They intended to declare them “traitors to the Motherland.” But they were universally referred to, in speech and in writing, even in the court documents, as “traitors of the Motherland.” You said it! They were not traitors to her. They were her traitors. It was not they, the unfortunates, who had betrayed the Motherland, but their calculating Motherland who had betrayed them, and not just once but thrice.
