Did the soviets ppl and army actually defected to Germany when operation Barbarossa began?

Answer 1

When operation Barbarossa began, it met with the expected huge gains in territory that the OKW (German General Staff) predicted.

The OKW suddenly found itself with more prisoners and captured equipment than it knew what to do with. Whole towns, cities and even some province in the Ukraine and Georgian S.S.R. not only surrendered but actually helped the Germans as they battled with the Soviet armies.

Unfortunately, the OKW was instructed by higher authorities to allow the SS 'occupation forces' to take care of the captured towns and people. The resulting "Iron Hand' turned most of the captured territories against the Germans within a year or so.

Even so, there was a large contingent of Ukrainian and Georgian volunteers that joined the German forces and fought with distinction to the very end of the war.

The 1st and 2nd S.S. Ukrainian Cavalry Divisions fought on the Russian Front with distinction and ended up in the fight for Berlin in April of 1945.

On the Western Front, the 243rd and 709th Infantry Division resisted the Normandy Landings in June of 1944. Those units comprised nearly 1/3 of the German resistance forces on the beaches and also fought very hard for the OKW.

Interestingly enough, the Marshall of the Soviet Union in the mid 1970's was sacked and confined to a Russian Gulag for the rest of his life because his father was discovered to have been in the 1st S.S. Ukrainian Cavalry Division during WWII.

Answer 2

Many Ukrainians thought the Germans would be easier to live with than the Russians, so there were some defections. Obviously this was not a full-scale movement and most Russians remained loyal to the Soviet Union, even those who didn't like the regime much.

Stalin was not one to allow much dissent. Few defectors who were caught by the Soviets survived. I had a great uncle, who was an ethnic German living in Russia, who was shot as a spy around 1941 or thereabouts.

He probably didn't deserve it.

Answer 3

Some anti-Stalin Russians and ethnic groups like Georgians, ethnic Muslim and the Baltic nations greeted the German army as liberators. Many joined in German Army Eastern Legions. These legions were consolidated into the ROA "Russian Liberation Army" under General Andre Vlassov.
The SS too had eastern formation comprising White Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, and Estonians.

Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as a Child was in the ROA. There were several pictures of Gagrin in a German veterans magazine a few years ago. The Germans at first made him a little German uniform and he was paid to kill lice on German horse. Afterwards he was given a ROA uniform. In any event the Germans did not post the pictures until long after his death to protect him.