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Nazi Collaborators, American Intelligence, and The Cold War: The Byelorussian Central Council

NAZI COLLABORATORS, AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE, AND THE COLD WAR: THE CASE OF THE BYELORUSSIAN CENTRAL COUNCIL A Thesis Presented by Mark Alexander to The Faculty of the Graduate College of The University of Vermont In 2015 ABSTRACT When the military forces of the Third Reich invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German authorities used local anti-Communist collaborators to facilitate the invasion and the occupation of the conquered territories. Many of these Byelorussian collaborators became complicit in the perpetration of the Holocaust and eagerly created a puppet regime under the direct control of the Schutzstaffel (SS). However, this regime and the crimes of its members remain largely unknown. As the Third Reich crumbled, the members of the SS-sponsored Byelorussian Central Council (BCC) hid themselves in the confusion of postwar Europe’s Displaced Persons camps, where they began to forge relationships with the intelligence agencies of the western Allies. As the mistrust between the Soviet Union and its erstwhile allies grew, these Nazi collaborators represented themselves as anti-Communist refugees from Stalinist persecution. They successfully navigated the currents of the ea

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