Russia, Soviet Union; Germany, Third Reich. A Russian Liberation Army Soldbuch, Rare

(Russkaya Osvoboditel'naya Armiya / Русская Освободительная Армия). Containing ten pages plus a two page-four panel insert in the centre, printed in black ink on a thick newsprint stock, with personalized entries in handwritten black ink, an official Third Reich stamp in blue ink along with the stamped signature of the Oberzahlmeister (Chief Purser) on page 9, the cover in green card stock and printed in black ink, with the owner's name handwritten at the top right corner on the front panel, dual staple-bound, measuring 95 mm (w) x 138 mm (h), exhibiting soiling on the exterior, very fine.

Footnote: The Russian Liberation Army (ROA), also known as the Vlasov army after its commander Andrey Vlasov, was a collaborationist formation, primarily composed of Russians, that fought under German command during the Second World War. Vlasov, a Soviet general, agreed to collaborate with Nazi Germany after having been captured on the Eastern Front. The soldiers under his command were mostly former Soviet prisoners of war but also included White Russian émigrés, some of whom were veterans of the anti-communist White Army from the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). On November 14, 1944, it was officially renamed the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, with the KONR being formed as a political body to which the army pledged loyalty. On January 28, 1945, it was officially declared that the Russian divisions no longer form part of the German Army, but would directly be under the command of KONR. In May 1945, members of the ROA switched sides and joined the anti-Nazi Prague uprising.