With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, German prisoners of war began to fall into Soviet hands. Attempts were made to establish an anti-Nazi organization from these POWs.
With the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, the number of German POWs increased and their belief in a victorious Germany weakened, hence they were more open to the idea of membership of an anti-Nazi organization.
Colonel Hans-Günter van Hooven, photographed at the BDO foundation ceremony
After several failed attempts to recruit officers into the NKFD, it was suggested by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Brette that a special organization for officers be set up so that they would not have to come into contact with communists and common soldiers.[citation needed]
Two months after the founding of the NKFD, the League of German Officers (Bund Deutscher Offiziere, or BDO) was founded; its leader was General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. The main task of the BDO was to deliver propaganda aimed at the German armed forces. A number of officers held as Soviet prisoners of war eventually joined the BDO, the most prominent of them being Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army captured at the Battle of Stalingrad. The BDO later merged with the NKFD.[11][12]
Ideology
The flag of the former German Empire was used by the committee.East German stamp celebrating the NKFD (1965)NKFD headquarters in 1943–45, promising Friede, Freiheit, Brot ("Peace, Freedom and Bread," a callback to Lenin's slogan of "peace, land, and bread")
Although the NKFD operated in the Soviet Union and consisted partly of communists, it used conservative symbols and ideology. For example, the old flag colors of Imperial Germany (black, white and red) were used instead of the Weimar German (black, red and gold), as they were expected to be more popular among officers and soldiers of the conservative Wehrmacht. The stated goal of the NKFD organisation was a return to the borders of 1937,[citation needed] the opening of negotiations for peace, and the deposing and punishment of the Nazi leadership.
Activity
NKFD and BDO activity focused on propaganda and had their own newspaper and radio station. They sent leaflets to German soldiers on the Eastern Front and to POWs in the Soviet camps. Red Army Major Lev Kopelev described the joint psychological warfare at Grudziądz in March 1945 by the Red Army and members of the NKFD. General Seydlitz-Kurzbach offered to raise an anti-Hitler army from NKFD and BDO members to fight against the Nazis, but the Soviet side rejected their offer.
Some NKFD members were attached to front-line Soviet units to interrogate German POWs and for propaganda purposes. Others fought behind the German lines alongside Soviet partisan units.[citation needed] Towards the very end of the war so-called Seydlitz-Troops were sent to the German lines in uniform with orders to blend in with the defenders and spread confusion.[citation needed] Some rejoined their former comrades and others followed their orders.[citation needed] Many were caught and executed.[citation needed] As the Red Army entered Germany, some NKFD members were appointed as officials in the local government of the Soviet occupation zone.
Publications
The NKFD published both a newspaper and a radio program titled "Free Germany" (German: Freies Deutschland). The newspaper's editor-in-chief was Rudolf Herrnstadt, whereas the radio program was directed by Anton Ackermann.[13]:203 The newspaper "Free Germany" was just one of several Soviet publications aimed at the Soviet Union's prisoners of war; the effort placed into the German-language publication was however significantly larger than its various sister projects (Alba (Italian), Word of Truth (Hungarian), Free Voice (Romanian)).[13]:93
↑ Political Affairs By Earl Browder, Trade Union Unity League (U.S.), Herbert Aptheker, Communist Party of the United States of America, Gus Hall Published 1927 New Century Publishers Communism Original from the University of California Digitized 7 February 2007
↑ The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, By Norman M. Naimark Published 1995 Harvard University Press Communism and culture/ Germany (East) 586 pages ISBN0674784057
1 2 Morré, Jörg (2001). Hinter den Kulissen des Nationalkomitees: Das Institut 99 in Moskau die Deutschlandpolitik der UdSSR 1943–1946. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN348664582X.
Further reading
Lev Kopelev, To Be Preserved Forever ("Хранить вечно"), 1976
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