Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Last updated
Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Райхскомісаріат Україна (Ukrainian)
1941–1944
Anthem:  Horst-Wessel-Lied
("The Horst Wessel Song")
Reichskommissariat Ukraine (1942).svg
Reichskommissariat Ukraine in 1942
Status Reichskommissariat of Nazi Germany
Capital Kiev (de jure)
Rovno (de facto)
Common languages German (official)
Government Colony of Nazi Germany [1]
Reichskommissar  
 1941–1944
Erich Koch
Historical era World War II
22 June 1941
 Established
20 August 1941
 Implement civil administration
1 September 1941
 Remainder part of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien
25 February 1944
 Formal disestablishment
10 November 1944
Area
 Total
340,000 km2 (130,000 sq mi)
Population
 1941
37,000,000
Currency Karbovanets
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1937-1949).svg Ukrainian SSR
Flag of Ukraine.svg Ukrainian national government (1941)
Ukrainian SSR Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1937-1949).svg
Today part of

The Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU, "Reich Commissariat of Ukraine") was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It was the civilian occupation regime of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine (which included adjacent areas of modern-day Belarus and pre-war Second Polish Republic). It was governed by the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories headed by Alfred Rosenberg. Between September 1941 and August 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Erich Koch as the Reichskommissar . The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Führer decree defining the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941. [2]

Contents

Before the German invasion, Ukraine was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, inhabited by Ukrainians, Russians, Jewish, Belarusian, Romanian, Polish and Roma/Gypsy minorities. It was a key subject of Nazi planning for the post-war expansion of the German state. The Nazi extermination policy in Ukraine, with the help of local Ukrainian collaborators, [3] ended the lives of millions of civilians in The Holocaust and other Nazi mass killings: it is estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Jews and 3 [4] to 4 [5] million non-Jewish Ukrainians were killed during the occupation; other sources estimate that 5.2 million Ukrainian civilians (of all ethnic groups) perished due to crimes against humanity, war-related disease, and famine amounting to more than 12% of Ukraine's population at the time. [6]

History

German soldiers crossing the Soviet border in Lviv Oblast of Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941 German troops crossing the Soviet border.jpg
German soldiers crossing the Soviet border in Lviv Oblast of Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941
Nazi propaganda poster in Ukrainian that says "Hitler the Liberator" Gitler-vizvolitel.jpg
Nazi propaganda poster in Ukrainian that says "Hitler the Liberator"

Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in breach of the mutual Treaty of Non-Aggression. The German invasion resulted in the collapse of the western elements of the Soviet Red Army in the former territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

On 20 August, Hitler established the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and appointed Erich Koch as Reichskommissar. On the same day, Hitler announced that the region would be under civil administration from noon on 1 September and delineated the boundaries of the region. [7]

Originally subject to Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, it became a separate German civil entity. The first transfer of Soviet Ukrainian territory from military to civil administration took place on 1 September 1941. There were further transfers on 20 October and 1 November 1941, and a final transfer on 1 September 1942, which brought the boundaries of the province to beyond the Dnieper river.

In the mind of Adolf Hitler and other German expansionists, the destruction of the USSR, dubbed a "Judeo-Bolshevist" state, would remove a threat from Germany's eastern borders and allow for the colonization of the vast territories of Eastern Europe under the banner of " Lebensraum " (living space) for the fulfilment of the material needs of the Germanic people. Ideological declarations about the German Herrenvolk (master race) having a right to expand their territory especially in the East were widely spread among the German public and Nazi officials of various ranks. Later on, in 1943, Erich Koch said about his mission: "We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here." [8]

On 14 December 1941, Rosenberg discussed with Hitler various administrative issues regarding the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. [9] These included a dispute over Koch's status and access to Hitler, manpower shortages over gathering the harvest, Hitler's insistence that the Crimea and much of Southern Ukraine was to be "cleaned out" (i.e., unwanted nationalities to be removed), and directly attached to the Reich as a district called Gotenland ("Land of the Goths") the renaming of cities such as Simferopol to "Gotenburg" and Sevastopol to "Theoderichshafen" (after the ancient Gothic king Theodoric the Great) and an adjustment to the border with Romanian-controlled Transnistria to remove overlooking of the shipyards at Nikolaev.

