Strikfeldt smear
Sir: 1 have no time for Edgar Young's rather silly defence of the Russian invasion of Czecho- slovakia, and his viewpoint is way out of step with the attitude of the democratic left in this country. But I was surprised that Peter Reddaway (20 February) in his letter suggested that Young should dip into a book, Against .SUlin and Hitler by Strik-Strikfeldt which would show that Vlasov, the Russian general who went over to the Nazis, • was motivated prim- arily by patriotism. The book would also, we are told, show the anti- Nazism of the author.
I would suggest that if, instead of a dip, one was to read the book through, it would show how Vlasov and the author were in fact quite happy to serve the Nazi cause during the last war. On page 153 Vlasov is quoted as saying that he understands why the Ger- man soldier fights so well, that be is fighting not only for his own freedom and his country but for the peace and well-being of his hearth and home. I would have thought that the German soldiers were in fact fighting to take awas other people's freedom.
And we find on page 207 Vlasov. feeling very happy after an agree- ment with Himmler, saying this of the ss chief ... had imagined him [l-limmler] a bloodthirsts. Chckist a la Rena, a super Grand Inquisitor . . . instead I felt that 1 was meeting a decent well-brought- up bourgeois . . quite modest, nothing of the gangster boss . . . The many victims of Himmler's policy of mass murder would no doubt have felt differently. The Vlasov group agreed to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler, 'the Supreme Commander of the anti- Bolshevik forces', and Vlasov in the end was a party to his group of renegades fighting in the West as well as, of course, on the Russian front with the SS and German Army.author is most upset at the The
end of the war finding himself in captivity (only for a short while) and being shown photographs of Dachau concentration camp. Need- less to say. Strik-Strikfeldt, who was camp commandant of where the Vlasov unit was stationed in Germany, had no knowledge at all of such Nazi atrocities. I am sure shat he would deny even knowing that the leaders he served till the end had such things as concen- tration camps! Are we really expected to take seriously this foolish and pathetic attempt to make a hero out of Vlasov? David Winniek 11A Chichele Mansions, Chichele Road, London Nw2
This correspondence is now Closed, —Editor, SPECTATOR.
Previous page
