A famous Soviet general who fought in the Battle of Moscow (1941 1942) and the siege of
Leningrad (1941-1944) Andrey Vlasov (1901-1946) was captured by Nazi troops and then defected
to the Third Reich. Supported by Nazi propaganda he created a Russian Liberation Committee
that later became the Russian Liberation Army (RLA). The RLA was a body of several hundred
officers and several thousand troops who had defected from the USSR and served Nazi purposes on
Soviet territory. Vlasov was arrested by Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia while trying to escape
to the Western Front and was subsequently tried for treason and executed by Soviet authorities.
In 2015 the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) released three
volumes of archives documenting the infamous Vlasov Case the main instance of Soviet
collaborationism with Nazi Germany. With this volume which draws on the archives of Russia
Belarus Germany and the US the English-speaking audience can now access the most important
documents on this topic for the first time. The documents tell the story of Vlasov's betrayal
from the moment he became a prisoner to his service under the Nazis and up through the trial
in Moscow in 1946. Volume 1 is comprised of archival documents on Vlasov's activities from 1942
to 1945. Volume 2 explores the Soviet investigations of Vlasov during the 1945-1946 trial.
