Defectors from the Wehrmacht at the Soviet-German Front in 1941–1943 (on the problem statement)

Abstract

The article examines the phenomenon of the “deserters of the flag,” i.e. the defection of the Wehrmacht soldiers to the Red Army. The chronological scope of the article is limited to the period between 1941 and 1943, which is due to the existence of a significant number of archival documents that contain information about the facts of deflection of the enemy’s military personnel to the Red Army during this specific period in the fonds of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO) as well as the corresponding captured Wehrmacht documents stored in the US National Archives. This circumstance allows us to compare the attitude of the warring parties to the phenomenon under study. In particular, the questionnaires filled in by the Soviet side for prisoners of war necessarily contained information about voluntary surrender or defection to the Red Army. Based on the analysis of documents from Russian and foreign archives, the number of defectors was determined and the motives for such a strategy of behavior of military personnel of the German army and its allies were identified. It is noted that instances of defection of Wehrmacht military personnel to the enemy’s side were recorded even during the period of the most successful German operations in 1941–42. It is emphasized that the number of defectors increased significantly during any crises at the Eastern Front. According to the authors, when the decision to cross the front line was made, personal rather than ideological motives played the main role. A significant part of the Wehrmacht defectors included military personnel of non-German ethnicity, who were less resistant to the effects of unfavorable developments at the front.

Keywords

• great patriotic war
• wehrmacht
• red army
• defectors
• prisoners of war
• motives
• numbers