Hitler decreed the creation of the Nazi Party organization Arbeitsbereich Osten der NSDAP for the new eastern occupied territories on 1 April 1942. This move had been bitterly resisted by both Rosenberg, who rightly feared that the transformation of the administration of the eastern territories from a state to a party bureaucracy would spell the effective end of the authority of his ministry (which was a state organ), and Heinrich Himmler, who rightly feared that an arbeitsbereich's establishment would be accompanied by the commissars becoming RVKs (commissars for war) and thus enormously empowered at the expense of the SS, which had already been steadily losing ground since late September the previous year, when the commissariat government began establishing itself with local commissars asserting control over the police in their territories, hitherto controlled by the SS. Himmler and Rosenberg's rearguard resistance soon collapsed in the face of pressure from Martin Bormann in Berlin, and Koch and Lohse in the field. Rosenberg at least managed to be appointed Reichsleiter ("Reich leader") of the new arbeitsbereich. Rosenberg later attempted to take such political power into the political section of the ministry to keep all party issues in his control, and prohibited the creation of organizations and any political activity in the East without his express authorization. Needless to say, he was entirely disobeyed.

Hoping that by joining forces they might regain some influence, Himmler and Rosenberg decided upon the appointment of Gottlob Berger, Himmler's political hatchet man and the SS's head of personnel, as Rosenberg's deputy, a move which in theory would give Rosenberg control over SS forces in the occupied Soviet territories under civil administration in return for his support for the SS in its power struggles. The partnership between Rosenberg and Himmler achieved nothing other than the exasperation of each other beyond endurance and Berger soon withdrew all cooperation. Koch and Lohse thereafter gradually reduced communication with Rosenberg, liaising with Hitler through Bormann and the party chancellery. Both also made a point of establishing strong SA organisations in their jurisdiction as a counterbalance to the SS. Given that many of the commissariat officials were active or reserve SA officers, the pre-existing grudge against the SS was resurrected by these measures and a poisoning of relations was guaranteed. As a last resort, the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) in Ukraine, Hans-Adolf Prutzmann, attempted to approach Koch directly only to be contemptuously abused and dismissed.

On 28 July 1944, the Soviet army occupied the last part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, known as Brest. RKU was liquidated on 10 November 1944. [1]

Geography

The Reichskommissariat Ukraine excluded several parts of present-day Ukraine, and included some territories outside of its modern borders. It extended in the west from the Volhynia region around Lutsk, to a line from Vinnytsia to Mykolaiv along the Southern Bug river in the south, to the areas surrounding Kyiv, Poltava and Zaporizhzhia in the east. Conquered territories further to the east, including the rest of Ukraine (the Crimea, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and the Donbas/Donets Basin), were under military governance until 1943–44.

Eastern Galicia was transferred to the control of the General Government following a Hitler decree, becoming its fifth district, (District of Galicia).

It also encompassed several southern parts of today's Belarus, including Polesia, a large area to the north of the Pripyat river with forests and marshes, as well as the city of Brest-Litovsk, and the towns of Pinsk and Mazyr. [10] This was done by the Germans in order to secure a steady wood supply and efficient railroad and water transportation. [10]

Administration

The Staatssekretär 'Secretary of State' Herbert Backe was personally nominated by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg. His ministry produced the "Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine" for the direction of future administrators of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

"Die Reichskommissare unterstehen dem Reichsminister für die besetzen Ostgebiete und erhalten ausschliesslich von ihm Weisungen..." ( translat.: The Reich's Commissioners are subordinated under the Reich's minister for the occupied eastern territories and receive only orders from him) was the "Führer" decree for the administration of the new eastern territories, the Reichskommissars reported to the Eastern Affairs Ministry.

The capital of this German administration was in Rivne in Western Ukraine.

The German administration gave the role of "Chief of Ukrainian Principal Commission" to Wolodomyr Kubijowytsch, an early local supporter.

