The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Byelorussia or simply Byelorussia, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and afterwards as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR from 1922 to 1991, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia. It was also known as the White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland and annexed territories totalling 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi) with a population of 13,299,000. Inhabitants besides ethnic Poles included Belarusian and Ukrainian major population groups, and also Czechs, Lithuanians, Jews, and other minority groups.
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.
Slutsk is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Slutsk District, and is located on the Sluch River 105 km (65 mi) south of the capital Minsk. As of 2024, it has a population of 60,056.
Franz Walter Stahlecker was commander of the SS security forces (Sicherheitspolizei and the Sicherheitsdienst for the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941–42. Stahlecker commanded Einsatzgruppe A, the most murderous of the four Einsatzgruppen active in German-occupied Eastern Europe. He was fatally wounded in action by Soviet partisans and was replaced by Heinz Jost.
Nyasvizh or Nesvizh is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Nyasvizh District. Nyasvizh is the site of Nesvizh Castle, a World Heritage Site. In 2009, its population was 14,300. As of 2024, it has a population of 15,968.
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.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941 and led to a German military occupation of Byelorussia until it was fully liberated in August 1944 as a result of Operation Bagration. The western parts of Byelorussia became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941, and in 1943, the German authorities allowed local collaborators to set up a regional government, the Belarusian Central Rada, that lasted until the Soviets reestablished control over the region. Altogether, more than two million people were killed in Belarus during the three years of Nazi occupation, around a quarter of the region's population, or even as high as three million killed or thirty percent of the population, including 500,000 to 550,000 Jews as part of the Holocaust in Belarus. In total, on the territory of modern Belarus, more than 9,200 villages and settlements, and 682,000 buildings were destroyed and burned, with some settlements burned several times. By the end of the war, Belarus had lost half of its population as a result of death and moving.
When the Second World War in Europe began, the territory which now forms the country of Belarus was divided between the Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic. The borders of Soviet Belarus were greatly expanded in the Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939. In 1941, the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Following the German military disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk, the collaborationist Belarusian Central Council (BCC) was formed by the Germans in order to raise local support for their anti-Soviet operations. The BCC in turn formed the twenty-thousand strong Belarusian Home Defence (BKA), active from 23 February 1944 to 28 April 1945. Assistance to collaborators was offered by the local Soviet administrative governments, and prewar public organizations including the former Soviet Belarusian Youth. The country was soon retaken by the Red Army in 1944. Devastated by the war, Belarus lost significant populations and economic resources. Many battles occurred in Belarusian territory. Belarusians also participated in the advance towards Berlin.
During World War II, Lithuania was occupied twice by the Soviet Union and once by Nazi Germany (1941–1944). Resistance took many forms.
Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany took place during the occupation of Poland and the Ukrainian SSR, USSR, by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Wilhelm Kube was a Nazi official and German politician. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupation government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for Generalbezirk Weißruthenien. He was assassinated by a Soviet partisan in Minsk in 1943 after his participation in the Holocaust, triggering brutal reprisals against the city's citizens.
The Pripyat Marshes massacres were a series of mass murders carried out by the military forces of Nazi Germany against Jewish civilians in Belarus and Ukraine, during July–August 1941. SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered these operations, which were carried out by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. These units were ordered to kill as many Jews as possible, in a region in and around the Pripyat Marshes, comprising nine raions of the Byelorussian SSR and three raions of the Ukrainian SSR.
The Holocaust in Belarus refers to the systematic extermination of Jews living in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic during its occupation by Nazi Germany in World War II. It is estimated that roughly 800,000 Belarusian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. However, other estimates place the number of Jews killed between 500,000 and 550,000.
Operation Hornung was an anti-partisan operation during the Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany, carried out in February 1943. It was directed against the area Hancewicze-Morocz-Lenin-Łuniniec, a thinly populated area of about 4,000 square kilometers southwest of Słuck on the southern border of the Regional Commissariat White Ruthenia. It came in the sequence of three actions that had taken place in January further to the northeast, in the area of Słuck-Osipowicze; it claimed over 12,000 victims.
Bronna Góra is the name of a secluded area in present-day Belarus where mass killings of Polish Jews were carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II. The location was part of the eastern half of occupied Poland, which had been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939 in agreement with Germany, and two years later captured by the Wehrmacht in Operation Barbarossa. It is estimated that from May 1942 until November of that year, during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in Poland, some 50,000 Jews were murdered at Bronna Góra forest in death pits. The victims were transported there in Holocaust trains from Nazi ghettos, including from the Brześć Ghetto and the Pińsk Ghetto, and from the ghettos in the surrounding area, as well as from Reichskommissariat Ostland.
The Słonim Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Slonim, Western Belarus during World War II. Prior to 1939, the town (Słonim) was part of the Second Polish Republic. The town was captured in late June 1941 by the Wehrmacht in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. Anti-Jewish measures were promptly put into place, and a barb-wire surrounded ghetto had been created by 12 July. The killings of Jews by mobile extermination squads began almost immediately. Mass killings took place in July and November. The survivors were used as slave labor. After each killing, significant looting by the Nazis occurred. A Judenrat was established to pay a large ransom; after paying out 2 million roubles of gold, its members were then executed. In March 1942, ghettos in the surrounding areas were merged into the Słonim ghetto.
Baranavichy Ghetto was a ghetto created in August 1941 in Baranavichy, Belarus, with 8,000 to 12,000 Jews suffering from terrible conditions in six buildings. From March 4 to December 14, 1942, Germans killed nearly all of the Jews in the ghetto. Only about 250 survived the war, some of whom were helped by Hugo Armann, head of a unit that arranged travel for soldiers and security police. He saved six people from a murder squad and another 35 to 40 people who worked for him. Edward Chacza coordinated escapes with Armann and others so that Jews would meet up with partisan groups in the forest. He also provided food and arms.
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.
Germany has an embassy in Minsk. Belarus has an embassy in Berlin, a consulate general in Munich, and two honorary consulates in Cottbus and Hamburg.
