Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
Комитет освобождения народов России
AbbreviationKONR (КОНР)
FormationNovember 14, 1944 (1944-11-14)
Founded atPrague, Bohemia and Moravia
DissolvedFebruary 14, 1946 (1946-02-14)
TypeLiberation committee
PurposeInvade Russia by land and remove Joseph Stalin from power
Headquarters
Region
Germany Nazi Germany
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia Bohemia and Moravia
Membership (1945)
≈700
Official language
Russian
Chairman
Andrey Vlasov
Key people

The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Russian: Комитет освобождения народов России, Komitet osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii, abbreviated as Russian: КОНР, KONR) was a committee composed of military and civilian Nazi collaborators from territories of the Soviet Union (most being Russians). It was founded by Nazi Germany on 14 November 1944, in Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (purposely chosen because it was a Slavic city that was still under Axis control).

Stated goals

The goals of the committee were embodied in a document known as the Prague Manifesto. The manifesto's fourteen points guaranteed the freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly, as well as a right to self-determination of any ethnic group living in territories belonging to Russia. The Prague Manifesto did not contain any explicit anti-semitic or other racially inspired rhetoric, which caused a conflict with many Nazi propagandists. However, criticism aimed at the Western Allies (specifically US and UK) was included in the manifesto's preamble. The chairman of the committee was General Andrey Vlasov, who also commanded the Russian Liberation Army. The committee was viewed as the political arm of the Russian Liberation Army, although it also united several Ukrainian and other ethnic forces that were anti-Soviet.

After the surrender of Germany to the Allies, the committee ceased to operate. During the immediate post-war period, several new organisations sprang up that intended to continue the committee's goal of fighting communism (i.e., the Union of the St. Andrew Flag; the Committee of United Vlasovites; the Union of Battle for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia), started by veterans of the committee and the Russian Liberation Army who managed to escape forced repatriation to the Soviet Union. Two latter organisations participated in US-led efforts to form a united anti-Soviet platform of Soviet emigres.

In the United States, a CIA-led organisation with a similar name, the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, was founded in the late 1940s, and became known for their propaganda broadcaster Radio Liberty, which was run by the Central Intelligence Agency and later funded by the United States Congress. It operated from Munich, in West Germany.

See also

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