WWII POA RUSSIAN NATIONAL ARMY VOLUNTEER CUFF TITLE

Russian National Army POA Cuff Title: Russian POA volunteer.   Approximately 12 1/2" long and 1 1/4 inch wide.

This is a very rare cuff tittle.

The Cyrillic letters “POA” on the cuff tittle stand for the Russian Army of Liberation, also known as the Vlasov Army, which was officially formed in Autumn 1944.  This was a collaboration of German and Soviet soldiers, primarily composed of Soviets, that fought under German command during WW2.

These were anti-Communist Russian volunteers who fought with the German armed forces. After the war, the survivors of this Army were branded as traitors, and were executed or sentenced to imprisonment. 

Vlasov, a Soviet general, agreed to collaborate with NSDAP 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 Russo émigrés, some of whom were veterans of the anti-communist White Army from the Russo Civil War (1917–23).

In 1944 control of the ROA was transferred to the SS. In early 1945 the ROA’s total strength was approx 200,000, of which about 40 percent were Ukrainians.

On 14 November 1944, it was officially renamed the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russo, with the KONR being formed as a political body to which the army pledged loyalty. On 28 January 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-NSDAP Prague uprising.