762.61114/7–1344

The Chargé of the Soviet Union (Kapustin) to the Secretary of State

My Dear Mr. Secretary: On instructions of the Soviet Government I have the honor to bring to your attention the following.

On July 9, 1944 a representative of the staff of General Eisenhower39 has made at the press conference in London an extremely ambiguous statement regarding Soviet prisoners of war in the German Army. In this statement, the text of which I am enclosing herewith, is contained a number of improbable and evidently fictitious data, concerning Soviet citizens in military service, drawn, apparently, from German sources.

Arises a lawful question, what common Allied interests could have prompted such a statement, defaming Soviet people and casting a shade on Soviet citizens in military service who found themselves in German captivity?

The Soviet Government considers such a statement of a representative of the staff of the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces inadmissible. The Soviet Government hopes that the Government of the United States will give due consideration to this statement.

Sincerely yours,

A. Kapustin
[Annex]

Text of Statement

“The Russians are serving in the German Army. Here is a typical example how the Russian soldiers are forced to join the German service:

A prisoner of war was a Sergeant in the Red Army. He was taken prisoner in the Viazma region in 1941. Soon after that he escaped and [Page 1242] in the course of two years was in the ranks of the Second Partisan Division.

In May, 1943 he was again taken prisoner and sent to Germany. On November 1, 1943 he was informed that he is a participant of the “Russian Army of Liberation”,40 and then he was sent to the coast of the English Channel as a soldier in the contingent of the Eastern Battalion. In most of the cases the personnel of these battalions is insufficiently trained to handle German arms. In one case it was found that Russian machine-gunners could not take apart and put together again their weapons. German corporals are treating the Soviet soldiers with contempt and insult them. The soldiers of the Eastern Battalion have shot some of their German corporals a few days before the Allied invasion. The Germans have suffered complete failure in their efforts to impress the Soviet soldiers with their doctrines with the aid of propaganda and other measures. The majority of these soldiers have preserved untouched their moral principles and political views, and they consider themselves as citizens of the U.S.S.R.

The chief mass of the Russian soldiers in German service, while they were in the Russian Army fought good but the fact that they have shown themselves badly in the West, proves their anti-Nazi feelings. Approximately 10 per cent of the Russians in service of the Germans may be considered as pro-German and consider that they joined the German Army at their own free will. In respect to the former officers of the Red Army, serving now as officers in the German Army, this percentage should be considered as somewhat higher. Recently Hitler issued an order, fully equalizing in rights these officers with the officers of the regular German Army. The staff of the “Eastern Troops” has worked out a complicated mechanism, the duties of which are to return dissatisfied Soviet soldiers to the camps under the control of the SS–troops.41 This return to camps is considered as an extremely severe punishment, and such it is. Hunger plays the part of the most important factor for recruiting of former Soviet soldiers into the “Russian Army of Liberation” and into a number of other Eastern legions. Mess-halls in the camps for Soviet prisoners of war have sold to hungry soldiers human flesh—corpses [Page 1243] of dead prisoners. In other camps the procedure of receipt of food was not quite as good organized and the prisoners simply were lined up at a corpse of their dead comrade—prisoner of war—in order to receive their share.

In the beginning of 1942 the Russians, who were willing to go over into German service, were organized into separate battalions. In the contingent of these detachments they spent more than two years. At first these detachments were organized only so as to fight in their motherland, i.e. the Georgians would have fought on the territory of Georgia, and the Azerbaidzhanians for Azerbaidzhan. However, these soldiers went through a number of deportation and training stations and, finally, were assigned to field detachments at the Eastern front. In certain cases the field detachments were included in the contingent of army corps or groupings. The Russian battalions were used to fight against the guerillas, on communication lines. But many battalions joined the guerilla detachments. Other battalions fought together with German detachments at the front line but also in this case some of them tried to join the Red Army.”

  1. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force in Western Europe.
  2. The Russian Army of Liberation (R.O.A.) originally in 1943 contained units of Russian prisoners of war opposed to Communism which had been integrated into the German Army. This army became directly associated with anti-Communist, anti-Stalin movement led by Lt. Gen. Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov only toward the end of 1944. Some battalions had been sent to France for work with the Todt organization, a military construction unit, auxiliary to the German Army named after its founder, the engineer Fritz Todt. As members of the Todt organization, these units eventually fought against the Allied invasion in Germany.
  3. Schutzstaffel, the elite corps of the Nazi Party, used for military and police purposes.