NTS - Association of Russian Solidarists

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Pause signal from Radio NTS, 1972

NTS - Association of Russian Solidarists eV ( Russian Народно-Трудовой Союз российских солидаристов , Narodno-Trudowoj Soyuz rossijskich solidaristow; literal translation: people working Federation of Russian Solidarists ) was a resistance movement against the rule of the Bolsheviks in Russia . The association, which is still registered in Germany, bears the name NTS - Federation of Russian Solidarists eV The association's headquarters are in Frankfurt am Main .

Emergence

The forerunner of the movement was the Russian-exile " Association of Russian National Youth " (Russian: Союз русской национальной молодёжи ; Sojuz russkoj nazional'noj molodeschi) (SRNM). This association of several exiled Russian youth organizations was renamed in 1929 to the " National Association of Russian Youth Abroad " (Russian: Национальный союз русской молодёжи за рубежом ; Nazional'nyj soyuz russkoj molodeschi saReschM). On June 1, 1930, at the first congress of Russian exile youth organizations and associations in Belgrade, the NSRM was recognized as the general association of Russian exile youth associations in Yugoslavia , France , Germany , Bulgaria , the Netherlands and other countries, its board was elected and a statute and first ideological guidelines were elected formulated. At the second youth congress in Belgrade in November 1931, the association was renamed " National League of the New Generation " (Russian: Национальный Союз Нового Поколения ; Nazional'nyj Sojus Novogo Pokolenija) (NSNP). At the same time it was determined that in future only people born after 1895 were allowed to join the Bund, with the aim of protecting it from the influence of representatives of the pre-revolutionary Russian parties , some of whom were held responsible for developments in Russia.

1930-1945

The aim of the NSNP was the overthrow of Bolshevik rule in Russia , for which agents were smuggled into the Soviet Union in order to look for like-minded people there and to build resistance cells. With regard to the possible form of government of a future free Russia, the NSNP advocated the concept of a “corporate state” . In the years of the Second World War , this term was replaced by the idea of solidarism .

In 1936 the organization was renamed again and now carried the name “ National Labor League of the New Generation ” (Russian: Национально-Трудовой Союз нового поколения ; Nazional'no-Trudowoj Sojus novogo pokolenija) (NTSNPPokolenija).

In order to avoid being influenced by the National Socialist authorities in Germany , the German section of the NSNP disbanded voluntarily in July 1938 and went underground .

During the German-Soviet war , many members of the NSNP, which was renamed “ Nationaler Arbeitsbund ” (Russian: Национально-Трудовой Союз ; Nazional'no-Trudowoj Soyuz) (NTS) in 1943 , managed to illegally move into the areas occupied by the Germans To arrive in Russia. From autumn 1941 there were underground groups of the organization in Minsk and Vitebsk , followed by groups in Smolensk , Pskow , Gatchina , Vyazma , Brjansk and Oryol . From the summer of 1942 underground groups could also be formed in the south, for example in Kiev , Vinnitsa , Dnipropetrovsk , Odessa , Kirovograd , Poltava , in the Crimea , at times even in Grozny . The group in Smolensk worked closely with the Russian city administration under Men'shagin. In 1943, up to 120 NTS groups worked in 54 locations. Some groups numbered two or three people, others up to 15. The NTS distributed leaflets and brochures in the occupied territories calling for the fight for a free Russia.

The German training camps in Zittenhorst and Wustrau , in which qualified Russian prisoners of war were trained for administrative service in the occupied "Eastern Territories", were successfully infiltrated by the NTS, who succeeded in smuggling its members there as trainers. Disguised as teaching material, NTS printed matter was produced there. Around 30 new members were recruited from around 500 trainees.

The NTS worked closely with the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) around General AA Vlasov . When a ROA propaganda school was set up in Dabendorf near Berlin in March 1943 , General Wlassow invited NTS instructors from Wustrau to lead the school in Dabendorf. Up to 50 of the approximately 4,500 graduates of the school were recruited as new members.

From the summer of 1943, the German occupation authorities began to arrest and shoot NTS activists in the occupied territories. In various cities in Russia, around 30 NTS members died by shooting or exhaustion in prison.

In order to end the NTS's influence on the Russian Liberation Army, a number of NTS members were arrested in Germany from the summer of 1944: in mid-June 1944, 44 NTS activists were arrested in Silesia and the Generalgouvernement , around 50 on June 24th Members in Berlin , including the chairman of the NTS, WM Bajdalakow and the three members of the NTS executive office D. Brunst, K.Vergun and W.Poremskij. The third wave of arrests on September 13 concerned members of the reserve executive office E. Romanov, M. Olgsky and G. Okolovich. Some of the arrested were sent to concentration camps, the other part was sent to prisons. On April 4, 1945 General Vlasov achieved the liberation of at least the top NTS leadership from the prison on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. The majority of the approximately 150 NTS members arrested in 1943/44 did not survive imprisonment .

1945-1991

Immediately after the end of the war and the occupation of Germany, the new center of the NTS was established in the Mönchehof refugee camp near Kassel . Here the magazine "Posew" (Посев; German: sowing) was launched. The NTS later moved its headquarters to Limburg . From there the headquarters were finally moved to Frankfurt am Main , where the NTS from then on operated the association's own " Possev-Verlag ".

