To a flag, a leader, or an idea, few things are more important for a military than loyalty.
But what about those who go against the grain, the defectors, double-agents,
and deserters who choose to aid the enemy instead of their countrymen? In this video we
shed light on these so-called traitors, and ask the question “Can their actions be justified?”
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Until the last years of the Soviet Union,
one name had been scrubbed from the war record. Once a national hero,
this man betrayed Stalin but claimed to fight for the Russian people. His name was Andrey Vlasov.
Vlasov began the war as a lieutenant general and escaped the Kyiv encirclement during the
early phases of Operation Barbarossa. He then took command of the 20th Army
for the Defence of Moscow. The 20th made a series of vital counterattacks
against the advancing Germans, and Vlasov was heralded as one of Moscow’s saviours.
In March 1942, Vlasov deployed to the Volkov Front and led the 2nd Shock Army in an ill-fated mission
to break the siege of Leningrad. This was an operation of Stalin’s own design, and it was full
of holes. Vlasov’s army was rapidly encircled and, facing annihilation, they surrendered.
While waiting in Vinnytsia POW camp, Vlasov was visited by Captain Strikfeldt,
a Russian interpreter and aide of General von Bock. Bock wanted Vlasov to raise an
army of Russians to fight alongside the Wehrmacht in the east. Knowing Stalin
would have him pinned as the scapegoat for the failed Volkov offensive, Vlasov agreed.
But Hitler didn’t like the idea, and it wasn’t until September 1944, when Himmler stepped in,
that Vlasov got his force. The Russian Liberation Army, as it was called, included 50,000 volunteer
soldiers and fought on the Oder Front in Central Europe as well as in the west.
In May 1945, Vlasov was captured by the advancing Reds. He was found guilty of treason and hanged in
1946. Right to the end, he maintained Stalin was the true enemy of the Russian people.
In July 1944, the Abwehr presented an Iron Cross Second Class,
an award usually reserved for frontline soldiers, to their top spy in England.
His codename was Alaric and he operated a network of 27 spies throughout the country.
But Alaric, his real name Juan Pujol García, was a double agent.
A veteran of both the nationalist and communist armies during the Spanish Civil War,
Pujol had never been afraid of jumping ship. While living in Lisbon, Portugal in 1940,
he decided to do his bit for the war effort. Pujol wanted to spy for the British—the
only government he felt was trustworthy. But on three separate occasions, Mi5 turned him down.
Realising he was going about things all wrong, Pujol decided to make them recruit
him instead—as a double agent. But that meant he first had to become a German spy.
Pujol created a fake identity as a pro-Nazi Spanish official who travelled to London
on business, then walked into the German embassy in Madrid and asked to be a spy.
Unbelievably, the Abwehr agent agreed, giving Pujol a crash course in spycraft,
a codebook, a stack of cash, and orders to move to England and recruit a network.
Instead, Pujol moved back to Lisbon and wrote bogus reports with information from a tourist’s
guidebook to London. He was soon recruited by Mi5 and industrialised his misinformation output,
sometimes sending 20 reports a day. These reports were instrumental in
diverting attention away from the Normandy landings as part of Operation Fortitude.
But Pujol wasn’t the only one making up crap on the radio.
Over in Berlin, one American woman was doing her best to sabotage the US war
effort. She was given many names but was best known as Axis Sally.
The real Axis Sally was Mildred Gillars, a 42-year-old failed actress. She was born in
Portland but travelled to Berlin to be with her fiance Paul Karlson, who was a
naturalised German citizen. Unfortunately, Paul’s patriotism for Das Vaterland got him
conscripted and sent to the Eastern Front, where, predictably, he died horribly.
While stuck in Berlin, Gillars got a job as a broadcaster with German State Radio.
Her messages were generally apolitical, until propagandist Max Otto Koischwitz got involved.
He set her up with a radio show called Home Sweet Home, where Gillars spent an hour playing popular
music and trying to convince GIs their wives and girlfriends were cheating.