The civil and criminal justice local administration, apart from the local SS and Wehrmacht military justice branches, was staffed by "Parteien Chef", "Bailiffs", "Mayors", with the supervision of German "Schoffen" (Advisers) and "Schlichten" (Arbiters) with ample legal powers. The most important cases or situations which affected "natural rights" of any "Aryan" subject were managed in Rivne or Berlin.

The Wehrmacht introduced reforms in Ukraine allowing limited religious liberty. In January 1942, Bishop Polikarp Sikorsky of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church became the temporary administrator of church lands in the German-occupied Ukraine and he was granted the title of Archbishop of Lutsk and Kovel. He also had authority over Bishoprics at Kyiv, Zhytomyr (Bishop Hryhorij Ohijchuk), Poltava, Kropyvnytskyi, Lubny (Bishop Sylvester Hayevsky), Dnipro and Bila Tserkva (Bishop Manuyil Tarnavsky) by decree of the Civil German Administration of limited religious liberty in Ukraine. The German Administration also allowed Archbishop Alexander of Pinsk and Polesia to maintain the religious authority he wielded before the war and the same permission was granted to Archbishop Alexander of Volhynia.

Erich Koch (right) and Alfred Rosenberg (center) in Kyiv Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1994-006-30A, Kiew, Alfred Rosenberg.jpg
Erich Koch (right) and Alfred Rosenberg (center) in Kyiv

Military commanders linked with the German administration of Ukraine

Administrative divisions

Administrative map, September 1942 ReichskommissariatUkraineMap.png
Administrative map, September 1942
General District of Crimea in 1942 General District of Crimea (1942).svg
General District of Crimea in 1942

The Reichskommissariat's administrative capital was at Rivne, and it was divided into six Generalbezirke (general districts), called Generalkommissariate (general commissariats) in the pre-Barbarossa planning. This administrative structure was in turn subdivided into 114 Kreisgebiete, and further into 443 Parteien.

Each "Generalbezirk" was administered by a "Generalkommissar"; each Kreisgebiete "circular [i.e., district] area" was led by a "Gebietskommissar" and each Partei "party" was governed by a Ukrainian or German "Parteien Chef" (Party Chief). At the level below were German or Ukrainian "Akademiker" ("Academics"—i.e., District Chiefs) (similar to Polish "Wojts" in the General Government). At the same time at a smaller scale, the local Municipalities were administered by native "Bailiffs" and "Mayors", accompanied by respective German political advisers if needed. In the most important areas, or where a German Army detachment remained, the local administration was always led by a German; in less significant areas local personnel was in charge.

The six general districts were (English names and administrative centres in parentheses):

Scheduled for incorporation into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine but never transferred to civil administration were the Generalkommissariate Tschernigow (Chernigov), Charkow (Kharkov), Stalino (Donetsk), Woronezh (Voronezh), Rostow (Rostov-on-Don), Stalingrad, and Saratow (Saratov), which would have brought the boundary of the province to the western border of Kazakhstan. [11] In addition, Reichskommissar Koch had wishes of further extending his Reichskommissariat to Ciscaucasia. [12]

Krym-Taurien

The administrative position of the Krim Generalbezirk remained ambiguous. According to the original German plan it was to correspond approximately to the old Taurida Governorate (therefore including also mainland portions of Ukraine), and was to consist of two Teilbezirke (sub-districts):

Only the first of these saw transfer to civil administration in September 1942, with the peninsula remaining under military control for the duration of the war. [13] Its administrator, Frauenfeld, played off the military and civil authorities against each other and gained the freedom to run the territory as he saw fit. He thereby enjoyed complete autonomy, verging on independence, from Koch's authority. Frauenfeld's administration was much more moderate than Koch's and consequentially more economically successful. Koch was greatly angered by Fraunfeld's insubordination (a comparable situation also existed in the administrative relationship between the Estonian general commissariat and Reichskommissariat Ostland).