At the beginning of 1949, the "molecular theory" of W. Poremskijs was adopted as the basis for further underground activities, according to which the individual cells of NTS members in the underground have no connection with each other, but should be controlled centrally from the headquarters in Germany, so that the network as Whole would not be at risk.

The Soviet security forces made several attempts during the Cold War years to kidnap or murder NTS executives or to carry out attacks on NTS facilities. In autumn 1947 Yuri Tregubov was kidnapped in Berlin and taken to the USSR . In the summer of 1950, an attack on Valentina Okolowitsch in Runkel an der Lahn failed . In June 1951 three agents, who were probably from the GDR, who were supposed to kidnap G. Okolovich, were discovered there. In January 1954 the KGB agent N.Chochlow was sent to Frankfurt to murder G. Okolovich, but defected and surrendered to the American authorities. On April 13, 1954, the chairman of the " Committee to Support Russian Refugees " Alexander Truschnowitsch was kidnapped in Berlin . He suffocated in the trunk of the kidnapping vehicle. In July 1958 an explosives attack was carried out on a house in Sprendlingen near Frankfurt, where NTS members lived. In July 1961 an explosives attack was carried out on the building of the Possev publishing house in Frankfurt.

From 1951 the NTS sent numerous balloons with leaflets from West Germany , Finland and other areas to the Soviet Union . The balloons were equipped with a mechanism that ensured that only some of the leaflets were lowered at regular intervals in order to better distribute them. However, the action proved inefficient and was discontinued in 1957.

In April 1953, eight NTS agents were parachuted from an American plane over the Soviet Union in order to set up underground cells there. They were all discovered and arrested. Four of them were sentenced to death.

In 1957 the organization was renamed the “ People's Labor Association (the Russian Solidarists) ” (Russian: Народно-Трудовой Союз (российских солидаристов) ; Narodno-Trudowoj Sojus (rossijskich solidaristov)). The German name of the association officially registered in the register of associations continued to be "NTS - Federation of Russian Solidarists eV".

For many years, the NTS also operated the radio station " Free Russia ", which broadcasted from West Germany , Taiwan , South Korea and Japan to the Soviet Union . In the Far East, the station's work was ended in the 1960s; in Germany, it had to be discontinued in 1974 at the instigation of the federal government.

For years, the “ closed sector ” of the NTS trained foreign students who smuggled political and religious literature into the Soviet Union. These couriers were called "Adler" (Russian: Orly).

Possev-Verlag published many " samizdat " works by writers and dissidents, which were banned in the Soviet Union, and contributed to making the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Boris Pasternak known in the West.

In the course of liberalization under Gorbachev, Valery Senderow in Moscow and Rostislaw Evdokimow in Leningrad emerged from the underground in 1987 and made their respective NTS groups public. During the August putsch in Moscow in 1991, NTS members took an active part in the defense of the “ White House ”. However, the NTS was unable to have any serious influence on the political events in Russia.

Since 1991

After the collapse of the Soviet Union , Possev-Verlag moved from Frankfurt to Moscow in 1992, where it has since published the magazine “Posew” and various books on politics and history. The NTS headquarters were also relocated to 26 Petrowka Street in Moscow . In 1996 the NTS was officially registered as an association in Russia . Since 1995, the remnants of the NTS members living abroad have been grouped together in a separate NTS foreign section based in Frankfurt. The former publishing house in Frankfurt-Sossenheim houses the NTS archive and event rooms that are used by the “ Society Possev for the Promotion of German-Russian Understanding of Nations ” for cultural events.

Chair of the NTS

  • 1930–1934 Sergei Nikolajewitsch von Leuchtenberg
  • 1934–1955 Viktor Michailowitsch Baidalakow
  • 1955–1972 Vladimir Dmitrievich Poremsky
  • 1972–1984 Alexander Nikolajewitsch Artjomow
  • 1984–1995 Yevgeny Romanowitsch Ostrowski (Romanow)
  • 1995–2008 Boris Sergeyevich Pushkarev
  • since 2008 Alexander Nikolajewitsch Schwedow

literature

  • NTS - Association of Russian Solidarists , brochure, Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt 1979.
  • AP Stolypin: Na sluschbe Rossii (German: In the service of Russia) (Russian), Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt 1986; ISBN 3-7912-2010-1 .
  • ER Romanow: V bor'be sa Ross iju (German: In the fight for Russia) (Russian), publishing house "Golos", Moscow 1999; ISBN 5-7117-0402-8 .
  • LA Rahr , VA Obolensky: " Rannie gody. Otscherk istorii Narodno-Trudowogo Sojusa 1924–1948 " (German: The early years. Outline of the history of the People's Labor Union 1924–1948) (Russian), Verlag Possev, Moscow 2003; ISBN 978-5-85824-147-8 .
  • Gleb Rahr : I budet nasche pokolenje dawat 'istorii ottschet. Vospominanija (And our generation will be accountable to history. Memories) (Russian), Russkij Put 'publishing house, Moscow 2011, ISBN 978-5-85887-382-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Menschagin, Nuremberg Main Trial, XVII, 354ff Zeno
  2. Tat'jana Bem-Rejzer: Vospominanija . In: Novyj Žurnal . No. 251 , 2008 ( Memoirs ; Russian, online ; see footnote 14).
  3. Broadcast on the NTS from Radio Liberty including an interview with Alexander Schwedow, May 22, 2010 (Russian)