Despite the defeatist messaging, Home Sweet Home gained some popularity among the US
soldiers fighting in Southern Europe. They coined the name “Axis Sally” and
ascribed it not just to Gillars but to any woman spreading propaganda on German radio.
Reportedly, Gillars wasn’t happy about this, wanting ownership of the title for herself.
In August 1944, Koischwitz, the brains behind the operation, died. The show became repetitive and
Sally lost her lustre. After a manhunt by US counterintelligence, Gillars was arrested and
charged with 10 counts of treason in 1948. Her defence team argued she was under Koischwitz’s
hypnotic influence, but the judge didn’t buy it. She was imprisoned for 13 years.
Spewing propaganda is one thing, but it’s quite another to try and blow up your country’s leader.
That’s exactly what Claus von Stauffenburg tried to do.
Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg came from a family of Prussian
traditionalists. He was devoutly Catholic and received a solid education before joining the
army in 1926. He was initially drawn to Nazi politics by the allure of justice that democracy
couldn’t provide, but was disgusted by the Night of the Long Knives and Night of Broken Glass.
He saw no justice in Hitler’s actions but wanted to remain loyal to Germany.
While these thoughts festered, von Stauffenberg served in Poland, France,
and Operation Barbarossa. It was in the East that he met fellow conspirators Helmuth von Moltke,
Peter von Yorck, and Henning von Tresckow—some of the members of the anti-Hitler Kreisau
Circle. Von Stauffenberg accidentally let his true feelings slip in a meeting,
stating, “They are shooting Jews in masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue.”
Believing he was defending millions against a madman, von Stauffenberg galvanised the
conspirators and put an assassination plan into action. On July 20th 1944,
he entered Hitler’s briefing room with a briefcase bomb.
After placing it near Hitler’s feet, he excused himself for a phone call
and bailed. The explosion tore through the room, but Hitler survived—thanks to a heavy table.
Von Stauffenberg was shot by the Gestapo 12 hours after the failed assassination. He knew
his actions were treasonous but firmly believed assassinating Hitler was the moral choice.
Far from Hitler’s lair, a young Japanese officer made the same choice as von Stauffenberg.
Second Lieutenant Minoru Wada decided that, by killing a few,
he could save many, though he had to go against his countrymen to do it.
Wada was studying in Japan when the war broke out. He came from an affluent family and had been
brought up in America, far from the Japanese government’s ethno-nationalistic rhetoric.
He was made an officer, but his aversion to military life got
him stuck in the rear echelon transport corps—a posting that suited him just fine.
By 1945, even the transport officers were being ordered to fight, and Wada found himself in
combat against US forces on the Filipino island of Mindanao. He was captured and interrogated by a US
intelligence officer, who was surprised when Wada opened up about his hatred of war.
Wada declared he would happily do anything to end the fighting.
Presumably, the intelligence officer raised an eyebrow and said, “Anything, you say?”
Over a few days, the Americans convinced Wada that if they knocked out Mindanao’s Japanese
commanders, thousands of Japanese soldiers could be saved. The young officer was willing to help,
but it wasn’t as simple as drawing a circle on a map. The Japanese command post was so
well camouflaged that Wada needed to guide the bombers in himself, which, on August 9th, he did.
Wada sat in the radio operator’s seat in the lead Mitchell bomber of Marine Bombing Squadron 611.
Speaking through an interpreter and still wearing his Imperial Japanese Army uniform, he guided the
squadron along a jungle track he recognised, right to his own headquarters. The Mitchells dropped
22,000 tons of bombs, and their accompanying fighters fired some rockets for good measure.
The command post was destroyed and fighting on Mindanao ceased within hours.
Major Jordan, the Strike commander, commented,
“The Japanese officer put us zero on the target and we did the rest – maybe overdid it.”
Those were five stories of some of the Second World War's worst traitors. But
what do YOU think? Would YOU turn your back on your countrymen if you felt you were
fighting an unjust war? It is more important to be loyal to the government or the people?
Who do YOU think was justified in their actions? Let us know in the comments!
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