The district's title was a misnomer, it only included the area north of the Crimean peninsula up to the Dnieper river. [13]

Demographics

The official German press, in 1941, reported the Ukrainian urban and rural populations as 19 million each. During the commissariat's existence the Germans only undertook one official census, for January 1, 1943, documenting a population of 16,910,008 people. [14] The 1926 Soviet official census recorded the urban population as 5,373,553 and the rural population as 23,669,381 – a total of 29,042,934, however the borders of the administrative region of the Soviet Ukrainian SSR were noticeably different from those of the Reichskommissariat. In 1939, a new census reported the Ukrainian urban population as 11,195,620 and rural population as 19,764,601 – a total of 30,960,221. The Ukrainian Soviets counted 17% of total Soviet population, and a significant portion was also separately occupied by Romania.

Security

The Wehrmacht came under pressure for political reasons to gradually restore private property in zones under military control and to accept local volunteer recruits into their units and into the Waffen-SS, as promoted by local Ukrainian nationalist organizations, the OUN-B and the OUN-M, whilst receiving political support from the Wehrmacht.

The German Reichsführer-SS and chief of German Police, Heinrich Himmler, initially had direct authority over any SS formations in Ukraine to order "Security Operations", but soon lost it – especially after the summer of 1942 when he tried to regain control over policing in Ukraine by gaining authority for the collection of the harvest, and failed miserably, in large part because Koch withheld cooperation. In Ukraine, Himmler soon became the voice of relative moderation, hoping that an improvement in the Ukrainians' living conditions would encourage greater numbers of them to join the Waffen-SS's foreign divisions. Koch, appropriately nicknamed the "hangman of Ukraine", was contemptuous of Himmler's efforts. In this matter Koch had the support of Hitler, who remained skeptical when not hostile to the idea of recruiting Slavs in general and Soviet nationals in particular into the Wehrmacht.

Sleeve badges of battalions of the so-called «Ukrainian Hilfspolizei» in the German Ordnungspolizei of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine [15]
Ukr-polizei 106 bat.svg    Ukr-polizei 114 bat.svg    Ukr-polizei 115-118 bat.svg    Ukr-polizei oficer.svg
106th114th115th and 118thOfficers' badge

Economic exploitation

In the civil administration of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories numerous technical staff worked under Georg Leibbrandt, former chief of the east section of the foreign political office in the Nazi Party, now chief of the political section in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Leibbrandt's deputy, Otto Bräutigam, had previously worked as a consul with experience in the Soviet Union. Economic affairs remained under the direct management of Hermann Göring (the Plenipotentiary of Germany's Four Year Plan). From 21 March 1942 Fritz Sauckel had the role of "General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment" (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz), charged with recruiting manpower for Germany throughout Europe, though in Ukraine Koch insisted that Sauckel confine himself to setting requirements, leaving the actual "recruitment" of Ost-Arbeiter to Koch and his brutes. The Todt Organization Ost Branch operated from Kyiv. Other members of the German administration in Ukraine included Generalkommissar Leyser and Gebietkommissar Steudel.

The Ministry of Transport had direct control of "Ostbahns" and "Generalverkehrsdirektion Osten" (the railway administration in the eastern territories). These German central government interventions in the affairs of the East Affairs by ministries were known as Sonderverwaltungen (special administrations).

The position of the Eastern Affairs Ministry was weak because its department chiefs: (Economy, Work, Foods & Crops and Forest & Woods) held similar posts in other government departments (The Four-Year Plan, Eastern Economic Office, Foods and Farming Ministry, etc.) with other supplementary junior staff. Thus the East Ministry was managed by personal criteria and particular interests over official orders. Additionally, they failed to maintain the "Political Section" at an equal level with more specialized departments (Economy, Works, Farms, etc.) because political considerations clashed with exploitation plans in the territory.

Banknotes denominated in karbovanets (Karbowanez in German). The karbovanets replaced the Soviet rouble at par and was in circulation between 1942 and 1945. It was pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 10 karbovantsiv = 1 Reichsmark. 2Karbowanez-1942 a.JPG
Banknotes denominated in karbovanets (Karbowanez in German). The karbovanets replaced the Soviet rouble at par and was in circulation between 1942 and 1945. It was pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 10 karbovantsiv = 1 Reichsmark.

