The Russian People's Labour Party (russian: Русская трудовая народная партия; ''Russkaya trudovaya narodnaya partiya'', RTNP), or Russian National Labour Party, was a

collaborationist Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory". The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...

organisation, formed by the administration of

Oflag XIII-B Oflag XIII-B was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers ('' Offizierslager''), originally in the Langwasser district of Nuremberg. In 1943 it was moved to a site south of the town of Hammelburg in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, ...

POW camp from the prisoned Soviet Russian members of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

in 1941. All "party" activities were overseen by German counter-intelligence (''

Abwehr The ''Abwehr'' (German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ''Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. A ...

''). p. 386 Its stated political aims were;

"''With the help of the Germans, the Soviet authorities were to be overthrown. Private property was to be restored, and a state with a
democratic republic A democratic republic is a form of government operating on principles adopted from a republic and a democracy. As a cross between two exceedingly similar systems, democratic republics may function on principles shared by both republics and democrac ...
an regime was to be established.''"

The party program was published in November 1941 (according to some accounts, on the November 7th anniversary of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

), and was distributed among the prisoners. In August 1941, a Committee for the Struggle Against Bolshevism was established which would form the basis for the RTNP. The party was founded in a

German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

officer

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. P ...

('' Offizierslager''), located in

Hammelburg Hammelburg is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It sits in the district of Bad Kissingen, in Lower Franconia. It lies on the river Franconian Saale, 25 km west of Schweinfurt. Hammelburg is the oldest winegrowing town (''Weinstadt'') in Franconi ...

. The known members of the "party" were: * Semyon Maltsev, ''President of the Central Committee of RTNP'' * Ivan Blagoveshchensky (1941), and later

Fyodor Truhin Fyodor Ivanovich Truhin (russian: Фёдор Иванович Трухин; 26 December 18961 August 1946) was a Soviet major general during World War II. Following his capture during the Baltic Operation he defected to Nazi Germany becoming a le ...

, ''Head of the Military Department'' * Major A. P. Filippov, ''Head of the Intelligence Department'' * Sergey Sverchkov, ''Head of the Propaganda Department'' * Lieutenant colonels Lyubimov and Shatov, Colonels Petrov, Meandrov, Brodnikov, General M. V. Bogdanov. RNTP carried out propaganda work and published its newspaper ''Path of the Motherland'' (russian: Путь Родины). In 1942, RTNP tried to establish contacts with the imprisoned

Yakov Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, ', russian: Яков Иосифович Джугашвили, ' ( – 14 April 1943) was the eldest child of Joseph Stalin, the son of Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, who died nine months after his birth. Hi ...

, but failed. The "party" also positioned itself as a sabotage-and-reconnaissance organisation, and it put forward various projects, including the formation of a volunteer anti-Soviet army, but none of them were accepted. The Nazis regarded RNTP rather as a tool to detect the unloyal prisoners (more than 2 thousand POWs were handed over to the Gestapo by the secret department of the "party"), and the existence of the organization was limited to the perimeter of the camp. In June 1942, due to a severe outbreak of typhus and numerous casualties, RNTP was dissolved, and 30 of its most active members were sent to propaganda school. It was later reorganised under '' Unternehmen Zeppelin'', and in August 1942, the number of active members was 120. RNTP officially ceased to exist in 1943.''Чуев Сергей''. Спецслужбы Третьего Рейха: Книга 2. 2003 г.Генерал Власов: история предательства: В 2 т. : В 3 кн.
Под ред. А. Н. Артизова, В. С. Христофорова. — М.: Политическая энциклопедия, 2015. ISBN 978-5-8273-1954-5

References

Notes Defunct political parties in Germany Political parties established in 1941 1941 establishments in Germany Political parties disestablished in 1943 1943 disestablishments in Germany Russian collaborators with Nazi Germany World War II non-governmental organizations Anti-communist organizations {{Nazi Germany-stub