1 For the general background of wartime collaboration, see Fischer, George, Soviet Opposition to Stalin (Harvard University Press, 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fischer is in error, however, when he states (p. 43) that desertion of collaborators to the Soviets was a rare occurrence.

2 Druzhina is an old Russian term evoking images of medieval knighthood or princely body-guards, but more generally referring to an elite force of volunteers.

3 The Army itself had made several experiments along similar lines both prior to the invasion and in the fall of 1941. The latter attempt brought together prisoners in the Army Group Center Rear Area in a so-called experimental unit (known, among other names, as the Osintorf Brigade). The relative success of this experiment may have challenged the SS to try its hand at the same game.

4 Von Lepel, affidavit, June 1, 1948 (Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Schellenberg Defense Exhibit 39). Von Lepel was for a time the German liaison officer to Druzhina. See also Kleist, Peter, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin (Athenaeum-Verlag, 1950), p. 201 Google Scholar. The designation, Druzhina I, apparently grew out of the original scheme which designated as Druzhina II that other part of the formation which was to engage in subversive activities.

5 It was strictly against German policy to commit collaborator units at the front. It seems most likely that the Druzhina was thrown into action during an emergency in January-February, 1942, to stem the Soviet breakthrough not far from Nevel'.

6 By the end of 1942 the SS had assumed at least nominal charge over anti-partisan warfare in all occupied territory except the army combat zones.

7 A German officer attached to the Third Panzer Group claimed after the war that in mid-July, 1941, he had interrogated one lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Vladimirovich Gil', who (to the best of his recollection) had been chief of staff of the 229th Rifle Division of the Red Army. He described him as a man of about thirty-five years and, so far as he could judge, of thoroughly Soviet outlook. (Interview with A.G., Düsseldorf, 1951.) There is no way of determining whether or not “our” Rodionov was involved here, and whether possibly Rodionov, rather than Gil', was his assumed name.

8 Generalkommissar Minsk to Rosenberg, June 5, 1943, International Military Tribunal, Document R-135, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXXVIII, 373.

9 RFSS/Chef der Bandenkampfverbande, “Sondermeldung iiber das Unternehmen Kottbus,” June 23, 1943 (Nuremberg Document NO-2608).

10 Reichskommissar Ostland to Rosenberg, June 18, 1943, Document R-135, op. cit.

11 Generalkommissar Minsk, op. cit.

12 Letter from Y. S., November 21, 1951. While the correspondent does not specifically speak of Kottbus, the reference to BegomP leaves little doubt that he means this operation, the only major anti-partisan drive in that area.

13 See von dem Bach-Zelewski, affidavit, April, 1948 (Schellenberg Defense Exhibit 2).

14 Plans for the expansion of his military, anti-partisan unit and his administration of a semi-autonomous region paralleled closely the simultaneous and earlier efforts regarding the so-called Kaminsky Brigade. Kaminsky, too, commanded an anti-partisan brigade of several thousand while administering an “autonomous” area—first at Lokot', near Briansk, and later at LepeP, in the same area where Rodionov operated. See Alexander Dallin, “The Kaminsky Brigade, 1941-1944,” (Russian Research Center, Harvard University, 1956).

15 Report dated August 23, 1943, cited in Ralph Mavrogordato and Earl Ziemke. The Partisan Movement in the Polotsk Lowland [hereinafter cited as Polotsk], (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Human Resources Research Institute, Technical Research Report, No. 24, Vol. IV, 1954, p. 66).

16 Friedrich Buchardt, “Die Behandlung des russischen Problems wahrend der Zeit des N. S. Regimes in Deutschland,” unpublished MS, p. 151.

17 The Zhelezniak Brigade was an important component of the partisan movement in Belorussia. The brigade commissar, secretary of the Begoml’ Rayon Communist Party organization, is credited by the official Soviet account of the movement with having organized the brigade. The same official historian confirms, in his second volume, the close connection between Rodionov and Zhelezniak by mentioning the two as co-equal units side by side. No mention is made of Rodionov's previous service with the Germans. ( Tsanava, L., Vsenarodnaja partizanskaja voina v Belorussii [Minsk: Gosizdat BSSR, 1949-51], 2 vol.Google Scholar)

18 Polotsk, p. 66. This report came on the eve of the major German decision to transfer the bulk of military collaborators from the occupied Soviet territory to Western Europe, precisely to forestall further desertions. Rodionov's decoration by the Soviet authorities remains rather problematic. Several German and refugee reports speak of the award of the Red Star to him; one mentions the Order of Lenin; others speak of different decorations. There is no Soviet confirmation of any such award. While there is no legal requirement to publicize all decorations, the lengthy lists of wartime awards for the second half of 1943 (as printed in Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR) include no one answering to Rodionov's description.

19 Smert’ nemeckim okupantam (leaflet, no date, found about October, 1943), (YIVO Archives, New York, Document folder Occ E-3a-Bar).

20 Polotsk, p. 67. This operation broke up the so-called Ushachi complex, whose command had been in direct contact with the Red Army. Its leader was Vladimir Lobanok, who after the war emerged as a prominent official of the Communist Party of Belorussia. Several refugee reports—clearly based on rumors circulating in occupied Russia in 1944— claim that, while wounded in this operation, Rodionov was not killed but had been evacuated by plane behind the Soviet lines after being carried by fellow-partisans through the swamps. One informant states he was told this by an eye-witness. (Letter from P.G., May 7, 1956.) Another writer even claims to know that Rodionov was arrested and executed after his return to the Soviet side. (Mikhail Kitaev, “Russkoe osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie,” MS, p. 17.)

21 Von dem Bach-Zelewski, op. cit. A somewhat more moderate interpretation, tenable in the light of the same evidence, would be that Rodionov was not originally a Soviet “agent” but merely a loyal Soviet officer who used the opportunity which offered itself to escape German captivity and eventually to return to the Soviet fold. This version fails, however, to explain his cruel behavior on the German side.

22 A refugee informant who, as a chief of police for the Germans, observed Rodionov in action, affirmed that “his unit was cruel with the civilian population, something that provoked resentment, brought about greater German retribution, and in turn led people to join the partisans.” (Harvard Refugee Interview Project, B6: 219.)

23 Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber Ostland, Ic/VVPr., “Uebersetzung eines Feindflugblattes,” May 15, 1943 (YIVO Archives, Document folder Occ E-3).

24 Interview with Dr. Sch., Hamburg, 1951. There is, moreover, evidence of offers by partisan commands to collaborator units, promising guaranty of life, liberty, and full status as partisans as well as aid in contacting next of kin, in return for defection to the partisans.