The Reichskommissariat Ukraine paid Occupation taxes and funds to the German Reich until February 1944 in the amount of 1.246 billion  (equivalent to €5 billion 2021) and 107.9 million  Rbls, in accord with information composed by Lutz von Krosigk, the Reich Minister of Finances.

The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories ordered Koch and Hinrich Lohse (the Reichskommissar of Ostland) in March 1942 to supply 380,000 farm workers and 247,000 industrial workers for German work needs. Later Koch was mentioned during the new year message of 1943, how he "recruited" 710,000 workers in Ukraine. This and subsequent "worker registration" drives in Ukraine would eventually backfire after the Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943) when the Germans would attempt to build a defensive line along the Dnieper only to discover that the necessary manpower had been either recruited to forced labour in Germany or had gone underground to forestall such "recruitment".

Alfred Rosenberg implemented an "Agrarian New Order" in Ukraine, ordering the confiscation of Soviet state properties to establish German state properties. Additionally the replacement of Russian[ clarification needed ] Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes, by their own "Gemeindwirtschaften" (German Communal Farms), the installation of state enterprise "Landbewirstschaftungsgessellschaft Ukraine M.b.H." for managing the new German state farms and cooperatives, and the foundation of numerous "Kombines" (Great German exploitation Monopolies) with government or private capital in the territory, to exploit the resources and Donbas area.

Hitler said "Ukraine and the East lands would produce 7 million, or more likely 10 or 12 million tonnes of grain to provide Germany's food needs".[ This quote needs a citation ]

German intentions

According to the Nazis, both Jewish and Slavic Ukrainians were untermensch and therefore only fit for enslavement or extermination. Erich Koch, who was chosen by Adolf Hitler to rule Ukraine, made the point about the inferiority of Ukrainians with a certain simplicity: "Even if I find a Ukrainian who is worthy of sitting at my table, I must have him shot" [16] and "remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here, which is more distinct from Aryan genealogy than Leningrad." [17]

The regime was planning to encourage the settlement of German and other "Germanic" farmers in the region after the war, along with the empowerment of some ethnic Germans in the territory. Ukraine was the furthest eastern settlement of the migrating ancient Goths between the 2nd and 4th centuries and subsequently, according to Hitler, "Only German should be spoken here". [18] The sending of Dutch settlers was charged to the "Nederlandsche Oost-Compagnie", a Dutch-German Company dedicated to encourage the colonization of the east by Dutch citizens.

The German civil administration met "Volksdeutsche" (ethnic Germans) in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro. The archives of the Soviet census in 1926 counted them as 393,924 persons. The Soviets counted ethnic Germans in all Russia at 1,423,534, or 1% of the total population in 1939.

The administration took measures to protect Germans in the area who were entered on their Volksdeutsch racial list. They received special rights

In Ukraine, the Germans published a local journal in the German language, the Deutsche Ukrainezeitung.

During the occupation a very small number of cities and their accompanying districts maintained German names. These cities were designated as urban strongholds for Volksdeutsche natives. [19] Hegewald (Himmler's field headquarters and the location of a small, experimental German colony), [20] Försterstadt (also a Volksdeutsche colony), [21] Halbstadt (a Low German Mennonite settlement), [19] Alexanderstadt, [22] Kronau [19] and Friesendorf [23] were some of these.

