) were sent to inform on Russians in the liberation movement in order to weed out anti-Nazi sentiment. Such informants helped procure the arrest of General Malishkin and the sequestering of General Vlasov. The behavior of these collaborationists towards their own countrymen caused a general anger and mistrust of anyone who was working in alliance with the Germans.
- Separatism. Nazi policy was aimed at sponsoring nationalist separatism amidst those peoples who lived in the USSR. Armed forces made of Cossacks, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Kazakhs, Chechens, Crimean Tatars and other non-Russian peoples were headed by those who refused to work with anyone who didn't guarantee their independent statehood from the outset.
- Political clash. White Russian emigres and Soviet citizens had a mutual distrust of each other, largely because both sides were fighting against each other during the Russian Civil War. White Russians saw Soviet citizens as 'pro-socialist', if not outright communist, while Soviet citizens viewed white Russians as 'monarchists' and desiring to restore the old Tsarist order.
Optimism reached a peak when the Germans lost the battle of Stalingrad, around the time General Andrey Vlasov emerged. However, despite the difficulties at the front, Hitler adamantly refused to consider any sponsorship of a Russian liberation force and permitted the idea to be circulated only for propaganda purposes.
Russian skepticism increased when Hitler issued a directive to transfer all eastern volunteer units away from the Eastern Front. The failed assassination attempt against Hitler was yet another blow to morale, since many Germans sympathetic to the Russian liberation idea were arrested and executed for their involvement in the July 20th plot. Despite good reasons for despondency the movement kept gaining inner momentum throughout 1944. Hope remained that the collapsing front would make Hitler increasingly desperate and less obstinate.
Read more about this topic: Russian Liberation Movement
Famous quotes containing the word obstacles:
“It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in this world which the humblest man has not faculties to surmount. It is true we may come to a perpendicular precipice, but we need not jump off, nor run our heads against it. A man may jump down his own cellar stairs, or dash his brains out against his chimney, if he is mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To ask strength not to express itself as strength, not to be a will to dominate, a will to subjugate, a will to become master, a thirst for enemies and obstacles and triumphant celebrations, is just as absurd as to ask weakness to express itself as strength.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Weakness is a better teacher than strength. Weakness must learn to understand the obstacles that strength brushes aside.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)