Vladimir Despotuli

Vladimir Mikhailovich Despotuli (Russian: Владимир Михайлович Деспотули; German: Wladimir Michailowitsch Despotuli; Kerch 1885 - Rhineland 1977) was a Russian of Greek origin. He was the publisher of Russian language newspaper Novoye Slovo.

First Years

He was born in a family of Russian Greeks[1][2]. He participated as an officer in the Russian expeditionary in the Persian campaign, where he served as adjunant lieutant of General Nikolai Baratov and served as commander of Tehran for a period of time. After the Bolsheviks prevailed, he settled in Germany as an Émigré.

Novoye Slovo

In Germany he worked as a journalist, initially as editor and then as publisher of the Russian-language newspaper Novoye Slovo (New Word) [3]. After 1934 the newspaper became the only Russian-speaking newspaper. Novoye Slovo was funded by the Nazi party's foreign affairs office, initially with anti-Semitic and anti-Soviet reports, and after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with reports against Western allies. [4]

War II

According to a written report by Despotuli he had a conversation with Andrei Vlasov on May 24, 1943, the latter had stated, in the interview published in the same month, that he was sad that Russian Liberation Army exists only in papers.[5] In the same year, Gestapo arrested him for suspicion of a relations with English spy networks and, after interogate him, he was in house arrest. After the defeat of the Germans, he was arrested by the Red Army and sent to a Gulag prison for 11 years.

Death

He was released and lived in Germany, where he died in 1977. His comrade Constantine Kromiadi then wrote a text in Memoriam.[6]

Archives of newspaper Novoye Slovo from National Library of Russia.

Archives of newspaper Novoye Slovo from Berlin State Library.

References

  1. ↑ Жуков Дмитрий Александрович; Ковтун, Иван Иванович Антисемитская пропаганда на оккупированных территориях РСФСР, 1941-1944 p. 277
  2. ↑ Вера Пирожкова - Потерянное поколение. Воспоминания о детстве и юности, 1998 , Журнал «Нева», p 122
  3. ↑ The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925-1945 – 1978 John J Stephan p. 261
  4. ↑ Joining Hitler's Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet David Stahel,Cambridge University Press p. 380-1
  5. ↑ Kellogg, Michael (2005). The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 264. ISBN 978-0-521-07005-8.
  6. ↑ К. Кромиади. Памяти Владимира Михайловича Деспотули «Голос зарубежья. № 6» (1977) pages 33-35, Munich.
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