On 12 August 1941 Hitler ordered the complete destruction of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv by the use of incendiary bombs and gunfire. [24] Because the German military lacked sufficient material for this operation it wasn't carried out, after which the Nazi planners instead decided to starve the city's inhabitants. Heinrich Himmler on the other hand considered Kyiv to be "an ancient German city" because of the Magdeburg city rights that it had acquired centuries prior. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

Reichskommissar, in German history, was an official governatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reichskommissariat Ostland</span> Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as occupied by Germany during the Second World War

The Reichskommissariat Ostland was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich Koch</span> Nazi leader

Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in East Prussia from 1 October 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from September 1941 until August 1944 and in Reichskommissariat Ostland from September 1944. After the Second World War, Koch stood trial in Poland and was convicted in 1959 of war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison and Koch died of natural causes in his cell at the Barczewo prison on 12 November 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reichskommissariat Moskowien</span> Planned Nazi civil administration of Russia

Reichskommissariat Moskowien was the civilian occupation-regime that Nazi Germany intended to establish in central and northern European Russia during World War II, one of several similar Reichskommissariate. It was also known initially as the Reichskommissariat Russland, but was later renamed as part of German policies of partitioning the Russian state. Siegfried Kasche was the projected Reichskomissar, but due to the Wehrmacht's failure to occupy the territories intended to form the Reichskommissariat, it remained on paper only.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belarusian Central Council</span> Belarusian Axis collaborator organisation

The Belarusian Central Council was a puppet administrative body in German-occupied Belarus during World War II. It was established by Nazi Germany within Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1943–44, following requests by collaborationist Belarusian politicians hoping to create a Belarusian state with German support.

<i>Reichskommissariat</i> Administrative entities established by Nazi Germany during the Second World War

Reichskommissariat is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a government official known as a Reichskommissar. However, many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods, in a number of fields it is most commonly used to refer to the quasi-colonial administrative territorial entity established by Nazi Germany in several occupied countries during World War II. While officially located outside the German Reich in a legal sense, these entities were directly controlled by their supreme civil authorities, who ruled their territories as German governors on behalf of and as representatives of Adolf Hitler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle</span> Agency of the Nazi Party

In Nazi Germany the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle or VoMi was a Nazi Party agency founded to manage the interests of the Volksdeutsche - the population of ethnic Germans living outside the Third Reich. Ultimately coming under Allgemeine-SS administration, it became responsible for orchestrating the implementation of Nazi Lebensraum policies in Eastern Europe during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Government of Nazi Germany</span> 20th-century dictatorship

The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bialystok District</span> Nazi German administrative unit in occupied Eastern Poland

Bialystok District was an administrative unit of Nazi Germany created during the World War II invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to the south-east of East Prussia, in present-day northeastern Poland as well as in smaller sections of adjacent present-day Belarus and Lithuania. It was sometimes also referred to by the designation South East Prussia along with the Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, although in contrast to the latter, it was not incorporated into, but merely attached to East Prussia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories</span>

The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created by Adolf Hitler on 17 July 1941 and headed by the Nazi theoretical expert, the Baltic German Alfred Rosenberg. Alfred Meyer served as Rosenberg's deputy. The German government formed the ministry to control the vast areas captured and projected for capture by the Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe and Russia. The ministry also played a part in supporting anti-Soviet groups in Central Asia.

<i>Reichskommissariat Niederlande</i> Administrative division of Nazi Germany in the occupied Netherlands

The Reichskommissariat Niederlande was the civilian occupation regime set up by Germany in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II. Its full title was the Reich Commissariat for the Occupied Dutch Territories. The administration was headed by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, formerly the last chancellor of Austria before initiating its annexation by Germany.

<i>Generalbezirk Litauen</i> Nazi German occupation regime in Lithuania

Generalbezirk Litauen was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the 1941-1944 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three Baltic countries and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Frauenfeld</span> Austrian Nazi politician (1898–1977)

Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld was an Austrian Nazi leader. An engineer by occupation, he was associated with the pro-Nazi Germany wing of Austrian Nazism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reichskommissariat Turkestan</span> Theoretical political division

Reichskommissariat Turkestan was a projected Reichskommissariat that Germany proposed to create in Russia and the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union in its military conflict with that country during World War II. Soviet historian Lev Bezymenski claimed that names Panturkestan, Großturkestan and Mohammed-Reich were also considered for the territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chief of Civil Administration</span> Office in Nazi Germany

Chief of Civil Administration was an office introduced in Nazi Germany, operational during World War II. Its task was to administer civil issues according to occupation law, with the primary purpose being the support of the military command in the operational areas of the German Army. CdZ would pass his authority to a corresponding civil government after the territory in question became in the rear of the operating armed forces.

Generalbezirk Estland was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the 1941-1944 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three Baltic countries and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR.

Generalbezirk Lettland was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the Baltic States and the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

<i>Generalbezirk Weißruthenien</i> Nazi occupation regime in Belarus 1941-1944

Generalbezirk Weißruthenien was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the 1941–1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three Baltic countries and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German occupation of Crimea during World War II</span> 1941–1944 military occupation of the Crimean peninsula by Nazi Germany

During World War II, the Crimean Peninsula was subject to military administration by Nazi Germany following the success of the Crimean campaign. Officially part of Generalbezirk Krym-Taurien, an administrative division of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Crimea proper never actually became part of the Generalbezirk, and was instead subordinate to a military administration. This administration was first headed by Erich von Manstein in his capacity as commander of the 11th Army and then by Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist as commander of Army Group A.

References

  1. 1 2 "Reichskommissariat Ukraine". www.encyclopediaofukraine.com. Retrieved 2020-03-03. A German colony, the RKU constituted an important part of Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum and was completely deprived of autonomy or international status. Nazi plans called for the postwar unification of the RKU with the territory of the German Reich; most Ukrainians (considered unfit for Germanization) were to be resettled beyond the Urals to make room for German colonists. In fact Hitler was unable to inspire many Germans to colonize Ukraine. Despite ambitious plans only a few villages were cleared of their Ukrainian inhabitants and populated with Germans (both groups were resettled under duress). Those experiments were profoundly resented by the local population, which saw them as portents of German postwar intentions. Resettlement was also prevented by the German retreat and then by the formal liquidation of the RKU on 10 November 1944.
  2. "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression". Decree of the Fuehrer concerning the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. 1996–2007. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  3. Alfred J. Rieber (2003). "Civil Wars in the Soviet Union" (PDF). pp. 133, 145–147. Slavica Publishers.
  4. Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. p. 633. ISBN   9780802078209.
  5. Michael Berenbaum (ed.), A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis, New York University Press, 1990; ISBN   1-85043-251-1
  6. Vadim Erlikman. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik. Moscow, 2004. ISBN   5-93165-107-1. pp. 21–35.
  7. Führer-Erlasse" 1939-1945.
  8. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. William Shirer. 11 October 2011. p. 939. ISBN   978-1-4516-5168-3.
  9. "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression". About Discussions [of Rosenberg] with the Fuehrer on 14 December 1941. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. 1996–2007. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  10. 1 2 Berkhoff, Karel C. (2004). Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule, p. 37.. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
  11. Dallin, Alexander (1958). Deutschen Herrschaft in Russland 1941–1945, p. 67 (in German). Droste.
  12. Kroener, Müller & Umbreit (2003) Germany and the Second World War V/II, p. 50
  13. 1 2 Berkhoff, p. 39.
  14. Berkhoff, pp. 36-37.
  15. Музичук С. країнські військові нарукавні емблеми під час Другої світової війни 1939-45 рр. // Знак, 2004. — ч. 33. — с. 9 – 11.
  16. "Timothy Snyder Quote: "Erich Koch, chosen by Hitler to rule Ukraine, made the point about the inferiority of Ukrainians with a certain simplici..."".
  17. Shirer, William Lawrence (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Fawcett Crest. ISBN   0449219771.
  18. Wendy Lower, Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, p. 161
  19. 1 2 3 Lower, p. 267.
  20. Lower, Wendy: Nazi empire-building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, pp. 162-181. University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
  21. Lower 2005, p. 197.
  22. Jehke, Rolf: Territoriale Veränderungen in Deutschland und deutsch verwalteten Gebieten 1874 - 1945. 23 February 2010. (In German). Retrieved 10 August 2010.
  23. Rolf Jehke. "Generalbezirk Dnjepropetrowsk". Territorial.de. Archived from the original on 2017-12-04. Retrieved 2014-06-03.
  24. 1 2 Berkhoff, pp. 164-165.

Further reading